Eric Kerr

The Facebook Open Graph Like Button is susceptible to a type of attack known as clickjacking. Basically, if the like button is embedded on the page you’re on, made completely transparent, then an attacker could trick you into Liking something without your discretion.

How the attack works:

1. User navigates to your page, like button is embedded invisibly
2. As user moves mouse, JavaScript is used to keep the button beneath the user’s cursor.
3. User clicks what they believe is a link on the page and “Likes” the attacker’s content instead.
4. User doesn’t see any notification of Liking the content, which results in a News Feed story.
5. News Feed contains mention of attacker’s content, which allows it to grow virally.

View Demo | View Source (button intentionally visible)

More advanced versions might use cookies to detect when a user is returning so they can actually use the site after presumably clicking the like button. Other modifications might include detection on when a user clicks the invisible iframe so it is removed without the user knowing and browsing returns to normal (this works in IE and Firefox, but not Chrome to my knowledge because of iFrame security). The above demo arbitrarily hides the button after 10 seconds and leaves the button visible for effect.

Twitter ran into a very similar attack last february with the propagation of a “Don’t Click” button. The main difference is that Twitter was able to block the hole by disabling iFrame embeds (basically if (window.top !== window.self), then Twitter is nefariously being iFrame embedded). Since the Like Button itself is an iFrame, Facebook can’t employ the same logic to detect clickjacking.

Advanced users would notice the change in cursor since the mouse is always located above a link and can’t be overridden since it’s in an iFrame. However, during the casual flow of browsing this would hardly go noticed.

Comments

While the media coverage for ChatRoulette has largely died out, I was curious to see how the site had evolved in the past few months. After browsing through the site for a few minutes, I quickly discovered that not much has changed: there are still a lot of naked guys gratifying themselves. With as much emphasis the site puts on reporting people, I was surprised that there wasn’t more communal effort to cleanse the site and make it look less like a gay porn. Curious, I set about testing the mechanics of the report button.

• Find 1: The report button relies solely on client-side flash storage

  The flash webcam viewer on ChatRoulette uses Flash’s Local Shared Objects to uniquely identify the anonymous user so user ban reports can be tracked. The only problem with this is that you can reset the storage. I didn’t dive in to inspecting the data that ChatRoulette’s flash webcam viewer actually stores, but my best educated guess is that they generate a random identifier and send it back to their servers to identify you. Someone could decompile the player and see what is actually being stored to really reverse-engineer it, but that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things – all a banned user needs to do is reset the local storage and they can proceed to using the site in whatever manner originally got them banned. Adobe has a nifty tool to do this yourself.

  

• Find 2: It took me over 6 minutes and 80 people to get banned

  I used a program called ManyCam to broadcast an image asking for people to report and ban me. Much to my surprise, it took over 80 people to next me before I got banned for 10 minutes. Though, thanks to Find #1, that wouldn’t stop anyone from hopping back on and trying again.

  

  Even after asking people to ban me, it took over 6 minutes for enough people to press report so my account would be disabled. Users of the site press “Next” out of habit and seemingly can’t bare the thought of moving the mouse slightly to the right or pressing a different key. Someone nude gratifying themselves would likely receive bans more quickly, but the number of people using the site for this purpose leads me to believe that users press “Next” instead of “Report” almost universally (or a bunch of people already know about Find #1).

• Find 3: Of the first 80 people I looked through, more than 10 were advertisements to adult websites

  Competing adult cam websites view ChatRoulette as a gateway drug to their services and have (probably intelligently) catered their marketing to the many potential users using ChatRoulette. I have seen ads for (not linked because they’re all nsfw) webcamclub.com, chatroulettestrip.com (a fake front-end for the Zwinky virtual-world / spyware toolbar), chatroulettehalloffame.com, girlschat.org and bunny-chat.com (fake front-ends for Cams.com), AdultFriendFinder, chathopper.com, and streamate.com. There’s certainly no shortage of solutions for someone not finding that special someone on ChatRoulette itself. However, it’s detrimental if the site is to be taken seriously.

