Recent Blog Posts
Blogs ยป Archive for August, 2005
Bill in US Congress to Overhaul Patent Law
The US government is starting down the long, arduous path of patent reform. Obviously this will entail lengthy debate and would hopefully at the very least move patent law in the US a few steps ahead.
This issue is certainly of importance to those in the open source arena, as even though many developers of all sizes are releasing patents into the open, the direction legislators take will either improve or worsen intellectual property issues and licensing.
Of equal interest is Linus Torvald’s foray into protecting the Linux name. Some have reacted poorly to Torvald’s moves - however, as the LinuxInsider piece reflects - he communicated his concerns several years back.
Personally I look at trademark and patent issues far apart from one another and see no harm in Linus protecting his namesake. I am sure we all see the value in his contributions to our world.
We have had commercialization discussions before facing the growing pains of Linux and open source in general entering the marketplace alongside the mavens of proprietary software. Certainly as we track the new GPL, we should equally track and comment on this new road toward patent reform.
I think most of us who have dealt …
Reach out and touch with Google
Google is branching out beyond search this week with news of a multi-faceted instant messaging client the the upgraded Desktop 2 with Sidebar.
Spin the Bottle with CMS Matrix
Clients are definitely becoming more sophisticated. Three years ago every initial client meetings involved an explanation and demo of a content management system — “So,… then I can change this at the our office?“. Now they more often arrive asking if our CMS has friendly URLs and subcategories.
I think this has been one of the great effects of the ‘rise of blogging’. Although most aren’t running their own blog, many seem to have a friend or colleague who is, or, at least, have placed comments on other people’s blogs. Essentially the whole process has helped them understand the idea that websites aren’t static bill posters but live, editable spaces that reflect whatever’s going on in their life/business/world.
Russian Kettle Bells and marketing services
Tonight at my boxing class we had a guest trainer, who introduced us to a fitness program based on Russian Kettle Bells. These weight-like things have been used in Russia for hundreds of years, and are becoming a bit of a trend in the US fitness circuits.
What does this have to do with you and marketing? Everything.
First, this trainer figured out a way to get a full hour of class, with a captive audience of people interested in fitness. The owner of the boxing gym wanted to bring him in, as a benefit to members. Meanwhile, the trainer got a full hour of exposure to his program.
Second, we got a free trial, during which time we got a terrific sense of this guy’s credibility and the value he could add. Kettle bells look kind of silly compared to today’s “modern” fitness equipment and programs. But by trying it out, we quickly saw the value of this kind of fitness.
Third, he had us sign a couple of forms — a waiver and medical history. Now he has our contact info and can follow up to see if we want more training.
Fourth, he is a walking advertisement for his services. His truck …
State of AJAX
In State of Ajax: Progress, Challenges, and Implications for SOAs, Dion Hinchcliffe gives his take on just where all the hype and sensation surrounding AJAX is headed. I also editorialized on this subject somewhat in the Tech Times #120.
Despite some claims that AJAX will supercede desktop application development, I believe that certain types of applications are–at least for the forseeable future–inextricably bound to the desktop. That said, thanks to AJAX and its kin, the Web really has grown significantly in the type of user experience it can deliver for the kinds of applications it is suited for.
In his post, Hinchcliffe makes some observations about how the rise of AJAX-style development on the client side will affect some of the trends at the leading edge of server-side development. In particular, he points out that a lot of the new standards being developed for Web Services are not architected such that they will be useful in an AJAX-driven world. Whereas AJAX thrives on many rapid, lightweight, bite-sized communications with a single server, much of the current work on Web Services is towards the exhange and processing of large documents between multiple service providers in a secure and intricately choreographed way.
SEOmoz | Great Site for Learning about Term Weight
Rand Fishkin has found a nice resource for folks who want to understand the science of information retrieval… SEOmoz Blog | Great Site for Learning about Term Weight
Rich Ackerman’s site has pages on the vector space model and a nice explanation of the math behind it.
