As long predicted, the age of print newspapers is waning fast. The days of waking up and going to the stoop to retrieve that thick and smudgy bundle of journalism are coming to their end. Of course this has been going on for at least two decades, so it’s hardly news.

The internet is to blame of course. Just as the ol’ www has led to an increase in ruined relationships, chubby kids and the spread of before-and-after photos of Heidi Montag’s plastic surgery, it has also been the death knell for print newspapers. But, like I said, we’ve known that for a long time.

So, then the next step in the evolution of news was that people were going to get their news from online sources, some of which included websites for traditional media like the sophisticated NYTimes.com, the slick and shallow CNN.com and that grumpy, old, uncle who likes guns and hates gays, FoxNews.com.

But it seems like that whole paradigm isn’t quite happening either.

The research firm Outsell released a study recently, about the online and offline news preferences of 2,787 US news consumers. And the results, as they say, are shocking. News aggregators like Google and Yahoo are wrecking everything. Well, actually its us news consumers who are ruining everything, with our short attention spans and over-worked lifestyles.

According to the study, 44% of those who visit Google News just read the headlines. They never actually click through to visit the actual site where that headline came from.

Obviously this is a big deal, considering that the people who research and report on the news need to get paid somehow. And their paychecks come directly from the advertising on the news websites. So if 44% of news readers just get their news from aggregators, that’s a whole lot of eyeballs that are never reaching any on-site advertising.

So as strange an idea as it may be to contemplate, is it possible that Rupert Murdoch was right? A while back, he said he wanted to ban Google from accessing the news sites he owns, for exactly this reason.

Of course, it’s easy to get a bit histrionic about this whole thing. We see that 44% of us don’t read the articles, but just want a quick espresso shot of headlines. And then we blame it on the fact that we all have short attentions spans, and long work hours… just like I did a few paragraphs ago. But is that really the issue?

Maybe the issue is that “news” isn’t actually different than any other form of entertainment. Once upon a time, when we all diligently read newspapers every morning, was it because we really cared more about the world around us? Or was it simply because there wasn’t anything else to do?

These days, the internet provides endless entertainment for those wanting to surf around and read about stuff. And sure, some of that stuff will be news headlines, and maybe even whole stories. But there’s a heck of a lot of other content out there to keep us entertained. So if I scan a few headlines to get my fix of news, then go elsewhere to read an article about some cute undersea creature, is it because I’m addled by ADD? Or is it just that the internet is awesome?

I’m sure you’ve heard the news that Google was attacked and has since threatened to leave China. And soon after that announcement we’ve heard that the attack partially originated from computers running Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

So what’s the logical conclusion?

Well, the German and the French governments both recommended their citizens to abandon IE for an alternative browser. There certainly is enough competition in the web browser market for people to choose from. Is jumping ship really the logical move? Probably not; every web browser has their share of security vulnerabilities and this weeks news will soon fade. Microsoft will also release a patch to close this attack vector.

At Thirdi we don’t mind too much which browser you use, but we do prefer you use the latest release so that we can build better performing and more capable web applications. Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari all grew in 2009 taking away market share from the established Internet Explorer. Will this vulnerability only continue that trend?

I think the best thing that will come out of this mess is that more people will be aware of alternative browsers and give at least one of them a try. Who knows, maybe they’ll even enjoy it.

It seems that Apple has quietly retreated from the open source battlefield as Google Android and other platforms have embraced the chaos. This has perplexed some analysts, who have referred to the iPhone as an “open source wasteland“. While many have approached this from a mechanical point of view, focusing on software and hardware particulars or questioning the role of iPhone’s proprietary platform as a deterrent, I think it comes down to an issue of management philosophy or company culture. Google is a very fluid and unconventional company in many ways. They have often shot first and asked questions later in regards to projects that have become stellar successes despite difficulties in foreseeing profitability i.e. they take risks. And with open source there are risks. And in open source things can be fluid and unconventional.

Sure the iPhone is a proprietary platform but so is Windows, and some of the best loved applications or programs on Windows (such as Firefox) are open source. So I discount that theory. Not being involved in exploring open source does not translate to not taking a risk, but apple currently has no need to embrace open source as the gazillion apps available on their store seem to be selling just fine. In fact, though I love open source and do firmly believe that it will unlock all sorts of potential for programming in the future, that being said it can also be a pain in the ass. Models running Google Android platform have come under as the company has released its new Android OS with little to no heads up for customers. This has caused some headaches for developers suddenly faced with new obstacles or challenges. So in one respect the stability and dependability of iPhone still makes it a very attractive platform to develop for. That being said, all it would take is for Google to be a little more proactive about giving developers a heads up regarding changes to Android phones and much of this could be remedied.   One other possibility is that the new Google Nexus 1 will have automatic software updates to fix problems and inform developers that are programming in such a fluid environment. The US carriers and telecom manufacturers have already been tripping over each other to carry Google Android phones- why not develop a Google phone that bypasses Motorolla et all? Google reminds me of the Blob, remember that movie? But I still find myself really liking the company. It’s like a good Blob with people screaming and running towards it instead of away from it.

