I consider Joshua Steimle a local associate and friend, despite the fact that his company sells competing products with mine (web services). In a recent post on his blog, Josh responded to unfavorable comments about another competing web agency like this:

“To be fair, there are probably [unsatisfied customers] for every web development firm out there, including my own. The nature of the business is such that it invites misunderstandings and ensuing client/developer disputes in which both parties at parting feel that they have been wronged by the other. I’ve learned to steer clear of clients that complain about the last web development firm they worked with, and to steer very clear of those who complain about the last five or six firms they worked with, as the chance of my firm being next on the list is probably a high one.”

Having had my share of “non-good fit clients,” I couldn’t have said it better myself. To The Children’s Place: can you hear the classiness of said statements on one’s competition?

Lindsey and I watched a Discovery Atlas documentary on Brazil last night and it was excellent. Shows (on Brazil, China, Italy, and Australia) air every Sunday at 10PM MDT. The Atlas series aims to achieve epic coverage of a country while telling personal, individual stories, and it does a fine job. The cinematography, music, and storytelling are top notch.

After living in Brazil for two years as a missionary (1999-2000), I can honestly say the documentary is very faithful to Brazilian culture and its way of life. I even learned a few things to boot (like the Sao Paulo helicopter pilot story. Who knew Sao Paulo had one of the largest helicopter taxi systems in the world…?)!

I miss my friends from Brazil and can’t wait to return some day.

Many music services are in favor of ditching MP3 protection rights (DRM) in an effort to challenge Apple’s iTunes monopoly. Keep in mind, only iTune files and unprotected MP3’s play on Apple’s iPods which make up more than 70% of all portable audio players. Reuters reports: “Despite a music catalog limited to independent label fare, [eMusic] facilitates more music downloads than any other save iTunes. The reason? eMusic’s entire catalog is available to consumers as unprotected MP3s.”

Now give me unprotected MP3’s at a better fidelity than 128 kbps (which is what iTunes sells and are less than CD quality), and watch digital music purchasing take off like never before, though stealing will always be around.

My wife went shopping with our 1-year old girl at the mall yesterday. She went to two different stores to find a snazzy little outfit for Sadie, our daughter. After making a purchase at Gymboree (a children’s store), she accidentally left her debit card (Look out, ID theft!) on the counter before proceeding to The Children’s place to buy a shirt. In Lindsey’s own words:

“[When] I realized my debit card was missing I told [Children’s Place] I would be right back and went back to Gymboree. Luckily, my debit card was there. I went back to The Children’s Place to finish my purchase. Everything was going just fine until the cashier asked me where I had left my card. I told her it was at Gymboree and another cashier standing behind the counter said, ‘Well, that’s your problem. You shouldn’t shop there.’ The two women then started talking bad about Gymboree. Didn’t they see the dotted bag in my hand? Didn’t they understand that the only thing they were accomplishing was turning me off of their store, not their competitor’s?!”

The idea of hoarding customers away from your competition is archaic with only your best interest in mind. Great customer service is about matching the customer’s best interest with your valued service. Never is a transaction solely about your company’s best interest. Imagine what my wife would think of the Children’s Place if the employees had said: “Oh, Gymboree is a nice store.” What more respect Lindsey would have for them instead of the recent drop in respect she now has from her experienced. Nice job, Children’s Place.

Jason Kottke explores the fascinating new book by Michael Lewis (his book Moneyball is, well, money) called The Blind Side. The book examines the increase of importance and pay of left tackles in football. Jason writes: “Many of the left tackles that Lewis talks about in the book can run faster than most quarterbacks, they can throw the ball just as far or farther, possess great athletic touch and finesse, have the intellect to run an offense, move better than most QBs, know the offense and defense as well as the QB, are taller than the average QB, and presumably, at 320-360 pounds, are harder to tackle and intimidate than a normal QB.”

From the book: “[Jonathan Ogden, left tackle for the Baltimore Ravens] looked around and noticed that the quarterbacks he was protecting were… rather ordinary. Here he was, leaving them all the time in the world to throw the ball, and they still weren’t doing it very well. They kept getting fired! Even after they’d won the Super Bowl, the Ravens got rid of their quarterback, Trent Dilfer, and gone looking for a better one. What was wrong with these people? Ogden didn’t go so far as to suggest that he should play quarterback, but he came as close as any lineman ever had to the heretical thought.”

No wonder left tackles are now the second highest paid position in football, second only to what appears to be inferior quarterbacks in terms of athleticism.

