Google, Prostitution and Paid Links

When is it against the rules to sell something that you can give away for free? When you’re dealing with sex or links.

This is the kind of hypocrisy that has always smacked me. If I can do something legally of my own free will, the reason that I choose to do it should be of no one’s interest. It doesn’t matter if the “police” are the actual vice squad or simply Google’s spider.

Yet, it does matter and very much. In the real world, at least in the U.S., being or seeing a prostitute can land you in jail and, likewise, selling your PageRank can result in a giant PageSpank.

Though I don’t think paid linking is “right”, there is a certain element here that has me worried as Google has created a whole economy around linking. Before Google, people just linked to help others find information. However, Google recognized that turned it into a search algorithm that remains the best available. Along the way though, linking took on a new significance, one that Google has done little to discourage.

But with that significance and Google’s rise to prominence commercial value became applicable to links. More links meant higher search engine rankings and those meant more customers. Google, understandably, thought this could hurt their search engine so they’ve been declaring an open war on paid linking, reducing or banning sites that participate in it and casting a dragnet that has caught many legitimate Webmasters.

The problem is that this is Google’s own monster, one created by their system. They hitched their wagon to a flawed factor of determining page value and, by becoming as popular as they did, ruined it.

Now, Google is trying to control it and doing it in a way that punishes people that try and profit from the system they created. Though Google is quick to say that they are not trying to tell people what to do with their site, they know full and well that, for a site to survive, they have to bow before the Google Gods. But they are an angry and vengeful God, even when they created the playing field. Read more

5 Steps to Fixing Opera

Somewhere between the sleek look and simple stylings of Safari and the open source can-do-anything-but-make-you-breakfast feel of Firefox, there exists another browser. Opera.

Opera is the almost forgotten brother of the browser war. Though Internet Explorer seems to be the “successful for no good reason” sibling that the others despise and direct their anger toward, Opera is the one sitting in the corner, reading a book and struggling to make friends.

But Opera’s lack of social skills is to be expected. Though the browser has done reasonably well in both the embeddable and the mobile market its desktop application has faltered, unable to gain any real momentum.

The reason is that, much like myself in high school, the browser has spent too much time hitting the books and not enough time learning how to deal with people. The Internet has moved forward and left Opera behind and, if it is going to catch up, it needs to start studying a very different book, the book of real life.

In the meantime, here are five things that, if Opera were to fix, I would seriously consider using their browser full-time. Read more

How Google Screws Paying Customers

If you use Gmail, this was a banner week for you. For the first time in years, you can now skin your Gmail without the need to use plugins, extensions or CSS hacks. This is a feature that I have been craving for months, nay, years.

While I’ve appreciated the efforts of amateur coders and some were able to create some cool themes for Gmail, they were always unreliable, especially as Gmail updated its interface, and the selection was always weak. So, news that Google had launched not one, but 30 plus new themes for its mail service had me, and others like me, dancing in the street.

But alas, my dancing was short-lived. When I logged into my Gmail account, it was not there. Even now, after nearly two days, the option is still not there. My wife is tempting me with her shiny new theme and most of my friends have theirs, but I am alone.

The reason is that I am a Google Apps user. Though I don’t pay for my Google Apps account, many of my friends do and they too are without themes, as well as Labs and other popular Gmail features.

We Google Apps users are getting a raw deal. Whether we are paid or unpaid, we are more intimately tied to Google than most Gmail users and we are getting an inferior product to those that just signed up for a @gmail.com account.

This is no way to treat your customer and is an excellent example of why Google should never, ever, get in the business of customer service. They simply have no clue what they are doing. Read more

The Hotel Paradox

photo credit: the_toe_stubber

Over the past year I have had the opportunity to do a great deal of traveling and I am eternally grateful for it. Nearly a dozen conferences have invited me to speak and most have been generous enough to provide me a hotel room to stay at. 

Though I have no complaints about my accommodations anywhere that I have been, it has given me a strange and unique opportunity to stay at a wide variety of hotels all over the world. From inexpensive chain hotels to b&bs to several very high-end establishments, I’ve probably stayed in them all within the past 12 months.

In this time, I’ve noticed something very unusual. There seems to be something of a paradox in the world of hotels. The nicer a hotel is, the less you actually get for your stay. Where there are some products where price paid has no effect on the quality of service, hotels seem to have taken the whole “You get what you pay for” cliche and turned it around, ensuring that you always pay for what you don’t get. 

It’s a frustrating kludge that has me wondering if, as customers, if we have gotten the whole idea of what makes a good hotel completely wrong and, rather than an abstract star system, its time we actually rate hotels based upon whether they actually provide what we need. 

I know it’s a radical idea, but I think it may be one whose time has come. Read more

Haunt Review: The Mortuary

The Mortuary is the anti-thesis to the previously-reviewed Camber of Horrors. Where the CoH is a low-budget, high-heart affair, The Mortuary is a high-budget, low-heart one.

You can tell from the second you drive by the two-story buildings with its large columns and lighted facade that you entering into a haunt that has spent a great deal of money on their setup. As you tour through their winding corridors and narrow hallways, that belief is reaffirmed with their high-end animatronics and decorations.

This haunt cost a lot of money and it shows. However, money can not buy a great haunted house experience, only the toys to build it with. The question for The Mortuary isn’t whether they have neat stuff, but what they did with it.

It’s a tough question with a rather complicated answer. Read more

The AM/PM Problem

photo credit: klwatts

Of all of the inventions man has released upon himself, I do not believe any is more despised than the alarm clock. Sure, nuclear warheads may take more of the heat in philosophical circles, but no one throws their shoes at a ballistic missile every morning (we might think twice if we did).

The simple truth is that this in an invention we created with the express intent of annoying ourselves. It is a trade off of, it waking us up from our beautiful sleep and, in return, we don’t get fired. Pretty simple.

Yet, clockmakers seem to be determined to increase the hatred hurled at their creations not just by making the alarms more annoying and harder to ignore, but by blessing them with a design flaw that practically guarantees they fail at least some of the time.

What is the flaw? The AM/PM issue. The one where you set the alarm for 6:30 AM only to be roused out of bed just in time for dinner at 6:30 PM. Why does it happen? Because clockmakers let it happen. Read more

How Google Screwed Up My Gmail Mobile

I don’t have a very nice phone. In fact, my phone is nothing short of dated. When my contract is up in a few months I’ll probably take the opportunity to upgrade networks and get a Blackberry or an iPhone. In the meantime, I’m stuck with my Fusic, a hybrid MP3 player/phone that does neither all that well

But despite my dissatisfaction with the Fusic, it does what I need it to for the most part. Call quality is good, battery life is within reason and it is capable of mobile broadband speeds. If it had a bigger screen and a full keyboard, I’d doubt I’d care too much about its flaws.

The truth is that, realistically, there are only a few apps that I use. However, the most important, by far, is the Gmail Mobile app. It is the one app I use multiple times a day and something I’ve come to rely upon.

The first version of the app was great, a flawed gem perhaps, but solid. I would use it whenever I had a few minutes to flip open, check my mail and close it back up. It was so simple to use, it almost became an obsession, causing me to check my mail any time I found myself idle for longer than five minutes.

When I heard that Google had released a second version of the app, I was excited. Already a Gmail junkie, I thought this was my chance to get an even more robust mobile experience.

Boy was I wrong.

Though most people seem to be singing the praises of the Gmail Mobile, I am singing the blues. For me and my phone, this app has been a total disaster. Maybe when I upgrade my handset my song will change, but right now there is simply no excuse for how bad Gmail Mobile has become.

What went wrong? Well, I’ll tell you? Read more