I don’t get my own blogroll here, but if I did, SEOMoz would be on it…
Google’s tracking links - grrrrrrrrr!
Over the past couple days, I’ve become plenty annoyed with Google’s tracking links breaking, or failing to return any data. I get the same experience with Yahoo (which loves redirection) quite often - at least with Google SERPs it’s only a small percentage of links that are getting tracked.
Hey Google, if you’re going to implement a feature that does nothing for users, I hope you don’t mind losing a few users in the process. I’m going to switch my default search over to MSN for a bit. Every time Google drives a user to try another search, there’s a chance that the other engine will win the taste test.
For the geeks among you, here’s an (edited down) HTTP trail from WebBug on a Google redirect link:
GET /url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=9&url=http%3A//www.roundtablepizza.com/&ei=owYJQ-PUCqb4-AG79tG_Dg HTTP/1.1
Host: www.google.com
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Cache-Control: private
Location: http://www.roundtablepizza.com/
Set-Cookie: PREF=ID=ddccf96dc54d1008:TM=1124665190:
LM=1124665190:S=nwisHxMdrjO4hjbp;
expires=Sun, 17-Jan-2038 19:14:07 GMT;
path=/; domain=.google.com
As you can see, Google is setting a cookie on the way through the redirect. I assume this allows them to see when a user clicks the back button or “bounces” from the target page back to the SERP. Conspiracy theorists, have fun with that… (Note: I added the line breaks in the cookie code to make it fit our page layout.) …
RSS evokes blank stares
(via O’Reilly Radar) Technology investment guru Bill Burnham cites a Neilsen report that found, in a survey of 1,000 blog readers, only 11% use RSS feeds to monitor blogs and nearly two-thirds don’t even know what RSS is.
What would help RSS grow? Microsoft’s much-vaunted support in the upcoming Windows Vista will certainly help, but maybe changing the name wouldn’t be such a bad thing…
Matt Cutts: UI fun: Better snippets
Google employee Matt Cutts describes a new enhancement to Google search results in
UI fun: Better snippets. Mr. Cutts is one of the most watched individuals in the search engine universe, and it’s nice to see him blogging.
I actually noticed this a couple days ago, when I was Googling around, and just sort of said “hmmm, that’s cool!” Then today when I got an email from SitePoint about our new Wordpress based blogging system, I knew that I already had a topic for my first post with the new system.
Thanks to the Just Blog It extension for Firefox, I can blog about anything instantly, without logging into the SitePoint forums, fooling with BBCode, seeing that my post doesn’t look right, going back into the forum to edit, and trial-and-erroring my way into something readable.
Another thing I noticed while Googling to find the URL for just blog it… Google’s got some tracking links turned on again - the link for that site (after Googling “just blog it gecko”) points to http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A//blog.warmbrain.com/justblogit/&ei=eGwGQ82WNIW2Yba0yI4K
This is not the most exciting news in the history of search engines, but now that I can blog instantly and at will, you gotta figure the quality’s gonna drop …
Should you pay for a referral?
A reader asks how to reward clients and colleagues who provide referrals.
First, cultivating referral sources should be a key part of how you market your business. It is the easiest, most fun, highest yielding way to grow. It is also something that takes creativity and the skill to know how to ask (which has been covered in previous blogs, my book, etc).
I NEVER pay a fee for a referral. I want my network to come to me with referrals because they know I do great work and can help people in their network.
So I take them to dinner, send a bottle of wine, send something the spouse or kids will like — and I do this both for those who send referrals that close and those that send referrals that don’t close. They’ve done their job. The rest is up to me.
Sponsored Links
Logo Design, Web page Design and more!
- Custom logo designs created ‘just for you’.
- Pick the design you like best.
- Only pay if you’re satisfied with the result.
Want More Traffic?
Get up to five quotes from qualified SEO specialists, with no obligation!
Download sample chapters of any of our popular books.
