Archive for December, 2006
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…and I shall shed my light over dark evilDec 30 2006 | Uncategorized |
..and I shall shed my light over dark evil.
For the dark things cannot stand the light,
The light of the Green Lantern!
Yep - I took the Super Hero quiz and it turns out I am the Green Lantern:
You are Green Lantern
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Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination.  |
Thanks to Bill Slawski’s excellent reasons for convincing me to do this.
This quiz is an excellent example of a good idea spreading based solely on the fact that it’s a cool/fun idea. The page itself is as plain as you can get and is slathered with AdSense:
5 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Chris Winfield
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A Blogger Sick of Digg Users BLOCKS Digg TrafficDec 30 2006 | Social Networks |
Last week blogger Ryan Tomayko wrote a post about Internet Explorer testing with Parrallels (a software program for Intel Macs). Someone then submitted this story to Digg. At some point on December 26th - the story hit the Digg homepage and was subsequently buried. Ryan went to the page on Digg and got a strange feeling from the comments:
The comments over there are pretty much unanimously in favor of having me drug out into the street and shot.
Ryan echoes the feelings of many people recently when he says that he’s not writing a “story” for Digg Corporation and has very little interest in changing his writing style to serve the Digg “community”.
So what did Ryan decide to do about it? He setup a 403 Forbidden response to serve to someone when the server detects someone coming from digg. So if you surfed in from Digg you wouldn’t get the page you were looking for but instead would get a message like this:
5 Comments » - Posted in Social Networks by Chris Winfield
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Engadget or BoingBoing - Who Will Win?Dec 29 2006 | Contests |
Back in June, BetUS.com came up with a great idea - Put Your Money Where Your Blog Is in which people were able to place bets on who they thought would end the year at the top of Technorati’s Top 100 List. This was a brilliant peice of viral marketing that resulted in a lot of buzz and a lot of really good links. The beauty of this went beyond the links because it got a lot of new people to sign up and bet on something that they could relate to. It went beyond link bait for the sake of links.
When this contest started:
Technorati.com (a blog search engine) says that there are over 37.3 million blogs in the blog universe (or blogosphere as it’s collectively known as).
Currently they are tracking over 63.2 million blogs.
Here were the original odds:
3 Comments » - Posted in Contests by Chris Winfield
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More Details on the PayPerPost Acquisition of PerformancingDec 28 2006 | News |
Last night Michael Arrington reported that sponsored blog review network PayPerPost would be acquiring Performancing, a blog advertising network. Arrington also noted that:
The popular Performancing Firefox blog editing plugin is not being acquired, and will be spun off into a new brand.
This set off quite a bit of talk in the blogosphere especially due to Performancing’s close ties to ReviewMe (Patrick Gavin is a co-founder of both companies). Leading to comments like this:
Why would the parent company of ReviewMe sell a large blogging network to their rival PayPerPost? Seems like an idiot move.
This morning Performancing founder, Nick Wilson, made some short statements to lend a bit of clarity. First on Tony Hung’s blog:
I wont be staying on Tony. We’ll be moving our ad network and blog editor to new domains and rebranding them as seperate entities.
No Comments » - Posted in News by Chris Winfield
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101 Biggest Stories in Search 2006Dec 27 2006 | News |
The first thing that you will do when you read this list is say “This list isn’t just about search!” And you will be right. 2006 was a year that saw the definition of search expand. Search to me has become an all-encompassing word. Search is information. Search is media. Search is social interaction. Search is life.
MySpace, YouTube and Wikipedia made their way into the conversations of housewives in Indiana and CEOs on Wall Street. Google’s mantra of “Do No Evil” was questioned over and over. Microsoft and Ask begged to be noticed. Yahoo! just begged for the year to end and 2007 to arrive.
Successful marketers adapted to the ever-changing landscape and saw search as more than algorithms. They embraced social networks and looked to capitalize on their surging popularity. SEO’s cousin SMO was born.
2006 was an event-filled year to say the least..
