Time For an Update

It's been a while since I've visited this blog. In the interim, the MeasurementMedia Network has gained its own website (MeasurementMediaNetwork.com)

I've experienced the pain of spammers and hackers who entered two of the sites I run, my personal blog at MeasurementBlog.com and the Open Resource Website "SpectralEmissivity.com".

In the first case, they turned it into a phishing site and began sending emails all over the world trying to induce people to provide information about their accounts at specific banks.

The extent of this problem had never struck home with me until they hit my sites. Then it became personal, for me at least.We had started an anti crook site a few years ago called Venditoris (venditoris.com), and we'd like to expand it.

Fortunately, there are some really talented people on the Internet who are dedicated to finding and putting Internet crooks of all types out of business.

View the recent TED video by Mikko Hypponen at www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/mikko_hypponen_fighting_viruses_defending_the_net.html to get a better idea of serious the problem is and some ideas of how to combat them.

Here's his conclusion:

I've spent my life defending the net. And I do feel that if we don't fight online crime, we are running a risk of losing it all. We have to do this globally, and we have to do it right now. What we need is more global, international law enforcement work to find online criminal gangs -- these organized gangs that are making millions out of their attacks. That's much more important than running anti-viruses or running firewalls.

What actually matters is actually finding the people behind these attacks. And even more importantly, we have to find the people who are about to become part of this online world of crime, but haven't yet done it. We have to find the people with the skills, but without the opportunities and give them the opportunities to use their skills for good.

Measuring Media: Impreciseness seems the rule

Why...Why Not? (hint: there are no real standards or agreed practices)


{Image Credit: Salvatore Vuono}
Our website network focuses on measurements primarily in Industry & Science. But there's a whole other world of measurements, or "Metrics" that has become more noticeable over the past ten years, or so, Web Metrics.

It's driven by money, of course, advertising costs and rates are affected by the count of "Unique Visitors per month", Page Views per Month", "Average Visitor Time on Site" etc.

Web Metrics evolved in two directions at once. One from the "inside" of the Wide Web World, based mostly on counting page views and analyzing Web Server logs of pages (files) sent (served) to requests from external computers. Software counters, Log analysis software and then Google Analytics provides much of the resources in this type of "measurement", but others like Quantcast have jumped into the fray, too.

The opposite perspective, from the "outside" of the Web, so to speak, is based on some sort of sampling of "audience" participation from monitoring of traffic on the Web.

This is usually accomplished by special software either on a collection of web browsers, or some proprietary method for counting traffic at various places on the Internet and ascribing it to web page visitors and views on specific web pages and/or web sites (websites?). At first there were browser toolbar samplers, like Alexa.com, but then the Web got into real advertising money and the traditional audience surveying groups like Nielsen and others got into the act.

Do you think this could result in a collection of "Dilbert Moments"?

Do you think that the Peter Principle has been revived?

We do.

How is this site different?

How is this site different than other sites in The MeasurementMedia Network of Temperatures.com, Inc in Southampton Pennsylvania, USA.

It took over the media news function from MeasurementDevices.com more than four years ago, because the latter has grown into a large news site with the media portion getting second shrift. Now this site has matured and recently undergone an overhaul to make it easier to navigate and for you to find what you seek in our archives or more than 1200 media-related stories and meetings details.

MeasurementDevices.com focus was sharpened to deal with new developments and applications of Measurement technologies and new of suppliers and technical resources for those interested in measuring instruments and sensors. It has grown far beyond our expectations.

We wanted visitors to recognize the distinction and have come to believe that a news-only website was the way to achieve this.

Where do we get our news?

We get it from many sources both on and off the Web.

Visitors are welcome to submit their own news items at no cost, too, in fact they are encouraged.

Submitted news stories have the top priority in the news queue since they save us time (most of the time, that is).

To submit a news or PR story (post) click on the “Submit News” here or at the link at the top of the page. A new page with a submission form will appear.

The rest is straightforward.

We limit organizations’ PR stories to a maximum frequency of one per week, unless there is an significant issue that warrants more frequent publishing

There is no requirement to register.

Realize, please, that for the sake of our reputation as a student-friendly website provider, we reserve the right to edit or delete all entries. They are all reviewed!

Winning...In Reality

One of our firmly held beliefs is that Web resources like ours and others (Google is a prime, much more generic example) are win-win-win resources. Just look at how Google has grown.

First win: The website user or visitor wins since they gain free access to useful and often educational information that can make them a better informed and savvy product/service user and help them grow in many ways.

Second win: The supplier of a commented link to information, often an expert opinion or article buried on an organization’s website, gets wider discovery, due to the feedback* nature of the Web. Our sites are mostly ranked at a Google PR4 or higher.

That places these directory links in the category of “high quality” web resources and enhances the visibility of the submitting organization’s website on the Internet and in their Search Engine rankings, since the link on our site points to their site.

Third win: Our website(s) gain more visibility, too, and even higher credibility (even more if an organization adds a reciprocal web link to us – but that’s not a requirement, just frosting on the cake for all involved).

More content and a growing number of links on our sites means more content held in Search Engine indices and a growing reputation for our sites from the content added alone. That makes the Second Win better and more people find your information on Search Engine results, closing the loop and enhancing the First Win more so.

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*It’s more than viral. It’s a feedback loop that benefits all the nodes on it! Many marketeers think they understand the concept of viral, but few seem to get the concept of feedback, as most scientists and engineers do. The Web has some viral nature, of that’s there’s little doubt, but it has a larger, immense and not well-appreciated feedback nature, too.

Our websites and links to them are listed at or near the bottom of the pages or on the Links Page on almost all of them as you can see on this site.