The War on Sharing [Infographic]

The war that the record labels is waging to protect its copyrighted music is mistakenly believed to only concern services that explicitly allow you to share music.

That's not so true anymore. The RIAA is broadening its scope. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Its new targets are services such as Box.net, the subject of a subpoena this week in California, served by the RIAA's vice president of online piracy, Mark McDevitt. The RIAA seeks information about people it believes are using Box to illegally use "sound recordings."

In a prepared statement, Box.net said to The Hollywood Reporter:

Sponsor

"We take the confidentiality of our customers' information very seriously, but just like all other businesses, we are legally required to comply with court orders," said Box.Net in a statement to THR. "Our compliance will be limited to the information the court requires we produce. At Box, we're primarily focused on powering collaboration and information sharing within businesses, and it's rare that we run into copyright infringement issues in those instances."

This is a chilling sign of what may be to come as the RIAA sets its sights upon online services that provide online storage. And that could have impacts on any online service. That could be Google, Dropbox, Zoho or others that provide a space where digital files can be stored.

The entertainment industry's war on sharing is not new, as illustrated by this infographic by Ashley Angell. It shows to what lengths the RIAA and MPAA will go to pursue lawsuits against consumers.

Larger image

With Box, the customers are businesses for the most part. That is a key difference to other challenges by the RIAA. And It sets up a conflict between service providers and their clients who now face a determined media industry with a historic interest in litigation to protect its copyrights.
DiscussThe war that the record labels is waging to protect its copyrighted music is mistakenly believed to only concern services that explicitly allow you to share music.

That's not so true anymore. The RIAA is broadening its scope. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Its new targets are services such as Box.net, the subject of a subpoena this week in California, served by the RIAA's vice president of online piracy, Mark McDevitt. The RIAA seeks information about people it believes are using Box to illegally use "sound recordings."

In a prepared statement, Box.net said to The Hollywood Reporter:

Sponsor

"We take the confidentiality of our customers' information very seriously, but just like all other businesses, we are legally required to comply with court orders," said Box.Net in a statement to THR. "Our compliance will be limited to the information the court requires we produce. At Box, we're primarily focused on powering collaboration and information sharing within businesses, and it's rare that we run into copyright infringement issues in those instances."

This is a chilling sign of what may be to come as the RIAA sets its sights upon online services that provide online storage. And that could have impacts on any online service. That could be Google, Dropbox, Zoho or others that provide a space where digital files can be stored.

The entertainment industry's war on sharing is not new, as illustrated by this infographic by Ashley Angell. It shows to what lengths the RIAA and MPAA will go to pursue lawsuits against consumers.

Larger image

With Box, the customers are businesses for the most part. That is a key difference to other challenges by the RIAA. And It sets up a conflict between service providers and their clients who now face a determined media industry with a historic interest in litigation to protect its copyrights.
Discuss

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/UOcAC2sculg/the-war-on-sharing-infographic.php

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Monday, April 25th

As we’ve reported before, our good friends over at Google are starting up a daily puzzle challenge. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery.

And much to our enjoyment, they’ve decided to share the puzzles with us at GeekDad (hmm… Google a Day? GD? GeekDad?), so each morning at 12:01am ET you’ll see a new puzzle, and the previous day’s answer (in invisitext) posted here.

SPOILER WARNING: As a test, we’re going to leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

In the century following Columbus’ trip to the New World, people began playing an organized sport on a frozen surface. Where did that sport begin?

YESTERDAY’S ANSWER (HIGHLIGHT TO SEE):

No answer for today, as we did not carry a puzzle yesterday.As we’ve reported before, our good friends over at Google are starting up a daily puzzle challenge. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery.

And much to our enjoyment, they’ve decided to share the puzzles with us at GeekDad (hmm… Google a Day? GD? GeekDad?), so each morning at 12:01am ET you’ll see a new puzzle, and the previous day’s answer (in invisitext) posted here.

SPOILER WARNING: As a test, we’re going to leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool

Original Link: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wiredgeekdad/~3/fr2_MtpfN5w/

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The New Google Analytics: Events Goals

This is part of our series of posts highlighting the new Google Analytics. The new version of Google Analytics is currently available in beta to a number of Analytics users. We’ll be giving access to even more users soon. Sign up for early access. And follow Google Analytics on Twitter for the latest updates.
Real Analytics ninjas use goals. Google Analytics has always had URL Goals (when a visitor reaches a specific page). In 2009, we added Engagement Goals to track success metrics around visit depth and time on site. With the new version of Google Analytics, we’ve added one more: Event Goals. This was one of our most requested features, and it gives you even more reason to use event tracking.
A brief intro to Event TrackingYou can use Event Tracking in Google Analytics to track visitor actions that don't correspond directly to pageviews. It's a great fit for tracking things like:
* Downloads of a PDF or other file
* Interaction with dynamic or AJAX sites
* Interaction with Adobe Flash objects, embedded videos, and other media
* Number of errors users get when attempting to checkout
* How long a video was watched on your site

Events are defined using a set of Categories, Actions, Labels, and Values. Here’s how you might set up event tracking for tracking downloads of whitepapers and presentations.

