Twitter recently announced its intentions to clean out spammers.

For some time, the follower and following counts we display have been incorrect for some folks. We’re soon to push a change that will address this issue. This means that the count you see in your sidebar should match what you see on your follower and following pages.

However, a consequence of this change is that follower counts will drop for some people. In particular, those with large followings may see significant changes as we correct for spam accounts and data inconsistencies. No legitimate followings should be affected—we’re just cleaning up artifacts in the system.

As a result of this they warned that follower numbers could be affected. It seems that those with high followings could be the worst affected seeing high number losses.
My modest account saw a small loss of 35, so no great worries there. Has anyone seen any significant decreases on their account, please let us know.

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Click Forensics has introduced a new tool to help marketers combat click fraud.

The new tool is called “Block List”

Standard click fraud detection mechanisms employ various anomaly detection rules. 1,000 clicks from the same visitor in the span of a minute, or an hour, or week, is a traffic anomaly that’s easy to find. Almost all search engines and ad networks would screen this out. But the same number of clicks spread across hundreds of sites by hundreds of “visitors” could look totally normal. Anomaly detection rules won’t help find it.

The new tool provides ad networks with a continually updated list of visitor IP addresses and publishers known to generate online click fraud. Block List can be used with the Click Forensics platform to block invalid traffic and to shift advertsing dollars to other sources that offer better results.

The Block List tool could help marketers reduce the rate of click fraud between 15 to 25 percent according to Click Forensics.

Click Forensics employs proprietary technology utilizing high-dimensional cluster analysis to find publisher collusion. Ad networks rely on this technology to find fraud that they would miss with their standard in-house anomaly detection rules.

Some examples of blocked sources:-
–Publishers committing click fraud;
–IP addresses of visitors known to commit a high level of fraud;
–IP address ranges generating non-human traffic, such as co-location facilities; and
–Other traffic sources that generate hacker attacks and spam.

I for one will be interested to hear more news on this.

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Ok so Flippa is a few weeks old now and is the new Sitepoint Marketplace and I for one dont like it.
Since the change it seems that the quality of sites for sale has dropped dramatically, but could this be the trend as DP seem to be suffering the same fate? Sitepoints Marketplace however always seemed to have the edge over DP in quality of listings yet now they seem worse.

I also dont like the new layout, firstly its not easy on the eye, secondly unlike the previous layout its not as clear to see exactly what is happening. Maybe its just me im not sure?
I do understand though that they are willing to listen to comments and suggestions, but wether any changes would be made is another matter.
Lets see what happens over the next few months.

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I had to laugh when I read about this! Yes you read the headline correctly…A Nobel Peace Prize for Twitter?
This is from the Christian Science Monitor website. A quote from which is…

Without Twitter, the world might have known little more than a losing candidate accusing the powers that be of alleged fraud. Without Twitter, the people of Iran would not have felt empowered and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy. They did so because they knew the world was watching. With Twitter, they now shout hope with a passion and dedication that resonates not just with those on their street, but with millions across the globe.

Now I think Twitter has its uses but I find it hard to believe that it could be as strong a medium as to reserve that sort of award. Who would receive the award? The founders of the site, the members or maybe the server? Can it truly be warded to an “object” such as a website, if so what could be due a nomination next….the telephone?
Twitter is a “medium”, a platform for short dicussion news bytes etc. and it seems very,very good at that but thats where it ends, only human intervention creates peace (oh and unrest fo that matter!)

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I just read about the Russian Investment firm Digital Sky Technologies who are wanting to buy $100 million of common stock from employees.
I guess a spending spree or two may occur.
The $14.77 a share that they are offering would value the company at $6.5 billion and would give Digital Sky Technologies a 3.5 stake in FaceBook certainly not a take over, but a nice reward for employees hard work. Though I understand no Executives are allowed to cash theirs.

While individuals must make their own decisions about participating in this program, I’m pleased that the price D.S.T. is offering is much greater than the price originally considered last fall,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, in a statement. “This is recognition of Facebook’s growth and progress towards making the world more open and connected

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I am interested to see what the latest Google online training Webinars have to offer and I would recommend that any one who uses adwords makes a note of the dates and does the same.

Google Webinars

The Google AdWords team run regular webinars on a variety of topics which you can attend for free. Some webinars are live, and others are recorded so you can access them on demand.

You can find out more at the Google Conversion Room

Anything to improve conversion rates has got to be worth looking at.

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