BOOT UP: TWITTER'S PARADOX, SHOULD BALLMER GO?, RIM'S FED BUMP AND MORE
Charles Arthur: Plus graphene's wonders, Nokia's troubles, trying to buy Windows Phone 7, Google
Doodle's wasted hours and more
A burst of 14 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team The Twitter Paradox >> Brian
Solis"As we know, numbers don't lie. eMarketer also projects that Twitter advertising revenues will soar
from $140m in 2011 to $225m in 2012. In contrast, the once bursting place for friends, MySpace, will
generate $184m in ad revenue this year." And yet, it's not mainstream in the way that MySpace (sort of)
was. The paradox is that it doesn't have to be mainstream to succeed. Banner Blindness: Old and New
Findings >> Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)From 2007: "Summary: Users rarely look at display advertisements
on websites. Of the four design elements that do attract a few ad fixations, one is unethical and reduces
the value of advertising networks." The one that's unethical? Used all the time by scareware scammers.
Interesting too for its pointers to what people actually look at on web pages. Transcript of David
Einhorn's speech calling for Steve Ballmer's departure >> Insider MonkeyInteresting take (scroll through
the Dutch insurance company at the top). Einhorn thinks Microsoft is a great business - but doesn't like
its leader. Google Chrome - Why I Hate It And Continue To Use It >>Majd Taby on Chrome, the browser.
Interesting points about antialiasing and PDF rendering, where it is definitely weaker than some rivals.
Federal government loosens its grip on the BlackBerry >> The Washington PostIntriguing: BlackBerry is
losing ground, and Gmail is making inroads. These are extremely valuable and very big contracts, but
their effect is also in influence. When the president shifts from a BlackBerry to an iPad, things have
changed. But is it anywhere near as secure? My Nokia end is near as I face the final handset >>
Techcrunch EUFormer despatch rider Monty Munford: "Everybody in India had a Nokia, one particular
handset sold millions, not because of access to the internet or a fantastic camera, but because it had a
great torch and having a torch in crepuscular India is a very useful asset. "Then I went travelling to
Ethiopia and Somaliland and I left my Nokia charger behind in India. But whether it was Addis Ababa,
Hargesia or a village in the Ethiopian Highlands, I always managed to charge up my Nokia because
everybody had a Nokia. Then in September 2010 I came home. "A lot had changed in two years. People
who hadn't worked for ten years had smartphones, women with those weird asymmetrical haircuts who
probably couldn't spell four-letter words had iPhones, I even overheard two fishermen in Hastings
talking about mobile video and that Harry The Hamster video and their fucking iPhones." The question is
whether Nokia will hang on to the Indian market. Or others. Are the carriers strangling Windows Phone
7 at retail? >> PCMagSara Yin: "I did some mystery shopping of my own at retail stores around
Manhattan, inquiring about various WP7 devices." It didn't go well. The retailers/carriers seem a lot less
keen on it than she was. The 10 strangest facts about graphene >> ZDNet UKIf you don't know what
graphene is, you're in for a treat. If you do know what it is, prepare to be amazed at what it can do.
Utterly amazing. Google Doodle Strikes Again! 5.35m hours strummed >> RescueTime Blog"Last year we
reported on the effect of Google's playable Pac-Man Doodle, so as a follow up we ran the numbers to
see if the Les Paul Doodle consumed a similar amount of users time. "We looked at ~18,500 random
RescueTime users who spent time on Google search pages. In previous time periods, users spent a very
consistent 4.5 minutes (+/- 3 seconds) actively using Google search. However, when Google released the
Les Paul Doodle, the average user spent 26 seconds MORE on Google.com than in previous time periods.
On average, users spent 36 more seconds time on last year's Pac-Man Doodle, so you would think that
the Les Paul Doodle had less impact. Wrong. According to Wolfram Alpha and Alexa, Google's daily
unique vistor count is up to 740m versus the 505m last year. "Google's Les Paul Doodle consumed an
additional 5,350,789 hours of time versus the 4,819,352 hours consumed by the Pac-Man Doodle."
Google's daily unique visitor count is up by 46% in a year?? Is Apple recalling some iPad 2s? Apparently
not >> BetaNewsJoe Wilcox goes to the trouble of calling up some Apple Stores and posing as a worried
customer over these rumours. Result: nope. Honestly, Joe, don't you know that what people want is
simply to see these things copied on a million websites without any fact-checking? You're spoiling
everyone's fun. Malware gang's $14.8 million bank account frozen >> F-Secure Weblog : News from the
LabAn Indian and a Swede are on the run having made a lot of money from scareware called "System
Doctor": "The US Attorney's office has today frozen a Swiss bank account belonging to Sam
Shaileshkumar. "Mr. Shaileskumar, together with Björn Sundin were the main figures behind Innovative
Marketing Ukraine, a malware house that was operating from Ukraine. Neither Shaileshkumar or Sundin
were nationals of Ukraine themselves. Shaileshkumar holds a US passport while Sundin is Swedish.
"Amount of money in the frozen account? A cool $14,800,000. This is believed to be only part of the
proceeds IMU did while pushing rogue security products like 'Systemdoctor'." Preparedness 101:
Zombie Apocalypse >> CDCThe Center for Disease Control has web buttons and everything: "If you're
ready for this, you're ready for anything." (Though we think back to Series 1 of The Walking Dead and
think hmm, you didn't really follow your own advice, did you, CDC?) Whitebox Makers Second Highest in
Global Tablet PC Market Behind Apple - DisplaySearchInteresting: suggests Apple (which sold 4.7m iPads
in Q1 2011) is now at just 54% global share because of whitebox tablets going to China: "The whitebox
tablet market in emerging regions is price sensitive and is partially able to exist because whitebox tablet
makers use panels that are left unused by major brands with slightly lower quality levels, like lower
brightness. Using panels from what is essentially a secondary market allows device makers to offer
aggressive pricing as compared to iPads. Despite some quality issues of these whitebox tablets, they
remain appealing to value conscious buyers, such as students, who are shopping based on price. "Cross
checks with tablet supply chain participants, such as chipset providers, indicates potential growth
opportunities for the whitebox tablet market in the future." (Thanks @rquick) Samsung to Buy Nokia?
More Fishiness >> WSJ MarketBeat"The near-flurry of takeover talk likely means somebody, or a lot of
somebodies, are lugging a big, losing position in Nokia — the company's shares are down 46% since Feb.
9. "It's an old Wall Street gambit. Spread semi-plausible takeover theories in hopes that the target stock
will pop, and the money-losing position can be dumped more easily." In other words: if you believed
Microsoft buying Nokia, or Samsung buying Nokia, they found the bigger fool. You can follow Guardian
Technology's linkbucket on delicious To suggest links, tag articles on delicious.com with "guardiantech"