http://dendory.net Dendory Blog en-us http://dendory.net/?b=519c2740

Today was the release of patch 5.3 for World of Warcraft. It continues the story line for the whole Pandaren campaign. There are new scenarios, and those are both fairly interesting, similar in length and difficulty as the past scenarios. Those remain my favorite pieces of Q'able content in the game. They also put in heroic scenarios which require a full group but I haven't tried them out yet.

This patch also brings in the Battle of the Barrens. There are some interesting quests leading up to the main mission which has you gather up 600 items in a weekly quest. You can kill mobs for them, but the less insane way to do it is hunting random spawn bosses along with defending or attacking caravans. The whole area is fairly well done, but since everything is open world, imbalances appear pretty quickly. These boss mobs die very quickly, so if you're hunting them for resources you need a fast mount. Caravans are a PvP event, so whichever side has the biggest population will typically win.

This patch also has a new battleground, and continues the legendary weapon quest. There is no new raid, and while the Barrens has some quests, it is nowhere near what 5.2 or 5.1 brought us. In fact content-wise this patch seems rather slim. As for loot, they went a new and really weird way. You can buy pieces of armor that have no stats, and when combined with an item you get from the weekly quest, they get turned into a piece appropriate for your class specialization. The one I got was ilvl 489 which means if all the rewards are like that, there's nothing I can use except the vanity items.]]> Tue, 21 May 2013 19:02:40 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=5197e5a6

I've always liked the concept of Google Plus, a social network based on a topic graph instead of a people graph. Circles centre around interests instead of individuals, and I've always found interesting posts on the site, and not just a place for farming invitations.

But one thing has always annoyed me, and I believe has impeded its adoption. Google Plus is a very closed up walled garden, worse than Facebook. The company has promised write APIs since the beginning, but never delivered. At this point it seems unlikely they will ever allow third party clients to write to Google Plus. This means when I share a picture on my phone, I have the option to tweet it, but not post it to Google Plus. When I read an interesting story on the IGN, GameSpot, Pinterest or any other app, I always have the option to share it to Twitter or Facebook, never Google Plus.

But even worse, Google Plus doesn't have any sharing option at all. In the app, all you can do is share within Google Plus, or report a post. There isn't even an 'open in browser' option. Almost every single app, either native or web-based, has at least a tweet option. The ironic thing is that YouTube has the most sharing-happy app out there, with a dozen different options. If Google is really serious about promoting Google Plus, they need to change that.]]> Sat, 18 May 2013 13:33:42 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=519443c3 When the Internet first started, it was the ultimate example of a decentralized network. All they had at the time were nodes, connected through this ever evolving network, providing resources to each others, sending messages in a peer to peer manner, and communicating remotely. Even prior to things like the web and email, we had BBS servers, something that anyone could setup in their own basement to host files and messages, and others would dial in directly to the server.

But as time went on, things became more centralized. Now, if I open up a communication program in order to send a private message to another person, there are countless organizations and companies involved. The ISP is always there, providing our basic connections, but chances are the communication software is also centralized. This can be a benefit, but it can also be a privacy risk, as became obvious this week when a news report came out that Microsoft is monitoring and checking every URL sent over private Skype messages.

This isn't much of a surprise. Even though sending a private message to someone else should be something that could easily be done in a peer to peer manner, that isn't the way things work anymore. When we open Skype or another modern messaging software, we actually send that message to a company, which then redistributes it. It can and does monitor everything we say. Of course, their terms of services say that they can, and Microsoft says it simply is part of their anti-spam system, but it's still a privacy invasion.

Even sending an email is getting more centralized all the time. Not only do we not run our own mail server, and instead rely on a third party to accept those messages for us, but increasingly we keep the content on their servers, sometimes forever, and simply access them through IMAP. Google is even pushing the concept of keeping attachments in Google Drive instead of on our own computers. In a word, everything online is getting very centralized. This is bad for privacy concerns, not only from the companies themselves but also governments, and it's bad for many other reasons as well. As we trust companies to do more and more for us, we place ourselves at their mercy. If Google kicks you out as a user tomorrow, how easy will it be for you to move on and switch services?

