Monday, February 27, 2012

Mizozo Status Update

As development of the new version progresses, I have some interesting statistics to announce.

Overall, the new homepage loads an average of 100 times faster than the current home page if caching is disabled. This phenomenal increase in speed is due to the fact that we have stripped down all modules that are no longer in use, as well removed all legacy code built by the team who originally developed Mizozo. We have spent years 'fixing' the problems those guys caused, but completely rebuilding the site was the only way to truly fix the problems.

The article page is also loading about 50 times faster for the same reasons already mentioned. While we have not eliminated the Apache problems of high image load for our article pages, the DB load has been almost eliminated now that our article pages will be 99% cached, compared to about 80% on the original site.

I can't wait to see this version go live. I don't expect much reaction from the outside world, but I do expect a substantial increase in traffic. Our site is still going down due to load. Hopefully these changes will allow our servers to handle at least a few hundred thousand views per day with minimal load.

Another major change decided last week was the removal of Mizozo's slogan, "Your News, Argued by You". After much thought and discussion, it was decided that this slogan no longer represents what Mizozo stands for. We have deviated a great deal from our original premise of a news site, and now are more a content site, so a News centric slogan no longer makes sense. We plan on inviting members to suggest a new slogan, but that will have to wait.

With the month about to close, another post is just around the corner with a quick look at this months statistics. Stay tuned ...

Monday, February 20, 2012

A Very Busy Week for Mizozo

As promised, many changes are coming to Mizozo, not least of which is the new front end currently in developed. I am happy to announce that as of last week the new Home Page and Article Page are currently deployed to Mizozo Labs and they look great. As with all development, there are numerous issues, but I am sure that we will work through them all reasonably soon. Our next step is to develop the Category Page, Search Result Page (along with an optimized search engine) and a simple page for our static content. Once those are done and tested, a new front end will be rolled out. 


Once this is complete, the final phase of our development agenda is to create a new homepage for our user's profiles. Currently, for those that don't know, every time a user registers we create a subdomain for them (ie: http://hammer.mizozo.com) which serves as a means to show the world that what you wrote. We feel it is time to move away from our boring Blog like look and feel to something a bit more dynamic. The end all goal is to allow personalization, but this is a long way off.


Another major step in Mizozo's growth is the establishment of Mizozo LLC. As of now, Mizozo is officially a corporate entity. While this in no way detracts from our eventual revolutionary business model of true corporate transparency and Socialism, it is necessary to draw a line separating the site from those currently running it. As mentioned, over time this line will fade away. 


2012 is looking to become a big year for Mizozo, keep watching. 

Monday, February 13, 2012

Interruptions in Service

This past week has been terrible in terms of up time. First, last week our server went down for over 4 hours due to a power failure at our host. Since then, we have gone down at least twice due to heavy traffic. While there is little we can do about either of these, due to our budget constraints, it is still disconcerting.

Sites go down regularly, all of them, so this doesn't bother us a great deal. It is important to learn from them and try to improve. As I mentioned, budget constraints make improvements difficult at this current time, but there is no question that we need to implement some form of redundancy in order to guarantee maximum up time, independent of our host. I am sure that in the upcoming decade, we will take on such measures.

One thing that we have learned from all of our down times over the years has been our traffic sources reactions to these down times. The most apparent difference in traffic when comparing before and after a prolonged downtime is Stumbleupon. Outside of search results, Stumbleupon is generally our largest source of traffic on a day to day basis. However, if Mizozo goes down for a prolonged time (several hours), Stumbleupon notices and over the course of the next few days we experience a significant drop in traffic from them. Hence, if you run a site similar to Mizozo, and you rely on Stumbleupon for a significant part of your traffic, it is in your best interest to try and maintain as much server up time as possible ... and that is our Tip of the Day for all you content providers.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Mizozo Received and Responded to its Second DMCA Takedown Notice

For the second time so far, Mizozo received a DMCA takedown notice for an image posted by one of our publishers. The first time was almost 2 years ago, and it was a more aggressive shakedown (or extortion) attempt. They insisted I pay $1000 or be sued, I refused but removed the image and in the end they seemed fine with my solution. This time, the takedown  notice was substantially more civil.

Since I don't see any reason why I couldn't post the request in its entirety, I figured I would give you all a feel for what such a letter would look like. Please keep in mind, this letter is extremely polite and was resolved within a few hours of receipt. Not only was the image in question removed, but the article the image was housed on as well as all images within the article. We at Mizozo have no intention of fighting over copyright at this point, so we simply remove things first and ask questions later ... as stated in our Terms and Conditions.

And so, the letter in question:

February 07, 2012 

Re: Notice of Unauthorized Use of Image Owned by AKM Images 

Dear Zhan Goloborodko: 

Copyright Enforcement Group, LLC, ("We") represent AKM Images. AKM Images owns all right, title and interest to the copyright-registered image referenced in this document. 

We have detected the unauthorized use of the image owned by AKM Images listed below. Each image is covered by a registered copyright. Our records and those of AKM Images indicate that you do not currently hold the proper license for the use of the image displayed on your website. 

The following image infringement was detected: 

# | Image Title | Evidence Exhibit 
1.) Britney Spears in a bikini in Rio De Janeiro | Exhibit A in 256636.pdf [URL: http://mizozo.com/images/item_images/34000/33516_src.jpg

You are hereby notified that your unauthorized use of the registered copyright owned by AKM Images for the image described herein is in violation of the U.S. Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 106. In this regard, demand is hereby made that you immediately and permanently cease and desist the unauthorized use and display of said image or produce proof of license of said image by emailing it to: support@copyrightsettlements.com 

You may also be held liable for monetary damages, including attorneys' fees and court costs, if a lawsuit is commenced against you. You have until March 08, 2012 to permanently cease and desist the unauthorized use and display of said image. 

