Confused by what Google Base was all about? Take a look at this. I am very interested in seeing exactly what happens here.

As a handful of you may know, I’m very busy working on a blogging book right now. I have been attempting to start work on this thing since last November, and only recently I got some serious work done on it. Unlike other writers I take a very straight forward “slash and burn” approach to writing. I don’t fluff it with pages of useless stories. I write only what I specifically know about. If needed I do research to get a few facts, but otherwise it goes straight from my head to the page (much like this blog.)

My problem is that I have real websites to run and update, thousands of users to keep happy, and a blog to write. Its not an easy task! With all these distractions its difficult to make major progress on any project.
There is another well known writer out there who is also working on a blogging book which will completely dwarf mine when its released, so there is even more reason for me to get this done now. The good new is that I think mine will compliment his. If what he said was true, it will.

What is different about my book from the others that are already out is that I’m covering a lot of technical specifics about blogging. Forget the “Rich Jerk” generalizations, this is specific stuff that you can do yourself. For example, I’ve got a chapter written about using Google Analytics with your blog. Every day I’m learning great new stuff about this very powerful tool. Its not simply how to install Google Analytics, but how to take that information and use it to make more money with your websites (blog or otherwise.)

I’m also revealing all the “tricks” I’ve used in launching this blog. To be fair, this blog is nothing for me to brag about. What I will say is that I’m having a great time doing it, and if I had just a little more time to spend I could take it to a whole other level. I know some of you are experts in other fields and you are in a position to to some very powerful stuff with a blog. I can’t guarantee blogging will make you rich, but I guarantee you it will give you recognition and contacts that would be otherwise virtually unreachable (at least if you follow the stuff I’m writing about right now.) What you do with that information is up to you.

If you didn’t care about affiliates losing money from accidental DMCAs by Perfect 10, this story might catch your attention. The holder of the trademark “Sweet Pea” is sueing 51 users of CafePress for infrindging on their trademark. The defendants have the option of handing over $5,000 or going to court and risk a multi-million dollar judgement.

Unlike Google’s lawsuit, this lawsuit is in fact quite legitimate. Trademarking phrases for use on clothing is not uncommon. Remember the story aboutParis Hilton trademarking the phrase “Thats hot”? (may be this CafePress user should be worried.)

In fact, unless a trademark holder enforces their mark they could lose it. Thats too bad for the CafePress affiliate who sold a $5 item and is convinced trademarking two words isn’t possible.

Recently I’ve been experimenting with different solutions for monetizing my sites beyond Adsense. Since many other programs restrict certains ads and offers to US or UK traffic only I have been looking into Geotargetting my ads.

Shoemoney says he’s seen a 25% increase in revenue by geotargetting specific offers. Those are the kind of numbers that make me pay attention. I’m actually surprised that more programs don’t geotarget for you, like Adult Friend Finder does (which they’ve been incredibly successful with.) Rather than filter out unwanted impressions through geotargetting, Yahoo recently terminated a bunch of publishers for sending too much international traffic.

Warning, links in this story lead to adult content

As I reported earlier, a Judge a has ruled Google infringed on Perfect 10’s copyright through Google Images. Here is DMCA notice Perfect 10 sent Google listing sites to remove from Google Images along with the search terms.

Although the news stories made it appear that these websites were directly stealing Perfect 10’s copyrighted images, after reviewing the DMCA notice and reading complaints on several webmaster forums I have learned otherwise. In fact, many of these websites were using content given by Photographer’s website affiliate programs to program their program. Apparently, these photographers have shot content for Perfect 10 at some point in the past.

I do not see how Perfect 10 could have spent perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars sueing Google and not have known these photographers had their own premium internet sites.

In fact, it gets worse. A specific site owner claims that they were approached by Perfect 10 who requested specific models and specific images.

Based on what I have read from site owners, I am of the opinion that the following happened:

In my opinion, Perfect 10 purchased the rights to specific images that were ranking on Google, with the intention to sue Google, and possibly even the affiliates who were using these images; affiliates who had no reason at all to believe they were infringing on anyone’s copyright.

