Could Google Want to Acquire You?

When it comes to acquisitions, Google have made a few in their time. RWW have written about what Google looks for in an acquisition. Do you have what it takes? They can buy this blog anytime they like. Seriously though if Google takes a liking to you then you could be in for a serious pay day.

Imagination and innovation has to be the key. You want to be doing something a little different, something that is able to grow and be expanded upon and something where you have actually used your brain and thought long and hard about what you are doing. Oh and normally if you start off in your garage then that seems to work to. (don’t all great start-ups start in the garage?). Oh and the big one, whatever you are doing must be free.

Are you doing anything that Google might be interested in? Go on share with us.

Facebook Doesn’t Like Homeschooled Kids

Wow looks like Facebook has it in for Homeschooled kids. Ok not quite this dramatic but Homeschooled kids are unable to join Facebook. This is actually due a policy whereby they need a valid school email address. Facebook use this as a way of “validating” their identity. Eg. If you have a valid school email address then you must be ok (right!).

So what is a homeschooler to do? My suggestion is actually start going to school. Alright a bit drastic. You are either homeschooled because there is no nearby school to go to or you have made a deliberate choice to be homeschooled. Anyway back to what to do. Maybe all the homeschoolers could get a petition together and lobby Facebook to change the rules. Maybe you could register homeschool as a valid school domain and then homeschoolers could get an email address there. I don’t really know.

Anyway I understand what Facebook are trying to do here but I don’t know that it has the desired effect. There has to be a better way, doesn’t there?

Look forward to your comments about this.

A Facelift for Reddit

After a few years of being stuck in a time warp, Reddit has broken free with a bit of a facelift. In fact they have been stuck in this time warp since 2005 so it is well overdue. Now I wouldn’t say they have gone crazy or anything but the changes they have made do give the site better usability. Some of the features for example that you used to have to hunt for are now a lot easier to find.

One thing I really like is how you can now customize Reddit around the topics you are interested in. This means you get on your homepage the topics you want. It is very easy to change this to.

This site is also now a lot easier to read. It used to be, how shall I put it, painful! Now it is not so. The site is much easier to read now and not so painful on the eyes.

Check out the redesign for yourself. Let me know what you think?

eBay May Lose Users

eBay has had a great track record of later in terms of really annoying there user base. The change in fees, the change in the way feedback can be left and so forth has really upset some people. Unjustly in my opinion but then I hardly use ebay. Now Australian eBay users have another option.

Trading Post have launched a new website today and as part of this they are doing auctions. This is a smart move as they can tap into the millions of users who use the site. A big selling point of there auction system is you do not have to pay to list items. I have never been able to work out why eBay charge to list something and then charge again if it sells. Seems like double dipping to me. Anyway Trading Post could make inroads in Australia if they play their cards right.

Now if a similar service in the US and UK was able to get their act together and come up with a decent offering then eBay could be in trouble.

Let Your Staff Be Internet Free

I have just read an interesting post at zdnet which is basically along the lines of saying that business should ditch the firewall and let the staff have open access to the internet. There take is that the firewall does not work and actually costs more money. I can relate to this really well because I work somewhere that allows zero Internet access. How backwards is that? For me internet even with a firewall would be better than what I have.

That said I have worked at places that have reasonable internet access but still block sites and certain activities. There is always a way round these though so in the end blocking sites etc does not work and yes does cost money. I guess what businesses do not always get is that the internet is a very useful business tool and as such staff should be allowed to use it. Not everyone is out to abuse that privilege. Besides if you put in place a good internet usage policy and make that known you are covered.

How open is your internet access at work?

We Now Have A FriendFeed Room

Ok I have decided to try out the new rooms feature at FriendFeed. So I have decided to create a room for this very blog, aptly names “Spuds Web News Room”. Inspired! Now I want you all to join my room and let the party begin.

For those who don’t know, a room at FriendFeed is some where everyone in your room can share stuff with each other and leave comments that only other people in your room can see.

Now don’t be shy I expect to see you there. The link is here

Put Your Online Life Into A Timeline

Have you heard of a cool site called Dipity? Well you have now. At Dipity you can turn your online life into a timeline. For example you could make a timeline out of all your blog posts. People can then see all your posts in a timeline going back in time as far as the posts go.

I signed up and found it really quick and easy to create a timeline. It’s free and so simple to use that anyone can get one up in no time. Now you don’t have to make a timeline just around your own stuff. If you have a real interest in something then you could make a timeline specificly about your interest. When you first signup you create your “personal” timeline. From there you can then create more timelines and so forth.

