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Beanstalk's SEO News Blog

At Beanstalk Search Engine Optimization we know that knowledge is power. That's the reason we started this SEO blog. We know that the better informed our visitors are, the better the decisions they will make for their websites and their online businesses. We hope you enjoy your stay and find the SEO news contained within this blog useful.

December 11, 2012

Thinking of making an ‘App’ for the Apple Store?

You may want to re-think that decision, perhaps even focus on a ‘mobile’ provider for your site, or an Android app instead of one for Apple’s store.

Why? Well lets list the reasons:

- Android OS is shipping on more phones currently than any other mobile OS
- 2013 should be the year that Android overtakes iPhone in subscriber #s
- A mobile ‘face lift’ should load on any phone/browser
- Apple is cracking down on all ‘Apps’ that generate revenue outside their store..

The last one is a real kicker, especially for Microsoft who is currently unable to update their SkyDrive app after Apple realized it was handling in-app purchases without going through the Apple Store.

Essentially Apple is rejecting all Microsoft app updates and 3rd party apps that communicate with SkyDrive until Microsoft has a solution to Apple’s need for a 30% cut of all transactions done through it’s App Store.

So if you made an Apple Store ‘App’ for your site, all you can do with the ‘App’ is browse information and provide free resources, since any attempt to engage in a financial transaction would require the Apple App Store to participate, at a 30% margin.

That’s just.. wait for it.. rotten.

Making Easy Money by Ignoring Copyright Infringement

A North Korean Won with Park Jae-sang's face.

On the surface, it may seem counter-intuitive to your profit margin, but not letting people steal your content could be what’s stopping you from getting rich.

PSY, the chubby Korean behind the most popular YouTube video to-date, is raking in the profits from his ‘Gangnam Style’ video, and it’s all because he didn’t censor his own work by chasing copyright violations.

If you look at TV commercials, ad revenue, product endorsements, and other direct revenue from his popularity, PSY is making over $8 Million in 2012 alone.

Clearly there’s a trade off between copyrights and profits that doesn’t favor always locking down your content.

I’m wondering though, once fame has taken hold, if next year we’ll have a story about PSY suing people for copyright infringements?

SEO news blog post by Ryan Morben @ 12:59 pm

Categories: Coding,copyright,Internet Law,IT Industry,mobile,Operating Systems,seo articles,Technology,web design,YouTube
Tags: App Store, Gangnam Style, microsoft, PSY, SkyDrive —

September 26, 2012

Microsoft Data Center Wasting Energy to Avoid Fines

As a follow up to my previous post on Internet pollution which discussed the amount of electrical consumption and wasteful energy practices by data centers; a post from the NY Times today really summed up the national mentality towards the consumption of energy and the wastefulness of the industry.

The Microsoft Redmond Quincy data center, which is the home of Bing and Hotmail and other cloud based servers, had a contract with a Washington state utility which contained clauses that imposed severe penalties for the under-consumption of electricity.

Microsoft was fined $210 000 for not meeting its “power-use target”. In an effort to avoid such a sizable penalty this year, Microsoft deliberately consumed millions of watts of power within three days in a “commercially unproductive manner” to avoid the fine being levied against them. The Washington utility board capitulated and reduced the amount to $60k. While the Redmond center claims that it is moving to a carbon neutral footprint, this squandering of energy shows that both groups care little for the environment and are more concerned with the almighty dollar.

With industry becoming ever increasingly more environmentally conscious, such blatant wastefulness cannot go unchecked. It seems that both the power company and the consumer are at fault in this situation. You cannot blame Microsoft for trying to save money; yet why is the power company charging such outrageous amounts for “under-consumption” in the first place? This model forces unneeded energy consumption for the sole purpose of avoiding a fine. This entire model is flawed as it has no regard for the environmental impact for this amount of wastefulness.

With alternate energy technologies becoming commonplace and affordable, we can only guess as to why data centers continue to waste such copious amounts of energy with such blatant disregard to the environment. Certainly the same laws that apply to more traditional dirty industries needs to be applied here as well.

SEO news blog post by guestpost @ 11:48 am

Categories: Bing,Green Tech,IT Industry
Tags: dirty industry, energy waste, microsoft, quincy data center —

August 21, 2012

The most valuable company ever? It’s Microsoft, not Apple.