This is why I'm glad there are still advances being made in peer to peer systems, like the recent introduction of BitTorrent Sync. I really wish we had ubiquitous encryption, ensuring that no one can monitor anything that goes on online, fully open protocols instead of the wall gardens which we now see everywhere, and most importantly, more decentralization. Twitter should not be one service, it should be an open protocol that many organizations run. The cloud should not be owned by one or two companies, but instead be an open cloud architecture, and decentralization should be the default when web startups come up with new ideas, instead of building more centralized systems.]]> Wed, 15 May 2013 19:26:11 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=518fdcdd
Pros
The main pro of having my own freelance business is the freedom that it affords. I no longer have to conform to a 9 to 5 schedule. I can wake up and go to bed when I want and work as much or as little as I want, during the hours that I want. No other job can give you so much freedom. You can also focus on doing what you like. I've always liked creating content, writing and making blog posts, so that's the core of my business.

Another pro is the relaxed work atmosphere. There is no boss to yell at you and no endless commuting when you work out of your own home. Being able to work at home, or really anywhere with a laptop or tablet, that means I can spend a lot more time during the summer out in the sun, and not have to go out in the cold blizzards of winter.

Cons
Of course everything is not all rosy either. This lack of a boss also means you need a high level of discipline, which has always been a problem for me. If I have something I would like to do, but there's a deadline coming up, then I have no choice but do the work that has to be done, which is something I sometimes struggle with.

But the biggest con of doing freelance work is the financial part. My income is directly linked to the success of my marketing efforts, and if I don't get enough contracts at the end of the month I don't bring in enough money either. Worse, even if I do the work, I never know whether I'll get paid or not. It's amazing how many scammers and thieves there are online. People who hire you to do some work, then never intend to pay. The percentage of people who don't pay is fairly high, and even those who do, I often have to spend a lot of time sending reminders and it can take months to get them to move. This even applies to companies that should know better.

Working full time as a freelancer is not for everyone. For now, the pros weigh more than the cons, but that could well change at some point. The freelance writing market especially is a very competitive and hard market, as I've written in the past.]]> Sun, 12 May 2013 11:18:05 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=518bfb0c

Neverwinter is just the latest MMORPG to be released, and one of the activities I tried in that game is something I tend to like in any online game: Role Playing. But it always surprises me that regardless how large the RP community is, game creators make so few efforts to implement basic elements to make the lives of RPers easier. Here are some basic must-have features that any modern MMO game should have.

Chat bubbles are controversial, and many people don't like them, but I feel they should be an option. In heavy RP scenes, it isn't rare to see a dozen people all talking at once. This makes any chat window scroll very fast. By having chat bubbles, you can concentrate on characters standing near you instead of having to read everything.

Proper emotes should be available. This includes things that anyone would do in real life such as waving, hugging, bowing, nodding, flirting, dancing, and so on. The ability to sit, kneel or lay down are also crucial for many RP scenes.

You should have the ability to know who someone's target is. For example, in World of Warcraft, by targeting someone you can see the portrait of whoever they have targeted under their name. In SWTOR, characters turn their head towards their target. I feel the best would be having both. This way, you know who someone is addressing without having to constantly repeat the person's name.

Vanity items are often seen as a reward for casual gamers, but they can be very useful for RP as well. SWTOR for example has a lot of items designed especially for role players, like binoculars, a map, a holocom unit, and so on.

Proper locations such as empty and customizable rooms are also key, since role playing is often done around make-belief locales. There needs to be empty buildings, empty rooms with basic elements like chairs and tables but no in-game purpose. Whether they serve as make-shift taverns, or enemy outposts in combat RP events, there has to be room for RPers. Similarly, customizable locations are always appreciated, such as player housing, guild houses, and so on.

Customization has to also be available in social gear. WoW's transmogrification feature is awesome, because you can wear the latest armor without having to look like a clown. You can select the look of any past armor you own. SWTOR also has a lot of social gear like cantina outfits, imperial uniforms, and so on. Having as many gear customization features as possible is very important to RPers so people can get into character easily.

Finally, there has to be ways for RPers to communicate and find each others. This is usually done with custom chat channels but more could often be done on that front. In WoW, many role players use a mod called MyRP, but this could be integrated in the game itself. Fields for things like biography, history, home town, role play type and so on can be placed in a character sheet.]]> Thu, 9 May 2013 12:37:48 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=51894254
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Today, Adobe announced that it no longer would be offering its software for sale. Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and so on will now only be available as part of its Creative Cloud subscription model, a service where you have to pay every single month to access your own software.

