Dell open source computer costs $53 more than identical Vista machine
February 24, 2007
Dell’s D42N Duo, a 1.06Ghz dual core laptop is selling for $53 more without an operating system than with Vista. Aside from a “resource CD” that comes with the open source version, there’s no readily identifiable difference between the two, what a load of BS … Dell should be discounting the machine 100-300 dollars since the software is free, instead they bump the price up $53 trying to keep people on Windows.
Someone send a letter to their ad agency.
Microsoft Charged 1.5 Billion
February 22, 2007
Microsoft get’s slapped with a 1.5 Billion dollar patent suit.. and loses… No ad agency on earth could protect them from that level of Negative PR…
Powered by Ubuntu
February 21, 2007
Powered by Ubuntu.
I just wanted to post to the world, that I uninstalled Windows, and am making my first Post and Digg via Ubuntu.
still in shock… I don’t have to deal with Microsoft anymore… no really.. I mean no IE? No system resource hog…
I don’t have to pay Bill Gates an additional hundred dollars as my Windows Tax each time I buy a computer? Virus’s and spyware are far less likely to invade my machine?
It had Office already installed for free? I can save my documents as Word docs? I was able to surf the Internal Windows Network? It had Firefox already installed?
I didn’t have to pay for this? Huh?
Thank you to everyone in the open source community.
The Web 2.0 Community should be red faced embarrassed
February 20, 2007
I am actually embarrassed overall with the Web 2.0 Community. In fact the Web 2.0 Community should be red faced, ashamed to used bandwidth embarrassed.
Try to find any mention of PhpBB or WordPress on any ‘Web 2.0 List’ and you won’t, and if you do it’s because either I or someone like me complained.
Web 2.0 is by definition empowering the the users.  There are hardly any two projects out there that even come close to either PhpBB or WordPress. Sure there are other Blogging software programs out there, as well as other Forums and they deserve a mark for that as well, but to limit the size of this post, I will discuss both these awesome opensource programs that give voices to millions of people, but get little respect.
Just because these two projects are not for profit doesn’t mean that they are not worthy of the attention they deserve. I see tons of Web 2.0 crap showing up every day, one site calls it Crap Flooding, and rightfully so.
Until people start to realize that both PhpBB and WordPress are in essance what started this entire social media trend, it should be referred to as crap flooding or some other similar term.
Let me ask you people a question before I expose myself to a load of BS that I am expecting for stating the truth.
When you bitch about or agree with what I have noted, I am sure some of you will be posting it on WordPress Blogs or PhpBB forums.  Doesn’t that tell you something?
How to select your Ad / Marketing Agency or Web Designer
February 19, 2007
We work with Ad Agencies for a living.
I felt it necessary to help people decide on how to select an ad agency. despite the militant nature of this blog that nails Ad Agencies right and left, in reality they are our bread and butter in terms of who our general client is defined.
We wanted to show you where we have problems working with Agencies, and where we don’t. This should serve as a guideline for others to at least know what you are getting into when you sign up with an ad agency or marketing agency, especially an Interactive Marketing Agency.
Generally speaking, most agencies are with good intentions with the goal to increase the clients business. The problem is the methods employed are detrimental to the client in many instances.
Ad Agencies are great at branding, getting traditional ads such as billboards and the overall message. Look and feel generally is the of the up most importance, hence the problem. As a Search Engine Optimization specialist we have serious problems marketing sites all in flash for example, at least when it comes to Google, Yahoo and MSN’s organic results. What I am trying to say is that we have made a career out of fixing what we call the ‘Ad Agency Disaster’ when the ad agency goes out and bills a client $100,000 to build a Flash based website. This shows a lack of planning on the Ad Agency’s side.
We always suggest asking the following questions when interviewing an ad agency.
1) What is your track record for marketing in my industry?
Is this a new area for the Agency or do you have experience in this area? Generally speaking there is no right or wrong answer to this. An Agency that is experienced in similar industries but not yours might work extra hard to gain experience in this area. However an experienced agency in your exact industry would have insider information due to past clients.
2) What are your expected results if given a free hand with my budget?
If they promise you the moon, walk away.
4) Do you have an inhouse staff for most of the services or do you outsource?
If the Agency is too ‘proud’ to outsource what they can’t do, and say they do everything inhouse, walk … no.. run away. No agency can do everything correctly and they should be using experts in the field. I can’t picture an Ad Agency that is great in newspaper ads building websites that are search engine optimized.
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5) Will I have a dedicated account rep with plenty of experience?
If the Ad Agency bounces around with answers, then bounce to another agency. You need someone to build a relationship with there to get stuff done.
6) Where am I on your client list in terms of importance?
This is a great question, if you are on the bottom, expect the bottom level of team working your account. If you are on the top, then you might be with too small of an Agency that doesn’t have the resources your firm now requires.
7) Where does your Ad Agency website rank?
If they can’t rank their own site for terms you think they should rank for *other than their name*, then walk away. If the Ad Agency does not rank for their terms, how could they rank you for yours? This is an often overlooked area as generally clients don’t see this until 4 months or so after the website was redesigned.
