Gillard and the 4 sponge banks (Photo credit: Leonard John Matthews)

Toward the top of my spam folder, I have messages asking if I’d like to lose weight fast, if I’d like to make an extra $10,000 this week, or if I’d like to get a $1,500 loan in less than an hour.

My answer is a curt “no” to all. Though dealing with these messages may seem like a small inconvenience, with 94 billion spam messages sent daily, these pitches accumulate. In fact, it turns out they add up to a $20 billion cost to society, according to a new paper called “The Economics of Spam,” by Justin M. Rao and David H. Reiley, researchers at Microsoft and Google respectively.

That eleven-figure number is derived from the cost of developing the software required to filter out spam emails and the few seconds it takes to delete every spam email that isn’t successfully blocked. You’re affected in more subtle ways as well: keep in mind that spam forces the engineers at Google, Yahoo or any other email provider to spend their time fighting spam, rather building new fun features. And because it’s not just a few people footing the bill, but pretty much everyone who’s ever used email, there’s little political incentive for laws that really crack down on spammers.

But at $20 billion, which is comparable in size to Bolivia or Estonia’s total GDP (PDF), maybe there should be. Rao and Reiley’s number is actually at the low end of estimates for the size of the societal cost of spam. Another estimate put it at $50 billion.

Because it’s pennies per person, no one feels so wronged as to demand justice. However, in one curious way, spam may be more destructive than air pollution produced by cars, as the researchers point out in their paper. Relatively speaking.

Both automobile exhaust and spam email produce what economists call negative externalities, a spillover cost of a transaction that others in society have to pay. For spam, like we said, it’s money spent on filters and time spent deleting.

Although we can agree that spam is awful, it does create a tiny benefit to the overall economy, Rao and Reiley note. Each year the spamming industry makes about $200 millon off its unwanted messages, according to the paper. But with a social cost of $20 billion, that’s a ratio of 100 to 1. In other words, for every dollar spammers create, they destroy $100 in the overall economy.

By comparison, car exhaust, bane of doctors, governments, and environmentalists everywhere, is tame. That cost/benefit ratio for driving a gas-guzzler is a mere 0.1 — drivers benefit about 60 cents for every mile driven, while the social cost per mile is only 6 cents. Actually, according to the researchers, spam is more comparable to cartheft, which costs society around $10 billion in additional insurance and policing annually, but only confers to thieves a profit of a few hundred million. For every dollar car thieves make, the economy loses $7 to $30.

Of course, the scale of destruction auto exhaust has on the environment, which is in the hundreds of billions, is larger compared to that of spam, even if dollar for dollar spam is worse. The authors of the report don’t mean to be glib either. “While the externality ratio of spam is large, the cost comes in the form of attention and time, not disease and death as in the case of air pollutants,” they write. h/t The Atlantic.

Source:- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

NYC: American Intl Building and Manhattan Company Building (Photo credit: wallyg)

No health deteriorates overnight. Sure we have heard of cancer, liver and kidney failure – but there are always some signals. Ignore them, and you are dead.

Similarly there are some signals that you can pick up from a business that warns you about a possible failure in the near future

1. In ability to pay the statutory dues: this could be Service Tax, Income tax, TDS made from vendor/ employee payments. ….When you are running out of cash to make these payments, see what is going wrong asap.

2. You have some white elephant assets, but your top management refuses to part with those assets saying ‘these are strategic assets’.

3. Not paying salaries on time. After the government and the vendors, the salaries of your own employees are delayed.

4. Directors offering to differ their own salary and that of their top management.

5. Customer complaints and employees attrition: The customers and employees who walk with their talent. When they go they cause two types of damages – they take a few more clients, and sometimes a lot more employees too.

