Can Twitter Become the Newman of the Internet?

Parts of Twitters Master plan has been unveiled today, Twitter has become a data driven company, vastly becoming one of the middlemen  of the Interwebs. With the weekly email delivery of the Best of Twitter, is showing how content can be discovered through sharing by your social circle or the people you value.

The Value of Twitter Sharing

More than ever, it will be important to grow the number of people following you, grow the number of content pieces you can share, grow the real connections and interactions with your network on Twitter and grow the sharing of your content through your friends. Twitter has changed as of now, as it has become more than an activity and social news stream. Twitter has become a Direct Marketing company, curating the best content tailored to you personally!

If you want more traffic from social sharing, it has just became even more important for you to focus on sharing through Twitter and get connected! Create viral content which is easily shared on Twitter, and you will get distribution for free into the Inbox of your followers and their network!

Twitter Data Building Blocks

A number of building blocks have been in the works to make this happen for Twitter.

Data. First off is the large amount of data, behavioral; social and click data, Twitter has at their fingertips to play around with. As someone with some experience working with large datasets, and how data can learn how to make better decisions, I can only dream what you would be able to do with more than the firehose data the Twitter data science team has to play with.

Short URL's. Now that all URL's are shortened through Twitter's own short URL, t.co, clickstream data is recorded whenever you click on a shared link. This is one of the most important building blocks for a data driven company. At least Twitter knows which links you click on, who shared these, and how thee URL's spread throughout your network. See also this article on Twitter's t.co short URL's from TNW where I gave my input to focus on the data stream Twitter would be able to capture.

Tweetdeck. The broadly used Twitter client was Twitters first lab environment to try out some of the new features on the core website. Twitter short URL's were first introduced on Tweetdeck, and I bet it is a tool for Twitter to connect twitter accounts which are managed by one person.

Social Sharing FTW

With Google supposedly incorporating more social signals in their algorithm, getting your content shared through social media is one nice side effect of using Twitter. However, the direct traffic from social sharing sites can be a large first advantage to go after. And now you have a third; Direct Mail through Twitter.

With the large data set, and extreme analytics, you can only imagine how these content recommendations delivered in your inbox can get better through learning from your behavior. What Subject line made you open the email, which link did you clicked on and did the friends displayed under the link had any impact on your clicking behavior.

Nice side effect for Twitter: You will spread the Tweets again, which will generate more pageviews and more sharing on their network. Slowly Twitter is becoming the toll man of the Internet... At least one of the toll men. And like Newman said; When you control the mail, you control.. Information!

Post from When You Control the Mail, You Control.. Information! - read more about The Next Corner

As I wrote a long article about the top SEO positions available right now at eBay and at Amazon, I've seen a couple of relevant search referrals bringing traffic (the ones not obscured by Not Provided!). And curious as I am, I did a couple of searches where I stumbled on something interesting on the search for SEO Job Description.

Crap Answer from eHow on SEO Job Description

There is an eHow article ranking on the first page (at least for me) about the term SEO Job Description. The content on the page is as expected, pretty shallow and not really helping anybody how to write a smashing SEO Job Description! What is more interesting is the following paragraph (link to article nofollow as I don't vouch for eHow):

There are no set-in-stone qualifications for careers in SEO, in fact, many employees in the field are self taught. Qualifications an employer may seek include experience with search engine optimization and a degree related to the job, such as computer or information science.

So essentially the article does not give any value, but is just fluffing the page with words containing the keywords. What eHow could have done here, is take notice for the job openings at Demand Media, where the company is looking for a Director of SEO. In this job description more qualifications are described (link to job description no-follow as I don't vouch for DM):

Qualifications

• At least 7 years significant product management and SEO experience. At least 2 years direct management experience
• Advanced understanding of the search engine industry, SEO best practices, search engine algorithms and ranking strategies. The ability to communicate these items to colleagues and management teams
• Exceptional leadership skills with a successful track record leading projects end to end
• Must establish credibility within teams as an SEO expert, a knowledgeable, effective leader that knows where projects are today and where they need to go
• Working knowledge of the product development stages and process, and the technologies being applied to implementation of products
• Exceptional communication, prioritization, and problem solving skills
• Familiarity with programming languages including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and web technologies including online video, AJAX, RSS
• Sound understanding of how websites work and user experience for the web
• Must be a committed team player, able to work both independently and interact with management and other staff members
• Knowledge of Omniture web analytics a big plus

Even worse, the eHow article continues to make itself ridiculous by describing the tasks of an SEO as:

The tasks involved in SEO include submitting web pages to social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Reddit. Additionally, the employee will enhance the content of web pages to include targeted keywords and keyword phrases.

Really, that's all we do all day? Post links to Reddit and Digg, after which we spam our own content with some keyword stuffing...? Something tells me the Director of SEO at Demand Media is going to be bussy!

