Interesting Links for 09-05-2012
May. 9th, 2012 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewducker- Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are author, dead at 83
- Worried about online porn? Don't regulate the net – regulate your kids
- Government gives go-ahead for the largest onshore wind farm in England and Wales
- Privileged people frequently think they earned their advantages. Which explains a lot.
- The Watchmen Prequel that almost happened in the 80s.
- Iron Sky in the UK for one day only? Here's what you can do to change that!
- Would elected peers be useful for representing the regions of the UK?
- Pirate Reverse - a long list of sites to get you around Pirate Bay Blocking
Largely listed to show how simple it is to route around censorship. I don't actually use TPB myself. I find http://Kat.ph better :->
- The Great Bioluminescence of 2009
- On writing books that are "too smart for kids".
- Pastafarianism in the military - the encounter with the drill sergeant is hilarious
- Childhood is cannibals and psychotics vomiting in your mouth - Art Spiegelman interviews Maurice Sendak
- News companies depending on Facebook to push people their way are fucked when the algorithms change.
- What's going on with the coalition-forming in Greece.
- Psychopathy linked to specific structural abnormalities in the brain
- The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is 100 times larger than it was 40 years ago.
- What it's like to be a Kuwaiti censor
- A list of things scientifically verified to be as addictive as cocaine
- Africa’s Child Health Miracle: The Biggest, Best Story in Development
- Brain Scans Give Glimpse of How Your Dog Thinks
- Stories Are Like Religion
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no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 01:15 pm (UTC)A trend I'm noticing in my work with Internet Marketing Gourmet is that the really impressive players tend to think long-term and sustainable. Black-hat SEO tends to get a bad rep on the top end because it only lasts a few months.
If Facebook looks like it's only useful as a short-term traffic source, the thought leaders are going to start moving away from it (more) as a recommended focus for traffic building.
Suddenly having a lot of the top thinkers, and subsequently top brands, deprioritising Facebook will make everything a lot quieter over there. And frankly, FB struggles for high-quality content streams at the best of times.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 01:33 pm (UTC)Pretty much everything is only useful as a short-term traffic source surely... that is assuming you define traffic source as driving people to your site who would not normally see it. Eventually most people stop noticing the side bar ads, stop clicking on the "spam like" links and so on.
Years ago facebook was "that annoying place where everyone is flinging zombies" etc because feeds filled up with game apps thingums. A similar "crunch" happened for them years ago when facebook allowed people to stop seeing them.
Facebook have to strike a balance between driving people to ad content (which is their revenue stream) and driving people away from facebook by filling their pages with junk links that people didn't really mean to share.
Whichever way they end up doing this, Facebook has been a very good short term source for a long term (in internet years).
no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 04:46 pm (UTC)Contrarywise, blackhat SEO tends to have a shelf life of 6 months (ish). If optimisation and/or community building on Facebook starts tending toward a six-month lifespan before they change everything and you have to start from scratch, white-hat and long-term traffic builders - the people you WANT building their communities on your site - will abandon it.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 05:26 pm (UTC)I'm sure it is but the online stuff has changed completely in that time and doubtless will again in another ten. There are exceptions. Livejournal has not changed too much in ten years but that's because it's largely moribund. The google front page has not changed too much in ten years but everything behind it has.
If your links are "spam-like" you're doing it wrong.
If your business is driving traffic to a website your business is "spam-like". The only question is how well you hide that. So yes, you make your spam-like links look not spam-like for sure.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 07:09 pm (UTC)My #1 go-to social media reference is 93 years old this year. People think things change more than they do.
As for spam - fair enough, if your personal definition of "spam" is "commercial self-promotion of any form", then obviously any commercial attempt to drive traffic fits within that. However, that's not the definition commonly used, or the one to which I was referring.
From personal experience, and that of friends and colleagues, many "spam-like" (by your definition - links which drive traffic to a commercial website) links remain useful for years or even decades.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 10:31 am (UTC)Which is why I said "spam-like".
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Date: 2012-05-10 12:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 12:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 12:57 pm (UTC)"If your business is driving traffic to a website your business is "spam-like"."