These interactions all have potential business impact, but until now you couldn’t track them as goals in Google Analytics. Let’s look at three ways you might use Event Goals on your site.
Tracking DownloadsSuppose you run a business to business (B2B) website and offer whitepapers (as a PDF download) in order to attract leads. You drive traffic to this page through advertising. You can track the number of downloads using event tracking. For example, we can use the category to designate the click was of type “download”. We can use the action to designate the download was a “whitepaper” and we can use the label to identify the actual whitepaper that was downloaded.
With the new Google Analytics, configuring this as a goal is easy. We simply match any event with the category of “download” and the action of “whitepaper”. Finally we set the goal value as 20.

Tracking Time SpentEvent tracking is powerful because you can track values, along with the category, action, and label. Going back to our B2B website, suppose you have a embedded product demo video on your page. With a little JavaScript, you can track the time a user spends watching the video and send that number back to Google Analytics as an event value.
With Event Goals, you can now set up a goal based on this value. In this example, we’ve configured a goal when a user spends over 180 seconds watching the product demo.

Using The Event Value As The Conversion ValueTraditionally, the only way to set goal values was when creating the goal in Google Analytics, or from the tracking code using ecommerce tracking. With Event Goals, you have another option: using the event value as the goal value.
Again putting yourself in the shoes of a B2B website owner, you realize not all your whitepapers bring in the same quality of lead. The lead value associated with downloading a certain whitepaper is $20, but the lead value from a different whitepaper is $35. Rather than creating a separate goal for each, you can pass the values 20 and 35 as the Event Value, and then set up the goal to use the actual Event Value:

Now when a goal is matched, the value passed in the event will be used as the goal value.
These are just a few examples of how you can take advantage of Event Goals in the new Google Analytics. You can read more on how to implement Event Tracking on Google Code and how to set up goals in the new Analytics. We’re constantly giving more of you access to the new version. If you don’t have the new version yet, you can sign up for earlier access.
Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics TeamThis is part of our series of posts highlighting the new Google Analytics. The new version of Google Analytics is currently available in beta to a number of Analytics users. We’ll be giving access to even more users soon. Sign up for early access. And follow Google Analytics on Twitter for the latest updates.
Real Analytics ninjas use goals. Google Analytics has always had URL Goals (when a visitor reaches a specific page). In 2009, we added Engagement Goals to track success metrics around visit depth and time on site. With the new version of Google Analytics, we’ve added one more: Event Goals. This was one of our most requested features, and it gives you even more reason to use event tracking.
A brief intro to Event TrackingYou can use Event Tracking in Google Analytics to track visitor actions that don't correspond directly to pageviews. It's a great fit for tracking things like:
* Downloads of a PDF or other file
* Interaction with dynamic or AJAX sites
* Interaction with Adobe Flash objects, embedded videos, and other media
* Number of errors users get when attempting to checkout
* How long a video was watched on your site

Events are defined using a set of Categories, Actions, Labels, and Values. Here’s how you might set up event tracking for tracking downloads of whitepapers and presentations.

These interactions all have potential business impact, but until now you couldn’t track them as goals in Google Analytics. Let’s look at three ways you might use Event Goals on your site.
Tracking DownloadsSuppose you run a business to business (B2B) website and offer whitepapers (as a PDF download) in order to attract leads. You drive traffic to this page through advertising. You can track the number of downloads using event tracking. For example, we can use the category to designate the click was of type “download”. We can use the action to designate the download was a “whitepaper” and we can use the label to identify the actual whitepaper that was downloaded.
With the new Google Analytics, configuring this as a goal is easy. We simply match any event with the category of “download” and the action of “whitepaper”. Finally we set the goal value as 20.

Tracking Time SpentEvent tracking is powerful because you can track values, along with the category, action, and label. Going back to our B2B website, suppose you have a embedded product demo video on your page. With a little JavaScript, you can track the time a user spends watching the video and send that number back to Google Analytics as an event value.
With Event Goals, you can now set up a goal based on this value. In this example, we’ve configured a goal when a user spends over 180 seconds watching the product demo.

