Posts Tagged ‘internet’
Netflix Goes Above and Beyond
Recently, Netflix was down. It was very down. Their website stopped responding, and an error appeared at times stating their shipping and streaming services were on hold until they could fix the problem.
I wake up this morning to find an email from Netflix. They sincerely apologized and offered an account credit. It looks like this went to all members… here, take a look.
Dear Tyler,
Recently you may have had trouble instantly watching TV episodes or movies due to technical issues.
We are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused. If you attempted and were unable to instantly watch TV episodes or movies yesterday, click on this account specific link in the next 7 days to apply a credit to your next billing statement. The credit will be 3% of our $7.99 a month plan that lets our members instantly watch unlimited TV episodes and movies. Credit can only be applied once.
Ready to start watching again? Check out our latest selection.
Again, we apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-866-923-0898.
–The Netflix Team
I find this to be very generous of Netflix. They were very up front with the outage, and are offering customers a little something in return for their downtime. Thank you Netflix. More companies should follow what you did. Think of the people first, money and business later. Kudos.
Roku
Recently, my xBox decided to die. And by that, I mean the three Red Rings of Death appeared. There was no turning back, as it’s hard to repair these and my version of xBox was so out of warranty. Thankfully, I used my xBox for only one thing. Netflix. I have the 1 DVD out at a time service from Netflix, and that includes unlimited streaming of content to almost any device. So, my xBox acted as that middle man between my Netflix account and my TV. With the xBox dead, I was out of a box to play my content. So, I hooked my Mac to my TV, which presented many problems that I won’t get into. But let’s just say it was not easy to watch content on my TV while using my computer.
Credit: Roku.com
That meant I needed to do something, and that something was get a dedicated streaming device. I am not about to dish out $50 a month for cable, when there is such good content already out there and I am already paying for Netflix. So, I needed something. I was caught between a few different devices. I was first thinking of a Dell Zino, which is just a small computer that I can hook up via HDMI to my TV. Using a wireless keyboard and mouse to browse stuff from Hulu and Netflix and everywhere else on the web. But, after reading reviews that said the video card was not up to snuff, I took the Zino off my list. Now I was left with a Boxee or Roku.
I found that while the Boxee and Roku do the exact same thing, I was leaning towards the Roku. The Boxee offers streaming of Netflix and Hulu and some other services and also has an included HDMI cable and remote. But, the price for it was a little steep. The Roku offered all of those features, except for an included HDMI cord. The Roku also had a lot more offerings on channels. And was cheaper! Roku it was! I got the Roku XD and an HDMI cord for it. Within a few days I was all setup and streaming Netflix and Hulu, along with Revision3, TED talks, cNet and more!
All said and done, I love the Roku and it’s quality of service, price, offerings and features. If you’re looking for a box to stream media form the Web, and are torn between a Boxee and Roku…go Roku.
Going without Internet
What’s the longest you have gone without access to the Internet? Maybe a few days, hours, even minutes?
Credit: Cisco Blogs
I am currently in college and living between an apartment and my original home in my hometown. The apartment has had flakey Internet for the past week. That’s what happens when you borrow internet from neighbors :). None-the-less, I just came to the assumption that the Internet for a week would be non existent.
How did I deal with this? I am still not quite sure. This past week really let me know how much I really depend on the Internet to calm my boredom and give me something to do. Granted, all I usually do on the net is creep on Facebook and Twitter and watch Hulu. I never realized how dependent I had become on this thing that can be turned off in an instant. I was using my BlackBerry to surf to Woot.com just to see their daily deal. Pathetic. I know.
This past week, I also ordered an Internet package from Qwest, which will be put in this coming Tuesday. So my need for Internet while away from home will be fulfilled. But when I think about it, did I really need to order this? With this break, I realized I used it maybe five times during the week for things of actual importance. Is that worth $30 a month? I guess it is.
My point of this post is to ask you this: Do you really need the Internet?
Think about. Before you post comments telling me that your Internet usage is a must have for every single day, just think about it for a little while and actually consider what you need the tubes for. So, that’s your thought for the week.
Could you do a 5 day Internet blackout? It’s easier than you think. Give it a try. Let me know how it works out.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend!
