Easy to catch and filter. But yes, in theory, this will improve results. The proportion of users clicking the 10th link on a page is much lower than those who click the 1st. If users clicking the 10th > 1st, then there is an assumed ranking problem. So clicks help fix ranking.
I do heavy Adwords analysis with my startup. One of the more interesting things I've come to discover though is that facebook provides much higher bang for the buck in regards to CPC and CPM (based on my limited budget, I can not saturate either FB or Google for my target keywords). However - the traffic behavior from users coming out of FB is very different than those from Google (and the Google ads network).
For my current business I found that while FB was cheaper - traffic from google was more worthwhile (measured by conversions). I think that there are certain types of businesses which would do far better on FB ad network then on Googles however, and am flighting ideas across both.
It depends what type of business you are I guess:
If you want click through -> landing -> sale pretty much then Google is going to win easy.
If you want to say build up a fan page or place people on your website without exactly directly monetizing their visit straight away then Facebook has some promise. With Facebook I just don't think that buy intent will ever be there like it is when someone is searching for a product on Google.
Matt Cutts should know better. Being part of '1000 signals' does not mean all signals are weighted evenly. It does not even mean the signals are weighted the same across all query types. This is machine learning - the actual weighting is learned and dynamic (always shifting) and not controlled. And there is absolutely no reason for Microsoft to take out a particular signal just because Google asked. There needs to be proof of unethical behavior, of which there is none.
The Chrome and Gmail EULA's are as bad as the IE8 Suggested Sites bit mentioned in this article. GMail basically reads your email to provide contextually relevant ads. Does my mom know that? No.
Not a plug, but I blogged about this @ http://roshank.posterous.com/google-versus-bing-no-one-is-be... . I believe this should be a discussion on ethics - and feel it is ethical for a company to do whatever it wants with data contained in its own software application.
I don't think you read the whole article, because Matt quotes Nate Silver in saying that exact thing
You said: " -Being part of '1000 signals' does not mean all signals are weighted evenly."
Matt quotes Nate: "First, not all of the inputs are necessarily equal. It could be, for instance, that the Google results are weighted so heavily that they are as important as the other 999 inputs combined."
Disagree. When did people lose faith in education? I learned significantly during college in many aspects - sciences, math, politics, philosophy. This occurred both in classes and outside - but usually within the college environment (So I attribute that learning to college itself). Does going to college preclude writing a book or travelling the world? Fuck no. In fact I believe it encourages it. When smart people congregate great things happen.
Maybe the poor taste for college comes from the fact that some people don't use the experience to it's fullest - but guess what? They wouldn't have done that with any of those other techniques either.
>Disagree. When did people lose faith in education?
Seeing people use the single word "disagree" as sentence is nearly enough to make anyone lose faith!
Seriously, though, the entire article is about education. It's a common mistake to confuse schooling for education, but the two aren't as correlated as some would like to assume. I don't say this as a bitter person who never went. On the contrary, I went twice. First at a very young age, majoring in mathematics, and then again at the normal age majoring in a foreign language. Both times I was able to learn some, but neither were as productive as self study had been outside of schooling.
I regularly meet people who have spent many years formally studying a foreign language and yet struggle to understand television in that language. It's also not that uncommon to find skilled programmers, artists or writers who have not studied their field at a university.
Another common argument for schooling is that it makes well rounded people who have a basic competence in all the most fundamental fields. Sadly, this isn't true either. Most college grads are still pretty shaky on high school math. The same is true for writing.
I'm not saying that schooling is useless. It can be an excellent tool for education, particularly in some fields. However, it isn't the only way of education.
There is some mixing of data sources, and in my opinion that is the 'core value' of the software. By aggregating item data from many sources I can generate a much clearer opinion of what an item is - and whether or not it fits with a specific kid. Not all of this is visible in the UI however, and a lot of the code was just me being a CS Nerd and probably won't materialize into the visible portions of the site in the near future.
Would you mind expanding on what other sources you're using? I ask in part because I'm taking the first steps on something similar (trying to aggregate product data from various sources). My email is in my profile if you'd prefer to discuss it there.
There is product filtering - but it works best for items with ratings (Video Games, Movies). All other products go through a blacklist - filtering out specific words (but the list itself needs improvement). The parent has control over the filtering, and can increase its restrictions with a paid account.
I have been looking at whether or not to rebrand. The initial branding was PiggyBanks. But all variations of that as a domain are parked by miserable squatters. One of them offered to sell at the 'reasonable' price of $16k.
I would try to find some means to convey that it's a virtual/online piggy bank. You know, the hip, modern piggy bank for the plugged in kid. I have no idea what terms to suggest but I think that's a key piece you need to convey: Allowance in the digital age for the really cool kids.
What you are looking for is called the attach-rate. Basically how much other stuff in the ecosystem are people buying once they have the console. I believe the XBOX is leading the pack for attach rate with both games and accessories, which is huge as that's where the big money is.