My intention with this post is not to belittle the service – I very much want to support other young entrepreneurs. I was disappointed to find that It was so easy to bypass the banning feature of the site (I think a server-side solution could fix this). I was also disappointed to find that the mechanics and audience of the site render the Report functionality useless. I would love nothing more than to have a service which truly allows you to have spontaneous conversation with anyone around the world, but as the site currently exists it is next to impossible. Maybe all of this says something about us as people, but that might be reading in to it too hard.

Comments

The updated iPhone Developer Agreement includes stringent clauses around the acceptable use of storing, transmitting, and processing user data. Here is the updated section 3.3.9 in its entirety. I have added emphasis to clauses I would like to highlight:

3.3.9 The following requirements apply to You and Your Application’s use, collection, processing, maintenance, uploading, syncing, storage, transmission, sharing and disclosure of User Data:

- All use of User Data collected or obtained through an Application must be limited to the same purpose as necessary to provide services or functionality for such Application. For example, the use of User Data collected on and used in a social networking Application could be used for the same purpose on the website version of that Application; however, the use of location-based User Data for enabling targeted advertising in an Application is prohibited unless targeted advertising is the purpose of such Application (e.g., a geo-location coupon application).

- You may only provide or disclose User Data to third parties as necessary for providing services or functionality for the Application that collected the User Data, and then only if You receive express user consent. For example, if Your Application would like to post a message from a user to a third party social networking site, then You may only share the message if the user has explicitly indicated an intention to share it by clicking or selecting a button or checking a box that clearly explains how the message will be shared.

- Notwithstanding anything else in this Agreement, Device Data may not be provided or disclosed to a third party without Apple’s prior written consent. Accordingly, the use of third party software in Your Application to collect and send Device Data to a third party for processing or analysis is expressly prohibited.

- You must provide information to users regarding Your use and/or Transmission of User Data and explain how Your Application will use User Data, e.g., by providing information in the App Store marketing text that accompanies Your Application on the App Store, by adding an About box within Your Application, or by adding a link to Your privacy policy on Your website.

- You and the Application must take appropriate steps to protect any User Data from unauthorized disclosure or access. If a user ceases to consent to Your use and/or Transmission of User Data, You must promptly cease all such use and/or Transmission and destroy any such information from Your records (except to the limited extent necessary for Your Application back- ups and record-keeping or as otherwise prohibited by law).

Location Based Advertising

The first emboldened clause states that location based advertisements can only be included in advertisements whose only goal is providing location based advertising. My interpretation of this clause is that unless an application’s sole purpose is providing location based advertisements in the form of nearby coupons, offers, or sales, then location based advertisements are not allowed. This is interesting, because the promise of applications like FourSquare, Gowalla, and Loopt is that through a social network of seeing where your friends are, businesses will be able to add value to the experience by targeting users most likely to make a real-world purchase – if I check in to a store at the mall, what better opportunity for a business five stores down to promote their sale.

The line here is unclear in that I don’t use FourSquare (or any other check-in service) for the sole purpose of finding nearby deals, but rather to see where my friends are. The language in the Developer Agreement suggests that check-in services like the aforementioned will not be able to provide auxiliary location based ads. Ad networks looking to capitalize on the promise of location based advertisements will undoubtedly have a lot of qualms with this clause as it effectively eliminates the ability to provide fine-grained location targeting with GPS or AGPS, leaving the traditional city-level IP-Table lookups as the only means of approximating a user’s location. One has to question whether iAd will adhere to these same targeting guidelines.

Third-Party Data Providers

The second emboldened clause spells trouble for third-party providers building services on top of the iPhone ecosystem, including analytics companies, data stores like SimpleGeo, and potentially third-party ad networks. The clause states that an application can not include a third-party library which sends data to their servers for “processing”. I put processing in quotes because it’s an overloaded term that could mean a lot of things – If I throw some data into a database and count how much disc space I’ve used, that could be considered “processing”. It is unclear whether this bans third-party ad networks as all of them receive data from the device and run optimization analysis in some capacity. Whether or not Apple will enforce all current applications running networks like AdMob or MediaLets to switch to iAd remains to be seen, but the move would be highly controversial and would spark a giant clusterfuck of anti-trust violations from Google and the like.

