Youtube Views Per Day Statistics

YouTube has surpassed 2 billion views per day. Check out this cool little YouTube infographic that summarizes some of the astounding numbers.

YouTube Highlights

YouTube History:
February 2005 – Founders register YouTube domain name.
April 23, 2005 – First video uploaded
May 2005 – Beta Launch of YouTube
June 2005 – YouTube embeds enabled
December 2005 – Official Launch – 8 million videos watched a day
July 2006 - 100 million video views per day
October 2006 – Google acquisition of YouTube – $1.65 billion
June 2007 – YouTube mobile site launched
December 2008 – 720p HD launched
May 2009 - 20 hours of video uploaded every minute
October 2009 - 1 Billion views per day
November 2009 - 1080p full-HD launched
May 2010 - YouTube exceeds 2 billion views per day

Other Interesting YouTube Facts & Statistics

19 seconds - The length of first video uploaded
1.96 million – Number of times the first video has been played
185.39 million – the number of times the most popular video on YouTube, Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” has been played

2 billion views = double the prime-time audience of all 3 major US Broadcast networks combined
24 hours of video uploaded every minute
Average person spends 15 minutes a day on YouTube
More video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than all 3 major US networks created in 60 years.

YouTube Infographic

• Share with us your thoughts on the astounding stats in the comments section!

Share your thoughts on the YouTube Statistics!

• What statistics is the most surprising or the most astounding?
• How many videos do you think you watch per week?

Related posts:

1. YouTube vs Hulu vs Facebook Statistics
2. Kids Consuming More Online Content

Top 10 General Security Tips for Facebook

Facebook is growing at a rapid rate, and now with Facebook open graph, they are looking to “socialize” all the world’s large webpages to be custom to your profile and social network.

So how do we protect our privacy?

[1] The #1 Facebook security tip is to set your Facebook privacy settings.

If you don’t know how just visit this step by step Facebook privacy settings post.

Once you have your privacy settings set – consider the following tips:

[2] Think carefully about who you allow to become your friend

Once you have accepted someone as your friend they will be able to access any information about you (including photographs) that you have marked as viewable by your friends. You can remove friends at any time should you change your mind about someone. Remember by making someone your friend, you are now giving them full access to majority of the information you post on Facebook.

[3] Use Your Friend Lists

You can organize your friends into different lists (church, co-workers, friends, family, monsters etc). Then you can create different accessibility and privacy options for each one meaning specify what they can and cannot see.

[4] Careful What You Share On Your Profile!

Avoid putting in any info you don’t need to share! No Address, no Phone Number, no Email. If you choose to do so make sure in your privacy settings ONLY friends can see it. (then be selective about who you friend).

[5] Careful What You Share – Photos & Videos!

Careful what photos or videos you post. Once it’s on the web, it’s on the web. Also be sensitive to the pictures and videos you share of your friends. It is embarrassing? Incriminating? Immature? Or just a really bad picture of them? Save your friend the drama and don’t post it. Imagine if someone posted such a picture and tagged you for all the world to see.. (or just friends if you diligently went through the privacy settings!).

[6] Careful What You Share – On your Facebook Wall

Depending on your privacy settings, lot of people may have access to your wall, so becareful what you post. Examples:

• Don’t declare your entire household will be off to vacation for a specified time. Burglars would love that info.
• Don’t say anything potentially embarrassing

[7] Want to Avoid Old or Bad Connections?

• Remove yourself from facebook and public search results (in privacy settings).
• Use an unidetifiable picture. So they can’t tell whether you are the right “John Kim”.. easier to ignore as well, then they assume it’s the wrong one.
• Don’t put identifiable info on your profile (address, IM, email, work..)
• If all fails, just get off Facebook and regain hours of your life

[8] Avoid Useless & Random Apps

Facebook application sometimes requests information, others automatically posts things to your wall. You may get invitations to try out apps from others – but unless you know what it is just avoid it altogether. By nature, Facebook apps are made to utilize your profile information and social connections.

[9] Leave out Full Birth date

Do not leave your full birthdate (your birthdate is valuable information) leave out the year.

[10] Monitor Your Children

If your children use it, you need to monitor what they say. They are not educated in what kind of info is bad to share. (ex. “i am home alone”, “we are leaving tonight to go for a 2 weeks vacations”). You should also be weary about who is talking to them and vice versa. You should setup their privacy settings and then “friend” your children. Even better – just make it a rule you have their password so they can login whenever they want.

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[Bonus #11] Conclusion: Better Safe than Sorry

It’s simple. Don’t say, write, post up anything that is even slightly embarrassing. When you put info up on the web, there is always the possibility someone will find it. Your friends, your co-workers, your boss, future recruiters, your mom, your arch enemy, your political opponent, the guy 10 years from now try to sue you, some stalker, some guy planning to rob your home, guy looking for more identification for identify theft and so on. Yes some of these are ridiculous – but again, better safe than sorry. Save yourself potential future headache by playing it safe and thinking carefully about what you post.

Hope this was helpful.
Facebook is looking to simplify their Privacy Settings again so we’ll see what happens next.

Please let us know your thoughts!

• What other potential dangers are there by sharing your info?
• Any other general tips about safe facebook use?
• Parents! How do you monitor your children?

Related posts:

1. Complete Facebook Privacy Settings Checklist
2. Social Network – Facebook – Friends Forever
3. Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter Statistics: Raising $200 Million

Facebook Privacy Concerns Overblown

There has been a lot of news about Facebook Privacy concerns in news lately. However in my opinion, it’s being overblown by the media because it is a juicy subject to talk and write about. It capitalizes on the new big fear of privacy in the rapidly growing online world. But recent history shows that privacy concerns are short lived. Privacy issues always come up whenever large companies like Google or Facebook launches something new and different (i.e. Google Buzz, Facebook News Feeds etc). Usually the companies respond with a new set of privacy features and within weeks all the clamoring dies down as people accept it as the norm.

The last Facebook uproar was more legitimate as it was a demand from the public that Facebook provide privacy options so the user can better control what gets shared. Facebook responded by providing more privacy settings. Facebook doesn’t have it right just yet and needs to provide more functionality, but all the concerns about sharing information shouldn’t be blamed on Facebook because we have the settings control to limit what get’s shared. By nature Facebook is a social site – meaning it is meant to be able to share information so it shouldn’t be alarming that Facebook makes it easy as possible for information to be shared.

So what can we do to protect ourselves?

It boils down to two things:

1) Use privacy settings to be safe and limit who has access to what on your profile.

2) Be very careful about what you share. Once it is out on the net it is OUT.

