Online CC fraud: a $5 billion industry
by Brian TurnerIf you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for visiting!According to a report by Symantec, credit card thieves have such a high volume of credit card data that they theoretically have access to credit of $5 billion.
You can find the original PDF paper here, or an online […]
Europeana crashes at opening
by Brian TurnerEuropeana, the much vaunted European library, which if memory serves was intended at least in part as a rival for Google Books, crashed at opening - and is now closed until sometime “mid-December”.
Anyone visiting europeana.eu gets the message:
” The Europeana site is temporarily not accessible due to overwhelming interest after its launch (10 million hits […]
Internet Goes Into Space
by Brian TurnerSpace - the Final Frontier - these are the continuing voyages of the…internet.
Yep, apparently JPL have developed a system for maintaining a network through the solar system.
The problem isn’t simply signal delay - but the loss of signal due to solar activity. So what JPL have done is set up a system to work with […]
November 21, 2008
How big conservative corporations create opportunity
by Brian TurnerI read this with interest: 11% of AdWords Clicks are Wasted on Dead Pages.
While this is obviously not a “scientific study” it is nicely illustrative of problems I’ve seen around advertising spend - that of focusing too much on bringing traffic in, without properly trying to engage them.
While Jeremy talks about server side issues - […]
November 15, 2008
The Big Secret for Adsense Earnings
by Brian TurnerThere is a lot of focus on monetising websites via Adsense, but what many people don’t realise is that there are four key factors in developing income from Adsense:
1. Integration
2. Traffic
3. Sector
4. Audience
There is a lot of focus on integration of Adsense ads and generating traffic, but often little focus on sector and audience, despite […]
November 14, 2008
Microsoft Office Web: For Windows, Mac and Linux
by Brian TurnerAccording to a report at Computer Weekly, Microsoft’s up and coming Office Web will be available for users of Macs and Linux machines, as well as ordinary Windows users.
Office Web is Microsoft’s big foray into internet-based services, providing a virtual desktop and storage online.
This is not least in response to other online services, such as […]
Nominet bitch slaps self over domaining
by Brian TurnerNominet directors are involved in a fight among themselves, resulting in the resignation of non-executive director Angus Hanton.
Interestingly enough, while Angus accuses Nominet - among other things - of not properly looking after uses, Angus, just happens to be a domainer.
If you don’t know, domaining is the process of buying nice sounding domain names, slapping […]
November 13, 2008
Steal my content? I’ll kill your Adsense!
by Brian TurnerContent theft is an annoyance at best, but it’s especially frustrating when people still your content and then place Adsense all over it.
Often it’s automated, but sometimes it looks stolen by human users.
Either way, it’s not invited, it’s unwelcome, it’s illegal, and I’ll get you back for it.
Dealing with stolen content
Sure, I can run […]
6 Big Marketing Mistakes
by Brian TurnerAdam Broitman at iMedia Connection posts a list of 6 Stupid Marketing Mistakes, and I’ll expand on these here - with an adjective swap of “Big” because these can be pretty fundamental.
(As an aside, iMedia Connection is a site covering a range of wider marketing topics, and whether you’ve come to IB as a SEO […]
Google stock sees sharp decline
by Brian TurnerShares in Google continue to lose ground - GOOG is currently trading at $285/share, which down 35% since October, and almost 60% since the start of the year.
While analysts remain downbeat about Google’s earnings due to the financial crisis and world recession, the US technology sector is taking a beating as leading companies lower revenue […]
Improve code, reduce bandwidth
by Brian TurnerI was struggling with a problem last month - one of my sites was pulling in excessive bandwidth compared to its user base, and I couldn’t figure out why.
I combed the site stats for signs of a bot, and was surprised to find my own server was using up the most bandwidth.
It took a little […]
Pound continues to fall
by Brian TurnerAccording to the BBC, the value of the pound continues to fall against the dollar.
Which is good news for those earning in USD, but not so good when outsourcing in USD:
Pound’s fall continues to $1.48
The pound has continued to fall against the dollar, hitting its lowest rate in six years against the US currency on […]
November 11, 2008
There are no free permanent links
by Brian TurnerWe know that Google is a links driven search engine, therefore some form of link building as part of a wider marketing strategy can reap literal dividends.
So why is it so many people approach link building as something to be suspicious of, and aim to put the least budget into it?
It’s pretty mad really - […]
The Simplest SEO Mistake
by Brian TurnerSEO is a specialist field of internet market that covers a range of issues from relatively basic, to complex.
However, the most common SEO error I see if that of canonical issues.
Remarkably, I’ve seen this happened under a lot of quite experienced SEO.
Which suggests that sometimes its the basics that trip us up more than the […]
The Economies of Email Spam
by Brian TurnerAn interesting investigation into the economies of email spam has found that the response rate can be less than 0.00001% - that’s only 1 in 14 million emails resulting in a sale.
However, scalability means that running a large enough network can still result in multi-million pound incomes.
The research was carried out between the University of […]
Tories confused over business tax breaks
by Brian TurnerThe Tories have announced their planned tax breaks for business - which essentially boil down to National Insurance incentives for companies taking on people unemployed for over three months.
Political arguments about the suitability of the Tories to govern aside, David Cameron seems to have just sounded confused about what business needs.
In times of stress, business […]
November 10, 2008
Google tanks on low expectations
by Brian TurnerAnalysts are losing their optimism for Google, with the GOOG share price now at it’s lowest for three years.
Google has seen its share price tank by 52% over this year - significantly higher than the 41% loss the S&P index has seen over the same period.
While tech stocks have been taking a hit in general, […]
Gordon Brown mulls VAT slash
by Brian TurnerThere are few taxes as hated by small businesses as VAT.
Sure, as a limited company we pay corporation tax - but once over the VAT threshold the biggest tax outlay can commonly feel like VAT.
So despite being small, we end up being taxed twice, with the result that our yearly tax bill can end […]
November 9, 2008
Yahoo: we’ve failed, buy us
by Brian TurnerIn what is tantamount to an admission of failure, Yahoo is now inviting Microsoft to buy company and its assets:
“To this day the best thing for Microsoft to do is buy Yahoo,” said [Jerry] Yang.
“I don’t think that is a bad idea at all, at the right price whatever that price is. We’re willing to […]
Silicon Valley employees hold worthless stock
by Brian TurnerAccording to a report in the Wall Street Journal, 80% of Silicon Valley’s top 150 companies have employees whose stock options are now worthless.
Stock options are a way to retain key staff, by the right to buy shares at a preset price, as part of a benefits package.
When the stock market runs well, the […]