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Can Advertising Work on Social Networks ?

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Can social networks be made advertiser friendly ? This is the top question on the mind of both Web companies and media giants that have bought into the social networking pie. There is still the missing piece to making advertising click and its even being questioned whether companies should attempt to do so.

From the patent side, Bill Slawski at Seo By The Sea has a post on a latest filing from Google on using the details from a user’s profile, contacts and groups to place ads in context on their page. What is interesting is that in case the profile information is scanty, the system will provide advertisements based on the tastes of the contacts of with whom the user is connected.

Technology aside, Facebook’s experience with the Beacon program has resulted in some serious questions on how to make money of social networks in a manner that users find tolerable. The problem here is that social networks are not exactly media that users consume. Unlike search, video or other form of media, there is no immediate tangible motive for a person on a social network. There is also the question as to whether social networks need to be monetized at all. From the point of view of a brand promotion, social networks are great avenues. But move that space over from being company hosted to being a generic online hang-out and brand promotion becomes all so intrusive.

The ideal solution to make money off social networks continues to remain illusive. Constant experimentation by the likes of Google and FaceBook will hopefully result in some sustainable form of revenue generation.

40 Killer Gmail Tips

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The guys from Tech Radar compiled a list with 40 brilliant Gmail hints, hacks and secrets. If you are not using Gmail yet, well, you are with the minority. Here are the first 3 items on the list:

1. If you haven’t already created a Gmail account, you no longer need an invitation to do so. Just go to www.gmail.com and click Sign up for Google Mail.

2. Gmail blocks most executable filetypes as a virus protection measure. If you absolutely have to send EXE or DLL files to a colleague, use something like DropSend. You can send up to five files per month for free.

3. Attachments sent in formats that Google Documents can read can be opened direct in your browser. That list includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, and RTF files.

Check the link above to read the full article.

Details Expected on Windows 7 at Microsoft Developer Conference

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Information on Microsoft’s next operating system and also their cloud operating system are hoped to the highlights of the Professional Developer Conference to be held in a few days. After Vista, Microsoft is determined to make sure that Windows 7 is gung-ho on performance and also does away with features that were annoying in vista.

A Summary from ZDNet:

  • Support for multi-touch technology
  • User Access Control to be limited to fewer applications
  • Networking API to support Web Services natively
  • A new Animation Framework
  • Changes to taskbar and how the troubleshooting mechanism works
  • More presence of the Ribbons UI

Also expected are that Windows 7 would be fit to run on the slew of netbooks that are coming the market. On the cloud computing front Microsoft is expected to provide details on their cloud development platform – which will be competition to Amazon’s and Google’s cloud application services.

Though the build of Windows 7 in focus is in pre-beta stage, developers will be looking for some of performance benefits that Microsoft has mentioned so often. After Vista, there is much hanging the balance for Windows 7.

10 Financial Meltdowns of The Past

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You might be shocked with the latest events in Wall Street and around the world as well, but this is not the first time that we experience a financial crisis. Taking a look at what happened in the past can help us both to understand what caused the problems, and how people manage to solve them. For that purpose Neatorama published a really interesting post titled 10 American Financial Meltdowns in the Past Century.

Here is the quote from the first one, the Panic of 1907:

Background: At the time, the young US stock market was in a decline – it was off 25% since the beginning of the year and Wall Street was jittery over the tight money supply.

Trigger: Then along came Otto Heinze with his get-(even)-rich(er)-quick scheme. In October of 1907, Otto, along with his brother, a copper magnate named Augustus Heinze, and the ice king (yup, he sold ice – remember, this was before the age of household refrigerators) Charles W. Morse, aggressively bought shares of United Copper, thinking that they could corner the market on the stock. Their plan failed spectacularly, and immediately bankrupted the trust companies and banks that provided the financing.

Runs on banks immediately ensued as depositors pulled their money from banks that had dealings (or rumored to have dealings) with the trio. In a little less than two weeks in the Panic of 1907, a chain reaction had left 9 trust companies and banks bankrupt.

They also covered how each crisis was solved. Check out the post to read the complete list.

Check if Your Gmail Account Has Been Hacked

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If you rely on Gmail as much as I do, you probably worry about someone hacking into it right? Well, among the advanced features on Google’s mailing service there is a cool little trick that you can use to monitor “foreign” activity on your accounts.

The tip is coming from Make Use Of, and it is really easy to use.

You basically just need to check the bottom of your Gmail account for the “Last activity…” message. There you will see when the last login was effectuated, and using which IP address. You can also click on “Details” to see a list of the last logins, their IP address, browser and so on. All you need to do, therefore, is to check if you are really the only person using your Gmail account!

The Human Clock

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If there was a “useless crap” category on the blog this post would probably go there…

Well it is useless but cool at the same time. Wouldn’t you like to see a clock where the numbers are created by humans entangled in different positions? Now you can, check it out.