Here’s my current definition: The trick to motivating others is to avoid demotivating them.

How do you motivate others when needed?

BoingBoing suggests: “Content isn’t king. If I sent you to a desert island and gave you the choice of taking your friends or your movies, you’d choose your friends — if you chose the movies, we’d call you a sociopath. Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about.”

Excellent point. But the focus of companies should still be on content, which inevitably creates good conversation for consumers.

Is anybody else bothered by how big Google is getting now with their $1.65 billion stock buy out of YouTube? They’re like the online version of Microsoft now. Regardless, the two founders of YouTube and their 65 employees just struck it bigtime. You can’t even imagine how bigtime…

The thoughts on genuine blogging (or increasing lack thereof) have weighed heavy on my mind as of late. I can think of three examples as the catalyst:

1. I caught an associate using a link tracking code after recommending an online service via his blog. Granted, the tracking code doesn’t guarantee that he’s getting paid to blog about the product, but if so, he should have disclosed the sponsorship. If it smells like crap, it probably is.
2. Another colleague of mine posted an article a while back discussing several companies and industries (as if an outsider) that he’s involved in, without a specific disclaimer. I know for a fact he has a significant financial stake in several of the companies and industries mentioned, and the dubious act left me feeling uneasy.
3. Lastly, the whole PayPerPost issue and their recently raised $3M in funding from a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital company (see also: TechCrunch podcast on the subject). When search engine marketing links started appearing next to natural links, many people criticized the product as unethical. The disclosed “Sponsored” listing wordage seems to have taken care of the initial problem, but that’s what PayPerPost is lacking: Advertiser requirement that a paid blog post must be disclosed as such. If an individual blogger wants to be shady, that’s their ethical stance. Advertisers that want to work this way would also be wise not to mandate a favorable review. A neutral (stating the facts) post is okay, but full blogger control over what’s being said is preferred.

I, by no means, am perfect. But the one thing no one can take from me is my integrity (cue Braveheart or some other big Hollywood soundtrack).

My daughter turned one today, and I wanted to wish her a happy first birthday. Though she can’t read, I’m hoping she’ll visit Smooth Harold someday in the distant future. And I gotta thank my lovely wife for the excellent mother that she is.

If you run a blog that has significant traffic, you really should be leveraging the power of user-generated story tips via your readers. This is how it works: you display a prominent “tips” link above the fold, asking your readers to tip you with interesting stories or content. Then sit back and watch as the user-generated leads roll in.

I blog for a large site that gets upwards of 100+ email tips per day. Another smaller site I run gets as many as 15/day. Some of the biggest stories I’ve run as a blogger came from tipsters, not my RSS feed or offline experiences; stories that drive insane traffic.

The reason is that tipsters can be the source of exclusive or obscure content that no other sites have (read: a major differentiating factor). Always encouraging user-generated stories with proper credit (i.e. “Thanks, Blake! after a post) as a best practice. Then watch your traffic increase through more unique content.

Graphic designers only: While I have been developing sites in PhotoShop for over five years now, I think I’m starting to prefer OmniGraffle (diagramming software for Mac). It’s more intuitive and friendly than Visio and has some advanced features I’m still not used to. Until I figure out the program’s full graphical features, I’ve been designing effects in PhotoShop prior to importing in OmniGraffle. Diagramming software manages layers much more quickly than PhotoShop, and I’m really enjoying the process so far. With that said:

See also:

• What HTML editor do you use?
• Information architecture: List of tools for diagramming

I just got done reading Fast Company and spotted a new Microsoft ad pitching the company’s software. It said this: “When you give your people the right tools, success is inevitable.”

Now I understand this is fluffy marketing but just because someone has tools, even good tools, doesn’t mean success is certain. The ad is a prime example of “sound good” statements that don’t mean anything. While tools are a big part of a craftsman’s output, they in no way guarantee successful results.

Next.

Disclaimer: I’m addicted to my feed reader. I treat it almost as if it were a daily task. For whatever reason, my online reading takes precedence over print, though it shouldn’t. Here is my current list of books that I’m trying to finish off (all are very good, from what I’ve read):

• Getting Real (20% complete, sound methodologies for web development)
• Liar’s Poker (50% complete; hilarious book on the life of a bond salesman in the 80’s)
• Small Giants (40% complete; inspirational book for small businesses more in favor of control than growth)
• Juicing the Orange (1% complete; leveraging design and creativity as a business advantage)

Anyone already finished the above? What books are you trying to finish off?