The clause all but signals the death of third-party analytics software built to provide application developers information about how their applications are being used (Disclaimer: I was the co-founder of AppLoop, which we shut down about 14 months ago). The web example of these services is Google Analytics, which provides millions of people with useful information to optimize their websites and provide better user experiences. Apple previously didn’t make a public stance forbidding the use of third-party analytics tools like Flurry (which acquired Pinch Media a few months ago), MediaLets, or MobClix, but it is hard to put a spin on this agreement which would allow these services to operate under the new agreement.

This move comes at somewhat of a surprise given how important customer feedback is in the product development cycle – iPhone AppStore review quality is mediocre at best, and there really is no other way to optimize how applications are used to improve quality (something Apple has previously touted). If this is enforced, it will leave a gaping opportunity for Android developers to listen to their customers, improve application quality, and bring the Android ecosystem on par with the AppStore in terms of content quality, quantity, and diversity.

In all, the updates to section 3.3.9 allow Apple to selectively enforce whatever they want on whoever they want. Although they’re already doing this to some extent, the updated terms allow them to do so legitimately.

Update 4/14/2010

Venturebeat has posted an email received from an iPhone developer who received a response from Apple regarding Flurry, which was one of the analytics companies mentioned in this post:

We’ve reviewed your application and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store. It is not appropriate for applications to gather user analytics. Specifically, you may not collect anonymous play data from a user’s game. A screenshot of this issue has been attached for your reference.

In order for your application to be reconsidered for the App Store, please resolve this issue and upload your new binary to iTunes Connect.

It appears as if Apple is calling an audible on the new agreement as they don’t yet have definitive standards internally for what they will and will not allow:

They basically said the new clauses are for 4.0 (not accepting 4.0 apps yet) and they haven’t decided what will be allowed and what won’t be allowed. They said they will discuss with guys like [mobile analytics vendor] Flurry, etc.

This will be one to watch. It’s almost certain that Analytics companies just got shot in the foot, but the real question will be whether Apple forces developers to switch from Admob or MediaLets to its own proprietary iAd advertising network. I will reiterate this from my original post: the updates to section 3.3.9 allow Apple to selectively enforce whatever they want on whoever they want.

Comments

Let me ask a simple question. What would you expect to happen if you typed in http://google.com/mapss in to your browser bar? I’d be willing to bet that you’re looking to be directed to Google’s mapping service, but what do you find?

Ouch, that’s disappointing – now I feel like an idiot, and I still have to adjust my requested URL to be typo-free. Some people simply would have typed in “Google Maps” in to their browser’s built-in search, but not everyone uses this available functionality. Let’s see what happens when you do a plain Google search for “google.com/mapss”:

Much better. The current system is about as useless as it gets, but searching Google returns exactly what I want to see. For a company that strives on using data, Google is missing an opportunity to create value and display more search ads. It seems obvious to me that all misspelled Google product URLs should be directed through Google’s search engine rather than displaying the current “Not Found” dead end, providing more value to end users and creating more ad impressions/revenue for Google.

Comments

I’ve quietly been compiling a list of predictions for what’s going to happen in 2010 for the past few weeks, and it will be fun to look back in a year and see how I did. There are a leisurely 40 predictions – some bold, some straightforward – but I’m sure the unexpected will make 2010 one we’ll never forget. Let me know your thoughts, and feel free to disagree. So, enough chatter – here’s my predictions:

• Mobile / Hardware

• 1. iPhone AppStore backlash continues and Apple does nothing about it.
  Apple has alienated developers and pushed away many prominent evangelists with its tyrannic policies around AppStore approval, regulation, and ambiguity. While the debate has certainly expanded in to mainstream media, I don’t see Apple changing its ways, at least not when it doesn’t need to. It will need to when an open alternative platform rises in popularity, but for now it’s Apple’s way or the high way.
• 2. Mobile CPA monetization in games gets hot.
  Incentivized CPA offers are already the De facto way many Facebook game developers choose to make money. It makes sense that CPA on the iPhone is soon to follow. A few small companies are making inroads now, but none are having the breakout success publishers are with social games on Facebook – it’s coming though. I predict 2010 will be a big year for CPA monetization in mobile social games.
• 3. E-Reader device popularity continues to rise. Amazon polishes its Kindle and B&N struggles to create comparable demand for Nook.
  Amazon has established itself as the digital marketplace for goods, and I predict that B&N will struggle to make the transition.
• 4. TechCrunch effectively loses CrunchPad lawsuit, but JooJoo fails anyway.
  Plenty of controversy here with contradicting stories from the two parties involved. Taking a step back, I find it hard to believe that Arrington – a previous lawyer himself – would neglect the opportunity to get assignment of intellectual property rights if there was any legitimate opportunity to do so. Regardless, the JooJoo is terribly overpriced, and skepticism around the lawsuit will make buyers wary of purchasing the device from a potentially ill-fated company.
• 5. Verizon doesn’t land with iPhone.
  I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think Verizon will land the iPhone for a few reasons. Verizon started a huge campaign against AT&T which undoubtedly didn’t go over too well with the folks at Apple. Apple even partnered with AT&T in an ad campaign in response to Verizon’s attacks. Verizon’s flagship smartphone is now the Droid, and I find it unlikely that Apple will expand its GSM hardware to support Verizon’s CDMA network. I do hope Apple does prove me wrong though.
• 6. Microsoft struggles with Windows 7 Mobile and remains irrelevant in the mobile space.
  Windows 7 Mobile has been postponed in to obscurity, closing Microsoft’s window in the mobile market.
• 7. Apple Tablet launches with pseudo-iPhone OS complete with AppStore.
  Lots of speculation here, but a tablet would give Apple an entrant in the leisure-reading market that is sure to make mac fans drool with envy.
• 8. Android proves itself as a formidable competitor to Apple and becomes second overall to iPhone by year’s end.
  The Droid is hands-down the best non-iPhone phone on the market. While Android doesn’t have the polish that comes from the user experience prowess at Cupertino, it does have the advantage of diversification that could prove it a formidable competitor. Apps published on the Android platform have the disadvantage of being on multiple device types with no least common divisor, but at the same time it is a blessing. I think that Android will slowly and incrementally find itself the flagship smartphone (and generic device) operating system, and I think 2010 will be the year that this starts to become evident.
• 9. Palm continues to push out mobile devices with little demand.
  Palm had all its marbles in the Pre basket, and unfortunately the folks at Apple cut a hole in the bottom. Enough said.
• 10. Square realizes its bottleneck is additional hardware, so it gives card reader away for free.
  Jack Dorsey’s Square project is one of the most intriguing startups of 2009. After the smoke from the fireworks clears, I think Square’s main problem will be convincing people to get additional hardware. Without the additional hardware, the service is useless, and I’m not certain that consumers will be able to see tangible value in the service without testing the product first-hand. To combat this, Square needs to make acquiring the hardware as frictionless as possible, so I believe they’ll release the reader for free. Alternatively, they could remove the external hardware dependence by utilizing the built-in camera on smartphones and apply some OCR in a similar fashion to the way Red Laser reads barcodes.

• Acquisitions

• 11. DropBox gets acquired.
  Great service getting rave reviews from just about everyone who uses it. They recently announced 2 million users and are growing at a clipping rate. Because I think 2010 will be a year lush with desirable exits, I wouldn’t be suprised to see Dropbox get picked up.
• 12. GitHub gets acquired.
  GitHub has quietly been building a base of extremely sought after users that any company would love access to. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them make a nice exit for access to a great product/team with valuable users.
• 13. “Spray and pray” investment model becomes validated as a few players have significant exists.
  The “Spray and Pray” model of angel investors like Ron Conway and incubators like YCombinator has been under a lot of scrutiny since its inception. I expect 2010 to be plush with exits including a number of companies backed by these spray and pray investors, largely validating the model.

