Today is: Friday, 12th March 2010
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It’s Truck Day!
In honor of the Red Sox Truck Day, here is Truckin’, performed by the Grateful Dead, April 17, 1972 Koncertsal – Copenhagen, Denmark.
Truck Day, for you non-baseball fans, is the day when they send the truck off to Florida from Fenway Park in Boston, loaded with all their gear, in preparation for the start of Spring Training. It started out as an unofficial start to the baseball pre-season for fans, and has blossomed to the point that this year, the truck is emblazoned with an ad for Jet Blue. I guess we ought to have expected it.
12 Feb 10 | The Day Social Media Went Mainstream – Google Buzz
Google decided that I was ready for Google Buzz this morning, and it magically appeared in my email console. If you haven’t heard of it, watch this video:
On first take, when viewed inside of gmail, Google buzz seems to be a real yawn. Just another place where you need to update statuses to keep in touch with folks. Exactly what I’ve been warning would become the death of social media, the great diaspora wherein we all end up on separate and unconnected platforms.
That was my initial opinion, and now I can see I was dead wrong. This isn’t just another service, this very well could be THE service (I struggle to avoid LoTR analogies here). You see think about all the Google services, mail, image hosting, url shortening, search, profile, translate, Youtube, all woven into a single semi-open platform.
Instead of bits and pieces, we have the whole ball of wax. Then wrap in a nice little API which I assume they will offer and you have everything that Twitter, Facebook and all the other social media services aren’t – an all encompassing open social platform.
So what happens? Buzz becomes the lynch pin for the service that allows them to take on Facebook. Forget about Twitter, they are immediately an also ran service. By the end of the week, my Mother will be following me on Buzz, something that will never happen on Twitter. No, this is a Facebook killer of epic proportions.
Here’s how it goes. They firm up the platform, get people used to using it, then they make a simple pitch: who do you trust – Facebook or Google? At that point we all nod, and it’s “last one left on Facebook turn out the lights.”
This is the day when Social Media went mainstream.
Say What You Do For SEO Success
Jeff Bennett had a great post yesterday about a shop that had changed their name to take advantage of the customer’s common name for them
I said it absolutely made sense and I fully agree. Indeed from my experiences @ NameMedia this is exactly the way it is. I learned first hand the power and impact of generic names as we built our media business. It costs a lot of money and effort to create awareness for nondescript names and brands. It is hard to break through the clutter. Brand building today has to take into account a lot of things and generic and descript names have proven to rise to the top in Google. The Shopkeeper surely gave me an astute rationale for changing the shop name.
The domain name is one of the key SEO characteristics that Google uses in the algorithmic results. Hence if you want to perform well in a certain local, like Sutton, on a particular keyword, like Septic Cleaning, I’d consider buying that domain name and pointing it at a n optimized landing page for that town and keyword. If I wanted to perform well in the another town, I’d do another landing page.
So even though my business name might be “Cahill Septic Cleaning” I could still get the google juice from Sutton Septic Cleaning, plus any of the surrounding towns. Then I could also watch my analytics package and see what type of traffic I am getting from those domains, to see if they’re worth the yearly fee.
The good news is that most localized landing pages are available. Think about investing in them today!
Hosting and Web Development
Over the years, I’ve noticed that when most people start talking about web development, they immediately throw web hosting into the mix. ”Okay, so you develop in PHP, where do you host?” is often the flow of things.
The problem is, your website is YOUR BUSINESS ASSET, not mine. Hence asking me where I host is the wrong question. It should be “where do you recommend that we host our site.”
That bit was drilled home to me again last week. A friend asked me to talk with one of his friends, and it turned out he’d had a web development deal that went totally south on him, and even worse, the site was hosted on the errant web developer’s server. A potently bad mix…
Luckily for this fellow, he had control of his domain names for both of his sites, so I was able to put up a couple quick lander pages for him and change name servers, and he was no longer at the not so tender mercy of his former developer, and in a spot where he could start searching for a new developer (that won’t be me, I’m quite busy enough with my regular work now and couldn’t do his project justice).
So let’s all repeat after me: my domain names and my website hosting services are business assets, and no matter what I should maintain control over them!
Love Your Geek – Print Version Available
Karl Susman’s book “Love Your Geek” came out on Monday, and he just told me it’s already gone for a second printing. Excellent news! You can still get your copy on Amazon in the Kindle format, or order the print verision.
You can also join the forums and help Karl come up with topics for his next book by registering here for the LoveYourGeek.com forum.
Even better, he’s going to be interviewed on Craig Crossman’s Computer America show tonight at 10pm EST. You can listen online here.
Friday Music Video: Pat Metheny
Last Train Home – reminds me of my days at UVM when Pat was everywhere.
Dig deeper:
PatMetheny.com – his official site
Red Sox Ticket Prices, StubHub and Ace Tickets
Back in the day, I used to go to Red Sox games…lots of Red Sox games, as many as 30 or so a year.
