Monthly Archives: June 2007

Where Does Yahoo Go From Here?

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Yahoo has just announced the resignation of CEO Terry Semel amid chaos that is going on at Corporate. Terry’s departure is a long time in coming as the internet giant has fallen from grace with stockholders and users. The New York Times speculates that in a year, Yahoo will no longer be an independent company raising rumors again that Yahoo could be acquired or a merger could occur.

Before I dive into that, let me say that I’m very disappointed in Yahoo. I once said that if there was any company I would drop everything to work for, it was Yahoo. I’ve admired folks Like Jeremy Zawodny and the entire Flickr team and at one point would have dropped everything to work for them. This is no longer the case. For one, there seems to be a steady stream of Yahoos exiting the company. We hired Chad as our Director of Ad Sales and he still has his finger on the pulse of Yahoo. He says, the stream isn’t ending.

So where does Yahoo go from here now that Jerry Yang, the founder of Yahoo, is back at the helm. In some cases, the return to glory comes when the originator of the company vision returns. Take Steve Jobs return to Apple. (It’s too recent to know how Michael Dell’s return to Dell will affect the company).

Yang’s primary mission now, should he remain as longterm CEO, is to trim the top management, return the power of innovation and creativity to the Yahoos that make things happen. Google benefits from employee creativity by providing 20% time where 20% of the employees billable hours can go to whatever they want to grow the company. I don’t know much about Yahoo’s corporate culture, but it does not seem like they are doing very well judging by employee mass exodus.

Maybe a company like Microsoft could buy them but why would they? There’s too much bloat. Not enough value add. Portions of Yahoo could benefit Microsoft, I suppose. Or Google for that matter. Google could benefit from graphical ads. Microsoft could benefit from Flickr. YouTube/Google could find some nice integration with MyBlogLog. Microsoft could probably revive the Yahoo! Music group as a value add to their own music service which is in a lot of pain.

The question posed is where is Yahoo in a year? I don’t know. I think it’s more likely that, if Yang cannot turn the company around, the company will spin its business units off and sell assets. They need to find a core business. Apparently, it’s not search. So what is it? If they can trim the fat and find their core business, maybe they survive 2008. If not, it’s been a nice ride. I’m pretty happy I never took a job with Yahoo.

Reader Question: What does Yahoo have to do to remain relevant in the 2007-2008 era of the interwebs?

Other Blogs Talking about the Yahoo Shake Up

The Carnival of Maryland #9

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As mentioned earlier this week, Technosailor.com is hosting the Carnival of Maryland #9. Carnivals are a great way to highlight content from a certain group or niche and in this sense, an entire State. While the Carnival is mostly spearheaded by the Maryland Blogger Alliance, it is open to anyone who is in Maryland.

Let’s get right into this edition of the Carnival:

John, from Montgomery County, participated in a field trip to Little Bennett Regional Park where he consumed the beauty of a variety of birds. Apparently, some birds are hard to see in the wild: “On this occasion, we would not get a second look at the summer tanager, though we could hear the bird singing nearby. Brightly-colored birds may not always be easy to spot, but they offer a high reward to those that can find them. On Saturday we were rewarded with stunning looks at great birds.” John is not the only birdbrain this week. The Greenbelt also observes some interesting birds.

The Voltage Gate looks at the blue crab population in Maryland, linking to a story From Science Daily about an invasion of Chinese Mitten Crabs. CMC’s are a dangerous introduction to the ecosystem for blue crabs, a main source of economic (and foodie!) interest in the State of Maryland.

“Global Warming Swindle?” is the question asked by David Keelan from HoCoMd, the Howard County Maryland public watchdog blog. He attaches a video that demonstrates the cyclicar method of climate change over the millenia. I think I’ll stay out of this conversation. ;)

Frederick County blogger and golfer Phil Bundy, introduces us to “The Quest“, his personal journey to enter the PGA Tour. Phil writes, “For Phil, his quest is not about winning major championships but about learning the answer to the question, “œCan I make it on the Tour?” As the Embedded Golfer, he will learn the answer to that question.