One last point, I wonder how the shareholders of Demand Media look at the Benefits an SEO position might bring according to eHow. Demand Media stock has not been a winner since their IPO!

A career in SEO will give you a deeper knowledge of how the Internet works behind-the-scenes. The field is constantly evolving due to the frequent algorithm changes by search engines, providing a challenging workday.

Post from SEO Job Description - read more about The Next Corner

As an SEO, I'm still always happy to get a link thrown at one of my sites (#Happy Dance when linked to). Building links for better rankings can be hard, and is a specific skill set I'm afraid I have a black spot in as there was not a big need in my former job at eBay to master this. A large brand like eBay, with all the wonderful long tail auctions, gets links thrown at its website every day. I remember vividly the auction of the hair from Justin Bieber being sold on eBay, getting more than 1,400 links easily! And I don't mean any links, but juicy ones from the BBC, The Guardian or The Huffington Post and a long al of smaller, less authoritative websites. One great SEO told me in a speaker room this was probably $1M worth of links, IF you would be interested in buying links.

Two weeks ago, when presenting at the SNAP conference, I actually spent around 20 minutes discussing ways to get links to your website. With the limited experience, I doubt I touched on all the ways you can build links. I just discussed the obvious ones, guest postings, remarkable content, presenting on a bloggers conference (you see what I just did there) or just being helpful where you can!

Just be Helpful

Overal, I'm just trying to be helpful to others, and here and there pick up a link when people decided I have helped them in the right direction. The objective is not necessarily to build links, I'm just paying it forward for all the help I've received in the past, and most probably will still receive in the future. But getting a link is always nice!

Sometimes you just have to be in the right place, at the right moment, and have the right information. Like the other day when I was strolling on Google+ to see what was going on. I stumbled on the following question with a picture if anybody could help with the origin of the statue displayed in the picture (see the picture here in the right).

I instantly recognized the monument; the Holocaust monument in Miami Beach. Back in 2010, I visited the monument which has been an experience hard to forget as the monument is so impressive, capturing a very dark time in Europe.

At first, I thought this was one of my pictures I took at the time, but as the background showed more of the monument, it actually was different than my photo.

Immediately I posted a comment on the site with links to my pictures on flickr explaining the origin of the photo, and where you can find the statue. Quickly after that, I received an email with a thank you note of the editor of the site, and attribution to my pictures on Flickr. As I had these pictures up on my own site (see Holocaust monument in Miami Beach pictures), I politely asked if the link could be pointed to the post. Within a short timeframe, it was done.

Sometimes it does not take that much to get a link to one of your sites, just being helpful can get you a long way.

BTW> I highly recommend to visit the holocaust monument in Miami Beach when you get the chance if you are there. It's a very impressive experience, where there are even Holocaust survivors present to ask questions.

Post from You Want Links: Be Helpful for #HappyDance - read more about The Next Corner

Do you want to jump start your SEO career? Maybe you should consider taking an in-house job with a large internet retailer and grow your skill set in non-SEO related experiences. Right now is the moment if you consider the strategy of turning a large corporate website around in the SEO rankings, as the market for data driven SEO's in-house teams is booming.

Growth in In-House SEO Top Jobs

It’s an undeniable fact there is growth in in-house SEO jobs in the marketplace. Based on the number of hands going up in the Brand session at SMX West, where Aaron Wall asked who’s working for a large brand, the market for in-house SEO is booming.

As more brick-and-mortar companies starting to move marketing budgets online, becoming a brick-and-click company, all the advantages of great SEO are becoming a topic in the boardroom. Why spend millions of dollars on PPC which will get you traffic today, but not necessarily tomorrow? The advantages of great SEO; free traffic acquisition, reputation management and brand building is worth the effort, especially for big brands as the focus shifts on more online business to grow.

The pure players on the Interwebs become the hunting grounds for the recruiters trying to get buts in seats at the interactive departments for the brick-and-mortar large brands. The experience working with large data sets, making data driven decisions and being creative to solve complex problems using technology is a hard to find skill set in the traditional marketing departments focused on brand building through traditional marketing.

A top position with a pure online player in the SEO field can be a great jump start for a career with a large brick-and-click brand. However, do you have what it takes to take up the responsibility of a multi million dollar SEO channel, manage sites across the globe, managing and developing a team, while securing resources for the companies SEO strategy through a complex political process full with corporate sharks fighting for the same resources? Maybe you do, and would like to apply for the following two:

Global Head of SEO eBay vs Amazon

Yesterday one open SEO job was being shared widely on Twitter. It was called a dream job, and there were SEO’s you said things like: “Want”. It was the job for Head of Global Search Engine optimization for Amazon. At the same time, eBay still has an open position for a Director Global SEO Marketing, my old job (my post about leaving eBay here)! WOW, two of the largest ecommerce players are both looking for a Global Head for their SEO channel.

