Google Takes on Tiny Doogle

doogle.co.za

Search engine giant Google is threatening a lawsuit against a tiny South African website named Doogle.

The legal fight may threaten the existence of the company, but has been a short term boon for Doogle, creating so much traffic for the site that it crashed last week. Andries Maree Van Der Merwe, 23, said the free job search site he launched two years ago to help unemployed people in his country find work had more than a million hits last Wednesday.

The Doogle site features the Os as eyes and includes the phrase “Doogle it.”

“That’s more hits than in the entire first year.  I can’t believe the site has gone international,” said Van Der Merwe. He is so encouraged by the show of interest to persevere in a potential legal battle to save his business and domain name, www.doogle.co.za.

Van Der Merwe said he received a letter last month from attorneys at Google threatening to sue him for copyright infringement because his name and logo have similarities to the popular search engine’s.  One South African newspaper columnist declared Google had crossed the line by “persecuting small companies just because their name sounds vaguely similar.”  Van Der Merwe’s story was soon went viral.

“I’m not giving up my name. Doogle is who I am. It’s my business. I registered the company and legally acquired the domain,” said Van Der Merwe.

He said after dropping out of high school and teaching himself to use computers while scraping by on a meager income selling newspapers, he started the company on a computer he bought from a pawn shop.  Since then he has begun to do software development and web site creation for other businesses, but he says his dream is for Doogle to become a successful enterprise.  He has expanded the site beyond employment posting to include vehicle, realty and other classified listings.

“I am going all the way to court if Google wants to go to court, but I hope there’s a better way to solve this,” said Van Der Merwe.

Van Der Merwe says his attorney has replied to Google’s letter denying the claims and offering to put a notice on his site distancing itself from Google.

A Google spokesperson told the Guardian newspaper she could not comment on individual cases, but said the company is “passionate about protecting the reputation of our brand.”

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Should Small Businesses Invest in a Mobile Version Website?

Should small business owners invest in a mobile version of their business website or not has been a serious matter of debate for quite a long time. It depends on one’s personal opinions, ideas and perceptions when it comes to investing resources for a mobile version website, but the statistics show a desperate need of such a step.

The need for mobile version websites has been knocking at the door for the past couple of years. However, with the recent advancement in mobile technology and introduction of different tablets and iPads, etc. investing your time and resources in designing a mobile version website has almost become an imperative decision to take.

Why is it Necessary for Small Businesses to Invest in a Mobile Version of their Website?

It is necessary for small businesses to invest in a mobile version of their website, mainly because it is an absolute need of time right now. Moreover, as the time goes on, this need is going to become bigger only. For the past couple of years, using mobile devices for surfing on the internet and doing business have become a growing trend. In the past 2 years, this ratio has been increased by 500%. Moreover, for doing online shopping or business, 43% of the people use their mobile phones and devices. This means that if your website does not have a mobile version, then you lose around 43% of your potential customers – which is too big a number to ignore.

Among all the business types, small businesses need to invest their time and resources in a mobile version of their website as soon as possible. Unlike the big giants, small businesses face fierce competition because of too many sellers and no dominancy of their brand name. Having your mobile website can give you a great edge over your competitors, and you can even knock them out.

This theory can be supported and justified by the following two facts:

1.    Approximately, 93% of all the small businesses do not have a mobile version of their websites. In short, 93% of small business websites cannot be rendered properly on a mobile phone or a mobile device. This means that by having a mobile version of your website, you can jump ahead of those 93% small businesses.
2.    After having a bad mobile experience with a small business website, approximately 40% of consumers shift to their direct consumers for the same type of transaction. This means that you can easily snatch an average of 40% share of customers from your direct competitors if they do not have a good mobile website.
To gain such a high level of customer base, a small business needs to invest tons of money on advertisement and marketing.

Negative Impacts of Not Having a Mobile Compatible Website:

Following are some negative impacts of not having a mobile compatible website for your small business:

•    Approximately 23% of your possible customers are not likely to do business with you if you do not have a properly working mobile website.
•    You will not be exposed to local searches done using mobile devices, and approximately 51% of people use their mobile phones for local searches.
•    You lose approximately 43% of smartphone users who use their smartphones for online shopping.
•    You lose another 57% of your customers, who do not recommend doing business with an organization who does not have a mobile version of their website.

Conclusion:

In short, a mobile version of your website has become an absolute necessity for your survival. Sooner or later, you will have to step up and make a mobile version website. So, why not invest your resources now?

Today’s author, Matt Fuller, works for Website Hotline, and specializes in small business web design.

Tags: Mobile Technology, Mobile Web, Mobile Website

Source : techtalkafrica[dot]com

Domain Privacy Options: Free or Premium

In recent years, purchasing an Internet domain and launching a website have become incredibly easy and affordable, even for people who aren’t computer experts. With just a few clicks, anyone can reserve a URL and purchase hosting for their site; this is usually inexpensive, particularly for savvy shoppers who take advantage of a godaddy promo code or other discount during checkout.

