MSN Spaces Serves Ads on the Long Tail

Bill's thrust towards towards long-tail ad serving has begun.

Via David Utter:

Bloggers who use MSN Spaces for their posts can place advertising on their blogs now, with options for Amazon associates and Kanoodle ads offered.

MAKE MONEY FA$T! That's the implicit message behind two of the many changes MSN implemented recently, as they added a couple of options for monetizing a blog on MSN Spaces.

The service now permits users to have associate links to Amazon on their sites. Associates receive a piece of the action whenever someone purchases an item through the Amazon link containing the associate ID.

MSN also said bloggers can earn money with Kanoodle advertisements. Microsoft's relationship with Yahoo, which provides contextual advertising on MSN, ends in June 2006. It is interesting that MSN is going with Kanoodle here instead of Yahoo, as either solution would likely serve as a place-filler until MSN adCenter launches in July.

Perhaps Microsoft likes Kanoodle in an acquisitive way. Microsoft's CFO, Chris Liddell, did suggest Microsoft may buy its way into online advertising through picking up smaller companies. And Kanoodle does have some good partnerships in place with the likes of MarketWatch and USAToday online.

Now I'd like to see him try selling ads to the long tail, Google-style. After all, his buddy Steve-o wants to "fucking kill Google".

Guild Wars Rhapsody

Bohemian Rhapsody is a perennial favorite among gaming parodists (see Zero Wing Rhapsody), and Guild Wars' complex avatar gestures and movable camera lend it to parody.

That's why a Guild Wars Rhapsody video was inevitable.



(Via Jac Ting Lim.)

Local Paper Lets Dumbass N00b Write Tech Article

Anyone who thinks her DSL runs at 100Mbps, and should be physically disconnected when the PC's off, does not deserve to write an infotech article in a major broadsheet of nationwide circulation.

Unfortunately, local fence-sitting ad-heavy no-news dead-tree rag Manila Bulletin disagrees. They let Peachy Limpin write exactly that in a supposed infotech article.

Then again, this is from a newspaper whose headline one All Saints’ Day was “People Visit Graves of Dead Today”.

(Via Abe Olandres.)

Google Refuses to Pay Insane Bell South Fee

After my PLDT purgatory, I'm glad to see Google tell a telco to go fuck itself.

Google refuses to pay Bell South an insane fee: for Bell South users to access Google.

We pay our ISPs so we can access the Internet -- all of it. Any ISP that artificially prefers, hinders, or blocks specific content without paying customers' consent is just offering lousy service.

Don't even think of trying this, PLDT. If my Skype suddenly skips because you don't like VoIP competition, or my non-netGames/Level-Up games suddenly lag because those two publishers are your bitches, you won't hear the end of it.

(Via Doc Searls.)

Parisisms

"It was a weird Greek name. Like Douglas"

"I meet so many people. I don't even know some of my friends' names."

"Like, I think a girl can only stalk a guy. She can't really stalk another girl."

More words of wisdom from Paris Hilton here.

Epixtar Persecutes Blogger

As a top performer at eTelecare years ago, I hated the now-bankrupt labor-abusing scammers at Epixtar. In fact, one of my best team leaders at eTelecare came from Epixtar after getting sick of their crap.

Though the demise of traditional CRM is near, eTelecare lets it die with dignity. Epixtar feasts on its flesh.

Now, someone's posting around the fruits of Epixtar's crimes: their execs' salaries. To top it off, Epixtar has the audacity to hunt down those posts and persecute bloggers.

Nice work, Epixtar. Now, not only do local CRM professionals and overseas customers hate you. Local bloggers hate you, too.

(Via Migs, Abe, and Gary.)

PLDT Purgatory: Billing

Now I find out PLDT's billing guys haven't been told about my four-day DSL outage. They claim they'll follow it up manually.

PLDT DSL's support people said their billing guys would be aware of the outage. Good thing I don't believe their lies.

AIMspace?

"That millions of consumers, and especially young ones, now find online pals' content -- be it photos, messages, or random musings -- more compelling than that of quote-unquote professionals is one of the bitterest pills Big Media has had to swallow of late." -- Jon Fine.

AOL, known for sanitized content spoonfeeding, is about to swallow that pill. They're cooking up their own social networking solution.

(Via Steve Rubel.)

Spoofed @mikeabundo.com Emails

It has come to my attention that certain people have been spoofing emails from "kevin@mikeabundo.com" and "george@mikeabundo.com".

Please don't be deceived by these bots. I haven't given emailboxes to any "George" or "Kevin". Only myself (mike@mikeabundo.com) and a handful of my closest friends have @mikeabundo.com emailboxes.

To the operator of the "George" and "Kevin" bots, I have your IP addresses and connection times. Quit spamming random AOLers with your Compass account.

About 25 US states have adopted legislation prohibiting spoofing. Washington, Illinois and Maryland explicitly prohibit spammers from sending commercial e-mail messages that use a third party's domain name without permission.

Creative Commons License Update

Silly me. While PinoyCosplay.com has sported an up-to-date Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License for three months now, MikeAbundo.com still carried the 2.0 version.

I just upgraded it to 2.5. I encourage people looking to virally share and collaboratively develop information across social media to check out CreativeCommons.org.

Pacquiao TKOs Morales

Congratulations to Filipino fighter Manny Pacquiao on TKOing Eric Morales two minutes and 33 seconds into the 10th round. Sorry, Morales -- no link love for losers.

Like a true underdog, "Pacman" let Morales have some fun in the first five rounds, but turned the tide in the last five. Round-by-round account here.

As I type this, local TV is only now about to show the second round. Traditional media will share Morales' fate.

(Photo via FightNews.com.)