That is kind of comparing Apples to Oranges, and I haven't had similar experience.
AdWords has some decent support, from what I have experienced, and the phone support has always gotten the job done for me. I guess mileage may vary.
But, looking at the products that Google's competing with right now, I don't think they need to have this type of support. I don't really know another online advert system that has supperior suport. They seem to be on par with industry standard for those products.
Google analysts are smart enough to realize that support is a major part of competing in the OS marketplace. If they want to be succesful they will have to step up the support as it pertains to this product.
More to the point, what does Google plan to do that Ubuntu isn't already doing?
How about live person tech support on the phone?
Google has the resources to fund this, most Linux distros don't. I believe red hat live support is for their Enterprise products, not desktop, althogh I could be mistaken.
And before anyone starts crying "look at all the community support", I will respond with "look at all the end users who don't know what your talking about, what to search for to get help, or even describe the problem other than the effects."
A manned call center is just for that, especially if google incorporates a secure remote control capability so experienced Linux heads can fix the problem on callers machines themselves. Imagine how many more entry level jobs would be created for Linux guys by that initiative alone?
Also, they have the manpower to GUI and Wizard up EVERYTHING within a reasonable timeframe. If google manages to create a non-tech friendly method for configuring the really cool parts of the OS, then they will have created the road for droves of converts.
There is another subtle bonus to your business philosophy: Every single one of my employees has sent business my way either after they got a job making more money somewhere else after finishing school, or after starting their own non cpmpeting but relevant business.
Forming these networks of hard working, self reliant people is key. The best way to do that is to give them the eye to their own bootstrap.
Thats kind of a circular argument that means nothing. If the software wasn't worth owning, then the developer doesn't deserve your cash, but you also don't deserve to own it.
If it's worth having, but not paying the asking price for, well - thats a personal decision. Wait till the price comes down, if the product doesn't have a leg to stand on it will. The lame excuse that you don't feel that the price is justified so you steal it is a weak attempt at justifying theft. Your scale for worth and value is not THE scale, remember that.
Ok, so it's copyright infringement. It's still illegal. It also causes the developer to take upon himself the cost of your financial situation. The difference between never going to purchase the software and taking it without paying for it is significant.
The first one has the end result of the developer making no profit from their labor. They don't get the funds because they didn't make a product you wanted to purchase. Ok.
The second means that the developer created a piece of software that you did want, but couldn't afford to trade currency in exchange for the end result of their labor. You then take the end result of their labor without trading back the requested amount of currency, leaving them on the deficient end of the transaction. The net result is not the same.
You can argue that it's not stealing because there is no limited supply of the program, that may be true. Yet, the resources used to develop this program are most certainly functioning under the rules of supply and demand.
The skills to program a good piece of software are not ubiquitous, nor are the environments needed to create these pieces of software. The systems used to program them weren't free, and neither was the original transport vehicle for the executable. Someone paid for all of the CD's or bandwith that the program was originally obtained from. What about time? That is a very precious, non renewable resource in the context of software development. The time of the developer was invested in the program that you just took with the hopes that people would like it enough to purchase it.
You're stealing, flat out. You wanna play little kid games with scemantics over economic concepts that you know jack shit about, fine. But please don't expect anyone to buy your "It's not stealing" bullshit.
Well, I read the article and came to the conclusion that anybody who is that serious about videogames and gaming shouldn't kill their wives because they were probably the only women who would sleep with them.
It's use without a proper profile is exactly what Google did.
They just told web developers to put "nofollow" into the REL tag, that's it. It may be acceptable to put whatever you want in there, but you need to use the profile also.
You want to pick nits, fine. You win. But Google didn't follow standard, they implored a whole shit ton of developers to ignore standards through their shitty explanation, and the end result is a whole bunch of non standard compliant values in REL attributes.
You deal with can, could, and would. I deal with has, did, and done.
"nofollow" is not one of them. Google shoehorned a non standard compliant value into a standard field for their own purposes. That is not being W3C compliant.
I think its crazy to put quality profitable information on a website (or even in a book, on a CD or in a movie) that you don't want used by others. Copyright may "protect" you from someone knocking it off in high quantity, but that isn't always where information is the most valuable.
Finally. I have been listening to your anti copyright tirades for some time, even took part in a few, and have never fully understood how you could hold that opinion.
Now I understand. I personally stick to that same practice. My most valuable information never gets published, it is transfered through consultation. Also, if the party I am consulting has any sense, they shouldn't need me to consult on the same subject twice.
After the information I use is no longer of a premium value, I will begin to publish it as a means to prove credibility for my services. Plus, by that time I have already learned something new and would be using that.