It's no surprise that this was the end goal for Adobe, as it is for most software companies, but it happened much faster than I thought it would. The cloud subscription system has been in place for a few years, but now this becomes the only option for people who need to use Adobe products, which includes a large amount of people. Of course, Adobe isn't alone. Microsoft Office 2013 is now being offered as both a purchased product and a subscription service. There should be no doubt that the end goal once again is to get rid of the purchase option, and that at some point Microsoft will do the same thing, which will only push other companies to follow suite.

''The latest SimCity is a prime example of what can happen in cloud services''Subscription services used to be for software that had a heavy need for server infrastructure. Things like MMO games or payment software, both requiring servers to maintain a large part of the ecosystem, along with regular updates. But I personally find this trend to apply subscription models to everything highly troubling. The latest SimCity is a prime example of what can happen in cloud services. This is a game that has traditionally always been single player, yet now they forced it into a cloud system and players have encountered a myriad of problems.

The gain for these companies is pretty easy to see. Adobe products are expensive, and people quite often do not buy a new version of Photoshop every single year. But if the only option is to keep paying, then they in effect end up forcing you to upgrade every year, whether you want to or not. Microsoft Office is an even more ridiculous proposition. There are very few cases where someone would require the latest version of Microsoft Word. In fact, Office 2010 does 99% of what everyone needs a word processor for.

In just a few years, we'll find ourselves in a world where few software can be bought. Everything will be in the cloud, and everything will require you to pay on an on-going basis to have access to your software. Just think about all your library of software programs, everything you ever bought and still keep around just in case you need them. Now think if all of those required you to pay a few bucks every month, the nightmare that would be. Do you keep paying, or forgo your option to use something you paid for? There are even rumors that the Windows Desktop could become a subscription service.

If there was ever a case for open source, free software, and independent alternatives, this is it. I have no intention to ever pay a monthly fee for desktop software, but as time moves on, the available options may be reduced by a lot.]]> Mon, 6 May 2013 15:51:46 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=51804ef2

Today was the start of Neverwinter, the new F2P MMO in the Dungeons & Dragons world. I played Neverwinter Nights several years ago so I was eager to try it out. After about four hours of gameplay, I would say my overall impression is meh.

Neverwinter is an ambitious project by Perfect World, a company who made several other games like Star Trek Online and Torchlight. The game itself is a pretty well rounded fantasy title, with all of the basic stuff you would expect from a modern MMO, as well as some extra things like the Foundry, a way for people to help create quests and missions for others in the D&D universe. One nice point is that all of the main quest dialogs are voiced, which I think is needed for any modern MMO. They also have a path feature that can show you the way to any quest way-point, again a very useful thing.

On the graphics side, the character creation is very nice and has a lot of options, but while the characters look decent there, in game everything looks a bit washed out. From a distance, most characters look exactly the same. While that may change at end game, the clothing and armor diversity is pretty slim too. There's also only a handful of classes available, and when in game, you only have a very small number of skills that you can use. I know this was a deliberate choice, but only having 4 or 5 hotkeys make this seem more like an action game than an MMO.

The game is heavily instanced, like most modern MMOs, but Neverwinter does not feel like an open world. In WoW, even though you have a lot of instancing and phasing going on, you always feel like there is an open world, and you can walk or fly from one place to the next. In this game, every area is cornered off, similar to how Guild Wars does things, and sometimes the zoning process doesn't even make sense. For example, one part of town is in day time, then you cross a gate, and it's completely dark.

''another generic fantasy MMO''As for the launch itself, things looked like they were going fine at first, but they quickly had launcher problems, then massive lag when it came close to peak hours. For a company that already saw the launch of many MMOs, it's puzzling why they had such issues.

I would say my biggest complaint of Neverwinter is that for now, it seems very much like another generic fantasy MMO. In those four hours I haven't really found any hook that would keep me playing. With WoW and SWTOR right now, both of which are quite unique for very different reasons, I just don't see myself being inclined in playing Neverwinter much more. That may change in the future, but for now it may end up being a pass.]]> Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:08:34 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=517fea68

As I've talked about before, I relied on Google Reader for my RSS feeds, something I would consult every day. I both want and need to stay up to date on various news items, and always found Twitter or other social media to be very poor at being a news source. You never see the full feed, and typically miss a lot of items every day as the latest posts scroll by whether you're watching or not, which is a bad way to get the latest news. So I started to try and find a workable alternative to the soon to be gone Google Reader.