If you fail to respond, cease and desist, or produce proof of licenses within the prescribed time period, the claim will be referred to our attorneys for legal action. 

Nothing contained or omitted from this correspondence is, or shall be deemed to be, either a full statement of the facts or applicable law, an admission of any fact, or waiver or limitation of any of AKM Images' rights or remedies, all of which are specifically retained and reserved. 

The information in this notice is accurate. We have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of herein is not authorized by the registered copyright owner, its agent, or by operation of law. We represent that we are authorized to act on behalf of AKM Images. 

Sincerely, 

Dale Spislander 
Copyright Enforcement Agent 

Copyright Enforcement Group, LLC 
8484 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 220 
Beverly Hills, CA 90211 

Toll Free: 877-5-COPYRIGHT (877-526-7974
Local: 310-526-8610 
Email: support@copyrightsettlements.com 
Website: https://www.copyrightsettlements.com/


The letter also contained a very elegant PDF which can be found here. An interesting point to notice is the fact that they spelled our president's name wrong, and also found his old address, one that was updated almost 6 months back in most registries. Hence, this leads some of us to suspect that these agencies are farming information and aren't very keen on updating their records regularly.

Whats also interesting is the image itself. While I am not contesting the property ownership of the image, I have discussed this with the publisher of the article, who publishes a great deal to Mizozo all involving celebrities. The publisher claims that the image in question most likely originated on one of the public forums he frequents. These forums are being updated by the minute with new images, some which are tagged by who seem to be the owners, while others seem to be simply images that the photographers have willingly distributed (or, at least that was his impression).

The question of Copyright is still a bit fuzzy to me. While I understand the fact that photographers take the ownership of their photos very seriously, knowing several photographers myself, I am torn when contemplating the validity of these claims when it comes to the greater good. The photographers have already made money by selling the images, and will not likely make any more money off the images after their initial release, so why the takedown notice? Do they feel that they have a real chance at re-selling the images at a later date, or is it simple hubris? Either way, we have little say in the matter. I just find it odd.

With that said, for those posting to Mizozo, please refrain from posting obviously copyrighted material to Mizozo. While there is little we can do to stop you at this moment, responding to these takedown  notices is time consuming, not to mention that many copyright owners are just trying to make a living (I am thinking of these photographers, and not the RIAA/MPAA who seem to be doing OK for themselves as is).

Monday, February 6, 2012

More on Mizozo's Transparency and Revolutionary Business Model

Since my initial post on Mizozo's revolutionary business model, I have gotten substantially more criticism than I had expected. My initial claim of Mizozo's transparency was met with a great deal of indifference. Most seem to take it as something similar to the transparency that public companies are expected to comply with, hence they felt that I am simply jumping the gun and starting my transparency early. In fact, this barely scratches the surface.

While public companies do have to maintain a level of transparency, they generally only deal with the financial aspect of the company, then add anything that can help the companies bottom line. In effect, they tend to be transparent only with items that are required by law or by items which may increase their stock value. I intend to take this substantially farther. Not only will all financials be transparent, but all aspects of the business ... good and bad. Items include, but are not limited to: Financial Details, Traffic Statistics, User Statistics, Algorithm Details, Source Code, and a great deal more.

Transparency is only the beginning, the real revolution is the way in which we intend to run the business. While we intend to retain control of key decisions, the inner workings of the company will be dictated by the users. We plan to continually query the user base for direction and guidance. Unlike most user based companies today that care more about their profits than their users, we are not at all concerned about profits. The goal of this site isn't to make money, although it would be nice, but rather it is to build a site that is unstoppable when it comes to the distribution of information. To sweeten the deal, all money going into Mizozo will be distributed to its user base. Sure, users will not be making millions, but neither will the sites administrators. We expect that popular users can make a few thousand a month while the rest will get an occasion $100 check.

With revolution around every corner, information and freedom is being stripped from us all. Mizozo intends to provide the people with a platform that not only guarantees freedom of information, but makes it incredibly difficult for governments to trim this basic right. Join Mizozo, Join the Revolution.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Mizozo's January Report is In

As part of Mizozo's Revolutionary Business Model, in short being a transparent company, we had promised to make public all of our site's traffic and earnings. Since this is the first month we are doing so, our report will be quite limited. No worries, over the next year the report will grow in complexity and detail.

January closed a bit lower than expected both in clicks and in earnings. The basic breakdown is as follows:

Number of visitors: 666,774
Number of Pageviews: 925,519
Estimated Monthly Earning *: $235.46

* - Estimated because Google hasn't finalized earnings as of yet.

For January we only used Google Adsense as our advertising partner. This actually proved a bad move because Google does not show ads on any of our NSFW content, which make up the majority of our clicks. Hence, our earnings would likely be close to double the shown amount. We had planned to start February with a new ad partner, AOL, but were turned down at the last minute. Apparently AOL doesn't like NSFW content either.

We are now in the process of changing our advertising partner with a few choices. However, they require an approval process which means we will likely be turned down by others. Over the next year, we will be shifting advertising every month in order to determine the most beneficial form of advertising to maximize revenue.

We have, however, made two changes to the site with respect to advertisers. For one, we are trying an Affiliate arrangement with Toluna. Their banner can be seen at the bottom of every page. Secondly, we have signed up with Luminate to ad advertising to our images. I am not too convinced with Toluna's payout, so we will likely give them a 2 month trial. If the payout is low, we will opt out. As for Luminate, they seem to be having trouble of their own showing ads on our images, so their relationship may be cut short. Assuming this is fixed soon, we may also cut their relationship short if people complain that their ads interfere with our images. We'll have to wait and see.

I will try and keep you up to date with our advertising developments in our weekly blog posts.