Fun Stuff

July 2, 2009

Friday Recap - Happy Birthday USA Edition

Good Friday to you! Okay, it's not really Friday, but for us lucky ones tomorrow is a holiday. No work means no post on Friday, so you're getting your recap early. Break out the barbecue and beach towels, and then enjoy this slightly random slice of Internet-romping, weekend-welcoming bliss.

Tomorrow morning most of us will have a chance to skip the alarm and sleep in. I'll admit I'm a little bugged by my buzzing alarm clock at six in the morning, but what if noise wasn't the only thing buggy about your clock? What if your clock actually ate bugs?! One prototype traps insects and then uses their chemically ravaged remains to keep itself ticking. Great, we've given machines a taste for flesh. This can't possibly go wrong.

In the search engine optimization industry, client communication can be the source of relationships gone wrong. SEO Todd Friesen writes about his tips for effective client communication, including how to handle bad news and how to deal with your mistakes.

How do you think Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg delivered the news to his shareholders that Twitter was a threat to be reckoned with? Maybe he didn't. Maybe he just said, "Oh Twitter? Don't you worry about Twitter. We'll just roll public microblogging into Facebook and, voila!" Yes, Facebook is looking more like Twitter these days. Meanwhile, Bing looks more like Twitter, too. Searching for some famous people's names will bring up Twitter accounts. [You know what's innovative? Being a Me Too kinda company. --Susan]

Not to turn this into the Twitter channel, but I should probably mention that Twitter changed their user interface this week. When you check out your list of followers, you can see that things look a little different. I appreciate that I can see some of a person's bio and their last tweet because it helps the vetting process go faster. Will this change -- or any change, for that matter -- squelch the fears of those who haven't yet joined the social media parade? Understandably, social media is a little creepy, you know? Like punk music.

In the video above, a comparison is made between the birth and evolution of punk music and the birth and evolution of social media. It ends with a call to action for corporate executives to get over their fear of the new medium and to listen and engage online. For some actionable recommendations on using social media for enterprise businesses, check out Mashable's how-to guide.

Remember a few years back (whoa, maybe it's more like 13 years back) when Independence Day was synonymous with Will Smith and aliens? Now that was a summer blockbuster that packed a punch. Some of that power can be traced back to the awesome visual effects -- specifically the explosions! If you're in the mood to blow up more than fireworks this weekend, check out Hollywood's best sci-fi explosions.

A number of search engines would love to shake things up online, and Wired has wrangled up a number of cool search engines that aren't Google. Most of these engines are working to fill a niche, and are handy tools in their respective specialties. The specialty of McDonald's former CMO is breathing new life into brands, and he shares his six rules for brand revitalization over at AdAge.

In light of the media frenzy following Michael Jackson's passing, it's becoming clear that the standards of journalism are changing. On-the-record attribution is no longer required to break a story, and breaking news is as likely to come from a regular citizen as from the mainstream media. So what does it take to be a citizen journalist? It really doesn't take much more than a camera, an Internet connection and good timing. YouTube Reporters Center has been launched to support citizen reporters everywhere.
Just remember, the news business is a delicate, delicate flower that the evil Internet threatens to destroy with its dirty links and blatant disregard for copyright. For shame, Internet!

Before we call it a day, there are happy birthday wishes that need sending. It's the 125th anniversary of the Swiss Army Knife, the 30th anniversary of portable music (via the Walkman) and, now that July's here, we can start celebrating the 25th year of me! [You make me feel so old. --Susan] But Susan, really good things just get better with age!

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• In an effort to prevent bribes at a Kathmandu airport, authorities have banned pockets from employee uniforms. Way to get to the root of the problem. [Makes sense. Can't take the money if you have nowhere to put the money. --Susan]
• A new species of bat has been discovered in Africa, and it's only as big as a moth! Bitty baby bats!
• One disappearing waterfall in Minnesota remains a mystery. I vote black hole.
• If it's not robots or zombies taking over, it's probably cats.
• Gotta love this video montage of moonwalk-inspiring dance masters.

Happy Independence Day!

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 07/ 2/09 at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)
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June 26, 2009

Friday Recap - Robo Edition

Welcome to your favorite part of the week -- the weekend! Or is your favorite part the Friday Recap? After the week you had, you deserve them both, so let's get this thing started!

The second Transformers movie was released Wednesday and the harsh reviews are getting almost as much buzz as the movie itself. Susan contends that there weren't enough giant robots in the original. Let's see if the sequel brings on the robots, because you dig giant robots. I dig giant robots. We dig giant robots. Chicks dig giant robots. Nice. [True story: This clip was actual facts my review of the first movie. --Susan]

Big news in the blogosphere this week. The FTC is moving forward to approve new guidelines regarding bloggers, sponsored blog reviews and the disclosure of blogger compensation. The guidelines take aim at the freebies and payoffs some bloggers receive in exchange for product reviews or mentions -- a conflict of interest which often remains undisclosed to blog readers. If the guidelines are passed, bloggers would be required to spell out any financial compensation received. Those interested may read the FTC's proposed guidelines and changes in Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (pdf).

Some SEOs will be glad to see the new guidelines instituted considering a debate has long raged over the search engines' uneven enforcement of paid link penalties. The argument's been made that while some bloggers reap benefits of free cars and swag in exchange for links or product reviews, SEOs get slapped for omitting nofollow on paid links. Power tweeter Guy Kawasaki is sometimes used an example of a blogger fat on freebies, but earlier this week, Guy's Twitter account was hacked, reminding tweeters that no one's safe from malicious attacks online.

Lately Twitter has been greenwashed with vert-colored avatars intended to support democracy in Iran. Some have called such actions "armchair activism", and while I believe raising awareness is valuable, the Next Web has rounded up some other ways people can positively contribute to the cause.

Facebook became a little more like Twitter this week by opening user status updates to the public realm. Beta testers are currently trying out the program, which will let users specify whether select groups of friends or the entire Web will be able to view status info. Facebook users will appreciate the new option for flexibility, but everyone can enjoy the flexibility of these three ladies who make contortion look like a flippin' good time. [Why don't they make movies like that anymore? --Susan]

Photo by Ewen and Donabel

Steering back to the topic of blogs, I got a kick out of a collection of word clouds from a few popular Internet marketing blogs. I've used Wordle to make word clouds for some of my favorite search engine optimization blogs, but I've never looked at the clouds side by side. I think it's useful to see if you're actually talking about the content you think you're talking about. So who wins the exercise? My vote goes to David Mihm, whose word cloud shows just how topical the blog is to his core interest, local search.

Another favorite search-related blogger is Google's head of Web spam Matt Cutts. But Matt doesn't talk only about search and SEO on his blog. In fact, this week he's inviting readers to vote for his next 30-day project. "Bike to work" is currently in first with 25 percent of the vote. Want to chime in on what Matt should do?

The Semantic Technology Conference was held in San Jose last week and there's since been some helpful analysis offered up by attendees. While I hear a lot about how semantic technology will improve the quality of Web search, I'll admit that I'm still fuzzy on how such technology actually works. Dr. Riza Berkan, CEO of the natural language processing search engine Hakia, wrote a great primer on semantic search by clearing up what semantic technology is not. Sean Golliher, founder and publisher of SEMJ.org, explained the benefit of structured markup and its effect on search and the developer community.

Photo by atp_tyreseus

I think we can all agree that some very sharp minds are working on the problems of semantic technology. And robots. Smart people make robots, like one robot intelligence researcher and professor who built his twin to stand in and speak for him in class.

Speaking of freaky plastic people, how does everyone feel about the Burger King ads? BK's stream of odd ads has received awards for being edgy and creative, but apparently edgy and creative doesn't sell burgers. In the five years since ad agency Crispin Porter Bogusky has been in charge, Burger King's market share fell and annual sales grew at a pace slower than that of competitor McDonald's. Why people don't find a plastic-faced meat hawker appetizing I may never understand.

Rest in peace, Ed, Farrah and Michael.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• I know some people must think my choice of pet is a little odd, but one man's pet capybara helped me put things is perspective. [Come Lent, he'll also have an alternative to fish on Fridays. (No, really, look it up.) --Susan]
• Humans seem to have a preference for listening with the right ear. No joke. It's just weird.
• Virgin America and Google teamed up for Wednesday's Day in the Clouds competition. Find out how sky-high smarties played the game.
• What do you call a starfish having sex with a shrimp on tape? A prawnstar! Sorry, China, but you won't remember tomorrow anyway.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 06/26/09 at 12:24 PM | Comments (1)
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June 19, 2009

Friday Recap - Shock and Awe Edition

Happy Friday and happy early Father's Day! I bet there are a few techie dads expecting this week's must-have gadget, the iPhone 3GS, to find its way into their eager hands by Sunday. Am I right? I'm sure you've all come across lots of stories about the new iPhone device and software, covering a variety of angles, but woot.com took the cake this week with 12 bugs in the iPhone OS 3.0.

Photo by Inchka via Creative Commons

Speaking of bugs, one of the most circulated videos of the week showed U.S. President Barack Obama execute a fly during an interview. In an impressive feat of hand-eye coordination, the president smacked the pest when it landed on his arm. Less than impressed were our wily friends at PETA. All together now: Oh, PETA.

