Answer Guy Central

If you got to this post by reading the description, you’re already nervous about what’s to come. Strap in.

I’ve mentioned before how little Google cares about your data security, and while you could read some of this as a “the sky is falling” rant, it’s nothing of the sort. Fact is, there’s no real security on the Internet, and the issue isn’t that you’re being watched so much as it is that you need to understand how, and have some idea what that means to you so you might protect yourself as best you can.

This week, a new browser plug-in that will keep you up to date on just how often you’re transmitting personal information to Google became available. It’s available here, and works with both Firefox and Chrome.

If you install this software, you’re going to spend an awful lot of time being jarred by flashing and noisy alarms. I suspect that very few people will use it for more than a few hours before they uninstall it, stop browsing the Internet, and hide underneath their beds.

OK, so you’ll just uninstall the software, but you’ll still be horrified. Allow me to repeat: there is no data security on the internet (and) Google is the prime perpetrator of that truth.

So What?

Actually, you can read the “so what?” a couple of different ways:

Say it like a child and it means “this has nothing to do with me; it’s beyond my control, it is what it is“. Fair enough, and ultimately correct; you aren’t going to stop using the Internet, so get used to and accept that information is being gathered about you and your habits.

Or, make a plan. A dear friend recently bought a paper shredder to make sure that her bills and other documents didn’t get used against her when she threw them out, and weeks later she’s still talking about how good using it makes her feel. She happens to be quite old and doesn’t use the Internet, so imagine what she’d think if she read this!

The Computer Answer Guy can help you with your data security. So can PC-VIP and any number of other technology consultants. Or you can do it yourself. But if your meaning for “so what?” isn’t the childish one, you need to do something.

Right Now.

Welcome back to Chatroulette. We hope you enjoy exposing yourself to strangers across the world one at a time. But we’re going to help police arrest you, because that works for us.

Actually, I like this.

Ever since I mentioned Chatroulette a few months back, my words on how ridiculous Chatroulette is have been a big draw here; we get traffic every day to this post about Chatroulette,  and I suspect the reason is that we were the first to point out the issues with geocoding pictures of naked masturbating people.

Vist Chatroulette.com now and you see this ominous warning:

Welcome to our site. Enjoy your time here.

Warning: Broadcasting inappropriate content to minors is a violation of both US and UN law.
We are actively cooperating with law enforcement agencies.

Yeah, that’s right. It might not have occurred to you when you dropped your pants for all the world to see, but “all the world” includes minors. And exposing yourself to minors is illegal in many places.

Well, as NewTeeVee.com reports, Chatroulette is now cooperating with law enforcement officials who ask for help identifying naked people. And this isn’t a freedom of expression issue, it’s a “what the heck is happening on the Internet?” issue.

Or it’s about business. Chatroulette is a cool enough idea in a “social networking is what the Internet is really about and Chatroulette is a form of social networking” way, but there’s no good way for a small operation to police everything that happens on their site. So let’s let the police do our policing! It’s free, and we look like good guys!

What if your next business change included a way to let others make your change for you?

This weekend news broke that the existing security laws in Finland making it a crime to leave your Wi-Fi signal open and unencrypted might be in on their way out.

Not being from Finland or an expert in their legal goings-on, my reaction was predictable: That’s ILLEGAL There ?!?!?

Yesterday, Starbucks announced that their semi-free Wi-Fi is about to become completely free. My first reaction was “it’s about time”. McDonalds figured this out last year, and others have known that the extra business gained by encouraging people to stay at your store is a no-brainer for quite some time. Sure, the Wi-Fi at Panera Bread is unreliable, but at least they have the good sense to offer it.

And then Starbucks upped the ante.

Soon, when you stop by everyone’s favorite coffee shop and use their Internet connection, you’ll get a bonus with your burnt cup o’ Joe: free access to paid sites, including The Wall Street Journal.

This is huge.

It’s huge business change for WSJ, which up until now was “pay only”. It pretty much ends anyone’s chance of charging for Wi-Fi. And biggest of all, it signals a clear adoption of the idea of coopetition.