Both of these jobs are huge opportunities for SEO’s who would like to work in-house, in large organizations, working with big datasets and have a big impact. At the flip side, being responsible for the traffic acquisition for large ecommerce companies like eBay or Amazon, comes with a very large responsibility, lots of internal politics, and you will get paid lower on base salary than market level for your skill set!

Which of the two Super SEO jobs would you pick…?

eBay vs Amazon Job Responsibilities

Both of these jobs are not for the faint hearted! If you apply for one of these jobs, you should expect to no longer have time to do any side projects, daily/weekly blog post, or work from 9-5, 40 hrs workweek.

What to expect is that you will be in a lot of meetings during the day, while you try to catch up on email, strategy formulation, networking outside of the company and all the Google & Bing changes after hours in the night, or over the weekends.

Once a Quarter you will have an Ops review, which will take a large chunk of your time to prepare the week prior, and maybe even more time the week after for the follow ups.

The job description for the Director of SEO from eBay is actually really well written, and much more complete than the Amazon job description for Head of Global Search Engine Optimization. As the Amazon job was just posted last week 5/3/12, the hiring manager should have done better research in the market what the competition for his position is. Writing a good job description is key to get high quality candidates.

Both of these jobs require at least 10 years experience, with Amazon even asking 7+ years in SEO, search marketing or related field experience. You will need to bring at least a Bachelor degree, and a Master is a big plus.

Why do you need the 10 years experience and a Bachelor or Master degree to be able to do a job at one of these companies? Here are some of the responsibilities that come with the job:

From the eBay job description (emphasize mine):

• Define the vision, annual plans, and quarterly plans for eBay SEO to optimize the channel’s strategic value to eBay
• Oversee an SEO strategy team that own SEO competitive analyses, benchmarking, and performance management reporting for global eBay sites
• Shape the global content strategy for eBay product listings, and drive the editorial strategy and standards for all SEO and catalog content creation
• Manage SEO planning, development and execution of integrated marketing campaigns in partnership with other eBay marketing teams, internal business unit owners, and external agencies
• Manage executive and team communication of SEO plans, milestones, and channel performance
• Establish and develop an eBay Seller SEO Education program, supporting our global sellers with knowledge and tools to optimize their listings on eBay
• Own all budget line items related to SEO globally, and own the accountability for delivering results; collaborate with eBay’s Finance organization to forecast and deliver against traffic and revenue targets for multiple global sites
• Collaborate with other members of the Internet Marketing Leadership team for cross-channel knowledge sharing and efficiency gains
• Serve as an external spokesperson for SEO at eBay, presenting at industry conferences and eBay events
• Partner with eBay Product Management, Engineering and Analytics to align the product roadmap and performance management in line with the global SEO business strategy
• Build and nurture a collaborative team culture across a core and distributed organization, focusing on high performance standards, trust, and shared success

From the Amazon job description:

• End to end ownership of Amazon’s WW Search Engine Optimization program, including achievement of all global channel performance targets
• Responsibility for development of channel strategy and vision
• Management of the SEO product and technology roadmap
• Delivery of high quality, scalable technology solutions aimed at continuously improving SEO results
• Evangelizing SEO best practices within the company
• Developing a world class team of SEO specialists, product managers, engineering managers, and software developers.
• Analysis and presentation of weekly performance metrics to senior management

These are very senior positions with a lot of executive visibility. When I worked at eBay I have presented for some of it’s key executive leaders, including for Meg Whitman, former CEO and John Donahoe eBay’s current CEO. Always know your stuff. You should be prepared to answer difficult question with the political hierarchy in mind. You cannot simply say the engineering teams are doing a bad job in optimizing the site for SEO with the CTO in the room. If you do, you just have made an enemy for life, trust me, I’ve been there, done that!

Marshall Simmonds, Founder and CEO of Define Media Group just did an awesome Whiteboard Friday video on the topic.

eBay vs Amazon Salaries

Although I have intimate knowledge about the job eBay is offering, I won’t use this information to compare the two opportunities. As I have no knowledge on the Amazon opportunity I rather compare the two SEO jobs using Glassdoor information, which can be retrieved by anybody who sigs up for the service.

According to the survey on Glassdoor, a Director role at eBay is paying better than a similar role at Amazon. According to the Glassdoor salaries posted, an eBay Director makes on average a total of ~$230K per year, which includes bonus and stock compensation.

A similar Director of Marketing at Amazon makes ~$153K per year, which includes bonus and stock compensation according to a similar survey at Glassdoor.

