SEO Snafu

Search - Adapt With The Times

2011-03-04T17:45:00.002-06:00

SEO is an ever evolving field that you have to stay on top of, and the popularity of social media has changed some of the rules (again) on how well you do.

An interesting post at Mashable discusses how you should consider social in your SEO mix and what kind of differences it can make.

Farmers Take On SEO

2011-03-04T17:34:00.003-06:00

After months of people talking about the declining quality of search results in Google, the latest update (referred to as the Farmer's update by Danny Sullivan) has targeted what are considered low quality search results typically found on content farms.

An update long overdue, and while some sites were slammed by the results, others did fairly well. Read more at Business Insider

Online Reputation and SEO

2011-03-04T17:21:00.003-06:00

Online reputation management (ORM) is not new to SEO's but in the future it will be as common as the phrase social media or personal branding.

With the last few years the social media has grown in popularity, and it won't be long before online reputation management for your brand begins to become important.

SEO Infographics

2010-11-21T15:56:00.010-06:00

Infographics are a great way to view things from a different perspective to articles, blog posts, or text based communications.

The following SEO infographics provide some of the best examples to be found. Click images for a larger view.

SEO professionals:

SEO pagerank:

SEO and PPC compared:

SEO ranking factors:

SEO faq:

The SEO Process:

The SEO flowchart:

SEO explained:

SEO tactics:

The freakonomics of linkbuilding:

A look at search engine history:

SEO and Social Media

2010-11-21T15:42:00.003-06:00

Search engine optimization (SEO) has changed significantly in recent years, with the growth of social media.

But it has its advantages for an SEO, since it provides the ability to focus on the core purpose of SEO (link building) and provides numerous opportunities to create new means for getting sites to rank.

You might say that its probably the biggest shift in SEO in recent years, and presents new challenges at the same time. The issues lie in the fact that the signals provided through social media make it more challenging to identify true authority.

The web is in a constant state of flux when it comes to SEO, and social media has its pros and cons. The biggest issue being that it also gives the less scrupulous practitioners new opportunities, but that's not likely to change.

SEO Strategy

2010-04-09T12:35:00.002-05:00

Ever heard "failing to plan is planning to fail"? There's some truth to that.

With SEO, there's a number of stages and interdependencies that all work together to make things gel. If you want your SEO strategy to come together, you're going to need a plan.

Your typical SEO strategy might look something like;

Research keywords
Optimize site for those keywords
Link internal pages using keyword loaded terms
Get links from other sites with keywords in the link

It's that last point that should really get the most attention.

Over at The Moz there's an interesting article discussing an 8 step SEO strategy. A lot of what's mentioned is basic marketing but there's some interesting insight as well. You can read the entire article here.

SEO post roundup

2010-03-21T14:00:00.002-05:00

If you've gotten busy and missed on some good SEO reading, here's a few articles and posts to catch up with...

A review of spy tools by SEObook

The 301 - redirects don't pass full value

5 keys to staying at the top

71 tips for backlink analysis

Massive passive inbound links

101 common seo mistakes

Google Related Feature Expands

2009-10-09T17:09:00.002-05:00

It seems the Google "related" feature has expanded how much is viewable.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=related:google.ca/&start=20&sa=N

Now seeing 10+ pages instead of just 3. Great news for digging and research!

Social Media Laptop Skin

2009-08-08T23:56:00.003-05:00

If your laptop has lost its charm, you might consider laptop skins for a new look.

If you want to make your own laptop skins like the above, you want your image to be at least 1MB or more for sharpness. The above image contains most of the top social media logos like digg, sumbleupon, reddit, facebook, last.fm, twitter and more. The best part is the skins are affordable and easy to change.

SEO Salary

2009-03-02T08:07:00.000-06:00

A quick rundown of SEO salaries;

SEO salaries - How much should you make (SEOMoz)

SEMPO SEM salary survey

Info on SEM salaries at clickz

Salary for senior search engine optimization specialist or SEO manager

Payscale for SEO specialist in Canada

Salary for SEO specialist in UK

Top US cities for good SEO salary

*Where you live and experience will help where you fit in on the scale.

Whitehat

2009-02-26T14:08:00.003-06:00

Spotted this and found it just a little sad...

Won't bother saying the product
(You can figure it out from the image)

SEO, my how its evolved

2009-02-12T15:22:00.001-06:00

Someday we'll be telling our grandchildren not just the stories of walking to school for 7 miles in the snow without shoes, because times were tough and they don't know how easy they have it. But also of the days when submitting to directories did the job.

An SEO wears a lot of hats, from technical to editorial, and sometimes a bit of a designer cap too. These days its all about the link baiting or whatever you want to call it, but we're sure to all agree that good content is key. The beast that is Google expects it of us, and we willingly comply, in hopes of appeasing the Google gods to grant us some link love, and for those that still follow, a little PR.

But I wanted to talk about a different kind of PR (see what I did there?) that is known as public relations. Being where your target audience goes well beyond ranking for search terms, and social media and public relations are the new tools in an SEO's bag o' tricks. While newer to some than others, this strategy expands reach and potential of finding those customers/readers.

Getting in front of them is only half the battle, but getting them to take the ball and run with it is a real success story. Having your visitors become your advocate, sharing your idea, and spreading the buzz, now that's the real challenge.

Probably my favorite example as of late has to be the story of the boy that borrowed his father's credit card and went on spending spree with friends which included a Texas motel with a couple of hookers that they played xBox with. story here The media was duped and it resulted in thousands of links. But it isn't about duping the media. That's going to bite ya later. It's more about crafting content that others want. Pieces like this take days, or even a couple weeks to compose. They're carefully crafted and rarely develop out of thin air.

It almost seems that SEO is evolving into a team effort, because with all that you can do, or should do, there just isn't enough hours in the day.

Royal SEO

2009-02-12T15:20:00.000-06:00

Bloody good show!

Seems the queen mum is to be optimized.

History of the Internet

2009-01-29T16:42:00.004-06:00

History of the Internet...

A report from 1981 proposing the idea of the Internet... amazing!

But wait, there's more!

The Internet party...

Al Gore must be proud! His little boy all grown up and all...

Job Posting - 2.0 Media Manager

2009-01-13T17:31:00.004-06:00

Web Networking Manager Needed

Requirements:
Knowledgeable in all social networks such as MySpace and Facebook and possess excellent communication skills.

By the way, the position is to manage Britney Spears’ online persona.

Plant a Tree for G

2009-01-11T19:50:00.002-06:00

So I guess its a slow news day, when you see stupid things like this published....

"Making two internet searches through Google produces about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle, it has been estimated." ( Source )

A physicist from Harvard estimated that browsing a basic website generates about 0.02g of CO2 for every second it is viewed. And whatever you do, stay away from the websites with video! Sites with "complex video" are estimated to be responsible for up to 0.2 g per second.

Although it's pure speculation, but word on the street is that websites are provided by servers and are viewed by visitors' computers that are connected via networks, and all require electricity in order to run, which is largely generated by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas! Brand new information!

Think they may have over stepped the whole carbon footprint?

ORM strategies

2009-01-04T17:54:00.003-06:00

SEO is a great way to manage your brand and build your online visibility, but there's another side to it also worth considering. Online reputation management, or ORM for short, is sort of like a reverse SEO process. Instead of trying to rank for a particular phrase, your goal is to maintain the top 10 results for a phrase to keep things in a positive light.

When you already have a negative search result in the top 10 for a phrase, you can either;

- strengthen the positive

- push something from page 2

- create new pages on authority sites

- create new sites

Depending on the situation, any of these are viable options for online reputation management strategies and are all worth including in your overall ORM strategy.

Refocus

2009-01-04T15:31:00.002-06:00

What's on your agenda this year? I'm looking at things differently in terms of long term strategies, having seen firsthand the benefits or community driven markets.

