More Links for Geeks

By Jay Thompson | October 28, 2007

There were three geeky stories that grabbed most of the blogspace this week:

Google Page Rank Updates

Much of the blogiverse was in a tizzy this week as several major blogs took a big hit in Google Page Rank (PR). We’re talking about major blogs going from PR7 to PR4.

Andy Beard had one of the first definitive posts on the (as it’s been variously dubbed) — massacre, slaughter, controversy, conspiracy.

No one seemed to be reporting a drop in traffic, or changes in search results. Just a shrinking of the little green PR bar in the browser toolbar. Many of those crying foul the loudest were SEO people who’ve generally been saying PR doesn’t really matter anymore.

Methinks many just couldn’t take the ego crushing that was happening.

I do find it ironic that YouTube, for which Google itself paid $1,600,000,000, now has a Google PR of 3 — lower than my blog, this blog and tens of thousands of others. (Note to Google: You can buy PhoenixRealEstateGuy for significantly less than what you paid for YouTube).

And as always happens in a PR update, many impacted blogs are already moving back to where they were.

I think Darren Rowse said it best in his post, “The Google Page Rank Pendulum Swings…. Again“, with this nugget:

Forget about Page Rank and Build a Better Blog. Build a quality site that builds community, attracts readers from as many sources as possible (relying upon Google traffic as a sole source of traffic isn’t a smart move) and build a blog that enhances people’s lives.

Microsoft Buys a (tiny) Portion of Facebook

As was widely reported, Microsoft purchased a 1.6% stake in the social network Facebook for $240 million. Let’s do the math… $240,000,000 / 0.016 = $15,000,000,000. Facebook is worth FIFTEEN BILLION DOLLARS?!? Wow. Lots of folks (myself included) thought 23 year old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was nuts for turning down a reported $1B from Yahoo! last year. As a holder of 20% of Facebook, he’s now worth $3B (on paper). If I were 23 years old and worth three billion dollars, I’d cash out now. (Note to Microsoft: You can buy 100% of PhoenixRealEstateGuy for significantly less than what you paid for 1.6% of Facebook.)

Here are some interesting takes on the Microsoft / Facebook deal.

Apple Releases New Operating System

I used to work for Motorola manufacturing microprocessors like the 68000 that went into the original 1984 version of the MacIntosh. I stopped using Mac’s in 1993 when Motorola for some bizarre reason switched over to Windoze based PCs despite the fact they were at the time the sole supplier of the new Mac PowerPC microprocessor.

Mac OS X v10.5, aka Leopard was released Friday. Not having used a Mac in over a decade, I can’t comment about it, but this looks like a good review, and Engadget has a comparison of Leopard to Windows Vista.

Speaking of Apple, did you know that you can no longer buy an iPhone with cash?!

Author's Website: http://www.phoenixrealestateguy.com

Topics: Links for Geeks |

One Response to “More Links for Geeks”

Ken @ Realivent Says:
October 30th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Facebook turned down $1billion offer last year and is now worth $15billion. Automatic (makers of Wordpress) just turned down a $200million offer! So will Wordpress be worth $3billion next year ? Jay so if you wait, PhoenixRealEstateGuy will also be 15x current valuation by this time next year…