Have you recently received an e-mail titled ‘Security Update for OS Microsoft Windows’ purportedly from microsoft.com?  I just did and here’s what it looks like:

Dear Microsoft Customer,

Please notice that Microsoft company has recently issued a Security Update for OS Microsoft Windows. The update applies to the following OS versions: Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows Millenium, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista.

Please notice, that present update applies to high-priority updates category. In order to help protect your computer against security threats and performance problems, we strongly recommend you to install this update.

Since public distribution of this Update through the official website http://www.microsoft.com would have result in efficient creation of a malicious software, we made a decision to issue an experimental private version of an update for all Microsoft Windows OS users.

As your computer is set to receive notifications when new updates are available, you have received this notice. In order to start the update, please follow the step-by-step instruction:

1. Run the file, that you have received along with this message.
2. Carefully follow all the instructions you see on the screen.

If nothing changes after you have run the file, probably in the settings of your OS you have an indication to run all the updates at a background routine. In that case, at this point the upgrade of your OS will be finished.

We apologize for any inconvenience this back order may be causing you.

Thank you,

Steve Lipner
Director of Security Assurance
Microsoft Corp.

This is not from Microsoft obviously as they noted and should be deleted asap.

These fake e-mails claim they are part of a new “experimental private version of an update for all Microsoft Windows OS users.” The e-mail instructs the end user to download an attachment, which is actually a malicious Trojan Horse program known as Win32/Haxdoor.  This software records sensitive information such as passwords and credit card numbers and sends this data back to the attackers who are running the scam.

In a recent blog posting on the scam Microsoft spokesman Christopher Budd, commented, “As a matter of company policy, Microsoft will never send you an executable attachment.”  The only e-mails Microsoft does send out are to users who have opted-in to receive security notification by e-mails from TechNet Security Center and these emails are in plain text and never contain any sort of attachment.

So Google Chrome has burst onto the scene directly threatening Microsoft and not to mention my beloved FireFox. Sure, webmasters have already found exploits and java security holes in Chrome but that is to be expected.

So when the dust settles and the bugs are worked out what will Microsoft do?  They’ve sat on their laurels long enough without major progressive improvements to Internet Explorer, so this move by Google shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

Check out the below video courtesy of Chris Pirillo.

Operating systems are soon going the way of the DoDo.  But is Google really that close to moving your operating system online?

Platform-A, http://www.platform-a.com, AOL’s digital advertising division, recently announced the launch of an affiliate marketing solution that links the buy.at affiliate network to the widget-based marketing tools of wildly popular Goowy Media, Inc.

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years…Goowy Media, Inc. develops innovative online products and services that provide simple, intuitive tools for managing your digital life and expressing yourself on the web.  Their most popular products are yourminus.com and goowy webtop

This progressive move by AOL enables web publishers, like you and me, to generate additional revenue from a combination of affiliate, widget and viral marketing.  It will be exciting to see how Platform-A advertisers integrate/syndicate this new capability into their customized widgets for your blog, website, and even your desktop!  Very cool stuff indeed.

For more than a little while now I haven’t had too many good things to say about these blasted Widgets!  They seemed to just take up real advertising space and bleed my hard-earned web traffic.  However, I will gladly test these viral advertiser generated widgets out on my network of blogs/sites so my visitors and customers can snatch them up and redistribute them to the far corners of the Web.  Just think about the applications…MySpace, FaceBook, etc.

Lynda Clarizio, President of Platform-A states, “This solution combines the best of affiliate and widget advertising in a solution that benefits publishers and advertisers alike.  Publisher revenue potential, brand exposure for the advertiser, and potential conversions grow virally each time the widget is downloaded by a consumer.”

I agree Lynda!  Now this is what we collectively mean by the moniker Web 2.0 people!

http://www.Top-Affiliate.com
http://www.FreeAdvertisingBlog.com

Only a few months ago we were all promoting this widget like crazy to our fellow bloggers hoping to get tons of referral bloggers before our competition gobbled them up.  Today, the pulse of BlogRush is faint at best these on the NET.  With exceptionally low CTR’s of the social marketing widget reported by high traffic blogs such as problogger.com, doshdosh.com, etc. and general negative feedback from the marketing community this may be the death of BlogRush as we know it.

