Now, we're seriously stepping in a phase where the mobile broadband integration has become a sine qua non requirement, and we're hearing about the war between Google and Apple to milk the biggest jug out of mobile customers. But I wonder... is the traditional ad system worth it when going mobile or is there an alternative?
Location based advertising and partnerships are the sanest answer coming to my mind, here is why:

Ads in a matchbox?

In all my browsing experience, the only time I have clicked on ads were accidental. But it never turned out to be a real problem, tabbed navigation, mouse, big screen... all these help when you get tricked into visiting that awesome money-making-twitting-towel's website.
Now, on a mobile, that's pretty different, the screen is small, the fonts are small, and as long as I admire the efforts put into mobile web browsers I can't really say it's the best way to enjoy the web...

What about ROI?

When you try googling anything about the topic, you end up with a huge amount of articles describing how Facebook and Google are making money out selling ads and even more money out of selling even more ads for mobile. What about the return on investment of those who actually buy the ad space?
Please send me a link, I have yet to find anything that's realistic about advertiser's ROI.

Ads through apps?

That's another thing. I've seen ads embedded in apps I use for my mobile. I will never click on them simply because doing so would open my browser. I don't need more lag than I already have, thank you very much, and then again, the small screen would make it as comfortable as gnawing on my toes.
I won't worry about it too much though, Twitter has announced they wouldn't allow ads from their third party apps anymore. Nice for them to secure their own channel (tweetup), but not so  nice for many a developer's business plan.

Back to the real world, sns advertisers could choke on the red pill.

What seems to be profitable, then? Coupons. Location based advertisement.
Where does it bring us back to? Traditional advertising.
Will it work? Yes, Yes and YES.

Why?

1) It brings direct rewards to the consumer
2) It's directly relevant to the user
3) It's less intrusive

Am I the only one to think that? No.

Apple did forbid developers to implement location based ads, they want to keep the candies for themselves.
Google battled and won over location based ads.
Yahoo! is so desperate to enter the battle it offered to buy foursquare, and just bought Koprol.

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

Anda ingin belajar bahasa Inggris? Selamat!

Bahasa Inggris sudah lama menjadi salah satu hal terpenting dalam kehidupan kita dan tidak hanya dibutuhkan di dunia kerja lho.
Sayangnya proses belajar bahasa Inggris itu tidak selalu gampang. Agar suatu bahasa bisa dimengerti dengan baik, Anda harus sering latihan.
Masalahnya, Anda mungkin tidak punya kenalan yang bisa diajak mempraktikkan bahasa itu.

Nah, tip-tip berikut ini bisa membantu Anda belajar bahasa Inggris tanpa tambah pusing.

1) Teknik lima kata.

Atau seperti kata teman saya: jurus ajaib lima kata masuk mimpi.
Tekniknya sangat gampang:

- Tulis lima kata baru di atas kertas atau notebook kecil, serta terjemahannya.
- Baca lima kata baru itu 10 menit sebelum tidur dan coba pelajari.
- Saat bangun, dijamin Anda akan ingat sekurang-kurangnya dua dari lima kata itu.

Andai memakai teknik ini setiap hari, Anda sudah bisa hafalkan lebih dari 700 kata setelah satu tahun!

Kalau ternyata keberatan mencari lima kata per hari, kurangi saja sampai jumlahnya sesuai dengan daya ingat Anda.

2) Teknik DVD

Belajar sambil meniru peran-peran Avatar juga boleh.
Cukup beli DVD dengan teks Inggris yang sudah oke. Daripada menyetel teks Indonesia, tonton filmnya saja sambil membaca teks Inggrisnya.
Metode ini juga sangat berguna untuk latihan pendengaran.

3) Teknik Orang Gila (bicara kepada diri sendiri)

Sambil jalan, bersih-bersih kamar, di dalam angkot, Anda bisa mencoba berdialog pada diri sendiri...tetapi dalam bahasa Inggris!
Tidak usah bersuara juga kalau takut dianggap orang gila :)

Saat masih pemula, saya selalu pakai teknik-teknik itu dan ternyata kemajuan saya sangat cepat, dalam bahasa Indonesia maupun dalam bahasa Inggris. Jadi, jangan ragu-ragu mencobanya yah? :)

Posted via email from Walking down the dragon's back

You've seen it, we've seen it, cyber-bullying is around the corner.
Facebook and Twitter, as any other communication platforms, are as many ways to find yourself the lucky owner of an official stalker.
While it's worthy of all your concern as parents or siblings, it's sadly not the only thing you should worry about.
Here are some of the negative aspects of the Internet and how to prevent your little ones from bumping into them.