Crushing your head..

The slew of now redacted articles claiming that Apple managed to take the title of ‘most valuable company in history’ is further proof that the internet is packed with people who will post anything without considering the facts.

Sure if you compare 1999 dollars to 2012 dollars with no adjustment in value for inflation (?!) Apple looks pretty impressive today, but if you want to say ‘Most valuable company of all time’, you have to factor ‘time’ into the equation.

After accounting for inflation the race between Apple and Microsoft isn’t even close, with Microsoft in the lead by over $230 billion even by conservative estimates.

At one point this morning I saw an article offering the corrected values and stating that, ‘Bill Gates would be upset that IBM was handicapped by inflation‘! This was quickly corrected after comments pointed out a few errors, ‘Bill Gates ran Microsoft, not IBM, and Bill Gates is still alive, stop talking about him like he’s Steve Jobs.‘.

I wanted to pounce on the author, calling them out for reporting on tech history they clearly never paid any attention to, but the sad truth is that it was a senior author who probably wrote the post before getting his morning coffee.

Most Valuable How?

“Money aside, what tech company is the most valuable?”

This was a good question that came up in the reaction threads to the news that Apple is doing so well financially.

If Apple went bankrupt the entire user base would have tons of options for Android tablets/phones/MP3 players/personal PCs. Linux would flourish a bit, and China would have a lot of people looking for employment. Not really a big deal.

If Microsoft went bankrupt there would be over a billion desktop PCs needing new OSes, millions of email/web servers that would need to be migrated to Linux, Hotmail/Bing/MSN/Maps users would have to upgrade to GMail/Google search/GTalk/Maps, and millions of cell phone users would either need to buy new phones or at the very least switch off Microsoft Exchange services and move over to GMail.

Sure as a web developer, we’d produce a lot more web-content without IE compatibility issues, and that’s just a quick ‘glance’ at the issue, so I could be overlooking massive problems on either side, but from a glance, the ‘value’ is clearly not in Apple’s favor, in both money and services.

Speaking of big money tech business..

Facebook is still making headlines for losses, this time one of the earliest investors, ex-PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel, has jumped ship selling over 20 million shares.

When one of your primary investors pulls out and cashes in, it’s a pretty clear signal that you’ve peaked and the road ahead is looking very questionable.

Peter Thiel’s projected total for this cash out comes close to $400 million, which is a bit less than the stock options he sold when the company went public in May.

At this point investors are speculating that Peter has sold nearly all his Facebook stock, and he is apparently investing heavily in 3d Meat Printers.

Actually printing a full ‘steak’ is years away, but when they get there I want a steak where the fat is perfectly balanced with the meat ‘Kobe style’, and each little fat cluster is the shape of a tiny unicorn.

Nom nom..

SEO news blog post by Ryan Morben @ 11:30 am

Categories: Bing,Browsers,Google,Internet Explorer,seo articles,Technology
Tags: 3d Meat Printing, Apple, FB Stock, microsoft, Peter Thiel —

June 19, 2012

Microsoft Surface – Not a table, a tablet

All these years of spies telling us about the ‘table’ that the nerds in Redmond are calling the ‘Microsoft Surface‘, and the whole time we didn’t know they were silenced before they could finish saying ‘tablet‘.

The official video from Microsoft. A bit skimpy with the details.

We know Microsoft actually wanted to make a table called Surface, if you haven’t seen enough of it on Hawaii Five-O, there was a demonstration of D&D on it:

Yep, the link in the video description from 2010 takes you to the right spot..

The tablet was ready before the table, so the name ‘Surface’ was on the table for the new tablet. What?!

So confusion over names aside, what’s under the ‘Surface’ of this new gizmo?

