All Things Cahill

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  • The Blog is Dead, Long Live the Blog!

    Over the weekend, The New York Times proclaimed that blogging is dead.  I guess with their vast experience working with dead and dying media, they’d probably be able to recognize a fellow dinosaur headed for an early grave…

    All kidding aside, they’ve hit on something.  The days when everyone and their brother gets into blogging are probably over.  A year or two ago many “blogging gurus” would tell us that “we’re all media now”.  The truth of the thing is that most of us don’t have that stuff in us.  It’s one thing to configure wordpress and throw up a few posts, and quite another to update the thing on a regular basis.

    I’d know, I’ve been doing this since 1995 or so.  I’ve been through a few cycles where I lost steam, and the post volume slowed to a crawl.  I’ve also setup hundreds of blogs for other people, and honestly, I will tell you right now, I cannot tell at the outset of any project who will be part of the magic 25% that are still updating their blog 6 months later.  And in that other 75% a good portion never update after the first week.

    The important thing here is that blogging has gone from being ultra-kewl to being one more electronic communication means with it’s own pros and cons. Very useful for somethings and utterly useless for others.

    The days of blogging to be cool are over.  Time for all the gurus and SMDBs to check out and head onto the next big thing, whatever that is.

    Yes, comments have virtually dried up over the past year or so on many blogs.  Yes, most of the discussion about my posts now goes on in my Facebook account, away from the mainstream.

    It makes blogging no less important.  Think of the blog as your personal long tail.  It is the bit of you that is indexed in Google, that unique bit that is both an opening of yourself to the world at large, as well as a living record of your life online.

    Think of the blog as what it was when we invented the thing, a simple online journal. Forget what the gurus tell you, you don’t have to “be the expert.” Being yourself is good enough…and often that’s the part of your blog we like the most.

  • How to be a New Englander

    It’s that time of year. When New Englander’s come into their own, and the cursed southern interlopers are forced to suffer.  Indeed, it’s winter in New England.

    To help you get in touch with your inner New Englander, a list:

    1. Don’t complain about the snow.  You’re not a New Yorker, for God’s sake.
    2. If the storm drops less than 6″ of snow, make sure everyone knows “it’s not worth  shoveling, let alone plowing.”
    3. Whenever someone complains about the snow, grunt, and say something cryptic like “That ain’t snow, now ’78, that was snow…7 feet deep, heavy as concrete and harder than steel.”
    4. If the temperature is anything above -20 and someone complains about the cold, loudly profess that “it’s a fine New England day.”
    5. Dress in layers and only wear what you need.  Use suitably New England fabrics, like wool, or better yet, burlap.
    6. Find a hat that’s functional, yet completely devoid of style.  Extra points are given for real fur (that you trapped yourself) and plaid.
    7. Disparage anyone who uses anything other than “Bear Grease” to waterproof their boots.
    8. Insist that “Bear Grease” is only made with the finest of bears…
    9. If clam chowder is any thicker than milk, complain that “it’s not chowder, it’s wallpaper paste.”
    10. If clam chowder has any herbs at all in it, call it “vegetable soup”.
    11. If clam chowder is red in color, proclaim the cook “a heathen who ought not to be seen north of the Tavern on the Green.”
    12. If the clam chowder meets the above criteria, and is generally good, declare it “edible, but not as good as my mothers.”
    13. If presented with a “boiled dinner” be sure to complain if it’s got a ham in it, instead of smoked shoulder.  Refuse to admit that there is no substantive difference between the two.
    14. If someone stops for directions in a car with a Yankees sticker, or wearing a Yankees hat, feel free to give them turn by turn directions to the town dump…three towns away.

  • How to Buy a Domain Name for Your Business

    <Disclosure: I work for Namemedia, as Senior Engineer for Afternic.com, the premier marketplace for the secondary domain name market in the world.  As such, I tend to recommend Afternic and other Namemedia services.>

    The Business Owners Lament: “All the good domain names are already registered.”

    Yes, indeed, the initial land grab in the domain name market has been over for some time.  Most of the really good names are, indeed, already registered.  That doesn’t mean that they aren’t available, though.  You need to look on the secondary market.

