Overheard: NFO is the new SEO? A tale of accidental optimization

“The next generation of optimization is taking shape. First it was search engine optimization SEO, next came social media optimization (SMO), and now we’ve got news feed optimization (NFO).” Chris Schultz, Jason Calacanis Crushes My Facebook News Feed

Chris Schultz’s blog post about Jason Calacanis’ using Facebook to brand his “human-powered search engine” by optimizing his newsfeed on Facebook hit home the idea that when it comes to optimization, we’re still living in the wild, wild west. Chris writes:

I’ve got 99 friends on Facebook but I hear from Jason Calacanis more than anyone. He has turned Facebook into a marketing platform for his human-powered search engine, Mahalo. And he doesn’t pay Facebook a dime for this primo branding opportunity.

The very best part of this post? The comment he got back from Jason.

The reason this all happened was because I was using our Mahalo Share tool (google it) and it puts my delicious bookmarks on Facebook. I didn’t think it would put so many of my bookmarks on other people’s pages. So, I’m going to limit it to my best 2-3 bookmarks a day.

Overheard: Verizon using stance towards net neutrality as a gorilla marketing message

“Verizon is kinda sorta using their total lack of filtering as an underground marketing thing already, which is especially effective when coupled with FiOS’s insane speeds.” Matt Buchanan, Will Your ISP F You In the A? Bandwidth Hogs Beware

Interesting post by Matt Muchanan over at Gizmodo about ISP bandwidth management practices.  Can it be true that everyone but Verizon admitted they were managing bandwith? 

 ”We don’t manage our network by throttling, slowing or curbing service, either on DSL or FiOS.” In reference to content filtering, we weren’t given a new statement, but referred to earlier remarks by public affairs VP Tom Tauke that it is “reluctant to get into the business of examining content that flows across our networks,” the most pro-active stance against content filtering. However, it’s still no fan of the government stepping in: “These are decisions best made by network engineers and operators—not policymakers.”

Managing bandwidth has a new name, btw.  “Filtering” is out.   So is “throttling,” ”capping,” and “curbing.” 

The new name? ”Traffic shaping techniques.” Hats off to whoever thought that one up.

Overheard: Salesforce – GoogleApps marriage takes place in the cloud

When it takes just a mouse click to open Gmail and have the message saved with the prospect record, it won’t take long before Gmail becomes the default email system for most Salesforce users… For Google, the combination brings Google Apps into big enterprise accounts and also expands its footprint among smaller businesses. For Salesforce.com, it expands the reach of its Salesforce application and further validates its Force.com integration and development platform. But more importantly for both of them — and for the rest of us who are committed to the on-demand model — it puts extra weight behind the gathering trend towards running business applications and computing in the cloud. Phil Wainewright, Salesforce and Google team to conquer the enterprise

I’m not so sure about the first statement I grabbed from Phi’s excellent post — but I’m pretty sure he’s got it right about us looking back and seeing this as the beginning of the tipping point for enterprise computing in the cloud.

Overheard: Change the default password for crying out loud!

OpenDNS released a free tool today called fixmylinksys.com that lets Linksys users easily change their default password to protect themselves from the [DNS rebinding] hack Kaminsky will demo. Kelly Jackson Higgins RSA Session Features Live Linksys Router Hack

I bet you still know people who use admin or 123456 as a router password. Let them know about DNS binding attacks.

Overheard: Is Internet addiction a crock?

We rarely talk about people being “book addicts” – we say “book worms”, because reading a book is an activity we associate with intellectual exercise. Bobbie Johnson, Addicted? Not quite

Lots of buzz lately about Internet addiction being a mental illness. I found it interesting that South Korea and China are often mentioned as countries having problems with this particular addiction. Hmmmm….aren’t they also two countries that have been accused of Internet censorship?  Promoting the dangers of IAD (Internet Addiction Disorder) might be a good way for the government to protect people for their own good. I love conspiracy theories.

Overheard: Is Kraken buzz just Damballa’s attempt to make a name for itself?

“Many folks in the anti-virus and broader Internet security space say Damballa is trying to make a name for itself by hyping this threat, and that Kraken is nothing more than a renamed and repackaged “Bobax,” a worm of similar lineage and methods that was discovered several years ago.” Brian Krebs, Kraken Spawns a Clash of the Titans

Video: IBM’s first supercomputer

The Computer History Museum has put together a great series of video tours. Here’s a peek at the IBM 7030, the first “supercomputer.”

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/HTs9JZ7OMYQ" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Video: IBM unveils hydro-cluster green supercomputer

The product name is the Power 575. IBM is promoting is as a hydro-cluster supercomputer. To paint it green, the literature says the Power 575 requires 80 percent fewer air conditioning units and reduce total cooling costs by 40%. (It’s water-cooled).

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/ioCZojN4A0g" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Key points discussed at last visit to IBM:

1. Water cooling is 4,000 times more efficient than air cooling.

2. Air cooling has become too expensive and there’s a finite limit to how much power you can bring in.

3. It’s tough to budget ahead for air cooling – power costs are a big unfriendly variable.

4. Heated water is easier to recycle than heated air.

Overheard: Google platform-as-a-service (PaaS)

“Google could parlay its search and advertising technology, market dominance, and its infrastructure prowess into a powerful engine that runs and monetizes thousands or millions of externally developed applications. Salesforce.com provides a more mature example today with its Force.com platform. It allows developers to write applications, mostly CRM-oriented, in a variety of languages that can run natively on the Salesforce.com software platform and data centers.” Dan Farber, Web 2.5: The emergence of platforms-as-a-service

I like this analogy. Hadn’t thought of Salesforce this way before.

Overheard: Mandatory EINSTEIN

“What is different is that we’re going to have comprehensive coverage across federal networks, and that all the information about potential intrusions or malicious code would flow to a central point, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team at the Department of Homeland Security.” Scott Charbo, as quoted in Analysis: Einstein and U.S. cybersecurity

Mr. Charbo is the Chief Information Officer at the Department of Homeland Security.  He’s talking about EINSTEIN, a federal government’s intrusion detection software application. It’s been available since 2004, but now the DHS is going to make it mandatory. 

What took them so long, you ask? Well, apparently there wasn’t a single ”business owner” with enough power to mandate EINSTEIN’s global use until February, when President Bush signed that multi-billion-dollar cybersecurity initiative.  EINSTEIN has received its share of criticism. Some detractors point out that it’s not robust enough. Some worry that if everyone’s using the same software, everyone shares the same vulnerabilities. Some people just seem content to make Bush/Einstein jokes.

I’m not sure what I think about this yet.

See also: Einstein keeps an eye on agency networks