Ok that makes sense. But let’s break it down below step by step as well as some of my personal recommendation to help you get started in protecting your Facebook account. By all means you should tailor the accessibility to your info to what you are comfortable with. I only share my own “minimum recommendation” as a starting point since it may be helpful for some.

Minimum Recommended Settings in [Brackets]

COMPLETE LIST OF PRIVACY SETTINGS ON FACEBOOK

[Located on the top right nav bar under "account". Select Privacy Settings]

Adjusting your Facebook privacy settings is a must to help protect your identity and to prevent mass sharing of personal information. GO THROUGH EACH LINE ITEM. I’ve listed all the settings but only highlighted the more important or confusing ones below. Where relevant I’ve also added my personal recommended “minimum” setting in brackets. Hope this helps.

The Privacy Settings page is organized into the following sections:

Personal Information and Posts:

Covers personal details like your birthday, email address and political views. It also covers your content and content others have posted to your Wall. You control who is able to see each type of information.

• Bio: About Me – Don’t put sensitive info in your profile ever. If you want to put private info, use this to block people from seeing your bio.
• Birthday: [Friends of Friends] – Recommend leaving out birth year. Birth Date is important piece of info useful for stolen credit cards and identity theft.
• Interested In & Looking For
• Religious & Political Views
• Photo Albums – You can pick and choose who has access to what album. Don’t put up potentially embarrassing photos of you OR your friends!
• Posts by Me [Friends of Friends] – Best to keep your posts amongst a smaller circle.
• Allow Friends to Post on my Wall [yes] – Shouldn’t be a problem unless you have some immature friends.
• Post by Friends [Only Friends] – Entirely up to you. You know your friends and how they behave.
• Comments on Posts [Only Friends] – Who do you want to enable to comment on all your posts?

Contact Information:

Covers contact details like your mailing address and phone number. We recommend you make this visible to friends only.

• IM Screen Name
• Mobile Phone – I would not post this at all. Don’t put sensitive info on the web.
• Other Phone
• Current Address – I would not post this at all.
• Website
• Add me as a friend – Everyone is fine. Unless you don’t want people to befriend you.
• Send me a message – I would limit to friends of friends so you don’t get spammed by random people.
• Email Address – Friends Only or None!

Friends, Tags and Connections:

Covers information and content that’s shared between you and others on Facebook. This includes relationships, interests, and photos you’re tagged in. These settings let you control who sees this information on your actual profile.

• Friends [Friends] – Do you want everyone you connect to know who else you are connected to? Up to you.
• Family [Friends of Friends]
• Relationships [Friends] – Do you really want the world to know your relational status update? Think about it before posting anything.
• Photos and Videos of Me [Friends] – I would limit this as well as someone “tagging” you in a photo is out of your control. What embarrassing picture might your friends have from the past or some event you were at? If someone else TAGS you in a picture, this privacy setting limits who can actually see those pictures from your profile. Remember, it’s really easy for recruiters or executives to look you up on Facebook. What will they see?
• Current City [Everyone] – Posting your current city will help people identify your profile especially if you have a generic name. However do not post anything more specific then this.
• Hometown
• Education & Work – Remember, anything you post that is identifiable allows more people to find you through that connection. If you want people to find you, post your college & high school. If not, then leave it all blank.
• Activities
• Interest
• Things I Like

Be very careful about what you post and keep in mind who can access it. If you have odd activities or interest that you don’t want your co-workers, your mom, or your children to know… then… actually you probably shouldn’t be doing those things!.. But you get the idea.

Search:

Facebook Search Results: [Everyone] – If you don’t want your friends and old contacts to find you, you can limit it right here. If you put “Friends” no one will be able to find you, until you invite them to be your friend. Why would I not want my friends to find me? If your friends can find you, so can that old stalker boyfriend, the ex-wife, bad influences from the past, old acquaintance you want to avoid and so on.

Public Search Results: [Disallow] – Just opt-out. Why make it so easy for random strangers, recruiters, stalkers to find you via Google? Unless your goal is to have the biggest friend list in all of facebook, just turn it off.

Application and Websites:

Covers what information is available to the applications you and your friends use.

• What you Share - Click this to see more info.
• What your friends can share about you – I would check OFF the following: My photos, birthdays, photos and videos I’m tagged In. Everything else is “ok” but completely up to you. Birthdays because it is usable info for credit card theft & identify theft.
• Blocked Application – Don’t worry about this. Only useful if you want to block specific applications.
• Ignored Application Invites – Just an option to stop that annoying friend who invites you to every application he/she tries out.
• Activity on Applications & Games Dashboards [Friends] – Again up to you. I would limit it to Friends as sometimes you have no idea what your application is broadcasting. When your friend is spamming your profile with their recent Mafia War updates or another “I just planted an eggplant” notification from farmville, most of them have no idea they are doing that.
• Instant Personalization Pilot Program [Off] – just turn it off for now. it’s relatively new so could have flaws and privacy concerns. This pilot program allows facebook to share basic info with partner sites to customize your experience. This isn’t anything to be alarmed about and it is where internet is headed, but while it is still in development, better to be safe and turn it off until they work out all the details.

Block List:

Allows you to identify specific people who you want to prevent from interacting with you on Facebook.

Do you like this article? Please “Like” our Facebook Page!

Hope this was helpful.
Facebook is looking to simplify their Privacy Settings again so we’ll see what happens next.

Please come back for our follow-up post “Top 10 General Security Tips for Facebook”.

Please let us know your thoughts!

• Was this helpful for you?
• What other potential dangers are there by sharing your info?
• Any other suggestions or comments about any of these sections?
• Any other general tips about safe facebook use?
• Parents! How do you monitor your children?

Related posts:

1. Top 10 General Security Tips for Facebook
2. Social Network – Facebook – Friends Forever
3. Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter Statistics: Raising $200 Million

Facebook 3rd Largest Country in the World

In the beginning of 2009, Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) proudly stated that if Facebook was a country it would be the 8th largest country in the world. As of 2010? It would stand as the third largest country in the world, right behind China & India and ahead of the United States.

Growth of Social Media Video

It wasn’t long ago that Social Media made big news when it overtook Email in terms of online activity. Now, it is the #1 activity online and it continues to grow at a rapid pace both in the United States and around the world. The video below is a follow up to a the first Did You Know Socialnomics Video that quickly went viral due to all the fascinating statistics about the growth of social media. It has a lot of fascinating statistics.

Watch the video and tell us what statistics wowed you the most in the comment section below!

