Facebook, Cape Town and the Monopoly Board

I am really not sure why but I freakin' want Cape Town to clean up this whole Monopoly Board thing.If you don't know what I am on about then let me briefly explain why I am writing this post. I was invited to join the Vote for Cape Town on the World Monopoly Board group on Facebook. I did, that was about two weeks or so ago.At that point there were under 100 people in the group and Cape Town was situated in the top gagillion for the Monopoly board. I then blogged the situation on SA Rocks and at the same time the Facebook group took off. Since I joined the group there have been more than 4000 people join and begin voting daily for Cape Town.The effect that this has had really impresses and astounds me. In fact it renews my opinion that Facebook can be a great place to rally and market around a product, point, belief etc etc.Cape Town has gone from nowhere to a peak of #8. We now site at a great #9 and will surely soon be climbing further. With over 4000 people voting daily for our success it is almost ensured at this point. With 25 days of voting left, if you haven't voted yet or haven't been voting all day I think it's best that you get started.In general I am absolutely blown away by the success that the Facebook group has had in such a short span. Let's hope that they can pick Cape Town up in to one of the top three spots. Then we'll be top on the Monopoly Board for a very long time to come.

Google flexes muscles - companies crack under pressure

This post is a bit of a bitch, a bit of a rant and me showing a bit of concern.Google's recent attack on paid text links has me a bit baffled. Have they not enough? Have they not more than they need? When does it stop? I guess it doensn't.This is the way I see it and why this whole thing concerns me. In ever governed state there are strict and stringent rules against monopolies in almost every industry. This helps push prices down thanks to competition, it helps jobs to be created, it promotes equality and fairness (amongst a host of other things that I am not educated enough to mention).The thing here is that Google doesn't necessarily operate within or infringe upon any states monopoly laws. The simple fact is that anyone is allowed to compete against Google but none will survive for now.If you run an online agency that centres around selling clients paid text link ads then your business is done fore. Not because Google is operating in your space, buying your business or infringing upon your ability to do business, but because Google doesn't like paid text link ads.The simple and sad fact is that if I was penalised for having paid text link ads on my blogs and my Pagerank dropped from 5 to 1, I'd be pissed and I'd take the links down. That means that the company who sells these ads is in a bit of a pickle.What's stopping Google from doing this about everything? What's stopping them from saying that Facebook is satan and that if you are associated to Facebook in any way you will be penalised in one way or another? Nothing is.It all just makes me uncomfortable.