Justin Wagoner's tent outside temporary Knox Street store in Dallas
With the iPad 2 set for launch at 5:00 PM on Friday and Apple not offering pre-orders, those looking to get their hands on the updated tablet device as soon as possible may find themselves facing long waits to secure spots near the front of their respective lines. And just like with the iPhone 4, Dallas resident Justin Wagoner has already pitched a tent outside his local Apple Store in order to be first in line for the iPad 2 launch on Friday.One catch for Justin is that the Knox Street retail store that has been the usual location for his campouts is currently closed for expansion, with Apple now operating out of a temporary location around the corner.
Justin Wagoner passing time in-store waiting for iPad 2 launch
Seeking to capitalize on his growing publicity as an early camper for Apple devices, Justin has launched a new site at iJustinOfficial.com to document his wait. He will also be offering a live video broadcast on Ustream as the iPad 2 launches.
The Practical Art of Persuasion via @hbr
I found this article useful...
Harvard Business Review
The Practical Art of Persuasionby William Ellet
Persuasion is a catalyst for getting work done, for achieving an outcome you can't realize on your own. MBA courses, leadership books, and executive education classes recognize the importance of persuasion, but they rarely teach it as a practical art and, if they do, the focus is usually on formal presentations and PowerPoint.
Managers need more fundamental advice on how to persuade. I teach a class on it at Harvard Business School and have developed a series of questions that can serve as a starting point for any leader trying to persuade.
First, recognize your purpose: there is a difference between you and the audience that you'd like to resolve in a specific way. Then ask yourself:
Next, focus on content. Creating effective persuasion involves logic, emotions and ethos, or character. Logic is the realm of rational appeals to an audience, a capability business schools develop in their graduates. Argument is the primary vehicle for this type of persuasion. In practical terms, that means a conclusion backed by supporting statements and evidence. To get started developing arguments, ask these questions:
It would be comforting to think that business decisions are made strictly according to reason. But research in psychology, the cognitive sciences and behavioral economics has shown that emotion infuses everything we do, including thinking and decision-making. Questions to focus you on the emotional aspect of persuasion are:
Ethos is the audience's perception of a speaker's or writer's character as conveyed through the persuasion. When you are considering what ethos you want to convey, ask these questions:
You can create an inauthentic ethos, but unless you're a great actor, it's hard to disguise yourself. Once an audience senses you're faking it, you usually have little chance of convincing them of anything—except that you're untrustworthy.
You have many means of persuading an audience, from memos and PowerPoints to videos and tweets. The more creative you are with media, the more likely it is that you'll cut through the clutter and distractions enveloping any business audience. But if you aren't sure of what you're trying to do, who you're trying to persuade, and how you can use the persuasive resources available in the situation, the media won't matter.
William Ellet is a lecturer at Harvard Business School.
2010 - The year of the iPad
Remember when there was a debate as to who would be a better NFL quarterback, Payton Manning or Ryan Leaf? Yeah, pretty stupid debate in hind sight. Nowadays no one will admit that they were skeptical about the launch of the iPad. But there we are bunch of them and it seems pretty stupid now. Yes, the iPad has been a "game changer". But this is only the beginning...
By Yoni Heisler
Steve Jobs last week confidently pronounced 2011 to be the year of the iPad 2. With a slew of competing tablets on the horizon, time will tell how the next-gen iPad will actually fair this year. That said, there's no denying that 2010 was, in fact, the year of the iPad. In typical fashion, Apple's offering caught competitors off-guard and resurrected a previously dormant tablet market. While some companies tried to enter the fray, ahem Samsung, Apple's iPad armor was impervious to rival tablets in 2010.
As part of the iPad 2 introduction, Jobs showcased the following video which encapsulates all the interesting uses people have found for the original iPad. The video below is heartwarming, inspiring, and truly shows how much of a game changer the iPad truly was and continues to be.
Who’s Really Scanning All Those QR Codes?
I think there is great value in the QR code concept. Over the past few months, I have used the QR reader on my iPhone to look at ads, products and even connect with people. I thought this article from Mashable and the graphic below did a good job of explaining the concept. As an example, here is my QR code:
Who’s Really Scanning All Those QR Codes?