Some Social Media Statistics

• More than half the population is under 30
• 96% of Millennials have joined a social network
• Facebook has more internet traffic than Google.
• YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.
• Amazon sold more e-books for the Kindle than physical books on Christmas
• 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
• 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
• If you were paid $1 for each posted Wikipedia article, you’d make $1,712.32 per hour!
• 80% of companies use social media for recruitment
• Social Media is the #1 activity on the web.

Social Media’s Influence on Culture

There is no doubt that social media is increasingly becoming a huge part of our daily lives. Facebook records 60 million status updates that inform people of what friends are doing. Twitter records 50 million tweets a day (source: twitter) and a large number of that is news from around the world. We no longer search for news, the news simply finds us. Also everything on the web is becoming personalized. With the amount of social information now available via the networks, both self-declared or deduced from connections within the networks, – everything from advertising to news is becoming customized to the user whether we like it or not.

When was the last time you were online and saw ads for something you were just looking at yesterday? It’s not coincidence.

How many sites have you been on where you see a Facebook “like” feature and pictures of your friends who also like the site or bought something? (like clean cut media!)

• Please Comment below with your thoughts on the video
• What statistics jumped out at you the most?
• What are your thoughts about what part social media will play in our lives?

Related posts:

1. Social Media Statistics Video – Growth & Impact
2. Social Networking overtakes Email
3. Social Networks in Asia: Korea, Japan, China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore

Sorry folks, no april fool jokes this time. But you can relieve the last year’s April Fools Joke! Below are a couple list of April Fool Jokes + the latest in 2010.

Most Famous List of April Fool Jokes in History

Meanwhile, just for your entertainment on this fine day. Grabbed straight from Wikipedia

• Alabama Changes the Value of Pi: The April 1998 newsletter of New Mexicans for Science and Reason contained an article written by physicist Mark Boslough claiming that the Alabama Legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi. This claim originally appeared as a news story in the 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein.
• Spaghetti trees: The BBC television programme Panorama ran a famous hoax in 1957, showing Italians harvesting spaghetti from trees. They had claimed that the despised pest, the spaghetti weevil, had been eradicated. A large number of people contacted the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate their own spaghetti trees. It was, in fact, filmed in St Albans.
• Left Handed Whoppers: In 1998, Burger King ran an ad in USA Today, saying that people could get a Whopper for left-handed people whose condiments were designed to drip out of the right side. Not only did customers order the new burgers, but some specifically requested the “old”, right-handed burger.
• Taco Liberty Bell: In 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times announcing that they had purchased the Liberty Bell to “reduce the country’s debt” and renamed it the “Taco Liberty Bell.” When asked about the sale, White House press secretary Mike McCurry replied tongue-in-cheek that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would henceforth be known as the Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
• DT Day: In 2008 fliers were handed on Brigham Young University campus, saying that the last in a series of dorm buildings being torn down was scheduled to be imploded on April 1. Hundreds of people eagerly turned up to see the implosion, but to their consternation it never happened. The culprits of this prank remain unknown.
• Smell-o-vision: In 1965, the BBC purported to conduct a trial of a new technology allowing the transmission of odor over the airwaves to all viewers. Many viewers reportedly contacted the BBC to report the trial’s success. In 2007, the BBC website repeated an online version of the hoax.
• Tower of Pisa: The Dutch television news reported in the 1950s that the Tower of Pisa had fallen over. Many shocked people contacted the station.

Top April Fool Jokes By Television Stations

• Free Color TV – In 1962 the Swedish national television did a 5-minute special on how one could get color TV by placing a nylon stocking in front of the TV. A rather in-depth description on the physics behind the phenomenon was included.
• Digital Big Ben – In 1980, the BBC reported a proposed change to the famous clock tower known as Big Ben. The reporters stated that the clock would go digital. England was in a state of shock.
• Flying Penguins – In 2008, the BBC reported on a newly discovered colony of flying penguins. An elaborate video segment was even produced, featuring Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) walking with the penguins in Antarctica, and following their flight to the Amazon rainforest.
• The Trouble with Tracy – In 2003, The Comedy Network in Canada announced that it would produce and air a remake of the 1970s Canadian sitcom The Trouble with Tracy. The original series is widely considered to be one of the worst sitcoms ever produced. Several media outlets fell for the hoax.
• Diet Water – In 2004, British breakfast show GMTV produced a story claiming that Yorkshire Water were trialing a new ‘diet tap water’ that had already helped one customer lose a stone and a half in four months. After heralding the trial as successful, it was claimed that a third tap would be added to kitchen sinks, allowing customers easy access to the water. Following the story, Yorkshire Water received 10,000 enquiries from viewers.

Top April Fool Jokes by Radio Stations

• Death of a mayor: In 1998, local WAAF shock jocks Opie and Anthony reported that Boston mayor Thomas Menino had been killed in a car accident. Menino happened to be on a flight at the time, lending credence to the prank as he could not be reached. The rumor spread quickly across the city, eventually causing news stations to issue alerts denying the hoax. The pair were fired shortly thereafter.
• Phone call to Nelson Mandela: In 1998, UK presenter Nic Tuff of West Midlands radio station Kix 96 pretended to be the British Prime Minister Tony Blair when he called the then South African President Nelson Mandela for a chat. It was only at the end of the call when Nic asked Nelson what he was doing for April Fools’ Day that the line went dead.
• Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational effect: In 1976, British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore told listeners of BBC Radio 2 that unique alignment of two planets would result in an upward gravitational pull making people lighter at precisely 9:47 a.m. that day. He invited his audience to jump in the air and experience “a strange floating sensation.” Dozens of listeners phoned in to say the experiment had worked.
• Cellphone Ban : In New Zealand the radio station the Edge’s Morning Madhouse enlisted the help of the Prime Minister on April 1st to inform the entire country that cellphones are to be banned in New Zealand. Hundreds of callers rang in disgruntled at the new law.
• National Public Radio Every year National Public Radio in the United States does an extensive news story on April 1. These usually start off more or less reasonably, and get more and more unusual. A recent example is the story on the “iBod” a portable body control device. In 2008 it reported that the IRS, to assure rebate checks were actually spent, was shipping consumer products instead of checks. It also runs false sponsor mentions, such as “Support for NPR comes from the Soylent Corporation, manufacturing protein-rich food products in a variety of colors. Soylent Green is People.”
• Three-dollar coin: In 2008, CBC Radio program As It Happens interviewed a Royal Canadian Mint spokesman who broke “news” of plans to replace the Canadian five-dollar bill with a three-dollar coin. The coin was dubbed a “threenie”, in line with the nicknames of the country’s one-dollar coin (commonly called a “loonie” due to its depiction of a common loon on the reverse) and two-dollar coin (“toonie”).
• U2 Live on Rooftop in Cork: In 2009 hundreds of U2 fans were duped in an elaborate prank when they rushed to a shopping centre in Blackpool in Cork believing that the band were playing a surprise rooftop concert. The prank was organised by Cork radio station RedFM. The band were in fact just a tribute band called U2opia.