- Rare materials use
- Built in kickstand
- Cover acts as magnetic KB/Trackpad

Two versions:

Windows 8 Professional
- Intel 22nm Core i5 Ivy Bridge
- 13.5 MM Thick
- 903 grams
- 10.6″ Full HD Touch Display (1080p?)
- Magnetic stylus w/digital ink support
- USB 3.0
- Mini Display Port
- MicroSDXC slot
- Up to 128GB of storage
- Larger 42Wh battery
- Will be delayed by three months following Windows 8

Windows 8 RT
- NVIDIA Tegra ARM Processor
- 9.3 MM Thick
- 676 grams
- 10.6″ HD Touch Display (1366 x 768?)
- USB 2.0
- Micro HDMI Video Port
- Micro SD slot
- Up to 64GB of storage
- 31.5Wh battery
- Will be available with Windows 8 (this fall)

So the full tablet will be for people that run or create Windows applications, want full compatibility with existing apps, and want to trade a lighter/more portable tablet for more options. If the stylus is included or a very inexpensive accessory it may make this version appealing to students and business types that hate flipping through hand written notes searching for something that could be found instantly if it was digital.

The RT version will be for the minimalist that only needs to run core applications that are compatible with the RT version of Windows 8 and it’s ARM processor. This version should not only be lighter but also have stronger battery life making it ideal as a reader or for watching DVD quality movies.

Unless you are developing ARM based Windows 8 applications, no programmer will want the RT version since it cannot run applications that haven’t been ported to ARM. That means if you code up solutions for yourself, you’ll either have to re-compile for ARM or avoid that platform.

Not having tried the RT version of Windows 8 I can only assume the browser choices will be anything you can possibly think of, as long as you always think of “Internet Explorer 10″. This was discussed in our post on browser options for Windows 8 ARM edition.

Design Details – First impressions are everything!

Rumour has it that the ‘kick stand’ was a really hard design choice because it ruined the ‘flow’ of the product shape, regardless of how essential it is in practice. To make-up this design shortfall they apparently over-engineered the hinge system to have the ‘feel’ of a luxury car door??

If that wasn’t exotic enough, the case of the Surface is made from a special magnesium process called ‘vapor-depositing’ which results in an amazingly thin/strong material which is still cost concious enough for mass production.

Personally, if I was Microsoft, and I wanted to kick some Apple hiney all over Silicon Valley, I would have dipped into my XBox parts bin and made a “Pro 360″ version of the surface including:
- Built in Kinect motion controller
- Bluetooth controller support
- Embedded 3D Graphics hardware
- Special ‘kit’ for XBox owners that allows a ‘mobile’ mini-game to be saved to an ‘authorized’ client on the owner’s Surface for each game in the XBox owner’s game library

If you give your tablet exclusive perks that worked exclusively with your console, you might actually make your most loyal consumers feel like they made some savvy choices. It’s what Apple does this all the time.

SEO news blog post by Ryan Morben @ 12:02 pm

Categories: Browsers,Coding,Internet Explorer,Technology
Tags: ARM, Internet Explorer 10, microsoft, Microsoft Surface, Windows 8 —

June 4, 2012

Online Privacy Offenders List: Who’s Got Your Back?

Concerned about your online privacy? You should be according to a new study from the Electronic Frontier Foundation in which they investigated the privacy policies of 18 major Internet brands and companies in an effort to assess whether these companies will publicly commit to protecting their users when a government agency seeks access to user data.

online privacy

The EFF looked at criteria such as company’s terms of service, privacy policies, published law enforcement guides (if any) when putting together their list of "Who’s Has Your Back?"

Other criteria considered was the company’s past history of advocating for user privacy in the courts and if they were members of the Digital Due Process coalition who works to improve outdated communications laws. EFF also contacted the companies directly with their finding to give each an opportunity to respond and provide evidence of improved policies or practices.

The EFF states that the purpose of this report is an attempt to hold accountable those companies that hold private user data. EFF hopes this report will encourage these companies to make public commitments to defend its users against over-reaching government bodies.

"The purpose of this report is to incentivize companies to be transparent about what data flows to the government and encourage them to take a stand for user privacy when it is possible to do so."

Some factors that the EFF used to evaluate each of the companies:

A public commitment to inform users when their data is sought by the government.
Transparency about when and how often companied hand data to the government.
History of Fighting for user’s privacy rights in the courts.
Will fight for user’s privacy in congress.

The Results?

The short answer is that the worst companies for protecting user privacy were shown to be Skype, Verizon, Yahoo!, AT&T, Apple & Microsoft.

