Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Decline in free online dating clicks?!

Oh my God. I've been doing a little research and here is what I am finding.

Social networking industry has grown 450%

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=529&geo=US&date=1%2F2007%2024m&cmpt=q

Check out the unbelievable spike in traffic that social networks have been seeing the last 3 days. That huge spike normally goes to dating sites… The recession has been really bad for most of the paid sites, and they have lost a lot of traffic in the last 3 months. Does that mean that as economy is shrinking and people can not afford to pay for membership, this traffic will be shifted to free online dating services?!

Predictions from industry insiders such as Marcus from plenty of fish are that 2009 will be a blood bath!

Monday, December 29, 2008

Online Dating 101

YOU HAVE ONE CLICK TO MAKE A GOOD IMPRESSION WITH YOUR ONLINE DATING PROFILE. THESE 4 TRICKS WILL ENSURE THAT SHE HITS YOUR BUTTON.


  1. Pick a mature (not silly or arrogant) screen name. BigMikey9inch may sound clever to you, but chances are SweetJen28 will want nothing to do with a guy who feels the need to 'advertise' (particularly when you are probably closer to NotSoBigMikey4inch). Have fun with your screen name, but avoid being vulgar or cocky. Stay away from names that denote wealth or immaturity. Chose names that are simple and easy to remember. "coming up with a name that gives an indication of what you are all about. So, for instance, if you like to ski and like to cook, your user name could be Skiingchef. Right off the bat, you get a sense of what this person is all about." Keep in mind that this is a name that might stick as a nickname, too, so nix options such as Baddabing or TeddyBearBoy.
  2. Use a high-quality photo. "A profile without a photo means one of two things to a woman: in a relationship or not so attractive". She will want to see your face, so shots with sunglasses and/or baseball hat might as well not even be there. "A hat leads her to assume that you have a balding problem and you are trying to hide it. Have someone take the picture for you - a self-portrait in the bathroom screams MySpace or desperate loneliness. Include a current - say, within six months - head shot and a full-body shot of yourself. Step it up with a picture of you laughing. "Most often people make their decisions based on the primary photo". If you see a picture of that pretty much looks like a model, you can be sure it is a scammer. They use them to lure you in and the reality is that people fall into these traps almost 75% of the time. At SoZila.com, we offer you the ability to upload up to 99 photos, so you can include a good cross section of photos to showcase your personality. Just make sure that the first one they see is an accurate representation of what you really look like and not how you wish you did.
  3. Be clever in your profile. "Don't start by apologizing! We don't need you to tell us that you are not a writer or you hate writing about yourself." Let your personality shine through. Start a mini blog and train your vocabulary. Since women are more emotional than visual, color in the picture with as many different facets of your personality as you can include. Self-deprecation and humor are always endearing way to get noticed, but whatever you do, avoid cliches such as, "I like long walks on the beach and holding hands". That's like saying, 'I like sleeping and breathing.'"
  4. Stick with the truth. Typically, men lie about they height and their women about weight. Most girls with actually do the adjusting and take an inch or two off whatever height you write anyway. But don't think that means you are in the clear. If you are only 5'7", and her profile says only over six feet need apply (or vice versa), play by the rules. Otherwise, don't be surprised if she takes one look at you on your first date and smacks you upside your lying, little head.
Other helpful resources can also be found on SoZila.com, which is a free online dating service

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Free Dating Advise

So, I promote this free online dating site and I was wondering if any of you webmasters can suggest how do I deal with the following:

I would like to attract singles from a specific area, but when they come in and see that I don't have many members from this area registered, they don't even register.

So you see, it is a catch 22, so how do I deal with it?

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Cyberscams Befriend Social Networks

Now fraudsters may log on as your "friend." How Facebook, LinkedIn, SoZila.com and other social networking sites are fighting a rise in scams

Remember the associate of that deposed dictator who needed your help transferring a few million dollars from a Swiss bank account? Well, he's back. And he—or one of his ilk—may show up soon posing as your "friend" on Facebook.

Someone bearing an eerie resemblance to those ubiquitous perpetrators of so-called Nigerian scams ended up in the online social network of Australian citizen Karina Wells. Earlier this month Wells received a message on Facebook from someone she thought was her real-life friend Adrian. He wrote that he was stranded in Lagos, Nigeria, had no access to a phone, and needed Wells to wire $500 for a plane ticket home. "Adrian" even pleaded for help in a real-time conversation over Facebook's chat service.

Wells didn't buy it. She alerted Australian authorities and Facebook, each of which is conducting an investigation. Although the details have yet to be confirmed, Facebook officials believe someone obtained Adrian's log-in credentials through a "phishing" scheme, luring him to a dummy site where he was asked to enter his Facebook password. The incident was initially reported by the Sydney Morning Herald and later confirmed by BusinessWeek.com.

Wells thwarted the apparent ruse, but officials and security experts warn such scams may become more common in an online world where millions of people interact daily, often sharing intimate details with widening circles of friends.

"Implied Trust"
While e-mail is still the most common online method used by scam artists to contact potential victims, fraudsters are increasingly turning to Web pages, a category that includes social networks, according to the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. Last year the total amount of money reported lost through Internet crime in the U.S. rose 21%, to a record $239 million, according to those agencies. The victim was contacted through a Web page in 32.7% of those cases, up from 16.5% in 2005. Social networks are partly to blame for the increase, officials say. "There is an implied sense of trust, and there's not the sense that we can be physically harmed," says Shawn Henry, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Investigations division.

Social networks are also more ubiquitous, Henry notes. "Many [criminals] have now moved to computer networks because that's where the victims have moved and, therefore, the opportunities." According to comScore (SCOR), the number of unique visitors to all social networking sites worldwide reached 689 million in October, up 35% from a year earlier.

It's not difficult for a savvy Web surfer to impersonate someone else in cyberspace, as a high-profile cyber-bullying trial now under way plans to show. On Nov. 18 jury selection began in a federal court in Los Angeles for the case of Lori Drew, who prosecutors say passed herself off as a teenage boy in a widely publicized case of impersonation on a social networking site. Two years ago 13-year-old Megan Meier hanged herself after receiving messages from "Josh," an older boy she had befriended on News Corp.-owned (NWS) MySpace, who allegedly later told her that the world "would be better off" without her. According to prosecutors, an investigation ultimately revealed that "Josh" was a fictitious online persona of multiple people, including Lori Drew, the mother of one of Meier's teenage rivals. Drew now faces one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing computers without authorization.

Fooling Security Experts
A pair of online security industry consultants carried out an experiment recently to demonstrate just how easy it is to masquerade as someone else on LinkedIn. Shawn Moyer of FishNet Security and Nathan Hamiel of Idea Information Security got permission from a friend to set up a phony profile page on the networking site aimed at professionals. Together, they posed as Marcus Ranum, a consultant renowned for building the first e-mail server for whitehouse.gov and who now serves as chief of security for Tenable Network Security. Moyer and Hamiel used Ranum's name, résumé, and photo (all of which they found on the Web without any help). Moyer and Hamiel then set about seeking to connect with chief security officers and chief information officers of large companies, an editor-in-chief of a security trade magazine, defense industry professionals, and other people whom Ranum might know in real life.

Despite their online security expertise, most accepted the request. And once the fake Ranum had several authentic connections within the industry, he looked even more credible to the next target. "I would have expected that the security community would have been a little more paranoid," Ranum says. The experiment proved to Moyer and Hamiel what they had suspected: Users of social networking sites expect little more proof of a friend's identity than a name, a photo, and a few bits of knowledge about their real life. "What if I wanted to get inside IBM (IBM)?" asks Moyer. "What if I had wanted to get inside the [U.S. Defense Dept.]? Who else might Marcus know?"

