Archive for the ‘Analysis’ Category
I have been reading a huge amount of very interesting articles about the recent Panda update by Google. The update was to Google’s search algorhythms with the aim of drilling out low quality content, content scrapers and content farms. It seems as though the update did partly work, but along the way there were also smaller sites that were wrongly added to the list.
Here at Crenk we were affected by this recent Google Panda update and since that time I have been trying to clean our site and make it a lot better for our readers. I have read great articles from Search Engine Land and BlogStorm, made a lot of changes to Crenk, but with no affect on our rankings. Im more than happy to make changes to our site to improve the site overall for our readers, but I find it amazingly fustrating that I have no idea why our site has been punished (site-wide) and I have no idea how to fix it. It would be amazing if someone could just pinpoint the reason and then I would go ahead and fix it, but it doesnt seem to be the case. I realise there might be some low quality articles on Crenk, but how do I find out which articles they are, considering we have over 5000 articles?
Does anyone have any advice on this topic or do we just have to continue our site and see where it takes us?
Facebook has unquestionably become a part of life for the majority of internet savvy people around the globe. Whether you’re a high school student using it to gossip with your friends, in your 30′s looking for old classmates, or an entrepreneur or bussiness owner publicizing your company, Facebook seems to have something for everyone.
I have always been savvy with technology and computers – I started working with my first computer at the young age of 8 and when I was 10, I taught myself how to program in BASIC literally overnight. For some reason, though, I didn’t immediately jump on the Facebook bandwagon the moment it became mainstream. It seemed silly, frivilous and simply trendy. I had been using MySpace and enjoyed the ability to control the look and feel of my page. I managed to find a few old friends on it, but most of them never posted anything. Mostly I just used my page as a personal blog to track my mundane life.
Then one day, I finally took the leap. I joined Facebook.
At first the pages looked dull and boring. A stark contrast to MySpace’s colorful pages, flashing blinkies and auto-loading music and videos. But what I quickly realized is that everyone I had on MySpace was also on Facebook and… guess what… they were actually posting! Next I realized that not only were my old friends there, but so were dozens more. To date I have connected with nearly my entire High School class, a childhood best friend I thought I would never find, old teachers, college friends, remote family and even old boyfriends (most of whom I was already still on speaking terms with). While these may not be people I feel the need to converse with on a regular basis, I feel priviliged that I can know what great (or terrible) things are happening in their lives, offer congratulations or condolenses, provide advice, wish happy birthday’s or just simply “Like” their status because… well… I liked it!
Today, like many people, I am hooked on Facebook. I have not only used it to connect with friends, but I have also used it to promote businesses I have been a part of and to follow other businesses I have interest in. And let’s not forget the oh-so-addicting games. So what if Facebook never existed? Where would be then?
Perhaps MySpace would have remained more popular. Or perhaps social networking as we know it today wouldn’t exist – at least not at the level it is now. Businesses would still rely solely on expensive advertising, email marketing and banner ads. While these methods are still used, Facebook’s advertising has been, in my experience, invaluable.
Some say people would call, write or speak in person more. But let’s be honest here, when was the last time you called someone just to update them on your life or find out about theirs? In High School? 15 years ago or so? People tend to stay in their own circles – in their comfort zone. Facebook allows us to open up and reach outside of our circle. It extends our comfort zone.
One thing is for certain, the world would be a less “friend”lier place. I never would have found my childhood friend or connected with classmates who had been outside my circle in High School. This also means I never would have intended to attend a reunion, which I now look forward to. Facebook has given me the ability to reach outside my daily circle and laugh, cry and vent with old and new friends alike. It has rekindled friendships and connected me with people I thought I would never get to talk to again.
So despite the addicting games and countless hours easily wasted away with Facebook, I am thankful it was created. I am thankful I took the leap. I am thankful for finding friends.
Case in point: Life just wouldn’t be the same without Facebook.
Amazon.com seems to have finally succeeded in breaking into the “cloud” market with their new “Amazon Cloud Drive.” It touts a default of 5GB of online storage for free, unlimited access from any computer and, of course, reassures customers they will never have to worry about losing their files again. Their claim is, “Anything digital, securely stored, available anywhere.” But is it really as great as they claim? I decided to dig deeper and find out.