QR codes are everywhere these days — in fine art exhibits, some cities’ building permits, wrapping paper and every imaginable kind of marketing campaign.
QR code-focused startup JumpScan was kind enough to send along a graphically organized representation of some data they’ve gathered about QR codes — who’s scanning them, what kinds of devices they’re using and what brands are running QR code campaigns.
Cooler still, you can scan every QR code in this infographic to get more info, making this Mashable‘s first interactive infographic. So have your smartphones at the ready, and click the image below if you need to see a larger version.
When you’re done clicking, scanning and learning, riddle us this in the comments section: When was the last time you scanned a QR code, and what did you get out of it? Read post here>>>
Hello Adometry!
Click Forensics Acquires Adometry; Adopts New Company Name
Now Adometry, Company Continues Expansion Into Online Display Ad Verification and Attribution
AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Click Forensics®, Inc. today announced that it has acquired display ad verification technology provider Adometry of Redmond, Washington. In addition, Click Forensics announced it has changed its company name to Adometry. The moves are designed to support the continued expansion of the Click Forensics product line for the display advertising market.
In February 2010, Click Forensics launched a beta version of its cross-channel ad analytics suite for online display advertisers, which was tested by some of the world’s top brands and ad inventory providers. The integrated offering is designed to help advertisers, agencies, ad networks and publishers to manage audience verification attribution and campaign optimization through a single platform.
“The key challenge online marketers face today is accurately measuring and improving the performance of their online ad campaigns as they flow across a changing landscape of ad networks and web sites,” said Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics and the new Adometry. “With the addition of ad verification technology from Adometry, our ad analytics suite integrates all the pieces of display campaign measurement and optimization in a single offering for brand advertisers.”
Over the past year, Click Forensics has continued to build out its technology offerings for display advertisers. The solution suite, which helps brands measure and improve the performance of their online display campaigns, complements Click Forensics ad analytics technology for PPC marketers. Online marketers can also use the two offerings together to manage their hybrid display and PPC campaigns.
“We’re excited to join forces with the Click Forensics team,” said John Dietz, founder of Adometry. “The company works with the world’s top online advertisers, publishers and ad networks. Our technology will enhance the current capabilities Click Forensics provides to display advertisers as we work together to build out new features for its powerful ad analytics suite.”
For more information, visit www.adometry.com or follow us on Twitter: @Adometry.
About Adometry, Inc.
Adometry, formerly Click Forensics, Inc., provides scoring, auditing, verification, and attribution metrics to optimize results for online advertisers, agencies, publishers, and ad networks. Tracking billions of impressions in real-time, reporting on where they appeared, for how long, and to what effect; the Adometry mission is to bring greater levels of transparency and accountability to the online advertising industry. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Adometry is privately held and backed by Sierra Ventures, Austin Ventures, Shasta Ventures and Stanford University. For more information visit www.adometry.com.
Select media coverage:
Click Forensics Acquires, Becomes Adometry And Launches Ad Analytics Suite
TechCrunch - 12 hours ago
Click Forensics this morning announced that it has purchased display ad verification technology provider Adometry and that it will be changing its company name to Adometry as a result of the transaction. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. ...
Click Forensics is now Adometry
Seattle Times (blog) - - 12 hours ago
Redmond analytics startup Adometry is being acquired by Click Forensics, an Austin, Texas-based company. Click Forensics is renaming itself Adometry and will continue investing in the Redmond office, adding two more employees immediately. ...
Click Forensics is now Adometry
InternetRetailer.com - - 7 hours ago
Click Forensics Inc., known for its tools that monitor fraudulent clicks on pay-per-click ads, has acquired online ad analytics firm Adometry Inc. and taken its name. Terms were not disclosed. The combined company will be better able to help ...
Click Forensics Takes Adometry's Name With Its Tech
ADOTAS - 9 hours ago
ADOTAS – Traffic monitor Click Forensics and ad verifier Adometry are looking to be the talk of the online advertising space with their nontraditional integration — can you believe the acquirer is taking the acquiree's name? Heavens to Betsy!...
Click Forensics makes acquisition
Austin American-Statesman (blog) - - 10 hours ago
Austin-based Click Forensics said Tuesday it has acquired display ad verification company Adometry and will make that its new company name. Founded in 2007, Click Forensics develops software that ...
