The Electronic Frontier Foundation posted a mini how to stay anonymous online in response to the AOL data accidental release. One of the items is a Firefox extension called CustomizeGoogle. I just watched the demo video and I have to say it looks very cool. We’ll see how it fares under testing.

Also, the Wall Street Journal has a debate about storing web search data. Good read.

Via John Battelle

A new paper by US researchers talks about the effectiveness of the eBay reputation system. They found that established sellers made, on average, 8% more revenue on sales. That’s kind of expected, and it shows that the feedback system works in that it rewards the established sellers. However, there was a little surprise. When they compared sales for a number of new sellers, they found that:

…one or two negative feedbacks for our new sellers did not affect buyers’ willingness-to-pay.

Interesting stuff.

[tags]eBay, study, sellers, sales[/tags]

This is very cool! Professor Stephen Hawking, yes the world famous cosmologist, asked a question on Yahoo! Answers. His question to the world?

In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?

Seriously. I think this guy has figured out the secret of life but is not telling us To call him super smart is an understatement.

And oh yeah, he’s gotten over 15000 replies so far. Nice.

[tags]Yahoo, Yahoo Answers, Stephen Hawking[/tags]

Network neutrality (or just net neutrality) is a debate that’s heating up. A lot of important people have made their opinion known. Here is a little roundup of the net neutrality debate:

• First off, read the Wikipedia net neutrality page. It’s quite a sane page for such a hot topic.
• Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the WWW, blogged his opinion. He explains the issue in very simple terms and explains why net neutrality must be preserved.
• The Washington Post has a good editorial on the subject.
• Finally, Cre8asite Forums has a discussion about net neurality and web designers. Interesting angle to explore.

Please post any more articles below and I’ll add them to the list. Cheers!

[tags]net neutrality[/tags]

PCWorld has a list of the The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time. I agree with MANY of them: They have Microsoft Windows ME, Sony BMG Music CDs, and probably the worst software in my book: RealNetworks RealPlayer.

Funnily enough, they don’t include any Linux distributions. Surely they were not all perfect? I guess it’s because they are not as mainstream as Windows is. I guess we’ll have some next time ’round.

100% buzzword compliant, but with a twist: the Web Economy Bullshit Generator. Careful that you don’t waste your afternoon there!

[tags]Web 2.0, Web Economy Bullshit Generator[/tags]

It all started innocently enough: Guy Kawasaki posted the The Top Ten Lies of Venture Capitalists back in January, followed closely by his The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs. Now he’s back with the The Top Ten Lies of Engineers and The Top Ten Lies of Marketers. Enough fun? Nope!

Over at my favorite blog, Creating Passionate Users, Aurynn Shaw lists the Top Management Lies. It gets better: Pamela Slim writes a list of management mistakes.

So why post these on a web-related blog? Three reasons really:

• We all work, and we all meet people who tell those lies or their variations. We groan when we spot them but it’s very entertaining to make fun of them.
• They tell of the sorry state some companies are in. I always think that web-related firms are more fun and engaging than the rest, and so this could be a warning of how not to do things.
• This post is for my future reference…

[tags]lies, list[/tags]