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The Persuader
My personal blog, started in 2006. No paid or guest posts, no link sales.
Posts tagged ‘Google’
17.05.2022
Iâve had both Firefox and Opera GX running as replacements for Vivaldi, which still crashes when I click in form fields, though not 100 per cent of the time. Itâs running at about 50 per cent, so the fix they employed to deal with this issue is only half-effective.
I see Firefox still doesnât render type as well. This is a matter of taste, of course, but hereâs one thing I really dislike, where Iâm sure thereâs more agreement among typophiles:

No, not the hyphenation, but the fact the f has been butchered in the process.
The majority of people wonât care about this, but itâs the sort of thing that makes me choose Opera GX over Firefox.
Due to a temporary lapse in good judgement, I attempted to install Ăber again, this time on my Xiaomi. Here are the Tweets relating to that:
Evidently no one at Ăber has ever considered what it would be like if someone actually read the terms and conditions and followed through with some of the instructions in the clauses.
After getting through that, this is the welcome screen:
This is all it does. There’s nothing to click on, and you never move past this screen.
This is less than what I was able to achieve on my Meizu M6 Note when I tried Ăber on thatâat least there it was able to tell me that Ăber is not available in my area (Tawaâand yes, I know Ăber is lying).
This has nothing to do with not having Google Services as my other half has a non-Google Huawei and is able to get the program working.
For me, it’s three out of three phones over six years where this program does not workâand frankly I’m quite happy taking public transport rather than waste my time with this lemon. Maybe one day they will get it working for all Android phones, but I won’t hold my breath.
Tags: 2022, Firefox, Google, Google Android, Opera, technology, Twitter, typography, Ăber, web browser, Xiaomi Posted in internet, technology, typography | No Comments »
08.05.2022
One annoying thing about switching the majority of our sites to HTTPS is losing our positions in the search engines.
We were always told that HTTPS would lead to rises in search-engine ranking, and that being a mere HTTP would lead to Google downgrading you.
The reality, as Iâve witnessed since we completed our server migration, is the opposite.
Take a search for my name. Since the 1990s, Jack Yan & Associates will wind up being first or second, and when this website came online in the early 2000s, it tended to be first. Stands to reason: my name, followed by dot com, is most likely what a searcher is looking for. Both sites were regular HTTP.
Weâve lost first and second places. For my searches, Google puts this site at eighth, and Duck Duck Go doesnât even have it in the top 10 (itâs 15th), info box aside. The company falls on the third page in Google and a shocking fifth in Duck Duck Go.
I was told that eventually the search engines will sort things out but itâs been two months, so you wonder just how slowly they act. If at all.
The business site has plenty of inbound links, and I imagine this site has a fair share.
Iâve fixed up some internal references to http:// after advice from some friends, but that hasnât done the trick.
I find it pretty disheartening to find that, once again, in practice, the exact opposite to conventional wisdom happens. You would think this was a routine matter, and that search engines were programmed to accept such changes, understanding that, content-wise, the secure site is the same as the formerly insecure site. After decades of search engine development, it looks like, at least to this layman, that hasnât happened. You have to start afresh even when you have the most relevant site to the search.
Tags: 2022, Duck Duck Go, Google, search engines Posted in business, internet, marketing, technology | 2 Comments »
28.03.2022
There are a few experiments going on here now that this blog is on the new server. Massive thanks to my friend who has been working tirelessly to get us on to the new box and into the 2020s.
First, thereâs a post counter, though as itâs freshly installed, it doesnât show a true count. There is a way to get the data out of Yuzo Related Posts into the counterâeven though thatâs not entirely accurate, either, it would be nice to show the record counts I had back in 2016 on the two posts revealing Facebookâs highly questionable âmalware scannerâ.

