The search wars have officially arrived! That’s right folks, Google’s ongoing quest to make its search results more impervious to spammers has become an infographic, which basically is a badge of honor for any tech bitchmeme.
Closet and not so closet SEO nerds can follow the above flowchart tracing Google’s storied path, from getting rejected by Excite@Home in favor of current Demand Media honcho’s iMail through the chutes and ladders of its algorithmic spam chase to the company’s most recent attempts to quell the rising influence of content farms like um, Demand Media.
“People trade links off topic in large reciprocal link farms.” –> “Google filters out sites that have a high ratio of reciprocal links.” And so on and so forth …
Most ominous part?
“Every change is a new opportunity! Some webmasters are already building business models around the exploiting of opportunities created by the latest algorithm change.”
Ever since exploding at SXSW Interactive in 2007, Twitter has struggled with malware of all kinds.
From clickjacking (see below) to worms to trending topics scams to out-and-out hacks, Twitter has become one of a handful of popular social tools used to spread viruses and other malware around the web.
Concern about Twitter’s security was so extensive in 2010 that the FTC conducted an investigation of the service and its anti-malware measures.
Facebook typically sees far more security issues than Twitter does — but Twitter, at roughly 200 million accounts, has a fraction of Facebook’s 500 million-strong crowd. As Twitter grows, so will the opportunities for black-hat hackers to exploit the service.
Here’s a brief, graphic history of Twitter’s experience with malignant code and bad intentions. Let us know in the comments if you were ever taken in by any of these scams.
Microsoft has put a hardware veteran in charge of its interactive TV business, suggesting that the company is working on an answer to Google TV and Apple TV.
Tom Gibbons headed Microsoft Hardware — keyboards and mice, which was a small but profitable business for years — before joining the Windows Phone team in 2009.
There, he led the group that oversaw hardware reference designs for the Windows Phone 7 handsets. Those are the guidelines that dictate every Windows Phone must have three buttons, a particular type and size of touch screen, and so forth.
Last week, his corporate bio got an update Gibbons is now the corporate VP in charge of Microsoft’s TV and Service business. The change was noticed by Microsoft-watcher Mary Jo Foley earlier today.
Microsoft has been rumored to be working on some sort of new TV or video service since last fall. One report said the devices would run the Windows Embedded operating system overlaid with the Media Center interface and start around $200. They were supposed to debut at CES in January, but never showed up.
With Gibbons now leading the charge, the company is probably trying to find hardware partners to build boxes to run the service — just like it did with Windows Phone 7. And just like Google initially did with Google TV.
Another possibility: Microsoft might try to work directly with TV makers to build the service directly into new TVs. Google has also taken this approach, along with many other video service providers.
The company has had an awful history in the TV business, but some analysts think that its presence in the living room with the Xbox could help it dominate quickly. Microsoft also has strong relationship with Netflix, whose CEO Reed Hastings is on the company’s board of directors.
How do we decrease our dependence on oil? How can we improve security measures with nuclear energy? How can we provide clean water to developing nations? How can we decrease pollution? Save our oceans? Save our planet? It’s these questions that OnGreen CEO and Founder Nikhil R. Jain hope to solve.
“We know green tech is here to stay and that we have to embrace green technologies very quickly, but there is a lack of information and clarity in the green technology field. Investors want to invest but they’re not sure which are the best technologies because clean technology companies aren’t as easy to understand as consumer facing Internet companies. With OnGreen, we are trying to improve the ratio of capital raised in clean tech to capital sought.”
-OnGreen CEO and Founder Nikhil R. Jain
OnGreen, a Los Angeles, California based company wants to remove the barriers between investors and clean tech startups to make investing in clean energy efficient and easy. In pursuit of this mission, OnGreen officially announced the public launch of its website today, establishing itself as a destination for cleantech entrepreneurs, investors and consultants. It is the world’s largest cleantech social network based on the number of projects in clean technology and the amount of money sought by startups.
“The nature of today’s global cleantech market is that innovation doesn’t always occur where capital is available,” says OnGreen CEO Nikhil R. Jain, who grew up in Bombay, a city without limited resources, and has learned to be sustainable since birth. “As a global platform, OnGreen overcomes the physical separation between innovation, capital and expertise and helps speed the time from idea to commercialization.”
The OnGreen platform is divided into three key areas:
Deal Marketplace: Rntrepreneurs seek funding for their cleantech businesses and investors make use of the search and filter capabilities to streamline dealflow.
Patent Exchange: Where inventors and companies post their intellectual property for sale or licensing and allow outside investors and enabling service providers to review them.
Expert Community: Where business and technology experts promote their expertise, collaborate with their peers, engage in opportunity evaluations, share due diligence and make themselves available for mentoring, contract work or even employment.
To date, OnGreen has attracted 280 cleantech startups from more than 35 countries with 150 patents, raising $143 million in funding of $1.9 billion in sought after capital. Its new platform already has 25 industry experts including OnGreen’s Chief Expert Dr. Mark Bernsbein, who runs The Energy Institute for the University of Southern California.
Part of OnGreen’s strategy includes a collaboration with the University of Michigan and Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy (JUCCCE), to facilitate Chinese investment at US universities. The project will allow Chinese companies to invest in University R&D and patents in exchange for joint rights to the associated intellectual property. OnGreen will be partnering with more universities going forward.
“China has a gap between their desire to save energy and reduce pollution, and their capability to go green as fast as they are building.” She adds, “This joint research project would not only bring positive trade flow into the U .S. from China and create jobs, but also potentially help the U.S. bypass historic patent infringement issues in China.”
-JUCCCE’s Co-Founder Peggy Liu
To monetize, OnGreen is introducing programs that will vet out 12 projects from its site and take them to China next month. In this way, it will be billing itself out as a virtual investment bank. The company is using its recent $1.4 million series A investment from its own jointly owned fund between Blue Marble Ventures in Los Angeles and China Southern Hong Kong Investment Ltd. in Shanghai to provide investors with deal vetting, a larger patent exchange system, and to expand its Chinese and Indian marketplace.
The OnGreen platform is divided into three key areas: