My Brain Dump
Scattered thoughts collected along the road of lifeGoogle’s Missed Opportunity (So Far)
One of the great lessons I’ve had to learn over the years of doing business online is that of “standing in the stream”. In essence, what that means is that people are looking for stuff they want/need online…and they are going to search for it in whatever way makes the most sense to them. In the old-school model, you first needed to create a perception of need and then brand your product so that it was tied (in people’s minds) to your product as the solution. But, in the internet age, it’s backward…if you’ve got a product that meets a need, you find out what “they” (the peeps) are looking for already, and then you get out there and “stand in the stream” where they are already searching.
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Getting In The Do-Follow Groove
Those who have spoken up over the past…oh, however long it’s been…about the “dangers of do-follow” are focused on the evils of spam and the increased maintenance side of things. Yes, if you’re going to manually monitor and approve blog comments (as I still do), it adds a bit of time to your daily routine. But I think this perspective is missing the point. Blogs are about self-expression, yes…but they are also about community. For me, if you don’t want community on your blog…TURN OFF THE COMMENT FUNCTION and just use it as a newsletter.
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The Plugin I’ve Been Waiting For!
Okay…I know…I’m usually the last one to know about these things. So this probably isn’t BREAKING NEWS to anyone (not that that would stop Rita Cosby from using that sound effect of hers!). But someone has finally created a plugin that does what I’ve been saying was needed for the last couple years.
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Bad Business: Screw The Customer
Despite their slowness to adopt new technologies and business models in the internet age, I’ve still found myself mostly on the side of the record companies when it comes to the file-sharing debacle. The grounds for my position have been both legal and moral: Legally, the record companies own the rights to music that is created, produced and publicized as a result of their investment (no one forced artists to sign with record companies, and if you go that route, then they control your music for the most part)…and morally, because it’s wrong to steal. And file sharing is theft…no matter what fancy semantics or logic you attempt to employ to argue otherwise. And besides, I would argue: the record companies are getting better. Just look at iTunes, Amazon, Walmart…for 88 cents to $1.29, you can buy a decent copy of virtually any song…and that’s a lot better than the way things used to be.
A Fresh Look at AdSense
I whine about Google AdSense a lot, because there are so many little areas in which it needs to be improved.
But, then again…Google has been my largest single employer for a few years. And who doesn’t love to criticize the boss??
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Quick Look: AdSense vs. YPN
AdSense has been the King of contextual advertising for awhile. But, before AdSense, there was Overture…which was acquired and rebranded by Yahoo some time back as Yahoo Publisher Network. I was approved for the program a couple years ago, but haven’t done much other than toy with it from time to time. Recently, I had occasion to pull AdSense off a bunch of my sites for awhile, and I decided to give YPN a closer look. It doesn’t completely suck, however, it doesn’t match up well with AdSense, either…at least not on my sites and in my content niches. I find this sad…since competition is generally a great driving force, and MSN seems to be…well, who the heck knows what they are doing with contextual advertising from a publisher side? Anyway…regarding YPN, here are my observations:
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The Breakdown That Plagues Us All
I saw an interesting article in the NY Times this morning, called Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike.
It’s about why an increasing base of knowledge tends to results in less functional products and services. The concept is this: “it’s nearly impossible to look beyond what you know and think outside the box you’ve built around yourself”
This has been a pet peeve of mine for the longest time. As consumers…sometimes we don’t notice it, sometimes it’s irritating, sometimes we’re enraged by it, and for me, I frequently find myself taking my business elsewhere (having concluded that…if a company wants my business, they’ll find a way to allow me to get what I need without killing myself). Here are recent examples from my own experience:
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Branding Yourself: Why And How?
In this world of “regurgitated content”, how does one stand out? Well, first of all, I think that it’s generally a good idea NOT to invest yourself in just absorbing and then restating what everyone else is saying. Unless you’re an amazingly entertaining writer, or have a demonstrable talent for taking certain subjects and reframing them in a highly compelling way…for the most part, I can’t imagine what you think you’d be contributing. The way it’s usually implemented, I would describe this as “the path of the unimaginative”. Look, we all share cool things we’ve heard. That’s only natural. But…when you mix in a personal agenda for profit, things get a little dicey. Isn’t that obvious? Maybe not. So, I’ll say it again. Mixing business with relationship-building has to be handled delicately. Why? Because it’s too easy for motives to become mixed.
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Cool Monetization: Project Wonderful
I stumbled across something yesterday that I found interesting, and even though I my knowledge and experience with it is somewhat limited, I felt it was worth passing on.
EVERYONE is on the hunt for better monetization options…and many/most of us have tried all the various options out there: AdSense, YPN, AuctionAds, WidgetBucks, AdBrite…ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Some of these are great…some not so much. From extremely poor click-though rates to extremely poor payouts…from unwieldy ad formats to godawful ad serving (yes, AuctionAds & ShoppingAds… I’m talkin’-a’-you…), this monetization game can be very frustrating. And many of the problems are at the system level…i.e., beyond the publisher’s control. So I’m always on the lookout for a better mousetrap.
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Cool Email Solution?: Google Apps
I’ve been using Google’s new service designed for small business for the last 2-3 months now…just for my email service. While it’s not perfect, I have found it more dependable than ANY domain-based email solution. The only thing I’ve seen that was better was Webmail.us, which was (as I recall) about $12 a month.
In my experience, email is treated as the bastard stepchild of most web hosting accounts. It’s not like they are all terrible, but if any little thing goes wrong, you may lose email service periodcally…which can be incredibly frustrating…especially when you’re using it to run your business. Add to that the fact that spam protection is always dicey…whitelists and blacklists that rarely function consistently, etc. Ugh!
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