Best April Fools Jokes & Pranks By Websites

• Dead fairy hoax: In 2007, an illusion designer for magicians posted on his website some images illustrating the corpse of an unknown eight-inch creation, which was claimed to be the mummified remains of a fairy. He later sold the fairy on eBay for £280.
• Water on Mars: In 2005 a news story was posted on the official NASA website purporting to have pictures of water on Mars. The picture actually was just a picture of a glass of water on a Mars Candy Bar.
• Microsoft Research Reclaims Value of Pi: In 2008, an executive with the Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments posted on his personal blog an updated spoof of the 1998 April Fools hoax claiming Alabama’s state legislature had rounded the value of pi to the “Biblical value of 3.” The 2008 hoax claimed that Microsoft Research had determined the true-up value of pi to be a definitive 3.141999, or as expressed in company literature, “Three easy payments of 1.047333.”
• Assassination of Bill Gates: In 2003, many Chinese and South Korean websites claimed that CNN reported Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, was assassinated, resulting in a 1.5% drop in the South Korean stock market.
• SARS Infects Hong Kong: In 2003 during the time when Hong Kong was seriously hit by SARS, it was rumored that many people in Hong Kong had become infected with SARS and become uncontrolled, that all immigration ports would be closed to quarantine the region, and that Tung Chee Hwa, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong at that time, had resigned. Hong Kong supermarkets were immediately overwhelmed by panicked shoppers. The Hong Kong government held a press conference to deny the rumor. The rumor, which was intended as an April Fools’ prank, was started by a student by imitating the design of Ming Pao newspaper website. He was charged for this incident.
• How Animated Tattoos Work: www.howstuffworks.com does an annual bogus article. In 2006, it was “How Animated Tattoos Work”; in 2007 “How Phone Cell Implants Work”; in 2008 “How the Air Force One Hybrid Works”; in 2009, “How Rechargeable Gum Works”; in 2010, “How the Twapler Works”.
• Neopets – It Ain’t a Joke… : The popular site Neopets runs regular hoaxes, year after year. These can be anything from changes in site design to announcements of free prizes. In fact, when new designs for the Neopets pets were released, several users complained and demanded to know if it was a “late April Fool’s joke.” It wasn’t.
• Fake Products go Live: ThinkGeek sends an e-newsletter containing mostly false products each year. Several of these products, such as the 8-Bit tie, were eventually realized due to customer demand.
• Excited for a Movie: IGN, a video game website, released a realistic-looking Legend of Zelda movie trailer on April Fool’s Day 2007. Many people were excited and tricked into believing that a real Legend of Zelda movie was coming out, but IGN revealed that it was a fake. Later rumors were spread that a real Legend of Zelda film is going to be made.
• Rick Rolled Everywhere: YouTube – In 2008, All featured videos on YouTube’s front page hyperlinked to the Rickroll. The prank began with international YouTube portals before appearing on the main site. In 2009 the videos, links and most text (using Unicode substitution) were turned upside down and there was also a link to help users view the new site layout with hints such as hanging the monitor upside-down or moving to Australia. In 2010, a new option was created in the video quality settings called “TEXTp”. Clicking on this option showed a message under the video which read “By using text-only mode, you are saving YouTube $1 a second in bandwidth costs. Click here to go back to regular YouTube and happy April Fools Day!”
• Fly to Mars: Expedia ran a prank on 1 April 2009, offering flights to Mars. This was internally known as Project Dawnstar.
• Another Fake Product Considered: On April 1, 2009 ThinkGeek.com “introduced” the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag (based on a well-known scene from The Empire Strikes Back). Due to the overwhelming popularity of this faux item, ThinkGeek is now attempting to bring the item to market.

Best April Fools Jokes & Pranks By Google

Google gives the green light for every department to pull pranks during April 1st, so every year we are treated with a long list of April Fool’s Jokes. Here are a few of th better ones.

2000 – Read Your Mind – Google announced a new “MentalPlex” search technology that supposedly read the user’s mind to determine what the user wanted to search for, thus eliminating the step of actually typing in the search query. This always led to a page full of April Fool’s results.

2004 – Jobs on the Moon – Fictitious job opportunities for a research center on the moon. Luna/X (a pun to Linux as well as a reference to both the Windows XP visual style and Mac OS X) is the name of a new operating system they claimed to have created for working at the research center.

2006 – Google Romance – On April Fool’s Day 2006, Google Romance was announced on the main Google search page with the introduction, “Dating is a search problem. Solve it with Google Romance.” It pretends to offer a “Soulmate Search” to send users on a “Contextual Date”. A parody of online dating, it amusingly had a link for “those who generally favor the ‘throw enough stuff at the wall’ approach to online dating” to Post multiple profiles with a bulk upload file, you sleaze in addition to Post your Google Romance profile. Clicking on either of these gave an error page, which explained that it was an April Fool’s joke and included links to previous April Fool’s Jokes for nostalgia.

2007 – Gmail Paper – At about 10:00 PM Pacific time (where Google has its headquarters) on 30 March 2007, Google changed the login page for Gmail to announce a new service called Gmail Paper. The service offered to allow users of Google’s free webmail service to add e-mails to a “Paper Archive”, which Google would print (on “96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum”) and mail via traditional post. The service would be free, supported by bold, red advertisements printed on the back of the printed messages. Image attachments would also be printed on high-quality glossy paper, though MP3 and WAV files would not be printed. The page detailing more information about the service features photographs of Ian Spiro and Carrie Kemper, current employees of Google. Also featured are Product Marketing Managers of Gmail Anna-Christina Douglas, and Kevin Systrom.

