Google Expects Massive Xmas Malware Attacks
2007-11-29 22:52:09
Search giant Google
, having just prevented an epic campaign to distribute viruses, trojans and all manner of nasties via search results for terms such as “christmas gifts” and “hospice” are now asking for the help of the humble user to help them “fill the gaps” in their malware trapping algorithms.
Google’s Ian Fette says..
“Currently, we know of hundreds of thousands of websites that attempt to infect people’s computers with malware. Unfortunately, we also know that there are more malware sites out there. This is where we need your help in filling in the gaps. If you come across a site that is hosting malware, we now have an easy way for you to let us know about it.”
The answer to this imminent threat according to Google is a new simplified form for reporting sites that contain malware. The form can be found here.
The very fact that Google are making this appeal means the coming threat was not squashed entirely by the recen
Read more: Xmas
, Malware
The Whoa Show and a TechCrunch Rebuttal
2007-11-28 09:18:11
I got an interesting email last night from David Hissami, CEO of The Whoa Show, who wanted to clarify a TechCrunch
Article comparing the service to an Exquisite Corpse, which he felt was inaccurate.
I guess TC author Erick Schonfield is sticking to his guns, so armed with some new info, StartupEarth sets the record straight.
The Whoa Show is a media company based in Orange County CA, whose aim is to make exciting video shows, called Whoa Shows, that star the audience.
The site will go live on New Years Day, with the first Whoa Show, “First in Action”, followed by “The Count Drop” and “Opposite Line”.
First in Action is set up as a never-ending chain of videos. At the end of every clip, someone gives a direction. The first person to follow it makes it on the show, and gets to direct the next person. So Billy says “I want you to scare someone”, Timmy scares his gran, then says “I want you to confess something on tape”.. Johnny
MetroFunk Brings Networking to Elitist Socialites
2007-11-28 07:09:45
Ah MetroFunk, where do I even start? First of all, this is an invite only social network for schmoozing with “Trend Setters, nightlife personalities, fashion designers yadiyada..” so if you actually enjoy the company of the arrogant, elitist, self-proclaimed in-crowd, you might want to join this site.
Join the site, that is.. if they deem you worthy. You see, before you can even browse the network to see if it actually lives up your own standards, they require an invite code, your cellphone number, a verification code, and finally the acceptance of the site owners that you really are cool enough to join.
The arrogance of this website beggars belief. Why would anyone with even a glimmer of intelligence join a site before they even know what it contains? I’ll tell you why, because MetroFunk’s target audience is so firmly up its own arse, they’ll join anything that might propell their empty lives into the gormless gaze of their peers, who are equally despera
ReachBy adds privacy to email
2007-11-28 03:53:45
I had a little play with ReachBy this morning, a startup that claims to protect your privacy by storing all your personal details in one place. Wait, that sounds wrong. Let me try again. Reachby protects your personal details by storing them all together on a website. Hang on.. this review isn’t going well at all. No matter how I word it, ReachBy sounds a little counter-intuitive for anyone concerned about online privacy.
So I had to dig a little deeper to see just what the process is, so I signed up, and voila - I’m now presented with a contact form by which people can send me email (big whoop). I selected the option to have senders verify their email address before a message reaches me, and sent myself a message.
The whole process of writing a message, filling out a captcha, checking my inbox, clicking a link to confirm my email, then the message being finally sent was a bit laborious to say the least, but hey - it’s all about privacy right?
To be honest, this is n
Why The Blog Council Is Doomed To Fail
2007-12-08 23:11:33
The arrogantly titled Blog Council
, managed by GasPedal, Chicago, IL, is the most ludicrous and ill-conceived idea to ever come out of a backward-thinking corporate cesspool that’s so desperate to get a piece of the pie, it’s willing to inject archaic web 1.0 sensibilities into the flourishing social phenomena the rest of us call blogging.