I’ve been telling you that in the new business world there are only partners; nobody’s a pure competitor any more. Coopetition is the word for that, and Starbucks, the Wall Street Journal, and the other companies that are jumping on this bandwagon are bearing it out.

Of course, unless it’s legal in Finland, none of this will matter, right? <wink>

Last week, I came across a news story that made me think, and got me talking with a colleague or two. Your probably saw or read it: a woman sued Google when the directions she got from Google Maps put her in the wrong place at the wrong time at she was struck by a moving vehicle.

It made me smile and angry all at the same time and think about how we’ll sue anyone for anything at any time in this country. Remember the woman who sued McDonald’s because her hot coffee was so hot that when she spilled it she burned herself—and the crux of the lawsuit being not that the coffee was too hot but that McDonald’s hadn’t warned her that coffee was hot?

Responsibility, anyone?

It seems that the story about the bad directions was first put on the Internet by a blogger. And not surprisingly, it got huge, and was picked up by media outlets all over the world, including “the big guys”.

And many of them failed to give credit to their original source.

I don’t know the guy who broke the story. I don’t know how real a journalist he is, or whether he has aspirations to work for a newspaper, wire service or some other traditional media outlet and so really could have used the credibility that credit would have given him. But I do know two things:

• If you steal a story from one of the big guys they send their attorneys after you
• The little guy is being pushed farther and farther back down the Internet food chain

I’ve told the story about how the managing editor at C|Net had the nerve to ask me to post comments on their web site but not to take credit. I’ve weighed in on how bad the NoFollow attribute is for the exchange of free ideas.

I’ve even pointed out how difficult it is to get attention even if you write a great blog.

But when big news outlets steal . . . when they ignore their own rules . . . and when they do that to the little guys but not to each other . . .  the little guy has to fight back.

How?

First, ignore how difficult it is to get attention. Whether you’re trying to be an important media source or you’re selling goods and services, you must get serious about your Internet presence. Ignore that business change and you will soon have no business.

Second, if you aren’t quite sure how to “get into social media”, ask for help. Yes, I’d like you to ask us, but if not, ask someone.

Third: recognize that as important as social networking is, you also have to start doing Search Engine Optimization. It’s not hard, by the way; you could do it yourself if you learned just a few things and had the time.

Most important, though: understand that the Internet is not just a place to read and consume; it’s a place to speak. Find your voice. Craft it. And Use it. I promise; this is the most important business change you’ll ever make.

Yesterday I was excited to hear that Comcast has announced a new level of Internet service and bandwidth that until now simply wasn’t available in The United States. Soon, you’ll be able to have 105 mbps downloads and 10 mpbs uploads.

My excitement lasted about five seconds.

First, the good news: the routers we’re buying today (and for the last couple of years) will support the kind of speeds that Comcast is about to start selling as the first ISP in the United States to do so. The bad news? Everything else.

Comcast’s offer is for residential service. You’ll be fine running your business off it if the service is sold to a person and delivered to a residential rather than a business address. But it costs $200 per month. “People” won’t pay that. Contrast this to the similar speed service that’s been delivered by residential ISPs in Korea for several years at about one fourth that price.

So if you’re a “person”, are willing to increase your monthly internet access cost by 400%, and happen to be in the Comcast footprint, you’ll soon be able to buy a boatload of bandwidth.

Or not.

The nature of residential bandwidth is that it isn’t dedicated. When your ISP gives you 105 Mbps of downstream speed your ability to get that speed assumes that the other people on the same wiring loop you’re on aren’t using huge amounts of bandwidth at the same time you are. Want a real-world example? if you live in a heavily congested area and try to use the on-demand feature of your cable television service at the same time lots of other people are using it, the picture and sound may pixelate and stutter. Internet service works the same way.

That won’t matter most of the time, because downloading files over the internet doesn’t require a particular grade or speed of service. But if you’re watching a movie on line and it stutters you’re unhappy. More bandwidth , while not a panacea is better.

