Good news and bad news…the good news is that new ideas on how to connect and communicate are still coming…enhancements to Facebook, Google Buzz…lots of good ideas.  The bad news is that folks seem to have forgotten that there are a lot of bad guys out there and you need to protect your social networks just as much as you need virus protection software for your pc and a firewall for your network.

Keep in mind that hacking has taken on a new strategy whereby the hacker gets in and keeps their presence quiet so that they can pick my opportunity to take advantage…no longer are they just attacking…hackers are in stealth mode and your social network is a great target.  Also note that hackers post successes for others to read…so that when one gets in, the rest can follow.

Social networks are the new big “Greenfield” opportunity for hackers.  People are forgetting that your network has a ton of info about you and a ton of info about your friends.   I have been seeing reports of Facebook hacking scams where a hacker gets in to your page, changes the password so that you cannot get in and then scams your friends by telling them you are trapped in some foreign country and need money.   Your friends respond by sending you money…only problem is that you don’t get the money…the hacker does.    Facebook has a form that must be filled out if your account has been compromised.   Make sure that you know where to find it on their site as it might come in handy some day.

Other tips include limiting the info that is on your page…don’t have your complete birthday (just the month and date are good enough) and don’t put your full name or address or cell number on the page.  Also watch out for information that you unwittingly include…such as your schools name on a sweatshirt or a license plate on a car.  Hackers are smart people…don’t forget that…and your friends already know how to get in touch with you.  Also make sure that you review the privacy settings…don’t just go with the default.

Google Buzz…you have to love the notion of using your email list to automatically create your social network.  I think that this is a great idea because the people that I email all the time are great candidates for my social network.  Only problem is that my contacts could become publically available.  Don’t worry as Google is fixing the issue, but this is a great example of a well meaning company making a mistake.  Google is getting real serious about social networking and Buzz won’t be the last we hear from them.

So what is the bottom line…for me it is that you have to pay attention to the details and make sure you information is protected no matter where it is stored.

Ever wonder what Google knows about you? If you’ve ever wanted to see all the Google services you use — and how you’re using them — in one spot, then the new Google Dashboard is exactly what you’ve been looking for. The dashboard makes perfect sense. If you want to know what’s going on with the inner workings of your car…then take a look at your dashboard. It will tell you how fast you’re going, how much gas you have and if you need maintenance. If you want to know what’s going on with your Google accounts, then look at your Google dashboard.

Why would Google do this? Well believe it or not, there are a lot of folks out there that are concerned about what Google knows. This is clearly an effort by Google to provide more access and control over your data.

The Dashboard reports on data from many of the most used services such as Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Picasa, Talk, Alerts, Latitude, Profiles and others.  If you don’t know what these are, then take a minute to look them up…Google is much, much more than a search engine.

The new Dashboard provides an overview of your usage as well as gives you central place to manage and control that data — change passwords, privacy settings and control sharing and limit what data Google stores about you.  For example, the Gmail entry in the dashboard will show the number of conversations, my chat history, conversations labeled as spam, etc.

There’s nothing in Dashboard that can’t be found within the individual services themselves, but navigating through Dashboard is considerably easier than trying to do the same on a service-by-service basis.

Now for the bad news… Dashboard does not include data regarding more of the “interesting” details that Google collects while we are surfing, and this is exactly the type of behavioral data that people are concerned about. Some examples of data that is not included in the Dashboard would be, the ads we click on, where we go when surfing, IP addresses we are using, what types of browser we use, the date and time of our requests. Dashboard also doesn’t include cookie info, or digital preferences, or interest-based ads that Google puts in front of us based on our search queries.  So, for those of you more technical folks, this means that data from Checkout, Ad Sense, Ad Words, Analytics, App Engine and Mobile are not included.

According to Google, this data is intentionally kept separate to protect our privacy. I don’t really get this reasoning since they are holding back data that we want to see that is about… us!  It is true that if the Dashboard contained this behavioral data, then there is a greater risk it could wind up in the wrong hands if someone had your password, but I would rather see all the data, than some of the data. This is a good start though, and I commend Google for taking this (hopefully) first step. I believe that we will see Google release more and more data in the future.