These geniuses think that a closed community of clueless and anti-social corporate bloggers can get together and set the blogging world to rights, without having to engage with ‘outsiders’ who have serious blogging experience and valuable input to share - instead, opting to decide for themselves what the best practices for corporate blogging are.
GasPedal, the marketing firm who manage the Blog Council have a blog, and this post really made me laugh…
“It’s really too bad that being a grouchy cynic is often consider[sic] a badge of honor among major bloggers. The general level of pessimism and meanness is ju
Wikipedia Sued Over Nazi Plot
2007-12-07 00:51:50
The Germans are getting their leiderhosen in a twist over an alleged nazi plot behind the scenes at Wikipedia
. According to sources, a left-wing German politician has filed charges against the online encyclopedia for brandishing too much nazi symbolism and pro neo-nazi propoganda.
The controversial move followed legal advice from the politician who wants to ‘encourage debate’ over the sensitive issue, which goes to the heart of just what websites should be allowed to publish that could aid anti-semitic ideologies.
Sour Kraut, Katina Schubert says..
“The extent and frequency of the symbols on it goes beyond what is needed for documentation and political education, in my view.. ..This isn’t about restricting freedom of opinion, it’s about examining what the limits are.”
Any public display of nazi imagery is illegal in Germany, with the exception of educational material, and although Wikipedia could be loosely called educational, Schubert says it goes t
9 Digg Alternatives You Should Know About
2007-12-06 00:12:28
Getting tired of Digg
? Well I’m tired of doing write-ups for Digg clones, so here in no particular order, are nine Digg-alikes you might not of heard of, but should definitely give a try. Variety is the spice of life and all that…
1. Reddit - Everyone’s heard of this one, so let’s get it out the way. Reddit is probably the best alternative to Digg, hits-wise at least. It’s not pretty, but it does the job - just as long as you don’t mind wading through all the Ron Paul propaganda.
2. Mixx - An attractive social voting site that’s growing in popularity. Not quite as competetive as Digg (yet) so worth a look before it gets over-run by rampant power-users.
3. Sk*rt - One for the girls, sk*rt is full of interesting girly topics like shopping, lipstick and babies. Don’t tell them I said that though, they’d probably pull my hair and nag me about it.
4. Stirrdup - I just found this one today, and it’s an interesting premise, focusin
Read more: Alternatives
Yokld Brings Social Voting To Local Business
2007-12-04 17:56:39
Find it, Rank it, Share it. That’s the tagline of the unusually named yokld.com, who bring social ranking and local business together in a service hoping to compete against a plethora of very similar sites, and while the site itself is pretty nice looking, just how useful the service will be remains to be seen.
From the sparse array of hand-picked businesses, there’s very little information to go on; You get a map, which has been done in MojoPages, and more recently Tupalo (review), an address, and the number of votes received, which makes it next to impossible to make an informed decision.
There are tabs for each business for positive and negative comments, but very little in the way of actual reviews, images, videos or anything that could tell you more than a quick glance at the yellow pages, and the voting system doesn’t make a bit of difference - If I want to pick a local restaraunt, choosing one based on votes alone does little to inspire confidence.
From the s
Read more: Social
, Voting
, Local
, Business
, Local Business
Google Joins NORAD to Track Santa
2007-12-03 21:16:04
Search giant Google
has announced that it is joining NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense) in a traditional effort to track the movements of the obese bearded flying fatty, loved by kids the world over. This is a tradition that started with a phone mix-up in the US, when kids were given a direct line to NORAD’s commander-in-chief instead of ‘Santa
’s Workshop’, and now Google want in on the act. You think I’m kidding? Read Google’s Official Blog for the full story.
Google’s Carrie Farrel says..
“This holiday season, NORAD has partnered with Google to use technology including Google Maps, Google Earth, iGoogle and YouTube to track Santa”
The service began Dec 1st, and from Christmas Eve, you’ll be able to track the movements of Santa in real-time using Google Earth, and a “special santa tracking file” whatever that is. There’s also a “NORAD Track
s Santa” app on i-Google.
