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The tech giant starts rolling out custom URLs for certain brands and users, like +britneyspears and +toyota. Now, memorizing those long strings of numbers could be a thing of the past.
Both Twitter and Facebook have offered vanity URLs personalized to users' accounts for years -- something that has been glaringly vacant in Google Plus' URLs. But, that's about to change.
Google's social network announced today that vanity URLs for profiles and pages are on their way. It has even begun rolling out a few for celebrities, like soccer player David Beckham and pop singer Britney Spears, along with brands like Toyota, Delta, and Hugo Boss.
Here's what Google product manager Saurabh Sharma wrote in a blog post today:
Your Google+ profile is a place for you to share your passions with the millions of people who come to Google each day...Today we're introducing custom URLs to make it even easier for people to find your profile on Google+. A custom URL is a short, easy to remember web address that links directly to your profile or page on Google+.
Sharma writes that at first just a few "verified profiles and pages" will get custom URLs, but eventually they will be offered to "many more" people and brands around the world. It's not clear how Google is choosing who is "verified" and who isn't and the timeframe for the greater inclusion of vanity URLs.
In other Google+ news, the social network also announced today that it is launching a new audio setting for hangouts called "Studio Mode," which optimizes sound specifically for music. Beforehand, hangout sound was tweaked for conversations; but now by clicking settings and switching from "Voice" to "Studio Mode," music should sound more like a live concert than a video conference.
"Since we launched Google+ a little over a year ago, we've seen a thriving community of musicians connect with fans in really cool ways," Google product manager Matthew Leske wrote in a blog post today. "In particular: singer/songwriters like +Daria Musk, bands like +Suite 709, and many others are using Hangouts On Air to perform live for global audiences, and jam with fans face-to-face."
Dara Kerr, a freelance journalist based in the Bay Area, is fascinated by robots, supercomputers and Internet memes. When not writing about technology and modernity, she likes to travel to far-off countries.
In Malaysia, titles carry a lot of weight. People lie about their names, and some second wives even insist on being addressed as Datin or Puan Sri.
IT all began when I met a fortune teller in Butterworth who chided me for not using my honorific title before the name that you see now. In other words, a family title.
“If you acknowledge this heritage, this name that your family ancestors gave you, you will become very, very, very rich!” she said.
I thought, I could live with that. I am tired of being a financially struggling writer.
A month or two later, I edited my LinkedIn profile and put, ahem, the title in front of my name. Boom! Boom! Boom! I received a monthly average of three potential connections to link with.
Now, I have been a member of LinkedIn.com for more than seven years, and I would receive an invitation to connect like, perhaps, once every two to three months.
This very strange phenomenon affirmed the following to me: First, I’m not a celebrity, hot, and popular. These new friendships confirmed to me that a lot of Malaysians in general are social climbers and will only befriend you if you have wealth and social standing.
My charming personality and some brains have nothing to do with my instant popularity. Tsk.
Before we go on, allow me to clarify a few things. I do have a title tagged to the name my parents gave me. I do not understand why there are women who want to marry into the firm, because having an honorific is hell on forms and documents.
I am grateful that my parents gave me a beautiful name. Maybe at that time of registration, in 1969, there were many tiny boxes to fill in my title and name, but 21st century forms are horrible to fill in your particulars.
Two. Maybe I am related to some very titled and privileged people and maybe I am not. So don’t bother befriending me. I cannot guarantee you an invitation to the istana or a royal event.
I myself do not attend such dos. The one or two times I had been invited, I had to cover an event. If there ever was a personal invitation, and I cannot remember any, I chose to sleep.
I have always invested in very nice beds and mattresses. They win hands down all the time.
Also, if I am related to some Tengku or Raja, it would be 100 times removed. I call myself a SociaLIKE. I only mingle with people I like.
That LinkedIn caper left a bitter taste in my mouth. Surely all the work I had done over these 18 years would have amounted to something. I worked very hard to get to the little mountain I am on now. I can do this, and I can do that.
Actually, I am smarter than some of these titled people. Still, was an honorific my passport to professional and social success?
Unfortunately in Malaysia, titles carry a lot of weight. People even lie about their names.
Friends who work in events and public relations will call me, laughing over guests’ pretensions. “Wah, since when ah, did this person become a Tengku, or Datuk?”