So search on Google Dashboard or just visit, https://www.google.com/dashboard, check it out and have fun!

Google Inc. announced today that they will be spreading a little holiday cheer with a gift of free Wifi access in select airports, now through January 15, 2010.

We haven’t even hit Thanksgiving yet… kudos to Google.

Their gift will span 47 airports across the country including: Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte.

Free WiFi is sure to be welcomed, with over 100 million people estimated to travel through participating airports through January 15, 2010. Google is happy to put traveler’s concerns of connecting with friends and family at ease during the hectic holiday season. Hopefully that’s how it works out…

If weather presents any major flight complications, airports will find themselves with an excess of travelers killing time with the free internet access…or at least attempting to.

We can only hope Google is anticipating potential heavy traffic of internet users for the holiday season. Google may not receive the gratitude they are hoping for if connections are slow and interrupted. Either way, it’s a commendable holiday gesture on behalf of Google.

Check out the full press release for yourself and tell us what you think…

Each time we sit down at our computers, many of us are working with a Microsoft program called the Windows operating system.  It is no secret that Google and Microsoft aren’t exactly good friends as companies go.  Well, last week, Google has announced that they are developing their own operating system and that it will be free.  This move hits Microsoft in the gut and hard. Ouch.

Microsoft is reported to hold 90% of the market and sells about 400 million copies of its operating system each year for around $45 a pop.  Did I mention that Google will give theirs away?  When we buy a new computer that is made by Dell or HP or many others, it comes with the Windows operating system.  Now, Google is meeting with computer manufacturers regarding offering their operating system in addition to or instead.

Google is targeting a release of their system in the second half of 2010 and will initially focus on an offering for Netbooks.  A Netbook is a small computer that is built to work with the internet specifically and these little pint sized computers don’t have many of the additional offerings (e.g., DVD player) you would find in a typical laptop.  Netbooks are very popular these days and carry a very small price tag.

Why is Google taking on Microsoft again? Well, Google thinks that they can build a better mousetrap.  They believe that their new operating system will be faster, easier to use and have fewer lines of code.  Google’s goal is to offer a simple operating system that is not weighed down with all the issues that continue to plaque Microsoft regarding performance and security.  Google is starting with a blank sheet of paper and Microsoft has to deal with legacy code that was written in the past.

Converting most people away from Microsoft will be a daunting challenge as people tend to resist change, and especially so when it involves something that they don’t truly understand like the inner workings of their computer.  Most people just want it to work, so Google will face the challenge of getting people to care enough to want to change.  Some folks will switch immediately, however getting the majority of the market to move will be difficult.

In case you have missed it, Google and Microsoft have been battling for years.  Prior to this latest salvo from Google, Microsoft released a new search engine called Bing in an effort to take market share from Google.  Google, which by the way is the most visited website in the world, released Chrome last year as a replacement for Internet Explorer.

For those Mac-o-philes that are reading this, I am sure you are wondering what happens to Apple in all of this?   Well, analysts see Apple getting hurt by Google as well.  A Google Netbook could be sold for as little as $300 and this will hurt Apple’s entry level machine that is priced around $999.

Regardless of what happens, this should be good for the consumer as all three companies… Google,  Microsoft and Apple are going to need to up their game a little as consumers get more choices on what to buy.

Social media is a great way to share information quickly….that is the good news.  It is also the bad news! The popularity of sites like Facebook and Myspace make it easy for people to stay in touch and keep tabs on what’s new….but, what if people want to share details about you….that you don’t want everyone to know…..then what do you do?

People are discovering that they may be exposing too much information about themselves on social media sites.  In addition to issues related to the practice of YOU sharing too much info about YOU (someone I know recently posted that he was in the bathroom at Starbucks), is the large issue that you cannot control what your friends say about you and to each other. To make matters even worse, even if you block them, they can log on as someone else and continue to post comments for all to see or just post their comments on their own pages.

