rotten bananas

I’ve finally upgraded both blogs to WordPress 2.2 after the imminent threat of destruction loomed. I was previously using the sidebar widget, and it’s nice to see them included in the official release. I was especially impressed that all of my sidebar settings were maintained during the process. Bravo WordPress team.

I’ve also implemented the related posts plugin in this blog (you’ll notice it at the bottom of this and all posts if you are looking at the individual post and not just the homepage). This has shown great results for many bloggers; I’m hoping it will have a similar effect for rotten bananas. I’ve finally bothered to figure out my navigation links at the top, so the archives link works and I added a link to my contact page.

In addition, thanks to Aaron Wall’s SEO for Firefox extension I’ve discovered that I have 176 pages in Google’s dreaded supplemental index. So, I’ve taken the steps outlined on the Not So Boring Life blog to fix the problem, including using the provided robots.txt file. If I can get most of my pages out of the supplemental index, I’ll rank higher in Google searches.

If you’re blogging along, be sure to check out the article. It’s succinct and relatively easy to understand (and crucial if you’re running WordPress with a decent amount of posts), and don’t forget your monthly WordPress maintenance! I think I deleted around 5 unused plugins this time around.

I’d like to say it was inevitable, but I honestly wasn’t sure if it would happen. I think it was an excellent move. And at only $100 mil! I would’ve snatched it up if Donald Trump owed me a (huge) favor. Can you think of an easier way to absorb a market?

Google is already (probably) the biggest advertiser in the blogging community; now they can tackle RSS feeds as well. I think they’re making some great moves towards owning a very young, but very quickly growing market. Who else has their hands in blogging like Google? Microsoft (and Ask.com - hah) are still trying to catch up in the search market. There’s a reason Google is at the top.

This year has been pretty crazy so far. It’ll be exciting to see what happens next. All this Microsoft buying Yahoo patootie has everyone stirred up. I’ll go ahead and put in my two-cents: It’ll never happen (well, not this year). Yahoo and Microsoft are competitors, the relationship is beyond acquisition. It would screw up the dynamic of the internet world we’ve all grown to know and love. I may end up being horribly wrong (shocking, eh?), but I won’t be too upset. Predicting the business world of Web 2.0 is like trying to predict which dog will win the next Kentucky Derby.

John Chow has recently begun a campaign to charge people to have their comments marked as nofollow. I intended to post about this, but then I realized that I could group it into a review post and get a linkback from the ChowMan himself! So, to kick things off - John Chow runs a blog that attempts to teach you how to make money online. Read the rules here to find out how to get your own JC link back.

For starters, I would like to point out this review that John did. It’s excellent, as John calls out a basic scammer who paid $400 to have him do it. I was very impressed by that; I think it’s the only negative (read: honest) review that I’ve ever seen, so props to JC for that.

In addition, I do find John’s blog very entertaining. He provides a lot of information, and the man makes a ridiculous amount of money. He also has very little shame. I’ll certainly continue reading everyday (which is all that matters to him I’m sure - or maybe he doesn’t care), as I think it’s fair for him to do whatever he needs to to make more money, which is the ultimate goal. I just think that everyone has that line in their head that they won’t cross, and while mine lays a few miles behind John, his seems to waver somewhere between burying his own mother alive and buying a nuclear device to detonate on American soil - all for a buck.

I think this pay-for-nofollow thing is pretty sleazy. Turning off nofollow is a good will action that bloggers exchange, not charge for. It’s like holding the door for someone or trying to hide your laughter when a stranger falls in the middle of the mall. Like I said, the man can do what he wants, especially in the name of scholarship (learning how to make money online), but every man has his boundaries, and everything John does will push some buttons. This one pushes mine.

Courtney Tuttle is holding a competition to guess his income earned during the month of May. If you guess within $1, you get the money. That’s easy money, and I’m all about easy. The following is for said contest:

Rules:

• Create a post on your blog, copy these rules and paste them into the post.
• Make a guess! Link to my homepage with the text ‘make money online $1.00?, replacing the $1.00 with the amount of your guess. Example: make money online $100.56.
• Leave this link to the rules page intact.
• Use my contact page to confirm your entry by letting me know (make sure to include the URL of your post)! I will find most of them, but let me know to make sure!