The stock of both companies have been doing rather well, with eBay sprinting ahead in the last couple of months due to better than expected performance. As stock compensation and employee stock purchasing programs can become a major part of the total compensation package, timing will be critical in taking the job or not!

eBay vs Amazon SEO opportunity

While I was working at eBay, I spent a lot of time researching Amazon’s SEO footprint. There were simply too many questions asked by the C-suite why Amazon always ranks on the top electronic products, how big the SEO channel would be if compared to Amazon best practices and what it would take to leapfrog Best in Class.

If you take the first paragraph from the eBay job description, as an SEO, you can immediately figure out what the real challenge is for being successful in SEO at eBay:

With nearly 100 million active users hundreds of millions of active product listings

Imagine you have to optimize a website with more than 100 million active product listings, which will expire after a couple of days! The product catalog at Amazon gives the SEO team an advantage over the eBay challenge. With an inventory which changes every week, you would need to become creative to get a similar SEO footprint as Amazon has.

The opportunity for eBay is actually larger than for Amazon, IMHO. Having an army of sellers all creating unique product descriptions on unique products is an extremely large advantage if you are able to make best use of it.

From what I heard, the fact that at Amazon SEO is a top priority for the company being dictated from the top down, is playing in the companies favor. With a founder/CEO calling the shots, there should be more long term objectives in how the company sets priorities.

At this time, I would call out Amazon as the winner in a SEO showdown between Amazon vs eBay!

San Jose vs Seattle

Apart from the job you will get, before you apply for any of these two Super SEO jobs, you would need to understand where you will live, and the implications for your life! As I have lived in San Jose for 2.5 years, worked for 5.5 years at the eBay office in San Jose, I have a pretty good understanding of the pro’s and cons of living and working in the third largest city in California.

One large advantage speaking for Seattle over San Jose, is the fact the state of Washington does not collect State Income Tax on employee salaries. This can be a huge equalizer as the California state tax for a job like Director SEO for eBay is around 9.5%. Not only the Income tax in California is higher, also the sales tax in California districts are a couple of basis points higher than the tax raised in the districts in the state of Washington.

So make sure you do your homework up front what the implication of state income tax, sales tax and property taxes are to take home pay for the work you are doing. A great comparison per state can be found here.

San Jose

Overall, if you like quiet living, San Jose is perfect for you. The city is set up with the car in mind, where you would need to drive everywhere you go. This makes all the streets quite from pedestrians and noise. With beautiful weather, a short rainy season, and summer temperatures in tropical regions, but without the humidity, it makes a pleasant working environment.

But honestly, San Jose is F*ck*ng boring! Yes, you can go for dinner and drinking at Santana Row, an artificial high-end shopping street, but after 4-5 weekends in a row, you have seen it all.

And although eBay has a shuttle from San Francisco to San Jose for their employees, it’s still 2.5 hours commute per day, if it’s not the rainy season. California drivers are the worse drivers, especially when it rains, which makes the daily commute even longer during the months of November to March!

Seattle

As I have never lived in Seattle, I can only judge the living conditions from ‘hear say’. Two things that always pops-up are

1. The many days in the year it rains in Seattle
2. The traffic jams in, and around Seattle due to the Microsoft, Amazon and Boeing employees trying to get to work or home.

As I’ve only visited Seattle during the month of June, for SMX Advances, I cannot judge how it would be like to live in the city of the Grunge for the full year!

The Corporate In-House SEO Jobs market

As the in-house SEO job market is expanding, more interesting positions will become available for you to focus on to advance your career. Taking one of these jobs at eBay or Amazon, will set you up for some great career moves in the future. It’s a great Resume building strategy, while you will gain great valuable experiences in more than only SEO.

IF you would like to apply for one of these, you can contact me through my contact form if you have any questions. I’ve worked for 9.5 years at eBay, of which 6 in the San Jose office working at SEO.

However, be prepared to work your ass off, grow a thick skin and become better in internal politics than Julius Caesar was!

Post from Needed: 10 years experience & Bachelor Degree for Top Corporate SEO Jobs - read more about The Next Corner

I'm a big fan of the open source image editing software GIMP ("GNU Image Manipulation Program"), which launched a new version earlier this week. Version 2.8 is now ready for download on limited OS (see story on Slashdot: Gimp 2.8 finally released). What is annoying is that Adsense is full with Advertisers with deceiving ads, which take free open source software, and bundle this with additional installers, download managers and toolbars. These companies drive traffic through Adsense, as that is probably the only way people would get to their site. The ads are IMHO tricking people to download the software not knowing what they install.

