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Mysteries

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mysteries

Why is Google afraid of links?

Google's official advice for boosting a website's presence in Google search results has been the same for years: "Have other relevant sites link to yours.” The search engine's original PageRank formula was based entirely on which pages link to which other pages — a mathematical analogy to real-world reputations. But Google has removed its original rule from the latest revision of its Webmaster Guidelines. Why? More »

Feature

9:40 AM on Fri Oct 3 2008
By Paul Boutin
4,125 views, 5 comments

Latest by deluxe2000plus: One of my websites dropped from the 1st page (4th place) to page 13 recently. Yahoo still has is on more »

mysteries

Why won't Al Gore use Twitter?

Missed opportunity: Current TV founder Al Gore dropped in on the start of Friday's "Hack the Debate" event, a partnership with Twitter. Attendees were invited to post updates to Twitter during the debate between Barack Obama and John McCain. Current flashed selected tweets onto the screen over a live feed of the debate. Wired dubbed it groundbreaking. Social media consultant Shel Israel complained the result was "just a bunch of young people making shallow comments." But either way, where was Gore? More »

10:40 AM on Mon Sep 29 2008
By Paul Boutin
562 views, 3 comments

Latest by Kenbothe: Because Twitter is stupid? more »

mysteries

How did Russia's president get an iPhone?

Russian telecom VimpelCom has a deal with Apple to offer the iPhone earlier this month, but it's not on sale in Russia until later this year. So how did Russian president Dmitry Medvedev end up with one? Russian blog Siberian Light spotted him playing with an iPhone — presumably black-market — at a press conference.

12:40 PM on Mon Sep 22 2008
By Owen Thomas
407 views, 3 comments

mysteries

Where's Ross Levinsohn and Jon Miller's VC pot of gold?

Velocity Interactive Group, the venture-capital vehicle of former Fox Interactive CEO Ross Levinsohn and ex-AOL chief Jon Miller, has yet to raise a $250 million fund insiders say they've been seeking for six months and counting. Which is curious. Levinsohn and Miller tried to raise money on their own, but decided to merge with ComVentures, an established VC firm with $1.5 billion in assets under management. "Assets under management" isn't the same thing as "available cash," however. To have a free hand to invest, Miller and Levinsohn need their own pot of money. When will they get it? More »

10:20 AM on Fri Sep 19 2008
By Owen Thomas
855 views, 1 comment

Latest by transparency: Haven't these guys done a dozen deals or so so far? more »

mysteries

Cray's new supercomputer runs ... Windows?

Cray, the supercomputer company once known for hand-tweaked $8 million machines, now ships a $25,000 model, the CX1, that ships with either Microsoft HPC Server 2008 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux pre-installed. Cray claims its Wintel machine "combines the power of a high-performance cluster with the affordability, ease-of-use and seamless integration of a workstation." Computer-aided simulations estimate that founder Seymour Cray is currently spinning upwards of 162,000 RPM in his grave.

10:40 AM on Tue Sep 16 2008
By Paul Boutin
722 views, 9 comments

Latest by Shadowlayer: $25K? fuck it, I can make a microcluster for $2K... more »

mysteries

What's wrong with SGI?

Computer maker SGI has yet to file its annual report with the SEC. Its excuse: The company is "continuing to work with its independent auditors, KPMG, to help them complete their audit procedures." That's a bit like telling your 3rd-grade teacher that your homework is late because you're still working on it. The company recently laid off 7 percent of its workforce, and SGI CEO Bo Ewald also got a $150,000 bonus that, under the terms of the company's bonus plan, was undeserved.

10:20 AM on Fri Sep 12 2008
By Owen Thomas
792 views, 14 comments

Latest by NewRider: @macbeach: "It's a no-win situation for innovators." This is the essence of the PC industry boiled down to 1 sentence. more »

mysteries

Why do text message rates keep going up?

Text message rates have doubled since 2005, from about 10 cents each to 20 cents today. Senator Herb Kohl (D.-Wisc.), who chairs the Senate's antitrust subcommittee, has asked Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile to explain it to him. "It does not appear to be justified by rising costs in delivering text messages," the letter says. "Text-messaging files are very small, as the size of text messages are generally limited to 160 characters per message, and therefore cost carriers very little to transmit." Kohl's suspicion: The four big carriers have increased their prices nearly in sync, suggesting a collusion to wring more money out of the market rather than to compete against one another. Read the whole thing — it's no Series of Tubes. (Photo via Gizmodo)

10:00 AM on Wed Sep 10 2008
By Paul Boutin
842 views, 14 comments

Latest by marcomM: It's interesting how the price per minute of voice calls on a cell network has remained flat, but the price more »

mysteries

Where did the Facebook ads go?

Developers have been raging about Mark Zuckerberg's redesign of Facebook's user profile pages, at last unveiled today. But advertisers might soon find reason to fuss, too. The new design has no conventional ads — not the banners sold by Microsoft; not the smaller, demographically targeted ads sold by Facebook in its Social Ads program. True, there's some white space on the right where ads might go; but the page's HTML source code doesn't have any hooks for ads in that area. Should advertisers be horrified that Facebook is taking some of its most-viewed inventory — users' profile pages — off the market? More »

Feature

1:40 AM on Mon Jul 21 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,887 views, 16 comments

Latest by kimbjo: @colonelpanic: Are you trying to teach Rachel Marsden something about the internet? She who links to her OWN "wiki" bio entry [www.rachelmarsden.com] Which more »

Michael Arrington's sleepovers Does anyone else think it's the slightest bit odd that TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington so regularly offers sleeping quarters to young male entrepreneurs? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

14 comments

mysteries

Did AOL buy Bebo to tempt Yahoo into a merger?

No one can make sense of AOL's $850 million Bebo buy, not even Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, who is dropping hints that his company overpaid for the social network. AOL CEO Randy Falco and COO Ron Grant, shown here in a deliciously awkward moment with Bebo president Joanna Shields, negotiated the deal in secret, to the disbelief of their underlings. But there's one strategic way in which the Bebo buy makes sense. More »

7:00 AM on Mon Jun 2 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,703 views, 1 comment

Latest by Niemal: Since mergers and acquisitions have seemingly devolved into a revenue tug-of-war over the same stupid ads, at least there's hope more »