December 2007
84 posts
Holgas and Fish-Eyes: An Analog Holiday →
There’s nothing like putting down the digital camera and messing around with a camera that actually uses film. There is something about taking a picture and not knowing how it will look that is exciting…and when you are shooting your pictures with a Holga or a fish-eye camera (thanks Kristi!), you really don’t know how things are going to look. So here’s some of the shots...
WANTS FOR SALE [2] →
New York couple Christine and Justin paint things they want, and then sell the painting for the exact price of that item. So far it’s working out well for them. Bastards.
Avs and Red Wings at the Pepsi Center →
Kristi and I went to the Avalanche/Red Wings game tonight…as you can see from the picture below, we had amazing seats (thanks to the good Doctor). The game was quite exciting, and even though the Avs didn’t win, we had an awesome time.
The real reason for traffic jams: us! →
Filed under: Etc., Safety, Driving
Finally, there’s an explanation for those wasted hours we spent on the MassPike today asking no one in particular “what the (dirty word) is this (dirty word)?” A team of mathemeticians from the Universities of Exeter, Bristol and Budapest developed a mathematical model revealing that traffic jams are caused by idiots. Okay, not exactly. The real...
Long Bet Winner: Weblogs vs. The New York Times... →
Long Bet Winner: Weblogs vs. The New York Times — In 2002, blogging evangelist Dave Winer made a long bet with New York Times executive Martin Nisenholtz: “In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times’ Web site.”
Source: Workbench
Author: Rogers Cadenhead
Link: ...
This Video Reminds Me of Being a Kid →
No, I didn’t grow up on a Japanese game show. But if you ever slept over at a friend’s house, and had to keep quiet so you didn’t piss parents off, you’ll remember the feeling these guys are going through. So what does this have to do with marketing? Look at it this way, if a Japanese game show can tap into that “be quiet or my parents will kick our asses”...
Top 25 Life-Improving Christmas Gifts for Under... →
If you’re like me, you’re always looking for ways to give cheap but meaningful gifts. Yes, I’m a cheapskate, but I’m a happy one.
I’ve always been into improving my life, and if I can help the loved ones in my life do the same, without spending a lot, I’m very happy.
Last week, I asked you guys for some suggestions for inexpensive gifts, and boy did you deliver. This week, I’m going to steal...
SEO Software Can Only Get You Top Rankings for the... →
Sometimes I run across an article that explains something a lot better than I ever could, so below you will find an article that fits that description perfectly. With her permission, here’s an article from Jill Whalen’s High Rankings newsletter. It comes from one of her readers, so it’s in a Q&A format. Here it goes…make sure to consider Jill’s answer before you...
Christmas Giving:Not Too Late to Do Good →
Sure it’s late, but here are a couple of suggestions:
OLPC. Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child program is a gem. At laptopgiving.org you can give a kid in a developing country a laptop for $200 or, for $399, do “Give One. Get One.” You give a developing country child one, and get one for your child.
BoGo Light. About Two Billion people have no electric...
Much love, JibJab →
Peace on earth to you crazy JibJab dudes for including me and iPhone in your 2007 roundup video. Shame on you, however, for stealing the same Billy Joel song as the Bubble 2.0 video guys. You really couldn’t find a different song to steal? Really? Dear reader George, I wish you peace and namaste. If anyone spots this video on YouTube let me know and I’ll embed it here for the rest of...
Adwords Coupons Coming Back to Haunt Google... →
A while back I showed a example of people gaming adwords. I got a lot of emails from people asking how 1 person can have so many Adwords accounts and how could they possibly be making a profit on this.
I believe there is a big problem going on right now with Google Adwords in regards to Virtual Credit Cards mixed with Adwords Coupons. A person could get a Virtual Credit Card for less then $10 (if...
Sculpting Your PageRank For Maximum SEO Impact →
If you are a large online retailer, you’re looking at thousands upon thousands of pages that have the opportunity to get crawled and indexed in the SERPs (search engine results pages). You’re also looking at near infinite choices for how you interlink all those pages. Out of all those permutations, there is one configuration that is the most optimal from an SEO perspective....