I've changed focus, not being in finance, and enjoying the virtues of consulting and multiple gigs. Most recently I've been working with a client that has a site which is essentially a forum, and found it interesting that even though they rank for next to nothing besides their name, for common search terms, they also do well on the long tail for things like model numbers because of their internal linking. This site sees upwards of 300,000 visitors a day, and almost 2/3's is long tail traffic like A72342 (made that model number up).

The take away is they've created a community, and the strength of that has proven to be incredibly powerful. Even though 99% of the inbound links are their brand name, they dominate their market. Kind of interesting really. I had a chance to see some Hitwise info on this market and the ones that are ranking are also spending a lot on ppc, but they barely have 1% marketshare. I'm sure things were different when they started, but its sure paid off for them.

SEO 2009

2008-12-13T00:25:00.000-06:00

The new year is just around the corner and one can only imagine what might be in store for SEO in the new year. Directory submissions are about done, articles are still working, and social bookmarks still hold their ground for now.

I would imagine that baiting will always be a strong component now, as with SMM and SMO, but as for anything new, its still early and hard to say. Care to make a prediction?

Buy Your Own Domain Suffix

2008-10-26T12:07:00.000-05:00

How does .seo sound? Better than .com?

Now you can get your own domain suffix. Seems like domain options to .com just never really took off. I forget what the first one was, maybe .ws or .us, but everyone still seems to want a dot com. The most recent offering was .asia, and I thought I had scored a good one when I went to register sports.asia. Turns out that even though I could register it, the domain registry organization behind .asia had that one on hold.

I'm sure some companies and industries would love to have their company name as a domain suffix.
More

Google Chrome Paranoia

2008-10-07T15:27:00.000-05:00

Richard Macmanus of ReadWriteWeb shares my concerns of Google Chrome and possible alterior motives, with a post on theories of it being an access collector to get into password protected members-only areas of the web.

A post by Matt Cutts to alleviate concerns by describing when Google Chrome talks to Google doesn't put my mind at ease so much as it comes from inside the Google camp.

And even though Google has denied using your data entered, you can take a step of precaution with UnChrome, which allows you to surf anonomously. But I would be much more paranoid if I installed it from somewhere like a download site.

But stories like this keep my paranois healthy.

I think it's time to get my tin foil hat chromed.

Google Chrome - Is it Spyware?

2008-09-08T14:04:00.000-05:00

Happy birthday Google. Yeah, a little late, but still...

And to celebrate, Google wants to share with you it's latest innovation in spying on users, and it's called Chrome.

I guess the toolbar has served it's purpose. It's been a good run, but there is only so much info they can get from it. Now the team at Google want to drill down further. Get into the psychographics of web users. Ventures in segmentation for marketing purposes have proven one of the most valuable means of understanding the consumer.

Acquiring this kind of purchase behaviour insight will allow them to tailor messages that are even more finely tuned and targeted to the end user.

Bridging this divide has always been a challenge, and in the end it has been labeled as spyware. Companies like Claria (AKA Gator) pioneered the idea, and while it makes sense to use, how you get the information is another matter.

So do you think Chrome is a glorified toolbar collecting user data? It would sure help AdWords sales!

Social Bookmark Visitors

2008-09-08T13:19:00.000-05:00

The trouble with submitting to sites like reddit or digg is, the visitor isn't sticky. Sure, they might take the bait, but they're often looking for a quick fix of entertainment.

It seems that a number of the visitors will take the bait, but social bookmark sites often don't deliver the same kind of reader as the one's that find you through a search engine or blog referral.

Someone once said that "...submitting your articles to Reddit is like taking steroids... the effects can be deceiving".

The Future of Facebook - Will Yahoo or Google Buy

2007-09-25T09:26:00.000-05:00

Microsoft is in talks to buy a minority stake in Facebook, a sign of a new urgency by the software giant to jump-start its online business at a time when Google is widening its lead in the fast-growing Internet-advertising business.

As part of its catch-up program, Microsoft also has quietly granted broad powers to an executive recently hired from outside the company, who is expected to help shake up the software giant's online business.

Microsoft Corp. is mulling an investment in Facebook Inc. that would value the rapidly growing online hangout at $10 billion or more. Zuckerberg, owner of Facebook, rejected a $1 billion acquisition offer from Yahoo Inc. last year.

With more than $100 million in annual revenue, Facebook is believed to be a prime candidate for an initial public offering of stock next year or in 2009.

If Facebook's talks with Microsoft heat up, it could draw online search leader Google Inc. to the negotiating table, too.

Yahoo's acquisition rampage continues...

Yahoo on a rampage

2007-09-18T09:49:00.000-05:00

So Yahoo buys BlueLithium. And now Zimbra. Keep your eye on them.

But I think MSN might surprise at some point too.

And there's always Ask.com, with one or two strong acquisitions, could become a formidable opponent and move up to the first tier players.

Internet Safety

2007-09-17T19:04:00.000-05:00

Link building - what you need to know

2007-09-02T18:17:00.000-05:00

Link building seems like a simple task on the surface. And if you actually follow through and maintain link building efforts, part of the battle has already been won.

But since not all links are created equal, here are the need to know details and a few links to some good reading on the subject;

First, links come in 3 varieties.

There are URL links (non-active), like this : http://seosnafu.blogspot.com
There are URL links (active), like this : http://seosnafu.blogspot.com/
And there are Text links, which use a phrase, like this: SEOsnafu Rocks

Of the three, 99% of your link building should be about the Text links.
The other two kinds will show up. And there will be the odd time where you can only use URL links (active and/or non-active).

The next thing to concern yourself with is that most of your links need to be pointed at inside pages. While using Text links of course.

Something like Search and saving the environment. Note that the text being used for the links is relevant and descriptive to the content being linked to.

Other Do's and Don'ts of link building?

Do...
- Build a variety of different kinds. Just using directories for link building is kinda 2002, or older!
- start with 3 or 4 word phrases. Trying to rank for a single word should be far down your action list. Build up to popular phrases.
- Consider working on a set of keyword phrases. Be consistant in link building and work towards ranking for them. Try 5 primary phrases, along with 5+ additional phrases to work on. In time, some of the secondary phrases could become your primary keyword phrases to work on.

Don'ts...
- avoid run of site links. Link growth thats too fast is a red flag for cheating
- don't join link networks. Obvious, and you'll get caught.
- stay clear of link pages that mean endless scrolling.

And some reading to look into on the subject;
http://www.jimboykin.com/site-backlinks/
SEOmoz | Google Search Engine Ranking Factors

Internet marketing skills mix

2007-08-22T14:44:00.000-05:00

Considering all the details and things to remember, it's easily a skillset.
But what makes the best skillset to be an SEO? Marketer? Designer? Programmer?
While it takes all 3, which provides you with the best foundation for success.
I'd have to say it really depends on which direction you plan to take.
Internet marketing versus arbitrage versus affiliate marketing...?

Spammin

2007-08-14T14:28:00.000-05:00

The Definitive, Must-Have List for Dot Com Startups

2007-07-14T10:58:00.000-05:00

A must have list for Web 2.0 and Dot Com startups...
(in no particular order)

TechCrunch

10 Rules for Web Startups

The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups

How to start a Startup

Web startup toolkit

25 Startups that are reinventing the web

Seth Godin's Web 2.0 Traffic Watch List

Web 2.0 Name Generator

Read/Write/Web on Startups

Bandwidth blog

Alan Graham - Tales from the Web 2.0 Frontier

Micro Persuasion

Web 2.0 Central

10 Steps to a Hugely Successful Web 2.0 Company

7 Tips for Naming Your Web 2.0 Startup

How a six-month-old startup got bought by Google

Jason Calacains

Scobleizer

John Chow dot Com

The Startup News

Startup Do's and Don'ts

On Startup

Y Combinator

Red Herring

Fast Company

Wired

Business 2.0

Business 2.0 blog

Get Organized

2007-07-11T15:33:00.000-05:00

A great tool I recently came across (I haven't tried yet, but it looks promising) is called Remember the Milk.

