Rules:

1. You must provide a link to the advertisement
2. See rule 1
3. Have fun

The one I like best will win a prize!

This contest is over tomorrow (11/16/08) at 12PM EST

The winner will have the option to win one of the following prizes of their choice:

• A free copy of Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware which includes the real-time protection module and scheduled updates.
• A free copy of Linkinus which is a Mac IRC client.

Best of both worlds here, if you’re a Mac or PC user!

Thank you to Malwarebytes and Conceited Software for providing the prizes!

Today Joe and I discussed the latest in tech news including the future of movies online on sites like YouTube and Hulu and even video search on sites such as VideoSurf.com. We also took a preview look at the Pomegranate Phone (a true iPhone Killer) - Pomegranate Phone Website

Note: The Pomegranate is not a real phone - it’s just a marketing gimmick to go to Nova Scotia.

I have spoken with many people about Google’s revenue and growth in the advertising business but, rarely, if ever, does anyone ever mention that you can use Google to advertise on the TV and radio.  Why is this?  I’m not completely sure to be honest but, I would assume that generates a large amount of revenue for Google as well.

That being said, with Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick and advertising deals with other search engines such as Ask (and Yahoo at one point) and large social networks such as MySpace - they now control over 60% of the online advertising market space.  That is seriously a force to be reckon with.

While Google is a search engine that everyone likes (loves?), they are also an advertising engine which controls most of the advertisements on the web (and some companies are not too fond of).  Advertisements which are targeted to you based on search and surfing habits. Are people concerned?  Some are, but most do not even have a clue about how much information Google has actually obtained about them.

The two components of Google - search and advertising go hand in hand and it’s quite clear that is the case.  In these current troubled economic times I think Google is sitting in a rather comfy spot with their vast range of advertising platforms.  Online advertising is not only cheaper than traditional advertising but, can potentially be even more effective with Google’s  targeting techniques.

Google is indeed the advertising engine that could.

Note: I personally have no issues with Google collectiing information if it improves my search results and allows me to find what I’m looking for easier and faster - that is something I can live with.  I don’t mind their advertisements either - I even use them on my site.

As most of you know I was working on a project this past year, however, I dropped the project over the summer due to lack of funding. Last Thursday, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal which talked about a new site called VideoSurf.com - it’s a video search engine. This was my idea! I couldn’t believe it! However, I wanted to take it a step further and include images and audio to create a complete multimedia search engine with social network capabilities so you could share, favorite, create playlists, and organize all your media content in one location.

VideoSurf is a video search engine which has indexed videos all over the web.  The service allows you to find videos on topics you are searching for with extreme ease.  It even has built in sharing functionality which I find a key part to being a social-type service.  You can save specific searches to your home page, too - making them easily accessible. One feature which is currently disabled is the ability to find any particular point in the video and play it from that point (you can go through the video using thumbnail previews to find the specific point-in-time).

As for the search results the relevancy is relatively good, I only expect it to get better.  However, I should note that since video files are often mis-tagged and do not contain meta-data such as web pages it can be extremely difficult to obtain relevant results.  VideoSurf seems to have done a decent job here all things considered.

VideoSurf also will embed the video player within their website when you choose to play a video so you do not have to leave their site.  Good move on their part in terms of keeping users on the site - looks good for advertising.  In terms of advertising on the site it appears there are commercials after watching videos.  I should note that the commercials may be from the video embed and may not have been through a VideoSurf advertising stream.  If you have any information regarding their advertising or business model, feel free to leave a comment.

If you would to help me with my idea, feel free to contact me via email. Nonetheless, props to VideoSurf.com for launching - excellent service and I recommend you check it out.

Joe was not in today so I brought on Cody Wilson aka belthesar via the Skype line to discuss the latest in tech. Today we discussed Google’s advertising monopoly in the online market, Twitter and their business model, and how MakeUseOf.com was hacked!

Joe will return next week for the regularly scheduled show.

According to this site I can rake in (possibly) another $45/month. Is it worth it though? Well, that’s up to you. You can customize it in terms of how often you allow it to post the advertisements. It can be as often as one advertisement for every tweet or even as little one advertisement for every twenty tweets (or even less if you like).

Now that being said, you could potentially lose followers which would then hurt your projected “tweet worth” and if you use your twitter account as a tool for promotion (driving people to your site), you could potentially be hurting yourself. How so? Well, if twitter drives people to your site and you have advertising on your site which most likely makes you more than $45/month assuming you publish somewhat regularly and have a decent sized site by losing followers you are losing traffic and thus losing advertising dollars.

Let me know what you think - leave some feedback!

IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) vs POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) - which is the better email protocol? Well, it really depends. I like IMAP because it allows me to check my email from multiple locations and leaves a copy of the email on the server. On the other hand with POP3 your email client will download the messages from the server and store them locally.

There are of course benefits to both, IMAP will provide better accessibility no matter where you are, while POP3 will allow you to read messages offline (provided it’s downloaded them previously) and you do not need to worry about filling up an email quota. That being said, email is generally just text so it would require millions of emails perhaps fill up several Gigabytes of space.

I also recommend (no matter which protocol you use) you use a form of encryption (such as TLS) to help keep your messages safe in transit.  If your current host does not provide IMAP and you would like to check it out - sign up for Google Apps (a free service) which will provide you with a number of tools including email management for your domain.  You can check out my review on Google Apps here.

Topic: Microsoft Windows Vista

1. What kind of computer user are you?

a)    Novice
b)    Intermediate
c)    Power User

2. Have you used Windows Vista?

a)    Yes
b)    No
c)    I have only used it for short periods of time

3. Based on any knowledge you have of Windows Vista in one or two sentence(s) how would you describe it?

4. In your opinion which Microsoft operating system do you like better?

a)    Windows Vista
b)    Windows XP
c)    Windows 2000

5. If you had to describe Windows Vista’s image in one word - What would it be?

a)    Positive
b)    Negative
c)    Neutral

Thank you to everyone who answers these questions.  They are for a project I am working on in my marketing class.  You can leave your responses in the comments or feel free to email me them (besttechie[AT]besttechie.net or use the contact form).

Today we interviewed Kent Johnson founder of a brand new service called Notifu.

Interview topics:

1. What is Notifu?
2. How did you come up with the idea for Notifu?
3. If someone were to register an account on Notifu what extra “features” does it provide as opposed to using the service without registering?
4. Will Notifu users be able to create/add (possibly import from applications such as Outlook) contacts and groups within their account?
5. I noticed that Notifu has an iPhone Web App – do you plan to create a full iPhone application? Also, do you plan to support the Android platform as well?
6. With Notifu are you able to tell if people have read your message?
7. Are these messages stored on your servers? If so, for how long and do you assure users that they are safe?
8. What features would you like to see down the road in Notifu? Is there any possibility users will be able to leave voice messages to their contacts?

We also discussed PC Mag’s top 10 Google Android Apps and took a look at a preview of Windows 7 and what you can expect from the new Microsoft operating system which is expected to be released in late 2009 or early 2010.