Maybe it’s time Goo
Photobucket Embraces Digg
2007-12-03 15:22:10
Image sharing underdog, Photobucket
have announced new features for public photos that integrate with Digg
, allowing users to digg images directly from the site.
No doubt photobucket are simply jumping on the bandwagon after seeing so many Flickr images appearing on the front page of Digg, and the popularity of anything marked [pic] on the social-voting behemoth that could provide a much needed boost to ‘the bucket’.
Photobucket, who started out as an obscure image hosting platform, have been trying to ’socialise’ their service ever since the birth of Flickr showed them how it should be done. Now I use photobucket to store images, and that’s where it ends for me (and I suspect many others) and the tacked-on sharing features never appealed, so with that in mind, will this make any difference to the service, or is it just a last minute gimmick doomed to raise little more than an apathetic ‘meh’ from it’s ‘upload and forget’ use
Google Expects Massive Xmas Malware Attacks
2007-11-29 22:52:09
Search giant Google
, having just prevented an epic campaign to distribute viruses, trojans and all manner of nasties via search results for terms such as “christmas gifts” and “hospice” are now asking for the help of the humble user to help them “fill the gaps” in their malware trapping algorithms.
Google’s Ian Fette says..
“Currently, we know of hundreds of thousands of websites that attempt to infect people’s computers with malware. Unfortunately, we also know that there are more malware sites out there. This is where we need your help in filling in the gaps. If you come across a site that is hosting malware, we now have an easy way for you to let us know about it.”
The answer to this imminent threat according to Google is a new simplified form for reporting sites that contain malware. The form can be found here.
The very fact that Google are making this appeal means the coming threat was not squashed entirely by the recent
Read more: Xmas
, Malware
Google Takes on Digg
2007-11-29 21:52:37
Google is experimenting with a controversial new feature that could change the way search results are indexed forever. Instead of relying solely on algorithmic methods to determine relevance, they’re injecting a Digg
style voting system, which allows users to remove search results or reorder them as they see fit.
This should be quite worrying for Digg founder, Kevin Rose - who’s massively popular creation could become obsolete if Google decides to implement this sort of feature permanently, and not even Digg could take on the might of Google.
What’s more worrying, is the effect it could have on webmasters the world over, as tailoring search based on the unpredictable whim of the end-user could deal a killer blow to SEO as we know it.
You can predict patterns in traditional search rankings, but for anyone who’s tried to get onto the front page of Digg will know just how temperamental an audience can be when given this kind of freedom (which is no bad thing, exce
Read more: Google
The Whoa Show and a TechCrunch Rebuttal
2007-11-28 09:18:11
I got an interesting email last night from David Hissami, CEO of The Whoa Show, who wanted to clarify a TechCrunch
Article comparing the service to an Exquisite Corpse, which he felt was inaccurate.
I guess TC author Erick Schonfield is sticking to his guns, so armed with some new info, StartupEarth sets the record straight.
The Whoa Show is a media company based in Orange County CA, whose aim is to make exciting video shows, called Whoa Shows, that star the audience.
The site will go live on New Years Day, with the first Whoa Show, “First in Action”, followed by “The Count Drop” and “Opposite Line”.
First in Action is set up as a never-ending chain of videos. At the end of every clip, someone gives a direction. The first person to follow it makes it on the show, and gets to direct the next person. So Billy says “I want you to scare someone”, Timmy scares his gran, then says “I want you to confess something on tape”.. Johnny
MetroFunk Brings Networking to Elitist Socialites
2007-11-28 07:09:45
Ah MetroFunk, where do I even start? First of all, this is an invite only social network for schmoozing with “Trend Setters, nightlife personalities, fashion designers yadiyada..” so if you actually enjoy the company of the arrogant, elitist, self-proclaimed in-crowd, you might want to join this site.