Click Forensics Acquires Adometry; Adopts New Company Name
Business Wire (press release) - 13 hours ago
AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Click Forensics®, Inc. today announced that it has acquired display ad verification technology provider Adometry of Redmond, Washington. In addition, Click Forensics announced it has changed its company name to Adometry. ...
Click Forensics acquires Washington firm
Austin Business Journal - - 11 hours ago
Online fraud detection company Click Forensics Inc. has bought Washington State-based Adometry Inc. and adopted the acquired company's name. Adometry, which was founded in 2008, employed five workers. The company develops display advertising ...
Adometry Acquired By Click Forensics
Northwest innovation - 12 hours ago
Redmond-based Adometry, a provider of online advertising analytics services used by online advertisers, agencies, publishers, and ad networks, has been acquired by Click Forensics. Financial details of the acquisition were not announced....
The Likability of Angry Birds
Are Likes Poised to Replace Links as the Web's Primary Signal? via @steverubel
A thought provoking, well written post by Steve Rubel on the power of "likes". The "like" button, along with retweets are the new signal for interest and impact.
Are Likes Poised to Replace Links as the Web's Primary Signal?By Steve Rubel: SVP, Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, a division of Edelman - the world's largest public relations firm.
For years the mighty hypertext link has served as the web's traffic signal network. Links guide where our clicks, attention and, therefore, money flows. It has given rise to multi-billion-dollar businesses and even entire industries. As the blockbuster AOL/HuffingtonPost deal shows, we truly do live in what Jeff Jarvis calls "The Link Economy." But maybe just maybe that economy could be peaking.
More recently it appears that an equally powerful network of signals has emerged just as certain kinds of links are being called into question in the mainstream press. Enter the like, which Facebook CTO Brett Taylor embraced in 2007 while with Friendfeed and Facebook copied in 2009. It has since flourished under Taylor's lead at Facebook as it mushroomed to 600 million users. These millions have not only emphatically embraced the like on the social network itself, but more importantly across the millions of sites that use Facebook's social plug-ins. Some 65 million Facebook users like things daily. Read full post here>>>
Is this the start of the second dotcom bubble?
- The Observer, Sunday 20 February 2011
- Article history
Loss-making Twitter has been valued at $10bn. Facebook is said to be worth more than Ford. Now, for some investors, the alarm bells are starting to ring.
Two years ago, anthropologist Sekai Farai was awarded a grant by Columbia University to study the technology startup community. Her timing couldn't have been better: a new goldrush is under way as twentysomethings from New York, London and San Francisco dream of making their fortunes from a new generation of internet companies.
Sitting in the lobby of Manhattan's Ace Hotel, one of new-school tech's favourite hangouts, Farai predicts the boom has just begun. "People who not long ago started startups because they couldn't get a job are turning down jobs now," she says. "There's so much money about. The idea that your idea could be the next big idea is very real. There's a real air of excitement." Could it all end in tears? "It always does."
Right now, though, who wouldn't be excited? Every week, one of the new generation of internet firms seems to attract a sky-high valuation. Zynga, the social-network games company that has tempted millions to grow virtual vegetables in its FarmVille game, has been valued at $9bn (£5.54bn). Profitless Twitter is said to be worth $10bn. Groupon, vendor of online discounts, rejected a $6bn offer from Google and is considering a flotation with a potential valuation of $15bn. Tech-watchers say this is just the start: the real boom will come when Facebook, the head boy of the new dotcom frenzy, goes public, probably next year.
This month it emerged that Facebook staff are planning to sell $1bn of private shares at a price that values the private company at $60bn – that's $10bn more than January's valuation and close to 10 times the price Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies paid employees who sold shares in 2009.
The leaps in valuation are dizzying. At its current on-paper price, Facebook's value is somewhere between that of Ford ($55bn) and Visa ($63bn). But that's still less than a third of Google's value, Facebook's arch-rival in the battle for domination on the internet.
Alan Patrick, co-founder of technology consultancy Broadsight, says we are at the beginning of another bubble and that the first breaths have been blown: "A bubble is defined by too much money chasing assets, greater production of those assets, then the need to find a greater fool to buy them."
