Tuesday, May 18, 2004

1 Terabyte Gmail?

Carl Banks pointed me to this Gmail screenshot showing 1,000,000 Megabyte (1 Terabyte) of free space and adds: This photo was not doctored.
Is Google playing around with even bigger storage?

Update: a source who doesn’t want to be identified just informed me “all Google employees get a Gmail account with one terabyte of space”.

1 Terabyte Gmail? by Philipp Lenssen

Nigritude Ultramarine

What’s “Nigritude Ultramarine"? It’s another SEO competition... winner is whoever ends up at #1 in Google for this phrase, which previously could not be found on the Web.
This time the contest has even been Slashdotted.

If you want to help this humble blog and its author, please link to http://blog.outer-court.com using the link text Nigritude Ultramarine. What’s it in for you? Well, the next Gmail lottery (father’s day is coming up) will see all those linking to me using Nigritude Ultramarine have a chance!
If you do put up a link, please let me know about it via email. Also let me know wether or not you are interested in having a Gmail account.

Additionally, if on 7th of July I end up at #1 and do win the iPod Blue or 17” flat LCD screen*, I will also directly award it to someone who linked to me. I’m just participating in this for the fun of it.

*Don’t worry about handing out your address just now, as I will contact you via email in case you have won the iPod or flat screen.

The email goes to blog@outer-court.com with the subject Nigritude-Ultramarine.

Nigritude Ultramarine by Philipp Lenssen

Google Ethics

Andrew Orlowski attempts to reveal the Google’s Ethics Committee and brings up the old who watches the watchmen question. Google always emphasizes they don’t control their own results. However Google often omits the fact it is them who:

• Wrote the original algorithms that specify where a site ranks (thus wether or not it exists on the Web).
• Chooses which sites to include in Google News and Froogle (I’ve been rejected for both).
• Chooses to implement filters for adult content.
• Decide to put up a warning on top of the certain search results (like “Jew”).
• Disallow certain types of ads to be displayed to the right (e.g. ads containing the word “Google”, or certain political ads).
• Hides specific hate-sites (e.g. when searching for “Stormfront” on German Google).

No, Google should not be blamed for morally wrong search results (even if one could agree on what is morally wrong in the first place). As much as you can’t hold Sony responsible when you record a crime with their digital camera. Google makes a snapshot of Web reality by letting you point it to specific words. They should restrict themselves controlling what could be equalled to an anti red eye effect in a digitial camera (and fight nothing but spam). Other than that people prefer real colors – or just buy another camera.

Google Ethics by Philipp Lenssen

No Overnight Success

“[If] you truly want a successful Web site and online business, it will take some effort and lots of time. The people that often run into problems are those that start a new business and Web site by simply trying to figure out a good way to make money online.

That’s exactly the wrong way to go about it.

Instead of doing that (...) let your business choose you! (...)

By that I mean that you should start out by doing something you love and are passionate about without worrying about how you can make money out of it. There will be ways to make money later, once your blood, sweat and tears have been depleted!”
– Jill Whalen, What Is Search Engine Optimization?, May 17, 2004

No Overnight Success by Philipp Lenssen

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