BlackBerry 8530 Review
The time has come for me to finally release a review of my main cell phone. I have had the BlackBerry Curve 8530 for about a month and thus far am in love with the device. My previous phone, the Samsung Delve, turned out to be a horrible choice in a phone. The Delve was a clunky touch screen phone that usually froze up and ended up being a horrible choice. So, now that I have my BlackBerry, I know I am not changing phones anytime soon. I honestly see myself sticking with the BlackBerry name through the next few years. So on to the review part of the phone.
The first thing I want to talk about is the overall design of the Curve 8530. As you read this, compare my text to the picture at right. Firstly, my phone is on the US Cellular network, not T-Mobile. Alright let’s take a look at the design of the phone. The edges are nice and round and very sleek. I see myself using the word sleek a lot during this review. Anyway, on the front you have the main screen and four physical navigation buttons with the trackpad type thing in the middle that acts as a mouse in the Browser and as another navigation means. You also have the full QWERTY keyboard on the bottom. I am in love with the QWERTY keyboard. It is so easy for me to use and I even have pretty large hands but I can easily text and type with great ease. The only thing that needs to change is the period key. I am getting slightly tired of having to hit the alt key to do a period. But, it also works to hit the spacebar two times to end a sentence. It took me a little while to get used to using the alt and the caps keys, but I am fully operational on those now. On the back of the phone, you have the 2 MP camera with no flash. The back also has the cover to get to the battery, SIM card and SD card. My phone came with a 2GB built-in SD card, but I swapped it for my preloaded 8GB music card. Do not remove the back cover more than you need to…it really starts to get loose after removing it too often. That’s one of the downsides I have noticed with the design of the phone. On the side of the phone you have slider keys. On the left side there is one key and that is for Voice Dialing. I changed that key so that when I push it, my phone goes into a password lock. On the right you have three keys. The top two are for volume and the other one activates the camera.
Let’s move on to the interface. I love it. I will use this word again: sleek. You have six icons on the bottom in a sort of dock or taskbar. My top six applications are SMS, Browser, Messages, Facebook, Twitter and WordPress. Those are the top apps that I use and most of them are used daily. When you hit the BlackBerry icon button it takes you to another screen where it lists all your other applications. To install an application you use the AppWorld app. That app is great. I have loaded a bunch of apps that are fun, useful and free. Highly recommend that store. On that same menu you can change Options, set up Bluetooth, Wifi and sync your email services with the phone. Every time my Gmail gets a new message, my phone dings or vibrates. At times I find all these notifications to be annoying, but these apps and this phone are replacing desktop email for me. Slowly but surely.
Let’s go on to call quality. I find the volume to be rather quite even though I have the volume up all the way. I have never had anyone tell me my quality or audio level is bad, so I am assuming all is good there. I have never dropped a call and the phone is still easy to use while on speaker phone because I can still do messaging, browse the Internet or read email. This phone is very good at multitasking. This is not so much a call quality thing as an audio quality thing, but the speaker on this thing is very loud. It is very beneficial to play music because it can easily be heard from a distance.
In closing, the phone is very easy to use and if you have never used a BlackBerry before, give it a try. It is a great multitasking phone that is built mainly for business. I recommend the phone especially if you want to do Internet and email on the go. The phone has built in Wifi as well, so if you have bad signal strength, just hook up some Wifi. Overall I recommend the phone as a solid smartphone. I will definitely be sticking with the BlackBerry name for a while. In the comments, let me know if you use BlackBerry or are thinking about switching over. Do you like your BB, what kind do you have, etc.
Also, if you want to add me on BlackBerry Messenger, here is my pin: 3232C2E0
Cheers and take care.
Record Skype Calls with Pamela
As mentioned previously, I am starting a How to do Podcasting Series on tylersmiller.com. This is the first installment of such series. In this video, I show you how to record your Skype calls in order to produce them into podcasts. I am assuming you have Skype installed…if not, I did a few videos on Skype and they can be found here. Alright, so here is the first video, showing how to record Skype calls.
Hope that was a helpful first video. Keep watching through the month on more videos. The next one will be on editing your podcast.
Stay tuned, and let me know if you have ANY questions on this first video or anything related to podcasting!
Employees Hack Facebook
Don’t know about you, but I love me some good ole hacking! In this case, hacking your own company. Good on you Facebook, good on you!
So, let me explain. Rather, let TechCrunch explain:
One of the senior engineers at Facebook responsible for SRE (site reliability engineering) challenged Facebook employees to try to compromise him and gain access to Facebook’s administrative system via information obtained from him.
