Thursday, August 22, 2013

For the first time in 5 years, Yahoo is #1

For the first time in five years, Yahoo passes Google in web traffic in the United States. The Mountain View giant lost its number one spot in July. A surprising result, but is Yahoo able to sustain its position?
  

First time in 5 years, Yahoo is #1

The figures from ComScore for July confirms it, Yahoo sites surpassed Google sites by 4 338 900 visits (196 564 000 to 192 225 100  visits for Google).  
To realize better what just happened, you must know that Google has been holding the number one spot since April 2008, while Yahoo always oscillated between the second and third place.
 

In the rest of the chart, we find Microsoft Sites in third with 179 595 visits and Facebook in fourth with 266.142 million visits. Note that these figures refer only to the United States. This is a real "tour de force" to Yahoo and its president, Marissa Mayer, who herself worked at Google in the past.  

The figures do not rely solely on search engines, but on all the sites operated by these companies.
This includes for example the online messaging and blogs. ( Note that Google recently bought Tumblr from Yahoo, and is currently ranking 38th with
38 367 000 visits)

While this is great news for Yahoo, and whether it is able to hold its position or not, we cannot but wonder if Google professing the lack of privacy their users have to deal with and Microsoft's infamous campaign against them (Scroogled) - Keeping in mind,  Microsoft services mediocrity and lack of security - played a role in boosting the number of visits for the already popular site (Yahoo) in the US.  






Source: Phonandroid

Friday, August 16, 2013

Facebook... It's bad for you!

According to a study conducted by psychologists at the University of Michigan, the more you use Facebook, the more you're unhappy.
 
These conclusions were derived after the researchers have looked back on how 82 young adults use Facebook, for a period of two weeks. When participants in the experiment started, they were asked to record their moods and the satisfaction they felt about their lives. During the two weeks, the researchers asked participants to answer questions about their general mood and the time they spent on Facebook since the last check, at intervals of 2 hours.  
The conclusion was: the more people spend time on Facebook during the 2 hour period, the more they felt ill.

The result was the same when they raised the average time spent on Facebook, for one person, with "average mood." Those who spent more time on the social network had worst moods.

According to one of the authors of the study, Ethan Kross, this could put a multitude of factors involved Among the reasons cited by the researcher, there are social comparisons that can be made when you go on Facebook, reduction of the time spent conducting activities supposed beneficial as getting out of exercise or the reduction of direct interaction with people.

Another study, conducted by the Humboldt University in Berlin, also showed that Facebook could have harm on the psychological level. Among the grounds which were then discussed, there was also the fact that people begin to compare their lives to the other by going on Facebook, which can lead to dissatisfaction.


Source : Two faced Facebook: we like it but it doesn't make us happy

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Microsoft shows you how you're getting scroogled

The Competition is fierce between Google and Microsoft. The latter recently accused his rival of disguising advertisements in emails and sending them directly to the user's inbox. A technique that Microsoft has named Gspam.

Following an update of Gmail users now have a "Promotions" tab to separate the commercial emails from the rest of the electronic correspondence. The idea might seem a bit silly to you, but Microsoft accuses Google of scanning mails from its users, analyzing keywords and then sending advertising messages among the "Promotions".

Microsoft styling this technique "Gspam" and invites users to no longer be "scroogled". Indeed, the role of a mailbox is to filter spam and not to drag some more or less discreetly.


Of course, I can invite you all to leave Gmail and end my post, but it would be pointless and ridiculous since I have no better viable alternative ( Unless you are willing to try self-hosting and take full responsibility for your own security)

However, the only advice I can give you is not to use OUTLOOK, because how could you trust the firm who released windows 8, willingly handed the NSA Skype data, and are shamelessly advertising the Xbox one (a spy in your home).




Read more about Scroogled