Twitter has been playing a significant role in the continuing developments following the election in Iran last week. While the Iranian government has reportedly taken steps to control Internet access and media coverage, citizen journalists are vigilantly reporting news via Twitter, which Time has dubbed the medium of the movement. Google is now offering a tool that will translate text from Farsi into English and vice versa to help those following the story.

Meanwhile in Holland, a couple bad guys have been caught red handed thanks to pictures taken by a Google Maps Street View car. A teenager who had been robbed by two men last year discovered pictures on Google Maps taken just moments before the attack. Thanks to the images, police found the alleged muggers. Google, please accept this gold star. You earned it.

Photo by Larsz via Creative Commons

Oh, Google? I'm going to need that star back when you get a chance. It looks like you've been a bit naughty lately. Or at the very least, you've been making a few enemies in the SEO community. On the aimClear blog there's a thoughtful post about how Google's unannounced change to nofollow last year has diminished marketers' trust. The dominant search engine is also getting flack for offering artists "exposure" instead of payment in exchange for works of art. With $1.4 billion in profits in just the first quarter of 2009, we can assume Google's frugal offer isn't due to an aching bank account.

In more favorable news, TechCrunch reports that Google will soon launch Flipper, which presents news results through an interactive visual display. One story coming out of Google that I may never understand was reported by The Next Web this week. As a promotion for Chrome, Google employees made a video of man-on-the-street interviews where random passersby in New York City answer the question "What is a browser?" I won't lie. I was shocked. Kinda like you'll be after you watch these videos of people doing amazing things with their voices. Carayzee cool.

Photo by Jeffrey Beall via Creative Commons

Has the Internet eroded family time? The findings of one survey suggest it's so. More than a quarter of participants said they have spent less time with their family in the last year -- a trend that parallels an increase of time spent on social networks. At Search Engine Land, usability expert Kim Krause Berg examines the impact of the Internet on human behavior, examining fatigue factors, mobile Web access, and the info overload effect.

Amazon affiliates in North Carolina got a shock this week as the retail giant announced it may be shutting down their N.C. program because of new tax laws. Affiliates will have to find new means of income. I hear there's a rising market for doggie exercise videos. (That's a giggle-tastic video of a pup doing squats and it's really too good to miss.)

Finally, a few announcements to make before signing off. I'd like to wish the best of luck to Rebecca Kelley, who bid farewell to SEOmoz today in pursuit of new adventures. Luckily, the SEO community can get their Rebecca fix from her new blog, Fresh Edge Media. In social media announcements, nominations are now being accepted by the SAMMY Awards, honoring excellence in social media marketing. And while the next Search Engine Strategies conference is still many moons away, on July 8 the good people at SES are presenting a webinar with Charlene Li on integrating social media into any business.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• A 10-year-old's final wish to see Up was granted thanks to some good people. I recommend clicking through to the OC Register for a moving and heartwarming story.
• Hummingbirds are the world's gnarliest daredevils, diving at speeds that are comparatively faster than a space shuttle.
• A colony of the world's rarest insect, thought to be extinct, has miraculously been found on an isolated volcanic island.
• In the art of writing employee handbooks, no detail is too insignificant. City workers in a Florida town have just been ordered to wear underwear and cover open wounds. I'm thinking this is a good thing.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 06/19/09 at 4:41 PM | Comments (0)
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June 12, 2009

Friday Recap - Shoot for the Stars Edition

Photo by Lee Carson via Creative Commons

Who hasn't made time for their TGIF chair dance? It's okay, I'm not judging. It's just that I know how hard you work, and sometimes you gotta make some time for yourself, you know? On three, let's tap our toes, wiggle our hips, point our fingers in the air and create a little doo-wop moment. One, two, three... Happy dance!

Ahh. That's better. Now we can take a look at some of this week's neat news.

The SEO Newsletter comes out Monday and if you're not already subscribed, there's no time like the present. See the form in the blog's right-hand nav that says "Subscribe to our SEO Newsletter"? Yeah, it's that easy. If you're the type that needs convincing, here's a quick teaser: wonder no more what Matt Cutts really said regarding PR sculpting with nofollow.

Tonight at midnight Eastern, Facebook will put vanity URLs up for grabs. Profiles and pages are both eligible for custom addresses, although every page or profile is only allowed one each and there are restrictions on length and character usage. The social media wizards at 10e20 have put together a helpful preparation guide that includes eligibility requirements. According to Mashable's sources, fan pages with less than a thousand followers can claim a custom URL after June 28. [Face it, it's not like you're doing anything else on date night, right? --Susan]

Photo by Srini G via Creative Commons

It's always impressive when a company captures a bit of viral video magic, considering how rare this hallowed rite of online marketing truly is. Carl's Jr.'s latest campaign has amassed more than 3 million video views. Of course it helps that the video for the mushroom burger features such a fungi. (Ah, I crack myself up!) [Rimshot --Susan] If you're looking to get into the online video space, check out ReelSEO's list of tools that let you upload videos to multiple video sharing sites. Both paid and free tools make the list, so whatever your budget, it's worth checking out.

The release of the iPhone 3GS was announced this week. Gadget lovers are understandably excited, but the shiny new toy could have marketers smiling, too. AdAge has listed features of the new smartphone, explaining how marketers can leverage each technology. If you're more of an RIM fan, you can snag a free BlackBerry before the deal ends Sunday. This is one seriously awesome offer. [Having bought my 8900 when it came out four months ago, I now know how iPhone owners feel. And I don't like it. --Susan]

FYI: I have not been bribed to write about the above products. If I had, the FTC would come after me, and I'm not looking to get on any federal agencies' bad side. If you do find yourself in dire straits with the authorities, take a deep breath. I hear it's pretty easy to get a pass from the Commander in Chief. Tellingly, comic book writers have translated the President's inner superhero into pen and ink, and Comicbook.com thinks a few other celebs might have what it takes as well.

Photo by chrs_snll via Creative Commons

Unfortunately, even the POTUS can't save us from an otherworldly threat. In a billion years, when Mars or Venus decide to stop by for a visit and inadvertently smash Earth to smithereens, I have a feeling I might not make it. One teen got a small-scale preview of the action when he was hit by a pea-sized meteorite. It left him with a scar and the absolute coolest story ever.

In the Googleverse, updates and releases are raining down faster than comets. Last week we read Search Engine Watch's super-sized list of Google updates, and this week we get a list of nine more. Links to more info on reconsideration request updates, the new mobile iGoogle, and the updated Webmaster Tools interface -- they're all there.

Before we part ways, I just want to cheer us all on as we enter a new age. An age where "Web 2.0" is the one millionth word to enter the English language. Does anyone else see good times on the horizon?

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• Is your goat bored? Unmotivated? Has the old sparkle left his eyes? Build him a goat tower!
• Next time don't skip lunch. Instead, warm up some beans with your computer. Appetizing. [Yum yum fail. --Susan]
• As soon as some evidence of extraterrestrial life surfaces, the kids go and burn it.
• Sure the bird can dance, but can it head bang with a gusto that would put Judas Priest to shame? Uh... that's a yes!

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 06/12/09 at 4:03 PM | Comments (1)
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June 5, 2009

Friday Recap - Smile, It's Friday Edition

Photo by D Sharon Pruitt via Creative Commons

It's Friday. It's National Donut Day and Paula brought us donuts. And I'm planning to rock my brains out at tonight's 311 concert. In the meantime, I may need to wrap myself up like a duct tape mummy before my guts explode from all the excitement. Maybe sharing some cool stories will alleviate some of this bottled up energy and restore my yin and yang.

It makes sense to start off with everyone's favorite SEO Zen master. Over at the Fire Horse Trail, David Harry points out a fascinating Google Bomb campaign and link contest by Greenpeace. It looks like the environment-oriented nonprofit is using their SEO smarts to get their cause on the radar of high-ranking corporate leaders. By encouraging people to link with strategic anchor text in exchange for links, they're raising eyebrows in the SEO community as well as questions about Google's tacit approval.

Here's something to make you smile. Bruce Clay, Inc.'s Aussie cousins have posted a piece on 13 reasons to love SEO. The competitive, the logical and the facial-hair-loving are going to get a kick out of Marc Elison's heartfelt ode to search engine optimization.

Microsoft's new search, ahem, decision engine, Bing, went live Monday and saw generally positive reviews. One traffic analysis organization reports that Bing was the number two engine this week. Another report found that more than half of the thousand people polled said they could see themselves replacing their main engine, Google, with Bing. Search marketer Sascha Kimmel gives us a rundown of how to use Bing's webmaster tools, while Joe Hall outs the engine for questionable Title tag display in SERPs.

SMX Advanced came and went this week. As expected, it was the source of news, knowledge and some excellent analysis. There were quite a few live bloggers, including those from Search Marketing Sage, Outspoken Media and SEO Gadget, bringing coverage of sessions to those unable to attend. Search Engine Land has rounded up SMX posts from day one and day two.

The major news out of the conference was Matt Cutts's comment that nofollow-based PageRank sculpting was less effective than before. The news was slightly concerning to Internet marketers who have dedicated much time and resources to the tactic. But it was nice to be reminded by search marketer Andrew Girdwood that knowing about the nofollow policy change is better than the alternative. The search engine leader also released Google Squared this week to mixed reviews.

