//beconfused

April global site statistics are out.

*Brand* – Unique Audience (000), Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss):
# *Yahoo!* – 105,444, 3:10:02
# *Microsoft* – 95,777, 0:45:25
# *MSN* – 92,786, 1:38:53
# *Google* – 92,120, 0:52:48
# *AOL* – 70,433, 6:11:06
# *eBay* – 53,465, 1:53:00
# *MapQuest* – 40,801, 0:10:53
# *MySpace* – 38,359, 2:06:46
# *Real Network* – 38,183, 0:47:48
# *Amazon* – 37,854, 0:19:37

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings (pdf)

Wow, looks like more than a hundred million unique visitors visit Yahoo!, I think Yahoo! has one of the best content. I am not surprised that people are willing to spend time there. Google’s just a search engine mainly despite them trying to enter all sorts of markets. As for MSN, they got to improve their content.

I’m a little surprise to see the time spent in Amazon’s web site though. I thought people would have spend more time there. I guess they just aren’t interested to buy their stuff. The highest jumper is probably MySpace, which is now the top social-networking web site.

On the month of April, I have 26119 unique visitors with the majority just interested in some images in my blog. And 84.9% leave my site within 30 seconds.

Try LeapFish, it’s a website that attempts to evaluate how much is your domain name worth. I test it on //beconfused:

CREATING ANALYSIS………..
beconfused.com
Combined Value Score: 109
Top Level Domain Score: 10
Unwanted Characters Score: 10
Dictionary Word Score: 50
Length Score: 8
Archive.org Score: 6
Google Search Results: 568
Yahoo Search Results: 2,820
MSN Search Results: 233
Search Engine Score: 25
Estimated Base Value: $327.00
Estimated Actual Value: $17,822.00

Well, I don’t know if it’s accurate, just something interesting I guess. And yes, my domain name is too long it seems.

These are the statistics of the month April. This time is quite a shock because there is a significant increase of visitors from search engine and I know god-damn well why.

There are many people coming in to search for MSN winks. I can’t believe that simple word can attract so many people. This MSN winks page of mine is the most viewed page now, more than my RSS feed, with a viewership of 2142 times. The reason is due to the MSN search engine placing me right at the top in the past. Well, it dropped.

And visitors are coming into my web site looking for tits. Well… I did mention those nice tits I supposed. They are great looking tits according to the webmaster. [Hint: The tits aren't what you think they are.]

Top 20 keyphrases used on search engines (number of hits parenthesized):

# msn winks (637)
# msn winks download (108)
# winks msn (99)
# download msn winks (80)
# tits (67)
# winks (63)
# msn messenger winks (62)
# kung foo hustle trailer (52)
# winks for msn (51)
# nice tits (46)
# create winks (37)
# kung foo hustle (22)
# incredible popeman (22)
# nicetits (20)
# malaysia idol (19)
# create msn winks (18)
# winks for msn messenger (16)
# more msn winks (16)
# sylvester sim (16)
# japanese lyrics (14)

[View March keyphrases.]

I doubt that I will be achieving the same number of visitors the next month. The whole crazy MSN winks thing has ended. I received a significant visitor drop already. It’s kind of sad. I have to admit I love visitors (and commenters). Oh well…

Out of curiosity, I searched “Mr. Dew” on MSN Search through NineMSN.

I did not top the list but something else caught my attention.

Register free on eBay Australia.
Buy or sell “Mr. Dew” – great range and value at www.ebay.com.au.

This is what I see right at the bottom of my search. It only happens when I search at NineMSN and not the main MSN search. Who would like to buy me anyway.

I hope this is not an April Fool’s joke. So many sites are having it. At beconfused.com, there is no April Fool’s joke. I don’t like to fool people – I just confuse them.

**G is for growth**

Storage is an important part of email, but that doesn’t mean you should have to worry about it. To celebrate our one-year birthday, we’re giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why stop the party there? Our plan is to continue growing your storage beyond 2GBs by giving you more space as we are able. We know that email will only become more important in people’s lives, and we want Gmail to keep up with our users and their needs. From Gmail, you can expect more.

Source: Gmail

This is most probably following Yahoo’s move to match Gmail by increasing their email web space to 1GB. Gmail now wants to have 2GB. Also, previous word has it that Gmail is getting out of the beta stage on April Fool’s too.

Right now, my Gmail mail box is increasing gradually, now it says – You are currently using 81 MB (5%) of your 1770 MB.

I have 1770 MB already? I can’t check if it’s an April Fool’s joke, but in my previous post, Google came out with the Google Gulp thing to fool people. Would this be yet another April Fool’s joke? I certainly hope not. We’ll just have to wait till tomorrow (when it’s not April Fool’s) to find out the truth behind this.

