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Don’t worry...this isn’t what it sounds like.
I'm talking about cell phones - or the devices we currently know as cell phones. You really need to read this article called Upward Mobility from BusinessWeek. It’ll give you an idea of what your cell phone will be when it lives up to its full potential.
Amazing stuff.
(I write this as Sting sings some bizarre Christmas song like a eunuch on the NBC Rockefeller Christmas show. Sting is being accompanied tonight by Tiny Tim’s bastard brother, who normally travels with the Renaissance Festival, playing some kind of Mongoloid ukulele. This has nothing to do with this post, but it is freaking me out.)
If you do any work in the SEO world, you know that link baiting is one of the most talked about, beloved, difficult and prayed-about topics in our industry right now. After years of begging other desperate Webmasters to trade a link with you, blog spamming and renting expensive links, SEOers have decided that making cool shit is the best way to get lots and lots of free(ish) links.
This is good.
It’s good for the search engines, good for the SEO clan, and really good for the Intarweb. I think it can be argued that the world will be a better place if all of us spend our time trying to figure out how to make awesome stuff that people like rather than trying our best to trick the search engines into loving us.
(A quick update: Enya is singing on the Christmas special now. It turns out she sounds like a robot in person too, and one of her backup singers is a drag queen. Onward!)
And this brings me to the subject of this post – I want to show you a cool ass piece of link bait (no it isn’t Drink Bait, but that is a kick butt idea too). The bait is a little site is a little something called Websites as Graphs. Yeah…not the most exciting name. And to tell you the truth I don’t think this person really intended to make link bait, but after over a million uses, I think it is safe to call it link bait.
Websites as Graphs takes a URL and somehow spiders the site and turns it into a visual representation that looks kinda like gumdrops and toothpicks (check the picture above…that’s Marketing Punk as a graph).
I guess the reason I am writing about this is to show a good example of link bait and hopefully inspire someone (preferably who works in my office) to come up with a new, cool web thing that will draw some links.
Alright, back to Rockafeller center for me. They are going to light the giant tree that spent a hundred years getting big so it can be chopped down and die in the middle of a dirty ass city.
Yes, I’m a big old hippie.
Not a lot of time to blog tonight – I have two episodes of Everest: Beyond the Limit to watch.
No idea what I am talking about? You should. Everest is the most interesting show on TV right now.
I watched the first episode last night and it totally blew my mind. Did you know it takes two months to climb Everest – and it has nothing to do with the distance to the top? Me either. It turns out there are all these crazy things you have to do to keep yourself from dying from the altitude on Everest alone. On the first show the altitude has already killed a sherpa, almost killed an Indian climber, and made one of the camera man’s guts explode.
Insane.
Do yourself a favor and check out the Everest website, and then start watching it on Tuesdays on the Discovery Channel. It will make you go crazy.
Your product (or service) doesn’t have to be perfect to be loved by your customers.
That’s something I was reminded of today when I hopped into my car and saw that the outside air temperature was reading 122 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s 50 degrees Celsius). Since I was wearing a jacket and still a little chilly, I realized that it might be time to take my car into the shop.
Of course, that wasn’t the only reason I was taking my car into the shop. Here is the laundry list of issues that have cropped up over the last couple of months:
Aside from that, I know that the automatic window mechanisms are prone to failure…meaning the window mechanism will randomly break and the glass will fall into the door. One has already failed. My girlfriend’s car (same model) has had all four windows break…and the mechanic at the dealer’s service center said that the manufacturer did a bad job and put in cheap plastic parts to save on weight – meaning they will likely keep breaking.
With issues like that, you might think I would be a little more than frustrated with my car. Well guess what? I’m not. I love the hell out of my car.
Why?
Because every day I get in my car I have an amazing driving experience. It handles like a dream. It’s quick. It looks beautiful and I look forward to being in the driver’s seat every day.
