All's Well in Amazonia North... or Is It?
A few short years ago, this would have been unthinkable. Actually, in Canada, make that a few months ago.
Wednesday around 4 p.m. I ordered two books from Amazon.ca (Jim Sterne's Web Metrics and Jim Cramer's You Got Screwed!). Both arrived on my doorstep the following a.m. I'm already enjoying Cramer's excellent and witty dissection of the Enron and WorldCom money trails. Also, shipping was free.
Amazon's delivering books 16 hours after you order them. Yahoo and eBay are turning healthy profits. Wasn't all this supposed to come "crashing down"?
After a few more corrupt CEO's and their accountants get hauled away in handcuffs, and maybe a half-dozen analysts, and for good measure, let's throw in a couple of the most annoying TV financial reporters... this economy will be ready to roll! Yep, things are really looking up!
Then again, I'm not going to get too complacent. The Amazon order came with, you guessed it, a promotional AOL CD. Visionary wunderkind billionaire technophobe Steve Case may be gone, but his legacy, and I do mean legacy, lives on. We're not out of the woods just yet.
Posted by Andrew
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"This is Spam" - Still!
Yahoo's much improved spam filtering on Yahoo Mail has won kudos from many analysts, including me. It does a fine job of catching most bulk mail. And when a spam e-mail does manage to wiggle past the main filter, you have the option of designating the message as spam and sending it to Yahoo for them to review. Presumably they'll use these reports to study the messages to see why they got through and thus improve their filters.
Well, I've been reporting messages as spam for months now, and I still get the same recurring spam e-mails for mortgages, viagra and free porn passwords. Come on, Yahoo. I'm paying for this crap, so please update your spam filter to start catching this same old spam!
Posted by Cory
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Wednesday, January 15, 2003
Yahoo! Hottest of the Hot in Photo Sharing
Yahoo! Photos leads the hot photo-sharing category, according to a study just released by comScore Media Metrix.
Top 10 Photo-Sharing Web Sites
Unique Visitors (000)
November 2002
U.S. Home, Work & University Locations
Total Home Work Univ.
Photo-Sharing Category 13,014 9,209 3,439 834
Yahoo! Photos 5,248 3,655 1,320 412
MSN Photos 2,004 1,385 530 109
Ofoto 1,278 810 491 38
Picturetrail.com 1,210 895 228 137
Snapfish.com 897 717 185 32
Shutterfly.com 822 575 232 55
Picture.com 747 493 265 27
Imagestation.com 477 347 124 28
Photoparade.com 430 359 68 19
Photoworks.com 427 359 68 1
Posted by Andrew
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AltaVista: The Spam Company
Don't they know when to quit? AltaVista, formerly a technology company and now nearly indistinguishable from primordial goo, spammed me yet again today (full text below). One thing I just *love* is when somebody's automated "bot" determines that I am advertising with Google on "term x" and uses that information to spam me with "say, Joe, I notice you are advertising on the term PRIMORDIAL SLIME: you can buy this same term tied to banners on AltaVista for a low, low price..." .
That's why I advertise, of course, so I can have my ad clicked on by someone's bot (costing me money) so they can spam me later! The worst bloody thing about this is that the bot is from AltaVista, the same company that wants people like me to help the chief scientist get the word out about AV's great new features!
And doesn't it strike you as odd that AltaVista would offer an indexing option called "Trusted Feed"? Trust works both ways.
Here we go again:
Marketing Director,
Enhance your presence on Altavista with one of our many opportunities:
1. Keyword targeted #1 Sponsored Match Text Link and 468 x 60 Banner.
2. Homepage 70 Unit: Brand New, allows for both graphical and textual
representation on the homepage.
3. Trusted Feed: For partners with over 500 URL's, guaranteed inclusion in
our index for all of your URLs.
4. Run of Site Banners: Get that message out there loud and clear to
millions of eyes at a $.65 CPM.
5. Dealtime Shopping: Our exclusive shopping partner, great for the
holidays.
Please forward me a list of keywords and I will send you back a proposal
that will help you reach your companies goals. If it's not keyword
advertising you're looking for, then we can explore all the other options on
Altavista.
Let me know if you have any further questions.
Cheers,
Will Harwood
Sales Manager
AltaVista Company
P) 312 899-0720
F) 312 577-0845
Email) will.harwood@av.com
You know where you can stick it, Will.
Sincerely,
Andrew Goodman
Exasperated Former Search Engine Journalist
P.S. You are not men. You are devo.
Posted by Andrew
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Monday, January 13, 2003
Google: PageRank Protected by First Amendment
The SearchKing lawsuit may be tossed out of court soon. With good reason.
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/files/Google_SearchKing_Response.pdf
(Warning: PDF file.)
Posted by Andrew
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