Enforcement Hurdles
There's no easy solution for the social networking sites themselves. Each major networking site contains terms of service that prohibit posing as another user. "The rules of impersonation are pretty much the same on the Internet as off the Internet," says Gene Landy, principal with Boston-based law firm Ruberto, Israel & Weiner. In both places the severity of punishment hinges on how much harm is intended. Pretending to be an ex-girlfriend and posting embarrassing photos on Facebook, for example, would likely constitute a civil offense, Landy says. But almost any serious attempt at fraud—pretending to be someone else to obtain money or retrieve sensitive information—would likely be tried as a criminal offense, he explains.

Enforcing the rules online can be tricky for social networks that don't want to put off would-be users with a rigorous authentication process. Facebook maintains a long list of blacklisted names that bars users from registering with fictitious names such as Donald Duck and Evil Spock, two of the most popular false IDs, says Facebook's head of security, Max Kelly. The site also prohibits suspicious activity such as spamming users with hundreds of messages. But mainly it falls to users to be vigilant. "If you use Facebook the way we intend people to use Facebook, which is to model your real-world interactions, people won't be able to impersonate someone else," Kelly says. Still, he adds, "I'm not ruling out that we may look at other ways to verify people's identities in the future."

Security expert Moyer admits it would be pretty difficult for LinkedIn to have measures in place to thwart his experiment, but says it and other sites should take some steps to authenticate users. For one, he recommends that new user profiles get stamped with some kind of "born-on date" that displays when the account was created. That could impede scammers who cycle through many new accounts every day. Also, sites should develop some kind of peer warning system that lets users flag others' suspicious activity.

Still, the best prevention method remains educating Web users to be more cautious of people in their networks. "When I get a friend request, I tend to ask people what T-shirt [they] wore the last time we had dinner," Moyer says.

A simpler way to check identity is to spend some time on the person's profile, see how long they've been active, how familiar their friends appear to be, and whether the messages and multimedia they post reflect their personality.

When all else fails, it's probably best to be leery of requests for money or bank account information—especially when they emanate from deposed dictators.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Major Cleanup on the Free Dating Profiles

You may have noticed, but the users and members count have dropped drastically over the past couple of days. This is nothing unusual as we performed a major cleanup in preparation for the new Beta design that is in the works. Almost 100,000 free online dating profiles were deleted.

You may ask why?

Well, it would be a good question and the answer is: we do not want to mislead the public and falsifying our counts. We rather have good quality over poor quantity. Profiles are still manually approved and profiles or users that haven't logged in in over a year are being deleted. Hopefully this would help you as well in your search for the perfect date

Sincerely,
The SoZila.com team

Friday, November 14, 2008

All web sites are International

Tip O'Neill, the late Speaker of The House of Representatives is often quoted as saying "All politics is local" meaning a politician that helps a constituent with a problem is likely to win that vote based on the personal assistance provided, irrespective of that politician's stance on the larger, more weighty, geo-political issues. What then of business, is all business local or international?

Shopping Is An Experience

The world has changed dramatically since the days when neighborhood shopping was the main option, and people relied on their local merchants for products and services. The world of commerce today seems to be divided between two competing scenarios: on the one hand, people are more mobile than ever before, and more willing to travel to buy what they want, even with wildly fluctuating energy costs; and on the other hand, people are busier than ever and use the Internet to seek out the companies, products, and services they want and need. What seems to be consistent is the underlying need to feel something, to experience the process. The higher the value, the greater the psychological component to the buying experience. The same is true for products and services that are considered non-essential.

People Wonder Why They Can't Sell More Stuff

We all have our favorite stores and websites, where we know we will be looked-after with more than the ubiquitous and perfunctory, "have a nice day," but sadly that sense of service is all but lost in a misguided rush to pseudo efficiency. Brick and mortar stores with their part-time, minimum wage time-fillers whose only talent seems to be a vacant blank stare accompanied by "that's not my department" is bad enough. But what of websites that don't accept phone calls, or any other kind of inquiry other than a form email that you can be assured will be answered in a week or two, along with a request for more information that generally corresponds to the information you've already provided - that's what passes for website service today. And people wonder why they can't sell more stuff.

The Web Is An International Venue

The Web of course presents one additional wrinkle to the service issue, one that puts a premium on communicating your message effectively: the Web is an international venue. No matter what you do, or where you're located, you can be sure people from all parts of the world are visiting your website if you have something of value to say. This then puts a premium on your ability to articulate a coherent message, one that eliminates the need for visitors to phone Mumbai, Beijing, or Lickskillet, Ohio.

English speaking companies have a hard enough time communicating effectively, but what of non-English speaking companies trying to break into the North American market? You find websites in many different languages, catering to local markets, but if you're looking for North American exposure, you best deliver your message in the language of the Web, and like it or not, that language is English.

Words Have Meaning

Far be it from me to criticize CBS news anchor Katie Couric, who generally does a fine job, but when she refers to the Democrats winning the House, Senate, and Presidency as "single party rule" it raises the hackles on the back of my neck. Words have meaning and presentation has impact. But I am not just talking about proper grammar, syntax, and usage, something many of us stumble over at times, but what of idiom, metaphor, and voice; elements that are just as important in effective marketing communication as proper usage.

Years ago while visiting London, England I passed a store with the sign that read "Fags and Mags," a disconcerting message until I got acclimatized to the British slang. When it comes to marketing, you can get away with a lot, but even countries that speak the same language have different patois, slang, and cultural references.

One of the great advantages of being from Canada with its proximity to the USA, its historical ties to the British Commonwealth, and its multicultural population is that we understand these differences and can translate them into effective North American marketing campaigns.

Crafting Your Web Marketing Message

What do you sell? A seemingly simple question any business executive should be able to answer, but can they answer it accurately? Ask yourself: do you sell a product, a service, or a concept? Does a shoe store sell shoes, or comfort and status? Does an accountant sell auditing services, or legitimacy and security? Does a politician sell tax cuts, or a better future?

When it comes to marketing you have to think concepts; if you build your advertising around products or services rather than concepts you will never be able to develop an effective campaign, let alone an effective website presentation.
Take Target and Walmart for example: they both sell similar products for the most part, a problem many retailers and most distributors have but refuse to face. Target markets itself as the leader in low priced, designer-styled merchandise, a distinct marketing position compared to Walmart that markets itself as the low priced leader and the heck with design. Each company delivers a unique marketing concept, one targeting consumers interested in price alone, the other aimed at shoppers who want a little style with their bargains: two different concepts, two different brand positions, and two different marketing strategies.

We All Sell Concepts Not Products and Services

One way or another we all sell a concept no matter what the product or service. When a client approaches us with the question "why aren't we selling more stuff?" a quick review of their site usually provides the answer: their website is not articulating in any meaningful, memorable manner, the conceptual premium their product or service delivers.

Before you invest in a new website or Web marketing campaign, decide what concept you are actually delivering. That concept is the basis of your marketing strategy and it informs what you say and how you say it.

Selling Concepts Is All About The Presentation

The recent US election is a great example of how to sell a concept. Putting all political bias aside look at the difference between how Obama approached his speeches and how McCain approached his. Of course both men talked about their policies and how they would handle different domestic and international situations.
McCain spoke to his constituency and delivered what they wanted to hear, but his words and presentation style fell far short of motivating the undecided or converting non-believers. Accusing a fellow Senator and Harvard Law alumni, with red baiting language like "redistributing the wealth" was obvious code language that failed the sniff test to all but his staunch backers.

Compare McCain's efforts to motivate through distrust and fear to Obama's message of hope, with his "Yes We Can" catchphrase echoing the American 'can do' spirit and traditional approach to solving problems. Not only did Obama say the right words to motivate his audience, he delivered his message with the motivational rhythm and cadence of an inspirational preacher.

Whether you're selling a political agenda or carbonated sugar water, you must learn to communicate your marketing concept in a way that people will understand, remember, and act upon.