What is seen cannot be unseen.

The most disturbing event I've had to face so far is friend being tagged in a photo depicting a beheaded corpse.
These pictures are unfortunately very common, and very easy to find.
What to do then?

• Set up search filters
  They are available for Google, Yahoo and Bing

• Be informed. 
  4chan (really [nNumber]Chan), Encyclopedia Dramatica and a load of Shock Sites are already sources of major freak out for many grown ups, you don't wanna know what they can do to a 10 years-old.

• Don't be fooled
  Even Wikipedia has some pretty graphic explanations about sex-related topics (that's the fun side, don't go near the dermatology section).
  

But you can monitor all you want, you know kids are pretty smart, they'll do anything to access the kind of pictures/videos that will make them stop believing in Santa. So talk to them, be open and be with them when they access the web.

This crazy little thing called P2P

I'll be brief: Either do it yourself, or ban it. You know this pre-release of the latest blockbuster you just downloaded? You know you feel stupid when you discover that, really, it's a porn flick. Your little one will come back with a lot of question about Iron Man if you don't take care.

We're all friends, right?

Well, no. Remember, Internet was created by the people, for the people. It's been created by geeks, who are known to have, sometimes, a pretty sick humor (I should know). And even if yes, it's for the people, as far as I know it still includes the percentage that's nuts enough to come out with the 47 original rules of the internet. I invite you to read it with your sarcasm detector fully charged, it's pretty informative.

So now you know what kind of crackpot you can stumble upon, and since you already know we're only six levels away from pretty much anybody on this planet, you'll find that the following advices make sense.

• No chatroulette. Ever.
  Nuf' said.

• On social networking sites, only let your kids befriend people they (you) already know in real life.
  Taking a look at their profiles (of course you know their password yes?)

• Never let them meet face to face someone they met online.
  Just in case they did meet someone online

• Their data are theirs.
  So, no darling, you can't give the nice man/website your phone number.
  The same goes for pictures and videos.

• Anonymous Coward is a Coward
  If your little one gets unfriendly messages from an unknown persona, don't let her take it seriously, anonymity combined to aggressiveness is just plain cowardice. Let them laugh at the scaredy haters.

• Block the undesirable.
  Facebook, Twitter, IM, Chatrooms, Forums... they all have at least a blacklist feature, don't hesitate to use it. I cant explain step by step here, but tutorials are widely available through a simple Google search

• Social is not just Facebook and Twitter.
  Forums and chat rooms are still active, and if they are not under the spotlight right now, you still should be careful about their content, especially the chatrooms.

• Privacy is the new black. Learn and teach!
  I've written a piece about it some weeks ago, and you can scour the web for many other useful tips. Being informed yourself is the best way to teach online safety to the apple of your eyes.
  

Hoping it's been useful. And remember, the more you know about the web, the safest your kids are. Be open, talk and experience, that's the ultimate key!

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

Here is a first class rant.

French is considered a classic, classy, romantic language.
What happens, thus, is a myriad of Frenchabes (French wannabes, wapanese's remote cousins) trying to compose their best neo-romantic piece with the help of a year of high-school French class and/or Google Translate.
To understand how an automatic translation can transform your sweetest intent into an embarrassing word soup, here are some examples:

What you meant:

- My love for you will never fade away
- Love me tender, love me sweet
- Only you and you alone can thrill me like you do

What I read:

- Mon amour pour toi ne sont jamais à la décoloration.
- M'aimes offre, m'aimes douce
- Seuls vous et vous seul pouvez me passionnent vous ne

What you really wrote:

- My love for you are never at the washing-up
- Do you love me bargain, do you love it sweet
- Only you all and you alone can passionate me don't

The first line is a copy paste from a chat with a friend, the two others are from some old-time love songs.

I've tried to render the grammatical chaos in the French translations, but I gave up.
I guess you can see where the problem is.
Whereas my English tends to be somewhat (yeah) broken, I guess you can still get some sense out of my writings.
These are plain garble.