Well, whoops! Regardless of what portion of that 105 Mbps you actually get from your ISP if you’re like most home users (and for that matter more and more business users),  you aren’t wiring your computers to your router; it’s wireless. Want “full” speed over that wireless connection? You’re competing with other radio signals that degrade the performance, and also have to deal with distance, walls, and other physical obstacles.

In other words, Comcast would like you to pay four times as much as you are now for your bandwidth, AND GET NOTHING REAL OR PRACTICAL IN RETURN. And again, only people are eligible. Businesses, who theoretically might be able to overcome the inherent hurdles to turn this package into something useful, are not.

105 Mbps Internet service for $200 per month is a business change that benefits Comcast, but does nothing for you. Resist.

If you’re one of those “The Internet and Information Should Be Free” people, you probably don’t much care for the Wall Street Journal. The House that Rupert Murdoch Re-Built is one of the few places on the Internet where content has been pay-only since day one and has managed to thrive that way.

I admire Mr. Murdoch’s resolve, and his ability to make money where most others have failed, even if I believe he’s way off the mark in the way he goes about things.

But I more admire the management of The New York Times, who have signaled that when they start charging for access to their content sometime next year that they’ll not be roping off articles from their newspaper against bloggers and other outside links.

Personally, I’m relieved. There are quite a few links on the Answer Guy Central web site that point to articles from the New York Times, and I was worried that we’d have to either live with a lot of bad information here or go back and re-do lots of our content. Neither was looking like fun, and knowing that our existing content will be safe is a load off my mind.

And I’m happy to see that in Mr. Murdoch’s world the idea that “news is news” has trumped competitive silliness; the link I gave you above explaining the decision that The Times has made is to a story from the Wall Street Journal . . . or at least a blog by one of its reporters.

But the questions about information being “free” and what that means in the Internet era remain unanswered. Information IS free; what isn’t free is the way information gets arranged. So for example, when you hear that disclaimer about “unauthorized use of the pictures, descriptions and accounts of this game without the express written consent of . . .” on just about any broadcast sporting event, you’re perfectly safe describing what you saw. What’s protected is the actual broadcast, not the events being broadcast.

The only possible justification for wanting to lock down your information-based web site comes from a belief that what you provide is so unique that it deserves to be paid for. The New York Times is being very smart; their stories aren’t unique and so linking to them should be allowed. What’s unique—if anything—is the arrangement as the New York Times.

Sometimes business change is knowing what not to change. Good job, New York Times.

The privacy question is getting asked in a whole new way. Or at least the question  what is privacy? is being examined under a new microscope. Amazon.com is now sharing information about what you highlight on your Kindle with anyone who wants to see.

Before you start screaming, let’s take a look at some of the details.

First, Amazon.com doesn’t seem to be sharing the details of what individual users highlight while using the Kindle. The information is being mushed together and is available only in aggregate on the Kindle web site, so as long as Amazon can be trusted to handle your information ethically and protect it properly there’s should be no issue of what you look at personally on your Kindle or Kindle-compatible device being revealed.

But so far as I can see there’s no opt-out mechanism. So not only is there a record at Amazon.com of what you’re reading on your Kindle (one that would be available under subpoena, by the way), but also a record of what strikes you as important. And you have no recourse. If you use a Kindle or a Kindle app on some other platform you are leaving an amazingly precise record of what you read. 1984, indeed!

I’ve recently made the point that privacy as a construct is actually a fairly recent phenomenon, and that quite a bit of the hew and cry over the privacy “issues” don’t really matter. But with that said, the general feeling among most businesses I speak with is that privacy has to be protected. Here at Answer Guy Central we have a privacy policy, for example, following the policy established by our corporate parent, PC-VIP Inc.

Amazon’s use of your information to aggregate Kindle usage statistics may not matter. Particularly in the USA, reading something can’t be held against you—at least, not officially. But do you want that information used?

ISPs, the companies that provide us access to the Internet, keep records of everywhere we surf, but delete that information after whatever period their lawyers tell them is safe. Amazon.com’s Kindle usage records are an intentional aggregation, and so by nature don’t ever go away.