Click the Big Green Download Button for Free Crap

Check the Adsense banner under this article on Gimpusers.com:

Huge Adsense Ad for Gimp Download

At first impression, it looks like you are able to download the GIMP files by clicking on that large green button. You are, but not from the official GIMP software repository, but from a site called download-nation.com (not going to link to the site for obvious reasons). On the landing page, it is clearly described what you will download and what is getting installed, but then again, who reads all the text, just give me my free software please I'm clicking the big green button...

download-nation.com is distributing modified installers which differ from the originals. The modified installers are compliant with the original software manufacturer's policies and terms & conditions...Additional software may include toolbars, browser add-ons, game applications, anti-virus applications, and other types of applications....

Although the ads might be deceptive, it's still the responsibility of the user who downloads free software to keep their machine clean. The company behind download-nation even is giving a handy step-by-step process on to remove the bundled software from your computer.

1. Open Programs and Features by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking Programs, and then clicking Programs and Features.
2. Select the program, and then click Uninstall. Some programs include the option to change or repair the program in addition to uninstalling it, but many simply offer the option to uninstall. To change a program, click Change or Repair. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

Play it Safe, Protect Yourself

I have seen worse, where you download software with straight-up malware or spyware bundled. So play it safe, and if you would like to download open source free software, here are some tips:

• Always download the software from the original website. This is not always as easy, as some open source software projects have obscure names or a different website address than the software name. In the case for GIMP, you can simply go to the Gimp.org website, where you will pointed to trusted sources.
• Search for the software title on SourceForge.net. SF is not bundling the original package of software with download managers, toolbars or installers. For Gimp, you can download the GIMP Windows version or the GIMP MacOS version.

For website owners who are confronted with the deceptive ads on their website, you can block specific ads from appearing in Adsense. Check out the help pages which describe how to block ads in Adsense.

Post from Crapware Distribution through Adsense - read more about The Next Corner

For the last 5 days, I've been getting notifications in my Gmail inbox somebody I don't know has shared something with me on Google+. I thought it might be somebody I have circled back (Is that the right way of saying I have put the person in my circles after they had added me to theirs?). Nope, I didn't even have this person in my circles! Could it be... Has the Google+ Spam begun..?

Google+ Spam messages hitting my inbox

FemBots Spammers #FTW

You would assume a smart spammer would pull out the Fembots, a reference to the Female Robots in the Austin Powers movie who tried to kill austin powers with the machine guns hidden in their boobs, also called breast canons. If you have never been exposed to a Fembot Spammer, shall we coin the term Sp(f)embot?, this is how a Twitter account of a Fembot Spemmer might look like:

Fembot Spammer on Twitter

Google+ Spam

I can't wait to see Google+ overrun by the Fembots, where Google has claimed in the past Google Plus would only be for real people and function as an "identity service". When I read the following paragraph on SEOBook, which came from an interview with Amit Singhal on SearchEngineland, I actually was thinking about the Fembots trying to create real looking profiles for Google Plus spam.

"We don’t think of this as a promotional unit now. This is a place that you would find people with real identities who would be interesting for your queries."

For a longer time I've been thinking about how Google has the perfect data infrastructure in place to prevent spam from Fembots. With the recent privacy policy changes, the underlaying data structures from all the "free" tools Google provides will give the Big G the ability to weed out fake profiles real easily.

Just think about it, would a spammer:

• Correspond with real people over email, using their Gmail account
• Do searches while logged in for everyday average search queries
• Buy stuff online using a Google checkout
• Use Google maps to print out directions
• Claim their home address for easy navigation, or printing directions
• Use an Android mobile phone with all the data collection right there, which is linked to a cell phone provider

I strongly believe the privacy policy changes were not only driven out of the need to protect the privacy of the average Google user. These changes were more driven out of the need to start using the data Google is collecting to make Skynet smarter. Weed out the spam, build a "better" search algorithm, build better ad targeting based on your preferences, etc.  We slowly get more buried into our own little bubbles...

What I don't understand right now, is why I'm being flooded with irrelevant email notifications of some random dude who has decided I'm a core target to sell Sh*t to. Google, fix it, please..! Or at least... bring out the Fembots!

Post from Google+ Spam #Fembots #FTW - read more about The Next Corner

Imagine if you can estimate seasonal predictions as the Maya's could! When will Spring begin, when it's time for the harvest as fall starts? The Maya's were so good at math, astrology and architecture, that the pyramids in Chitchen Itza can predict the beginning of spring and fall to the day exact! Every year, I get confronted with the accuracy of the Maya calendar by the way of the recurring seasonal traffic to a post I wrote back in 2008. The post where I describe my visit to the March Equinox in Chichen Itza Mexico.

Like clockwork the traffic returns a couple of days in advance of the date the spectacle is taking place, either March 20/21 or September 22/23.

Click on image for large version

With the tools of today, I wonder how good the old ancient Maya's would have been to predict the expected results for the harvest, putting the corn into the ground right after March 21, the sign of the beginning of spring! More important, what can we, the analytics SEO junkies of today, learn from the old ways of predicting the seasonal coming of spring, or in our case, user search behavior!