Think of social media as a big “room” where anyone can talk to anyone at anytime……..you can also jump from “room” to “room” to meet with any of your friends (and their friends). You can also access the conversations for total strangers that do not control their profile and access…..as we are finding out, this is good and bad all at the same time.

Here is a recent example I found of a man and woman that were getting divorced. The wife was posting angry comments on the husband’s Facebook wall. The husband was embarrassed and tried to block the wife from posting any future comments. Ever after the husband blocked her access; she continued to post comments by logging on as another friend.

One last “gotcha” is that HR folks and lawyers can make use of this data too. HR folks and recruiters routinely access social media sites looking for information regarding candidates. Exposing too much information to potential employers about our social lives can be an issue whether we like it or not. Attorneys are using data gathered from Social Media sites in divorce cases where people are posting information regarding boyfriends, girlfriends and gifts.

Why is this happening? The early users of Social Media are aging and employers are becoming more savvy. Social networking is great for connecting, but not so much for disconnecting, therefore resulting in a online tabloid where people are reduced to airing their dirty laundry in front of their friends and co-workers….it is real reality TV.

How did this all start? Well…..with Google. The popular search engine enabled all of us to become private eyes — we can look up anyone and anything on the Internet with the simple click of the mouse. Social media was just the next step to complete and open access to everyone’s “digital dirt” 24X7.

What can I do?

• Remember that once a pic or message is out on the internet, then it is generally out in the public domain for good….so the best thing to do is to not post questionable information.
• Be careful who you friend and make sure that your security settings are as tight as they can be……many profiles let anyone see anything….not good.
• Everyone should make a habit of searching yourself to see what comes up.  This is called Narcisurfing……be sure to go to multiple search engines and see what is out there.
• If you find something about you that is objectionable, you should try to remove it or contact the webmaster of the site and get them to remove it.
• Be sure to manage your profile regularly.

Can you turn the tables? Yes, of course you can. If you are a job seeker, use Google to learn something about your interviewer and potentially establish rapport during the interview. Social media can actually help you. LinkedIn is a great source for useful professional information.

Have fun being social….but don’t be too social….if you know what I mean!

Lately there’ve been a lot of questions about Search Engine Optimization for Microsoft’s new search engine Bing.com.  Microsoft is heavily promoting Bing as a “decision engine” (as opposed to a search engine) that can help users cut through “search overload” to find what they’re looking for, and organizations want to make sure that they’re listed among the top results when users search for the products they’re selling or the services they offer.

The good news is that SEO for Bing is nothing new.  The majority of Microsoft’s magic is actually in how results are displayed and organized, rather than how information is found and ranked.  The basic theory is the same: a ‘bot’ crawls the web reading and cataloging millions of pages.  When a user performs a search, Bing serves up sites that are deemed ‘more relevant’ based on a mathematical algorithm.  Bing.com is new, but its algorithm is actually a tweaked version of Microsoft’s old search tool “Live.com,” and optimizing a page for Bing isn’t much different than optimizing for Google and other search engines.

Microsoft’s thoughts on Bing SEO

Microsoft actually answers the question of Bing’s SEO impact head on in a it’s white paper, “Bing: New Features Relevant to Webmasters white paper“.  According to the Bing team, “Ultimately, SEO is still SEO. Bing doesn’t change that. Bing’s new user interface design simply adds new opportunities to searchers to find what the information they want more quickly and easily, and that benefits webmasters who have taken the time to work on the quality of their content and website design… Best of all, the type of SEO work and tasks webmasters need to perform to be successful in Bing haven’t changed—all of the skills and knowledge that webmasters have invested in previously applies fully today with Bing. Moreover, investments in solid, reputable SEO work made for Bing will bring similar improvements in your website’s page rank in Google and Yahoo! as well.”

