joi, 9 septembrie 2010

Michael Gray - Graywolf's SEO Blog

Michael Gray - Graywolf's SEO Blog

What I Read and How I Read It

Posted: 09 Sep 2010 07:33 AM PDT

Post image for What I Read and How I Read It

While I may be on the leading edge of consumption trends (translation: I’m a spoiled geek who likes new shiny gadgets), I think it’s important to understand how things work and how they might look to the public at large in a few years.

RSS

While I admit rss is not a technology that is ever going to be adopted by the mainstream (see the big fat rss lie), it’s still something I use almost daily. For my projects, client projects, and search related industry news (and the occasional bit of humor), I use Google reader. I skim through the the posts first thing in the morning. Unless it’s urgent, I send it off to instapaper (more on that below) to read later. The Google rss converter has made this really efficient for sites that don’t publish rss directly. Since I started using an iPad, I use the mobile rss app that syncs up with Google reader. The cloud based synchronization is key for me and I feel will be for others in the future. I used to use newsrack, but the recent update made it unusable. Pulse is a good app, but the font is too small for my liking and the lack of instapaper integration made it a deal breaker for me. The mobile rss app also lets me send things to instapaper right from the app, which is another key feature. Check the end of this post for a client sanitized list of feeds I read.

Netvibeso

For sites that I run and Twitter accounts I run for myself or clients, I need things to write about, link to, or tweet about. Netvibes is the tool I use to get things done. I set up one tab per industry and quickly parse through it every day or two. I use easytweets to schedule my tweets in the future so I can get things done, have a life, and go on vacation without losing momentum (see my easytweets review).

iPad News apps

I mentioned before that the iPad has changed how I consume media and interact with social media sites. I’ll read stuff, tweet out links that are interesting, send them to instapaper, or email them to myself to remind me to schedule them later with easytweets.

Instapaper

Instapaper is one of my favorite apps. It saves me a tremendous amount of time. I’m also glad to say I’m a paying pro supporter of the service. Instapaper allows me to read content in a stripped down, text only version, and it allows me to do it offline–useful for times when I’m on a plane, on vacation someplace that doesn’t have wifi, or in another country that my 3G plan doesn’t cover. The most important aspect is cloud based synchronization. So I can send items to instapaper from my computer, then I can read them while I’m on a treadmill at the gym (using my iPhone) or on a plane (using the iPad). Once I am back on the grid, a quick refresh brings everything back in sync. Another cool aspect: I can forward a tweet or link to instapaper and it is smart enough to follow the trail and extract the content. The stripped down and extracted content has two important aspects. First, partial feeds don’t work with instapaper so, if you publish partial feeds, you suck and should rethink that practice. Second, learning how to push  out content and ads where the ads don’t get stripped out will become more important in the coming years (see advertising and usability)

Flipboard

Flipboard is a cool new iPad app that takes content from your Twitter, Facebook, and other news sources, extracts it, and presents it in magazine format. Legally, it is on questionable ground, but it’s really cool, easy, and just a plain fun way to get your news and content.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The thing Flipboard underscored for me is that you need to moderate who can put things in your streams if you want it to be useful, effective, interesting, and not polluted with spam. (see the SEO community friends and scorpions).

My feed list

I debated publishing this list for a while but decided to do it. You may find some well known marquee name SEO and marketing feeds aren’t on the list. To be honest the quality on a lot of SEO blogs is hit or miss nowadays, and I don’t have time to wade through the posts. When one of them does make a noteworthy post it will get retweeted by enough people and will find me anyway, so I don’t worry about “missing” the news as much as I used to. The second is I don’t have time for multiple-posts-per-day blogs. I know there are a lot of SEO news blogs that do this and they are high quality, but I just don’t have the time to read 3-6 posts per day. Sorry.

Creative Commons License photo credit: henribergius

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

What I Read and How I Read It

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  4. A Look at Full and Partial Feeds in an Increasingly Mobile World I’ve long stated that I prefer full feeds over partial...
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Publicat de 1 la 08:05 0 comentarii

Daily Snapshot: "The America I Believe In"

The White House Your Daily Snapshot for
Thursday, September 9, 2010
 

Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day - September 7, 2010

First Lady Michelle Obama participates in a "Let's Move!" launch event with members of the National Football League at Woldenberg Park in New Orleans, La., Sept. 8, 2010. At right are former NFL coach Tony Dungy and former Tennessee Titans running back Eddie George (27). (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)

 View more photos.

Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Daylight Time

10:00 AM: The President and the Vice President receive the Presidential Daily Briefing

10:30 AM: The President meets with senior advisors

1:00 PM: Briefing by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs WhiteHouse.gov/live

1:30 PM: The President meets with Secretary of the Treasury Geithner

2:30 PM: Listos Para Sus Preguntas: CuidadoDeSalud.gov (Open for Questions: HealthCare.gov in Spanish)  WhiteHouse.gov/live

WhiteHouse.gov/live  Indicates Events that will be livestreamed on WhiteHouse.gov/live.

In Case You Missed It

Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog. 

President Obama on the Economy in Cleveland: "The America I Believe In"
The President laid out a stark contrast between policies that help the economy work for the middle class and the policies that allowed special interests to run amok -- and to run our economy into a ditch.

Fighting Foreclosures and Strengthening Neighborhoods
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan writes about the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

Boehner's Budget Gimmicks: Another Attempt to Hold Middle Class Tax Cuts Hostage
Deputy Communications Director Jen Psaki looks at how Republicans are trying to mask the cost of their tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans as they threaten to block middle class tax cuts to get their way.

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Publicat de 1 la 07:41 0 comentarii

SEOptimise

SEOptimise

New Digg Review: Is Digg V4 the Next Twitter?

Posted: 08 Sep 2010 08:37 AM PDT

Typical Digg comment thread.

Last week the new Digg version 4 has been released and I have tested it ever since. Back in the days I was a staunch opponent of Digg and an avid supporter of competing services like StumbleUpon and Mixx. That was years ago though. Both Mixx and SU have stagnated over time. So I decided to take a look at the new Digg. Maybe it has been fixed now?

Most business people have been either expelled from the first wave of social sites like StumbleUpon, Digg and Mixx or moved on of their own accord to more mature sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn that don’t discriminate against business users and are not full of NSFW images.

Digg has deteriorated over the years to become a cesspool full of sexism and a battle ground for teenage boy’s flame wars.

It’s not as bad as competitor Reddit which ended up being the place for hate-mongers and rants though.

With version four Kevin Rose, known for his misguided antipathy against the SEO industry, tries to save what’s left of an originally good idea: social news. Can he beat Twitter and Facebook and most importantly his own community that has made Digg the hellhole it was until now?

Following

Digg seems to aim at both Twitter and StumbleUpon. It’s very similar to both services. You have to follow users or publications and see their activity.

Similar to Twitter main stream “blogs” like TechCrunch or Mashable have an overwhelming advantage this way. They have already tens of thousands of followers who vote anything up they see. Understandably many people don’t like this feature as some major publishers can dominate the frontpage this way.

On the other hand the follow feature revives “old” and not yet popular stories on Digg. Until now only front page stories could get substantial traffic from Digg. Most of these visitors were terribly untargeted though and left in an instant so that you got a huge server load while not getting much in return. Unless of course you got links. Thus Digg has been used by many for link building for years.

Once a story has hit the fp it could garner a substantial number of links. This is still true to some extent but with Facebook and Twitter getting more popular you don’t get as many links these days anymore.

I got notified about someone following me. That’s why I joined the new Digg in the first place. Sadly most follwoers do not see your submissions it seems. Everything you do gets shown to them so that submissions get overlooked when you digg other people’s submissions and comment.

Comments

The most dreaded and for some people entertaining (in a freak show kind of way) part of Digg was the comment section. As Digg adds no other value beyond the selection of stories and commenting many people read those. Unfortunately especially women and business people were appalled but the blatant sexism, aggressive NSFW battleground that comment section was. In V4 of Digg the site attempts to clean up the comment section.

The most approved of comments get displayed on top if you select the right option in the preferences. Some flame comments by trolls are below the display threshold and can only be seen on click. You can hide comments below a certain number of votes. I strongly approve of this measure. Can you use Digg again during work hours and even without watching Fight Club first? Not really.

