Salesforce.com

It appears that if you submit listings to salesforce.com you can earn points and kudos.

It also appears that the listing information does not have to be accurate! Within 24 hours of tempusfugit.ca being resurrected a listing was found (due to looking in an AWStats report) for me at an address that is incorrect.

Looking to see who posted the listing it appears that the individual was involved in a thread on the salesforce.com forum where the discussion about the number of points that are earned for a given number of listings.

My previous postings on Social CRM (Customer Relationship Management) seem to have my suspicions on their value as a viable business tool confirmed.

Links:

• My previous post on Salesforce.com and Social CRM

Making search more secure

This is a review of what I had posted on my website with respect to a change that Google had announced with respect to the security of searches and the reasons they claimed that they were making the changes. I thought, as did others, that the change was more to keep the information and metrics within the Google fold, G+, rather than anything to do with security.

The change claimed that the search terms that a visitor had used to find your site would not show in Google Analytics (exact quote shown below) only that the search would be seen as "organic". This has proven to be the case as a lot of the searches that I see hitting this blog the keyword is reporting as "not set" or "not provided" (I think that it is the former that indicates that the visitor is signed in the their Google account).

The reason for this re-posting is that it seems that the reporting of keywords in Google Analytics is proving to be of less and less value. What was an excellent way of determining what visitors where looking for it now seems that the location, City -  Region - Country) is of more  use. It is also observed that the visits logged as "not set" appear as bounce rate and exit of less than 100% but no navigation history is logged in Analytics.

The trigger for this was that I was trying to determine why a visitor was interested in CRM systems but I could not see what they were searching for. This was a visitor from Nice, France - the Bounce and Exit were 100% but this was more to do with the lack of links on the page: CRM - Customer Relationship Management. This has now been fixed along with the "open the outbound links in a new window" - which should result on the visitor staying on my blog and hopefully clicking on something else, thus recording a paper trail.

What Google say about being "signed-in":

When a signed in user visits your site from an organic Google search, all web analytics services, including Google Analytics, will continue to recognize the visit as Google "organic" search, but will no longer report the query terms that the user searched on to reach your site. Keep in mind that the change will affect only a minority of your traffic. You will continue to see aggregate query data with no change, including visits from users who aren't signed in and visits from Google "cpc".

Has your LinkedIn password been hacked?

This seems to be pretty typical of the way that LinkedIn is run in the first place.

Schadenfreude for the users of such networks I think is in order.

Here are a few links:

• LinkedIn: We see no security breach... so far  Lance Whitney, CNet, June 6, 2012
• My pages on LinkedIn on this Blog
• Social Networking Main Start Page
• Download the torrent of all the passwords - so that you can decode the passwords
• Why Anonymity Matters 
• Whether to use Social Media for business 

6 Million passwords published on-line. Just think what a hacker can do if they have access to your account. I hope that you haven't pissed anyone off!

Sir Tim on the Beeb

Sir Tim Berners-Lee was interviewed on Radio 4 today.

He was promoting the use of data in a truly public manner. He reckoned that "nerds" could solve the economic situation. This is not new for him, see link below from 2010.

He does think that that UK's recent calls for the Security services to have greater powers to perform surveillance on UK citizens as being dangerous. I agree with him on this point but disagree about the sharing of public data. The very recent situation with the IPO of Facebook is a prime example of that. It has been cited that the reason for the lack of acceptance is the deficiency of the Facebook platform in its ability to serve up ads to the mobile user. The use of data in an anonymous form is, in my opinion, an anathema to the the advertising industry i.e. businesses in general. If businesses cannot target consumers then they will not pay up for the service.

• Tim Berners-Lee launches UK public data website - Kevin Anderson guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 January 2010
• Is this an April Fool's joke? - A BBC article that was posted on 1st April 2012 about proposed increases in government powers.
• Email and web use 'to be monitored' under new laws  BBC News 1 April 2012

The reason that publicly available data is not going to be a viable for those that are capable of extracting and manipulating it, is because the sad fact of life is that big business makes the world go round. Sure, anonymous data, medical and the like, could be useful - but to make it valuable it needs to have a commercial value. To get this value will be difficult. It is another case of the lowest common denominator and you only have to look at the efforts of companies such as Groupon and FourSquare. Here we have the promise of discounts in a trade for your information. Information that is valuable to adverizers, public information is much less valuable by its very nature. To turn this into value that is greater than that generated by greed will be extremely difficult.