During SMX Advanced, Bruce was a speaker on the SEO Vets Take All Comers session. While I have no way of showing you what he said there (other than pointing you to liveblog coverage), I can share this just-released interview on WebProNews. In the video, Bruce addresses some of the biggest changes to the search marketing space since it first emerged in the 90s.

Along with offering premiere liveblog coverage of SMX Advanced, Outspoken Media recently released their Online Reputation Management Guide. Considering the source, it's bound to be a priceless resource for all your ORM needs. From assessing your online reputation to preventing or responding to negative criticism, it's all within the pages of this free guide.

Rebecca Kelley of SEOmoz fame retweeted a quiz made just for dessert lovers. How many desserts do you think you can name? Paula's currently in the lead with 28. Any takers?

Our friends at WordStream are giving away a sweet treat on their blog. It's a template for "internal link building", i.e., getting your employees to link to you. Not a bad idea for gathering link love through your closest allies. And it comes in a handy, ready-to-use format!

Affiliate Convention, presented by WebmasterRadio.fm and affspot.com, is just around the corner. Denver will host the annual event from June 17-20, and as always, affiliate marketers get in free. Something that might prove more costly? Tweeting your whereabouts. An investigation into one home robbery has highlighted the fact that alerting people about your week-long vacation could have serious consequences.

I know it seems like you can't go two steps these days without hearing about trendy social networks like Twitter or Facebook, but social media is nothing new. There's a fascinating history of social media at Social Media Rockstar that takes us from the phone era to the age of Google Wave. The photo of a young Steve Wozniak is priceless.

Before I sign off, I want to share a touching post by Marty Weintraub of aimClear. After SMX Advanced he wrote about his affection for the search industry and his appreciation for the people in it. It's a lovely story that illustrates the strong bonds so frequently formed in the search community. Thanks for summing it up so beautifully, Marty.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• This crazy head game could make you correct more often. But what if you're always right anyway? /sarcasm
• Want to really scare your kid about what could be lurking under the bed? Yikes!
• Ladies will be equally frightened when faced with what exactly we're putting on our face. The things we do for beauty.
• Everyone can join the effort to map the Internet.
• What happens when you tickle a gorilla? He LOLs of course! Hehehe!

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 06/ 5/09 at 3:55 PM | Comments (0)
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May 29, 2009

Friday Recap - The Gloves Come Off Edition

Photo by SMN via Creative Commons

Even after this abbreviated week, Friday couldn't have come too soon. I mean, is it just me or are the search engines getting ruthless, pulling out all the stops to get to the top? Cutthroat innovation and increasingly frequent rebranding efforts signaled Yahoo and Microsoft's escalating desperation to gain market share and Google's refusal to back down.

Yahoo's announcement came first this week, as we watched CEO Carol Bartz map a new direction for the company. In an interview, Bartz outlined a strategy for enhancing video, social and mobile Web experiences and said that Yahoo is not a search company.

Then Microsoft came out swinging, announcing that its new search engine, Bing, would be launched next week. CEO Steve Ballmer called Bing a "decision engine" specializing in information on commerce-related topics like shopping, travel and local business. One humorous offset of Microsoft's announcement is a developing feud between author/columnist Stanley Bing and Bing the search engine.

By the end of the week, Google had elbowed its way into the fight, capturing any wandering attention with a preview of Google Wave. Announced during Google's I/O Developer Conference this week, Wave promises to revolutionize Internet communication by combining email, chat and instant messaging in one instant utility. Developers are being encouraged to create extensions for the platform so that applications are available when Wave is released later this year.

It was around that time when an unexpected player entered the ring. Topsy, a tweet-powered search engine, is poised to become a real-time search leader for online news. Results are ranked based on the number of times a tweet containing the story has been retweeted as well as the number of people following the person who tweeted it.

Okay, enough of the search engine soap opera already. Get to the fun stuff! Like cookie cake pie! You may ask, "Can such high levels of deliciousness coexist in one form?" Just witness the arrival of the baked goods triple threat. If anyone's thinking of making one, please know that I wouldn't waste a crumb and I'm not above licking the plate clean. While I'm on a food kick, check out this beautiful and practical table of condiments that periodically go bad. Who knew garlic sauce was so finicky?

Also in danger of spoiling is Twitter after announcing that a Twitter television show is in the works. The concept is still in the development stage, but users from celebrities to technophiles alike are protesting the project. As Michael Arrington points out, there are hundreds of other ways Twitter could be using its time and resources more wisely -- like providing a stable platform, for starters.

At the Cartoon Barry Blog, proud new papa Barry Schwartz alerted us to a silly spoof of what life would be like if all the world was a client-vendor relationship. Life is negotiable, right?

SMX Advanced kicks off in Seattle next week. Bruce is speaking on the SEO track during Mega Session: SEO Vets Take All Comers. While there won't be a Bruce Clay blogger recording the action, Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media has posted her SMX Advanced liveblogging schedule. I also expect to see session coverage on the aimClear Search Marketing Blog. If you know of anywhere else offering SMX Advanced coverage, be sure to share in the comments.

Before I leave you with your weekly dose of Boing Boing-inspired brain bites, I've got to shout out to my counterparts Down Under who are starting a new tradition on the Bruce Clay Australasia blog. Every other week, the SEO roundup will compile some of the most interesting stories, stats and developments related to Internet marketing. Keep those ace finds coming, mates!

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• I played piano as a kid. Maybe if I had a room-sized keyboard I would have stuck with the thing, purely for the cool factor of doing this.
• No longer content with merely creating food from thin air, honey bees are exploring their artistic sides.
• Lightning may never strike twice, but it can cause vivid and disturbing visual hallucinations.
• These gummi bears have been saved from a life-threatening heart condition. And I'll probably still eat them.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 05/29/09 at 4:41 PM | Comments (2)
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May 22, 2009

Friday Recap - We've Got Talent Edition

Phew! What a week of cut throat competition. Life in the song and dance world can get heated! American Idol and Dancing with the Stars fans fell prey to some shocking upsets as underdog Kris Allen was crowned idol and Shawn Johnson took the mirror ball trophy home to meet her Olympic medals. [Spoilers! --Susan]

But there's always room for new blood in the entertainment industry, and the BCI writers have located the next rising star. Katie Luke, you have a fan club!

Katie is the daughter of our favorite senior account analyst, Gary Luke. Last week Katie starred in the Moorpark High presentation of Thoroughly Modern Millie and got rave reviews (from me). Believe me, it's just a matter of time before this starlet's on Broadway.

While I'm on the subject of absurdly talented musicians, looks like Google has more than one on staff. I was tipped off to a video of the gnarliest beat box performance ever during what looks like a talent show at the search engine's UK office. Fluteboxing is my new favorite performance medium.

Getting to share best skills and talents with your co-workers is the kind of positive energy generator that keeps staffs happy. But even Google's stellar work environment hasn't stopped the company from developing an algorithm to predict what employees are at risk of quitting. Forget the behaviorally targeted ads and monopolistic tendencies -- this is real freaky.

At Ask this week, the engine's home page boasts a skin ad for an upcoming movie. On Search Engine Land, Barry Schwartz asks readers if it's "desperate or cool". But hey, I want to see Night At The Museum, users don't see the Ask home page for long, and I'm a fan of getting creative, so I gotta say I'm digging it. [I, however, am not. Stay classy, Ask. --Susan]

News surrounding Yahoo this week was mostly about its search event held Tuesday. The message from Yahoo was that the focus is shifting from a "web of pages" to a "web of objects" -- whatever that means. At the Outspoken Media blog, Lisa Barone helped me wrap my noggin around the point of it all: Yahoo's going to make user intent, engagement objects and openness its mighty search trinity. As Lisa shows us, those are values we can all share.

So, like the post title says, I'm all about the awesome talent today. That's probably because wicked skills were spilling out of the Internet all week. There was the adorable tale of a banker who spent all day saving ducklings from almost-certain injury as they tumbled perilously toward concrete 12 feet below. Way to go, duckling-catcher-hero-man!

Then there are the college students playing hamster, generating electricity by working out on campus ellipticals. I'm always looking for new ways to reduce my carbon footprint, but physically pumping electricity back into the grid? That's gotta feel good.

And you can't forget the honorable service provided to us through product testers. At Gizmodo the question we've all been asking is finally answered. Which is best: the Slanket, the Snuggie, the Freedom Blanket or the Blankoat? Ahhh, finally. Wonder no more!

If like me, you've got a keen eye for detail, in the pictures linked to above you'll notice some Star Trek memorabilia dressing up our Gizmodo author's side table. One interior designer takes it a step further -- or maybe a marathon further -- by decorating his entire flat as the transporter deck of the star ship Enterprise, TNG style. The story says he Trekified his flat after his wife left him. What affection he lost from her has surely been replaced by this labor of love. [She must have been a Star Wars fan. --Susan]

And finally, everyone at Bruce Clay, Inc. wants to send an excited congratulations to tech and SEO blogger Tamar Weinberg and family. This week Tamar gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. Just precious!