Join the site, that is.. if they deem you worthy. You see, before you can even browse the network to see if it actually lives up your own standards, they require an invite code, your cellphone number, a verification code, and finally the acceptance of the site owners that you really are cool enough to join.
The arrogance of this website beggars belief. Why would anyone with even a glimmer of intelligence join a site before they even know what it contains? I’ll tell you why, because MetroFunk’s target audience is so firmly up its own arse, they’ll join anything that might propell their empty lives into the gormless gaze of their peers, who are equally despera
Microsoft: Trade Your Privacy For Free Software
2007-12-12 03:34:42
Want a free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate? You’d better leave your privacy at the door, as Microsoft
launch an incentive to let them spy on your every move through an invasive feedback program, which tracks everything you do, online or offline for 3 months.
Those who obey, can claim a free copy of Vista Ultimate, Office Ultimate 2007, Money Plus Premium, Student with Encarta Premium, and Streets and Trips 2008. Users who yield to this orwellian program will have to fill out surveys at 2 week intervals, as well as having their daily usage tracked.
Looks like Microsoft are pulling out all the stops to get this information, and are counting on windows users to give up potentially sensitive information for a free gift.
What’s troubling about this, is that Microsoft reserves the right to collect personally identifyable information, such as your name, gender, email address, city, ZIP code, browsing and usage habits, and will pass this information on to third parties and affil
Read more: Software
, Privacy
, Trade
, Free Software
YouLicit - A Real Contender for StumbleUpon?
2007-12-10 01:02:58
I’m usually very sceptical about any startup jumping on the gravy-train of giants like StumbleUpon
, and it was no different when I was tipped off about YouLicit. I wasn’t expecting much, but it seems my scepticism was unfounded as I installed the plug-in and began playing with the site.
Sign-up took about 3 seconds, the plugin is nice and compact, and the site itself, while not particularly engaging is nice to look at, and childsplay to use. The site works in a very similar way to StumbleUpon; the 3 button plug-in allows you to stumble find random sites, recommend things that interest you, and unlike it’s better-known rival, you can also click through to a series of sites related to the one you’re on.
YouLicit lacks the ’stickyness’ of StumbleUpon, with it’s on-site browsing and user interaction, but it’s still early days and has a lot of catching up to do. That said, the user experience is a good one, and unusually - the plug-in won&rsqu
Mikons Unleashes Personal Icons
2008-03-07 22:48:35
Mikons.com is a free online service that puts personal branding at your fingertips, allowing you to create a personal icon (called a mikon) that describes you, instead of the traditional icons or logos used by companies.
Curious about this novel idea, I set about trying to create my mikon, and surprisingly the editor is childsplay to [...]
Read more: Personal
, Icons
10 Venture Capitalists Who Blog
2008-03-07 19:48:57
If you want to successfully pitch your start-up to VC’s, you’re going to have to get inside the head of the decision makers before you even put pen to paper. Venture
Capital Firms are inundated with pitches from entrepreneurial hopefuls, many of which get a big fat ‘no’.
Which is where a healthy dose of research [...]
5 Most Useless Website Features On The Planet
2008-03-07 02:21:28
I need to get this off my chest before I embark on a killing spree. The websites mentioned in this list are some of my favourite sites, which are ruined by completely useless features that either need to be fixed or removed completely.
1. Twitter’s Public Timeline - Brilliant, I mean who doesn’t want to see [...]
Google to punish pagerank for Digg stories?
2008-03-06 21:25:07
According to the Google
Blog, a spokesman for the search giant has hinted at a new strategy to reduce the page-rank of sites linked from social bookmarking site Digg
.
The move is said to mirror the recent punishment of blogs relying on “un-natural linking strategies” such as sites which take part in paid reviews or paid [...]
Yahoo! Live Launched Too Early?