- Roger Wehbe
President, Yooter InterActive Marketing
Fake Procurement Department
February 18, 2007
Fake Procurement Department, takes all sales e-mails and pushes them out as an RSS feed open to everyone could read. Site is Unbranded, it allows any company to ‘pretend’ to use it as it’s Procurement Department and they doesn’t have to be bothered with sales calls. Even the ‘click here to go back to the main company webpage’ is a -1 Javascript. This is great stuff!! Every company should use this as their ‘Procurement Department’
Wikipedia Pollution in Google
February 17, 2007
I would like to formally request a Wikipedia only search from google, make it a tab like for Google News, Video, etc.. and get the Wikipedia pollution out of the SERPS. I don’t have a problem with Wikipedia, I have a problem with it taking over Google Results. Something needs to be done overall with the level of BS that we see when searching for anything in Google in regards to Wikipedia.
The War between SEO’s and Ad Agencies hits peak
February 15, 2007
Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 started the war by stating ‘What Gives SEO A Bad Name’ and Natasha Robinson responded in kind on Threadwatch.org, perhaps what could be defined as ‘the hangout’ for SEO’s. Natasha sort of was a double agent on this, helping Scott on his blog, then slamming him on Threadwatch.  Perhaps one of the best played link baits I have seen in a while.  In essance Scott then linked to the Threadwatch article from his blog.  Great Stuff, but somewhat shady… and I think Scott Addressed it here.
But I didn’t just want to replay the blow by blow on this, there is an underlying problem here. This discussion started at least a year ago with the Tribble Ad Agency’s inital post. The point we are trying to make is that there is a huge disconnect between the two forms of marketing.
Before we go into what is wrong with the argument, I want to point out what is similar.
Both are savvy at Social Media Optimization, and view this as a major goal for their clients,  getting videos and other media promoted at Google Video, Digg, YouTube, MySpace. SEO’s have enjoyed a longer head start at this than did the traditional media firms due to the nature of the way many of the better SEO’s try obtain links.  “If I post this pretty cool article on Digg, then I could get a ton of backlinks to increase my Google Rankings”. So using the generally lower budgets that SEO firms have as compared to Ad Agencies they tend to be far more innovative in link building using less costly channels.
That is sort of where they disconnect. Ad Agencies still feel that SEO is shady underworld that they don’t understand, and SEO’s feel that traditional Ad Agencies are dinosaurs that won’t survive in 10 years if they keep neglecting Google, Yahoo and MSN’s organic results, allowing their clients competitors to out rank them and forcing the client to pay huge pay per click costs.
Scott Karp felt automatically that it’s an SEO that caused his domain name search problem, when in fact it was an expired domain name issue. The problem we feel is that why was the problem pointed at the SEO’s rather than Google? Especially when the problem was a Domain name that expired?
It didn’t make sense, until we really thought about it.  It’s not that he was blaming SEO’s… it’s that he didn’t actually understand what it was, and since SEO’s are the ‘dark underworld of marketing’ of course it was the SEO’s that did it.
Hence the image problem, and where Ad Agencies are better at than SEO’s. Branding.
SEO’s are excellent at getting an existing product promoted at little cost.  But branding, and making a market… that is a differing story, they know how to use the tools open to them via their existing SMO services, they know how to get that product ranked in the search engines, they know how to get their press releases on Google News. They know how to get their commericals in YouTube and Google Video.  But something is missing… the exact message to deliver.
Hence this is where Ad Agencies are useful… where they lack in technical skills marketing such as in the search engines, they flourish with the message to put out there.
It’s a nasty war out there, and the great wall that seperates the two is slowly crumbling, as Ad Agencies now partner with SEO firms, and SEO firms are now telling their clients that they need more than to just rank for keywords to be profitable.
Interesting war.. really interesting war.. because at the end, both SEO’s and Ad Agencies are just trying to keep their client happy.
Why I had to shut down the company today
February 14, 2007
We got buried under snow, my car, my house, myself….. Video Attached
Social Media Optimization Services
February 14, 2007
The title was actually a cut and paste from one of many press releases we see on any given day. This one in focus was perhaps the worst we can remember for sometime. Not because of the content, but the lack of.
The firm in question was proud to announce that they could spam Digg, YouTube, Google and others for clients.
However for example their press release failed to even have a hyperlink to themselves, leaving us to believe if they failed to use link popularity for themselves, how could they do it for clients?
Another problem with this press release (something we won’t link to or mention by name for multiple legal and ethical reasons) is that the company itself notes this:
“Online Public Relations, Article Syndication and Search Engine Optimization. ”
Your Article Syndication (IE: press release) didn’t help your company as you didn’t even mention the URL, much less linked to it, not helping the search engine optimization standpoint. So the question stands, if you failed in marketing your own firm, how could you help other firms meet their objectives?
In our opinion, Social Media Optimization should be best left to Industry experts that actually own a few Web 2.0 Websites
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