bit-tech.net | Blog

Paying for attention

Posted at 10:02 by Richard Swinburne with 4 comments

This unsolicited email dropped in my inbox the other day. I get thrown on quite a few PR lists without my prior consent, that's just the way it is, but reading into it a bit more I wonder: does social networking really matter?

We've starred out the names because we don't want to give this rotten spammer publicity - essentially, he runs a service that purports to allow people to buy Twitter followers.

Contact: Leon XXXXXX
CEO – XXXXXX.net
http://XXXXXX.net/
contact@ XXXXXX.net
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TWITTER ATTEMPTS TO SHUT DOWN XXXXXX

Twitter has recently moved to shut down web promotions company XXXXXX.net, by claiming the advertising agency is “spamming”.

According to XXXXXX CEO Leon XXXXXX, Twitter recently sent accusations via a brand-management organisation that XXXXXX are using Twitter for spam purposes. Despite this, XXXXXX say the claims are false.

“The definition of spam is using electronic messaging to send unsolicited communication and as we don’t use Twitter for this, the claims are false.” Said XXXXXX.

XXXXXX believe the claims are due to a service the company sells which allows clients to purchase packages of followers to increase their viewership on the site.

“The people at Twitter who are sending these claims are just flailing around trying to look for any excuse they can, though it’s going to take much more than this if they want us to pack up shop.” Said XXXXXX. “We’re not going away that easily.”

Bing will beat Google

Posted at 11:47 by Clive Webster with 29 comments

Alex wrote an interesting blog post about Bing, Microsoft's new search engine, last week. The gist of it was that Google is so successful that competing against it with a similar product isn't going to work - and as a result, his idea was that searching social sites such as Facebook and Twitter is probably the biggest threat to Google.

I feel that’s slightly missing the point. Bing, after all, is the default search engine for Internet Explorer, which is the default browser of the interweb, therefore as long as Bing just works and is good enough (in the same way that Google is now) no-one will see a need to switch. Far from Microsoft needing to up its game to beat the services of Google, it’s Google that needs to provide a compelling reason to switch the search engine of IE’s search bar from Bing to Google.

If it isn’t Google, it isn’t search

Posted at 12:19 by Alex Watson with 24 comments

So there’s a new search engine called Bing. It’s made by Microsoft, and before it was Bing, it was Live Search, and before that Windows Live Search and MSN Search and... basically it’s been going since the Magna Carta, and since it’s not Google, 90% of people don’t care. But Microsoft does, and it wants you to. It’s really serious this time about taking on Google so it’s spending billions of dollars to make sure people stop Googling and start Binging. Steve Ballmer said Microsoft was “willing to spend five to ten percent of operating income for up to five years”. That’s serious cash.

A small slice of this moolah has fallen to us at bit-tech (we already spent it on Taiwanese beef jerky), but unlike a lot of ad campaigns, this one is interesting as Microsoft has been quite keen to know what we think, and what you, the readers think about search – specifically, the problems with it. If you do want to give your thoughts on search, we’re running a survey and you can win an Xbox 360 Elite.

It’s a difficult question, because, to be honest, my first answer was that I didn’t really have any problems with search. Google just works. There’s a reason that this is the answer given in many a forum thread.

Archive for the ‘twitter’ tag

Paying for attention

Bing will beat Google

If it isn’t Google, it isn’t search

Authors

Archives

Links

Archive for the ‘twitter’ tag

Paying for attention

Bing will beat Google

If it isn’t Google, it isn’t search

Authors

Tag Cloud

Archives

Links