Make some lists, get organized, setup tasks, kinda reminds me of Basecamp.

Search and saving the environment

2007-07-07T08:55:00.000-05:00

A custom Google search engine named Blackle claims to save energy simply “because the screen is predominantly black.” The site’s only differing function from Google is the fact that its background is black and the results are white - making it a hard-to-read, but allegedly power-saving, adaptation of the world’s favorite search site.

Social sites evolve?

2007-06-27T21:52:00.000-05:00

Taking social bookmarking to the next level - Thoof?

Thoof aggregates user-submitted links and ranks them by popularity, but it includes the Wikipedia-like ability for any user to change and improve any post on the board, making it cleaner and more legible.

Any guesses how long before someone starts to game this one?
Or Mahalo?

2007-06-24T15:04:00.000-05:00

This guy draws with HTML!

Websites to watch

2007-06-18T21:50:00.000-05:00

Think that all of the great Web sites have already been invented? Think again. The Internet is evolving in new and inventive ways thanks to mashups that pull data from all over the Web and to AJAX-based interfaces that give sites the same degree of interactivity and responsiveness that desktop apps possess.
Mashups, Maps, and More

Build your own Web feed, poll friends and strangers, and find your way with these tools.

Popfly
Popfly provides a friendly, visual way to build your own mashups.If you haven't already discovered the world of mashups, Microsoft's Popfly is a good place to start. Mashups combine multiple Web-based sites or applications to produce all sorts of useful things, such as an overlay of traffic information over Google Maps. With Popfly, you can create your own mashups--and you don't have to know a lick of code to do it. Just drag prefab building blocks, connect them, and you have an instant mashup that you can add to an existing Web page or turn into its own site. For example, you can easily produce a mashup that grabs pictures from a site like Flickr and then displays them in a rotating cube.

Yahoo Pipes
You need a little patience to learn how to build a mashup using Yahoo Pipes.Like Popfly, Yahoo Pipes lets you create your own mashups or "pipes." As with Popfly, you drag and drop prebuilt modules, and then create connections between them. But Yahoo Pipes is much harder to use than Popfly, and the way to go about building your own mashup isn't always obvious. But if you're willing to do some digging and learning, you can build very useful stuff, such as a mashup that uses Yahoo maps to show the locations of all apartments for rent in a certain neighborhood.

BuzzDash
If you were the type of child who continually asked, "But why?" BuzzDash should satisfy your endless curiosity.Are foreign movies better watched with subtitles or with dubbed dialog? Is it okay to cry at work? Who is the best center fielder of all time--Willy Mays, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Ty Cobb, or Ken Griffey, Jr.?
If these are the kinds of issues that keep you awake at night, we have a Web site for you. BuzzDash lets you participate in, comment on, and see the results of numerous quick opinion polls. The polls are organized by topic, such as movies, football, and politicians; and if you have a burning question you want answered, you can create your own survey.

Wayfaring
Wayfaring.com lets you create personalized maps, such as one that pinpoints shipwrecks in the Great Lakes.If you're obsessed with cartography, wander over to Wayfaring.com. Here you can easily create personalized maps for a walking tour of London, say, or a wine-tasting trip through Napa or a pub crawl through Seattle. The site provides the tools you'll need to build annotated maps--complete with descriptions, Web links, and photos of your favorite stops--and then post them for others to view and discuss. It's fun to check out the maps other users have created. One of my favorites: a map of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, including links to Web sites that discuss each wreck.

CircleUp
CircleUp makes social planning easier by letting you organize your contacts into different communities.Anyone who has ever tried to organize an event--or to get a group of people to respond to a simple question like "Who can drive the kids to Little League this week?"--knows how tough it is to filter and organize the answers into coherent, usable form. That's where CircleUp comes in handy. Use this site to send an e-mail or instant message to a group of people; then wait for it to return a consolidated summary of responses to you. It's simple, it's free, and it will liberate you from the recurring feeling that you're herding cats whenever you try to coordinate an activity involving more than two people.

Organizers, Searchers and Optimizers

The Web has so much information that it's hard to keep track of everything. These sites will help you pull content together and move around the Internet more efficiently.

Pageflakes
Using Pageflakes, you can customize a Web site with just the news and information you want.The Web is just as chaotic as the world--but Pageflakes can organize both of them for you. This super-customizable version of a home page enables you to pick the news and information feeds you want to read, and to specify the "flakes," or applets, you want to include. Flakes let you add all sorts of cool stuff to your page--movie times, to-do lists, a notepad, e-mail, a horoscope--even sudoku or a personal blog. If you're looking for one-stop browsing, this is it.

Spock
Spock is a search engine dedicated to finding information about people.If you spend more time than you should googling folks, you need to check out Spock.com, a search engine designed to dig up information about people. Start by typing in a name, or a search term that describe a group of people--for example, Motown Singer, or Rastafarians. The site then searches through various social networking sites such as MySpace and Friendster, along with more-general Web sites, and reports on what it finds.

For many searches, you'll get multiple categories of links. For instance, type in Barack Obama, and you'll get groupings like 'Democrat', 'Senator', and '2008 Presidential Candidate'. Click any link, and you'll find pages related to both Obama and the larger category. There are also links to photographs, tags, Obama's Wikipedia entry, his Senate site, and so on. Spock is currently in beta form (its public launch is scheduled for sometime before September), and at the moment you need an invitation to gain access to it, but with luck you can wangle one by filling out the form on the site.

Swivel
Swivel charts everything from crime statistics to American Idol contestant popularity.Data and graph fanatics, you have a home. Swivel, holds a mind-boggling array of charts and graphs--from a line graph illustrating the relationship between wine consumption and crime in the United States over the past 30 years to a pie chart showing the percentage breakdown of bird flu cases in 14 Asian countries. But the site's most outstanding feature is its ability to integrate different charts containing seemingly unrelated data. Want to compare the national murder rate to the cost of a first-class stamp, or to total hours of media use in U.S. households, over the same period of time? Now you can.

Clipmarks
Clip elements of your favorite Web pages, and save them to your Clipmarks profile.The Internet is the best research tool in existence. That's the good news--and the bad news. Though finding information online is easy, keeping track of it all can be tough. Most people end up copying and pasting information from Web sites, printing it out, or bookmarking pages--with no good way to keep it all organized or find what they want fast.

Clipmarks solves the problem neatly by installing a toolbar that hitches on to Internet Explorer or Firefox. As you surf the Web, use the Clipmarks toolbar to clip and save sections of a page--text, graphics, and even YouTube videos. Clipping something automatically archives it under your Clipmarks profile, though you can also save it directly to your blog or send it via e-mail. You can even share your clip collections, or look at archives that other users have assembled.

OpenDNS
One reason the W eb sometimes feels poky, even when you use broadband, is the Internet's Domain Name System. When you type a URL (such as www.pcworld.com) into your browser, DNS servers must translate that alphanumeric information into a numeric IP address (such as 70.42.185.10) that Web servers and your PC can understand. Typically your ISP's DNS servers handle the translation work.

But OpenDNS speeds up the translation (called "name resolution") by handling the process on its own high-speed DNS servers. The service includes other cool time-savers, as well, such as the ability to create keyboard shortcuts. For example, instead of typing www.pcworld.com each time, you might arrange to type in the letter p and jump immediately to your favorite online destination.

