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We're all only human -- born to make mistakes. Yes, that applies to even Google.

Some Web users this morning experienced a momentary outage that reminded many of yesterday's widespread outages at the online giant. This time, it's Google News that's appearing flaky -- generating 503 Server Errors when users attempt to visit the site.

Now, a little downtime here and there is (much to everyone's chagrin, especially an idealist like myself) an unavoidable fact of Internet life. And yet, Google's become so fundamental to how we live and work that we really don't cut it much of a break, do we?

So with Google having a not-so-hot Thursday, the prospect of a second day of slowness and downtime didn't exactly thrill many. Here's a smattering of the latest outcry on Twitter, which -- aside from its own persistent tendency toward unexpected outages -- is a good barometer for how some of the most Net-savvy among us are feeling. Or at least, the most vocal.

"getting server errors again going to @google news," Trellix wrote. "Thought this was fixed yesterday. #googlefail"

"Server error when I tried to log on to Google News. Trust in Google: down #googlefail" bwaber said.

"why is google news down...again!!!" damn2good wrote.

"ugh! why is Google News not working again!!!" matthewbhanson said.

"Is anyone else having trouble accessing google news?" jcsmith wrote.

"... ya, man. like, the whole world," joshgeek responded.

And so on. While we might be witnessing the failure of one of the most popular online services in the world, at least we've got Twitter on which to complain about it. And thank goodness for that, eh?

UPDATE: It's back now. #googlefail's over. Stand down, Netizens! Belay that freakout. Stow that outrage. And the rest of us: Just relax.

(Oh, well, that actually doesn't apply to users of Google Apps for business. You guys have the right to freak out as much as you want, as often as you want, because you're the only ones actually getting hurt during episodes like this.)

UPDATE 2: Well, that shows me. Google repaid my earlier, semi-defense of its occasional interruptions (above) with an annoying failure on Google Sites that wiped out a whole slew of updates I'd made, offering only "Unable to save the page at this time, please try again later" by way of explanation and apology. Sigh.

Posted by Christopher Saunders at 9:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Share

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April 7, 2009, 1:02 PM

Protesters take to the streets for Kindle's 'Read to Me'

The battle lines are being drawn here in midtown Manhattan: On one side, the Authors Guild, which recently won concessions from Amazon.com over the text-to-speech feature in its Kindle 2 e-book reader. On the other, a collection of groups including the National Federation of the Blind and the Reading Rights Coalition, protesting the Guild's restrictions on the Kindle's text-to-speech functionality.

Those groups are now holding a protest outside the Authors Guild headquarters -- a few blocks away from our own New York office -- to highlight their take on the Guild's position as being "contrary to the principle of equal opportunity for all" and discriminatory against the 15 million Americans with print disabilities.

Spokespeople for the Authors Guild haven't yet returned a request for comment. [UPDATE: Comments added below]

"Today's protest is unfortunate and unnecessary," Authors Guild Executive Director Paul Aiken responded in a statement. "We stand by our offer, first made to the Federation's lawyer a month ago and repeated several times since, to negotiate in good faith to reach a solution for making in-print e-books accessible to everyone. We extend that same offer to any group representing the disabled."

Groups protesting the Authors Guild position on the Kindle 2 Click to enlarge.

"Authors want everyone to read their books. That's why the Authors Guild, and authors generally, are strong advocates for making all books, including e-books, accessible to everyone. This is not a new position for us ... [However] e-books do not come bundled with audio rights."

Aiken also said he proposed to the NFB "the only lawful and speedy path to make e-books accessible to the print disabled on Amazon's Kindle."

In his statement, Aiken said the Copyright Act's Chafee Amendment allows "users with certified physical print disabilities" to access audio versions of copyrighted books. He said that certified users who also own Kindles could activate their devices online to enable access to voice-output versions of all e-books.

"This process could be ready to go within weeks," he said.

But the NFB said in a statement that if the Guild doesn't change its tune, users who can't read print "must either submit to a burdensome special registration system and prove our disabilities -- or pay extra."

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February 4, 2009, 11:58 PM

Facebook at five

Hooray! Today, Facebook turns five years old. In honor of its birthday, let's take a moment to reflect on those past years, and what's ahead for the world's largest social networking site.

Since its debut in 2004, Facebook has taken its place at the vanguard of a new trend in how we see and use the Internet.

And yet, on the surface, there's not much that Facebook and its peers do that appears even remotely new. Social networking? Old hat: We've had access to chatrooms, personal home pages and online communities since the days of BBSes and Usenet. Reconnecting with old friends? Heck, Classmates.com has been around practically forever.

