Recently in google Category
While I've always found the official Google blogs to be good sources of information they lacked interaction as comments were disabled.
They've now changed their policy and are accepting relevant comments
From what I've been able to work out they haven't enabled comments on all their blogs as yet and Google staff don't seem to be engaging with the public. So it seems like it's a bit of a one way street. (If someone can find me evidence to the contrary I would appreciate it)
Of course not all blogs accept comments and for some people there is a very good reason why they don't. Seth Godin, for example, provides a clear explanation on his policy and it makes sense. But if you do allow comments, shouldn't you at least reply to them?
They've now changed their policy and are accepting relevant comments
From what I've been able to work out they haven't enabled comments on all their blogs as yet and Google staff don't seem to be engaging with the public. So it seems like it's a bit of a one way street. (If someone can find me evidence to the contrary I would appreciate it)
Of course not all blogs accept comments and for some people there is a very good reason why they don't. Seth Godin, for example, provides a clear explanation on his policy and it makes sense. But if you do allow comments, shouldn't you at least reply to them?
I received an email yesterday from Google's legal team, as I had previously lodged a trademark complaint regarding Adwords.
In order to maintain clarity here is the email in its entirety:
In order to maintain clarity here is the email in its entirety:
Hello,
We're writing to inform you that we're changing our trademark complaint procedure in the UK and Ireland. This change may affect how we handle the trademark complaint you currently have on file with Google.
If you've submitted a complaint letter requesting that we prevent
advertisers from using certain trademark terms anywhere in their ad text, we will continue our efforts to support your request. However, from May 5, 2008, our trademark complaint investigations will no longer result in Google monitoring or restricting keywords for ads served to users in the UK and Ireland. This will bring our procedure in line with the approach taken in the US and Canada. Complaints received on or after today will be processed
under our revised procedure.
You do not need to file your trademark complaint with us again unless you would like to amend it based on the new guidelines. For more detailed information regarding our trademark complaint procedure, we invite you to review our revised complaint procedure, posted online at
http://www.google.co.uk/tm_complaint.html.
To learn more about this trademark policy revision, please visit
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=92877&hl=en_US.
Sincerely,
Advertising Legal Support Team
The email is quite confusing. On the one hand they say they are going to uphold the previously lodged complaint, while on the other they say they're changing their policy to come into line with the one they use in the US / Canada.
In order to make sense of it all I spent a bit of time digging around their "help" documentation to see if I could get a better idea of the implications.
From what I have been able to understand Google are basically giving trademark infringers carte blanche. The only thing you will now be able to complain about is trademark usage in the advert text. The actual triggers ie. keywords, will no longer be protected.
So what?
Well the problem is that people are just as likely to hit a competitor's ad based on a trigger as they are on text in the ad. In fact I'd reckon that the triggers are a lot more powerful than the ad text itself.
So what are a trademark holder's options?
At present I'm not 100% sure. I've contact our trademark attorney in the US to see if he can shed any light on the matter and offer any sane advice, but I imagine his response is going to be unhelpful. He's a great guy, but Google's policy change doesn't leave us with many realistic options.
Of course you wouldn't mind so much if what they were doing wasn't so problematic. Is it a coincidence that Google is constantly being sued by trademark holders exactly because of this kind of thing?
I think not.
According to Techcrunch both Microsoft and Google are making serious advances on Digg
If Google were to buy it how long before they manage to break it?
If Google were to buy it how long before they manage to break it?
Adrian Weckler's column this week doesn't mention facebook, but he does cover EULAs and the demise of HD DVDs. (I can't seem to find either article on the SBPost site)
Argos has opened in Carlow, so I'm going to see how bad the traffic is shortly. Hopefully the bypass will help take some of the traffic away from the town, as the commercial centres must be suffering. I'm currently in the market for DVD storage solutions and a new TV stand, so I'll be heading to a few of the shops around the town this afternoon to see what's available and at what price.
AJ has an interesting post about security. His focus is on what the search engines are indexing and highlights some common mistakes.