My requirements were that it needed an iPhone and iPad app, not rely on Google Reader, and be both visually appealing and customizable. It's amazing how many iOS RSS apps are actually simply clients of Reader. Feeddler is the app I used, but it relies entirely on Reader and there is no sign whether they will modify the app or not. Feedly on the other hand came out and said that they would build their own server side platform, replacing what Google was providing with Reader. This is good, and this app in particular is very popular, but after trying it for a few days I didn't like it. I found that the news items it would surface were inconsistent, and the interface, while visually appealing, was not that great. You only see a few items at a time and you constantly need to swipe around to see more.

Flipboard is one I tried early on. It certainly is the most beautiful app out there for news consumption, and has a lot of sources available, but I found it to not be customizable enough. While it does have many well known news sources, if what you want is not in the list, there is no real way to import it. This turned out to be a deal breaker for me. Finally, I tried out Pulse. This turned out to be the perfect choice for me. It has its own list of news sources like Flipboard, but allows you to bring in RSS feeds found in Google, Facebook pages, and many other types of sources. It shows up the news items in a nice but highly compact way so you can see a lot on a single screen, and the articles themselves are shown in a well formatted way, similar to Readability. The sharing function is also nice, it has a built in URL shortener for when you want to share stories on Twitter. Unfortunately it does not have a web interface, but the iPhone and iPad versions are very well done.

In the end I decided to go with Pulse. If you're also trying to find a Google Reader replacement, I believe that out of all the alternatives, Pulse may be the best one.]]> Tue, 30 Apr 2013 8:59:36 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=5176ea43

One of the criticism of Bitcoin is its wild volatility and swings, like the one we've seen this month. It's a valid criticism, since it can be really hard for a legitimate business to sell products or services in a currency that's worth $100 in the morning, and $235 in the afternoon. There are also those saying that Bitcoin is not stable enough, that a DDoS on one of the largest exchanges, or a group of players messing with the market, can create artificial fluctuations which would not be possible in our modern financial markets.

Those are all valid concerns, but I'm always surprised when people think about our fiat currencies, stocks, bonds and so on as safe and stable. The truth is that anything that has a value which can fluctuate is, by its very definition, susceptible to quick changes based on external factors. This has been plainly visible in many EU countries in the past couple of years. The fact that the Euro exists helps stabilize the value of that currency by a lot, otherwise Cyprus money would have become worthless in recent weeks.

But it doesn't take massive government-level actions for volatility to occur. Just today a single Twitter account, that of the AP, was hacked which led to a massive drop in the value of the Dow:



MarketWatch noted today that Bitcoin is on the way back up, now at $130 from its earlier crash, yet no one seems to be talking about it. When the virtual currency was on the way up, Twitter was abuzz with action, but ever since it came crashing down it's like many analysts came to the conclusion that it was game over.

I won't make predictions as to where the Bitcoin value will eventually end up at, but I think it's foolish to think what we saw this month is a condemnation of the currency. In fact for something that is barely a few years old, it's holding up pretty well.]]> Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:08:35 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=51742ca9

I left World of Warcraft almost six months ago to get back into SWTOR, but after the recent expansion, I was rather underwelmed. So I decided it was time to return to WoW and see what changed.

In the time I was gone, Patch 5.2 was released, and honestly, I would say that this single free patch is higher quality and has just as much things to do than what the paid SWTOR expansion brought. Maybe not in term of total amount of features, but 5.2 has a brand new area, several solo instances with voice overs, a continuing story line, a raid, and dailies which are much better than the crappy SWTOR dailies we're now stuck with at 55.

It's just too bad the WoW lore doesn't come close to Star Wars lore, but for now my priest is roaming the skies of Azeroth once more.]]> Sun, 21 Apr 2013 11:15:05 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=5172d09b people appeal, I feel like it's turning into Tumblr.

For example, today we're Saturday, so my feed is filled with reposts of #Caturday pictures. When the bombing happened this week in Boston, I saw a surprisingly few number of commentaries or well wishes. Instead, everyone was reposting the latest video, CNN news link, or blog post. In fact, I see it directly through my own posts. If I post an image, video or link, especially if it is a popular repost, then it gets a lot more traction than a text post.