Dipity is really rather cool and worth checking out. You can see my personal timeline here

Idiot at Lifelock Loses Identity

I felt I had better mention this story about the CEO at Lifelock who dared people to steel his identity all in the aim of promoting his fraud protection company. The bloke even went as far as having his social security number published next to his mug shot. According to Yahoo this plonker has had his identity stolen. Surprise Surprise, Not! Now his customers are suing him.

I think this is a reminder to us all that you need to be wary about what information you put online about yourself. It is pretty easy for your identity to get stolen these days in the age of the internet and the more info you put about yourself the easier it is. My reminder to everyone is think about what info you are putting about yourself and who may see it. Off course none of us would be as stupid as Todd Davis.....Would we!

Ewok Gospel Music Video

Did you know that it is the 25th anniversary of Return of the Jedi? I feel so old! Anyway to celebrate this there is an Ewok Gospel music video. Do you want to know the secrets of it. Well then you should check out the behind the scenes look at the making of it.

Disqus Gives Life To Blog Comments

After Leo & Amber interviewed Daniel from Disqus on net@nite about this exciting new blog commenting system I thought I better check it out and give my own review. From what was being discussed it sounds like a great tool and a way to really breath some life blog comments and turn blog commenting into a real community.

Basically Disqus takes what is normally boring text blog comments and adds a whole lot of interactivity. Suddenly you can vote on comments, tracks comments across multiple blogs by users, subscribe to commenter’s via an RSS feed and track their comments on blogs all over the Internet and much more. This is just what blog comments has needed, a good shot in the arm and Disqus gives it that. I think it shows a lot of promise and gets the big Spuds thumbs up. You should check it out.

By the way I have implemented Disqus right here on this blog. Go on make a comment.

Gadgets Make You Fat

It’s official, it’s not to much McDonalds that is making you fat is all the gadgets that are around these days. According to Gizmodo anyway. Gees you cannot win can you. So what to do? Do you trade your gadget in for a Big Mac? Which is better for you?

In all seriousnous there is some sense of truth to this. Again though if used sensibly gadgets will not make you fat. For example if you choose lay on the couch and play PS3 all day everyday and hardly move you will get fat. No brainer really. How is this different though from the days when there was really no gadgets except TV. People would lay about and watch TV all day. So I don’t think that anything has really changed.

Personally it all comes down to self discipline. You cannot blame getting fat on gadgets or McDonalds or anything else except yourself (medical conditions aside).

Show Some Spark at SocialSpark

Have you heard of SocialSpark. Well let me tell about this great new site that I am now a member off. With SocialSpark you can really put your blogging skills to good use and earn some extra money at the same time. The idea behind SocialSpark is a form of pay-per-post but unlike other pay-per-post programs SocialSpark is built around an excellent community and has a huge range of blogging opportunities available. No matter what you blog is about you should have no trouble finding opportunities that suit your blog.

One thing that SocialSpark has done well is implement it’s own blog ranking system. The higher your blog ranking the more higher paying opportunities that you qualify for. The SocialSpark blog ranking system is a lot better than the Google ranking system.

The community aspect of SocialSpark is really neat. You can socialize easily with other members, leave comments for them, see what opportunities they have taken and the posts they have made and much more.

Now it is easy to signup for SocialSpark but they do have standards from there. For example you need to have at least 20 posts on your blog within the last 90 days to even have your blog approved. To qualify for opportunities you normally need to have inserted a script on your blog as well.

SocialSpark also has a code of ethics that all members need to follow
-100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure
-100% Transparency
-100% Real Opinions
-100% Search Engine Friendly

My experience so far is the SocialSpark is a really cool site, a great community and a great way to find new opportunities to make a little extra money from your blog. It gets the big thumbs up from me.

3G iPhone Leak

According to Gizmodo a source very close to Apple has let slip that the 3G iPhone will be announced at the WWDC keynote on June 9th. This really is off no suprirse to anyone as most people are expecting this to happen anyway. If I was a betting man I would put my money on it.

Now the question is how much will it be. If you have an iPhone now will you spring for a new 3G one? I’m still bemused as to why they didn’t release a 3G one to start with. They must have had their reasons. Never mind looks like the wait is almost over.

So are you going to get one?

What do you make of the MySpace Indictment?

There is a number of articles and view going around about the possible precedent the indictment of a women who faked a profile on MySpace that led to a girl committing suicide will set. According to some such as Wired they indictment is making a felon out of anybody who violates the terms of service any website.

Well technically that maybe but normally these violations do not have the consequenes that this one has. There is more to it than just violating MySpaces terms. This women harassed and hounded the pour girl who was already vulnerable and pushed her over the edge. I say stuff any precedent this sets, lock the women up for a long long time.