That's the statement I was taking my baseline from, and that's why I was confused. If I've misunderstood your intent from that, and you were only talking about links that were indiscriminate, bulk, commercial, and unsolicited, as opposed to the many other ways of driving traffic, then I'd definitely agree - that is indeed spam-like.
As a side note, and getting back to the original point, "indiscriminate, bulk, commercial, unsolicited" doesn't describe 99% of the commercial Facebook usage I'm aware of, and my knowledge of the topic is well above casual level. I can well see how the remaining 1% is rather considerably more visible and irritating, though.
It may cheer you to know that if you're seeing an ad that you are totally uninterested in, for example, the chances are the person who paid for that ad is a noob or idiot who is losing a lot of money.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 01:07 pm (UTC)We began by talking specifically about things like Yahoo, guardian and so on newsfeed which I certainly stick by "spam-like" for.
OK when I said If your business is driving traffic to a website your business is "spam-like" perhaps I'm generalising a bit too far -- I was meaning it to be viewed within context of that conversation. There's a lot of good uses of social media for promotion of course... I was thinking of the genuinely evil uses "retweet/like to enter this competition", "Hooray, your friend Ethel needs 33 more cows, why not download and play Cowville", "Dave Splodge has read '33 great ways to waste your time and so can you'" sort of things where your friends are gulled into what I regard as "spam-like" activities (where, as I say, you can quibble "unsolicited" or "indiscriminate" maybe but I don't solicit them and I am a discriminated target only in the sense that I am a friend of someone engaging with the product).
no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 01:28 pm (UTC)I'd also argue - strongly - that they're mostly bad marketing. Zynga's had a good run, but recent graphs I've seen have shown their player base in freefall. Driving people to hate you is rarely a good idea in business.
I recently linked an article showing that Facebook likes are junk for business - largely because of "Like this page to view it" bollocks.
I actually quite like being told what articles my friends have read, but the automated app-focussed way The Guardian does it has actually driven me away from reading them on more than one occasion. Adding privacy concerns to a straightforward clickthrough - again, bad marketing, because you're increasing user discomfort.
In general, I also feel that apps which spam your friends with commercial crap are operating right on the edge of permission-based marketing (and indeed opt-in laws). Sure, I might have opted in to Zynga's latest addiction generator, but that doesn't mean everyone on my friends list did too.
BTW - I hope the link above is an example of good, in-context traffic generation :)
no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 01:38 pm (UTC)I guessed you were somewhere in marketing from your responses.
I recently linked an article showing that Facebook likes are junk for business - largely because of "Like this page to view it" bollocks.
Interesting article, though worrying too:
"If you sub-track the initial like of the fan, the rate of engagement then drops to a really sad 0.45% That’s mean approximately out of 200 people who like a brand on Facebook, only 1 of them actually does anything to interact with the brand."
While that 0.45% seems low (then again, I like a band on facebook, read their feed and buy the album or go to the gig without interacting) is it really so bad. I can't recall the exact response rate for something like a 419 spam but I think that's nearer the one in a million region (send a million get one actual "sale"). Of course interaction is not conversion to cash.
I hope the link above is an example of good, in-context traffic generation
Indeed. Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 01:52 pm (UTC)The only area where "likes" will still be valuable is social proof - if you can stick a button that essentially says "5000 people think we aren't useless!" on your website, more people will trust you. However, with my cynical marketing hat on, I'd say that if that's all you want your Like figures for, you might as well cut out the middle-man and just buy Likes direct from a site like Microworkers rather than faff around building apps and so on ;)
no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 02:12 pm (UTC)If, tomorrow, all the "fan pages" left facebook completely, how does it affect facebook? Do they directly lose revenue or is it indirect via fewer people using facebook.
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Date: 2012-05-09 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 01:44 pm (UTC)Frankly, I'm amazed by the tales of parents who let their children have TVs or computers in their bedroom.
