Articles

By Stefan Sojka

Online advertising is booming.  The more people click, the more hungry business becomes for the eyeballs (and wallets) of the clickees.  This is the fattest cash cow on the planet.

I love Wikipedia – not only does it give me great info to fuel my column with excellent pages like en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_advertising, but it is non-profit and has no advertising on it.  Unfortunately, commercial reality dictates that Wikipedia will remain an extremely rare species.  Our future is destined to be paved with clicks of gold.

Google is by far the biggest player, with about 70% of the total on-line ad market – which works out to be about 400 gazillion dollars, enough to etch their logo on the sun, send a team of programmers to Andromeda to explore new markets and save the Google Earth on google.org.  They are the biggest for good reason – their system is very good.  It gives advertisers more control than anybody else, more reach into huge search and content markets and an ever-improving delivery of relevant ads to Web users as they refine their system.  Google’s search behaviour statistics get cumulatively refined at a rate of a few billion facts a day.

Web users want to find stuff and businesses want to be found.  It’s the perfect scenario… in theory.  The truth is that there is still a long way to go before clicks and sales are perfectly in sync.  Anyone who has used advertising programs knows that only a small proportion of the original search traffic converts into sales – and when you are bidding for every click, that can get a little scary at times.

So here is a brief glossary of on-line advertising terms to help you maintain your sense of humour while things evolve:

Auto-Bidding – Letting two computers – yours and your competitor’s – play poker with your credit cards.

Click-Through-Rate (CTR) – How many people accidentally clicked on your advert.

Bounce Rate – How many people realised it was an accident and hit their back-button… AFTER you paid for their click.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC) – How desperate you and your competitors are for business.  (I once saw a CPC for search term “mortgage” at $180 – for ONE CLICK!)

Return on Investment (ROI) – Putting your credit card statement and cheque account statement side by side and seeing which is bigger.

Page Rank (PR) – Discovering how insignificant you are compared to Apple, YouTube and get.adobe.com/reader

The reality is that on-line advertising can work spectacularly well.  Inefficient as it might be at times, it is far more targeted than mass media.  It is getting ever more sophisticated, especially when you consider sites like FaceBook.  They know everything about you and can serve you an advert for “getting ripped in 4 weeks without exercise” the moment you update your status to “man, that all-you-can-eat buffet was awesome!”
Maybe it will all get too hard for small business, who simply can’t afford the rising click costs or the time to devote to learning the schemes and systems required to capitalise effectively on all this paid traffic.  Perhaps it’s time to get back to our marketing roots – old school.  A giant inflatable gorilla, a sandwich board and bullhorn!

By Stefan Sojka

The digital revolution?  Just how much has this Web delivered on its ultra-hyped promise of the mid 90s, when futurists and ‘imagineers’ dreamed of phantasmagorical virtual worlds and ultra-utopian real ones?  As we get into 2009, I thought I would look at all the unfulfilled promises of the Internet – the things that should have all happened by now, if we hadn’t been rebooting, anti-spamming, watching Star Wars Kid Remixes, or Googling Anna Nicole Smith and Britney.

International Smiley Face Standards
How many times have you whipped off an email with a witty retort that could only be taken in the right context with the accompanying smiley face – only to discover that it had turned into a :J or a $@&# in the recipient’s email program – completely changing the meaning of the message and leaving you feeling rather ~:-0?
Why haven’t Google, Microsoft, Nokia, ISO and W3C held a conference and agreed on a definitive set of cross-platform graphic smiley faces?

Double Trouble
Someone sends you a nicely formatted email.  You hit “reply” and start typing.  All the formatting disappears, including your own signature, then all your “ENTER” keystrokes shift down double lines… what is that about??  Do Apple and Microsoft executives meet up every Friday 13th at Skull and Bones HQ for a good belly laugh?  This is my life you are wasting, people!

More’s the law.
Why is it that memory and processing power have been doubling every two years – but every task I do on my computer takes exactly the same length of time to complete as it did in 1985?  To top that off, I just bought a 2-Terabyte USB drive to conveniently store my entire digital life on – but it now takes three days to copy all the files on to it, and another 4 years to re-name all the files in a way that won’t make any sense to anyone by the time I’ve finished.