Concepts Are Universal

The Web is an international venue. If you have something of value to say or sell, you will attract an international audience. Foreign companies that want to access the USA market must learn to speak "American" or hire a marketing communication company that does. American companies that want to grow beyond their local markets must learn to think concepts, the universal language of sales.

Microsoft combines email and social networking

As web portals like Yahoo and AOL try to open up to the rest of the web by incorporating content from third-party websites, Microsoft has taken a bold step in the same direction by redefining its Windows Live software and websites as a social network.

The software giant re-launched several of its Live websites on Wednesday, combining its popular email and instant messaging services with other web applications.

Just like a standard social network, users can now build their own profile pages, but Microsoft also lets users incorporate content they've made on other websites, including Flickr, DailySlides, LinkedIn, Pandora, Photobucket, Twitter, 160Tag, WordPress and Yelp.

"Our customers have friends across the web," said Chris Jones, VP of Windows Live Experience Program Management in a press release. "They communicate through many unconnected web services and want access to it all from a single location -- without worrying about how it's done."

Windows Live users are automatically logged on to the Windows Live Messenger IM client to communicate with friends. Other services include an online movie making program and a "groups" service that lets users share photos and documents and chat with each other online.

The new Windows Live also includes several elements that come straight from the most popular social networks, including the "what's new feed," a feature very similar to Facebook's newsfeed.

While AOL and Yahoo have both been moving toward a more open and social internet, Microsoft has seemingly passed both of them by. It also puts Microsoft in position to wrestle away advertising dollars from its biggest rival, Google, which also offers email, chat and document sharing services.

as reported by iMedia Connection

Google Finally Starts Firing Slackers?

Sluggish economy is catching up with the big players as well. Times are changing at Google: You can't slack off and expect to keep your job anymore, reports a reader who says he's an employee:

Here is what he had to say:
'Recent change in behavior here at Google... it used to be nearly impossible to get fired for general underperformance, but about a week ago word went out to managers that this was a good time to get rid of any people who were underperforming. There have been a couple people I know who got called into meetings with HR and told they were being let go and given a week to "say goodbye to people and come up with whatever story they wanted about why they were leaving."

This isn't the predictable letting contract recruiters go when you aren't hiring anyone, although that's happening too.

It's also clearly reasonable and fair that if you don't do much work you will lose your job, but it's a dramatic change in how Google operates that hasn't even been publicly announced to employees

This seems plausible. Analysts say Google (GOOG) could be going through a rough quarter, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Bloomberg that Google had begun cutting costs. Also, there's been a sudden rash of new ad products and policies aimed at turning up new revenues.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Layoff increase as we get close to the holidays: AMD, LinkedIn, Veoh

Chip maker AMD reduced its workforce by 3%, or roughly 500 staffers. In April, the company laid off 10% of its staff.

LinkedIn has announced that it’s cutting 10% of its staff (about 36 jobs). LinkedIn recently raised $22.7 million in funding (in June it raised $53 million).

Veoh, an online video-sharing site, also announced layoffs – roughly 20% of its staff, or 20 people. While revenue for the company is reportedly growing, the gloomy economic forecast was blamed on the cuts. In June, Veoh received a $30 million round of funding.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Is FaceBook headed for a financial ruin?!

TechCrunch today has no treats—and no joy, no, not even Almond Joy — for Facebook in reporting about its projected financial woes. For a company once valued at $15 billion, things are looking grim as the cash supplies may dwindle long before Facebook is ready or willing to go to IPO. Does that mean that the popularity of free online dating sites such as SoZila.com will actually increase?

There’s no denying that Facebook continues to enjoy incredible popularity worldwide—but that could be part of the problem. Facebook’s worldwide growth has been strong over the last year, with 118% growth in monthly unique visitors and 74% growth in page views. But its US growth hasn’t been as impressive, up only 32% from 31 million to 41 million. Don't get me wrong, this isn't bad at all, but still, where are the rest of the users? Are they now seeking dating websites and not social networks?

As most of Facebook’s growth is outside the US, you’d expect that most of their revenue comes from advertisers targeting international audiences, as well. But that’s not the case. As TechCrunch pointed out months ago, many, many countries generate little to no advertising revenue per user. And that’s just the beginning of growth woes:

to make things worse, bandwidth costs in those countries is generally much higher than the U.S. So the users cost more, and they don’t bring in any revenue.

That international growth might be ok if U.S. growth remained strong. But the U.S. market just seems to be tapped at this point, and gaining market share from MySpace is a battle.

And not only is bandwidth a problem, but storage is a major issue (and major cash drain) for Facebook as well.

Despite raising probably over half a billion in cash over the last two years, cash reserves are quickly depleting the future may be even more grim for Facebook as the economy slows. Advertising dollars may be one of the first things to be cut. However, as TC points out, Facebook CFO Gideon Yu is in Dubai, looking for more funding for the company.

What do you think—will Facebook survive?

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Free Dating

Oct. 30,2008 (Press Release)

SoZila.com, a free online dating site, introduces free online dating at your fingertips. SoZila.com has accumulated a huge international database of members and is now capable of enabling one to find a date in no time. Online dating has become a trend especially for youngsters and busy professionals. Free dating site users find that the one of the best 4 ways for finding a true love, companionship, or just the occasional flirt is to become a member of a free online dating site like SoZila.com.

SoZila.com (http://www.SoZila.com) brings together over 20+ thousand eligible singles from all over the World. If you are looking for an occasional date or going on vacation in Europe and looking for friends while there, SoZila.com is the place to be. Our database keeps growing every day and we will not stop improving on this site ever.

Profile creation is an integral part of the registration process with almost all leading online dating services, including SoZila.com. To get the clicks and start dating in no time, profiles need to be impressive. We have made sure to provide you with the tools and guidelines on how to create a ‘killer’ profile. You can see them here. What makes SoZila.com different from other dating sites is that every profile is approved by the owner of the site before becoming publicly visible. Only profiles with real photos make it online, thus guarantying that the person you are talking to is serious in what they are looking for. To further install trust, we have created Video Greetings. Ever member can create one and say in 30 seconds or less what they are looking for.

SoZila.com will provide you with the necessary tools such as safety tips and guidelines when meeting someone online. Sometimes, online dating service may pose dangerous risks, but at SoZila.com we made sure to protect all of our clients. We believe that safety is always better, so make sure you contact us if you have doubts in the identity of anyone you met online on SoZila.com.

SoZila.com is absolutely free. We will never ask you for money, period. In return we ask you to visit more often. We have created special rewards program for returning customers. If you login today, you are a VIP member tomorrow. If you login tomorrow, you will be a VIP the day after tomorrow and so on forever. VIP membership allows you to send an unlimited number of emails, see who has visited your profile and if they voted for you, send unlimited instant messages, use the video chat and much more.

SoZila.com is not only a dating site, but can also be used for social networking. You can make friends and create friendship lists; you can add 3rd party plug-ins, HTML, and tags to make your profile more attractive. You can add music to a playlists or have an online mini Blog for all to follow. We have also added a photo-album section where you can store your memories for free. You can create photo-albums and then post them in your profile. There is so much more to see at SoZila.com.

Kindly do visit our website http://www.SoZila.com to know more about online dating. We promise you, you will never be bored again.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

MySpace banning links?!

Have you seen the following message when trying to click on a link in someone's profile. I think it is such a bullshit, but obviously there is nothing we webmasters can do. For example, I had a legit question from a member on my web site www.SoZila.com free online dating, asking me why a widget she placed on her MySpace profile does not work. Well, to test it, I clicked on it and got the following message:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The link you are trying to visit has been disabled.

You have reached a link that is no longer in service. That means the link was very naughty, and, much like head lice, had to be eliminated before it spread.

You may be asking yourself, 'Hey, what was it about that link that got it in trouble?' An excellent question! Usually, it's one of the following reasons:

- The link was spam! No one likes spammers, and we don't like their links.

