How Many Videos Have You Watched on YouTube ?

You may have spent countless hours on YouTube watching cats falling off the dinner tables but do you know the exact number of video clips that you have ever watched on YouTube ?

YouTube tracks statistics for all their videos but now they have decided to share some basic stats with their members.

Login to your YouTube account and then click this link - youtube.com/iyt - its your personalized YouTube homepage. Customize this page and add the statistics modules.

1. You will now know the number of YouTube videos that you have ever viewed on YouTube.

2. If you upload videos on YouTube, you will also see total views - that’s the number of times your own videos have been viewed on YouTube by other members.

YouTube offers aggregated stats for all your videos - if you want to track statistics for individual YouTube videos, check out TubeMogul - it’s like your personal Google Analytics for YouTube.

Google, a hacking tool?

Earlier this week, the (in)famous hacking group, The Cult of the Dead Cow(cDc), created a tool that turns the search giant into a massive vulnerability scanner. It has the ability to find passwords and other sensitive information in a matter of minutes. Many may know cDc as the creators of programs such as Black Orfice which achieved the utmost fame just 10 years ago. With this new tool, Goolag scanner, even unskilled soccer moms can acquire password information.

Although, this tool could be used for malicious purposes, it can also help administrators to find vulnerabilities on their own sites before someone else does. Goolag scan is currently a win32 only application, but cDc is in the process of making a Linux compatible version. The tool can be found at http://goolag.org but please use it responsibly. Get!

It Took 16 Months, But Google Relaunches Jotspot

Google acquired hosted wiki service Jotspot in October 2006. The service immediately stopped taking new users, although existing users were supported. Now, nearly sixteen months later, Jotspot has been relaunched under the Google Apps team, as Google Sites.

Google Sites looks absolutely nothing like Jotspot, other than the fact that both are hosted wikis. All of the structured data templates launched by Jotspot in July 2006 have been stripped out. Users now have a choice between just five basic templates - a standard wiki, a dashboard where google gadgets can be embedded, a blog-like template for announcements, a file cabinet for file uploads, and a page for lists of items. Instead of creating structured templates, users will now simply embed spreadsheets, presentations and word documents from Google Docs, as well as Google Calendars, YouTube Videos and Picasa Albums.

Like Google Docs, Google Sites wikis can be made private, shared with others, or made public. Users can select from a variety of templates, but cannot yet customize the look and feel of the site. Somewhere down the road, Google says, they’ll release an API for the new service as well. Editing is done with a rich text editor that allows for basic formatting.

Google Sites is a free product, with limitations on support and storage (10 GB). Users can upgrade their Google Apps account to a standard edition, also free, and map their own domains to the site. A premier edition is also available for $50/user/year that includes a service level agreement, support and more admin capabilities.

All wiki pages have RSS feeds associated with them to allow users to track any changes.

Existing Jotspot users will continue to be supported on the old platform for the near future, and they will also be given instructions for porting their Jotspot wikis to Google sites.

In an interview today, Google’s Management Director of Enterprise Matthew Glotzbach called the combined products under Google Apps a “Microsoft Sharepoint killer” because it’s allowing businesses to collaborate without all that expensive Microsoft software. It may not be a Sharepoint killer yet, but Google Apps constitutes 2-3% of Google’s total revenues. Some point soon, its going to start hurting Microsoft.

Sample screenshots:

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CrunchBase Information

JotSpot

Website:	www.jot.com/
Location:	Palo Alto, California, United States
Acquired:	On October 31, 2006 by Google

JotSpot provides structured wiki software for small to medium-sized businesses. The company was founded by two co-founders of Excite and was sold to Google in 2006.

JotSpot has been closed to new registrations since its acquisition.

On… Learn More

Google Sites

Company:	Google
Website:	sites.google.com
Launch Date:	February 27, 2008

Google Sites, launched on February 27th, 2008, is wiki suite targeting small and medium-sized businesses as part of the Google Apps team. Google Sites is the relaunched version of JotSpot, which Google… Learn More

AdSense Click Fraud in India - How The Whole System Works?

A recent report on Click Fraud suggests that the maximum number of invalid clicks on Pay Per Click ads originate from India. And this is not the first time - its widely believed there there exists a large “work from home” crowd in India who want to generate “quick cash” by clicking Google AdSense ads.

During a recent trip to Google Hyderabad for BarCamp, I met someone who explained me the whole modus operandi of these secret ad clickers.

Pick any issue of Deccan Chronicle newspaper (the English Daily of Hyderabad) and open the Classifieds section - you will see dozens of ads that promise you regular Google AdSense income while working from home. (see this newspaper clipping on the right).

You basically create a website and then write a few articles to get accepted into the official Google AdSense program. Once you become an AdSense publisher, you join any of these “bogus” AdSense network and are introduced to other members who are in the same boat as you.

Now Google would quickly ban your AdSense account if you click Ads on your own website so what these networks do is ask members to click on Ads appearing on websites of other members. So it like a reciprocal behavior - you click my ads and I will click yours.

Do members of such local AdSense networks make money? I have doubts. They may make a few dollars before Google discovers the click fraud activity, bans the account and returns the accumulated earnings to advertisers.

But in any case, the fraudulent clicks have been generated and added to the global “Click Fraud Index”. No wonder, India tops the chart.

Google Lego Calendar

We already know that Google has a history Lego obsession. And recently, blogger Keso received this neat Google branded Lego calendar from Google China. Now, yes, it’s kawaii, but would seriously be pain in the neck when you have to remodel it at the beginning of the month - every month. :)

Hackers use Google to find website vulnerabilities

With great power comes great responsibility. It was only a matter of time until the total internet dominance by Google came back to bite them and perhaps everyone else.