Secondly, we havenât found a good related post plug-in to replace Yuzo. Youâll see two sets of related posts here. The second is by another company who claims their software will pick up the first image in each post in the event that I have not set up a featured image or thumbnail; as you can see, it doesnât do what it says on the tin.
Some of you will have seen a bunch of links from this blog sent out via social media as the new installation became live, and I apologize for those.
Please bear with us while we work through it all. The related post plug-in issue has been the big one: there are many, but they either donât do as they claimed, or they have terrible design. Even Wordpressâs native one cannot do the simple task of taking the first image from a post, which Yuzo does with ease.
Recently a friend recommended a Google service to me, and of course I responded that I would never touch anything of theirs, at least not willingly. The following isnât addressed to him, but the many who have taken exception to my justified concerns about the company, and about Facebook, and their regular privacy breaches and apparent lack of ethics.
In short: I donât get you.
And I try to have empathy.
When I make my arguments, they arenât pulled out of the ether. I try to back up what Iâve said. When I make an attack in social media, or even in media, thereâs a wealth of reasons, many of which have been detailed on this blog.
Of course there are always opposing viewpoints, so itâs fine if you state your case. And of course itâs fine if you point out faults in my argument.
But to point the âtut tutâ finger at me and imply that I either shouldnât or Iâm mistaken, without backing yourselves up?
So where are you coming from?
In the absence of any supporting argument, there are only a handful of potential conclusions.
1. Youâre corrupt or you like corruption. You donât mind that these companies work outside the law, never do as they claim, invade peopleâs privacy, and place society in jeopardy.
2. You love the establishment and you donât like people rocking the boat. It doesnât matter what they do, theyâre the establishment. Theyâre above us, and thatâs fine.
3. You donât accept othersâ viewpoints, or youâre unable to grasp them due to your own limitations.
4. Youâre blind to whatâs been happening or you choose to turn a blind eye.
Iâve heard this bullshit my entire life.
When I did my first case at 22, representing myself, suing someone over an unpaid bill, I heard similar things.
âMaybe thereâs a reason he hasnât paid you.â
âThey never signed a contract, so no contract exists.â
As far as I can tell, they were a variant of those four, since one of the defendants was the president of a political party.
I won the case since I was in the right, and a bunch of con artists didnât get away with their grift.
The tightwad paid on the last possible day. I was at the District Court with a warrant of arrest for the registrar to sign when he advised me that the money had been paid in that morning.
I did this case in the wake of my motherâs passing.
It amazed me that there were people who assumed I was in the wrong in the setting of a law student versus an establishment white guy.
Their defence was full of contradictions because they never had any truth backing it up.
I also learned just because Simpson Grierson represented them that no one should be scared of big-name law firms. Later on, as I served as an expert witness in many cases, that belief became more cemented.
Equally, no one should put any weight on what Mark Zuckerberg says since history keeps showing that he never means it; and we should believe Google will try one on, trying to snoop wherever they can, because history shows that they will.
Ancient history with Google? Here’s what its CEO said, as quoted in CNBC, in February. People lap this up without question (apart from the likes of Bob Hoffman, who has his eyes open, and a few others). How many people on this planet again? It wasn’t even this populated in Soylent Green (which supposedly takes place in 2022, if you’re looking at the cinematic version).

Tags: 1990s, 1994, 1995, 2016, 2022, Big Tech, corruption, Facebook, friends, Google, history, Labour, law, server, technology, Wordpress Posted in business, internet, New Zealand, politics, technology, Wellington | No Comments »
10.01.2022