Despite this, some parts of the domain registration process, including decisions about domain privacy, may still seem a little mysterious to neophytes. This article explains the distinction between free privacy options and premium “who is” privacy controls sold by firms such as GoDaddy.com.

Domain registrars are legally obligated to collect personal information about their customers, and to make that information publicly available in databases called “WHOIS” directories. Many people, however, are reluctant to provide this information due to concerns that it will be harvested by identity thieves, scammers and other unscrupulous individuals. Consequently, many prefer to pay an extra fee for “private registration”, by which their chosen domain registrar is given legal ownership of the domain. It is therefore the registrar’s information that’s listed in the WHOIS directory, rather than details about the individual controlling the domain.

Paid domain privacy options usually cost around $10 per year; many companies offer discounts to customers who purchase privacy for several years at a time. Others waive the fee entirely if the customer also purchases or transfers several domains at once. There are also free domain privacy services that claim to provide similar protection, and many people are confused about which type of privacy protection is right for them.

There is no single answer. Do a little research and try to answer this question: does the company providing the privacy protection sell its customers’ contact information to other organizations? Many people are horrified to learn that domain privacy providers list their own information on a site’s WHOIS record, but will sell their clients’ REAL information to other businesses!

Remember that domain privacy firms DO collect your personal information because they’re legally required to do so; however, they are NOT obligated to divulge this information unless compelled by a court order. Some companies are fiercely protective of their customers’ privacy, but others will divulge the true WHOIS information with only a little outside pressure. Investigating this will help you choose wisely.

It’s important to understand that there are also several “do-it-yourself” privacy options for domain owners who don’t want to pay for a private WHOIS listing. Individuals concerned about releasing their name and home address may elect to rent a P.O. Box and register their domains using that contact information. The WHOIS database lists a contact email address for each domain owner; many don’t wish to reveal this information because they don’t want to offer their email up to potential spammers and phishers. The solution to this is simple; set up a separate email address for the WHOIS listing. You can even have the incoming messages forwarded to your regular email inbox, eliminating the need to log into multiple accounts every day.

BIO: Daria Cortese is a freelance writer and technology enthusiast who lives near Philadelphia with her husband and five cats.

Tags: Domain Privacy, Free Domains, Premium Domains

Source : techtalkafrica[dot]com

How To Increase Your Alexa Ranking

The Alexa rank for a website can be considered second in importance to Google page rank. This means that you not only need to optimize your site for Google, but for Alexa as well. Increasing rankings is an important focus for blogs, as this ranking shows the reputation and status of a blog. Various options can be used to increase your Alexa ranking.

The Alexa ranking for your site is based on a variety of factors such as traffic. This rank is updated on a daily basis and the lower the number signifies a higher ranking. However, they only count traffic that is passing through their system. This is done by placing an Alexa widget on your site by the installation of a toolbar.

How To Claim Your Site

Go to Alexa and create an account. You will be sent an email to complete the process. Log into the site and view the Site Tools tab. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Claim Your Site link. This is a way for you to edit your site’s information on Alexa. You have the choice of an Intro option or to pay for a subscription.

Custom Alexa Toolbar
Log into your Alexa account and scroll to the bottom of the page. Click on the link for Create a Custom Toolbar under the Alexa Tools for Site Owners heading. This will take you to the Alexa Toolbar Creator Page. This is a free service that you can use to create your own branded toolbar. One-click access to the information on your site is available for social network features. Promote the toolbar on your website to allow visitors to install it on their own web browser.

Alexa Site Widgets
Scroll to the bottom of the main page when your first log into your Alexa account. Click on the link for Alexa Site Widgets. These are used to display the Traffic Rank for your site. These widgets can also be used to count hits to your site that will improve your site’s Alexa rank. You have the option to include a site stats button, a traffic rank button, and a traffic graph. A small piece of code will need to be added to your site to enable the widget.

Watch the video below to see Building a Custom Toolbar in less than 3 minutes with Alexa Tool creator

The Alexa Toolbar Creator from Alexa Internet on Vimeo.

Reviews on Alexa
Encourage the visitors to your site to leave a positive review on Alexa. Place a link to your site that will take visitors to your Alexa listing where they can leave a review.

Link Building
Post links to your site on other blogs and online directories. This is a good way to promote and market your site to attract visitors. Concentrate your link placement on specialty blogs and sites that a visitor is likely to use.

Build Traffic
Ask your friends and family to visit your website and install the Alexa toolbar. Make sure that you have friends and family members disable the toolbar when performing search on Google. This will provide a boost to blogs and other sites that can decrease your Alexa ranking, this technique will help you to boost alexa but that does not necessarily mean you are getting the traffic.