• Geo

• 14. Facebook will not enter the geo space in 2010. If it does, it won’t be through an acquisition.
  Most experts say that Facebook is poised to take over geo. I would agree with that statement, but I don’t think it will happen in 2010. Facebook has been under a lot of scrutiny for it’s recently changed privacy policies. Everyone knows that FaceBook wants its users to be as open as possible, much to the cry of privacy zealots everywhere. Adding location data to the mix only adds fuel to the fire, and I think Facebook will wait until its other privacy issues have cooled down. That being said, if Facebook does jump in to the nascent geo arena this year, I do not think it will be via acquisition (of a service like Foursquare or Gowalla). Facebook would likely make location an additional type of status/wall-post update, and very little of the code from existing services could be ported over easily, so it would simply be a talent buy (which does frequently happen). As a definitive prediction (and one that many disagree with), I don’t think FaceBook will enter the geo space this year, but when it does, it will be a force to be reckoned with.
• 15. Foursquare has breakout year. Gowalla grows but is labeled “cute”.
  Foursquare has attracted exactly the same crowd that nurtured Twitter to media stardom, and I still can’t figure out what a lot of illustrated icons on Gowalla are for. Gowalla’s design is nice, but if anything it’s too nice – pretentious even.

• Browsers / Software

• 16. Firefox hits peak in 2010 and will slowly be replaced by faster browsers.
  Firefox 3.5 recently enjoyed the position as the most popular browser, but I believe 2010 will be the year it’s overall market share peaks. Users are fed up with its inefficient memory use, poor startup times, and bloated plugins, and faster alternatives will make Firefox’s reign at the top short lived.
• 17. Google Chrome hits double digit market share as extensions and mac availability catapult adoption.
  Chrome is fast, and I like fast. In a few years time, I expect Chrome to replace Firefox as the most popular browser, but for 2010 double digit market share is a good start. Chrome is promoted on two of the most eyeballed real estate spaces in the history of the world: Google.com and Youtube.com; if anyone can push a browser down peoples’ throats, it’s Google. Safari is forever plagued to be “the mac browser”, so while it is fast in its own right, Windows users will mostly stick to alternatives.
• 18. Jolicloud project does not gain significant traction as Chrome OS steals its thunder.
  As much as I love to see the small guy succeed, I don’t see Jolicloud getting a significant install base as entrants will saturate the market and have much greater marketing power. It’s unfortunate for Tariq Krim as his previous startup, Netvibes, also directly competed against Google’s personalized start page. At least he’s in the arena.
• 19. Rockmelt, despite the prowess of its investors, does not gain significant traction as its competition can leverage significant real-estate space.
  It’s hard to bet against this team backed by these investors, but I can’t see a Flock successor making inroads in the highly competitive browser space. But if I’m wrong, everyone involved will be very, very wealthy – and that’s why startup culture is awesome.
• 20. Adobe CS5 makes biggest splash in the “Objective-C is hard, here’s another way to make iPhone applications” space.
  Adobe CS5 will include a very interesting feature to allow flash developers to export their projects as native iPhone applications. This means that the tens of thousands of flash games around the internet can be easily ported to the iPhone – and I expect it to be huge.