The Paperless Office
There’s a reason why Tasmania is getting clear-felled – every computer these days seems to ship with a free printer.  I’ve bought four new filing cabinets in the last few years. “Think about the environment before printing” the footer says… We think.  We print.

Power to the People
How can it be that 150 million people can join a social net­working site, like FaceBook or MySpace, and the most significant impacts of that unimaginable level of people power are that a bunch of virtual pets got fed and a band called OK GO now have global cultural significance, regardless of the fact that no one bothered to question whether they were good musicians or not?  There are only 7 countries with populations larger than 150 million – where is the FaceBook parliament?  The MySpace armed forces?  How can so many people be so mindlessly irrelevant?  When is all this ‘social net­working’ going to turn into something of substance?  If we all chip in $1,000 each, we could overthrow governments, take over global corporations and fund a few small armies.  We need better Web 2.0 apps.

Pie-in-the-Sky Computing
Cloud computing – sounds like we’ll all just wave our hands around and our digital lives will just float into perfect formation, automagically self-organising without so much as a file rename, right-click or Control-Z.  There is no cloud – only warehouses full of very complicated computers, built and maintained by super-geeks who love the complexity.  When ISPs are run by poets and ballerinas, cloud computing might just become a reality.

Sadly I am running out of paper on this page – I could go on all year.  Now switch off your computer, go to your window and scream “I’m mad as hell and I can’t take it any more!”  Turn your computer back on and start blogging.  That’ll fix it!

By Stefan Sojka

It’s not as difficult as you might think to become an Internet superstar.  The Web is engineered precisely to facilitate such phenomena as FaceBook, YouTube and the ‘Evolution of Dance’ dude.  In this simple how-to guide, I’ll show you how it’s done.  The key is to be everywhere and do everything.  In a networked world, the one with the most nodes wins!

Remember Neo, in the Matrix?  Remember how he/you felt when he/you realised he/you were the one?  “That’s right”, grinned Morpheus.  This is your ‘I know Kung Fu’ moment.  You are the Internet, and the Internet is you.  Your DNA is the meme.  You’re unique, just like everybody else.

Have Geek Will Travel
You will need your own personal nerd.  The Web, for all its point-and-click convenience, is a ridiculously complex environment.  He/she will configure your server cloud, sync your mobile devices with your laptop and ensure your Websites are cross-browser compatible, fluid, elastic and WC3 compliant.

Arsenal
Rule-of-thumb:  If it was reviewed on Wired, TechCrunch or EnGadget, buy it.  Essentials include an HD video camera, podcasting microphone, iPhone, digital pen, electric car, pocket laser projector, Adobe Everything and a DJ console, so you can guest DJ at all your own launches and seminars.

Go Viral
The best way to permeate cyberspace is by infecting it.  I don’t care whether you wipe out on a skateboard or David Hassel-scoff a hamburger, what’s important is that the video is a calculated strategic element in your self-replicating pandemic.

Blog
Blog long.  Blog often.  With 112 million blogs, you do have to work hard.  Strategy is everything.  Post comments on the top 100 blogs with witty retorts and demoralising put-downs, always linking back to your own Blog.  Fear not, once the momentum of all your other activities kicks in, your archived ramblings will re-surface like the creature from the black lagoon.

Social Butterfly
Two mantras:  1. “Add Me” 2. “Thanks for the Add”.  Set targets – say 5,000 per day, per site.  Here is your starting point:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_net­working_websites.  Nurture every friendship, acknowledge everyone’s feelings and compliment their every photo upload.  This is your fan-base.  You are a one of their's.  It’s a 200-million-way street.  Drive it.

Authority
You are now an Internet marketing genius.  It’s time to share your knowledge.  www.squidoo.com makes it easy to build a soapbox and begin proselytising.  When you have posted enough material, go to www.lulu.com and self-publish your how-to book.

Life Stream
Upload your entire life to the Internet – and tag everything.  Quantity, not quality.  If you upload enough old photos, school reports, love letters and phone disconnection notices, you will come up on page one in Google for everything.