3. Mozilla team is pulling an IE (implementing their own extensions... read the blog... "w3c doesn't have to make all the rules"... if Microsoft said that/. would be up in arms)
You guys here amaze me sometimes. I didn't hear anyone bitching when Google decided to use "rel=nofollow" attributes in links so their spiders wouldn't follow them. Yeah, that's W3C all right.
This has NO inherent evil associated with it. Also, W3C doesn't have to make all of the rules. If you want to implement a feature on your browser with the hopes that people will find it useful, then cool. Maybe the W3C will adopt it later after Mozilla shows them some test results.
The interesting thing about this is that Google facilitates a entry for people with little or no understanding of marketing concepts.
AdSense basically handles all of the targting for you. You just have to choose whatever keywords you want. For alot of people they choose moronic keywords, but get some hits - so they think its working.
The truth is, they get NO conversions. These people don't really know what their doing, but they do see a number, and the number is BIG!
Now, translate this behavior to a medium where you cannot exactly quantify your success. You might see an increase in sales, but you won't be able to tie them back to the magazine ad unless you built it with tracking in place (the number on the ad only available through the ad, the website it suggests built specifically for the ad and mentioned no where else with no index robots.txt.) Although, these people probably don't have the foresight to do that.
So they have no big number to count AND no really big change in revenue because they probably bought ad space in Boy's Life selling womens running shoes.
Before Google stepped into the fray, advertisers needed to know what they were doing - otherwise the people selling the adspace would blow them off until the zero hour, hoping someone of a higher calibre would come and buy the space.
I'm not surprised on ebit that advertisers haven't warmed up to purchasing Google print ads, they don't know what the hell their doing.
I'm contracting to do web development for this company right now, and they put me under the marketing department because my work "Has more to do with marketing than it does with IT."
While I can see the point they're trying to make, it still doesn't shield me from all the crappy ass copy rewrites these guys do.
I once saw these guys argue over whether to use the word "synergistic" or "co-operative".
And I don't want to get into some semantic struggle over what sensations are really emotions and thoughts or vice versa. Let us just point out that you have no empirical basis for claiming that one can't remember a sensation nor a good mechanism for distinguishing sensation from emotion from thought.
Actually, I do. Pain. If you can summon actual pain, from memory, an injury you suffered previously, then you my friend are the only one in existence.
I mean, feel the pain again, in all its intensity - from memory. You can't.
Don't you find that? Nearly everyone I talk to about the weather, at some point, shakes their head and expresses some concern about how it 'used to be' vs how it is now.
Even though you acknowledge that this is andectodal, you are ignoring a significant part of that.
The human body has no way to "remember" a sensation. You can recall what you were thinking at the time, how something affected your emotions, and partially the things you saw. What you cannot actually do is get your body to "refeel" a sensation.
When someone remembers the past they tend to look at it in a chronological order, beginning from when they were a kid or from where they are now backwards. The interesting thing is that the younger you get, the more impressionable you were. So a really cold day ends up being even "colder" in your memory. A really hot day was even "hotter". Add to this ones tendency to mythicize their own past and past winters suddenly become "much colder than today."
Also, the winter clothing we had back then sucked compared to what we have now. The jacket I used to wear has nothing on the coat I wear now. I barely feel the cold. But back in the day we just didn't have the technology we did today in manufacturing outerwear.
Another thing that someone else already pointed out is, we didn't set any records. There have already been hotter days and colder days. We're just extra sensative to the weather these days because the media is constantly screaming "global warming" and now, "We're all gonna die!"
Back when this wasn't of such a concern to us, we wrote off unseasonal weather as a godsend, everyone was happy for a cool day in summer and a warmer day in winter. No one remebers a moderately ammusing weather anomoly.
We have really only been keeping track of weather for a short time compared to the age of the earth, be it either on ID time or Evolution time. A few hundred years of data, not all of which we can confirm, and some VERY new abilities to model weather kinda accurately do not give us a rock solid base from which to start modeling our future doom.
I mean, come on, these guys can't even predict next day rain with complete accuracy. I'm not going to buy any weather forcasts aimed 20 years down the road.
Slashdot Mirror
Cooking lard. IT now comes in butter flavor.
That is kind of comparing Apples to Oranges, and I haven't had similar experience.
AdWords has some decent support, from what I have experienced, and the phone support has always gotten the job done for me. I guess mileage may vary.
But, looking at the products that Google's competing with right now, I don't think they need to have this type of support. I don't really know another online advert system that has supperior suport. They seem to be on par with industry standard for those products.
Google analysts are smart enough to realize that support is a major part of competing in the OS marketplace. If they want to be succesful they will have to step up the support as it pertains to this product.