- You almost got phished! There are people out there who want to steal your MySpace password. They want to log in as you and send spam, harass your friends, change your profile, and generally run amok. Phishing pages are usually designed to look like MySpace to trick you. Other sites may also ask for your MySpace login information to customize your profile, insert videos or slide shows, track visitors, or any number of other things.Don't make it easy for them. ONLY USE YOUR MYSPACE LOGIN INFO ON WWW.MYSPACE.COM!!

- Viruses are not fun! Neither is adware, spyware, or malware. We cut the links to places that are known sources of infection.

If you really did want to check out some spam, viruses, or phishing pages, we're really sorry to have interrupted. We're sure you can find it elsewhere. There's plenty on the Internet
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What a crap!!! They are not identifying me as a spammer, scammer, or whatever they want to call it. They are pointing the finger basically at everyone! I wonder if any link on MySpace actually works

Monday, October 27, 2008

Click fraud still ticking off advertisers

A Click Forensics quarterly report estimates click fraud to be about 16 percent of all clicks, industry-wide. Though this represents a drop from 16.2 percent in the second quarter, it remains a problem for online advertisers and search engines, according to

Click Forensics, a click-service-detection service, found that the use of botnets to spread click fraud continues to gain speed, as it accounts for almost 28 percent of cases of click fraud, as compared to 25.2 percent in the second quarter.

A botnet is a network of computers that hackers use to send spam and commit click fraud. According to Tom Cuthbert, president of Click Forensics, botnets pose a serious problem because they create click fraud traffic that is "very difficult to catch and identify because it's coming from individual machines."

Compared to the overall click fraud rate of 16 percent, the average rate on networks that advertise on search engines like Google, Yahoo and others, was higher at 27.1 percent

Friday, October 3, 2008

Free Online Dating Sites

I am pretty sure that there are many people, who are aware of the concept of online dating, but hardly pay visit to the online dating sites. I have many friends who are actually active on free online dating and a few of them have already met their boyfriends or girlfriends on a free online dating site. I have adequate idea about how these dating sites work. And that’s the reason I am sure that they are cool and, of course, risk free zone to meet people. People come across other members and start conversation who they find interesting. You progress with your own pace and select your partner carefully. For instance, you won’t have the experience of a bar where 90% are drunk and asking you to fix a drink.

Personally, I feel that there is nothing you should worry about while on a free online dating site. For instance, no one is there to watch even if you are turned down by someone and you don’t need to feel embarrassed. When you break up with your boyfriend/girlfriend, you will surely feel lonely and restless. These are rough periods in your life. But you can’t go on with the same. At last you have decided to bring a change in your life and have someone in your life to date with. I think there is barely any harm in getting registered in a free online dating site. Life is full of surprises and who knows what surprises are waiting for me in these dating sites. Chances are high that I am going to get someone worth dating and that is for the rest of my life. If nothing comes out, at least I will have a good learning experience.

Tonight I am going on a new expedition and logging onto a free online dating site. I remember the name SoZila.com, my friends had told me. I am sure it is a good site with better provisions. Better I should try my luck there without wasting time.

Hey guys, can you share your interesting experience as a first time user on a free online dating site

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Creating a 'Facebook' for spies

One might expect James Bond's MySpace page to list shaken martinis, Walther PPKs, and Aston Martins among his interests.

While that scenario is a bit far-fetched, agents for the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency are testing a social-networking site designed for use by analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, according to a report on CNN's Web site. Instead of posting thoughts on music and movies, the agents use the site--called A-Space--to share information on terrorist activities and troop movements around the world.

The social networking site has been undergoing testing for months and is expected to officially launch to the nation's entire intelligence community on September 22, CNN reported.

"It's every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it's much, much more," Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of National Intelligence for Analysis, told CNN. "It's a place where not only spies can meet but share data they've never been able to share before. This is going to give them for the first time a chance to think out loud, think in public amongst their peers, under the protection of an A-Space umbrella."

The information posted to the new social network is highly classified and won't be accessible by the general public, CNN reported. Access will be limited to intelligence personnel with the proper security clearance and a reason to be examining particular information. A-Space's creators don't want the network to become a gold mine of sensitive information for future double agents.

"We're building (a) mechanism to alert that behavior. We call that, for lack of a better term, the MasterCard, where someone is using their credit card in a way they've never used it before, and it alerts so that maybe that credit card has been stolen," Wertheimer told CNN. "Same thing here. We're going to actually do patterns on the way people use A-Space."
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Curtesy of Cnet news
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10034509-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Free Dating

SoZila.com is a beautiful site, it is highly functional and extremely effective. All of the features are free with no exception, and everyone on the site is a volunteer moderator. These moderators are friendly, helpful and have no problem banning users that don't meet SoZila.com's rules in the forums or on the profile side of the extremely popular free dating site.

Overview from SoZila.com

"We created SoZila.com because we were tired of seeing faceless corporate dating sites preying on singles. Finding love is not about handing over a monthly fee to a dating site that only cares about making sure you stay another month to pay them again."

What a SoZila.com Membership Includes

With one of the fastest sign ups possible (most questions can be deferred for later). SoZila.com offers all of its features at no cost to the user whatsoever, including instant messaging, smiles, and matching, general dating and geographic forums and a hot or not photo rating system. All SoZila.com users can also see who has looked at their profile, ban certain types of users from contacting them (such as from certain regions of the world or people only looking for marriage), and add people to their personal favorites list.

Unique Features of SoZila.com

One of the best features of SoZila.com are the forums and the instant messenger. In fact, it doesn't take a browsing single long to run across a profile that proudly exclaims, "Just here for the forums!". Ranging in topic from dealing with a broken heart to non-dating related debates, the SoZila.com forums are an excellent way of 'meeting' people virtually. Plus, many SoZila.com members take it upon themselves to organize events and meet & greets for everyone to attend, and the place to find such events are in the forums.

Other unusual features at SoZila.com include a list of "who`s my fan" (those who have added you to their favorites), a robust search engine for members by their email, and the ability to see if someone has read your email and/or deleted it.

SoZila.com Membership Costs

There are absolutely no costs or fees to join SoZila.com. Visit more often and you will be a VIP forever!

Friday, August 29, 2008

Free Online Dating Service

SoZila.com, the free dating site in US and Canada, has released a new dating forum. The forum uses a familiar service, which many of us have already seen, phpBB, but modified to work with the dating site's database. What this translates into is: ease and convenience for the existing members. This means that users will not have to create a new user-name and password, but will rather use the user-name and password, they already have on SoZila.com.

Court Orders Google to Turn Over YouTube Data

A federal court has ordered the giant of all Internet companies - Google, to hand over documents concerning YouTube's viewing data to another media monster - Viacom. Viacom and Google are currently entangled in a no-holds barred lawsuit, concerning allegations of infringement of intellectual property rights. Viacom wanted the viewing data to help it determine the extent to which YouTube's success was built on the popularity of copyrighted clips that were illegally posted to the site. Google contended that YouTube's viewing data should be kept from Viacom to protect the privacy of its users.

Unfortunately for the millions of people who view YouTube videos, the judge granted Viacom's request. The court's ruling has caused many advocates of privacy rights to cry foul. For the following reasons, I believe the federal judge was correct in ruling against Google.

The Court's Powers To Access Records Cannot Be Denied

Like millions of Americans and other people around the world I love Google. I can say without a doubt that Google has been very good to me and my family law practice. And if Google wants to be viewed by it's customers as the champion of privacy rights, so be it. But, let's get real... , the court's access to private records under appropriate circumstances cannot be denied. We cannot let people hide behind their computers to commit crimes or torts. It would be absurd, for example, to give a child molester safe haven to either post or view child pornography. It would be equally absurd to give a person safe haven to infringe upon the property rights of another, to commit defamation of character, or to violate someone's privacy rights.

No Right Is Absolute!

