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2007

  • 2 min read

Why I now have an email signature

We've been on an SEO binge over the last 4-6 weeks. I've been educating myself by listening and reading to everything I can find my hands on.

What's SEO anyway? It stands for "Search Engine Optimization" and it refers to the science and art of getting your site to come up when people are searching with Google or one of the other search engines.

As I tell the story to many people, I summarize what I've learned by noting that it's all more or less common sense, once you hear it. But for some reason common sense isn't always so common. The source that I have learned the most from (and where I've learned to really appreciate educational podcasts is the "Beginning SEO podcast" from Neo1Seo.com.

To illustrate common sense, here is how you can put a subtler and deeper interpretation to the above sentence.

LEVELS of SEO ENLIGHTENMENT.

SEO is the science and art of…

  1. … getting your site to come up when people are searching …

  2. … getting your site to come up when people who have never heard of your site are searching…

  3. … getting your site to come up when people who have never heard of your site are searching and getting them to look at it…

  4. … getting your site to come up when people who have never heard of your site are searching, not any time but specifically when they are ina mindset to act , and getting them to look…

  5. … getting your site to come up when people who have never heard of your site are searching and in a mindset to act, and getting them to look, and then actuallyplace an order , sign up, or whatever it is you want them to do…

If you bother to actually read those repetitive sentences, each one is a logical and common sense step beyond the preceding one, but many people - including me, pre-enlightenment, never get beyond level one. There's a whole lot more to it than that of course but even that little bit may be a profound insight for someone who never gave it any thought.

So what about that email signature? Well one of the episodes of my favorite podcast talks about the other things you can do to help people to actually come to your site, in a mindset to act, and then doing whatever you want them to do.

And this one is so common sense and yet for years now I have not done it.

Starting today, everyone who I correspond to in email will have this friendly little signature line at the end of it:

----------------------------------------- Check this out: http://www.blogbridge.com/look

  • 2 min read

Vista new user experience not for the faint of heart

Microsoft Vista new user experience I just turned on a new laptop I bought for my father in law - amazingly a 1 Gig Mem, 1.7MHz, 90Mb computer for around $700. Nice.

But one thing: HP just doesn 't seem to care about the user experience. Or is it Microsoft for allowing it? Or is it ourselves for forcing Microsoft to make Vista so open that their OEMs are practically forced to go nuts?

I've written in the past that I thought at 60,000 feet, Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X are more or less the same in terms of ease of use. The one huge (and probably crucial) exception to this is the initial user experience. I can only imagine what my 80 year old father in law would do if he saw the screen as it looks 'from the factory.'

Take a gander at what the screen looks like after turning the thing on. Look at all the mysterious icons from third party OEMs:

  • Get Vonage?

  • Ebay?

  • Photosmart Essential?

  • Aol Sign up, but also High Speed Services, and also Easy Internet Services

  • Oh lets not foget MSN

And then look at those two huge windows:

  • HP Total Care advisor, which should be called HP Total Confusion

  • Symantec with lots of inscrutable options

And what about that weird sidebar? Yeah the clock is kind of cool and understandable but what the heck is that box with "view headlines" and that funny orange icon? Are you kidding me?
Just study the screen shot and imagine yourself an 80 year old, world war 2, ex-merchant marine who is trying to check his email. Yikes!

  • 1 min read

YCombinator startup application form

I came across this very cool and simple set of criteria or rules to apply for funding from YCombinator. Not sure how well it works for them but they are quite reasonable. Here's a sample:

"(4) Yes decisions will include the amount we'll invest and the percent of the company we'd want for it. We usually invest $5000 + $5000n, where n is the number of participating founders (i.e. 2 founders get $15,000, 3 get $20,000), in return for between 1% and 10% of the company. The median is 6%."

Cool. Does it work?

  • 1 min read

Can Shilling focus on 38 Studios and still be a great for the Redsox?

Far be it from me to comment on sports… In fact this is exactly the first sports related post for this blog in 4 years.

Anyway, if you follow the Redsox, you know they/we have/had a great pitcher by the name of Curt Shilling. He's well known by the pitcherati for his heroic performance during the 2004 World Series.

Lately Curt's become popular among the blogerati for his personal blog, 38 Pitches.

So far so good. But did you know that he also heads up a high tech company called 38 Studios?

Yes, "38 Studios is a game development company located in Maynard, MA. Founded by Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, 38 Studios is assembling a team of world- class creative talent to produce a new IP that will shatter the boundaries of conventional gaming and media.", from Curt Shilling's 39 Pitches Blog.

And what's more, 38 Studios is launching with their first public splash at San Diego Comic-Con 2007. Say what? How about focusing on Baseball, Curt?