This coupled with the potential of abuse from those that are unscrupulous to link the anonymous information with identities makes it a non-starter in my opinion. Although I generally agree with Tim I think that he is being rather naive to thing that all you need to do is to get the architects of this new data source/pool to agree to keep it anonymous.

What is the true value of Facebook

In light of the IPO it is worth an analysis of what the true value of Facebook is.

• All posts relating to Facebook on The Technology Muse

There is no doubt in my mind that there will be those that will make a short-term profit out of the IPO. Some, especially the private investor and those that live in countries outside the US, Canada, UK etc, those will have a tougher time in obtaining a slice of the pie.

I really don't get the numbers. I have read that the valuation (by Facebook) represents around $100 per Facebook member. I have also heard that only 1 in a 1,000 of Facebook users actually click on an ad that they see in Facebook. I find it hard to see how that all ads up???

--------------------------------------------

Update 18 May 2012.

The IPO flat price was $38 - it quickly peaked at $42.

I decided not to buy in-to the IPO. If anything an extension of our Apple holdings might be a better idea. I don't think that the 1,000% plus gain on the original investment in Apple is going to be repeated in anyway with the Facebook offering. Even the second purchase of Apple is doing well at +50% or so, and analysts are saying that a price of $750 to $1,000 are not out of the question.

I think the situation was a bit like the Tim Horton's IPO, there was much muttering from those that could not get in at the start. The institutional investors were there in force, pushing up the price on IPO day and selling to make a quick profit. This was what happened with FB, the $38 offering price opened at $42 and then closed a smidgen over $38. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of weeks.

Unlike Tim Horton's I don't think I will bother when the price comes down. I had some "Timmies" before in any case as I bought Wendy's stock before they were spun off - I couldn't ignore the lines outside all the outlets I drove past. I don't understand that either, the coffee that is, but there is no doubt about TH's popularity.

• Facebook IPO: Will it be a success? Tell us what you think! Canada.com May 18, 2012. 10:59 am - 71% think that Facebook will crash just like Myspace, Friendster and all the others.

Bloomberg set $25 target:

Facebook Anonymity

Is true anonymity possible in a "Facebook World"?

It amazes me to see how some businesses have adopted the "Facebook mentality" and approach to carry out operations. Whether this is because "Social" is the new way of communicating by the younger generation or is it more efficient?

Seeing that Facebook are about to "go public" it is worth considering what the true value of Facebook is.

Businesses hope to realize advertizing coverage when they have Facebook accounts. Private Facebook users cannot be anonymous if they are to be identified by potential business interests. An anonymous Facebook user is useless to a Business. Lucky for Business the majority of Facebook users can be identified. That is the name of the game - there is little point in using Facebook if you can't be identified. Also, those that do not want to be identified are probably not using Facebook in the first place.

The Facebook "like" button

What really happens when you press the "like" button.

The "Like" button is one of Facebook's methods of capturing your Internet activity.

When you click on the "Like" button you are giving Facebook permission to "share" your details with the website that the button appears. That means that if the button is on a business website then you can expect "targeted" advertizing from that company, all the other "friends" in your friend list will know that you "Like" this product and all your friends will also receive targeted ads.

This concept, along with the Google + button, is a key element of Social Networks and how they can generate revenue.

Links:

• Judge: Facebook Likes not protected by First Amendment Emil Protalinski ZDNet, May 4, 2012
• My campaign to boycott the "Like" and "+" buttons
• The Google Plus button - also Google's answer to Facebook (Circles)
• All post on The Technology Muse related to Social Media - a comment of what I think that it all about.

How to remove inappropriate content from the Web

There was a time when it was not considered that what you posted on the Internet would come back to haunt you in later years.

The major problem with the removal of undesirable postings is that the majority of web site owners and administrators do not know how to remove content from their websites.

If you are in the unenviable position that there are things from the past that appear when people make web searches then there are  measures you can take to have that data removed. There are companies that claim that they will do ths for you and even provide you with a "package" that will protect your on-line reputation.

However, from the research that I have done they seem to be little more than purveyors of FUD and are more interested in getting you to sign up with them than they are about actually clearing your name. The services are not inexpensive and there are rumors that underhand and bully tactics involved.

It is my opinion that you are far better off asking the people who are hosting the incriminating content to remove it. Unfortunately some of the companies are no longer in business and there are others that have a "stock in trade" of maintaining this sort of content as it attracts traffic to their website.