The fact that the federal court did not buy into Google's privacy right argument comes as no surprise to those of us who go to court for a living and who know that the right of privacy is not absolute. Our courts are vested with the power to issue search warrants and subpoenas to allow lawyers access to private records. On every work day throughout America, judges are granting motions similar to the one filed by Viacom.

Within my family law practice, for example, I serve subpoenas for personal and employment records almost on a daily basis. Personal records frequently lead to hard evidence concerning the opposing party's true income for the purpose of paying child and spousal support. Likewise, data collected from the opposing party's computer usage can also lead to damaging evidence concerning the issues of child custody, community property, or domestic violence. Thank goodness for those incriminating little e-mails. There is nothing like cross examining a perpetrator of domestic violence as to why he thought it was necessary to send 40 messages to my client concerning her new boyfriend!

In case this information is beginning to scare you, keep in mind that our legal system allows parties the right to object to invasions of their privacy. In California, for example, before a subpoena for personal or employment records can be served, the attorney serving the subpoena must give notice to the opposing party and wait numerous days before sending the subpoena out for service. In addition, there are special rules when it comes to any attempt to obtain medical records, in which case the court is usually going to scrutinize the request for said documents. So if your ex is trying to get your phone records to obtain your friend's phone numbers, there are certain hurdles that need to be cleared before the court will release such records.

Can you say . . . , "protective order?"

There is nothing new about the possibilities of an attorney or party releasing confidential information. In the cruel world we live in, people misbehave and private information is often dispensed to people who have no right to the records. I'm sorry if I've just burst your bubble, but this happens all the time, especially in divorce cases.

Fortunately, the court has a pretty strong remedy to this problem. Courts issue "protective orders" that forbid the release of private documents to third parties and impose huge sanctions on people for violating such orders. And let us not forget the fact that an attorney's license could be in serious jeopardy for intentionally releasing such information, which is a pretty strong incentive for not violating the court's order.

Again, borrowing from my experience in litigating family law cases, I often find it necessary to obtain protective orders on behalf of my clients. In one case, where my client was an attorney who owned his own law practice, his wife demanded copies of all the records pertaining to his clients' files. She purportedly wanted the records to assist her forensic accountant in determining the value and cash flow of his law practice. Obviously my client was concerned about the confidentiality of his client's files, especially since his wife was on the war path to destroy him. We could not get into court quick enough to obtain a protective order, which was granted without hesitation!

What About Viacom's Underlying Motives?

For the purpose of this discussion, Viacom's motives are irrelevant. Viacom has the right to our system of justice as any other company or person. It is, after all, the court's responsibility to ensure that Viacom does not release the information to third parties. If Viacom violates the court's protective orders, well, look out for an astronomical monetary sanction.

Be Careful!

The bottom line is that the information obtained by Viacom will be safeguarded by a protective order restricting access to the data to outside lawyers or others. The lawyers representing Viacom will probably make sure the protective order is obeyed. Nevertheless, it behooves all of us to think twice about the sites we choose to view within the privacy of our homes. After all, the right to privacy is not absolute, and you never know who may get their hands on your records.

About The Author
Written by Donald P. Schweitzer.
Law Offices of Donald P. Schweitzer
201 South Lake Avenue, Suite 700, Pasadena, California 91101
(626) 683-8113 PasadenaLawOffice.com

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Free Online Dating Service

SoZila.com is picking up speed. Their fan base keeps growing by the minute. Are you on the SoZila.com train? If you aren't, get your ticket now. It is absolutely free. They aren't asking for your credit card, they are asking for your browsing support. Make sure you find your hookup today. From what I understand, they are implementing a new option, called Random-Date, where you communicate via web cam with people from around the world who are randomly chosen for you. This should be interesting.

SoZila.com is one of the best free online dating sites, period!

Friday, August 22, 2008

Bubble woes overtake the widget industry

Getting venture capital for a new widget idea isn't as easy as it was a year ago, according to a recent CNET article. The problem? Growing widget fatigue among investors that has come about because of an intensely overcrowded marketplace.

Bill Tai, a venture capitalist at Charles River Ventures, told CNET that reality is now setting in for the widget market, which is going to have to come to grips with the fact that many ideas simply aren't viable.

While tough times and a packed marketplace won't mean an end for widgets, both make attracting advertisers -- the business model for nearly all widget makers -- that much harder.
But interactive marketers aren't ready to give up on widgets by any stretch. In a recent article, Michael Raisanen made the point that the marketing business is still buzzing about widgets, but the demand for quality has now overtaken the initial interest.

That may not be a bad thing for the bigger companies like Slide, SoZila.com Free Online Dating and RockYou, but it could mean an uncertain future for smaller widget shops like 160Tag.com mini blogs or other ones that either lack good products or the ability to educate advertisers on why their portable applications are strong carriers for branded messages.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

What is playing hard to get? Should I play hard to get in a relationship?

How to play hard to get? Should a woman play hard to get in a relationship? What is playing hard to get? What should a woman do to play hard to get?

All of these questions have been leaving women wonder for years. Does it mean that if you play hard to get, you will wind up living happily ever after with your man, husband or boyfriend or will you turn him off by playing hard to get?

Do I need to wait for a certain period of time to kiss, or have sex with a man I am dating? Will he think that I am too easy if I sleep with him too soon? Will he dump me if I have sex with him too soon? How soon should I have sex with a man I am seeing? Should I tell a man I am dating about my feelings?

Women date. Women ponder. Every situation is different, but unlike many women think, there are certain answers that men give to these questions that women don’t normally think of.
First off, what is playing hard to get? Does it really means that you should not kiss a man you like until you go out on a date number three? Does it mean you should not sleep with someone you are dating until date number twenty?

To answer these questions, let’s look at a few examples.

You meet a man. You like him. You think there is mutual attraction. He doesn't call after the first date. You sit and wait and then decide he may have lost your number. Or something happened that he can’t call you. So, you decide to call. And when you call, he does not answer your phone call. Does it sound familiar?

Then you think he may not have gotten your voice mail message and you call him again. Hey, one call may have gone unnoticed. But a second call that goes without an answer signals lack of interest. In fact, the first call that went unanswered signals the same, but isn’t it hard to admit that a man you found interesting and attractive, and whom you would like to date is not interested in return?

Here is what a man does when he goes out on a first date with a woman. He evaluates the woman’s potential and decides if he is interested in seeing her again.

Do you really think a man will tell you straight up during the first date that he is not romantically interested in dating you? Of course, not. Do you ever tell a man you are not interested in dating him? Some women do, but not all. And why you think a man who is having a nice time on a date just talking to a woman and enjoying a nice conversation would tell her he is not romantically interested in her? A man is having a nice time with you on a date. That doesn’t mean he wants you date you. But being polite he does not want to hurt your feelings by rejecting you. He is just hoping you would get the message when he does not call.

So, should you play hard to get with a man you have gone out with? I personally do not support the idea of playing hard to get. If playing hard to get means withholding sex, then I would say no to that. If you really like a man and feel like you are ready to have sex with him, and provided he feels the same way about you, why not? If you are both ready.

What about kissing? I think the same goes for kissing. However, I do not suggest kissing on or right after the first date. Not because you are playing hard to get, but because you may already have another date set for tomorrow. Maybe two dates for tomorrow, and two for Wednesday. And three dates for Thursday, etc. Are you going to kiss everybody? Of course not.

I generally advise that you should only kiss those guys who date you exclusively. Say, for instance, you are dating five guys consistently and still meeting more guys for the first time, provided you are meeting them via a dating site. If you like some of the guys you are dating better than others, you may want to kiss those guys you like better if they are not seeing anyone else.

