October 2007
79 posts
Today’s News: GOOG, Updates and Bunnies, Oh My!
Happy Halloween! You know where Halloween is really happy today? The Googleplex, that’s where. At least they better be happy with their stock price breaking $700 a share for the first time today. Pretty amazing to think about since they just broke the $600 a share mark less than a month ago. On the other side of the search world, Yahoo! is rolling out an update to their crawl, algorithm and...
Thanks to The Denver Egotist for the Blogroll Add
I was quite excited to see that this blog, in all of its randomness, has been added to The Denver Egotist’s blogroll…which is quite an honor when you see the other local blogs that are listed. I’m realizing I need to add a blogroll of my own on this blog.
Not surprisingly I feel a bit more pressure to write about marketing related stuff since this recognition from the...
Meebo Adds Video and Voice Chat to Web-Based IM...
Popular web-based chat application Meebo has integrated voice and video chat applications directly into the Meebo’s IM window. Just fire up a chat in Meebo, then click the rocket ship icon on the message toolbar. Your window will expand to offer different integrated voice and video chat options, like previously mentioned TokBox. If your buddy isn’t also chatting in Meebo,...
How to Achieve Your Goals When Life Gets in the...
Setting goals is an essential tool for most successful affiliates, but reaching those goals is the hard part. Even those of us with the best intentions run into obstacles on our way to achieving our goals. How we deal with these obstacles decides if we will succeed or fail. The Zen Habits blog has a very nice piece of reaching goals in the face of setbacks in their article How to Stick to Your...
Valleywag are a bunch of prudes
Check out this blind item where they claim a certain Valley CEO was fired because he stumbled into work drunk and peed on the carpet in front of stunned onlookers. All I can say is the Valley has changed and not for the better. Back in the Seventies and Eighties this kind of stuff happened all the time and nobody thought twice about it. I guess it’s just another result of this “Just...
Why Traffic with Intent is a Must-Have for...
[This post was inspired by the post Never, Ever, Pay for Traffic on the MarketMotive blog]
Today’s topic has to do with one of the mistakes that a lot of newer affiliates make, and that’s buying the wrong kind of online traffic. All web traffic is not created equal, meaning varied conversion rates, so knowing what you’re buying is essential.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a...
Unnecessary Force
You have to check out JibJab’s new “Starring You” feature so you can make one of these…
(via Marketing Punk)
BIG FUN at the Halloween Party
As one might expect, Halloween is a big deal down on the Ice, and we have a big party every year to celebrate it. This weekend was our big to-do, and it was pretty crazy! BUT we only had to have one person Medevac’d to Christchurch, so I guess it wasn’t too wild. (Actually it is - when it’s bad enough to fly a whole C-17 to Christchurch just to move one injured person, it’s not good.) With...
Caution: More fake cartoon violence
Star in Your Own JibJab! It’s Free! Someone made this and sent me a link. Much love, Mariano. I think.
(via James’ shared items in Google Reader)
Interesting Friday Goodness: Affiliate Lifestyle...
For some reason most articles out there that center on the affiliate lifestyle tend to focus on lavish vacations, hot cars and big mansions. The scammers ebook salespeople who write these about this stuff usually are just trying to sell you enough of a dream to get your $69.95 so you can download their affiliate marketing “insights”.
Here at the InsureMe Affiliate Blog we’re not so...
If They Had These in Hollywood...
If they had these in Hollywood, The Superficial’s traffic would drop by 25%.
(via Marketing Punk)
Mercedes-Benz Museum contains world record...
Filed under: Etc., Mercedes Benz The Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany is now home to more than just automobiles. The museum has been recognized by the Guinness Book of Records for creating the “strongest artificially generated tornado in the world.” The 34.4 meter high (that is 37.2 yards to those metrically challenged) vortex was not designed as an attraction, but to channel...
End your tasks, end your job?
One reason for organizational paralysis is that it’s easy to believe that if your tasks go away, your job goes away.
If you’re the district manager for the Yukon Territory and the company stops serving the Yukon, you’re going to get fired, aren’t you? If you are the product manager for the evangelical market and it’s determined that this market isn’t growing...