Guess what, I am betting the senior engineer is regretting this, because the employees succeeded! Wanna know how? Well, they hacked the engineer’s HOME wireless Internet. Yeah…they went all out and tracked his house to get his WPA password and after that they were able to sniff his network. After that, all passwords that flew across the network, including Facebook passwords, could be viewed in plain text by the employees. They won. Facebook lost.
The engineer responsible for starting the challenge posted on some comments, saying:
I’m the engineer who made the challenge and I want to clear up some misunderstandings. First, we perform tests on the integrity and security of our site all the time. Second, in this particular case, the challenge demonstrated the effectiveness of Facebook’s security systems, not the opposite, Despite months of work and hundreds of hours of effort by a team of specialized security engineers, the team was NOT able to access Facebook’s administrative or corporate systems. While they were able to access my personal Facebook account, they were not able to use this information to access any other account on Facebook. Finally, challenges like this are a great way for us to apply our best thinking and skills to identify risks to our systems. We think our efforts should give users greater confidence in Facebook and its administrative systems, not less.
So, will your employer let you hack them? Try it out, see how they take it. Let me know in the comments what you think of the Facebook hack and if you will try it on your own boss. 
Original Post: http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/05/employees-challenged-to-crack-facebook-security-succeed/
Facebook Uses BitTorrent
You’ve heard of BitTorrent right? The protocol that allows you to transfer huge files over the Internet? This protocol is usually used for illegal purposes, such as obtaining software, music and movies. But, there are great practices to BitTorrent, and Facebook is a good example of that.
Don’t know what BitTorrent is? Let me let Wikipedia explain:
BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files, and it has been estimated that it accounts for roughly 27-55% of all Internet traffic (depending on geographical location) as of February 2009.
Thanks Wiki! So, it allows you to move large files in a short amount of time. Facebook utilizes this. Wanna know how?
According to Tom Cook of Facebook’s systems engineering group, the daily code updates for Facebook used to cause a lot of trouble until they discovered BitTorrent. Cook gave a talk at the Velocity Conference this week titled ‘A Day in the Life of Facebook Operations’ where he explained how effective BitTorrent is for server deployment.
“BitTorrent is fantastic for this, it’s really great,” Cook said. “It’s ‘superduper’ fast and it allows us to alleviate a lot of scaling concerns we’ve had in the past, where it took forever to get code to the webservers before you could even boot it up and run it.”
With their BitTorrent-powered distribution system Facebook is now able to send a few hundred MB to tens of thousands of machines in just one minute. The internal Facebook swarm turns every server into a peer that helps in distributing the new code, which gets it updated as quickly as possible. Without BitTorrent this process could take several hours to complete.
That’s how. Thanks TorrentFreak!
So, do you think that the BitTorrent protocol will finally be put to even better use other than piracy? I think so! Kudos to Facebook for using more open source software and infrastructure.
Your thoughts?
Week in Review – Episode 6
Episode 6 of the Week in Review Podcast. This week, Tyler discusses how we should appreciate technology, Google Voice, Conference Calling with Skype, Google Chrome, and quitting Facebook. It’s all on this week’s episode of the Week in Review podcast for tylersmiller.com. All talking point posts appear below.
Direct Download: Week in Review – Episode 6
Topics Discussed:
http://www.tylersmiller.com/google-voice-review/
http://www.tylersmiller.com/conference-calling-with-skype/
http://www.tylersmiller.com/the-way-it-should-be-episode-14/
http://www.tylersmiller.com/sync-bookmarks-over-the-internet-with-google-chrome/
http://www.tylersmiller.com/learn-to-appreciate-technology/
http://www.tylersmiller.com/today-is-quit-facebook-day/
Feedback: contact@tylersmiller.com
Conference Calling with Skype
If you use Skype, you know that you can video or audio call one person anywhere in the world over VoIP or Voice Over Internet Protocol. But up until now, it has been hard to call more than one person at a time. Well, the Skype 5.0 Beta is out, and I am going to show you how to conference call on Skype 5.0 Beta. It’s actually really easy to do, watch:
A small side note….I tried the Skype Conference Calling feature today and tested it by actually calling people…make sure you have a fast enough computer to handle that much of a CPU hog program. I do not recommend you use Skype 5.o Beta on a netbook with a small processor
Learn to Appreciate Technology
I had an amazing Skype conversation with a friend today. His name, Roy Naim. I met Roy many months ago, but we have never talked in person before, so we thought it would be a great opportunity to talk today. Our conversation was fantastic and I learned a lot from him, including how to appreciate technology. He sent me a link to a YouTube video. I challenge you to watch it now, and afterwards read my comments below.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LkusicUL2s‘
Great! Wasn’t that an amazing video? I think it was. It really got me thinking about how we do take most things online these days for granted. When something doesn’t work, we complain. Yet, five years ago we were without that technology. So, basically, you need to be happy with what we have now and get over those tiny glitches that occur every once and a while.
