Digital Musings

New Google Reader Feature criticized-Deemed as invasion of privacy!

Google has an incredible collection of user data. You trust Google with your name, contact information, address book, phone numbers and if you trust google with your eyes closed, your financial data as well. When you are online, almost certainly you would log in to your Google account to use their services better, so they have record of your online activity, which sites you visit, which ads you click on and which products you read about. This helps them target better ads and you see the ads are most relevant to you. There is no arguing, on the internet, which is such a huge place in itself, providing you with targeted content is a commendable job. Everyone has accepted it and many swear by it.

Privacy advocates have been opposing the Google-DoubleClick merger and Microsoft appealed to the US Senate panel to stop this deal from going through.As far as online privacy is concerned, you may not want to disclose your name for personal or business reasons, or not show your online activity to anyone else. You may like to share stuff with friends, but there are also things that you would rather keep private. So if at this moment Google jumps in and discloses one part of your account to all your contacts? Not even bothering to ask you, just lay it out in the open.

So How did Google breach your Privacy?

What I am talking about here is the new Google reader feature that allows you to share your feeds with your friends. I think its a good feature, if you have a network of friends, who read similar stories and news. Its adds a bit of Social Flavor to the Google reader.

But what if you are using a Google account that you have used to interact with several people, just for correspondence?
3 days ago I corresponded with “some guy” about”something”, that doesnt make him my friend, and since I have exchanged mails with him, Google assumes he is a friend and adds my shared data to his feed reader. In a way he is reading stuff he isn’t supposed to and gets an idea about my online activity! This is the major complaint by many Google Reader users.This invoked a lot of criticism from some readers.

Some Comments on the new feature:

The Google Reader Help started a thread, where the Google reader users vented out their anger. Felipe Hoffa has recorded some interesting comments in his Slash Dot Journal. I found a few amusing so I have listed them below:

“This is a terrible idea, and a violation of privacy, and it contradicts your own documentation”. “Please don’t turn the best feed reader on the web into the shittiest social network on the web.”

“Please fix this and let us OPT IN to who we want to share with. PLEASE. Don’t make me leave my Google Apps!!”

“I have parents, relatives, business associates, all who use Gmail, in my contact list, and the only way to not share with them is to remove the contact? That’s INSANE.”

“I find the “social networkization” of Google’s services unattractive, and unfortunately, I can’t really opt-out of them.”

“I’m complaining because the articles I shared with my wife are now shared with my entire contact list, with no warning. In fact, this is precisely the worst sort of violation of privacy.”

Whew! There may be many reasons why anyone wouldn’t want to share, stuff one subscribers to. The main reason for this very vocal criticism was that Google brought this feature in as a surprise, with no opt out option.

Google has a very good reputation dealing with the privacy of their users.Its number one on my “Internet’s Most trusted Companies List”. They have been known to fix privacy related glitches in a blink of an eye, and have always worked hard towards maintaining the user privacy. But a new feature recently launched by them, really rocked their boat.

Google has a very well defined privacy policy. You can read it here. It clearly states that, “When you sign up for a particular service that requires registration, we ask you to provide personal information. If we use this information in a manner different than the purpose for which it was collected, then we will ask for your consent prior to such use.” Although Google hasnt actually violated privacy, because there isnt any defined rule under which this data falls, the closest description about sharing of your personal data in their Privacy Policy is here.

But The Google Team has come out with an answer, unfortunately after about a week of criticism, but things will get back to normal now. They have introduced a feature via which you can better manage who sees your shared feeds.

You can now share the various tags under which you have saved the feeds, or can choose to keep them private.

Also, you can now, clear all you shared items or, can move them to a specific tag, which you would like to share from now on.

This isn’t actually a privacy violation, except for a few people, who would not like to share items on their feed reader. And now with these new features, they can control, who can see their feeds. So I guess, Google actually saved the day by responding to these complaints quickly. Enjoy using the Google reader, Its one of the best online feed readers around!

Would you be concerned if the feeds you read are shared without your consent? Do you think Google invaded your privacy by making all you feeds public?

If you like this post then please consider subscribing to my Full RSS feed. Join the Discussions about Blogging and Social Networking in the Forum.Thanks for visiting!