Let it be clear, if you're actually learning French, there isn't anything wrong with trying.
BUT, if you don't know a word of the language... leave it alone.
You'll end up reading like French lolcat, especially if you're addressing a native.

Posted via email from Walking down the dragon's back

This post is an answer to Robert Scobles's post, where he wishes privacy to be dead for good, again, and Facebook to turn full disclosed.

Robert, if you allow me...

First of all, I do think we have something in common. I am popular among my offline friends for the same reason you are famous online: our inflated ego. No that's not a bad thing. But here, in this very case, I think you're pushing it too far.

We're not all celebrities

I might be a star before my friends and a demigod before my girlfriend, there are some things I like to keep for them and them only: the silly faces, the naked pole dancing, some of my pretty disturbing thoughts about gastronomy and babies...
Facebook would go all open, it would be even better for you, more visibility, better way to let your opinions known.
Then again, we are not all celebrities.

We're not all techies/internet marketers

You and I, Robert, have something to say. Me on a much smaller scale (but I'll get you one day don't worry), but still. We know how to crawl for information, we know what to say and when to open our mouth, and before all, we want it to be heard.
That's not the case of my auntie. I wouldn't want people to know my auntie is 75 years old and still single....oops?

Not everybody knows how to use Facebook.

Apparently, tutorial about Facebook are highly demanded. Nearly 10 millions results on Google with "how to facebook".
You have to realize that 400.000.000 people have various levels of knowledge about the site and its features.
The proof? Well, that article, which dates from last April, states that more and more people are bullied online.
They wouldn't if they knew how to use the site, right?

Apparently users are idiots

Well, at least that what I can deduce from the privacy settings policy.
It switched from "It's safe, it's on Facebook" to "OMG it's on Facebook HOW DO I REMOVE IT?" through multiple layouts and rules changes, and yes, obfuscated settings.
If we compare the skyrocketing concern about privacy on Facebook and the plethora of tutorials to the introductory sentence
"It should be easy to find and connect with friends. Your privacy settings should be simple and easy to understand." found on the site's privacy guide, we can only be drawn to one conclusion : users are idiots.
Or Facebook thinks so.
Anyway, idiots tend to publish things they regret later. No?

Last but not least: It's people's right...why, it's their life after all....

That the easiest argument of all, the one that makes the most sense.
Controlling our lives and deciding what we should expose and to whom is our right.
It should be easy. It should not be an option.

Bonus: your naked picture (from flickr), it's probably everywhere. Mine coming soon.

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

Here I am going to digress from my usual ranting about everything technology. Or maybe not, you chose.
Though since I'd like to write something different from "Google bought something, again" and "Oh God, Facebook/Nokia/The Universe sucks" and the last week in news has been pretty flat, I'll just free-opine.

See, there are things I'm aware of right now, such as the iPad being pretty popular and the tablets coming right our way, I'm sensing a disturbance in the Force.
I had a vision.

A vision were, lead by Apple, tech gadgets are going to behave more and more like home appliances. I don't say it's bad, at least not for everybody, read further.
I hear here and there that games are now being streamed from the cloud, I realize that connecting computers to a network is becoming as easy as pressing a key and, it's been a long while already, expressing yourself online is becoming a standard.

I come from a planet where, not long ago, you had to punch holes in wall and spend a couple of centuries configuring your machines if you wanted a LAN that really does work.
I remember, in junior high, telling a friend "What the heck are you gonna do with a TWO Gb hard disk? That's so big!".
At that time you had to restart your computer every time you install a program.

Yesterday I was in need for a codec. For those who don't know, it's the thingie you need to decode audio or video format. I am the happy borrower of a MacBook Pro, and yes QuickTime sucks (I know, I just ranted), I am thus opting for VLC as my media player. The codec I needed is AMR, which cannot be integrated directly in VLC due to a licensing problem. I know what to do: download the source code and compile with the right options (It means baking it myself from the pre-made dough...effort though, I might pass on that).

Now, this is still somehow possible, but what will happen the day I can't mess with my apps myself? 
Oh, what will happen when my friends will ask for help because her streamed app doesn't work?