Your ads are not for you →
Here’s the puzzling math of advertising, offline and on:
Everybody doesn’t read, remember or click on your ads.
Nobody isn’t the right answer either.
In other words, you don’t get 100% attention when you buy an ad. In fact, you don’t get 50% attention or even 1%. If you’re very very good and very lucky, it might be .1% but it’s more likely to be one...
Speed Cameras Cause Accidents. Ask The Government. →
Yes. It’s true. Read on. Or click through to the story. Or the study.
Ding Dong, Digg is Dead →
At least for Copyblogger, that is.
It’s been a good run. From last fall, I’ve grown this blog from 6,000 subscribers to close to 29,000. My strategy for 2007 relied on appealing to social media news and bookmarking sites, plus the goodwill of bloggers around the world who thought my content was worth mentioning.
Digg certainly played a part in that. Mostly, landing on the Digg front page a...
It's Got To Be Tough Being a CMO →
BusinessWeek has a great article that talks about the short lifespan of people who end up in the Chief Marketing Officer role. It seems that the world of marketing is moving a little too fast for many traditionally minded marketing chiefs to keep up, and the pressures of knowing what to do with new media and old media are overwhelming. There was one bit of the article I have to point out that...
SitePal Sites are Always Creepy →
Seriously, I have never seen a website that uses SitePal that doesn’t end up looking creepy. Want an example? Try this and this.
Damned.MGX →
Whenever I turn on the lamp in my room, it’s natural that for my rapacious consumption of the earth’s energy to remind me that I am in some way shape or form engaging in gluttonous behavior; seeing as gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, I am sure to be damned to the netherworld. It’s a good thing then that Dutch Architect Luc Merx has designed the Damned MGX, a lampshade...
Damned.MGX →
Whenever I turn on the lamp in my room, it’s just natural that for my rapacious consumption of the earth’s energy to remind me that I am in some way shape or form engaging in gluttonous behavior; seeing as gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, I am sure to be damned to the netherworld. It’s a good thing then that Dutch Architect Luc Merx has designed the Damned MGX, a...
...and your clicks for free (the new ebook) →
For the last two months I’ve been working away on a (short) ebook about traffic. Traffic to your blog or your company site. It has evolved quite a bit, and ended up using Squidoo lenses as a template for the point I was trying to make. There’s an enormous amount of superstition about what makes some pages rank high while others languish. When you look at the actual figures, though,...
Google & Human Quality Reviews: Old News... →
A quote from Google’s director of research Peter Norvig in an article at
Technology Review about how human reviewers assess Google’s search quality is starting to pick up play on the web and will no doubt grow. Problem is, it’s not news. Still, I suppose it’s interesting to those who are new to the space or missed the attention it got back in 2005. Some history follows.
...
Yahoo! is Making Xanga Sandwiches →
I’m not sure if this goes for all verticals or just insurance, but our friends over at Yahoo! are having a really tough time filtering Xanga spam sites out of their search results. Here’s an example of our site in a Xanga sandwich: The funny thing is that it looks like Xanga has already deleted the spam insurance blogs and thrown up a page to explain the blog is gone, and Yahoo! has indexed the...
Google Improves Results For Supplemental Pages →
According to a new post on the Google Webmaster Central blog, the supplemental index is no longer, well, supplemental. Google has long had a two-tiered index and webmasters have generally feared the second, supplemental tier. A Forbes article earlier this year called it “Google Hell”, as historically, those pages weren’t crawled as often as those in the main index, weren’t...
Fortune, you dumbass motherfuckers →
Oh snap! as Herbert Kornfeld might say. Look who got punked in their own list of stupid items. Folks the item above comes from Fortune magazine and it’s part of this year’s 101 Dumbest Moments in Business list. If you can work your way through their crap interface to #51 (it’s shown above, or you can click to it here) you’ll see Fortune taking this lame crack at big bad...
Microsoft Live Search Indexing & Listing... →
Raven SEO Blog spotted Microsoft’s Live Search indexing Google AdWords ads. The example given was a search on colorations paint, which returned Google AdWords ads in the 3rd and 4th position. Here is a screen capture showing one of those listings:
Click to continue reading…
They Trust You With the Glass →
[NOTE: It’s my early New Years resolution to try to put some type of marketing edge on every post I do. I mean, this is Marketing Punk, so there should be something marketing related here, right?] When Kristi and I were in Venice this spring, we spent one evening doing as Venetians do and went out for cicchetti - Venice’s answer to Spain’s tapa-hopping. After our second bar, we...