Tags: Alexa Rank, Alexa Ranking, Increasing Page Rank, Page Rank, Page Rank Increase

Source : techtalkafrica[dot]com

Election 2012: YouTube seeks voters’ videos for its Elections Hub channel

Fancy trying your hand at a spot of citizen journalism? YouTube is inviting US voters to submit videos of their Election Day experiences to the website's Elections Hub channel where it promises to feature some of the best.

Election Day is almost here, and it’s been quite some build-up this time around. We’ve seen Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair, Mitt Romney hammer President Obama in the opening debate and a hurricane called Sandy turn things upside down in more ways than one.

As Obama and Romney begin nursing their bruised and battered vocal cords following a punishing campaign which saw both of them manically criss-crossing the country in a last-ditch effort to persuade voters in crucial swing states, YouTube has put out a call to voters requesting videos of their Election Day experiences as they head to their local polling station to cast their ballot in an election too close to call.

“Regardless of whether you’re a veteran or first-time voter, taking part in the electoral process is a powerful experience, and one that we know many of you will document in some way, just like you did in 2008,” the video sharing site’s Olivia Ma wrote on the YouTube blog on Monday.

She added, “Whether you’re vlogging about which candidate you support, capturing footage of the long line at your polling place, or encouraging your friends to get out of the house and go vote, we’re inviting you to send us your Election Day videos.”

Ma suggests voters either tweet their submissions to @YouTubePolitics or simply include #YouTubePolitics in the video title, promising that a selection of the submissions will be featured on the YouTube Elections Hub channel.

The special election channel has been featuring extensive coverage from the likes of ABC News, Al Jazeera and the New York Times, and has plenty of live coverage lined up for Tuesday as people go out to vote.

So if you fancy trying your hand at a spot of citizen journalism – with the possibility that your work might end up being shown alongside coverage by broadcasting giants – you know what to do.

Something to keep in mind, though: YouTube reminds vloggers to check their state law for guidelines when it comes to polling station activities. It’s good advice – the last thing you want is to be marched away from the polling station before you’ve had a chance to have your say in this tightly contested election.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Election 2012: YouTube seeks voters’ videos for its Elections Hub channel

Fancy trying your hand at a spot of citizen journalism? YouTube is inviting US voters to submit videos of their Election Day experiences to the website's Elections Hub channel where it promises to feature some of the best.

Election Day is almost here, and it’s been quite some build-up this time around. We’ve seen Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair, Mitt Romney hammer President Obama in the opening debate and a hurricane called Sandy turn things upside down in more ways than one.

As Obama and Romney begin nursing their bruised and battered vocal cords following a punishing campaign which saw both of them manically criss-crossing the country in a last-ditch effort to persuade voters in crucial swing states, YouTube has put out a call to voters requesting videos of their Election Day experiences as they head to their local polling station to cast their ballot in an election too close to call.

“Regardless of whether you’re a veteran or first-time voter, taking part in the electoral process is a powerful experience, and one that we know many of you will document in some way, just like you did in 2008,” the video sharing site’s Olivia Ma wrote on the YouTube blog on Monday.

She added, “Whether you’re vlogging about which candidate you support, capturing footage of the long line at your polling place, or encouraging your friends to get out of the house and go vote, we’re inviting you to send us your Election Day videos.”

Ma suggests voters either tweet their submissions to @YouTubePolitics or simply include #YouTubePolitics in the video title, promising that a selection of the submissions will be featured on the YouTube Elections Hub channel.

The special election channel has been featuring extensive coverage from the likes of ABC News, Al Jazeera and the New York Times, and has plenty of live coverage lined up for Tuesday as people go out to vote.

So if you fancy trying your hand at a spot of citizen journalism – with the possibility that your work might end up being shown alongside coverage by broadcasting giants – you know what to do.

Something to keep in mind, though: YouTube reminds vloggers to check their state law for guidelines when it comes to polling station activities. It’s good advice – the last thing you want is to be marched away from the polling station before you’ve had a chance to have your say in this tightly contested election.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Dotcom taunts the FBI, announces Mega website

Kim Dotcom has launched the splash page to his new cloud storage website, now named Mega. To try and avoid further prosecution, he is asking for interested hosting companies to get in touch only if they have no ties with the US. Will his plan work?

Less than a week ago, Kim Dotcom said the successor to Megaupload,com would go live on the first anniversary of his arrest and today, he has launched a splash page for the new site, now named Mega.

Eventually, Mega will be found at www.me.ga, but for now that domain redirects to Kim.com/Mega, where a large red Mega logo sits under the words “we promise, we deliver” and “Bigger. Better. Faster. Stronger. Safer,” all of which presumably refer to the improvements made to the site over Megaupload.

Mega is described as a live global cloud file system, and won’t require the installation of any software to manage your files, with encryption being dealt with in your browser. This is important, as Mega won’t have any access to the files you store on its servers.

