<IT WORLD> Google purges the web
By Martin J Young
HUA HIN, Thailand - Google's efforts to weed out spam have resulted this week
in the company's largest search algorithm update which could have seen the
baby, bathwater and bathroom go down the digital plug hole and disappear from
its search pages.
A lot of criticism has gone in Google's direction recently for the amount of
spammy websites, loaded with low-quality, keyword-stuffed content, populating
its results pages.
In its war against content farms Google has dropped the page rank of those
websites it deemed to be of "low quality content", or those containing articles
written specifically to gain higher search
engine placement and drive traffic to generate ad revenue – most of it
ironically being Google's own Adsense.
A lot of collateral damage has been seen in the shakeup, which affected almost
12% of all search results. Not surprisingly, competitor Yahoo lost over 90% of
its Google search traffic for Associated Content, as did a number of sites such
as WiseGeek, Suite101 and Examiner, although many of these could be considered
as article farms.
Also not surprising was the boost given to those massive conglomerate retail
websites such as Amazon.com, Buy.com, eBay, social sites Facebook and Twitter,
Google's own YouTube, large affiliate hotel booking websites, which have very
little information on the countries they cover, and of course Wikipedia - which
features on almost every Google search page for any given term these days.
There is no doubt that culling the rubbish was long overdue, but Google seems
to have taken a rocket launcher to disperse an ant hill. The same old sites are
appearing among the ever-increasing L-shaped cluster of ads in the top
right-hand corner of Google's first page of results, and it is getting to the
stage where users may as well go directly to Wikipedia and make their searches
there.
Security
Foreign correspondents are coming under increasing pressure in China following
harassment and even a severe beating by police in Beijing over the weekend. New
legislation now demands that journalists obtain formal permission if they wish
to report in open spaces anywhere in the country. The move comes as calls went
out last week to organize “Jasmine” protests in China similar to those recently
held in the Middle East. An army of government troops and police took to the
streets to rapidly stamp on the embers (and people in some cases) before flames
took hold.
Beijing is also beginning to test a tracking system that will allow the
government to locate millions of mobile phone users with data provided from
telecoms giant China Mobile. According to the government, the Beijing Residents
Real-time Travel Information Platform, as it has been called, will monitor the
whereabouts of citizens using the network “for better traffic management”.
Concern has arisen that the information will be used to track dissidents and
protest sites before they form - it seems that the Big Red Brother just got a
new toy.
Software
In a surprising turn, Microsoft's Internet Explorer actually gained market
share over Mozilla's rival browser Firefox last month. This bucking of the
browsing trend has nothing to do with the imminent release of Internet Explorer
9, as it is not out yet. It comes more as a result of a change in the way
browser use is calculated by analytics firms such as Net Applications.
Most web metrics firms have more data on some countries, notably the United
States, than they do on others such as China. Some have started to change the
proportional weight they give to China because it has a greater percentage of
the world's Internet users than the US. The conclusion is that China is more
influential on browser usage statistics than the US, United Kingdom, Australia,
Canada, France or Germany.
Using revised Central Intelligence Agency Internet population data, Net
Applications reported an increase in market share for Internet Explorer for the
first time in three years because more people in China are using it. Firefox
suffered as a result, with its global market share falling to 21.7%, the same
as it had in December 2008. IE finished off February with a 56.8% share and
Chrome with 10.9%.
Microsoft announced that the release candidate for Internet Explorer 9 had been
downloaded 11 million times since it was made available in early February.
Unless Mozilla has something up its sleeves with the imminent launch of Firefox
4, IE could gain even more ground this month.
Hardware
Data storage has advanced exponentially since the days when people could fit
all of their personal files and even the odd game on to a 1.44 Megabyte floppy
disk. This week Seagate announced its highly anticipated 3 terabyte Barracuda
XT 3.5-inch hard disk. The reason for the interest in this drive is that the
company has found a way to overcome the problem of older operating systems,
such as Windows XP, only being able to read a maximum of 2.1 terabytes.
The incompatibility arises as Windows 32-bit architecture limited the logical
block address, which is the system of managing where blocks of data are stored
on the hard disk. This is why Windows XP can only see a maximum of 2.19 TB;
32-bit systems have similar problems with memory, as a maximum of 3.2 gigabytes
of RAM will be visible regardless of how much is physically installed.
Seagate is the first company to produce a 3 TB hard drive that does not require
purchasing additional hardware or software to see the full drive space. Using
its DiscWizard software, Windows XP users will be able to use the full capacity
of the disk and even boot to it, which until now has not been possible due to
hardware and software limitations.
Rivals Western Digital launched a 3 TB drive in January. However, that required
the installation of an internal SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment)
card to enable full capacity access.
It
would be hard not to notice that Apple again have crunched through the tech
headlines this week regarding the release of the iPad 2. The rest of us will
wonder what all the fuss is about while the hardcore Appleites salivate over
the upgraded tablet and its sleeker curves, thinner and lighter design, and
extra camera.
Chief executive Steve Jobs emerged god-like from his medical leave to take the
stage and promote the device, which comes loaded with a dual-core chip, faster
graphics processing, upgraded screen, gyroscope and high definition video
capabilities (albeit with a non-standard HDMI connector that costs an extra
US$40).
It is due to hit the shelves on March 11 in the US, and a couple of months
later in Asia; the usual queuing and activation pandemonium has been predicted.
The device starts at $499 for the basic 16GB Wi-Fi version up to $839 for the
64GB 3G model.
It is likely that apps created for the original iPad and earlier operating
systems will be upgraded and will eventually cease to function on older models
of the device or operating system, as is the case with the iPhone. An upgrade
will be necessary if you want the latest apps, so it all results in another
dollar in the pocket of the most cunning marketing company to emerge this
century.
Martin J Young is an Asia Times Online correspondent based in Thailand.
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