For homeowners and buyers, thereâs a great guide from Moisture Detection Co. Ltd. called What You Absolutely Must Know About Owning a Plaster-Clad Home, subtitled The Origin of New Zealandâs Leaky Building Crisis and Must-Know Information for Owners to Make Their Homes Weathertight, and Regain Lost Value.
My intent isnât to repeat someoneâs copyrighted information in full, but there are some highlights in there that show how the erosion of standards has got us where we are today. Itâs frightening because the decline in standards has been continual over decades, and the authorities donât seem to know what they are doingâwith perhaps the exception of the bidding of major corporations who want to sell cheap crap.
The document begins with the 1950s, when all was well, and houses rarely rotted. Houses had to have treated timber, be ventilated, and have flashings.
They note:
By the time 1998 rolled around, NZ Standards, the Building Industry Association, and BRANZ had systematically downgraded the ‘Belts and Braces’ and were allowing houses to be built with untreated framing, with no ventilation, and poorly designed or non-existent flashings and weatherproofing.
Councils accepted these changes at ‘face value’ without historical review. They issued building consents, inspected the houses, and gave Code of Compliance Certificates. Owners believed they had compliant, well-constructed buildings, but they did not.
Shockingly, by 1992, the treatment level for framing timber could be with âpermethrins (the same ingredient as fly spray)’, while one method used methanol as a solvent and increased decay. By 1998 âUntreated Kiln Dried Timber (UTKD) was allowed for framingâ. The standards improved slightly by 2005 but itâs still well off what was accepted in 1952 and 1972.
We recently checked out a 2009 build using plaster cladding and researching the methods of construction, including the types with cavities, we are far from convinced the problems are gone.
Talking to some building inspectors, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence on how shaky things still look.
Since we moved to Tawa and made some home improvements, we realize a lot of people in the trade do not know what they are talking about, or try to sell you on a product totally unsuited to your needs. This post is not the place for a discussion on that topic, but one day I might deal with it.
However, I am surprised that so many of the tried-and-trusted rules continue to be ignored.
Sometimes people like me go on about âthe good old daysâ not because we don rose-coloured glasses, but we take from them the stuff that worked.
Itâs not unlike what Bob Hoffman included in his newsletter today.
As Iâve also no desire to take the most interesting partâa diagram showing that for every dollar spent on programmatic online advertising, a buyer only gets 3Âą of value âof real display ads viewed by real human peopleââI ask you to click through.
Again, itâs about basic principles. If so many people in the online advertising space are fudging their figuresâand thereâs plenty of evidence about thatâthen why should we spend money with them? To learn that you get 3Âą of value for every dollar spent, surely thatâs a big wake-up call?
It wonât be, which is why Facebook and Google will still make a ton of money off people this year.
The connected theme: rich buggers conning everyday people and too few having the bollocks to deal with them, including officials who are meant to be working for us.
Tags: 1950s, 1970s, 1972, 1990s, 1992, 2005, 2020s, 2022, Aotearoa, Bob Hoffman, crime, fraud, Google, history, industry, marketing, New Zealand, online advertising, real estate, standards Posted in business, internet, marketing, New Zealand, technology, USA | No Comments »
31.12.2021
Weâre probably far enough along from the event for people not to know which one I am referring to, as Iâve no wish to embarrass the organizers.
Earlier in 2021, we saw a weekend event that would take place at the âJohnsonville Community Hubâ. No address was given other than that. Both Duck Duck Go and Google seemed to think this meant Waitohi, the new library and swimming pool complex.
We arrived there to find that no one knew of this event, but maybe we could try the community hall next door?
No joy.
There was the Collective Community Hub on Johnsonville Road but their website made it clear that it wasnât open at the weekend.
We hung round Johnsonville for a bit and decided we would check out the Collective place, just to see it up close.
Sure enough, thatâs where the event wasâit was open at the weekendâand we got there after everyone had packed up.
They were very apologetic and we told them the above. They had noted, however, that there had been more information on Facebook.
To me, thatâs a big mistake, because I donât know what their Facebook page is, and even if I did, there was no guarantee I would see it for a variety of reasons. (Try loading any fan page on Facebook on mobile: the posts take unbearably long and few people would have the patience.) A search for the event on both Duck Duck Go and Google never showed a Facebook page, either.
A similar event posted its cancellation on Facebook exclusively, something which we didnât know till we got there, and after getting puzzled looks from the party that had booked the venue, I randomly found one organizerâs page and clicked on his Facebook link. Again, nothing about the event itself came up on Duck Duck Go or on Google.
In the latter case, the organizer had the skills to make a web page, a normal one, so was it so hard to put the cancellation there?
You just canât find things on Facebook. They donât appear to be indexed. And if they are, theyâre probably so far down the resultsâ pages that they wonât be seen. If youâre organizing an event, by all means, post there to those who use Facebook keenly (a much smaller number than you think, with engagement decreasing year after year), but it is no substitute for getting it into properly indexed event calendars or on to the web, where regular people will put in search terms and look for it.
Facebook is not the internet. Thank God.
Tags: 2021, Aotearoa, Duck Duck Go, event marketing, events, Facebook, Google, marketing, New Zealand, promotion, search engine, social media, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara Posted in business, internet, marketing, New Zealand, Wellington | No Comments »
11.12.2021
There were a few surprises switching to Xiaomi.
First up, it asked me to do a voice identification by saying these four words, ć°ç±ććž. Only thing is, it doesnât understand Cantonese.

The default weather app was able to give me details based on exactly where I am (location service turned on, and I was given fair warning that it would be). Thatâs superior to Meizuâs default weather app, and the after-market Android one I downloaded years ago for my old Meizu M2 Note.

This was a bit disturbing for a Chinese-spec phone: thereâs still a Google app in there. I wonder if it sent anything before I restricted it, then deleted it. Permissions included being able to read your contactsâ list. I didnât agree to Google getting anything.