Tonight is the Oscars. I'd love to stay up and watch them live, but I've got to be awake for work in the morning! The Academy is offering some really cool posters again this year including one celebrating 80 years of best picture. It won't be shipping until after the ceremony (obviously)
While working on one of my quieter blogs I realised that Google Analytics wasn't installed BUT the Google Analytics web interface happily told me that it was. Moral of the story - don't trust them!
I'd love to be able to report some of the odd sales and support queries we get, but this week we've had one that I can mention:
- caller number 1 who wins the prize for odd sales query of the month wanted to know if we ran an escort service
- caller number 2 wanted to apply for a technical role and asked what a PDF was. And no - their native language was English!
Argos has opened in Carlow, so I'm going to see how bad the traffic is shortly. Hopefully the bypass will help take some of the traffic away from the town, as the commercial centres must be suffering. I'm currently in the market for DVD storage solutions and a new TV stand, so I'll be heading to a few of the shops around the town this afternoon to see what's available and at what price.
AJ has an interesting post about security. His focus is on what the search engines are indexing and highlights some common mistakes.
Tonight is the Oscars. I'd love to stay up and watch them live, but I've got to be awake for work in the morning! The Academy is offering some really cool posters again this year including one celebrating 80 years of best picture. It won't be shipping until after the ceremony (obviously)
While working on one of my quieter blogs I realised that Google Analytics wasn't installed BUT the Google Analytics web interface happily told me that it was. Moral of the story - don't trust them!
I'd love to be able to report some of the odd sales and support queries we get, but this week we've had one that I can mention:
- caller number 1 who wins the prize for odd sales query of the month wanted to know if we ran an escort service
- caller number 2 wanted to apply for a technical role and asked what a PDF was. And no - their native language was English!
I like checking FeedBurner statistics from time to time. Some might call this navel gazing, but I am interested in seeing what is going on in terms of RSS subscriber figures etc., This is especially important for the company blog.
So I was quite upset this evening to discover that the "all time" statistics option is no longer available in my Feedburner control panel.
I checked their official forums and was able to confirm that it's gone, though nobody from FeedBurner seems to be willing to offer an explanation as yet.
There is, however, still a way of getting the data out from Feedburner.
When you login to your account select the feed you are interested in.
You should see an Export option on the menu bar to the left and you can choose to download as either Excel format or CSV.
Once you've exported the data from FeedBurner you can then use it with any software you like to generate pretty (or not so pretty) graphs etc.,
It will be interesting to see how this change pans out.
Is this yet another case of a Google acquisition turning sour?
So are there any alternatives out there to FeedBurner?
So I was quite upset this evening to discover that the "all time" statistics option is no longer available in my Feedburner control panel.
I checked their official forums and was able to confirm that it's gone, though nobody from FeedBurner seems to be willing to offer an explanation as yet.
There is, however, still a way of getting the data out from Feedburner.
When you login to your account select the feed you are interested in.
You should see an Export option on the menu bar to the left and you can choose to download as either Excel format or CSV.
Once you've exported the data from FeedBurner you can then use it with any software you like to generate pretty (or not so pretty) graphs etc.,
It will be interesting to see how this change pans out.
Is this yet another case of a Google acquisition turning sour?
So are there any alternatives out there to FeedBurner?
It seems that Google doesn't want to play by anyone's rules but its own.
This will probably come back to bite them.
In their latest "innovative" move they're now taking control of the humble 404 error page.
If you have their "helper" toolbar installed you may not get to see the web as it truly is.
Charming, isn't it?
And of course Matt Cutts is defending them like a good little Google employee.
Call me a cynic, but doesn't that remind anyone of Network Solutions' defensive stance of front running?
This will probably come back to bite them.
In their latest "innovative" move they're now taking control of the humble 404 error page.
If you have their "helper" toolbar installed you may not get to see the web as it truly is.
Charming, isn't it?
And of course Matt Cutts is defending them like a good little Google employee.
Call me a cynic, but doesn't that remind anyone of Network Solutions' defensive stance of front running?
I finally got round to installing Urchin 6 (beta) this evening.
As my personal servers are running Ubuntu I opted for the source install, however for some reason Urchin sees it as Fedora? It works, but it's a very odd thing to report...
