Bing Chat doesn’t pull from web page content—according to Bing Chat

I had a bit of fun with Bing Chat last week, during which I got it to admit that when it searches the Bing index, it does not look at the content of the web pages. Bing Chat says it only has access to the snippet, URL and date.     Of course, it lies, […]

Read More… from Bing Chat doesn’t pull from web page content—according to Bing Chat



Nice try, Marissa Mayer, but no conversion

I had a chuckle at Marissa Mayer saying that Google results are worse because the web is worse. As I’ve shown with a site:lucire.com search, which is a good one since our site pre-dates Google (just), Google is less capable of providing the relevant pages for a typical search. I know how web spiders work […]

Read More… from Nice try, Marissa Mayer, but no conversion



False accusations from Red Points Solution SL

Yesterday, I returned to find a DMCA claim filed against us by Red Points Solution SL, purporting to act for Harper’s Bazaar España publisher Hearst Magazines SL, falsely accusing us of breaching their copyright with this article. You can read the notice here. Naturally, I filed a counter-claim because their accusation is baseless. Our source […]

Read More… from False accusations from Red Points Solution SL



Rand Fishkin’s ‘Something is Rotten in Online Advertising’

I’ve been meaning to link Rand Fishkin’s ‘Something is Rotten in Online Advertising’ for some time, so here it is. He writes, in his second and third paragraphs (links in original): Where to even begin… Should we start with the upcoming loss of third-party cookies? The bizarre Google & Facebook duopoly teamup against anti-trust action? The rise […]

Read More… from Rand Fishkin’s ‘Something is Rotten in Online Advertising’



If corporate America says it, it’s probably untrue

Le dernier.   I see the Le Snak range has now left us, after its US owner PepsiCo cited a lack of demand. I call bullshit, since during 2021 it was becoming increasingly difficult to find them on the shelves. Throttling distribution is not the same as a lack of demand, something you see time […]

Read More… from If corporate America says it, it’s probably untrue



Kissing that Disqus advertising money goodbye (webmasters beware)

I’m going to have to write off what Disqus owes us. No response to this thread, and no response to a DM I sent at their request. Please DM us your account name and site shortname and we will be happy to look into this for you. — DisqusSupport (@DisqusSupport) July 8, 2022 I assume […]

Read More… from Kissing that Disqus advertising money goodbye (webmasters beware)



They’re brainwashed by the cult of Boris, so the next Tory leader will be an ideologue

Sean O’Grady puts into his opinion piece what so many of us have said. He does it far better than I could. They backed Johnson through the Dominic Cummings scandal, through the resignations of two ethics advisers, through the scandal of a party donor paying for the decoration of his flat, through the mishandling of […]

Read More… from They’re brainwashed by the cult of Boris, so the next Tory leader will be an ideologue



Let’s do some maths on Facebook’s user numbers

Bear with me on some maths here.    Facebook says it will delete a milliard ‘faceprints’. In The Guardian: ‘Facebook will delete the “faceprints” of more than a[n American] billion people after announcing that it is shutting down its facial recognition system due to the “many concerns” about using the technology.’    We know that […]

Read More… from Let’s do some maths on Facebook’s user numbers



Facebook knows it doesn’t have as many users as it claims

In the ‘I told you so’ department, from the Murdoch Press this week: An internal Facebook presentation this spring called the phenomenon of single users with multiple accounts “very prevalent” among new accounts. The finding came after an examination of roughly 5,000 recent sign-ups on the service indicated that at least 32% and as many […]

Read More… from Facebook knows it doesn’t have as many users as it claims



It feels like half of Facebook is bot

Here’s a screenshot from the new members of one of my Facebook groups—actually the only public one I still have. Since Facebook lets spammers join now, we have to block them manually. Their posts don’t make it through to the group as we have safeguards there, too. But I’m not going to let them inflate, […]

Read More… from It feels like half of Facebook is bot