Dotcom has been accused of profiting from piracy through Megaupload, something that he hopes to avoid by not knowing what his users upload, store and share through the new site.

In addition to this brief description, the page also calls for investors, developers and “hosting partners” to get in touch. Aside from a few technical details, there’s one catch for interested hosting companies: They can’t be located in the US. Under the heading “limitations,” it’s stated that it’s no longer safe for sites providing cloud storage to be hosted in the US or on .com or .net domains, as proven by what’s called the “novel criminal prosecution of Megaupload.”

In fact, Dotcom is doing everything he can to avoid a repeat of what happened to Megaupload, saying “The new Mega avoids any dealings with US hosters, US domains and US backbone providers and has changed the way it operates to avoid another takedown.”

The question is, will that make any difference. According to Dotcom’s Twitter account, the FBI has been busily refreshing the new Mega page since it went live, and to launch a new cloud storage website may be considered a breach of his bail conditions.

We’re sure to find out more between now and Mega’s launch, which is set for January 20 2013.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

How To Find and Get a Job on LinkedIn

Knowing how to find a job on LinkedIn is essential in today’s economy. The first step would be by creating a profile on LinkedIn website, this profile will include your employment history (including current job) as well as your education. Including keywords and skills that pertain to you.

image courtesy of flickr, Shekhar Sahu

The next step you have to take would be to build your LinkedIn network, the more connections the better chance of being called up for an interview. Connect with people whom you know and have a business relationship with. Getting recommendations from them would also be very helpful as it shows trust in your abilities. f you see a hiring manager at a company you would like to apply to, see if you know anyone he knows and find a way to connect with him or her.

image courtesy of flickr, Gavin Llewellyn

Those steps highlighted above will at least get you started and possibly get you leads. Next you would want to apply for jobs. LinkedIn is really a great site to find the jobs you want. You can search profiles in your area, pertaining to your field and qualifications.

See Also: How to Get a Job Using Social Media

You could also check the company pages included on LinkedIn to see if they are hiring. It even lists the most recent hires, you can see where they came from and their qualifications, you could message them and ask for tips and tricks in landing a job with that company. By now you should have a substantial list of places you would like to work at.

Next you would apply for available jobs at the companies that you have so far discovered in the previous steps. LinkedIn is a very powerful site for finding and obtaining a job, if you know how to use it properly you will have a lot of success. It should be remembered that the most important thing is connections. With high unemployment, employers are seeing a lot of resumes come in. So spending as much time as you can building connections will help you so much. If you properly know how to use LinkedIn, you will almost certainly find employment if you are persistent.

See Also: How To Look For a Job With Facebook

Tags: LinkedIn Facebook Jobs, LinkedIn Job Hunting, LinkedIn Jobhunt, LinkedIn Jobsearch

Source : techtalkafrica[dot]com

Facebook’s Oldest Users Jostle for Title

Mark Zuckerberg likely never imagined this when he founded Facebook as an undergraduate in his Harvard dorm room.

The website he created as a social network for college students is now the site of a brewing battle between two centenarians over who can lay claim to being the oldest among Facebook’s more than 1 billion monthly users.

Logged on in one corner is Florence Detlor, the 101-year-old Californian who, in August, was designated Facebook’s oldest user by Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Detlor traveled to the social network’s Palo Alto campus for a personal tour.

READ MORE: Vest Promises a Hug Every Time You Get a ‘Like’ on Facebook

In the other corner is a New Mexico woman, Maria “Mary” Colunia Segura-Metzgar, who just celebrated her 105^th birthday on Tuesday and has her own Facebook page, complete with 86 friends.

Segura-Metzgar, however, is so far removed from the typical Facebook user that she had to shave a few years off her age in order to join the site, according to her 60-year-old grandson, Anthony Segura, who is responsible for signing her up.

“I tried to sign her up on Facebook a few months ago but it wouldn’t accept her birth date,” Segura told ABCNews.com today.  “Then I tried again and just put in 101 and it accepted it for the timeline, even though she was 104.”

“Now on Facebook it says she’s 102 when, in reality, she’s 105,” he said.

Segura, who said his grandmother is too hard of hearing to be interviewed by phone, said he has tried to reach Facebook to rectify the problem, but they have been unresponsive.  A call placed to Facebook by ABC News was not returned as of this writing.

Even though the title would be nice, Segura says it was a much more important reason why he got his grandmother to join Facebook.

“We want to let everybody know in the family that she’s still alive and kicking,” he said.

Segura-Metzgar, known as “Grandmother Mary” to her nearly 40 grandchildren, “too many to count” great-grandchildren and two new great-great-grandchildren born just this week, lives just a few miles away from Segura and his wife, Mayra, in Albuquerque.  They visit her frequently to let her use their iPad to log on and update her page, most recently with photos from her 105^th birthday party.