Sometimes, ancient traditions of predicting the future are not that far of now days profession. Where the Maya's used Pyramids and astrology to secure their future, we use cookies as tracking beacons instead of the stars.

I see a great series in historical research and analytics ahead of me for the coming summer! With the spring starting today, just like the pyramids in Chichen Itza show in the form of a wonderful show of sunlight and the main Pyramid; El Castillo, I found myself a new Summer Project!

If you ever get the chance to visit Chichen Itza during the Equinox, don't hesitate, go!

Post from SEO Seasonal Analytics Like the Ancient Maya’s - read more about The Next Corner

Everybody grab the popcorn, Microsoft & Google will be engaged in one more fight other than search; Office web apps! In a direct comparison, between Google Docs & Microsoft Excel Web Apps, which one would you choose? Is Office Web Apps a better choice for sharing documents?

Microsoft Office Web Apps vs Google Docs Round 1

Today I received the email below from the Microsoft Office Web Apps, in which Microsoft is clear they are looking for a fight with Google. The subject line reads:

See how Office Web Apps Compare to Google Docs

See how Microsoft tries to trash Google Docs in the email, calling Google out no less than 6 times! .

Microsoft Excel Web Apps DM

I love excel, it's probably my number 1 tool in my toolbox for my work. I always feel lost if I need to work in a Google Doc online just to be able to share the information with others. Usually I rather work in excel, and send the document through email. So curious to see if Microsoft is able to bring the rich excel experience to the web, and to become a good competitor for Google Docs, I click on both the links, for Excel Web App and the Google Doc, to open in a new browser. Result: Big Fat FAIL for Microsoft!

Microsoft Excel Web App Fail

I wonder what went wrong here, who didn't test the email, and clicked on all the links to make sure these work! QA Fail!

Ok, moving on, I click on OK, and get to the directory of public files shared as demo's. As there is one selected, I click on the link for the file, and a beautiful excel spreadsheet unfolds before my eyes. Full Excel functionality galore online, nice... .

Excel Web App Olympics demo

Compared to the Google Doc, the Microsoft Excel Web App is a much richer experience!

Google Doc Olympics example

According to the Microsoft email, Excel Web Apps will let you share functionality, which would go missing in Google Docs:

• Images
• Charts
• Sparklines
• SmartArt
• Filters
• Footers
• Headers
• Conditional Formatting
• Watermarks

In their words:

You didn't want that chart there, did you? Because, if you share it with someone using Google Docs, it could disappear. If you don't want that to happen (and really, why would you?), use Office Web Apps* for free instead. It's the best way to help protect the integrity of your uploaded Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote documents.

I wonder if more people will start using Microsoft Excel Web Apps given these extra functionality, or if habits and network effects make people reluctant to switch. What do you think?

Post from Microsoft Excel Web Apps vs Google Docs - read more about The Next Corner

Last week I came across an article on Business Insider where a picture was being used as a metaphor to make a certain point even stronger. While reading the article on my iPad in the Muni on my way to work, the picture kept triggering the thought how tasteless the choice of using this image to make a point actually was. Spending some more time researching the actual image, I discovered a story behind the image, where I believe the article on Business Insider does not fully cover the load of the image being used here. Furthermore, it is a shame Business Insider is not linking to the source of the picture, or where they found it!

Here is for an interesting story of my research...

Failures are Killed Quickly

How Steve Ballmer Made Microsoft A Better Company Since Bill Gates Left is the article in Business Insider I was reading (here is the link). On the web, this article is being spread over multiple pages, as the annoying slideshow to pump the pageviews, however on the iPad the full article was on one page (at least in the Google Current iPad App).

The picture, which accompanied the paragraph how Steve Ballmer is quick to pick winners and kill products that aren’t working, especially if they serve no larger strategic purpose, is displaying a scene of one man, blind folded, with a firing squad ready to execute the man.

Business Insider: Failures are Killed Quickly

When I saw the picture and read the paragraph, first I was shocked this historical picture was being used to make the authors words more powerful. Soon after this my thoughts turned into a disgusted feeling. Really Business Insider, is Ballmer killing unsuccessful projects like a firing squad is killing men in what it looks like a war situation. Without knowing where this picture was originated, what the story behind the man who was going to be shot and killed was, I couldn't help to think about the poor man being a unsuccessful in life and being killed because he was a failure. At least that is the connection my brain made when I saw the image placed next to those words.

In Search of a Story Behind an Image

I wanted to know more about this picture. As I grew up in The Netherlands, I had my fair share of history lessons when I was younger.. The second world war, and the German occupation of The Netherlands is a topic which is being taught to great detail in schools. My grandfather was in the military when the war broke out, and was detained by the Germans for 5 years, from when he was 20 to 25 years old. I regularly heard stories about the war, and how people had to survive, or were suffering. Seeing the above picture of the firing squad executing a lone man, made me think it might be a picture from the second world war.