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• Talking with your hands actually helps you think! [Finally, I am vindicated! --Susan]
• Distaste for the word "moist" is almost universal. And just FYI, my least favorite word has always been "spore".
• Next time you try to mount a Twitter marketing campaign, watch out for any rogue documentarians looking to hijack it from you.
• There's a shark eating a kid's head! Someone get this woman on Etsy, STAT!
• If you needed another reason to be scared of soda, researchers say it will make your muscles mush.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 05/22/09 at 5:06 PM | Comments (0)
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May 15, 2009

Friday Recap - A Buggy Edition

Friday's made its way back around and not a day too soon! After a big search week, everyone deserves a break -- in the form of a refreshing Friday Recap. Let's do it.

Grasshopper buzz was in full force as people across the country received the chocolate-covered buggers as part of a marketing campaign. The virtual office service provider, Grasshopper.com, expected to get some word of mouth flowing through their creative blogger outreach. I'm always one to oblige -- especially if you're clever and give me things.

So here's the one green sucker out of the five chocolate grasshoppers we received:

And here's Katie after eating one. We decided it tastes like Kit Kat with a woodsy aftertaste, hence the puzzled look:

Katie, James and I were the only ones with the guts to eat one so props to us! There are more pics on the Bruce Clay, Inc. flickr stream for your gagging pleasure. [I helped by taking the pictures. --Susan]

Google got a little buggy yesterday when a traffic jam caused two hours of down time for the search engine. A glitch caused U.S. search traffic to be routed through Asia, resulting in slow services and interruptions. Of course, pictures speak louder than words, so what's a Google traffic jam look like?

Twitter users' security may have been compromised with a seemingly innocent game. Earlier this week I noticed an eyebrow-raising trending topic on the micromessaging site. Turns out it may have been a ploy to make you reveal personal info. Keep mama's maiden name close to the belt, folks.

Now, Mother's Day was a couple weeks ago, but considering the power that moms wield, it's not a bad idea to keep her happy all year long. A recent survey showed that moms control 85 percent of household spending and more than ever are working at home thanks to the Internet. Almost 20 percent of the online population is a mother between 25 and 54 with a child under 18. More stats on how the mom pie breaks down can be found on MediaPost.

What we imagine Lisa's life is like. --Susan

Next time someone walks in to discover the writers cruising Cute Overload or I Can Has Cheezburger, we can point to a study that suggests looking at highly adorable pictures improves performance. Suspicions verified! The study was done using a group of women who were asked to play Operation after looking at kittens and puppies. How do you get that gig?

Other big news coming out of Google this week was about a change to the AdWords ad text trademark policy. Previously, Google prohibited the use of trademarks within ad copy. Now, retailers that sell brands and impartial review sites that evaluate brands can use brand-related trademarks within their U.S. ads.

Debra Mastaler, link builder extraordinaire, compiled a list of handy discounts for search marketers. The list includes discounts for directory submissions, conference registration, news services, link building services, SEO and research tools, and training.

And May's SEO Newsletter just hit mailboxes. Check it out for a roundup of headlines during the last month. There's also an article about XML Sitemaps for news, mobile, code, video and geographic content and one on how to write a strong call to action.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• A long time lover of food, my food might finally love me back!
• A nine year old rocked Crazy Train harder than the Prince of Darkness himself. Mad skillz.
• Jumping on the data visualization bandwagon, freedom looks a lot like the stars. Look at me getting all poetic.
• If your boss ever gets mad at you for daydreaming on the job, show him how you were just warming up your brain.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 05/15/09 at 3:38 PM | Comments (1)
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May 8, 2009

Friday Recap - Get Creative Edition

It's Friday! I assume everyone has made their plans to go out and get social this weekend. Or maybe your plan is to stay in and get social. Either way! You don't even need another person in the room with you to have a great convo with a friend. That's the magic of the Internetz! But with great power comes great responsibility. I learned that from Spiderman so I'm pretty sure it's true.

Photo by nickolette22 via Creative Commons

For instance, being responsible with social media means setting rules that guide a company's online escapades. Jennifer Slegg gives us a list of recommendations to help businesses avoid social media sabotage by a rogue employee. Have a contract with your employee that states the company's ownership of social media accounts. Include company info when registering the account and include the company name in account names if possible. Consider if pseudonyms could work for the situation. And whatever you do, establish guidelines for employees interacting with social media on behalf of the company.

WebProNews reported that a study shows that marketers have a terrible blind spot when it comes to social media metrics. Social media success is usually gauged on the amount of direct traffic brought in. However, according to the study by analytics firm Tealium, "view-through" traffic makes up to 80 percent of social media-driven traffic. Whereas direct traffic is a click performed from a social media channel that gets the user to your page, view-through traffic represents users that get to your page after social media-driven awareness leads to indirect traffic from search or third-party frames, etc. Ignoring view-through traffic means ignoring a large part of traffic associated with social media.

While we're on the subject of social, the other big news this week is that Twitter is stepping up its search game. There was a lot of excellent coverage of the story and many thoughts about the direction this development will lead, so I'll just link up to a handy roundup from Who's Blogging What about how Twitter is building an index through links posted by users.

On the TopRank blog, Lee Odden sorts out when PPC or SEO can most help a PR campaign. While search engine optimization usually gets all the attention, pay per click advertising is a quick way to draw users away from negative search listings. The best long-term results may happen when PR, SEO and PPC tactics are used together.

Image by Jeff Carter/I'm Fantastic via Creative Commons

Researchers at UCSB infiltrated a major botnet to bring awareness to the problem of computer vulnerability. By hijacking the botnet Torpig and its 180,000 machines, researchers witnessed the inner workings of a system which records bank info, credit card details and login credentials and implements spam runs. Researchers hope their report will reduce cultural apathy about computer security.

I have faith that people will learn to be smart about their computers. But knowing the secret to creativity is a much loftier achievement. I'm a Disney devotee over here, so I was pretty moved by this article on the secrets behind Walt Disney's creativity. Walt's lessons are ones we can all learn from. Success on the scale of Disney comes from unrestrained dreaming, pragmatic realism and sharp-eyed criticism. Figure out how you can do the same in your situation. If this strategy leads you to branding produce with tweeny boppers, you're doing it right. My Hannah Montana banana says so. [Can you turn an Efravocado into Zuacamole? (Too far?) --Susan] More like too clever! Where's the snare drum when you need it?

A rival to Disney's influential childhood programming, Sesame Street scored a guest appearance by First Lady Michelle Obama this week. She said it was the "best thing" she's done since her husband first took office earlier this year. No offense, Your Majesty. Oh, while I've got your ear, Your Highness, would you tell Harry it's time he washed his hair?

Photo by DavidHBolton via Creative Commons

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• In honor of the release of Star Trek today, I brushed up on my Klingon.
• California is rather hostile to smokers, but there appears to be an alternate universe where smoking cigarettes is patriotic. It's called China.
• Through the largest genetic study of its kind, scientists think they've targeted the origin location of humans.
• A proposed bill would make it a federal felony to use the Internet to upset people. This could be a problem...

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 05/ 8/09 at 5:24 PM | Comments (0)
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May 1, 2009

Friday Recap - Social Swine Edition

Hi friends! I just spent the last 20 minutes scraping gum off my shoe and my gas pedal. But it's Friday, so it's all good! I got some fun finds for ya now, starting with the straight business and working my way into the wacky.

Today is the last day to get early bird pricing when you register for SMX Advanced. That amounts to $200 off the cost of on-site registration for the two day expert level search marketing conference going down in Seattle this June. Use the discount code smx15bruceclay for additional savings! It's one heck of a conference, and you know you want to go, so why not save the extra dough?

Lisa Barone's article at Small Business Trends this week was an excellent study in how one company has built a small business community with great success. Even better, she shows us how we can do the same for our own customers.

The communities we join are part of what makes our online lives so fun and rewarding. Companies have a special opportunity to join and build such communities. But compliments and critiques both come with the territory. On Left the Box, Samir Balwani shows us how to frame the conversation so you send a message that fits your brand goals.

Blackberrys - Photo from The Official White House Photostream

Of course, it doesn't hurt to have some influencers on your team. An article by Greg Finn on Search Engine Land has some helpful hints about where you can find social media power users. It's a pretty inclusive inventory of sites that list top submitters, user stats, directories and the like, so if social media is your deal, hop to it.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live without electronics? Would you be able to make it a day? Or -- heaven forbid -- a week? [Nope--Susan] LA Times columnist Steve Lopez claims that a classroom of high school students will attempt this mind-boggling feat. I have a brother in high school, and let me tell you, that kid is hooked. I, on the other hand, could give up technology anytime. I just don't want to. Yeah, that's it.

The U.S. government has been steadily joining the tech rank and file. Welcome the White House and the Pentagon to the SM world. We're all friends here.

So, uh, I don't want to cause mass hysteria or anything, but there's this thing called the swine flu and it's getting a heap of attention right now. If you're on Twitter you already knew that.

XKCD by Randall Munroe

Should we be worried? Well, maybe about the sneaky opportunists that stand to rake in a fortune from our noisy frenzy.

Kim Krause Berg of Cre8pc warns us to beware marketing that takes advantage of our insecurities. Although she never mentions our porkified panic specifically, I think the lesson can be applied to so much in our media-dominated lives.

Moving right along from hoofs and snouts to claws and beaks, I sometimes get asked why I'm so fond of tortoises. But take a look at this!

