Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Spam Detector
To find out how much your site depends on behavior search engines might look at as “spam”, enter your URL into the Search Engine Spam Detector. [Via Search Engine Watch.]
10,000 Sheep With MTurk
Now there’s a weird use for Amazon’s Mechanical Turk... 10,000 sheep drawings created by online workers for an average wage of $0.69/ hour. [Via Waxy.]
Freaks on Google Video
You can now watch the 1932 movie “Freaks” on Google Video. I suppose the movie by Tod Browning – often a target for bans in different countries – passed into the public domain... [Thanks Manoj Nahar.]
Google Pushing Blended AdSense
Splasho reports of a special email that landed in his inbox... with Google explaining why they will soon switch his default AdSense colors to a more “blended”, border-less palette. I’ve also received a forward copy of the email from others, though I didn’t get it myself (is it US-only?).
A reader who likes to stay anonymous comments, “While they haven’t crossed the ’evil line’, the ’blend the ads to do better’ drum they have been beating shows they know where the $$$ are and further blurs the line between ads and content.”
Bottom Ads on Google Results
Is that new – two ads on top, and four at the bottom? (Manoj Nahar found this at Search Engine Roundtable.)
Gmail Drag and Drop Extension
The DragDropUpload extension for Firefox allows you to drag & drog files directly into upload boxes. In the case of Gmail, you can drop files directly over the “Attach a file” link, the site says. [Thanks Manoj Nahar.]
Larry Page in London (Video)
Larry Page and Eric Schmidt answer some questions in London... follow the Watch the Q&A link at the bottom. [Thanks TomHTML.]
Google Ad in Wired
Ken Kuhl sent in a full-page Google ad currently seen in Wired. The ad – describing Googler Niniane Wang, who learned Lisp programming at the age of 10 and started college math classes with 11 – links to google.com/aspireniniane. (Will anyone ever tell Google that their yellow “o” doesn’t work on white without shadow?)
Update: Hmm... is it this Niniane (which Or pointed out recently)? I’ve added her to the Google employees with blogs page.
Creative Commons Here
I’ve already released the Google Blogoscoped 2005 archive under a Creative Commons license, and I’m now expanding this to cover all blog posts here, including new ones. (I’ve also switched the licensing to “attribution non-commercial,” getting rid of “share-alike”.)
On a side-note, I’m also releasing a full-feed RSS now.
Noam Chomsky Blog
Philosopher, linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky seems to have some kind of blog, though entries are not time-stamped and it seems he doesn’t directly blog (but works with an editor). For an older essay by Chomsky, see “Terror and Just Response”, where he argues that other countries than the US had horrible experiences similar to 9/11, sometimes even backed or led by the US. I wonder if Chomsky is a very visible figure in the US?
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