Google Makes Being Bad to Customers Bad for Business
The New York Times reported that one company, Decor My Eyes, was able to game the Google algorithms to get customers. The twist here is that they didn’t find some slick tech exploit or technique, they just engaged in a campaign of harassment against the costumer. This garnered a lot of negative attention on the web due to bad reviews, but that didn’t stop them from ranking well in the search engines. As far as Google’s ranking algorithm was concerned, there was no difference between a bad review and a good review, both could get you on the first page of the search results…until now. In response to the story, Google actually changed their algorithms.
We were horrified to read about Ms. Rodriguez’s dreadful experience. Even though our initial analysis pointed to this being an edge case and not a widespread problem in our search results, we immediately convened a team that looked carefully at the issue. That team developed an initial algorithmic solution, implemented it, and the solution is already live. I am here to tell you that being bad is, and hopefully will always be, bad for business in Google’s search results.
While this seems like a logical response, some argue that Google should remain a “dumb” search engine. Do you think this is a smart move or is Google, as a search engine, over-stepping their bounds?
Flock 3.5 Comes Out Swinging After RockMelt Launch
For some odd reason, the tech world was buzzing with the launch of the RockMelt social web browser. Everyone acted as if Flock didn’t even exist and this seems to have sparked the Flock team to action. Flock has been in the game since 2005 and recently announced that it now has 9.5 million users based on installs. They aren’t going to roll over and let RockMelt take their shine. In addition to moving the backend from Chromium 5 to Chromium 7, Flock has created a 24 point comparison chart which goes in on the infant RockMelt browser. I’m not sure which is better at this point, but I spend a lot of time in my browser and connected to social media so it’s interesting to finally see real competition in this space. Who will come out on top?
via Mashable
RIM Kicks Kik
Kik seemed like the best thing since sliced bread when it began to gain popularity earlier this month. Who can balk at free real-time texting that works across just about all major mobile platforms? Actually, someone did balk and that someone is RIM. They didn’t take kindly to Kik and kicked Kik out of the Blackberry app store on the 12th, just a few weeks after their re-launch. A pretty big blow to a service which grabbed 2.5 million users after only a month. It’s easy to see why RIM would be upset with Kik competing with their Blackberry Messenger service and Blackberry has made this clear by filing a lawsuit against Kik. The lawsuit alleges patent infringement, user privacy violations, and what could be seen as corporate espionage as Kik CEO Ted Livingston worked at RIM as part of the BBM group in 2007 to 2008.
Verizon LTE Too Fast for Your Data Plan
According to PC Magazine, the new Verizon LTE network can blow through your $50 5GB data plan in about 32 minutes. This pretty much makes the service useless for anyone who would want to actually use the service. Verizon has always hinted that the launch of LTE would change the way plans are structured and it’s pretty obvious that a basic tiered model isn’t going to cut it. Hopefully, we will see plans and features geared toward power users in the future. For now, LTE will only work for casual users and hardcore geeks should probably steer clear.