Facebook, Dropbox and Twitter have upgraded their practices in the last year.
Comcast and Yahoo! gained a recognition for advocating for user privacy, but failed in all other areas.
AT&T, Microsoft & Apple, although members of the DDP coalition did not observe any other best practices factored into the report.
AT&T, Verizon and MySpace Comcast were rated the lowest in overall privacy protection; which is especially troubling considering that they provide internet connectivity to many thousands of subscribers.

SEO news blog post by guestpost @ 11:33 am

Categories: Privacy
Tags: Apple, AT&T, eff, Electronic Frontier Foundation, microsoft, privacy, skype, verizon, yahoo —

April 23, 2012

Bursting Personalization Filter Bubbles

There has been a lot of discussion regarding the Google filter bubbles. The premise is that due to personalization features becoming an important part of how we interact on the web as well as the content that is displayed to us. Links that we tend to click more readily given a higher priority in our search results, whereas those that don’t get click on fade into the ether. The inherent danger with this process is that we do not readily gain access to or are shown all the other websites that the internet has to offer.

The personalization of the modern web removes this diversification and creates a self-based bias (usually unbeknownst to the user), putting is in a narrow loop of information known as the "filter bubble."

Microsoft’s Facebook partnership along with the Bing search engine has already allowed for the incorporation of the preferences of users friends into the returned search results. A new patent application from Microsoft describes a "user-following engine" that would not only analyze a users posts on Facebook, Twitter and other connected social networks to deduce a users mood, interests, education level and comprehension of specific topics. The new system would automatically adjust the users search experience and results based on this information to better align with these social signals.

Although the patent was filed in 2010, the details have just been made public. At this point there is no indication that Microsoft plans to move ahead with the patent, but if personalization results are where the net is taking us, I just hope that browsers will allow a user to disable the personalization filters with the click of a button. I think the biggest concern over personalization is where is it taking us? It seems to me that there is a fine line between an enhanced user experience and a decidedly Orwellian future.

SEO news blog post by guestpost @ 11:00 am

Categories: Bing,Google,internet security,Privacy
Tags: facebook, microsoft, patents —

August 4, 2011

Google Voice is Skype hunting

Starting on August 2nd, Google Voice is now international with worldwide support for the voice over IP calling service.

This move also marks full support for 38 different languages, and 4 different currencies (Euros, British Pounds, US Dollars, and Canadian Dollars) in which to stock up on calling credits. Google also claims that they have lowered calling rates to 150+ locations making it even easier and cheaper to connect internationally.

Click here for a complete list.

Speaking of connection fees, there are none. You will only be charged for the call time, no conversion fees, and there’s nothing extra hidden in the billing process other than local taxes which you would pay to any legitimate service. Calling between Canada and the US is still free for the rest of 2011, which is also very nice.

But how is the quality?

To be fair, consider these points :

I’m a Skype customer of over 4 years
I own a USB to RJ10 Skype adapter
I use analog & bluetooth microphones/headsets
I’ve spent hours talking over Skype
I’ve used Skype mobile (WM6.5)
I have over $30 US of unused Skype credit
I prefer to use Google Voice for quality..
Skype was the early adopter
Skype used whatever tech was available
Google has access to new hardware/software
Google has very deep pockets
Microsoft’s takeover hasn’t improved anything

Even with MS backing, Skype is at a disadvantage and it shows in call quality compared to the same calls made over Google voice. There’s less latency, less echo, and the dialling pad works more reliably with Google Voice as compared to Skype. Because we’re an English language SEO, my experience is almost entirely with calls from Canada to other Canadian phones, the US, Mexico, and the UK. I would not be surprised to hear that Skype has more modern services in freshly installed countries, but I can’t say I’ve experienced this at all.

I also can’t say that I have used the video chat feature of Google Voice, whereas I’ve actually had Skype video chat working on my car’s PC where people have called me mid-drive only to find I’m not looking them in the eye, and there’s a blur of scenery in the background. So if you wanted an opinion on video chat, I can’t help at all on that question right now as I have only tried Skype’s service.

Even if you don’t use VoIP and you’re a devote land line owner (still irreplaceable for emergencies), this is another face off between Google and Microsoft, and Microsoft has a friend with them in the ring. It should be an interesting scramble to the top with the consumers coming out as the lucky ones.