Tell me that's not what you get when an angel and a dinosaur have a baby. C'mon!

Since I'm getting all cute and gooey, I might as well tell you a little story about Snowball the dancing cockatoo.

Snowball is actually helping researchers figure out the mystery behind dance. After observing the twinkle toes of the animal kingdom, scientists hypothesize that the ability to dance is linked to the ability to imitate sounds. Zounds!

Before I sign off, I have to sing the praises of Search Engine Optimization All-In-One For Dummies by Bruce and Susan. The duo talked about the book on SEO Rockstars this week. Smart, handsome and ready to rescue overwhelmed marketers looking for a comprehensive desk reference, the book is now for sale at Amazon.com and major book stores.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• Ladies and gentlegeeks! Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day. Stores across the country will take part. [I'll see you guys there! --Susan]
• Forgo the special effects next time a centaur is required. Just strap on some spring loaded hooves of your own.
• The island of Tuvalu, home of the .tv domain, is sinking. GoDaddy.com recommends you don't buy .tv domains, no matter how clever.
• Swine flu hollabaloo is not a thing of the 21st century! The public was being worked into a porcine pandemonium decades ago! Good to see crazy wasn't introduced by my generation.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 05/ 1/09 at 4:33 PM | Comments (1)
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April 30, 2009

SEO All-In-One For Dummies Debuts!

It's here! It's here!

When Search Engine Optimization All-In-One For Dummies by Bruce Clay and Susan Esparza arrived at the office today, we spared no time and put it straight to work. We took a cue from Ian Laurie of Portent Interactive, and let me tell you, this kid is a natural. Look at everything it did today!

This morning, despite the sleep still heavy around its eyes, SEO All-In-One For Dummies came through and brewed us up one smooth pot of coffee.

We've always got lots going on around here, so once the caffeine kicked in SEO All-In-One For Dummies tried its hand at some incoming sales calls.

When the phones had died down a bit, our tech support team asked if SEO All-In-One For Dummies wouldn't mind helping out with technical calls about the SEOToolSet. Turns out it knows the tools inside and out!

Then it was time for lunch, but never one to stop working, SEO All-In-One For Dummies pitched in and fed the fish instead. Mmm mmm!

Bruce is out of town presenting SEO training on the East Coast this week, so SEO All-In-One For Dummies slapped on a mustache and filled in for the big guy.

After he had his fill of being the boss, SEO All-In-One For Dummies stepped in for Robert during his lunch break. It did all it could to intimidate people into submission, but apparently Tim didn't think it was all that scary.

The joke was on Tim though! In the office, SEO All-In-One For Dummies is just a powerful reference guide for Internet marketers. But outside it spends its time fighting villains and saving the day!

After beating the bad guys into submission, the victorious SEO All-In-One For Dummies flew off into the sunset...

And got back just in time for its big red carpet debut! Isn't it pretty?

Search Engine Optimization All-In-One For Dummies is available now through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders. Along with 746 packed pages, you also get a $25 coupon for Google AdWords. So get your hands on all the information in Search Engine Optimization All-In-One For Dummies. As hard as we made it work today, we know it will work just as hard for you.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 04/30/09 at 5:05 PM | Comments (13)
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April 24, 2009

Friday Recap - Twitter Overload Edition

It's that time again. Happy Friday! So every day I jot down links to the interesting stories I run across so that come Friday I can glue them all together and serve them up to you. As I sat down to write this week's edition of the Friday Recap, there was an unfortunate common theme: there's too much about Twitter!

Maybe Oprah's debut on Twitter caused a media frenzy, but there's been an abundance of coverage about the micromessaging service — and by Twitter standards, that's A LOT. TechCrunch reported that, thanks to celebrities, Twitter users and page views jumped this month, including one million people who signed up after Oprah's tweet heard 'round the world. [Not to mention thousands of #herebeforeOprah tweets. Which I was, so there. --Susan]

Not only did I not send this DM, I don't even know what it means! P.S. Sorry Jim!

Not to freak everyone out, but I stumbled on a creepy Twitter bug yesterday. When I went to check my direct messages, there were private messages in both my inbox and sent box that didn't belong to me! Just a heads up — those private messages may not be so private.

Despite the bugs, Twitter is now so big it's actually spawning job opportunities. Pizza Hut is looking for a summer twintern to be the company's — get this feat of semantic maneuvering — "social media journalist". Points for this pizza company being proactive in its social media presence (unlike one notorious, game-namesaked pie joint). [I vote we declare "twintern" the most annoying "tword" yet. --Susan]

Turns out Twitter has an even greater potential for communication than previously thought. Doctors are working on a way to send messages on Twitter through electrodes monitoring brain activity. This technology could be used by people who are unable to speak. Twitter's format is simpler and more manageable than other similar technologies that are currently used.

Twitter is, of course, a power tool of epic proportions. But it's one that almost everyone knows about by now. At the Outspoken Media blog this week, Rhea Drysdale's inaugural post demonstrated SEO tools that aren't as high profile but are just as powerful. Plus, if you missed out on a beta invite to BuzzStream here on the Bruce Clay blog, there are more on hand at Outspoken Media. Get ready to get your tools on.

Photo by brenbot via Creative Commons

Did you know April is National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Month? Apropos of nothing, I present you ten drool-worthy gooey, cheesy, toasty delights! If you ever want to sideline the Bruce Clay blog, stuff some brie and sourdough in my yammer.

San Francisco was host to ad:tech this week, and Bruce was there to give presentations during a couple SMX@ad:tech panels. His PowerPoint on SEO best practices is now available. This streamlined, to-the-point run down of search engine optimization focus areas could come in real handy.

The video of YouTube singing sensation Susan Boyle has garnered more than 100 million views in less than two weeks. The New York Times estimated that failing to show ads on the video accounted for a loss of $1.8 million dollars. I suppose Simon Cowell has that much in pocket lint, so maybe it's not such a big loss after all.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• The epic battle of narwhal vs. unicorn: origins revealed. Dun dun dahhh!
• It appears that a team of researchers have conjured up glowing puppy clones. The nifty red glow is emitted under ultraviolet light. [Speaking of puppies, oh my god, you guys, guess what? Like the Obama kidbits, I'm going to get a puppy! Happiest editor ever! --Susan]
• Baby preaching sounds eerily similar to "wassuuup!" True facts.
• There's a new, cutting edge weapon in the war against terrorism: llama blood.
• The solution to keeping kids awake during history class? Auto-tuning! Everything does indeed sound better.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 04/24/09 at 5:11 PM | Comments (0)
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April 17, 2009

Friday Recap - Newsletter Pride Edition

It's Friday and there's a new weekly roundup to add to your reading list. Welcome the WordStream Keyword Management Blog to the week-end recap fold. WordStream is taking a different approach than some of the other recaps out there now, with a Twitter Follow Friday section and some high-level subjects that introduce a number of related posts and articles. This week they're talking about the new Google AdWords interface and using SEO to bring in the bucks. Ka-ching!

I'm also a big fan of the weekly SEO Geeks Newsletter from David Harry at HuoMah SEO. David's got a keen eye for important techy know-how. One article I'll point to is Edward Lewis's (aka Page One Results) HTML 4 SEO -- a run down of all the HTML elements and attributes that should be a minimum knowledge requirement for SEO. The newsletter also has sections dedicated to videos, tools, search patents and information retrieval, so what are you waiting for? Sign up already.

Oprah signed up for Twitter this week. I know we're all sick of hearing about Oprah and about Ashton becoming the first user with a million followers, but these events signify a milestone for micromessaging. Please don't spit on me. It's, like, a big deal and stuff.

Lisa, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, but I just had to include the big news. I totally understand your point, though. Lisa's Outspoken Media post It's Not the Recession, You Just Suck makes the frank argument that people have gotten caught up on unimportant rubbish (Ashton/Oprah) and have gotten too comfortable blaming failures on easy targets like the recession. But best of all, she includes pointers on what you should be doing to get ahead.

A Time magazine feature makes a positive example of some entrepreneurs who are taking advantage of the moment and launching startups on the fly. No longer relying on theoretical business plans and big time investors, the new breed of startup has to prove it works first, sometimes with less than $10,000. Hat tip to Web Marketing Today, another favorite newsletter of mine, for pointing out this story.

(By the way, while I'm sharing newsletters, Bruce Clay, Inc.'s March SEO Newsletter went up this week. Check it out!)

Also in Web Marketing Today is a feature article worthy of consideration for any company wondering whether to start up a blog or a newsletter. In Which Is Better -- an E-Zine or a Blog? Dr. Ralph Wilson demonstrates the values and purposes of each medium and reminds us that things get awfully fuzzy on the Web.

Something I don't want to be fuzzy is a sub from Domino's, but who knows what's growing on your sandwich when boogers are used as cheese spread. Two rogue Domino's employees filmed their defilement of food and when the video ended up on YouTube this week, Domino's experienced a reputation nightmare of epic proportions. I'm sorry, you say you wanted to eat today? That's why I didn't link to the video, silly! But seriously, you don't want to go there.

Okay, okay. You deserve a happy chaser.