"Advertising is a tax you pay for unremarkable... →
“Advertising is a tax you pay for unremarkable thinking.” - Robert Stevens, founder of Geek Squad
[via]
Some Love for This Blog →
Prepare for a self congratulatory post folks… I’m excited to announce that the InsureMe Affiliate Blog (yes, this blog) was chosen as one of the top 10 affiliate blogs of 2007 by AffGoo’s Durk Price. Having the chance to meet Durk a while back and getting to know a bit about him, I’ve got to say that inclusion on his list is quite an honor. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you may already...
More F1 Hoonery: Lewis Hamilton gets license... →
Filed under: Motorsports, Etc., Celebrities
Formula One wonder boy Lewis Hamilton decided that an appropriate follow up to a scorching F1 season and a second place finish on Top Gear’s test track would be a high speed run through the north of France. The open-wheel prodigy was caught doing 120 mph near the town of Laon - 40 mph over the speed limit - and was fined £600, had his unspecified...
BMW running at 100% capacity, simultaneously... →
Filed under: Plants/Manufacturing, BMW, Earnings/Financials
BMW’s running full-bore as it strains to double its profit margin within the next five years. Across all 23 of the company’s manufacturing locations, capacity is maxed out at 100-percent, and there’s nary an extra Roundel badge to be had. As BMW pushes for a 10-percent profit margin, they’re also putting the...
Now-famous Schumacher taxi for sale →
Filed under: Auction Action, Etc., Opel
We just can’t get enough of this saga. First, Michael Schumacher, family in tow, commandeers a taxi to get to the airport. Then the local police decide to launch an investigation into the purported violation of Germany’s Personnel Transport Act. Now the cab driver, a hundred euros richer thanks to the champ’s generosity, has said that...
How About We Project Some Propoganda into Your... →
Imagine a technology that projects sound in to a precise spot, and unless you are in the spot, you can’t hear it. What’s more, the sound isn’t heard through your ears, it is heard because it is banging around in your skull, which serves as an amplifier. Now imagine who would use such a creepy technology. No, it’s not the CIA. It’s marketers. Learn how A&E is...
Keep an Eye on Your Triple A's →
I have a feeling that Seth Godin is doing alright financially. As an author of a multitude of best selling books on marketing, and a history starting tech companies, chances are his bank balance is nothing to be scoffed at. But Seth knows he could have been richer…he could be a billionaire. Instead he ended up with a life lesson and a t-shirt. Read why agenda, assests, and assumptions may...
Source: Digg hires bank, hoping to sell for $300... →
Source: Digg hires bank, hoping to sell for $300 million or more — It’s been a little more than a month since the last rumors surfaced about social news site Digg trying to sell itself for at least $300 million. — A reliable source just confirmed the company’s plans …
Source: VentureBeat
Author: Eric Eldon
Link: http://venturebeat.com/2007/12/17/source-digg-hires…
...
Julie Mason’s 9 Tips for Better Converting Landing... →
Julie Mason put together a great article that outlines the importance of using landing pages for the online marketing of both products and services. Since I know affiliates tend to have little time for reading this time of year, I figured the article may be more appealing and easy to scan as a list, so I took the liberty of converting it. Here they are, Julie Mason’s 9 tips for better converting...
The 15 Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007 (Dan... →
The 15 Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007 — These much-ballyhooed products, sites, and services, it turned out, left much to be desired. — Recommend this story? — Five years in the making and this is the best Microsoft could do? — It’s not that Vista is awful.
Source: PC World
Author: Dan Tynan
Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140583-page,5-c…
Techmeme...
SPOILER ALERT: 2007 Race of Champions results →
Filed under: Motorsports
click on any image to view high-res gallery
The premise of the Race of Champions is simple: take the best drivers in the world and have them compete on equal terms. Drivers from Formula 1, DTM, WRC and more go head-to-head in the same cars on the same track with personal and national pride at stake. Drivers face off in a trio of different vehicles per round, with the...
