Terry Howard

Personal blog of Terry Howard, guy from Orlando, Florida that likes fishing, literature, technology and saying what's on his mind.

Terry Howard
Orlando, Florida

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Whudafxup with Truth?

Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/29/2007

My friend Mike pointed this out to me. He was watching a Truth commercial and saw for a moment on screen the phrase "whadafxup". It's also the domain for their accompanying site and pretty much the focal point of their current anti-smoking campaign aimed at teens. Now, I have to ask, whudafxup with that? So the tobacco companies have to hand over money to the government which we then dole out to this Truth group and they use what is essentially tax payer money (don't give me this, it's the tobacco company's money, it was awarded to the state) to generate advertising utilizing profanity on FCC controlled distribution channels aimed at our youth. Nice job!

So we can expect the FCC and the government to pull the plug on this anytime now, right? I mean, Janet Jackson shows a pasty and all hell breaks lose, but government funded youth targeted advertising can utilize the word "fuck" as the center piece of a mutli-media onslaught?

Labels: advertising, tobacco

1 comments

More Mahalo Musings

Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/28/2007

So obviously recent events has me thinking more about Mahalo and their proposed model of organizing information. It's spectacularly flawed not just in scalability, but in it's core concept. Consider the following:

With the Mahalo model a given result is created by an editor. It is up to that editor, or group of editors, to be the sole decision maker in what businesses get exposure. You have to wonder how they will make this decision or gather their pool of options to select from. My guess would be they'll search Google, which is just a big fat bit of sad irony. But regardless of that, with this small group of people crafting these results you are likely to get a page heavy with big name manufacturers and big box retailers, people everyone has heard of. In Scoble's HDTV example that is exactly what you have. So I guess if you are a new product entry into the market, or a comparatively small fry in the retail space, you are SOL. Maybe you could send an email or flyer to the editors: "Hey, please review my new business for consideration!" Or...

You could use an algorithmic based engine that allows the chance for everyone to gain momentum and climb in the rankings as their popularity driven by their marketing efforts dictate. The big guys with the big names and the big popularity will be found among the top. But mom and pop have the opportunity do some clever marketing and get a little time to shine and hopefully gain traction to build their business. SEO helps businesses compete and get exposure and anybody can do it, big or small.

Mahalo, this is what we call a "free market", which is different than the Oligarchy-like marketplace you envision as Utopia. I wouldn't expect you to understand, as a search of "free market" on Mahalo yields the familiar "We haven't written a result page for 'free market' yet. Why?" Ooo! Me! Me! Because you don't have a clue!

As a side note, people who think in terms of "utopia" usually end up committing genocide on their own people right before the free market practicers of the world push them back into a bunker where they put an end to their grand schemes with a lead bullet.

Labels: marketing, search engines, seo

7 comments

Scoble, We Hardly Knew Ye

Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/28/2007

So this series of Scoble videos are making the blog rounds and well, Scoble pretty much caught a nasty case of foot-in-mouth disease if you ask me, brought on by a nasty Calcanis infection. Apparently Mahalo is going to end Google in 4 years (as well as Yahoo! and MSN) and SEO is entirely devoted to spamming the engines.

Wow, now I haven't seen that level of reckless ignorance since, well, earlier today when Michael Vick said he thought his torturing dogs to death after laying wages on battles-to-the-death was childish. Yeah, that's the kind of stuff kids do in their care-free summer days Mike, adults usually grow out of that.

So back to Scoble, who has with this string of Al Queda style low budget video pod-craps ended any chance of hanging on to any long term relevancy that might earn him the right to be played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in a made for TNT movie. Others have done a better job than I could of picking him apart statement by statement, so I'll just stick with a couple things that popped into my head while watching what of his videos I could stomach.

Scoble mentions that nobody uses any of Google's hundreds of services, which I found funny as I came across a mention of his videos through some blogs I read completely through Google Reader, which I access from my Google Homepage where I can also see my latest Google Mail. I'm pretty sure I'm not Google alone in that Google area. He also boldly claims that if you are looking at the video then you haven't gotten there via search as the ONLY way you can find that video is by someone first hand (you see, Scoble intentionally tried to un-seo his video page, that rascal!) Really? Google is not going to index the articles and blogs that mention your video and link to and derive the keyword relevancy from that? Have you not heard of the affects of Google bombing? What am I saying, you are the Mainstream Tech Media (MTM tm), why would you ever have a full comprehension about that of which you write?

