Full Transcript:

Benjamin Higginbotham: How search affects an online person’s reputation? Stephen Colbert wants to be the number one search result for greatest living American. Ask.com commercial, does advertising even affect how people search? Is it ethical to have a link at the bottom of your page for Digg? And are you willing to share your search data, to improve search results? All that and so much more coming up on today’s search Thursday Technology Evangelist Podcast. My name is Benjamin Higginbotham, I am joined with Jeremy Elfering and a new guest to the podcast Aaron Pecha who is waving at the UStream camera as a reminder to everyone, we do this podcasts live everyday at 12 o’clock Eastern, 11 o’clock Central, 9 o’clock Pacific and you can view us live on the video camera at Ustream.com or on the technologyevangelist.com home page. You can also join us audio only in the TalkShoe room and you can chat with us in the IRC or TalkShoe room whatever you prefer. So, let’s start this thing off. The first topic, how search affects a person’s online reputation? What does Google say about you? This is an interesting topic, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago with the blogs and whatnot and how they would actually affect your ability to get a job. If you have pictures of yourself saying in a Flickr going out having drinks and going to a party, would the employer then look up your name in Google and say, “I don’t want that person, what’s going on there” and everyone else said “no Ben, you are an idiot”.

Jeremy Elfering: Well I don’t think we said “Ben, you are an idiot”, we said “Yes, we agree”, but it is very important that you make sure you are portrayed correctly on your online persona and you are taking look at what these different sites say about you. I know for when I met my soon to be my future wife, first thing she did, Google me.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Really?

Jeremy Elfering: Before we went on a date, I got Google by her.

Benjamin Higginbotham: What just Google say about you, other than owning your own blog, what can you control on Google? You can’t.

Jeremy Elfering: You can control some things, you can control what’s the most important things in there, because you are the one who is contributing to lot of these places and if what you are contributing isn’t necessarily good then that something you do have control over.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Right, but let’s say someone says something derogatory about you that may or may not be true, let’s say it is not true for a moment, just say that they made some story up about you, because they don’t like you they are your arch enemy and they are trying to build the moon base of sorts…

Jeremy Elfering: Right, so basically they are you…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Exactly.

Jeremy Elfering: So you are building your moon base…

Benjamin Higginbotham: And they want to take you down, so they write some bad stuff about you and it gets indexed by Google and now, it is the number one search result, what do I do?

Jeremy Elfering: Here is the question is that the only thing out there about you? Are you contributing to your online persona?

Benjamin Higginbotham: I personally am, but that’s a great point. I mean that may be a benefit to having your own personal blog, so that you can control what people are saying about you and what your Google search results end up being.

Aaron Pecha : And if you have 30 search results there from your own online blog and one search result from some crack pot, what are they going to believe?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, I don’t know, if I am talking about myself all day long, it is a little bit egotistical , but I am not sure who they are going to believe, they are going to believe talking about myself or they are going to believe Joe Arch Nemesis talking about me.

Jeremy Elfering: Right, great. But then you got those different posts out there, other people are going to read those posts and link back to it, so you are not going to always have just you talking about you. As you develop your online persona you are going to have more people contributing to yourself.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, is that mean blogs are more important than ever and having a personal brand out there, is actually could be critical to everyone’s life in some what near future.

Jeremy Elfering: I think, it could be, it is…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Doesn’t that feel like a bit of stretch?

Jeremy Elfering: It is not really that much of a stretch, the world is getting smaller, people are able to find out information about people they have never even met, very simply and easily. So, you have got to make sure that you have information up there, that’s credible and paints you in a correct picture.

Benjamin Higginbotham: All right.

Aaron Pecha : One thing also, almost comes down to self censorship at certain points, because if you feel that because you are going to be searched because of what you say in what is not a private environment, but you almost feel as a private environment, because it is something you have so much control over in certain blogs. What can you and can’t you say and how should you be judged? How should an employee decide, I don’t trust this person, because of something they said in their own blog, a year and half or 10 years ago. Well, 10 years ago is stretch now, but I am thinking long term.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That’s true, but is that data still going to be relevant 10 years from now? And is that going to be at the top of the Google search result?

