Category Archives: internet

Search Bias, Preferential Placement, User Behavior, and Misleading Statistics

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I read this blog post “Does Google Favor its Own Services?” on AlleyInsider and was annoyed by the misleading statistics and interpretation that are written. Here are the reasons this article frustrates me:

  1. Google should be excused for providing their own service in their own top search results if another search engine also provides it as a top result (Bing also returns http://maps.google.com as a top result for example). That would seem to validate that Google Maps is actually a top result, not (just) Google promoting its own service. By my count this invalidates 3 of the 7 dings against Google.
  2. This article should mention (if not account for) that users searching on Google are probably inclined to be more likely to be searching for Google services. It makes sense that a user trying to find the login page for Google email will go to Google search to try to find it. It then makes sense that Google (or its search algorithm) would account for a frequent user behavior (searching for “mail” and then clicking through to mail.google.com) by prioritizing prioritizing the result for mail.google.com in the future (in general, or on a per user basis).

The article should be pointing out that Yahoo seems to be the most out of whack with the other two sites (look at the results for “calendar”), but Yahoo isn’t going to get as many page views as bashing Google in the headline of the post. I hate that AlleyInsider does this all the time, but it got me to read and write about the story so I guess sensationalist blogging wins out again.

My understanding was that Bing “provides” search for Yahoo now anyways, so I’m curious as to what’s going on that Yahoo would still offer different results. Perhaps this is in the line of thinking of trying to accommodate Yahoo users searching for Yahoo services.

Perhaps we should be skeptical of the results Google (or any other search engine) returns, but also keep in mind that algorithms can be written to help create the best experience for Google users (looking for Google services) rather than a vanilla internet user. Now if Google in some way subverts my obvious preference for something else that is more dubious, but perhaps in that case we users should cast our votes for disapproval by not using their service.

Do you “trust Google’s results?” Am I crazy? Am I wrong? I imagine I’m not any more wrong than AlleyInsider in this case.

MacHeist NanoBundle 2

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I purchased the MacHeist NanoBundle this morning. I haven’t gotten much of a chance to look at the apps included yet, but a big draw was MacJournal, which appears to be compatible with independent wordpress installs (this is my test). Also Tracks looks like it could have some serious potential. It’s a little menu bar icon that allows you to search your itunes library and find/play a specific song super quickly. It also scrobbles to last.fm for you if you want (I do want). I’ll put up some more info as I have a chance to play with the applications more, but until then you’re probably best of going to macheist.com to look at the list of programs yourself because I believe there’s only one more day left to purchase.

Defamation 2.0

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Cal Tech and MIT have had a fun rivalry going for a few years now (or rather the practice of hacking between the two schools increased during my undergrad years). Knowing that I wasn’t too surprised when I received a link to mitrejects.com and saw the end result.

It’s a relatively harmless and humorous little joke, but I wonder how the Cal Tech administration will respond. More interestingly, I wonder the Cal Tech administration can do. I doubt there is any law on the books anywhere that mentions “defamation via domain name.” My guess is that Cal Tech will look of the owner of the domain name and ask them nicely to stop redirecting it to caltech.edu. The joke may end there, but if the owner of the domain name politely declines the request, I expect that Cal Tech will look into legal options before ultimately realizing that the mostly likely option for resolving the issue will be to issue a request or “take-down notice” of some sort to the domain registrar for the domain mitrejects.com. At that point it would not at all surprise me if the domain redirect was killed by the registrar, trumping the wishes of the actual owner of the domain name.

It’s a realistic possibility, and it begs a couple questions:

  1. Should there be laws preventing this sort of internet bullying/pranking?
  2. Should your domain registrar really be able to force you to accept terms of use that cede your control of the domain to them?

Note: this is all entirely speculative, and potentially completely wrong and inaccurate. I however, don’t think it’s a bad guess.

@bombing

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Ever since Danwen @ replied me saying she was trying to install Snow Leopard (neither @benpope or I are sure why?) lots of seemingly attractive ladies have been repeating the same tweet. I’m not sure if it’s just when @danwenchen sends an @ reply or if that particular tweet was just randomly selected. It’s a strange form of twitter spam as I don’t see the benefit and it’s actually kind of annoying that it has become really difficult to see genuine replies.

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GMail Labs Feature Request: A List of Recently Received Links

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My recent Gmail Labs post just had me thinking about something that always happens to me: Somebody emails or IMs me a link to something, and then I can’t find it later when I need it.  When this happens it is helpful that Gmail not only has a copy of every email I receive, but also archives all the chat sessions I have through GChat/AIM.  While it is helpful that all these conversations are archived, it isn’t necessarily a solution to this problem.  What happens to me in this situation is that I often spend a lot of time searching for the specific conversation (and the point in that conversation) where the link I’m looking for is found.

I think a fairly easy tweak on the conversation archiving idea could provide a much quicker and easier solution to this problem.  What I would like to see is a Gmail Labs feature, that simply allows me to put a small “Received Links” box in either the left or right column of my Gmail inbox (similar to the boxes that exist for labels or Gchat).  What could live in this box is just a list of all the links that I’ve been sent by contacts (not necessarily web services or mailing lists).  To prevent it from becoming too overwhelming it could even be limited by a certain time frame or number of links (for example: all the links received from contacts in the past week, or the 10 most recent links received from my contacts).  That way it could be a short list of quick access to those links your friends have sent you that you “need to check out” but “haven’t gotten around to yet.

Other possibilities for this feature might be that the user would be allowed to specify certain contacts to allow their links to show up in this quick access list, or perhaps there could be an option to flag links as they are received in an email or chat to be stored in this list for access later.