You’ll notice I’ve also removed the BlogRush widget from my page.  During the 1.5 months I had it posted, it produced less than a .01 CTR.  You don’t have to be a mathematician to know that blows. 

I placed the widget about halfway down my blog just below the fold…probably like 99% of the rest of BlogRusher’s because revenue ads will always trump widgets.  In this location your CTR will be pretty darn low already and your blog posts, when shown on other relevant blogs, will be competing with five (5) other blog posts thereby reducing your CTR by another 20%.Â

Sorry, but if you’ve placed the widget at the top of your blog you’re really just bleeding traffic and revenue.

We’d all like a fancy shmancy widget to magically bring us loads of laser targeted, high quality traffic but in “the real world” widgets are more form/fun then function.  BlogRush, SmartLinks and even MyBlogLog widgets are nothing more than ads that do not benefit the blogger.

Google just announced that starting tonight, developers can start writing applications using the social API for Orkut, MySpace, Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING at http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial.

OpenSocial provides a common set of APIs for social applications across multiple websites.  With standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can create apps that access a social network’s friends and update feeds.

This is slick…So what’s the hold up Facebook?  I bet you buckle like a belt soon under the pressure.  =)

I’ve been a big fan of SEO elite for quite some time now and use it almost exclusively across my network of sites for search engine optimization.  However, I’m very interested in trying out SEO Spyglass 2.

SEO Spyglass 2, much like SEO Elite, allows you to analyze your competitors success by seeing who links to them, how they’re doing it and most importantly how those links are affecting the search engine rankings.  It also allows you to identify competitors from a keyword research too.

Price?  A meager $87.00.  Compare that to SEO Elites pricetag of $167.00 and it looks like a pretty good deal to me.  It becomes an even better deal when you take into consideration SEO Spyglass 2 also enables you to:

• Receive And Organize Emails From Your Link Partners
• Generate Link Pages That Are Fully Customizable
• Display The Status Of A Link Partner And Manage Statuses
• Update Multiple Link Partners’ Properties At Once
• View Websites And Generated Links Pages With A Built-In Browser
• Find And Autocomple Link Submission Forms (LinkMachine.net, LinksManager.com, AutoLinksPro.com, LinkMetro.com, etc)
• Customize Your Workspace
• Make Your Links Page Available Online via FTP

Ohh yeah, did I mention there is a FREE version of SEO Spyglass 2 as well?!  I’ll be testing SEO SpyGlass 2 out in the immediate future and will post my feedback on its performance.

In addition, be on the lookout for another slick little tool that looks like it will rock the online marketing community on 25 Jul 07.  You can find out more about this SECRET WEAPON on Heather Paulsons blog.  VERY COOL STUFF HERE FOLKS for all of you die hard PPC marketers.

Take care and God Bless!

http://www.Top-Affiliate.com
http://www.FreeAdvertisingBlog.com

As an affiliate marketer it’s imperative to remain abreast of the latest web technologies.  You don’t necessarily need any programming or design knowledge (although it helps) but understanding how these technologies work and how they can be integrated into your online business is a must.

Affiliate marketing is all about seperating yourself from the pack and dominating a niche.  Static web sites can still pull in good revenue but rich media sites are far more aesthetically pleasing to your potential customers..just don’t overdo it.

Check out what these web technologies can do for your business and brainstorm some ideas on how you can uniquely implement them into your web real estate.

http://www.Top-Affiliate.com
http://www.FreeAdvertisingBlog.com

Back in April Google made a massive online wave when they acquired the DoubleClick advertising network.  This was a well placed boot in the backside of Microsoft…and Microsoft is still rubbing their behind and rightfully so.

With the aquisition of DoubleClick for a meager $3.1 billion Google has secured a huge claim in the banner advertising market.  No longer is Google purely the reigning champ in contextual advertising. 

Microsofts legal counsel, Brad Smith, claims that the combined Google/DoubleClick networks will handle more than 80% of all online advertising.  So, who wants to play monopoly!    