We live in a paradoxical universe.  Ubiquity is singularity.  If you are everywhere, you will be in one place – at the top!  ‘X’ marks the spot and you have the X-factor.  ‘Me, Star Wars Kid’, you ‘FailWhale’.  See you at the end – and on the cover – of 'Time'.

By Stefan Sojka

Why do you want to go Bill's way?

We've all been blown away by the now patented & psyche-etched "where do you want to go today?" rhetorical question, and the exciting possibilities of running a fashion house or sushi bar, selling web-objects to a race of newbies, a generation 'coming down" from a 45 year fix of Alpha-wave TV.

We are now a switched on consumer, like the 90's mum scanning baby pictures and sending them via email to grandma in England, while her boyfriend runs a successful SOHO using nothing but a Pentium, modem and a pair of Raybans.

The paper-clip helper is certainly a lovable masochist, as we run him through the wringer upon the "print" command. This is surely just the beginning of Bill's creative teams efforts.

Are we worshiping the beast or delving into a godsend with this web thing? Is there just so much crap, porn, junk mail, hate sites and perverts, not to mention bad websites, that surfing the net will be useless. Shall we stick with TV? Infomercials, cable, passive sedation via hypnotic broadcasts?

Or can we consider the premise that this embryonic & rapid growth of what is essentially the earth's brain, it's cerebral cortex, if you will, connected with human synapses & aided by electronic nerve impulses through computers (receptors) is an opportunity to use it as much as we can, thirsting for downloads of the latest upgrade, learn all the fancy new scripts, install a few cgi bins in your web, full of surveys and feedback forms, and even when win95 crashes, it creates a talking point. Bill is helping support the ancient art of conversation.

"My windows crashed last night"

"yeah?"

"8 times!"

"wow" "Bill Gates must be the 11th child born on the 14th full moon after the rise of the pestilence in the new world, and born of the pilgrims. He must be Satan!"

"yeah, wanna see my cool evil web links?"

"uh-huh"

…stuff like that.

I mean, what else is there to talk about? Where do you want to go today? I think its more like, why should we go Bills way? If there are enough positives and few enough negatives to a system, surely we should do our darned global best to give the people everything they need to go where they want to go today. Somehow I think alternative operating systems and protocols are around the corner, waiting to be discovered/created/evolved.

By Stefan Sojka

ALCOHOL
Found in: Liquor barns, pubs, restaurants or delivered to your door in liquid form distilled from rotting fruit.
Alternatives: Methylated spirits, anaesthetic, industrial solvents.
Effects: After a few drinks, web surfing can become an enjoyable experience. You will find yourself quizzing search engines with juvenile words like "f***" or "69" and descending into sheer depravity as your toxic levels mount. Larger doses, producing muscle spasticity, drooling, slurred typing, and blurred vision could render your computer unusable, as you stagger back to the sofa, sink into a coma and wet yourself.
Risks: Waking up in the morning wondering exactly what you did on your computer the night before. It is highly likely that you gave your credit card details to a few shonky porn sites and your address & phone number to dozens of potential cybersex partners. Viral infection is quite possible.
Best Site: The "Zillions of Jokes" site at uniquorn.simplenet.com/jokesite.htm can give you the effect of being in a bar exchanging inanities. As colourless as a dimly lit pub, with jokes to rival any tavern full of "suits" on a Friday afternoon.
Worst Site: Kevin Bloody Wilson's page at www.wilson.com.au is pure alcoholism at its worst. See Wilson autographing chick's tits, and enter the "Yobbo of the Week" competition. The web designers were too pissed to check if the site even works properly.

