Ughly, all or nothing on Google+

At least you are able to select multiple contacts by dragging a select box with an input tool to a circle. I really don't want to see what the interface looks like for mobile Google+. First impressions are like this:

• the UI is horrific
• there is a linear path for sign-up after clicking on the invite (referral) email

You can either sign-up all the way and opt-in to everything that Google wants you to have public, or quit the process. Who thought that one up?

• it's like the devs have taken the LiveJournal interface, made it worse, then opened up site privs to everyone on the web (which, thankfully can be configured for less Google-generated spam)
• surely the FB flip-flopping on privacy issues could have made Google a better learned student on the matter, but no... Google wants everything public and searchable on the web whether you're a Google accounts user or not
• this project should have died at inception or stayed in beta a lot longer
• uhh, I like my privacy and you probably do

Like any site config page for notifications.. you could probably turn them all off unless you really love getting pinged by email alerts. Isn't that what an RSS feed is supposed to filter for you? 

Google devs, please leave my online personas alone. Obviously, I don't want my business "mktgurl" persona mixed with the food-oriented "mad scientist baker" persona. Don't just base them off of the funky "name" associated with the email account. Ugh, geez... it's like monkeys suddenly took over the dev of this app.

O mein Gott! Es gibt ein axt im meine kopf.

Ahh finally, the end of the month. I can post something silly.

When you catch tv episodes online, you often get to watch the same ad over and over again. The AXE ads that have been playing during the commercial breaks for MasterChef are pretty amusing, even with multiple views. The meat poncho ad is darn hilarious too. Looking deeper, the ads are well executed and memorable. 

The first impression before the actual product shot had two other brands come to mind: the Energizer bunny and Victoria Secrets. The former had a history of ads in the 80s that looked believable enough but totally threw you off when the Energizer bunny skated by. The latter used the angel theme before; though the style of the ad isn't what they typically promote.

Google+ invites on eBay

*snerk* *giggle* I remember when Gmail was by invite only. Read about it on WebProNews or see it in action.

The cloud, it poked me in the eye

Is there any data that isn't compromised by the US Patriot Act? 

I thought about writing an intro series for marketers to the Cloud (as in cloud-based apps and marketing), but I'll jump right in here. Imagine if you would, your personal hard drive (from a computing device: say, an iPad, laptop, netbook, desktop monstrosity, server, etc.) with documents (e.g., text, photos, presentations, spreadsheets, notes) that you share with your colleagues or clients in an online platform where you presumably control access privileges and file privacy rights. On zdnet.com, Zack Whittaker highlights an interesting perspective on how Microsoft is dealing with privacy with respect to law enforcement requests for documents shared on a cloud.

The Microsoft statement: "Any data which is housed, stored or processed by a company, which is a U.S. based company or is wholly owned by a U.S. parent company, is vulnerable to interception and inspection by U.S. authorities." 

Not only do companies have to worry about hackers breaching a cloud platform like what happened to Epsilon and its customers in March 2011 (Kroger, JPM Chase, and a long list of others), but now your data could be seized at any moment without due process by the US government, regardless of where that data is if it is managed by a US-based company.

Read more?

Microsoft's whitepaper on the data protection policies of Office Live 365
PC Mag's article on "Epsilon Data Breach: What Can You Do to Protect Yourself?"

Gee thanks Amazon, I feel so unloved

If you've done business with Amazon.com or have aStore or affiliate links embedded in a blog or some other website, I'm sure you've read about the sales tax troubles Amazon was having with the state of Illinois and now with California. Granted I used to live in California when I signed up with the Amazon Associates program, but even when I changed my payee residence to Vancouver, WA where I live currently, I received the affiliate termination letter TWICE! Once for having a California address, and again for having a Vancouver, WA address. So, does this mean Amazon is unilaterally severing affiliate relationships with all other states, or just California? It's really unclear. 

I was just doing it for fun, mainly for the cooking blog so that readers could see a product shot of a particular cooking utensil or kitchenware that I used for making a particular recipe. Now it seems like it's just a wasted extra step to embed those links in, even though Amazon affiliates is an add-on within Blogger.