Speaking of gold mines, Twitter is sitting on a huge one–if it could just figure out how to refine it into something we’d buy.

New stats from Pew Internet suggest that 20% of 25 to 34 year olds online have used Twitter, with those 18 to 24 only 1 point behind (19%). While that number drops off to just 2% by the time you get to adults over 65, 11% of the total US online US population have used the micro-blogging service.

Other interesting stats:

• 27% of bloggers use Twitter
• 35% of city-dwellers use Twitter
• 76% of Twitter users use the internet wirelessly
• Only 10% of those earning more than $75,000 use Twitter, while 17% of those making less than $30k use the service.

No data on how many people have ever seen a FAIL Whale, but we suspect it’s in the upper 90’s

Feb 12, 2009 at 3:55pm ET by Vanessa Fox

The web is full of duplicate content. Search engines try to index and display the original or “canonical” version. Searchers only want to see one version in results. And site owners worry that if search engines find multiple versions of a page, their link credit will be diluted and they’ll lose ranking.

Today, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft (links are to their separate announcements) have united to offer a way to reduce duplicate content clutter and make things easier for everyone. Webmasters rejoice! Worried about duplicate content on your site? Want to know what “canonical” means? Read on for more details.

Multiple URLs, one page

Duplicate content comes in different forms, but a major scenario is multiple URLs that point to the same page. This can come up for lots of reasons. An ecommerce site might allow various sort orders for a page (by lowest price, highest rated…), the marketing department might want tracking codes added to URLs for analytics. You could end up with 100 pages, but 10 URLs for each page. Suddenly search engines have to sort  through 1,000 URLs.

This can be a problem for a couple of reasons.

• Less of the site may get crawled. Search engine crawlers use a limited amount of bandwidth on each site (based on numerous factors). If the crawler only is able to crawl 100 pages of your site in a single visit, you want it to be 100 unique pages, not 10 pages 10 times each.
• Each page may not get full link credit. If a page has 10 URLs that point to it, then other sites can link to it 10 different ways. One link to each URL dilutes the value  the page could have if all 10 links pointed to a single URL.

Using the new canonical tag

Specify the canonical version using a tag in the head section of the page as follows:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish“/>

That’s it!

• You can only use the tag on pages within a single site (subdomains and subfolders are fine).
• You can use relative or absolute links, but the search engines recommend absolute links.

This tag will operate in a similar way to a 301 redirect for all URLs that display the page with this tag.

• Links to all URLs will be consolidated to the one specified as canonical.
• Search engines will consider this URL a “strong hint” as to the one to crawl and index.

Canonical URL best practices

The search engines use this as a hint, not as a directive, (Google calls it a “suggestion that we honor strongly”) but are more likely to use  it if the URLs use best practices, such as:

• The  content rendered for each URL is very similar or exact
• The canonical URL is the shortest version
• The URL uses easy to understand parameter patterns (such as using ? and %)

Can this be abused by spammers? They might try, but Matt Cutts of Google told me that the same safeguards that prevent abuse by other methods (such as redirects) are in place here as well, and that Google  reserves the right to take action on sites that are using the tag to manipulate search engines and violate search engine guidelines.

For instance, this tag will only work with very similar or identical content, so you can’t use it to send all of the link value from the less important pages of your site to the more important ones.

If tags conflict (such as pages point to each other as canonical, the URL specified as canonical redirects to a non-canonical version, or the page specified as canonical doesn’t exist), search engines will sort things out just as they do now, and will determine which URL they think is the best canonical version.

The tag in action

This tag will most often be useful in the case of multiple URLs pointing at the same page, but might also be used when multiple versions of a page exist. For instance, wikia.com is using the tag for previous revisions of a page. Both http://watchmen.wikia.com/index.php?title=Comedian%27s_badge&diff=4901&oldid=4819 and http://watchmen.wikia.com/index.php?title=Comedian%27s_badge&diff=5401&oldid=4901reference the latest version of the article (http://watchmen.wikia.com/wiki/Comedian%27s_badge) as the canonical.

The search engines stress that it’s still important to build good URL structure and also note that if you aren’t able to implement this tag, they’ll still keep the processes they have now to determine the canonical. For instance, at SMX West on Tuesday, Maile Ohye of Google explained how Google can detect patterns in URLs if they use standard parameters. For instance, with these URLs:

• http://www.example.com/buffy?cat=spike
• http://www.example.com/buffy?cat=spike&sort=evil
• http://www.example.com/buffy?cat=spike&sort=good

Maile explained that Google can detect (particularly when looking at patterns across the site) that the sort parameter may order the page differently, but that the URLs with the sort parameter display the same  content as the shorter URL (http://www.example.com/buffy?cat=spike).

While it’s rare for the search engines to join forces, this isn’t the first time they’ve come together on a standard. In November 2006, they came together to support sitemaps.org. And in June 2008 they announced a standard set of robots.txt directives. Matt Cutts of Google and Nathan Buggia of Microsoft told me that they want to help reduce the clutter on the web, and make things easier for searchers as well as site owners.