LOL.  In my opinion though there is still a vast untapped market for Microsoft to regain some market ground.  With millions of online publishers selling as much ad space as they possibly can the market is still wide open.  Cheer up Microsoft!

http://www.Top-Affiliate.com
http://www.FreeAdvertisingBlog.com

[tags]Google, Microsoft, DoubleClick, advertising, advertising network, banner advertising, contextual advertising, online advertising, untapped market, online publishers[/tags]

Making headline news around the world…“One of world’s ‘top 10′ spammers nabbed!” Robert Alan Soloway, 27, was finally BUSTED on 30 May 07.

Roberts company, Newport Internet Marketing, has allegedly been sending out millions of junk e-mail since 2003.  Its website advertised his ability to send out up to 20 million e-mail advertisements in 15 days for a mere $495.  What a sweet bargain!  LOL.

Evidently this “genius” did it using computers infected with code, called ‘zombies’, which created Bot networks.

Bot networks are collections of computers that have been compromised by software specifically designed to create a network of systems for attack.  A bot–also known as remote-access Trojan horse program, or RAT–seeks out and places itself on vulnerable PCs.  It then runs silently in the background, letting an attacker send commands to the system while its owner works, oblivious. The computers are essentially turned into zombies, controllable from afar. – News.com

Soloway, considered one of the top 10 spammers in the world and dubbed a ‘spam king’ by a US attorney’s office, pleaded not guilty to charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.  However…It would appear the US federal authorities have a staggering amount of evidence against him.

If convicted he will be forced to forfeit the $773,000 the US federal government say he made from spam.  In addition, he might even get slapped with a solid decade (or more) to spend in an 8×8 cell to think about his criminal deeds.  Boo hoo.

Note: This clown was so good at spamming that US federal authorities actually stated, “…computer users should notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail they get.” 1 down, 9 to go.   Crime does pay….but not long term.  LOL.

http://www.Top-Affiliate.com
http://www.FreeAdvertisingBlog.com

LinkShare has just announced a new Web services offering for affiliates, called Automated LinkGenerator.  Linkshare’s Automated LinkGenerator creates LinkShare affiliate links for any product on a merchant’s site that offers LinkGenerator. 

Here’s what LinkShare says:

This new feature provides the same functionality as the LinkGenerator tool in the Individual Product Links interface, without having to log into the Affiliate Interface to get your links.  This new tool does not replace Merchandiser (LinkShare’s datafeed), but will be helpful for getting direct links from merchants that do not offer Merchandiser feeds.

If you are interested in using the Automated LinkGenerator, e-mail LinkShare at linkgen_request@linkshare.com to have this new tool enabled.  Once you are enabled, the Automated LinkGenerator will be located under the LinkShare Feed Synergy Services area of the Affiliate Interface.

To create an Automated LinkGenerator link, you will use a REST (Representational State Transfer) Web services to request links for a given merchant URL. You will then send a URL from the merchant’s site to LinkShare using the specified link format (see the Automated LinkGenerator Help area).  The URL can be sent through a browser, a tool like wget or curl, or an automated script.  For each URL provided, LinkShare returns a click link.  You can request up to 1,000 links within an hour.

Web services applications are accessible using SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and REST. Web Services use HTTP with XML for communication. These are ubiquitous technologies and any device capable of using these technologies is able to both host and consume Web services.  Web services concepts are simple to understand and with the addition of various tool-kits provide a low barrier to entry and easy software development.

For information on setting up a Web services, please visit the following sites:
REST – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer
Web Services – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_service
Web Services & PHP – http://webservices.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2004/03/24/phpws.html

I think this is a great  enhancement within the LinkShare affiliate network.  I like to use direct links whenever I can because they obviously convert MUCH better.  Many of the retailers I promote with in-house affiliate programs already offer this feature so I guess it’s about time LinkShare stepped their game up.  What do you think?

http://www.Top-Affiliate.com
http://www.FreeAdvertisingBlog.com

[tags]linkshare, automated linkgenerator, web services, affiliate links, representational state transfer, REST, simple object access protocol, SOAP[/tags]