2008 –
Google TiSP, Toilet Internet - Google TiSP (short for Toilet Internet Service Provider) was a fictitious free broadband service supposedly released by Google. This service would make use of a standard toilet and sewage lines to provide free Internet connectivity at a speed of 8 Mbit/s (2 Mbps upload) (or up to 32 Mbps with a paid plan). The user would drop a weighted end of a long, Google-supplied fiber-optic cable in their toilet and flush it. Around 60 minutes later, the end would be recovered and connected to the Internet by a “Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher (PHD)”. The user would then connect their end to a Google-supplied wireless router and run the Google-supplied installation media on a Windows XP or Vista computer (“Mac and Linux support coming soon”). Alternatively, a user could request a professional installation, in which Google would deploy nanobots through the plumbing to complete the process. The free service would be supported by “discreet DNA sequencing” of “personal bodily output” to display online ads that relate to culinary preferences and personal health. Google also referenced the cola-and-Mentos reaction in their FAQ: “If you’re still experiencing problems, drop eight mints into the bowl and add a two-liter bottle of diet soda.”

Google Book Search Scratch and Sniff
Google Book Search has a new section allowing users to “scratch and sniff” certain books. Users are asked to “…please place your nose near the monitor and click ‘Go’”, which then “loads odors”. When clicking on “Help”, users are redirected to a page in a book that describes the origins of April Fools’ Day.[5]
Inside Google Book Search Blog: “Google Book Search now smells better”

Google Calendar is Feeling Lucky
Google added the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button to its calendar feature. When a user tries to create a new event, the user was given the regular option of entering the correct details and hitting “Create Event,” and also the new option of “I’m Feeling Lucky” which would set the user up with an evening date with, among others, Matt Damon, Eric Cartman, Tom Cruise, Jessica Alba, Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, Angelina Jolie, Britney Spears, Anna Kournikova, Johnny Depp, George W. Bush, or Lois Griffin.

Virgle – Mars Settlement
Google announces a joint project with the Virgin Group to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars . This operation has been named Project Virgle. The announcement includes videos of Richard Branson (founder of Virgin Group) as well as Larry Page and Sergey Brin (the founders of Google) on YouTube, talking about Virgle.[8] An “application” to join the settlement includes questions such as:

I am a world-class expert in:
A. Physics
B. First Aid
C. Engineering
D. Guitar Hero II

After the user submitted the application, the site notifies the user that the user are not fit for space, or that the user’s application is fine and “all you have to do is submit your video” [as a response to their video on YouTube]. As a result, an open source Virgle group has been established, OpenVirgle. On the FAQ page, the final question is “Okay, come on — seriously. Is this Virgle thing for real?” The reply links to a page that tells the user it’s an April Fool’s joke, and then mentions that the user “Dragged us out of our lovely little fantasy world, to crush all our hopes and dreams.” [9]

2009 –

2010 -
See bottom of this postings for 2010 April Fool’s Jokes.

Google non-April Fool Jokes

Google has regularly pumped out numerous April fools jokes at once. Ironically due to their playful nature, many ACTUAL news was seen as a hoax when it was not as a form of viral marketing. The best one is below.

2004 – Launch of Gmail was announced. Many believed it to be a hoax. 1 Gig of free Web Storage was unheard of at the time. Other competitors such as Yahoo & Hotmail only provided anywhere from 2-4 megs.

Top April Fools Jokes By Magazines, Newspapers, and Books

• 168 Mile Fast Ball – George Plimpton wrote a 1985 article in Sports Illustrated about a New York Mets prospect named Sidd Finch, who could throw a 168 mph (270 km/h) fastball with pinpoint accuracy. This kid, known as “Barefoot” Sidd Finch, reportedly learned to pitch in a Buddhist monastery. The first letter of each word in the article subhead spelled out the fact of its being an April Fool joke.
• Lies to Get You Out of the House - In 1985, the L.A. Weekly printed an entire page of fake things to do on April Fools’ Day, by which hundreds of people were fooled.
• Comic strip switcheroo - Cartoonists of popularly syndicated comic strips draw each others’ strips. In some cases, the artist draws characters in the other strip’s milieu, while in others, the artist draws in characters from other visiting characters from his own. Cartoonists have done this sort of “switcheroo” for several years. The 1997 switch was particularly widespread.
• Coldplay to back the Tories - On April 1, 2006 the UK Guardian journalist “Olaf Priol” claimed that Chris Martin of rock band Coldplay had decided to publicly support the UK Conservative Party leader David Cameron due to his disillusionment with previous Labour Party prime minister Tony Blair, even going so far as to produce a fake song, “Talk to David”, that could be downloaded via the Guardian website. Despite being an obvious hoax, the Labour Party’s Media Monitoring Unit were concerned enough to circulate the story throughout “most of the government”.
• President Barack Obama pulls fundings for NASCAR – On April 1, 2009, on the heels of the auto industry bailout, Car and Driver claimed on their website that President Barack Obama had ordered Chevrolet and Dodge to pull NASCAR funding. The article was removed from the website and replaced with an apology to readers, after upset NASCAR fans protested on the Car and Driver website.
• The Guardian to publish to Twitter - On April 1, 2009 The Guardian announced that it would be the first newspaper to publish exclusively on Twitter.

April Fools Jokes, Products & Hoaxes in 2010 Online

• Google Changes their name to Topeka – In response to the mayor of Topeka changing their city name to Google, Google has decided to honor their gesture by changing their own company name to Topeka.





• iPhone to iPad Converter – Can’t afford iPad? Just get this iPad dock that will magnify your iphone so it’s just like an iPad! Ouch says Apple.
• Life size Picasa – Google offered an option which allows the user to print lifesize cardboard cutouts of all of their photos.
• Reddit Website – Everyone has been made an admin resulting in total chaos and fun. Move stuff around. Ban other users. I am sure they will reset this tomorrow… right?
• Google Translate for Animals – Bridging the gap between animals and humans check it out!
• Google Gmail Login Page missing all their vowels.
• ThinkGeek Announces the iCade – Pretty clever. Just look at the picture.

Share Your Favorite April’s Fools Day Joke or Hoax

• Which one was your favorite?
• Know of Any other Good Pranks not listed here?
• Share below!

Related posts:

1. Kids Consuming More Online Content
2. Surveillance of Skype Messages in China Part II
3. Bias of American Media – Influence of Media Money

South Korea is easily the video game capital of the world. With the fastest connections and a huge base of gamers young and old, it is no surprises that the idea of playing games is so integrated into their psyche.

Unfortunately, this also means there are more cases of video games resulting in harmful consequences. Recently a Korean couple, Kim Yoo-chul and Choi Mi-sun, was arrested for the neglect of their 3 month old child as they devoted themselves to hours of playing a computer game which involved of all things, raising a virtual child.

Neglected Infant Dies as Parents Raise a Virtual Child

Anima Prius Online Screenshot

The 41-year-old man and 25-year-old woman, who they themselves originally met through a chat site, had left their infant unattended for long periods of time as they went to internet cafes to raise their virtual child. They only stopped by to feed their child powdered milk. They arrived home after playing for 12 hours at the local internet cafe to find their infant daughter dead. The police suspected neglect due to the baby’s malnourished body which was later confirmed by an autopsy.