More to the point, what does Google plan to do that Ubuntu isn't already doing?
How about live person tech support on the phone?
Google has the resources to fund this, most Linux distros don't. I believe red hat live support is for their Enterprise products, not desktop, althogh I could be mistaken.
And before anyone starts crying "look at all the community support", I will respond with "look at all the end users who don't know what your talking about, what to search for to get help, or even describe the problem other than the effects."
A manned call center is just for that, especially if google incorporates a secure remote control capability so experienced Linux heads can fix the problem on callers machines themselves. Imagine how many more entry level jobs would be created for Linux guys by that initiative alone?
Also, they have the manpower to GUI and Wizard up EVERYTHING within a reasonable timeframe. If google manages to create a non-tech friendly method for configuring the really cool parts of the OS, then they will have created the road for droves of converts.
crazy delicious
What will it hurt to lose the the Chinese?
Strategic placement in a booming economy.
Actually, I argue with Dada21 all the time. We don't see eye to eye on alot of things.
I'm glad someone gets it.
There is another subtle bonus to your business philosophy:
Every single one of my employees has sent business my way either after they got a job making more money somewhere else after finishing school, or after starting their own non cpmpeting but relevant business.
Forming these networks of hard working, self reliant people is key. The best way to do that is to give them the eye to their own bootstrap.
Thats kind of a circular argument that means nothing. If the software wasn't worth owning, then the developer doesn't deserve your cash, but you also don't deserve to own it.
If it's worth having, but not paying the asking price for, well - thats a personal decision. Wait till the price comes down, if the product doesn't have a leg to stand on it will. The lame excuse that you don't feel that the price is justified so you steal it is a weak attempt at justifying theft. Your scale for worth and value is not THE scale, remember that.
Ok, so it's copyright infringement. It's still illegal. It also causes the developer to take upon himself the cost of your financial situation. The difference between never going to purchase the software and taking it without paying for it is significant.
The first one has the end result of the developer making no profit from their labor. They don't get the funds because they didn't make a product you wanted to purchase. Ok.
The second means that the developer created a piece of software that you did want, but couldn't afford to trade currency in exchange for the end result of their labor. You then take the end result of their labor without trading back the requested amount of currency, leaving them on the deficient end of the transaction. The net result is not the same.
You can argue that it's not stealing because there is no limited supply of the program, that may be true. Yet, the resources used to develop this program are most certainly functioning under the rules of supply and demand.
The skills to program a good piece of software are not ubiquitous, nor are the environments needed to create these pieces of software. The systems used to program them weren't free, and neither was the original transport vehicle for the executable. Someone paid for all of the CD's or bandwith that the program was originally obtained from. What about time? That is a very precious, non renewable resource in the context of software development. The time of the developer was invested in the program that you just took with the hopes that people would like it enough to purchase it.
You're stealing, flat out. You wanna play little kid games with scemantics over economic concepts that you know jack shit about, fine. But please don't expect anyone to buy your "It's not stealing" bullshit.
Well, I read the article and came to the conclusion that anybody who is that serious about videogames and gaming shouldn't kill their wives because they were probably the only women who would sleep with them.
It's use without a proper profile is exactly what Google did.
They just told web developers to put "nofollow" into the REL tag, that's it. It may be acceptable to put whatever you want in there, but you need to use the profile also.
You want to pick nits, fine. You win. But Google didn't follow standard, they implored a whole shit ton of developers to ignore standards through their shitty explanation, and the end result is a whole bunch of non standard compliant values in REL attributes.
You deal with can, could, and would. I deal with has, did, and done.
As I have already stated. REL isn't the problem, I understand its a astandard, its the "nofollow" that isn't.
Also, I should have added this.
The REL attribute has a set list of link types to be associated with it.
"nofollow" is not one of them. Google shoehorned a non standard compliant value into a standard field for their own purposes. That is not being W3C compliant.
I can't find it in the XHTML standard.
Offtopic about offtopic.
I think its crazy to put quality profitable information on a website (or even in a book, on a CD or in a movie) that you don't want used by others. Copyright may "protect" you from someone knocking it off in high quantity, but that isn't always where information is the most valuable.
Finally. I have been listening to your anti copyright tirades for some time, even took part in a few, and have never fully understood how you could hold that opinion.
Now I understand. I personally stick to that same practice. My most valuable information never gets published, it is transfered through consultation. Also, if the party I am consulting has any sense, they shouldn't need me to consult on the same subject twice.
After the information I use is no longer of a premium value, I will begin to publish it as a means to prove credibility for my services. Plus, by that time I have already learned something new and would be using that.
