The CEO Game

The Pacman game that has taken over Google’s home page in the last few days has caused the loss of 4.8 million work hours that  are estimated to be worth 120 million dollars.

These celebrations for the 30th birthday of Pacman, which Google celebrated last week, had cost many US firms dearly.

Google published their own version of the original Pacman game, which was originally developed by the Japanese company Namco,  on their home page.  Google had reported that game was activated over a billion times in three days.

Eating your money.

According to research conducted by RescueTime, the average visitor had spent 36 extra seconds on the site to play the addicting game that Google had added for the special occasion. When summed up the time spent,  you get  a waste of 4.8 million work hours, which are worth around 120 million dollars.

Ailon.

The CEO Game.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hired 200 people to tweet for him.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez must believe it’s about time he spreaded his influence over the web. Otherwise he would not have hired 200 people to manage his Twitter account. That’s right, two hundred. The man who only several months ago claimed that Twitter users are terrorists, is now one himself and by the looks of it he is taking the social network by a storm.

Now On Twitter

According to the BBC and additional sources, Chavez whose popularity is rising fast, has over a quarter of a million followers already, just could not handle the constant stream of messages, or tweets if you prefer, he was receiving and had to turn to help from the “pros”- a team of professional correspondants who specialize in public relations.

However, while many celebrities, politicians and other public personas on Twitter have a bunch of people tweeting and posting stuff on their behalf as well as basically managing their accounts, 200 people doing these actions has to be one of the largest and most impressive dedicated teams (recorded that is). Perhaps even bigger than Barack Obama’s team or the Dalai Lama’s.

So why the need for such an immerse team? Well, Presidente’ says that he has received over 50,000 messages since he’s created his account two weeks ago. At this rate, it is clear he can’t answer all of them alone and still have the time to be president. But setting up a Twitter account in order to spread his message doesn’t come as a surprise- Chavez has already daily speeches broadcast on all stations in Bolivia, but guess that was not enough.

While It’s not hard to criticize Chavez who is basing his dictatorship slowly but surely, it took him only a short while to realize the power of Twitter and now he using it in full throttle- connecting with the people and spreading his influence. In spite of the fact that only 30 percent of Bolivians have an access to the web, it looks like many of them enjoy the opportunity to have the leader within reach (even if it isn’t him after all). Chavez claims only a low percent of the messages so far were critical, but he handled them swiftly. Guess that is just one more Twitter account Obama is going to stay clear of.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

A New York resident has found an original way to address executives in the marketing industry and even get himself his dream job.

Alec Brownstein, a New York resident that searched for a job in the marketing industry, had bought sponsored links, using Google’s Adwords , which valued in 6 US dollars. The advertisement had appeared on the first pages when people searched for the names of several marketing executives. So when those executive had searched their own name in Google, the first link they have seen was Brownstein’s message, asking for a job.

Out of 5 executives, four of them had invited him for an interview, two had offered him a job, and today he is working in one of the leading advertising agencies in New York City.

Ailon.

The CEO Game.

Can’t get enough of the iPad? Now you can get it on your next vacation. The next time you hop off to the Britain, whether on a business trip or you just fancy making some quirky photos with the royal guards, you might want to consider booking a night at the Berkeley hotel in London. Why you ask? The luxury Londonian hotel is offering an iPad for guests staying in their master suites, for a mere £2,000 a night, which is a bit over 3,000$ US in case you wondered.

The Berkeley hotel

The Berkeley, a classic- yet contemporary hotel, located in the heart of Knightsbridge, which comes with recommendations by past clients such as Madonna and Mischa Barton, is bragging that as “the official UK launch of the iPad (is) still not upon us, you can be sure that our guests will be amongst the first to experience the delights of this new innovation”. The last weekend marked the introduction of Apple’s latest must-have device in all the hotel’s suites: the Berkeley, Conservatory and Chelsea suites. The iPads are offered for reading the daily newspapers as well as visiting the surrounding attractions as chosen by Berkeley’s concierge. They will also be pre-loaded with a range of games and videos. Guests will be shown how to use the iPad at check-in. The hotel says it plans its own apps by the end of the year.

To be frank, it is actually not the first hotel to have iPads, but it is the first one to offer an in- room iPad service. This comes after another hotel chain, the InterContinental, started using iPads in the hotel lobbies all over the world (London, New York, Honk Kong and more) to give directions to nearby venues.