6. Raising more money- but using it in working capital. This is actually increasing your total overall costs, because of the higher interest amounts. It could also be a signal of the average days outstanding.
The author P V Subramanyam is a Chartered Accountant by qualification and a financial trainer by profession. Writing being a passion he also regularly pens his thought in his blogSubramoney.com

Source:- http://in.finance.yahoo.com

Amazon-New-Detail-Page (Photo credit: kokogiak)

So you’re at the figurative checkout counter of Amazon.com, groceries and gadgets and George Foreman grill in your e-shopping cart, and you’re ready to charge your credit card. As you hover your mouse cursor over the final “Purchase” button, however, a single drop of nervous sweat forms above your temple. The question materializes in your mind, as you begin to fret: “Am I paying too much for this stuff?”

On Amazon, or any online shopping store, finding the lowest price can be difficult, not to mention nerve-wracking. That’s why we’ve put together these four things you should always remember when shopping on Amazon. The tips herein should help you make better purchasing decisions and ensure that you’re buying your items at an optimal time and price.

Here are our four best tips and tricks for shopping on Amazon. Your wallet (if it could, in fact, both talk and experience a feeling of gratitude) will thank you later:

DON’T LIMIT YOURSELF TO AMAZON

Thinking that Amazon offers, without exception, the best price for any given product is one trap that you can’t afford (literally) to fall into. When you’ve found the product that want, compare the Amazon price with prices on other websites by using a site like Google Shopping or PriceGrabber.

Browser extensions — lightweight programs that can be added to Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, or Safari — are your friend here, too: PriceBlink, for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer, can sense when you are on a product page and can automatically notify you when it finds a cheaper price for the product you’re looking at on a different retailer’s page. Invisible Hand, for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, is another popular option that provides similar price comparison functionality within your web browser.

Adding a store comparison extension that can crawl the web for lower prices is a good start, and should save you a couple bucks here and there. But how do you know that a major price drop isn’t coming soon?

DON’T IGNORE THE PAST

Pardon the Ayn Rand-ian admonition, but studying historic prices on any product can help you avoid buying at an inopportune time. Just as the price of airline tickets fluctuate based on the day of the week or time of year, so too do the prices of many other products. On a macro level, knowing prime buying seasons for your gear is key: Lifehacker has a handy list of the best time to purchase just about anything you can imagine. (Time to stock up on wine and children’s clothes!)

Visualizing price changes over several days can be handy too, especially if you’re looking to buy used and want to see what an item would customarily go for. There are a few ways to do this for Amazon products: Using a browser extension is probably easiest, and there are dozens to choose from, including The Tracktor and The Camelizer. I use the extension from Keepa.com, which shows you a simple line graph of your product’s price history right beneath its basic information on Amazon.

DON’T SETTLE

Let’s say that the product you’re eyeing is sitting at an historically high price, according to your handy chart. Now what? You don’t want to blow cash on the price difference, and checking back on Amazon day after day, hour after after, to see if the price has dropped is a tedious option.

Luckily for your wallet and your sanity, several websites will email you (or tweet you, or Facebook message you) with a notification whenever your selected product’s price on Amazon goes down, or when a price hits a certain, user-specified low. TryKeepa.com, or CamelCamelCamel.com, or The Tracktor, or BuyLater.com, for those simple, smart services — it will cost you your email address, but it could save you money, especially if you identify a product at an unnatural peak in pricing.

DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’

It doesn’t always happen that the exact object of your desire becomes deeply discounted on some website as soon as you’re committed to purchasing — but hey, maybe you’ll get lucky!

If you know you’ve got a big purchase coming up (happy anniversary, Mom & Dad!),keep your eye on Amazon’s Gold Box page, which features both hour-long lightning sales and highlights freshly price-reduced items from around the site. You should also keep up with sites like DealNews and SlickDeals, which constantly update with coupons and sales from around the web. Both of those sites can be configured to send you alerts by retailer or by product category.

And remember, even if a product does show up in the Gold Box or on a deal website, that doesn’t automatically make it the cheapest or best purchase online. You still need to run discounted items through your price comparison software to ensure the “deal” is a good one.

DON’T FORGET SHIPPING

If you’re setting world records in online shopping — or just, you know, buying lots and lots of stuff — you should probably consider Amazon Prime. The $79/year service gives you free 2-day shipping on much of Amazon’s warehouse of products, and also includes access to a steadily improving library of streaming movies.