“She’s still very sharp and likes to tell stories of her life and we wanted to be able to record her life as a legacy,” said Segura.  “We’re a very large family and there’s a lot of stories that a lot of the family doesn’t know and we wanted to be able to capture those.  Since ‘Timeline’ came out we thought it was a good idea to put those [stories] on Facebook to have a timeline of her life.”

Segura is also tasked with keeping his grandmother’s friends list to just family and friends, no small task considering he had to deny more than 50 friend requests just Wednesday from curious onlookers.

That same fate befell Florence Detlor, Segura-Metzgar’s younger competition, who, after her personal visit with Zuckerberg and Sandberg was made public, had too many friend requests for the site to process new ones.

Segura-Metzgar, a twice-widowed mother of four, is one of 10 children whose 99-year-old and 97-year-old sisters and “a couple brothers” are still alive, according to Segura.  While she is the only one of her siblings to take on the World Wide Web, Segura-Metzgar hasn’t given up on the old-fashioned way of getting her news and staying in touch either.

“She loves to watch TV and read the newspaper, she’s always done that all her life and she still does it to this day,” Segura said.  ” She’s very involved in politics.  She won’t tell us who she’s going to vote for but she will be voting.”

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Fab Launches New iPhone and iPad Apps

If you haven’t heard of Fab, you will soon. The shopping website with a social media twist launched 16 months ago, in June 2011. By July 2012 it had five million members and today it is at 7.5 million users.

The e-commerce site has become one of the coolest places to shop on the web. It has everything from clothes, home furnishings, fun gadgets, stuff for kids, food and even pets. But it’s not only the cool products and great selection that has made Fab so popular, two tech components have been central to the success: social media and mobile.

“Fifty percent of our members are buying through their mobile phones,” Fab CEO Jason Goldberg told ABC News in an interview Wednesday. “With that we challenged ourselves to think beyond the existing apps and to start from scratch to build something for the very mobile users.”

The new Fab apps for the iPhone and iPad have been given a fresh coat of paint. Both apps let you swipe from the left to reveal a toolbar and you can see different tabs, including the latest items added to the site, popular items, and things that are popular with your friends.

“We wanted to present an experience that is design-worthy as the products we sell. We want people to think of Fab as a place to check out every day, to see what is new,” Goldberg said.

It’s that “latest” feed, which gives the site and app a newsy feel, and social media integration that has also been key to the service’s fast growth.

According to Goldberg, over 50 percent of the users have joined the site from social sharing. You can login with Facebook to the shopping site, easily share items you like with friends, see what your Facebook friends like on Fab.com, and even use Facebook’s new Collections feature on Facebook.com itself.

Goldberg says it is working on an Android app, but it simply doesn’t see the same demand from Android users. “We do have an Android app, but we find that only two percent of our usage is on Android. We wish we had more Android usage,” he explained.

The new Fab apps for the iPhone and iPad will hit the App Store today.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Apple no longer calls their Maps the most beautiful and powerful ever

Hot on the heels of the new alternative Maps apps section in the AppStore, Apple has also toned down their elated iOS6 Maps app copy as keen visitors to their website have spotted.

As it’s conveniently clear from the screenshot, the previous copy called the new Maps app “the most beautiful, powerful mapping service ever”. The new wording turns the attention to another key feature – “the beautiful vector-based interface that scales and zooms with ease” and certainly takes a more modest stance.

I wonder when are they going to change the messed up icon as well.

It clearly shows a navigation route making a sharp left off a bridge.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Replacement Google: What if NFL Ran Google and Locked Out the Real Results?

Image credit: Erik Johnson

The NFL has been tackled with criticism for its replacement referees and their inconsistent calls, inspiring a new website that might just illustrate the frustrations of players and fans best.

It’s called Replacement Google and it imagines a digital world in which the NFL has taken over Google and locked out the real results.

Visit http://www.replacementgoogle.com, type in “J.K. Rowling,” and it will return results for an aardvark. Type in “Barack Obama” and you’ll get a lot of information about Dino Bravo. Mitt Romney? Lots about Spiderman.  (The results will vary for different users since it uses a random script for results.) You get the point very quickly: Google’s algorithm has been replaced with one that, well, just doesn’t work the way it should.

“With the lockout, you saw what happens when things don’t work the way they’re supposed to. I started wondering what would happen if other things out there suddenly didn’t work as they have always,” Erik Johnson, the creator of the site, told ABC News. “Replacement Google popped into my mind and I went home on my lunch break and put it together within an hour.”

The site went live on Tuesday afternoon and has had over 350,000 unique visitors since. Not quite the numbers that Google.com gets, but it’s a pretty sizable audience for a site in its first 36 hours. When Johnson isn’t working on his new popular site, he is a webmaster at a development firm in Vermont.