If you think social media only involves websites, think again. Though the internet is definitely a primary enabler of social media, it is not the sole host platform. Case in point: Nationwide’s Life Comes At You Fast campaign that displays user-submitted photos on a New York City digital billboard at Times Square. Photos are projected on the side of a skyscaper for one hour each weekday with an extremely high participation (who wouldn’t like to see their mug up on the side of a huge building?).

Social media is merely a brand’s embrace of user-generated content to increase consumer participation, which increases ownership and a passion for the organization to succeed on a broad, community-based level. Expect to see a variety of uses in the coming years.

[via Fast Company, 10/06 issue]

The AP writes: “An 80-year-old milkman who delivered to five generations of Hannibal [Missouri] residents has reluctantly retired after 70 years of friendly, prompt service… He said he never had to lay off an employee, although some months he didn’t make a dime. ‘But we never did without a meal, in the 56 years [he and his wife] have been married,’ he said.”

Too bad that kind of loyalty, dedication, and customer service isn’t more celebrated.

I don’t know about you, but when the seasons change — mainly from cold to warm and warm to cold — I get sick. Now I can’t complain too much because I enjoy good health (knock on wood), but it never fails that I come down with something during the weather transition. As I went to bed last night, I started feeling it come on, and it hit me in full this morning. Not enough to call it quits, but definitely enough to frustrate my productivity.

What can I say, I’m “allergic” to the change in seasons.

Anousheh Ansari, founder of the X Prize and the fourth ‘space tourist’ to the International Space Station is maintaining a WordPress blog while in space for seven days. She says that internet is a batch process that happens only 3 times a day, and she doesn’t have a live browser to read comments (maybe she’s using email to blog?). She tells of how she moved to quick early in the flight, and remained sick for much of the time up until the docking process with the space station, that takes a very long two hour wait just to make sure everything is right.

From the post: “The time went by really slowly, but finally the moment arrived and they were ready to open the hatch. Mike and Misha called me closer and told me to take a good whiff because this would be the first time I would smell SPACE… They said it is a very unique smell. As they pulled the hatch open on the Soyuz side, I smelled ‘SPACE.’ It was strange… kind of like burned almond cookie. I said to them, ‘It smells like cooking’ and they both looked at me like I was crazy and exclaimed: ‘Cooking!'”

Another interesting tidbit: they sleep like bats in space.

[via Slashdot]

I’ve been a long-time advocate for fixed-width websites for usability purposes. Humans optimally read when lines have fewer than 14 words on average because the reader can easily find the following line of text. Liquid widths, on the other hand, stretch the content, thus slowing down reading time for most humans.

Engadget — the largest blog on the internet — just updated their site to not only include liquid width for text, but for images as well (resize your browser window and notice how the image scales along with the text using CSS). While I like the effect and have developed sites that store a user preference of either fixed or liquid (see this one for example), I’m still not sold on using liquid widths when reading is involved.

Do you like liquid or fixed-width websites? When would you prefer one over the other?

Slashdot reports: “Wal-Mart accidentally published online the intended price of the Microsoft Zune; the iPod rival would apparently retail for $284. The price was quickly pulled from the Wal-Mart site. Reports say that Microsoft was flustered when Apple dropped the price for the iPod 30 GB, previously $299, to $249.”

I can’t imagine Zune selling at the same price as an iPod. Microsoft better make sure they significantly cut their unit price, because I personally don’t view wireless music transfers from pc to mp3 player (which Zune does) as a premium. iPod’s interface still to this day is the reason it’s such a good mp3 player. If Microsoft can’t challenge or add to that interface, it will still be a very tough battle for the world’s largest software maker.

I am a lover of college football. Other than what I believe is a game played with more heart as compared to the NFL, what really makes college football enjoyable to watch is the weekly ranking system, however controversial. Every televised college game places a ranking next to each team’s name denoting if either is ranked in the nation’s top 25 teams for that week. It gives context to an otherwise meaningless game (in terms of who you relate to). I don’t even know where Troy university is, but I know I’d like to see them upset the top 25 ranked Florida State Seminoles (which they almost did).

If the NFL used an overall league ranking system in addition to division and conference standings, I’d watch it more. College football FTW!

When asked about his upstart’s possible competitors, I recently heard a CEO say: “We have no competition.”

Oh really? Statements like this just make me cringe. I actually find myself embarrassed for how stupid such a person involved in business sounds when saying something like this. What’s worse, the individual in questions actually runs a commoditized website. What does a commodity product tell us kids? A whole lotta competition, that’s what.