Tumblr has long since been known as a repost site. Everyone there seems to spend their time clicking the reblog button. I feel like Google Plus is turning into the same thing. It's getting away from a social network, and turning into a place to repost the latest cat video, funny picture or news link, whereas I can look at Tumblr and Google Plus side by side and see a very similar stream of images and videos. If I look at someone's Twitter or Facebook profile I see an actual person there, learning about some of what they do in life. On most Google Plus profiles, there is little if any context that makes that profile unique, in most cases.

I'm not quite sure how to feel about it yet.]]> Sat, 20 Apr 2013 10:30:03 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=516fe25b

With both an iPad and iPhone, I've downloaded quite a few games in the past. Many of them are fairly involved including shooters, RPGs, strategy games and even MMOs. But looking at my list recently I realized that there was only two that I kept playing regularly to this day: Simpsons Tapped Out and Plants vs Zombies. So I started to wonder on why that was.

I think the main criteria that makes for a good mobile game is the ability to play it in very short bursts. This is very much the case for these two titles, where you can easily go back every day or even every few hours and play for 5 minutes at a time, getting some real progress done. There also needs to be an addictive component. Now I would not be one to say these games are masterpieces, or have any kind of depth. In fact there's no way I would install either game on my PC. I'm not part of the crowd that plays Farmville or similar social games.

''Mobile games need to be addictive within 5 minutes''But that's the big difference between PC or console gaming, and mobile gaming. On my PC, if I want an in-depth game, I play something like Fallout 3, Skyrim or SWTOR. I can dedicate hours to gaming and want the experience to be great during that whole time span. I've tried many of the full on RPG or strategy games on my iPad, but those just don't work for me, because if I have hours, I play on the PC, not my phone or tablet. Mobile games need to be addictive within 5 minutes.

Another aspect is graphics. Now neither Plants vs Zombies or the Simpsons game have breath taking graphics, but they both have very nice stylized ones. I've seen so many games with bad graphics. Some purposely use 8-bit looking sprites, Pocket Planes being one popular title. Some people like these games, but I don't. I rather not have my retina iPhone try to emulate a 1980 console.

So even though I've tried so many games out there, most fail to entertain me because they do not get these basic characteristics: Playable in short bursts, addictive and fun gameplay within a short time, good graphics, and I would add to that a good payment structure. I tend to like the freemium model, either with a demo and full version, or free-to-play with in-game purchases. I'm much less likely to buy something that has no demo, having been burned so many times in the past. So that's my opinion on mobile gaming.]]> Thu, 18 Apr 2013 5:08:59 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=516ce726

Last week the first expansion came out for Star Wars: The Old Republic, and after a few days, I've leveled through to 55 and finished the content on Makeb. This was a highly anticipated event, since it's the first expansion since the game was released. I had worries, even though I like Star Wars, I and many others feel that Bioware and EA have mishandled a great many things about this game.

The expansion brought in a few new features. First, the talent trees changed a bit and classes got some new skills. I can't really say much about them. They feel like minor changes. I only played my Sith Warrior and Jedi Consular, so perhaps other classes see bigger changes, but I don't think these are ground breaking.

The other change was the new levels. They go by fairly quickly. It's easy to get to 55 within a few days. However, the new planet, Makeb, seems like it was designed completely separately from the new levels. If you just go through the storyline, you don't get anywhere close to the max level. Instead you have to go out and do dailies, PvP or other things to get to the right level, which is just one of many little annoyances about this expansion.

When you reach max level, then you have dailies to look forward to, and I feel like they completely dropped the ball this time. Back when the first set of daily quests was released, Black Hole, I found them to be somewhat interesting. Then Section X arrived and those were slightly worse. But now, the Makeb dailies are completely ridiculous. They are much more tedious, and half of them use the awful dig-for-part mechanic.