SEO news blog post by Ryan Morben @ 12:11 pm

Categories: Google,Misc,Skype
Tags: Google Voice, microsoft, skype, voip —

June 2, 2011

Windows 8 – First public showing

Yesterday was an exciting day for more than just hockey fans (Go Canucks!). Wednesday was Microsoft’s first public showing of the new Windows 8 user interface.

Microsoft isn’t kidding when they admit to having some strong influences from the mobile phone market!

Moving towards web technologies and taking a page from the ‘Google Gears’ handbook, Microsoft is saying that Windows 8 is geared towards 2 unique application types. The first being the traditional compiled windows application including games and software you currently run on windows. The second would be more of a full screen HTML5 + Javascript full screen application.

Google made great success out of exploring what a browser can do without an internet connection when they built the Chromebook and Microsoft clearly wasn’t ignoring this development. Beyond the usual stock tracking widgets and weather displays that could be running from an internet connected browser, this will extend to innovative applications like the customizable touch Piano application that was demonstrated.

Hardware in general seems to be an interesting focus of Windows8

Internet Explorer 10 is built into Window 8 and it will be very touch friendly, allowing the OS to run on a tablet or make full use of a PC with a touch screen.
Microsoft has stated the OS will be compatible with ARM processors and NVidia hardware. There should be a showing of that later today.
Windows 8 continues the tradition of Windows 7 where dependance on improved hardware is not a given. Indeed the way forward seems to be extracting more from the current hardware vs. demanding more under the hood for each new feature.

Our next public blurb from Microsoft on the Windows 8 front is due in September during a developer conference in California.

Dave’s Footnote:

While this post focuses on Windows 8, Dave believes that the author may have glossed over the truly important point (tsk tsk Ryan) which is captured in the following video:

SEO news blog post by Ryan Morben @ 6:24 pm

Categories: html 5,internet security,Misc,web design
Tags: ARM, HTML5, Javascript, microsoft, NVidia, OS, Windows, Windows 8 —

May 11, 2011

Microskype? Skyprosoft? Microsoft Buys Skype

This is one of those cases where we get to see why rumors are just rumors. Last week we reported that a potential deal between Facebook and Skype was on the table. Today, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft and Tony Bates of Skype have concluded a deal with Microsoft purchasing Skype for $8.5 billion. This would be the largest external purchase by the former IT behemoth Microsoft.

Skype has been up for sale for quite some time. Facebook and Google were thought to be the major contenders in a bid for the social networking site Skype with Microsoft entering in late into the game.

Google was not really considered a serious contender in the purchase of Skype as they already have established their Google Voice service which offers video, chat, social and voice. Many people are wondering what the sale of Skype will mean for Linux who frequently use the Skype VoIP platform.

Facebook was a major player in the purchase. The social giant has been coming under increasing pressure from its users to offer video and chat VoIP services for some time. If the company had to use conventional methods to offer voice and video service to its 600 million plus customers, the cost and overhead of operating the infrastructure would be prohibitive if not impossible.

Even though Microsoft is an investor in Facebook, the biggest boon comes to Microsoft by being able to utilize Skype’s assets. Of paramount importance is that they will able to keep the property away from their major competitor, Google.

Some speculations suggest that Skype was sold due to floundering sales revenues. Attempts at turning a bigger profit by charging more for their premium services seems to have backfired on the company and forced them to sell.

According to GIGAOM, some of the reasons as to why Microsoft needed to buy Skype were:

Skype gives Microsoft a boost in the enterprise collaboration market, thanks to Skype’s voice, video and sharing capabilities, especially when competing with Cisco and Google.
It gives Microsoft a working relationship with carriers, many of them looking to partner with Skype as they start to transition to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP_Long_Term_Evolution LTE-based networks.
It would give them a must-have application/service that can help with the adoption of the future versions of Windows Mobile operating system.
However, the biggest reason for Microsoft to buy Skype is Windows Phone 7 (Mobile OS) and Nokia. The software giant needs a competitive offering to Google Voice and Apple’s emerging communication platform, Facetime.

