Google Checkout

There is a lot of chatter and excitement about Google Checkout, a new rival to Paypal. Part of the discussion is based on the hope that this will put some pressure on PayPal and eBay on fees and service, as commented on Digg.

Another aspect I find very interesting is the creation of a CPA advertising model, Cost Per Action, instead of the usual CPC, Cost Per Click, or the older CPM, Cost Per 1,000 impressions. Om has a great post on Why Google Is Doing Checkouts.

Lets compare the two – CPC and CPA based ads. In case of CPA, there are no wasted dollars, no click fraud, and all the revenues are coming from sales. As an advertiser, you have no risk. You sell, you make money, Google gets a piece of the action. Why would you bother with other options?

Om also links to a NYT article on how Google Aims to Speed the Online Checkout Line.

Google is charging merchants 20 cents plus 2 percent of the purchase price to process card transactions, less than most businesses pay for credit card processing. Banking industry executives say that credit card processors typically pay MasterCard and Visa a fee of 30 cents and 1.95 percent for every purchase, so Google will be subsidizing many transactions.

What is more, for every $1 a company spends on search advertising, Google will waive the fees on $10 worth of purchases. Factoring in the 2 percent fee, that represents a rebate of at least 20 percent of advertising spending.

Overall a great explanation as to why Google is moving in this direction and where it is trying to get to. And Google proves again it can shake the industry and do very innovative things. Om also linked to Sramana Mitra’s YahooBAY as a possible response to Google.

Hoboken Parking Permits

When I moved back to Hoboken a few months ago, I had to go through the hassle of getting an updated permit. It was actually much easier than I thought, and took all of 15 minutes at the Hoboken Parking Utility in the City Hall basement, who even have late hours. I only needed to update my insurance and drivers license to my Hoboken address.

But instead of the usual sticker for the back window that changes every year, there is a single sticker for the front window that stays with the car, and no need to change every year. It has a bar code and I was interested as to how the Enforcement cops would scan each car to see if they had paid up? It didn’t seem that efficient.

And now it makes sense, it seems the stickers have passive UHF [ultra high frequency] RFID chips in the sticker to track and monitor cars in the Mile Square city. eWeek has an article on Hoboken’s RFID parking permits.

A parking enforcement officer equipped with a RFID-enabled laptop can point at an RFID parking sticker and get a read out on a host of information: the owner’s name, address, registration number, phone number and permit specifications, as well as the location of the car and whether it’s supposed to be where it is.

“Absolutely every car that walks in we know where they go, where they’ve been—you have a full history across the board,” said [John Corea, director of parking for the city of Hoboken].

“There’s a lot of advantages. We never knew who our customers were, now you know. In a minute, you have everything—driving history, everything.”

So I like the aspect of easy renewal and taking advantage of technology. I am skeptical of the local government abusing the information and being a Big Brother, which of course will happen at some point to some degree, or they will lose the information to a disgruntled employee. In all honesty it already happens this just makes it a bit easier. Now I just need to scrap off the two previous stickers and the two Rutgers ones from my car. Hands down this is better than the horrible and lame policies of Bayonne, which wouldn’t even give me a permit as a resident.

June Google Rank – Mission Accomplished

The latest update, with the longer term tracking is on the About page.

June 2006: G hits #1, along with M, but Y is at 3.

Keyword: adam karas URL Pattern: adamkaras.com
Google: Position: 1
Yahoo: Position: 3
MSN: Position: 1

Keyword: “adam karas” URL Pattern: adamkaras.com
Google: Position: 1
Yahoo: Position: 5 (#1 is my LinkedIn page)
MSN: Position: 1

Google Page Rank: 4/10
Number of Backlinks: 2

Top 5 Google results: adam karas

1. My site
2. College football player card on ESPN
3. Polish photographer on fotocommunity.com
4. His website
5. Milkwaukee Area Tech College baseball game summary

Top 5 Yahoo results: adam karas

1. College football player stats on SI as WR
2. College football player stats on SI as QB
3. My Newsvine post
4. My ack category page
5. Polish photographer website

Top 5 MSN results: adam karas

1. My About page
2. My home page
3. A brother and sister blog, “Kara’s and Adam”
4. My Amazon wish list
5. A game highlight for a eastern Mass hockey player.

So I finally beat out the College (and HS), baseball and hockey players, so sports are the way to get your name in print. I’m getting a dozen spam comments a day, and am very grateful to Akismet for blocking all but three so far. The biggest impact was putting my name in the page title, as well as blogging stories on Digg.com.

[Update: Thanks to Loudpoet for pointing out EgoSurf, adding a whole new level to this endeavor. With a score of only 3300 points, I know I am pretty low on the ego scale!]

Data over power lines

An article by IHT on the progress of BPL (Broadband over Power Lines), and new products coming to market. I still wait for the day…

Panasonic started selling its HD-PLC Ethernet adapters for power lines last month. A $200 starter kit provides two units, each about the size of two sticks of butter. One adapter is attached to a router with a short Ethernet cable and plugged into a nearby wall outlet. The second device is plugged into an outlet elsewhere in the house. When a computer is linked to it with an Ethernet cable, data is transmitted through the home’s electrical wiring at speeds of up to 190 megabits a second. Up to seven devices can run on the network.

Netgear, a leading maker of wireless networking gear, will be selling a similar system next month for $250. (Every additional module costs $130.) It moves data at a slightly faster rate.

Marantz says its ZR6001SP receiver will send music to special speakers in another room over power lines. The system, which includes both devices, will sell for about $1,200. Additional speaker units cost $300. The music listener controls the receiver and the players connected to it from a control pad on the speakers

La La – CDs for $1

Just read about a very interesting (and legal) CD exchange community, la la. So I decided to sign up and add a few CDs to my Want List. In less than 5 minutes I was told the CD was on its way. I now get to enjoy some Green Day. Since all of my CDs are burned onto my computer and iPod, its time to explore some new legal music.

La la is a peer-to-peer used CD store on the net that launched Thursday. You trade CDs with other users, not unlike the DVD-trading site Peerflix.

For $1.49 a pop, my influx of music now approaches what it was in high school and college, when used records were still cheap enough to indulge experimentation. Before la la was born, I had never been able to afford a let’s-try-it-and-see approach with CDs.

Ring Tone for Deaf Ears

The NY Times has an interesting article on a new ring tone that is so high pitched it can’t be heard by adults. Here is a sample from the BBC (where the technology was developed to chase away teenagers). Love the irony.

Mosquito Ringtone (and yes, I don’t hear the buzz)

Google Spreadsheets

Another week, another Google product launches. Or almost launches in this case. Google has not opened up Google Spreadsheets, an Ajax spreadsheet, to the general public yet but they have published a tour of what the product will look like once it actually does launch, and you can request an invitation to try it out.

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