Up until two weeks before the death on Sept 24, 2009, the baby had been taken care of by Kim’s parents as the couple was finding it difficult to take care of their premature baby. As Kim’s mother was ill, the baby was given to the couple for care. After the funeral the couple disappeared for months until they were found on March 2, 2010 at the wife’s parents home in Yangju, Gyeonggi province.

The game is called “Prius Online”. It is a very popular role playing game where you can create a virtual life in a virtual world. You create your character and traverse through life as you interact with other users, find jobs, build a family and so on.

Chung Jin-Won, a police offer said “The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life because they didn’t have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby… they indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby.”

The case has shocked South Korea once again highlighting obsessive behavior related to the internet.

Other Incidents due to Video Game Obsessions

This is not the first of such incidents involving the obsession over video games.

In 2005, a man died in a internet cafe in Taegu after playing Starcraft for nearly 50 hours straight. He suffered cardiac arrest after not eating or drinking during that time.

In September of 2009, a young man murdered his mother for nagging him about playing too much video games. He then went to a local internet cafe and just continued to play games as if nothing had happened.

Of course these incidents are unique just to Korea as the child that killed his mother over the game of halo was well publicized here in the United States.

As these incidents continue to arise, there has been some movement to battle these dangerous and upsetting trends. Lee Joung-sun, an MP from the ruling Grand National party of South Korea has submitted a bill restricting the hours of online gamers. There are several such bills pending in the national assembly with varied proposals of how to limit teenagers’ time at internet cafes and limits to online game.

What is the Impact of Addictive Video Games on People?

These kind of incidences highlight the uneasy notion how these addictive games, as well as the general increase in internet use, has had a direct impact on the way we live our lives and relate to others. It is easy to point at these perpetrators in shock and blame them for being “neglectful” or “dumb” or even “crazy” while brushing off how the internet as a whole has had some negative impact in society as a whole.

Children from an early age sit in their rooms playing games hours into the night rather than developing their social skills by playing outside with their friends. The negative effects of media usage on children are well documented. As they children consume 7.5 hours of media a day, their worldview in terms of how to understand themselves, understand others, and understand the world are defined by what they see on the screen. Even adults spend hours and hours watching online videos or playing online games as soon as they come home from work. An average American watches 153 hours of TV a month while going online 68 hours a month!

Yes, the perpetrators are at fault and are completely responsible for what they did. However, it really say something about the our ever-pervasive dependence on media as well the status of our culture that these kind of horrible incidences can even occur.

• What is your reaction to this horrible news?
• Do you think people will reconsider their behavior due to this incident or brush it off saying it is different?
• Is it a valid statement that the addictive nature of some video games causes social harm?

Follow Clean Cut Media @CleanCutMedia Twitter!

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1. Online Gamers in China must Register with Real Names
2. Video Gamers at Risk for Health Problems
3. Bad Economy? Not for Video Gaming!

BBC News recently put up a visual map showing the internet growth from 1998 to 2008. You can scroll through each year and visually see when and where the internet started to grow.

It starts from 1998 where only a few countries had significant number of internet users. Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Iceland, Netherlands, Denmark, and the United States were the only countries with at least 20% of the population online.

Within 10 years, it is astonishing how quickly the internet penetrated into our daily lives. It was only a decade ago that we all survived freely without the “internet” or “email”. Just 15 years ago, cell phones were novel as well. Now we are very dependent on these technologies – just the mere idea of surviving without them seems unfathomable.

A second tab shows internet user counts around the world. As of the time this post was written? 1,719,053,000 users. 214 billion emails sent TODAY, 455,500 blog posts written TODAY (we claim one of those!) and 2.285 Google searches TODAY. Don’t tell me we are not dependent on the internet!

Question of the Day:

Please share your thoughts below!

Related posts:

1. Late Night Internet Statistics: Online Videos, Games & Chat
2. South Korea: World’s Fastest Internet, PC Gaming Capital
3. Social Media Statistics Video – Growth & Impact

Internet Speeds Getting Faster, Asia Leads the Way

Internet speed around the world continues to become faster as technologies advance. That is not a surprise. However the speed difference between a country like Korea and the United States are quite startling.

South Korea, who already has the fastest connection in the world, continues to increase their national internet speed at the fastest rate as well. Korea owns 6 of the top 10 fastest cities in Asia and as a country averages 14.6 Mbps. Compare that to the United States where only 4.4% of users are above 10 Mbps. Korea averages 14.6 Mbps. In Korea 45.6% of users have connections above 10Mbps. 75% are connected above 5 Mbps while only 24% of the United States is at that level.

Compared to 2009, the distribution of connections in South Korea has risen in all the high speed categories. 16% of South Korean users are above 25 Mbps compare to only 1.9% for Japan who falls second in these rankings.

Why the huge gap in South Korea?

The primary reason South Korea sits so far ahead in terms of connection speed, is that Korea has the infrastructure to do so. Back in the late 1990s there was a nationwide focus on developing cutting edge technology. The government built out the infrastructure necessary to get the entire country on high speed broadband. In the United States you have to walk into a Starbucks with an AT&T account or Borders to get some free wifi. Connections are now available everywhere you go. It has become part of the culture and an expectation.

Another more interesting topic, and worth it’s own blog posting, is South Korea’s obsession with Internet Gaming. South Korea could easily be considered the gaming capital of the world. The “elite” of the PC gaming world are often full fledged celebrities as thousands gathers in stadiums to watch the elite play each other on a game of Starcraft. These tournaments are broadcast nationally on TV by five national channels dedicated solely to gaming. Believe it. 1% of all TV watched is accounted for by these channels. That is a lot of people!

South Korea - Starcraft Tournament

Korea has five major leagues for professional Starcraft alone. All the elite gaming teams know if they want fame, they need to travel to Korea to compete in tournaments. These “clans” get corporate sponsorships and wear corporate logos as if they were about to enter into a nascar race. It has become a popular desire for high school boys to pursue a career in being a professional gamer just as boys would want to become a professional basketball player. Even the “commentators” on these networks have become full fledged celebrities just as famous sports commentators.

Some 26,000+ Net cafes and game rooms are found all over the nation where people can come to pay to play games in a room full of fast computers and fast connections. These cafes make up around $6 billion a year from visiting gamers.

With gaming so tightly integrated with Korean culture, it is not surprising that the demand for faster high speed internet continues to raise the bar in terms of internet connection speeds across the nation.