Aaron Pecha : It is not going to be at the top of Google search results either, so realistically, how often do you go the second page of the Google search results?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Quite often for me.

Aaron Pecha: But, you are not a typical user.

Benjamin Higginbotham: No, I am not. I don’t ever click, I hardly ever click on paid ads at the top of the Google, so if they have to buy their way into the search terms, if it is not organic probably not clicking on it, unless it is something I know it is going to be a good search result and you are right I am not a typical user, but how may users? What is a typical Google user? I bet you use it differently than I do? I bet you use it differently than he does? I can guarantee you my wife uses differently than all of us, I am sure.

Aaron Pecha : I agree.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, define a typical user.

Jeremy Elfering: But, I will say there are still some typical trends, typically for a Google user, you don’t go pass the first page, because you found what you are looking for already.

Benjamin Higginbotham: All right, it depends on…

Aaron Pecha : It depends how specific and weird…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Search results are?

Aaron Pecha : Yeah.

Benjamin Higginbotham: But, if you are searching for whatnot, if you are searching for a name, let’s say you are searching for my name, I don’t believe I show up on the first page? Believe it or not, there is an astronaut named Nancy Higginbotham, she is my arch nemesis…

Aaron Pecha : She is really going to the moon before you.

Jeremy Elfering: Here is the question, if it is Nancy Higginbotham, if you search for Benjamin Higginbotham is she going to come up first, no you are.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I have no idea, some one search for it.

Aaron Pecha : I am going.

Jeremy Elfering: It is great that we have got all these things going on.

Aaron Pecha : Technology Evangelist, about Benjamin J. Higginbotham, is the first thing results. Yeah.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Search just for Higginbotham for me, I believe Nancy is at the top, so it is my goal to be at the top.

Aaron Pecha : It your goal to beat the astronaut.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, it is.

Aaron Pecha : Higginbotham and Associates.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That’s the top search.

Aaron Pecha : You are single source for a secure future since 1948.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Wow, I am old.

Aaron Pecha : Joan Higginbotham is the astronaut.

Benjamin Higginbotham: All right, so speaking of wanting to be at the top of Google search results, Stephen Colbert wants to be number one search result on Google for greatest living American.

Jeremy Elfering: By the way good segway.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Thank you.

Jeremy Elfering: That’s just beautiful. I want to applaud you for that.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I actually planned that, I had been working on that for last minute or so, trying to find a way to move into the next one, for those watching the live stream, you could see me glancing, my computer going, I wonder I am going to move?

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah, any way so after that, so Stephen Colbert wants to basically have everyone link to him as the or to his website as the greatest living American.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Google that right now, see what you got, see if he is even on the results page.

Jeremy Elfering: I am kind of curious.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Keep in mind, it takes awhile for those results to actually pop up, so…

Aaron Pecha : Did you say you already have it?

Jeremy Elfering: No, I don’t have it, so it is interesting, because it is a TV personality, but it is interesting that he could possibly, he has got a pretty good chance of doing this, because how many people are getting linked to as the greatest living American?

Benjamin Higginbotham: I don’t know, but now I want to…

Jeremy Elfering: Now, I want to find out?

Aaron Pecha : Stephen Colbert is the second link, it is actually a question of is Stephen Colbert the greatest living American? This is actually on searchenginewatch.com.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That will be irony.

Aaron Pecha : Yeah, what you know.

Benjamin Higginbotham: For those on UStream that would our notes right there, for searchenginewatch…

Jeremy Elfering: Very interesting.

Aaron Pecha : But actually, best in American living award is the first thing it comes up, because it found American living and…

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah, so he got ways to go, but I think it is a possibility. As long as you get enough links added to your site as that. You have got a pretty good chance of doing it.