So far, money is chasing a small group of companies – Facebook, Groupon et al – that could prove to be good investments, says Patrick, who also writes the Broadstuff blog. That was true of other bubbles too: at the start of the US property boom, for example, it was the best houses in the best locations that took off first. Only later did people start speculating on grotty flats in Florida.
According to Patrick, there are 10 tell-tale signs that a bubble is being blown:
■ 1. The arrival of a "New Thing" that cannot be valued in the old way. Dumb-money companies start paying over the odds for New Thing acquisitions.
■ 2. Smart people identify the start of a bubble; New Thing apostles make ever more glowing claims.
■ 3. Startups with founders deemed to have "pedigree" (for example, former employees of New Thing companies) get funded at eye-watering valuations for next to no reason.
■ 4. There is a flurry of new investment funds catering for startups.
■ 5. Companies start getting funded "off the slide deck" (that is, purely on the basis of their PowerPoint presentations) without actually having a product.
■ 6. MBAs leave banks to start up firms.
■ 7. The "big flotation" happens.
■ 8. Banks make a market in the New Thing, investing pension money.
■ 9. Taxi drivers start giving you advice on what stock to buy.
■ 10. A New Thing darling buys an old-world company for stupid money. The end is nigh.
This time social media is the New Thing. Its most earnest acolytes claim that the likes of Twitter and Facebook are a revolution in human communications unseen since Gutenberg started printing the Bible. They aren't making money, but they are worth a fortune. Two smart cookies – Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, and Michael Arrington, creator of the influential technology blog TechCrunch – have sold their publications to AOL, a company not noted for the astuteness of its recent decisions. Tick off stage 1.
The second stage looks tickable, too. Fred Wilson, investor at Union Square Ventures and a veteran of the 1999/2000 dotcom bubble, has been sounding the alarm for some time. In a recent interview with TechCrunch, Wilson said he was worried that a two- or three-person startup could get a $50m-$100m valuation. "To me that's not in the realm of reasonable," Wilson said.
He even went as far as to name names – in particular Quora, a questions-and-answers site set up by Facebook alumni Adam D'Angelo and Charlie Cheever that raised $11m in funding last year at a price that valued the company at $86m. Now it is reportedly fending off offers for $330m. See stage 3 above.
Mark Cuban, the investor who made a fortune in the first dotcom boom, has compared the current funding frenzy to a pyramid scheme. In another recent interview, David Cohen, managing director of the well-known Silicon Valley start-up fund TechStars, says there is a bubble in the number of companies financing startups. Cross off stage 4.
The last dotcom boom really took off after the flotation of the internet software company Netscape in 1995. Patrick says this time it's likely to be Facebook that lights the fuse. So far, private investors have been locked out of the New Thing. But JP Morgan is setting up a fund, and Goldman Sachs recently tried to get its clients' money into Facebook. That would take us all the way to stage 8, in which case we're just waiting for stages 9 and 10 – where cabbies get in on the act and the game goes into reverse.
Not everybody agrees. Sumon Sadhu, director of intelligence at Quid, a Silicon Valley consultancy, sees a lot of money but no bubble. He calculates that in the fourth quarter of 2010 consumer internet firms attracted $2.5bn in new investments, up from $949m for the previous quarter. But the number of companies getting the cash rose from 226 in the third quarter to just 252 in the fourth.
"The money is following the money," says Sadhu. Something new is happening, he argues: social media has created a vast new source of information about the people using the web. Sites such as Facebook are building a far more rounded picture of a person's identity – and that is worth a fortune.
"The first wave of internet firms gave us an explosion of information. Now we need filters – we need to trust where that information is coming from," says Sadhu. "That's what's being monetised now. With any business cycle it's going to be evolutionary, but there is seldom excess with a total lack of fundamentals."
From an anthropologist's perspective, Farai is not so sure. "There are elements out there that are pyramid-esque, Ponzi-esque, maybe even Kafkaesque," she says. "There's a sense that this isn't real money. In the long run, that can't be good." Maybe, maybe not. The sad truth is, we'll only really know that this was a bubble if it bursts.