SAN FRANCISCO: Infamous computer hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow (CDC) has said that it was offering a software tool that lets people use Google to scan websites for security flaws.

CDC says a "Goolag Scanner" program based on work done by a hacker using the name "Johnny I Hack Stuff" is available for free download at its website.

The tool lets people with fundamental programming skills check websites or Internet domains for weaknesses that could be exploited by hackers, according to CDC.

The group said it uncovered "some pretty scary holes" through random tests of the tool in North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

CDC advised website operators to use to tool to find and patch vulnerabilities before hackers use it for crime or mischief.

"If I were a government, a large corporation, or anyone with a large web site, I`d be downloading this beast and aiming it at my site yesterday," CDC spokesman Oxblood Ruffin said in a message posted at the website.

Do You Maintain Multiple Google Accounts ? Solve That Headache of Logging In and Out

Life can get complicated if you operate more than one Google Account and have associated different Google services with different accounts.

For instance I have two Google Accounts - one is associated with Google Analytics, AdSense and Blogger while my second Google Account is connected to Gmail, Google Docs, Calendar and Orkut.

Now that’s a problem because each time I open Google Docs or Gmail, I have to log out from Blogger or Google Analytics because they have separate login credentials. This is so tiring and unfortunately Google won’t let you to merge two separate Google accounts.

If you are also in a similar situation as me, there’s something you can do to reduce your login-logoff cycles:

Blogger: The trick is to convert your blog into a team blog but you still remain the sole author.

Go to Settings -> Permissions and type the email address associated with your second Google Account. Thus you will be able to create or edit blog posts, modify blog templates, approve comments and do everything else using either of your Google accounts since both enjoy admin privileges.

Google Analytics: Like Blogger, Google Analytics also allows you to add new users with administration accounts.

Go to Access Manager inside Google Analytics and click the "+Add User" link - change the access type as "Account Administrator" and you will be able to manage Analytics reports from either Google Accounts.

Google Calendar: Go to Settings -> Share this calendar. Add the email address of your second Google account here and set the permission as "Make changes & manage sharing" - You can then manage your Google Calendar from either account.

Orkut - While it is not possible to add co-users in Orkut, you can try a different approach - make your main Orkut account a friend of the secondary account. So if you are logged into Orkut using your secondary Google account, you will still be able to view Scraps left by other friends.

Google Mail: Gmail offers a useful Mail Fetcher feature that automatically downloads email from one Gmail inbox into another.

You can set this mail fetcher for the Gmail address associated with your secondary Google Account and check emails even when you are not logged in into your primary Gmail Inbox.

In case of Google AdSense, I have setup a couple of CSV reports that are delivered to my Inbox every morning so I do need not check my AdSense earnings manually.

Google Acquires Youtube

For a few days I had been hearing news about Google acquiring Youtube which I believed was just a rumour, but now Google announced the acquisition for $1.65 billion.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., October 9, 2006 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has agreed to acquire YouTube, the consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos through a Web experience, for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. Following the acquisition, YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community.

I spend some time on YouTube almost daily and this is great news for me as I expect Google to improve YouTube’s service a lot more. Google Rules!

What’s your opinion on Google acquiring Youtube?

How to increase your AdSense Revenue by 200%

I just came across this thread in Digital Point Forum that explains on how to increase your AdSense Revenue by 200% by filtering Made-For-AdSense (MFA) sites.

Two weeks ago, I discovered a great site showing the MFA site’s url. I added the links to my Competitive Ad Filter since there was no url before. I check my AdSense revenue daily and found out that my earnings were increasing. Since the number of clicks were not increasing, then, I realize that by filtering MFA sites I can earn even more per click.

All you have to do is go to AdsBlacklist.com and scroll to the bottom where you are asked to select your site’s Categories. Select them and click ‘Generate my new list’ to generate the Top 200 MFA sites for your Categories.

Now login to your Adsense account and enter these MFA sites to your Competitive Ad Filter to block them.

Now stay back and watch your revenue increase

AdsBlackList will teach you how to seek, recognize and filter low paying google ads which, in most cases, link to MFA (Made for Adsense) sites AND we will provide you with tools that will help you to substantly increase your AdSense revenue, all for free. Why would you seatle on taking $0.01 when you can boost it over $0.50 per click and double or triple your earnings ?!

I just added the MFA sites of my category and so don’t know if there was any improvent in the earnings.

Here is another tip on how to fight MFA sites.

Please do let me know if you see any improvement in your Adsense Revenue after using this tip.

Get the serial number you need !

Get the serial number you need ! (For Certain Things)

* Go to Google.

* In the search field type: "Product name" 94FBR

* Where, "Product Name" is the name of the item you want to find the serial number for.

* And voila - there you go - the serial number you needed.

HOW DOES THIS WORK?

Quite simple really. 94FBR is part of a Office 2000 Pro cd key that is widely distributed as it bypasses the activation requirements of Office 2K Pro. By searching for the product name and 94fbr, you guarantee two things. 1) The pages that are returned are pages dealing specifically with the product you're wanting a serial for. 2) Because 94FBR is part of a serial number, and only part of a serial number, you guarantee that any page being returned is a serial number list page.

See these example searches:

"Photoshop 7" 94FBR
"Age of Mythology" 94FBR
"Nero Burning Rom 5.5" 94FBR