Facebook is most certainly strapping down and preparing for their biggest challenger to the social network market since Myspace (RIP)… GOOGLE+. I’ve tried out the beta and I must say that the streaming news concept seems oddly familiar (I’m sure Zuckerberg wishes he trademarked it). I found it to load in a nice amount of time and seeing that Google reigns over the Internet in speed and reliability, I might say that Facebook is going to look like a dinosaur pretty soon.
Don’t get me wrong, I actually love Facebook but the new set of changes seems like a step in the *wrong* direction considering Google+ is about to launch any day. The social network war will break out, and it will be a test of time to see who wins!
Now how does this all relate to your business? Well taking into account that Google is the primary path of people finding any and all information online, it will only be a matter of time before their social network incorporates this fully and leaves businesses who don’t conform to fend for themselves. The ever-growing Google Analytics is a great way of tracking users and will show your support of Google when used for sites. In turn this will most likely affect your ranking amongst their listings.
Right now the iron is hot and it’s the time to strike if you want your business succeeding! Potential customers will always follow the company who keeps up with the latest trends. So what do you do to ensure you can integrate Google quickly and efficiently? Find a host who can support it. Sounds like a lot of work? It is! We’ve taken the hard part out and added Google Analytics Integration directly into our hosting control panel with a simple one-click installation. We know you want to be successful online and this is going to be one of the ways you can do that. HostArmor™ is ready to help you do that and we can provide assistance if needed.
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I’ve just installed the latest release of Firefox and am writing this from FF4. Everything works so fluidly and calmly. Lately I’ve been using Google Chrome for it’s speed but have been eagerly awaiting to use Mozilla’s perfect browser. One of my favorite features is the Paste & Go. It also have a much smaller menu and so forth, seems compacted but in a good way. Here’s a great article about how to install it in the latest Ubuntu releases http://www.webupd8.org/2011/03/install-firefox-4-in-ubuntu-1004-1010.html. If you haven’t updated yet, do so!
First off I know the title contains an outdated phrase: “World Wide Web” is now known as just “The Internet” by virtually everyone you meet. However, the use of that term is more appropriate for this post. Let us consider for a minute what would happen if the entire planet went technologically dark. Does our generation even know how to function without Wikipedia, Google, and YouTube to explain things like simple recipes? Is the human mind losing or gaining memory? How dependent are social, economic, and everyday experiences on computers?
I’ll start with the first question, in a nutshell, no. How many people even own an atlas? Could you visit grandma without using Google Maps? Both those questions can probably be answered with another “no”. Then let’s consider everything else, the weather, email, instant messaging (IM), or Facebook. How long would it take before you’re stuck in a blizzard, lose contact with your best friend, and never remember a single birthday? Lots of questions, answer in a comment or just think about it.
Now we move onto the human mind; can you remember all those contacts in your iPhone? What about remembering an email? A phone number? Your own password? As technology grows, so does our ability to manage, store, and retrieve “memories” at will. No more pulling out the photo album when you can just pull up a Facebook album (I point out Facebook because Myspace in just a year has gone from hero to zero). Feel like you’re forgetting simple stuff if it isn’t written down? You’re not the only one.
My last big question. (Obviously there’s millions more but I just wanted to stick to these three.) When is the last time you stopped to talk to someone at the store verses talking to five people at the same time on your Intel? What is the proper way to start a phone conversation? Who ends that conversation, the caller or the callee? (Callee is a real word, I used Google to verify that, see my point?) How about asking someone on a date without texting it?
My entire point being; people need to think for themselves. If we can’t function without technology then what makes us any better than that dusty Mac computer sitting in your attic? Are we ourselves computers? What is software without the hardware? Nothing. Online society is an easy way of killing offline society. (A side note to any readers, I love technology but I love friendly tech, things that better the world online and off- like WordPress. Try limiting your time on social networks, read a book, not on the computer. Take the time to remember things yourself instead of having your harddrive do it for you. Trust me, your brain will thank you one day.)
Somewhere along technological advances we went wrong. Maps have been around for thousands of years, how is it that Yahoo, Google, and MapQuest can’t even give me clear directions? Yahoo and Google pretty much have every resource on the planet at their disposal. So why is it that they add steps that aren’t there, mis-name roads, and can’t figure out the easiest instead of the shortest way to get somewhere.