Schumacher under investigation for taxi-driving... →
Filed under: Etc., Government/Legal
When news broke of Michael Schumacher’s adventure behind the wheel of a taxi in Germany, most of us chuckled at the thought of the multiple-champion driver hustling a cab through the streets of Munich. German police were evidently not quite so amused, and have reportedly launched an investigation into the matter.
Both Schumacher and Tuncer Yilmax,...
I'm Selling the Most Awesome Roller Skates on... →
They are on Craigslist right now. Get them while they’re hot.
53 Places to Go in 2008 →
The New York Times has come out with its list of 53 places to go in 2008. Check out the full list here. If there is anyone out there who, by chance, works for the New York Times and would like to send Kristi and I on a trip to visit all 53 places…let me know. I think we could handle the assignment. :)
post-dreaming reality →
I was thinking today about how, after a decade or two working for a living, one reaches what I call the “Post-Dreaming Reality”. Every kid wants to be a rock star one day, in whatever industry she chooses to call her own. One day I’ll be a filmmaker! One day I’ll be a famous artist! One day I’ll be a CEO! One day I’ll be a Creative Director! One day I’ll...
Google Is Building a Dream Platform for Content... →
Word came out today that Google is putting together a potentially new offering called Google Knol, which may be a lot like a Google’s version of Squidoo, except with zero penalties and more link juice flowing through it. Danny Sullivan has the scoop over at Search Engine Land if you want the good, the bad and the ugly of the project. And as Danny points out, Google is not sure if it will ever...
Make a Holiday Mash-Up →
Kind of cool. Courtesy of Factory. Click here for the Mix-o-rator.
The Miss Rockaway Armada →
Arthur Magazine’s blog Magpie has been fantastic reading for the past few months. At least once a week I find something fascinating being delved into with reckless abandon. It’s fresh and interesting. I highly recommend you checking it out if the mystical, the psychedelic, the musical, the dreamy, the progressive political strike your fancy.
Today, they post about The Miss Rockaway Armada a...
McLaren mea culpa: we're sorry about Stepneygate,... →
Filed under: Motorsports
During the Stepneygate scandal over the course of the 2007 Formula 1 season, more than one critic accused the FIA of being on a witch hunt against McLaren. Based on what McLaren said it knew, and what the FIA said it knew, it looked to many like the governing body was simply doing everything possible to put Ferrari in the Championship lead. When the $100,000,000 penalty...
How to create custom ringtones in GarageBand 4.1.1... →
How to create custom ringtones in GarageBand 4.1.1 — With GarageBand 4.1.1 you can export your original song, your original audio recordings, or use Apple Loops and iLife jingles to create a custom ringtone for your iPhone. — Here’s what you need to do it: — GarageBand 4.1.1 or later
Source: Apple
Link: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307108
Techmeme permalink
VIDEO: How not to roll in the Bugatti Veyron →
Filed under: Videos, Supercars, Bugatti
Here’s a little Friday schadenfreude, courtesy of some person with a video camera in Vegas. The awesome Bugatti Veyron drinks gasoline at a prodigious rate, so keep an eye on that fuel gauge next time, guys. Remember, the Internet is watching. And laughing. [Source: YouTube via German Car Blog]
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If You Don't Get Misty From This Song... →
then you are a robot…like Victoria Beckham.
Imposter Here. →
Hi. I’ve taken over James’ blog. Hahahahahahahaa! Just kidding. He’s been ever so kind this evening to help me with a project, which has turned into a much larger job than expected. SO! He doesn’t have time to blog tonight, but being the supportive fiance that I am, I told him that I would blog for him. Aren’t I nice?! (I can’t believe he’s letting me do...
Get Your Brain Storming Going with Oblique... →
I’ve got to admit, I’m a big fan of brainstorming. Whether it’s with a group or alone somewhere in a coffee shop, I like trying to think up new ideas and solutions to problems. I’m a firm believer that in the affiliate world (and the business world in general) is shaped by the ideas of people who were willing to take the time to think about doing something new in a innovative and exciting way. One...