I received an email from Amazon when the cloud drive was launched and was given $2.00 in credit towards mp3 purchases. Intrigued by this new development (and the free music credits), I ventured to their website to check it out. I quickly found a song I wanted and clicked the buy button. It asked if I wanted to save the music to my cloud drive. “Simple enough,” I thought. Then I wouldn’t have to download it – I could just stream it. I immediately went to my new cloud drive, selected my new song (which was available immediately) and pressed play. It buffered up the song and played but I discovered it was also downloading to my computer as well. Bummer.
Next I decided to try uploading some music. I clicked “Upload to your Cloud Drive” and was prompted to download the “Amazon MP3 Uploader.” Wait a minute – so I have to use proprietary software to upload music? “That’s a bit inconvenient,” I thought, but I downloaded it anyway. After installing the software, it decided it had to scan my entire hard drive for music, which was a long and tedious process. Once it finally loaded, it told me I had X playlists and X songs not in my cloud drive and asked if I wanted to upload it all now. I declined (as it would have been way more than 5GB of space) and chose a few albums to upload. What I found was that it killed my internet speed and I saw no way to limit the upload rate. Frustrated after about 20 minutes of sluggish internet, I killed the uploader until that night when it could run and not bother me.
In the meantime, I checked out the Android mp3 player from Amazon, wondering if it too would have to download my music before playing it. I discovered that while it can play the song through buffered memory, it still has to download; so listening while downloading isn’t a good option as the song often plays faster than it downloads (unless you’re using Wi-Fi). So once again I’m stuck waiting.
Ultimately, I was able to get the music I wanted uploaded and then downloaded again (to my phone). Now that I have done so, I can simply open the Amazon cloud player and quickly hear what I want (slightly faster than searching my hard drive and includes better filtering options). So was the hassle worth it?
Pros:
- Music can save directly to the cloud (optional). This allows me to download my new music at my convenience and on whatever computer or mobile device I wish to listen to it on.
- I no longer have to use a USB flash drive or external to move music around.
- Creating a playlist is simple
- Music can be viewed by songs, albums, artists, or genres.
- In addition to music, the cloud drive can also store documents, pictures and videos
- Music can be listened to through a web browser or via a mobile device using Amazon’s MP3 app.
- 5GB free storage space
Cons:
- Uploading and downloading again is time consuming
- No upload speed limiter makes for doing anything else while uploading nearly impossible (and I have a 15MB connection)
- Must use proprietary software to upload music
- Must buy an annual subscription if you want more than 5GB of storage at $1/GB.
- No true streaming – music has to be downloaded to each device you wish to listen on
Overall, I would say Amazon has a potentially great thing going on here. If they simply added the ability to stream without downloading, I would give the Amazon Cloud Player and Drive 5/5 stars. As it is now, and considering their hefty fees for storage in excess of 5GB, I give it 3.5/5 stars. It’s a great concept, but could use a few tweaks to make it the best.
Hachi is a website that allows you connect with new people through your friends. For example if I wanted to become friends with someone (Person1) and my friend(Friend1) is friends with that person it would show you all the possible options to become friends with person1. You must connect via Facebook and it also allows you to connect with LinkedIn for even better results.
I came across a very interesting article that ran through the recent numbers from Statcounter. The numbers were about the marketshare of the top operating systems around the world and it now seems that the iPad is being used more than Linux.
The above graph was for the US, but the same thing seems to be happening all around the world.
- In the United Kingdom, iPad’s iOS makes up 0.94%, versus 0.74% for Linux.
- In Canada, iPad’s iOS makes up 0.91%, versus 0.76% for Linux.
- In Australia, iPad’s iOS makes up 1.19%, versus 0.66% for Linux.
- In the Netherlands, iPad’s iOS makes up 1.16%, versus 0.81% for Linux.
Linux to be me is being used by only very tech savvy individuals, but it does outline how popular the iPad has quickly become.
Source: Pingdom
Have you ever wondered how Green the iPhone is? Well you can now find out.
via Geekaphone
Visibli has just released the results from their Facebook study and the results are quite amazing. Visibli studied over 200 million facebook page fans to get a sense of how they engage across some of the other verticals as well, and compared them to brands: http://visibli.com/reports/fbstudy.
Some of the interesting findings:
- Bieber? Gaga? Wrong! Audi’s Facebook Fans are much more engaged than both of theirs.
- The half-life of a Facebook post is 1h 20m. Facebook posts receive 50% of their Likes in the first 1h 20m, 80% in first 7 hours, and 95% within 22 hours.
- Just like high school: Artists get all the love, with more engagement as their Pages grow. They’re the only ones doing it right. Opposite for brands – their engagement falls as number of fans grows (and media’s even worse!)
