Dillonworld.com

The Observer had a great article on how to drive a hard bargain when buying a house. I wish we had this when we were looking to buy. It’s surprising that these tips come from a UK real estate agent.

‘Don’t feel you have to be polite,’ advises Stacks’s Gideon Sumption, who searches for buyers looking in the west country. ‘Open cupboards, look in the loft, the cellar and outbuildings, open and close windows and doors, look underneath and behind furniture, check water pressure, examine workmanship, turn off lights to see how much natural light there is. Ask anything you want to ask,’ he says.

There is no doubt that buyers now hold more power, however the checklist in the article would be useful in any climate.

My rosemary plant has been savaged by a brilliantly shiny green and purple beetle. I thought that this would be a tricky bug to identify but apparently it’s known as the Rosemary Beetle.

Sorry chum, but you’re going to have to go.

Many Google Analytics (GA) users have reported problems with the statistics in their GA account.

This is affecting me as well. Fortunately I use GetClicky.com as a backup analytics tool. In many respects, GetClicky is actually better than GA.

Interestingly, there has been a suggestion that this problem is linked to the new
Google Analytics for Blogger release which happened at the same time as the problems started occuring.

No word from Google on any of this though.

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Update : I have just received the following notification from Google

System Message: Analytics Processing Delay from April 30th to May 5th

Google Analytics experienced a data processing error from April 30th to May 5th. Almost all of the data has been recovered and is currently being reprocessed. The recovered data will be reflected in your reports within a few days. Please note that a small percentage of data, particularly in the area of e-commerce reporting, was not recoverable from those dates.

We sincerely apologize for this processing issue and are taking every precaution to prevent such disruptions from occurring again in the future. For more information, please read through our common questions.

The Google Analytics Team

I have just received a new email from the Google support team in my continuing saga with Google Book Search.

Thanks for contacting us in light of your recent blog post about revenue generated by clicks on ads displayed alongside your books in Google Book Search.

We are sorry to hear that you’re not happy with your experience of Google Book Search. In reviewing our records, I see that you had contacted us in October of last year regarding confusion created by the ads revenue payment information available in your account. At that time, we detected that the revenue generated from these ads displayed on your books’ pages was linked to invalid clicks. It’s our policy to withhold any payment from invalid clicks. You can review this policy in full by visiting our Terms and Conditions for the Google Books Partner Programme, available at https://books.google.co.uk/partner/terms.

Per your request, all books were removed from your account, closing off the possibility for further revenue to be generated from your account. I hope this information regarding our policies will help you better understand our actions. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have further questions.

Sincerely,

Agnes
The Google Book Search Team

So now it appears that Google are changing their position. The previous email that I had received from the support team on this was from Luke was quite different. He said that,

As previously mentioned, it has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on the Google ads displayed on the sample pages of your titles in Google Book Search, and this is the reason why you haven’t received any corresponding payments. Our team is currently working in updating your earnings balance.

Note that the “team is currently working in updating your earning balance”. They must be doing some fairly intense sums as this email dates back to October 2007.

Now, Agnes has changed tack and is referring to the Terms of Conditions. The specific section on invalid clicks is really severe.

Google shall not be liable for any payment based on any amounts which result from invalid queries or invalid clicks on Ads generated by any person, bot, automated program or similar device, including without limitation, through any clicks or impressions (i) originating from Your IP addresses or computers under Your control, or (ii) solicited by payment of money, false representation or request for users to click on Ads;

So basically Agnes has played the Get Out of Jail Free card. Frankly, I’m not sure where this leaves me.

It’s interesting to note that the Cambridge University Press (CUP) is a publishing partner on Google Book Search. They are one of the oldest publishers in the world, and publish over 1,200 new titles per year with over 24,000 books in print.

But I wonder what would happen if a Cambridge University student clicked on one of the advertisements using their CUP infrastructure? Technically, CUP would forfeit their ad revenue. However we all know the answer – of course – nothing would happen. CUP is a big fish – I am a small fish.

If this is Google’s way of having the last word, then I might as well highlight this story.

The terms for Microsoft’s Live Search Books are no way near as severe.

You will not, and will not cause or encourage any third party to, generate automated or fraudulent clicks or otherwise interfere with the operation of, or third parties’ access to, the Search Services.

This opens a new chapter to the discussion and will warrant a separate post.

About 12 hours apparently…

We launched our new experimental meeting scheduler WhenShouldWe.com last night. And by midday this was included in Google’s search index.

site:whenshouldwe.com – Google 検索 via kwout

You’ll notice that the meta description text is exactly the right length and doesn’t truncate. However, we need to rewrite the Title description PDQ – this is a major SEO factor in helping people find your website.