As desperate as some Apple groupies may be to start messing around with the iPad, we do hope they realize that buying one, when they would be available worldwide, would work out cheaper than staying even for just one night at the Berkeley hotel- no matter how soft their pillows may be or its proximity to Harvey Nichols. Anyways, it was just about time somebody pulled the pad.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Ever wondered just how many times your government has requested Google to remove content or to provide user information? Well, Google’s new Government Request tool does just that. The newly launched service shows exactly how many times, governments from around the world approached Google with these ’special’ requests and how often did Google comply. In the age where government censorship of the web is growing rapidly: from the blocking and filtering of sites, to court orders limiting access to information and legislation forcing companies to self-censor content. Here is a more transparent look around these government requests.

Google

It’s no surprise that Google, like other technology and telecommunications companies, regularly receives demands from government agencies from around the world to remove content from their services. However, data about these activities has never been broadly available and now it is out there for everyone to see. The figures which are currently shown, are based on information gathered during the second half of 2009. Google promises they will be updated every six months.

Brazil is currently leading the board with almost 4000 requests, in both date and removal requests. However, experts suggest Brazil’s stats probably rank so high because of Orkut’s extraordinary dominance over there. Falling behind Brazil, you can find the US in the second place with over than 3500 data requests and 291 removal requests between July and December of last year, some 80% of which Google complied with. Germany, India and South Korea also rank high in removal requests with 188, 142, 64 accordingly. Amongst the top five in data requests you can find UK with 1100, India with 1050 and France with 850 requests.

On the contrary, Canada made ‘only’ 41 requests for data and only 16 removals: 43.8% of removal requests fully or partially complied with (1 Blogger, 2 Groups by court order, 1 Web search, 12 YouTube). Israel had even less: 30 data requests, under 10 removal requests (20% of these complied with). China is also protruding country, in the sense that its details are the only ones not shown. Google said “Chinese officials consider censorship demands as state secrets, so we cannot disclose that information at this time”. Many countries were left out since they had too little requests to begin with.

Google points out, the “vast majority” of these requests are for legitimate legal purposes, one obvious example is tracking child pornographers and additional online crooks such as con-artists, spammers and more. Despite of this, as more and more information “goes online”, the line between what is a legitimate request and what’s practically invasion of privacy, becomes more and more blurry. The Google tool doesn’t drill down any further (behind jurisdiction sums) into the numbers (some requests revolve several sites and there are some repeating requests) and in removal cases how often they were complied with, buy hey, it is a start. Many human rights activists hope this move, will lead governments to think before digging for people’s personal data or attempting to censor their opinions.

To sum it up, Google said it best on their blog “we hope that this is just the first step toward increased transparency about these actions across the technology and communications industries”.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Obama- not only state affairs: Has President Barack Obama been cheating on his wife with Vera Baker? A celebrity gossip newspaper, claims it has got evidence that while running for senator, United States President, Barack Obama spent the night with one of his campaign’s aide. The “National Enquirer”, a yellow tabloid, which also revealed Senator John Edwards’ cheating scandal, is the one behind this shocking allegations. The publication claims that Obama and Baker, his former employee, stayed together in a hotel in Washington DC and that a “security video” could expose the whole thing.

Barak Obama

The woman standing in the midst of the scandal, is 36 years old, Vera Baker. According to the tabloid, she has raised millions in campaign contributions for Obama when he was running for the US Senate, in 2004 and they grew close ever since. While Vera Baker insists that nothing has happened between them, the Enquirer claims it has got two “incriminating” pieces of evidence- a video that proves that the two spent the night together and an anonymous limousine driver claiming he drove Vera to a secret hotel rendezvous with the President.

The limo driver says he drove Baker “from a friend’s home in the DC area to the Hotel George where I learned later that Obama would be spending the night”. The driver also recalled “to the best of my knowledge she did not have a room at the hotel and she was not staying there so I thought that it was a bit odd”. He drove them around the city and finally he claims that around “10:30 pm, I drove them to the hotel and they went in together! My services for the evening were done”, and in addition “there was absolutely no indication she was going to leave the hotel that night”. They also claim the driver has been paid off to remain silent about that night.

Moreover, the Enquirer claims “on-site hotel surveillance video camera footage could provide indisputable evidence. Investigators are working to obtain the tape”. “If the tape surfaces, it will explode the scandal”, they conclude. The paper says the driver’s “testimony” was independently corroborated by investigators and that they now believe that the couple spent the night together there, in spite of the fact that they didn’t see the tape at all. The paper also says political activists who oppose Obama are offering $1 million for information confirming the affair.

As aforementioned, the National Enquirer previously exposed John Edwards’ scandal who cheated on his wife with Rielle Hunter. At the time people thought he got intentionally smeared, but look how that turned out. But, you are right, there is a difference between him (a second tier candidate running for presidency) and an actual President in office. Finally, we suggest not to believe the Obama tale, at least not without any real evidence. However, don’t think something like this can’t happen just because it is the President, remember, for a short while, American also gave Bill Clinton the benefit of the doubt.
Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game