Google Operating System speculates that Gmail will soon display status updates from your contacts:

It’s not very clear what kind of updates you will receive, but they’re probably the latest important actions of your contacts from different Google services.

Ionut says based on reading some Google code that users will be able to delete updates - now word whether there will be a “Big Switch” to opt out globally. The functionality itself would be closer to Facebook’s newsfeed, the reason I am comparing it to Plaxo is that Plaxo became a metaphor for spam in its early years, and it is back at it now, with all the unwanted Plaxo Pulse notifications.

The contact updates, especially if it’s not easy to opt-out once and for all would be nothing but spam. What makes it even worse is that Gmail Contacts are really not contacts: anybody you answer automatically gets added to your Address Book, whether you like it or not. And guess what: there is no way to turn this off. (In fact, in the new version of Gmail -not yet available for Google Apps accounts- you can’t even delete more than 20 contacts at any given time.)

I really hope it does not happen. Gmail is the Crown Jewel of Google services, and as such, more productivity-oriented for most of us, then say Orkut or Picasa are. They can’t seriously think of clobbering the screen with garbage like that. Can they?

• Related posts: mathewingram.com/work, TechCrunch, Googling Google, The Last Podcast.

Tags: facebook, gmail, gmail contacts, Google, plaxo, plaxo pulse, spam

I confess: I also had a captcha on my blog, in my “prior life” on blogware. In fact my defenses were so developed (or primitive?) that Zvents CEO Ethan Stock rightfully called it an obstacle course.

Thankfully I have a better life (OK, just a platform) now, on Wordpress, where the combination of Akismet and Spam Karma 2. provides sufficient enough spam protection so I don’t have to torture readers with such obstacle courses anymore. But I guess not all blog platforms are created equal.

Today I tried to leave a comment on Vinnie’s post, which is protected by a captcha. That would be OK (well, sort of) if only I knew it upfront. But what typically happens - and I am not picking on Vinnie, seen this on several other Typepad blogs - is that I review the comment, hit “post”, then move on to another Firefox tab (hey, even I can multitask). Later, when I come back to review the comment/close the tab, I find the captcha screen still waiting for my input. The damn thing was so slow, it did not reveal the captcha screen in when I was here before.

How to improve the captcha? Well, displaying it right on the comment entry page would be a good start… but even better, remove it entirely, replace it with some more intelligent background process (like, if I am a repeat approved commenter on this blog, chances are I am not a spammer … but I am not trying to re-invent Spam Karma logic here).

The absolute irony of the situation: you can read it all right here, on Vinnie’s blog: UI again …don’t pretty up, destroy!

P.S. Vinnie, my friend, I am not picking on you … just your platform.

Update (2/28): A hilarious collection of the 10 worst captchas.

Update (3/5):  CAPTCHA is Dead, Long Live CAPTCHA! @ Coding Horror.

Tags: akismet, blogware, captcha, spam, spam filters, spam karma, typepad, ui, user interface, wordpress

“Hello, Fellow Bloglines user … has recommended the following blogs. You can choose to add some or all of these blogs to your Bloglines account“

Does this email look like spam to you? It certainly does to me. Oh, well, let’s quickly check my Bloglines profile to turn recommendations off… oops.. I can’t. This is definitely SPAM.

In my two years of using Bloglines I’ve never seen this before. In fact all I have there is a dormant account that I haven’t logged into for a long time - so I certainly could not have opted in to this program. I guess Bloglines “volunteered me”.

Is Bloglines so fed up losing market share to Google Reader that they think spamming will win users back? This can only backfire - btw, Gmail’s spam filter is pretty good, so this is the last junk mail I received from Bloglines. But so far I haven’t activeley disliked Bloglines - now I do. Not a good deal for Bloglines, if you ask me.

Oh, and while I’m at it: all those Plaxo Pulse invitations from unknown people are also spam. They just don’t learn.

Update (11/18): It’s worse than I thought: I received the same spam to another email account which Bloglines should not even be aware of - not unless they deep scan old blog posts for buried mailto links.

Update (12/4): Tom Raftery is also fed up with Plaxo spam.

Tags: bloglines, gmail, Google, plaxo, plaxo pulse, reader, spam, spamming

“A new spam blocker called Defensio is attempting to improve on the standard set by Automattic’s Akismet, the default blocker for WordPress” - reports TechCrunch.

But they are planning to do more than improve… they want to replace Akismet. From Defensio’s FAQ:

• Is Defensio a replacement for Akismet?
  Yes…
• Will Defensio outperform Akismet?
  -We can’t make any promises (sorry), but our early testing suggests that Defensio’s performance is very, very good. As with any adaptive filter, it will only improve with time.
• My accuracy is not satisfactory. Why?
  -If you have recently installed Defensio, then try to be patient. The filter’s learning algorithms take some time (usually no more than a couple weeks) to become very effective…
• Does Defensio work in conjunction with other spam filtering plugins?
  Not really. We highly recommend that you use Defensio as your stand alone spam filtering solution.

And therein lies the rub. Other plugins, like Spam Karma 2 may also outperform Akismet at times, but they don’t replace it; instead, they work together quite well. A status change in either takes effect in the other. Now, I don’t know how good Defensio will be, but it takes a huge leap of faith to give up the proven standard (i.e. Akismet) and replace it with something that may need weeks of learning, as we’re warned by the FAQ. They lost me as an early user right away.

The bigger question here, for software startups: should you start challenging the market leader right at launch, or ride with it, grow as part of the “ecosystem”, then perhaps declare you’re better and no longer need them after you got traction?

Related posts: Weblog Tools Collection…

Tags: akismet, Blogging, competition, defensio, ecosystem, spam, spam filters, spam karma, startup strategy, Startups, wordpress

This would belong in the humor category … if it wasn’t for real: the Custom Search Blog, owned by Google was identified by Google as spam, and shut down, after which an individual without any affiliation to Google took over the domain. Details at PC World.

Tags: Blog Spam, Custom Search Blog, Google Blogs, spam