Soccer Dad, from Owings Mills, discovered that an hours drive can net him gas 10 cents cheaper, but also afforded him the opportunity to instill some wisdom of age into his daughter. The funniest part of this post was when he quoted non-Maryland blogger, Book Worm Room, describing teenage drivers and cell phones.

… the worst teenage threat was the time it takes to dial a cell phone. (Adults click in a number or two, then check the road, then click in more numbers; teenagers just click in the whole sequence, road be damned.)

Funniest quote of the day, in my not so humble opinion. :)

P. Kenneth Burns, the prolific editor of Maryland Politics Today, writes that Governor Martin O’Malley needs to stop placing all the blame on his former nemesis and Governor Bob Ehrlich and start keeping his own campaign promises… something so far he is miserable at doing.

The Annapolis Police have been botching quite a few house raids of late. Atilla of Pillage Idiot tells us about the how the spokesman even seems to have botched the statement:

Dalton said that the warrant “was factually correct,” but since the address where the raid took place was wrong, I have to assume this means that either the police misread the correct address on the warrant, or they simply went into the wrong building.

Leviathan Montgomery complains about renovations happening to the Metro Station in Silver Spring, MD on a gargantuan scale. As I mention in his comments, my guess is that the “enhancements” he is complaining about has to do with future construction of the long argued about “purple line” (thus far, vaporware only). This blogs also happens to be one of the few blogs in the MBA that is run on WordPress (in this case, WordPress.com), so we have to do a shout out.

Is MySpace Dead?

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Last week, I asked Facebookers “Is MySpace Dead?” The answers were very interesting. There seemed to be as much neutrality as there was bias one way or another.

Scott Matthewman says: It still seems to be as busy as ever from where I’m sitting. But the whole customisation thing is reminiscent of late 90′s Geocities — all those animated backgrounds. My eyes!

Jon Phillips says: Its soul is old world and fb folks tell me that mass migration from myspace to fb is happening.

Rachel Clarke says: Not yet. There is a definite move towards facebook for some but MySpace will remain and have uses because of its more public nature.

Gary Grant says: It may still have some life left for the kids. It never came alive for me though, not addictive like FB.

Justin Heim says: The life line is slowing down, and it is proving to be a slow and painful death… But it is still kicking!

Brian Layman says: Yes. It is packed garbage. + too many people never joined it because it was always just a place for pre-teens. With WordPress making it so easy to create real sites, it doesn’t even have that going for them. Now Facebook offers a mature social network.

Mark Jaquith says: Not yet. But I suspect that the exodus will be as swift as the rise, if not more so.

Jessica Doyle says: I never used myspace at all so therefor it didn’t exist to me. If it was never alive then it can’t be dead.

Laurarose Dunn says: Nope. I use myspace more than facebook simply because I have more friends from over the years on it. ALthough I am finding that facebook is pretty cool too!

Rico Mossegeld says: Never tried it, so it was never alive for me.

Devon Rutherford says: I know lots of 20, 30 and 40-some-year-olds that still use myspace (not just teens). Yes, the interface sucks, but non-technical individuals typically aren’t that discriminating when it comes to selecting a social networking interface. Facebook FTW! :)

Scott Allen says: Nope – that’s still where my kids (age 12-25) are. They don’t even know about FB. MS ate Friendster only indirectly because of the interface – the musicians and artists were too restricted by Friendster, so they migrated, then everyone else followed.

Kimberly Williams says: i don’t think so but i prefer facebook over myspace any day because the things on her are better than myspace and i think you can do more.

James Joyner says: I’ve never really used it. Then again, I’m not their target demo.

Robert Barac says: I bloody well hope so… I think MySpace is the old black.

Sasha Manuel says: What is MySpace? :-P

Travis Seitler says: Not yet. Maybe in two years…

Chris Cree says: Never got into MySpace. Skipped right past it, I guess.

Minic Rivera says: Yes.