    Before we go any further, I should define a couple terms:

    • Primary Market – names that currently are not registered.  These are available via the traditional registrars like GoDaddy, Network Solutions, Register.com, eNom, etc.  Search these guys first, in case the name you need for your business is available.
    • Secondary Market – names that are already registered but available for sale are often listed through the secondary market at sites like Buydomains.com. These “premium domains” are held by either domain investors, or currently owned by one of the registrars may have re-registered the name when the initial registration expired.
    • Domainer, or Domain Investor –  a person or company who buys and sells domain names, treating them as investment properties.  Domain names are analogous to real estate investments…but the real estate is on the Internet.
    • SEO – Search engine optimization – specific coding, content and onsite tactics designed to ensure that your site is visible in Google’s “natural search” rankings (in contrast to Google Adwords, which are paid placements).
    • Organic Traffic – traffic that comes because someone typed a specific search term into a search engine such as Google or Bing.  Type in “candy” as a search term…the results that you see in the middle of the page are “organic results”
    • Direct Traffic—traffic that comes from someone typing your domain name directly into the search bar—that is typing “candy.com” versus doing a search for candy
    • TLD – top level domain, for example .com, .edu or .org are all TLDs, in fact they are three of the originals.
    • ccTLD – a country code TLD – such as .co.uk or .it *(Italy).

    As I note above, search the primary market first, and if the name you need is available, buy it.  Domain names do not get any cheaper than this…if it’s there, pat yourself on the back, because you just got a bargain.

    What’s a good Domain Name for my business?

    Ah, the age old question.  It really depends what you expect your site to do for your business.  We may want a site name that fits with our companies brand or name, such as “SmithSeptic.com” or perhaps we want something that is more descriptive of the service we provide, such as “SepticPumping.com”.  For local businesses, I often recommend they go with something that is both descriptive of their service as well as their location, like “WalthamSepticPumping.com” which will give them a lot of help in terms of SEO.

    Increasingly it is the case that savvy businesses are pursuing a “multi-domain strategy” to ensure that they are found by prospective customers. So, in the example above, a smart business owner might opt to purchase “SmithSeptic.com”, “SepticPumping.com”, “WalthamSepticPumping.com” and other, related, terms such as “AffordableSepticPumping.com”  It is also a good idea to purchase multiple TLDs: e.g. buy the “.net” along with the “.com” and other variations of your desired names.

    Things to consider:

    • Don’t limit yourself, you can (and in some businesses, should) have more than one domain name.
    • Short domain names are easier to remember than longer domain names.
    • Some names are just too long to be worth discussing.  Last week we had a request for “AdamsRoofingandConstructionRepairinMelbourne.com”.  The guy gets points for trying to hit all the relevant keywords, but the chance of anyone, ever, typing that into the address bar of a browser correctly is minimal. Not to mention the extra paint he’d need to get it put on his truck.
    • Some domain names are too broad.  If you are a lawyer and your work is almost exclusively done in Waltham, buying Lawyer.com would be a waste.  Think more along the lines of “WalthamLawyer.com”.

    The Secondary Domain Name Market

    So you didn’t find a decent domain name in the primary market.  Not to fear, there are still plenty of great domains available; you just need to look on the secondary market.

    The first reaction I usually here from business owners about the secondary domain market is that “the prices are so much higher!”  Indeed, versus a primary registration,  “aftermarket” names will be priced higher.  The reason is simple: good domain names have value.  Great domain names have even greater value.

    Consider how you acquire customers, and what you currently pay to acquire the customers. If you typically spend $50-100 per new customer acquired in direct mail, advertising, or radio, for example, an investment of $5,000 that yields you just 20 customers per month, just 5 per week, will cost you about $20 for the first year and likely much less in subsequent years.  Quite a bargain—and since research indicates that nearly half of all smaller businesses are not online—your presence may also help you to win customers away from your competitors who are not online.

    In business, we’re always after great value.  If the right domain name is important to your business, then paying for the best is going to be worth it.

    To get started, you’ll want to go to Afternic.com (the site I work with) and start searching.  Don’t buy the first name you see, really do your homework and see what’s available for sale and try to find the perfect domain.  We’re currently listing 3,596,444 domain names and it’s a pretty good bet there’s a one (and likely a whole lot) that will meet your needs in there.  You’ll see that there are filters on the left hand side of the site; you likely want to add some filters to your search to cut down on the list of names displayed.

    Once you distill your list of names down and you’re ready to buy, you’ve got a couple of options.  Most of our domains have a “Buy Now” price – that’s a price that the buyer has agreed to sell the domain for immediately.  No haggling, no problems.  You just click the button and the domain purchase process begins.

    We also support auctions and often you won’t see a “Buy Now” button so you’ll be able to make an offer.  You can also participate in closing soon auctions of domain names, etc.

    Personally, if I want a domain name, I buy it then and there if I can.

    You may also want to pick up the phone and call the account managers for assistance; they’ve helped thousands of business owners find suitable online monikers over the years and they can also offer you advice about “next steps” once you’ve secured the perfect domain name.