If that was the case, there actually could still be relatives be alive from both the man who got killed and the men who shot him. Not very politically correct of the Business Insider to pick this image for a story on how Steve Ballmer kills unsuccessful projects at Microsoft! I had to know where this picture came from!

I posted a question on Quora to see if anybody could help me find the original source of this image, after which I posted the same question on Twitter with a link to the question on Quora.And what do you think, it just took 4 minutes and I already got an answer with a lead to a wikipedia page the picture was featured on.

@TheNextCorner bit.ly/A2YzcJ translate that page, a small snippet is given there

— Joshua Titsworth (@JoshuaTitsworth) January 25, 2012

Now that is the power of Twitter. Joshua had used the reversed image search engine tineye.com, which found 48 sources for the same image.

I quickly copied the url into my Chrome browser, as the URL was for a Wikipedia page in Japanese. Although pictures on Wikipedia usually are donated or copied from other places on the web, this might not be the end of my search, but at least a good start. The reference of this picture carried a link to a website about the great war as World War 1 is being called. The picture was hosted on a page about the 'Stories of War Photographers'.

Spy Hunters of Belgium

From the page:

This narrator tells of his experiences with the spy hunters of Belgium. He was swept into the war-stricken country where he was arrested by the Germans, sweating under the German third degree, spending a fearful night on a prison floor, suffering with his fellow prisoners the torments of a trial as a spy in a German military court in Brussels, and finally securing his liberty. He has collected his experiences in a volume under title "In the Claws of the German Eagle," thus preserving in book form his remarkable articles which were first published in 'The Outlook'.

The stories on the page are interesting, where these tell the story of an American war photographer in Belgium during the first world war. The Belgiums soldiers were happy to put up a scene for the photographer to make his shots, far from the actual fighting (at least that's what this photographer has written down).

Under the command of the photographers, they charged across the fields with fixed bayonets, wriggled up through the grass, or, standing behind the trenches, blazed away with their guns at an imaginary enemy. They did some good acting, grim and serious as death.

At one moment, the story is getting really interesting:

While his little army rested from their manoeuvers the Director-in-Chief turned to me and said:

"Wouldn't you like to have a photograph of yourself in these war-surroundings, just to take home as a souvenir?"

That appealed to me. After rejecting some commonplace suggestions, he exclaimed: "I have it. Shot as a German Spy. There's the wall to stand up against; and we'll pick a crack firing-squad out of these Belgians. A little bit of all right, eh ?"

I acquiesced in the plan and was led over to the wall while a movie-man whipped out a handkerchief and tied it over my eyes. The director then took a firing squad in hand. He had but recently witnessed the execution of a spy where he had almost burst with a desire to photograph the scene. It had been excruciating torture to restrain himself. But the experience had made him feel conversant with the etiquette of shooting a spy, as it was being done amongst the very best firing-squads. He made it now stand him in good stead. ...

...A week later I picked up the London Daily Mirror from a news-stand. It had the caption:

Belgian Soldiers Shoot a German Spy Caught at Termonde ...

I opened up the paper and what was my surprise to see a big spread picture of myself, lined up against that row of Melle cottages and being shot for the delectation of the British public. There is the same long raincoat that runs as a motif through all the other pictures. Underneath it were the words:

"The Belgians have a short, sharp method of dealing with the Kaiser's rat-hole spies. This one was caught near Termonde and, after being blindfolded, the firing-squad soon put an end to his inglorious career."

One would not call it fame exactly, even though I played the star-role. But it is a source of some satisfaction to have helped a royal lot of fellows to a first-class scoop. As the "authentic spy-picture of the war," it has had a broadcast circulation. I have seen it in publications ranging all the way from The Police Gazette to Collier's Photographic History of the European War. In a university club I once chanced upon a group gathered around this identical picture. They were discussing the psychology of this "poor devil" in the moments before he was shot. It was a further source of satisfaction to step in and arbitrarily contradict all their conclusions and, having shown them how totally mistaken they were, proceed to tell them exactly how the victim felt.

British firing squad staging execution of German spy during WW1

Metaphor: Using Firing Squad photo to emphasize a point

So here is the kicker...

The man in the picture was not the real spy, didn't die due to the firing squad, and lived to see the same picture in the newspaper, while now, almost 100 years later, the picture is being used and  referred back to as a scene from WW1 here: Death by firing squad possible in the US (on WND.com).

But the picture is not only used for serious news articles, in all shapes or forms this picture is being used to make a message of a story stronger.

Here is an article in which the Jackson School Board seeking volunteers for the budget committee. I guess volunteering for a budget committee is the same as suicide through the firing squad!