'Taking Chance'... a movie we all need to see
Last night I watched, "Taking Chance". It is the story of a Lt. Col. who volunteered to escort the remains of a fallen Marine to his hometown. The story is true and based on the experience of Lt. Col. Michael Strobl. I was deeply moved by the story and the film does a terrrific job of portraying the events. Lt. Col. Strobl wrote an account of his experience. You can find it here >>>
On the way from Dover AFB to the hometown of PFC Chance Phelps, Strobl saw what the heart of Americans truely looks like. The level of compassion from strangers was amazing. The respect for those serving was profound. And the appreciation of a young man, willing to give his life for his country and others, was deeply moving.
Sometimes, we forget the sacrifice made by those serving our country. Sometimes we get caught up in the politics of war and lose sight of the fact that there are men and women dying. Often, we fail to pay respect to those in service and their familes back home who suffer loss for a greater good.
Whatever your political or religious views, as Americans... we should not forget. Watch the movie and for at least 2 hours, you will be reminded in a beautiful and honorable way. For me, this film will have a sustaining affect. I hope it does for you as well.
Tom Cuthbert
Wait for it... "Carmelo Anthony Trade Rumors: Are 4 First Rounders Too Much To Give Up for Nets?" umm, yes :)
My take: Carmelo is a terrific player... but why mortgage your future when the balance of your team (with Melo) still can't compete immediately? Carmelo Anthony is the subject of a major trade rumor today? It's a shocker, I know. Reports are that a trade agreement has tentatively been reached by the New Jersey Nets and the Denver Nuggets. The trade would send Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Sheldon Williams, Melvin Ely and Renaldo Balkman to the Nets in exchange for Devin Harris, Derrick Favors, Troy Murphy, Ben Uzoh and four first-round picks. Four first-round picks? Really? It sounded impossible at first, since teams can't trade consecutive draft picks under the Stepien rule, but the Nets actually have enough first-round picks in 2011 and 2012 to pull this off. Should they actually be trading these first-round draft picks though?
Happy 100th Anniversary Gaido's
JC Penney Fires Back at Google and New York Times Over SEO Controversy via @PCMag
By Sara Yin
Over the weekend the New York Times published a damning expose of how JC Penney allegedly gamed Google's page-ranking algorithm, which artificially made the retailer a top search result. On Monday, JC Penney fired back at both theNew York Times and Google for misrepresenting the company.
"The characterization of JC Penney in the New York Times article is misleading and unwarranted," wrote Darcie Brossart, vice-president of corporate communcations at JC Penney, in an e-mail.
Responding to Google's reaction of burying links to JCPenney.com in its search results, she added, "We have no record of ever having received a violation notification from Google before last week when the unauthorized links came to our attention. If we had, we would have worked quickly to remedy the situation, as we are doing now. Obviously, we are disappointed that Google has reduced our rankings."
The original story, "The Dirty Little Secrets of Search" by David Segal, details how JC Penney allegedly manipulated unpaid, organic search results to make itself the top listing for numerous generic terms like "dresses" and "area rugs." The New York Times hired a search engine optimization firm, Blue Fountain Media in New York, to show how this was done.
Using a well-known trick called "black hat" optimization, JC Penney's now-fired SEO firm SearchDex apparently created artificial websites that linked to JC Penney's site. The links helped push JC Penney pages to the top of Google search results; one known aspect behind Google's top-secret page-ranking algorithm is that the more times your website is linked, the higher up you rank in a search result.
Google told PCMag that even before Times reporter Segal contacted the search giant with the results of his investigation, it had already discovered the issue and changed its page-ranking algorithm after spotting suspicious activity from JC Penney and other companies. Google has an entire team, the Web Spam Team, devoted to detecting search-result spam and amending its page rank algorithm.
However, after looking at Segal's findings, Google concluded that JC Penney had also violated Google's Webmaster Guidelines. The company reacted by burying JC Penney's search results, and as the NYT notes, now when you search for something like "Samsonite carry on luggage" JC Penney is the 71st search result instead of the first.
"When someone is looking for information on Google, we want them to find the most relevant answers possible. Our search algorithm relies on more than 200 signals to help people find the answers they're looking for, and when websites violate our published webmaster guidelines to try and game the system, that's bad for users and we are willing to take manual corrective action," a Google spokesman said.