  • 1 min read

On the business impact of Web 2.0

Bill Ives of the Portals and KM Blog writes an interesting two-part article on the business impact of Web 2.0:

"Now with Web 2.0 the open architecture, the refinement of web services, and the ability to put together applications through mashups makes the basic development costs much lower and time to market much quicker. More effort can be placed on making the tools actually serve business and consumer needs. Startups now can also benefit from looking back at the mistakes and successes of the first generation." from Portals and KM: The Business Impact of Web 2.0: Part One.

Bill also covers a discussion with Elliot Katzman of Commonwealth Capital Ventures about the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 from a business investment perspective using My Team of Active Network as a case study. Ellliot, by the way, was the original founder of My Team before it was acquired by Active Network.

  • 1 min read

Danah Boyd on Facebook and Myspace

A really interesting article for anyone interested in social networks and their role and impact in our society.

"… I want to take a moment to make a meta point here. I have been traipsing through the country talking to teens and I've been seeing this transition for the past 6-9 months but I'm having a hard time putting into words.

Americans aren't so good at talking about class and I'm definitely feeling that discomfort. It's sticky, it's uncomfortable, and to top it off, we don't have the language for marking class in a meaningful way. So this piece is intentionally descriptive, but in being so, it's also hugely problematic.

I don't have the language to get at what I want to say, but I decided it needed to be said anyhow. I wish I could just put numbers in front of it all and be done with it, but instead, I'm going to face the stickiness and see if I can get my thoughts across. Hopefully it works…." (from Danah Boyd, Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace)

Danah's Boyd's disclaimer alone is thought provoking enough to get me to read the whole article about Myspace and Facebook.

  • 1 min read

iPhone pricing detail

I was chatting with my neighborhood iPhone (Cingular/AT&T) dealer and learned this interesting detail (which all you hard code iPhone fanatics out there I am sure know all about.)

The price of an iPhone ($500 and $700) is the same whether you are activating a new service with Cingular or want to use the phone on an existing contract.

This is sharply different from any other cell phone where you get a huge discount when activating new service.

What's the customer impact of this choice? The strategic impact?

On the one hand, I happen to be an existing Cingular customer, and so for me the policy is kind of a backwards plus: I don't feel like I would have to pay 'extra' to get an iPhone compared to someone who is signing up anew with Cingular.

On the other hand someone signing up anew with Cingular doesn't have a special incentive to do so based on the price.

Anyway, no, I am not getting an iPhone. I am so far sticking with my opinion that it's too precious and too delicate. I will wait for version 2 or 3.

By the way there are rumors that the iPhone's price is going to drop sharply sooner rather than later.

  • 1 min read

Join the club: I saw, I touched, an iPhone

I am not going to write yet another long review or commentary. But I can't resist a few crass words:

  • It's real and it works. They had 4 of them in stock at my neighborhood ATT/Cingular shop. It is indeed gorgeous. Sleek, star-trekky. It does everything you see in the ads (and I am sure, much much more.)

  • I don't want one ('yet' - never say never). It's a little to precious for my taste. Kind of reminds me of how I feel about $3,000 Bang & Olufson stereo gear. Beautiful for a museum but not for me.

Ok, but was it easy to use? Given that they've kind of invented a new paradigm for interacting with a computer, it's darn impressive. All that functionality, yet no menus.

I have to say though that the on-screen (glass) keyboard was not magic for me. I had to do plenty of retyping. Ok so the magic that I was made to expect from the previews didn't happen.

But we forget what we have come to put up with when doing text entry on a little cell phone. This is at least as good, probably a lot better.

Technorati Tags: iphone totemic talisman

  • 1 min read

The Science of Large Breasts, and Other Evolutionary Verities

Hey, don't blame me, I'm just posting a pointer to this interesting story over that the ever-legitimate Freakonomics Blog.

The depths to which people will sink to get certain words and images on their blogs, it's just outragous. Shameful.

Check out this post from the always respectable Freakonomics Blog:

"I blogged nearly a year ago about a study by the evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa which argued that beautiful women sometimes marry unattractive men because of the following supply/demand gap: there are simply more good-looking women than there are good-looking men. One reason, Kanazawa said, is that beauty is a more valuable trait for a female, and is therefore accentuated in females via natural selection. Kanazawa and Alan Miller have now co-authored a book called Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire — Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do, to be published in September. "

(from: The Science of Large Breasts, and Other Evolutionary Verities)

  • 1 min read

Great new information about blogging

I just finished writing a few brief tutorials that I thought might be of interest to you and, well, everyone. Please check them out - if you find them useful, please pass them on to your friends!