The early 70′s saw the arrival of the first personal computers. This was a quantum leap in technological standards, considering that a couple of decades before that, computers had been so big that a whole room had to be devoted to them.
It wasn’t long after, that the idea of having a computer that was not only personal but also portable, became the next big stride in computer advancement. 1975 saw the arrival of IBM’s 5100 and became the world’s first portable computer. However, at 25 kg it was hardly practical for resting upon your lap! It had a 16K RAM, a monochrome display and ran on BASIC and/or APL.
The first portable computers with a flip type lid/screen appeared in the early 80’s with the Dulmont Magnum which was released in Australia. This laptop cost around $18,000 in current dollar terms and could be run on battery power alone. It totally transformed the business world allowing business people the capability to transport their data around with them which was unthinkable of before.
During the mid 80’s, many more laptops entered the market. Laptop manufacturers had to ensure that their products were IBM compatible due to the popularity of this type of computing in offices. These early laptops met with limited success and it wasn’t until the late 80’s that laptops began to take a hold of the public conscience.
Colour screens started appearing in the early 90’s as did floppy disk drives and VGA screens. More and more, the laptop became an essential tool of the modern business professional , not an item to reflect the status of the owner. It was around this time that Apple entered the market with the Macintosh Portable. It was a high quality piece of hardware with a long battery life and an excellent screen.
Towards the end of the 90’s, a benchmark was beginning to emerge for the laptop, partly due to the arrival of the operating system Windows 95 which standardized various aspects of laptop design. CD drives began to appear and the laptop now became a tool with the capability of connecting to the emerging Internet.
Today, in 2011, we have smartphones which are more powerful than those early laptops. Moore’s Law predicts that computer technology will continue to increase at an exponential rate, just as it has for the last 50 to 60 years. It is very hard to predict what the capabilities of laptops will be in 10-20 years time – that is if we are still using them!
Guest post by: Alastair Kane is an IT geek who works for Novatech Laptops. In his spare time he likes to blog and write articles related to technology.
Just 20 years ago nobody had even heard of the internet, and now, we can’t live without it. The internet has become an extension of our own personalities; a platform in which we can communicate to anyone, anywhere in the world. We can express feelings, emotions, become knowledgeable, complete degrees, partake in tabooed subjects, connect with long lost friends, and even buy our shopping all in the comfort of our own home.
The internet has completely changed the way the modern human lives, works and communicates – but what if we turned it off?
Like the fabled imaginings of sci-fi movies, are we entering a new generation of technology that could potentially cause chaos with the way we live? Will Terminator like prophecies come true? Will the machines take over? Come-on, we need an answer! What type of capabilities will we have at our disposal in 20 years?
Just think of how far we’ve come, with regards to technology, in just two decades. We’ve vastly improved the motorcar to become cleaner, faster, safer and more intelligent. We’ve seen dial-up internet speeds become broadband, and now we’re entering the age of fibre-optic internet speed. We’ve seen the iPod, the introduction of the mobile phone as an entity, the birth of the Euro Fighter Typhoon; it’s been an intense and scarily quick change in the power of the technology we use every day. So, if all of a sudden, someone turned our beloved internet off, would we be too bothered? Well, simply put, yes!
On a daily basis we take for granted that we rely on the internet for so much instant information and answers to everyday questions. So much so that modern generations are seemingly unaware of the fact that such information also lies in print form in a public library.
It’s speculative to say that the younger generations would dislike any turn off the most, as the older generations who grew up with no internet could just go back to the old way of social networking – which, for the young ones reading, is meeting up, in person, and talking to each other in a verbal shared dialogue.
Social networking might be one thing, but there is a darker and more important concept to the internet – no, not pornography – but political conceptions. With the recent Wikileaks scandal causing untold embarrassment and shame upon our most famous and powerful political figures, could the world leaders decide on shutting the web down? The decision would be a brave one, but it is a way of controlling the masses, reducing political bias and blocking the bloggers.
We now think of the internet as we think of our car, home and electric – essential. It has become a fabric of life, our escape to another world and a way of keeping in touch with old friends – and looking at their photos to see if they’ve gone uglier. Just imagine all of that being taken away from you. You wake up tomorrow morning and you look at your iPhone to see what people are up to on Facebook but all you get is “no mobile internet service”. In a panic, you turn on your PC to find that either your modem is completely broken or someone has done the unthinkable and turned off the World Wide Web.
