Blogcology February 13, 2014

Comcology

It’s not set in stone yet but Comcast and Time Warner Cable may be on the verge of a merge as Comcast aims to acquire Time Warner’s 11 million subscribers as well as thirty thousand Wi-Fi hotspots. This has the potential of creating one of the world’s greatest power houses - but will it come at a cost to the consumer?

Although uncertain if current prices will be effected it’s speculated by consumer advocates that customers likely will see some increases on their monthly bills. What is certain is that internet streaming services such as Netflix will be under pressure to maintain their viewership as Comcast is already limiting the amount of data their customers can use, making streaming video virtually impossible.

It has been mentioned that with a stronger financial stake in the industry this merger has the potential to offer more benefits to consumers. However, this could lead to an argument between the two companies based on how Comcast limits their client’s data use. There is a large demographic that rely on full streaming companies and don’t necessarily utilize cable. If this demographics’ internet usage is hindered then these customers could begin to become sparse, essentially closing out full streaming services.

We have to remind ourselves that it’s not only a mingling of dollars it’s a merger of minds. Both contributors in this union have survived based on their clientele and it will hopefully be taken into consideration when moving forward. Without the client these companies wouldn’t exist. Like it was mentioned on Webcology, “It’s important to that we become the gatekeeper on this proposal to make sure that this deal doesn’t become less of a benefit for the consumer.”

Chinacology

Recently the online censorship organization GreatFire pointed the finger at Bing saying that they are censoring queries in China. China, being known to be the largest perpetrator on censorship, may be the perfect candidate for this case but many people are all fired up as to why Bing would be compliant with this. GreatFire said that when it searched for the Dalai Lama in Chinese and compared it to a similar search in English, very different results were given.

Microsoft denies these allegations saying that this was not an intentional omission of websites from the search engine results. On Webcology they made a very simple but proving point that creating a search engine to begin with is difficult and it could be just a matter of random results. Meaning that Search is a complex beast and can be variable in what it delivers.

Although no more talk has been said about the issue it’s left for the conspiracy enthusiast to sort out the variable.

Techcology

Ugh, infinite scroll, I like to say that this is only a good thing for a conversation and not a website. I always drop off a site that has no end. If you insist on having this lame architecture then this blog from Webmaster Central is a must read. It explains the how to organize the page to prevent trouble from Google down the road or just get a better site. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ca/2014/02/infinite-scroll-search-friendly.html

If the last blog enticed you then another would be, “Faceted Navigation Best (and 5 Worst) Practices. Using specific filtered color and price ranges can easily dupe a website into duplicate content. This literally explains straight from the mouth of Google what to look for to keep things clean.

Sumcology

*Be aware of how things are changing in media and be vigilant when it comes to how it affects you *t’s important to be aware that there might not always be a political reason it could just be a technical glitch *Get rid of that disgusting infinite scroll webpage