• Web Services

• 21. MySpace moves away from being an identity hub, integrates FaceBook Connect, strengthens focus on digital media, but sees traffic continue to drop.
  It’s no secret that MySpace has been having an identity crisis recently. They’re struggling to figure out who they are, and in the process, their traffic is plummeting.
• 22. Wave slowly insinuates itself in to your work and personal life after assets and talent from the EtherPad help with interface and performance improvements.
  Wave was one of Google’s first products that wasn’t created out of user demand, and all users seem to have been doing so far with it is hand out invites. Users are begging for a reason to use the product, but it will be awhile until Wave is completely part of your online work flow. Google’s recent acquisition of Etherpad should help with performance and interface issues, and over time (not necessarily in 2010) I expect Wave to be used by the majority of active email users.
• 23. Twitter releases analytics product for businesses.
  Twitter is rumored to have been working on a premium analytics product for businesses for quite some time. I expect something of this nature to be announced this year as a more definitive revenue model comes in to light.
• 24. Twitter continues to grow, but not at the same rate it did in 2009.
  2009 was a huge year for Twitter. Following the election, Twitter was part of every type of media coverage from daily news to sports games. I expect Twitter’s growth to continue (though recently it’s been stagnant), but not at the rate it did in 2009.
• 25. Tumblr more than doubles traffic and breaks in to Alexa top 150.
  Tumblr has quietly built a web service with staggering traffic numbers. It currently ranks 230 worldwide on Alexa, and I expect it to break the top 150 – top 100 might be pushing it, but anything’s possible given its explosive growth in 2009.
• 26. Facebook introduces redesign, users protest, Facebook doesn’t do anything about it.
  Nothing new to see here, move along.
• 27. Facebook makes major push to get people to organize friends in to lists.
  One of the most under-utilized feature on Facebook is Lists. Facebook needs users to create lists so it can slowly allow more and more of the site to be open to external sources, like search results. Users using lists are also more likely to feel comfortable sharing more information on the social network, and that is Facebook’s sole intention. It may be an algorithmic “suggested best friends” or a requirement, but I expect Facebook to make a major push to get users to organize their friends.
• 28. Facebook Connect moves closer to being De facto login.
  Everyone is using Facebook Connect. It’s dead simple. OpenID is cute, but anyone who wants users, data, and brand familiarity (which is everyone) will go with a proprietary solution – for good or bad. This isn’t so much a prediction as an observation: Facebook will own your identity, and that will become even more apparent in 2010.

• Search

• 29. News Corp continues to threaten removing itself from Google’s index, but it wont.
  Rupert Murdoch has threatened repeatedly that he’s going to remove News Corp’s content from Google’s almighty index. I’m calling bluff – News Corp can’t really be that stupid (well they can, but I wouldn’t bet on it).
• 30. Bing beats Google to integrating innovative features.
  Microsoft’s shining online star is Bing, and it has repeatedly beat Google to implementing social features. BingTweets was first to marry Twitter with web search results. Bing then followed that up by striking a deal with Twitter to provide tweets front and center. This was shortly followed by Google’s similar announcement. I expect this trend to continue: Bing has something to prove and less to lose, so it will be first to integrate cutting-edge features. As a result…
• 31. Bing passes 15 percent search market share.
  Users are growing wary of Google’s omniscient power, and Bing is a great search engine. Bing already has a 10% market share on search (Google has an impressive 65%), but users like the overall search innovation coming from Redmond. Case in point, compare the two companies’ iPhone apps. Google lets you do voice search and links to their other apps, but Bing’s iPhone app takes it a step further. Bing lets you do voice transcribed map directions (and search), and is much more tailored for local search, which is much more pertinent for a mobile device.