So Scoble starts talking about his comparison of "HDTV" result pages from Google and Mahalo. First off, seriously Scoble? You are this supposed tech guru and you search like an 80 year old granny's first sitting at a computer? I'm pretty sure you throw at least one qualifying statement in there so I'm going to chalk that demonstration up to staged setup. So let's try something useful, like say looking for tips on how to shoot a video podcast that does not sound and look like you are making a ransom video. So pop say "video podcast audio tips" into Google and Mahalo. Google gives some noise, but some good results in there too. Mahalo gives you... er... Google results... and links to other pages on Mahalo they think might be related, such as Veronica Belmont (who is now in production on a daily podcast for Mahalo), How to Speak French, Twango (which has nothing to do with podcasts) and a general page about Podcasts where upon halfway down I find, ah, what I was looking for "Podcast Tips and Tricks". So with Google I got a page that was geared towards my words, a handful on the first page that were dead on what I wanted, and with Mahalo I got some irrelevant links, something that looks like blatant promotional linking (we call that SPAM), a link to ANOTHER page that does hold what I'm looking for, oh, and then Google results that does hold what I'm looking for. Actually Mahalo missed a perfect opportunity to unite me the searcher and my query with that click and some scrolls away relevant info, all the needed was some kind of system that could have systematically paired what I searched with content they know about. Some kind of, I don't know, algorithm. I guess I could always wait for a Mahalo editor to create the page and then they'll be happy to email me. Super!

The last thing I'll comment on will be Scoble's over the top swipes at SEO as an industry. What the hell dude? How uneducated can you be? Here's a quick primer: SEO helps sites with information relevant to a given query be found for the query. The keyword here is "relevant". If you are spending time doing things that are presenting your site as being relevant for a term OTHER than what your page/site has to offer, that's not spamming, that's stupid. You can call it spamming if you want, but I would just call it poor SEO that is going to drive in bad quality traffic that doesn't convert. So what's left is people helping people find the information they are looking for, which is pretty much what your bed buddy Mahalo claims to do. SEO just uses the existing vehicle of algorithmic search to accomplish that. You say SEO like it's a dirty word, but all SEO is is helping the poor schmoe's at your HDTV manufacturers with their unindexable flash monstrosities reach the customers who are searching for them. I suppose in your world we could just wait for Jason Calcanis to write a page about every industry on the planet, but in the world we all live in, we're just going to do some SEO so everyone can get on with their lives today.

I don't know Scoble, maybe it's just sour grapes, perhaps you are finding your profession of journalist has become sort of a four letter word these days and you felt the need to take someone else down a notch to make yourself feel better. Whatever the case is, perhaps next time you'll search Google to get your facts straight and maybe a few tips on making a video that doesn't suck. You sure as hell ain't going to find that info on Mahalo... well, maybe in the Google results fed in.

Labels: idiots, marketing, scoble, seo

0 comments

The Digg Effect

Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/16/2007

The Digg Effect, Getting Dugg, Diggination. No other news article discovery service to date has quite had the strong broad appeal of Digg. People have coined specific phrases to characterize the impact it can have on getting noticed.. or wreaking havoc on servers. What the web has done for getting content published, sites like Digg have done for getting published works read en masse.

The short answer for how Digg works is a short description and title are submitted for an article, along with a link to the original work. This submission appears in a list of recent items and site visitors will vote them up or down according to their tastes. The more positive "Diggs" an article gets, the higher and longer the item stays on the list. This makes momentum the biggest factor for success in utilizing Digg and similar sites to generate mass exposure for your content. Think of it like a kite. When you get started just you and those immediately around you can see it, but the more wind you get under the kite, the higher it rises and the more people can see it. Before long you get a whole neighborhood stopping to look and point. Okay, silly analogy but accurate enough.

