bitbol

Today's round-up grew a bit:

• A new poll shows that a majority (54%) of americans favor impeachment of Dick Cheney. There is even a site that has video evidence for Cheney's impeachment (link: site auto-plays video).
• Why the cable industry sucks: companies are blame CableCARD for an upcoming rate hike. They say that it would simply cost too much. I don't know how much the CableCARD even matters, but I don't like how cable companies have such a lock-in (read: get service from them or not at all).
• Toledo cops sell out their cruisers for $15,000. I think this is a wise idea for side-stepping the costs, but I don't trust cops enough to feel that this is right. I can see a CEO being pulled over and declaring that he should not get a ticket because he helped finance that officer's car.
• There was a case similar to Libby's where Bush did just the opposite as he did the other day. Foul play? Surely.
• Fox News reports that Universal healthcare is breeding grounds for terrorists. I think that Fox's viewership is the 20% mentioned in my post yesterday (point two).
• Rupert Murdoch has bought Dow Jones. Part of the deal is a legally-enforceable agreement that the WSJ will remain independent in it's reporting.

Goodbye New York. Tomorrow morning I leave the city. When I have time, I'm going to write a post about all of the things that I saw/learned/etc in New York.

Labels: Advertising, America, Bush, Cheney, Collections, News, Politics

Red Hat has made a 3 and a half minute long advertisement for Linux. I must say that I am impressed and enjoyed it, even though it was a bit long:

Labels: Advertising, Linux, Video

Information has been uncovered that suggests that even though Microsoft offered a higher bid, DoubleClick opted to join Google instead. Here's how I see what happened: Google initially stepped in the bidding, surely driving the price up, but apparently Microsoft stayed put. Then, Google acquired DoubleClick causing Microsoft to get mad and fight it.

As much as I don't trust the amount of information that Google collects, I still prefer them over Microsoft. Microsoft has a terrible track record for respecting users, while Google is the opposite ("Don't be evil"). The only complaint that I have about today's technological state is data retention; if companies would purge it once and a while, that would alleviate many people's privacy concerns.

Labels: Advertising, Google, Internet, Microsoft, News

Microsoft wants to make sure that you won't miss their most recent MS Office 2007 advertisement- they made it take a large portion of the screen:


It's not just for looks either. Two of the tabs bring up options to style some of the text, or to play with the pictures. The text options only changes the font, while the picture options add different effects like "wet-floor" among others. As much as I hate Microsoft, this is advertising well done.

Labels: Advertising, Internet, Microsoft

I don't care about much about what Google does, but there has been recent coverage of a growing issue. Matt Cutts, a Google employee, has solicited the help of people to report paid links to Google. There has been quite an outrage among the internet about this, and many are pissed.

Google seems to be abusing their control of the search market. They are calling out for people to report sponsored links, and are penalizing people for writing posts/links for money. Google, more and more, is seeming like the identity that would love to control the internet.

Google is increasing approaching becoming the Microsoft of the internet. Step by step, I am pulling my out of different services simply because Google seems to focus too much on money. Blogger has gone for months without any kind of update. Google Analytics is confusingly complicated to navigate. The only product actively being improved is advertising and search- the moneymakers.

Labels: Advertising, Google, Internet, Rants

Determined not to be one-uped by Google, Microsoft is starting an antitrust case against Google. It's the pot calling the kettle black here. Microsoft has always been fighting antitrust lawsuits, and now they are calling out at others.

I think that this is just jealousy and Microsoft is made that Google stepped in and took DoubleClick. Microsoft could have stopped this had they bought DoubleClick themselves. I think they are just mad because they can't make money off the internet like Google is succeeding in doing.

Labels: Advertising, Google, Internet, Microsoft, News

Google has announced that they have acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in stock, which is nearly twice as much as what they paid for YouTube. I thought that Google wanted this for to expand their advertising network, and is what happened.

I mentioned before that DoubleClick uses tracking cookies to make the ads relevant to what people view, but borderlines invading privacy. Perhaps Google will live up to the "do no evil" and stop the tracking cookies and make the ads less intrusive.

Labels: Advertising, Google, Internet, News

Don't worry, not everything is cars now, still some tech in between. Google is reportedly interested in buying DoubleClick, the advertising company. Their intent is still unknown, but I speculate that it is to gain more control over the advertising network.

DoubleClick offers video advertising (which I have seen), and almost surely this is what Google wants. Google hasn't gotten far with their video ads, so this is likely to gain those customers.

Perhaps if Google buys out DoubleClick they can stop the questionable practices of DoubleClick. DoubleClick (in the past at least) uses tracking cookies to "serve the most relevant ads," but I block DoubleClick for that very reason. Google would have the ability to stop that if they buy them out.

Labels: Advertising, Google, Internet

Out of curiosity, I checked to see what a moderately priced computer would cost, in this case, it was a Dimension C521. I got to the monitor stage and saw the following (keep reading and I will show you why this is unusual):


It is clear that the price of the E228WFP is $360 with that computer. I have considered buying this monitor before, so I thought the price was a bit much. I looked around to find the monitor on its own:


The monitor is currently on sale, so it ends up being over $60 cheaper if you buy it separately. Even when not on sale, it is still cheaper, not exactly how packaged deals should work.

Labels: Advertising, Computer

Above is a picture of what Bostonians believed to be a bomb, causing all sorts of havoc around the city, and making headlines across the country. To top it all, none of the devices are bombs, but marketing for Aqua Teen Hunger Force, from Cartoon Network. The Boston bomb squad actually blew one device up. It is reported that these devices can be found in at least ten other cities, but only people in Boston noticed them.

Reported at:
BoingBoing
Engadget
Slashdot
Consumerist

Labels: Advertising, America, News, Oddities, People

Over at Digital Inspiration, Amit has written an interesting article on something that I never gave a thought to. He bring to our attention that Google's rules about linking ads may actually be hurting their click-thru rate.

I don't at all question the results of the report. I myself have avoided clicking ads most often because of the inability to stay on the page. I an often in the middle of something when an ad catches my eye, but I don't click on it because I know it will take me away from what I am reading. That leaves two options: leave the page to click the link, or just don't click the link, and it is most often the latter. FireFox also makes not clicking the link easier because it is so easy to read the URL from the ad, open a new tab, and then return to where you were while you wait for the page to load.

Labels: Advertising, Google