But it took the arrival of Friendster, MySpace and especially Facebook to make social networking a popular phenomenon -- not just an Internet phenomenon.

It's too easy to forget that despite the vast numbers of people considered "online," most never ventured too far from their Web portals and e-mail clients. For those users, Facebook offered something new and important to do online: connect meaningfully, quickly and easily, with real-world friends. Old friends, college buddies, former coworkers -- you name it. Net-savvy and technophobe alike. Eventually, almost everyone you knew was on Facebook or a site like it. (Am I right, or am I right?)

Still, like all five-year-olds, Facebook needs a lot of attention.

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February 2, 2009, 4:09 PM

Forget the Super Bowl. Who won the Twitter Bowl?

Monday morning wouldn't be complete after a big game without a) Monday morning quarterbacking; and if it's the day after the Super Bowl, b) a recap of which ads viewers liked the best.

Along with crowds at sports bars and in living rooms across the country, the Web 2.0-savvy could follow along with Super Bowl watchers on Twitter, joining in on the game's color commentary -- and of course, weighing in on the other big game: the ads!

The Web and your daily newspaper are no doubt awash in which brands won and which brands lost the battle for buzz (and ideally, the positive kind.) But it's the advertisers who generated the most buzz on Twitter, that next-generation arbiter of cool, that we're most interested in.

One reason why Twitter makes for such compelling marketing analytics: It's widespread, highly democratic and easily digestible. In mainstream media, you've got to listen to a select number of pundits pontificate on their favorite spots, while on Twitter, the only barrier to an average user weighing in is signing up for Twitter and keeping their thoughts to under 140 characters (fewer if they're using hashtags.)

How did Twitter stack up against the pundits? AdAge's resident curmudgeon, Bob Garfield, gave his top pick to Coke Zero's "Mean Troy Polamalu" spot, followed by Monster.com's moose, Denny's mobsters and Hulu's brain-rotting conspiracy ad, starring Alec Baldwin. James Poniewozik at TIME bestowed the victory laurels on Pedigree, Cash4Gold, Hulu and the NFL's spot with Usama Young.

But on the Internet, it's the Twitterati who got their say. Of course, most of that consisted of blather like "OMG CASH4GOLD FTW LOLZ!!!!!" Yet those that weren't spewing semi-sensical Internet-speak pointed to some intriguing trends. (Only, of course, if you believe Twitter has some merit as a useful metric for analyzing messaging.)

Based purely on Twitter search, Denny's, Cash4Gold, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Hulu, Monster and CareerBuilder generated the most buzz among the Super Bowl's dozens of advertisers. How much? Each generated more than 1,500 posts (the max that Twitter Search will display for any given search term) in the 12 hours after initially airing during the game. All other advertisers just didn't generate the same levels of interest. (Sorry, E*Trade, SoBe and Cars.com.)

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January 14, 2009, 2:59 AM

AOL's sites are #1 in traffic -- right?

I hate to harp on AOL's MediaGlow any further. But I will point out that AOL seems a bit confused about how successful its Web properties have been to date.

Let's pick apart a bit of what AOL seems to be saying in its MediaGlow announcement -- namely, that it operates the top site for men, Asylum.com.

Alexa begs to differ. Instead, it's got quite a different No. 1 site for men: Ask Men. That's followed by GQ (men.style.com), Bullz-Eye.com, Men's Health and Esquire. (Traffic ranks of 881; 2,003; 2,945; 4,013; and 13,897, respectively.) With a traffic rank of 4,198, Alexa rates Asylum just below Men's Health.

I realize that Alexa's hardly the most credible traffic source on the Web. But seriously: We're not really supposed to believe that Asylum is the No. 1 men's site, are we? Males of the Internet, back me up on this one, would you?

Compete has similar findings:

AOL does add some sort of inscrutable caveat to the rankings, indicating in its press release that the "Men" category in which Asylum ranks as No. 1 was "custom built by AOL." This is true also for seven other MediaGlow sites -- all ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in their vertical: BlackVoices, AOL Horoscopes, AOL Latino, Lemondrop.com, TheBoomBox.com, TheBoot.com and StyleList.com.

So, are media buyers using these same "custom" categories? Uh, no. The buyers out there already have better statistics than what AOL's giving them -- and those show who's really leading the verticals in which the new division operates.

Taken in the context of AOL's plans for MediaGlow, the Time Warner unit is going to be pouring in cash to further develop these properties and to support more sites along this model.