This is what Google say

How to determine what you can get removed

First of all you need to find all of the information that is currently available on the Internet for interested parties to find. You can do this with a bit of narcisurfing (looking for yourself on the Internet). Once you have located the "Digital Dirt" you can then see who you have to approach to have the information removed.

Determining the information that is available on you for yourself enables you to determine how relevant and what the relative ease in which the content is to be found. If the pages that contain bad things about you are hard to locate, in that you need to have a pretty good idea of what you are looking for in the fisrt place, I would not be too worried. However, if someone is determined to find out things from your past it is pretty much impossible to stop them. Even if you get the offending information removed from the hosting website it is likely to remain in the history of sites like the Wayback Machine

• Reputation Defender
• Challenge To Reputation Defender by Jarret Cohen on behalf of AutoAdmit - Sorry I didn't archive the link but this is what WikiP say about AutoAdmit   - a pity as I noted that AutoAdmit was:  "...... a particularly pugnacious web site"
• Remove a page or site from Google's search results - From Google help
• Removal of content from a website 
• How to remove false information about yourself from Google - that is if it is false

Privacy Rights

In these days of the Internet and Social Networking, the subject of Privacy has taken on new facets.
Post updated: 25 May 2012

• Google Privacy - the changes 1 March 2012 
• Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada 
• What are people saying about you online? 
• NetworkClean - SAVING FACE ON FACEBOOK 
• Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin  Guardian, Ian Katz, 15 April 2012 
• CIRA - Interested Party web-form 
• Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act 
• Using Social Media to Bully 
• Privacy Rights Clearing House
• Do not track, data brokers, & what we’d like to see in privacy: our public comment to Congress - Albine, the online privacy company, March 29th, 2012
• How to delete things from the Internet: A guide to doing the impossible - Albine, the online privacy company, April 5th, 2012
• Blogger Anonymity

A quote from the Albine article on deleting things from the Internet:

"Defamation requires that four elements be met:  (1) there’s a false statement of fact, not opinion; (2) that’s publicly published to at least one other person; (3) if the defamatory matter is of public concern, there’s fault amounting at least to negligence on the part of the publisher; and (4) there must be damage to the talked-about person’s reputation.  For celebrities and public figures, there’s an additional requirement that the statement be maliciously untrue–you knew it was false, but you said it with bad and hurtful intentions."

It should also be pointed out that the removal of content from Google using Webmaster Tools has to be performed by the webmaster of the "offending" site. Google will not remove content from its servers as a consequence of "alleged" infractions of their terms of service.

--------------------------------------

There is a world of difference in the antics of the traditional Cyber-Bully and businesses that don't like what is being said about them on the Internet.

White Pages

If you can't find a white pages listing for a person who you know their address I think you can safely say that they either do not want to be on mailing lists or they have something to hide. I guess if you were of sufficient influence in a community you could use that influence to expunge your personal details from directories such as White Pages.

What I find strange about the White Pages entry above is that when an address was entered into their search and then the "neighbors" button pressed only addresses that are on the border of the address that was originally entered show. It is almost as if the addresses in the whole block have been purposely hidden.

Conduit website and blog

Today there were some visits from Conduit as a source, as reported by Google Analytics.

The visitor landed on my knowledgesutra.com page

• The Conduit Blog
• Systems and programming on The Technology Muse
• Commentary on Social Networking 

Removal of content from a website

Some links:

There are various degrees to which content can be removed from visibility on the Internet.

It is a common misconception that once something is posted to the Internet it is there for ever. This is a particularly well-held notion of those that use Social Media. (and perhaps it is if you have limited control as you do with Facebook)

You can even make a request, using Google's Webmaster Tools for the page to be removed from their cache. It is best to visit the help page on the Google site for the exact details on how to do this.

Google will also give you advice on what else to do to ensure that your pages remain removed from their index and they do not re-appear when your site is re-spidered.

There are other ways of removing your content from Google cache. These take a little more time but you have more control on how visitors get content from your website. In June 2011 I started a process to remove some of my material so that it was only accessible locally.

When the pages are re-written and the Google robot re-visits the new pages will find their way into cache and the visitor will then see a link to the local page on the page in cache. This is what I wanted to do as I wanted the visitor to think that there was information on this website that merited the viewing of Google cache.

Your reasons for wanting your content removed from Google cache may be different from mine. You may have been requested to remove the content. You may have received a "Cease and Desist" notice filed under the DMCA.

