Ripped-Off Logos
Last I checked, Mario was in the plumbing, not flooring business. Follow the link for more rip-offs.
I run this joint. Don’t know where to start? Let me show you around:
Last I checked, Mario was in the plumbing, not flooring business. Follow the link for more rip-offs.
Business 2.0 has a great read on why it doesn’t matter if you’re not the first mover in an industry. Most convincing evidence from the article: “Some of the biggest successes in business are new takes on old ideas.
A perspective client of mine is convinced they should rush the software development of their product at the expense of quality in favor of being the first mover. The above data proves my recommendation that “it doesn’t matter if the product isn’t usable.”
See Also: Uncommonly Common
Today while in a strategy meeting, I voiced my concern in utilizing student developers to hit paid deadlines. My opinion? Don’t use student developers if you want to deliver the project on time. The reason? A majority of students (at least BYU) are more concerned with getting A’s than delivering the goods.
That statement is flawed, though, in that some students put school lower on their priority list. When I started Griffio as a Senior BYU student, I remember ditching classes left and right to make sure our clients were happy. If you can find students that import more with real world applications, then it’s a go.
A List Apart has a great read on design methodologies for website homepages. From the article: “Designing for good user experience is about communicating clearly, setting expectations early, and then delivering what you’ve promised. Think of your home page as the opening verse of a song. All you have to do is make sure you stay in tune throughout the user’?s entire listening experience.”
I’m currently reading Love is The Killer App. Though not the most prolific business book, the title does an excellent job in formulating what makes for a successful business career in terms of happiness and producing a return on your “networks.” Author Tim Sanders defines a “lovecat” as an individual that intelligently and sensibly shares his/her knowledge, network of friends and associates, and compassionate service with bizpartners without expecting anything in return.
What’s a bizpartner you may ask? Every person in our work life, be it a boss, banker, competitor, client, or just about anyone else. I especially like the competitor one and have recently discovered how much of an asset and help they can be for any type of business striving to improve.
Here’s a taste if you haven’t already…
I have been meaning to post on this for quite sometime. I got a new job! We’ll, sorta. I’ll still be working on Griffio (my baby), but I’ve started work with a local business incubator dubbed Provo Labs coming in as a web strategist (or Assistant Janitor maybe, I’m not sure). I’ll be heading up various projects including online marketing and distribution for the group’s several start-up companies, mainly through the ever so popular blogosphere, as well as building good ole fashioned websites.
The new company was founded by Paul Allen. Not Bill Gate’s sidekick but a famed Utah entrepreneur that also co-founded Myfamily.com back in the day. The team I work with is top-notch, and I’m very excited to help out where I can. The first project I’ve been working on is a beta company dubbed Blastyx (pictured). All I can say is that it’s some of the freshest video production hitting “cyberspace” right now. Very cool stuff, and we’re excited to get it off the ground.
I’m also in talks to have a part of Griffio acquired by the incubator. It will allow me to take my growing little company to places it’s never been. Bigger. Faster. Harder. Stronger. I will remain “chief” something as we hope to become Utah’s premier Web 2.0 company, developing sites that Mr. Tim Berners-Lee originally intended for when the web was first created back in ’95. We’re already off to a great start leveraging solid site markup, fresh scripting (AJAX), community content, and proven web usability.
To slightly paraphrase the renowned Sir Isaac Newton (1642-–1727), if I get anywhere in life, it will be by “standing upon the shoulders of giants.” Many thanks to my wife, family, friends, former business partner Robert, the clients that put their trust in me, teachers, and anyone else that has supported and/or challenged me.
Believe it son. Though Apple doesn’t want this to happen, it was bound to now that the company switched to the same technology PC’s have used for years. I’ll opt for running windows, though, on the superiorly engineered PowerBooks.
Though mostly a buzz word rather than entirely new web technology, Web 2.0 is a much more personable place to “surf.” Wikipedia writes: “The term ‘Web 2.0’ refers to what some people see as a second phase of development of the World Wide Web, including its architecture and its applications… Many recently developed concepts and technologies are seen as contributing to Web 2.0, including weblogs, linklogs, podcasts, RSS feeds and other forms of many to many publishing; social software, web APIs, web standards, online web services, Ajax, and others.”