A individual representing another affiliate program stated that Perfect 10, in December, approached them to purchase specific images. Not only did Perfect10’s DMCA request include that program’s affiliates, but also the website of the affiliate program itself! Here is the direct quote made on a public adult webmaster board (warning, adult content on link)

Perfect10 makes the big mistake of including 105 of our affiliates in their DMCA notification to Google: http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=898. They even listed our own affiliate program domain as a copyright infringer : http://www.newnudecash.com/ . Google’s reaction was to randomly block some of the sites listed, and therefor some of you have lost your sites main page listing at Google.

If what is stated is true, and these images were simply “licensed” to Prefect 10, rather than the copyright being sold, they are not even in legal a position to issue a DMCA request!

I did not create this blog to cover the adult industry, However, I believe this story is extremely important for two reasons. First, mainstream or adult, how can affiliates know what an affiliate program owner is doing won’t cause them legal problems or hurt their business? (while the affiliates themselves were not sued, many did lose lots of money due to loss of search engine traffic, my understanding is that for a time entire domains were banned.) Second, this appears to be a case of a company specificly laying a trap in order to sue Google, in a case which could have dramatic implications to fair use on the internet.

Your in luck — eBay carries them!

The reality is that human body parts are prohibited on eBay — and also illegal to sell in the US. I think this is illustrative of a larger problem. In this month’s Business 2.0 there was an article about a company using algorithms to do PPC advertising buys on a massive scale (already lent it out, so I don’t have the details.) What could possibly go wrong? This may be one example.

If you don’t subscribe to Business 2.0, stop by your local newstand and pick up March’s issue. I’m reading an article about the commercialization of space. Absolutely great stuff. Just as interesting, the leaders funding these ventures made their millions and billions from computers & the web. Here is a list: Elon Musk of Paypal, Paul Allen of Microsoft, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and John Carmack of iD software (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake.) Really incredible stuff.

While people like Paul Allen a just putting out the cash, guys like John Carmack are actively involved in the science behind the stuff. All of these guys have had a dramatic impact on where computers and the internet are today, but that wasn’t enough, they are laying the foundations of where humans could be headed over the next several hundred years and beyond.

I’m sure everyone will be talking about this tommorow, both webmasters & the mainstream press. From the AFP - US District Judge Howard Matz has ruled that Google infringed on Perfect 10’s copyright by indexing images with Google Images. This is of particular note:

Matz’s ruling also notes that because Perfect 10 sells similar-size versions of its images to cell phone users through a separate company, Fonestarz Media, Perfect 10 stands to lose revenue if its request for a court order blocking Google’s use of the thumbnails is not granted.

I’m aware of more than a few sites out there that have relied on fair use for mobile content. That does not establish a good case history if they ever ended up in court!

Google has been sued by AFP over Google News and also won a copyright lawsuit involving its website caching.

While in itself this may not be incredibly significant, I think its a small step toward where the web is moving — PRWeb has added trackbacks to its releases.

By allowing inbound TrackBack “pings,” PRWeb is the first press release newswire to enable and encourage press release interaction and commentary from the blogosphere. This latest feature enables bloggers to directly link press release content commentary to the press releases on the PRWeb site.

The internet is full of choices. “Who will be your ISP?” and “What web browser will you use?” is just the beginning.

Choice means there is competition. Competition is important because companies are forced to innovate and provide top-notch customer support or they risk loosing their customers. However, there is a downside to this.

Take instant messaging as an example. There are many different programs and protocals out there, only a handful which can interact with each other. For some of my contacts I must use ICQ, for other AIM, others Google Talk, and other MSN or Yahoo. Thats right, that is five different programs — just for text chatting, and there are plenty missing from my list!

This “problem” isn’t limited to instant messaging programs either. For example, if you want to find an apartment in Rome, Italy, there are countless rental agency websites that you have to crawl through. Well over 50 companies bid for the keyword “rome apartments” on Google alone. At some point, the advantages of competition begin to be outweighed by the difficulty to locate what you are looking for.

Google was a step in the right direction. Shopping comparison sites have made millions pulling the mess of online retailers together. I predict that the next 5 to 10 years will see a boom in companies who bring information together, be it vacation rentals or online communication.

People are looking for stuff, does your website make it easier, or harder for them to find it?