What are your thoughts?

Google Perks Don’t Keep The Workers Happy

Ok that’s not quite true. It appears that while Google may offer some outstanding perks it is not enough to keep some of their employees, in particular there star ones. Google offer all sorts of perks one of which is a really fun and imaginative place to work. I can tell you now, if I got a job at Google I would never leave.

So what appears to be the problem. Google has lost quite a few star employees recently so it really is a new problem for them. I think there is a couple of things going on here. One is the workplace itself can seem exciting and different when you start but after you have been there a while it becomes a bit too much. Secondly there is much more competition these days in terms of great places to work and interesting projects going on. For example Facebook has stolen some of Googles employees. Google don’t see it as a problem (see this article at Dailytech) but at some point I think they are going to need to address what is causing these resignations and do something about it.

By the way Google, I am available.

Come Back Twitter Song

Allen Stern is very attracted to Twitter. Because of this all the outages Twitter has, has led Allen to produce this Come Back Twitter Song.

The Twitter Party

Twitter is a very powerful tool and many people have written on the topic of using Twitter to your advantage. So now it is my turn....Well actually Larry Chiang over at Gigaom has written an article on working the Twitter party. He makes some valid points.

So what is my take on the whole subject? Well Twitter when used properly is a very powerful tool and can really assist you in many ways. To really take full advantage you need to be an active participant and build up a large following. Once you have that following though you do not want to bombard them with links and excessive promotional Tweets or you will turn them off. Be subtle about it and Twitter success will come your way.

By the way I am Spud at Twitter.

Malware Is Always One Step Ahead

Malware is the curse of the Internet (well one of the curses!). Clement James reports that new developments in Malware is allowing cyber criminals to keep one step ahead of security software. Well I wouldn’t say this is a new thing. Security software has always been playing catchup and this will always be the case.

The problem with anything is that people will always find a way around things and that is what cyber criminals do. Just when you think you might have stopped them they will do something different and so it goes on. I wonder if the cyber criminals and security software makers are actually the same people? Food for thought don’t you think.

Apple Mac Video Set To Music

Alright everyone loves the Mac, don’t they. Well just to confirm this or to convert some people to Mac’s here is a cool Apple Mac video set to music. Check it out.

DRM Is Changing

Apple has had a huge influence on DRM. At least now you can get DRM free tracks. EMI was the first to offer tracks with no DRM on iTunes. Guess what though according to The Guardian DRM has no effect on privacy. Gee funny that!

The problem with DRM now that it is being abandoned is that a lot of people have tracks that are still DRM protected. Bugger! I knew I should have waited before I started buying music. Anyway I am just glad I did not get music from the now closed MSN Music store. Get this, if you purchased music from that store you can no longer retrieve licence keys or authorize the music for other computers. Now that does suck! It is no wonder people hate the music industry.

Still all is not bad, at least DRM is going or gone and Apple get my thanks for being a big influence on this.

MySpace Deals to Spammer

MySpace has won a huge payout against a couple of blokes for spamming MySpace members. The huge payout is actually $234m. So just who are these blokes. Well there names are Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines. Get this, they couldn’t even be bothered showing up to the court hearing.

While this payout is huge MySpace are never likely to see this money because these two are never likely to pay it. Still hopefully it sends a signal to the Spam community that everyone is sick of spam and you will be punished heavily when (if) court.

One other note, Rupert Murdoch paid $500m for MySpace so if he was to get this money then he would have recouped almost half of his investment in one go.

The Changing Face of Mobile Phones

Ever wondered what mobile phones used to look like and how they have changed over the years. Well this video done by e2save illustrates the evolution of the mobile from from 1985 to today. Check it out.

Attack of the MP3

Oh no, it’s the attack of the MP3. No the world is not actually being attacked by MP3’s just one. It has been reported (see Yahoo article) that 500,000 people have been infected with a spyware-injected Trojan horse thanks to this rogue MP3 file that really isn’t an MP3 file.

So what you need to watch out for is a Music track from UK group Girls Aloud. What actually happens is this file says you need a special codec to play it. People have then installed the codec and bang you are infected with heaps of pop-ups and so forth. Ok I hear you, who would be stupid enough to fool for this, but hey 500,000 people have. Just so you know the file is mainly found in peer-to-peer networks.

So now you know!

Powerset Is Changing Search

Have you heard of Powerset? Well it’s a new search engine that could potentially change search for good or at least set search off in a new direction. Is it a Google killer? Maybe not but it might make Google take notice.

