Web 2.0 Sites a Thriving Marketplace for Malware, how sad?

A wiry young man with his head shaved and wearing a tank top points a handgun straight at the camera in a disturbing YouTube video. The man wears what appears to be a wedding ring, and he gazes vacantly away from the viewer.

Though it's an odd image for an advertisement, this video isn't promoting your average company. It's from a not-so-underground Albanian hacker group that's out to make a name for themselves in the thriving world of malware and computer crime. Besides the shot of the gunman, the video showcases images of a computer screen, a table loaded with foreign currency, and plenty of links to the group's Web site.

Malware is big business, and groups like the Albanian hackers are trying to cash in, using the latest Web 2.0 tools: social networking profiles, blogs, and other publicly available media and Web pages. The digital desperados are moving more and more into wide-scale advertising and brand building on public sites and networks to grow their underground trade.

more: http://votrs.com/2aa0d178

Google Reader is Socially Sexier

I think Google Reader has just got a damn sight more sexier and any lingering disloyal thoughts I might have had about going back to My Yahoo are now well and truly gone. The reason for my unwavering loyalty? Notes! Yes you heard me right - notes!

There’s now no doubt now that Google is gradually building a social network to rival all other social networks but it all seems to be in dribs and drabs and it’s a bit confusing how they are going to eventually connect it all up. I mean, let’s look at the various strands;

1. iGoogle : Google’s personalised search pages. As yet, still rather underrated (Google is not really pushing people towards it) but it is nevertheless slowly gaining a cult following among Googlers. Developers are becoming a lot like Facebook developers and are pushing out a lot of applications to users. There may come the day however when Google DOES start pushing people by default towards their personalised iGoogle pages and we may not have a plain no-frills Google.com page anymore……but let’s wait and see on that one.
2. Picks For You : Google’s version of Stumbleupon (but without the profiles, thumbs up, commenting and close-knit community that makes Stumbleupon unique). “Picks For You” is a Google Toolbar button that needs (obviously) the Google Toolbar installed and your Google search history enabled. So you need to trust Google a great deal to use this feature. “Picks For You” works by studying your Google search history stored inside the toolbar and then bringing you alternative webpages that it thinks you might like based on those past searches. But unlike Stumbleupon, you cannot specify particular subjects to include or exclude. It just goes by what you have searched for in the past. So bad luck if you previously searched for how to treat your STD problem.
3. Gmail : Many people have commented that with a bit of work, the Gmail contacts section could be leveraged into a social networking area of its very own, especially since Gmail 2.0 came equipped with the ability to add instant messaging usernames. Then Zoopit (not connected to Google) launched its private beta which gives users the chance to show photos from their email in their Gmail inbox (which I eventually uninstalled because Zoopit demanded my Gmail password).
4. Google Reader : and so we come to Google Reader which seems to me to be the jewel in the Google social networking crown right now. They hit a major snag at first when they announced that Reader shared links would be visible to all other contacts and I have to admit this soured me on Reader for a while (it also caused a bit of an uproar in the Google Help Forums) . But I soon decided to forget about it and work around it instead. Instead of worrying about what links people can see, just let them see what you want them to see.

The first hint of a social network in Google Reader is the basic profile and you can invite your Reader contacts to share in your RSS feeds.

This is all old hat though. It’s the new feature that has made me realise that Google Reader is on the verge of kicking some serious social ass.

A lot of the time, while I am stumbling around, I find great webpages that I want to share with my Google Reader contacts but at the same time I do NOT want to subscribe to the whole damn feed just to show off one page. In these circumstances, I tend to think “oh forget about it!” and move on.

There are also (believe it or not) websites without RSS feeds (gasp!). It’s 2008 but these sites are still stuck in the mindset of 1998. One of my favourite websites doesn’t have a RSS feed which irritates me immensely - The Straight Dope. I have always wanted to share pages from that site with my Reader contacts but how can I when I can’t get it to show up in Reader? But now, thanks to Google Reader, I can!

First, just go “Your Stuff” in your Reader sidebar and then “Notes”. You’ll then find a draggable javascript link that you can pull up to your browser bar with your mouse.

Now I went to the Straight Dope to try out this link. I found this page on tornadoes in North America and decided to send it to my Reader contacts. So I clicked on the Notes link to see what happened.

It opens up a small Reader box in the top right hand corner of the screen, asking you if you want to proceed and it also gives you the opportunity to attach a note with the link. After doing all that and pressing the confirm button, the link then appears in Google Reader right away :

Source: http://votrs.com/ca2ea961

GooHoo (Google + Yahoo)

Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently said, "We have been talking to Yahoo and we are very excited to be working with them." The goal? Tie the two companies into an advertising powerhouse, which I have decided to call GooHoo.