Premium: Interview With Tony Hung From Blog Herald

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Tony HungTony Hung is the editor of the Blog Herald and writes incessantly at his personal blog, Deep Jive Interests. He is also finishing up his residency and preparing to go into medical practice. How he has time to blog is beyond me.

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Tony, you’re quickly becoming a household name among bloggers. Can you tell me why that is?

I have no idea. Actually, I had no idea my name *was* a household name for bloggers! But I suppose for those of whom I am known, it might be because my story’s a bit unique: resident in medicine who blogs about technology when he has the time, and got hired as the editor of the Blog Herald. Or perhaps its the way that I write. Or perhaps there aren’t too many Asian bloggers. Maybe its all three, or some combination of the above. If anyone can tell me I’d love to know. ;)

You’re also the most humble person you know, right? :)

I try and remain grounded when I can ;)

How many writers do you have at the Blog Herald today?

We have about 15 active bloggers on our roster, but that number isn’t really fixed in stone. It might go up or down depending on how we see the content doing. In fact, we are always looking for talent — not sure if this is the right forum, but if you think that you’ve got the right stuff, send me an email: anthony{dot}hung{at}gmail{dot}com … and maybe we can work something out!

Do you see the Blog Herald fulfilling the initial mission that Duncan Riley set out when he established the brand years ago?

Its definitely changed over the brief time that I’ve been at the Blog Herald, but I think we’re trying to bring it back to news and information that is relevant to bloggers. The blogging world has changed since Duncan sold it to Matt Craven and Problogging (formerly BlogMedia), and has only continued to do so after it changed hands once again to Splashpress. Blogging as a medium has exploded, and there’s an incredible diversity of voices — and many of them aren’t even in the English language. At the Blog Herald we want to try and uphold the standard that Duncan left us, and its something we’re always going to try and work towards, particularly being mindful of what our audience wants and needs.

Duncan was always about the news and trying to get stories first. I blasted the Herald when Matt Craven owned it for getting away from that and really being slow. Do you see a more effective strategy being the “Drink from the firehose” method where volume masks lack of breaking stories?

Well, I’ll say this — the Blog Herald is trying to concentrate on issues and information that are relevant to bloggers. Tech related information isn’t directly related to that. What happens on Techmeme may not be related to that, nor is what Mike Arrington writes. In fact, most of the time its not. I think when you’ve refined what it means to be a “herald” for “blogging” it becomes easier to decide on what to concentrate on and what doesn’t make too much sense.

You were quite active at Mesh this year, speaking on a panel. Tell us a bit about your experiences.

It was wild. I sat on a panel with Steve Herrman of BBC interactive, and Paul Sullivan of Orato.com — heavyweights in new media. I think I held my own, but it was a great experience meeting them, and everyone else at Mesh, really, including the guys from b5, such as Jeremy Wright, Gary King, Mark Evans (of course), and you. I ran into a few bloggers, such as David Peralty (of Blogging Pro), and he was such a nice guy. I also ran into Jim Courtney, of SkypeJournal, who, as it turns out, is someone I have one degree of separation with. One of the guys in my class, as it turns out, is his son! Small world, huh? But, on the flipside, it would have been great to run into even more bloggers. Makes you wonder if Toronto is ready for a blogging convention so we could all get together or something … ;)

You are one of the most well known Canadian bloggers around and it’s not even your full time job. Do you ever anticipate blogging full time or will blogging always be “something extra”?

That’s a great question and something I’m asked about all the time. What I will say is that blogging is a part of my life that I can’t quite see myself *not* doing — how much it takes up is something that is in evolution, as I have competing interests for my time, not including my family, friends, and of course, work and school. It will be interesting after I finish this year, as I will probably end up certified and *in* practice somewhere — as I may end up blogging a little more. Or doing other blogging related things. But, hey, you never know ;)

Well, Dr. Hung – I need to put you on The Seat of Heat. Jon Stewart used to do this on the Daily Show and I’ll be asking all of these interviewees the same kind of question. The Seat of Heat forces you to answer a question outside of your area of expertise.