Keep an eye on your records and stay aware of the tracks you’re leaving. And please make sure that your business change plans include keeping your customers aware of how you use their information.

Just yesterday I asked a question: can you really trust Google’s tools enough to run your business in the cloud? And it got me thinking about yet another initiative Google recently announced: printing documents in the cloud.

I’m not talking Google’s often-questionable security on this one. In fact, in a way I think cloud printing makes more sense than many of the other things we’ve all started doing virtually since Google became big brother. But because it’s so simple I pretty much ask “who cares”?

Let’s start with what the cloud is. In simple terms cloud computing means that you’re using resources you don’t actually possess or aren’t physically connected to. In a sense, if you’ve set up a wireless network to access the Internet in your home or at your business you’ve created your own cloud, albeit one with only a single virtual resource: your Internet connection.

So Google Docs, for example, is a cloud resource that exists on the Internet, and you need an Internet connection to get to the documents you store there. And now Google wants to make it so you can print over the Internet to a printer you aren’t physically attached to.

And I ask: so what?

In the late 1990s, I was one of the principals at a company called Planet Computer, which among other things developed software that made this possible way back then. And in its way it’s a cool enough idea, but honestly it was a limited implementation that really gave our clients the ability to send a print command home to their business when on the road so that . . . what? Someone else could pick up the documents and either put them aside or mail them to you? Neat, but not actually all that useful other than in situations where you would have your assistant organize something for you now, rather than when you got back.

I own a printer right now that cost barely $100 and lets me print that way in my home, and share the printer among everyone on my network. Honestly, it does the same thing Google is trying to tell us will be another great “cloud resource”.

Why do I bring this up?

Business Change is an interesting topic, but sometimes the best changes you make are the ones that involve saying “no, thank you” to new and supposedly improved things. So while I think Google Docs can be a great tool for storage, collaboration, and accessibility (assuming you take steps to make sure you can get to your documents when the Internet is “down”), printing through the cloud sounds like an idea that doesn’t really mean all that much, and worse, becomes just another distraction to deal with.

The Computer Answer Guy and PC-VIP are our two flavors of business help to manage your computers, and at both we stress working smart. Speaking as a guy with decades of experience helping businesses manage change, create business process, and save time I implore you: please manage ideas like cloud computing very carefully.

I’ve picked on the iPad a few times. From the moment it was announced, the iPad looked to me like a brain-dead solution in search of a problem, and when Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal announced its pricing for reading WSJ on the iPad I told you how ridiculous it was, and why. I was hoping I was done; it’s almost like the iPad was created to carry a big “kick me” sign.

I’m not.

Jay Rosen, esteemed professor of journalism at NYU, made a point on His Twitter Page yesterday. Here it is:

No copy and paste, no links and no comments when you’re reading the WSJ and NYT on their iPad apps http://jr.ly/yic4 Explain the thinking…

I can’t, unless I go with something very simple: What may be the two most influential newspapers in world just don’t care what their readers think.

I’ve commented before on issues like this. The New York Times (and many other), for example, has a longstanding policy of using the “NoFollow” tag to withhold credit for posts from people who comment on their web site, and  CNet has actually asked me to give my opinion of and contribute to their content, but not identify myself.

The Internet doesn’t work that way. Or at least it hasn’t. And I’m concerned: the iPad is looking more and more like the chance that really big businesses have been looking for to control what happens on the Internet at the expense of free speech and the greater good.

Ironic that the very people who would be loudest in defending THEIR right to free speech are now becoming the ones looking to stifle it for everyone else.

Now I’m a business guy, and I too prefer that you pay attention to me instead of anyone else, so I understand the driving business change forces in play here. I even teach other people how to make that happen for their businesses. But something about making both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal locked-down countries really, really bothers me.

Tell me what you think.

Last October, I made a statement that was pretty strong, even for me: Long Tail Marketing is the single most important issue for your business’ growth and your business change that you will encounter. Any time. Ever.

Now, even Microsoft is copping to the importance of the long tail, and admitting they had underestimated it.

It’s an astonishing admission, both because the beast from Redmond isn’t know for such open acknowledgments of their failures and because it speaks out loud about how important long-tail marketing has become.

