Black Holes on Sept 10th

For those that read my last post about the scientists that are making a blackhole on earth and our internet crazy fast... The countdown is on... September 10, 2008.

I pinged Stephanie Majewski a 27 year old scientist from the US who is moving to CERN this week. I asked her to launch a Twitter account to keep the world updated on the launch. I will keep you posted if she responds. If she does it would definitely make me break down and open up my own Twitter account ;-)





Photo cred: Stephanie Majewski

Update: Stpehanie said today she would try and set up a Twitter account this weekend prior to the LHC launching to keep everyone updated.

It's Offical: Yahoo! To Use Google's Ad Technology

Google anounced today they signed a non-exclusive agreement with Yahoo!

What this means...

• Consumers will see more relevant ads when they are looking for information and browsing the web. And with interoperability between IM services, users will have easier access to even more of their contacts.
• 
  Publishers currently in the Yahoo! Publisher Network will benefit from Google's advertising technology, potentially increasing the revenue they earn from their sites.
• 
  Advertisers will have new ways to reach their target customers online more efficiently.

Why I'm Glad I Skipped SMX Advanced 2008

• I enjoyed reading the multiple live blogging sessions from SMX Advanced 208. My iGoogle reader kept tabs on what was going while I still took care of business and made money.

• I heard about the presenters not being being able to give their full presentations because of time restraints. Lucky for us and a big THANK YOU to those that posted their presentations online.

• I don't agree with what this guy has to say but he posted his SMX presentation prior to his appearance.

• I attended a free webinar (it was excellent) that was exactly the same as a presentation that was given at SMX.

• I am tired of hearing about what color hat SMX was wearing. I feel like I have waisted the last few days of my life reading about SMX hat color.
  

• I think everyone would have been happy if there was more focus on the tangible results that make us and our client's money. You know... improving conversions, copy, site sculpting, analytics, landing page optimization, etc.

• I am in no way advising against attending a SMX event. I'm just glad I didn't attend this year because I feel I was at an advantage since I could still conduct business and learn. I learned from the information that was posted and many people had good wrap ups.
  

• I didn't have to leave sunny southern California for the dreary Seattle to learn the best advanced seo techniques.

Worst SEO Report Ever

A company I do some work for has paid $6,000 in SEO fees to receive this report 3 months into a six month contract. This has to be the worst SEO progress report I have ever seen. According to the SEO firm they have not been able to install tracking on their site yet.

Here's the original proposal/contract of work to be performed over the 6 months.

Here are some highlights from the report...

• Presence in forums : lot of (Is that lotof.com or what?)
• From this month, we are adding blog inputting alongwith inputs from customer, specific high traffic oriented subjects are being targeted for additional blogs. (What the fuck does that mean?)
• We focus on three genres of blog dissemination. The accent is not on quantity, but on relevance and quality. The key factors that we saw was :
  a) Page Strength of the anchor text go to page
  b) Relevance of the sites.
  c) Traffic of the sites. For example digg.com and now Sphinn are considered bellwethers in terms of inbound link juice.
  d) Most importantly, how quick SERPs recognize the inbound links.

(Does A thru D = 3?)

• Other Inbound Links
  Off page presence in high profile listings like Craigslist and Local listings are being done regularly (with images) to boost inbound strengths. Google is favoring certain local library classificatory sites since last algorithm change. (really... CL for links?)
  

If you paid with a credit card would you try and get your $6,000 back for breach of contract or just call it a lesson learned?

Faster Internet W/ Black Holes Included - LHC

I was reading an article today on how "The Grid" is going make the internet obsolete. The article was fluff but it got me digging deeper into "The Grid".

Being able to use "The Grid" for access to the internet was just an added benefit from the initial project. They built a machine over 16 miles long called a LHC (Large Hadron Collider). It is a particle accelerator designed to calculate an equation to prove the existence of a particle known as the Higgs Boson. The Higgs boson is a hypothesised particle which, if it exists, would give the mechanism by which particles acquire mass.

What the journalist from FOX forgot to mention is that in creating the LHC they may also be creating a black hole which could devoure the earth.

Listen to the BBC audio report here

Scientists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang created the universe by colliding two beams of protons traveling in opposite directions at close to the speed of light. Now that doesn't sound very safe to me...


There have some delays in launching the LHC due to some accidents, safety concerns, and legal battles but it appears that it will be switched on in a couple of months.

This summer, on the 'Red Button Day', scientists will turn on the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), and also open "The Grid", which can send data online 10,000 times faster than current standards. Movies can be downloaded in 5 seconds, for example. "The Grid", according to experts, will transmit holographic data, revolutionize business, and lead to 'Cloud Computing'- where users store all data online. I think this is just one step below "The Matrix".


Lets keep our fingers crossed and hope our scientists have created something that will actually help humanity instead of destroying it.

Cool Gmail Trick to Fight Spam

Are you afraid of getting spammed when you provide your email address?

Gmail supports "plus-addressing" - just add a plus sign "+" and a word before the "@" sign to create as many new email addresses as you want.

For example, if your email address is "user@gmail.com", mail sent to "user+newsletter@gmail.com" will also reach you.

Later you use Gmail's filters to kill emails to that address if it falls into the wrong hands.

ASK.com Uses Google For PPC Arbitrage

So I am doing some research today for a client's site and I come across an Adwords ad from ASK.com on the first page of Google spot # 8 just below the fold. I wondered why Ask.com would want to show me skin cancer photos when I searched for skin cancer. Maybe it was to get me to use their search engine like it says. I don't use ask.com so I figured I would click and see what they wanted to show me.




To my astonishment they displayed 10 sponsored results from Google with 3 small pictures!

I had to scroll a few times to hit the bottom of the sponsored section.



Is that really what you want me to see when your ad says "Get health questions answered now on ASK.com. Try it!"?

You answer my health questions with sponsored ads from Google, really? I just left that site for you to give me my answers like your ad said. Then you show me the top ads I just saw on the last page, that sounds like PPC arbitrage to me!

I thought maybe this is how all of their images searches are so I go to their home page and run an image search for skin cancer. I do not see any sponsored results until I look through a bunch of pictures. So it is only when you arrive there via Google adwords that you see 10 sponsored Adsense results and only 3 small pics.

Thanks for the great first experience. Now I understand why they are changing their model of trying to be a search engine back to answering questions again. They can just game Google with PPC arbitrage and rake in the loot.