Should Paris Hilton be getting the amount of publicity she is for her reasons stunts and being released from jail early and subsequently being sent back? :)

Interesting question. I think it should be getting publicity, but not because Paris is fabulous and needs the sympathy; rather, we don’t often get the chance to see that the Law is something that should apply to all equally, regardless of wealth or fame. And Paris Hilton’s misadventures are a great example of that.

Premium Content Available

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In the next few days, you’ll be introduced to Technosailor Premium Content. It’s premium because you have to do something to get it. In many cases, that something is paying a fee. Not in this case. This premium content is completely free. You might think I’m going to collect your email address or make you register for something. Again, not in this case. The only hoop you have to jump through is subscribing to my feed.

The more the internet evolves and people consume content different ways, the more important it is that feeds exist and are used. In this case, I’m providing select content to only subscribers to this site’s feed. Dave Taylor has a great write up on how to subscribe to RSS – in case you’re not sure how to do that. Add Google Reader to your list. In most cases, subscribing is as simple as entering the URL for this site.

You might wonder what kind of content will be available? Lots of stuff. Premium stuff. Cutting Edge stuff. I can say there won’t be tons of Premie content but there will be enough that if you’re not reading, you’re missing out. Already, I have several interviews lined up. I’ll also release any plugins or code I write as premium content, so you’ll want to subscribe.

I’ll also throw out an olive branch for those of ou who simply don’t want to subscribe to the feed because you like to come to the site or something. After two weeks as premium content, everything will be available on the site. You’ll be late. You might miss it. Google won’t, but you might. So make sure you subscribe.

Google Video Security Flaw: FALSE; MySpace Flaw: Confirmed

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Tamar Weinberg writes a post declaring that “Google Video Flaw Raises Privacy Concerns By Exposing Usernames and Passwords“.

Nice linkbait, but completely false. The real weight of this flaw lies solely on MySpace (I know, there are apparently no security issues with MySpace, but I digress). In fact, if you examine the headers of a MySpace login, it is obvious to see that MySpace itself is transmitting username and password in plaintext in the headers.

Most people don’t look at headers. Why should they? They are the communication vehicles of browsers and server and not users. However, an examination of these headers by sleuthful individuals can find out all kinds of useful information.

Let’s look at the MySpace header that contains the username and password:

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http://login.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=login.process&MyToken=c7fd399e-2c28-4615-889e-dbf5c2cea71b



POST /index.cfm?fuseaction=login.process&MyToken=c7fd399e-2c28-4615-889e-dbf5c2cea71b HTTP/1.1

Host: login.myspace.com

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

Accept: text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5

Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5

Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate

Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7

Keep-Alive: 300

Connection: keep-alive

Referer: http://myspace.com/

Cookie: MSCulture=IP=208.54.95.129&IPCulture=en-US&PreferredCulture=en-US&Country=US&timeZone=0&ForcedExpiration=0&USRLOC=QXJlYUNvZGU9MCZDaXR5PSZDb3VudHJ5Q29kZT1VUyZDb3VudHJ5TmFtZT1Vbml0ZWQgU3RhdGVzJkRtYUNvZGU9MCZMYXRpdHVkZT0zOCZMb25naXR1ZGU9LTk3JlBvc3RhbENvZGU9JlJlZ2lvbk5hbWU9; NGUserID=a2825a9-4920-1181671731-2

Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

Content-Length: 165

Login=&email=myemail%40hotmail.com&password=mypassword&ctl00%24Main%24SplashDisplay%24ctl01%24loginbutton.x=0&ctl00%24Main%24SplashDisplay%24ctl01%24loginbutton.y=0

The interesting part is right at the bottom where, if you look, my (now fake) username and password are displayed.

Update: To be fair, Facebook is guilty as charged as well.

Update 2: As does many other pieces of software. This highlights a deficiency in the HTTP protocol. HTML Password fields should be encrypted before transmission. Why is this not the case? What good reason can anyone give me why this should not have been fixed in, oh, 1996?