Real Estate, Bookmarks, and Blogs

With these services, you can find a house, browse the Web from a single location, and make sure that your online prose never gets lost.

Trulia
Trulia gives you an idea of how much you'll have to spend when shopping for a home in a certain 'hood.There are plenty of real-estate sites on the Web, but this one comes with a twist. By combining social networking with mapping and search technology, Trulia gives you a high-tech way to find the home of your dreams. Use the different sliders and checkboxes to focus your search (price, square footage, and the all-important number of bathrooms), and Trulia will display qualifying homes that are for sale in the specified area, overlaid on a map. The site includes useful, city-specific real estate guides containing additional data on average home sale prices, most popular neighborhoods, crime statistics, and the like.

The Trulia Voices section hooks you up with other people to discuss neighborhoods, housing issues, or real estate in general. Trulia is relatively new, so that section is as yet quite sparse. But if the site gains traction, Trulia Voices may prove to be the most useful tool of all.
Tip: To view some cool time-lapse maps showing how an area (such as Las Vegas) has developed over time, hop to Trulia Hindsight.

PopURLs
Forget site hopping. Head to PopURLs, and scan all your headlines in one place.If you're an information hound, you probably spend lots of time jumping from Digg to Del.icio.us to YouTube to Fark to Google News to anything-dot-com. With PopURLs, you no longer need to waste time hopping around the Internet. An aggregator of all things informative, PopURLs features massive lists of headlines, videos, blogs, and content from all of those sites, as well as plenty of others.

One nice bonus is that you can search some of the sites--Del.icio.us, Flickr, and Wikipedia, among others--straight from PopURLs. It's also easy to tweak the way PopURLs looks and works, too, including customizing the layout of the feeds so you can put the ones you view most regularly on top. The scrapbook is a particularly useful feature; just click the 'Add to Scrapbook' button next to any headline, and PopURLs will save it (and up to 19 other favorite items).

Goowy
Goowy lets you run different applications and widgets, all from the Web.For several years, observers have speculated that the Internet will become, in essence, a vast operating system, with applications built on top of it. To a great extent, that's the premise underlying Goowy. Create an account, and you can start building your own desktop, with applications for e-mail, contacts, instant messaging, file management, and more. You can also add prebuilt widgets, called "minis," to your desktop, for news, stocks, weather, and other tidbits of information.
Don't expect the site to replace your desktop at this point: Goowy lacks full-blown applications and doesn't access your hard drive. Still, it's a glimpse into what may be the future of the Internet.

BlogBackupOnline
If you have a blog and you aren't sure that your blog provider will always have a backup in case of a crash, head over to BlogBackupOnline pronto. The site is straightforward: Log in, enter information about your blog, and the site diligently backs it up every day (provided that you use one of the 11 supported blogging services--Blogger, Friendster, LiveJournal, Movable Type, Multiply, Serendipity, Terapad, TypePad, Vox, Windows Live Space, or WordPress). The site is also a great tool if you ever decide to move your blog from one platform to another. After you've backed up your blog, BlogBackupOnline can bring all of your old entries into the new service.

Ma.gnolia
Ma.gnolia is an online keeper of bookmarks, with plenty of community aspects to boot.If you're a fan of the social bookmarking site Del.i.cio.us but wish that it were a little more social--and a little less geeky--check out Ma.gnolia. As with Del.icio.us, you can save and share bookmarks and tags. But Ma.gnolia presents a far more appealing design, and it has a few nice extra talents, such as the ability to let you save snapshots of your favorite pages.

Ma.gnolia excels on the social networking front. You can join groups, share bookmarks, and browse groups and discussions for more bookmarks on topics that fascinate you. If you're strictly interested in bookmarking and tagging, Del.i.cio.us remains the best place to go. But if you want to share your findings with others, Ma.gnolia is worth a taste.

Five Ways to Create and Share

These services help you put your thoughts together and publish them on the Web, whether you're most comfortable talking, shooting video, or just typing.

Yodio
With Yodio, you can create an audio postcard that makes your picture worth a thousand words.Of course your friends and family want to see all of your pictures from your Venetian vacation--but wouldn't it be better if they could also hear your voice, telling you cool details about what they're looking at, or narrating a story regarding some gondola hijinks?
Yodio lets you combine photos with sound files to create an audio postcard. To make a recording, call a special Yodio phone number and start talking (or you can record your own MP3 file and upload it). Once you've transferred photos to the site, you can add sound and publish your postcard on the Web for others to admire. The site also has a scheme for making money from your productions, though we wouldn't bet the farm on it.

Meebo Rooms
Goal, or no goal? With Meebo's multimedia chat rooms, you can discuss videos and pictures with other fans.You may have heard about Meebo, the Web-based instant messaging program that lets you communicate with people over various IM services, such as AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo.

Well equally cool is Meebo's newest launch, Meebo Rooms, which lets you participate in multimedia chats. You'll find chat rooms on everything from sports to SpongeBob Squarepants, and the rooms support videos and photos that you can discuss with fellow fans. If you can't find a topic you're interested in, simply create a new room and post visuals for others to discuss. You can even embed rooms into your site or blog, and use them to lure people to your own Web destination.

Squidoo
Squidoo makes it easy to create (or look for) Web pages that reflect your passions.Got an obsession or special passion you want to convey to the world? Squidoo is your ticket. Using the site's simple tools, you can build a "lens" (aka, a Web page) that includes information on any topic that's close to your heart, whether it's cats or Kafka.

A lens can be quite different from a blog. With lenses, you share links to resources, book recommendations, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, eBay auction items, and other cool Web content related to a single subject. Even if you don't build your own lens, the site is worth visiting to see what others have done. You can learn a lot more about lemonade or laptop bags than you ever thought possible.

SplashCast
Build your own streaming media channel using the tools on SplashCast.For anyone who has ever dreamed of becoming a broadcast mogul, here's a quick (and free) way to get a taste of what it might be like. SplashCast lets you create your own streaming media channel that combines video, music, photos, text, narration, and RSS feeds. A wizard walks you through the steps of building your channel. Start by uploading media files from your hard drive, or point to files on other sites. Add captions, commentary, and RSS feeds, and your channel is ready to go. Once you're done finessing your channel, you can send it to friends and family, or syndicate it to blogs and social networking sites. So far, there's no way for you to make money from your channels, but the site plans to start a revenue-sharing model.

Eyespot
With Eyespot, it's a cinch to create a video mix and share it with others.To create a video all you have to do is point your cell phone, digital camera, or camcorder at something, press a button, and stay focused. The result: an instant movie. What's not so easy, though, is organizing, editing, and combining your video clips to create something aesthetically pleasing. Eyespot simplifies this process. Upload your videos to the site, and then use its tools to crop and mix them either with other clips you supply or with free video from the site. You can even add effects, transitions, and titles before publishing your video mix for the world to see.

Sites for Collaborative Work and Play

Whether you're putting together an important document or an anniversary party, these services will help get everybody involved. Also, check out a snazzy online photo editor and a new way to search.

Approver.com
Approver.com lets you keep tabs on a document while passing it around to different recipients--and track its progress.Anyone who has collaborated with multiple people on a document knows the true meaning of frustration. You have to distribute the file to the entire group, convince every person to review it by a certain date and time, and get them all to sign off on it.

Approver.com lowers the pain quotient considerably. Upload the document you want to track, and the site routes it to everyone who needs to see it. It also lets you set deadlines for reviewing the document, and keep track of approvals and comments. Approver.com works with a number of apps, including Microsoft Office, Adobe PDF, and Open Office; alternatively, you can use the site to create documents, and have your colleagues read them online.