All facetiousness aside, you really owe it to yourself, your company, and your product to determine weaknesses and challenges, never underestimating your competition, both direct and indirect (they both exist).

Check out this hilarious parody of Sinatra singing about the “social” movement and popularity of MySpace. Good ‘ole Blue Eyes…

Geographical map of the 500 most innovative companies using business technology according to Information Week. The organizations tend to be the biggest with the largest IT spending budgets, company size and IT spending must be increasing, and past performance is also taken into consideration. Utah places three on the map: Flying J (yeah, the gas station), Ingenix, and IHC. My hometown of Carrollton, GA just west of Atlanta puts one on the map: Southwire.

Nintendo officially announced their upcoming game console entitled Wii (pronounced “we”) today that will launch on Nov. 19 for $250. What makes this system unique is that the company is marketing it to both gamers (read: me) and non-gamers such as my mom in an effort to expand the video game market. To do this, the console leverages a motion sensing controller (pictured) that looks more like a TV remote and works in 3D space, meaning, no more using complex button schemes to move on-screen objects.

I had a chance to play a prototype unit back in May at a games conference and was extremely impressed. It is one of the most intuitive software interfaces I’ve ever used. The new console is bundled with a series of minigames including tennis, baseball, bowling, golf, and boxing all catered to the non-gamer. Wii will also allow owners to download and play games from all of Nintendo’s previous systems and features built-in wireless for web browsing, news, weather, messaging, photos, and videos all using the pointing device.

For the non-gamers out there, is Nintendo’s intended approach at all appealing?

I’ve received two calls in the last month from people seeking iPod repair service. My office line is 801-494-2029 and Apple has a preferred provider with the number 801-494-2920 so you can see how easy it would be to mix things up.

I remember last year my wife’s uncle asking how to fix his iPod without losing all his music. It seemed he would do just about anything to ensure the safe return of his MP3 player and music library. The problem was easily solved, and I can’t tell you how happy he was to have it fixed. I bet he would have paid $50-100, maybe even more for the service provided.

Cost of an iPod: $200-400. Cost of an iPod with thousands of purchased songs (or even “borrowed”) plus time spent organizing, ripping and uploading music: $10-15k, maybe more. There’s a good margin in there.

I just listened to an internet radio station streaming at 192kbps (CD quality) via iTunes. It was the first time I’ve done so in over 2 years. While I know millions use the technology, I had forgotten how much I enjoy it in light of all this podcast, “2.0” hoopla (not to take away from that).

Do you listen to internet radio? If so, by what means?

I was talking with a client yesterday regarding how some individuals would like to be known as an entrepreneurs, even labeling themselves as such, though they are doing nothing in terms of assuming risk and taking initiative to generate income. So here was my response to him regarding my definition of entrepreneur with sub-definitions:

• Entrepreneur – Someone who assumes risk, takes initiative, and manages an enterprise to generate income, not relying on “the man” to get paid.
• Unaccomplished entrepreneur – Someone who successfully generates income and builds wealth for himself or his family, but not directly for others (i.e. contractors, freelancers, consultants, etc.)
• Successful entrepreneur – Someone who builds wealth directly for more than one individual or family.

How do you define an entrepreneur?

I finally cracked down and tried karaoke in a public place. Lindsey and I went to a fund-raising party last night at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City (thanks, Josh!), and when I caught eye of the karaoke center, I decided to give “Sweet Caroline” a shot. I wouldn’t have done so had it not been for my previous experience at a Florida resort earlier this year (see Why Neil Diamond Is “So Good”).

How did it turn out? I did okay, only cracking my voice once. Will I regularly take up karaoke? Probably not. But I haven’t been that nervous and “out of place” in a long time. It was a good feeling and reminded me how important it is to get out of your comfort zone once in a while.

When’s the last time you did something unexpected?

I’ve had an epiphany of sorts in the way I interact and communicate with several of my business prospects and clients since the beginning of this year: Spicing things up a bit while remaining professional can really make a difference in how people respond. It’s what I call professional yet playful communication (PP communication for short).

To give you an idea, here is how I responded to a prospective (now current) client last month regarding some project management concerns of his: “I’m am a project management ninja!” Cocky? A little. But I’ve built my business atop a well-thought out project management process, so a word like “ninja” sounds so much better, more enjoyable, and less dull then some overused and tired business cliche not worth repeating.