There would be worldwide riots, protest and unrest – similar to that in the middle-east at the moment. We would probably see many deaths, recessions in the majority of the western world and a drop off in industrial manufacturing. Many people would lose their jobs, homes and lives. It would be an absolute economic disaster.
However, as Bill Gates says: “It’s not that hard to shut the internet down if you have military power where you can tell people that’s what’s going to happen”…“Whenever you do something extraordinary like that you’re sort of showing people you’re afraid of the truth getting out, so it’s a very difficult tactic, but it can certainly be shut off.”
And if you think that actually turning the internet off would be difficult, think again…
All the government would have to do is ask the providers like Virgin, BT and Sky to turn them off and stop providing the service – that’s it! Just like that, every modem in the country would cease working. We would be without iTunes, Facebook, YouTube, pornography and Justin Beiber [– thank god].
Could you cope? Without trying it, we’ll never know, but one thing is sure, if that day ever presented itself, there would be a majority dislike to the decision, and it would be inevitable that heavy rioting and action would be taken by the public.
Think of the public as a collective and singular three-year old child who has just had its favourite toy taken from it – there would be hell to pay!
Guest post by: Amy Greenacre writes on behalf of Broadbandchoices.co.uk, for comprehensive and impartial advice on broadband phone and tv.
Making your voice heard
Way back when WWW was an embarrassing typo, publishing your work was about as easy as convincing a panther to become a vegetarian. Many different “gatekeepers” (as we call them) stood between the common man and the world at large.
Then the wall came down. WWW came to mean World Wide Web and letting your voice be heard online became easier than getting new credit card applications. It wasn’t long after the Internet started becoming widespread that web logs or “blogs” also became popular. Anyone from anywhere can create a blog. In fact, it is estimated that more than 150 million public blogs exist.
Nevertheless, not all blogs are created equal. Early in my Internet career, I myself started a blog. After all, it’s both easy and free. Why not? I thought. So I sat down and did it! I went to www.blog.com and within minutes I had my own blog. I wrote my first post and . . . there it sat for days . . . then weeks . . . then months . . . and finally years. I would give you the link but I don’t remember it. I don’t think I ever got any followers either. My blog was a pretty lame.
So how do you make a “non-lame” blog? How can you boost the number of people that follow it? How can you make your blog appear more readily in search engines?
5 Tips for Young Bloggers
- Keep your readers in mind — While writing your blog entries, remember who you are writing to. Are you writing to teenagers wanting to jazz up their skateboards or to retired people researching different types of dentures? You will certainly use a different style of writing for grandparents than you will for high school students. Even in a certain age demographic, your style will vary. My roommate knows what a cytoplasmic membrane is and might be interested in reading about your recent frog dissection. I, on the other hand, might recognize that cytoplasmic membrane was a biology term and would have no interest at all in whether or not the appendicular region was present in the frog you recently dissected.
- Don’t “wax eloquent” — Most people don’t like reading online epistles. It is better to write seven one-paragraph posts in one week than to write one seven-paragraph post in a week. Break up your text into paragraphs to make it more readable. Keep your paragraphs short; seven sentences tops. It helps to stick to one topic per blog post.
- Develop relationships with other bloggers — Find blogs that are similar to yours or that cover topics that interest you. There are many different places where you can search for other blogs and also list your site. These include Blogdex, DayPop, Digg, and Technorati. Comment on the blog posts of others. Ask questions, give compliments. Once you’ve developed good relationships with other bloggers, set up cross-links between your blogs. This will help increase both your readership and the readership of your friend’s blog by making your sites rank higher on different search engines.
- Use multimedia — Adding a picture, video or other link makes your blog more interesting and give your blog a little more variety. Linking to other articles keeps your blog fresh and can introduce other voices to your site. It also shows your readers that you are making an effort to research the topic you are writing about and adds credibility to your blog.
- Keep writing! — My first blog (the one I mentioned earlier) could have revolutionized the world . . . but it didn’t because I didn’t keep it up. Start a habit of writing just a little bit each day. As mentioned earlier, you don’t have to write a novel each time you open your blog. Write a few paragraphs and call it good.
Blogging is a satisfying way to share your experiences online. It can also be a rewarding way to connect with others and read more about topics you are passionate about. Following these five simple tips will help you connect with the world.
Good luck!
Guest post by: Derek Gurr is a writer for MyCollegesandCareers.com. My Colleges and Careers helps people determine if an online education is right for them and helps them understand which online courses and online schools they can choose from to reach their goals.