2008-02-08 00:47:42
Curious about Yahoo
!’s new live webcam chat service, I sat in on a short session hosted by Digg’s Kevin Rose, hoping to find fault with the service and gather plenty of ammunition info for a review.
I wasn’t disappointed, and immediately the bugs and frustrations began to appear.
I tried to set up my camera - no [...]
Read more: Launched
, Early
Pijoo Relaunches - The Verdict
2008-02-05 19:36:42
After a long wait for the early adopters, social blogging site Pijoo.com has finally decided to relaunch the entire service, with a new layout, new widgets and some brand-new features to play with. When I reviewed this start-up last year I did promise a follow-up review as the site was still very early back then, [...]
Read more: Verdict
Google’s Response to ‘Hostile’ Microsoft
2008-02-03 14:38:13
Google’s Senior Vice President, David Drummond has issued a damning response to Microsoft
’s bid to buy out search-rival, Yahoo! in an official statement which should serve to fan the flames, describing Microsoft’s influence as ‘Illegal’ and ‘Inappropriate’.
Using the Official Google Blog as a platform, Drummond says..
“While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought [...]
Read more: Google
, Response
, Hostile
Microsoft Eyes Yahoo! for $44bn Buyout
2008-02-03 07:22:14
As both firms struggle to compete with Google’s stranglehold on the web, Microsoft
has made an offer of $44.6bn in cash and shares to buy out Yahoo
! in a bid to compete with Google and restore it’s failing monopoly.
Yahoo! are said to be taking the offer seriously, after announcing a $300m spend this year to [...]
Read more: Buyout
Anonymous Declares War On Scientology
2008-01-02 19:26:03
An internet-based hacking group known as ‘Anonymous’ has gained wide support on sites such as Youtube since announcing a public vendetta against the notorious cult of Scientology.
The first video announcement (below) was made after a promotional video starring Tom Cruise was leaked, and subsequently taken down for copyright infringement after embarrassed Scientologists complained.
You need to [...]
Microsoft: Trade Your Privacy For Free Software
2007-12-12 03:34:42
Want a free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate? You’d better leave your privacy at the door, as Microsoft
launch an incentive to let them spy on your every move through an invasive feedback program, which tracks everything you do, online or offline for 3 months.
Those who obey, can claim a free copy of Vista Ultimate, [...]
Read more: Trade
, Privacy
, Software
, Free Software
Alltop Launches, The Verdict
2008-03-13 18:59:36
Nononina, the company behind Truemors has launched a brand-new blog aggregator by the name of Alltop.com. This simple but convenient service is similar to Techmeme and Popurls, except that it sports a very simple, yet highly navigable layout that’s an absolute godsend for the obsessive reader who spends hours a day traversing countless RSS feeds [...]
Read more: Verdict
Raise Capital Mashes Startups With Investors
2008-03-13 15:39:51
Raisecapital.com promises to bring entreprenuers and investors together in a social melting pot akin to vator.tv, except on first impressions alone, this new site ditches the idea shared by it’s competitors that browsing should be simple, instead opting for a rather corporate web 1.0 look and feel.
The idea is, that you can post your pitch [...]
Read more: Startups
, Investors
AOL To Aquire Social Media Network Bebo
2008-03-13 14:26:24
AOL announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Bebo (),a leading global social media network. Together with its AIM and ICQ personal communications network, the acquisition will give AOL a premier position in the fast growing world of social media with a network of approximately 80 million unique users.
With a [...]
Read more: Social
Rumor Squashed: CNet NOT Buying Revision3
2008-03-15 22:41:28
The rumors surrounding Revision
3 CNet acquisition are just that.. rumors. Revision3, home of popular streaming video shows Diggnation and The Totally Rad Show was reported to have been snapped up by media network CNet for $57m.
The story quickly gained momentum across the blogosphere after a reliable source quoted an obscure blog post that turned out [...]
Read more: Rumor
, Buying
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