    What’s This Domain Really Worth

    Before you make on offer on an Auction you might want an assessment of what the domain name is really worth.  We offer a team of domain appraisal experts who will give you a nuts and bolts assessment of the domain’s real market value.

    As with many of our other services, this is also available as a separate service, even if you are looking at a domain we don’t have listed.

    I Want a Specific Domain and It’s Not Listed

    I think this is one of the coolest features of Afternic.  We offer “Afternic Agent Service” which means that we will locate the owner of any domain and make an offer on your behalf.  This is tremendous for a couple reasons:

    • The service can be anonymous, which we sometime need in business
    • Our experienced agents know how to find the owners
    • They are highly experienced in negotiating domain sales
    • They make deals happen

    Purchasing Your Domain

    When you’ve clicked that “buy now” button or you have won your domain auction, the domain name escrow process begins.  Afternic’s secure process protects both buyer and seller—ensuring that no money, nor any domains change hands until the transaction is verified. The secure transfer is included with any purchases made through Afternic.com or BuyDomains.com, but you can also utilize Afternic’s secure escrow service for any domain transaction.

  • Thoughts on Joining the World of Android

    Over the weekend I made the switch to the HTC Evo 4g on the Sprint network.  I still have the iPhone, but will be using it as a glorified iPod Touch after a serious run in with AT&T’s much Byzantine labyrinth of customer support.

    The good:

    • Both front and back facing cameras
    • It seems like a more serious piece of technology
    • The screen is better than the iPhone
    • The camera is 8 megapixels, with built in flash
    • Turn by turn navigation
    • Tremendous integration with Google apps
    • Speech recognition that works – I can actually do things by voice now
    • Wireless hotspot – now my old iPhone and iPad can work in wireless mode
    • This seems like a much more serious piece of gear than the iPhone

    The bad:

    • Lots of apps, but missing some of the ones I liked best on the iPhone, like Concert Vault
    • The battery life is incredibly short – seriously, an add on battery pack is needed here
    • I see a lot of error messages from the background
    • On error messages the buttons say “force close” which is a term that will be foreign to most users

    For the record, the AT&T Customer Disservice guy I was talking to went the extra mile to make sure I’d have an extra hard time transferring my line.  Luckily, after my Twitter tirade,  the ATT social media crew helped to get me fixed.   This all on the same day that the WSJ reported Verizon was days away from having the iPhone.

    For the record, AT&T should learn a few newspaper terms: “Churn”, “Retention” and “Honkin’ Big Loss of Revenue”.

  • A New Year

    I’m back to the grindstone after a week off for the holidays.

    Things to expect here in the coming year:

    • More tech/development blogging
    • More frequent updates
    • A netcast or two when the situation warrants
    • More cute and cuddly weasels

    Enjoy…

  • Twitter Just Became Relevant

    I’ve got a long and storied history with Twitter.  At first, hated it.  Then loved it…and recently have been somewhat ambivalent.

    Personally I think the short form blog, which is what Twitter is, appeals to some of the very things that are wrong with modern society.  It’s designed for the ADHD generation, feeds the growing cults of personality, and in general, is a prime expediter of the dumbing down process.  The whole thing was designed to be scanned, not read, a very fact against which the writer in me is compelled to rebel.  Beyond that, I attribute it to the ongoing decline of blogs and blog commenting.

    That was until I saw a new app for the iPad called Flipboards (free).  This app takes your twitter and facebook feeds, as well as just about anything else RSS and on the fly retrieves the summary data from the links which are embedded and constructs an online newspaper format for you to read it in.

    So now, instead of reading a limited 140 character post, with an unintelligible shortened url, the app pulls down all the content, pictures and all and creates a very user friendly representation of the data.

    That’s the point at which the world changed…

    Now instead of this:

    I get this:

    (Sorry for the blurry photo – it’s actually visually stunning, but I had to take the pic with my iPhone in my dark cubicle and with my hand tremor in full force today, that’s as good as it gets)

    Overnight, that makes Twitter (and Facebook) a crowd-sourced news clipping service which brings me all the news that’s fit to link.

    Oh, and by the way, RSS is dead as a reading format.  It’s now a cross-site content transfer language.

    Try it, I think you’ll be as blown away as I am.