But with the actual success of its properties something of an open question, AOL, as I mentioned before, certainly has its work cut out for it.

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January 13, 2009, 4:52 PM

AOL MediaGlow: Don't believe the hype

The media is viewing Time Warner's creation of AOL's new "MediaGlow" unit as a way for Time Warner to continue insulating its online media properties from the taint of AOL's legacy as the dialup ISP of the last generation -- a business that's heading nowhere, fast.

It sounds like a good (if somewhat weakly named) move at first. For more than a year, the Time Warner unit has sought to rev up its income from its Web properties. Working off Time Warner's most recent quarterly figures, it appears that AOL's close to pulling that feat off: The unit currently rakes in almost as much money nowadays from ads as it does from subscriptions -- $550 million for advertising revenue, versus $634.6 million for subscriptions.

Still, considering that AOL's not even the ISP of last resort any more, AOL's ad unit could be doing far better. Worse, like the ISP business, ads are also trending down: AOL's overall revenues decreased 17 percent ($207 million) to $1.0 billion, due to a 26 percent decline ($165 million) in subscriptions and a 6 percent decrease ($33 million) in advertising.

Enter MediaGlow, which is going to fix all that. The new division is going to centralize AOL's entire online publishing efforts with the goal of greatly expanding AOL's global reach in the coming year.

According to comments given by MediaGlow chief Bill Wilson to Mediaweek, it's building out MediaGlow's non-AOL-branded content properties that's going to help differentiate AOL from Yahoo and MSN. And, hopefully, move up the pageview rankings.

The downside: AOL has a heckuva lot of work ahead of it. Starting with understanding today's online media business.

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December 9, 2008, 11:34 AM

Learn to love the cloud

Cloud computing. It's not just a buzzword -- it's your future.

That's right: if you're not yet sick of the phrase, then you've got a leg up on the rest of us, because you're going to be hearing a lot more about cloud computing, cloud services, cloud-based storage and similar terms.

According to IDC's chief analyst, Frank Gens, cloud computing "will be a growth sector for the next 20 years."

This is generally thought of as external cloud players, though, of course, there are plenty of companies out there willing to sell you the tools you need to create a cloud architecture within your own enterprise infrastructure. (In-house clouding? I think the buzzword gurus need to spend a bit of time noodling this concept. Here's my submission: On-Premise-Platform-As-A-Service, or OPPAAS, which I like because it incorporates the most inane, least-accurate tech marketing term to date -- "On-premise".*)

"In 2009, the pace of adoption of the cloud will accelerate," Gens said. (The reason? Surprise, surprise: IDC predicts that the expansion to cloud computing will accelerate as budget pressures drive enterprises to seek out new, lower-cost options.)

It's already begun -- and certainly, vendors already realize this. Let's take a quick spin through a couple recent industry announcements regarding new offerings in the cloud.

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November 21, 2008, 2:12 PM

Are Black Friday deals becoming meaningless?

Black Friday is nearly upon us. Does it matter?

You can't deny that the day after Thanksgiving has lost something of its luster over the past decade. It's not always the highest-volume sales day of the year any longer. (Check out this PDF from the International Council of Shopping Centers if you don't believe me.)

You may have already known that. But are you aware of an even greater change in what's taking place in the retail world this year?

Retailers are competing even more fiercely online for your business, which means the official "deal season" is being extended to even earlier in the year. Many online sellers now don't even sweat the whole "Friday" concept of "Black Friday."

For instance, Dell's already pushing Black Friday deals, well in advance of the actual date. Some of its marked-down offerings include a Dell SE178WFP Monitor, a Dell V305 All-In-One Printer, a Western Digital 1 TB My Book Home External Hard Drive and a Sharp 42-inch LC42SB45U 1080p LCD HDTV. Other PC and electronics e-tailers are doing the same: Here's MicroCenter's deals.

Kmart is likewise carrying a slew of holiday sales -- including products with "Black Friday Prices" -- on its home page. USB storage figures prominently here.

Everyone's getting into the action. Costco's deals (going with the generic "Holiday Savings" theme on these) offer some big savings on GPS units and flat-panel displays.

A local favorite here in Manhattan, J&R Electronics, is also starting early with its Black Friday deals on DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. Here's your chance to get a legal copy of 1992's "Sneakers" for $3.99.

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November 12, 2008, 12:17 PM

Media spotlight helps nail accused botnet host

A major Web host accused of serving up spam and controlling botnets has been largely yanked from the Internet.