Aaron Pecha : Yeah.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I am going to actually move one step backwards, because UStream mentioned a comment, they said they don’t think you can judge someone, because his or her Google results says bad things about him, but my question direct us back to UStream is why not? I mean you of course don’t want to come to a final conclusion until you meet the person and actually determine that yourself, but there is probably some truth to it, may be/may be not.

Jeremy Elfering: There may or may not be, but there is something to be sent for finding out information about a person before you even meet them.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Absolutely and if there are multiple people saying bad things and saying the same thing then you have to use a little bit of common sense, but if there are many different people saying the same thing about one person online and those are in the organic search results, then it is got to be, there is probably some truth to it and Kismit is saying if it is on the Internet, it must be true.

Aaron Pecha : Of course it is yes.

Jeremy Elfering: I agree.

Benjamin Higginbotham: But, that could be sort of anything, they are saying used to be, if it is on television - it must be true, it is on the news – it must be true, if it is on the Internet – it must be true. You can say that about anything in the world.

Jeremy Elfering: Exactly.

Aaron Pecha : Say give a specific example, I just Googled myself and the first thing that actually comes up is friend of mine on MySpace and I created a group like a year and half ago called Aaron Pecha sucks and that’s what it found.

Benjamin Higginbotham: You created a group in your own name saying that you suck, that’s weird.

Jeremy Elfering: That’s very strange.

Aaron Pecha : I was in a very odd mood and I had been imbibing a little too much alcohol at that time, so I decided I was laughing hysterically at my computer and I created a group that I suck.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I am going to have to join that group now.

Jeremy Elfering: I have to join that too, very funny.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I don’t know why?

Jeremy Elfering: And you have, there is going to be things that skew the results, I will give a perfect example, something that…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Stephen Colbert.

Jeremy Elfering: No, I will give a perfect example something that would be skewed in the negative would be the Duke students who are just all the charges have been dropped against them, but I am sure that this top story is going on their rape charges for a while.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That’s interesting.

Aaron Pecha : Well, of course that story was being followed for a year? So, there is a year with the content already backing that’s already still going to be in the news.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Exactly.

Jeremy Elfering: So, there are possibilities of getting and there is nothing they can do about that right now. It is there will be stories…

Aaron Pecha : Convicted in the court of the public appeals court.

Jeremy Elfering: Right, exactly. There were public opinions of it…

Aaron Pecha : Public opinion, yes.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Here is another interesting little is that came out of UStream which is apparently you cannot quote wikipedia articles in school papers, which goes back to I assume online cred.

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah.

Aaron Pecha : Yeah.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Because Wiki is, anyone can say anything, so.

Aaron Pecha: That’s easy to edit it.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, anyhow all right, let’s move on and actually I love to tie one more point in that is artificial results Stephen Colbert he's require…

Jeremy Elfering: He is asking…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, you can’t watch my show unless you do this, he is asking everyone to link to him as a greatest living American, so that’s an artificial. He is artificially moving those results up, so absolutely there are ways to…

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah, there are ways to do it, but most people aren’t going to have the…

Aaron Pecha: They don’t have millions of people.

Jeremy Elfering: They don’t have millions of people watching them and going, “that’s sounds like a fun idea”.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Actually, I wonder what, here is a quick question, I wonder what’s more powerful, Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central saying link or someone else writing on his quote tail saying, “no, no, no, the Internet is more powerful” and to prove Viacom wrong, you need to link to some anti-via com person as the greatest living American. I am not sure, I don’t know if anyone actually has the heuvos to make that happen.

Jeremy Elfering: Heuvos to make it happen, I think it is just funny, personally but that’s me.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, all right. Moving on ask.com commercial, see in my show notes, I don’t why? What’s that ask.com commercial?

Aaron Pecha: Because we are coming up with search, actually saw a commercial earlier this week and basically it goes about a man with a funny accent talking about a bear attack and how you could search for tips on ask.com to avoid a bear attack or what to do during a bear attack.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Why do we keep going back to Stephen Colbert?