I am going to be posting more on this in the coming days, and probably even make a video or two. This really hit home though, talking about how much the Internet has grown and how no one appreciates it.
So, my challenge to all my readers is to take technology errors one step at a time. Don’t blow steam at the IT Department, rather work with them to sort out the problem. Cell phone not working, restart the thing and wait. Yes, I said wait. Patience is something this coming generation and even the current one will have trouble adapting to…I know I have patience issues. But deep breaths go a long way.
That’s all for now on this subject, but as I said, expect more and please accept my challenge that I listed in the above paragraph.
Happy trails.
Your Email Can Say Something About You
Almost everyone on the Internet has an email address, right? The Oatmeal came up with this graphic that tells you want your email address means.
What does YOUR email say about you? Reply in the comments.
By the way…my email is contact@TYLERSMILLER.com —see own domain! 
Source: The Oatmeal
Digg v4 Preview
Kevin Rose, founder and current CEO of Digg.com created a video showcasing the new features in Digg V4.0. V4.0 is bound to be released very soon, and I am very impressed with the current setup. Watch this video showcasing the upcoming features:
The Pirate Bay Goes Down Again
So, every once in a while, top torrenting website The Pirate Bay goes offline. Today had the same effect as Hollywood forced TPB’s ISP to bring them down. No one knows the location of the servers that run the popular website, but the servers have been moved again and are back online. It seems that every time they try to shut this massive site down, it pops back up later. Maybe that’s because the site is only gigabytes in size and has multiple backup copies in secure locations. Maybe it’s because there are a lot of people backing this website. And maybe it’s for some other reasons. Whichever reason it is, TPB still has not gone offline for more than a few days at a time. The full story has been reported by TorrentFreak and can be found here: http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-goes-down-following-legal-pressure-100517/
I want your thoughts on The Pirate Bay and pirating. Do you do it? If so, why? Do you think it’s bad and hurting the movie and music industries? Why? Pour out your thoughts in the comments. I await your reply. Happy commenting.
The Way It Should Be – Episode 11
In this episode of The Way It Should Be, Shawn and Tyler rant on net neutrality. We preview a video from http://broadband.gov/plan and talk about how bad the National Broadband Plan is to the United States. This is an episode you don’t want to miss. Rant filled political packed describes this episode. Also, at the end, we talk about Mark Zuckerburg, the founder and CEO of Facebook. He’s a bad, bad man. That’s all on this week’s edition of The Way It Should Be.
Direct Download: The Way It Should Be – Episode 11
Subscribe via iTunes: http://itunes.tylersmiller.com
Subscribe via RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/thewayitshouldbepodcast
Email Us: podcast@tylersmiller.com
Advertise with The Way It Should Be podcast.
The Way It Should Be is a production of Knights Entertainment.
Secure Your Home Wireless Network
I posted a few days ago about Germany requiring people to secure their home wireless networks. In this HOWTO, I show you how to do the same at home.
I use a Linksys router with a custom firmware called DDWRT. Any other router configuration will look about the same, so just follow along and remember the key points I list at the end of this video. So, enjoy:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTa_3zYAdjs
Key points:
- Router IP address is usually on 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1
- Change your SSID
- Enable WPA Personal encryption
- Choose a STRONG password
Protect Your Wireless Network
In Germany, a court has ruled that all people with wireless home access points need to apply a secure password to their network. It’s about damn time someone somewhere throws this into effect. All over the world, open access points are used daily for exploiting hacks, pirating software and gaining access to company networks.
AP reported:
Internet users can be fined up to euro100 ($126) if a third party takes advantage of their unprotected WLAN connection to illegally download music or other files, the Karlsruhe-based court said in its verdict.