Pbwiki
Create a community of opera lovers (or anything else) by building your own wiki.Though the whole world seems to know about Wikipedia these days, many people and organizations don't realize how useful it can be to build their own wiki. In business settings, it's an ideal way to share information within a group. For individuals, it's perfect for planning a get-together, organizing a fan club, or sharing memories with family members. Pbwiki makes creating miniature versions of Wikipedia a breeze. The site's simple, Web-based tools are perfect for building a wiki--you don't need to have any HTML know-how--and getting others in on the editing action.

MyPunchbowl
MyPunchbowl handles online invitations, sets up message boards, and maps your party with Google Maps.Planning a party, but unsure of what date works best for your friends? MyPunchbowl is basically Evite with a little extra kick. Like any self-respecting online invitation site, MyPunchbowl lets you create party invitations and then track who's coming, who's not, and who has yet to respond. But the site also enables you to send pick-a-date e-mail messages to see which day works best for people, set up message boards (useful for organizing things like who's bringing the vino), and produce a map of the shindig's location using Google Maps. You can also create an after-party message board where people can share comments, photos, and videos--if, um, appropriate.

Picnik
From sepia to soften, Picnik's photo editor lets you apply any number of effects. Now all we need is an old gum tree.You probably have hundreds or thousands of digital photos on your PC. And a lot of those photos would probably benefit from a little tweaking. But that doesn't mean that you have to download and install photo editing software. Picnik supplies a nice suite of tools for editing photos online. All you have to do is upload your photos, or have Picnik grab them from a site like Flickr (which doesn't have editing features), and then get to work. Picnik offers tools aplenty for performing simple editing--cleaning up red-eye or resizing photos, say--as well as doing more-extensive work, such as changing the exposure, fixing a color cast, or applying special effects.

Quintura
With Quintura, search and you shall find a standard results list, along with a visual diagram of related terms.Quintura provides a new way for you to search for things on the Internet. When you enter a search term, Quintura returns an ordinary list of results on the right-hand side, while on the left it offers a visual map (or "cloud") of related terms. Click any of these words, and the list of results changes to encompass the new term as well, which can help you narrow your search. The process may sound clunky, but it's surprisingly effective.

What's Most Important for SEO?

2007-05-30T17:24:00.000-05:00

Want traffic? What SEO doesn't?

What is more important - traffic or rank?

Rank is a measure of sorts, but ultimately, isn't traffic more important?
Rank can bring you traffic, but there are other means without relying solely on the search engines.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Social Media Optimization (SMO) are now recognized as essential tools to the SEO process. Some even might say that they are a process all on their own.

Sounds like the same argument as whether branding is part of marketing or its own individual process. Either way, it's essential to be familiar with both - in both cases.

The thing about SMM/SMO is that it can also help your overall SERPs in many cases. But when you have true succcess with the Social networks and bookmarking sites, you can see almost instant results.

So much so, this is what has been labeled as the "Digg Effect". If your webhost isn't ready, a surge of 20,000 in one hour can take its toll on a server, often bringing a web host to its knees. This crippling affect can be avoided, which I'll comment on in another post some other time.

Anyone disagree that rank is more important than traffic?

Rank can equal traffic, with the right phrase optimization and conditions, but at the end of the day, traffic can convert while rank may or may not provide customers.

I love mashups

2007-05-27T18:13:00.000-05:00

An interesting little widget from the folks at Turtila.com. It's another rss mashup tool to keep things interesting.

Social Media reading, and a couple extras

2007-05-26T22:17:00.000-05:00

A bunch of intersting sites I've come across at one time or another I thought were worth posting. Most of them are social media marketing blogs, besides the first few. Their appeal really depends on how deep your interest on Social Media Marketing(SMM) and Social Media Optimization (SMO) is. Not sure what category the Happy Cursor falls under, otherwise good reading!

Happy Cursor
Daily Meme Thinking Blog
Dosh Dosh
Lifehacker
Killer Startups
MicroPersuasion
Influential Interactive Marketing
SMO
Social Media Marketing blog
SMogger

Social media scene

2007-05-18T07:30:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wondered why some digg users are almost guaranteed front page every time they post? It's called the Digg entourage, a small group that votes certain users up.

We know certain stories, like those about Microsoft, will get voted down, and stories about Apple or Digg will be voted up just on a headline. Well, same goes for the submitter name.

There's a new social media tool to note called Collactive and it looks like a great tool for leveraging several social bookmarking sites.

There's another new social site called Truemors that was created by Guy Kawasaki which looks to be interesting. It kind of looks like a hybrid of several other social media sites.

Will iGoogle Change the Way We Search

2007-04-30T23:02:00.000-05:00

Personalized search has been a concept floating around, with iGoogle (AKA Mockingbird) making its debut. Well, not really. It's been around for a little over a year, but it's taking on a whole new level of personalization besides a few widgets.

Google wants to compute PageRank for every single person, and thinks of personalization in 3 parts. There's Search Your own stuff (e.g. Google Desktop Search, Web History), Traditional (pull), and Push, like recommendations that might be part of iGoogle.

Google’s personalization efforts and features might allow for a nice homepage, but is it recent advances in search algorithms that have given Google the power to bring personalization to a new level, or would the agenda have anything to do with something else? Like new ways to obtain data on users? My tin foil hat says the latter.

SEO's new low

2007-04-28T20:19:00.000-05:00

Did you know SEO has an anthem?
Neither did I. And this probably isn't it,
but this song about SEO is painfully the closest
this to it. Don't say I didn't warn ya.

Ya, the few seconds I endured I'd like back too.
Here's the lyrics for those interested...

I built this site for the world to see
Content and Links are found in plenty
Crawl my site everyday and night
Come on spider take a look at me

Bot Bot Bot (Let Me Show You What I Got)

There’s plenty of stuff for you to see
My nav is easy to follow
Just read the sitemap and you’ll see
Come on spider take at me

Bot Bot Bot (Let Me Show You What I Got)

Come and crawl my code oh yeah!
You’ll find my site’s easy to read
No errors found whatsoever
All my pages are validated

Bot Bot Bot (Let Me Show You What I Got)

No traps for you to get stuck
ISAPI paves the way
Text and links are served up rich
Don’t worry about flash there’s none to see

Bot Bot Bot (Let Me Show You What I Got)

So much I want you to read
No link farms or stuffing on me
What you see is what they see
Come on spider take at me

Bot Bot Bot (Let Me Show You What I Got)

Slurp, Googlebot, MSNbot, Webscooter, Teoma

Bot Bot Bot (Let Me Show You What I Got)
(song credit: Richard Chavez)

Is Link Building Dying?

2007-04-16T19:28:00.000-05:00

All links are not created equal. Someone once referred to them as currency, with coins being worth less that a couple Benjamins. But as the playing field is in a constant state of flux, it becomes increasingly necessary to reinvent new ways to find quality.

Gone are the days when it was a numbers game. Blackhats will disagree, but then isn't that a different game altogether? It seems like directory submissions are dying out. There might be less than 20 good ones, but I'd say there are only 2 or 3 worth the time to submit to. Good ol' dmoz, and of course Yahoo.

Reciprocal has been in the crapper for some time, but seemed transparent and a bad idea from the get go. How long will hosted marketing pages last?

The Google police are on a new warpath, and its about to get ugly.

So, what's an seo to do?

Me thinks its time to build some genuine resources and work on my co-citation.

Some favorite pranks this April 1st

2007-04-05T18:42:00.000-05:00

A few of my favorite pranks pulled this April 1st;

This one was nothing short of genius - the ultimate Firefox extension means the wait is over for many.

Then there was Gmail's "Paper", which for one small nanosecond seemed possible. In cases like this it would be better to pull something like this on any day other than April 1. Special mention to Google's TiSP as well.

Michael Arrington's announcement of a Techcrunch merger with FuckedCompany.com was another favorite. And it seems a lot of people bought into this one.

The new Googlewriter is a tool that helps you write blog posts. Sweet.

