chrisg.org

Sorry if this has already been posted – is this a scam?

http://www.juiceboosted.com/

I don’t see how this could technically work but if they are using normal
phone lines then they will get the usage kick back that freeserve et al get
which should add up to some. Thing is they say it is a software solution no mention of hardware S

The main aim seems to be to get people to sign up as an affiliate (I did, that link above will credit me with referrals). Affiliates apparently will get paid in october then weekly via paypal.

All you have to lose at the moment is spam to your email address (so use one you are not bothered about)

I await October with great interest … if only to see if it is real (how??) or if they get busted!

–

http://www.chrisg.com

http://www.ASPAlliance.com now allows you to comment on articles – great stuff. Constructive feedback is always beneficial to authors, particularly people writing technical articles. Only problem is we will need to dilute the utility of this feature because of gits who will abuse it. What am I talking about?

Well, there is a growing trend in the dodgier districts of SEO land where people use low paid staff or bots to trawl the web looking for places where they can add links. Blog spam, wiki spam, comment spam, sandbox spam, call it what you will, they are exploiting search engine algo love of links to further their own ends at your article or blogs expense.

And the worse thing? Your own blog or site could be harmed in the process because you are linking to a bad neighbourhood :O(

I firmly believe in PageRank, I think the web is about links and it is a good way of working out if a site is considered important or not, see explaination and discussion on the topic here and here. I don’t think PageRank is at fault, stop urls being posted (even though they are useful and interesting) on your site and the spammers will not bother you.

Edit: Just to prove my point, look what is happening in the comments here before he deletes them (links added in the comments, no text, just adult links. Shameless)
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/002068.html

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2004/05/eureka.html

So Seth Godin coined the term “landing pages”? Cool. In this blog he talks about increasing the effectiveness of landing pages. I agree how critical it is. I find marketeers often focus on the initial ad and hope for the best with the landing page. It’s amazing how even the smallest tweak can make several % difference. For example, sending the visitor to a page that is actually about what the ad was about (send them to the product rather than the store homepage), or making it obvious what you want the visitor to do (click “buy”!). People often look at me oddly when I suggest testing multiple landing pages – “This is our page and it was approved by the committee and the CEO, we are not changing it. Besides, ‘click here’ is a perfectly fine call to action. The flash intro only takes 15mins to play out.”.

Here is another idea; if your site is there to make you money make your 404 page useful. Even if only one in a thousand visitors see it, they will thank you for it.

Mr Godin is the author of several of my top 20 marketing books. (Even though it is an ever changing list where flux is the only constant I am sure “Permission Marketing” would always be in there).

http://www.google.com/corporate/software_principles.html

Google is taking a stand on gitware, well done to them. I would like to see Microsoft back them in this – Google and MS united on the issue will get lots of attention, maybe enough to get some legistlation.

Looking at family and friends computers the problem is absolutely friggin enormous. My wife had my laptop 5 minutes and it was full of popup ad progs and all sorts of useless crap, just by surfing travel sites.

Which brings me to another issue. Google is being made a mockery. They have some very talented people so why to the hottest keywords and some not so hot have so many blackhat and spam sites in the top 10 listings? How difficult is it for their staff to set up hotmail accounts and hang out at the shadier forums and discussion lists rather than the legit ones? In fact, why dont they do some searches and pull the spam?

Travel is no more affected (probably less than pills, gambling, etc traditional spammer topics) but particularly annoying to me and Clare at the moment as we are arranging our Canada trip and also my 30th birthday which I will probably spend in edinburgh or london for a long weekend.

I was just telling someone how I happened across ecademy and thought I recalled a version of ecademy that was all about ecommerce with a diagram that looked like the cheese thingy from trivial persuit.

Well, I just *had* to take a trip in the wayback machine

How things change, eh?

In a way though, I still come here for an ebusiness education. We all pick up things off each other during our little chats, rants and blogs.

Is all that content gone or is is still here?

–

http://chrisg.com

There seems to be a mood once in a while around here where people see “get X people in your network and earn Y” sort of statements and ask “where is mine?”. I am not the worlds best networker (far from it, it goes completely against my personality type – too shy in person or even on the phone for a start). I haven’t received a single penny from my time here, but I am happy with staying a member as I dont think that is the point for me. I enjoy ‘being here’. Bloody good job, mind. It’s a tenner a month that could be spent on Tikka Masala

On another blog Joe Pritchard said he gives out free consultancy and sometimes this eventually turns into leads.