A very unfortunate open letter that I am having to post on my blog because I can’t reach any real person at Google Book Search.

Dear Sir or Madam,

We are a small independent UK book publisher. Although small in size, we have a loyal reader base and have a good reputation in our niche market.

In 2006, I was introduced to a new product called Google Book Search. I liked the concept and could see the value in participating in this programme. I signed up, and uploaded our three best-selling titles to our account.

About 18 months later, I realised that we had never received any payments for our ad earnings. I raised this issue with your support team, who advised me that there were invalid clicks generated on my account and until this was resolved, I would not receive payment.

I initially shrugged off this accusation. It is plausible that someone in our staff might have clicked on an advertisement without understanding the repercussions. Fine, if you have identified this then it has been committed without malice or forethought. We have better things to do than generate invalid clicks. Let’s make the adjustment, correct the balance and move on.

However this doesn’t appear to be possible.

I have enclosed the full transcript of the mindless circular email loop that I have become trapped in. Unfortunately, this left me with no choice and so we have withdrawn our content from the programme.

I am disappointed with how Google has treated it’s publisher partners. The level of customer support that you have provided is appalling. I was hoping to bring this matter up with a real life person at the London Book Fair, but unfortunately you decided not to have a stand.

I don’t know what to do. It’s now just the principle of the matter that is motivating me to get closure. I’ve wasted an enormous amount of time trying to get this resolved.

I hope that you are able to help me address this issue and invite you to contact me
Yours sincerely,

Blah,

I might enclose the circular loop bit in another post, but in short it’s 26 loops of something like this

As you know we recently completed an investigation into the activity on your Book Search account earnings. Based on the findings of our investigation, we will be deducting irregular earnings from your account for clicks that we consider to be invalid. These earnings will be refunded to the affected advertisers, and the deduction should apply to your next scheduled payment.

We understand that you may want more information about the invalid activity we found on your account. However, because we have a need to protect our detection systems, we are unable to provide our publishers with the full details about their account activity.

Invalid click activity consists of any clicks or impressions that may artificially inflate an advertiser’s costs or a publisher’s earnings, and for which we decide not to charge the advertiser. This includes clicks or impressions generated by: a publisher clicking on his own ads, a publisher encouraging clicks on his ads, automated clicking tools or traffic sources, robots or other deceptive software.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation and your patience.

Sincerely,

Luke
The Google Book Search Team

I’m exhausted from writing this. And need a cup of tea.

I was up early this Sunday morning and decided to do some blog catch up while listening to the radio. Radio 4′s Broadcasting House programme was celebrating their 10th birthday and they were reviewing the highlights over the years.

One of the my favourite features on this show was when they would broadcast the Donald Rumsfeld Sound Bite of the Week. These were audio quotes taken from the week. It’s remarkable to think that Don could reliably produce a new quote that was worthy of it’s own dedicated slot.

Anyway, I fancied a trip down memory lane and found that all the quotes are available from the BBC’s BH website (although some of the later ones seem to have technical difficulties.

I’ve always found ink jets to be messy and expensive printers. However this video reveals the dirty little secrets that inkjet manufacturers don’t want you to know.

The Dirty Little Secret of Inkjet Printers – video powered by Metacafe

I have just received a letter from the council’s planning office notifying me that the application for building a new tower block at the Greenheath Business Centre has been refused.

This is great news as the plans for the new development were pretty awful.

What’s interesting is that two of the Labour councillors voted in favour of the application and two didn’t seem to take part in the voting exercise at all. It was left to the single member of each of the three minority parties – Conservative, LibDem and Respect to unite and vote the application down (according to Cllr Phil Briscoe: Keeping the Sunlight in Sunlight Square).

This is pretty appalling news. I’ve always found it difficult to trace the contributions that local councillors make to their wards. Some are particularly active such as Lib Dem councillor Louise Alexander. Unfortunately most councillors fail miserably.

I’ll be keeping all this in mind during May at the next local election.

Apparently Brick Lane has started padding its lampposts to prevent those who use its thoroughfare from suffering “walk and text” injuries.

In case anyone reading this is one of the 68,000 individuals who apparently interfaced thus with street furniture in London last year (mostly resulting in cuts and bruises, but with a fair proportion of broken noses, cheekbones and one fractured skull in the mix too) and therefore is self-evidently stupid enough to need the problem further delineated, these are injuries caused by people who do not understand the importance of peripheral vision. Until, that is, they compromise it by texting as they walk along the street and into lampposts, signs, bollards and other pedestrians.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/05/mobilephones?gusrc=rss&feed=technology