19 Comments » - Posted in News by Chris Winfield
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2006 Sees Record Breaking Holiday SalesDec 26 2006 | E-commerce |
Allow me to share with you some exciting sales statistics for 2006.
According to comScore, online non-travel holiday spending between November and December went up 25% to $24.6 billion dollars for 2006, up from $19.6 billion a year ago.
What does this mean? There is increased consumer trust in online marketplaces, and as more and more consumers continue to value the convenience of online shopping, more and more consumers will buy. 2007 will likely see a greater increase too.
Here are some more interesting facts:
$457.4 billion - 2006 holiday sales, both online and offline
$435.6 billion - 2005 holiday sales, both online and offline
51.7 million - people who shopped online from work for holiday gifts in 2005 (see what I mean about convenience?)
3 Comments » - Posted in E-commerce by Tamar Weinberg
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MyBlogLog’s Impact on the Blogging Scene, and How You Can Get Your Avatar Straightened OutDec 22 2006 | Blogging, Social Networks |
Yesterday, I installed the MyBlogLog widget on this blog. The response on this blog itself has been overwhelming and after looking into it further on other blogs and how it’s currently being used across the board, I’m quite impressed by the potential of the service offerings. Even though the service is pretty much in its infancy, it is doing quite well right now, and I expect the popularity to increase into 2007.
So what exactly does the MyBlogLog widget do, and why use it?
MyBlogLog is service whose core resides in little graphical widget that you can customize and put on your site to show you who reads your blog(s). Your blog may already have that personal touch from an author’s perspective, but that graphical designation from a reader’s perspective lets you get to know the kinds of visitors your blog (or another blog) gets. Essentially, it creates a community, and that’s exactly what it is.
11 Comments » - Posted in Blogging, Social Networks by Tamar Weinberg
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And the List of Domains Ditched by Digg Keeps GrowingDec 21 2006 | Social Networks |
Yesterday, Lee Odden posted about his blog being banned from Digg. A few of his stories were submitted and his domain was basically labeled as spam. The result? A lifetime banning from Digg. Don’t pass Go, don’t collect $200 - go straight to the Digg Jail. This hit home because Lee’s site is an excellent resource and you would be hard-pressed to find someone who would ever view it as spam. It is a site that focuses on SEO and social marketing.
Digg URL bannings have occurred for awhile but it was usually sites that were MFA (Made For AdSense) or some guy submitting every page from his Viagra “resource” site to try and build links. But there have been other sites that have been banned unjustly IMO. Here’s a list of the ones that I came up with:
Lee Odden’s Online Marketing Blog - explained above
60 Comments » - Posted in Social Networks by Chris Winfield
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France and Germany Split to Create Competing National Search EnginesDec 21 2006 | Google, Search Engines |
It may be impractical to start a search engine in the US with Google’s stronghold within the country, but other countries are aspiring to become national search powers, with French President Jacques Chirac’s acknowledgment that “We must take up the challenge posed by the American giants Google and Yahoo.” Initially dubbed as a “European search engine,” Germany and France are parting ways to create their own search engines. Germany will have a search engine called “Theseus,” and France’s search engine will be called “Quaero.”
The year 2007 will be interesting to follow with these competing engines, especially in light of China and Japan doing the same. Has Google already reached its peak? I’d say so.
No Comments » - Posted in Google, Search Engines by Tamar Weinberg
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Are Images Allowed Next to Adsense Ads? Google Says No.Dec 20 2006 | Google |
Google says that you can’t confuse your site’s visitors. In a recent blog post about placement of graphics near ads, the Google Adsense team has addressed concerns about the possibly misleading representation of images when placed next to ads, causing your site visitors to click on them and make you more money under the false premise that users “may click the ad expecting to find something that isn’t actually being offered” which in turn is “not a good experience for users or advertisers.”
In the image below, which the Google Adsense policy team uses as an example as a prohibited strategy, the images look to be clearly related to the ads, when they are in fact not.
Anyone who violates this policy can have their AdSense accounts banned, so it’s best to avoid any possible connections to your ads by putting your images elsewhere.