Microsoft does highlight some of the differences that might change how sites rank – and consequently how SEO experts will have to work with sites:

• Bing makes it easier to compete for broad terms, because it surfaces more categories automatically, increasing the number of results on the page.
• Keyword searches are presented with Quick Tabs that present branches of the parent keyword. This surfaces many websites that rank highly for those keyword combinations.
• Multi-threaded [search engine results page] design surfaces many more pages that will be associated with the searcher’s primary keywords than would have surfaced in a single-threaded [search engine results page] list.
• Bing removes duplicate results from categorized results lists, which allows other, lower ranked pages to be shown in the categorized results on its [search engine results page].

Essentially, according to Microsoft, the category listings should enable more pages to make it to the top.  Sorting out duplicates, for example, and suggesting related search terms or more specific variations of a search term should help niched sites rise to the top.

SEO Process

This actually highlights one of the best parts of G.1440’s SEO process – research!  Search Engines keep their algorithms under tighter security than the Colonol’s 12 herbs and spices, and rather than guessing what factors might impact search ranking, we specifically compare hundreds of characteristics of your site to the sites that are currently getting top results for the terms you want.  By evaluating the sites that are currently positioned where you want to be, we’re able to identify the SEO factors that actually have an impact for any given search term on any given search engine – Bing included.

It may not be perfect, But It’s Not Google… this is the Microsoft stand on the new search engine, named Bing… www.bing.com.  Check it out. I think you will enjoy the experience.

On June 1, Microsoft released a new search engine to compete with Google. Microsoft’s Bing search engine is marketed to be more than just a search engine, but a “decision engine”. Bing’s goal is to surface information you’re looking for faster than Google does by providing the most relevant information to the top of the listing that is returned from a search. How they determine the most relevant is the cause for debate with some.

Reports indicate that approximately 25% of searches are not satisfactory to the searcher. I can agree with this as I am not a big fan of getting 4 million hits based on my keywords and then having to search to find something relevant. Even after refining my keywords, I can still be buried in links to wade through. Information overload is a growing issue and is being addressed by more and more companies….remember the report we ran a few weeks ago on chacha.com?

Bing is initially designed to provide a much richer search experience for people looking for information in four categories: shopping, travel, health and local businesses. I used the engine the other day while performing the same search on Google and then on Bing. Bing presented categorized the information for me during my searches which I liked. For example, when searching on Home Depot with Bing, I get a category of Home Depot jobs and related links, then a category of Home Depot Coupons and related links and so on. The user experience is pleasing and the callouts for each link were nice. All I had to do was mouse over a link to get more information.

When searching on plane flights, I get specific links to specific deals on Bing. Bing also provided me with a forecast on what the most likely trend would be with the fare that I was searching which I found very helpful.

As you can imagine, some people like the engine and some people don’t. A bit of a surprise is that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is a fan. On the other end, people don’t like the “big brother” aspect of Microsoft bringing what they think is the most relevant information to the top of the listing… sort of a “Who is Microsoft to decide” this type of issue.

In another effort to drive searching, people can get cash back when they buy products from certain merchants that have a Bing symbol displayed next to their links. Click on shopping on the www.bing.com and see the cash back listings.

The world of search is still very new and all the engines are working to optimize your searching. If these new features with Bing turn out to be popular, then Google will most likely just incorporate them in to their engine. In either case, I am glad to see the focus on improving searching for information.

For many of us, Google is a life line to the worlds information…..anytime we have a question, we “Google it”…….type in a few words and voila….there you are….pages and pages of information related to your search. There is, however, a controversy brewing regarding companies taking advantage of Google’s search engine and adwords by purchasing “pay per click” ads that use a competitors name in their ads.

For example, if company A and B are competitors, A can buy an ad using B’s name. When someone searches on B, Google will show links for both companies. To make it worse, the paid ad will at times appear above the “natural search” link…..making the competitors ad come up FIRST. Now companies have to pay to be the first link for their own name.

