Spammers are a resilient bunch. Even if you manage to shut down one major spam network, others will gladly jump in and fill the void. According to Google, that's exactly what happened in 2008. After the rogue web hosting firm McColo was shut down in November, spam level dropped rapidly. By now, however, spam levels are rising again and are up by 156% since November. Google assumes that the total spam volume will return to pre-McColo takedown levels within just a few months.
TinyURL, one of the most popular URL-shortening services (although not our favorite) is now being used by cybercriminals to redirect web surfers to pages that contain viruses, trojans, and other sorts of malware. According to Finjan's Malicious Code Research Center, these criminals are using the service to avoid having their web sites flagged by the Safe Browsing mechanisms built in to modern web browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
GateHouse Media Inc. and The New York Times Co. will be facing each other in federal court this week in a fascinating case that is sure to be followed closely by bloggers and journalists across the nation.
GateHouse, one of the largest publishers of community newspapers in the United States, filed a copyright infringement suit last month claiming that the Globes' new local Web sites are using material without permission. The New York Times Co. is the parent company of The Boston Globe.
We're running a special series on recommendation technologies and in this post we look at the different approaches - including a look at how Amazon and Google use recommendations. The Wikipedia entry defines "recommender systems" as "a specific type of information filtering (IF) technique that attempts to present information items (movies, music, books, news, images, web pages, etc.) that are likely of interest to the user." That entry goes on to note that recommendations are generally based on an "information item (the content-based approach) or the user's social environment (the collaborative filtering approach)." We think there's also a personalization approach, which Google in particular is focused on. We explore some of these concepts below.
You can never be too upfront with your audience. With RSS feeds, Google Alerts, and scraping tools, most of your faithful readers know about changes to your site as they happen. But determining exactly what has changed can be a challenge, even for your most dedicated fans. Now change-tracking service Versionista allows you to be as upfront as possible about the edits you're making to your site, providing wiki-like comparisons of your current content and its previous iterations.
The social Web has given users great power: the ability to create and share content with people around the world - easily and quickly. The problem of course, is that power is often not compatible with effective and clear thinking. The thought that germinated in an instant can be immortalized in perpetuity on the Web.
With the extraordinary growth of the Internet and the interlinking of information that the social Web has brought with it, it's time to examine the footprints we leave on the Web as we move into the future that promises to "throttle the 'wisdom of the crowds' from turning into the 'madness of the mobs,'" as described so eloquently by Jason Calacanis.
So apparently we've walked through the Foyer of Financial Fiasco and plunked ourselves down right in the centre of the Living Room of Economic Doom (settling into the Sofa of Slowdown, with our feet on a comfy bear market rug).
What's it like at your end? Are a lot of your budgets and projects that seemed like slam-dunks a few months ago suddenly coming under scrutiny? Or are you finding there's still room to experiment and innovate, even - or, with some particularly visionary organizations, especially - in a recession?
Twitter may have signed a term sheet with Institutional Venture Partners according to a recent report on TechCrunch; a deal that will place the valuation of the rapidly growing microblogging service at $250 million.
At first glance the deal seems to contradict co-founder and CEO Evan Williams assertion last month that he doesn't want to raise money in 2009, but look a little deeper and it may just make sense.
UPDATE: Nikki Richardson, VP Corporate Communications at Monster Worldwide has replied to our e-mail saying that the company is in the process of contacting users but can not disclose specific details of the breach right now. If you're interested in reading the entire communication, please scroll down to the end of the post.
Popular online job site Monster.com acknowledged a security breach of its user database Friday and is recommending users immediately change passwords and be on the lookout for phishing e-mails. The compromise is the second in two years for Monster.com and involved the loss of user log-in details, passwords, email addresses, names, and telephone numbers.
This breach also affected Monster.com's client, USAJOBS, the official job site of the US government.
On January 24, two days after Ridley Scott's now legendary 1984 commercial went to air during Super Bowl XVIII, Steve Jobs stepped onto the stage at De Anza College in Cupertino CA, and pulled a beige box out of a canvas bag. As the lights dimmed and the opening notes to Vangelis' Chariots of Fire filled the room, the excited audience got its first glimpse of the Macintosh (video embedded below).
Macs are known for the intuitive software that makes them great for non-geeks, and Apple has always been consistent in pioneering new technology, but the ability to bundle it all into one super sleek package has given Apple an edge over the rest. Today, as the Mac turned 25, we thought we'd take a look at how its changed over the years. Please enjoy