Aaron Pecha: No, it has nothing to do with Stephen Colbert which makes no sense because he is the one proliferating bears, as the number 1 threat to the country, but the entire thing was this guy, I don’t know what to do during a bear attack, may be I should ask, ask.com and as he went on to it, he eventually said, now if you are getting attacked by a bear, I would not use any Internet search engine, but if you had time then I would go ahead and use the ask.com

Benjamin Higginbotham: I was actually just thinking that, if I am getting attacked by a bear, the first thing that is not going to go through my head is pulling out my Treo, going to ask.com and going “what should I do when a bear attack”, I think I am going to scream and run.

Jeremy Elfering: And the question that I came up with right away is, that’s great, that’s a funny commercial all that good stuff, but does that commercial going to change how I do search these days?

Benjamin Higginbotham: How, can anyone unthwart Google.

Aaron Pecha: I don’t think it is, it is not going to be a computer, it is not going to be commercials.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Keep in mind, it can be done.

Aaron Pecha: It can be done.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Back on the day it wasn't Google, it was eXcite.

Aaron Pecha: Longest time was the hugest thing and then also it was the Lycos.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Lycos, which order was that, I think it was excite and then Lycos, wasn’t it?

Aaron Pecha: Yeah.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Because Excite started doing that at home stuff and everyone was like “what are you doing?” and they went behind.

Aaron Pecha: Yahoo came before that, but excite became the one to go to, but Yahoo is hardly enough stayed around long enough and…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, that’s because, I think they conceded that they lost the search game…

Erin Packer: So, they added enough content.

Jeremy Elfering: They added enough all that stuff.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Exactly, they do, they are more of a portal than a search engine and for a while there, they were using Google, they actually helped Google get started if I remember correctly. Remember it was Yahoo powered by Google.

Jeremy Elfering: Exactly.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, that’s I think there is a really interesting story there, that we should actually just probably bring Robert X. Cringely in that one, so he can tell a story, because he was there. I mean we were around, we were alive on the planet when it happened, but Cringely was there. So, let’s see if we can bring him on a future episode and talk about that, because it is a fascinating story, the rise and fall of all these different search engines and it is a fairly volitle to market, but I think Google has captured such a astronomically large percent of the market, I forgot what’s the last number it was, I think like 89%?

Jeremy Elfering: It is, yeah.

Aaron Pecha: Even higher.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, how do you dethrone the King?

Jeremy Elfering: How was the King put on their thrown, it wasn’t through lots of advertising, because how many Google Ads have you seen?

Benjamin Higginbotham: They are everywhere.

Aaron Pecha: How many Google Ads have you seen on the Internet or how many have seen on TV?

Jeremy Elfering: Ads for Google.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, part of it was that no one else seem to understand search, back on the day and no one was doing it very well and Google were one of the best way back in the day, at actually getting the results we are looking for.

Jeremy Elfering: Yes, but that’s, let’s even go back, how did you find out about Google? Did you find out about it through advertising? You found out about it from someone else, I bet.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, it was all viral.

Jeremy Elfering: It was all viral and I think that’s the only way that Google can be dethroned, it is got to be something that’s viral that gets spread through users and through their experience with it.

Benjamin Higginbotham: OK, what does ask.com have that a user is going to say I really want to use this now.

Aaron Pecha: They have marketing that’s about it, that I have noticed.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, but that’s not going to be viral.

Aaron Pecha: Marketing is not viral.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That only works for Apple.

Aaron Pecha: So, for the most part marketing is not viral, it is got to be a good user experience and you got to have enough people who are talking about it.

Benjamin Higginbotham: OK, well YouStream says they used to have jeeves and they get rid of jeeves.

Aaron Pecha: Yeah, askjeeves.com was fun.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Really? I hated that site.

Aaron Pecha: Well, it was still ask.com and it was still the thing, it was more of the novel idea that you were asking a butler for the most random things on the planet and it had it is day for a while there and then they took jeeves out of the mix and now, it is just ask.com and I honestly haven’t even gone to that site in a very long time.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, they are saying again in UStream that, put them on the map. I actually agree, because I remember that they marketed as human speak in your language, say what you want to say, ask a question naturally, don’t put things in quotes and pluses and whatnot and if it worked it would have been a big deal, but it never worked right for me.

