Google Making Another Move for Fairness

Almost a decade ago, when baby Google was born, it wasn’t the company of dreams it is today. It had a reduced number of employees, the pay was far from impressing and the headquarters… well… let’s just say they were galaxies away from today but, by popular choice and a very good ad-distribution platform, they managed to become the leading company on the Internet. Doesn’t that sound like every Hollywood
gangster movie that you’ve ever seen? Young and poor – rich and famous, with a cash flow that would make King Solomon blush with envy.

The only difference between the Mountain View-based giant and the prodigal gangsters of the ‘30s, when the prohibition made it all so very easy to get rich, or to those of the 60’s and the 70’s, when drugs did the trick, is exactly the ad platform I mentioned earlier. Everything else is the same, the people working side by side, the deliveries, the people knocking at its doors for a shot at greatness.

Following a trend that started with the removal of page ranks from PayPerPost bloggers and the reducing of the clickable area for ads, Google decided yesterday that it was time for some more order to be made. It removed the text link advertising methods that didn’t carry the "nofollow" attribute as a "machine-readable disclosure." The point was to disallow the advertising for such PageRank-selling schemes via Google, according to Matt Cutts.

Yesterday's search results for PR8

Philipp Lenssen of blogoscoped.com noted that "while many to most paid links marketplaces are now disappearing from ads in Google search results and sites using AdSense, there is nothing in Google’s guidelines that would disallow one to build a "nofollowed" paid links service, as this ban is only for what Google considers 'PageRank-passing' ads."

Be that as it may, the change of implementation is in accordance to Google’s existing AdWords and Webmaster guidelines, so it was well within its rights to do so in an attempt to clear its "ranks".

While the Sunday wipe was most effective, there are still a few sites out there that have not been found, but thanks to the feedback and interest of the public, they too will most likely be missing their page ranks by the end of the week.

Is Microsoft Getting Ready to Let the Internet Explorer 8 Genie Out of the Bottle?

Microsoft is gearing up to let the Internet Explorer 8 genie out of the bottle. Like all things connected to the Windows platform, the future version of Internet Explorer, along with products such as Windows Vista Service pack 1, Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows 7, fall under the strict
Windows Omerta, imposed by Steven codename Translucency Sinofsky, the senior vice president for the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group — the user experience of Microsoft Windows and Windows Live services.

Microsoft has repeatedly declined to be in the least transparent on IE8, offering the argument that it cannot discuss the future of the Internet Explorer browser as long as it does not have a firm plan in place. This is why, one year after the Redmond company made available Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP Sp2 and Windows Server 2003, IE8 is still a mirage for users and developers. But there is life after IE7, and IE8 might as well be on the horizon.

At over one year since IE7 dropped in October 2006, Microsoft drew the line on the browser version and revealed an install base of over 300 million worldwide. At the same time, Tony Chor, IE Group Program Manager posted a stay tunned message focused on Internet Explorer 8. "While we’re happy with how well IE7 is doing, as always, we continue to listen to our customers and find ways to further improve Internet Explorer. Look for more news on this front in the coming weeks," Chor stated.

At this point in time, however, there are little details available about IE8, except a possible release date sometime in late 2008, early 2009. In the meantime, Mozilla is preparing to drop the second beta for Firefox 3.0 by the end of December 2007. Microsoft too is dogfooding IE8, but little has transpired outside of Microsoft.

Google Turning to the Military

The poor old fat guy, wearing the red suit, can kiss privacy goodbye. He doesn’t know it yet, but people all over the world are out to see his every move and satellites are linking up in outer space just to track his sorry ass all across the globe… now in 3D!

The tradition started 52 years ago out of a mistake, made by a clerk in a Sears Roebuck & Co., who misprinted a special hotline for kids to call Santa and put instead the
number to the commander-in-chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The red phone, you know, the one they always take the time, in movies, to look worried when it rings. Yes, the one next to the nuclear launch big button. Luckily for the kids and especially for the clerk, Colonel Harry Shoup, the director of operations at the time, had a sense of humor and, furthermore, had children of his own and didn’t want to disappoint them, so he took the time to make his staff check the radar for any indication of a sleigh making its way from the North Pole.

Guess what? They did find signs of that happening, so they updated every child who called on the jolly guy’s location and they have been doing that on Christmas Eve ever since, no matter who took the helm in the years to come.

This year, Google looked down on this tradition and decided that it could help expand it at a global scale, and so partnered with NORAD and provided the Google Earth, Google Maps, iGoogle and YouTube resources, in order to provide the little ones with a more accurate image of things. Carrie Farrell, Colonel Harry Shoup’s grandniece, also working at Google, provided more accurate insight on this service:

"The countdown begins December 1st on NORAD's website, where families can find a new kid-friendly game or activity every day until December 24th. And starting at 1:00 am PST on December 24th, you'll be able to track Santa's trip in real time. You can download Google Earth and add the NORAD Tracks Santa iGoogle gadget to your iGoogle page anytime, but make sure to come back to noradsanta.org on December 24th to download the special Santa Tracking file for an enhanced 3D Santa-tracking experience." Poor guy has a bulls-eye on his ass and doesn’t even know it (large grin).