So maybe Apple is avoiding open source like it’s the Blob? Or the Son of Blob? So what does that make Apple? Maybe because it’s more focused on proprietary software platforms we can compare it to  Mechagodzilla…

So as far as company cultures are concerned Google is like the Blob and Apple is like Mechagodzilla. Tune in next week when I decide which sandwiches best represent the management styles of Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

Let’s play a little guessing game. We’ll start with an easy one – The founder of which groundbreaking social networking site turned down a $30 million acquisition offer by Google in 2006, an amount that, if paid in shares, would be worth approximately $1 billion today? Okay, now another one – Which social networking site has become a punchline due to the face it more or less invented the genre, then got its butt kicked by a bunch of imitators? And, lastly, a trickier one – which social networking site has over 115 million registered users and is still one of the top 100 global websites based on traffic?

Of course the answer to all those questions is Friendster. Everyone’s first social networking site, Friendster’s meteoric rise and even faster fall is the stuff of legend, and jokes. But much to the surprise of many, I’m sure, the site still gets over 61 million unique visitors a month and is among the most visited sites on the planet. And that’s probably why Friendster just sold for $100 million dollars, to Malaysia’s MOL Global.

Those numbers, and that payday, raise an interesting question. Who the hell uses that site? If nobody you know still rocks a Friendster account, it’s just because you live on the wrong continent. The top 4 countries accessing Friendster are: the Phillipines, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea. Yep, apparently Friendster has enjoyed a massive resurgence in Asia, mainly among teenagers.

Oh, and one last question for the guessing game – What’s the 5th country on that list? The United States. Which means that somewhere in the vicinity of a million Americans are still hooked on Friendster. But can you imagine what’ll happen when those folks discover MySpace? It’s going to blow their minds.

Personally, I was pretty impressed the other day when someone showed me search via voice-recognition on their iPhone. I was already feeling bad about not being up on the latest breakthrough in search technology when, to make matters worse, Google announces another whole new way to search.

It’s the new Google Goggles feature, and with it a user can snap a photo, and then run a search using only the visual data in the photo. So if you’re staring at a painting in an art gallery and want to know all about it, just take a picture of it. If it happens to be one of the more than one billion images already in the database, then you’re in luck. Some of the other examples posted on the Google Goggles page are recognizing the label on a wine bottle, a corporate logo, a restaurant, or the cover of a book. Handy stuff for sure, though they don’t really begin to explore the eventual possibilities for a technology like this.

The big one will, one day, be facial recognition. Google already has a database with more than a billion images. What’s a few billion more, say, one for every person on earth? Of course that’s a few years down the road, but the possibilites are staggering. For their part, Google has already addressed the issue, with their vice president of engineering, Vic Gundotra, saying: “For this product, we made the decision not to do facial recognition… We still want to work on the issues of user opt-in and control. We have the technology to do the underlying face recognition, but we decided to delay that until safeguards are in place.”

And there’s the kicker. There are immense privacy issues around having anyone instantly able to access your personal information just by snapping a photo of you. But given that the technology is already so close at hand, it’s only a matter of time before this type of thing becomes a reality.

But back to present-day reality… Right now, Google Goggles is only available on Android phones, and only in a beta version. They have promised, though, that it will soon be available as an iPhone app as well.

Illustration of planned Digital Cloud (photo courtesy of RaiseTheCloud.org)

As part of the 2012 Olympic festivities in London, England, a team of engineers, artists and architects have partnered with Google to plan a “Digital Cloud” structure that will hover over the city, transmitting video, audio and data streams.

The structure itself is a collection of inflatable spheres set atop thin, soaring towers, each of which will contain a spiral ramp and elevator. The spheres are meant to be a physical manifestation of a digital cloud, and each is an inflatable, transparent, three-dimensional screen, lined with LEDs. The entire structure will be self-powered by photovoltaic panels.

Transmitted onto the screens of the spheres will be everything from real-time data related to Olympic events, world news, weather information and tourist tips for getting around London. Audio feeds related to the data will play at ground-level, so visitors to the site will be able to watch events and feeds above, while hearing the related audio from their position on the ground.