So how do you get people to Digg your article? The main key to getting that momentum going is to write an article that offers something unique and noteworthy. A totally unique and original topic is best, but even an already popular topic can get you viewers if you have a unique take. The key is to offer something "viral" that makes others want to get behind it and vote. Look to YouTube for that kind of inspiration. Another video of Tom Cruise trying to choke Oprah, ho hum... But throw some quick iMovie lightning effects in and overdub the scene where Chancellor Palpatine kills Samuel Jackson, and you get a million pageviews. The lesson here is remix it if you have to, but make it fresh, and original. Funny never hurts either.

The second part to look at is your hook, the title and description for your submission. This is the interesting part, because a good portion of those who might Digg your article may never actually read it. But if your title and description are interesting enough to spur conversation or debate you'll going to have a lively discussion thread born which will generate some Diggs on its own. That's a nice bit of icing to go with those who actually read the article and vote on its actual merits. This is how most political based articles get legs on Digg, Diggers love to argue politics and they'll do it for days in the discussion born from your article. Technology slants and humor are also good fodder for starting lively exchanges. Just write your title and description almost like an ad for your description, playing on your audiences emotions or interests and you'll attract more interested readers who are more inclined to discuss and vote your article.

Timing is another big factor. Not only is it important to post while your topic is, well topical, but also when others are not. A slow news day is the best time to get your stuff up. I fell victim to trying to post my well crafted Digg attempt about an hour before the whole recent DVD encryption code fiasco went down, burying my submission almost immediately with hundreds of new articles. I learned the hard way that timing means not only when your topic is hot, but when others are cold. Posting right before lunch time or right after five in the afternoon is not a bad strategy either. Don't let your submission get slowly buried while people are at work or asleep.

So what are some tricks to get your kite off the ground a little quicker, giving you a little bit of an edge over the casual submitter? Word of mouth, plain and simple. Leverage your social networks to the hilt. Post a bulletin on MySpace, inform your Flickr and YouTube buddies, and Facebook friends. Post a message in all the message boards you are active in and maybe some on topic ones you just Googled and found. Hit up your AIM buddy list and email address book. Post a message to Twitter and all your blogs. If you wrote a creative and entertaining article that will appeal to people, your immediate contacts should be more than happy to give it a read and give you some well deserved Diggs. Since they'll come relatively close together you'll get a nice starting boost that hopefully will catch wind and get you airborne.

And don't just stop at Digg. There are some niche Digg-like sites out there to take advantage of too. Slashdot is a good tech oriented news voting site, Sphinn is a new one for marketing and web development news, and Netscape and MySpace both have put their hats into the ring with their own versions of the Digg style news site. Also, don't forget to put those "Digg This" and other badges at the bottom of your article wherever it lives. You can pick up Diggs that way regardless of how people reach your content.

Good luck with your own content and please don't forget to Digg and Sphinn this article!

Labels: marketing, seo, social networks

2 comments

Coolest IT Guy Ever

Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/14/2007

My apologies to my former IT guy Chris, but Chad "The Chad" Wetli, the "IT guy" at Full Sail where I took a position at a few months ago is by far the coolest IT guy ever. At first he seemed like a typical no-nonsense tech guy, super helpful, but short on words. He installed CS3 on my MacBook Pro and later helped me get Parallels Desktop setup and I think the whole time I heard him say only a few words.

So Sunday I worked the Behind The Scenes tour where prospective students come in, see a short presentation, and then go on degree specific tours of the campus. During the presentation Chad, who around the campus is known as "The Chad", goes from deadpan to over the top surfer weather dude at the flip of a camera switch and delivers a hilarious faux weather forecast extolling the virtues of the Central Florida climate.

This afternoon I attended The Pulse, the Full Sail version of an annual "state of the company" meeting for staff. There were contortionist, clowns, animals, deep fried snickers and live music among other things, but the highlight easily was the premier of some new Full Sail commercials featuring The Chad (I will post them as soon as they are available, truly entertaining!.) I came to find out that The Chad even has an IMDB page. Now that is a cool IT guy!

As mentioned in the comments, don't miss his Rubik's Cube Skillz either.

Labels: full sail, IT

1 comments

Ning powers new generation of networks: diabetics, among others, to benefit

Posted by Terry Howard @ 8/14/2007

Fellow Full Sailor Manny Hernandez posted this article on Digg about a mention in an LA Times article referencing his TuDiabetes.com site. Good to see a worthy venture like that get some high profile coverage! Go read the article and give him a Digg!

digg story

Labels: social networks