Photo Friday: Equal Opportunity Underwear
In honor of bleek, grey, and rainy Photo Friday in Rome, Susan Sanders brings us a bit of bright humor. The photo above was taken in Sperlonga, Italy and shows a bright yellow vending machine. What’s in there? Gumballs? Toys? Nope! This is not your usual kid-friendly vending machine. Rather, this remarkable machine is stacked full of plastic capsules, each of which is filled with a silky,...
Guess What? Podcast Sponsorship Worked! (at least...
If you’ve been around me as of late, you have likely heard me talk about It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The show is awesome, in a totally twisted kinda sick way. I mean, what other show on TV has a scene like this?
OK, so maybe the Day Man song wasn’t the right example to give you to start, but I swear, this show is great. I mean c’mon, Danny DeVito liked the...
Aaron Wall's SEO Tip Videos
SEO Book’s founder Aaron Wall has gone koo-koo for videos as of late…which is good news for those of us looking to learn more about SEO. Aaron’s videos span a number of SEO related topics, and thanks to the magic of YouTube video embedding, here are a number of the most recent videos: How to Create Elegant Search Spam (great fundamental SEO tips): [Click through for more videos] (via...
Duuuude, fifteen billion. Fifteen BILLION,...
Man oh man. Huge party outside Facebook last night. The kids are rocking like it’s 1999. Check out the photo of Faceberg himself doing a kegstand while Pete Simeoni, his VP of legal affairs, lends a helping hand. Facebots in background were chanting “Fifteen Billion, Fifteen Billion.” Later they hoisted Faceberg on their shoulders and carried him around the parking lot. Then...
The Trevi Runs Red
If you recall, I propsed to Kristi at the Trevi Fountain in Rome…a romantic place indeed (maybe not all the time, but that night it was perfect). Recently the world learned that the Trevi Fountain is not only a place for romance, but a place for political statements. Check out this picture of what the Trevi looked like after some futurist (whatever that is) made a political statement:...
Google Socks Paid Link Sellers Where it Hurts
No Google isn’t sending out Googlers to go all America’s Funniest Home Videos on paid link sellers, but they are doing the next best thing – removing PageRank from sites who sell links. From what I’ve read Google started doing this over a week ago, but a new round of sites that are known for selling link (and some that aren’t) are getting a symbolic kick to the groin from the Google spam team....
What To Do With Index Cards...
Index cards…if you’re like me they remind you of college and studying. But now that you’ve gotten through that, is there any other good use for business cards?
You bet your butt!
Web Worker Daily put together together a list of 24 uses for those fun little rectangles of paper including everything from a hipster PDA to writing a novel. Check out the article here.
...
Using Cutline for WordPress to Build an Affiliate...
As I think I mentioned before, I’ve become quite a fan of WordPress recently. In my spare time I have been messing about with various templates to see how well they can be modified to build a nice affiliate/ecommerce site. While some templates are pretty much rubbish, there are some other templates that will let you put together a clean looking site in less than an hour. One template I am...
Modernist mouse traps
Industrial Designer Roger Arquer has come up with four, clever, non-lethal mousetraps that can be made from everyday household items.
Cute little buggers.
(via James’ shared items in Google Reader)
Internal marketing
In the middle of its biggest growth spurt ever, just before Christmas, Apple fired 800 of its employees for stealing. They were caught grabbing $100 rebates on the iPhones Apple had given them for free.
The impact of this sort of action is pure marketing. It sends a powerful message to every other employee (and eventually the public). Most organizations would waffle, or hesitate at the scale of...
Internal marketing
In the middle of its biggest growth spurt ever, just before Christmas, Apple fired 800 of its employees for stealing. They were caught grabbing $100 rebates on the iPhones Apple had given them for free.
The impact of this sort of action is pure marketing. It sends a powerful message to every other employee (and eventually the public). Most organizations would waffle, or hesitate at the scale of...
SEO Rockstars Podcast Worth a Listen
If you are working away today and looking for something to listen to in the background I’d suggest listening to the latest episode of SEO Rockstars from Webmaster Radio. The show always covers interesting topics and I learn something from just about every episode that gets put out (although new episodes are rare there days).
The episode recorded on 9/25/2007 was particularly interesting when...
