T-Error

Mid december 2007 Google announced its Wikipedia competitor “Knol” (what a name…). My guess is that it will be a huge “success” like Google Checkout (lesson: bad idea to come up with an alternative to a monopoly — especially years later — even when you’re Google) and that only people who also buy iphones will cheer (sorry for the sarcasm ).

But what is funny is that the domain Knol.com doesn’t even belong to Google. It’s owned by a dutch cleaning company that sells vacuum cleaners and steam cleaning equipment. They’re pretty happy about the additional free traffic they receive and even thank Google for that on their site:

Knol Stoomreinigingssystemen wil o.a. de volgende sites bedanken : Google
040 Hosting
nu.nl
Webwereld
TechCrunch
Blogoscoped

De aandacht is echt overweldigend !

Translation: “Knol steam cleaning systems wants to thank the following sites (among others ) […] the attention is really overwhelming!”

How can a company in the internet age decide on a product name without checking the associated domains first? All these people who type-in “www.knol.com” and only find vacuum cleaners? Tsk tsk tsk

Oh and respect for their sys admin - the site is still up despite the traffic.

Domains Google Knol Search engines Social Web Software Web 2.0

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There’s (at least) one market where Yahoo! beats Google hands down: the very promising local search!

Here’s what Jupiter Research recently released.

“Yahoo! currently has more market share than the next five services combined, including both Google’s and MSN’s local services.” said David Schatsky, President of JupiterKagan.

advertising eBusiness Google MSN Search engines Social Web Web 2.0 Yahoo Yahoo local

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After taking over Zinku, Google now acquired another mobile-based company: Jaiku. Helsinki-based Jaiku is sort of a Twitter. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Why buy Jaiku if you already have Zinku? And why not directly acquire Twitter?! Also, these apps are pretty simple, why not develop it by yourself Google?

Regarding Jaiku, they say:

Activity streams and mobile presence are important areas where we believe Google can add a lot of value for users. Jaiku’s technology and talented team are a great addition to Google’s current application and mobile teams.

Google says:

We plan to use the ideas and technology behind Jaiku to make compelling and useful products. Although we don’t have definite plans to announce at this time, […]

I do think that Google already has definite plans. Google is more and more investing in social networks and in mobile-based apps. Mobile social networking and mobile blogging are on the rise and Google plans its GooglePhone. The mobile web is juicy enough to be invaded by AdSense/AdWords. Good reasons to invest in mobile companies and to acquire know-how. Well, and compared to Twitter, Jaiku has some interesting features like group creation, RSS import and threaded conversation.
Google has the power to market and scale Jaiku and definitely scare Twitter.

Regarding Twitter, RedMonk analyst James Governor thinks that RIM and Yahoo! would be acquisition candidates.

advertising Google GooglePhone Jaiku mobile blogging mobile social networks RIM Search engines Social Web Twitter Web 2.0 Yahoo Zingku

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Marchex (NASDAQ: MCHX) released its industry report “Unlocking the Potential of the Local Internet” through its new blog LocalPoint (”Perspectives on the local Internet”).

A 12-page primer that combines a detailed overview of the local search market opportunity with concise and easy-to-reference charts covering the industry’s key
players and online destinations.

• How big is the opportunity in local search?
• Who are the major players in the local search market?
• Who will drive the adoption of local search advertising for the more than 15 million small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs)?
• What will it take to win in local search?

The local internet is one hot trend for the moment! Local search, local advertising, local content for parking pages,… you name it. Marchex estimates that the local advertising market will be worth $100 billion by the end of 2007! Many companies already got the message. And this does not only count for search and advertising. Also social networks are turning totally local as for example Townkings.com or portals like Kijiji.com or eBay.

Get your copy here.

advertising domain parking Domains eBusiness local advertising local content local search Marchex PPC Search engines Social Web Web 2.0

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Was about time that Yahoo (after Microsoft and Google) also reached an ad agreement with a major social network!

Yahoo will be responsible for the majority of Bebo’s display and video ads.

This will strengthen Yahoo’s position for potential marketers since Yahoo will now better reach young demographics (audience of 11,6 million members). Along with the acquisition of BlueLithium for $300 million (5th largest ad server) this is definitely good karma for Yahoo!

