Yahoo Webcam Down!

"The Server is busy. Please close the window and try again in a few minutes."

This error message appeared when I tried using the webcam function for Yahoo! Messenger. I noticed it about an hour ago or maybe a lot longer than that, I assumed it was an hour ago because that was when 4 people, friends from different countries, messaged me that Yahoo's webcam function is down. I have friends from The United States, Australia, France and China that has noticed this which has caused me to try it myself.

It is around 3:28 in the afternoon here in the Philippines as I am writing this down. A friend of mine in an Internet Cafe, told me that business has been pretty slow today since most Internet Cafe patrons here usually use Yahoo's webcam, either for business purposes, for recreation or just to keep in touch with family and friends who are not physically present. These people rely heavily on this service by Yahoo, because sometimes email and Instant Messengers just wouldn't cut it.

On an entrepreneur's point of view, this may cause them to lose precious income coming from the service, specially for the Internet shop owners who provide webcams to the users.

Has the same thing happened to you? Is it just us or is Yahoo's webcam function really down as of the moment?

I posted this concern on SearchEngineWatch and Yahoo! Answers. Let's just count the hours until Yahoo! takes a look at this problem, maybe they are looking it up right now, who knows?

Google Spreadsheets and Live.com Updates

Ever get tired of carrying your files around? Ever had trouble having access to a file shared by a group? Worry no more, Google Spreadsheets is here to save the day(*ahem*).

Google Spreadsheets can be accessed through any web browser and an internet connection of course, and all your spreadsheet files can be stored securely online. You decide on who can view or change the content of the file. You can import previously created spreadsheets or start entirely from scratch.

All you need to access it is your google account.

Google.com posted the new features of Google Spreadsheets.

Microsoft also fixed the referral bug on Live.com. Finally, lots of webmasters are becoming pissed about that bug. Not being able to see what type of traffic you are getting from Live.com. Not being able to see how much traffic and what keywords you get from Live.com is something webmasters won't be too happy with.

Yahoo! Improves YPN Ads

Yahoo recently made changes to the format of the advertisements appearing on its Yahoo! Publisher Network.

"We’ve been doing some tinkering under the bonnet recently, so some of you may notice a few changes in your ads. The changes you’re likely to see include the removal of ellipses (…) and truncated words, the inclusion of 40-character titles on certain ad units, and a change in the number of ads displayed on certain ad layouts.

These enhancements have to do with our efforts to upgrade our contextual advertising product, and in the coming weeks will take effect across the entire network. They come in response to your feedback and should, in the long run, help enhance your account performance. We’ll share more details with you as they become available."

—Tom Furukawa, Director, Product Management

With these changes, we can expect the YPN ads to perform better, hopefully. They really need to improve the performance of their ads, their ads are not performing well lately

Screenshot above is taken from SERoundtable.

What's up with China?

China has been blocking the access of Wikipedia within their territory.

Seems like China is still closing its doors. For the interview with the Founder, Jimmy Wales by the Red Herring.

Matt Cutts also explains in what he calls a quick explanation, how changes in URL queries can help "Non-Power Users"

Gmail Phishing?!?

A service that was available before on Google Plus, looks like the real thing, it asks for the username and password to be keyed in. It is hosted on Google but as said by Philip:

"The page looks like it’s official, and it’s indeed hosted on Google.com, but it’s not by Google. You’ll notice by the message you get after logging in:

You (could have) gotten served!

username = username you entered
password = password you entered No data was actually taken, just displayed to you :) This is just a proof of concept of what a malicious user could do with this exploit."

Currently, the page displays a 403 (Forbidden) message.

On other news, Google's mini-Matt, Adam Lasnik gave out some tips on paid links.

Basically, if it is for advertising, then it is Ok, but if it is for PR then you are just wasting your time and money.