Most guys who have jobs do not like, however seeing more than one woman at a time. Dating is really time consuming and most guys who work like to settle with one person. So, say you are dating five guys and you like two of them the best. Should you kiss both? Some women do that. I personally don’t think it is a good idea to go around kissing a bunch of people, but this is really not about playing hard to get. It is probably better to decide first which guy you like the best and kiss only him. It is good to keep the other guys on the back burner just in case the main guy doesn’t work out, but I would not be kissing all of them even if you are the only one each one of them is dating.
The only reason that I see why women play hard to get is because they are insecure. Then think if they kiss a guy too soon or sleep with him too soon, the guy will lose interest. Wrong! Like I said before in one of my previous posts, if a guy likes a woman, he will not like her less because she had sex with him on date number one, two or three. However, on a date number one you don’t know if he likes you or not, because he just won’t tell you straight in your face he is not interested. So, you should go home and forget about him. Then when he calls you, hopefully you’ll remember who it is. When he asks you out on a second date and plans something special for you, you’ll know he is interested. Or if he proposes a hook-up, than you know what he is after.

But what if you think the man you’ve just met is the one? Well, you really don’t know and should not make assumptions. Chemistry is illusive. I have met men whom I thought had potential on the first date, but then after the second date I said Ewwwwwww. So, you never really know. What if you sleep with him on the first date? What is going to happen, he will think you feel the same way about him and will not understand why you don’t want to see him after all. What if he becomes too dependent? What if sex is so great that he’ll come begging for more? Well, you’ve just got yourself a stalker! Hopefully he lives far enough that the distance will prevent him from stalking you.

Another thing, whatever you do, if you decide to sleep with a guy you are dating too soon, do not invite him to your place. Do it someplace else, or at his house, so that you can have an easy escape route if you don’t want to see him again.

That’s why you should play hard to get! Get to know a guy before you sleep with him and make sure he is not going to stalk you once you are done with him. You really don’t need multiple suitors at your door.

For more on free online dating tips and suggestions, please visit our web site

Monday, August 11, 2008

160Tag.com - a new face on the micro blogging arena

Micro blogging isn’t for everyone, and you may have dismissed the service a long time ago. But regardless of your own use, it’s hard to dismiss the phenomenon itself and the passion of so many that has built up around it.


No matter how long the outage du jour, there is a new player in town. It is called 160Tag.com and it is a similar service to Twitter where users continue to stay attached to the service despite an ever-changing backdrop of alternatives. Blogging isn’t for everyone either. But unlike blogging, 160Tag.com enjoys a far a greater variety of users — they include people, many people, who would never think of starting a blog and people who would never touch an RSS reader. These people are located all over the world and to top it all, are connected via a free online dating site, operate by the same owner. The 160 character limit in this case is a plus for 160Tag.com, but it isn’t all. What explains the 160Tag.com phenomenon then? What produces the positive feeling and the strong attachment among those who micro blog? And moreover: How can other systems learn from this? The answer lies in understanding Audience.
160Tag.com has a simple premise: You micro blog & the message is pushed to your friends. You can also subscribe to channels related to things you are interested. You can create channels and micro blog about the things you like. The actual mechanics are slightly different (messages go to everyone who follows you, whether they’re your “friends” or not, assuming your stream is public) — but from a user’s perspective, the circle of receivers consists only of the people they know. Everyone else is part of a faceless crowd that’s hidden behind the follower count. This simple premise holds the key to 160Tag.com’s success: messages go to a well-defined audience. In the moment you release a micro blog, you know who’s on the line and you have an idea of who can catch a glimpse of your message.
Even though 160Tag.com is not a point-to-point message delivery system (let alone a reliable one), @replies are sent with the understanding that they will be read by the intended people because they are known to be in the audience. (Imagine a newspaper article that suddenly greeted a specific reader.) Blogging on the other hand has no such clearly defined audience. An aspiring blogger who hasn’t crossed the chasm speaks into the void. Direct feedback can only come in the form of written comments (a relatively high barrier of effort) and it’s diminished by spam and vocal trolls these days.

So it’s not surprising that the majority of blogs are abandoned — the most-cited reason being “No one was reading it.” No one might be following your 160Tag.com stream either, but 160Tag.com is designed for network effects to take hold and given the natural reciprocity among groups of friends, it’s likely that most people have at least a handful of followers they know. Back to 160Tag.com: Why Audience works? 160Tag.com is relatively new, but I have the feeling that it will pick up speed fast. They have a lot more to offer than Twitter and the design and ease of use are far better. 160Tag.com will work and will enjoy such strong attachment because it provides real-time access to a well-defined audience. The backlog of all previous micro blogs is a guarantee of permanence (you can search posts, people, channels, or everything else that is searchable) and you can catch up on it anytime. As a result, people use 160Tag.com because they have an idea of who will see their lightweight messages and this sense of audience is reinforced by @replies, re-posts and references in future conversations (online and offline).
Designing for the sense of Audience is a powerful tool to create cohesion and a sense of utility among users of a service. This lesson from 160Tag.com can apply to many other services too. But before leaving the current discussion, it’s helpful to look at a service that has missed the full power of Audience so far.

Facebook: Designed for Audience? Not so much. Facebook isn’t about Audience? That’s ridiculous, you’ll say — so let me clarify. I fully agree that social network profiles are all about self-expression and being seen, but a platform for self-expression isn’t necessarily designed for the audience that does “the seeing.” Profile Pages on Facebook can have audiences of course, but this requires that users continually roam Facebook to look for news in their network. Facebook realized this limitation and introduced the News Feed. Its intent was to move a user’s “acts and performances” from the stage of the profile page to a single and central stage, a single place for Audience. Sharing with the News Feed: Did it ever reach my friends? Facebook was the first major social network to introduce the News Feed concept, which has since become a standard sauce for stickiness in many places (although not StudiVZ surprisingly). But Facebook’s implementation of the News Feed doesn’t capture the full power of designing for Audience: While 160Tag.com distributes every message consistently, Facebook decides algorithmically which update is shown to whom. Algorithmic filtering is nice in theory, but such black-box behavior is simply unpredictable for the user. “When I post new things, will my friends actually see them?”, one might wonder. And conversely: “Have my friends posted something that I’m not seeing? The news feed is cluttered right now with people I don’t care about.” Anything that’s unpredictable produces a feeling of uncertainty — and that’s never a comfortable feeling.
Even with Facebook’s recent attempts to introduce smarter filters, users only have relative means to customize their feed (more of this, less of that). Furthermore, there is mostly just one kind of feedback that users can give on the News Feed: comments. Imagine a concert, in which you could only leave written notes as you left — no clapping, no booing.

Because users don’t really know who’s listening on Facebook and who isn’t, the platform hasn’t been embraced as a place to publish proactively. Publishing events or photos is mostly push-driven (and generates an email — “you are invited to an event” or “tagged in a photo”). But for everything else you share, do you know if it ever reached your friends?

Who capitalized on this gap? FriendFeed. It’s the same setup as 160Tag.com, but with more content: You know who’s listening and you choose the people you listen to. A useful premise but it also has a catch: the word “more”. Too much content, too many people — which is exactly the problem that Facebook is trying to address with its algorithmic feed. But what’s a solution then? It’s not the “middle ground” and it has nothing to do with smarter filters.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Google Sued For Patent Infringement Over AdSense

Google Sued For Patent Infringement Over AdSense from InformationWeek reports Google has been sued for the fourth time this year over patent infringement, this time by Daniel D. Wexler, who has a patent named Third-party on-line accounting system and method therefor.

The patent was filed on October 11, 1996 and ultimately issued on September 28, 1999. The patent is basically on the topic of a third-party ad tracking system. Thus, Wexler feels the right to sue Google over the AdSense program, which not only distributes ads but also tracks the ads' effectiveness.

The suit was issued on July 31st by Wexler and his company, Web Tracking Solutions.
Will he win? I am not a lawyer, but I highly doubt it.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Is mingle2 a legit service?