• Tech Trends

• 32. “Netscape IPO moment” begins tech IPO eruption.
  The stars seem to be aligning, and 2010 looks to be a boisterous year for tech IPOs. Likely suspects include Facebook, Zynga, LinkedIn, Tesla Motors, ExactTarget, and Yelp.
• 33. Founders Visa movement generates a lot of talk, but unfortunately no action.
  The Founders Visa movement has generated a fair amount of discussion as a possible way to aid the ailing economy. Proponents cite the number of large companies founded by foreign workers and speculate how many more large companies could be formed if people could freely come to the United States to start companies. It should be trivial for highly motivated entrepreneurs to stay in the country and start companies, but nothing in government moves quickly. Unfortunately, I predict that there won’t be any progress made to offer foreign entrepreneurs a Founder’s Visa in 2010 with all the other issues at stake.
• 34. Augmented Reality shows a few cool use cases, but has slow consumer adoption.
  Augmented Reality faces the same problem as the Segway: both are extremely awkward to use in public. I don’t want to get laughed at holding a gizmo up to my face as I look up information about my surroundings – I’d look absurd. Society’s general acceptance of extreme technology use will change, and so too will the adoption of Augmented Reality. I expect to see some cool demonstrations of what is possible with the intersection of technology, cloud information services, and real-world scenarios, but I don’t expect it to all happen any time soon. We’re still at least a decade away from fabled devices like those conjured at MIT to being more commonplace.
• 35. The online music website “convection oven” pattern continues.
  2009 was not a good year for sreaming music startups. iLike, LaLa, and iMeem all had asset fire-sales, and this illustrates a larger “convection oven” pattern of music services: quick rise to the top, law-enforcement, death, and recycle. Several similar services await what I believe to be a similar fate, including Project Playlist, MySpace Music, Pandora (which barely dodged royalty hikes), GrooveShark, TheSixtyOne, and the beloved Spotify.
• 36. Privacy and data integrity issues force enterprise customers towards “private cloud” solutions.
  A big movement right now is the transition from old mainframe data warehouses to more efficient and powerful “private cloud” solutions powered by technologies like Hadoop. I expect to see the demand for data integrity and privacy to force enterprise customers away from public clouds like Amazon and toward a secure private solution.
• 37. CPA offer providers will try to appear to be consumer friendly, but will continue to do use shady tactics to make money.
  The great CPA scandal that recently erupted with Facebook applications was one of the more intresting tech stories of 2009. Stories surfaced on how far CPA marketers are willing to go to make money, and I don’t expect the market to purge its sins in one night. Expect to see several cases of CPA publishers and advertisers being called out for scammy tactics in 2010.
• 38. Aol.’s rebranding efforts don’t have desired effect by turning the company around.
  You know a company is desperate when its logo is a goldfish. If anything is going to turn Aol. around, it’s an extreme brand change to make the company seem cool, relevant, and different. Unfortunately, I don’t think anything can keep the S.S. AOL ship afloat – they’re just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
• 39. Microsoft’s online Office products fail to win any fanatics.
  Microsoft has had little success with web products, and I predict that through 2010 its only success will be Bing. Google’s online productivity suite has years of polish and won’t be taken down as the market leader any time soon.
• 40. HTML5 video support has slow adoption as most large vendors find flash good enough for now.
  Eventually video will not require additional browser plugins, but complete HTML5 adoption is years away from being a reality. There are many problems with HTML5 video including browser compatibility, fallback issues, and user control issues (video buffers automatically). Ultimately, there is very little reason for large vendors to implement HTML5 video standards when Flash has 99% market penetration and I don’t see any making the switch in 2010.
• Bonus: RSS faces death as filtered content recommendation systems on social services emerge. They, along with most real-time startups, struggle to find a revenue model (in 2010).
  People almost get enjoyment out of claiming “RSS Is Dead”. The main problem with completely switching off RSS and on to Twitter is that there is a lot of noise – not to say that RSS isn’t noisy either, but it’s at least generally focused. The complete switch for me will occur when a service can leverage the vast amount of data collected by these social services and curate it in to a personalized feed just for me. Companies and investors are bullish on the real-time space, and I expect to see this service come to light this year. That being said, it is unclear to me that real-time content services have any significant revenue advantages over almost-real-time content services. Accordingly, I predict that there won’t be any services which figure out a way to monetize the added value of extreme recency in 2010.

Comments

While the usage and importance of controlling a user’s startpage has declined recently due to search access within the browser, most of the services I use on a regular basis on the web are available within iGoogle (gMail, Reader, Weather, Calendar, etc.). Conveniently, Google also happened to have by far the best search engine, so I never fully abandoned searching from my start page instead of typing a query into FireFox or Chrome.

Bing is the first worthy adversary to the mighty Google search dynasty – removing any visual display bias, blind tests show that people think its results are just as good as Google. However, as long as I use GMail for my email, Google Reader for RSS, and Google Calendar for my activities, I couldn’t justify switching my homepage to Bing (or MSN). If all I needed out of iGoogle was the modules (and page load speed – sorry NetVibes), then I would consider using Bing as my default search engine.

So that’s what I did – gBing is a FireFox plugin I created which allows you to search Bing through iGoogle or Google.com. You can continue using iGoogle just as you normally would, but the form gets directed to Bing’s search results. Pretty simple. If your data is attached to Google’s other products but you want to use Bing for your searches, this is for you. Now you really can Google It With Bing. Download it Here.

Comments