That’s for frequent buyers, obviously, and you can probably determine fairly easily whether Amazon Prime would benefit you. Otherwise, don’t be blindsided by a high shipping fee, or all your money-saving research and preparation could be wiped out.

Source:- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

facebook engancha (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In its company filings published this week,Facebook revealed that more than 83 million of its users are ‘fake,’ CNET reports.

Last week, in its first quarterly earnings report as a public company, the social networking site announced that it has 955 million monthly active users and 543 million monthly active mobile users.

But this week, tucked away in the company filings, Facebook has revealed that 8.7 percent of these accounts are likely fake.

More than half of these “fake” accounts are duplicate profiles, while 2.4 percent are “user-misclassifed” (think: pets and memes) and 1.5 percent are considered “undesirable” accounts, such as those created by spammers.

The social networking behemoth was quick to point out that its figures may not be entirely accurate, however. On page 24 of the report, Facebook inserted this caveat, acknowledging limitations in their metrics:

We believe the percentage of accounts that are duplicate or false is meaningfully lower in developed markets such as the United States or Australia and higher in developing markets such as Indonesia and Turkey. However, these estimates are based on an internal review of a limited sample of accounts and we apply significant judgment in making this determination, such as identifying names that appear to be fake or other behavior that appears inauthentic to the reviewers. As such, our estimation of duplicate or false accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts.

As CNET points out, an active Facebook user ”does not necessarily mean someone using Facebook.com,” as the metric merely refers to using a Facebook account somewhere on the Internet. For example, if users chose to click the “recommend” button at the top of this article, they would be considered active by Facebook, regardless of whether or not they ever go on Facebook.com directly.

In a related story, Facebook’s business model of relying on targeted advertising has come under fire in recent weeks after it was revealed that bots (or fake users) may be behind up to 80 percent of clicks on advertisements, according to BBC.

Source:- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Conversation (Photo credit: Peter Nijenhuis)

These blunders are more than just productivity killers; they will also make you look pretty foolish.

Knowing your way around your email inbox is, of course, crucial if you want to get anything done. But it’s also necessary to avoid making a fool of yourself with silly (and unfortunately all too common) communication mistakes. Here’s a list of the most common email blunders to avoid:

1. Not including the email thread in your reply.

Think about how many emails you receive every day. When you’re communicating with dozens of people a day, sometimes you forget where you were in a particular conversation or what the conversation was even about, right? So it’s nice to be able to skim through the previous emails to refresh yourself before responding. Do your recipients a favor and include the whole thread when responding. Although deleting the thread declutters the email and makes it appear less lengthy, in the end, it just creates confusion for the recipient.

2. Not using a professional account.

Syncing your professional account with your personal account is convenient. But when you have this feature set up, always double-check which account you are sending your mail from. Accidentally firing off a message from hottstuff09@yahoo.com will not only raise some eyebrows, it will mean the message will probably wind up directly in your recipient’s Spam folder.

3. Not replying to all.

This one is so easy to forget. If the idea is to keep a number of people in the loop, then do exactly that and use the Reply All button. Enough said.

4. Cc’ing the world.

Yes, you need to reply to all, but before cc’ing someone into an email conversation, ask yourself if it’s really necessary. Spare that person the gratuitous email if you can.

5. Forgetting the bcc field.

The bcc function is great for when you want to keep someone in the loop but it is not necessary for him or her to be part of the conversation. For example, after someone introduces you to a contact via email, move that person to the bcc field. Also, be mindful of people’s privacy when sending out group emails to various recipients. Not everyone wants his or her email address exposed to a large group of people he or she doesn’t know.

6. Rambling.

Emails should be short and to the point. If it’s something you can’t say in just a few sentences, or you find yourself in a nonstop, back-and-forth conversation, pick up the phone! Overly long emails may end up in the recipients’ TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) pile.

7. Writing unprofessionally.

Always keep a professional tone. That means ensuring emails have proper grammar and are free of slang. Save the “abbrevs” for Twitter.