It just strikes me as odd that after milleniums of cartography; you can still get lost going to the movies. I think my computer’s spell-check has more intelligence than the cumulative wealth of Google Maps. No, I’m not pointing the finger at Google or Yahoo, since they are both just search-engine-based companies and they deserve an applause for at least trying to make directions easier. But MapQuest, MapQuest should be able to figure out the difference between a highway and a city!
Only one more reason to agree that the computer age has just started and you should never expect perfection. (Although I try to get as close as possible.) Comment if you’ve ever seen this site broken…
Ink Ignite as a company has several new projects planned for this year; including an entire video game that will be sold exclusively on this site. A demo of the game will be available soon to anyone who wants it. We are planning to expand the scope of our customers and designs. Covering even more counties, along with making our standards even higher than before. So you can expect to see us updated and ready to take on a new year. Along with the video game, we’re going to be launching a small branch of our company to be named “Burning Droplet Studios” to handle game development.
Aside from our new year endeavors, the rest of the computer world has a few things planned as well. One of them being the release of WordPress 3.1 and the much-anticipated release of Ubuntu 11.04. These two software updates should lead to a whole new level of computing; helping more people publish a higher quality of content. Since our site runs on WordPress, this is going to be an opportunity to enhance the entire site for everyone who uses it. Ubuntu is what runs our design computers, so it’s update will allow us to make changes to websites faster than before. Hopefully we will also be seeing the release of Firefox 4. I’ve already tried the beta out in Windows and Linux and I must say it destroys all hope of Google Chrome taking the lead in the browser market.
Just as an added bonus, we’ll give you 30% off, if you ask about the “New Year 2011 Special”. (This is separate from any other specials.)
In this day and age people tend to be obsessed with making money. So much so that a lot of the time they disregard the comfort of their customers or visitors. Not only in the real world but in the realms of the Internet as well. Mainly I’m going to be talking about the Internet and it’s disease of ads. Now don’t get me wrong, I love ads! I sometimes use them to find useful info and I regularly use them to promote this site and other web services. However, I do not promote, encourage, click on, or use invasive advertising techniques. I’m seeing this more and more, even in websites that used to be legitimate. In the next paragraph I’m going to lay out some examples of bad practices; that I think we all need to boycott and ultimately crush.
Assuming these practices continue, the Internet could easily be a horrifying place in just a few years. I personally give my vote to Firefox’s “Do Not Track” and to sites who allow non-invasive ads (such as Craigslist, and Ink Ignite’s sidebar links). Since the Internet has almost no rules or regulations, who decides how far Google will go to make you click ads, or how much effort Facebook will take to make you see the latest app. I’ve been considering starting an anti-ad campaign to promote sites who use proper techniques and don’t leave their users feeling violated. Ink Ignite as a company is refusing to use advertising systems which track users; you will not see adsense present, you will not see pop-ups, you will not see spam, and we will never force you to click an ad on our site.
I recently downloaded the 5th beta of Firefox 4 after not being able to resist trying it. Its truly going to stomp out any competition from the weed in Firefox’s garden known as Google Chrome. Don’t get me wrong, I use Chrome from time to time, but it’s too Googly for my taste. With Firefox’s next browser release smooth browsing will find its way into every Firefoxer’s computer.
Have to admit I was a bit disappointed there was no Linux release of the beta (yet). Could barely stand using Windows long enough to take the above screenshot. Yes yes, my hatred of Windows overflows onto my blog from time to time. But I have perfect reason to be angry when Halo crashed twice and my computer decided to reboot on its own. Not really much to see in the screenshot other than the improved browser controls and the nice little Chrome-like tabs.
Are social networks becoming a thing of the past? If I’m not mistaken the money-hungry fad seemed to spawn from chatrooms, yes, those pesky little things that people log into when they want pages and pages of spam. Now a thing of the past they have been taken over by video-chatrooms, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Myspace.
That was all great, but things are starting to go South. Myspace has ruined their system with the new homepage. YouTube is charging money for certain sections of their site. And Twitter is starting to be… overwhelming. Facebook is at least keeping up-to-date with the rest of the world and remaining a lightweight social network. Although if they don’t drop the applications, hundreds of thousands of users will begin to look to other sites.
What’s next? The GoogleMe network? Google better pull a big stunt to compete with everyone else, and how long before that is a thing of the past? My point being, if they (being people who come up with innovative ideas) don’t come up with the next best thing; the Social Network Infrastructure will crumble to Yahoo Chatrooms. My thoughts….