A comment that disagreed with my opinion started with “F**k you!” and got at least 14 votes so that no threshold could have stopped it. My comment containing no swear words has been of course buried. My sin? I expressed my sadness about homeless people protesting for cheap meals in the US while at the same time their government can afford wars and military bases throughout the world. Being from Germany I express often unpopular views for Americans so that most probably I still will be verbally attacked and abused on the new Digg it seems.

Bury button

The feature that was perhaps the other most devastating one for Digg was the so called “bury button”. Using it a self proclaimed Digg police blocked whole topics, e.g. SEO. So basically you weren’t allowed to talk about SEO. The only SEO related posts that were acceptable on Digg were SEO bashing postings. This perpetuated the ignorance on the Digg platform to the point where everything posted on an SEO publication has been boycotted.

At the same spammers have been using Digg to submit their SEO adverts all the time. The bury button led to the effective exclusion of high quality SEO resources while low quality SEO and downright spam about SEO services has been prevalent on Digg. Just search Digg for SEO and you’ll find solely crap submissions, mostly not even in English.

Digg V4 has no bury button anymore. This way resources about SEO theoretically can get popular on Digg again as there is no direct censorship anymore. I doubt though there are enough people interested in the subject. I’m optimistic though that search marketing publications can get exposure on Digg for general technology and Internet postings. Search Engine Land is already on Digg.

The removal of the bury button is an overdue measure to restore democratic voting patterns on Digg. Until now a small minority of maybe a few dozens people have effectively blocked SEO related resources.

The new Digg has a report button instead. I reported myself for instance when a story accidentally got submitted twice by the system. I also reported a submission consisting of dozens of stolen images. We’ll see whether the Digg staff will act on these.

Will I stay on the new Digg?

I don’t know yet. I’m probably not masochistic enough to let people shout at me for expressing my opinions which are quiet common sense (like anti-war) in Europe. Maybe I’ll use Digg as a combination of both Twitter and Facebook. I’ll follow my favorite users and publications and ignore the frontpage and comments altogether. Instead I will “like” their submissions by “digging” them. On the other hand I’m not convinced I need another site to follow them.

People in the SEO industry still push their infographics, lists or other linkbaits on Digg, I guess 1/3 of Digg’s content are linkbaits while the rest are mainstream blogs or publications plus funny or “awesome” images. As I don’t like most of these and SEO publications have no audience there I don’t think it makes business sense for me.

In case you’re into linkbaits, just take some almost naked female celebrity pics or something “Apple”, put it on your blog and the Digg audience will still love it. Digg even says in its meta keyword tag that it’s about “celebrity news” among others.


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Loyalty

Loyalty is what we call it when someone refuses a momentarily better option.

If your offering is always better, you don't have loyal customers, you have smart ones. Don't brag about how loyal your customers are when you're the cheapest or you have clearly dominated some key element of what the market demands. That's not loyalty. That's something else.

Loyal customers understand that there's almost always something better out there, but they're not so interested in looking.

Loyalty can be rewarded, but loyalty usually comes from within, from a story we like to tell ourselves. We're loyal to sports teams and products (and yes, to people) because being loyal makes us happy. Why else be a fan of the Cubs? Some customers like being loyal. Those are good customers to have.

Loyalty isn't forever. Sometimes, the world changes significantly and even though the loyal partner/customer likes that label, it gets so difficult to stick that he switches.

I think there's no doubt that some brands and teams and politicians and yes, people, attract a greater percentage of loyal fans than others. Not because they're bigger or better, but because they reinforce the good feeling some people get when they're being loyal. Hint: low price or supermodel good looks are not the tools of choice for attracting people who enjoy being loyal.

Rewarding loyalty for loyalty's sake--not by paying people for sticking it out so the offering ends up being more attractive--is not an obvious path, but it's a worthwhile one. Tell a story that appeals to loyalists. Treat different customers differently, and reserve your highest level of respect for those that stand by you.

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Publicat de 1 la 03:49 0 comentarii

miercuri, 8 septembrie 2010

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Olympic Disaster in Vancouver, Taxpayers on Hook for $1 Billion "Ghost Town"

Posted: 08 Sep 2010 03:40 PM PDT

It boggles the mind to think that anyone can possibly think of Olympics as doing anything more than throwing taxpayer money straight down the toilet. Of course vendors and real estate agents do not give a damn about the long-term consequences as long as a quick buck can be made.

