Predicting Super Tuesday results using Google trends

Posted by multippt

Google seems to have a nice tool that is pretty accurate at predicting future election results. Google trends, which collates the total number of searches for a specific term has a nice little ability to predict stuff, accurately too.

Using Google trends, you can search for “clinton, obama, romney, mccain” (they are the top 4 candidates), and you get a nice chart showing you who’s more popular. Apparently, Obama is in the lead, while Clinton is second. Sure enough, BBC is reporting that Obama is currently in the lead.

It’s worth noting that Google trends has been fairly accurate in predicting results for past elections (of course, it can be inaccurate at times).

The Trends - Web 2.0: The dark side

Posted by multippt

Earlier I was saying how web 2.0 actually helps us, now then, have you ever thought how web 2.0 can be of an annoyance to us? I shall show you how web 2.0 can be as bad as it can be as good.

Spam

Spam, of which I’m referring to the electronic mail version (not the brand of canned meat), is increasing every year. I know, although a little spam is a minor annoyance, when these spam messages pile up, it can haunt you and your mailbox. Its been estimated that on average, each person receives roughly 15 spam messages each day (I don’t know about you, maybe you don’t receve any, or maybe you receive alot more than that). In fact, the amount of spam being sent has multipled quickly over the years, reaching billions. Of course, the spam messages you receive may depend on what you’ve done on the web. Some bots are designed to collect email addresses scattered around the internet. If it just so happen to find yours, your email address might be added to one of those large mailing lists (that may send out advertisements). Also, people who have gained a reputation on the internet would generally receive alot more spam messages (do I need to state examples?…). Why do people spam? Well, it promises money of course! People don’t just do things like that, and they are probably recruited by some advertiser or service that provides PTM (paid to mail).

Privacy

Privacy on the internet is another issue. Its been a concern that some sensitive information such as your bank account number and credit card number might be leaked into the web. If that happens, you might have a huge problem in your hands. There are some people who have fallen prey to scams that involve the revealing of one’s private information. The reverse effect of having too much privacy have given rise to several problems. Afriad of revealing their true information, some people decided to surf the net behind proxies, hoping that this would conceal their IP address. Of course, this is not a good thing, since hackers also make use of these things.

Thats Just Wrong…

With the internet becoming more vast, and information becoming very accessible, some users of the internet might seize the opportunity to download whatever they can get their hands on. Sometimes, the things they find on the internet is simply just wrong… (very bad content, inclusive of dirty-minded ones). Also, there is the problem of copyright infringement, which is the probable result of the misinterpretation that every content available on the internet is in the public domain, which isn’t true. Copyright infringement cause copyright holders alot of money. There is another problem of intellectual property theft, in which one party claims that the product they have is their creation, when it is not.

Phishing and scams

Phishing sites, or sites that mimic the official site, pose a great threat to one’s privacy. Phishing sites simply exploit a human behavior, in which when we want something, we would go straight to it. Thus, users who are not cautious of the environment would be tricked into giving their credentials alway. Scams, which includes selling vaporware, is likely to result in the loss of large sums of money, which is something no one wants.

Money

All this was made attractive to perform due to the opportunity of making money online. In a world nearly driven by money, it makes people all the more willing to get as much revenue as possible.

The Trends - Web 2.0

Posted by multippt

The old era of web 1.0 have come and gone. A new generation of web applications have come about. This is web 2.0. Now then, what is web 2.0?

Web 2.0, does indeed have a certain significant difference from the traditional web 1.0 applications. They tend to include a range of eye-candy, and the pages usually consist of user-driven content, that is, the pages aren’t so static/stiff after all. No, you need not download anything to enjoy web 2.0, instead, you might have already experienced it. ”Web 2.0″ is a phrase originally coined by the O’Reilly Media, 2004, and yet despite the years, it does not have a precise/definite definition to it. However, the idea of web 2.0 does give ideas to what one might imagine.

The Interface

Web 2.0 applications tend to have very user-friendly interfaces, encompassing clean looking panel-like groupings, coupled with eye-candy inclusive of gradients and special effects. The coming of the 21st century indeed see more creations that try to give the user a more friendly experience, at the same time give more features. Long gone are the days where one would stare at a screen filled with white words in a black background (command-line interface). All these experienced from a web browser seems very much like a fantasy 15 years ago, now, its become a reality. Other than the colorful effects a web application may have, the plain interface of grey, black, blue and white is starting to become the norm.

The Features

Most web pages in the past used to contain plain html, maybe coupled with a few javascript or vbscript here and there. There were not many that used SSI neither languages such as PHP, ASP, ASP.net (aka *.ASPX), and ruby-on-rails. There was no such thing as complex animations (Macromedia Flash), and the most common method of animation were probably GIF images. Now, you see more web pages utilising php and asp.net, and retrieving data from databases such as MySql, MsSql, and Firebird. AJAX is also starting to become common, and other technologies and APIs are being developed as well.

The People

Administrators, graphic designers and programmers are getting more skilled over the years. With them getting more creative and innovative, their creations become more sophisticated. Setting up and creating a web 2.0 site is not an easy task as compared to setting up a web 1.0 one. Other than the administrators, the visitors to the site tend to be more picky and would quickly judge how good a site is to them within seconds. Thus, the first impression is the most important one. Other than that, not many visitors to the site linger more than 20 minutes in a site, thus the site has to be as interesting as possible, so the visitor would remain longer. With the increasing affluence of the people in the 21st century, more people would be able to own computers, at the same time with access to the internet, thus there would be a net increase in visitors, leading to the birth of sites that cater to large amounts of visitors.

The Money

With the increase in people using the web, there will be an increase in the profitability of the web. Most, if not all web applications which help the party earn money fall under the web 2.0 category. An example is Google Adsense. Also, the idea of earning money online has given rise to other forms of web 2.0 applications such as PPC (Paid-Per-Click Ads), PTB (Paid-to-Blog), PTS (Paid-to-Surf), and several others. Domain registration has become a business, especially during the dot-com boom that happened years ago.

The Publicity

Nowadays, it is easy to find a blog, be it personal, or a newsblog. Yes, blogs are examples of web 2.0 applications, since they are user driven. So are forums and wikis. Many would desire to have many visitors in their site, and may submit their’s to places such as digg and several traffic exchanges.

Thus, with all this in mind, what do you think web 2.0 really is?