Just the other day, I decided to do a search on a keyword phrase and see where free online dating site shows up. To my surprise, I found that mingle2 has knocked out okcupid out of the first place on 'free online dating'.

I am still puzzled as to how does Google search works and what makes mingle2 better than okcupid?! They both require from you to register before you can browse. They both still ask a lot of questions, before you can be a fully functional member, and they both don't have much of a description on their home page. So what makes people register, without first sampling? Is it possible that mingle2 has a bunch of fake profiles? Guess what! ...chances are that they do. I am attaching a print screen from their home page, where they are showing random females and random males. To my surprise, one of their members appears 3 times. Not 2, but 3...



With that said, I will let you draw your own conclusions as to their legitimacy. I still think that my site SoZila.com free dating personals is a lot better than any other site out there.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Google: Complete Privacy no Longer Exists

It’s been discussed before: in this information-filled age with all our personal data in databases that are vulnerable to leaks, as well as much of our behavioral data being gathered by corporations, is there really any privacy? On Wednesday, in response to a lawsuit, Google said no.
In April, Pittsburgh couple Aaron and Christine Boring (yes, that’s really their name) filed suit against Google in Allegheny County court. Why? They felt that Google’s “reckless conduct” in publishing Street View photos (above) of their property (which was “protected” by a private road sign) caused “mental suffering” and hurt the value of their home.

There’s a fairly easy way to get pictures removed from Street View (more on that later), and Google brought that up, implying that someone decided it was a good way to get some cash out of a large corporation. On the other hand, if that was the case, they strangely only asked for $25,000.

As Google said in their motion to dismiss the complaint:
“When plaintiffs discovered these images, rather than using the simple removal option Google affords, they sued Google for invasion of privacy, trespass, negligence, and conversion. Plaintiffs seek damages form ‘mental suffering’ and diminished property value supposedly caused by the public accessibility of the photos. They claim these injuries even though similar photos of their home were already publicly available on the Internet, and even though they drew exponentially greater attention to the images in question by filing and publicizing the lawsuit while choosing not to remove the images of their property from the Street View service.”

The photos already available on the Internet that Google mentions above are on a county website.

While that’s true, here’s the scary, big-brotherish (though unnervingly true) part:
“Today’s satellite-image technology means that even in today’s desert, complete privacy does not exist. In any event, plaintiffs live far from the desert and are far from hermits.
As far as Google’s contention that the Borings could remove the offending image: it’s true. All they (or anyone) has to do was bring up Street View Help, click a link, and select “This image infringes on my privacy.”

But their lawyer, Dennis Moskal, had this response:
“If you take Google’s response to the furthest conclusion, you could never have any reasonable expectation of privacy unless you fortified your house and barricaded yourself in.”
and
“Is something ever really removed from the Internet once it’s sent out to a billion people? It’s a face-off between big business saying that they can set forth what the law is - that they’re above the law.”

He has a point about things never disappearing from the Web. After all, things like old MySpace photos have brought down politicians … and more. And where did I get the picture of their property above? Right.




By Michael Santo Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Friday, July 25, 2008

How To Use 160.bg For Marketing

160.bg is a relatively new web 2.0 site that is starting to gain a lot of popularity. That means that a lot of people have heard of it, but it is also quite common to run into people who haven't heard of it.. yet. 160.bg is this social site that encourages users to post often about what they are currently doing.

A lot of people are using it to improve their marketing reach, by being an active writer they gain followers who are interested in what they have going on. This means people being exposed to their updates on a regular basis. For example, if you have hundreds of followers in 160.bg and you decide to post an affiliate link, that means hundreds of people have instantly been exposed to your offer. In this article, I will discuss ways to maximize 160.bg for your marketing as well as a big mistake you need to avoid.

In order to have a fan base per se of followers in 160.bg, you must be able to keep their interest in you and what you are doing now. "What are you doing?" is the whole foundation of what 160.bg is about in the first place. Make sure to post daily, if not several times throughout the day, updates about what you are doing. The magical thing behind this is that many of your contacts will be able to feel like they know you so much better, will trust you more, and feel much more comfortable about working with you. On the other hand, when you follow others you can learn about them and their possible needs.
The big mistake to watch out for is only posting affiliate links or offers on your 160.bg page. This looks like Spam and many people will see you as just abusing 160.bg for your personal gain. Think of it this way, if you would not want to invite your friends or family to keep up with you via 160.bg, then you are going about it all wrong. As with anything you send out or provide, ninety percent should be content and ten percent (at most) advertising.

So this concept is quite simple... constantly post throughout the day what you are doing.. it is usually very simple and only takes a few seconds to post! Secondly, if you write articles or provide content online, provide a link for those in your 160.bg posts. You may post many things within one day, but the last thing you post for the day is usually the most important because it will be there the longest. This means that your last post for the day should contain a link that you want your followers to see before your start writing again the next day!

Another part of 160.bg is contributing. As with any social site it should be a give and take relationship. Notice that give comes first... the more you give the more people will want to work with you and the more attention you will receive. Make sure to read and follow other users in 160.bg. If you read something interesting or helpful, then make sure to reply and say so, or even put a link for it on your 160.bg so that you are directing others to more quality content. This can also be as simple as connecting with other users. If they know you are reading their 160.bg page, they will be much more likely to check out what you have going on too.

To get started in 160.bg you should first invite contacts who aren't using 160.bg and also find contacts who are already using 160.bg so that you can start following them and also start getting people to follow you. 160.bg has a nice invite and find feature that makes this incredibly easy. To grow your reach even more you can start following people who follow or are followed by the people who follow you.. or that you follow. You might need to read that sentence again.. but basically you can find other users to connect with that are already connected to other users.
Now for a big tip. If you really want to maximize the potential with 160.bg, you should make sure to take advantage of any plug-ins or sites that support 160.bg. Here are three, but I'm sure there will be many more in the future if not already.

Lastly, have fun! 160.bg is a social site... so interact and enjoy!

Monday, July 21, 2008

Free Online Dating Service

I vouch to all of you that I will not allow scammers on SoZila.com, which is one of the premiere free online dating sites. It is hard to keep them off, but if you see any, please click on the link 'Report Fake' inside the actual profile. I will take action right the way. Thank you all for your continuous support. Have questions? write me

Free Online Dating Site SoZila.com

One of the largest free online dating sites SoZila.com in United States and Europe, was down over the weekend. A message posted on their board was notifying members that they are moving servers. After almost two days of interruption, the service was back online and running. Seems like their speed has improved and things are normal again.

We have followed the SoZila.com free dating site for over 2 years now and their services have improved dramatically. SoZila.com is one of the only sites providing quality and not quantity. They are concerned with well being of their customers and closely watch who registers on their website. They manually approve profiles, thus not allowing spammers to have access to their clients.

SoZila.com free online dating has a bright future ahead

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Social Networks and Spam

According to a new report, over the past 12 months more than four-fifths of social networking site users said that they had received unwanted friend requests, messages, or posts on their social or professional network profile. While friend requests on their own seem innocuous enough, they are often just the first step towards whatever the spammers' intended malicious activity is, be it redirects to phishing or malware sites or even just unsolicited advertisements.

The Spam Problem

Out of those surveyed, two-thirds of respondents said they would consider switching social networks if the spam level became too frequent. The companies running the social networks need to take note of that - if anything, spam messages were one of the contributing factors in many people's decision to leave MySpace for Facebook. The amount of friend requests from people who weren't real got to be out-of-hand on MySpace - turning down those bots' requests became almost a daily chore.
But don't think that just because you've left MySpace behind that you're going to avoid the spam - it will just follow you to wherever you are. The report notes that over the past 12 months, respondents received an average of 64 unwanted friend requests, invites, or postings.





Image Courtesy of Facebook Talk

In fact, the security issues are the top reason why boomers (ages 40+) aren't joining social networks. Out of those surveyed who did not use social networks, the number one reason (at 47%) involves privacy and concerns about having personal information accessible on the web. While those issues may speak more to the boomers' mindset regarding how open you should be on the web with your personal information, the social network spam problem does nothing to help alleviate these non-participants' concerns, either.