Aaron Pecha: Yeah, because it was based on the same idea of every other Internet search engine where you ask the question and it would still look for the key words anyway.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Right and people did not, as the same people in there standard concept of key words at that time, they are also saying it is harder to un-throne Google, because of other services docs and spread sheets.

Jeremy Elfering: Exactly.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Gmail, Google has personalized…

Jeremy Elfering: Google has done a lot to entrench themselves as they are King. Then there is very little reason to go away from that.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, I am going to break from our format for a moment, I am going to go the ending topic and that is are you willing to share your search data to improve search results with Google, the reason I asked that is because the Google personalized search tracks your search history. So would you do it?

Aaron Pecha: Now, the question in this is they are may be showing my faux pa with my lack of specific knowledge on it, how far back will it save your data though?

Jeremy Elfering: I don’t know.

Aaron Pecha: Yeah, how would they track it, unless you are constantly online and log into Google with search going in the whole time, how do they save it?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, the thing is, here is what I have noticed is that when I am logged into Google I get different Google search results, almost everyone else in this building, odly enough I get when I search Google, my Google list comes up with picture icons on the left side of the website I am about to go to, icon support and then if you search Google in that computer and you are login to my account, you don’t you get the traditional Google search results and that is not a preference that I set, it just one day showed up.

Aaron Pecha: But, you are logged in to Google while you are doing that, right?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Right, because I am using personalized search results, but I can move to any computer, anywhere even in on Apple store or Microsoft store (oh that's right) or wherever and I will get the exact same experience everywhere I go, so they have got some way where if you have logged in, they seem to keep everything, somehow they keep, they keep track of all this stuff and it may just be a simple as a cookie being set, but I have a feeling that they are actually keeping it, I mean Google’s goal in life was to searching index and catalog all of the worlds data. I have a feeling that they can search an index and catalog without issue. All of my own personal searches, as indefinitely.

Jeremy Elfering: Especially if you are logged in, it is not that much data really to key.

Aaron Pecha: Yeah, well if you go back to when searching originally began, what was the average size of a hard drive on a computer? And how much did that cost? Now, what we got 125 at least per something less than, where as your it had tower back when my parents bought their first real computer as I considered at 1 gig hard drive and the thing was this thick. As I said this thick, well this thick.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, everyone in UStream can see you, but everyone listening to the podcast after fact they are, well log in on 3 inches or 4 inches thick.

Aaron Pecha: Yeah.

Jeremy Elfering: Obviously, space is cheap these days and it will get cheaper.

Benjamin Higginbotham: And something that I didn’t know is that if this stuff scares you and you don’t like the idea of Google being able to track everything, apparently some of the key developers at Google saw where this was going and left and they created scroogle.com and it is I guess the idea is that, it doesn’t track this information UStream please confirm if that’s right, it just doesn’t track, it doesn’t track your personal information and that is part of the concern with Google is that, now they have got with Gmail, you have to think about this, with Gmail they have got all my email.

Jeremy Elfering: Exactly.

Benjamin Higginbotham: They have got all my contacts, they have got just about anything I, that alone is huge, just a Gmail, they have got the personalized home page, so they can probably see what’s stocks I am interested in and what I am tracking , they can get a lot of data out of all that stuff. Now, whether they are keeping it or not, I don’t know, but if I were to put my tin-foil add on and say “hey, I am scared”, there is a lot of stuff going on there.

Aaron Pecha: And there is sort of security concern with that, because if somebody were to hack Google, which I doubt it is very easy to do, but I am sure there is some kid in his basement right now attempting to, if somebody were able to do that, they could get personal information on the majority of civilized world including what stocks you are interested and probably a lot of information about your checking account.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Now, the cool thing about scroogle is that, it apparently uses, is that apparently uses the Google engine, but it is a proxy, so it is striping out to their ability to actually track what the heck is going on. So, you have got all of the power of Google, but none of the scariness of them being able to track anything.