Of course, now that the NFL and its referees have reached an agreement, Replacement Google might seem a bit less relevant, but Johnson says he’s happy it caught the attention of the Internet and of Google. (Google tweeted a link to the site on Wednesday.)

“It’s cool that people have checked it out,” he said. “But I’m really happy about the truce.”

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Instagram updates mobile website: Are full profiles next?

Instagram has rolled out a new design to its mobile website to more closely match its full site's design, adding hope to the rumor that profile updates are next in line.

With the Instagram and Facebook deal finally approved by the Federal Trade Commission, Instagram has unveiled its latest update to its platform. Instagram’s mobile website will now sport a new look and feel that closely reflects what you’d find when viewing photos on Instagram from your desktop browser.

Before this update, users have not been able to interact with the mobile pages on Instagram. But this update changes all that. The “Like” and comment buttons are now larger, making them easier to use. And at the top right hand corner of Instagram’s mobile pages, you’ll find an “Open in App” button which will open the same Instagram page that you’re currently browsing within the native app on your smartphone.

More importantly, it also provides more evidence to the rumor that Instagram has its sights set on porting the functionalities you’d find on its mobile app to the Web.

In June, Instagram silently rolled out a new update to user Web profiles incorporated interactive buttons for liking and commenting on photos. To its user’s disappointment, that update had not yet addressed the demand for a profile page and discovery features, despite the existence of such features on the mobile app.

But that could all change in the near future as the company is now officially a part of Facebook.

In July, web designer, Cole Reinke, noticed a curious feature when logged into his account on Instagram.com. Typically users signed into Instagram’s browser app can only edit their profile information, but Reinke’s account had a non-functional “View Profile” button that disappeared as quickly as it surfaced.

If it’s true that that Instagram was testing out a profile page for the Web, we’re hoping that the complete transition of converting Instagram’s native app to the Web will come in the next update, now that its mobile and desktop pages are now cohesive. 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Apple accuses Polish online food store A.pl for trademark infringement, takes the matter to court

Apple has decided to sue Polish online supermarket A.pl over trademark issues. According to Polish website Telepolis, Apple has issued a request for the cancellation of the online food store’s trademark rights from Poland’s Patent Office.

The reason for Apple’s discontent is that A.pl’s brand and its sister company’s name logo (fresh24.pl) create a likelihood of confusion and may use Apple’s fame to its advantage. Naturally, A.pl is standing to defend its trademark and according to the report, the legal battle may take as long as two or three years.

We’ll continue to follow the case, but, as Thenextweb points out, its certain that whoever wins the case, there will be appeals from both sides to the Regional Administrative Court in Warsaw.

Do you think Apple is right to sue A.pl for owning a company with an apple logo?

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Top 7 Traffic Building Tools For Your Website

Building a successful website that generates traffic takes time and energy and may seem overwhelming for the beginning web entrepreneur, but fortunately there are some excellent tools out there that can help generate traffic for your website.

The Google Keyword Tool

Picking keywords that have high demand but low supply is a must for a new website. If you are on a tight budget, utilizing the Google Keyword Tool is an excellent free way to get some vital statistics on your specific keywords.

WordPress

While it may not seem like an obvious tool to some people, blogging is a necessity these days when building traffic. WordPress is free and offers an easy-to-use platform to get the job done.

When blogging using WordPress, it’s essential to link back to your main website. This will do two things to help increase your traffic: It gives those who read your blog a chance to visit a website that offers the services discussed in the blog and gives you an important backlink that Google will archive and use for ranking your website.

Market Samurai

Market Samurai is an excellent SEO tool that you can utilize along with the Google Keyword Tool. Not only does it provide keyword analysis, Market Samurai also gives you access to other excellent tools such as content research, monetization analysis and a backlink building program.

While the full version of Market Samurai costs $149, a free download is available, although the free version is greatly limited in both ability and features.

BuzzStream

Once you’ve developed your content and website around your specific keywords, it’s time to get those all-important inbound links! Buzzstream is an excellent tool to use when searching for websites to link with. Because Google and other search engines place so much importance on links directed at your website, this is an important part of the SEO process.

Buzzstream offers the tools necessary to build your online presence, both through link building and social media networking. The price is also affordable, at $29 per month.

Dlvr.it

Social media has immensely impacted traffic building and marketing on the internet for a number of years, and is a necessary part to any SEO campaign. Dlvr.it is a website that offers easy-to-use tools for developing your online present via social networking. When you update your website content and blogs, dlvr.it will update services such as Facebook and Twitter with all of these changes, saving you both time and effort. The best part about dlvr.it is the price: free for basic services.

Ontolo

Ontolo offers a unique system that allows you to do in-depth analysis of keywords and offers link building and SEO campaigns that cater to your specific needs. Their sophisticated tools can be extremely helpful in boosting your website traffic.
While they charge $97 a month, they do offer free SEO analysis tools for beginners. It’s best to try these tools before you invest in the full paid version of Ontolo.