Point is, my car is just right in all the areas that really matter to me – and since it does so well in all of the areas that I care about, I am willing to overlook the little stuff…like 122 degree weather in November in Denver.
And I’m not the only person who feels like this. The car that I have has raving fans all over the place – and not just from the car magazines and newspapers. Actually, everyone I know who has owned/owns one says that they loved/love their cars. People actually get excited when they talk about it. From a marketer’s standpoint, that is the ultimate.
It’s kind of like how I feel when I use my iPods…I love to carry them around (right size and weight), they sound great, I dig the interface and they look good. On the other hand I HATE iTunes – I hate it with a passion. But I am not buying an MP3 player for the music software, I am buying an MP3 player for the MP3 player.
I guess what I am saying is this – when designing your product or service, make sure you get important things right first, and if there are some less than perfect elements in the end (not too many), your customers will be quick to forgive you for them.
Want a good example of a product that isn’t getting the important things right? Try the Microsoft Zune. They focused on some stuff that wasn’t too important to people (Wi-Fi), and they skimped on the things that people really cared about (size, weight, number of songs available on their music service). In the end, most people don’t love (or even like) the Zune, and its chances of short-term success are fairly low.
So one last time, focus on the important stuff. Your customers will love you for it.
[Bonus: BusinessWeek has a really cool article about the changes going on at Microsoft, like the Zune. While the current Zune is not so hot, it seems like the long-term plan is revolutionary. Check out the article here.]
(Full disclosure: all of the car repairs listed above are covered by the warranty…so I don’t have to pay to get it fixed. Also, I get a loaner for the day, which tends to be the latest and greatest model, so the pain of getting this fixed is not that great.)
I was going to start by saying that I am a big old business geek for being so excited about this – but then I realized that anyone who reads this blog regularly knows I’m a geek, so never mind. The good news is that geek is the new cool, or so I am told (by geeks).
I digress.
I am really excited tonight because BusinessWeek’s Inside Innovation issue is out, and I think you should be excited too, because it rules. Actually, you should be so excited about it you go out and buy a copy for $4.95 right now. Of course, if you don’t want to do that, you can check some of it out for free over at the BW Online site.
You better believe if I find articles in the magazine that are blog-worthy, I will hook you up with a link.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some geekin’ to do.
Design, design, design. It seems any business publication you read these days are talking about it. And for good reason – good design is what is setting the best products, services and websites apart from everything else.
Whenever design comes up, I always think of Tom Peter’s book Re-Imagaine and his chapters on design. To keep his mind focused on design, Tom carries a notebook with him and writes down design elements of things he likes or dislikes.
Cool idea, huh?
I thought about keeping a notebook of my own, but since I manage to pack my pockets with a ton of random stuff, I really don’t have room for it. But if I did, I can tell you what would be my #1 entry would be. The BMW M5.
If you ever see an M5, take a minute and really look at it. It is beautiful.
Oh yeah, and if anyone wants to give me an M5 to, uh, test drive…or blog about or whatever. Feel free to drop it off at my place anytime. :)
Over the last couple years I have noticed that people’s answer to the question “how are you doing” usually gives you a pretty good gauge of their overall attitude about life.
No, I am not talking about people who answer “bad” or “not so good.” People who answer like that usually have a reason and will change their answer to the question when the problem goes away.
I am talking about people who answer “how are you doing?” with “could be better, could be worse,” something like that. Whenever I get to know people who answer this way I almost always find that they are pessimists, or at best, have given up on having control of their lives.
I hate to say it, but when people consistently give me the “could be better, could be worse” answer I usually try to keep my distance from them. People with this kind of attitude tend to be low performers and are usually the first people to give up…not the people I (or you) need around me (or you).
So why am I blogging about this? Because no matter what you do in life, your attitude is everything (pretty much). In business, in relationships, in whatever…if your attitude sucks, you are going to fail.
So if you are a better/worse person, take some time and work on your attitude – as your attitude improves, you will see the world in a much better light.