Jeremy Elfering: This from TalkShoe that their new 411 service tells you all of those calls are being recorded.

Aaron Pecha: The 411?

Benjamin Higginbotham: They do? We should call them, I actually did not know that.

Jeremy Elfering: So, yeah that’s a lot of information right there.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, that is a lot of information.

Jeremy Elfering: They will collect information on just about anything and who knows how they are going to use it. For those conspiracy theorists out there...

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, absolutely.

Aaron Pecha: And for all those people who are late night in a city calling for strip clubs…

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah, Microsoft is not the big bad Boogyman and now it is Google.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I don’t know, Microsoft I think still is big bag boogyman, well because well they still want to beat Google, they realize that they are getting de-throned by Google.

Jeremy Elfering: Exactly.

Benjamin Higginbotham: And that’s kind of freaky, so what do they use this information for? So they gather all this information about me, that isn’t actually, it is not necessarily bad thing on the surface, it is what they use the information for?

Aaron Pecha: Yeah, it is the question of what they use that information for.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Absolutely, so are they using for advertising, are they selling with advertisers or they are using for nothing, right now? I mean what’s plan there?

Jeremy Elfering: Who knows?

Aaron Pecha: Well, I think at this point it is at least on the surface simply to help you search better for things that you search for every day.

Jeremy Elfering: And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it is just a question of what are the purposes for it down the line? And it may just be, “hey we are just trying to help you out down the road too”, but you never know what’s going to happen.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Their slogan is “Do No Evil”.

Jeremy Elfering: Exactly.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Of course if they have to remind themselves of that everyday, that’s a little scary too. So, let’s reverse that.

Jeremy Elfering: And we talked about, we got an interviewed with one of those guys about their moon base.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That’s right, we do. So, let’s reverse that, and is advertising affect how people search? Now, we know that search companies could sell information to the advertisers, what do they do with that? Do they take that and do they actually affect how you are searching online? Now that they've got the non-organic results at the top?

Jeremy Elfering: Or do they just tailor, what advertising you get?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Exactly.

Aaron Pecha: Yeah, they could also tailor it, not only by your interest, but also by your region, so if a company starts up, say a restaurant that’s up and coming hasn’t got much buzz in any sort of magazine or publication, they could link you to it immediately, because of where you live, which would help business and it would help you because, may be you found a new nice restaurant.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, that would be cool actually, I think I have no issue with focused advertising.

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah, I don’t have any issue, it is the unfocused advertising that just drives the bejeebers out of me.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, if I am actually interested in the product or service that they are selling and it is localized and it is something that will help me, that’s fine, I have no problem having them inbed that, in the search results or even in video or a podcast. Gee, I wonder if I'm allowed to puts ads in our podcasts. The beautiful thing about the advertising is it pays for this stuff, so we can play, again it is virtually free to the end user, right? They pay in time, that they have to listen to an ad, but there is no out of pocket money.

Jeremy Elfering: And it’s what we want put it down the line, because that’s really what the model has been for traditional media. It is just matter of how do we do it for online media?

Aaron Pecha: There is actually, this goes between both, I read it last night at 3:30 in morning, so forgive me if I am a little lite on specifics, there is a company developing specific localized advertising for TiVo, to be placed in place of regular ads and there is actually talk of being able to down the road, personalize it, so it would not only reference the program you are watching, say you are watching a football game, it would reference like there will be two characters on the screen, like two penguins or something and they would say, “hey, did you see that great pass by” and they give enough detail to make prove that it was created in the midst of everything, I forgot the exact term they were using, but basically they would be able to localize it to you and even possibly put your name in it.

Benjamin Higginbotham: OK, that’s a little freaky.

Aaron Pecha: In to the advertising, it is very freaky.

Benjamin Higginbotham: It is freaky, cool, it is what it is.