*image source: thomascrampton.com

• What are your initial reactions to Korea’s whopping internet speeds?
• What are your opinions about the Korean PC Gaming Industry?
• How do you feel about the fact that Korean boys dream and seek to become celebrity gamers?
• How about the fact that elite gamers are even considered celebrities, with endorsements, fans and immense fame?

Related posts:

1. Social Networks in Asia: Korea, Japan, China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore
2. Late Night Internet Statistics: Online Videos, Games & Chat
3. Internet Growth Map Visuals 1998-2008

What is Google Buzz?

On Tuesday February 9th, Google suddenly swooped into the social media fray by introducing Google Buzz. What is Google Buzz? It is a twitter like service for sharing thoughts, multimedia and other information with your friends who are also part of Gmail.

Google Buzz is the Buzz of the Internet

Within 2 days, Google reported they are averaging 160,000 comments and posts per hour. Pretty wild numbers especially considering so many social media companies have tried and failed to stir the social media industry. However let’s remember that lot of people are seeing this for the first time and there are plenty of people who will “buzz” once or twice then proceed to forget about it.

Also unlike other services, Google connected their new service with Gmail which means on the flip of a switch they had millions and millions of users signed up for their service. However it remains to be seen what this service will morph into.

Privacy Controls

There was a huge controversy as soon as Google Buzz went live. Since it is linked directly into Gmail, you are now mixing something private such as your personal email with something as public as Buzz. The result? Lot of angry people.

After Google Wave found criticism for the difficulties of finding other members using it, Google Buzz launched with you connected to tons of people from the get go. All your frequent contacts were automatically added as followers. “Frequency” being quite generous. It could be you emailing them or them emailing you. That’s all it really took. People became very upset that it was easy for people to see who you interact with the most and people who perhaps you do not want to be connected with were automatically being connected because they had emailed you sometime before.

Why the anger? It also opened up access to one’s Google profile thus allowing access to Google Reader Comments and Picasa Albums.

However it really makes one think:

• Do people have that much to hide that it brings up so much passionate anger?
• Why is it so bad other people can see your buzz conversation?
• Does this outcry over privacy reveal anything about our culture and what we value?

Note: If you want it private conversation, don’t use a public tool!

Google Responds Quickly

Google responded very quickly in shoring up the Privacy Concerns by making the auto-follow into an auto-suggest. But for those who were activated early? You’ll have to manually block everyone.

They also added an option to block others from seeing your list as well as the ability shut off buzz altogether.

I was going to post some instructionals on how to deal with privacy issues and also how to shut off buzz, but Google keeps changing the process. All the tutorials out there are outdated. Google outsmarted us again!

Google Buzz UPDATE:
If you’d like to alter your privacy settings you go to “settings” on the top right corner of your gmail, then hit “buzz”. This “buzz” link seemed to be being implemented slowly as different people were unable to see it until very recently. See screenshot below:

What is the Purpose of Google Buzz?

• Can you think of a good reason to use Google Buzz?
• What niche do you figure it will fill considering Facebook and Twitter are already well established?
• Could this potentially become just another time sink and a distraction?

Nominees for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize includes a Russian human rights group, a Chinese dissident and of course the Internet.

Nobel Peace Prize Founder Alfred Nobel: Not Amused

Say what?

The Internet to Win the Nobel Peace Prize?

Yes, the Internet was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. This is the year after Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing at the time he won. It sparked a lot of debate on the value of the Nobel Peace Prize as well as the whether the committee should ever award a nomination based on “potential” rather than concrete actions. Before discussing the Internet, let’s note the other real-human candidates that are known at this time.

Svetlana Gannushkina – Russian Human Rights

One nomination is a Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina and her group “Memorial”. Nominated by Erna Solberg, the head of Norway’s Conservative Party, this organization often leads the criticism against the Kremlin.

“These are people who are at the forefront of human rights and are putting their lives at risk for their work,” Solberg told The Associated Press.

Liu Xiaobo, Chinese Dissident

Kwame Anthony Appiah, president of the PEN American Center and a Princeton philosophy professor mentioned that he had nominated Liu Xiaobo. Liu Xiaobo is a Chinese dissident who was jailed by the government. Kwame Anthony Appiah says that he nominated Liu due to his “distinguished and principled leadership in the area of human and political rights and freedom of expression.” The Chinese government is obviously against this nomination.

“It would be completely wrong for the Nobel Prize committee to award the prize to such a person,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu

George Ryan, Former Illinois Governor

Francis A. Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, nominated Former Illinois Governor George Ryan who is currently in jail for federal corruption charges. He was nominated for his campaign to abolish the death penalty.

Alfred Nobel: 2010 Winner.. What the heck is an Internet?

Would they really give the Nobel Peace Prize to the Internet?

Last year’s choice of Obama already stirred a great deal of controversy as Obama had just joined office and had no real accomplishments that warranted the prize. Some felt that it cheapened the Award.

This year, some speculate that due to the controversy the committee may select a conservative winner. Others say that last year is just more evidence that we can expect anything.

Alfred Nobel left simple, vague instructions on how to select winners in his 1895 will. It was to promote “fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies”. It was meant for people who promoted peace through what they did. This definition has since been broadened by the Nobel Committee to also include human rights activist and the protection of the environment. The Nobel Committee is appointed by Norway’s parliament.

Why mention Nobel Peace Prize on this Blog?

The mere fact that the Internet is being nominated for what is considered one of the greatest awards today speaks volumes about how central internet has become.

Plus the internet is a mixed bag. Yes the internet has brought upon great proliferation of information and news. Yes, it has connected people from all around the world. It has opened new doors and opportunities to collaborate. It has truly been amazing. However we also know the Internet has caused a whole new set of emotional issues. It has opened the world to wide spread pornography and other degrading material for easy access to all ages. It has caused more people to waste more time staring at a screen whether it be simply cruising the internet or playing online multi-player video games. Our children grow up watching 8 hours of screen time a day, a huge chunk of that watching videos or tv shows on the Internet. 8 hours per day. There are many studies and professionals who mourn at the influence of media on our children’s development.

Nobel Peace Prize Nomination Process

Before getting carried away, let’s remember that numerous people are nominated every year for the Nobel Peace Prize. The information regarding who was nominated is not released by the Nobel Foundation until 50 years after the prize, but some information is made public by the ones who nominate the candidate. Yes the Internet was nominated, but in the past so was Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, and believe it or not Adolf Hitler, thought the latter was done out of protest to the nomination of a different candidate. Meanwhile candidates like Mohandas Gandhi was nominated several times but never awarded.