Citation Labs

Citation Labs is another excellent resource for link building. Their tools offer a unique way to build your links around the keywords of your choice. You can also do a full analysis of how many back links you currently have and if they are driving any traffic to your website.

Citation Labs offers their services for $27 per month.

Tags: Traffic Building Tools, Traffic Generation Tools

Source : techtalkafrica[dot]com

Emma Watson: The Web’s most dangerous celebrity search

Searching the Web for Harry Potter star Emma Watson has a one-in-eight chance of leading you to a malicious website, according to McAfee.

Harry Potter star Emma Watson is the most dangerous woman on the Internet. Or, at least, her name is the most dangerous celebrity search term, according to cybersecurity company McAfee’s 2012 “Most Dangerous Celebrities” study. Watson knocks out former Victoria Secret’s model Heidi Klum as the Web’s riskiest celebrity search.

So how dangerous is it to search for “Emma Watson?” It’s like playing Russian roulette. Searchers have a one-in-eight chance (12.6 percent) of opening up a malicious site containing spyware, malware, spam, adware, viruses and phishing sites, says McAfee. But in particular, McAfee identifies “Emma Watson and free downloads,” “Emma Watson and nude pictures,” “Emma Watson and fakes,” and “Emma Watson and busted,” as the most dangerous Emma Watson-related phrases to search for. Many of the websites associated with those phrases have been designed specifically for stealing your personal information.

 “Cybercriminals follow the latest trends, often using the names of popular celebrities to lure people to sites that are actually laden with malicious software that are designed to steal passwords and personal information,” McAfee wrote.

Since her participation in the Harry Potter series, which ended with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 in 2011, Emma Watson hasn’t quite had a standout role. In 2011, her non-Harry Potter related gig was a supporting role as a wardrobe assistant who had a fling with the main actor, and she starred in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, set to debut on September 21. So why is Emma Watson so popular?

We have a feeling Reddit has something to do with it. Emma Watson has had quite the cult following thanks to Reddit and the /r/EmmaWatson subreddit, where Redditors will post elegant photographs highlighting the actress’s beauty. There’s a fascination with her as posts related to the actress often turns up on the front page of Reddit. And, as you may know already, much of the content that ends up on Reddit’s heavily visited front page often makes its way throughout the Web.

McAfee found that “Headline” (news-making) celebrities doesn’t necessarily become lures for spammers and scammers. And the list of “most dangerous” celebs clearly reflects that.

The list of the top ten most dangerous celebrities to search for includes the following:

1. Emma Watson
2. Jessica Biel
3. Eva Mendes
4. Selena Gomez
5. Halle Berry
6. Megan Fox
7. Shakira
8. Cameron Diaz
9. Salma Hayek
10. Sofia Vergara

Some trends that McAfee recognized were that Latina celebrities — and more generally, women — were the most likely search terms to be linked to dangerous result. In fact, only one guy made the top 20 most dangerous celebrity search terms: Jimmy Kimmel. Go figure.

Image via Featureflash/Shutterstock

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Twitter announces an embeddable tweet timeline

Now you can embed a "Tweet Timeline" on any website as you would a YouTube video or Storify widget, and updates will arrive in real-time.

Twitter today announced on its blog that citizens of the Web can now share tweets from certain hashtags or users via an embedding code. Much like Storify or Kickstarter, both of which have little widgets you can incorporate into your online post, the new feature will be fully interactive — allowing viewers to click for a direct link to the source as well as favorite, reply, or retweet right from the embedded box.

“Whether it’s an author’s Tweets alongside their blog, a hashtag about an event like #DNC2012, or a list of competitors at the US Open, Tweets add a live, real-time dimension to articles, news reports, and the web at large,” Twitter writes on its blog. “These new embeddable timelines enable publishers, writers, developers, and any Twitter user to drop a rich, interactive piece of Twitter into their websites.”

Here’s an example of our Twitter feed embedded into the post. As you can see, hashtags are clickable and will bring you to the search feature on the Twitter site itself. If there are any photos of videos, expanding the tweet will also display the media as you’d typically find on your Twitter stream.

Tweets by @DigitalTrends

You can customize your Twitter timeline by going to the settings page on your account. Under widgets, you can add the Twitter handle of the person(s) you want to timeline, a hashtag, or your favorites, or your lists. Be forewarned that since the update arrives in real-time, vague hashtags may show some inappropriate or irrelevant tweets considering the amounts of users on the Twitterverse.

