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A week in Vegas with many of my favorite people on the planet always makes for a fantastic time. Great friends, great food, amazing new information, and the most creative thinking you’ll probably ever bear witness to. I’m now in recovery mode - trying to keep the cold at bay with lots of vitamin C packets and rest.
I really needed some new business cards for pubcon - but I wanted something creative. I’ve always been impressed by Hugh MacLeod’s theory of marketing - so I thought I’d take it for a spin. Hugh allows folks to use is art work so long as it is not for profit, and credit is given. This increases his exposure, and makes everyone happy.
There’s a gentleman by the name of Ted Leonsis at AOL that wanted to rank well for his own name - I’m sure he’s a decent chap - and thought I’d help out by linking to Ted Leonsis at threadwatch, and Ted Leonsis at Johnon, and Ted Leonsis at Wolf-howl.com He’s a great example of why folks should be proactive about rep management for their own names.
Euphemisms are used in many areas of politics. The definition of cloaking to an engineer, and to an SEO is marginally different in terms of semantics. Cloaking has been villafied by search engines when users and bots are served different content. Engineers believe bots are pretty smart (they normally are) - and SEO’s believe bots should be lead around by the nose only to appropriate areas. “Cloaking” often implies intent and extent that conflict with SE terms of service - but there are many very grey areas as far as what is acceptable and what isn’t. By definition - cloaking is NEVER acceptable - so be sure you are using the proper terminology. Of course this is a bit tounge and cheek - but the point is that there are certainly valid reasons for selectively delivering content - and that “cloaking” is mainly defined by intent. I’m pretty glad I’m not the guy at the SE’s that has to determine the intent of redirects.
Since I’m shortly getting ready to head off to pubcon - I thought I’d put together a quick resource on tips and tricks for those newer to the show. The number one tip would be - don’t be shy - talk to people, and talk to LOTS of people. There are few opportunities to discuss all your pressing questions about SEO/SEM with people that ACTUALLY might know the answers. Everyone at the show will be as excited as you to talk about work for longer than 10 minutes without their listener’s eye’s glazing over. Here’s some tips, tricks, and resources, and best practices on understanding conference etiquette.
I recently spent some time doing an interview with Karl Ribas for his site. I think it came out prettty decent. Check out the interview here if you get a chance. My personal favorite answer:
I’ve really liked the idea of “Review Me” since I first heard about it. It’s kind of like “hot or not” for smarter people. It will allow immediate feedback on a variety of new ideas by paying for the valuable asset of people’s time to think. The success of the idea will depend on the willingness of intelligent people to accept a new ad model, and keep the network quality high. If everybody writes positive reviews of CRAP - it’s a surefire way for the whole idea to suck. It’s not a surprise that people will accept money to write reviews or analysis - the big question will be HOW MUCH it costs for a review. Pay to blog is a great topic that will always be worthwhile - in the same way that questioning how a journalist is paid is. I didn’t follow much of the pay per post debate prior to this, but I’m sure it will get nice and interesting with a bigger fish in the pond. I hope it will make Doc Searls smile - when he realizes the people who got on the cluetrain can finally make good money while they review products and services like actual human beings without a “professional voice”. It’s cool to see the dialogue can still be PAID for - but not forced to be ROBOTIC.
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