My Review of Google’s New “Search By Image” Feature
June 16, 2011 by · 4 Comments
For best viewing, full screen the video.
The Probability of Blogging Every Day
January 5, 2011 by · 3 Comments
Probability theory is a branch of mathematics that attempts to understand random events and predicts them so they aren’t that random anymore. For example, some will use probability theory to guess lottery numbers, others will use it to guess flu outbreaks. Some will use it to increase their chances at a desired outcome.
They do this by identifying all of the random variables in a given environment and predicting the outcome based on their relationship to other variables such as size of the environment.
I think a lot about probability theory. In fact I use it to make most of my decisions. Yes, I am crazy like that. Sure, I often am able to throw caution at the wind and take risk. But, isn’t it better if those risk are calculated, first?
Being a good entrepreneur many times means just taking calculated risk. And, probability theory tells us, that the more risks you take the higher probability for success. Which is why there are so many “serial entrepreneurs” out there. They understand that the more risk they take, the more likely they will succeed.
The same goes for blogging. Here is a list of some of the desired outcome that I want from this blog.
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More direct backlinks.
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More Page Views.
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Larger personal brand awareness.
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More engagement.
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More opportunities.
So how do I get all of those things? I take more risk. Or in other words, I blog more often. I used to believe that it was smarter to only blog when you have something really valuable to say. That way your best work stands out the most. But then I looked at some of my favorite bloggers and realized that they have everything that’s listed above because they take more risk.
Sure some of their post aren’t the best out there, but because they took the risk they are closer to being outstanding.
So, because of that, I have decided that I am going to start and take more risk with my blogging. For starters, I am going to try and blog here more often. In a perfect world I would blog everyday, but I don’t think my duties with the company I run will allow for that. But, I do have a few tricks up my sleeve.
Remember a few days ago I mentioned that to be productive you need to work your “get things done” items into your “work flow”. Well blogging is no exception. To help me blog more I am now using BlogDesk. BlogDesk is a desktop application for Windows users that allows you to tie in all your blogs and write and post all from one application. Its great because I don’t have to login to my blog to write, I just click the icon in my task menu and start writing and it automatically publishes when I am ready. I have tied all my blogs into it and its been working great. Oh and its free, so that’s cool too!
Next time you are faced with taking a risk, don’t shy away from it. Instead use probability theory to calculate the risk, and go for it. Because risk taking is the path to success.
No New Years Resolutions For 2011
January 3, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
One of the things that I learned in 2010 was that to get things done, many times you have to work them into your “work flow”. For example, I started responding to support issues faster and more often after I piped them into Thunderbird. I just started using Evernote and I can already see a giant increase in productivity as a result of being able to enteract with all of my notes in a well organized system accross different platforms. Freshbooks competely transformed the way I invoice clients in 2010 and as a result I made a bunch more money because it integrates into my work flow well.
While Tumblr Fails, Find Stability On Your Own Micro-Cloud!
December 6, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
If you haven’t heard the news yet, microblog, lifestream giant tumblr is down. And not just for a few hours, but at this point 18!! On the internet that’s a lifetime! The free service provides blogs to some top players in mainstream media and a few giants in social media. So you can see this is a serious issue!
One of the biggest advantages of utilizing the cloud is the ability to pretty much outsource the tech and management issues related with self hosting. But at the same time using the cloud leaves you vulnerable to companies that can and do experience massive outages. There has to be a middle ground.
There is! Using shared or grid based hosting services in conjunction with software like WordPress is the ideal solution. These “micro-clouds” allow for regular backups and complete control over your hosting environment. Which means that when you are hit with a outage or downtime, you can rebound much faster because you have direct access to the data you created and own.
If your company is using tumblr or a similar service, and you want to move to WordPress with a micro-cloud solution. Let us help you with that transition!