Awesome! Finally they are telling people what to do with their networks. It is not that big of a deal to generate a secure password to protect yourself from the things I listed above.
The ruling came after a musician, who the court did not identify, sued an Internet user whose wireless connection was used to illegally download a song which was subsequently offered on an online file sharing network.
But the user could prove that he was on vacation while the song was downloaded via his wireless connection. Still, the court ruled he was responsible to a degree for failing to protect his connection from abuse by third parties.
So, protect your wireless network. Look for a coming video of how to do so. I will be demonstrating on a Linksys router how to activate and implement wireless
Microsoft Courier Confirmed Dead
Let’s begin the post with a direct quote from Microsoft. This comes from Microsoft’s Vice President of Corporate Communications, Frank Shaw:
“At any given time, across any of our business groups, there are new ideas being investigated, tested, and incubated. It’s in Microsoft’s DNA to continually develop and incubate new technologies to foster productivity and creativity. The “Courier” project is an example of this type of effort and its technologies will be evaluated for use in future Microsoft offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time.”
Darn! The iPad and other products rival, the Courier, is not going into further development.
Credit: Engadget
In an Engadget post today, writer Joshua Topolsky, said the following:
Well here’s the deal, according to a source familiar with the situation: the Courier did indeed start life as a potential new product category for the company, one which was being incubated internally with very real plans for a marketable device. It seems, however, that things just didn’t manage to take shape, and word was handed down very recently that the incubation period had reached its conclusion — sans product — and resources would be directed elsewhere.
So, the product as a whole has been dumped, but the technology already developed for the Courier will start to show up in different aspects of Microsoft’s products down the line. It was a cool concept, but there is a lot of competition right now in the tablet PC market, and Microsoft couldn’t handle the heat or pressure. Maybe in the future, MS?
Microsoft Mouse Mischief
Hey guys. I posted a while ago on Microsoft Mouse Mischief…check it out here: http://www.tylersmiller.com/microsoft-mouse-mischief/
I recieved an email from an Microsoft Online Community Manager for Mouse Mischief, and I am going to include his press release, along with my thoughts in this post.
Press release: Microsoft has listened to and engaged with educators to find out what they need. For some time now, Microsoft has been involved in an ongoing dialogue with educators, students, and others in the education space to explore how we can best provide experiences with technology that will engage classrooms and enhance learning experiences.
My thoughts: Awesome! Thank you Microsoft for going to schools and listening to educators. I think it is essential that they included students, which they did. Mouse Mischief will give students the opportunity to interact together as a class, and in a way, learn more and become more social with classmates and learning. Great move!
Press release: But, response has been that not enough students can engage directly with technology. Many classrooms—especially those without the resources or budget—can’t give all students the opportunity to engage directly with technology. Additionally, we discovered that many teachers already use and love PowerPoint, but it made students passive observers—they needed to be active participants.
My thoughts: Totally agreed. As I stated above, students need to be active and more interactive. Mischief works with PowerPoint…a program that almost every school has installed on their machines and servers, and it easily integrates with technology already in place.
Press release: Now, Microsoft is announcing the release of Mouse Mischief—a solution that lets teachers create interactive presentations making classroom learning engaging. Mouse Mischief integrates with PowerPoint, allowing teachers to create multiple-choice, matching and drawing question slides that students, each with their own computer mouse, can answer on a shared screen.
My thoughts: FINALLY! Each student can become interactive and learn without having a $2000 computer on their desk. All they need is a mouse and some knowledge to answer and participate with classmates.
Press release: Benefits to Mouse Mischief are: The availability and low cost of mice makes Mouse Mischief a cost-effective solution, especially for tight classroom budgets. With Mouse Mischief, there’s no need to for teachers to learn a new application – the seamless PowerPoint integration lets teachers use technology they’re already comfortable with.
My thoughts: Like I said, this solution is very cost effective and still effective to students. Think of how happy school administrator’s will feel when they know the money in their school’s wallets can go to other causes within the district, and the students are still learning at the same time.
Press release: Mouse Mischief allows educators to share their own lessons and learn from others. Through the Mouse Mischief community page we have created on Office.com, teachers can easily distribute and explore Mouse Mischief presentations. This can create a global social network of sharing and learning for educators around the world, giving educators access to best practices and new curriculum ideas.