Imagine this: you’re a medical practice. Maybe an Obstetrician. You decide to undertake an on-line marketing campaign. Do you take aim at big, general phrases like OB-GYN (or the alternative OB/GYN, or OB GYN), or do you instead focus on more specific, lower-traffic, but still mainstream phrases such as cervical biopsy? Or perhaps you focus on the obscure and relatively new hydro-thermal ablation?

If you choose OBGYN, you’re going down a very expensive path that will likely lead you to either no results  or a tremendous amount of traffic from people who are doing research; neither result is OK. If you go middle ground and work to become the leader for cervical biopsy, your results will be better, cost less, and maybe even bring some of the right visitors to your web site. But when you focus on finding and becoming the leader for the more obscure you have a pretty good chance of waking up a leader for hydro-thermal ablation. Want even better? If you’re a locally-oriented business, be specific; become the leader for “hydro-thermal ablation in Monterrey County“.

I could turn this post into a commercial for Answer Guy SEO and SEM Services now, but let’s stay with the more general point: the long tail matters, because in a business and marketing environment where smaller businesses are trying to effect business change in a way that puts them in direct competition with larger ones, piecing business together with long tail marketing techniques . . . just . . . plain . . . works.

I don’t usually say this because is sounds silly: sometimes you just don’t want to be Microsoft. Long tail marketing is one such place.

So I’m minding my business this morning and what comes across my Twitter stream? This:

25% of companies prohibit access to social networks while entire US Air Force is encouraged to engage

It came from Lee Odden, who’s become one of the hot-hot-hot names in Internet Marketing, and it attributed the statistic and statement to David Meerman Scott, who seems to be a big shot in that arena, too. I accept that one in four businesses are doing what Lee says, and asked him for details re: the USAF reference.

I asked Lee what “encouraged to engage” means. It could have simply been a “don’t ask, don’t tell” situation (OK, that’s funny, but you get the point). Or it could mean that the United States Air Force has actually told its people to get out there and talk it up. Lee’s answer, which I choose to trust:  not blocked & provided guidelines.

There’s a lot to be learned from this.

• First, business change is real, and Social Networking matters.
• Next: You need to manage the process.
• Third . . . even large, convoluted, often-secretive entities can be smart about social networking

I don’t imagine that the United States Air Force is going to gain lots and lots of otherwise-disengaged recruits by letting its personnel use Twitter. And I’m not sure what their other potential gain could be. But . . . maybe that’s wrong. Maybe social networking really is all about just getting a message out there. Repeatedly. Everywhere.

OK, not just maybe.

People like to feel engaged. It helps both sides, by the way, but even if you don’t care about your people, letting them engage with the outside world will make you look better to the folks they engage with.

And that’s where business comes from today.

Engage. Now. Social Networking IS Business Change.

It made the New York Times, so it must be true: women are blogging, and they’re passionate about it. So much so that they’re dropping everything that used to be important to them to spend more and more time in their hot new pursuit. Friends, I give you the MILB™.

By the Way, I hereby claim trademark in the MILB acronym. I’ve poked around, and nobody else has used it. I invented the term. It’s mine.

With due homage to the too-incredible-to-believe-except-it’s-true point that women are now getting together to blog in groups and that blogging has become the modern-day kaffeeklatsch, the story here is about the Internet and just how deeply it’s reached into our lives. While many if not most of the women that this story talks about will never build out the kind of brands they’re hoping to become, the fact that they spend so much time blogging, talking about blogging, and therefore being ever-more-real Internet presences says everything you need to know about the Internet’s importance to your business.

Business Change isn’t always about you and your business. In fact, it rarely is. Meaningful Business Change happens when you look at what’s happening around you and adapt. Find a way to reach groups of influence, and start today. And don’t turn up your nose at seemingly small niches like MILBs. They’re what the long tail is all about.

Who wants a MILF when you can have a MILB ? Or a few dozen?