Using The Event Value As The Conversion ValueTraditionally, the only way to set goal values was when creating the goal in Google Analytics, or from the tracking code using ecommerce tracking. With Event Goals, you have another option: using the event value as the goal value.
Again putting yourself in the shoes of a B2B website owner, you realize not all your whitepapers bring in the same quality of lead. The lead value associated with downloading a certain whitepaper is $20, but the lead value from a different whitepaper is $35. Rather than creating a separate goal for each, you can pass the values 20 and 35 as the Event Value, and then set up the goal to use the actual Event Value:

Now when a goal is matched, the value passed in the event will be used as the goal value.
These are just a few examples of how you can take advantage of Event Goals in the new Google Analytics. You can read more on how to implement Event Tracking on Google Code and how to set up goals in the new Analytics. We’re constantly giving more of you access to the new version. If you don’t have the new version yet, you can sign up for earlier access

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tRaA/~3/BU8O3XvOPI0/new-google-analytics-events-goals.html

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For Now, Twitter Shares Count More Than 1′s in Google Search Ranking [NetworkEffect]

Here’s a funny thing about Google’s new +1 tool, which lets users vote up search results. At launch, Google is keeping recommendations from its new +1 voting tool out of its ranking algorithm, even though it does consider shares on services like Twitter as a signal in its core search results.

Plus-one-ing (or however you write that!) a link doesn’t make it appear higher in search results, yet. The search result shows up in the same order it would have, annotated with information about people who have +1′ed it.

After seeing lots of confusion about this, we followed up with a Google spokeswoman this morning to talk through exactly how this works.

Eventually, the plan is to consider +1 votes as one of many signals in Google rankings, she said. But right now, while +1 activity is just getting started, Google is excluding it from its ranking algorithm. In part that’s because early +1 users could warp search results before there’s enough data.

Currently, Google does use Twitter shares to help rank core search results. That was part of its big social search launch in February.

So for the moment, sharing a link on Twitter counts for more in the Google search algorithm than +1′ing it on Google.

Though Google may not re-rank yet based on +1, people who sign up to participate in the trial will start seeing +1′s from their friends and the rest of +1 testers immediately.

So as not to crowd the page, if a link has been +1′ed more times than it has been shared on Twitter, the +1′s will show up, the spokeswoman said. If there have been more Twitter shares than +1′s, those will show up.

Google does not yet count public Facebook “likes” as a social search signal, though it plans to, Director of Product Management Mike Cassidy told NetworkEffect earlier this month. At the time, Cassidy maintained that the omission of Facebook data wasn’t due to tension between Google and Facebook over personal data sharing. Rather, he said, it was a “technical issue” that would be resolved soon.Here’s a funny thing about Google’s new +1 tool, which lets users vote up search results. At launch, Google is keeping recommendations from its new +1 voting tool out of its ranking algorithm, even though it does consider shares on services like Twitter as a signal in its core search results.

Plus-one-ing (or however you write that!) a link doesn’t make it appear higher in search results, yet. The search result shows up in the same order it would have, annotated with information about people who have +1′ed it.

After seeing lots of confusion about this, we followed up with a Google spokeswoman this morning to talk through exactly how this works.

Eventually, the plan is to consider +1 votes as one of many signals in Google rankings, she said. But right now, while +1 activity is just getting started, Google is excluding it from its ranking algorithm. In part that’s because early +1 users could warp search results before there’s enough data.

Currently, Google does use Twitter shares to help rank core search results. That was part of its big social search launch in February.

So for the moment, sharing a link on Twitter counts for more in the Google search algorithm than +1′ing it on Google.

Though Google may not re-rank yet based on +1, people who sign up to participate in the trial will start seeing +1′s from their friends and the rest of +1 testers immediately.

So as not to crowd the page, if a link has been +1′ed more times than it has been shared on Twitter, the +1′s will show up, the spokeswoman said. If there have been more Twitter shares than +1′s, those will show up.

Google does not yet count public Facebook “likes” as a social search signal, though it plans to, Director of Product Management Mike Cassidy told NetworkEffect earlier this month

Original Link: http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/20110330/for-now-twitter-shares-count-more-than-1s-in-google-search-ranking/?mod=ATD_rss

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Google Starts Testing Google Music Internally

Krystalo writes "Google employees have begun testing Google Music internally. Talks with at least some of the top publishers and the four largest record labels are still ongoing. The delays are largely due to the fact that Google is negotiating for cloud music rights and not just the authorization to distribute the songs themselves. The search giant wants to be able to store users' existing music libraries on the company's servers. Labels are in similar discussions with Apple."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.Krystalo writes "Google employees have begun testing Google Music internally. Talks with at least some of the top publishers and the four largest record labels are still ongoing. The delays are largely due to the fact that Google is negotiating for cloud music rights and not just the authorization to distribute the songs themselves. The search giant wants to be able to store users' existing music libraries on the company's servers. Labels are in similar discussions with Apple."

Read more of this story

Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/I1fRDXPkANU/Google-Starts-Testing-Google-Music-Internally

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