Geldro

Imagine that Google’s search results would show exactly what you were looking for. Would you ever click on one of the sponsored links, if this was the case. Of course not. And if no one clicks on the sponsored links on Google, then Google’s entire business would be jeopardized.

The Google Dilemma
Google is in a dilemma. People use Goggle because of the useful search results Google provides. But if the results becomes too good, Google will lose their ad revenue, the very foundation for the Google empire.

Strategy: Do not improve the search algorithm
Within the last 2-3 years Google’s sponsored links have been improved greatly. They are now more targeted then ever. However, the search results haven’t improved much.
Could this be a part of Google’s strategy; not to improve the search results, but instead improve the revenue generating links? From a business perspective it makes sense.

Ads more targeted than search results
Google’s search results are only related to the keywords that you type in. The sponsored links use a more targeted algorithm. An algorithm that seems to combine the keywords, with whatever data Google has about you.
I am not saying that Google is evil, just that they do business. So does Microsoft, Apple, and countless other companies.

Better search results - no ads
I think Google should offer an ad free search option, and use the targeting data they have about their users for generation better search results, instead of better ads.
In round figures, Google’s yearly revenue is about $10 billion per year. They have close to 1 billion users, so this equals $10-15 per user.
I would gladly pay $10-15 per year for better search results and no ads.

Pierre at Social Alerter has an interesting post on his site. He has analyzed 1.800 stories going Popular on Digg.

To sum up his findings roughly:
a) If a blog doesn’t go Popular within 24 hours, it doesn’t go Popular at all, and
b) the number of comments have no real influence on going Popular or not.

read more | digg story

A seven year old boy lies on the street, there is blood everywhere. His bike is in pieces. The front of the car that hit him is deformed, and the right front light is splintered. The driver takes a deep breath, then tear the door open, and runs to the boy. Some seven-eight other people have already gathered around the boy.

Calling 9-1-1
The driver jerks his cell phone from his inner pocket.
“You don’t have to call 9-1-1, I already did it”, a lady in a green suit says quietly. The mans eyes flickers, he looks at the boy, then the woman, the boy, his cell, the boy. Then he sticks the phone back in his pocket, and kneels beside the boy.

“What have I done?” he mumbles, now with tears in his eyes.

Everyone around the boy is shaken, waiting impatiently for the ambulance to arrive.
Suddenly another man, dressed in bermuda shorts, a loose t-shirt, and sandals pushes his way through the crowd, and kneels beside the boy, placing two fingers on the side of the boys neck. The group stares at him.
The man leans forward, with his ear over the the boys face, while moving his hand gently to the boys chest.
Swiftly he unbuttons the boys shirt, and examine the neck with his fingers. Then he rearrange the head a bit, and begins to blow air into the mouth of the boy.

What do you think you are doing?
“Wait a second” the driver says, and push the other man away from the boy. “What do you think you are doing?”
“I’m a doctor, don’t worry” the man smiles, and leans forward again.
The driver pushes him back again, this time more aggressively. “And?”
“Please let me do my job, Sir. If not, we will lose him”, the doctor says friendly, but firmly.

True democracy
The driver is clearly not content. “Listen, I don’t care if you are a doctor or not! I believe in democracy. Just because you think it’s better to blow air into the poor kid, doesn’t mean we should do it.”
The driver looks around, then he continues: “Okay, the doctor has made his point clear, does anyone else have other suggestions? Speak up, and then let us have a fair and democratic vote. The idea that gets the most votes will be applied. Okay?”

The doctor gets up. “He is dead” he says.

Traffic and technology
Why a story about a traffic victim in an article about technology?

The point I am trying to make with this (extreme) story is that democracy isn’t necessarily the best approach always. No, I am not a communist, and I urge you not to judge me just yet. By all means, fell free to judge me - but do it after you are read this article to the end, with an open attitude.

This article was strongly motivated by Chris Wilson’s article “The Wisdom of the Chaperones” in Slate, February 22. In this article Wilson criticize Wikipedia for not being truly democratic, since more than 50% of the content seems to be supplied by less than 1% of the contributors. Such a critique I find extremely amusing, and even more sad.

Do you want democracy or the truth?
There are, from my point of view, many good reasons to criticize Wikipedia, but not for not being democratic. Britannia is not democratic in any way. It’s written by a selected group of experts to assure a high quality of content. And that is all that matters.
As a user of an encyclopedia (or in the case of Wikipedia, something that pretends to be one), I care about one thing, and one thing only - accurate and concise information. Nothing else.

The content could be written by a handful of people, a million people, one man (or woman), or a robot. Frankly, I don’t care, as long as I can trust the information. However, if we are just a little realistic; one man (or woman) will not be able to write an encyclopedia with qualified information on every topic. Neither will a million people, since qualified content requires expertise, and not everyone is an expert. And since this is not the year 2029 (according to the BBC), a computer can’t do it either.

A beautiful idea
Democracy is a beautiful idea, no doubt about it. But that doesn’t mean that we need to pursue it all the time. It’s simply a matter of being pragmatic, and not fanatic. In a similar way, I think blue is a beautiful color, in fact it’s my favorite color, but I do not paint everything blue. I apply blue when it’s appropriate, not as a matter of habit.