Using the $8.5 billion price as the likely sale price, eBay gets $2.55 billion for its 30-percent stake in Skype. So in the end, eBay did make money on the Skype deal.

According to GIGAOM, the biggest winners of the sale were:

Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the co-founders of Skype, with their 14-percent stake, take home about $1.19 billion. Damn, these guys know how to double-dip!
Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) own 56 percent of the company, and that stake is worth $4.76 billion.
Andreessen Horowitz had three percent of the deal and made $205 million profit on their $50 million initial investment.
eBay gets $2.55 billion for its 30-percent stake in Skype. So in the end, eBay did make money on the Skype deal.

SEO news blog post by guestpost @ 7:18 pm

Categories: Bing,Facebook,Google,Skype,social media,Uncategorized
Tags: microsoft —

April 19, 2011

Panda Puts “Hit” on ciao.co.uk

In a follow up to the post I published yesterday on the Top 20 “Losers” from Google’s Panda UK Update, one of the worst hit companies was Ciao.co.uk, a Microsoft owned company that was leading an EU competition case against Google. Accusations from Microsoft state that Google is purposely using the Panda algorithm update to attack Ciao in an effort to reduce its rankings.

Ciao.co.uk was involved in initiating an EU investigation into Google in November 2010. Microsoft claims that Google has used its dominant position to limit rivals products. The Panda update was designed to lower the overall positioning of content-farms and other low-quality websites and is part of a larger effort to reduce the amount of webspam that has permeated the search results for years.

Google’s head of search evaluation, Scott Huffman, said the accusation was “almost absurd” to suggest that the results were rigged. Of course "almost absurd" is no quite the same as “completely absurd.” Google and Microsoft have a great deal of animosity towards each other and are no strangers to the enmity that has existed between the two corporations for years.

Looking at the list of site that have been negatively affected by the Panda appears to show that most site on the list have been legitimately penalized by Panda. Panda was specifically designed to attack product comparison sites, reviews sites and voucher code sites; and Ciao is no different.

After taking just a precursory look at the Ciao website, the site is found to publish duplicate reviews on multiple pages and sites. Ciao is continually regurgitating massive amounts of content. This is exactly what Panda was targeting site for. One of the reviews on the site that I checked was republished in its entirety on over 30 individual pages and on no less than 3 other websites.

Majestic SEO reports 23 200 000 backlinks coming from 63 000 unique domains, which is an average of 368 links from each domain. Even when looking at the single domain: http://www.ciao.co.uk/, there are 157 049 backlinks coming from 1027 unique domains.

That averages 153 (157 049/1027=153) links form each domain.

From the backlinks analyzed from Majestic, this was the data over 10 000 incoming backlinks grouped by IP block.

IP Block	# of Links
92.122.217.*	109,721
94.245.123.*	45,810
65.55.17.*	45,588
69.175.60.*	32,634
66.216.1.*	28,385
207.218.202.*	21,540
212.227.159.*	13,800
178.79.137.*	11,100
95.154.211.*	10,428
69.163.188.*	10,266

One of the worst offenders was http://small-business-service.com/ which has over 10974 links pointing to ciao.co.uk from a single IP.

On the site, a visitor can see the huge proliferation of spammy, low-quality links that this site engages in. The total number of links to all pages on the ciao domain including sub domains and redirects was even more astonishing:

Pages Indexed: 19,174,884
# of Backlinks Links: 23,199,785
# of Unique Domains: 62,886

It would appear that the newest iteration of the Panda algorithm update form Google is doing a great job on catching the low-quality sites and dealing with them quite justly. The new algorithm certainly needs some tweaking as many quality sites took penalties as well.

As lesser quality sites are displaced, those sites that do offer a quality user experience, use legitimate linking strategies and can offer quality content will begin to see their potential rankings increase.

Beanstalk is currently in the process of testing organic vs. non-organic strategies in an attempt to challenge the effectiveness of Panda’s filtering capabilities. Watch for our 3 part blog series on this topic coming soon!

SEO news blog post by guestpost @ 10:16 pm

Categories: Bing,Bing,Google,Google,Rankings,Search Engine News,Uncategorized,Yahoo!,Yahoo!
Tags: microsoft, panda UK, panda update —

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