Jeremy Elfering: That’s the scary part.

Aaron Pecha: And again I read at 3 o’clock in the morning, but I did remember that, because that woke me right up while I was reading it.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That is actually nifty , as long as…

Jeremy Elfering: If there were like commercials in my TiVo content that I actually appreciated and was interested in, I would actually probably look at the commercials all of a sudden.

Aaron Pecha: Exactly, it was more to get advertisers their space back, so that you would be interested in being like what are going to say, are they going to talk about me or the are going to talk about somebody in my family, because you think about it, your Dish subscription or your cable subscription has sometimes joint names on it, it have both your wife’s and your name on it, so they don’t know exactly who is going to be watching, so may be they will say both of you.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Or they have facial recognition built in the…

Aaron Pecha: Yeah, that’s those cameras built into the front of your DVR. And we go back to the tin foil hats.

Jeremy Elfering: Another layer on top, it’s been a very tin foil hat show.

Aaron Pecha: Yeah, this stuff actually doesn’t scare me, to be perfectly honest.

Benjamin Higginbotham: But, it is good to raise the question and bring awareness to this because someone could do something bad with this information, he who controls the information has the power and…

Aaron Pecha: And absolute power, corrupts absolutely, so…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Something like that…

Aaron Pecha: If you really want to nuts with it?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, absolutely, if you want to go way extreme and it is just understanding what’s being done with the data, who has the data, just I don’t lot of people realize, how much data that these companies have on them? It is a little bit scary, but as long as it is not used for evil purposes that might be alright, it is just that one company that going to ruine it for everyone.

Jeremy Elfering: Exactly.

Benjamin Higginbotham: And then the governments going to have to get involved and then we going to have regulations and then more freedoms to be taken away and…

Aaron Pecha: Exactly and it also goes back to the whole hacker issue, because it could be not even the company that holds your information, but it could be somebody who breaks into their data base, is the one who creates downfall of modern society through that.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Now, YouStream is talking about cookies right now, computer cookies, that your browser sets and they are saying, cookies are evil, cookies aren’t evil. Part of what it is, is this goes back to, it depends on what you use a cookie for. So, if the cookie is used in just to set your preferences and save your preferences and then the website calls it backup, so it knows how to load the page correctly, whoop-de-freaking-do.

Jeremy Elfering: Now, I like cookies then, at that point.

Benjamin Higginbotham: But, if it saves your credit card number and sends that to uncle Bob…

Jeremy Elfering: That’s the problem.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, it takes your credit card that’s not very good, although the cookie in enough self strictly text files that have to be some other exploit to read that text file.

Aaron Pecha: It is not the cookie itself is the evil, it is how the cookie is used that's evil.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Exactly and the same security of the cookie is important, that’s absolutely true and understanding what’s in the cookie and how was written, not putting too much personal data in there, that’s all. Let’s radically change topics and close out this podcast and that would be is it ethical to have a link at the bottom of your page asking people to Digg your story, in other words, it is basically like Digging your own story almost, that actually is one step behind Digging your own story.

Jeremy Elfering: And it is something that I have seen more and more as I have read Digg stories, it is like….

Benjamin Higginbotham: You are making it easy.

Jeremy Elfering: It is the question, are you making it easy? Or you ask, are you almost Digging in your own story? Simply go “oh, yeah” and dig it, or is it more worthwhile to take the time to have some one who took the time to Digg a story. Is that a more worthwhile story or is it more worthwhile to have someone who just goes, “yeah, whatever”.

Benjamin Higginbotham: See as a content creator I am all for putting that directly into the posts, because I want to make it as easy for people to promote and highlight my content as humanly possible. I am proud of what I write and I am proud of what I produce and I want as many people as possible to listen, watch and read what I do. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, I mean if I wasn’t proud of that, I wouldn’t want to do that, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with that and making it easy for people to help, promote and get the word out there, why is that bad?