Overall I would say that Makeb itself has nice graphics, and the fully voiced story line was decent. But everything else was a let down. No new War Zone for PvP, with the PvP balance again being completely messed up. The new dailies are the worse so far. The overuse of the mechanic where you search for parts and dig them out, something I would bet most people dislike, is puzzling to say the least, and all of that to end up at level 55 with much less content than we had at 50, because of the way they handled scaling of current dailies areas, flashpoints and operations. Overall, I feel the whole thing was poorly designed. I would give this expansion a 4/10.]]> Mon, 15 Apr 2013 22:52:38 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=51632721

I use my iPad Mini as my go-to device, what I use when I'm not in front of my desktop. I think it's a great system and is the first tablet that's really portable. But one thing that annoys me on it, on my previous iPad, and on any tablet, is the touchscreen keyboard. I never liked touchscreen keyboards much, I find them slow and unreliable, often missing letters and nothing like using a real keyboard. So I gave in and decided to get a portable keyboard. I tried three before finding a good option.

The first one I tested was the Hip Street keyboard, which is a case with a small Bluetooth keyboard in it. I found this one fairly weak. First, the way that you attach the iPad is through a rotating plastic device, because the case allows you to rotate it while in use. While it's a good idea, in practice it's not very useful. Then, the keyboard itself is not linked to the actual case. That's because if you want to have the iPad stand up, you need to actually pull back on the keyboard almost all the way, which leaves the keyboard alone on the table. The whole case and keyboard combination didn't impress me.

The next one I tried was the Verbatim Bluetooth Keyboard, which is not a case, but instead a separate keyboard that comes with its own pouch. I found the hardware very nice, built of solid aluminum. As a portable keyboard, I think this is as good as it gets, however because it's not a case, it meant I had to carry two things at once. In the end, this was not usable for me.

Finally, I went with the Zagg Wireless Keyboard which, like the first one, is a case and keyboard combination. This model however has the keyboard as the cover. So not only is it not separate from the case, but it is the case, which makes it thinner than other models. Also, it has a stand on the back, which is a much better and more solid way to hold your iPad up, instead of using the back cover in all sorts of ways like so many cases do. The keyboard itself is pretty decent, and while it does not have a clip or magnet to keep it closed, it doesn't try to open by itself, and the cover is very sturdy.

In the end the Zagg is the one I would recommend if you have an iPad mini and want a keyboard to bring with you. Because it's part of the case, that makes it far more convenient to bring with you, and it's solid enough to warrant the price.]]> Mon, 8 Apr 2013 13:22:57 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=51603a1c

This week Facebook introduced its latest project, Facebook Home, an Android based replacement for the home screen. This really is no surprise and makes sense for the company to want a fully integrated experience. The home screen replacement includes all of the Facebook features like chat, the news feed, messages and so on. Of course it also includes deep integration to its web site, with sharing features.

But most of the coverage has been about privacy concerns. Now these are not new concerns, and Facebook has been in the news for a long time because of the data it collects about users. This is hardly new, and I fail to see what anyone would expect when you take one of the biggest data collection site on the web, and give them complete control over your smartphone. Of course it is going to collect every piece of information it can. This is how Facebook makes money, and is no different than what it has always done.

I am not saying here that nobody should look into this, but you would have to be naive to go and install this fully integrated Facebook system and think that the site would not collect the things you are doing using that system. My point is that this is a completely voluntary act. If someone goes out and gets a Facebook phone, it's because they want to live in the Facebook universe. Meanwhile, we have things like the CISPA replacement going through the US legislation, we have warrant less phone and email tracking, 6-strike laws, cellphone companies offering our location data for a profit, and all sorts of real issues out there, things that cannot be opted out.

Facebook Home might collect data about you, but regardless of the arguments for or against it, that is a completely voluntary site. No one is forcing you to use this thing. Lets focus our efforts on things we are forced to use.]]> Sat, 6 Apr 2013 8:07:08 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=51538e77
Recently however, I've experienced some strange results after taking some CPC ads on a particular, popular forum. This involved keyword targeting, where the forum software would automatically scan for words that people use in their posts, and would show links in the body of the post, which usually brings a higher click-through rate. However, clicking on that link does not bring the user to the target site. Instead, it's just a keyword, and the ad would popup when the user hovers or clicks on that word.

The ad management console that they use showed a series of clicks, and each was charged for. However, the analytics software on the advertiser's site did not correspond with those numbers. I could not see an increase in viewership, never mind conversion. So I started investigating, and it turns out that what they consider a 'click' is not a click through the target site, but simply a click on the keyword in order to show the ad. In essence, they turned a CPC model into CPM, but still charging their higher CPC rates.