Now it's payback time as Vancouver taxpayers on hook for $1-billion as most Olympic Village units unsold
Sixty-six per cent of Vancouver's pricey Olympic Village condos remain unsold — a total of 483 units at the massive False Creek development that served as athletes' housing during the two-week 2010 Games.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, whose city remains on the hook for more than $1.03 billion of the cost of the project, predicts it will take a "full two-year term" to sell the remaining units.

The suites, which are priced anywhere from $400,000 to $5 million each, have been subject to the HST since July.

The city's investment in the project includes a $750-million loan plus undisclosed interest payments, $120 million still owed to the city for the land and a $110-million outlay for 252 affordable housing units.

Today, six months after the 2010 Olympic Games, the village resembles a ghost town.

Walking down the empty streets last Saturday afternoon, it was hard to find anyone actually living in the $1.2-billion former Olympic Village.

Even the security guards conceded there's not much to do at the "showcase" Millennium Water development, where only 254 condos have been sold.
Fortunately Chicago dodged a bullet as it was foolishly attempting to "win" the upcoming 2016 Olympics. In this game, winning the bid is a guaranteed loss for taxpayers.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Consumers Shun Credit Cards - Credit Card Usage Drops, Debit Card Usage Rises

Posted: 08 Sep 2010 11:25 AM PDT

Consumers have had enough of high interest rates on credit cards but its a case of one plastic for another. Bloomberg reports Cardholders Prefer Debit as Credit-Card Use Falls
Americans are shunning their credit cards and using debit to avoid incurring more debt, said Javelin Strategy & Research.

Total payment volume for debit cards surpassed credit-card volume for the first time in 2009 and will continue to eclipse it in 2010, according to a report released today by the Pleasanton, California-based market-research firm that specializes in financial services.

At San Francisco-based Visa Inc., the world's biggest payments network, the total payment volume for debit cards increased by 7.9 percent in 2009 to $883 billion as credit-card volume declined by 7.3 percent to $764 billion. Volume for debit cards at No. 2 MasterCard Inc. in Purchase, New York, rose by 5.8 percent and 2.8 percent at No. 4 Riverwoods, Illinois-based Discover Financial Services.

Fifty-six percent of consumers said they had used a credit card in the past month compared with 87 percent who said they had in 2007, according to the study, which surveyed 3,294 people in November 2009 for that question. Other findings were based on data collected online from 5,211 respondents in March 2010 and 5,000 consumers in November 2009. If the rate of decline continues, 45 percent of consumers will reach for a credit card in 2010, the study said.

Long-Term Shift

Another cause for reduced credit-card use is financial reform aimed at protecting consumers, which has decreased the number of new cards given and cut available spending limits, the Javelin report said. Federal legislation that limits overdraft fees, caps on fees banks charge merchants for debit-card transactions and credit-card legislation mean banks have to recoup losses and are only giving cards to the most creditworthy borrowers, the study said.

Younger people also favor debit over credit because of the immediate nature of making a payment, which means the shift to debit will be long-term, said Van Dyke. And since younger cardholders favor the convenience of debit cards, they won't turn to cash or checks, he said.

Purchase transactions generated by credit and debit cards in the U.S. totaled more than 27 billion from Jan. 1 through June 30, according to the Nilson Report, an industry newsletter in Carpinteria, California. Debit-card purchases accounted for 65 percent of all sales, up from 62.3 percent, the Nilson Report said.
Total Revolving Credit



Revolving Credit Percent Change From Year Ago



Reasons For Decline In Credit Usage

  • Bankruptcies
  • Other Loan Writeoffs
  • Consumers Paying Down Debt
  • Increasing Favoritism Towards Debit Cards
  • Gift Cards
  • Bank Lending Standards Increase

Unprecedented Drop in Revolving Credit

This is all part of an overall secular shift in consumer attitudes towards credit and debt, and bank attitudes towards lending. It's a good thing but Bernanke will not see it that way.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.
Publicat de 1 la 23:35 0 comentarii
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