Posted in Google, News, Online Services, Social Networking | 6 Comments »

New Feature in Google Reader: Share Feeds with friends on GTalk

Do you use the Google Reader? Do you have a lot of friends on G-Talk? Then you  might find this interesting. Today when I opened my Google reader a new pop-up came up telling me now its possible to share my feed items with friends on GTalk. I have been using the Google reader for quite some time now and I have seen it evolving and integrating features like getting its own search option, providing the feed count via Feedburner ( a good feature to track number of subscribers to ones blog) and Google Reader International versions ( French and Japanese).

If you are new to this whole sharing business, let me explain it in brief. Google Reader automatically creates a public page for any items that you mark as “shared.” You can also choose to create public pages for your starred items, or for items you have marked with a particular tag. If you decide to share some feeds with your friends, all you need to do is click on the share link at the bottom of the post and the icon turns orange indicating that now the feed is being displayed on the shared page, and is visible to friends on your Gtalk list. To view which posts have been shared till now, you can click on the shared items link (on left sidebar of the reader) and it would display your public page, with the shared posts.

Also, you can decide while setting up the sharing feature, which friends can see the public page. If its shared, it doesn’t mean everyone on the list can see that page. If you like you can share information just with your close friends or co-workers. If you want a fresh start you also have an option to erase previous sharing history. How about that?

This is an interesting feature and can be put to good use, if you have a decent social network, especially on IM clients.
I had written about growing one’s social network through IM Network some time back, and I was able to get acquainted with some really famous bloggers like Daniel from DaliyBlogTips, Fred Peters from Newestonthenet and Maki from Dosh Dosh. Also I have a lot of fellow bloggers who share a lot of stuff common to our niche through various social networking sites. However if one is on IM, you would get to share stuff in real time.

I just cant stress enough the importance of being on top of things in your niche by being the first one to blog about a certain topic. Yesterday I wrote about the Yahoo Shortcut WordPress plugin, immediately after it was released. Now that post ranks 11th in Google results along with blogs like Weblog Tools Collection and Read Write Web and I have received more than 300 unique visitors to that posts already.

Now a days, the RSS feeds have penetrated almost every aspect of the internet and now they are making their way into Instant Messaging, the original social networking tool. I have always been an IM fan as I like to do things in real time. So I guess this would be quite useful for me to share stuff with my fellow bloggers.

Can you think of any other use this can be put to? Would you start using this feature?

Posted in Google, News, Online Services, Social Networking | No Comments »

Are you a Part of these Google Experiments?

Before I proceed, if you are not aware,what Google Experiments are, let me tell you about it briefly. Google has a wonderful concept called as Google labs,which is basically a playground for all the “Beta” web applications that Google is currently developing. I am sure you must have heard about Google labs. “The Google experimental” is a part of Google Labs, where the latest ideas that Google is working on are displayed. Google has always preferred participation and feedback from the users for improvement of the services. All the latest projects in which users can participate are listed in Google Experimental.

Some of the Projects that are included and are under development in Google Labs are:

• Google Code Search
  Search public source code
• Google Music Trends
  See what music is popular among Google Talk users
• Google Page Creator
  Create your own web pages, quickly and easily
• Google Web Accelerator
  Save time online by loading web pages faster
• Google Suggest
  As you type your search, Google offers keyword suggestions in real time
• Google Trends
  See what the world is searching for.

There is special note that tells us these Apps are under development can work erratically at times. It says:
Please note: These technologies are still in the beginning stages of development, so they may disappear without warning or perform erratically. If something’s not working on this page, please come back and try it again later.
On the right we see a list named as Google Graduates. These are projects started in Google Labs and now are fully operational. A few projects that have been completed are listed below.

Some Mega Google Web Applications which were developed by Google labs and are fully functional:

• Web Alerts
  Find out about new web pages on a topic of interest
• Google Desktop
  Find all your information, whether it’s on the web or stored on your computer, from one convenient location
• Google Scholar
  Search through journal articles, abstracts and other scholarly literature
• Google Maps
  View maps, get driving directions, and search for local businesses and services.
• iGoogle
  Add information you care about to your Google homepage
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets
  Create, store and share documents and spreadsheets on the web
• Google Reader
  Use Google’s web-based feed reader to keep track of your favorite web sites

The Google Experimental Section:

As I have said above Google Experimental are the latest ideas in Google Labs and allow user participation. Most of these experiments are aimed at, you guess it, making Google search even better. The participation is optional. Guys who are really interested in checking these features should join in, and check them out. Also only one experiment can be joined at one time.Some of the latest projects in Google Experimental are:

1) Alternate views for search results

This is an interesting concept. If you join this experiment, you can alter the view of your search results. In this, you can view search results as a time-line or even on Maps. Also the third parameter is viewing additional information.