Special Rule Through 5/18/2007

My guesses:

make money online $325.12, make money online $312.23, make money online $341.74

On a related note

For those who don’t know, what Courtney is doing is he’s attempting to game Google. By creating a bunch of links to his site with the text “make money online”, he’s moving his site’s position up in the rankings for a Google search of “make money online.”

I know that’s probably obvious to many of you, but I assume some don’t know. I’m just learning these search engine tips as I go, and I’m realizing how many of the weathered SEO guys don’t realize that those of learning know nothing of even the very basics of the field. I’ll try to pass on what I can as I learn and figure things out on my own.

The web is abash with theories about Microsoft and their hungry lawyers. It’s always fun to speculate and muse but, whether I imagined the article I mentioned or not (I’m pretty sure I didn’t), Microsoft is not going to sue anyone over open source patent infringements.

Why not?

Well, it’s simply bad business. Everybody knows that Microsoft benefits from the open source community. Aside from the recent deal signed with Novell, Microsoft has released some of their own code under the GNU GPL and has been caught using open source code in it’s own applications. In addition, there’s little to be gained from attacking a group with so much support. It would take an ungodly amount of money to buy back those broken hearts. Besides, who would they go after? Linus Torvald, The FSF, Red Hat, Canonical, the users? I don’t think so.

So what’s the deal?

Some say Vista’s performing badly, so Microsoft is panicking and swinging blindly. It’s just been reported that Vista sold 40 million licenses in 100 days. That doesn’t sound like it’s worth going into panic mode over. I think this is the first time that we’re seeing how little the open source movement is affecting Microsoft. Sure, without Linux competing, they may have sold 42 million licenses, but I don’t think Mr. Gates is padding the sweat from his brow yet.

Microsoft is just flexing their proverbial biceps, and there are money signs tattooed on the insides. With all the hype around Linux lately, especially regarding the release of Feisty Fawn and Dell’s recent adoption of it, Microsoft felt pushed into the background. This little hoopla was just to say, “Hey remember us! You’d be nowhere without us!” as Bill’s giant head throbs and everything around him not bolted to the floor begins floating a few inches above the ground. To a point, he’s right, and if it gives the company’s ego a big, long stroke, then operation successful. The outburst is very conveniently timed along with the announcement about Vista’s success, but coincidences happen everyday, so who knows.

I guess what it comes down to is that while the stability of the business world often ruins the crazy roller coaster ride we perceive to be, they’re actually quite similar. Business is just a series of promises and threats, fear and excitement, but like a roller coaster, you never actually soar into the air or crash into the ground, unless, of course, something has gone horribly wrong.

Read this blog post on Jonathan Schwartz’s blog (CEO Sun Microsystems). It’s semi-interesting. I guess Sun is trying to take advantage of the situation by wearing a halo next to everyone’s favorite devil. As I recall, I saw an article yesterday outlining some comments Mr. Ballmer made, the gist of which is that MS will not be suing anyone (though I can’t find it for the life of me now). I think said turn of events was already predicted by a great many theologians and philosophers alike; far be it from the OS fanboys to hold off foaming at the mouth and wait for more information. My point is simply that Mr. Schwartz’s is moot.

I’ll weigh in on the subject more later.

Have you ever noticed that every television show ad features some type of crazily-unrealistic teaser that never follows through? Have you noticed that every time, regardless of how impossible it may seem, you still spend the next week wondering if maybe it will happen? Are they really going to get married? Will he really leave the show? Is Jack Bauer really going to save the world from international terrorism?

Americans love the teaser. We love to have that big fat juicy carrot dangled in front of our faces, wondering. It’s not just television though. Think about when you find a new gadget (or puppy or car or toothbrush, whatever your vice may be), and how intense the desire is while you yearn for it. Up to that moment when you can buy it, whether you’re saving up or planning or whatever, the excitement just keeps building. Until the second you buy it and things start to go downhill.