This new tag won’t completely solve duplicate issues on the web, but it should help make things quite a bit easier particuarly for ecommerce sites, who likely need all the help they can get in the current economic conditions. Site owners have been asking for help with these issues for a really long time so this should be a greatly welcomed addition.

Postscript by Barry Schwartz:

The search engines will be talking about this news at the Ask the Search Engines panel at SMX West. We will be blogging this panel live at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Back in 2005, we launched Yahoo! MyWeb with the goal to help our users save valuable information they discover on the Web. As we have continued to innovate with the 2.0 release of Delicious and the upgraded Yahoo! Bookmarks, we saw that MyWeb users’ needs are being served by our newer products. To streamline our bookmarking services, we will discontinue the MyWeb service starting March 18, 2009 and focus our efforts on improving Delicious for social bookmarking. We are working on many Delicious product enhancements for 2009 – in the meantime, we’ll make the transition for our MyWeb users in the least disruptive manner possible. MyWeb users have three choices to migrate their bookmarks:

1. Yahoo! Bookmarks: For users primarily interested in private bookmarking, the switch is simple – all MyWeb bookmarks are already available in Yahoo! Bookmarks.

2. Delicious: For users who enjoy sharing their bookmarks and exploring the bookmarks of other users, we recommend migrating to Delicious. The migration is a three-step process – see details here.

3. Export. For users who choose to use other bookmarking services, we recommend using our export tools, which will provide an archive of your bookmarks that is easily readable by 3rd party services and browsers such as Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

For publishers using the MyWeb Bookmark button or the MyWeb badge, we recommend migrating these to the Delicious button or badge.

If you have any questions about the migration, please contact at the MyWeb Feedback page.

The “internet of things” is a concept that describes a wireless network between objects. In a way, it parallels the current network of addressable web pages (aka the “world wide web”), except “the internet of things” would include addressable inanimate objects that could be anything from your home’s refrigerator to the shoes on your feet. Although this world of web-connected things has been much discussed for years, we’ve seen little movement pushing the concept forward. At least, until now.

Tikitag

Recently, we’ve seen a handful of companies attempting to develop technologies that could build an “internet of things.” One example is Tikitag, a company that presented at the DEMO 08 conference.  With a Tikitag starter kit and some client software, you can program your own RFID tags so that they can do anything you want them to do. They can launch an application, deliver you to a URL, and so much more.

For more information click here

The worm continues to infect a large number of computers while security experts try and figure out what to do.

Microsoft has created a new technology industry posse and a $250,000 reward for people who help turn over the creators of the Conficker worm.

The Conficker worm multiplied like wildfire, and spreads through a hole found in Microsoft Windows systems, though the vulnerability was patched in October.  It also is able to disable anti-malware protection and will block an infected PC from visiting anti-malware vendors Web sites to receive updates.

Security experts are even more worried about the possibility the worm calls home every 24 hours to at least 250 servers each day for instructions or directed actions.

The Houston police department was forced to stop arresting people with traffic warrants because the worm spread its way through the police and city court’s computer systems.  Violent offenders were still arrested, but those with outstanding traffic warrants were simply issued citations instead of being arrested, Houston police officials said.

There also was a Conficker outbreak among French military computers, which led to several fighter planes being grounded until everything could be fixed.

Microsoft is working with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and PC security experts while trying to identify the worm’s creators.  VeriSign, NeuStar, Public Internet Registry, Global Domains International, AOL, F-Secure, George Tech, and several other organizations have joined the fight to help capture who ever created the Internet worm.

“As part of Microsoft’s ongoing security efforts, we constantly look for ways to use a diverse set of tools and develop methodologies to protect our customers,” Microsoft Trustworthy Computing Group G.M. George Stathakopoulos said in a statement.  “By combining our expertise with the broader community we can expand the boundaries of defense to better protect people worldwide.”

Security company Symantec reported that more than 2.2 million IP addresses over the past five days have been infected with two different forms of the worm, three months after it first hit the Internet.  To date, it’s infected at least 10 million PCs since first being introduced into the wild.

I’m not going to discuss the economic meltdown and its devastating effect on technology companies and internet startups in this post, but rather something that crossed my mind earlier this morning: “Web 2.0? seems to become more and more a void (and an avoided) term. Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is definitely apparent.

So why do I say it’s fading? For one, because the number of startups that contact us and include the term Web 2.0 in the subject line or message is visibly dropping (and that’s a good thing), and I hardly ever see it mentioned anymore on other technology blogs and news sites either. That’s not really tangible, so I took a look at the number of mentions of the phrase across the web, and they seem to be decreasing significantly, reflecting my feeling on this.