I usually ignore claims about how large one web site is versus another. The traffic varies widely, and it seems like every time someone manages to get enough attention to become “BIG!” they slip into obscurity almost as fast as they arrived. But when Facebook became “bigger than Google” this week, I noticed something.

These guys are HUGE.

The research comes from Hitwise. And like most statistically-generated “fact” it’s the kind of information that can be interpreted in many different ways. But underneath it there’s some validity: Google and Facebook each account for over seven percent of all Internet traffic.

I suppose Google serving up one out of every fourteen pages viewed on the Internet shouldn’t really come as a surprise. They’re the largest search engine by a factor of five, and with the Internet having become the world’s de facto technical support, information search, and news source their volume makes sense. But Facebook having just as many hits as Google all by itself? Amazing.

Now as I said earlier, the numbers can be tweaked and twisted, and certainly the methods Hitwise used to come up with the figures can be questioned. But the position that Facebook now occupies is astonishing.

You know where I’m going, don’t you?

Social Networking Matters. Get out there and communicate. Find new ways to get inside the heads of the people you communicate with, and find new ways to reach more new people. If you feel overwhelmed, we’ll help. Business Change is Real. Makes Yours “Count”.

If the message that you need to be careful what you say and do on the Internet hasn’t sunk in just yet, get ready: pictures from Chatroulette have been captured, geo-coded, and are available for anyone to see at Chatroulettemap.

If you’ve missed it, Chatroulette is a new web site where you can go to instantly start chatting with random strangers across the Internet. It’s a cool enough idea, I suppose; why not make an occasional new friend this way?

Not surprisingly, there are reasons. The Chatroulette user community is thus far made up of mostly young, mostly male people who will instantly click away from you if you turn out to be anything other than a young, attractive female.  So Chatroulette doesn’t actually work. It might one day, and if he’s smart the young man who created Chatroulette will make a fortune selling his technology to dating sites. But right now it does nothing.

Oh, and there’s another reason not to play with Chatroulette: besides being comprised mostly of fickle young men, the other significant segment of the Chatroulette community is people masturbating on camera.

In fact, one totally anecdotal study of Chatroulette showed that one in seven of your new friends will be naked and touching himself. Watch this movie (don’t worry; there are no naughty pictures):

So now, we get Chatroulettemap. Their use of the data from Chatroulette makes what you do there public. REALLY public. I went to Chatroulettemap this morning, clicked down to  a street level view of midtown Manhattan, and found this:

At least these boys have their clothes on. But seriously; do you want your picture and a pretty-darned-accurate location of where you are out there on the Internet that way?

Still not sure how this Internet thing really works?  Let The Answer Guy help protect your privacy

Recently a client for whom Virtual VIP does marketing consulting asked me: Are There Too Many Blogs? My answer to him was a quick and decisive who knows?

In trying to answer his question, I started by saying that there are way too many for most of them to be terribly meaningful. But that’s a non-answer, right? Thousands of people consistently read these pearls of wisdom, but it’s a far cry from the number who hung on my every word back in the day, when The Computer Answer Guy was an internationally broadcast radio and internet program, and when I did television for CBS News.

So to answer the client’s question, I altered it to this:  “Are There Too Many Businesses?”

Sounds silly? My point was that the landscape is crowded, and the best way to stand out is to MAKE yourself stand out. And that’s what blogs are for.

If you think thousands of people are likely to care about your words of brilliance, well, it’s likely that you’re deluding yourself. On the other hand, blogging isn’t really about that any more; if you don’t establish a meaningful beachhead you will consign yourself to being UNmeaningful. Blogging is the best way to do that, assuming you do it correctly.

At this point the question becomes more real: is dumping your thoughts onto a web page good enough to get you noticed? And the answer is probably not. Blogging and SEO go hand in hand; you need to tell the world your story, show what you’re good at, and . . . make sure people find you. SEO, an acronym that gets thrown about so much I actually heard it at a Bat Mitzvah this weekend, is about yet another obtuse idea: that of long-tail marketing.

Oy Vey, as my people say. Sometimes, business change is about seeing change, even when it looks like the same old thing. Contact The Answer Guy if you want to hear more . . .