Mashing up the words Google and Yahoo is too much fun. There's Yahoogle, GooHoo, Yoogle, Gahoogle, Gahoo, you get the idea. Even though Microsoft decided to walk away from its attempted acquisition of Yahoo, it appears as though Yahoo is still pursuing the defensive strategy of teaming up with Google. The good news for Yahoo is, Google appears to be a willing partner. "We share a lot of values with [Yahoo]," said Brin.

The two companies have been negotiating a deal, but neither has disclosed how far along the deal is. Google and Yahoo tested an advertising program last month that lasted two weeks. Google's software did a better job than Yahoo's at placing profitable text ads alongside search results, and Yahoo is considering its options. Using Google's software, rather than its own, could bolster Yahoo's earnings and stave off another acquisition attempt from Microsoft. In fact, part of the reason Microsoft dropped its bid for Yahoo was because Yahoo was so quick to sidle up to its largest competitor and get all comfy.

source:
http://votrs.com/a913d128

Micro-blogging get into Deep with Google Reader

Ok, Twitter and Google Reader aren’t exactly apples to apples, but the new “Notes” feature in Google Reader feels a lot like posting status updates in Twitter. When you type a note, it’s automatically shared with all your friends unless you unshare, and it appears almost as a real article in the reading list of all your friends.

To use the feature, log into Google Reader and click on “Notes” in the sidebar under “Your Stuff”. Type a note, and click “Post Note”, and you are done. Try not to post too many tests because there is no way to delete them, and your friends could get annoyed.

There is a second way to use notes also — while reading an item, you can attach notes to items that you decide to share — this is a good way to let people know your two cents.

I think this feature is awesome — minus how it’s impossible to delete notes. What do you think? Could this give Twitter some competition? Or is it simply a feature on Google Reader that nobody will use?

source:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=1032

50 Plus Social Bookmarking Sites

Social Bookmarking

i89.us - Export to several formats, see popular & recent bookmarks, ability to shorten URLs.
AllMyFavorites.net - Create an organized page for your bookmarks that you can share with friends and family, access from any computer.
Backflip.com - Check out the most popular links each day, set “The Daily Routine” as your homepage so you can visit your must stop sites each day with ease.
BibSonomy.com - Public & private bookmarks, tag cloud, related tags, duplicate detection with the chance to merge their info.
BlinkPro.com - Dynamic folders, bookmark all links of a page plus all the usual features.
BlogMarks.net - Save your bookmarks, tag them with keywords for easy searching amongst your list, share with others.
Bluedot.us - Tabbed user page showing a network of friends, bookmarks, and related tags. Allows you to import contacts from all the major mail services such as GMail and Yahoo.
BmAccess.net - Bookmark a site, add tags, when you look up a tag, you get the names and a little thumbnail image of the site along with it.
BuddyMarks.com - Store your bookmarks online, share some or all of them, discover new sites to visit by searching the public bookmark area.
Chipmark.com - Browse random “chipmarks”, share them, sort, filter, and get personal recommendations.
Complore - 10MB of file storage, public & private sharing, tag cloud, popular feeds and more.
Connectbeam.com - A themed social bookmarking site for enterprise-scale business.
Connectedy - Import your bookmarks, batch edit them, check in on hot topics.
Connotea.org - A themed social bookmarking site specifically for researchers, clinicians and scientists.
Diigo.com - Highlight portions of a page, write on it like you would a piece of paper, share with your group, and search all publicly saved pages.
Excites.com - Organize your bookmarks by tags, add comments and notes, share publicly, subscribe to certain tags so you can be notified when a new site is added that may interest you.
Feedmelinks.com - All the usual social bookmarking goodies, but you can also add links via email.
GetBoo.com - Export your folders to HTML, import and remove duplicates, delete all bookmarks.
Givealink.org - Donate your bookmarks to this site to help them recommend sites and get a better understanding of how each person bookmarks.
Hyperlinkomatic.com - Import/export, categories, notes, sharing, block users, RSS, tags.
IKeepBookmarks.com - Folders, search folder names and more.
Lilisto.com - Ratings, notes, categories, smart categories and in-page editing.
Linkroll.com - Links open in new window, subscribe to tags, browse by archives.
Ma.gnolia.com - Discuss all the saved bookmarks in groups, see what the Featured Linker is all about, join discussions in the Hot Group.
Mister-Wong.com - Bookmark and tag, search for tags that interest you, make buddies with people who have interesting saved sites.
Netvouz.com - Save your bookmarks in folders, tag them with keywords, share them with others or password protect them.
Nextaris.com - Folders, tags, clippings; store up to 100MB for free.
Shadows.com - Share your already existing bookmarks, discuss and rate sites and see what you can find.
SocialBookmarking.org - User and global tag cloud, blogs, social networking, avatars and more.
StumbleUpon.com - Lets you “channel surf” the Internet and review sites; it learns what you like and recommends more of the same.
Unalog.com - A basic social bookmarking site, but with the ability to look back at specific days and see what was going on.
WireFan.com - You can vote on links as well as add thumbnails for sites.
Xilinus.com - Tags, rating, search, public & private listing, drag-and-drop sorting.
Yahoo! My Web - One button click adds your bookmarks to the search engine giants system, features duplicate detection to help you keep your bookmarks tidy.