As the software is commercial you have to get a license. Fortunately once it's installed you can simply follow the wizard to get your license key and have the data passed back to your server.
You can then go about setting up "profiles". If you're familiar with Google Analytics then most of the jargon is almost identical.
The key difference is that Urchin can parse physical log files both local and remote ie. on the same server or anywhere else (as long as they can be accessed via FTP, HTTP or HTTPS). Unfortunately it doesn't seem to offer support for SCP or Rsync, which would be very handy.
In my case I'm primarily interested in processing raw logs and don't want to go messing about with Javascript tags (which are an option).
You can easily setup a new site profile by following the online wizard and choose multiple log sources.
The reporting interface is very similar to the old Analytics one pre-upgrade. You can choose from 3 different views, depending on which type of report you want to see.
Nothing too exciting there.
Where it gets interesting is in the speed of the interface. As it's running on one of my machines on our network I don't have to contend with the rest of the internet, so it's way faster.
The simpler UI renders different views a lot faster as well.
As it's working on local log files (my config choice) it can also give me bandwidth usage which is kind of useful. (I didn't realise GoogleBot had used nearly 7 Gigs so far this month on one site!)
The other really cool thing is the update frequency.
One of the major downsides of Analytics, especially since it went "free" is that the data is nowhere near "real time".
With Urchin you can get updates as often as you want.
If you're a stats junky you could choose to have it update every hour if you want. Plus you can choose which minute of the hour (handy if you have multiple profiles on the one machine and don't want CPU meltdown!)
I'll try and setup a few more profiles, schedule updates etc., and see how it handles things.
So far I like it, though some of the interface options are a bit counter-intuitive. Fortunately the contextual help / documentation is pretty clear, so I haven't run into any "show stoppers" just yet!
As my personal servers are running Ubuntu I opted for the source install, however for some reason Urchin sees it as Fedora? It works, but it's a very odd thing to report...
As the software is commercial you have to get a license. Fortunately once it's installed you can simply follow the wizard to get your license key and have the data passed back to your server.
You can then go about setting up "profiles". If you're familiar with Google Analytics then most of the jargon is almost identical.
The key difference is that Urchin can parse physical log files both local and remote ie. on the same server or anywhere else (as long as they can be accessed via FTP, HTTP or HTTPS). Unfortunately it doesn't seem to offer support for SCP or Rsync, which would be very handy.
In my case I'm primarily interested in processing raw logs and don't want to go messing about with Javascript tags (which are an option).
You can easily setup a new site profile by following the online wizard and choose multiple log sources.
The reporting interface is very similar to the old Analytics one pre-upgrade. You can choose from 3 different views, depending on which type of report you want to see.
Nothing too exciting there.
Where it gets interesting is in the speed of the interface. As it's running on one of my machines on our network I don't have to contend with the rest of the internet, so it's way faster.
The simpler UI renders different views a lot faster as well.
As it's working on local log files (my config choice) it can also give me bandwidth usage which is kind of useful. (I didn't realise GoogleBot had used nearly 7 Gigs so far this month on one site!)
The other really cool thing is the update frequency.
One of the major downsides of Analytics, especially since it went "free" is that the data is nowhere near "real time".
With Urchin you can get updates as often as you want.
If you're a stats junky you could choose to have it update every hour if you want. Plus you can choose which minute of the hour (handy if you have multiple profiles on the one machine and don't want CPU meltdown!)
I'll try and setup a few more profiles, schedule updates etc., and see how it handles things.
So far I like it, though some of the interface options are a bit counter-intuitive. Fortunately the contextual help / documentation is pretty clear, so I haven't run into any "show stoppers" just yet!
Urchin announced its acquisition by Google approximately 3 years ago.
I'd been in talks with Urchin prior to the acquisition and had installed a trial version of the software.
The main difference between the Urchin software and the SAAS was that one is installed on your server and reads your logs (a bit like Awstats) while the other uses a bit of Javascript in your pages to track results.
Urchin 6 was "coming soon" back in 2005, but the Google acquisition buried it.
Now, almost three years later, it looks like Google has finally decided to brush off the cobwebs and relaunch the software with a 3 month beta.
