Microsoft wants Yahoo. Yahoo doesn’t want Microsoft. Yahoo asks Google. Google says No. Microsoft pushes the envelope. Yahoo partners with AOL. Yahoo allows Google AdSense.
Did that confuse you? That’s OK. It’s a baffling ride altogether. Yahoo reminds me of the scene in the Titanic. The Ship is sinking and there are thousands of people dog-paddling to stay afloat. Only problem is only 31% of the ships’ passengers were saved.
Yahoo has been the dominate player for over 10 years. There are many things that contribute to that - one I believe is the fact that every time you turn around Yahoo was asking you to install their toolbar and make Yahoo your homepage. Especially in the office place, this can definitely take the advantage.
There are two strategies that could be looked at. The first is that Yahoo is trying to breath more life into the company. They feel Microsoft is a bad idea, but are willing to put their hopes into AOL, which would then get them into the back pocket of Time-Warner. However, you don’t dance with one devil to avoid the other one.
The other one is to leave a tattered shell of a company for Microsoft to buy. It’s what most are calling “Land Mines”. The idea is to mess up the office so when the new boss shows up they have a lot of work cleaning it up.
At any rate, I am not going to speculate whether Microsoft will or will not get Yahoo in the end. There are too many variables in the way. I do know three things if Microsoft does get their hands on Yahoo: 1. Yahoo employees supporting Jerry Yang will either not be there or not have a job 2. Microsoft will have a lot of work, but they’ll do it, and put Yahoo on the right track, which would mean a stronger web presence for Microsoft and 3. whatever the outcome, Yahoo might just be the Titanic with 31% of the crew surviving.
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The New York Times reports of a Blogger who gets an email after complaining about a service that is not there. Other people have complained about their bills and Comcast comes back with a “Can I Help”? Even others find themselves with internet connection issues for trying to use the service. This begs the question: are we seeing a new trend and is this a good or bad thing?
First of all, most likely they are not looking at your blog or twitter directly. They are most likely running searches from Google, Summize (remember - Twitter bought that company) and a bunch of other engines. They look at keywords that - in turn - give them information to turn around and say “What can we do?”
Last year while working at a job, we decided to implement a helpdesk system. I looked over a few systems, gave a recommendation and we implemented. The one I’m going to talk about wasn’t the one we went with simply because there were good features they lacked, but this is one feature that really made me think about the way we can see customers.
The service let you put a piece of code on each users’ desktop. When they logged into the network, that code would send a log to the helpdesk software. If any keywords showed up, the software would alert the helpdesk so action could be taken before the customer could call in.
Think about it: Google a specific topic. Let’s take Comcast for example. Go to Google, then “Advanced Search”. Type in “Comcast”, and filter to the last 24 hours. Not only will you get blogs, but you will also get twitters, plurks and a host of other items.
Now if you organize that with specific keywords like “Comcast” and maybe a hot word like “sucks”, you can see all the blogs and posts that follow. If someone wrote an API that could constantly search for these words, then they can report on a system and get back to the author.
Of course, if you are on Comcast’s’ network and sending plain text (like most blogs are), then it’s ten times easier for Comcast to filter and respond. If it was encrypted, that would be a different story. However it’s only plain old text passing through the internet for all to read - including Comcast.
What is the good? Well, you may not want them to watch what you are sending, but if you put it out on Twitter or in a blog, you want people to see it anyway. So why not Comcast? Why not AT&T? Why not Steve Ballmer or Steve Jobs? I suppose if Ballmer or Jobs were to call you tomorrow over a blog or Twitter, you might see that as an honor that they are noticing your posts.
It can also alert people of any questionable activity. In this post 9-11 era, concern over communication is a hot issue. With so many ways to communicate over the internet, it might be nice to stop another epic event before it takes place.
What is the Bad? Well, it’s just another form of Big brother watching. One more step closer for RIAAs and MPAAs to surface. It is wrong to duplicate and distribute copyrighted material, but for those who don’t do that it’s not fair if we are being watched.
Dave Winer reported that right before an Obama speech, he was disconnected from Comcast for “Security” issues. Dave instantly closed his Comcast account. If I was in the same position, I think I would have either done the same thing or strongly worded the incident and made sure enough people heard it. I would most likely do the latter if I didn’t have another avenue of connection.
Is there a “Happy Medium”? Not really. That is why history is riddled with events like witch hunts and the Spanish Inquisition (Yeah, I know. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition). But with pressure to have a safe lifestyle, you have to have someone watching over it, right?
Well, someone or something might be watching you now. Whether it’s the ISP seeing what you are posting on your Blog or twitter, a security camera watching your actions in and out of a retail store, an ATM watching you take your money or one person just peering out the window to see what you’re up to. It’s all the same, right?
Some may call this move by Comcast as creepy. Others may call it brilliant because they are preventing issues. Even others may call it questionable practice because they are watching you. But the old saying “Danged if you do, danged if you don’t” can come into play here. We want to be safe but we don’t want to be watched or held accountable. What goes on behind closed doors….
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