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.

Over the last three years I have been busy building a business on the Internet It has been an amazing journey that has taught me so much about myself and other people. And now I had two weeks away from it all, to reflect. When I started out 3 years ago I could write code that could make your head spin (still can). But, I had absolutely no idea how to build a business and a brand. I will admit that in large part I am still learning, like everyone. But, I have realized a few things along the way…

For me 86% of building a business is all social. You can’t build a business and a brand on an island. You have to engage. Engage who? Everyone! Successful entrepreneurs wear their brand on their sleeve, they are their company and their company is them. Every interaction that I have is an extension of my brand. When I am at a conference meeting new people I am building my brand. When I am on twitter or facebook I am building my brand. When I am spending time with my family and “recharging my spirit” I am building my brand. When I am being an active participate of social spaces I am building my brand.

Being social can be scary. Theres a lot of people out there and a lot of times it can be overwhelming I would say about 80% of the folks I meet I want to build my brand with. Others are very interesting, but might not be the best for brand building, and a few are just assholes. Wearing your brand on your sleeve also means that you are always “on”. Which means that you always have to be smart about the ways you engage. This is sometimes a lesson that can only be learned the hard way. I will be the first to admit that I have engaged the “wrong way” in the past.

Which brings me to the beginning of something new. This new blog is fundamentally about engagement and how we can do that effectively the “right way”. We will talk about lots of different topics here, but in the end of the day its the dialogue that will push us forward. So please subscribe to the feed and join me in a new dialog!

WhosTalkin.com is a social media search tool that allows users to search for conversations surrounding the topics that they care about most. Whether it be your favorite sport, favorite food, celebrity, or your company’s brand name; Whostalkin.com can help you join in on the conversations that you care about most.

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 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 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!

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!

One weekend while I was still in college I was hanging out with a friend of mine. He was browsing myspace on my computer and stumbled upon one of the many myspace groups that I belonged to. Next thing I hear is, “Hey man, all these people look like you!” When I looked at the screen I said, “that’s because they all have OI” “OI? Whats OI?” OI stands for Osteogenesis Imperfecta – a rare bone disorder that causes bones to fracture easily some times for no apparent reason. One of the common characteristics of folks with OI are similar facial features and blue sclera (which I have both). As my friend continued to browse he would ask me if I knew any of the people on the site. For the most part I didn’t know anyone on that site, except for maybe a few. This shocked my friend and he asked me, “Well, why don’t you know them?” My response was, “Well, its not like we all come from the same village!” And, then I thought, “but that would be cool!”

Years past and I graduated college with a degree in Political Science. While I looked for an avenue to start my career I began developing web sites for non-profits and small businesses. What started as a small part time way to make extra money, developed into a real business with clients from across the country. As time went on, more of my time was devoted to web development, I started to realize the amazing power of the web. A type of power that can transform individuals’ lives. For the first time I wasn’t reading how the internet was changing the world, I was experiencing it first hand!

One of the things that I realized is that the internet not only has the power to bring together lots of people. But it also has the amazing power to bring together groups of people that share a similar life experience but are geographically separated and isolated (like people with OI). Many times it is these types of connections that can be truly transformative.

As a web developer I am naturally creative and am always trying different things. So, when it came time for me to try my hand at developing a social networking portal it only seemed natural for me to develop a site that’s sole intention is to bring people with OI together.

While brainstorming I remembered the conversation I had with my friend in college. Instantly OIVillage was born!