It’s exciting to be a part of the continued development of the web. My team is currently working with a large majority of the above listed technologies, and I can already see the positive results it’s had on our clients sites, software, and systems.
In short, Web 2.0 is like hearing “You’ve got mail!” all over again for the first time. Bad analogy, but hopefully you get the gist.
Upon logging into my online publishing system for my freelance writing gig at Weblogs Inc, the following stats regarding my writing appeared.
Your Stats:
You have written 61,942 words on 428 posts.
I never thought of writing 62,000 words, let alone having them read (or at least looked at) by the 250,000 daily visitors that Joystiq receives. Though I’m the most under qualified blogger on our team, I thought that was a pretty good start towards becoming the writer that I hope to be someday.
For those who know me, I’m always up for creating a new concoction in the kitchen. Well this time, I give to you the delicious home-made honey almond (pictured above). Lindsey bought this huge bag of almonds from Costco, and I’ve been steadily downing them covered with tasty honey over the past couple of weeks. They’re gone now.
Mmmmm. Delicious honey almonds…
“Web designers have as little as 50 milliseconds to capture the interest of potential customers, according a new report by researchers at Carleton University. Through the halo effect, first impressions can influence subsequent judgments of website credibility and buying decisions.”
There you have it.
Ad Age looks into the true meaning of the word blogger. From the article: “There is no such thing as a blogger. Blogging is just writing — writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology. Even though I tend to first use Microsoft Word on the way to being published, I am not, say, a Worder or Wordder.”
I too have asked myself if I’m a blogger or a writer. For some reason I esteem the term writer with a higher regard, mostly because I think a writer reverts to more research, thesis checking, etc. Over the past year I have written over 1,100 articles or posts for a variety of sites. Some are full length editorials while others are more straight news aggregation with a quick comment on the side.
In a way I do consider the terms blogger and writer to be different. When I’m writing an editorial piece, I’d hope to consider myself a writer, at lest an amateur one. When I’m posting an news topic while throwing my two cents in, I would consider that an act of blogging. As for this post, you be the judge…
Sunrise over Bagan.
Regarding the human desire for distinction, Martin Luther King Jr said: “And so Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s a new definition of greatness.
And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.”
Lindsey and I periodically like to go to Borders or Barns & Noble for hot chocolate, cheesecake, and free reading. She opts for the celebrity trash mags while yours truly hits the business and game periodicals. It’s nice to get away now and then, and for some reason we both enjoy being around strangers in public.
Well last Friday we went to Borders. About an hour into our free reading, and two cups of the best hot chocolate later, a one-man band started setting up shop in the corner of the lounge. “Okay,” I thought, thinking it would be cool if he sounded like Iron & Wine, but he didn’t. No offense to the dude playing, but bands and bookstores don’t seem to have the same target audience. Rarely do they mesh well. No one in the lounge came to listen to music, and a band usually appreciates if the audience is digging their sound.
So are bands and bookstore/coffee shop affiliations just tradition, or does the shop and musician both benefit from the relationship? I know Lindsey and I left early cause we couldn’t get the peace we sought after with a band playing in front of us.
Digg vs. Slashdot (or, traffic vs. influence)
In comparing traffic generation between the year-old Digg community with the trusted Slashdot one, Kottke.org writes: “There’s been lots of talk on the web lately about Digg being the new Slashdot. Two months ago, a Digg reader noted that according to Alexa, Digg’s traffic was catching up to that of Slashdot, even though Slashdot has been around for several years and Digg is just over a year old. The brash newcomer vs. the reigning champ, an intriguing matchup.”
Great insight into link building trends. Highly recommended for web geeks like myself (anyone..?)
I’ve always wanted to read How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie, well now I might not have to. Notes of Intelligence has put together both a simple summary (5 min to read) and comprehensive summary (15 min to read) of the book’s core ideas.