Kimi Smiled! (and Won the World Championship)
Today was an amazing day - Kimi Raikkonen, a total long shot for the Formula 1 world championship, won the Brazilian Grand Prix and took championship in an amazing race. Here’s the story. Congrats to Kimi and the whole team at Ferrari! Not sure if this is going to get me any closer to convincing Kristi to let me name our first born male Kimi Raikkonen Omdahl, but it couldn’t have...
Driving Across the USA in 31 Hours
For anyone who has had a long road trip, you can imagine how boring a cross-country drive could be. But what if you drove from New York to LA in 31 hours? I would imagine things would be a bit more exciting, especially because you would have to average over 90 mph the whole way. That’s what Alex Roy of the infamous Team Polizei did recently…he even wrote a book about it.
Here is...
Steve Rubel Thinks There is a PPC Recession...
I ran across an interesting post last night from Steve Rubel claiming that a pay-per-click recession is looming. Steve bases this claim on the following reasons:
Clutter – too many ads being displayed for search terms
Declining Relevance of Traffic/Transition to Cost Per Action – advertisers are going to want to pay for action, not clicks, in the future
Rising Costs – cost per click is...
Now Here is a Study I Can Get Behind
Read about the study here.
Seriously, with 3 years on a trading desk in my past, juxtaposed with my current squeaky clean workplace, I gotta give points to being able to express your emotions through colorful language. Don’t get me wrong, there are pluses and minuses to both ways to run an office, but nothing helps people blow off steam like the occasional well placed f-bomb.
Just...
What Side is the Gas Cap on Anyway?
Have you ever had a rental car or borrowed a friend’s car, had to put gas into it, and not known which side the damn gas cap was on? I have, and it sucks. Especially when you pull up to a busy gas station and have to do the side-switch of shame. Well, it turns out there is a trick to knowing where the gas cap is, and it has to do with that little icon on the gas gauge. What to know the...
You Better Be Using Google Webmaster Tools
This post will be short and sweet. Why? Because I am too busy because I am pouring over the information available through the Google Webmaster Tools interface. And guess what? You should be doing the same.
Google just rolled our some new features for webmasters like Sitelinks controls and the ability to filter reports in different date ranges (more detail info on this on SEL). For me, the...
But Do You Have a Bad Bite?
Seriously, I did not know it was possible to be so flippin’ annoying after getting bitten by a snake. You have to stick with this clip for a bit (and they force you through a commercial), but by the end you will be glad the python nailed this guy.
Here is the video. Bonus points to anyone who can count the number of times this guy says “bad bite.”
(via Marketing...
Bubb Rubb and Lil Sis...
…You make me so happy with that WoooWoooooooooo!
P.S. - if anyone buys these in my ‘hood, I’ll burn down their car.
(via Marketing Punk)
Michael Martinez Gives 20 Hard Core SEO Tips
SEO theorist and analyst Michael Martinez put together 20 interesting tips for doing “Hard Core” SEO…which seems to mean doing SEO with the intention of being a better optimizer. Not a bad goal, eh?
A number of Michael’s tips are aimed at proactively improving website rankings such as: Redesign your Web site once or twice a year Add 5 pages of content to your site every week Change the titles...
VIDEO: Top Gear Outtakes
Filed under: Videos Do you like outtake reels? Who doesn’t! Do you like Top Gear? Well, if you’re the kind of person who reads Autoblog, then chances are you do. In that case, have we got the video for you! After the jump you’ll find six minutes’ worth of your favorite telemotive personalities (that’s right, we just made up a word) fumbling over their lines, making...
Funny Clean Humor from Mitch Headburg
If you are looking for a laugh tonight, enjoy this clip from the late and great Mitch Headburg…
(via Marketing Punk)
Horse Chestnuts for Sale
I am dying of the influenza. It is victimizing my fluids and bursting me from the inside out like a million chupacabras eating their way through a ham.
You finally get yourself unemployed so that you can focus on making yourself unstoppably awesome, and Nature gets wind of it, objects because it’s everybody’s dream to become unstoppably awesome, and then tries to murder you.
...