Social Bookmarking Sites With Clipping

BlinkList.com - Save sites for later reading, share your list or keep it private, even send your saved pages to your blog for wider sharing.
Clipclip.org - Like an online scrapbook, you clip out the part of the site you want, then share it with whomever you want, and discover new places to visit.
Clipmarks.com - Allows you to clip just the chosen bits of a webpage, save them to the main website, or even insert them into your own blog. Think of it as fancy block quoting.
del.icio.us - You add your bookmarks and access them from anywhere. Check out what others are saving and see where it takes you.
Furl.net - Not only can you do the standard bookmarking and sharing, you can save archived versions of a webpage and even export all your saved pages to a ZIP file.
Linktopia.com - Keep private, share, mark as friends only, edit bookmark dates.
RawSugar.com - Can cluster your tags for you based on recommendations by other users.
Simpy.com - This social bookmarker does all the usual plus detects links that have changed, and distributes your bookmarks via your blog’s RSS if you like.
Spurl.net - You can upload your existing bookmarks to get started, add more for centralized access, check out hot lists and recommendations.
SyncOne.net - All the usual features plus the ability to add your own Google Ads to the top of your profile page.
URLex.info - Inbox, group creation, directory, all of the usual features, plus being able to send your RSS feed to the site.

Social News

Blog-buzz.com - Similar to Digg, but for blog posts.
Digg.com - Synonymous with social bookmarking: you Digg a story, others Digg it, the more popular it gets the better chance it has of hitting the first page.
Netscape.com - A former contender in the browser wars, and the “mother” of Mozilla, it’s now a a social news aggregator with voting of stories similar to Digg.
Newsvine.com - Users can write articles on current news events, save links to external content; vote, comment and chat on article pages created by both users and by journalists.
Reddit.com - You vote up or down on a story making it move around on the home page.
Shoutwire.com - Similar to Digg, except instead of “Digging a story”, you “shout it”. Still a way to vote on unique Internet news stories.
Thoof.com - Add news stories you find interesting, anyone can “improve” the article by fixing the URL, editing the summary and more.

What did we miss? add more!
source: http://mashable.com/2007/08/08/social-bookmarking-2/

Google PR updates! Learn how?

It’s more important that you are ranking high with certain keywords than what your PR is. There are many websites that have lower PR and still are listing number one for certain keywords.

But if you are really worried and want high Page Rank, try the following:

1. fresh content like no other page out there on the internet. More you have, the better.
2. link other sites to that page(s), the more the better, they can be inbound or external links from other sites.
3. use a blog for faster indexing of those pages when a link is placed on your blog to your new content.
4. submit to article directories and place the link of the pages you want a higher PR on.
5. once your other pages have higher PR, strategically place other PR pages that link up to the new PR pages and force the PR ranking by using the term of revelance given from Page A to page B.

A Toolbar PageRank update which just hit Google over the last couple of days. I have spent the last three hours analyzing the update and how my test domains faired. It is pretty interesting. Before I get into the results, let’s cover a few things about the update …

The PageRank score is numerical and has an unlimited number of decimal places that it is carried out. So when we see the toolbar showing a PageRank of 5, that can be a range from 4.x - 5.x, depending upon how Google does their “rounding”. The point is, what we see on the toolbar can be very misleading as to what the actual PageRank value is. Also, the PageRank Google shows on the toolbar can be between 1-4 months old, depending on the data Google decides to show publicly. Much like the stock market quotes online that are “delayed 15 minutes”, Google “delays” showing you the PageRank value for months, even though they are computing the live data on a daily basis.

The last public Toolbar was completed around March 4th when the data became stable again. So this was a rather quick update, inside of 60 days as they are usually once a quarter.

Source Here
http://seodailyupdates.blogspot.com/2008/05/google-updating-page-rank.html