It prompted me to turn on the phone finder, even after we had established that Iâm in New Zealand and everything was being done in English. Nek minnit:

Iâm finding it remarkable that a 2021 phone does not incorporate the time zone into file dates. I expected this to have been remedied years ago, but I was surprised to see that the photos I took, while the phone was on NZDT, had their timestamp without the UTC plus-13 offset. As a result, Iâve had to set the phone to UTC as Iâve had to do with all prior phones for consistency with my computersâ work files. The plus side: unlike my previous two phones, I can specify UTC rather than a location that might be subject to daylight saving.
Unlike the M2 Note, but like the M6 Note, it doesnât remember my preferred mode when itâs being charged by a computer via USB. I have to set it every time. The newer the technology, the more forgetful?
Otherwise itâs proved to be a very practical successor to the Meizus, MIUI is prettier than Flyme (although Iâm missing that skinâs translation features and the ability to select text and images regardless of the program via Aicy), and on the whole itâs doing what I ask of it, even picking 5G in town. Importantly, it receives calls and SMSs, and the battery isn’t swelling up.
Tags: 2021, cellphone, China, design, Google, Google Android, privacy, software, technology, Xiaomi, ć°ç±ł Posted in China, design, technology | No Comments »
23.10.2021
Of course a Reddit post like this appeals to me.
The one quote a few Redditers have picked out: ‘As I’ve often lamented, Google has reduced the Web to a brothel of whores competing to give a robot the best blow job.’
One awful thing the poster notes is (link removed, but you can see it on the original post): ‘I got a spam email from a scumbag black hat criminal fraudulent crooked waste of money SEO company this morning ⊠What they do is take money to put up spam links to a company’s competitors’ sites to hurt the competitors’ Web presence âŠ
âThe even sadder thing is that the black-hat SEO actually works. Google’s bots are so stupid that tactics like this will in fact harm the targeted companies.’
This is, in fact, the big concern I have with the Google My Business panels. Anyone can coordinate some negative reviews and mess you up, and there are no safeguards against it.
Finally, they write this: ‘Without exception, the stupidest people I’ve ever dealt with in IT have all worked for Google.’
I’ve only met a handful of people who worked for them. One was really on the ball. Another helped me out virtually (Rick Klau). But if they’re right based on a larger sample, this explains a lot.
Tags: 2021, Google, humour, Reddit, search engine Posted in business, internet, technology | No Comments »
21.10.2021