CAFFEINE
Found In: Coffee, tea, popular cola drinks, travel alert tablets, "smart" drinks.
Alternatives: Your own body can produce the same effect as caffeine by being afraid, anxious, nervous or by staying awake for more than 24 hours, when your second wind kicks in and you start to feel "wired".
Effects: The stimulant effect is perfect for the web, when the exhaustion factor - after hours of surfing - can mar the fun. Typing speed is increased, making URL entry easier, and chat sessions more lively. Basic computer functions of mouse-clicking, saving, scrolling, opening windows and using pull-down menus, become smoother and more dynamic with the caffeine edge. Because of a minimal psycho-active element, caffeine is a very effective tool for increased productivity, although only recommended for dry, menial tasks, hence it's popularity in the workplace.
Risks: Regular use of caffeine can cause shaking, twitching, heart flutters and insomnia, but then so can surfing the internet, so there is no conflict here.
Best Site: "Too-Much-Coffee Man" at www.tmcm.com/ is a comic strip superhero that you have to go and visit, just for the cool name if nothing else. Actually, it's quite funny stuff, but chances are TMCM's creator is using a little more than just coffee.
Worst Site: yourhealthdaily.com/213_080197_104201_8867.html though you will enjoy typing in this ridiculous URL, you just don't want to hear this crap. Health risks?? Humbug!

DOWNERS
Found In: Doctors surgeries, in colourful blister-pack promotional samples, pharmacies.
Alternatives: Getting fired, being burgled, divorce, physical exhaustion, watching infomercials.
Effects: When the mind-boggling advances of the internet revolution become too exciting, and the output of the worlds leading graphic artists onto your computer screen stimulates your brain into overproduction of endorphins and adrenalin, the soothing effect of a good downer can bring you back into focus. It can also help control your frustration at the stupefyingly slow download times, and pace your thoughts in time with your .000001mb/s modem.
Risks: You may actually become content with the speed of the web as it is, and trade in your 233MMX Pentium for a Mac Plus and a book of forged prescriptions. Also dribbling, mumbling and gazing blankly through half-closed eyes is not a very good look.
Best Site: www.microsoft.com There are enough megabytes of demo software downloads to get you through a dozen packs of extra-strength valium, before you even get to install the stuff.
Worst Site: www.hotwired.com There is just too much information, too much sensory overload for anyone not on stimulants to cope with, let alone a dribbling zombie.

THC AND PSYCHO-ACTIVES
Found In: The freely available and hardy cannabis plant grows anywhere. The human mind has receptors designed specifically for receiving the active chemicals. Other psycho-actives include many natural plants, man-made LSD and non-fatal doses of any deadly poison.
Alternatives: A similar effect can be achieved by meditating, dreaming, high fever, near-death experiences or eating 50 kilograms of chocolate.
Effects: The psycho-active effects of THC etc., - heightened awareness of colour and sound - make it a very handy enhancement to the internet experience. Cool web sites become even cooler, plug-ins become turn-ons, and search engines become "possibility machines". The evidence of psycho-active drug usage by the internet community is very widespread. The internet is really nothing more than our planet getting stoned. Sadly, with her new found vision, mother earth might be too wasted to save herself.
Risks: Paradoxically, as your fascination for all this technology increases, so your ability to operate your computer decreases. You can get to a point where you'll be browsing the web for hours, without realising that you accidentally opened Microsoft Word instead of Netscape Navigator! Watch your figure as well. Months of web surfing and getting the munchies can mean disaster for your waistline.
Best Site: Just by entering www.erowid.com you will feel like you are channelling Timothy Leary.
Worst Site: There is no worst site. Type in www.netscape.com/ $%$#$ and see. Not found? The entire universe is there.. open your mind...

UPPERS
Found In: Cough syrups, diet pills, backyard laboratories, interstate trucking company medicine cabinets.
Alternatives: Adrenaline, endorphines. The same effect can be achieved by having your life threatened, or after vigorous exercise.
Effects: Uppers are like coffee squared, and with the increased dose comes a little more of a psycho-active effect. Not only will your productivity increase exponentially, but you will FEEL like it's unlimited. You will find yourself grinning widely as you begin designing 100 new web pages for yourself and all your friends, chatting in 300 different IRC channels, trying out 65 new hi-end demo programs and mapping out the source code for your own personal contribution to the browser wars.
Risks: Even though your brain will operate at hyper-speed, you still only have two hands, so your 1,000 or so new ventures will all be about 2% complete before the stuff wears off. This will lead you to desire a further dose, which will only end up leading you to another 1,000 new projects and down a path of ultimate destruction, as you spiral into addiction.
Best Site: www.envirolink.org/mkzdk/ is so mind blowing and thought provoking, you will need to be in hyper-drive to take it in. Once visited, give up the uppers, and go the hallucinogens. Life as you knew it ends here.
Worst Site: Visiting the National Party of Australia at www.npa.org.au could possibly scare them to death, so best you speed on elsewhere.

