Archive for the ‘Web Culture’ Category
I thought the web is supposed to go free?
Posted on November 4th, 2009 by Kiwibeak.
Excerpt from an email forwarded to us from a defender of the ‘Beak,
Another tidbit, you may notice that the Flicker link was removed from the the ‘photos’ shortcut section on the Kiwibeak left nav bar (it’s still in the community directory though). I had to help mrs. [blurb] today set up a FREE photosharing account. Flicker now only gives 100MB space for free and was bought out by Yahoo. Pbase (newer and less known) is also weak, charging for any decent amount of space. Formely junky photobucket is now the best offering a good amount of space, then only charging a fee for 25gig+ storage. Logically, they are trying to get a bigger market share. Guess who owns them? The small guy: Ask.com.
Lastly, i don’t know if you heard the rumours that Google is to implement a “music search” directing surfers to paid tune download companies/sponsors. LAME! Facebook is to start charging ‘tokens’ for their games, on top of the literal millions they make off their ads.
What is happening?. The web is supposed to go free, not pay (against the trend), which makes it more important for a site like Kiwibeak that efficiently lists the best FREE sites to exist.
The Beak is not a ‘trend’ or ‘empty’ homepage, it has a real and valid purpose unlike quick, cash-in (independent or big corporate run) sites. It’s obvious that there’s a lot of devotion and work on their part for FREE and for an idealistic purpose, and the web makes an endeavor like this possible and fairly cheaply, so why not do it? Someone has to…and not that many service sites attempt to build a truly FREE site. Kiwibeak does offer a free site and doesn’t just promo their own company stuff, and that alone is reason enough to use Kiwibeak as a homepage.
Nobility rules. Long live the Beak.
- Thank you ‘Defender of the ‘Beak’ you are a true champion in our book (And yes, the free-shirts are delayed for awhile, but we will be sending out a confirmation e-emails sometime in the hopefully near future).
PS. Anyone else want a free t-shirt? Just send us an email through our contact form with the size and your details, and when we send out our order confirmations, you’ll be on that list.
Thanks,
The Kiwi Staff
Yahoo!’s ‘new’ homepage — a Kiwi ripoff?
Posted on July 23rd, 2009 by Kiwibeak.
A couple years ago, Kiwibeak redesigned their homepage that included a directory based on using icons for various categories. Yahoo!, the second most-visited web page by US users, is presumed to have been monitoring the Kiwibeak homepage. For the fledging site in 2006, reports many possible, continual visits from the internet giant followed by a design overhaul of their web page that adopted the use of small icons representing different categories for their services.
Old Yahoo homepage with categorical icon navigation on left nav
Now one step farther, Yahoo! has introduced a new version of their homepage, which allows users to add their favorites (non-Yahoo sites) to a revamped left icon nav bar. The idea is very similar to the idea and claim that Kiwibeak.com has promoted in use on their homepage: A user-built directory that is ‘all-inclusive’ of the web, links to not just one company’s services, but links to all the -other- content available on the web. Obviously many other available startpage beta sites, past and present, attempt to offer a similar resource as well, but design-wise in this case, it is clear that the closest website copycatted is Kiwibeak.
In 2008, Kiwibeak also restructured their homepage/directory design to include: a) a icon-based left nav bar to specific sites and tools, b) a middle column for news and features, and c) a new expandable ‘accordion’ icon-based directory. The directory categories expand to display 3 columns of subcategories and links. Kiwibeak’s advertising model is largely based on incorporating small relevant, graphic ‘micro-ads’ within the directory.
Kiwibeak screenshot of 'Travel' directory open with small micro ad
It seems that in late Summer 2009, Yahoo with their homepage redesign has appropriated this general layout idea. The left icon nav suddenly is larger, slightly resembling the Kiwibeak directory. The left nav is editable by users to build a similar, personal ‘directory’ of links. Sometimes instead of clicking on the link and being taken directly to the desired site, a window expands (much like a Kiwibeak expandable directory) and includes not one micro ad, but one mega ad!
Yahoo pseudo-directory link expands to include embedded content with large ad
The latest Yahoo! homepage, 2009
While it seems there may be an advantage to the Yahoo! system that relies on the user to build and customize their own directory, is this really an advantage to have exterior content served directly on a homepage? Also, It looks like the new homepage is still focused on delivering Yahoo’s own content/services, with the scheme that users will find it nice that they can add a few of their own links, but then tire of the work involved and fall back on Yahoo’s services. Additionally, in order to use this ‘directory’ feature you have to be a registered user and signed in. Who wants to login to your homepage? I don’t. Especially when the requirement to login jeopardizes user privacy.
Web Searching and Your Privacy
Posted on February 11th, 2009 by Kiwibeak.
A recent article appeared in the IntelligenceReport (Parade.com/intel), Parade magazine (Feb.8th, 2009) that highlighted major search engine companies Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo noting what information is retained by them and for how long. Do you know that the words and websites you search for on the internet are stored in their databases for a period of time? Do you know that your searching identifies these terms with your ip address and computer?
The article also mentions back in 2006, “America Online (AOL) shared the records of 658,000 users with academics for research purposes….some data were able to be linked back to specific individuals.”
Here’s what the article exposes as the current breakdown of how long the record of your web search activity is stored in the the major search engines’ databases:
Microsoft: 18 Months; Google: 9 months; Yahoo!: 3 months
Nice…. maybe it’s a good idea for websurfers to reduce their reliance on search engines. One more reason that sites like Kiwibeak are a great service to the surfer—Kiwibeak.com is built to protect the privacy of the websurfer by adopting and promoting a ‘browsing’ or ‘bookmarked’ directory environment, limiting the need to use search engines heavily.