Dispelling Some Myths about AdWords Quality Score
One of the more important posts I have seen on Search Engine Land for quite some time is Alan Rimm-Kaufman’s Secrets of Google Quality Score Revealed!!! (Not). While the post obviously does not reveal any of the great secrets of the AdWords Quality Score algorithm, it does dispel a number of prominent myths that surround Quality Score. The information comes from a meeting between Alan and...
Pop quiz, Hot Shot: On what side of the car do you...
Filed under: Etc. Easy question, huh? For most the answer is as close as sticking your head out the window and craning your neck for a look at the rear fender. No protruding bump from the fuel filler door’s finger lip? It’s on the other side then. There are, however, subtle clues right on your dash that indicate which side of the car should be sit next to the pump. Somewhere around the...
The Driver: U.S. Transcontinental rally record...
Filed under: Etc. Click the shot above for over 80 pics, scans and images. If you were scouring the interwebs yesterday, you might have come across a story about Team Polizei’s record-breaking transcontinental run from New York to L.A. Our friends over at Jalopnik were present at the start and finish lines, with Spinelli seeing Alex Roy and Dave Maher off from the Classic Car Club in NYC,...
Who Needs a Jumbotron...
…when you’ve got well programmed trained kids!!! Yay for South Korea!
(via Marketing Punk)
YouTube Overlay Ad Spotted
I was doing some, ahem, research on YouTube and ran across the first YouTube overlay advertisement that I’ve seen. From the picture below you can see that the advertisement ran near the start of the video (15 seconds in), and was and ad for something YouTube and HP are doing together. I thought it was interesting that an orangey-yellow marker appears on the progress bar at the point where the ad...
I'm a Very Good Driver...
Journalist + Rally Car + Rally Driver =
http://view.break.com/381553 - Watch more free videos
[Link via Autoblog]
(via Marketing Punk)
McMurdo - my home!
Hello again! It’s been a long first week here at Mactown - it seems like I’ve been here a month! There is a lot of meeting new people and so on, so it gets tiring! For the most part, though, the people are very nice and generally friendly (sometimes a little bit quirky!), which makes it easier to get along. Here’s a photo of part of McMurdo: These are a number of the main living and working areas...
AdWords Account History: Can it Hurt You?
Have you ever had a Google AdWords account that seems to be cursed? You know, one of those accounts that seem to land you on the third page of the search results no matter what you bid? Well, the curse might have a lot to do with account’s AdWords history, and a recent blog post from UberAffiliate seems to confirm that having a poor account history with AdWords can decrease your chances of...
AdWords Account History: Can it Hurt You?
Have you ever had a Google AdWords account that seems to be cursed? You know, one of those accounts that seem to land you on the third page of the search results no matter what you bid? Well, the curse might have a lot to do with account’s AdWords history, and a recent blog post from UberAffiliate seems to confirm that having a poor account history with AdWords can decrease your chances of...
Bible Life, Jet Cars and Ice Pictures!!!
Ever wonder what would happen if you live according to the bible, I mean literally. This guy did, and he wrote a book about it. Next, this video shows what white trash does when they need to start a bonfire. Finally, my sister posted some pictures from Antarctica - flippin’ awesome. OH YEAH!!! IT’S ONE YEAR TO THE DAY TILL KRISTI AND I GET MARRIED!!! YES!!! I took this picture today...
A Suggestion for Commission Junction: Application...
One of my daily routines is to go into the InsureMe Commission Junction advertiser account and approve or decline potential publishers. Generally I enjoy doing it since I like seeing all of the different sites and tactics publishers are using. But one thing that really bothers me in the process is that I often don’t have enough information to make a good decision on accepting or declining...
Cai Guo-Qiang: Head On
With few wolves scattered in the front gallery, all ninety-nine wolves run, gallop, and jump toward the far end of the exhibition hall, where a wall stands. The bravery of the wolves is met head on by the unyielding wall. As the leading wolves go down, many more follow with force and determination. As those in the front fall and pile up, those behind take up their positions. (via James’...
How to create a great website
Here are principles I think you can’t avoid: 1. Fire the committee. No great website in history has been conceived of by more than three people. Not one. This is a dealbreaker. 2. Change the interaction. What makes great websites great is that they are simultaneously effortless and new at the same time. That means that the site teaches you a new thing or new interaction or new connection, but you...