This technique will also work with all search engines that maintain a cache of the websites that they have indexed. Google is the most common and is the one that most are concerned with.

Links:

• How to remove inappropriate content from the Web - more of a "how-to"
• Google's help page for URL removal - from cache and their index
• DMCA - Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)  
• How to remove false information about yourself from Google

Capturing The Value Of Social Media Using Google Analytics

Do I really care about what visits I get from Social Media sites?

I guess I might sometime in the future - hey! I may even have a "Social Media Channel" at sometime.

The 3 things are:

• Identify the full value of traffic coming from social sites and measure how they lead to direct conversions or assist in future conversions 
• Understand social activities happening both on and off of your site to help you optimize user engagement and increase social key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Make better, more efficient data-driven decisions in your social media marketing programs

I guess this is relevant to businesses that are relying on Social Media as part of their business plan. I am just an observer but I need to keep abreast of what is going on in this area and if there is someone who needs an insight into it I would be more that willing to enter into a discussion about it.

Nimble Social CRM Business Edition

•  Social CRM on The Technology Muse

Nimble - award-winning Social Relationship Manager

The interest that I have in the Social CRM product is due to a Blog Spam email that I received yesterday from Brenda Christensen of nimble.com.

I am not sure what the use of Social Media brings to the table, in fact I am dubious of the value of CRM. Having said that I had my own version of CRM that I developed for my own use many years ago. This was before "Social Media" existed, also before computers were "personal" - I am of the belief that it is not to tool but the desire to keep track of this information that is the key to Customer Relations. Having a method that is designed by someone else is not likely to reflect what you are trying to capture. In my day customers were impressed that you knew what you talked about last time you spoke - today customers are not impressed that you know the today is the anniversary of their dog dying!

What are people saying about you online?

As a continuation of my study on Internet use and behavior the notion that there are things being posted about you or your company that you do not wish to be seen.
How you can tell that this is happening and what you can do to prevent or control it.

At a recent dinner party a conversation on whether you should incorporate Social Media in your companies business was raised. The reasons why you would want to do this are many fold. The promoters of the various platforms see this as a new area that going forward is a big business opportunity for themselves and users of their services. The question is: Is there any real merit in doing so?

The fact that there are more and more people on-line and the use of Social Media is maybe at its peak are good reasons to  use Facebook, Twitter and Google + to "reach out" to your customer base.

However, there are downsides to this and the future of Social Media is by no means certain. Social Media may be a passing fad and the users of such may soon tire of it or get fed up with the loss of privacy that they perceive is happening. The fact that their personal data is being used in a manner that they have not agreed to or have no control over and the fact that there are things being said that they would rather not have others read.

Links:

• Why would a company, organization or person want to change their name?
• The new "Sharing"
• Whether to use Social Media for business
• Narcisurfing - Looking for yourself on the Internet
• Privacy Rights 

ZoneEdit Problems and Twitter

There seems to be little point in having a Twitter feed if there is no useful information regarding the outage posted on it?

Please post a comment and tell everyone what you think

Update: ZoneEdit website is now up [5:27 EST] - but you still cannot log-in:

This update was made after following Twitter - not many replies from @ZoneEdit

On the positive side, all this time the DNS service seemed to have been running. However, you would have been SOL if your IP address had changed.

If I were still using the ZoneEdit my website would have remained up all this time. The only reason that I know that the service was having problems was that I chanced to try and log in to my account (2 days ago). I have no idea how long the admin functions had been down before that as the last time I was in there was at the beginning of the month.
A made a blog post on the chance that there were others that were seeing problems - boy! was I right.

The take-away from this is: If the admin interface goes down and is not explained, what is to say that the actual DNS service will actually fail....... We are not going to get an explanation in a timely manner.

There must be thousands of ZoneEdit users that are totally unaware that there was a problem over the last few days. Still, unlike Twitter, this blog post will remain for those that search for problems with ZoneEdit

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

• Alternative DNS services 
• DNS Zone Management

CheckInSave

The following is an email that I was sent to solicit a review on this blog:

Are you writing about Social Media or mobile apps these days? I think I have a story for You and The Technology Muse.