Take a look at the phase names of another site we’re developing:

1. Phase I – A New Hope
2. Phase II – The Twinkie Strikes Back
3. Phase III – Return of the Investment

Silly? Maybe. But it’s made the work more enjoyable for all involved, and it gets results. Granted, I may not land every deal while using such a juvenile word like ninja, but a majority have no option but to take notice and more often than not appreciate the comedic differentiation, however off-the-wall.

This isn’t to say I avoid a more conventional approach when a prospect warrants it, but even then I try to be candid and personable as possible. So do you mix things up in your professional communication, or is it all business?

This post is a little lessoned learned in social networking: A couple of weeks ago, I compromised my Digg integrity. That is, I unwillingly voted for a Digg post after being solicited three times from a colleague of mine (you know who you are, Ace). I did it as a courtesy even though I didn’t “dig” what was being asked of me to Digg. There wasn’t anything wrong with the post, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

The same thing happens when people you barely know bug you with LinkedIn invitations. I occasionally get an invitation from someone and think to myself: “Dude, I can’t vouch for your work. I don’t even know you.”

The take-away? There’s nothing wrong with asking for a Digg, recommendation, social networking action, or whatever, but ask once and once only. People will act if they appreciate what is being asked. In the case of Digg, put a request out there and only expect people to Digg what they like. That makes the whole process authentic thus enabling the social bookmarking tool, or any voting/recommendation tool for that matter, to work more effectively.

Is RSS unproven technology? The Browser writes: “Well, here’s a reality check: Dead2.0 points to recent research that shows that only 1 in 10 people have even heard of RSS, and a mere 2 percent actually use it. That’s a pretty lousy adoption rate for a technology which dates back to 1999.”

Though 80% of my web use is via RSS, it will be interesting to see if really simple syndication really catches on with a mass audience. Part of me thinks that many users still enjoy the “experience” of visiting a website rather than just having text and image content pushed out to them. That desired experience probably fuels the other 20% of my web use.

I get quite a few free business and technology magazines. Most of them are crap and my favorite, CMO Magazine (which even rivaled Business 2.0 at times in terms of content), went belly up in January of this year. I will recommend Information Week, though, as a free print publication with few ads and “to-the-point” articles which are, for the most part, well written and informative.

What free print publications do you enjoy?

The above image depicts current job postings per capita for the 50 most populous metropolitan areas in the United States according to meta job search, Indeed. The bigger the dot, the more job postings per capita.

Where are you?

Maybe you’ve seen the below pictured icons on a blog or website before. They generally follow every single blog post suggesting that the site owner thinks all their writings are so good that every reader should graciously submit every single post to a social bookmarking site with the end result of increasing traffic. Doesn’t sound as glamorous or effective when put that way, does it? And when is the last time you actually used one of these after reading a post?

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with with self-submitting or suggesting a worthy blog post or article to be socially bookmarked. I just think most bloggers are presumptions.

Digg this post. (how avante-garde, eh?)

Yahoo! Finance writes: “To overcome money envy, we need to figure out our purpose, identify what we love and value most, and make our money obey our values by setting specific financial goals… This isn’t a one-time exercise, but a lifelong struggle. The Joneses, the media, and American culture will forever seduce us to betray what is genuinely meaningful for what is comfortable, beautiful, and enviable.”

Yet another entry in Smooth Harold’s “giving money the bird” series.

[via Lifehacker]

Amazon reviewer Elijah Chingosho writes: “Good consultants employ Socratic questioning of their clients. Socrates is immortalized at least in part for his teaching approach of asking a line of questions that leads the student to discover answers for themselves. When clients discover answers to their problems, rather than simply hear them from the consultant, they will own the answers. Their ability to hold onto the concepts, apply them, and improve their situation will significantly improve. Therefore, when the author [of the book being reviewed] states that consultants are merely providing information that the client already knows, he is missing the point. What consultants need to learn is to improve their ability to help clients discover (through the use of Socratic questioning), their problems and then come up with practical workable solutions.”

Recommendations and implementation apply as well (in many cases), but that’s a fundamentally sound definition of where a consultant’s true value is derived.

