Archive for February, 2007

Bring on the stupid juice

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007

I stayed up late last night worried about some of the decisions that have been tossed down from those who write me paychecks. The stress of a three hour meeting has lasted til this morning. At times like these, I like to visit sites such as Buzzwhack.com so I can identify, categorize and otherwise find language that might better help me understand the current phenomenon.

Here are my two favorites terms for today:
Adminisphere: “The upper levels of management where big, impractical, and counterproductive decisions are made.”
Deja Poo: “The feeling that you’ve stepped in this bull before.”

When these two things are happening, one could end up the victim of “blamestorming” which is defined as, “A group process where participants analyze a failed project and look for scapegoats other than themselves.” And that will likely happen in the “Adminisphere”.

There, I feel better already. It’s a warm day and the sun is shining and now that I have some labels that made me giggle, perhaps I can shake it off and move on. I don’t have to understand. But I will remain amazed. I still don’t understand why horses will fight furiously to return to a burning barn. But it will always amaze me.

Another Wonderful Use for Shrinkwrap

Monday, February 12th, 2007

I had knee surgery on Monday and have been in a bit of a stupor as the knock-out drugs slowly leave my system. It’s amazing that only 4 days after being “under the knife” I am walking around and spending some time on the exercise bike. All seems to be going well – except that I can’t get the knee bandages wet for another 7 days.

Luckily my wife has a cold and can’t smell very well. But after a couple of days of not showering, I had to find a solution for getting clean. Hanging my leg out of the tub sucked and duct-taping a plastic bag over my knee was not entirely successful. Plus the duct tape did a great job of extracting leg hair upon removal. So, I decided to try the ever-so-helpful roll of shrink wrap that the movers unintentionally gifted me back in July.

Shrink wrap rocks! I put a paper towel over my knee and wrapped it up like a cold sandwich. I took a regular shower and had zero water leaks! What’s even better is that I used the shrink wrap again to ice my knee. Ever had to ice something only to freeze your hands and get water everywhere? I shrink wrapped an ice pack to my knee and it not only stayed in place, I could actually walk around without disturbing the pack. Sweet sweetness!
Ice pack shrink-wrapped to knee

Will Google monitor prostitution?

Friday, February 2nd, 2007

There has been a lot of attention paid to the effectiveness of “paid” links to a website’s SEO success. In a recent post by Matt Cutts, he makes a point about how companies tout their paid links as “undetectable” when, indeed, the Google crew is able to filter them. Matt has mentioned in the past about detecting “networks” and devaluing those networks and the links they produce. So what links actually count?

The answer, as usual, is ‘it depends’. But I think the key to detectability is the “network”. Who knows how long it will be before Google recognizes Text-Link-Ads and devalues those listed in that network? It just depends on whether Google sees that company as a threat to it’s relevancy algorithm. Think of it this way – a brothel is much easier to discover than a lone prostitute simply because of the traffic. The question is, how far will Google go to “clean up the streets”? To take the analogy further, how will Google determine the difference between a ‘paid’ relationship or just a really expensive date – or will they bother with this determination? Google treats the Yahoo directory as a high class date. Given their earlier attempts to make all of their search listings paid, I tend to think of Yahoo as a whore…ok, maybe just a mistress.

As long as there is a relationship between linking and SEO success, there will be those that buy and sell links for cash. Linking is a commodity. What will be interesting to see is how Google polices this commodity.

Gmail loses it’s brand battle in Europe

Thursday, February 1st, 2007

Daniel Giersch is one name that the Google behemoth will not soon forget. Giersch, who founded a same-day mail service to compete with Deutsche Post, has been battling for the right to the GMail name since 2004. This week he emerged victorious. According to The Register, Giersch was not enticed by the $250,000 offer from Google for the trademark rights and he called Google’s efforts “very threatening, very aggressive and very unfaithful”.

Say wha? Didn’t he know that Google was the “good guys”?

Apparently, Google is starting to feel a ceiling where once there were no boundaries. Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin has admitted that caving to pressures from countries such as China have compromised the principles of “Don’t Be Evil”. Reports have surfaced that Chinese authorities have used information provided by Yahoo to convict a journalist. That’s some stink that Google definitely does not want to step in because the repercussions are sure to linger.