They've made available an installable version for Linux, Free BSD and Windows (not Vista - but that's not a server OS, so you wouldn't expect them to).
With a price tag of US$2995 (which will probably be a LOT higher in the EU!) it will be interesting how people react to this "new" venture from Google.
At least they won't be selling it directly, but will instead be relying on a network of partners.
I'm currently downloading the Linux version to see if much has changed in the last 3 years and will hopefully be able to report on my progress (or lack thereof) in the coming days.
It might be a little too late, as products like Sawmill, which offer similar functionality, cost a fraction of the price and can be bought directly from the developers. They also have a better track record of customer support than Google.
In any case an alternative to Google Analytics, be that Sawmill or the "new" Urchin should be welcomed by those who are concerned by Google's "big brother" position. Being able to keep details of traffic private wouldn't be such a bad thing!
I'd been in talks with Urchin prior to the acquisition and had installed a trial version of the software.
The main difference between the Urchin software and the SAAS was that one is installed on your server and reads your logs (a bit like Awstats) while the other uses a bit of Javascript in your pages to track results.
Urchin 6 was "coming soon" back in 2005, but the Google acquisition buried it.
Now, almost three years later, it looks like Google has finally decided to brush off the cobwebs and relaunch the software with a 3 month beta.
They've made available an installable version for Linux, Free BSD and Windows (not Vista - but that's not a server OS, so you wouldn't expect them to).
With a price tag of US$2995 (which will probably be a LOT higher in the EU!) it will be interesting how people react to this "new" venture from Google.
At least they won't be selling it directly, but will instead be relying on a network of partners.
I'm currently downloading the Linux version to see if much has changed in the last 3 years and will hopefully be able to report on my progress (or lack thereof) in the coming days.
It might be a little too late, as products like Sawmill, which offer similar functionality, cost a fraction of the price and can be bought directly from the developers. They also have a better track record of customer support than Google.
In any case an alternative to Google Analytics, be that Sawmill or the "new" Urchin should be welcomed by those who are concerned by Google's "big brother" position. Being able to keep details of traffic private wouldn't be such a bad thing!
The big news story of the last few days in the technology world has to be Microsoft's bid on Yahoo!
While there has been a lot said about the possible outcome and longterm effects of such a merger / takeover a lot of people were probably waiting to see what Google would say and do.
Google have now released a statement of sorts on one of their corporate blogs and it is amusing to say the least. I just hope to God that people don't swallow it!
The piece goes on and on about openness and innovation and all these other buzzwords.
Google aren't exactly open and a lot of the criticism that has been used against Microsoft in the past is now being used to describe Google.
Do they think we're all a bit dumb?
You can read the puff piece over here
EDIT: Paul Walsh and I seem to agree on this one: Google Throws Its Toys Out of The Pram
While there has been a lot said about the possible outcome and longterm effects of such a merger / takeover a lot of people were probably waiting to see what Google would say and do.
Google have now released a statement of sorts on one of their corporate blogs and it is amusing to say the least. I just hope to God that people don't swallow it!
The piece goes on and on about openness and innovation and all these other buzzwords.
Google aren't exactly open and a lot of the criticism that has been used against Microsoft in the past is now being used to describe Google.
Do they think we're all a bit dumb?
You can read the puff piece over here
EDIT: Paul Walsh and I seem to agree on this one: Google Throws Its Toys Out of The Pram
I normally don't mention when sites or services are offline, as it's the kind of whining that I hate.
However in the case of Jaiku the 24 hours or so downtime is actually welcome.
If Jaiku can resolve some of their scalability issues by going offline for a couple of days, then I'm more than happy to do without my daily dose.
There's more information on their official blog, where they talk about database migrations etc., The blog post isn't that detailed, but it's there if you want to read it
However in the case of Jaiku the 24 hours or so downtime is actually welcome.
If Jaiku can resolve some of their scalability issues by going offline for a couple of days, then I'm more than happy to do without my daily dose.
There's more information on their official blog, where they talk about database migrations etc., The blog post isn't that detailed, but it's there if you want to read it