So what does Powerset offer that is so different? Powerset goes about actually trying to understand the meaning of web pages as opposed to just serving up results based on keywords. What this means for the user is that you should get more relvant results and an all round more efficient search experience. I guess time will tell but it sounds good in theory.

So check out Powerset and let me know your thoughts.

Put Google Friend Connect On Your Web Site

Heard of Google Friend-Connect. Ok need a bit of help. Well this video should help and also shows you how to add it to your website.

Everyone Is Getting Connected

It seems that getting connected with your friends is that latest craze and everyone wants to get in on the action. Readwriteweb have written about this and will google get in on the action. It does seem that all the big boys are doing it now. Myspace and Facebook are into “friend connect”.

What do you think of this “friend connect” craze. Is it just me or is there just so much “connecting” going on that it’s getting a bit too overwhelming. By the time you have Myspace “connects”, Facebook “connects”, Twitter, Friendfeed etc etc you can be totally lost in a giant tangle of connections. Phew I’m getting a headache!

Macmodifier Podcast by Matt

I thought I would mention this neat Mac podcast that a bloke called Matt does. It’s called Macmodifier. Ok I know there are a few Mac podcasts out there. This one came to my attention though because Matt mentioned it on Leo Laportes radio show, “The Tech Guy”. Matt said it was going to be a bit more geeky than your usual Mac podcasts. The web site says it will have Mac How to’s and Help.

So is it actually any good? Well yes it is pretty good so well worth the mention. If you are a Mac user and especially a new Mac user you will find it useful. In fact even older Mac users will pick up some useful stuff.

Well done Matt on a good Podcast.

Warning About Google And Yahoo Getting Cosy

The BBC have an article raising the alarm at Google and Yahoo potentially partnering in online advertising and search. I have to say that I agree with them. While Google is the dominant player Yahoo do a pretty good job and command a large user base (spread across all their products). Some would argue that there really is no competition now but I disagree. I actually think Yahoo do a reasonable job and keep Google honest (to a degree).

A partnership between these two is going to take a level of competition away and that is never good for the consumer. Yahoo need to lift there game but getting friendly with Google is not the way to go. I hope the regulators keep a close eye on developments here and don’t let them get to close.

What do you think?

Amazing Sketchup from Google

Have you heard of Sketchup? Know I hadn't either but it is an impressive tool from Google that lets you easily create, view and modify your 3D ideas. Once again Google have come up with a great product. Anyway I found this neat video that does a good job of demonstration Sketchup. Check it out.

Amazing Software From Google Team - The best video clips are right here

TripWolf Enters Travel Market

TripWolf is a new travel site on the block. Currently in Beta I scored an invite to this site from Mashable. Now I have checked out a few travel sites in my time but I must say that this one shows a lot of promise. It already has thousands of pages of information from travel guides, reviews, blogs and much much more.

The navigation of the site has been very well done and they have incorporated the social aspects into it very well. You can add your own stuff as well as make friends on the site, add comments to other posts and all sorts of other social goodies.

Now the site still has the odd thing to iron out buy hey that is why we have Beta. Already humming along nice I see TripWolf as being a serious player in the travel site business once it moves out of Beta.

In case you are interested I am Spuds on tripwolf.

Microsoft Eyes Facebook

Now that Microsoft has pulled out of it’s bid to takeover Yahoo it is reported to be eyeing Facebook (groan!). There have been a number of reports over the last couple of days around this eg this one at Reuters. It is clear that Microsoft are desperate to get hold of someone with a large user base. Yahoo would have provided that and more but seemed to think they were worth a whole lot more cash or couldn’t stand the idea of a partnership with Microsoft.

Facebook on the other hand have already accepted a few dollars ($200+m) in the past from Microsoft so I’m sure they would be willing to accept more, a whole lot more. I am sure Microsoft see Facebook as a great way to get a foothold in the whole social networking setup, access to a huge user base and lots of “personal” information. Just what Microsoft would end up doing with/to Facebook is a little unclear. I’m not sure I would stick around to find out.

Anyway where there is smoke there is fire so expect more developments soon.

Mixx CEO on Video

As you know I am a huge fan of Mixx.com I think the site is great and offers far superior features than Digg. the community is brilliant. Ok enough of the "sell mixx.com" blurb. i thought those Mixx fans out there might be interested in this video of Chris McGill, the CEO of Mixx.

The Internet is Changing

Ok I have been away for a while so I have not been posting. I am sorry for that but I'm back now and I am giving my blog new focus and attention. Look forward to more articles, more great stuff and generally a new and improved Spuds Web News.

As they say, STAY TUNED!

Like the title of this post says, the Internet is Changing (constantly). I am going to stay on top of it for you and keep you up to date with all the interesting stuff.