8. Creating unnecessary back-and-forth.

When you’re sending a quick email to set up a meeting, provide all necessary information in the first email. Otherwise, it becomes a back-and-forth conversation that could have been taken care of in one response from each side. For example, if you are requesting a meeting with someone, offer your availability. If you are scheduling a call, provide your phone number.

Source :-  Inc.com

.so Internet domain registration (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Before you plunk down a pretty penny to register a new domain name, please think twice about what you choose. These 21 websites didn’t. Or perhaps they thought the double entendres their names created when strung together as URLs were just too funny to be passed up.

Choosespain.com? That can be read as either “choose Spain” or, um, “chooses pain.” Whorepresents.com unfortunately is often mistaken for “whore presents.” And don’t even get us started on Masterbaitonline.com.

These and other awkward website names were recently pointed out by Siteopia, a U.K.-based domain registration service.

“Taking time to think through all aspects and interpretations is crucial to the success of any brand,” a Siteopia spokesperson told The Telegraph. “Of course a name needs to be memorable, but it’s always worth considering the connotations it throws up.”

We combed through some of the most awkward and ill-advised website names on the Internet to find our own 21 favorites.

• Masterbaitonline.com

• Itscrap.com

• Whorepresents.com

• Ferrethandjobs.com

• Dicksonweb.com

• Penisland.net

• Potsofart.com

• Actionpaintballsac.com

• Choosespain.com

• Therapistfinder.com

• Therapist.com

• Oldmanshaven.com

• Ladrape.com

• Teacherstalking.org

• Mp3shits.com

• Wintersexpress.com

• Americanscrapmetal.com

• Analemma.org

• Nobjs.org

• Lesbocages.com

• Therapistinabox.com

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Marissa Mayer (Photo credit: jdlasica)

Yahoo on Thursday disclosed the salary of new CEO Marissa Mayer.

According to the documents, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mayer will receive an annual base salary of $1 million. She will also receive a yearly bonus of 200 percent of her base salary.

Her annual equity award for 2012 will be $12 million, half in restricted stock that vests over three years, and half as a stock option that vests over 30 months.

If she remains with the company for five years, she will be eligible for a massive performance and retention award of $30 million, which vests over five years. Yahoo’s filing details the one-time award thus:

$15,000,000 of this equity award will be granted as restricted stock units on July 26, 2012 vesting over five years, and $15,000,000 in the form of a performance-based stock option that is expected to be granted in November 2012. The stock option will be subject to both time-based and performance-based vesting requirements over the next 4 1/2 years. The Compensation Committee will establish the performance vesting criteria after consulting Ms. Mayer.

Not too shabby!

Yahoo announced on Monday that it had hired Mayer away from Google, where she had worked since 1999. Known as Google’s 20th hire and the company’s first female engineer, Mayer spent over a decade leading the team responsible for the company’s search engine, and she even had a hand in contributing to the design of the iconic Google Search home page. In 2010 she became the vice president of Google’s location and local services.

Mayer faces several steep challenges at Yahoo, including flagging financial performance and increased competition from web giants like Facebook and Google. She is the fifth CEO to start at Yahoo in as many years.

UPDATE: Apple CEO Tim Cook, the highest-paid exec in Silicon Valley, last year received $378 million, most of which was in Apple stock. His base salary was $900,000 and includes a performance bonus of $900,000, with an additional $16,420 going to his retirement and life insurances funds.

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Image via CrunchBase

It’s official: After months of speculation, Microsoft has set an official release date for Windows 8, its first update to the Windows operating system in almost three years.

After teasing that Windows 8 would be available toward the end of October, Windows President Steven Sinofsky officially announced that the next-generation of Windows will be released on October 26. That’s when you’ll be able to download it to your PC or purchase a new computer with Windows 8, according to a post on the official Windows Team Blog.

Microsoft had previously announced that an upgrade from Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 will cost $40 for a digital-only download.

For Microsoft, October 26th is set to be a big day: Windows 8 is one of the most ambitious overhauls of Windows in years, perhaps ever. It features two separate interfaces: the traditional desktop version, with a start bar and icons, as well as a radical new touch-friendly “Metro” interface with the large, fluid live tiles of the Windows Phone operating system. Many key apps, including Internet Explorer, have been redesigned to run in Metro, while others, such as the recently unveiled Microsoft Office suite, will function as desktop apps.