Judging by Google Trends, which shows how often a particular search term is entered relative to the total search volume across various regions of the world (and in various languages), the term started being used at the end of 2004 when Tim O’Reilly organized the first edition of the Web 2.0 Conference. Search queries for the term started picking up in the middle of 2005, when TechCrunch was started - with the tagline “Tracking Web 2.0? by the way - and the number kept increasing until the end of 2007. After that, the trend is clearly downwards, falling back to the level it reached in early 2006 today. If the trend continues, there should only be a handful of people left who scour search engines for “Web 2.0? by 2011.

Also noteworthy: take a look at the geographic regions that have generated the highest volumes of worldwide search traffic for the term over the years - it’s Asia, with the top 5 regions being India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia (in that order). Furthermore, Google Trends pegs the number one language in which people search for stuff related to the topic of Web 2.0 to be Russian before English.

And just in case you’re curious: “Web 3.0? doesn’t seem to picking up much.

Let’s all rejoice.

Google’s “Insights for Search”, a beta service that analyzes a portion of worldwide Google web searches from all Google domains to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you’ve entered - relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time - gives an even better overview:

I’ve never had anything against the phrase “Web 2.0?, but I wouldn’t miss it a bit if it were never used again.

How about you?

There certainly hasn’t been much positive news on the IT job front lately. Earlier this month, we shared reports that the computer sector became one of the top three industries eliminating workers in January. If there was a glimmer of hope in that figure, it was a San Francisco Chronicle reporter’s contention that some of those cuts would come through attrition rather than workers actually getting pink slips.

That’s exactly what is happening , reports InfoWorld, in an article republished on CIO.com . When tech vendors like Microsoft and Sun announce sweeping job reductions, they include currently vacant jobs that will remain unfilled and planned positions for which folks won’t be hired. It’s a common bit of “smoke and mirrors,” says Forrester Research analyst Natalie Petouhoff, a way for companies to signal to their shareholders that they realize the need to cut costs.

Such announcements also typically reflect a worst-case scenario of the number of jobs a company thinks it may end up needing to shed. While Microsoft last month said it would cut 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months, so far it has laid off 1,400 employees. It could make up the difference “simply by not hiring in certain divisions,” Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald tells InfoWorld.

It was a similar story when Yahoo announced sweeping job cuts in October, wrote Kara Swisher on All Things Digital . At that time, the company indicated it might have to eliminate up to 3,500 of its 15,000 employees. But Swisher wrote that industry observers expect the final tally to be about half that number.

I don’t want to paint an overly positive picture. There’s no question that tech companies are cutting jobs in numbers not seen in years . Still, some companies may look at history and try to trim costs elsewhere instead of simply eliminating jobs in a bid to win Wall Street’s fickle favor. A recent BNET item highlighted a Bain & Co. study that showed laying off employees often hurts , rather than helps, a company’s financial performance. Of the S&P 500 companies that laid off workers in 2000-2001, those that laid off more than 10 percent of their work forces saw their stock prices drop by 38 percent. Companies that laid off fewer employees fared better, with their stock prices remaining essentially flat.

That’s what Cissy Pau, principal consultant for Clear HR Consulting, told me when I interviewed her in December for a story about how some companies are looking at alternatives such as shorter work weeks and pay cuts to avoid sweeping layoffs. She said:

Layoffs without any kind of corporate restructuring or efficiency improvement won’t provide the long-term results you want. If you say “I need to cut the budget by $10 million” and lay off $10 million worth of people, how are you going to deal with the work? What about the expertise you’ll lose? What about the stress of the people who remain? It’s not a permanent solution. The corporate reorganization has to go hand in hand (with layoffs) or else you’re just going to find yourself doing more layoffs

Intel has announced SES as its No. 1 partner in India for the Q-4 of 2008. The distribution major has been distributing Intel’s entire range of motherboard and CPU’s across the country. Intel, the innovation giant and SES Technologies, the leading IT distributor have come together to provide best of the technologies and solutions to the Indian market. It is worth mentioning that very recently Intel had announced SES as its number one breadth partner.

“This recognition implies that along with increasing the volumes, we also ensured that the product was reaching every corner of the country through our deep channel network. This is a tremendous achievement and we are confident to achieve the same feat in the next quarter as well,” commented Jacques Roux, Director, SES Technologies.

This acknowledgment by Intel, ascertains the fact that SES Technologies has the experience, knowledge and bandwidth to cater a multinational brand like Intel. SES has a very strong after sales support mechanism in place. With a very strong pool of talented professionals, which includes strong product management team, technically qualified sales team and a group of personnel experts, SES has created a niche for themselves in IT Distribution sector in India.

With the economy reeling and layoffs piling up , business-networking site LinkedIn has been not-so-surprisingly hopping.

Market researcher ComScore reported that LinkedIn’s unique visitors rose to 7.7 million, a 22 percent increase over December, TechCrunch reported Saturday . And not only are more people visiting LinkedIn, but they’re hanging around longer as well. Total minutes spent on the site last month more than doubled from December to 96.8 million, according to TechCrunch.

More people are helping out friends looking for jobs as well. Recommendations were up 65 percent last month over December, TechCrunch said.