You must be doing something right Joe – I do the same thing, still waiting to see any rewards. I wish I worked on commission, some of my advice has brought people a lot of money. Guess my rewards will come in heaven Helping people massages the ego so I guess I do get some warm fuzzy benefit if not financial

I think some people naturally give without thinking about what they will get back (or like me do think about what they might get back in a general sense and much later, usually at night while worrying about bills ). Others go through life with a “whats in it for me” attitude. Looking at it like that Ecademy to me has been a cost. No return means it is a liability to my business. Wow, if I had an accountant he or she wouldn’t be too happy. As it happens I am not here for ROI and am not organised enough to have an accountant yet

So what HAVE I got out of ecademy?

Through this little collection of binary wotnots I have learned the odd nugget of info. Have been taken to some interesting sites. Been sold some pretty dodgy ebooks .

Not that thrilling, but better than nowt as they say round these parts.

My main benefit from this site is the people. That is what I am here for. In a way it is another “3rd place”. People talk about interesting stuff and occasionally I have conversations with them. As I said before, outside of a work context I am pretty shy so I have only ever met one person from here in the real world, but that was Ed and he is pretty cool so it was ok

Enough rambling! My point (if I have one) is simply if you look at ecademy like I do (“do I feel better for being here”) then you will not need to worry if you are making sales because of it. If you come here thinking it is a lead generator looking for new business I think you have been mis-sold.

–

http://chrisg.com

Good blog here on community http://weblogs.asp.net/betsya/archive/2004/04/19/116430.aspx

I think although flaming really hurts when you are starting out in this wild world web, it doesn’t kill you and does actually make you stronger. Some flames are simple “Hey look at me” and kinda text message equivelant of pulling wings off flys and beating the small kid up for his lunch money. Other flames are criticisms and occasionally do have some valuable feedback buried under the really hurtful delivery. “That sucks” sometimes is a little warning that your message isn’t getting through the way you had hoped ;OP

The most hurtful flames I ever received were not when I started really getting into newsgroups or discussion lists (heh, although a certain Red Dwarf fan by the name Friday was notorious for having a vicious temper on warm days – check it out in your favourite ng archive!). My worst flames came much later when I started writing for http://Aspalliance.com – woooah. Did I underestimate the amount of venom and bad will targetted at people who have the ARROGANCE to publish articles that put forward OPINIONS! I didn’t write any comment pieces for a long while after that. I didn’t write at all for a little bit, I just daren’t.

When I wrote the chapters for the first two books I was involved with some technical reviews were pretty harsh (without any constructive advice). “This is woeful”. Yeah? Really? Why? What should I do to correct it? Give me the benefit of your experience rather than a kick in the nuts. New authors are really sensitive to criticism as their skin is still human thickness, it’s something I tried to remember when roles were reversed.

You know what the best thing is? No one gives two hoots what flamers think and your writing gets better because of it. What goes around comes around, what you give out you get back multiplied, etc etc

As far as communities are concerned, I think small communities take on a lot of the values and character of the founders. Larger communities take on a life of their own, especially when they grow very quickly. It’s unavoidable that the odd twit get in and spoil it for some people, just have to make sure the community doesn’t tollerate it when it happens. Easy to say ..

You may recall I was having a little difficulty with my web host (http://weblogs.asp.net/cgarrett/archive/2004/04/10/110796.aspx), well they finally came through with my affiliate cash this morning via Paypal. They are back in my good books (they really are a good host and at $10 a month including asp.net 1.1 AND sql server the best value for money on the net). If I have any problems in future I think I should direct to the one guy there who seems to be able to make things happen (Erwin)!

Paypal gets a lot of adverse press but without it I may never have seen what I was owed so they are pre-tty good to me

I won’t put the web hosts name here as I don’t think it is the place for advertising but surf around my site and you will find a banner for them along with all the other services I recommend.

http://a9.com/

Check it out .. should shake things up a little in searchworld

It’s by Amazon, using Google technology but also contains the Alexa “site info” so tells you information about the site and how many inbound links are pointing to it and other interesting stuff