My final thoughts: Excellent…an all around excellent product. The download is free, and is available here: http://www.microsoft.com/multipoint/mouse-mischief/default.aspx. It is definitely worth checking it out, since most people already have PowerPoint installed. Test it out on your classroom, and let me and Microsoft know how it works. I think this is going to be BIG in future classrooms.
They are also doing a Twitter giveaway. We are running a Re-Tweet contest starting tomorrow. Each week, for 4 weeks, we will be giving away a bundle of 5 wireless mice & a 4-port HiSpeed USB 2.0 hub for use with MM in the classroom. (this is valued at $175). Tweet the following: Follow @MouseMischief for a chance at winning a Mischief Classroom Kit. Re-Tweet to be entered! http://bit.ly/9rqS1m #mischiefcontest.”
Mouse Mischief can be found on numerous places on the Internet as well, including:
Website – http://microsoft.com/mousemischief Blog – http://blogs.msdn.com/mousemischiefTwitter – http://twitter.com/mousemischief
Facebook – http://facebook.com/mousemischief Youtube – http://youtube.com/mousemischief Slideshare – http://slideshare.net/mousemischief
Want to give a big shout out to Eric Burgess, the Online Community Manager for Microsoft’s Mouse Mischief program. Thanks for keeping me in the loop, and best of luck with the program and service!
Internet Advertising Essay
For a college English class, I wrote a research paper on Internet Advertising. I believe Internet advertising is an extremely good and innovative way to make money online with a website. Enjoy the paper, and yes, it is rather long (over 1000 words). I’d love your feedback too! Here it goes:
Visiting most websites today, you will find advertisements on almost all pages. Internet advertising has become a staple income for many companies that run online services, like Facebook. Even very small businesses with websites run some type of online advertisements to make ends meet. Internet advertising benefits three different parties; the consumer, the website owner, and the business owner. There are multiple ways to implement Internet advertising, and then there are completely wrong ways. Correct ways include non intrusive ads and relevant content ads. The wrong way to do advertising would be to have over ten on one page, and have pop-up ads. Major incomes can be made from online advertising and full-time jobs can be quit to allow the person to pursue a career of their passion.
“Tim’s AdSense revenues now average $1400 a day and growing” (Google AdSense Case Study). Askthebuilder.com has implemented Google AdSense, one of the most popular advertisement platforms on the Internet. Upon loading their Home Security page on askthebuilder.com, you see a lovely display of original content and Google AdSense advertisements. When the page loads, it all organized above the fold, which means that the main content is in the area where users do not have to scroll to see more information. This is a key spot for advertisements, because it’s one of the first things people see. So, they are more bound to click on them. On the right side of the image is a home security tip, and on the left is the Google ads section. Doing this makes ads more clickable and the website owner generates more income. One of the best strategies this website owner put into place was not using pop-up ads. Users are turned off by them because they are so nagging and annoying.
Woot.com is a very popular website that speed sells products over a one day span. Customers can get excellent products at huge discounts. ““The company’s “one day, one deal” closeout site woot.com has garnered plenty of attention (and more than 300,000 registered customers) since launching in July 2004. Time magazine named the company one of the “50 Coolest Websites” in 2005. When woot.com posts its latest deal each day at midnight, Central Standard Time, customers flock to the site to buy the latest “Woot” (Google AdSense Case Study).
There are many advantages to offering Internet advertising. Advertising benefits three potential parties. The first would be the owner of the business that purchased the advertising. Your business is now hitting thousands of websites within a day and your name, website, and brand are all being put on public display. The traffic to your website should be coming within minutes. Once visitors see what products you offer, you will begin to see an income increase. The person who clicks on the ad is called the consumer. The consumer is the one who sees the ad and will deem if your website or product is relevant to them. When looking at that aspect of advertising, the business would want very attractive, catchy ads on pages to attract more consumers to buy the businesses product. Finally, the website owner gets a chunk of the benefits from when a consumer clicks an advertisement on their website. On Google AdSense, you get paid per click or per one thousand impressions on your website. For some, the income can be around three hundred dollars a month, but for those high traffic websites, fifteen thousand dollars a month is more realistic. Low traffic websites, or low user base websites, do not quite get fifteen thousand dollars a month. My website is only a few months old, and is actually growing rapidly. I have Google AdSense on my website, and have seen about one hundred dollars a month income from that source. I have generated over four thousand ad impressions, which means that certain ads have been seen that many times. In one month, I have generated 255 clicks with those four thousand impressions. All of those numbers are bound to grow as my user and reader base grows. It usually takes over four thousand daily visitors to make a good income from AdSense.