Volunteering almost means the same as death by firing squad

Or how abut this one, on the fact that people need a reference letter from their professor at the university, and only dare to ask with a lot of apologies.

I need a reference, please don't shoot me

In a forum, discussing the Fort Hood shootings, the people who post a comment do have an explicit request: the shooter should be facing a firing squad!

Firing Squad for alleged fort hood shooter?

In Utah, an inmate; Ronnie Lee Gartner, choose the firing squad as the method to be executed. The Salt Lake Tribune published an article on how this might impact tourism to Utah. And rightly so, the PRWatch editor asks a valid question:

Utah tourism impacted by execution through firing squad

Given the highly contentious nature of use a firing squad in the first place, one would expect coverage of this news to focus more on the barbaric nature of this practice.

The most outrageous usage of this firing squad photo from WW1 I could find was were the picture was published next to an article to call people to get their H1N1 flu shot (H1N1 vaccine liquidation sale now on: Hurry while supplies last!). The picture was edited, and had a large tagline overlay saying: Get Your Flu Shot! As if the soldiers in the firing squad are firing a medicine injection to protect the "spy" from getting sick from the H1N1 virus!

Get your flu shot through a firing squad

Back to Killing Unsuccessful Projects at Microsoft

I guess my outrage over the picture of a firing squad in relations with Steve Ballmer killing unsuccessful projects quickly on Business Insider, was at first a little overreacting now that I know the scene in the photo had been staged. The newspapers in the UK during WW1 placed the photo as if the photo was from the actual scene.

I'm sure the photographer of the picture never dreamed the actual copy would be used in all the above examples on how to make a story stronger by using a metaphor picture. let alone the man who played the German Spy being executing through the firing squad!

Furthermore, this example of a picture from the front, tells a strong story of propaganda, and how this is being used to influence peoples opinion. Not everything you see in the news or the newspaper is true, there could be more powerful forces behind it the story to push their point and getting things done!

I just hope I will never have to face a Steve Balmer who is ready to pull the trigger on any of the projects or companies I'm working at! I don't want to face the Microsoft Firing Squad!

Post from Killing Projects equals Firing Squad - read more about The Next Corner

You can't have ignored it yesterday. Unless you live on a remote island with crapy Internet connection, or was spending time in a place like Las Vegas, the Stop SOPA & PIPA protest must have hit you somehow. Lots of website went dark, others had a specific protest on their homepage.

Slashdot had taken a different approach, where two stories were persistent at the top of the homepage:

1. Ask Slashdot: What Can You Do About SOPA and PIPA?
2. SOPA and PIPA so far

Both of these stories are full with valuable resources to explain what SOPA and PIPA actually are, and what you can do to help stop this legislation to pass. Both of these stories had great community engagement, which shows the Slashdot community is aware of the implications of the SOPA & PIPA bills.

Slashdot SOPA in Google SERP's

However, as a non-US citizen, but a green-card holder, I'm not allowed to vote and cannot register myself as politically active. What I can do, is to help drive awareness of the SOPA & PIPA bills and why these are bad for the Interwebs and Innovation in general.

The story on Slashdot about what you can do to stop SOPA is currently ranking on a 3rd position in the Google SERP's, which makes me happy to help spreading the word and raise awareness (see screenshot on right). As the article has a large number of great resources summed up, but is a lot to digest, here is an outline:

• The intent is to combat online piracy
• It gives the Attorney General and the Department of Justice power to block domain name services
• The Attorney General and the Department of Justice can demand that links be stripped from sites not involved in piracy
• The legislation as written is vague and overly-broad
• SOPA gives power to media companies to black out websites, without the need to proof any copyright is violated.

Consequences of SOPA:

• The most obvious implication of this is that search engines would suddenly be responsible for monitoring and policing everything they index.
• Social Network sites, and user submission sites would need to monitor, sensor and police all content submitted, including comments which might include links to websites which host "piracy content"

Since their inception SOPA and PIPA have raised concerns about blacklisting from online freedom advocates, and tech industry giants. Law professors worry that they could stifle growth and innovation. Other's have warned that the legislation would hurt scientific debate and open discourse on the internet. SOPA and PIPA are not without support however. In fact a wide variety of companies have backed the proposed laws, bringing together an eclectic group. After months of debate, the removal of one of the more controversial provisions, and The White House expressing its own concerns over the law in its current form, Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced that he was shelving SOPA. PIPA however remains, and it is likely that a re-worked version of the House bill will be brought up soon.

New York street protests against SOPA & PIPA

Picture by Andrew Dallos under Creative Commons 2.0 

Here is a great video explaining how SOPA & PIPA will impact innovation and the Internet as a whole.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future.

What to do against SOPA / PIPA:

Post from What Can I do to Stop SOPA - read more about The Next Corner