First Aid for your Google Reader

RSS is a wonderful invention. But what it often means is that you try to read ten times the content that you used to. Because, of course, it’s so easy to slip through feeds in your RSS reader, and so whenever you find a new website with an interesting article you hit the orange button. (By the way, if you haven’t already, do hit the orange button).

And Google Reader is a great product. It really is. But then you wake up one morning, hit the link and there are 11,000 unread items. Plus Google has been a bit naughty recently with its interface design. What once looked cool and clean is now a bit of a mess.

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Managing Your Online Reputation: Pukka Tips

Techcrunch editor Michael Arrington believes that the era of trying to manage one’s online reputation is almost over:

Trying to control, or even manage, your online reputation is becoming increasingly difficult. And much like the fight by big labels against the illegal sharing of music, it will soon become pointless to even try. It’s time we all just give up on the small fights and become more accepting of the indiscretions of our fellow humans. Because the skeletons are coming out of the closet and onto the front porch.

I can kind of see what he means. Yes, it’s quite likely that bad reviews of you, your business and your dog will appear on the Web, and there won’t be very much that you are able to do to prevent or correct that. Indeed, we will need to become thicker skinned and more forgiving of people’s indiscretions.

However, there are multiple flaws in the argument.

Pretty much the show-stopper for me is the total confusion between ‘online reputation’ and ‘bad things some people say on the Web’.

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Hell Freezes Over: Google and the Super Bowl

While the UK slept last night, it appears there was some sort of sporting tournament across the Atlantic and that the world’s most-used search provider advertised its search capabilities and new(ish) browser. It’s quite a nice advert, telling a (cliched) story in an original manner with a clean style.

The excitement over Google advertising Chrome and Search during the Super Bowl comes from two hot-spots of media attention:

1. Google Search is continually used as the prime example of the power of word-of-mouth over traditional forms of marketing: ‘…and they never spent a dollar on advertising it!’ says the social media guru.
2. The slots between segments of the Super Bowl are famously the most expensive and sought-after TV ad-spots of the year. (On the official site, linked above, a link to a video of the commercial slots was the top item when I looked!)

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Don’t Be Evil

Life just got better. At the end of last week, Google announced that its personalised search had now become available to ‘signed-out’ users.

What does that mean?

Well, personalised search means that Google uses its history of what you have searched for before to provide more relevant results for subsequent search queries. It records everything you’ve searched for and every result you’ve clicked. This allows it to profile you and produce results that are more likely to be about what you’re interested in. If you live in Birmingham, UK, for example, and often click on results for places in that city, then you’ll be less likely to get results relating to Birmingham, Alabama.

Signed-out users are people who don’t log into a Google account prior to conducting a search. That would include people who haven’t opted in to have their search results saved. This is done through a cookie file saved on your computer. Unless your Internet privacy settings are set very high, this will happen without you noticing.

So, whoever you are, your search history is saved and analysed. Without your permission.

In a similar vein, the rollout of real-time search means that Twitter comments are instantly catalogued. And don’t worry – you don’t need to change any account settings or opt-in to anything. They’re doing it anyway. There really is no ‘undo’ button on the web.

Any lily-livered liberals clinging to outmoded ideas like a right to privacy need to move on. As Google CEO Eric Schmidt told CNBC last week:

If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

Well, maybe I shouldn’t. Or maybe I just don’t think it’s any of your business. Or that you should ask me first.

Oh wait – you are allowed to delete your history and opt out. But you’ll need to explicitly opt-out of survei personalisation on every computer you use.

I really wish Bing produced better results.

Postscript: I notice Alan beat me to the punch on this and is typically incisive.

RSA Talk – Delete

I mentioned this a couple of posts back. Delete discusses ‘The Virtues of Forgetting in the Digital Age’. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend but the RSA has – as always – made the audio of the talk available to everyone. See the link below for details.

Google remembers everything we’ve searched for and when. Potentially humiliating content on Facebook is enshrined in cyber-space for future employers to see. The written word made it possible for us to remember across generations and time, yet now digital technology is overriding our natural ability to forget. Should the past be ever-present, ready to be on-screen at the click of a mouse?
Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, director of the information and innovation policy research centre at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, explains why current information rights and privacy fixes can’t help us, and proposes a simple solution - expiration dates on information.

RSA Event Page Here

Things You Shouldn’t Do With the BNP Membership List

1. Send it to everyone you know.

2. Make a Google Maps mash-up out of the data.

Much of socialmedialand was rubbing its hands with glee this morning at the news that the British National Party’s membership list had been leaked on the Internet and was freely available for anyone to download. A lot of people were fairly unsympathetic, to say the least. One respected journalist said:

Oh look – there’s one down my road – I might go round for a punch-up [I'll spare the author's blushes. update: I was scanning and failed to recognise the irony in Scott's remark. however, this was indicative of many other comments I've seen - use the search link for proof - I hesitate to name and shame for obvious reasons.]

The BNP is a Nationalist party which supports the repatriation of immigrants to the UK, especially ones that don’t have white skin. They are typically poor, ill-educated racists, in other words.

Revealing the names of members could have serious implications for their work, relationships and safety. There are apparently a number of police officers on the list, for example, and there are already calls for their dismissal. [I am not saying that is a bad thing].

Before long, one ingenious soul had created a Google Maps mash-up to show the locations of everyone on the list. (It’s now been taken down, since the author realised that though he’d made the locations imprecise, people were reading the map as pinpointing exact locations.)

I’ve got no truck with the BNP or any of its policies, but this is quite clearly a terrible idea.

Why?

Imagine if the boot was on the other foot. Imagine if one of the dozens of CD-ROMs routinely lost by the government was found and posted onto the Internet. Maybe including, say, your wage or any criminal convictions. You would be outraged and very worried (especially if you did have a conviction).

One definition of ethical behaviour, a very good one I think, is that when you legislate, you should do so as if you were legislating for everybody. If you say it’s OK to publish the names and addresses of people you disagree with or hate onto the Internet, you should recognise that you’re saying that that it would be OK for someone else to do the same thing to you. If you were behaving ethically.

I think most of us agree with the general principle that people have a right to privacy. We become very angry when CD-ROMs are lost or advertising networks are found to be collecting data about our browsing habits without permission.

It’s a good principle. So let’s stick to it.