Highly recommended.
Not only is he on Technorati’s 100 most popular blogs ranking 22nd, Jason Kottke is apparently a model for Defunker Tees (pictured left). They guy is all over the place despite averaging only a few posts a week to his blog and making a livelihood off contributing readers.
Welcome to 2006.
As if professional sports weren’t bad enough, tennis went out and bought instant replay. Starting this year, the game will have a challenge system and ready to use instant reply that will only make tennis players that much more snoby. From the article: “Oh, there will be some technical glitches. And no one will grasp the challenge system, which bears similarities to the NFL’s model of contesting officials’ calls, for the first few months. But it sure beats the alternative.”
What alternative is that? Leaving human error in an imperfect game that makes it more personable, exciting, and keeps it just a game. Heaven forbid, we still have human error and mistakes in this world.
Another reason why instant-replay-free baseball is still the best (minus the roids, of course).
My former partner and still great friend Robert Bradford posted one of the best articles I’ve read in a very long time. He writes: “I have lots of opportunity and lots of choices. Some are harder to make than others–especially when it’s deciding between two good things. But I’m grateful to have options.”
Very inspiring read on options, and I look forward to many more posts of this caliber from you bobby.
Our DVD player died a couple of weeks ago. It’s still dead. We’ve had it for right about two years courtesy of my little sister Sara as a Christmas gift. She’s been a good one, but we really need it to work for our Seinfeld DVD fix and Baby Einstein DVD’s that Sadie’s Nanna bought her for Christmas. That’s where Walmart comes in.
Here’s to the next two, hopefully 4-5 years of “divida” madness.
During the Christmas break, I was driving behind what was obviously a plumbing service truck. On the back of the vehicle read the following:
“We’re number 1 in the number 2 business.”
Now I’m sure there are a thousand plumbers with this tagline, and I’m not one for clever slogans, but If I were a plumber, that would be my motto. I couldn’t help but laugh.
It’s been a really great year. Learned lots, had a baby, and grew in my marriage with the wife. It’s been almost two weeks since a Smooth Harold update, but I’ll be posting a year in review in the coming days citing the best of the site along with my favorite posts.
Hope all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
The King Kong story hasn’t aged well. It was originally released in 1933, and it shows. The film has very little dialog, and the story seems as primitive as the movie’s protagonist. Director Peter Jackson is ambitious and does a fine job with the presentation, albeit a couple of hours too long, but he just didn’t have a story to work with. Shouldn’t the story be the foundation of a good movie? That being the case, it’s hard to score the production on any type of scale. “IN” for incomplete would better suite it. Jack Black did pull off a very convincing and greedy producer though.
Best part of the movie: Watching my little daughter’s eyes follow the big screen and sit quietly for mommy and daddy during the whole 3.5 hour ordeal. What a little trooper (she’s only 2.5 months old).
Bloggers are a daring bunch. Many can’t decide whether they host a non-profit or for-profit website, using both strategies in an effort to maximize their income. Problem is, by using both strategies simultaneously, they are more likely hurting their take-home.
For example, many bloggers place ads on their website. This is an obvious for-profit strategy that works well given high site traffic. But many of those same sites also solicit donations or contributions via PayPal for the sole purposes of “investing directly back into the site for hosting and maintenance purposes.” Wait a minute. You mean you can use your ad revenue to do that and then subtract your costs from revenue to get your profit? That’s like Google making money off their ads but still asking people for donations to help with their costs.
Here’s an idea bloggers, pick one. Either go the kottke.org route and ask for donations only (non-profit), or go the ad route (for-profit) and make money that way. It doesn’t work both ways, and you’re only fooling yourself if you believe individuals can’t read between the lines.
I got sick late yesterday afternoon. It’s either a really bad cold or a mild flu. Regardless, I’m not feeling on top of my game, but I’m thankful for the human body principally the whole fever bit.