Time-line & map view works best for searches related to people, companies, events and places. Info view shows all the data found for each result, to help you select the best choice.

2) Keyword suggestions

If you sign on with this experiment Google displays different keywords to improve your search results. As you type your search query, Google’s technology provides alternative suggestions to your queries in real time. Other application that provide this feature are Google suggest and Google Labs itself.

I have tried this and it helps in using the keywords in different and also helps one understand what other related keywords are popular.

3) Keyboard shortcuts

If you join this experiment you can navigate through the search results quickly and easily, minimizing the use of your mouse. Current keyboard shortcuts include:

4) Left-hand search navigation/ Right-hand contextual search navigation

As the names suggest, we have additional search options for any searches that we make once we join any of the two experiment. You can search deeper in a particular type of content—patents, products or news, for example. Google searches across all kinds of content, then ranks results by relevance.

These are a few new concepts that are being developed by Google for making the search even better and are good to join if you want first hand understanding about how the Google search is changing. Also I think every guy interested in SEO should join and try these out.

I would be joining these experiments and would provide a review of any of these on this blog. If you want to stay updated you can subscribe to the blogs feed.

Link for Google Labs is here. Link for Google Experimental is here.

So now that you know what the Google experiments are, which one interests you? Would you be willing to participate and know more about them?

Posted in Google, Innovation, SEO | 8 Comments »

Gmail adds two new features - Group Chat and New emoticons

Today when I opened my Gmail Inbox I saw a new red link indicating addition of two new features on Gmail. One is Group chat and other is graphic emoticons.

Group Chat Feature:

This feature would allow anyone to start a chat with one of their contacts and then invite any number of people to join in.To start a group chat click on options at left bottom corner and select group chat. Similarly,to invite a person one needs to click options on left bottom corner of the chat window and select the option add a person to this chat.
There is no limit to the number of people that can join in. If you have 5 people in the group chat from your friends list, each one of them can then invite people from their list. So this can become something like a big chat room.

New Gmail Emoticons:

Keeping the popular trend in mind, Gmail has now adopted new set of emoticons. Previously Gmail only provided the regular smileys, though they were animated, they didnt look pretty. Now they have added an options to send emoticons. Two sets of different emoticons have been provided. One Circular and one Square.

The images above show the Original Gmail smiley set and the Two new Circular and Square Smiley sets added to the service. I am sure these two features may add some flavour and activity to our usual G-Talk sessions! Say Cheese -

Posted in Google, Innovation, News | 4 Comments »

Digital Musings Comic Strip: Google Page Rank Hoopla

Recently there was a great Flurry over the Page Rank Update by Google, and its going on. You never know when the sky is going to fall on your head. This strip is based on those “ongoing” events. Enjoy. Please do comment and let me know any ideas that you may have for the next strip. Full credit would be given to the commentators Blog/Website.

Has the PR update bugged you too? Share you thoughts and opinions in the comments section below or in the forum , and yes, If you don’t want to miss out any upcoming Comic Strips, Do subscribe to the Digital Musings Feed.

Posted in Digital Musings, Google, Popular | 13 Comments »

A Detailed Page Rank Update Report for Top 25 Blogs about blogging Past Predicted and Present

I guess its time to change the name of Blog-O-Sphere to Google-O-Sphere, as a tribute to the Page Rank Update buzz everywhere. Every blog I read today has a post dedicated to this Subject. I was going to write about it immediately, but instead of taking the “reporting only” mode I decided to go into the “analysis mode”, wait a bit, see what this hoopla is all about and then write a relevant post. I call this the PPP Report. Not Pay per post, but Past, Predicted and Present (PR) Report.

This post is divided into two parts:

1. Table showing the Past, Predicted and Present PR of TOP 25 Blogs about Blogging.
2. Table showing the corresponding back-links to these Blogs to get an Idea how Google is distributing the PR weightage.

Lets start from Table one. Its lists blogs in the order of Importance which is determined by 4 factors: 1. Google page Rank. 2. Technorati Links 3. Alexa Traffic 4. Subscriber Base.