Yahoo finally getting up and coming up with a good strategy?

Go Jerry, Go!

More coverage at CNN

advertising Bebo Blue Lithium Online Advertising Search engines Social Web Web 2.0 Yahoo

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While looking up some whois and rank data, I stumbled on the following:

Seen at http://whois.domaintools.com/xing.com

Remember that MP3 tool XING? Gone long time ago and Xing.com
(formerly known as “Open Business Club”) is a business oriented contact platform like LinkedIn

Domains domaintools linkedin Miscellaneous mp3 Social Web Web 2.0 xing

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Seems that more Facebook source code leaked at http://facebooksecrets.blogspot.com/. This time it’s the search frontend:

[Blurred]
So that blogger guy still didn’t read his C&D ? Or maybe it’s on its way via snail-mail?

Three possibilities for this new leak:

1. The Apache/mod_php/load theory is true. The code was saved before the Facebook Fix.
2. The Apache/mod_php/load theory is true. There was no Facebook Fix.
3. There is a real security issue.

In any case this is not really good publicity for Facebook and it will surely not inspire confidence.

Some funny findings from the code:

// Holy shit, is this the cleanest fucking frontend file you've ever seen?!

* @package ubersearch
(Not really PC …)

Apache Facebook Facebook hack Facebook source code PHP Security Social Web Software source code Web 2.0

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Some Facebook code leaked online at facebooksecrets.blogspot.com (I prefer not to link directly to the site):

[Blurred]
After the release of the code, it was speculated that some displeased developer leaked it and/or that there’s a major security issue at Facebook.com.

Later on, Facebook PR chief Brandee Barker stated the following on Techcrunch.com:

“A small fraction of the code that displays Facebook web pages was exposed to a small number of users due to a single
misconfigured web server that was fixed immediately. It was not a security breach and did not compromise user data in any way.
Because the code that was released only powers the Facebook user interface, it offers no useful insight into the inner
workings of Facebook. The reprinting of this code violates several laws and we ask that people not distribute it further.”

So it seems that it was a server misconfiguration (apache / mod_php) or high traffic that led the server to output the code instead of the interpreted page? Would be plausible. But then, if issues like this are known, why don’t you take care of it?

Wasn’t there Sysadmin Day lately?

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Dukudu, a promising german Twitter clone was recently on sale on eBay including all of their assets:

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110141009440

The auction ended at just 43.208,00 EUR (!).

Wasn’t such a bad deal for them. They invested only 25 K and got 43 K through eBay. Nice ROI

The lucky winner ist AllesKlar.de, a german media company that runs portals such as the local MeineStadt.de.

I think that Dukudu could perfectly fit as a mobile extension into MeineStadt.de. Makes sense to me.

Official AllesKlar.de press release here (german).

Allesklar Allesklar.de Dukudu eBay eBusiness Meinestadt.de mobile web Social Web Software Twitter Web 2.0

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Apparently Rupert Murdoch is in ongoing talks with Yahoo about exchanging MySpace for stakes in Yahoo!

According to The Times (also Murdoch owned), Murdoch’s News Corp will hand over MySpace in exchange for a 25 percent stake in Yahoo! Talks where interruped by the leave of Terry Semel.

Yahoo! is worth $ 37 bn. Murdoch acquired MySpace for $580 million in 2005. The exchange would be a quarter stake in that enlarged company. That equals around $ 12.3 bn. That’s what I would call a nice ROI. It would come in handy for Murdoch since he wants to buy Dow jones.

Yahoo! is interested in social networks (tried and failed to buy Facebook earlier) to face Google.

And now let me cite MySpace founder Chris DeWolfe from a “The Telegraph” report:

“If you’re on your site and you have a line of T-shirts you have designed and you want to sell them to your friends, we want to be able to provide you with the tools you need to do that.
…
So we could partner certainly with someone like eBay to do that. We haven’t decided yet, but it would be probably a good bet that someone like eBay could be a good partner.”

Yahoo <-> MySpace <-> eBay … hmm… thinking of… eBoo!

I believe that eBoo! (= Yahoo + eBay) will happen. It’s only a matter of time.

eBay eboo eBusiness Facebook Google Murdoch mySpace News Corp Rupert Murdoch Search engines Social Web Times Web 2.0 Yahoo

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