AVG 8.0 Link Scanning Threatens Web Analytics [Best of June '08 #2]

Jonas Bolinder — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:46:05 +0000

This week was relatively slow, must have to do with all iPhone 2.0 chatter. A few interesting posts this week though (June 9-15 2008):

I've been using the free anti-virus software AVG for a year or so now and found it lightweight and non-intrusive. The last month, however, a message keeps popping up requesting me to upgrade to the new version 8.0. Apparently, some 20 million people world-wide have made the upgrade, to much annoyance to web site owners. As it turns out, the new version contains a link scanner, that pre-visits the search results from Google and Yahoo searches, masquerading as a real user. The Register reports that last month the number of visits had doubled on certain pages, thanks to the link-scanner robot. At first thought, this might seem as a good thing for site owners, but actually it is not. The fake traffic jeopardizes the web statistics, increases the bandwidth cost, and slows down all other legitimate internet traffic. As the Register writes: "[It] could destroy web analytics as we know it."
Imagine a scenario where the top ten results of all web searches were pre-scanned. This would theoretically lead to an overall ten-fold increase in web traffic. One cannot help but think that it is up to the search provider, Google or Yahoo for example, to provide safe search results, instead of relying on an external service scanning all results. The link scanning can be disabled by disabling a browser plugin, but that's probably to advanced for the average user.
Tags: web analytics
The Swedish blog search engine Twingly went public this week after a couple of months in private beta. Bravely, they claim to be spam free, though I think it will be hard to maintain in the long run.
Tags: blog search
Reblogging own comments made on other blogs has become popular since my own comment on comments piece. Both Tim O'Reilly and Fred Wilson have recently done the same. In a follow-up post Fred concludes that there is no difference between a great comment and a great blog post, and as he says: "Comments are often way more insightful than blog posts."
Tags: comments
Google Reader has an easter egg in the form of a Konami Code (Hit ↑↑↓↓←→←→ba). All software should have an easter egg.
Tags: trivia

Nerds Make Money, Geeks are Cool [Best of May '08 #4]

Jonas Bolinder — Mon, 26 May 2008 20:53:02 +0000

Some of the most interesting posts this week (May 19-25 2008):

Robert Scoble writes about the real PR secrets: "PR now stands for 'Professional Relationships'." That is, you should build personal relationships with influential bloggers and journalists to be successful in PR. Obviously this doesn't scale, and is out of scope for most people. Luckily, as Robert writes: "You don’t need PR at all if you have a great product." Loic Le Meur points to the importance of participation and building a community.
Tags: entrepreneurial
A serious security flaw was recently detected in the OpenSSL library of the Debian an Ubuntu Linux-based operating systems, affecting several applications involved in secure communications across the Internet, the Apache web server included. The flaw was introduced in the key generation code, effectively reducing the key length from 128 to 15 bit, making a brute force attack very feasible. The flaw has been around for about two years, affecting millions of systems which ever have used the key generation mechanism of the affected operating systems.
Tags: security
On the distinction between a nerd and a geek writes Brad Feld, who concludes that "nerds are geeks who make money." David Brooks outlines the history of the words nerd and geek, dating nerd back to 1950, and writing that "At first, a nerd was a geek with better grades." But later, geeks got higher status: "A nerd was still socially tainted, but geekdom acquired its own cool counterculture. A geek possessed a certain passion for specialized knowledge, but also a high degree of cultural awareness and poise that a nerd lacked." Coolness seems to be a characteristic of a geek, which might explain why you so often see people describe themselves as geeks, but less frequently as nerds. Brad Feld, by the way, describes himself as a nerd. Geeks are cool and Mac users for the most, I guess. I'm a PC guy, and probably more of a nerd than a geek. It just remains to make some serious money to become a real nerd (like Bill Gates).
Tags: trivia
Dave Winer says that to him "Twitter is a publishing medium." Having 9644 followers, Twitter is obviously a useful publishing medium, not so useful however with just a handful of followers.
Tags: Twitter
Steve Rubel presents 9 future trends, broken down into three categories based on the likelihood of hitting: Faint Signals (more likely): The Cut and Paste Web, The Attention Crash, Digital Curators, Super Crunching and Collaboration. Watch List: Living Room 2.0 and Geek Marketers. Hallucinations (less likely): Digital Nomads and Data Leaking.
Tags: trends

impl.emented» trivia

AVG 8.0 Link Scanning Threatens Web Analytics [Best of June '08 #2]

Nerds Make Money, Geeks are Cool [Best of May '08 #4]