• What is your first gut reaction to this news?
• What do you think? Does the Internet warrant consideration?
• Do you think if the Internet wins the Nobel Peace Prize, it cheapens the Prize?
• Did the Internet bring about Peace in some way?

Related posts:

1. Google stands against Chinese Internet Censorship
2. South Korea: World’s Fastest Internet, PC Gaming Capital
3. Internet Growth Map Visuals 1998-2008

Children Consume nearly 8 hours of Media per Day

Kaiser Family Foundation released their most recent media usage study. Six years ago they found the usage of 8 to 18 year old was about 6 hours and 21 minutes of media consumption a day. This recent study shows that the media consumption rate has risen to 7 hours and 38 minutes. That is almost as much time as adults spend at work except remember that adults only work 5 days a week.

The amount of media consumed by children has always been a point of concern as media has been found to have great affects in molding a child’s view of the world. With the proliferation of online media, increased video sharing, and mobile media – these numbers are shocking, yet they are not a surprise.

For the first time, Traditional TV consumption actually fell as other mediums such as video games, music, online media and movie watching has increased. What is even more wild is that kids are often watching multiple forms of media at once. The actual consumption of media was found to be closer to 10 hours and 45 minutes.

Growth of Mobile Media

Greater adoption of iPods and other MP3 devices has increased access and usage of mobile media. Children are able to surf the internet while listening to music and perhaps watching TV all in the same time. In 2004, only 39% of 8 to 18 year olds owned a cell phone. Now it is closer to 66%. Ipods? Jumped from 18% to 76%.

Television Consumption goes Online

TV broadcast consumption fell from 3:04 to 2:39. However TV consumption as a whole has increased by 38 minutes. This increase can be partially attributed to mobile media as kids watch movies and videos on their cell phones, but also a continuous trend towards TV show streams being available online.

Did You Know:

• Home Internet Access has grown from 74% to 84%
• Youth with Laptops jumped from 12% to 29%
• Internet Access from the Bedroom jumped 20% to 33%
• 71% of all 8 to 18 year olds have their own TV in their rooms.
• An Average home with an 8 to 18 year old contains 3.8 TVs, 2.8 DVD/VCR players, 1 digital video recorder, 2.2 CD players, 2.5 radios, 2 computers, and 2.3 console video game players.

Youths who spend more time with media show lower grades and lower levels of personal contentment

Nearly half of all heavy users who consume more than 16 hours of media per day (21% of all 8 to 18 year olds) report having fair or poor grades compared to 23% of light users who show less than three hours of consumption. Unfortunately statistics still support that majority of parents do not engage in much regulation of media consumption.

Did You Know:

• 7th-12th grader spend 1.5 hours/day TEXTING

Media Usage Statistics Study

This report was based on a national survey of 2,002 3rd to 12th grade students and includes a subsample of 702 respondents who volunteered to complete seven-day media use diaries. This is the third of such reports by Kaiser Family Foundation.

Download the full Study Here:

Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year Olds

It is a pretty long study with lot of great media consumption statistics to consume. We’ll try to break it down for you hear at Clean Cut Media with future posts. So be sure to come back!

Related posts:

1. You Watch 153 Hours of TV & Online 68 Hours
2. Powerful Impact of Media on Children
3. Who Regulates Online Advertising & Marketing to Children?

It has been no secret that the Chinese government censors the media. China has received great criticism over their internet censorship such as blocking historical content that hurts the government’s image (i.e. tiananmen square), monitoring skype message, replacing Olympic faces with “prettier” faces to enhance their image, or unfair jailing of protestors during the Beijing Olympics and lying about it.

China’s Media Control over Media

Search engines had no choice but to comply to the Chinese government’s demands in order to make inroads into China’s 1.3 billion population. Thus it is big news today that Google announced they will no longer comply and will pull out of China if needed be. This was partially a response to a sophisticated and targeted attack on their corporate infrastructure. Google found an organized attack that originated from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property. It was an attack targeting 20+ large companies from different range of businesses. However what made this attack significant was that there is strong evidence that the primary goal of the attacker was to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activist. They also discovered that independent of this attack, that the email accounts of these human right activist were “routinely accessed by third parties” via phishing scams and malware placed on their computer.

Chinese Censorship History

China has been heavily criticized in the past for unfairly monitoring and putting down human rights activist. In the Beijing Olympics, China communicated as if their people were free to voice their opinions but had strict and often unfair methods of jailing anyone who would protest (most protests has to do with human rights). The Chinese government is also notorious for unfairly jailing activist as well as people of faith.

Google’s Stance on Chinese Censorship over Time

When Google launched in china, they noted “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.” It seems Google has finally had it and has thrown down the gauntlet.

“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

Basically, no more censorship or we bounce. The choice is up to China. Whether other search engines will follow suit is still to be determined.

This isn’t the first time Google and China butted heads. China’s CIIRC (China Internet Illegal information Reporting Center) has several times made demands for specific items to be blocked and has even blocked full sites like Google, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr when sites did not meet their demands.

Search Engine Shares in China: Google, Baidu, MSN, Yahoo

Yahoo had long ago pulled out of direct competition in China but since then took the tactic of making investments into local search players. Yahoo has been sued several times by pro-democracy advocates who claimed Yahoo gave personal information to the Chinese authorities. In November ComScore showed that Baidu had 62.2% of the Chinese search market while Google only had 14.1%, MSN at 5.1%. However Analysys International, a research firm in Beijing, said that Baidu’s share was closer to 58.4% in Q4 compared to 35.6% in Google. As of last tuesday, Baidu’s shares jumped in stock price.

How will China Respond to Google’s Stance on Censorship

How will China response? This is not just an issue between Google and China, but a political issue. Google doesn’t have the power to convince China to change it’s ways and China will not lose out on much by letting Google go, however China can’t be happy with bad press they are receiving through this ordeal and the political aftermath if Google eventually has to leave.

[UPDATE] As expected, China gave an indifferent response. Basically anyone who wants to do business in China must follow their laws. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, “The Chinese government administers the Internet according to law and we have explicit stipulations over what content can be spread on the Internet.” If Google sticks to their guns, they’ll have to simply move their way out of China. But should they?

• What do you think? Will Google have to leave or will there be some resolution?
• What is your position on this?
• Will China ever blink or will they continue to hold an iron grip on it’s media?

Related posts:

1. Nobel Peace Prize Nominates.. the Internet
2. Surveillance of Skype Messages in China
3. Internet Growth Map Visuals 1998-2008