  • The Reinfather Trilogy

    <This post has become our annual xmas season special.  Enjoy…and may yoose keep ya’s noses clean, be good earners and stay in the good graces of the Reinfather for another year.>

    Last night was the annual broadcast of the classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer animation, which no doubt many of the parents in the audience had to sit through.  So today, I share the classic MadTV “The Reinfather Trilogy” with you…

    Warning: Extreme violence, incredibly vulgar langauge, blasphemy, poor table manners and in general none of these three videos should be played if you are prone to being offended, have small children near you, or will get in trouble for laughing out loud.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-qM78XinyE (embedding is disabled on this one…)

    Raging Rudolph – Goodfellas Parody

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEumZuJXqYM[/youtube]

    The Reinfather – Godfather Parody

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxvDMWRG-gQ[/youtube]

    A Pack of Gifts Now – Apocalypse Now Parody

  • How’s It Working for You?

    I don’t write about politics often, but the situation in Massachusetts just begs discussion.

    Since the election a scant month ago, Massachusetts has been rocked once again by scandal, evidence of blatant corruption and put us in a circle that seems it will land our 4th House Speaker in a row in jail.  The #3 guy in the House has already had to resign his position.

    Here’s the stone cold truth: right now there is a veritable avalanche of evidence depicting the horrendous corruption in our state.  Mob families have been brought down with less under the RICO statuate, which is unfortunately an apt description of our state government as it is today.

    Let’s review the bits and pieces:

    1. The Feds have empaneled a grand jury to look into allegations of fraud, extortion and conspiracy in the MA Probation Dept.
    2. The State Attorney General has a separate investigation into the Probation Dept.
    3. Tom Petrolati resigns as #3 man in the house.
    4. House Speaker DeLeo under fire for patronage hires, quid pro quo campaign donations.  State Senate Leader defends patronage.
    5. Middlesex County Sherriff commits suicide amid allegations of campaign fund misuse, payroll double dipping.
    6. MassDevelopment hires consultant to look into pay raises for management.
    7. Peter Blute on WCRN has recently mentioned several times that MA Court Clerks get 4 months paid vacation a year (can someone get a citation on that?).

    Perhaps instead of investigating the corruption in the Probation Dept., we should instead have a top down investigation of hiring practices in ALL the departments.  Do you hear me, MassDOT, Lottery, etc.?

    Our word for the day, ladies and gentlemen, is Kleptocracy (via Wikipedia)

    a term applied to a government subject to control fraud that takes advantage of governmental corruption to extend the personal wealth and political power of government officials and the ruling class (collectively, kleptocrats), via the embezzlement of state funds at the expense of the wider population, sometimes without even the pretense of honest service. The term means “rule by thieves“.

    Let me ask you a simple question: How well do you think single party control of the state legislature and senate has worked for us?

  • The Smurfs Would Like To Harvest Cabbage

    As I sat in a meeting this morning, scanning email on my iPad, up popped this message: “The Smurfs would like to harvest cabbage.”

    The darned push messages…it seems every application on the iPad now wants permission to send a push message.  NYTimes.com breaking news?  Maybe…  Twitter?  Probably not…  My Monster Ranch, Empire Story, Virtual Villagers?  Definitely not…

    My kids have come to love the iPad.  They really enjoy the games, and quite honestly, like most kids, they aren’t to discerning about how they configure the thing.  So now, on top of  “did you make your bed”  I now need to keep on them to “make sure you turned the push notifications off.”  I feel like the darned IT department.  After a whole day at the office, I now often go home and have to spend hours configuring a printer, or troubleshooting issues on the home network, or updating our online Netflix account, or Hulu or any one of a hundred connected things.

    And it’s  coming to the point where virtually any device can let me know that most important information: “The Smurfs would like to harvest cabbage.”

  • BK & Seattle’s Best – a Lesson for Marketers

    “We’re #2, we try harder” is a marketing strategy that has served Avis well for years.  This morning I saw a corollary to that strategy, “we’re #16, we don’t even bother to try.”

    In the past couple weeks, Burger King, who has done an excellent job marketing recently with “The King”, has spent a lot of money advertising  for Seattle’s Best Coffee.  The big push is for “Free on Friday,” a take on the old, try it once and you’re ours strategy that works so well for heroin dealers in the hood.  The problem here is this: if you’re product can’t back up your claims, you’re sunk.  In this case, phase two of the marketing plan better be “we’ll pay you to drink it.”

    The brew is a dark, foul concoction with strong overtones of varnish and the peaty hint of cow manure, subtly juxtaposed by an acerbic tinge of kerosene.  For their part, Burger King provides the perfect accompaniment by failing to instruct their employee-bots on the correct regional definition of the word “regular” which, at least in the NE vernacular, implies the presence of cream and sugar.  Not only did they not correctly install the accouterments, they failed to provide them in the bag so that I might correct their error.

    The short version is this: the only thing this stuff might be “best” at is removing paint.  Or perhaps opening a gastric ulcer in those unlucky enough to imbibe it.