JC Penney denies involvement with the black hatting techniques of SearchDex.
"JC Penney was in no way involved in the posting of the links discussed in the article. We did not authorize them and we were not aware that they had been posted. To be clear, we do not tolerate violations of our policies regarding natural search, which reflect Google's guidelines," Brossart wrote.
"The Dirty Little Secrets of Search" via @ nytimes
PRETEND for a moment that you are Google’s search engine. Someone types the word “dresses” and hits enter. What will be the very first result? There are, of course, a lot of possibilities. Macy’s comes to mind. Maybe a specialty chain, like J. Crew or the Gap. Perhaps a Wikipedia entry on the history of hemlines. O.K., how about the word “bedding”? Bed Bath & Beyond seems a candidate. Or Wal-Mart, or perhaps the bedding section of Amazon.com. “Area rugs”? Crate & Barrel is a possibility. Home Depot, too, and Sears, Pier 1 or any of those Web sites with “area rug” in the name, like arearugs.com. You could imagine a dozen contenders for each of these searches. But in the last several months, one name turned up, with uncanny regularity, in the No. 1 spot for each and every term: J. C. Penney. The company bested millions of sites — and not just in searches for dresses, bedding and area rugs. For months, it was consistently at or near the top in searches for “skinny jeans,” “home decor,” “comforter sets,” “furniture” and dozens of other words and phrases, from the blandly generic (“tablecloths”) to the strangely specific (“grommet top curtains”). This striking performance lasted for months, most crucially through the holiday season, when there is a huge spike in online shopping. J. C. Penney even beat out the sites of manufacturers in searches for the products of those manufacturers. Type in “Samsonite carry on luggage,” for instance, and Penney for months was first on the list, ahead of Samsonite.com. With more than 1,100 stores and $17.8 billion in total revenue in 2010, Penney is certainly a major player in American retailing. But Google’s stated goal is to sift through every corner of the Internet and find the most important, relevant Web sites. Does the collective wisdom of the Web really say that Penney has the most essential site when it comes to dresses? And bedding? And area rugs? And dozens of other words and phrases? The New York Times asked an expert in online search, Doug Pierce of Blue Fountain Media in New York, to study this question, as well as Penney’s astoundingly strong search-term performance in recent months. What he found suggests that the digital age’s most mundane act, the Google search, often represents layer upon layer of intrigue. And the intrigue starts in the sprawling, subterranean world of “black hat” optimization, the dark art of raising the profile of a Web site with methods that Google considers tantamount to cheating. Despite the cowboy outlaw connotations, black-hat services are not illegal, but trafficking in them risks the wrath of Google. The company draws a pretty thick line between techniques it considers deceptive and “white hat” approaches, which are offered by hundreds of consulting firms and are legitimate ways to increase a site’s visibility. Penney’s results were derived from methods on the wrong side of that line, says Mr. Pierce. He described the optimization as the most ambitious attempt to game Google’s search results that he has ever seen. “Actually, it’s the most ambitious attempt I’ve ever heard of,” he said. “This whole thing just blew me away. Especially for such a major brand. You’d think they would have people around them that would know better.” To understand the strategy that kept J. C. Penney in the pole position for so many searches, you need to know how Web sites rise to the top of Google’s results. Read full article here >>>One of the most well written and comprehensive looks inside search advertising I have read...
Photo illustration by The New York Times
By DAVID SEGAL
Published: February 12, 2011
Investment into the Digital Advertising space is heating up
Venture capital and M&A activity is heating up in the digital advertising space. Money is flowing in at a faster pace than last year... by far. Here are some relevant stats from January 2011:
- There were 196 marketing / digital commerce deals in January totaling $8.5B
- (This compares to 70 deals and $3.3B a year earlier)
- 82 of the deals were growth / investment capital with the balance being M&A
- Digital advertising (which includes ad networks, exchanges and online lead generation) was the most active subset with 18 deals totaling $316M in investment capital
- $200M of this however, went to Adknowledge at a reported valuation of $900M
- The average investment (excluding Adknowledge) was $6.8M
- The weighted average multiples are amazing... 2.7X revenue and 13.3X EDITDA
I see a good deal of consolidation and money flowing in to expand the "white space" below Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Adknowledge is a great example, now the number 4 digital advertising network. After doubling revenue to $300M in 2010, Adknowledge is using the funding for acquisitions. They have a narrow focus, putting advertisers together with sites considered the "remainder of the internet".