See also: Lessons learned from Hitch

Entrepreneur Magazine demystifies five common beliefs with my commentary in parenthesis:

1. Do what you love, and the money will follow (You gotta make sure someone will buy what you love, but this is virtually true in most logical cases.)
2. You’ll miss the security of a job (There ain’t much security in the corporate world. You want security? Get tenured in academia.)
3. If you don’t grow, you’ll die (Sounds right, but it’s wrong. The Small Giants book backs that claim up, as do a thousand other companies.)
4. If it’s such a good idea, somebody would have thought of it already (90% of business is execution. Wrong.)
5. You can’t start a business without a lot of money (I started my company with $100. Granted, service businesses are much cheaper, but many product companies started as service companies to fund future R&D.)

“There is no such thing as a no-sale call. A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock or he sells you a reason he can’t. Either way, a sale is made, the only question is?who is gonna close? You or him?”
– Jim Young, from The Boiler Room

Similar to the ABC’s of selling (always be closing). How I wish it were that simple.

I’m currently enjoying the following movie, album, and book for the rare times I’m offline digesting content:

• Movie: Invincible (PG) – Lindsey and I don’t get to watch movies much anymore due to our very active 11-month old daughter. With in-law baby-sitters representing, we were able to catch Disney’s new (sans cheesy lines) football movie, Invincible. It is one of the most inspiring movies since Field of Dreams, and you don’t even have to like sports or football to appreciate the film’s drama and excitement. I give it 5/5 stars. From the synopsis: “This inspiring sports movie stars Mark Wahlberg as Vince Papale, a Philadelphia Eagles fan who in 1976 lost his wife and teaching job. The 30-year-old bartender enters an open try-out for the Philadelphia Eagles and makes the squad, becoming the oldest rookie to make the NFL.”
• Music: On Your Side – This album by a band called Magnet is incredible. Easily one of my favorite musical discoveries of the year (maybe of the last two). If you like really relaxing folk/pop/electronic music, this album by the Norwegian song-writer is for you.
• Book: Small Giants by Bo Burlingham – A book that makes small businesses feel good with being small, showcasing motivational stories of 14 entrepreneurs that stick it to the man, the status quo, and money in favor of control. Full review to follow.

What offline content are you currently consuming?

My slightly modified and summarized questions for developing a good company name from a previous 9 Rules article:

1. Is the company name distinct?
2. Is it short and sweet (brevity)?
3. Is it relative, or appropriate?
4. Is it easy to remember?
5. Could it become popular? (be honest with yourself, ace)
6. Can you extend the name’s use?
7. Can it be trade marked?

Answer those with feedback from outsiders, and you’ll be well on your way towards an effective company name. As a parting shot, don’t sweat your company name too much: a name means nothing unless the backing entity has credibility and adds value to the customer.

Our solar system has been downsized today from nine planets to eight. The Associated Press writes: “Leading astronomers declared Thursday [August 24, 2006] that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight. After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930 [by American scientist Clyde Tombaugh].”

[via Kottke]

A colleague of mine received a very critical and biased comment on his blog today. He asked me how he should react. My reply: Keep critical comments, however illogical, posted on your blog. Let your community decide for itself how credible your blog content is even taking into consideration user-generated comments. Rarely, if ever, will a blog community fail to take care of outlier comments.

The blogger then asked if he should even post a reply to the comment. That’s “your choice,” I told him, but if he decided to post a reply, he should be tactful about it. Staying classy in a comment reply will only make an illogical comment look less intelligent, though that should never be your goal in posting a comment reply.

How do you deal with overly critical blog comments?

News flash: Blogging rakes in serious cash, both directly and indirectly with very little overhead. Business 2.0 writes: “[TechCrunch.com] is pulling in $60,000 in ad revenue every month. That’s 10 times what the site was making earlier this year, which was when [site founder and chief blogger] Arrington, convinced of the potentially monstrous riches ahead, quit his day job as president of a startup to blog full-time.”

Follow the source for the full article that not only explores high profile bloggers and their earnings, but where the business model is headed, middle men advertisers, and how blogs are changing CPM’s for the better through the use of targeted niche traffic.

And if you only read one article on the business of blogging, go read the oh-so insightful Blogs to Riches piece from New Yorker magazine.

What are the toughest parks to play professional baseball, according to the players? Sports Illustrated writes: “Among the 392 current major league players surveyed, 83 (21.2 percent) voted Yankee Stadium (pictured) as the most difficult place to play as a visiting player. The numbers back them up: Since Joe Torre took over as manager in 1996 through 2005, the Yankees are 513-292 (.637) at home in the Bronx, where the fans are close to the field and into the action.” Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigly Field in Chicago rounded out the top three.

Out of the current 30 MLB parks, I have now visited seven of them. 23 more to go.