And hopefully, next time someone asks you how you are doing you will be able to smile and honestly answer “good.”
[Check out this barely-related post over at GapingVoid]
The Koenigsegg CCX on Top Gear
The Microsoft Zune in not getting too much love from the media. I have seen skeptical articles on various websites, in BusinessWeek, and even in The Economist. However, the folks over at CNN take the cake with their on-air Zune review, which turns into a public Zune flogging. Hilarious stuff, especially at the end.
I wonder how many heads are rolling in Microsoft’s PR department.
I ran across an article in this month’s BusinessWeek that talks about the cool things IBM is doing in Second Life. From making their CEO a snazzy avatar, to rebuilding the Chinese Forbidden City, to holding meetings and brainstorms on Second Life islands – IBM is making a commitment to virtual worlds. A $100,000,000 commitment.
Read the article here (don’t be scared, it’s short) and check out the virtual CEO slideshow.
Thank you Seth Stevenson. Thank you for pointing out that those Esurance anime ads are some of the most random crap on TV. I mean seriously, watch one of the ads and pay attention to what is happening…it is ridiculous.
I will admit that the ads have managed to help increase awareness of the Esurance brand, but with the amount of money that Esurance spends (Super Bowl ad anyone?), they should have more than just awareness.
Make sure you read the article, I love that Seth actually contacted the person who creates the ads.
[Bonus: Apple finally realizes that the "Apple Guy" was a reminder why everyone hates Mac snobs - so they can him.]
[Bonus Update: AdRants bursts my bubble and says that Apple Guy is still on the payroll at Apple. DAMN YOU! YOU'VE WON THIS TIME MAC SNOBS!!!]
The Borat movie has done over $67 million dollars in the first two weeks at the box office, and wouldn’t you know it, the lawsuits are rolling in. I figured I would post a few random Borat links that I found tonight, because that’s how I roll.
Learn about Sacha Baron Cohen, the Man Behind Borat (Video)
PBS’s Frontline/World has pointed out another amazing charity that is helping people improve their lives. This time it is Kiva.org, who facilitates loans between people like you and me and people in need in third-world countries. Fantastic idea, fantastic execution.
Please watch the Frontline/World profile on Kiva.org – and if you have some money to loan, loan it.
Also check out the Kiva site, and if you have a blog, add a Kiva banner. I added a cool dynamic one to the right side of Marketing Punk - check it out.
Ah, the irony.
You would think a blogger who makes it a point to show the world bad SEO practices on his blog would be the last person you would want to spam. But wouldn’t you guess it, I got an obnoxious blog spam comment after yesterday's post from another Denver SEO company.
It turns out that the spammer didn’t see the irony when he left the comment below on yesterday’s post (by the way, I removed the little carats you use for HTML and replaced it with “[“ and “]”…what can I say, I don’t feel like looking it up the code for those symbols). Ok, here is the comment:
Thank you for the great information. I am always looking for good information on [a href="http://www.ascendemarketing.com/go"]Internet Marketing[/a] related topics. I have a similar blog called www.semprofessional.blogspot.com. We would love it if you added us to your address list, along with our company website; www.ascendemarketing.com We do most of business in the [a href="http://www.ascendemarketing.com/go"]Denver[/a] and [a href="http://www.ascendemarketing.com/go"]Colorado Springs[/a] areas.
Nice work chief – you could have left a simple message without trying to embed a ton of links, and it would have gotten published. But instead you got greedy for a bunch of nofollow links. Sweet move.
Is it just me or are people like this guy the reason the SEO practitioners are held in the same regard as snake oil salesmen?
Spam guy…comment? Do you know that link spamming is not cool or are you just as skilled as your counterpart over at Acperion?
If I ran a search engine optimization and web design company I would try to avoid some of the most obvious (and bad) SEO tricks. And I would especially try to avoid using dated SEO tricks (that look really bad) on my homepage. But it seems that the Denver SEO market isn’t full of much talent.