3. Mozilla team is pulling an IE (implementing their own extensions... read the blog... "w3c doesn't have to make all the rules" ... if Microsoft said that /. would be up in arms)
You guys here amaze me sometimes. I didn't hear anyone bitching when Google decided to use "rel=nofollow" attributes in links so their spiders wouldn't follow them. Yeah, that's W3C all right.
This has NO inherent evil associated with it. Also, W3C doesn't have to make all of the rules. If you want to implement a feature on your browser with the hopes that people will find it useful, then cool. Maybe the W3C will adopt it later after Mozilla shows them some test results.
You can't prove a negative.
How is this a troll?
Some mod didn't do their damn homework. IBM did do these things, and it was under a similar, yet much more drastic, set of circumstances.
The interesting thing about this is that Google facilitates a entry for people with little or no understanding of marketing concepts.
AdSense basically handles all of the targting for you. You just have to choose whatever keywords you want. For alot of people they choose moronic keywords, but get some hits - so they think its working.
The truth is, they get NO conversions. These people don't really know what their doing, but they do see a number, and the number is BIG!
Now, translate this behavior to a medium where you cannot exactly quantify your success. You might see an increase in sales, but you won't be able to tie them back to the magazine ad unless you built it with tracking in place (the number on the ad only available through the ad, the website it suggests built specifically for the ad and mentioned no where else with no index robots.txt.) Although, these people probably don't have the foresight to do that.
So they have no big number to count AND no really big change in revenue because they probably bought ad space in Boy's Life selling womens running shoes.
Before Google stepped into the fray, advertisers needed to know what they were doing - otherwise the people selling the adspace would blow them off until the zero hour, hoping someone of a higher calibre would come and buy the space.
I'm not surprised on ebit that advertisers haven't warmed up to purchasing Google print ads, they don't know what the hell their doing.
I don't believe someone wasted a mod point on offtopic.
It's +1 funny you mod idiot.
You have no idea.
I'm contracting to do web development for this company right now, and they put me under the marketing department because my work "Has more to do with marketing than it does with IT."
While I can see the point they're trying to make, it still doesn't shield me from all the crappy ass copy rewrites these guys do.
I once saw these guys argue over whether to use the word "synergistic" or "co-operative".
My statements weren't an attempt to say that Global Warming isn't real, just that people saying they "remember" it as colder wasn't legit.
Everyone who has responded to my post has done so with evidence that can be measured. Which has nothing to do with what I was saying.
And I don't want to get into some semantic struggle over what sensations are really emotions and thoughts or vice versa. Let us just point out that you have no empirical basis for claiming that one can't remember a sensation nor a good mechanism for distinguishing sensation from emotion from thought.
Actually, I do. Pain. If you can summon actual pain, from memory, an injury you suffered previously, then you my friend are the only one in existence.
I mean, feel the pain again, in all its intensity - from memory. You can't.
I thought "Brotherhood of the Wolf" was a cool movie.
Does that count?
Don't you find that? Nearly everyone I talk to about the weather, at some point, shakes their head and expresses some concern about how it 'used to be' vs how it is now.
Even though you acknowledge that this is andectodal, you are ignoring a significant part of that.
The human body has no way to "remember" a sensation. You can recall what you were thinking at the time, how something affected your emotions, and partially the things you saw. What you cannot actually do is get your body to "refeel" a sensation.
When someone remembers the past they tend to look at it in a chronological order, beginning from when they were a kid or from where they are now backwards. The interesting thing is that the younger you get, the more impressionable you were. So a really cold day ends up being even "colder" in your memory. A really hot day was even "hotter". Add to this ones tendency to mythicize their own past and past winters suddenly become "much colder than today."
Also, the winter clothing we had back then sucked compared to what we have now. The jacket I used to wear has nothing on the coat I wear now. I barely feel the cold. But back in the day we just didn't have the technology we did today in manufacturing outerwear.
Another thing that someone else already pointed out is, we didn't set any records. There have already been hotter days and colder days. We're just extra sensative to the weather these days because the media is constantly screaming "global warming" and now, "We're all gonna die!"
Back when this wasn't of such a concern to us, we wrote off unseasonal weather as a godsend, everyone was happy for a cool day in summer and a warmer day in winter. No one remebers a moderately ammusing weather anomoly.
We have really only been keeping track of weather for a short time compared to the age of the earth, be it either on ID time or Evolution time. A few hundred years of data, not all of which we can confirm, and some VERY new abilities to model weather kinda accurately do not give us a rock solid base from which to start modeling our future doom.
I mean, come on, these guys can't even predict next day rain with complete accuracy. I'm not going to buy any weather forcasts aimed 20 years down the road.