For all the advantages, there are bound to be disadvantages, and privacy groups are quick at pointing those out (Disadvantages of Internet Advertising). Privacy groups are fighting that advertisements invade the user’s privacy because they use targeted ads on websites. Ads are created and manipulated to show you relevant results according to what website you are currently on. If you go to Mashable.com, all ads are going to be technology or social media related because most consumers of Mashable are tech people. Going to CNN.com, you will find more political or news worthy ads scattered on the pages. Most visitors to CNN are looking for that type of content, and thus more income is made because more users click on relevant ads. But privacy groups hate that, because the “ads” know what users are clicking on, what they are viewing, and what they have viewed. Another disadvantage is the annoyance of advertisements. Some ads are simple image or text ads, which are completely fine and unobtrusive. However, when ads come in the video or audio format, some users are turned off. Video ads are annoying because they take so long to load a web page, and you cannot read your content as fast. Audio ads are equally annoying in that they automatically play music when you don’t want them to. Music that is usually louder than you’d like. Pop-up advertisements are all over the Internet; one place where they can be seen a lot is CNET.com (CNET). On CNET, you load their main page, and are immediately presented with a pop-up ad that blocks the rest of their website. Sure, you are going to get more clicks and more money, but in the end, it ruins the user experience and they may not visit your site again.
Advertisements help businesses to succeed. This has been shown in numerous cases; in the Google AdSense studies, or in the Hulu.com study. When businesses pay for Google AdWords, the system to create and distribute ads, they pay good money for the creation. But when their ads are put into websites, they see major income increases, boosted website traffic, and a lot of online exposure. In the long run, advertising for businesses will ultimately help their company or brand grow.
There are a lot of different types of advertising to consider. One of the most popular methods is a pop-up; a new window which opens in front of the current one. It displays an advertisement, or an entire webpage (Ways to Make Money). More common ads would be a floating ad, which is an ad which moves across the user’s screen or floats above the content. There is also the pop-under ad, which is smilar to a Pop-Up except that the window is loaded or sent behind the current window so that the user does not see it until they close one or more active windows. Video ads are similar to a banner ad, except that instead of a static or animated image, actual moving video clips are displayed. This is the kind of advertising most prominent in television, and many advertisers will use the same clips for both television and online advertising (Affiliate Models).
For so many ad formats, there are just as many ways to actually make the money. Google AdSense implements CPM (Cost Per Mille) where advertisers pay for exposure of their message to a specific audience. “Per mille” means per thousand impressions, or loads of an advertisement. However, some impressions may not be counted, such as a reload or internal user action. The M in the acronym is the Roman numeral for one thousand. CPV (Cost Per Visitor) is where advertisers pay for the delivery of a Targeted Visitor to the advertisers website. CPC (Cost Per Click) is also known as Pay Per Click (PPC). Advertisers pay each time a user clicks on their listing and is redirected to their website. They do not actually pay for the listing, but only when the listing is clicked on. This system allows advertising systems to refine searches and gain information about their market (Ways to Make Money).
I did an email interview with a website owner who uses AdSense on his websites. His name is David DiFranco and he runs thecreativeone.tv, a technology oriented website. He gets about two thousand page views a day, so his monthly ad revenue varies on the amount of traffic. I asked him the following questions via email. “Hey David, love your blog and reviews! Wanted to ask you a question about your adsense. Do you see a lot of income from Adsense on your sites? You mention over two thousand views daily on thecreativeone.tv and was wondering if your CTR or impressions were a better money maker? I’m wondering because I am doing research on online advertisements for a school paper and about the people that make fifteen thousand dollars a month from it. Bottom line question: Do you make substantial income from just Adsense?” David was kind enough to respond promptly with an answer. “I get a decent amount from AdSense, but certainly not enough to make a living from. Ads seem to bring in the most revenue when shown with YouTube videos, mainly because of the number of hits they receive. Ads on my site come and go, and usually vary in performance. It ranges depending on ad performance, but I usually make between two hundred and four hundred dollars per month.”