It is unclear how the general public will react to this radical design change; early reviews have been mixed, which is not a good sign for a Windows user base that has been typically resistant to change. (It took until October 2011 for Windows 7, released in 2009, to surpass Windows XP, released in 2001, as the most used Windows OS). With Windows 8, Microsoft is certainly hoping to avoid another Vista-like revolt.

In the days before Halloween 2012, Microsoft will begin to learn whether it has a fan favorite or a dud in its new operating system. Too, the Microsoft Surface tablet should also be out around October 26th, as Microsoft execs had promised that its first foray into hardware would be out concurrently with the new operating system; we’ll also start seeing how well that tablet can sell, up against Apple’s market-leading iPad (and perhaps a new iPad Mini).

October 26th, in other words, is one of the biggest days in Microsoft history. Mark your calendars.

Source:- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Image via CrunchBase

New versions of Microsoft’s word processing, spreadsheet and email programs will sport touch-based controls and emphasize Internet storage to reflect an industry-wide shift away from the company’s strengths in desktop and laptop computers.

The new offerings appear designed to help Microsoft retain an important source of revenue as more people access documents from mobile devices. The new Office suite also reflects the fact that people tend to work from multiple computers – perhaps a desktop in the office, a laptop at home and a tablet computer on a train and a smartphone at the doctor’s office.

Like an upcoming redesign of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, the new Office will respond to touch as well as commands delivered on a computer keyboard or mouse.

The addition of touch-based controls will enable Office to extend its franchise into the rapidly growing tablet computer market. Apple dominates that market with the iPad, though Microsoft has plans to compete with its own tablet, called Surface.

The programs will store documents online through Microsoft’s SkyDrive service by default, meaning users will have to change settings to store documents on their own computer. The programs will also remember settings, including where you last left off in a document, as you move locations.

The Internet-based services approach is one Google has been promoting with its own suite of similar programs, threatening Microsoft’s dominance.

“This is the most ambitious release of Office that we have ever done,” CEO Steve Ballmer said Monday in unveiling the new Office in San Francisco.

A preview version of the new Office suite is being made available online at . Microsoft Corp. isn’t saying when it will go on sale or what the price will be. Those details will come in the fall. http://office.com/preview

Microsoft will continue selling the package as standalone software that can be installed on computers, but the company expects the bulk of users will opt for an Internet-based version, which comes with automatic updates for a recurring subscription fee.

Other features in the new Office include:

_ Inkling, which lets you use a stylus to write on a device’s screen. Handwritten notes are converted automatically to text.

_ Integration with Yammer, a social network for businesses, and with Skype, a video chat service. Microsoft agreed last month to buy Yammer for $1.2 billion, while Microsoft spent $8.5 billion to buy Skype last year.

_ Bing Maps will be part of the new Outlook email program. If there’s an address in an email, just tap on it to get directions.

_ A “reading” mode on Word will make it easier to read word-processing documents on a tablet or e-reader. That mode will make the document look more like a book page. You can also embed video into Word documents, or share a document directly on Facebook.

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Marissa Mayer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yahoo Inc. has hired top Google executive Marissa Mayer as its fifth CEO in as many years, not including two who served on an interim basis. She starts her new job on Tuesday. Here are some biographical details on her:

• NAME: Marissa Mayer

• AGE: 37

• EDUCATION: B.S. in symbolic systems and M.S. in computer science from Stanford University, specializing in artificial intelligence for both. She received an honorary doctorate of engineering.

• PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Started at Google Inc. in 1999 as its first female engineer and 20th employee overall. Most recently responsible for Google’s mapping products, location services, Google Local, Street View and a slew of other products. Helped create Google’s flagship search service and the well-known white-background home page the company is still known for.

• BOARD SEATS: Wal-Mart Stores Inc., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Ballet and New York City Ballet.

• QUOTE: “I look forward to working with the company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world.”

Source - http://www.huffingtonpost.com