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….and not a single Search Engine Marketing Blog among them 🙁

Check out the Observer’s Chart and tell me what you’d like to see in there?

The Policeman’s Blog is a favourite of mine!

Nice piece yesterday in the Sunday Times showing how the internet is no longer just the place for spotty male geeks to gather. Not that that stereotype is necessarily warranted, but check out how Libby  Purves referred to my blog a few months back!!!

The Pew Internet Project in the US recently found 35% of girls compared with 20% of boys have their own blogs, and 70% of girls aged 15-17 have embraced social networking and built their own page on Bebo or MySpace compared with 57% of boys.

Hitwise backed this up in in January, reporting that 55% of UK social networkers are women too.

The upshot of Kate Spicer and Abul Taher’s piece is summed up nicely by their main subject, a 12-year-old girl from Surrey who spends much of her time one her PC doing homework but also gossiping with friends on Bebo or Facebook.

When asked if she’d want a career in software development in order to create such experiences in the future she replied:

“Girls are creative, they are more into history, English and art – it’s the boys who are more into the techie things!”

Want to know Microsoft’s position on search & online advertising?

Watch this…

My collegue Nate from the Live Search Webmaster Tools Crew, presents on Advanced Search Engine Optimisation for Web Developers at MIX08 in Las Vegas.

Watch it in Silverlight – very cool!

Go Steve!

If it is, check out the money program tonight on BBC 2 at 7pm for some insight and tips on how to Take Back Your Life!

Did you know that two million emails are sent every minute in the UK or 3 billion per day?

Ray Tomlinson wrote the first emailing code in 1971:

“I do feel proud of this accomplishment. In some sense it was such a simple thing to do at the time, but it has had ramifications through many people’s lives. What I didn’t anticipate is how fast it would grow once it started growing.”

Thanks Ray – I’m just off to photostat some memos……

As a fan of Banksy, I’m delighted to see his handy work has appeared on a chemist wall in north London.

Given the recent prices Banksy’s work has been fetching, I’m sure the pharmacist will be prescribing himself a little valium to help him sleep tonight!

“It’ll never happen to me!” was the naive opinion I held for a number of years, while scoffing at news reports of less savvy users getting ripped off online.

Until I joined Microsoft that is…..

You see we get whizz-bang phones given to us, all Windows powered you understand, and I already had a whizz-bang phone so I had to get rid of it.

I stuck it up on eBay and all was well….for a while.

A few hours before the end of the auction I got an email from a chap in Delhi. Would I mind he bid on the phone and would I kindly consider shipping it to him in India. I checked his feedback and he’d bought about 15 phones from other eBayers, so I thought why not?

 The more the merrier!

He won the phone, paying about £350 or £30 more than it would have cost him to buy it brand new online. That’s where greed and arrogance had clouded my judgement. I smugly wrapped the phone up and winged it on its way to Delhi, thinking what a fool!

Three months later I had a chargeback on my credit card statement from PayPal. It turns out the guy had used a stolen credit card, or been in cahoots with someone else who denied ever sanctioning the charges. It was conveniently so late in the day I’d deleted all record of the transaction. PayPal didn’t want to know, so I was £350 and a whizz-bang phone down and feeling very silly.

Next was during PubCon in Vegas last year – it was a lucrative trip but I wasn’t expecting my debit card details to have been pilfered and a transaction for £147 to have been made for a cash withdrawal in Oregon. Where did they get my card number from? I only used it twice in Vegas!

Lastly and most weirdly involved Google.

I’ve used AdWords a number of times in the past, but checking my credit card statement for December I noticed a $5.10 charge in the US for their PPC product. Then it happened again in January for $10.32!!!

Such small numbers are obviously anathema to me, especially on my salary (not!) so I emailed Google to find out what on earth was going on!

Seventeen, yes SEVENTEEN emails and two phone calls later, they established it was fraud and advised me to close my credit card account and charge back the £7.50.

Now I consider myself quite savvy, spending as much time online and assessing websites as I do, you’d think I’d be able to spot something unsafe or dodgy.

But it can happen to ANYONE!!!

Couple of tips:

• If a deal looks too good to be true, then it probably is!
• Keep all your receipts and check them off your bank statements.
• For big items keep receipts or email confirmations filed away electronically for at least 6 months.
• Always check your statements for transactions you don’t recognise and act on them immediately.
• Don’t buy stuff or take money out when you’ve had a few beers (Vegas!) your judgement may be impared!

Not long to go now and it’s very close so please VOTE FOR ME!

Check out the details for the Party and Vote for The National Association For Colitis & Crohns – Please!!!!

Microsoft will DOUBLE the cash collected! So we’re talking $$$$$$$$$$

Search Engine Strategies Charity Party Sponsored By The Best Of The Web

The Telegraph reports today, just how toxic mobile downloads can be to the wallet if you, or your wife, are not careful!

It’s sad how a ridiculous case like this, is what it takes to strengthen the resolve of the powers-that-be to put a stop to the outlandish roaming fees the mobile operators get away with…..