Frankly I'm amazed he's amazed. How long is he expecting this style of "big brother" parenting to go on? I had a TV and computer in my room from about 13 I think -- I used it to teach myself to program, in peace and quiet. Horrible to think he's the kind of parent who would be banning that so that he can keep track of what his kid is up to. (And frankly it's stupid anyway, because I can recall tiptoeing downstairs to watch things on TV late at night -- nothing particularly salacious because it was the early 80s and such wasn't available).
So as long as there is pornography online (and that's going to be forever), people will be able to access it.
This does not imply that making it very difficult to access could not be technically done, merely that it's difficult. Replace "pornography" with "child pornography" and the fallaciousness of the argument becomes obvious. I have no idea how easy it is to access child pornography online because I don't try and I know that people are regularly caught for trying to do so. Replace "viewers of suspect sites sent to the police for possible arrest" with "viewers of suspect sites have details of suspect sites emailed to parents for possible embarrassing questions..."
Note, I don't think it necessarily should be done, merely that the author of that article has not made a good argument for something I agree with.
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Date: 2012-05-09 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 02:52 pm (UTC)I imagine the software here will be slightly less effective than that. On the other hand I imagine there will be similar consequences for little Johnny found hacking his way round the porn filter.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 03:05 pm (UTC)The question is, how many motivated 12 year old children would be able and willing to hack around such filtering software -- add to it a risk that the software might alert their parents to such a circumvention attempt and I bet the amount gets higher.
Of course you can still distribute stuff out-of-band... USB keys and so on.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 03:33 pm (UTC)Not just a block on the sites your 12-year olds want to access.
Not just a notification to mum and dad.
But an email sent to every member of the family, including grandma, detailing exactly what you've been looking at.
Why you would want to shame your own adolescent children into hating their own sexuality is a different question.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 03:54 pm (UTC)Why you would want to shame your own adolescent children into hating their own sexuality is a different question.
Heh... well, there's the rub, if you'll pardon the pun.
The real issue is to what extent do we wish to prevent children seeing these things. I mean for me there's clear outcomes... I wouldn't want my seven year old god-daughter watching torture porn. I don't think it's any of my business if a sixteen year old has similar access that I do to pornography. Somewhere between is a grey area I don't really know enough to comment upon.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 04:15 pm (UTC)Helped a bit by the fact that many children (myself included) who encountered horrible things simply go "Ewwww" and put it back.
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Date: 2012-05-09 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 08:59 am (UTC)For example, I wouldn’t want the Captain to start reading Far Right literature until I’d had an opportunity to tell him the story of his great-uncle liberating Belsen or pointing out to him that he’s half Slavic.
So context I think it pretty important. Specifically on porn I wouldn’t want my children to think that porn was a sex manual or a relationship guide. And I agree, six is way too young for torture porn. Sixteen year olds are old enough to look after themselves.
I think part of people’s discomfort lies in themselves. I don’t particularly want to be explaining why some people like water sports to an eight year old (but why I’d really like to continue to use the toilet). Nor do I want to be known as “The Capt’s Dad, he tells the Capt about perverts.” Much easier to ban it or restrict it and never have to have the conversation. Especially the conversation that starts “Well, actually, your mother and I quite like…”
no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 10:43 am (UTC)Much easier to ban it or restrict it and never have to have the conversation.
Oh... that's rather different sure.
I am not in a position to offer informed comment not being a parent. However, were I, I would want my child to be able to use a computer freely without my direct supervision ("here are some parameters for use, now go do your thing") from an early age. I am also aware that it would be pretty easy for such an unsupervised child with unrestricted computer access to find some things I definitely would not want them to see without some kind of restriction in place. So I feel sure I would use some kind of filter system.
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Date: 2012-05-09 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 04:41 pm (UTC)also, if you are interested in the state of Greece, I recommend following @IrateGreek on twitter, plenty of English language RTs, translations and links to news sources as well as on-the-ground tweeting, plus his daily countdowns of doom (e.g.)
no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 09:36 pm (UTC)uh, no
Religion is made out of stories.
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Date: 2012-05-10 07:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 03:46 pm (UTC)your icon makes my brain hurt
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Date: 2012-05-12 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 01:51 am (UTC)