Let me begin by saying that I have only used Quora briefly. Mostly because I don’t see the value. I understand the concept of crowd sourcing. But crowd sourcing only works if you have a large diverse crowd to draw from. That’s the underlying premise, pull the best answers from a large diverse group of opinions and ideas. Compared to other question and answer sites, Quora isn’t large or diverse.
I have only posted one question and that will probably be my last. Here’s why: Earlier today I posted: “Is Quora an appropriate place to ask silly questions for comedic value?” I then posted it to Twitter and one of my twitter followers responded. Then a few minutes later I get a status message that says someone has redirected my question to “Is Quora only for ‘serious’ questions?” At first I was thinking, Well that’s cool they are trying to help by pointing out an already existing thread.
But then I realized that no, they are actually 301ing my original question thread! Meaning that if you go to my original question you will now be redirected to another user’s question instead.
So here we have a site that completely thrives off of user submitted content and they think its OK to highjack that content whenever they want.
I know what many of you are thinking, But, Joe, its the same question. They are trying to help. I don’t care if its the same question. Its not the question that I even care about, its the answers. Just because someone else has posted the same question, doesn’t mean we are going to have the same dialog as well.
So why do I think this means the end of Quora? Because, users don’t like to have their conversations high jacked, and Quora killing their own content mill.
Can you imagine a moderator at Twitter redirecting similar tweets from different users, completely derailing their user’s dialog? I was looking forward to continuing my dialog with my twitter follower that posted a question, but that conversation was cut short (or off rather).
If you ask any web entrepreneur what’s the biggest value in question and answer sites they will tell you, content generation. These types of sites churn out very high quality content that works very well in search engines. But, if your content is riddled with 301′s and redirects then you can kiss that value goodbye. I know what you are thinking, what about duplicate content? aren’t they doing the right thing cutting down on duplicate content? This isn’t duplicate content, because it would take nothing less than a miracle for similar questions to create identical answers and dialog!
Which is where the real value is to begin with! In the dialog! Which in my case no longer exist.
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.
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!
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 »
I have some great news! 22 media is doing awesome. Since changing our name and adding a host different marketing services, we have acquired a handful of new clients and have seen growth in both traffic and conversions of several of our properties.
To put it simply, business is good.
And every entrepreneur knows that when business is good, you don’t take breaks. Because of that I’ve decided not to attend any more conferences in 2010. This includes the infamous Pubcon and my favorite BlueGlass Florida. As I write this I am already starting to regret this decision. After posting earlier in the year about my disability I was bombarded with a community of support. Much of that support came with promises of reconnecting in person at Pubcon or BlueGlass Florida. So you can see that this decision to sit the remainder of the year out, is incredibly hard for me. However I need to do whats best for my company so that I can make sure that 2011 is filled with action-packed fun.
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Well folks its finally here! We have the new Twitter.com and my initial reactions are good. Take a look at this video a let me hear your thoughts in the 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.
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It is my proud pleasure to present to you 22 Media LLC. 22 Media LLC is the new name of JOZSOFT, plus a bunch more exciting stuff! I will still be providing custom web programming and design, but we will also offer powerful marketing solutions for web startups and businesses of all shapes and sizes. Read more »
Hello there, my name is Joe Hall. I write a weekly column on a highly respected blog. My work has begun to gain more attention and momentum, and the company I founded a few years ago is building a strong brand with in its industry. I live an increasingly public life on-line, and I have a disability.
For the last several years I haven’t felt that my disability isn’t relevant to many of the things I do on the internet. Because of that I have tried to steer the dialog away from it. In short, I want folks to talk about me because of the code that I write, the brands that I build, and the stories that I tell. Not because of the 200 pounds of steel strapped to my ass.
Because of this I have been apprehensive about talking publicly about my disability in the last several years. Which quite honestly has been really hard and strange for me. You see, I used to do nothing but talk about my disability (more on that later). But now its time that I let the cat out of the bag and start talking honestly about my life with a disability. I hope by doing this I can share a different perspective on the things I do. Read more »
What follows is a collaborative interview including some of the biggest minds in marketing online and off. I will admit that I am rather shocked at the folks that agreed to participate in this interview! But I am humbled and extremely gracious for their contribution. I hope to do more interviews like this one that includes other amazing people across the spectrum. Read more »
I am totally ripping off Joanna Lord’s post. Oh well, she will get over it!
Be Transparent
We talk about transparency a lot in social media. But for me it seems to be one of those buzz words that really doesn’t sink in til you, um, actually start doing it! This year I took a leap of faith in many ways and started being more transparent in social media. For starters I quit trying to hide my disability (future post coming soon). I also started to tell real stories and not pander to the BS dialog that many trying to gain attention do. Now, if you interact with me on Twitter you are likely to get a genuine Joe Hall response, full of snark! Read more »
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 »