What's unique about this story is that a mainstream media outlet had a hand in bringing it down.

While digging into McColo, the Web host in question, Brian Krebs at The Washington Post's Security Fix blog prompted two of the company's ISPs to cut them off.

In his blog, Krebs writes:

The badness attributed to McColo was not limited to spam. It included child pornography sites; sites that accepted payment for spam and child porn; rogue anti-virus Web sites; and a huge malicious software operation that apparently stole banking and credit card data from more than a half million people worldwide.

The company was also the subject of a report issued today by security researchers HostExploit. Following a two-year study, the report confirmed many of Krebs' charges, including that McColo supported pharmaceutical and other kinds of spam, served as command centers for botnets, hosted illegal content and served malware and infected sites.

According to Krebs, McColo's servers "help manage the distribution of the majority of the world's junk e-mail."

Even if that's the case, the net effect of severing the major connections used by HostExploit -- which still maintains a few tenuous links to the Net through other ISPs, HostExploit noted -- may be hard to see.

Krebs' claim hinges on findings like that by HostExploit, Kaspersky Labs and others, who have accused McColo of not just malfeasance, but of playing a major part in the world's spam epidemic. In its report, HostExploit's analysts wrote that "it is clear that McColo has a key role in managing [the] world's major botnets, and malware warehousing, which has been estimated as partially controlling 50 - 75 percent of the world's spam."

As a result, McColo's alleged bad behavior represents only a portion of a portion of the causes of spam. And with the actual perpetrators -- the parties responsible for controlling the botnet command servers that McColo hosted -- still at large, and their botnets still intact (if uncoordinated at present,) it's unclear how great an impact the news might have in even the short term.

The Web host's site, McColo.com, was down as of press time. E-mails to the address listed in McColo's WHOIS database entry were not returned.

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November 4, 2008, 9:46 PM

I'm calling this race early

Let the other chumps watch all night. I'm calling the race now. The victor? CNN.

Yep, CNN wins the election coverage race. How come? They have holograms. Holograms!

Have a look:

Okay, she's not really a hologram. Or is she? I have very little information on this technology at the moment. And yes, it seems very cheesy, what with the "beaming in" animation -- and Wolf's seemingly transparent attempts to avoid looking like he's looking at a monitor.

Or is ol' Wolf somehow actually seeing the "hologram" in front of him? It's all very mysterious. Mysterious, cheesy and wonderful.

UPDATE: More info on the setup here from USAToday.com.

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October 23, 2008, 10:12 AM

Gmail cans responses; journalists rejoice!

What won't the Gmail team think of? First, the folks behind Google's e-mail service began watching our back to make sure we weren't drunk e-mailing. And now, they've done it again: A built-in auto-responder to PR pitches! Huzzah!

OK -- technically, Gmail's new Canned Responses feature is not just for gently rebuffing persistent pitches. But it certainly can't hurt.

Let's take a look. From Google's blog post on the subject:

If you're sick of typing out the same reply every time someone emails you with a common question, now you can compose your reply once and save the message text with the "Canned responses" button. Later, you can open that same message and send it again and again.

It couldn't get any easier unless Gmail automatically pushed the Send button. If you're lazy enough to think that would be a good idea, then read on, friend.

Gmail already lets you create filters based on a combination of keywords, sender, recipients, and more in your incoming messages. Turn on Canned Responses in Labs, and you can set a filter to grab one of your saved responses, create an automated reply, and hit the Send button for you.

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October 9, 2008, 2:59 PM

Is Linux necessary on the desktop?

A conversation I had this weekend with the head of a branding and creative agency here in the city got me thinking. How well is Linux positioned to convince users at the small business or consumer levels to switch?

That's right. I'm talking about the other "Switch" here -- not the Windows-to-Mac one. I mean the big one: from proprietary to open source, which very easily may be the harder of the two Switches.

His take: Why switch to Linux at all? After all, it will require giving up a number of apps he and his coworkers are already expert with. He balked at switching to alternatives like GIMP and OpenOffice -- neither of which he had heard of -- and doubted that open source apps could measure up to the proprietary applications he uses daily. He was concerned at the thought of how he might go about getting support for open source applications -- and how much he'd have to pay.

Of course, there's the dissenting opinion. Open source software advocates point to environments like Wine, which, despite a performance hit, enables you to still run many proprietary applications, including older versions of Photoshop -- thanks in part to the efforts of Google in prodding Wine along. And, yeah, there are GIMP and other free alternatives to handle graphics-editing needs that many cite as suitable replacements.

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