Aaron Pecha: I'd almost akin it to subscribing to an RSS feed, because you are condensing it to one single reader, so you don’t have to travel the seven different websites or twenty or fifty, so if you have the link in your post which is then on your reader, it is one lesst place to go on the Internet.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, but this is the Digg effect or getting dugg would be more useful for those who don’t already have your feed in their RSS reader, so we have got 2,000 people subscribe to Technology Evangelist, if we get a story dugg and they send a 100,000 users that’s what is that 98,000 that are probably in the feed.

Jeremy Elfering: Probably.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Probably, actually more because some people may be reading it, not on Digg, so I am making numbers up by the way, using round numbers. So, there is additional attraction you can get in, may be they will start actually reading your feed and though added to your Google reader or Bloglines or whatever they are using and go from there which increases your audience base, which then increases your level of communication and I am all about making the world smaller and allowing others to join in on the conversation, I think that’s what media 2.0 is all about, is that interactive conversations it's why I like UStream, it is I like TalkShoe, because we can bring others in and then they can ask questions and they can contribute to it and I think that’s a great wonderful thing and anything we can do to help build that which will be I think adding the Digg button to the post and driving those people to the site is good, I don’t see anything, any downfall in that. UStream is saying, well ultimately it is Digg who makes that question, has the answer to this, they say, it is OK. I don’t know we are talking more ethics than anything else and Digg can’t really say it is what’s ethical or not, they can set rules and guidelines as to what you are allowed to do with their product and they do have an API that allows you to do this obviously. So, obviously Digg says it is OK, unless Kevin Rose has actually said something like “this isn’t OK”.

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah, they going to say this is OK, but it is more the question of, is it forcing people to digg it or is that just giving them the quick options to digg it?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, I think it is more of a quick option and that’s why I think it is just fine. I don’t see why it is an issue, I think everyone should just do it, which is funny, because, I don’t think we do it on Technology Evangelist today, it is partly our publishing platform, we aren’t Moveable Type in that Wordress, so there are lot of really cool plugins for wordpress that we just don’t have access to.

Jeremy Elfering: There is a difference between the way I think we do it on the way I have seen some other websites that do it also, is RSS just tiny little icon it is at the bottom, some other ones have practically bigger than the story that says Digg it. Obviously, I am exaggerating, but it is still it is a very different way to look at it too.

Benjamin Higginbotham: You are referring to the live digg button where you just can click on it right there and just immediately diggs it without having jump around?

Jeremy Elfering: Yes.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, actually that’s the button I like.

Jeremy Elfering: Is it?

Benjamin Higginbotham: I like that one, because then you can right there how many people have dugg in, you can see how popular it is, may be that’s bad too, because if I write a really bad story, no one reads it and no one likes it, then it is going to have an account of zero indefinitely.

Jeremy Elfering: It is quashed.

Benjamin Higginbotham: No, seriously, it is an ego blow. Let’s be honest, when people digg your story and people are writing about it and…

Jeremy Elfering: It is very big ego boost. .

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, absolutely. You got like that, there is a little bit of thrill, but you shouldn’t be trying to game digg, and you shouldn’t be trying to write articles, so that you will just get dugg, it should be right article, be writing articles that you are passionate about, that you think it will contribute to the Internet community as a whole and then when it is dugg that you have actually improved the Internet community as a whole. Is my idealism coming out?

Jeremy Elfering: It is very good.

Aaron Pecha: No, Ben it is OK.

Benjamin Higginbotham: All right that will wrap it up today’s search Thursday podcasts, tomorrow will be freestyle Friday, we are allowed to talk about anything that we want. Any topics on the board technology related or not although being we are all tech geeks. Usually technology. I like to thank everyone in YouStream for talking with us live and I also like to thank everyone that’s currently in TalkShoe for joining the conversation, we do this everyday at 12 o’clock Eastern, 11 o’clock Central, that’s 9 o’clock Pacific, we do them live with video on UStream, we also do it live in TalkShoe and we will post the audio directly from the system, couple of hours after the podcast is completed. Thank you all for joining us, we will talk to you tomorrow.