One idea can’t solve a billion problems
Life is complex, and no single idea can sum it up. Clinging onto the idea of democracy (or any other idea), and pursuing it blindfolded, is guarantied to lead to problems - and not a better world.

Back to Wikipedia, and the 1% of the contributors who write 50% of the material. This might not be a democratic scenario, but who cares? Most users don’t.

Wikipedia - not a social experiment
If Wikipedia was a social experiment in democracy you could argue that it failed, and that it didn’t live up to the expectations. However, I would claim that for more than 99% of Wikipedia’s users, Wikipedia is not a social experiment (and even if it was, they don’t care). For these people Wikipedia is a source of information, a place to visit to find some answers to a haunting question or a quarrel.

Our favorite tool
Democracy should be applied when it is beneficial. We need to think and choose our tools (democracy being one) with care, instead of drilling holes in everything we can with whatever happens to be our favorite tool.

Wikipedia’s aim
By all means do criticize Wikipedia, but not for not being democratic - it’s completely irrelevant. An encyclopedia should be qualified, not (necessarily) democratized. We always need to know the purpose and/or aim of something before we can make any qualified evaluations about it. And correct me if I am wrong; the aim of Wikipedia is to be a good encyclopedia.

Not an angel either
I just went and bought yet another DVD. I don’t claim to be an angel, but when it comes to movies and music I am one of the few people I know that always buys, instead of just getting a free pirate copy.

I will steal them
For some reason the movie business time and time again motivates me to become a pirate. Yes, that’s right. If you are in the movie business, take this as a warning, or at least as a good advice. One day my irritation will take over, and my morale will deteriorate - and I will no longer buy my DVD’s, I will steal them.

Why are they telling me this?
When I plugged in my new DVD, that I just spend $23 on, I was excited, and really wanted to get going. However, once again I was meet with a propaganda flick telling me that piracy is a crime. I f…… know that! And since I just bought the DVD, there is absolutely no reason to tell me this.

The movie business people might argue that the propaganda isn’t meant to bug the people who legally bought the DVD, but to remind the criminals that what they are doing is illegal. Well, if this is how the movie business rationalise, they have a lot to learn.

The “funny” thing is that it’s only the people who hand over their hard earned money to the movie business that are bothered by the propaganda. And of course it’s impossible to skip or fast forward over this flick. Every time you want to see the movie you bought you are forced to watch this stuff.

Pirates watch movies, not propaganda
And what about the people who just got a freshly burned illegal copy of the exact same movie, will they also see this annoying propaganda? Of course not. No one who makes a pirate copy of a movie would ever include the propaganda flick. So when a pirated copy is inserted into a DVD-player the happy pirate is instantly presented with the menu. The legal buyers are the only people who ever sees the propaganda.

Happy pirates
So the bottom line is this: Remove the propaganda - or I (and most likely other legal buyers as well) will become happy pirates. It’s that simple.

A writer should write. First of all; he should write. A writer that doesn’t write isn’t a writer. And a writer who isn’t a writer, isn’t at all. Writing, like breathing, is something he needs to do - each and every day.

The social media is a new buzzword. So is Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. The word “blog” is no longer cool, but an everyday word. Everyone blogs. Almost.

Two ways to make money
There is a lot going on right now in the blogosphere about how people who blog can make money doing so. This might be useful for a lot of people.
Making money by blogging can basically be done in two ways: directly and indirectly. Directly means generating an income from the blog itself. Indirectly means using the blog to make money for example by doing consultancy work, and using ones blog as a way to brand oneself.

The direct method is primarily achieved by using advertising, sponsorships, and affiliate programs on ones blog. This might be just fine, but there might be other and better alternatives; at least we should consider them, and evaluate them.
The reason why the above methods are used is because they work, and if the motivation is to make money, then it makes sense to choose a proven method. Most likely the proven and field testet method will be the fastest way to making money blogging.

What is more important than money?
However, if money is not the only thing we aim at I strongly recommend that the following alternatives are considered, and hopefully applied.
But before I explain the methods, I wish to address an important question, namely “what are we doing when we do what we do?” This might sound like a silly question, but I find it extremely important. Let me explain.

What are we really doing?
Placing an ad on our blog might be a good way to generate an income, but besides earning us money, what else is happening when we do this? Obviously a bunch of advertisers get some exposure and traffic to their site (that is what they are paying for). This essentially means that the blogger help sell whatever products the advertiser sells.

The blogger often have little or no control over what advertisers are shown on his or her blog. In this case, the blogger might help sell a product he/she do not sympathize with - and this is a problem.
Some might argue that this is an ethical question, and simply not something they can take into consideration when trying to make an income. Others might say that humans are selfish by nature, and therefore it’s pointless to even think about something like this.

Being selfish
Maybe we are selfish by nature, but firstly that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to become more altruistic, and secondly; even from a selfish point of view it makes no sense to support something we for some reason disagree with.
If we have an ecological orientation it makes little sense to advertise (in other words: help selling) a Hummer with an 8 litre V6 engine. It makes as little sense as supporting the opposing political party.
If we take this a step further we might have to take a closer look at our own sympathies, beliefs and judgments of good and bad, right and wrong. However, this is outside the scope of this article.

