Now in your Search results, there’s a bunch of additional filtering options in the Options panel on the left (default it doesn’t show and you click a link to display it).

The ability to filter by timeframe has had plenty of interest, and I personally can see this being a major game changer in terms of SEO. Many have alluded to this being a strategy of pushing towards real time search, and I certainly can’t disagree. But to me the main benefit is being able to filter out irrelevant information, and hence I’ll likely be limiting my timeframe to the ‘Past year’ category.

I’m not so interested in the very latest (unless of course it is a breaking story), rather I’m interested in knowing that when I view results on say ‘top wordpress plugins’ I’m not seeing pages from 4 years ago that are likely irrelevant.

I’d ideally like to see a ‘Past month’ filter option also.

Here’s what it looks like when searching for this blog’s title:

BTW I think the Wonder Wheel is pretty useless – can anyone point out a good use for it?

(via Matt Cutts)

The research findings are welcome news I’m sure to all modern day pirates , and for me also (as I get closer to succumbing to piracy). TorrentFreak attempts to explain why this finding might be the case:

The real reason is in fact very simple. The true music enthusiasts simply want to consume, sample and discover as much new music as they possibly can, and the most straightforward and convenient way to do this is through file-sharing networks. Music pirates are just regular consumers really, and they love music just as much as anyone else.

I’d like to delve further into the whole discussion about the findings, but I have to pull myself up, because once again this is a case where the research referenced is difficult to check. The source (UK Guardian) doesn’t link to the research, nor even to the BI Norwegian School of Management that they claim it came from (and I couldn’t find anything on their site about the research either). The Guardian does state however that the study was based on 2,000 users and asked for proof of purchase from those who said they purchased, so it seems to have some information about the study.

So this raises the issue of credibility (again). I’d really love to learn more about the behaviours of music pirates, and join the conversation about  how piracy can be better understood. But sadly I just don’t have access to real, credible information. Admittedly there are credible studies like this one from Industry Canada (see here for a summary) but it is close to 3 years old now – I’m sure habits have changed dramatically since then.

Here’s some interesting grabs from the White House press release:

In this role, Aneesh will promote technological innovation to help achieve our most urgent priorities – from creating jobs and reducing health care costs to keeping our nation secure.

and further (italics mine):

Aneesh and Jeffrey [Zients] will work closely with our Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, who is responsible for setting technology policy across the government, and using technology to improve security, ensure transparency, and lower costs.  The goal is to give all Americans a voice in their government and ensure that they know exactly how we’re spending their money – and can hold us accountable for the results.

I don’t know anything about the process, requirements, or candidates that were considered, so what can I possibly offer on the topic? Not much, except to point you to Tim O’Reilly’s excellent post covering the decision. In it he covers the reasons why Aneesh is a great choice.

What they’ve done is built a service that allows you to take an ‘experience’ (eg watching a movie) that you are legally required to pay for, and get it without paying. In the spirit of the law, that’s wrong. So, The Pirate Bay is wrong.

But here’s the bigger question for me. Should laws be changed to allow prosecution of companies who disrespect their customers? Take media companies who persist in locking down distribution channels as an example.

The frustrations of being disrespected as a customer are common. Here’s a few examples:

• There’s a TV show or movie I want to watch. I can buy it on Amazon, but only if I live in the US
• There’s an audio book I want to buy but it is not available outside the US, even though the book is
• I want to watch Hulu but they can’t stream outside the US
• There’s a new movie showing in the US but it won’t open here until next month
• There’s an alternate version of the movie but I can’t get here because they are only selling the theatrical release here
• There’s a new Xbox or PC game released in the US but not available here until next week

The rise of piracy

Whilst piracy has always thrived as a way of avoiding payment, I suspect much of its surge in the last 3-5 years has been due to the need for instant gratification. Consumers want the content, and they want it now. And they’re usually happy to pay for it as anyone who has experienced the following will attest:

Technology is an enabler, and it is now simple to enable access to anything, anytime, anywhere.

Thus, you have consumer demand. And you have technology to meet that demand.

What possible reason could there be for blocking it anymore? Especially considering it is more difficult and requires more complex technology in order to block the access.

It’s understandable then, that when confronted with barriers to accessing content legally, consumers find other means. The easiest path being piracy. Jump on a torrent site and download what you want to watch/listen to/play/etc.

The media companies have their reasons (outdated copyright and distribution deals are the usual patsy), but surely they realise the angst they create.

So why persist? Is it just a case of Old habits die hard, and no amount of trying to convince them they are actually losing revenue will change their minds.

Perhaps.

Taking action?

What if we could take legal action against the media companies for their attitude. What if we could argue that their approach is actually an abuse of technology. What if we could prove that their outdated practices are actually degrading society. What if we could prove that the rise of piracy and the associated illegal practices is a direct result of the media companies and their distribution policies? Should our laws be changed even?

Sadly, I doubt it would make a difference. After all, the claim would be likened to consumers suing a book store just because it was closed at night. It’d never fly.

It’s a shame really. The giant media companies should be embracing technology with vision and initiative, not persecuting the response to their lack thereof. What a wasted opportunity.

The obvious response

So what should consumers do?

Yes, we could perhaps take the attitude that downloading music should be declared legal, and then progress it to other formats, but there little chance that will be happening anytime soon.

I suspect we are left with little choice…

Which is why, for me, piracy keeps getting more attractive.

And for those of you with nothing better to do than read spam news, you’ll be riveted to know that Symantec releases a monthly State of Spam report (April PDF report here) which outlines the latest spam topics (mortgages, terror alerts are hot this month) and the sources (by far the largest is the US with 28% of spam originating there).