Digital Subjectivity, Explored
December 4, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
The image above is a screen shot of my Twitter. Yep, that’s right, I said “my” Twitter. You see no one else looks at Twitter the same way I do. No one else has the same follower/following formula. Sure many may have the same number of followers, but no one has the same followers and following. This is because no one else is @JoeHall. Social media is full of different humans (and robots) and each one of us experience it in a different way. Each one of us has a different social media reality. So, you have your own Twitter as well. [Read more...]
WordPress Easter Egg
August 8, 2010 by · 12 Comments
Programmers are funny people. Really, they have a sense of humor if you look hard enough. The best proof of programming humor are Easter Eggs. No, I am not talking about dyed eggs that soon become egg salad. I am talking about hidden features or “events” that programmers purposely hide in their code for their own entertainment, and to the surprise of any user that finds them. Easter eggs have made popular appearances in more than just software, we sometimes see them in movies, art and literature.
[Read more...]
Starting Something New…
August 16, 2009 by · 4 Comments
Not long ago my main laptop died. A river of swear words shot from my desk. I called support and they reassured me that they could have my baby back in working order in two weeks. TWO WEEKS!?? I have several other laptops that all run Linux, but, aren’t connected to the web for various reasons. Yep that’s right I was going to have to rough it off the grid for a whole two weeks.
At first I was really worried about my clients and how they were going to take the news. But I knew I had to tell them soon. So, I grabbed my netbook and hit up a wireless cafe. Their response was awesome. A few were rightfully upset that their projects were going to be delayed 2 weeks, but they were all understanding and I didn’t lose a single client! Sometimes polite brutal honesty really works well.
So now that I had contacted my clients I had to face the ugly reality that for the first time in close to 5 years I would be with out Internet access for longer than a week! What the hell was I going to do?? I ended up reading a few books and writing a bit. But, for the most part I did a lot of thinking. [Read more...]
Me sporting a pervert mustache calls out @1938media and @garyvee in my first ever web video!
May 24, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Bloggers deserve real tips not stolen goods!
August 26, 2008 by · 2 Comments
Allen Stern just wrote a post in response to a post that Seth Godin wrote. Both of these men are exploring ways to compensate content creators, such as bloggers. They both are recommending that users click on the ads that bloggers display. Godin calls this a form of tipping. As you can assume there are quite a few that aren’t very happy about this.
Apparently Seth Godin has never worked for real tips, and might have never really appreciated any tips that he might have given. Why you ask? Real tips display gratitude based on transference of wealth. Click ads does not transfer any wealth from the person making the “tip” to the content creator.
To better understand this point lets pretend that I am at my favorite Italian restaurant “Gianotti’s”. If I have enjoyed my meal (which I always do) and if I have enjoyed the service then I enjoy leaving a tip for the server. This transference of wealth from my wallet to the server is genuine display of gratitude, because I am giving MY money for a service that I appreciate.
However, following the teachings of Godin and Stern, I should reach over to the guy sitting at the table beside me, take his wallet out and steal a few bucks from him and use it to tip my server.
If you have ever worked for tips you know that this is not only wrong for the obvious reason but it also looks disingenuous because you obviously haven’t valued their work enough to tip them with your own money, instead in the case of internet ads, you have made a simple click that require no extra effort or expense.
But there is a much deeper dangerous side to this practice that we as internet marketers should be concerned with. Click fraud devalues ad cost. If you really want to help the blogger then you will only click on the ads that you find useful and relevant. Why? Because the very basis for PPC is relevancy and if advertisers see a rise in CTR with out a rise in conversions then they will drop PPC ads like a bad habit FAST! Nobody likes wasting money on marketing!
So the question that Stern asked is still left unanswered. “How do you compensate content creators?” Here’s an idea: If content creators feel their content is valuable enough to receive compensation then why not add a PayPal Donate button to their side bar. This way visitors can actually give a real tip. Or if you would rather you could always give the content creator a bit more publicity by mentioning their post in your blog or telling folks about it There are numerous ways to compensate content creators with out cheating advertisers at the same time.
Hitwise data misses the mark when it comes to Real Estate.