The mobile 'Checking In' phenomena is taking off among smartphone users Worldwide - Now consumers are rewarded for sharing!  CheckinSave is a combination of Groupon (without the Greed) and Foursquare (without the Game) -  a new mobile App that allows users to gain points by ‘checking in’ to venues such as restaurants, hotels, coffee shops, etc., and more points when their Twitter Followers or Facebook Friends check in to the same venues. The accumulated points can be used to get discounts and CheckinSave offers partner venues a free, open platform to harness the power of social media marketing. 


With Groupon seemingly imploading by the day... perhaps CheckinSave is a story angle that you can sink your teeth into. Do you think this could be an interesting story for The Technology Muse enthusiasts?


Please let me know if you'd like a press code so that you can load up on points to help you test-drive CheckinSave?
 
Links:

• The New Sharing
• Foursquare  
• Blog Spam - this is what I see Checkinsave as

WAYN

Where Are You Now.com

WAYN is the fastest growing travel and lifestyle social networking community website in the world.

The profile above was created after I received an invitation (6 April 2012):

The disturbing aspect of WAYN is that when you "join-up" you enter your email address and then it tries to get you to log-in to your email account so that it can look in your contacts list. While this seems a reasonable thing to do, especially if you were trying to make contact with lost friends, it is not obvious what is going on.
WAYN say that they do not share your email and password, I don't think that they can be trusted. They say "check your address book" when they really mean "let us look in your address book and add all the emails you have there, so that we can contact all that we find there".

Seeing as I had previously received an invitation from someone with a very similar sounding name to "connect on LinkedIn" - 13 March 2012, I was highly suspicious.

LinkedIn - Social Networking

One of the methods of Self-promotion that seem to be rife at the present time.

What LinkedIn say about themselves:

"You have joined over 35 million professionals using LinkedIn to stay connected and reach new people through trusted referrals."

I have a feeling that the pot has become too diluted already. There are those that have been found on LinkedIn's listings and are now the victim of  unsolicited approaches, and those that post their profile in a vein attempt at self promotion.

The fact that you have a LinkedIn profile is cause itself for an observer to question the value of the listing and the authenticity of the information so presented. This information is added by aggregation and by member input. The value of any listing can only be enhanced by unbiased peer-review, LinkedIn does not provide this. LinkedIn have shown by their actions that they are the antithesis of "trusted referral"

Cyber Bullying

• Why Anonymity Matters

RIP trolls and the response from Facebook and Twitter. (or rather the lack thereof)

This web page was inspired by the BBC program "The Anti-Social Network" seen below:

Broadcaster Richard Bacon has been targeted by an obsessive tirade of anonymous online abuse over the last two years, aimed not just at him but at his wife, mother and baby son. Motivated by his own experience, in this documentary Richard attempts to hunt down and confront three online bullies, including his own, only to learn that unmasking these so-called trolls can be a dangerous pursuit.

Richard is one of an increasing number of victims of cyberbullies and internet trolls who use fake identities on social networking sites to torment, harass and abuse. They even target the tribute sites of young people who have committed suicide, posting vile comments and images with devastating consequences for the victims' families.

It makes me question the pursuit of anonymity. Although I maintain anonymity I abhor the antics of those that troll obscene comments  on "tribute pages" and websites.

However, I do not agree that this is something that governments should make up a legislation in an attempt to control it. I do have major concerns that governments if left unchecked will often go too far. As from April 2012 I am increasing my analysis of Cyber Countermeasures taken by both governments and intellectual property rights holders, it is often not easy to see what the motivation is here. Is it the control of the flow of information that could cause citizens harm due to acts of terrorism or is it the protection of commercial interests?

• 2003 Communications act - The Communications Act 2003 (c 21) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It gave regulation body Ofcom its full powers. The Act introduced new offenses for 'Improper use of public electronic communications network'.
• The Anti-Social Network  - BBC Three, 9:00PM Mon, 19 Mar 2012 
• Hunter Moore sells 'revenge porn' site to anti-bullying group BullyVille.com - By Claire Connelly, Technology Reporter Herald Sun news.com.au April 23, 2012

Google Privacy - the changes 1 March 2012

Having had a chance to poke around the Google privacy settings that are going to come into force 1 March 2011, I have come across a few interesting things.

When I had a look on Google's Dashboard to see what information there was in my profile I started to have a poke around some of the other areas and settings. As I don't have individual profiles in many of Google's other products, like G+ for example, I don't have to be that worried. Apps like Picassa and Docs I have only really used them to see what they could do for me. My profile in Blogger is sufficiently obtuse.

An interesting help file was found relating to what Google consider as "Confidential Personal Information":