The new feature will undoubtedly be a useful tool for engaging the audience and conversation, and possibly add flavor to existing posts by combining the public reactions and comments from Twitter straight to your story. Of course, if you want to just pick and choose particular tweets to support a point in your post, Storify may still be a better route despite its nonexistent real-time capacity.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Hulu website gets new look, includes bigger artwork and improved navigation

Hulu has given its website a makeover, creating a more visually appealing experience while improving navigation of the site.

Online video service Hulu rolled out a new look for its website late Tuesday. The company said the aim was to come up with a more visually attractive site while making it easier to discover new and interesting content.

In a blog post detailing the new look, Rob Wong, Hulu’s VP of product, wrote that the site was now using “larger, more vivid artwork to feature last night’s TV episodes and new additions to Hulu.”

He continued, “We’ve also implemented a new tray-style format to make it easy for you to browse and discover content. And for logged-in users, we highlight the ‘Shows You Watch’ to make it super easy to jump directly to the shows you are already enjoying on Hulu.”

A little way down the new-look homepage you’ll be able to find the week’s most popular episodes on Hulu, together with recommendations based on your viewing history.

With ‘staff picks’, Hulu employees get the chance to suggest their favorite TV shows, movies and videos to users on the hunt for something new.

Site navigation has also been revamped. “Use the ‘Browse’ menu to easily jump to popular content, content recently added to the site, specific networks, recommendations and more from any page on Hulu,” Wong wrote in his post. An updated search box at the top of the page also enables users to move around the site more easily.

Wong called the changes to the website “just the beginning,” promising to implement more updates according to feedback and how people use the site.

The new design is being rolled out gradually over the next few days, though impatient types can check it out now by clicking here.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

British man sentenced to four years for linking to pirated content

Despite an American court striking a ruling against a website for providing links to pirated video content last week, a British man has become the first UK citizen to face jail time for doing the same thing, receiving a sentence of four years for a site that lasted only one year.

For all we know, Anton Vickerman may have had simple aims when he launched his website surfthechannel.com – Likely just providing a service to the Internet at large, and getting himself a bunch of traffic (and maybe a little profit) in the process – but both he and the website have ended up going down in Internet history nonetheless as Vickerman becomes the first UK citizen to be sentenced to jail time for linking to illegally-uploaded copyright infringing material.

The 38-year old Vickerman was said to be making somewhere in the region of £35,000 per month from the site through advertising, according to prosecutors in the case. He had originally set up the site in 2007 as an online index to video content both legal and otherwise throughout the Internet; the following year, he attempted to sell it for £400,000, claiming that it had generated a profit in the twelve months previous of around £250,000. Both Vickerman and his wife, Kelly, were arrested later that year following an elaborate sting operation during which investigators gained access to his house by pretending to be potential homebuyers interested in the property; Kelly Vickerman was charged with conspiracy to defraud, but cleared in June of this year.

Perhaps tellingly, Vickerman was not charged with copyright offences directly, but instead faced – and was ultimately convicted on – two counts of conspiracy to facilitate copyright infringement. Initially faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, the sentence finally handed down at the end of the eight-week trial was a far more lenient 4 years.

According to Kieron Sharp of the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), one of the organizations that led the investigation against Vickerman, “This case conclusively shows that running a website that deliberately sets out to direct users to illegal copies of films and TV shows will result in a criminal conviction and a long jail sentence.” That stands in opposition to last week’s overturning by the US 7th Circuit Court of Appeal of a judgment against MyVidster.com, an American-based social video site that essentially does the same thing; in that ruling, Judge Richard Posner likened the sharing of/linking to pirated videos to the reading of stolen books, explaining that “MyVidster is giving web surfers addresses where they can find entertainment,” likening it to entertainment listings: “By listing plays and giving the name and address of the theaters where they are being performed,” Posner reasoned, “the New Yorker is not performing them. It is not ‘transmitting or communicating’ them.”

Such legal discrepancies between nations and jurisdictions are unlikely to give Vickerman much comfort, however; in addition to the jail term, his lawyer David Walbank told the court that the case had not only led to his bankruptcy, but also the break-up of his marriage. Crime doesn’t pay, we’re often told, but this particular one appears to have cost more than anyone might have anticipated.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Visit the First Website Ever Right Now to Celebrate Its 21st Birthday

Image credit: CERN

Twenty-one years ago today the first website was published. It looked just like this — basic text, with some words oddly highlighted.

On Aug. 6, 1991, Tim Berners-Lee, who is widely credited with inventing the World Wide Web, published that site from CERN, the world’s largest physics lab in Geneva, Switzerland. He used the machine pictured above — a NeXT computer — to create the page.

The page, as you can see now, explained the World Wide Web or W3 as a “wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents.” The first page has been preserved and republished by CERN, and according to ZDNet, the first web server is still powered on at the lab with a sign warning, “This machine is a server. DO NOT POWER DOWN!”

About a year after that website was published, in July 1992, the first photo was posted on the Web. It was of a comedian musical group. Berners-Lee was honored during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com