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LinkedIn Answers

Yahoo Answers has been one of the most successful launches at Yahoo (and one of Google’s rare failures). Starting this morning, you can find “Answers” at the popular business networking site, LinkedIn. Take a look for yourself: LinkedIn Answers

Considering the quality of the business-minded network, LinkedIn Answers has the potential to do really well. However, the early questions could use some self-promotion spam filtering. I’d also like to see a search feature installed so you could search for specific questions or answers instead of browsing them.

Answering questions may be an excellent opportunity for some people to boost their career or “expert status,” but I urge  LinkedIn users to be cautious with their answers. Much like other things on the web, one little slip up could hurt your reputation down the road. LinkedIn Answers would not a good place to get involved in a flame thread. For those looking to boost their connection count, chiming in on a few question & answer sessions could help increase your exposure to new people.

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It’s About Time

Time Magazine‘s “Person of the Year” just came out. In 2004, George Bush took the honors. In 2005, it featured Bill & Melinda Gates, plus Bono. This year, Time Magazine decided to feature me! Or you. Depending on who’s holding up the cover featuring a mylar mirror.  Time person of the year

As I read through the feature (on their site of course–I would never pay for the magazine), I noticed it really shouldn’t say you. It should say “Web Junkies” because when they describe “you,” they talk about video bloggers, Wikipedia editors, Flickr posters, Firefox creators and YouTube founders. Hardly an example of your typical American or Time Magazine subscriber.

Regardless, my first thoughts were: Cool. Someone finally gives recognition to those who have contributed to the growth of the Web. But after reading through all their features, I realized this really was just about recent Web hype.

The cover might as well said “YouTube” instead of “You” as YouTube must have been mentioned a hundred times. YouTube is great, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see YouTube decline in popularity in favor of the next wave of Web 2.0 newcommers. It would almost be the online communities’ way of slapping traditional media back in the face. I can almost hear the public now: “You Don’t Determine Who Is the Person of the Year – We Do!” Because let’s face it, should Time editors really get to determine who the person of the year is? Let’s face it, when Time picks the person of the year, it is all really about Time and not the person they pick.

Okay enough dissing Time. I do appreciate them pickin “us” over political figures or CEOs. Ironically, I’m signing off to go cast my nominations for Webby Person of the Year…

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MSN Duplicate Content Oversensitivity Being Exploited

MSN Search, being the newest of the big engines, is still trying to get a handle on search spam and had been slowly chipping away at it, but the problems are now getting worse since the switch to MSN Live.

In particular, MSN’s duplicate content algorithm penalties are too sensitive and too severe, causing a simple hack to be an effective way to remove a competitor’s site from the rankings. Let’s hope MSN fixes this right away and even takes notes as to who threw up content hoping to exploit it once it became known.

Credit to ThreadWatch for the find.

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Back From France & Italy

I’m back from a much-needed 2.5 week vacation. I apologize for my lack of postings thus far and promise to keep the blog fresh going forward. I suppose it is better to slack on your blog when your readership is next to nothing, then when it has a greater following.

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Ebay Promoting Reggie Bush

Does Ebay read the news? Apparently not. We’ll see if they change their homepage on Monday. Take a look at what is on their homepage right now:

Reggie Bush on Ebay Homepage

The promo points to here.

On Friday, Yahoo Sports broke the news that Reggie Bush received over $100,000 in financial benefits while playing for USC. There will, undoubtably be an investigation, but Yahoo already put in an 8-month investigation that looks pretty solid. Reggie Bush will likely lose his Heisman and USC could lose their National Championship, but what will be even more interesting to me is to see what the NCAA and Pac-10 do. As a Husky fan, I saw the UW burn when Billy Joe Holbart received a $20k loan from his Uncle to buy a car. What seems like peanuts compared to the treatment Reggie Bush & family received from two marketing agents, resulted in severe penalties which lead to a legend coach resigning and severe scholarship reductions which essentially destroyed the team. Will U$C face similar or more severe penalties? We’ll see.

I’m a bit off topic, but it seems like Ebay should pay attention to the news and know what is being displayed on their homepage. They have plenty of other charity auctions to promote. It seems ironic to be asking for money for a person who is involved in a major financial scandal right now.