Online advertising is a great way to spread the word about your business, generate an income and to get more online exposure. It benefits multiple parties, and usually all in the positive fashion. While some ads online can be annoying, most are informative, relevant, and worthy of that click. If you own or manage a website, consider putting Google AdSense or any of the major money makers on your site, because incomes can be made from online advertising and full-time jobs can be quit to allow the person to pursue a career of their passion.
Clean Your Twitter Followers / Profile
So, you build up a bunch of followers, but you haven’t reached that 2000 following threshold…so, you’re SOL when trying to follow other people. Following and the 2000 limit is of course referring to Twitter. On Twitter, you can only follow 2000 people…unless 2000 people follow you. 2000 is the magic number. Otherwise, you are considered spam to Twitter. In any case, you will want to get rid of some people from time to time and there are a bunch of ways to weed out your followers and other content. Mashable did a great post on this today and outlines some services very nicely.
The first service is Twitter Karma.
Twitter Karma offers a simple, free way of showing your Twitter contacts in a grid with a note beneath stating who is following whom. It can be used as an at-a-glance service, and you can make certain follow/unfollow actions from within the site. If you want to go in-depth, the contacts can be sorted in various ways.
The second is UnTweeps, which allows you to track which of your followers has not updated their status for a certain amount of days. You can set it to 30 days, which is their default, and any users that haven’t updated in 30 days will be shown and you can unfollow them.
There are a few more services outlined on the Mashable blog here: http://mashable.com/2010/04/26/twitter-organize/ for cleaning out your followers/following on Twitter. Great time to do all around spring cleaning in the house and online.
BugMeNot
Ever needed a quick username and password for a website, but you don’t want to go through the hassle of creating a brand new account for that one visit? This website has been around for quite sometime, but it flew across my radar today, and I wanted to give it a little plug. BugMeNot.com is a free website that allows you to type in a website address and you are prompted with credentials to use on that website. These credentials are for community use all over the world and can be used to read that quick story on the New York Times website or on The Washington Post. There are also accounts for a vast amount of sites, including youtube.com, imdb.com and megaupload.com. Head on over and give it a try if you need quick access to a website that you don’t normally visit.
Above is the main screen on the website, depicting the most popular logins to websites.
Below, a sample login to YouTube that’s been highly rated within the community.
So, need a quick login, go on over to BugMeNot.com and give it a try.
The Way It Should Be – Episode 7
This week on The Way It Should Be podcast, we talk about Homeland Security and cellphone sniffers, followed by another Facebook horror story. A 16-year old is suing his mother after an account breach. We finish up with a few book recommendations and be forewarned that this week, we go off on a lot of tangents and mini-rants…all in good fun of course. We hope you join us for The Way It Should Be and send us your feedback: podcast@tylersmiller.com.
Thanks for listening!
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Direct Download: The Way It Should Be – Episode 7
The Way It Should Be is a production of Knights Entertainment.
Google AdSense
So, you go to a website and see a bunch of advertisements plastered on the page. You wonder where these came from and why they are there. Sometimes they move, make sounds and can be annoying. But most times, they are there to benefit three people. The business paying for the ad, the consumer of the website and the website owner. So, where to ad’s come from? Easy answer is: Google AdSense.
What is Google AdSense? Google AdSense is a network of advertisements that you display on your website. Every time a relevant ad is placed on your site and a user clicks that ad, you get a cut of money. Many bloggers use AdSense to generate some income on their websites. Some bloggers can get thousands of dollars per month, while others make around $10. It all depends on your content, search engine optimization and your niche. It also takes time. Most AdSense revenue does not happen overnight. However, there are those select cases, which Google loves to point out here: https://www.google.com/adsense/static/en_US/Success.html.
I implement AdSense on the tylersmiller.com blog. You see an ad unit over on the right in the sidebar. Then, one within this text and one at the bottom of each post and page on my site. I have two text units and one image unit. Text units are shown to be more effective, because they can blend into your website content, making it look like you put it there and are recommending a site or service. Image ads are different because they usually move and can be more distracting to the reader. Big flashy ads on sites deeply annoy me. I will support ads on sites that are relevant and non-intrusive.
If you own a website or blog, I highly recommend Google AdSense. At least experiment with the different options that Google throws your way, and see if you can start making more of an income off of your blog. I intend to write more on Google AdSense once I have more time to test its features and will post on the effectiveness of ads on websites.
In closing, do you support ads on websites? If so, please leave me a comment saying why. And if you can’t stand them, I’d like to why as well.