And of course, there let's not forget Matt Cutts site got hacked.

Super Captcha

2007-03-29T18:53:00.000-05:00

This is just funny...

That should stop the spammers, right?

Making money 2.0 style

2007-03-24T14:39:00.000-05:00

Ever since YouTube was sold for $1.65 kajillion everyone has jumped on the bandwagon believing they can be the next internet success story. The trouble is, there are hundreds of web 2.0 startups trying to reinvent the same thing. Not to discourage, but it will take an original idea, not just a regurgitated concept.

Maybe that's why Yahoo bought MyBlogLog so fast. It was original, and the idea had proved to be viral. In just a few short months their userbase had grown significantly.

If you look at who is actually buying these sites, it's web giants like Google and Yahoo that add them to their bag of tricks to someday include in their world domination plan.

The success of a web startup depends on a few rules, some good startup advice, and possibly a web startup toolkit. Equally important is knowing what not to do, and being aware of web startup mistakes.

A great article in Business 2.0 about web company startups suggests that mistakes can be shortcuts to success.

Web marketing and make money online

2007-03-22T22:22:00.000-05:00

If you didn't visit the links in the SEOSnafu awards, there's one in particular to visit if you're not familiar with it. It's John Chow's blog about how to make money online. It's a great read if you're interested in exploring the web's potential, and besides sharing web marketing tips, cool cars, and interesting videos, he also offers a link to your blog if you take the time to review his blog.

John's blog is loaded with some great online insight and is well worth a visit.

Web 3.0 is coming

2007-03-20T00:15:00.001-05:00

The web is no longer just brochureware.

Between all the mashups and API's is a new web that will evolve unlike anything most of us ever saw coming. From gaming to applications, it's future is a subscription based environment.

And that could extend to everything beyond the OS. The web is becoming more of a platform and database. And as the scrapers and aggregators mature, so will the application.

The SEOSnafu Awards

2007-03-03T13:11:00.000-06:00

I think it's time to give credit where it's due. And without further adieau, the 1st SEO Snafu awards!

Best Internet Marketing Blog
John Chow

Best SEO blog
SEOBook
* with honorable mention to Jim Boykin, Graywolf, and Stuntdubl

Best Affiliate Marketing Blog
Shoemoney

Best Trends Source
Popurls

Social Media Mogul
Pronet

Best Forum (WH)
Digital Point
* with honorable mention to ThreadWatch

Best Forum (BH)
syndk8
* with honorable mention to SEO Black Hat

Best Blogger Resource
Problogger

Drop a comment to suggest a future category.

SEO Conferences coming up

2007-03-03T12:53:00.000-06:00

Dave Naylor, Greg Boser, and Jennifer Slegg announced the launch of SEODays. These will be 2 day conferences available in UK, Europe, USA and Canada.

Also coming up is SES NY, which I hear is possibly the best one of all.

One that seems to have a lot of people talking is the Elite Retreat. I know a lot of people I respect in SEO have had good things to say about it.

The People Have Spoken

2007-03-02T20:15:00.000-06:00

Social media is growing by leaps and bounds, with the sale of YouTube on everyone's mind in hopes of creating the next big web 2.0 success story.

The players being digg, delicio.us, reddit, and to a lesser extent, Netscape, Newsvine and Stumbleupon, are at the mercy of a voting system by their users.

Key users are in part becoming influencers, but at what expense to those which frequent social bookmarking sites? Do theses contributors have adverse or biased effects on reporting the facts? While influencers of these types of websites dictate what's hot and what's not, isn't a 2.0 democracy leaving the backdoor open to buying of votes and more?

With these sites being undeniably popular and receiving millions of hits per day, their looms the very real possiblity that the way we get our news is on the verge of shifting. But more importantly is the risk of payola and attempts to gain the system.

Social bookmarking sites are ultimately a challenge to traditional media, but without proper policing, the inevitable gaming of such aggregator sites could lead to their demise.

Web 2.0 - beyond eText

2007-02-04T11:58:00.000-06:00

The ultimate list of Web 2.0 lists

2007-01-06T12:07:00.000-06:00

To get your fix of all that is Web 2.0, I've compiled a list of some of the better places that you can find links, for your browsing pleasure.

Seth Godin's Web 2.0 Traffic Watch List
Complete List of Web 2.0 Products and Services
Web2list
All Things Web 2.0
Web 2.0 Directory : eConsultant
Virtual Karma - Complete List of Web 2.0 Applications
categoriz
Mashup Dashboard
The Museum of Modern Betas
Emily Chang - eHub
Web2.0Slides
Web 2.0 in the Enterprise
Techcrunch » Web 2.0 Companies I Couldn’t Live Without
The Best of Web 2.0 - Guides by Digital Trends
Web 2.0 awards
The complete web 2.0 directory
Wikipedia Web 2.0
Best of the Best Web 2.0 Web Sites
Complete List of Web 2.0 Applications

Web 2.0 parody sites
Web 2.0 losers

And the venture capitalists web 2.0 list

Drop a comment if you know one to add.

James Brown tribute post

2006-12-25T22:16:00.000-06:00

The “Godfather of Soul", James Brown, has died at the age of 73 in Atlanta.

James Brown was known for hits including I Got You (I Feel Good), Papa's Got a Brand New Bag and Living in America, he went by “Mr. Dynamite,” “Soul Brother No. 1,” “the Minister of Super Heavy Funk” and “the Godfather of Soul,” and he was all of those and more.

Many performers, from Mick Jagger to Michael Jackson, imitated James Brown’s stage moves like the spins, the quick shuffles, the knee-drops, and the splits.

He contributed much to the music of our time and will be missed.

James Brown - Wikipedia

James Brown - VH1

James Brown - InfoPlease

James Brown - MySpace

James Brown - Amazon

James Brown - NY Times

James Brown - LA Times

Webmasters Gone Wild

2006-12-16T11:13:00.000-06:00

Assorted pics from SES, WMW and other conferences...

DaveN

Oilman, Jensense, Danny sullivan, Greg Boser & Dax

Stuntdubl & Trose

Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz)

Aaron Wall & Andy Hagans

Matt Cutts

Oilman

Jim Boykin & Baked Jake

Dax pimped out

Danny Sullivan (and friends)

Chris Boggs, Rand & Elizabeth

Joe Morin & Jane

Jill Whalen, Danny Sullivan, Mikkel deMib, Mike Grehan

To be continued...

Link Value

2006-12-13T09:00:00.000-06:00

I'm a big fan of Jim Boykin's blog and have seen some great posts regarding link value as of late.

Forward links
Backlinks

Other posts on link building not to miss...
101 Link Building Methods
Types of links (and how to get them)

Search Engine Land - conference in the works?

2006-12-13T08:51:00.000-06:00

When I was at Chicago's Search Engine Strategies, I overheard something kind of interesting that Danny Sullivan said to someone.

Apparently, there are plans in the works for Search Engine Land to hold a conference of their own around June, probably in Seattle.

Since Seattle was mentioned, I wondered if perhaps Rand from SEOMOZ, who happens to be based out of Seattle, would be involved?

Next 2.0 musings

2006-11-13T22:07:00.000-06:00

After all the hoopla about th YouTube purchase, the web is looking like a gold rush again. Return of the bubble? Probably not. The bubble days were a time when e-anything would have cash thrown at it because so many thought the Web was the Midas touch.

Although Google has had its share of acquisitions, how long can they ride the crest is what I wonder.

One place to I like to keep an eye on for Web 2.0 stuff it gives you a sense of success and redundancy. Notice the nepotistic tendencies of Flickr wannabe's?

The Web 2.0 post

2006-10-18T23:22:00.000-05:00

If you're a fan of Web 2.0, then you'll be happy to also know of the Web 2.0 awards.