Needless to say, this was a poor experiment, and I will stay away from these types of forums. On top of that, it makes cheating much easier. Most ad networks use sophisticated algorithms to detect things like click fraud, but there's no way to know if their 'clicks' are even valid, since the forum admins are the only ones to know who actually clicked on the keywords to see the ads. I think any decent site who offers a Cost Per Click system should count only clicks that lead to the advertising web site, not some in-between where a keyword gets clicked to show the real ad. Live and learn.]]> Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:27:35 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=514b835a spiked in the country. Some people are getting their funds and transferring them to Bitcoins instead.

I've followed the Bitcoin craze for a while now, but I never participated. I really like the idea of an international currency that is not controlled by any government or corporation. Right now, money is controlled by companies (the Federal Reserve is a private business) and regulated by governments, which to me seems like the worse situation. Bitcoin is virtual, impossible to control, and can be completely anonymous. I think it's inevitable that the world will move in this direction at some point, whether it's with Bitcoin or something else.

My main worries about Bitcoin are that it's still a young phenomenon which means we don't know what potential technical issues or bugs can appear in the system, and until enough people accept Bitcoins, it's a chicken-and-egg problem, where you simply don't have a lot of exit portals for your virtual coins. But after watching the ridiculous precedent that the EU tried to establish by taking up to 10% in tax from the savings from all citizens, I started becoming more interested in alternatives.

Right now there seems to be three ways to start using Bitcoins. There are software clients which keep your wallet on your computer, mobile clients (although I found no iOS client with any sort of popularity) and web services which store your wallet on their servers. Virtual wallets seem to be the most popular option, but we've already seen several online services get hacked in the past and people losing coins. Instead I found a very interesting service called Instawallet:



When you go there, a unique URL is created and you can send or receive coins using that secret link anonymously and without logging in. This seems like a pretty good option for casual uses. For now, I probably won't be transferring my life savings into virtual currency. But I do believe we'll see Bitcoin rise in popularity in the coming years, and the worse the world economy gets, the more popular virtual coins will be.

As a last warning, make sure you read this to be aware of what it means to deal with a new currency on a site you know little about. With that said, if anyone feels like donating a coin, here's my address: 1D7YrzRzzx53CZkKHCCHK8UMRo9wV1tz4i]]> Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:02:02 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=514a90ac


Obviously, someone who tweets once and follows nobody should not have 25,494 Twitter followers. The interesting thing to note is that this account has been around for some time, yet doesn't have the typical look of a bot, meaning it has a custom avatar and name. But Miranda is just the tip of the iceberg in what appears to be a massive network of bots operating on Twitter, and bringing in some big cash.

Yesterday I posted my investigation into a site that gets millions of suspicious page views and how these numbers still manage to bring them top advertisers. Today, I decided to check into all of those ''Get more Twitter followers!'' claims. This isn't the first time I looked into those, and what usually ends up happening is that those accounts have hundreds of thousands of followers, but simply looking through their list of followers it becomes clear that most of them are bots. There are many such fake accounts being used on sites like Fiverr and others.

However, I did find one particular account that was different, and which intrigued me a lot:



This person has 183,971 followers, and looking through the list, they seem to be legit. They appear to be real Twitter users with avatars, names, followers and tweets. Yet, all this person does is send links that they gather through their highly ranked Fiverr gig. It seemed highly unlikely that they would gain that many people interested in seeing links to random money making pages or business opportunities, so I decided to try and find out what the story was.

I went back in time through that person's tweets, and found out that most of their followers came during a three weeks period in January 2012, with over 50,000 of them during three days, as evidenced by the tweets they sent at the time:





As you may imagine, this made me suspect it was the work of a botnet, even though at first glance the accounts appeared legit. But if you look through the mountain of followers, you will soon start seeing a pattern. Look at these three accounts, for example:







Are these bots? That's much harder to say. They have taglines, a background, and tweets. But you may notice they all follow almost 2,000 accounts, with very few followers. Plus, if you go through their tweets, all of them are actually retweets from popular accounts. Is this a new, highly sophisticated Twitter botnet? It used to be that botnet owners would simply mass-create empty accounts and then follow somebody. But here, we have multiple layers of accounts, with the first layer looking a lot more legit, with thousands of them appearing human, and then a second layer like Miranda up there which is obviously fake.