Spam on Twitter and FriendFeed

We recently uncovered what had appeared to be some of the first FriendFeed spam, but was actually a malfunctioning API client. But as both FriendFeed and Twitter and other, newer social sites continue to rank higher and higher in search results, the spam problem on those networks is only going to increase. Take for example, this search for the terms "tumblr full text rss" - the number one result is a link to the RWW Twitter profile thanks to a tweet that also contained those same terms. Do a search for "Scoble" and you'll find Robert Scoble's Twitter and FriendFeed profiles on the first page of results. And Alex has been seeing this Twitter spam since last night:



With strong SEO like this, it's only a matter of time before we're fighting off spammers in this newer social networks, too.
And don't think it will always be easy to identify the spammers from rest either - those spammers can be crafty. Stop Twitter Spam notes that spammers are now scraping the public timeline to steal other people's tweets and re-purpose them as their own. Case in point is Twitter spammer jennyvalley (account no longer exists), whose profile had tweets from several different languages! Of course, that may be a clue that she's not legit, but it won't be too long until spammers refine this process to make the bot seem more like a real person.


Image Courtesy of Stop Twitter Spam
Twitter has taken the time to clean up the spammers recently and so far, FriendFeed seems to be flying under the radar (unless you count this), but it's only a matter of time before the spammers sign up there, too - especially once they realize the potential "Google juice" to be had.
To keep from getting spammed on your social sites, you must take precautions when on social networks - be careful who you friend and don't reveal info that could be used to steal your identity. If you're sending friend requests out for approval to people you don't actually know - like on Facebook, for example - a quick note explaining who you are and why you want to friend them can be helpful to identify you as "safe to friend," too.

Monday, July 7, 2008

How to protect yourself from a new kind of online scam

We've recently discovered a new kind of online scam. It's elegant in its simplicity. It's hard to combat, because all it steals is reputation and this reputation may be yours. What's worse, it preys on ordinary people who, unlike many enterprises, may not have enough of a web presence to easily fight back.

JLove, billed as Jewish dating service, is simply generating a huge number of pages falsely claiming that various people are members of its service. It's basically a new version of an old technique. The classical form of the technique is to generate a website on every conceivable travel destination, using free content from somewhere, but adding no value. JLove goes further, by generating pages for many combinations of more or less Jewish first names and last names, which then falsely claim the person with that name is a member of their service. More details of JLove's shenanigans are here, including examples of real-life harm or great annoyance.

A variety of people have asked about how to combat this kind of scam, and there's really only one good answer: Everybody should have their own web presence, visible to the search engines. Of course, that's easier said than done, but my two-part (so far) advice about search engine optimization for enterprises has a lot of applicability to people as well. For starters, if you don't already have a personal web page (with your name in the URL), get one. Then get a few friends (or your employer) to link to it. And so on.

In the specific case of JLove, you can also help by linking to the blog post cited above, which calls JLove out. But for the more general case -- well, it boils down to this. The Internet WILL tell stories about you, true or otherwise. Make sure your own version is out there too.

We still feel that the future of dating is a Free Online Dating Service such as SoZila.com, where every newly created profile is manually approved by the owner.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Is IamFreeTonight.com a fake service?!

I am starting to believe that most dating sites that proclaim themselves 'FREE' are more or less 'FAKES'. Having thousands of users ONLINE at any moment, just seems impossible.

IamFreeTonight is another proof of my theory. I decided to look at it in more detail and right off the bat on the very first page, something caught my eye. I saw an ad of two college girls from Duke University, looking for double dating. Well good enough, sounds good to me! Then I scrolled down and I see a description of how the service works. There is a bigger photo, with the same two girls in it :)

Attached is the photo I am talking about. I wonder if I get on the site and make myself available for tonight, how many people from Nigeria will respond :)

Monday, June 30, 2008

For Sale: Facebook Shares, 67% Off

What is Facebook really worth? We know it's not worth $15 billion -- earlier this week a federal court, ruling on the ConnectU case, confirmed that the company has already placed a different value on its shares than the one they publicly announced as part of last fall's Microsoft deal.
Now Mike Arrington reports that Bill Dagley, a California money manager, is repping a seller with a block a stock they're willing to part with at a "value far less than $15 billion." He then cites a source that says the valuation Dagley's client is looking for is in the $3 billion to $4 billion range.

Sound plausible? It does to other sources. We've heard a different but similar version of the story from "Stone", a prolific and anonymous SAI commenter, for a while. The last time that Stone threw this one out -- this week -- he asserted that the valuation was "less than $4 billion for sure."

And now, prompted by Arrington's report, we've heard from a different source -- this one we know, but have agreed not to identify -- who says that in April, he was offered a 0.25% stake for $12.5 million -- a $5 billion valuation. Our source, who didn't move forward with the deal, says they weren't approached by Bill Dagley but by a Facebook employee, inquiring on behalf of another Facebook employee.

So either said Facebook employee is now working with Dagley, or there are multiple Facebook shareholders looking to unload shares for 2/3rds or less of the $15 billion number the company boasted about last fall. We'd bet on the latter.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Chemistry.com Scams - are they for real?!

Website is a scam based on complaints from various members!

They are all saying: DO NOT use this company! Their ads promise you the 'first five matches are free'. However, after you fill out a twenty minute compatibility test and your personal information sheet, they claim to have found five matches for you. Here is the catch: YOU CAN'T ACCESS OR CONTACT THEM WITHOUT SIGNING UP FOR THEIR SERVICE. You can't even verify if these are real people or whether they're just shills to get you to sign up. This website is a SCAM... if you jump through their hoops, you will just be WASTING YOUR TIME!

For more information, please visit: http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/chemistrycom-c13969.html

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

eHarmony is a SCAM

Based on what I have heard so far, eHarmony is a big SCAM! Numerous complaints have been filed, yet they continue advertising on TV and luring people into their 'net'.

Here are some of the complaints we have found:

'I joined E-Harmony and have met one or two really nice people so I don't totally hate the site...but I have now learned to be very careful. Ladies, beware of Green Cowser. I don't have proof he's a scammer but there were so many red flags: widower, international job, by the second or third email his spelling and grammar had totally disintegrated, signed up as from Illinois but couldn't altogether explain why he was now living in Ireland. The last was particularly funny in light of the fact he regularly told me he loved "honesty to the core" and I must always tell the truth with him... Then, the kicker, he said I was his ideal woman after only a couple emails...(on what continent does THAT really happen). I went searching on the net...didn't find his name but hmmmm...there was a Green Scott listed on a scammer's website with his same phone number in the same city...and this guy too signed off by saying "Cheers" or "regards" all the time. You'd think they'd kinda learn to vary small details like that.'

'I was sent a match named CHARLES RYDER from Tucson. When he began communicating, his name came up as CHARLES SHULTHEIS. He is using a stolen identity! He is actually in Nigeria and after saying all the "right" things, he will ask you for money to fly home since he can't cash his check from an American Bank. According to the man whose identity he has stolen, at least 30 women have called him to check the identity. This man is very smooth and has an answer for everything.Beware!'

Read more of them here: http://www.bikermatchmaking.com/Internet_Dating_Stories/eHarmony_Consumer_Complaints.htm

It's a FRAUD!!! Here are some of the common things that happen:

  1. They WILL renew your subscription without your authorization, so read the terms carefully!
  2. They will try to lure you in by sending you matches after you have cancelled. DO NOT FALL for the 7 Day trial period, because they will not refund your money. Their reason being that they only refund on the first time you subscribe.
A total SCAM! What a total deception this company is running their business on! So, be careful, chose a free dating site, that never asks for your money. Anyhow, finding the love of your life, SHOULD BE FREE!