Micro Bookmarking & Web Innovation Blog

May 201 sales for web based businesses have taken a large hit in sales as the global economy continues to struggle through a recovery. The loss of online sales was not only based on seasonal slowdowns, the gulf oil spill or the flat economy we are presently enjoying, it had more to due with a large infrastructure shake up at Google, arguably the worlds leading search engine.
Late April 2010, Google announced a quality change to their search algorithm, which is nothing new, since Google makes hundreds of changes each year. This update however affected sites in a way the dropped much of their targeted traffic resulting in a precipitous  drop in sales for many online businesses. In the end, this as blown into a perfect storm of conditions to cool the overall economy.
The effect on brick & mortar store is forthcoming as some online retailers cut back on purchases of non essential items.

Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, which season delivers the best sales conversions and which makes you want to sell your web business and go work for someone else? In our niche businesses and with many others, we find that the fall and winter months provide a gradual buildup in sales right up to January 1st, then BAM! sales skyrocket for then next two cold winter months of January and February. Come April 15th though, everything has cooled down and with tax time and warmer weather, it seems people walk away from their computer shopping to enjoy the spring and summer weather. In 2010 many online services may find yet another dagger to dash their slow sales, that is the slow roll out of Google’s Caffeine search engine update.  Although Google’s Matt Cutts seems to indicate otherwise, Google’s latest algorithm update appears to be rolling over small business websites like a tsunami wave. The initial effect for us has been a dramatic cessation of buying customers as this perfect storm of seasonal decline combines with a major search engine shuffle and a sluggish economy. On the bright side, if you are currently experiencing slow sales conversions, it couldn’t happen at a better time, but if your site gets hit with the Caffeine update during the fall of winter months it could put a major damper on your annual income.  In the end, we hope Google’s Caffeine update will provide faster, more relevant search results and an increase in sales for all.

We have decided to put the old Microlinx Bookmark Manager back online while we work out the new version. This may take some time, but with recent changes to IE and FireFox there will some issues with  toolbar. As of today, if you have upgraded to Firefox 3.6 – our toolbar will not work.
It will install, but it does not appear in Firefox 3.6. The only solution is to stick with Firefox 3.5.8 or earlier. We recommend version Firefox 3.5.8

The toolbar will work in IE 7 – but you need to make a few minor security adjustments to allow active x to install the toolbar. Here’s how:
1. Open internet explorer, Click  Tools – Internet Options
2. Click the Security tab – Custom level button.
Under ActiveX be sure the following are enabled.
Run ActiveX and Plug-ins – Enabled
Download Signed Active X Control – Enabled
Script ActiveX control marked as safe for scripting – Enabled
Then set the following to “Prompt”
Download unsigned ActiveX Control – Prompt
Initialize and script ActiveX controls not marked as safe – Prompt
3. Finally, click OK and Apply and OK. Restart Browser, then use the install toolbar again.

We will notify all users when the new system is ready.

We appreciate your patience while our service is being re-constructed.

DO NOT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET FROM 12:01 AM GMT ON APR. 1 TO 12:01 AM GMT, APR. 2 !!
*** Attention ***

It’s that time again!

As many of you know, each year the Internet must be shut down for 24 hours in order to allow the MIT maintenance team to clean it. The cleaning process, which eliminates dead email, inactive ftp and www sites, and empty USENET groups and a physical connection cleaning cycle allows us to enjoy a faster and safer Internet experience.

This year, the cleaning process will take place from 12:01 a.m. GMT on April 1 until 12:01 a.m. GMT on April 2 (the time least likely to interfere with ongoing work). During that 24-hour period a powerful vacuum system along with five of the major Internet search engines  will search the global Internet to delete and quarantine any data they find that might be  considered either harmful or outdated. This will be followed by a physical purge of all connection lines.

In order to protect your valuable data, photos, music and e-mail from being deleted you should take the following precautions:

1. Disconnect all terminals and local area networks from their Internet connections.

2. Shut down all Internet servers, or disconnect them from the Internet.

3. Disconnect all disks and hard drives from any connections to the Internet.

4. Refrain from connecting any computer to the Internet in any way.

5. Wrap the ends of all RJ-45 internet connectors with a plastic sandwich bag secured with a twist tie. (this will prevent dust from entering your house when the internet connections are blown clean with compressed air) .

6. Optionally, and for even faster performance, place a small drop of WD-40 or similar penetrating oil on the top center of your PC tower. This will soak in to lubricate your network connection. Do not use cooking oil as it make foul your hard drive.

We understand the inconvenience that this may cause some Internet users, and we apologize. However, we are certain that any inconveniences will be more than made up for by the increased speed and efficiency of the Internet, once it has been cleared of electronic debris.

We thank you for your cooperation.

Harvey Manfrenjensen
Interconnected Network Maintenance staff,
Main branch,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sysops and others: Since the last Internet cleaning, the number of Internet users has grown dramatically. Please assist us in alerting the public of the upcoming Internet cleaning by posting this message where your users will be able to read it. Please pass this message on to other sysops and Internet users as well.

Thank you.

The Microlinx Bookmark Manager application rewrite effort is now fully underway.  We will keep you posted on its progress. Thanks for your patience.

We apologize to those members who signed up since March 1st, but we have had some serious issues with a developer involved in the Microlinx project. Soon the Microlinx Bookmark Manager will be completely rewritten from scratch to eliminate many issues left by previous developers. Microlinx should be back online and better than ever within the next few months. We will retain our vision for the future of social micro bookmarking. Sorry for the inconvenience. & Thanks!

It appears Firefox has officially launched version 3.6, but due to a rapidly growing list of problems (with many declaring that the new Firefox 3.6 sucks), we recommend that you roll back to version 3.5.8 which will be supported until August 2010. Besides the obvious add-on problems, the new version runs slower and inhibits many functions without the user even knowing it, kinda like what our elected officials do to us. Hope they can iron out the wrinkles before August. A trip to their support forum reveals a constant stream of user issues related to bookmarking problems and inability to run add-ons that worked fine in 3.5.8.

Here’s all you need to do to roll back:
1. Close all instances of Firefox.
2. Go to Start > Control Panel > Add Remove Programs
3. Uninstall Mozilla Fire Fox 3.6
4. Install Firefox 3.5.8 from the link below…
Click here to download version Firefox version 3.5.8
5. Once you complete the rollback, be sure to reinstall the Microlinx Bookmarking Toolbar:
Download The Microlinx Toolbar Here

microlinx social bookmarking panel

In the Microlinx Bookmark Manager System, you can view the current links being placed into the system by all other users. This allows you to check out what sites other people are viewing, giving you an interesting perspective while discovering new sites you may have never even thought of visiting.

As new sites enter the system, they are added to the “Most Recent Public” panel. You can place one of these panel on any one of your page tabs and you can do this as many times as you wish. There is also a “Most Popular Public Panel” available that shows only the top 20 most popular system links based on the total click points for each.

When you mouse over a link in this panel, you get the usual pop up info panel with the site description, thumbnail and the date added. These links are added anonymously so you never know exactly who placed the link which ensures user privacy.

To take privacy and security to a higher level, you can completely exclude your links from appearing in the public panels by using the individual link edit panel then selecting “private” and saving. All links enter the system as “public” links unless you manually change them to “private”.

Get started using Microlinx Online Bookmark Manager System by completion the free registration at: http://www.microlinx.com/main/ then install the free bookmarking toolbar found at http://www.microlinx.com/toolbar/