Posts Tagged ‘money’
Hulu Wants More Money
Internet TV company Hulu.com is going to be offering a paid service for $10.00 a month. This service would allow subscribers to view past episodes of TV shows. Currently there is a limit on how many episodes can be out for public viewing, but this paid service would give you full access to their database of shows.
The LA Times reports:
Hulu, which ranks second only to Google’s YouTube in terms of monthly video streams in the U.S., said it turned an operating profit in its two most recent quarters. The 2-year-old service, which is owned by media giants News Corp., NBC Universal and the Walt Disney Co., generated more than $100 million in revenue from advertising.
Ars Technia reports:
According to sources speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Hulu’s subscription tier will be called “Hulu Plus” and cost $9.95 per month. For that $9.95, subscribers will get access to back episodes of Hulu’s popular shows like Lost, Glee, and 30 Rock. Those who don’t want to fork over the cash will still be able to watch shows for free—but only the five most recent episodes.
So, will you buy a Hulu subscription if one is offered?
BitTorrent Malware Strikes Again
So, you pirate? Have you seen this notice yet?
In a blog post from Wired:
The code displays a box with the message “Warning! Piracy detected!” and opens a web page purportedly run by a Swiss company “committed to promoting the cultural and economic benefits of copyright.”
The fake company, the ICCP Foundation, also claims to be backed by the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America and others. “It appears to scan the user’s hard drive for .torrent files and displays these as ’evidence’ of an earlier infringement,” wrote TorrentFreak, which first disclosed the malware.
You can supposedly get rid of the warning by paying the “RIAA, MPAA” and other copyright companies $400.
So, same ole story everyday, don’t pirate. You can get infected with viruses, spyware and even be tricked into paying $400 to a fake company. Be safe online, folks!
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.
Online Advertising Poll
Hey amazing people of the Internet!
I am doing a research paper for one of my college classes over Internet and Online advertising. I love online advertising because it helps the consumer, the business and the publisher. Don’t know what I’m talking about? I’ll elaborate. The consumer…meaning the person clicking to a website is helped because they are pointed in the direction of related products, websites or online services. The business is helped because they just drove thousands of people to their website and brand and just made a ton of money. Then finally, the publisher is helped because when people click on those ads, the publisher get a small cut of the deal. Online advertisements are everywhere and some people live off of advertisements. Making $15,000 a month to some through advertisements is easy.
My question/poll to you. Do you find online advertisements to be distracting to content? Do you find them beneficial to websites?
If you implement your own advertisements…do you benefit from any income? Do you get hate mail saying they are intrusive?
Comment on this post or email me if you have opinions. I’d love to include you in my research paper!
IE 8 Hacked
Internet Explorer has been hacked…and whats even better…in 2 minutes. The Pwn2Own Hacking contest was held last week, and two hackers took home $10,000 prizes after exploiting Internet Explorer 8 on a Windows 7 64 -bit machine.
Both Peter Vreugdenhil of the Netherlands and a German researcher who would only identify himself by the first name Nils found ways to disable DEP (data execution prevention) and ASLR (address space layout randomization), which are two of Windows 7′s most vaunted anti-exploit features. Each contestant faced down the fully-patched 64-bit version of Windows 7 and came out a winner.
Vreugdenhil used a two-exploit combination to circumvent first ASLR and then DEP to successfully hack IE8. A half-hour later, Nils bypassed the same defensive mechanisms to exploit Mozilla’s Firefox 3.6. For their efforts, each was awarded the notebook they attacked, $10,000 in cash and a paid trip to the DefCon hackers conference in Las Vegas this July.
Vreugdenhil, a freelance vulnerability researcher, explained how he bypassed DEP and ASLR. To outwit ASLR — which randomly shuffles the positions of key memory areas to make it much more difficult for hackers to predict whether their attack code will actually run — Vreugdenhil used a heap overflow vulnerability that allowed him to obtain the base address of a .dll module that IE8 loads into memory. He then used that to run his DEP-skirting exploit.
DEP, which Microsoft introduced in 2004 with Windows XP Service Pack 2, prevents malicious code from executing in sections of memory not intended for code execution and is a defense against, among other things, buffer-overflow attacks.
If you want to know more about the attack, Vreugdenhil posted a paper a few days ago and can be found here in PDF form.
If you think you can do this type of hacking, you could win $10,000 and even attend DefCon, which is a hackers paradise.
For more information on this story, see the awesome post by Computer World.
Original Post / Quotes: Computer World
Get Rich Quick…but only if you’re Facebook
Facebook has over 400 million users, and all of those users see advertisements on every one of their pages. Most users ignore these advertisements, but some actually do click them. And when users click these ads, this creates ad revenue for Facebook. This year, it is projected that Facebook will make $1 Billion in ad revenue! Last year, they only made $710 million…which is nothing compared to the $1 billion. I usually carry $710 million in my pocket as change. 
But, seriously, that much money off of advertisements…holy crap.
As Facebook improves its performance advertising algorithms, hires more staff to deal with brands, and really pushes Facebook Credits as a platform (and takes a 30% cut). Those factors combined make it very possible that Facebook joins the $1 billion club in 2010.
I wish I had one billion dollars to my name, but sadly I am not Facebook. :(
It still has a long way to go before it reaches profitability levels that can rival those of tech giants like Google. If it can crack the social media revenue nut though, it could pave the way for monetization for thousands of other websites and apps.
So, if you are an awesome computer engineer…you could go make a load of money by working for Facebook OR Google. Obviously they are loaded with the $$, but what do they do with all of it?
Do all employees get personal golden pools in their backyards? Does Mark Zuckerburg have a different car for every day of the year? Possibly…
Your thoughts on Facebook’s money situation!?
Original Post: Mashable