July 28, 2008 by · 9 Comments
Not long ago, Marketing Pilgrim posted about some Hitwise data on real estate search terms and real estate web sites. As expected Realtor.com did very well ranking #1 as both the most visited real estate web site and the most used real estate search term. This wasn’t much of a surprise to those in the real estate industry. What surprised some (and still confuses me) is the list of most visited real estate web sites.
Hitwise Most Visited Real Estate Web Site Rankings
1. realtor.com – 9.08 percent
2. HomeGain – 2.44 percent
3. Yahoo Real Estate – 2.25 percent
4. RE/MAX real estate – 2.21 percent
5. Rent.com – 2.19 percent
6. Zillow – 2.06 percent
7. Apartments.com – 2 percent
8. Move.com – 1.91 percent
9. ZipRealty – 1.86 percent
10. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – 1.42 percent.
When I first saw that list I had this gut feeling that something was off. If any of you are familiar with my work in the past you know that I love crunching the numbers. So, lets take a look at what the numbers say:
zillow.com trulia.com remax.com century21.com
As I expected my analysis shows Zillow.com doing better than REMAX.com. And, even more interesting is Trulia.com doing better than remax.com as well! Trulia.com isn’t even listed on Hitwise’s report!
Confused? So am I. But, don’t worry, I will explain all of this and more in a future guest post at Wolf-Howl.com….stay tuned!
Cuil’s Numbers Just Don’t Add Up!
July 28, 2008 by · 2 Comments
From Cuil:
Cuil searches more pages on the Web than anyone else—three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft.
Then maybe someone can help me understand these searches I ran:
Am I missing something?? Saying that you are bigger than Google is a damn big statement, and I would think that you should have some data to back yourself up!
Google Shows Gay Porn In Ads
June 19, 2008 by · 1 Comment
Search Engine Round Table just pointed out that Google is now displaying a gay rights flag with in the SERPs for the term “gay”. There is much interest in this for various reasons that I am not going to discuss here. In Search Engine Round Table’s original post they stated that the gay pride flag wasn’t coming up in certain states, including South Carolina. Living in SC myself i decided to run the search term and see for myself. Search Engine Round Table was wrong it is coming up in SC, like it probably is else were. My screen shot is below:
So where’s the porn?
Take a look at that screen shot again. The ad in the top right hand corner is for a lovely adult themed gay site (NSFW). Now, don’t get me wrong I have nothing against gays and lesbians. I think they deserve the same rights and privileges as anyone else. However, I think that if you are going to make a corporate decision not to allow adult content in your advertising network then you should stick by it.
Personally I am fine with the gay rights flag. But the porn has to go. I would like a search engine where my niece can do research on diversity and different cultures with out seeing those ads!
Just Checkin In…
June 17, 2007 by · Leave a Comment
Ok, so I know that I haven’t written anything here in a long time. I wonder how many times that last sentence is written in blogs? Well, anyways I am writing this entry to update those that care, about a few changes that have been going on. I am now on my second month as the IT Specialist/Web Developer at CENTURY 21 At The Beach. I never thought that I would ever work in Real Estate. However, one of the things that I have learned over the last year is that life is always full of surprises and those that open themselves up to the improbability of the future tend to be happier and more successful. I am not sure how long I will be at CENTURY 21, but I don’t think that Real Estate is an industry I want to make a career in.
I am still doing some web development for clients on the side but for the moment RBM is going pretty slow. I have a few projects that I want to work on. For example I ran across OpenLaszlo this morning and after previewing several of their example projects I am very interested in try to develop something in that platform. I also have been doing a lot of customization of WordPress 2.1.3 for a client and I am considering taking what I have done and packaging it as a separate product for sale.
Up until very recently I have been strictly opposed to Flash as a development platform for many reasons. However, I recently used it on the new site that I developed for my work. And I must admit that it is surprisingly fun to work with. I think that perhaps I will re-explore my issues with flash and maybe use it in the future….I will probably write a blog about it….so stay tuned!
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