On a side note – Microsoft, are you listening? It’s time to finish your mailbox upgrade to 250 MB, and also you can start considering a 500 MB email instead already. The more the merrier I suppose. Now there are these web mail providers offering 250 MB and more web mail space – Gmail (2000 MB probably), Yahoo Mail (1 GB soon!), Lycos UK (300 MB) and Hotmail (250 MB).

I never found a good use for email web space frankly speaking, in my opinion, 100 MB is a blessing and 20 MB is enough.

UPDATE: I just checked my Gmail and it now says – You are currently using 81 MB (4%) of your 2050 MB. I have 50 Gmail invites again! Do you want an invitation to Gmail?

This is just too embarassing.

**Reduction in Disk Quota in your M: drive**

To better utilise our computer resources, we have reviewed the disk storage allocations to all students in our computer system. In this review, we compared the disk space allocation with other Polytechnics. After this review, we have decided to reduce the disk space given to your home folder (the ‘M’ drive) from 100 MB to 50 MB.

Source: School email

From 100 MB to 50 MB? Singapore Polytechnic students would experience this cut. I don’t think it is a good idea frankly speaking. Everytime I see the words ‘M: drive”, it can’t be anything good. The ‘M’ drive is mapped into the student’s personal disk space which – in case you haven’t read the above – is 50 MB now.

To many students, the Internet Exlorer cache alone takes up to 20 MB and many students didn’t realize the need the clear it at all. Plus classes may include files that are 10 MB to run a program, I don’t remember which program requires that though, it is in one of my classes and those files need to be in the student’s personal drive.

And if this student deals with multimedia, how the hell is he going to create a 3D movie with just 50 MB? No way! And if the student is a programmer, he’ll use up the space pretty quickly if he does back up his work periodically in the student drive.

Gmail has 1 GB, MSN Hotmail has announced to increase their mail space to 250 MB even. Hard disk price is so cheap nowadays. What is with not allowing the students to get 100 MB? It’s not a lot frankly speaking. Why is my school being so petty?!

Perhaps Singapore Polytechnic did a promotion tie in with some company that does USB removable disk devices because – trust me – the students seriously are going to need one.

I was just looking through my site statistics and found that most people are coming to my blog searching for MSN winks due to one post that I have. So I’ll give these people what they want. What are these MSN winks?

Winks: Express yourself with impact. Send animations with sound to really get some attention.

Source: MSN Messenger 7 Beta

Yes it really gets our attention. It gets the hacker’s attention too. And the security experts. ZDNet reports that vulnerabilities were discovered in MSN Messenger 7.0, due to be released today (October 07, 2004), after testers found it had the potential to send rogue ‘winks’ â?? animations that grab the reader’s attention.

_(Winks: Express yourself with impact. Send animations with sound to really get some attention.)_

“The Messenger beta was designed to only send approved MSN winks,” said a spokesperson for Microsoft. “That said, we’re investigating the potential that hackers could bypass this process to send unauthorised — rogue — winks that could cause security issues. We will not ship winks with the limited beta so we can address any potential issues.” [from the same ZDNet source as above]

In my opinion, MSN winks are just Flash animations that you can send to your friends and if your friends have MSN Messenger 7.0 installed, he or she can view it.

Imagine someone having to send you a pornographic wink and you are offended by some wink doing animal sex in your LCD monitor. How to prevent these things from happening?

Microsoft is very helpful. Basically, the way to solve the problem is to disallow unofficial MSN winks. [See! Microsoft solved the problem.] I hold a leaked beta of MSN Messenger and it is said that custom MSN winks cannot work in it. There are some sources that suggest you to put in a folder in your application data. There is a program to try to create winks from SWF files which is basically Flash animations. I suppose they convert them or something. But this program isn’t working well with the leaked build of MSN Messenger 7.0 so don’t bother trying. You’re just wasting your time when MSN Messenger 7.0 gets released eventually.

Does Mr. Dew like MSN winks?
Yes, at the moment. I like the bouncing ball with the smiling face with this tongue sticking out. But excessive will be annoying. Use with moderation.

Can you download more MSN winks?
Yes, very likely. But not at the moment since Microsoft has yet to release MSN Messenger 7.0. Microsoft may sell extra MSN winks, who knows? Currently there is a library of ThreeDegree winks but I don’t think you can use them in MSN Messenger. But since ThreeDegrees is a Microsoft thing, one day you may be able to download additional MSN winks from a similar library.

Can you create MSN winks?
Probably, but it doesn’t automatically send your wink to your friend who doesn’t have the same wink in their computer and the new leaked build of MSN Messenger 7.0 beta won’t work with your custom winks.

Does MSN winks have sound?
Yes, they do.

I would like to see user-created MSN winks some day, but if security’s going to be the cost of this, I’ll just stick with my bouncing ball with a smiling face.