ClappingTree’s Web 2.0

ALEXA RANKINGS ARE BIASED, reported Loren Baker in Search Engine Journal last week. Apparently, Google’s Director of Research Peter Norvig recently compared his site’s Alexa score with those of Matt Cutts, Paul Graham, Jeremy Zawodny and Greg Linden and found a definite reporting difference for sites that are search or web marketing related and those which are not. Norvig wrote:

“… I get about twice the pageviews of mattcutts.com, but his Alexa pageview ranking is about 25 times more than mine (I got this by looking at the 1 year, most highly smoothed graph, and then squinting to guess at the mean).

“What that means is that people with the Alexa toolbar installed are 25 times more likely to view a page on Matt’s site versus mine, but overall, all users view twice as many pages on my site.

“That’s a 50 to 1 difference introduced by the selection bias of Alexa. Presumably this is because Matt’s site is really appealing to a core group of SEO enthusiasts, many of whom also like the Alexa toolbar.” Read the rest of this entry »

I’VE BEEN BLOGGING CASUALLY since 2003, that is, until four months ago. At that time, I decided to start offering training workshops on blogs. So, towards the end of last year, I actually revamped my blog and the way I blog. Recently, it occurred to me that Google’s PageRank for my blog could be quite important. So, I tried to check this out using the PageRank Checker. However, I’ve been quite mystified because the following were what I got:

So, my PageRank (PR) is different for the same URL with and without www? Is my PR = 2+3 = 5? Read the rest of this entry »

“Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and so make a name for ourselves…” — Genesis 11:4

“OH NO! NOT ANOTHER SOCIAL NETWORK!” Don’t you get this feeling nowadays? Social networks seem to be sprouting like wild grass every week. Perhaps you even get tired looking at the numerous icons in the GoToWeb20 website (screenshot below), or simply reading the news? Are you like me, wishing that these legions of social networks (almost like towers of Babel) would simply consolidate into a few major players? OR at the very least, open up and make it possible for users to sign-in, post to, and maintain profiles easily from just one (or if desired, just a few) source?

Read the rest of this entry »

“The advances in all of the arts and sciences, indeed the sum total of human knowledge, are the result of the open sharing of ideas, theories, studies and research.” – Terry Vessels

FOR A LONG TIME, I’ve believed in the free culture espoused by Lawrence Lessig and the open sharing of ideas, theories, studies, research advocated by Terry Vessels (above). I’ve therefore downloaded and consumed (installed, used, read, watched, listened…) lots of free software, ebooks, video, podcasts, news reports, in-depth analyses, research studies, etc. on the Internet over the past few years.

Recently, however, I’m beginning to ask myself, “Do I really believe in free culture and free exchange of ideas? Have I’ve been more the taker than the giver?” Granted that I’m normally a frank and open person. Yes, my work has been almost invariably very demanding. And yes, I’ve been blogging from time to time, sharing new things that I’ve learnt. Still, there were times when I’ve hesitated and held back. For example, I’ve kept my research study (begun in 2005) under wraps on the Net until a few days ago. Another example, I’ve been adding lots of useful information to a wiki on a sub-domain for almost two years now. Yet so far, I have chosen not to link them from my blog. Read the rest of this entry »