A father and daughter were reunited after each thought the other was dead for 27 years. Dirk Pratt took a cue from the movie Wanted and Googled his name. That's how he found a message from his daughter asking if anyone knew his whereabouts. We're hearing a lot more heartwarming stories about technology's saving grace these days. Makes your thumper tingle, don't it?

Know what else I like? Artichokes. Steamed and green and loaded with yummy goodness. BCI's own Christopher Hart has put together a step-by-step tutorial on how to SEO your artichoke. That's right -- an optimized cooking method for the curious green veggie.

And finally, Monday is the last day to submit a pitch for SMX Advanced. Do you have amazing PPC tactics, out-of-the-box link building tips or a Twitter marketing techniques that are wow-worthy? Let 'em know. This year's SMX Advanced is also featuring a full day dedicated to intimate knowledge sharing among in-house search engine marketers called In-house SEM Exchange.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• No one seems to know if reports of a man with a fir tree growing in his lung are real or not. If you can verify it either way, please leave a comment. This mystery is too good to let go!
• Life is too short not to use every possible excuse for bacon. The latest reimagining is a flaming bacon lance of death. How did no one make this sooner?
• One Battlestar Galactica fighter ship for sale. Slightly used. Get it on eBay. Of course.
• It doesn't count as copying if you take it from yourself, right? Whatever. It's Disney. They could make a mouse captain a steam boat and I'd still smile.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 04/17/09 at 5:12 PM | Comments (2)
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April 10, 2009

Friday Recap - Putting the Good Back in Friday Edition

Happy Passover and Good Friday, dear readers. Not your cup of tea? In that case, happy Friday! If that's not a good reason to celebrate, I've stumbled into some alternate reality.

Actually, that might explain why Paris Hilton is the most searched for celebrity on Twitter. Girl doesn't even have an account! (Not to give her any ideas...)

Twitter was a little fussy this week. Users' avatars went MIA and several sightings of the too smug Fail Whale caused some to wonder if our failable (or is it fallible) foe had mistaken the photos for fish food.

Sample of "War" from ncomment via Creative Commons

An epic three-part Web comic began this week. The first installment of War set a very high bar for this series about the quest for social network dominance. What will happen next? Find out in two weeks!

I've always been a fan of Meat Loaf. Not the tasty meat mashup, silly! I'm talkin' 'bout Meat Loaf, the triple threat. It's not everyday you hear about a singer/actor/SEO giving out Internet marketing advice. Meat Loaf doled out sage words on online branding at a recent press conference. Of course, a guy that can launch an entertainment career despite being named after a cafeteria favorite probably knows a thing or two about branding.

More branding advice this week came from Web Marketing Today in part one of Defining Your Business Purpose. With the branding cornerstones trust and authority playing their biggest role yet for SEO, it's a good idea to keep in mind a few helpful guidelines.

And once you've defined your mission, your strategy and your focus, be sure to keep on top of conversations that matter to you. Fantomaster has given us an online media dashboard to add to the rep management arsenal: Addict-o-matic. Also on the tools front, Kenny Hyder rounded up the Internet marketing tools that got the best buzz at IM Spring Break last week.

Some cool statistics, theories and case studies came out this week regarding online video. MarketingSherpa published the reported cost of viral videos as disclosed by more than 1,000 marketers. Of those surveyed, 11 percent say they made videos for nothing while most respondents (30 percent) shelled out $1,000 to $10,000.

ReelSEO has pulled together Celebrity Apprentice contestants' viral video attempts. If you can get through the insulting videos and dumb assumptions, you'll find some nuggets for the picking. Over at the Local SEO Guide, there's a captivating hypothesis about what YouTube is doing with nofollow. It has the intrigue of a thriller coupled with the energy of an action. Oh, and crack. Lots and lots of crack.

I must give you my rave review of the Bacon Explosion Band. This laid-back blues tune features Loren Baker, Jeff Quipp and Tony Adam doing the vocals, with David Szetela on guitar. Never ones to disappoint, these fine lyrics were crafted with online marketing best practices in mind.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• I bet the youth of today could get into classic literature 140 characters at a time.
• Beyond words: a functional imaginary appendage.
• As one woman gains an arm, a man loses his. Because a zombie ate it.
• For a news organization, you'd think the Associated Press would have an easier time LOCATING A CLUE. And it just gets better.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 04/10/09 at 5:07 PM | Comments (0)
See more entries in Fun Stuff, Online Video / Video SEO, SEO Tools

April 3, 2009

Friday Recap - We Be Foolin' Edition

This week we welcomed April, and with it came the pranks and nonsense we begrudgingly accept in exchange for springtime sunburns and pollen allergies. Just kidding! I tan like toast and my nose is oblivious, so I'm happy to let the sun shine in. And actually, I like watching pranks. Yes, watching them. I can't pull 'em off myself (I'd rather you amuse me. Don't judge; it's science.) and I don't want to be the butt of some joke. But as long as you remember not to believe anything yourself, there's some guaranteed good fool watching to be had.

CNN compiled up a number of jokes played by the media, from The Guardian's announcement that it was going to go all-in on Twitter to the Taipei Times alerting readers that two zoo pandas were merely a black-and-white-dyed ruse. The media analyst in that piece says that a news outlet's credibility isn't hurt if the story is clearly a joke. Still, it never fails that some unsuspecting reader forgets to look at the calendar that morning and prepare themselves for the onslaught of untruths. Ann Coulter won the prize for most visible personality to take the bait.

One of the more convincing hoaxes came from Smashing Magazine's in-depth preview of Internet Explorer 8.1. The fastest JavaScript engine and a server-side code decompiler topped off with Firefox extension support? There are about a million techie types that wet their pants when they read that.

Google's joke du jure was an artificial intelligence system called CADIE, or Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity. The system was said to be the result of gains made in the fields of "neural networking, natural language and autonomous problem-solving". Does anyone else find it funny that Google decided to represent their world-changing technology with a fuzzy little panda?

I have to give the office favorite to Microsoft for putting Paula into mad fits of laughter. Literally brought to tears by the thought of a yodeling video game, she became a weeping hyena when faced with the mental image of a goat add-on pack. It was all sorts of adorable. [It also flew over my head, but that happens a lot. --Katie]

At the Get Page One blog, the astute observation was made that April Fool's Day has become a social media marketing juggernaut. And if you think about it, where did you find the silly spectacles of your day? For me it was all tweets and instant messages. Viral marketing has found its favorite holiday.

I've reached the end of my practical jokes, so the rest of what I say in this post is 100 percent serious.

Photo by uriba via Creative Commons

Serious thing #1: The amazing, the incredible, the irresistible bacon is good for more than just eating, drinking and bathing. Bacon saves lives.

Serious thing #2: Academia has finally caught on to the societal necessity of Facebook and Twitter and one university may begin offering a Master's degree in social media. Remember kids, when mom comes in and sees you putzing around on your social network, just tell her you're preparing for your future.

Serious thing #3: It's long been believed that sex sells -- if not supported by fact, then by our human intuition. That and the drooling males driven to Carl's Jr. after watching Paris Hilton wash a car. Anyway, now there's proof! You better believe I plan to use "sex" in the title of every other post. (Kidding, Bruce! Unless, of course, it works.)

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

(Consider these also under the very serious category.)

• There's something mysteriously hypnotic about yo-yos and electronic music.
• Wondering what the next big dance craze is? Wonder no more.
• You could have a nail in your head and not even know it until faced with a gigantic magnet.
• It seems statistically improbable that vampires exist. Sure I'm relieved, but I'm more disappointed.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 04/ 3/09 at 3:52 PM | Comments (0)
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March 27, 2009

Friday Recap - Feel Good Edition

Virginia was gone this week at SES New York. She worked her fingers to the bone liveblogging and you can find all the fruits of her labor all summed up here in our SES NY Liveblog Coverage post.

Want more sessions than that? All right, if you're going to be greedy then you should head over to Outspoken Media where Lisa snarked her way through 16 sessions: Liveblogging SES New York. From the looks of it, she never stopped for food.

So who won this battle of the bloggers? Numbers wise the title goes to Lisa, who covered one more session than Virginia, but I'm giving the home court advantage to Virginia who missed that one session because she was doing a live show for SEM Synergy. Biased? You'd better believe it.

If that makes you feel inadequate, you could always sign up for the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge. It kicks off on April first (no fooling!) and promises to make you a better blogger. Hmm, it sounds like four days of being excited and 27 days of muttering in annoyance while I delete the email every morning to me. Maybe you'll have better luck. You can sign-up for the blogger challenge here.

Are you ready for your warm fuzzies?

• Superheroes rock. Spider-Man saved an autistic child this week and rightly received international acclaim as a result. (Geek note: It's Spider-Man with a hyphen, Batman without a hyphen and Iron Man is two separate words. You're welcome.)
• Also saved? The manatees! Oh so floppy and cute! Some say that manatees inspired the tales of mermaids. [Granted these tales were from sailors who hadn't seen a woman in ages, so there you go -Katie]
• Google brought you back in touch with your inner child with their Very Hungry Caterpillar logo. As if that wasn't great enough, have you heard the inspiring story of author Eric Carle?
• Your inner child is going to freak: The trailer for Where the Wild Things Are is freaking sweet! Watch it now and remember how awesome being a kid was.