The project has some heavy hitters involved, including the aforementioned Google and a group from MIT’s Senseable City Laboratory Team, but it’s still missing one thing – money. Raising enough money to build the structure is part of the experiment, and the planners will be reaching out to the public, via sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. You can find out more details about the project and see lots more images at raisethecloud.org.

Google Analytics is a powerful, and free, analytics tool, but in many ways very limited out-of-the-box.  Often, I find myself wanting to get a better understanding of how users find a website, and referral URLs are a good way to do that.  So, if you’ve ever seen a referral come up in Google Analytics and thought “I wish I had the full string”, here’s a filter you can add to do just that!

How To Get A Full Referral URL In Google Analytics

First, you need to add an advanced filter to your profile.  To do this, you need to go to the “Filter Manager” on the bottom right corner of your “Analytics Settings” page:

This will show you all of your current filters for your website profiles.  To add a new filter, simply click “Add Filter” in the top right hand corner:

Here is where the fun begins!  What we’re going to do now is build a filter that catches all of the referring URLs (query strings and all) and drop it into the often unused “User Defined” report.  Keep in mind, if you are using custom User variables, you may want to make a copy of your current profile to apply this filter to, as it will overwrite any current reports!

So, first off, you’ll want to name your filter in the “Filter Name:” field.  I used “Full Referral URL”.  Then, in the “Filter Type” click the “Custom Filter” radio button.  At the very bottom of the filter types is a radio button that says “Advanced”.  Choose this one.  Below these radio buttons, you will see “Field A -> Extract A”, a dropdown menu and an empty field.  Here, you want to choose “Referral” from the dropdown menu, and you want to add (.*) to the field.  (.*) is a regular expression term that is a wildcard, and will capture everything after the Referral URL (Google Analytics truncates this by default).

Leave the “Field B -> Extract B” blank.  We’re not constructing two fields here.. just one.  Next, our filter requires an output type.  So, in the dropdown menu next to “Output To -> Constructor” choose “User Defined” and add $A1 to the empty field.  What this does is takes the Field A extraction we just did and assigns it to the “User Defined” report.  All that’s left is to require Field A and Override Output Field in the options below the constructors.  When you are done, the filter should look as follows:

Last step is to assign this filter to an available profile, then wait…

After Google has updated your analytics data (I’d recommend waiting 24hrs), you can go to Vistors, and under the User Defined report, you’ll find a report that outputs the full referral URL.  It’ll look something like this:

This report is a quick and handy way to find out the exact links users are finding your site with!

For expert consultation, business intelligence and analytics installation, contact Thirdi!

Can you hear it? A strange maniacal and giddy laughter faintly travels on the wind. I can hear it loud and clear from my office here in Vancouver…it sounds really close. Shhhh. It sounds like it’s coming from Washington State…yes, close to Seattle. Wait, I know that twisted giddy laugh…it’s Microsoft!

A few weeks earlier here in Senses Land we mentioned how Rupert Murdoch had basically lost his mind and was considering banning Google from accessing his many newspaper’s websites- like the blood sucking freeloading leeches they are. I mean really, don’t these guys at Google have any mid 20th century business-sense? Offering a free service that directs millions of people to Rupert Murdoch’s various newspapers and websites without asking anything in return. I mean come on! Where do they get off? It should be a crime to offer such a convenient service that millions of people use. To think that people would do that rather than walk outside in the freezing cold snow or pouring rain to the nearest newspaper stand and buy a physical copy of The Wall Street Journal or sit at home waiting for something interesting and newsworthy to be “reported” on by Fox News is just shocking. And Rupert Murdoch has been shocked long enough! Here’s the plan:

Murdoch blocks Google so that millions of people can no longer see his newspaper articles through that engine, meanwhile he convinces everyone to start using Microsoft’s search engine Bing; clearly it will be the superior search engine now based on the fact that it is the only one where you can get the twisted right-winged drivel produced by Fox News and other Murdoch owned companies. So if you want what the rest of the world considers news you can still use Google and if you want what Rupert Murdoch considers to be news you can use Bing- oh and you can gall dang paying for it too (Or Microsoft can). The details of how that all works will be worked out between Microsoft and News Corp, who I predict will soon become known as News Corpse, as this kind of backwards logic will surely kill this company. Microsoft paying huge sums of money for exclusive access to what many believe is the most slanted and biased news in the world is also, in my opinion, not good for their brand or their pocket book.

