Category Archives: News & Updates
BBC Analysis again Burning Quran Controversy
The Dove World Outreach Center may only represent a handful of people, but its incendiary plans haven’t emerged out of nowhere.
The role of Islam in America has become a hot button issue with social and political implications.
While most Americans would probably take issue with exhortations to burn the Koran, there is clearly widespread concern about the influence of Islam.
US pastor has ‘no intention’ of stopping Koran bonfire
BBC-Sep 8, 2010
A US pastor says he is not “backing down” from plans to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of 9/11, despite international outrage.
“We are not convinced that backing down is the right thing,” said Terry Jones of 50-member Florida church, the Dove World Outreach Center.
Burning Quran – What Ms. Clinton says?
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton slammed Florida pastor for his “disgraceful” plan to burn the Quran.
Clinton noted that Terry Jones, the Florida pastor, is the head of a small congregation, and said she wished his plans to burn the Quran on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks hadn’t attracted so much media attention. But sadly, “that’s the world we live in right now,” she said.
Jones’s plans could potentially harm U.S. troops, she asserted, echoing a recent warning from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.
The pastor’s plan doesn’t represent broader American views on Islam, Clinton declared. “It’s not who we are,” she said.
Clinton also slammed Jones’s plans on Tuesday night at a State Department dinner in honor of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Gmail is going to be banned in UAE?
Google has said it will provide Middle East versions of its new VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service, which has proved hugely popular since its launch in the US last month.However website Emirates 24/7 said the tech giant has no set timeline for the rollout of the service, which currently allows Gmail users based in the US only to make low-cost VOIP calls to any parts of the world.
US-based Gmail clients can make a phone call directly from their computer to a UAE landline for just 19 cents per minute. To call Saudi Arabia the rate is 11 cents, for Oman 15 cents, Qatar 26 cents, Bahrain 17 cents, and Kuwait 9 cents per minute, the website said.
Black Berry is going to be banned in UAE from October 2010
The UAE’s telecoms regulator has announced that BlackBerry services in the country will be suspended from 11 October this year.
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) said that the suspension was due to the failure of ongoing attempts since 2007 to bring BlackBerry services in the country in line with local regulations.
“With no solution available and in the public interest, in order to affect resolution of this issue, as of October 11, 2010, Blackberry Messenger, Blackberry Email and Blackberry Web-browsing services will be suspended until an acceptable solution can be developed and applied,” said TRA director general Mohamed Al Ghanim.
“The TRA notes that Blackberry appears to be compliant in similar regulatory environments of other countries, which makes non-compliance in the UAE both disappointing and of great concern.”
BlackBerry devices, introduced in the UAE in 2006, allow users to send messages that can’t be monitored as allowed for under the country’s 2007 Safety, Emergency and National Security rules, the regulator said last week.
Although such communications should fall under the remit of that law, technical encryption allowed them to avoid monitoring, it said Sunday.
Telcos Etisalat and du were informed of the TRA’s decision on Sunday. They were also instructed to ensure minimal consumer disruption in the provision of alternative services.
“All Blackberry services fall within the UAE regulatory framework developed by the TRA since 2007, however because of Blackberry’s technical configuration, some Blackberry services operate beyond the enforcement of these regulations,” said a statement issued by the TRA.
“Blackberry data is immediately exported off-shore, where it is managed by a foreign, commercial organization. Blackberry data services are currently the only data services operating in the UAE where this is the case.
“Today’s decision is based on the fact that, in their current form, certain Blackberry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns for the UAE.”
Etisalat and Du respond to BlackBerry ban
UAE telcos Etisalat and du have confirmed they will comply with the TRA’s decision to suspend certain BlackBerry services starting October 11, 2010.
The two operators each issued short statements, in which they confirmed they were looking to deliver alternative solutions to BlackBerry customers who face being unable to use services providing email, web browsing, instant messaging and social networking.
“This is an important decision made by the Regulatory Authority and we fully understand the legal and social considerations behind the decision,” said Etisalat in a statement.
Google Personalized Search — A New Challenge for SEO
As on December 4th 2009, Google extended its Personalized Search system for Non-registered users. Earlier this option was available to registered users, only when they had Web History enabled on their Google Accounts. Google Search now displays all users with personalized results – including those who are not registered. Google saves a cookie contains information about Search Results for the last 180 days. On the basis of the file search versed in internet user preferences, adjusting the results to him. User will know, he is seeing Customized search results when a “View customizations” link will appear on the top right of the search results page. Clicking the link will let user see how Google have customized results and will also allow user to turn off this type of customization.
What does it mean to SEO? No Doubt Google is making it more and more tough for SEO professionals to tweak its results.
Now how can we know the behavior of different users? You have a “cookie” Google to do that, but what SEO professionals should do?
Definitely its gonna be biggest challenge for SEO. In my opinion, now Social Networks will play most vital role, as this is the only method available to us to remain closer with community. There are over 100 Community networks, and for me, it is already biggest source of traffic. Become more and more visible to community, and definately your brand will be preffered in their personalized searches.
Link Building – Important Strategies from Bing
Previously, SEO Companies & Experts were always following Google guidelines to find out how our SEO efforts should be. Google always shaped the SEO activities.
But now Bing is also in the battle. For First Time, Bing has provided really valuable information for Link Building. Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center has shared some dos and don’ts of link-building for Bing. Most of these does not differ too much from advice that Google would give you. It is, however, still always nice to see how they feel, just to clear up any possible confusion.
Like Google, Bing places great emphasis on quality links to determine its rankings. “Just don’t make the mistake of believing it will result in instant gratification. Successful link building efforts require a long-term commitment, not an overnight or turnkey solution,” says DeJarnette. “You need to continually invest in link building efforts with creativity and time.”
Twitter-Bing collaboration, What will be the effect on SEO?
You can now search Twitter database from Bing. Is not that great?
Bing has reached an agreement to crawl all of Twitter’s public results in real time. Bing’s Twitter search — Bing.com/Twitter — is already live.
In a demo by Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the online audience business group at Microsoft, a number of advances were immediately apparent. The most important for Twitter fans is that Bing reorders the massive, unwieldy Twitter stream by creating a “social relevance” score based on the quality of the tweet — “Life sucks” for instance, would not achieve high relevance — as well as the popularity of the tweeter. Then the tweet is run through spam and obscenity filtration to get a final result.
Bing-Twitter search also allows users to separate the most popular embedded links from the tweets that surround them, allowing people to understand the source of a conversation without having to endure the din surrounding it. Bing-Twitter also expands a tweet’s bit url and shows users the real domain, creating greater transparency before you click. In short, Bing makes Twitter make sense.
For Microsoft, latching onto Twitter’s rise is more than just a big marketing win; it’s also a technological victory. Twitter is a huge, previously untapped resource in the movement toward search that relies on real-time data rather than archived links. (There was also a strong industry rumor that a similar deal between Bing and Facebook had been reached, though neither party commented on that.)
So What will be the next move by Google?
Twitter-Bing collaboration, What will be the effect on SEO?
Twitter has great business value. Microblogging platform Twitter has 32 million users, an increase from about 2