Just when you think it can't get any better, next week is IM Spring Break in Florida. Christopher Hart and I will be going. So will Pamela Lund and CK Chung who are roadtripping there for charity.

Twitter wants to get in on the warm fuzzies and help you rank better. Sorry, did I say you? I meant that Twitter wants to rank for your name.

Here's my SERP on the right; it looks pretty good, don't you think? -->

When you click through, you can see Search Engine Guide right at the top, then some LinkedIn pages and then...well, well. Check out Twitter at number 4. Where's the respected and trusted BruceClay.com page? Oh, down there at number 8, right above my page on Amazon! (Quick aside: Whee! I have a page on Amazon!) By the way, that's not my Facebook at number 6. I don't know that lady but she needs to step off my SERP.

Photo by Wired through dpstyles on Flickr. Found via Creative Commons

I've found my next car. The new Tesla S sedan is a sexy, sleek, electric-running machine. Do want! At $49,000 base price, I should able to afford one in about 2020. Given that they're only making 60,000 of them each year, that's probably about then they'll be available for the likes of me anyway. By then, maybe they'll only cost the same as my trusty Corolla. Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

Before we wrap up with our lessons from Boing Boing, I'm throwing in one last tidbit for Virginia who is keeping the newspapers alive with the power of her love: Five ways to save newspapers. I don't see "hire an awesome in-house SEO guy like Brent D. Payne or Marshall Simmonds" on there, so that's a free tip number 6. We're rooting for you, you quaint relics of a bygone age! You can do it!

Things that I'd have learned from Boing Boing this week if I hadn't been sick for most of it:

• The New York Times saw the financial crisis coming. So it's their fault.
• Wil Wheaton is cooler than my parents who thought that D&D would stunt my social development. (Not a word, any of you.)
• Science is about making things go boom.
• And about creating people who never existed.
• Making teenagers feel even worse about themselves is an effective deterrent but not much of a challenge.

That's it for this week, folks. Have a great weekend!

Posted by Susan Esparza on 03/27/09 at 10:40 AM | Comments (4)
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March 20, 2009

Friday Recap - Happy Spring Edition

It's the Friday before SES New York and spring is in the air! Who's excited? You don't have to answer. That was rhetorical. I know you're all excited.

The first thing to get worked up about is the IM Charity Party that's going down Monday. Even if you're not going to be in New York you can still make a charitable donation. IM Charity Parties have earned more than $100K so far for the sponsored charities. The search marketing community should definitely give itself a pat on the back (before reaching for its wallet).

As you may have noticed (take a peek at the last three entries on this blog) I've chatted with a few of next week's speakers. You can find more pre-conference interviews at the Search Engine Strategies blog, and look out for the barrage of liveblog coverage coming at you beginning Tuesday.

Susan's also lent me her handy Flip video cam so that I can record any impromptu performances of Where is Christopher? so practice your singing voice! I'm looking to add to the collection of remixes and interpretations that was started by BCI SEM analyst James Kim:

Snazzy editing, James! Also snazzy? Gmail has a new unsend feature! Hit undo within five seconds of pressing send and you're safe from whatever email faux pas you made. (Who else is going to take a hint and offer undo functions?) Despite Yammer founder David Sacks calling social networks the "new email" at South by SouthWest this week, I still appreciate the measure of security that comes with email unsend.

Looking for a convenient way to get your green living news? Check out Ideal Bite. [My mom recommended this one for the recap. Hi, Mom! --Susan] Also going green is the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the first major American newspaper to abandon its paper edition and go exclusively to the Web.

iPhone OS 3.0 walkthrough by Engadget

The new iPhone OS 3.0 was previewed this week in Cupertino. Catch a walk through of the new software at Engadget. I, for one, am looking forward to copy and paste and picture messaging! [Congrats on catching up with BlackBerry there, Apple. --Susan] It also looks like iPhone apps are toying with the idea of ads.

Speaking of toys, ToysRUs made a boo boo after spending more than $5 million to purchase the domain Toys.com. [Talk about money down the drain. How many Bionicles can you get for $5.1 million? --Susan] Meanwhile, Safari's mistakes were one hacker's gain as a security researcher won $5,000 for cracking a Mac in 10 seconds at the PWN2OWN contest.

Another browser that's swiftly working toward improvement is Google's Chrome. This week Chrome introduced a faster new beta version. The browser can also support addons through Greasemetal. [Nerds everywhere rejoiced and Firefox shivered like someone walked over its grave. --Susan] IE8 was released this week as well. [What's an IE? --Susan]

Twitter may be testing text advertising, and John Battelle says that despite analysts' moaning, monetizing Twitter is entirely possible. Lyndon Antcliff recommends adopting karmic principles with Twitter. However, jurors tweeting legal judgments and job applicants insulting potential employers is not advised.

There's a new Twitter directory on the scene called WeFollow. It's also possible to send a direct message to users not following you. News flash: there actually are a few things more popular than Twitter.

"There be Monsters" by Erik Charlton via Creative Commons

Some fancy projections show the real Google killer could be Facebook. But I'm pretty sure the only thing that could pose a threat to the search giant is a 50 foot sea monster. That beast would make anyone nervous.

At the SEOmozBlog, Tom Critchlow of Distilled showed how Google page-level penalties are on the rise. The SEO Theory blog attempted to foil a number of SEO myths. Marketing Pilgrim laid out the technology behind natural language processing. And Google's AJAX SERPs popped up again only to get the smackdown.

Also feeling the pain are sites being blacklisted by an overzealous Australian Communications and Media Authority. Celebrating victory, however, is Coca Cola following a social media win. Just remember, there is no right and wrong when it comes to social media. Link exchanges are another story. Buyer beware!

In PPC news, a Clix Marketing test of Google Conversion Optimizer shows stellar results. But don't forget to ask lots of questions when crafting your ad copy.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• Twitterers aren't afraid to laugh at themselves, hurling this video around so fast you could get whiplash.
• The heavy metal monk breaks the mold.
• Sure Obama ordered the close of Gitmo, but I hear he's gonna use the camp to imprison Republicans.
• We all hate traffic but could it actually be bad for your health?
• Going on vacation can be so hard. [/sarcasm]

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 03/20/09 at 11:30 AM | Comments (5)
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March 13, 2009

Friday Recap - Shake Your Booty Edition

Happy Friday! Katie's birthday was yesterday, so let's start off with a celebration. Everybody now! Happy birthday to Katie, happy birthday to Katie... Okay, I'm no Christopher Hart so I'll stop singing.

I know lots of you crazy SEO kids were out in Austin for this week's PubCon South. And some of you may even be staying in the Lone Star State for SXSW this weekend. In Portland, Oregon, SearchFest premiered at the Oregon Zoo. But those of us left to get our con-fix through blogs and microblogging weren't left wanting.

Kate Morris shared her Austin insider tips with those not sure how to prepare for Texas. Megan Slick of InsiteCopy liveblogged SearchFest while Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media liveblogged PubCon. And a number of people tweeted their favorite conference moments. Of course, as one conference ends, another is just around the corner. Pamela Lund and CK Chung are gearing up for their road trip to IM Spring Break (donations are welcome!).

Hmm. It doesn't look like they're stopping in Tennessee, where next week Santa imposters the world over will don their beards and cherry-red suits for the first annual Celebrate Santa Con. What? This story totally fits here.

In the twittosphere, lots of people use their power for good. Like Tim Ferris, who is donating $3 to U.S. public classrooms for every new follower he receives in the next week. Or SEO Samba, which is giving away a full conference pass to SES New York to the winner of its Twitter contest. Three case studies of brands using Twitter right are a reminder of what the service can offer businesses. It's easy to see why Twitter had a good month.

Photo by Tracy O via Creative Commons

But it's possible our dependence on the microblogging service has become dangerous. One guy could think of nothing better to do than Ustream and tweet as a stranger broke into his house. [Dear loyal readers, I'm begging you, don't let this be you. --Susan] Jason Calacanis is willing to pay Twitter $250,000 to be part of the suggested users list. Sounds like a Web 2.0 weenie to me.

Instead of getting in front of eyeballs unfairly, Debra Mastaler suggests a link building stimulus plan while MarketingProfs proposes a brand building stimulus. WebProNews explores how FAQ pages can boost your rankings. At HuffPo we read that consumer reviews are a great opportunity for local businesses.

Quick tip: Use negative match PPC keywords to improve your quality score. While you're at it, you may want to play around with interest-based ads (take our poll!). Just try to stay away from the dark side.

Also in the ad realm, Craigslist has eliminated 90 percent of the erotic ads on the site. Meanwhile, under the guise of AdSense, Google wants to squeeze the life out of the news industry by scraping news content and letting you post it on your site.

The e-Justice Blog alerts us to 25 surprising things that Google knows about you. Yes, Google's spying on us. At least this guy will tell you when he's recording all your moves. [I keep wondering if he's going to edit out the blinking? Do people with prosthetic eyes still blink? --Susan] Whereas no one's safe from the prying eyes of couch-potato border control.

Ask is analyzing how long queries can be served better. Rumors of a live Kumo.com were tweeted. Google upped its threat to voice services with Google Voice. And Andy Beal requested that the nofollow link attribute be ditched once and for all.