"Well, I can do nothing, the problem is in their hands now, no way I can fix it"
-"But I though you were a Geek?"
-"Yes, a computer geek, not a home appliance geek"
- pointing at her tablet "But this IS a computer"
- *facepalm*

Yup, the same way that many broken cars now can't be fixed the way they were because of the very electronics that make them so comfortable, I'm afraid our future "computers" will follow the same path and won't be fixable for the very reason that makes them user-friendly.

I SO should re-learn Linux now, so I still have a couple of years to brag about my Terminal-Fu before surrendering to user-friendliness, while telling the kids to stay out of my cables.

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr

I'm done with it, that's it, deleted.

I know, Facebook, you told me a lot of my friends will miss me.
My stalker definitely will but, sorry, for the rest I've got many more ways to reach to them and them to reach to me.

Let's see how it's done now, I'm going to plan a meeting with a couple of friends I've met back in a bar after 9 years of not having lost touch.
Will it dramatically fail?

Wait and see.

Posted via email from Living Without Facebook - A diary

Now, today was the inaugural day for my networking account. The one I am going to use to experiment. The one that is going to stay hermetically secluded from my private life and avoid fuss over my relationship status.

I have opened it already and I was amazed, though not really in a reassuring way.

I transferred my old account to my secondary (is there such a word as pentatiary?) email, and re-used my main for the new shiny thing.

What surprised me is, Facebook already knew about all my previous contacts. When I registered the new account, all my old contacts and some more I never had as Facebook friend popped-up as suggestions. Several times. Repeatedly. On the head.
I can assume that since I re-used my main email, Facebook had kept track of it and suggested me users from the former profile.
I can also assume that they don't really get that if you need to make another profile, It's probably to get rid of the first persona.

That's a minor annoyance. What really did annoy me much though, is their insistence on getting my phone number, and make it visible by default. Even though I really want to build a professional network with this new account, I do not want to reveal my phone number. I've had enough with stalkers. Yes, I've been stalked, yes it's very annoying.

So yes, you can now connect with me on my profile

What? You said you'd live without Facebook now, and you are opening a new account?

Yes I am. As I said in an earlier post, I intend to deactivate my current account for various reasons, including privacy. I do not want to use Facebook as a tool to "cnnect with my friends" anymore. But I cannot, for professional reasons, let the whole thing go.
Do not worry, none of the persons in my old profile will be included in the new one.
Definitely, tomorrow will mark the end of my private self on the web. At least on Facebook.

D -1 !

Posted via email from Living Without Facebook - A diary

Yesterday, I couldn't access the internet at all, meetings all the way.
Somehow it feels good to live away from the screen for a little wile.

It didn't prevent me to have several discussion about the web's panorama with mister W who, while not being as interested as I am in social shenanigans, has rightly remarked that there is so much information circulating on the News Feed that we tend to look at it, think "ooooh", and go do something else without involving ourselves further.

Today I was expecting... well I don't know, my friends are surprising, so I wasn't expecting anything in particular.

I got a good surprise though. One of my friends sent me this message: "You're closing your Facebook account? I will text you more then :)"
I just love it.
First-off because it's a formidable ego boost to know that some people actually care for you further than pressing the "like" button,
Then because that's the proof not everybody considers leaving Facebook a social suicide.

Also, I received this friend invite for my official stalker, the one that got my number back from the CV I'd posted when in dire need for a job.
I'm pretty relieved to know she won't bother me anymore. Not being available will cost me much less than covering her in honey and unleashing the fire ants.

Last but not least, while replying to a Friend who was remarking that I wasn't ready to notify me every time he goes to the bathroom (though I know he would, if he knew it to annoy me), I got eye-mugged by a popup asking me if I wanted to link my profile to "these 24 pages".
I've had the same thing happening before, and kindly told Facebook to remind me later. This time I wasn't offered a choice, I had to do it or they would kill a bunny and I wouldn't be able to answer my bathroom friend.
Well, the bunny is dead. I happen to have Firebug installed. Where I can hack (read:"edit") everything that show on my browser. Of course I do know HTML, so I found the harassing popup and simply deleted it from the page, along with two other more or less visible layers preventing me with the rest of the page. Status answered.
I don't know what would have happened has I simply refreshed the page, the adrenalin jumped a my fingertips and I didn't try an find the non barbarian solution.

That's it for today.

Stay tuned for more, D-day approaching.

Posted via email from Living Without Facebook - A diary