What do you think you are worth?
What I am proposing is a more profound awareness of what we advertise, and hereby sell, support, and in the end stand for.
One way of doing this is working with an ad network that allow you to approve which advertisers will be shown on your blog. Having this option is of course not enough in it self. Our choice should be made with an awareness of the consequences, and not driven by an ambition to make money.

Another way to achieve this, to an even higher extend, is to personally make deals with advertisers whose products and business we believe in, and can fully support. If we choose this path, sponsorships might be the way to go.

More work for nothing
It is very likely that doing this will require more work than simply having an ad network place “random” and unverified ads on our blogs, and maybe it will not increase the cash flow in any way. Luckily it takes very little self understanding to realize that doing something one truly believes in, even if it requires more work, is more than worth the effort.
After all, who would work for the opposing party? Or more specifically what kind of salary would make you do this? Or put in other words: How much is your integrity worth, how high do you value yourself?

It’s your integrity
These are important questions, questions that you should ask yourself. I am not saying; remove all ads from your blog. That would be an oversimplification, and by “definition” wrong. But I strongly recommend that you think twice, instead of uncritically adding ads on your blog, blinded by the idea of monetary gain.

300+
300+ New Features - why? I would rather have one new feature: Stability. What about you?

In September 1998 Wired magazine ran an article titled “Lord of the Toasters”. I remember reading the article with a smile on my face, while hoping that a desktop operation system that didn’t crash would emerge soon. It’s now been almost ten years, and it doesn’t seem to happen in the near future.

Why?
It’s a matter of priority, making money, and what customers want (without knowing it). Or rather; what trickers customers to buy, which is not equal to what they really want.

The 4th of February Microsoft released SP1 for Windows Vista proudly telling that stability was strongly increased, from 17 to 34 hours between disruptions. No one can argue that 34 hours is better than 17 hours, but to me it’s completely unacceptable.

Somehow Microsoft and other software companies have managed to convince people that software without bugs simply isn’t possibly, and to a high extend they have succeded. Without thinking much about it, it seems to be accepted as the truth about software design, and therefore we have to settle with it.

Brakes that only fail every second month
Allow me to give an example that makes it clear that it is in fact possible to make 100% stable software.

Let me ask you a question. If the car dealer shows you two cars, priced equally, some engine, some leather seats. The only difference is that the car to the left have a nicer color and more attractive curves. Which one would you choose? The one to the left of course.

The car dealer looks at you and says: “Oh, there is one little problem that you should be aware of - the breaks doens’t always work. But it’s a beautiful car, please sign here”.

I guess you would hesitate, am I right?

Vista in your brakes
Let’s imagine that we install Windows Vista in your car to control the brakes. Most people drive about 20 hours per month, so 34 hours gives you 2 months between “break disruptions”. That’s only 6 accidents per year, nothing to talk about.

Surely, Windows Vista is a more complex piece of software than embedded operations systems (like the ones that control the breaks in your car), but it is possible to development a stable desktop OS. It’s only a matter of priority, and the priority for Microsoft and Apple is not to make a stable OS, but rather a profitable OS, and in the end it’s really not their fault. They are businesses, and businesses have to make money to please shareholder etc. Therefore they develop software that people want to buy, and that means flashy, funky, and cool new features, not stability.

Pacemakers and spaceships
Other examples are pacemakers and spaceships. Imagine a pacemaker running Windows Vista, skipping a beat or crashing completely every 34 hours. If that was the case, there would be no point in installing a pacemaker in the first place.

So who is to blame? We are. Everyone that buys, and this way financially support the companies that sell these “do not use for traffic light regulation” operation systems - and other programs that would fit in the same category.

The “buying gene”
It’s funny how we crave for design, new funky features, and a graphical user interface that looks sparkling. This is what turns us on emotionally when we see the new product demonstrated. What turns us off is when the software crash or doesn’t respond.

You can’t have both (yet)
“But I want both”, you might say. “I want a stable system that is sparkling and have 300+ new features”. Of course you do, but like everything in life it’s a matter of priority. No matter how many software developers that are employed, the number is not infinitive, and there is a limit on what can be done within a release cycle.

And this is what it all boils down to: Priority.

If Microsoft or Apple could make an operation system that was both sparkling and stable, maybe they would, but time and developer resources doesn’t permit this. And even if it was possible, they might have reasons for not doing so, since they would no longer be able to earn money on support - but this is another story.

You are to blame
So, since software houses are companies we can’t blame them for doing what they do; conduct business. It might be nice to have someone else to blame, but not being able to do it is even better.

Mark these words: Companies try to produce what people buy, not what people want (or what would make the world a better place for that matter).

So, if we really want a stable OS, what we need to do is contain our compulsive “buying gene”, and instead demand stability. My might need to do this for a couple of years or more, since it takes time to reprogram a habit, and the companies have fallen into the habit of making feature-rich and stability-poor software.

Let’s do something about it - please.