This is a bigger market than people might think. The investment into this space shows that the growth and consolodation opportunity is significant. If you are in this space, now is the time to move. The tipping point has arrived. I would be interested in your perspective, feel free to post a comment or contact me with your thoughts.
Tom Cuthbert
Crooks Can Make You Pay For Their @Starbucks With Simple Screengrab
Researchers have discovered a security flaw in the new Starbucks Rewards Card iPhone app that could let someone else rack up a bunch of free coffees on your dime. All someone has to do is take a picture of your barcode and then they can use it to buy all the delicious black swill they want, draining your account to the last drop. "If companies accept the representation of the card without verifying the device through some of the other contactless, RFID or other proximity methods," Kelley Langford, vice president of sales and marketing at System Innovators, told Mobile Commerce Daily, "then they are naive and will be victimized." The hack depends on someone getting access to your phone, so just don't let it out of your sight and you'll probably be fine. You can also make sure to password-protect your iPhone and/or use the password protection feature on the Starbucks app. Unless of course someone hides a camera in the Starbucks near the point of purchase and uses it to capture customers' barcodes... We've reached out to Starbucks for comment.
In fact, I can picture the story now.... "Russian Gangs use spycams to harvest Starbucks barcodes, resell on the black (coffee) market....a full starbucks card goes for $1, they're sold in bulk over secret online IRC chatrooms...Savvy criminals know to only slowly drain the accounts, buying a macchiato here, a rice krispie treat there...Lisa Tampanelli first began to suspect that she was a victim of Starbucks card theft after she checked her statement and saw charges for items she would never buy..."Chocolate frappacino blasts? Black and white cookies? I'm a strict no-drip cafe au lait girl."
Texas Humor between Austin and San Antonio
Twitter Set New Tweets Per Second Record During Super Bowl
Twitter users set a new tweets per second record during the Super Bowl Sunday, the microblogging service announced Wednesday.
At 10:07:16 p.m. ET — one of the final moments of the game — 4,064 tweets were sent, the highest number of tweets sent in a single second during a sporting event.
That’s a healthy jump over the 3,283 tweets per second set during the World Cup in June 2010. Twitter users actually broke that record six times over the course of the game, Twitter disclosed in a blog post. The second-highest peak occurred when Usher made a surprise appearance during the Black Eyed Peas‘s halftime show performance.
Despite the Twittersphere’s intense interest in the game, it still wasn’t enough to break the all-time record of 6,939 tweets per second, which was set shortly after midnight on New Year’s Eve in Japan.
The Real Reason No One Reads Privacy Policies via @mashable
by
It was quite in vogue last year to be incensed over the privacy-related misdeeds of a certain monolithic social network, but let’s be honest — did anyone ever read the privacy policy to begin with? How about the Terms of Service?
Most of us eagerly (or irritatedly) scroll through the miles of legalese and click on the “I Agree — Sign Me Up!” button without reading a single word of what we’re agreeing to. Most of the time, there are no negative consequences, but every now and then, not knowing what you’re getting into can end up biting you. The website or app you’re signing up for could simply be tracking your clicks for their own internal measurement tools, but it could also be gathering data to sell to marketers and advertisers. It could be selling your contact information to a third party, as well. So why don’t more privacy-craving consumers read the privacy policies of the apps they use? The overwhelming answer is they’re just too long. The longest privacy policies among the top 1,000 websites would take around 45 minutes to read. The average policy takes around 10 minutes to read. And while most of the websites (72%, in fact) allow users to opt out of tracking mechanisms, around 40% require their users to take a few extra clicks to the Network Advertising Initiative’s website to opt out. What do you think: Should privacy policies and terms of service be short and sweet enough for users to actually read them, or do you think that would increase tracking opt-outs enough that it would hurt the companies in question?
This infographic was created by SelectOut, an ad-tracking opt-out initiative, with data collected from the top 1,000 websites as per Quantcast.
Happy 100th Birthday President Reagan...
... and thank you. You have been the best in my lifetime.