NICOTINE
Found In: Tobacco leaf cigarettes, skin patches and chewable gum.
Alternatives: Moving to South East Asian forest fire areas, sucking on car exhaust pipes. Shooting yourself in the lungs with an extremely slow shot gun.
Effects: Even though nicotine is a deadly poison, the doses found in cigarettes have an almost imperceptible effect. Therefore in web surfing, the biggest impact is in your look and style. One handed typing, dropping ash and blowing it off your keyboard, sucking actions & punctuating your browsing by stubbing butts into ashtrays are all gestures likely to give you the feeling that you are a cool and happening character likely to be cast in the next Tarrantino flick. Lighting small fires and blowing smoke at your monitor can also give you the feeling of domination over cyberspace.
Risks: Early death could mean missing out on the latest browser upgrade. Bad breath will reduce the quality of real life encounters with your cybersex partners.
Best Site: Smoke and glamour, www.wp.com/51824/smoking/ lights up the true nature of smoking -sex. Is that a very small penis in your hand, or are you just smoking?
Worst Site: www.lungcheck.com/ is a reality check for participants in this highly unfulfilling, addictive and unsafe pastime.

ECSTASY
Found In: Pills sold in a thriving underground market. Legal herbal equivalents are available and rumoured to be equally as effective.
Alternatives: Personal growth seminars where everybody hugs each other. Winning the lottery. Buying a new car. The after-glow of giving birth before post natal depression sets in.
Effects: Web surfing on ecstasy can be a highly fulfilling experience. You will love everything you see, as you follow link after beautiful link. The awesome power of the net will, in a moment of joy, be oh so understood by you as you find yourself gravitating towards IRC, video links and virtual meeting places. You will feel at one with every nerd, freak, pervert, dork and geek you meet. At last the great gulf between us is bridged. I love you, you love me, oh how happy we can be. Stroke your mouse again for me, will you? Aaaaaaaaaah!
Risks: Because the actual physical design of computers is rather unsexy and impractical for real interpersonal communication, you may suffer injuries such as chipped teeth as you try to kiss your screen, and groin injuries as you attempt some crude level of sexual encounter with your PC tower.
Best Site: It doesn't matter, everything is beautiful. Dial in, link up, connect, you'll love it! If the medication hasn't kicked in yet, warm up on #funfactory on IRC EFNET
Worst Site: Any online MUD game. You have lost all your motivation to kill, and you will become very upset at the anger and violence expressed towards you by other players. Intense post-traumatic-stress counselling will be required.

NITROUS OXIDE
Found In: Gas cylinders in dental surgeries, also used to boost performance in cars, but if you ask how it works, your mechanic will just laugh.
Alternatives: Watching Fawlty Towers, watching Australia's Funniest Home Videos when you have an IQ of 75 or below.
Effects: NO2 has one main effect, and that is the well documented one of uncontrolled giggling. Web surfing and giggling can work well together, and is especially called for after spending 13 hours on a useless search engine failing to find what you were looking for. Also very effective when used to view CeeUSeeMe users home pages, and when you join a chat channel full of young male desperados and tell them all that you are a 23 year old Swedish bikini model.
Risks: Laughter is the best medicine, but after the laughter, everything will seem so serious you may become depressed at the smallest unfunnyness. A man once committed suicide after his NO2 wore off, and he accidentally stumbled across a UNIX FAQ page.
Best Site: hatewatch.org features an incredibly comprehensive collection of every hatemongering racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-semetic site in cyberspace. You are going to need happy gas before you surf these gems, coz they are deadly serious, and if you don't laugh, you might really start to worry!
Worst Site: The Cow Tipping Craze - you are already splitting your sides with laughter. Too much of a good thing could be fatal. Don't risk it.