As of July 1, 2013, Google Reader will no longer exist. There were not many users of Google Reader; that’s one of the reasons it’s being shut down. But I was a dedicated user. Personally, I loved the way it helped me keep up with my favorite blogs and websites. Plus, it helped me get the very best from my Internet, separating the fluff from the real. And there really is a lot?fluff out there.?I guess not everybody felt that way.
Some say Google Reader was doomed from the word go. According to one article, they were about to shut this operation down before it got off the ground. I think the reason it survived this long was simply about timing. Google Reader was created in 2005, when RSS?was extremely popular, and before Facebook and Twitter became household names. Yep, guess who shares part of the blame here?
Social media and simple economics are to blame. Less people used Google Reader; I get that. Google wants to spend more time on more profitable projects; I get that. But what about me and my borderline Google Reader addiction? They’re gracious enough to give?me until July, so I’ll just keep reading along until then. I hear the website Digg is building a reader. Is it going to be any good? Or is RSS totally obsolete?
Many of us?use social media, like Skype and You Tube, for good, or at least, for entertainment purposes. There are some hackers out there who are using social media to spy on you and your loved ones. Some might think of this as fun, innocent, or no big deal, but I shutter to think where RAT (Remote Administration Tool) can lead to.
RAT is now being used to spy on other people’s computers, and they can know everything you’re doing and when you’re doing it while you’re doing it. They nickname their victims slaves. One hacker brags, “Poor people think they are alone in their private homes, but have no idea they are the laughing stock [of the hacking community]”. RAT users have total control over infected machines. For the majority, at least in their eyes, it’s harmless. They claim they’re just curious about what other people are into. It’s not that hard to ‘RAT’ somebody. Some say they can accumulate thousands of slaves a day. And they are hardly ever caught.
But what worries me is the more extreme cases and what RAT can be used for. In California, one girl was stalked to the point she wouldn’t leave her dorm room. Think about what bullies can do with this RAT. What if identity thieves use RAT to score easy prey? Sex predators won’t hesitate to use RAT for their perverse exploitation. And may Heaven forbid, groups like al-Qaeda and unstable nations like North Korea and Iran use RAT as a tool to spy on their enemies (like America) and use this info against us. There is no limit to how destructive RAT can be. Or am I just being paranoid? Is RAT just a harmless, and even fun, hacking tool? Or is it just another threat to what little privacy we have left?
These days, more people work at home than ever home. With our 2010s technology, social media and people being busier than ever before, it sounds like a good thing. Don’t tell Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer that!
A few weeks ago, Meyer shut down the work at home program and demanded employees get back to the office. At first, I thought Meyer was just being a tyrannical boss. But?then I started looking at the big picture. Many an article state employees were?just coming into the office just?to get a pay check. Morale was on the decline.?Stock prices dropped. They were losing ads and employees to?rival corporations.
After she ordered this mandate, morale went from 32 percent to 95 percent. And employees?that left for rival companies are now returning to Yahoo. Plus, Marissa Meyer has made many changes?from free cafeteria foods to a nursery set up for working parents.
So I was once against making people come back to the office. But now that I see the results, I’m?kind of for it. Is it just me,?or has technology made humanity more alienated?and more cut off from each other? It seems like human interaction is?quickly becoming a thing of the past. But now that Meyer is getting people to back to?work, and providing tools and lures to do so, people are?discovering they can work together, you know, like our parents and grandparents used to. Productivity is going up. People are discovering they can actually be in the same room. And maybe, just maybe, they may discover they might just…wait for it…like each other!
So for those who work at home, how would you feel if the head honcho?made people cut their ours at home, or?eliminate them all together? Would you see it?as a step?toward?a greater good. Or would it be intruding on your rights?
Starting Tuesday, Facebook is releasing Deals as a ?test? in five cities: Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco. The company, which has more than 600 million members, said it hoped that its ability to tap directly into the communications and activities of networks of friends will help it offer a more compelling service than rivals. It will be easy to share deals with friends, see when a friend buys something and find offers that your friends are interested in, said Emily White, Facebook?s director for local. Facebook will focus on offers for things that are best done with friends, like concerts or events, she said.
?You can receive Facebook deals via e-mail,? she said. ?But if there is a deal that is good for you, it will likely show up in your news feed at some point in the day.?
Most of the sites you can get deals from let you link the deals to Facebook but this would be more of the actual site getting these deals as aposed to sharing via Groupon or Living Social. This is going to be another way for Facebook to increase revenue streams, with the movie rental testing seemingly going well, it is no doubt that if Facebook has the right amount of deals, people will pay for them.
In a blog a few weeks back I posted about a possible Social Networking trail that Google was attempting.
This being called +1, and of course you know in Facebook when you are logged in you can like something, well now you will start to see a new button in town labeled +1. We are not sure if this is the start of a new social network that Google is building or if it is just a simply a social layer that Google wanted to introduce but really is not meant to be a real rival to Facebook. As of right now a small % of US Google searchers that search in English will see a +1 button next to the search listings when they are logged into their Google account. What this does is if you +1 a site it will become enhanced in the search results once a search is done again. Part of it will help you see how popular a page might be by +1 users. You will also see +1 next to AdWords, no doubt to help in advertising revenue for Google and make the companies who use it show its popularity to people who may not have seen that company before. Soon +1 is supposed to be as normal as the Facebook like button you see on so many web sites. Who knows what this will mean in revenue for Google in the ad world but when Google puts its stamp on something people do tend to follow.
A few posts back I put down that when IE9 launched it had over 2 million downloads in the first 24 hours. Well Firefox was about to double the amount of downloads with the first 24 hours of its launch. A decent 4.7 million downloads in the first 24 hour span. That is still less than the 8 million copies that were downloaded of Firefox 3 in 2008 but obviously there were fewer browsers to choose from back in 2008. With a more informed customer base you have internet users spread out across Google Chrome, Safari, IE and of course Firefox. This new version brings more features to the already reliable browser, such as new security and privacy options, faster loads and JavaScript, support for a variety of new standards including WebM video and WebGL 3D graphics, and 3D acceleration that extends to even Windows XP. Maybe with these new enhanced features, Firefox can steal some people back from Google Chrome.
