insights from the digital future
In the short term it’s not an issue, but how can it sustain? With the news that Google is opening up YouTube to long-form video and based on the reactions in the articles below to Ken Auletta’s interview with CEO Eric Schmidt, it’s gotta make you wonder…
Continue reading “Is Google Nervous About YouTube’s Long-Term Profitability?”
Very disturbing to come across THIS at http://amazon.com — generally believed to be one of the strongest and most stable web companies with servers so trusty that thousands of businesses lease space via Amazon’s S3 Web service.
UPDATE: It’s been shaky, but back up after nearly two hours of all systems down. AdAge estimates that Amazon lost about $2 million in sales:
E-comerce site Amazon went down this afternoon around 1:30 EDT and stayed down for at least an hour. Attempts to access Amazon.com were met with the following message: “Http/1.1 Service Unavailable.” It’s hard to know exactly how many dollars a minute Amazon loses in sales for every moment its site is down, but simple math pegs it at about $1.8 million an hour, based on Ad Age estimates.
Continue reading “Amazon’s US Site Goes Down… Millions in Sales Forfeited”
I got home from work at 10 tonight, heated up some soup and cracked open a bottle of Shirazкомпютри втора употреба intending to prepare some e-mails for the morning. But after making my daily check of Friendfeed, I was suddenly inclined to procrastinate, or shall I say, experiment, with FriendFeed. Having been in on the Friendfeed frenzy since its early days (joined February 4 according to the welcome e-mail) I felt a twinge of frustration that my items in my Friendfeed were never (OK, barely) “liked” or commented on. I even instinctively changed my profile photo thinking that maybe I just looked scary or unfriendly. Then, before hitting the soup I half-assedly posted a vanity shout-out, just to see if I was really invisible, or if Friendfeed was fostering a good-spirited, web 2.0 early-adopter-centric community in its nascent pre-Alpha test phase.
The result: despite my admittedly lame and value-subtracted content/link, I received a half-dozen “likes” and comments in the 15 minutes it took me to finish my soup. It didn’t hurt that early adopter man-and/or-machine Robert Scoble jumped in on the parade, as the Friendfeed stream is weighted on the users side based on who their friends are *and* who their friends’ friends are. While Friendfeed’s popularity is still ramping up among the already-hip-to-microblogging set, early adopters like Louis Gray and Scoble (whose enthusiasm for the product hasn’t waned since I discussed it with him briefly in March) have only bolstered its stature and reputation by remaining Active (with a capital ‘A’).
Friendfeed is perfect for the ADD media junkie in many ways. It brings the conversation to you and the most recent / popular discussions in your circle cycle to the top of the feed when appropriate. It makes for a good replacement for blogging — the discussion is very organic and viral, however, it can be incredibly mind-numbing trying to keep up with comments and feedback not only on your posts but also on the comments you make tangentially. Fun and utilitarian but also a total productivity killer.
I have a feeling that I will continue to attract minimal attention / discussion on Friendfeed. But I am glad that I set the bar incredibly low. It proved to me that Friendfeed is an exciting place to be while it is in Beta and many Twitterers are just starting to bite and get the bug. As Julian Baldwin remarked on the above thread: “This could only happen on FF.”
I was appalled to find out that not only am I being charged monthly for a service — FreeCreditReport.com (billed as CIC*TRIPLE ADVANTAGE) — that I don’t use but that according to Experian, my SS# and credit history is apparently tied to one ANDREA LAVELLE, also known as Andrew C. Sternberg, and born in 1964 (my actual year of birth is 1975). Only one of three addresses listed are mine and among my supposed debts are a quarter-million dollars in real estate assets (I’ve only rented — never owned).
UPDATE JUNE 6: Finally got thru to Experian (the number for disputes that worked was 1 800 208 9232) and cleared 21 accounts from my credit report that weren’t mine as well as at least a dozen addresses where I never lived. The woman on the phone confirmed that “this happens all the time.” These computers are made by humans, she said. Sounds like you really need some new computers, or an overhaul of your IT staff, I rebutted.
UPDATE: I discovered that indeed one Andrea Lavelle does work at Antioch Tire in Antioch, IL — at the very address listed on MY Experian credit report. Thanks to some Google searching and a call to my purported identity thief’s workplace, I know when she’ll be in the office — but I don’t know who to send (or if there might be a third party involved whose hijacking both of our identities). Guess I’ll call the FTC in the morning.
Upon calling FreeCreditReport.com customer care I was instructed to file a dispute on the website, however, when disputing the first thing listed (the address) i was told that their online disputing system is currently unavailable. I then asked, no, demanded to know why two unknown addresses as well as several assets that aren’t mine are listed on this record which is supposedly based on my social security number. Fill out this form is all I was told. And they will e-mail you. Well the second form didn’t get me anywhere as you can see from the error message below.
So, HOW can I find out what’s up with this BS on my credit report? Is this a bug on Experian’s end (owner of FreeCreditReport.com and issuer of my inaccurate credit report) or has someone who goes by Andrea Lavelle been piggybacking on my credit for better and/or worse? For the record, my credit score according this report is fine, so I have yet to be adversely affected by this mystery (as far as I know).
Has anyone else had issues like this with Experian or other credit history farmers? I can’t find any info about the addresses or identities attached to my profile either (see images below)… To be continued…
Continue reading “My FreeCreditReport.com is in Someone Else’s Name”