Television shows (almost) never reach that moment, and there’s an obvious reason for this. Once the problem has been solved, goal has been reached, what-have-you, the excitement is over, and we move on to a new show.

I’m not trying to say this is bad. It’s what drives us. It drives capitalism. It drives innovation. It’s actually quite important that we’re never truly satisfied, and it’s the key to marketing. It’s what fascinates me about the industry. Lots of people will tell you that it’s the product that matters. Create a good product and the customers will follow. While this is true to a point, what’s really important is convincing people that your product is so good that they need it. Once they have it, the relationship is over (granted, this depends on the type of product).

It’s not to say that you can trick people into buying a product that turns out to be crap (*coughvistacough*). If you deceive too many people, the rest will catch on, but since we are often disappointed after the anticipated purchase, part of the game is just the build-up. People may not be telling others that their new PDA is a piece of crap, but they’ll suddenly realize that they have little use for one, leaving a sour taste in their mouth about the purchase.

This is why marketing is often more of a game in certain industries. There’s very little reason to ever buy the best in computers. Approximately .0034% of the population has a use for the latest and greatest in CPU or graphics technology, but that group also makes scads of money on complex black hole experiments and multi-dimensioned barnyard animals. Nonetheless, there’s still a larger group that will waste money on it because some marketer convinced them that MMX technology was the wave of the future.

I can guarantee you that just about anyone who spends six grand on a new “omg ultra-highest-def” Dell XPS 27-inch widescreen laptop with built in surround sound and executive office chair is disappointed shortly thereafter either because it’s quickly outdated or the painful realization of wasted income comes to light.

Either way, the beauty of is that they will do it again because they’ll be chasing the metaphorical dragon. That’s why marketing is an awesome industry, and that’s why I need to find a way to get involved in it.

I’m looking to keep my momentum up after the group writing project, and I’m always looking for suggestions to improve my blog. If you’d be interested in exchanging reviews, let me know. You can either leave a comment here or shoot me a message through my contact form.

A week or two ago I was watching a rerun of Major Dad on a syndication black hole, and I was caught a bit off guard by a Kia commercial. Some people ramble on about something or other. I’m not really sure what’s going on, but at one point a dapper young professional thinks to himself, “No, but I did get a kick ass deal on my new Kia,” or something along those lines. It’s abnormal to hear swearing in a commercials to start with, but in a Kia commercial?

Anyway, I guess they were trying to appeal to a new audience (getting bored of the over-sixty ‘responsible’ crowd?). I don’t particularly care about Kia’s loose lips, but someone must have. I just saw the same ad a couple of hours ago and in paying special attention (dirty words make me giggle) I noticed they had changed it. This time the fella was thinking about his “kickin” new Kia.

I’m not going to discuss television commercial etiquette, but I am somewhat interested in who caused this turn of events. I can only imagine it was some young child’s bored mother. My guess is that it’s just another instance of someone creating their own enemy. I can see why this might bother a pair of overprotective parents, but there’s got to be something better to do in between preparing vegan meals from the backyard garden crops and wrapping the kids in bubble wrap for an afternoon of playing in the yard.

Well the ProBlogger Top 5 group writing project was a pretty big success. My entry, Top 5 Moments in Classic Rock, already has 25 comments, most of which are trackbacks (dirty, link-leeching trackbacks, but that’s ok). I don’t have previous numbers, but my Technorati Authority is up to 27, and my rank is 181,095. I’ve also maintained an increase in traffic since then.

My guitar blog also saw a big spike in traffic with its top 5 post, as it had none before hand. It now has a Technorati Authority of 14 and a rank of 359,553. And, according to FeedBurner, it’s been averaging 30-40 visits a day now. Both blogs are far from the A-list, but it’s cool to see such a spike in traffic. It’s fun to be noticed.

To any new repeat-readers I may have acquired (or any that I managed to pick up before that), welcome to the show. I’ll try to entertain. I’m still learning for sure, and this was a big lesson for me. I’ll definitely be participating in more group writing projects. It was a great benefit to connect with others in the community and add a few blogs to my regular visit list. If you didn’t submit a post to this project, get off your lazy bum and do it next time, slacker.