Came across a couple of great resources for this web 2.0 stuff;

Seth Godin's Web 2.0 Traffic Watch List
and
The Digg style application list

And although it isn't an exact match to the web 2.0 theme, I'll slip in my favorite site of the moment - popurls.com.

Good stuff!

Search engine query privacy

2006-10-17T23:08:00.000-05:00

An interesting new campaign is underway that seems like a good idea if the major search engines were to adopt the practice.
The search engine query privacy is an initiative to prevent sensitive search data from being stored.

Quote:
"...if a user includes #privacy in a search query, the search engine should not associate that IP (or other tracking mechanism such as cookies) with the query, nor should that query be made available via public or private keyword tools such as Google Suggest or Overture Keyword Selection tool."

Considering AOL's data release blunder earlier this year, this may make sense.

GooTube a Go!

2006-10-09T21:47:00.000-05:00

So Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion.

Now considering that Google, an advertising publisher, is venturing into video advertising, it stands to reason that the purchase of YouTube, coupled with their experimentation with Google video and success with Adwords will lead to their next venture - video ads.

Google to buy YouTube?

2006-10-07T19:43:00.000-05:00

As the battle heats up between the big 3 (Google, Yahoo, MSN) there are rumors that Google will buy YouTube. Although Google owns it's own video service (Google Video), the purchase is probably not about competing with Yahoo video or MSN video.

Such an acqisition would drop Google at the top of the online video heap. In July, about 30.5 million people had visited YouTube. Compare that with the 9.3 million that visited Google Video or the 5.3 million to Yahoo Video (Nielsen/NetRatings).
YouTube users are said to watch over 100 million videos daily. Google has yet to dominate a category outside its core business - online search. Viacom, News Corp., Microsoft and Yahoo are also said to be interested.

One issue that surrounds the acquisition is the infringement of copyrighted material that mostly make up YouTube's material. Google would assume such liability, although analysts suggest that Google's size would give it more clout than YouTube to leverage and negotiate deals.

If Google's acquisition of YouTube were successful, it would merge 2 of the the web's online video providers and give MySpace, the No.1 online video provider, a run for the money. Since the launch of Google Video in Jan 2005, it currently ranks 8th in terms of monthly visitors and unique users.

YouTube, which has yet to earn revenue, has been carrying the cost of hosting the growing number of video clips, as well as bandwidth, estimated to be about $1.5 million per month.

According to eMarketer, the amount spent on advertising at sites like Google Video or YouTube is expected to jump to $2.5 billion by 2010, from $350 million today.

Shares in Google rose US$8.69, or more than two percent, following reports of the acquisition. Such an acquisition would be Google's largest purchase. Industry experts say other prospects include Metacafe, Bolt.com and Internet veteran iFilm.

The eight-year-old company's expansion has been so rapid that it's co-founder Sergey Brin has ordered engineers to stop creating so many new products and to work instead on improving its existing offerings. Internal audits have shown the company has been spending too much time developing more than 50 products are in various stages of development. Focus will be given to its core product, the search engine.

Google is a fascinating, um, monopoly. While continuously churning out new tools from Google labs, they steadily improve their technology such as Mentalplex, a search tool that anticipates your request, or their pagerank algorithm. Somtimes it seems Google venture into other markets that don't always make sense.

It's difficult to truly grasp the magnitude of what Google does. Originally named "Backrub", Google was developed by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin as a new approach to searching through online documents throughout the web. Considering the rate at which the Web grows, Google is constantly indexing, sorting, and archiving links to be later be recalled when using it's search engine. Which leads to Googles biggest mystery...

To provide relevant search results, Google utilizes what it refers to as page rank, an algorithm (mathematical forumla) to determine what sites take top positions within the search results pages.

Just look at some of the companies Google has bought over the past few years;

Keyhole - now Google Earth
Dodgeball - connect with friend by mobile phones
ZipDash - mobile maps
Deja - now Google Groups
Blogger - heard of it?
Writely - web word processor
Applied Semantics - info retrieval organization/management
Urchin - Now Google analytics
SketchUp - 3D software
Picasa - photography
Measure Map - blog analytics
dMarc - radio advertising (?)
Reqwireless - WAP browser/wireless productivity apps
Kaltix - search technology
Dulance - shopping search engine (probably used for Froogle
Neotonic Software - email customer support
Android - mobile phone software
Akwan - seach technologies
Where 2 Technologies - internet mapping
Ignite Logic - interesting purchase that allows design of turn key legal sites
Sprinks - paid listings network which allowed the Adsense network grow significantly
Outride - data mining and relevant search technology
Neven Vision -biometric identification - the technology will allow better organization and search of photos using Picasa.

And Google's most recent purchase? The Google garage, where it all started.

One might ask does it make sense for Google to purchase Youtube? It's hard to figure out what they have in mind with some of their acquisitions, but it stands to reason that such a purchase isn't on a whim. Especially at a reported 1.6 billion!

Whether or not Google buys YouTube, I think one other web property they'll be thinking about is MySpace.

Social Media directions

2006-10-02T20:15:00.000-05:00

An interesting video of Guy Kawasaki heading a panel on social media with a group of 20 something-year-olds discussing everything about the web.

Will the real iPhone please stand up

2006-09-19T00:55:00.000-05:00

Rumour has it that an iPhone will be released at Macworld Expo San Francisco in January 2007.

Other rumours about the pending release include 3 megapixel camera, 2.2 inch screen, and iTunes integration.

American Technology Research Analyst Shaw Wu says the phone has already gone from concept to prototype.

"Clearly, we would like to share more detail as we have conducted extensive work on the product pipeline, but for now, here is what we will convey," Wu wrote. "The design will be an iPod nano-like candy bar form factor and come in three colors (we are not certain of the exact colors but we suspect black, white and platinum, similar to Apple's current color scheme of iPods and Macs)."

I'm guessing that they've been holding off until now to get flash memory in the iPhone.
A hard drive would just be too bulky.

Take your pick from the following images that have been floating around.

Is SMO the new frontier of SEO?

2006-09-13T22:32:00.000-05:00

As word of Lonelygirl15 leaked out, it dawned on me that Social Media optimization is the new black. Not that I'm talking about black hat SEO, but I guess that all depends on just how far you take it.

Dubbed an "experiment in storytelling", Lonelygirl15 is like a 4 month case study.
Although the creators claim it was never their intention was to mislead, the confessional video blogs that appeared on Myspace and YouTube have angered fans, thinking it was an elaborate promotion for an upcoming movie or TV show.

There's a great read on the debunking of Lonelygirl15 at Slumdance. There is also a piece about Bree at Businessweek.

The entire effort is admirable, and leaves me wondering what Madison Avenue and the big ad agencies are talking about these days. Not only did it create legions of lonelygirl15 fans, but it probably inspired SMO to a new level. Long live beta 7.

Industry accreditation

2006-09-06T23:51:00.000-05:00

But I didn't say what industry.
That's for you to decide.

Grab your accreditation.

Social Media Optimization - and a few new rules

2006-09-05T21:05:00.000-05:00

Interests developing around Social Media Optimization (SMO) indicate new thinking on SEO.

The concept is simple, and Rhoit Bhargava said it best;
"...implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs."

But let's start with with a summary of the current mindset and rules of Social Media Optimization;

1. Increase your linkability : Think blogs, content, aggregation & linkbait.

2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy : Include calls to action for users to tag, bookmark and Digg your stuff. I’d suggest the Sociable Plugin if you have a Wordpress powered blog.

3. Reward inbound links : List blogs which link back to you via permalinks, trackbacks or recently linking blogs (like the Yahoo & Google blogs do).

4. Help your content travel : Content diversification can lead to mobility of your content beyond the browser.

5. Encourage the mashup : Let others use your content or tools to produce something a bit different or outside of the box with your stuff, even RSS.