Think about it….this does not happen in any other marketing or media. If I buy commercial time on Fox Baltimore, my competitor’s ad does not run before or during my ad. If I buy an ad in the Daily Record, my competitor cannot make sure that his ad runs at the same time.

Pay per click ads are displayed on Google’s search pages and are a major source of revenue for Google. Each ad is presented as several words and a link on the top and on the right side of all the natural search terms. When you click on the link, Google is paid a small sum that is usually from pennies to a couple of dollars. Most of Google’s revenue comes from pay per click ads as they are paid every time someone clicks and they serve millions of ads on a daily basis.

So why is this a problem?
The problem is on many levels….first of all, it allows a competitor to “profit” from their competitors marketing and branding. Every time someone searches for your company and/or product names, your competitor’s ads will be displayed at the same time and potentially take business from you. Some reports indicate that this could cause confusion in the marketplace since more than one companies information is presented when a customer/prospect searches on a company name. Lastly, this forces you to “pay” for your own name…..since you are now bidding against your competitor for your name to come up first in the search ads that are displayed.

So what should you do?
If you have a business website, then you should go to Google as well as all the other search engines. Search on your company name and see what results you get. Pay particular attention to the paid search ads that come up. You should perform this search at least once a month. If you find that your competitor is coming up every time you search, then you should consider contacting your attorney to see what your options are.

Google continues to increase its presence on the web, and their newest release is truly unbelievable.

On April 1^st, Google unveiled Cadie. Cadie is the world’s first Cognitive Auto heuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE). There are two ways to learn more about Cadie….first is to visit www.google.com and click on the link on the homepage and second is to go directly to Cadie’s website….. http://cadiesingularity.blogspot.com/ I will not be able to do it justice, so you have to check it out for yourself.

Cadie actually built its own www site……pretty scary……remember HAL in 2001 Space Odyssey? Cadie’s website gives a remarkably clear explanation of how Google built the first self evolving, intelligent learning system. What could be better for Google, whose entire mission is to organize the world’s knowledge. Be sure to check out the YouTube channel as well.

Once you visit Cadie’s site, you will notice how Cadie is already completely integrated with several major Google products such as Chrome and Latitude. As Cadie is self aware and self learning, it will no doubt grow in importance to Google and to the entire web.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the most important feature of Cadie…….that Cadie is an elaborate and very funny April Fool’s joke……have fun checking it out. While a concept such as Cadie is definitely coming our way, we have a little while longer. Congrats to the folks at Google for coming up with Cadie.

The Holidays are over. Many of you are sitting back enjoying the great gifts that you got from family and friends, however others of you are not so happy. This is probably because you got a gift card from Doggie World and you don’t even have a dog! Gee, thanks a lot Aunt Edna!

Well don’t worry, as there is a solution. There are websites that are dedicated to the swapping and selling of gift cards. Just go to Google and search on gift cards to find them. On these sites, you can either sell your card in the marketplace to someone else or trade your card with theirs or you can sell the card to the website for instant cash. Plastic Jungle (www.plasticjungle.com) and other sites will actually buy the card from you, but at a discount, so do your homework. In addition, auction sites such as eBay sell the gift cards. There are over 7,000 gift cards and 4,300 gift certificates for sale on eBay right now.

One important point is that you don’t need to have a card to use these sites. They are open marketplaces for anyone interested in a gift card and most of the cards are offered for sale at a discount. I found several Lowes 10% discount cards for $35, so if you are planning a purchase of over $350 dollars, then this card can really save you some money. Many stores are offering great sales and these savings are even further compounded when making the purchase with a card that you got from one of these sites at a discount. You will need to create an account to use these sites and registration is generally free, but buying and selling will cost a small fee or commission, depending on the site. You definitely want to check out the fee structure ahead of time.

As with most things in life….buyer beware. Watch out for fraudulent cards. With all the attention and selling that is going on, fake cards are being listed and sold. Be sure that you check to make sure that the site you are using offers a card guarantee so that you aren’t left holding the bag if the card you buy or swap for isn’t legit.

Have a great time shopping!