So a list of links could end up looking something like this:

http://www.apple.com/newipod

http://www.harmonix.com/beatlesrockband

http://www.webmd.com/areyousick

http://www.soccernet.com/breakingnews

http://www.youtube.com/funnyvideo

http://www.sailinganarchy.com/fastboat

 

If we’re looking for a certain link, often we’re probably linking for the link that *that person* sent me, so attaching names might make it a little easier to find what we’re looking for quickly.

Pope – http://www.apple.com/newipod

Fitzy – http://www.harmonix.com/beatlesrockband

Tara – http://www.webmd.com/areyousick

Marc – http://www.soccernet.com/breakingnews

Doody – http://www.youtube.com/funnyvideo

Jack – http://www.sailinganarchy.com/fastboat

 

I mentioned keeping this list of links in a small box in one of the side columns of Gmail so keeping the URLs short (and contact names as well) will help us fit the list of URLs in a side column.  But more importantly than keeping the URLs short we want to keep key information necessary to identify them as the specific link we’re searching for so we can try dropping the “http://www.” that prepends most links, which will look like this:

Pope – apple.com/newipod

Fitzy – harmonix.com/beatlesrockband

Tara – webmd.com/areyousick

Marc – soccernet.com/breakingnews

Eddie – youtube.com/funnyvideo

Jack – sailinganarchy.com/fastboat

 

The URLs will still probably be too long to fit in a narrow column a lot of the time, but even if they get truncated we can still see pretty relevant information:

Pope – apple.com/newipod

Fitzy – harmonix.com/beatle…

Tara – webmd.com/areyousi…

Marc – soccernet.com/break…

Eddie – youtube.com/funny…

Jack – sailinganarchy.com/…

 

I think for the basic list idea this works pretty well.  There’s a lot of fine-tuning that can be done to take advantage of the dates links were sent, etc. but I think overall this would do a good job of putting links you’ve received but “haven’t gotten around to” at your fingertips.  I think enough users remember enough about the URL (the main site name, e.g.: apple.com) to successfully find the link that pops into their head quickly.

This is clearly just a rough outline of a possible feature and needs to be revisited, but I’d love to hear and comments/criticisms/suggestions, do you think this is even useful?

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Pandora Hasn’t Hit Ecuador Yet

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I tried to start up the Pandora app on my iPhone today only to receive the following message.  I totally forgotten about licensing agreements and the fact that Pandora might not function outside of the US.  I guess they don’t have licensing agreements to stream music in Ecuador.  It’s understandable, but I still would have like to listen to some music…

Sorry, Pandora is not available in this country

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RIAA vs. Tenenbaum No Longer to be Webcast

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Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson.  (Photo: Flickr user arcticpenguin)

The United States first circuit has overturned the previous decision to allow video of the case of RIAA vs.. Tenenbaum to be broadcast live over the internet.  Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson had previously received a decision from the US District Court that would have allowed the webcast to take place.  I’m disappointed to hear about this decision, simply because I was very interested in watching it to see how the case played out, but it seems to be a clear cut decision based on the fact that the current law states no cameras are allowed in the court room.   The article linked below has a link to the court’s full decision.

Harvard Prof.’s hearing against RIAA can’t be streamed online • The Register

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Send Text Messages via Email

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I’ve sent a couple text message to friends in the US while I’ve been in Ecuador.  While I could just send these from my cell phone here (I have an Movistar SIM card activated for use in Ecuador) it’s cheaper and almost easier to just send a text message via email.  This can be done from anywhere in the world, and I send text messages this way from time to time.  All you need to know to send a text message through email is the persons cell phone number and what service provider they use.  Fortunately, Wikipedia has a list of SMS gateways sorted by carrier, so you can look up what address to send your email to to send a text message.

This is a really easy and fast way to send a text message, and because it’s free it’s obviously cost effective, especially if you’re sending the message internationally or don’t have text messages on your mobile service plan.  Another neat trick is that if you’re big on setting reminders for yourself, any calendar software or service you use that send reminders via email can be used to send you a reminder on your phone via text message.

Too Many Posts? Blame Windows Live Writer

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As anyone who’s reading this (if anyone is) has noticed, there has been a rapid surge in the number of posts on the site in the past 12 or so hours.  The reason for the increased posting is because I was able to download Windows Live Writer last night.  Now I have to provide some disclosure here and inform you that I start working for Microsoft full-time in just over a week, but that aside Writer is a great piece of software.

I wrote about Live Writer almost two years ago on Josh Campoverde.com.  What I said then was that Writer is a great piece of blogging software, and that I really liked it.  Unfortunately I had previously been unable to use Writer because I didn’t own a computer that ran Windows.  Well, circumstances have changed, and I now have a unibody MacBook running Boot Camp.  While I still wished I knew of a great blogging application that ran natively on Mac OS X, Writer is my favorite piece of software to blog with, and it shows.

Writer allows you to publish to a few different blogging services (including WordPress, which I use here) and provides you with a live preview of what the post will look line online, using your currently active WordPress theme!  That’s pretty cool, because a lot of theme have little quirks that affect the appearance of your post (like how the Vigilance theme I’m using right now uses little stars for bullets, wtf?).  Writer also makes it really easy to insert images and links (including links to your previous posts).  Overall, Writer just makes it easier to handle the formatting of your posts, and while WordPress has a great web interface for managing your posts, the Writer client just feels much more responsive.

Writer is simple and intuitive, which makes using it, and writing posts not only much easier, but more enjoyable, which is why you see me publishing so many posts in such a short time right now.