In the past couple years, not a game. In fact, I’ve never taken my two daughters. Prices obviously enter into this – read this on the pricing thisyear from ESPN
Following an across the board freeze of all ticket prices in 2009, approximately two-thirds of the tickets at Fenway Park will stay at 2009 levels or increase by $2 for the 2010 season and no single price category will increase by more than $5. In 2010, 63% of the tickets at Fenway Park will be $52 or less, with the lowest ticket price remaining at $12.
For many of you, you’re saying, that’s not so bad, go for the $12 tickets. That’d peg you immediately as someone that has never been in the bleachers at Fenway. It’s traditionally not a place for your kids…at least not for my kids.
The real rub in my mind is that I can’t get tickets to the games I want, such as the May 7 game against the Yankees without going through a scalper like StubHub or Ace Tickets. Both have hundreds if not thousands of tickets to that game. Meanwhile, Redsox.com, the official box office has none…not a single ticket for the game. This, just ONE DAY after tickets went on sale.
So how’d that happen?
You see in 2007, Stubhub.com signed a 5 year deal with MLB to resell tickets. On the face of it, the deal was to allow fans to resell their tickets. Are we honestly to believe that thousands of Red Sox fans waited online Saturday and then changed their mind on Sunday and are now selling their tickets.
No, obviously not.
The big question here has to be asked of the Red Sox: are you providing tickets directly to StubHub? If so, then that ought to be figured into the average cost of ticket prices.
If this is the case, then the Red Sox and MLB have found an excellent way to increase revenues, without having to face the bad PR of drastically increasing ticket prices. Also, if this is the case, then both the Red Sox and MLB need a trip to the woodshed.
I fired off an email to the Red Sox box office:
Why is it one day after tickets went on sale, games such as the May 7 Yankees game are unavailable from your site, but StubHub has hundreds if not thousands of tickets. Do you sell or in any way provide tickets to StubHub?As a fan, this situation is not acceptable.
What do you think? Should fans be forced to buy their tickets from secondary sources?
Kind of funny to think that StubHub’s motto, “Sold out? Not us…” when for MLB for this is definitely a Sell Out.
(Note: I contacted the Red Sox via email on Sunday and as of the publish time of this post, have not received any sort of reply).
NY Times: When iPhone Apps Are Too Smart
The big secret of iPhone apps is coming out of the bag: most apps that are downloaded are rarely, if ever used.
While I’m not saying we’ve jumped the shark here, it is important to note that if the New York Times has picked up on this fact, then it’s approaching common knowledge. Read their article, “When iPhone Apps Are Too Smart” here.
So, for every zealous owner whose iPhone is loaded with little-known programs that predict asteroid fly-bys, there are many more Caroline Cuas, who seldom venture outside the predictable. Most say they’re too busy, too lazy or just plain flummoxed by the choices.
“I think I’m supposed to want more of them than I have,” said Julie Graham, a psychotherapist in San Francisco who echoed Ms. Cua’s vague anxiety. “There’s this sense that I’m missing out on something I didn’t know I needed.”
Ms. Graham, 50, said friends were shocked when she confessed to having failed to download Urbanspoon, a compendium of restaurant reviews. She now has it — and seldom uses it. “I don’t have time,” she said.
So what does it all mean? I’ll put it simply: don’t put too much stock into how many times your iPhone app (or any other) was downloaded from the App Store. More importantly, build in the appropriate mechanisms to allow you to find what the actual usage was. Once again, it comes down to a pure matter of metrics. How many page views, how many purchases, etc.
Similarly, we’ve got to bridge the gap between coding neat little apps that get downloaded and get to the point where we have serious apps that get used.
A few things to consider:
- What is the core user need your app is fulfilling?
- If there isn’t an existing need, what need are you creating?
- Are you applying the tenets of online community building to maintain user interest?
- What are the top apps you use? What is it about those apps that makes them compelling to you?
- Have you closely examined competitor apps? What’s good about them? What isn’t? What can you do better?
- What are the real metrics for your app? Compare downloads vs. actual usage.
- Talk with real iPhone app users, not the Tech/SM crowd. What do they really use for apps?
Let me know what you see…I’d love to share info on this!
Geo Location Services and the Coming War for Our Whereabouts
Over the past few months I’ve been messing with Foursquare…the geo location service-based social network-game. Frequent readers will possibly remember that I’m not a really big fan of sharing geo location information, even though I’m perhaps one of the few who has directly had his life saved by cell phone geolocation.
Foursquare is an interesting study. By turning the geo location service into a game and allowing the most frequent visitors to locations to earn the title of ”Mayor” of that spot, as well as providing badges which users can earn for certain actions, they’re amassing a fairly comprehensive database of mostly bars and restaurants around the globe. They’ve beautifully applied some of the best features of online communities in a way that has allowed them to expand at an exponential rate. (more…)
About Us
I'm Mark Cahill - Online community developer and content management wonk since 1995. I'm interested in new media, communities and social networking, and love saltwater fly fishing. For a longer version, you can read my full about us page.
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Email me at allthingscahill at gmail
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