This is going to be cool – on one day everybody we can round up in social media will buy one specific track on a day in March in iTunes. The affiliate money made will go to a college scholarship, all from the brain of Christopher Penn (the idea that is, not the scholarship). Get the full story here.
Bryper threw a question to the CAPOW group about Google serving up different search results pages depending on whether or not a use is logged in. Is this a problem for companies that you pay to get you to score well in Google?
I had a related discussion at the MIT event last week – I’ve heard from many people that are using Search Engine Optimization services that it is common to plateau – you get the advantage of all the tricks the vendor has but then that’s it, you move no further. I’ve even heard of others who have ridden this curve two or three times.
Another thing that concerns me is that as search algorithms continue to get more sophisticated (such as identifying common phrases as opposed to indivdual words), copy writing is now more critical than ever – and something you can’t farm out to an agency who is unable to write about your business in its own language.
I’m willing to ride the plateau as long as possible but I have the feeling that the days of easy money as an SEO specialist may be fading into the horizon. Just like all the web designers of the bubble, or the day-traders of the early 90’s, the day of reckoning is on its way.
It seems that this week I am destined to shovel. We’ve had about 6 inches of sleet (frozen rain) fall throughout the day so I spent about an hour chipping my car out of the ice.
I’m also shoveling at work though. I still can’t get the Saleforce.com Google AdWords integration to work. We may have to trash our last round of videos. Of course maybe that’s not such a big deal since the price of adwords continues to spin up so fast that we probably won’t bother with campaigns by the end of the next 6 months. I’m busy trying to pull together our next two webinars and that’s nothing but logistics, as are the two upcoming trade shows.
I dedicate today to Winston Churchill – “If you are going through hell – keep going.”
I’m listening to Jeremy Allaire from Brightcove present at the MIT Enterprise Forum – Brave New Web and the title of this post is a quote direct from his presentation. I’ve run into this meme a number of times in the past couple of months. David Scott has written much on being a thought leader, it seems like new ventures are taking this to the extreme.
For irrelevant marketing and messages, the oxygen is gone.
So I’m still cleaning up from having my car broken into on Monday, but last night was a different Rob – the podcast pioneer from Podcast411 was in town so we had dinner in Boston’s North End. I have been interviewed on 411 but it’s so far back in the archives that it’s been buried because he’s overhauled his sound system since what I believe he calls “The excedrin episodes” or something like that.
In related bizarre news, Pink was in town this week and hung with the true Macks at the AFC.
Today is the MIT Brave New Web event so more info on that and a Boston Geek Dinner at Sonsie (break out your best black turtleneck and pants).
I’m also getting into a discussion with the CAPOW guys about companies that put “deceptive” videos up on YouTube. Should a company put up a video that looks grassroots? Is this wrong? Should an organization like WOMMA deal with ethical questions for the industry, or are they around just to generate trade shows (I don’t see “non-profit” anywhere on their site)?
I’m interested in your opinion if you’d like to weigh in.
A couple weeks back I wrote a post about The Sausage Manifesto, a great piece by Jeffrey Rohrs talking about click fraud. Mr. Rohrs did a fantastic job summing up some complaints advertisers have with pay per click. My perspective was not as promising as his; I saw a number of reasons why the search engines have no reason to address click fraud and tried to be clever with my Bratwurst Defense.
I was kind of bummed that it didn’t generate any further conversation (pretty heavy on the geek factor, I know), so I was very happy to get an email today that it had been picked up in The Scotland SEO Blog. How cool is that! I may have to swing by there on the upcoming UK tour!
As far the conversation – ASM’s post is saying “suck it up” fraud is a cost of doing business, and I have to agree. There was a speaker at SES Chicago and I’ll have to dig through my notes to find her name, but she had a great point – the problem is not click fraud, it’s click crap – the clicks from the wrong people that your creative is bringing in that are not really leads. My gut is that’s where the real savings are to be generated.
Hooray for Scotland!
I have been working on the customer newsletter. Not exactly exciting stuff. Gather the articles, see what people think, send it out. So – an update on the viral video. Episode one now has over 2,400 views. Not shocking by YouTube standards but incredible when you think that the leading e-zine in the space has around 40k readers.
There was some question on how to deal with comments. I had initially replied, outing a 42 year old man who was trying to be street by spelling tough “tuff”. The opinion was that we did not need to be defensive, the video speaks for itself. In hindsight I think this is the right thing to do. My first instinct was to follow the “mean streets” blogosphere and immediately call the comments for what they were – vested parties trying to look neutral (who out there is surfing for videos on software configuration managment besides insiders?).
The silent method has been funny though, watching people work hard to criticize and remain neutral, when a Google search reveals their true identity. We know we have buzz when major players at other vendors are watching it so we must be doing something right…
For those who are up for some SCM humor, part 2…
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The latest M Show is going up right now. One other cool thing, if you want to give your Windows XP a cool new look without upgrading to Vista, check out this theme. I’ve been using it for the past week and really like it…
This story is unbelievable to me. Just in case you’re not interested in the link, the former CEO at DCI, where I worked 1998 to 2000 was convicted of tax fraud conspiracy and tax evasion. I’m not too sure of the timeline, but from everything I’ve seen there it looks like I showed up just as everything was finished. How strange that events that happened prior to my arrival there, now almost 10 years ago, are still playing out.
The company was flush with cash when I came on, the bubble was growing rapidly and the first thing to rise are the trade shows and events.
Now I can add criminal conviction as a chapter in my book. I’ve already seen sexual harassment, insurance fraud, nepotism and a bunch of other bizarre stuff including plastic surgery, but those are stories for another day.
In some ways I thought that I shouldn’t blog about it, but it’s a matter of public record so there’s nothing to hide. I’m not sure how I feel about all this, but one thing I do know – in Business it’s always a battle and a game to see who gets the money, but in my mind taxes are not part of that game. When you strike a deal that’s sound business and leveraging information. When you try to do the same thing against the government you can end up picking up trash along the highway in an orange jumpsuit. I have no interest in any part of that.
Remember when Yahoo ruled the world? How long ago was that? 7 years?
In the past 2 months I’ve seen some interesting signs that Wikipedia is on a tear like we’ve never seen. I monitor 7 major keywords that I want to score on and since Q4 2006 wikipedia is on page one for all of these terms.
It’s also a major referrer for all of my sites. In 2 months.
So the question is: Will Google shut off the oxygen? Or is it already too late?