Image by EuroMagic via Creative Commons

Google, Facebook and Twitter appear to have jumped the shark. In the UK, YouTube users can no longer view music videos. (Maybe someone can fill the void with Bill Clinton's iPod?) While musicholics will suffer, at least chocoholics will not.

At TechCrunch we find out the 50 media sites bloggers link to the most. A new news aggregator, TechFuga, has hit the scene. And a beautiful bald eagle cam makes for some peaceful bird watching. Elves, however, remain in hiding.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• The LOLcat has a proud and storied origin. Did I just make cats speaking broken English sound cultured?
• Social media's origin story is pretty cool, too.
• Distracted by a wiggling raccoon with his head stuck in a hole? Build him a butt shelf.
• Speaking of butts, mine is toast if I ever run into this 12-year-old special effects wizard. Look out George Lucas!

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 03/13/09 at 11:43 AM | Comments (4)
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March 6, 2009

Friday Recap - SEO Babies Edition

Buy your tickets now!

It's Friday and this is gonna be a tush kickin' recap, so on your marks, get set, party!

If you're going to be at SES New York, be sure to get your tickets to the Internet Marketers Charity Party. It's going down at the Heartland Brewery in Union Square Monday night and proceeds benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. By the way, if you haven't bought your tickets for SES New York yet, the code 20BRU will get you 20 percent off the cost of a conference passport or one-day pass. P.S. I'll be liveblogging the conference and BCI will be teaching an additional one-day SEO training course. Good stuff all around!

Skittles caused a commotion this week when it turned its home page into a Twitter Search for the candy's name. Marketing win or flop? You decide. [All I know is that I kept craving Skittles all week. Lent fail. --Susan]

Certainly, the success of Skittles social media branding campaign was up for debate -- and so was the power of personal brands. On the Outspoken Media blog, Lisa Barone stirred up a discussion over how actions can be overlooked in favor of personal branding. You don't want to walk away from that post without reading the comments, where heated deliberation grew within hours.

Following up on the issue, Kim Krause Berg asked if fans or finances are the reward of a personal brand. I'll piggy back on her outside the mold approach, but without the wrinkled hot dog part if possible. ;)

No conversation about branding would be complete without an update on Google's algo update, er, change. After Aaron Wall noticed a shift in rankings based on what he determined to be a preference for brands, Matt responded that the change, one of hundreds made a year, is meant to give weight to trust, authority and reputation. David Harry has put together a transcript and some thoughts, as well.

Next stop, Twitterville. Never one to shy away from controversy, Jon Stewart's assessment of micro-blogging platform Twitter was met with a laugh by even the most committed twitterati.

Whereas, Google CEO Eric Schmidt's comments that Twitter was a "poor man's email system" received noticeably more flack. If it sounds whiny and defensive, the fact that Twitter could become the new Google may have something to do with that.

It looks like Twitter is rolling out an integrated search and trends box. Could a business model be on the horizon? With Twitter appearing more and more like a drug every day, you'd think they could figure out the financial angle. Gary Trudeau has noticed this addictive quality, featuring the micro-blogging site this week in a can't-miss Doonesbury series. I also found it interesting that the draw of Twitter may be lost on the young.

Over at Facebook, the social networking site got a makeover. We learned what ever happened to Friendster. And the White House appears to have moved away from YouTube to try out new ways to distribute the president's weekly video address.

Live Search is now highlighting local search results with a prominent onebox-like feature. Jason Calacanis explained why he doesn't regret hiring a felon to work at Mahalo. And in unrelated legal news, Amazon quashed the default text-to-speech feature on its e-book reader Kindle 2 in response to publishers' copyright concerns.

At Search Engine Roundtable, Barry Schwartz wants to know if SEMs are seeing fewer sales coming from search ads. Large ecommerce sites got a few SEO tips from Adam Audette. Mashable brought us the 20 best Web comics. And social media expert Brent Csutoras's wee one donned a darling onsie getup from Reddit. All together now: awww!

We also want to offer our congratulations to the next entrant in the adorable SEM baby parade. Chris Winfield and his wife, Danielle, announced that they're having a little girl in July. [Yay for babies! --Susan]

Sans segue, UK band the Mentalists showed everyone just how talented they are. iPhone musical performance in three, two...

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• Is organic the way to go? Ask this rodent scientists.
• Answers to your questions on all things cool. Why couldn't I have found this years ago?
• This tricky triangle hurts my head.
• Gourmet cooking: you're doing it wrong.
• Mythical pink dolphins do exist!

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 03/ 6/09 at 11:54 AM | Comments (1)
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February 27, 2009

Friday Recap - Under the Sea Edition

We've made it back around to Friday again! Time to unwind from your stressful work week. How about a moment of Zen to put you into weekend mode?

Flying from Sam Fuller on Vimeo.

Now that your blood pressure is down to healthy levels, let's see if I can't get you a little excited, shall we?

Image found on The Daily What

Last week's TOS gaffe by Facebook saw a move toward resolution as the social network opened its terms to user input. You can find liveblog coverage of Facebook's privacy-themed press conference on CNET.

Discount airline Ryanair flummoxed the Internet community with its employees' defensive posturing and attacks on bloggers. Not content with that bad press, the airline's CEO announced that the company may begin charging passengers to use on-board toilets. [Pretty sure they later said that one was just someone blowing off steam. --Susan]

Also riling up the blogosphere, streaming music site Last.fm had harsh words for Techcrunch after the tech blog reported Last.fm was the source of the new U2 album leak. Andy Beal helped us take a lesson away from the madness by pointing out how to host a conversation when under attack.

I guess none of those companies prescribe to my personal method of problem solving. Get grandma to hit 'em over the head with a sauce pan! Does the trick every time.

This week the big news in the search industry was Google's latest major update. Uncovered by SEO Book's Aaron Wall, it appears that big brands are getting a boost in rankings. You can find more of that conversation on Sphinn. On the Outspoken Media blog, Lisa Barone broadens the brand conversation with a great interview of branding master ShoeMoney.

Ask.com joined the big three search engines by recognizing the canonical tag. Marketing Pilgrim reported that Microsoft is still hopeful that in the near future we'll be looking at two big search engines once a merger with Yahoo's search business goes through. Yahoo has been mum about any such deal, but on the paid search front, the search engine is lower bids.

Bringing up a paid search principle that isn't often discussed, Search Engine Land columnist Josh Dreller reminds us of the point of diminishing returns. Also this week, researchers shared findings that paid search ads may not be getting as many clicks as we thought. On Web Marketing Today, search marketer Kate Morris talks to Ralph Wilson about how to track PPC conversions in a brief video interview. And according to Danny Sullivan, Yahoo and Google have been gradually restricting advertisers' rights. Yikes!

Meanwhile, Google said sorry for Gmail outages, and executive director of the search giant's philanthropic branch stepped down as the dot-org prepares for a shift. The search engine may also be getting a little to pushy with its search suggestions. [I can't wait for my similar apology from Time Warner for its terrible service recently. And my reduced bill as a result.--Susan]

In browser news, Apple released Safari 4 in beta. According to Teifion Jordan's, the upgrade is not much different than previous versions. What few changes he did see seem to be borrowed from Opera.

Where my SOSGs at?

I usually find lists of the "most valuable blogs" to be unoriginal, but 24/7 Wall St.'s Twenty Five Most Valuable Blogs was spot on. Also worth your while, David Harry, aka the Gypsy, announced that he was launching the SEO Geeks Newsletter next Monday.

Moving on to the social realm, Greg Finn of 10e20 spelled out why your social news linkbait could be missing the mark. Tim Nash at Collective Thoughts describes the anatomy of an irresistible tweet. Similarly, Guy Kawasaki gave some solid advice about how to get retweeted. It all goes back to attracting and influencing people on Twitter, so here's the "ultimate Twitter resource". Just remember to use your power for good. We don't want people thinking that marketing is evil.

Tim Ferris doled out helpful tips for how to use Twitter without Twitter owning you. MarketingProfs warned businesses of the dark side of Twitter. That didn't stop Google from hopping on board the Twitter train. Breaking new barriers of acceptance, a federal judge has approved a media request, allowing reporters to live microblog a federal trial.

Jennifer Slegg has posited ways that Twitter may be able to monetize. For instance, Twitter could offer advanced statistics to premium users. Google Analytics and Omniture seem to be on the same page as both analytics platforms will be integrating Twitter search data into reports.

One fanatic user has a brand new tattoo of the fail whale on his arm after promising to do so if his buddy reached 3,000 followers. While I don't quite agree with this psychologist, the tattoo would be another weird sign that people are forming their identity around the microblogging platform. I can however give props to one journalism student who hopes to work her social network for tuition. I just hope she knows how different the media is today. (Save newspapers! Get an iPhone!) Over at Copyblogger, Sonia Simone reminded us that cliques can be as damaging online as they can be offline.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• I can imagine this wily octopus laughing at us through the tank.
• Magnets in slo-mo! Click through to the video at 1200 frames per second for a real trip.
• If you work in technology, watch out for a geek stampede. The holy grail of comic books is hitting the auction block. [Do want! --Susan]
• There's a new bouncing fish on the scene and it's called a psychedelica. How fitting is that?
• Ever wanted to be able to read minds? I bet transparent heads are the way to go.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 02/27/09 at 5:20 PM | Comments (1)
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