I myself have seen a business card which had the grandfather’s datukship! Since the person’s father was not a datuk but the grandfather was, the person insisted on having it on the card.
How do you take someone like this seriously? Obviously many do, because the person is a director of a public-listed company.
I have also met second wives who insist on being addressed as Datin or Puan Sri. Darlings, think what you will, but that privilege belongs to the first wives only. Non-negotiable. Lu sudah sapu sama laki, mau sapu title pulak?
There is little professional meritocracy practised in this country: it’s not just your race, it’s who you are related to, who you know in this country, (and perhaps also the bomoh you’ve hired) that gets you places.
This may be 2012, but Malaysia is very much a feudal society. A title may not get you that timber deal, but at least the waiting staff or sales clerk will stand to attention.
And perhaps this is why we hold on to social status like a limpet: because there are so few honest successes in this country.
I have been asked before what I thought of the monarchy in Malaysia. If there is one legacy any monarchy should have, it would be that it has served its people well.
It should act intelligently and be compassionate. It should not be known for excess and wastefulness, especially in times of austerity. Granted, there are a number of royals who have contributed to the country, but how many have left proper legacies?
I do enjoy reading the Malayan history of monarchy and aristocracy. Reading the Hikayats make me yearn for simpler days. Modern day aristocracy has lost that romance, refinement and adat.
Three months into my experiment, I was already getting irritated by requests to connect. My e-mail was constantly alerting me of new possible friends I could network with. And I still have yet to hit the jackpot. So I called the fortune teller in Butterworth.
“Aunty! Apa dei, I put the title in front of my name and I’m still not rich la!”
“Aiyo, it is the month. The stars are not aligned … you see, my dear …”
I squawked on the other side of the phone. I had no time to deal with astrological alignments. I went to my laptop and edited my LinkedIn.com profile. Goodbye title.
And what a marked change. To date, I have only had two requests to network with me, and these were old friends from university. I like it that way.
To those who added me on the basis of my name, I don’t want to do business with you. And to those who appreciate my work, and think that there are possibilities, you know how to get me.
> Dina Zaman is a writer based in KL. She is interested in Malaysian religious histories and its people.
Have you been phished? Whether you use a Mac, Windows, or Linux, iOS or Android, there's a real strong chance that somebody has sent you an e-mail or text message in an attempt to get at your personal information. Data means money, and you're a big ol' dollar sign to the bad guys.
The best recommendation I can offer is to browse smart. That means you ought to always double-check the URL of your banking site, social networking site, and e-mail site before you log in. Most browsers, including Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer, now include a color-change on the left side of the location bar to indicate that the site has been verified as legitimate. It's always a good idea to type in the URL by hand, and to never follow links from an e-mail. Also, checking for HTTPS instead of the less-secure HTTP is a good idea, although HTTPS isn't foolproof.
But what about that link to some ostensibly hilarious video your best friend just posted to Twitter? There are several services you can use to verify a link. Google Safe Browsing is a good place to start. If you type in that URL, you can then enter in a site name or an IP address to find out if it has hosted malware in the past 90 days.
Another similar service is hpHosts. Enter a site into the search box and its database will tell you if the site has been used to distribute malware or phishing attacks. HpHosts gives you more-detailed information than Google Safe Browsing, if you're into that kind of thing. Two other excellent services are Norton Safe Web, from Symantec, and Unmasked Parasites. Pop in the URL, and you're good to go. Or if the site comes back as unsafe, don't go.
Many security suites come with browser add-ons to check links you click on the fly, and those work fairly well at scanning your search results and adding icons to indicate if a link is safe or not. If you don't have a suite, AVG LinkScanner (download for Windows | Mac)is a free add-on that works with both Windows and Mac, and AVG's free Mobilation Android app (download) or Lookout Mobile Security (download) will block malicious links on your Android device.
Sadly, iPhone and iPad users are out of luck. Even though phishing over social networking has been proven to work on iOS devices that haven't been jailbroken, Apple doesn't allow such link-checking apps. Feel free to recommend your favorite in the comments below.
Both Twitter and Facebook have offered vanity URLs personalized to users' accounts for years -- something that has been glaringly vacant in Google Plus' URLs. But, that's about to change.