Finally, this brings us to layer 3:



All of those thousands of accounts have follow around 400 people, no followers, and a bunch of retweets. As you dig deeper and deeper, it's simply astounding the amount of suspicious looking accounts you can find. Some of them look fake, but there clearly is someone, or a series of people, with control over massive and sophisticated botnets who not only create accounts, but give them a personality, then proceed to post tweets on a regular interval.

But in the end, I suppose what matters most is whether or not our first suspect's Fiverr gig is worth it. It's certainly worth it for him, as he's making thousands of dollars, but is it useful for the buyers? I bought a gig from him, and unsurprisingly, after a few hours I saw no significant rise in traffic. I also went back to some previous links that this person advertised, which included some YouTube videos, and again the views were minuscule.

When confronted with the evidence and asked whether his service was legit or not, I received no reply, simply a cancellation request. All of these layers of accounts who do nothing than retweet also do not seem to have an active user behind them to answer questions. Right now, Fiverr has hundreds of people selling Twitter followers, and hundreds more selling Twitter-based marketing. It's hard to say who is taking an active role in the underground and who is simply a victim of poor judgement, such as buying followers from the ones who do run these botnets. But one thing is certain, there's a lot of money being made using ghost accounts.]]> Wed, 20 Mar 2013 21:46:36 -0700 http://dendory.net/?b=51494787

Today I was reading an interesting story about how a publisher was using a botnet to drive traffic up to his web properties, and I started being interested in finding out how it worked. I went through various related stories then found one particular site that's claiming a ridiculous 326 million monthly page views. This is something only top web properties like CNN, the New York Times and so on can do. Yet everything about the site seemed wrong to me.

DirectorsLive is a site packed with two things: ads and videos. In fact it has a lot of ads, which is always a red flag, but one more detail intrigued me. None of those ads came from Google AdSense, or another major ad network. It's easy for anyone on the web to set up a domain name, park some ads, then start making pennies. It's much harder to attract brands like Budweiser, Cover Girl or Toyota which pay real dollars. If there was something fishy going on, it would have to be something much more significant than a simple case of click fraud, which Google has become quite good at shutting down on its own network.

So the first thing I did was take a look at the videos. While they have several so-called originals, it quickly became clear that none of them were their own productions. In fact, all but one are simply movie clips where they added a title and reposted them. Only one series, Meet The Filmmaker, has an actual interview with directors and producers. This one for example, boosts 2.3 million views, all people who apparently wanted to hear a 2:59 interview with Bryan Singer. Yet only 17 people tweeted about it, and 12 shared on Facebook.

''This is where the picture becomes clear''It only takes a few minutes to find out that Meet The Filmmaker is actually the name of a podcast available on iTunes and produced in collaboration with Apple. This particular clip is part of a 32 minutes episode that was posted a few days prior on iTunes. So this is where the picture starts becoming clear. First, they sell many, many ads to brand names, somehow bypassing ad networks, that end up on this site. Second, the view counts seem completely ridiculous when compared with the type of site it is and the amount of sharing going on, which seems highly suspicious, and finally their videos are not even produced by the site, but instead feature clips from other places.

So in order to get a clearer picture of whether or not this was legit traffic, I checked their Alexa rating. Now Alexa is highly flawed, but it can still be a good indicator on whether or not a site is popular. I was amazed to find out that they are actually fairly popular, with a high ranking and many sites linking to them. But are things as they appear? I went through a couple of those inbound links. One of them was this forum post where a user asks why his browser is redirecting him to DirectorsLive without his consent. Not only is someone distributing some type of unwanted popup that sends traffic to the site, but that gives them a higher Alexa rank as well! The irony. Another link was a comment on this blog post, clearly added by a bot. Here's another very similar comment on a Russian site. And the list goes on.

But the core question remains. If this site's content seems so highly suspicious, how is it getting so many big brand advertisers? Most ad networks would see through the smoke screen. The answer turns out to be pretty simple: They run their own ad network. They run many other sites, all focused on videos and all with similar designs and suspicious traffic numbers.

It's hard to say whether all of this is simply a case of buying the wrong type of traffic, or an active attempt at deception. But honestly, if I were an advertiser seeing my ads on sites like this, I would ask for my money back.]]> Tue, 19 Mar 2013 22:22:15 -0700