So ladies and gents, I present to you Acperion’s homepage. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see some really, really lame (and desperate) keyword stuffing.
Seriously people – get with it. This is 2006, not 2003.
[UPDATE! Check out this meta keyword tag from the site...
meta NAME="keywords" CONTENT="company web site designers,website developers,search engine optimization services,search engine placement,web site development, search engine marketing services, search engine optimization, search engine placement services, search engine ranking services, denver web design, database programming, flash programming, denver web designers, nyc web site design, colorado,denver,new york city,douglas county,denver county,arapahoe county,adams county,internet marketing,graphic design,web design firms,web design company,site positioning experts,site positioning analysis,keyword marketing,strategic website submission,keyword position secrets,increase web site traffic,meta keywords advice,url optimization,internet search engine registrations,submit site to search engines,foreign submissions,foriegn engines,international submissions,search engine secrets"
Seriously?!?!?!]
[UPDATE 2: (11/28/2006) I checked the Acperion site today and noticed that the spam-o-licious links were no longer on the bottom of the page. I also noticed I did not say exactly what they were doing in my post. So to be clear, they were listing all of the state names and abbreviations at the bottom of the home page (this used to be a good way to rank for state specific terms). Anyway, I am glad they fixed this particular issue...I will mail you my bill for the consultation :) ]
Mz. Pocket pointed me to Kevin Briody’s great post on f**king cool and Kathy Sierra expansion on the f**king cool post.
I can’t add much, except that f**king cool is really f**king hard and really f**king necessary.
Props to everyone who was f**king involved in the f**king cool discourse.
Have a great f**king night.
I find this whole marketing in Second Life thing fascinating. Partially because it is starting to look like a train wreck…and it’s hard to look away from a train wreck.
But some marketers have done things right when it comes to Second Life…people like Erik Hauser from Swivel Media.
AdRants has a really interesting post from Erik Hauser, who was involved in Wells Fargo’s early entry into the Second Life relm. Eric talks about how Wells Fargo created Stagecoach Island, and the tactics they used to be accepted by the general Second Life populous.
Good stuff – give it a read.
I am an avid reader of Fast Company magazine and I think that, as far as business magazines go, Fast Company is one of the best. So I was a little more than disappointed by Fast Company Online’s article The Key(words) to E-Commerce Success by Evan Goldberg. I am not sure who Evan Goldberg is, but the guy obviously likes to write without doing much research.
Check out this passage:
Google and Yahoo's keyword marketing networks provide basic reporting on a keyword's performance, such as click-through visitors to a site. What they don't provide is data on the conversion of those visitors to lead, prospect or closed sales, primarily because they do not match up with real time accounting and sales data.
Um, Evan, they actually do provide that. They have been providing that for a couple of years. Thousands for PPC advertisers use Google Conversion Tracking, Yahoo’s Conversion Counter and Yahoo Search Optimizer.
I am not sure if Evan Goldberg is a regular Fast Company contributor or if he is a freelancer (he doesn’t seem to have a bio on the site), but I think FC should reconsider using his material since he seems to skip doing his research.
I was thinking when I was driving home tonight, who would be the ultimate blogger? Bill Gates? Naw, too obvious. George Bush? Naw, too scary. And then it came to me…Richard Simmons! Why? Well let me give you the Top Ten Reasons Why Richard Simmons Would be the Ultimate Blogger!!!
So Richard, if you are out there, please start blogging. The blogosphere will welcome you with open arms.
Welcome to Marketing Punk. I’m James Omdahl and I am a Denver, Colorado based online marketer and blogger. This blog is a compilation of the things that interest me online and offline. Topics will vary from blogging to search marketing to finding passion in your life to art to pretty much anything else that interests me. Thanks for visiting, come back often, and please take the time to leave a comment and let me know what you think about my posts.