Since we are discussing about Google Page rank, Only that factor is displayed in the Table below. Orignal list is can be found at Daily Blog Tips

This table is made specially for self analysis (no its not tiresome) by you. If you see the Titles, they are “Clickable” and would sort the Ranks from highest to lowest and vice versa. For example if we see Past Title and click on it is sorted according to the Past Page Rank Sorting from Highest to lowest and vice versa. And the results are:

PAST: 1.Performancing. 2. Build a Better Blog and 3. Problogger.

PREDICTED: 1.Copy Blogger 2.Lorelle on WordPress 3. BusinessBlog.

PRESENT: 1.Copy Blogger 2.Lorell on WordPress 3.Build a better Blog

As we can see during the 1st Update ProBlogger was nowhere to be seen in the Top 10, but after the revised update its back in Top 3.As in the Tables you can see several authoritative blogs have dropped their PR. Several reasons have been sighted for this PR Drop. The Google data centers are still reporting scattered data, so it is difficult to know what will be the Page Rank of some sites involved in the previous penalties. I would be keeping a track of this and If anything changes, well one more column in the table (Its getting wider and wider, Hope Google makes up its mind soon, before I run out of space.)

Page Rank Report for Top 25 Blogs about Blogging

A Detailed analysis of the Page Rank on Todays Most Influential Blogs about Blogging.

Page Rank Report for Top 25 Blogs about Blogging

The reason for the penalties it not entirely clear yet, but Darren said that he got confirmations from two sources at Google that the penalties were being given exclusively for paid links, and not for cross-linking inside blog networks. This latest furore has all been about the selling of links and is a warning shot to bloggers and webmasters who engage in the practice. Of course not everyone who sells links has been hit (there’s no way Google will get everyone) but it’s a sign of what Google are continuing to crack down on.

With this table we get a hawks eye view of who was Where, What was predicted and What actually happened!! A lot of other blogs have made such lists but no where the data is comparable in these 3 modes and also none of them allow sorting and let any do any self- analysis.

After the Page Rank analysis, Its imperative that we look at the factor that helps one to improve the Page Rank : Back Links.

The table below displays the number back-links these Top Blogs have and how many back links you require to actually get a specific page rank. There is a Column included which shows the Back Links detected by Google. And the other two show the Total back links by All Search Engines combined.

Corresponding BackLinks Report for Top 25 Blogs about Blogging

Corresponding BackLinks Report for Top 25 Blogs about Blogging

If we see at this Table we get to see and compare some really interesting statistics. Problogger has the Highest number of Back links that amounts to 13000. The second position goes to Performancing that has 7350 links which is about 5500 less than Problogger. Now the interesting thing is Performancing has a PR of 7 and ProBlogger s on 6 . Now why could this be?

Number one reason: The kind of back links that you have. Obviously the back links for Performancing have sites that have a high PR occurance i.e many of the blogs/websites that link to it have higher PR than the ones that link to Problogger. Another interesting fact to note is that the Blog with the least amount of links, 151 links, I help you blog has a PR of 4, and which is less than almost 13000 links but only a difference of PR 2. This helps us understand how important it is to build Quality Links. From there on in the table we observe that the PR increases as the back links increase.

The source for the Page ranks and the Back-Links are SmartPageRank and IWebTool.I will be updating the list with more sites, and for any changes in data centres over the next few hours.

You might wanna bookmark or save this Page or Subscribe to my Feed, as I am going to write about the Page Rank changes of top 25 SEO blogs. Lets see how the Big Boys who teach guide us how to do Search Engine Optimization are doing!!!

BTW, Digital-Musings.com jumped from PR 0 to PR 4 today. So guess I am not doing too bad Eh!

Posted in Google, News, Popular, SEO | 3 Comments »

So the Google Page Rank is finally Updating.

So what is your current Page Rank? If it has been stagnant, and you have been waiting desperately for it to change, now might be the time. Recently there has been a lot of buzz regarding the page rank update, in various forums and many famous blogs are writing about it.Read about this first on Yaro Starak’s Blog. As far as I am concerned I am not very hopeful for a increase in rank, as I didn’t get enough time to start building links and let them mature with time as old links carry the maximum weight, and give the maximum benefit for a better page rank.New blogs must concentrate on building links as in you have started a blog or website 2-3 months back, chances are slim that you would notice any change in your Page Rank.

At the moment, several Blogs have seen a drop in their page rank, rather than an increase. Most probably, Google has made a few modifications in rules regarding, how page rank is to be designated. I am looking around for more information in various forums and hopefully would be able to post information regarding it soon enough. Keep Reading, more information coming up soon.

Posted in Google, SEO | No Comments »