I’m not the only one who thinks News Corpse is doomed. The founder of Twitter, Biz Stone, recently spoke about Murdoch’s plans at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta) in London England. To use the main sound bytes, Stone said it was a “vain attempt to put the genie back in the bottle” and that it would “fail fast“. When considering how rapidly the technology and software that powers the internet changes, one can clearly see that putting a “paywall” around your content and burying it inside a search engine with a 10% market share is akin to going cyber-Amish. (Yes I am coining that term, you heard it here first. Rupert Murdoch has officially gone cyber-Amish)

That hasn’t stopped the giddy laughter from Redmond Washington though, as Microsoft has been looking for any way possible to chip away at Google’s market share of the online search industry. I’m not sure if making your search engine the only one where users can pay to get right-winged conservative news from an old man who hates the internet is the best way to go about it though.

And so begins Murdoch’s exodus into the online wilderness, welcomed and aided by another global opportunist; it will likely end poorly for the both. They have officially begun to work against the forces of internet-nature and because of this will surely be covered over by the jungle or swept away by the tide. This story is beginning to read like a Greek tragedy, where two heroes are destroyed by their own greed, ego and ambition. Blinded by their own arrogance and sense of invincibility they feel beyond censure of the gods and nature. (in this case Google and internet users)

What a swan song this will be for Rupert Murdoch.

With the recent advent of Youtube Direct, citizen journalism just became easier, and a little more legitimate.   Before, users had to submit their news stories to media outlets via more traditional means, such as by mail or god forbid, email.  With more and more people though shooting and uploading videos, the media had to find some way to keep up with the racing pace of technology.  Enter in Youtube Direct – with its easy interface and massive built-in audience, Youtube has now provided news outlets with a ready source for citizen news stories.  Users may now embed Youtube’s video upload functionality directly into their own site.  Using Youtube’s API, sites  are customizable, and editors have the built-in capability to accept or reject submissions.  It’s a handy and exciting new tool in the progression of social media, that taps into the potential of social media, while also providing a mechanism for the content regulation and verification that is a current criticism of online media.  It’s a great idea that all outlets should grab a hold onto as people move away from their television screens and to their computer monitors.

However, Youtube Direct isn’t just for news agencies, it can also be utilized for businesses, non-profits, politicians, or just about anyone who wishes to connect with a target audience.  Businesses could feature content that reviews or favours their products, or post up promotional campaigns; non-profits could use it to spread awareness about their work and goals; and politicians could utilize it to connect with voters.

For more on the impact of how Youtube is impacting the world of citizen journalism, check out this interview with Olivia Ma, Youtube’s manager of News & Politics:

Olivia Ma on YouTube as a news channel from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

As many have suspected, Google is working to develop social media into its search engine business model. I commented on a blog last month in which naysayers were claiming that Google had missed the social media bandwagon and that Facebook was going to crush them etc etc. Myself and one other poster pointed out a key thing about Google though- they have all that valuable information. Truth be told it is a lot less time consuming and arduous to create a social media platform than it is to index billions of webpages. So if anyone has the upper-hand going forward its Google. By combining social media elements to search engines Google is bringing together two of the most common online activites- searching and being social- into one platform and frankly they’ve done the hard work first. Communities of common interest can easily form around a new engine like this once it hits the market, and I’m pretty excited about it. I just pumped my fist again.

Google is being supported by Myspace and a host of other platforms including Linkedin in its efforts to socialize searching. Linkedin also recently synergized its platform with Twitter, making users of both services able to update both at once by cross filing. The new service should be available in a few days. Notably absent from Google’s growing coalition of social media allies is Facebook, who many feel is working to develop their own search engine service to their model. What an epic standoff that may become. Social media search engines will create another exciting chapter of the internet as we move forward, and businesses, schools, private citizens and public personalities will be forced to pay attention. Real-time information exchange and perhaps just as importantly idea-exchanges will be facilitated by these kinds of platforms, which is why Rupert Murdoch blocking Google from News Corp pages is just another example of how utterly closed minded and ignorant the Australian media tycoon is.

Murdoch recently suggested a full ban on the search engine as he has long accused them of being a parasite who feeds on his news tit without his companies profiting. Frankly it wouldn’t make a difference to me if he does, I can’t imagine any critically thinking person seriously referencing Fox News as a credible source. And if you yourself are on the fence about that just watch the documentary Outfoxed. If Murdoch really goes ahead with this he’ll be moving his media empire slowly back in time as the internet continues to develop and grow, having a continued impact on society. Google is one of the major players in that development whether he likes it or not and as their new intention to incorporate social media demonstrates they’re clearly thinking about the future. A future with or without Murdoch’s muckracking sensationalist “news”.