But then you see some little enhancements such as Gmail’s time zone indicator and you realise there’s still life left in the old-school ways yet. Perhaps email will be with us a little longer.

It’s perhaps ironic that most social networks by default will notify you by email when you have new followers, DMs and messages. Far from replacing email, they’re likely a major source of email increase.

(via Ars Technica)

“I was upstairs when I spotted the camera car driving down the lane,” he said. “My immediate reaction was anger; how dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent? I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime.”

Yes, apparently the street has had 3 robberies in the past 6 weeks (all before the Google car turned up mind you!) and the villagers think that having images of their homes on the web will increase crime. Lucky they’ve managed to put a stop to it though. Whatever will burglars do now?

And I thought it was only the Asia-Pacific nations that need to be worried about Google.

Note, there are legitimate privacy concerns of course, and Google will remove images upon request. Just use the ‘Report a problem’ link on the bottom of the Street View page.

UPDATE: TechCrunch has an awesome list of pranks happening today, as does AprilFoolsOnTheWeb.

Google gBall Google can always be relied upon to come up with something good. This year was no exception. Their GPS tracked gBall for AFL games is a must. And kudos to News for going along with it.

The Guardian is switching to Twitter One of the better (if not more obvious) pranks, this one has The Guardian (one of Britain’s longest running newspapers) switching to Twitter for news distribution.

Michael Arrington match making A nice guest post from Carol Kravitz (see here for her CrunchBase edit history) about her project to find Michael Arrington (founder of TechCrunch) a partner.

Senator Conroy dumped One of the better pranks (it even had me wondering) this one announced the sacking of Australia’s Senator Conroy.

Internet to be full by 2012 This disturbing piece outlines the grave danger we face if the internet continues to grow at its current pace. The article outlines a strategy for deleting David Hasselhoff Facebook pages in a bid to stay the tide.

Secret Government plan to tax Twitter Twitter has featured in a few pranks this year, but this is one of the better implementations. Taxing Tweets is pretty funny. And it might stop the silly practice of trying to get as many followers as you possibly can.

Internet Explorer 8.1 released A great example of how an April Fools prank should be played. Starts very realistically and then gets progressively implausible. By the end you’ve enjoyed yourself, but don’t feel duped. Includes support for Firefox plugins and Server-side code de-compiler. Classic.

Internet Reboot today Great post from the Sitepoint team, explaining how the internet (which has been running continuously since the ‘70s mind you) will be rebooted today. The story goes on to explain how the results of the reboot will include greater stability and less viagra spam.

Microsoft buys Apple The New Zealand Herald reported this gem, along with an in-depth analysis. The product strategy is classic, and the CrackPot transcoding software a master stroke. The news was announced by Microsoft spokesperson Avril Foule.

Alpine Legend Xbox game Another classic, this time from the Xbox team announcing their new Alpine Legend game, where players compete with yodelling and horn blowing skills. The add-ons are wonderful, including the Limited Edition tri-horn pack.

.NET 4.1 Futures Scott Hanselman and Eilon discuss the potential improvements coming in .NET 4.1 – but probably only funny if you are developer.

Google Chrome in 3D This one actually made me laugh out loud. It’s probably my favourite for the day, and is much better than the lame CADIE prank on its own.

Wolfpigeon This is amazing – some people put way too much time and effort into a prank. The Qualcomm prank covers their plan to provide wireless coverage using tiny transmitters in wolfpigeons, all kept in check by Sharkfalcons and Crocodeagles. 10/10

You see, doing the shortening bit is the easy part. The real value is in analysing all the URLs that people are shortening. There’s a massive amount of information that can be gleaned in terms of trends, hot topics and overall traffic. And the kicker is that bit.ly are aiming to provide this in real time. That’s very powerful and very valuable.

Take a look at the bit.ly Tools page for some ideas. Also check out the bit.ly Search page – this is what people are linking to right now.

The ability to adapt quickly is going to be a key differentiator for companies. And by adapt quickly we mean within minutes. No more waiting days to study analytics. Companies – especially media companies – will be wanting to adapt immediately to behaviours on social networking sites, and the Twitter impact is only going to get larger. This is just the start.

I’d be surprised if Google isn’t already implementing some kind of reverse algorithm against URL shortening services. If millions of people (for example) were all linking to a single page using a shortened URL I think Google would consider that an important factor in the pages’ favour.

UPDATE: My misunderstanding here. Most of the shorteners (bit.ly included) do 301 redirects (see this excellent article from Danny Sullivan for a full rundown), so this last point is moot.

$2M. I think they’re worth it.

The days of actually fooling people are over. Or they should be at least.

You see, the problem with April Fools’ Day is that with the instant connectivity of the internet, time-zones no longer mean anything. So whilst it might be April Fools’ Day here, it might not be where you are for another 8 hours. And thus getting ‘fooled’ is just as meaningless as if you were ‘fooled’ in a months time.

#aprilfool

So, here’s an idea. We want to enjoy the jokes, so how about we make it clear to our readers.

Simply flag your prank as an an April Fools’ Day post, and perhaps on Twitter (where the ‘keyword density’ of April Fools tweets is likely to be high) with a hashtag. How about tagging them with #aprilfool

Oh, and to be clear, Rickrolling isn’t funny at the best of times. Rehashing it as an April Fools’ joke is just sad.

If you have some time to kill, check out this list of the Top 100 April Fools’ Day hoaxes.

If nothing else, read the FAQ on the site. It’s a crack up.