Shared on my social media on the day, but I had been waiting for an opportunity to note this on my blog.
It was an honour last week to guest on Leonard Kimâs Grow Your Influence Tree, his internet talk show on VoiceAmerica. Leonard knows plenty about marketing and branding, so I thought it might be fun to give his listeners a slightly different perspectiveânamely through publishing. And since I know his listenersâ usual topics, I didnât stray too far from marketing.
We discuss the decrease in CPM rates online; the importance of long-form features to magazines (and magazine websites) and how that evolution came about; how search engines have become worse at search (while promoting novelty; on this note Iâve seen Qwant do very well on accuracy); how great articles can establish trust in a brand and falling in love with the content you consume (paraphrasing Leonardâs words here); Lucireâs approach to global coverage and how that differs to other titlesâ; the need to have global coverage and how that potentially unites people, rather than divide them; how long-form articles are good for your bottom line; how stories work in terms of brand-building; how Google News favours corporate and mainstream sources; and the perks of the job.
This was a great hour, and it was just such a pleasure to talk to someone who is at the same level as me to begin with, and who has a ready-made audience that doesnât need the basics explained to them. It didnât take long for Leonard and me to get into these topics and keep the discussion at a much higher level than what I would find if it was a general-audience show. Thank you, Leonard!
Listen to my guest spot on Leonardâs show here, and check out his website and his Twitter (which is how we originally connected). And tune in every Thursday 1 p.m. Pacific time on the VoiceAmerica Influencers channel for more episodes with his other guests!
Tags: 2021, branding, California, Google, internet, interview, Jack Yan, Leonard Kim, Lucire, marketing, media, radio, Twitter, USA, VoiceAmerica Posted in branding, business, internet, marketing, media, New Zealand, publishing, technology, USA | No Comments »
09.09.2021
Refreshingly, Iâve noticed that my more recent blog posts havenât been about Big Tech as often. I havenât changed my views: the ones Iâve stated earlier still stand, and Google and Facebook in particular continue to be a blight on democracy and even individual mental health.
A lot of the posts were inspired by real-world usage of those websites, if you look back over the last decade. As I use them irregularly, and wish others were in the same boat, then thereâs little to report, unless I come across new revelations that I might have a say about.
Google is the search of last resort though it has a great translator; now that the news alerts donât even work, thatâs one fewer contact point with the online advertising monopolist. Facebook is good for monitoring who has breached my privacy by uploading my private data to the platform, and to delete off-Facebook activity (Facebook serves these pages at a ridiculously slow speed, you wonder if youâre on dial-up). Beyond that neither site has much utility.
My Instagram usage is down to once every two months, which means itâs halved since 2020, though I still keep an eye on Lucireâs account, which isnât automated.
I stay in touch with some friends on email and thereâs much to be said about a long-form composition versus a status update. Itâs the difference between a home-cooked meal and a fast food snack. And, of course, I have this blog to record things that might pique my interest.
Go back far enoughâas this blogâs been around 15 yearsâand I shared my musings on the media and branding. My blogâs roots were an offshoot of the old Beyond Branding blog, but I wanted to branch into my own space. A lot of my views on branding haven’t changed, so I haven’t reblogged about them. Each time someone introduced another platform, be it Vox or Tumblr, I found a use for it, but ultimately came back here. Just last week I realized that the blog gallery, which came into being because NewTumblâs moderators started believing in the Republic of Gilead, was really my substitute for Pinterest. It might even be my substitute for Instagram, if I can be bothered getting the photos off my phone.
I must say itâs a relief to have everything on my own domain, and while itâs not âsocialâ, I have to ask myself how much of Instagramming and social media updating ever was. Twitter, yes, to an extent. But oftentimes with Instagram I posted because I got joy from doing so, over trying to please an audience. Itâs why I never got that many followers, because it wasnât a themed account. And if doing what suits me at the time is the motive, then thereâs no real detriment to doing so in my own spaces. These posts still get hundreds of viewers each, probably more than what I got on Facebook or Instagram.
I donât know if this is a trend, since setting up your own space takes far more time than using someone elseâs. Paying for it is another burden others may wish to avoid. Nor do I have the latest stats on Facebook engagement, but when I did track it, it was heading south year on year. I do know that the average reach for an organic post continues to fall there, which is hardly a surprise with all the bots. Instagram just seems full of ads.
But in my opinion, fewer contact points with Big Tech is a good thing, and may they get fewer still.
Tags: 2021, Beyond Branding, Big Tech, blogosphere, email, Facebook, Google, Instagram, Medinge Group, Pinterest, social media, technology Posted in business, culture, interests, internet, technology | No Comments »
03.09.2021

Above: Coverage in Business Desk, with me pictured with Lucire fashion and beauty editor Sopheak Seng.
Big thanks to Daniel Dunkley, who wrote this piece about me and my publishing work in Business Desk, well worth subscribing to (coincidentally, I spotted an article about my friend and classmate Hamish Edwards today, too).
I had a lengthy chat with Daniel because he asked great questionsâthe fact he got a lot out of me shows how good a journalist he is. And he reveals some of our more recent developments, as well as my thoughts on the industry in generalâthings I hadnât really got on to record often to a journalist, certainly not in the last few years.
I had my Business Desk alerts switched off so I didnât know he had already written his story (on the day of our interview) till another friend and classmate told me earlier this week. It also shows that Googleâs News Alerts are totally useless, something that I realized recently when it took them three weeks to send the alert (the time between its original spidering of the article and the email being sent out). Those had been worsening over the years and I had seen them be one or two days behind, but now they rarely arrive. Three weeks is plain unacceptable for one of the last services on Google I still used.
Back to Danielâs story. Itâs a great read, and Iâm glad someone here in Aotearoa looked me up. I realize most of our readers are abroad and we earn most from exports, but a lot of what weâve done is to promote just how good our country is. Iâm proud of what weâre able to achieve from our part of the world.


Above: Google News Alerts take an awfully long time to arrive, if at all. I hadn’t seen one for weeks, then this one arrives, three weeks after Google News spidered and indexed the article. Google feels like another site that now fails to get the basics right.
Tags: 2021, Aotearoa, Auckland, Bauer, business, fashion magazine, Google, journalism, JY&A Media, licensing, Lucire, Lucire KSA, magazine, magazines, media, New Zealand, publishing, Saudi Arabia, Scots College, Sopheak Seng, St Markâs Church School, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara Posted in business, internet, media, New Zealand, publishing, Wellington | 1 Comment »
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