6. Be a User Resource, even if it doesn’t help you : Add value and outbound links, even if it doesn’t help in the short term, it will in the long.

7. Reward helpful and valuable users : Give your contributors and readers the recognition they deserve.

8. Participate : Get in there and get involved in the discussions going on among the blogs and sites of others, and do it organically. Earn your rep on Digg.com, don’t try and force it.

9. Know how to target your audience : Understand your appeal and those people you wish to attract.

10. Create content : A little bit of rules 1 & 4 here, but the underlying message is know the form of content working for you.

11. Be real : Transparency pays off and no one likes a fake.

12. Don’t forget your roots, be humble : Sometimes it can be easy to get carried away being a BlogStar or industry talking head. Remember those who helped you along the way, and that respect will help all involved.

13. Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh : Social Media is changing and morphing by the minute, keep up on new tools, products and challenges in your social sphere.

14. Develop a SMO strategy - define your objectives and set goals. Be fully aware of what your desired outcome is as a result of performing these tactics. Reputation, sales, influence, credibility, charity, traffic/page views, etc.

15. Choose your SMO tactics wisely. Be cognizant of what actions will influence the desired outcome with the most impact.

16. Make SMO part of your process and best practices. As with good SEO, SMO tactics should become part of your organization’s best practices. Find ways to incorporate SMO tactics at the “template” level of document creation and as part of information distribution. Minor things like encouraging social bookmarks and rewarding incoming links as a standard practice across the organization can go a long way.

My contribution? Here's 4 more rules for Social Media Optimization...

- Write for a niche. Shotgun creative is less effective.
- Do your homework. Quality content is rewarded with links and traffic.
- Challenge and engage the reader.
- Network your ideas

Super Bloggers

2006-09-04T15:44:00.000-05:00

Michael Arrington's TechCrunch, a blog about new technologies and companies, pulls in $60,000 in ad revenue every month.

Nick Denton launched the gossip site Gawker back in 2002, along with the gadget blog Gizmodo. Gawker Media now runs 13 sites and is expected to bring in #4 million worth of ad revenue this year.

The wave of blog success stories is on the rise. Popsugar, Fark, Huffington Post, MetaFilter, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

So what do these blog success stories have in common?
For one, they're catering to a niche market. Frequency is also a big part of it.
And undoubtedly, getting the scoop plays a part in it as well.

Ode to Tom

2006-09-04T15:17:00.000-05:00

When I first started exploring social networks, one of the things that troubled me was this fellow named Tom. At first I wondered who he was and how he assumed our friendship. It's not like we ever met or exchanged words.

Later I learned Tom was a default friend. Sad indeed. Yet Tom, with his menacing grin, seemed perfectly content. As it turns out, Tom is a rock. A connector. An innovator. Even a pioneer.

I had the rare opportunity to speak to Tom about what he's been up to.
This is how it went.

Me: Hey Tom, thanks for taking the time to speak with me.

Tom from MySpace: Ya, I got the restraining order. Uh, have we met?

Me: You did? Great. So tell me, what have you been up to? With the Myspace success and all.

Tom from MySpace: Mostly just working on MySpace.

Me: That's it?

Tom from MySpace: Ya. Keeps me busy.

Me: ...

Tom from MySpace: I did buy a new car recently.

Me: Ya? What'd ya get?

Tom from MySpace: It's a Scion. Ever seen one? It's wicked!

Me: ...

Tom from MySpace: And I've got this girlfriend now.

Me: Really? Where'd ya meet her?

Tom from MySpace: Where you think?

Me: Good talking to you.

And that was about it.
Shorlty after, I deleted him and took refuge in the Anti-Tom coalition.

Lessons of the linking landscape

2006-09-03T13:56:00.000-05:00

There’s a saying among SEOs that all links are not created equal.
But it really depends on which search engine is looking at it.

Google has a lead on search market share and relevance is a factor. Some claim it's a little finicky and efforts are best steered at Yahoo/MSN. A matter of personal tastes really, but the Google rewards your efforts with more traffic than probably the other big 2 could offer - combined.

Besides the neighborhood, relevance, on-page acquaintances you share, and actual on-page location, there is also the consideration of whether the link is perceived (by G) as a "text link" or more of a link contained within the body copy, creating the appearance of being part of the copy versus paid placement. There is also the question of how many links are on the page as well. Each one sapping a little more link juice. So if you're on a page with only about 10 outbound links, it stands to reason this carries more weight than a page with 50+ outbound links.

So how does one drive traffic to a site? It starts with the "enviable" task of link building.

There are all kinds of link types. According to stuntdubl, there are 12 link types. But there is also a need to know some of the various link building tactics. Aaron Wall and Andy Hagans compiled one of the best posts this year with 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity in 2006.

You can forget the reciprocal link route. Rarely is it worth the time. You'd be far better off focussing on developing some quality content. Or link bait!

Matt Cutts leaves Google for Baidu.com

2006-08-31T13:59:00.000-05:00

Following the announcement of Danny Sullivan leaving Search Engine Watch, Matt Cutts blog mentions his decision to leave Google and join Baidu.com for an undisclosed amount.Um, ya...never happened. But the headline got you here, and I suspect there was even a brief moment that you had a mild panic attack.

Link baiting (sometimes also referred to as 'Hoax Marketing') is an interesting ploy, but is it worthwhile?
Although the question of ethics is certain to come up, there’s no denying the merits of this form of link building. And I bet you’re thinking of the possibilities as you read this.

While stories like the prototype car runs 100 miles on four ounces of water as fuel are designed to infiltrate the ‘attention economy’, the art of link baiting requires a topic of interest with a spin on it.

Link baiting is a two step approach and starts with setting the bait. The story, post or lead needs to grab their attention . But the real trick is to close the deal and earn a link. Before I heard the term link bait, I used to think of this as search marketing public relations.

Of the leading link bait experts, the first to come to mind would have to be Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz. Another great post on the subject is at Jim Westergreen's blog.

What works? It really depends on your field.

SEO Tools or contests (like v7ndotcom elursrebmem ), Pranks, hoaxes, controversial stances, and many of the techniques commonly used with public relations. Disclaimer – I do not endorse and link baiting pranks, hoaxes or similar.

My favorite example of hoax marketing (and link bait) would have to be Beta 7.

A clever buzz/hoax marketing strategy to promote the launch of the new Sega game ESPN NFL Football. By seeding forums etc with rumors of a beta tester that began to experience blackouts during which he would engage in unpredictable behavior (such as randomly tackling people). Beta-7 (the name of the game tester) claimed that the game caused a reaction in a small percentage of people, and that Sega knows about this and is trying to cover it up. With the release of info on Beta 7’s blog, as well as picture and even video clips, I consider this the most successful hoax marketing stunt to date. The entire campaign lasted almost 6 months. A well thought out strategy with excellent execution. Further reading at http://www.beta-7truth.com

As for the weird file, this may take the prize.

Maybe it is SEM PR after all?

Search Engine Watch without Danny

2006-08-30T08:53:00.000-05:00

Recent news of Danny Sullivan leaving Search Engine Watch (SEW) has created quite a stir within the SEO community. News first appeared on Danny's blog and spread quickly.

For me, the name Danny Sullivan is synonomous with the term SEO. Danny first started the website SEW as a page of tips to rise in the search results in 1996. The following year he sold it to MecklerMedia (later Jupiter) which was resold to Incisive Media in 2006.

I think Incisive Media has made a huge mistake, but this could very well be an opportunity for Danny, and the SEO industry to evolve and grow. And like Joseph Morin says, if Danny chooses to create his own SES conferences (conveniently scheduled on the same dates), who do you think many of the speakers might follow?