A fever is the body’s reaction to disease or infection. It is a self defense mechanism. The body raises its internal body heat in an effort to kill off the infection. It obviously can get dangerous when reaching high levels, but usually the fever will break.
Mine broke early this morning at about 5am. Other than waking up soaked in sweat, I felt extremely better. I have no idea why a fever finally decides to “break” or if it’s just a wives tale, but I’m grateful for the human body and its inherent defense mechanisms. Now back to sleep…
The mullet: “All business in front, nothing but a party in the back.”
(Source: VH1 – I love the 80’s)
Sao Paulo, Brazil is ginormous. Though it’s ranked second in population only to Seol, Korea from the world’s largest cities rankings, I’m convinced it has the most number of skyscrapers. They may not be the biggest but they go on forever.
If that isn’t convincing enough, New York City is ranked as the largest metropolitan area in the world with just over 20 million people. Having been to both New York and Sao Paulo, the former looks tiny in comparison to the latter. This is mostly due to Sao Paulo’s lack of distant suburbs and its compressed nature. The city redefines the word vast, and is truly a sight to see.
CMO Magazine has a nice introduction to anyone new to search engine optimization (SEO) . All-in-all, the article does a good of explaining the basics. Juan Perez writes: “SEO is the attempt to modify something about your website to improve the quality of your organic or algorithmic rankings at the big search engines.”
If I may add my two cents, SEO has nothing to do with meta tags, link building, or even pay-per-click advertising. In short, it’s coding your website in a manner than computers can understand and better archive your site content for searching.
(Source: CMO)
From the article: “According to circulation figures, newspaper subscriptions are declining. Logically, the Web gets much of the blame. However, a closer look indicates that this is part of a twenty-year trend – quite a bit longer than the average person has had easy Internet access. Some industry analysts believe the real culprit (or at least the one that started it all) is twenty-four hour cable news. Others say changes in the rules governing telemarketing (the means by which major papers gained up to 65 percent of their home delivery subscribers in the past) have had the greatest impact of all.”
Lindsey and I get nearly all our news via RSS feeds and an occasional website. How has the internet changed your news and do you think it’s killing newspapers, or changing them?
(Source: WXP news)
Two of my very talented sisters, Summer and Sara, met/hugged Will Smith backstage at his concert in Atlanta last night. Strike up another Snow Family celebrity citing. For the full story including dialogs, follow the jump.
Summer meets the Prince of Bel Aire
(via Busy Nothings)
You’ve heard my rant on so-called disruptive technology, but that’s not the last of bad business cliches and buzz words to wow venture capitalists. Smithsonian Magazine writes: “Business people have a lot to learn from the animal world. But there are at least two problems here: one is that they trot out the same tired analogies over and over. Their companies spend millions developing iconic logos and otherwise polishing the corporate image, and then they go around prattling about lions, foxes and sharks.”
What bad business cliches make you roll your eyes?
(Source: Smithsonian Magazine)
It is 9:30 in the morning and a very chilly 16 degrees here in Provo, Utah. The heat is on full blast but is still having trouble ridding the place of the cold. My desk is by a window so that only makes matters worse.
*looks at beach travel packages on Expedia*
My wife Lindsey obviously “gets it.”
(Source: Leezy Lindsey)
Busy Nothings writes: “Do you want to know the ten companies that eschew the “Christmas” word? Best Buy, Dell, Kroger, Lowe’s, Office Max, Penney’s, Sears, Staples, Target, and Walgreens.”
Find the companies that aren’t afraid to offend anyone, because virtually no one gets offended. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, and with all due respect, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
On a side note, one of the blogs I write for has a large international readership. I recently posted an article related to Christmas shopping, and several international readers commented on how silly Americans look with this whole “Christmas/Holiday” debate. Many laugh at the entire ordeal and poke fun while sarcastically correcting their use of Christmas. Take it for what it’s worth.
(Source: Busy Nothings)
I have felt extremely inadequate on many occasions in my life. Usually the feeling arises from undertaking a new endeavor like a job or new project. Still to this day, when something new comes up that is slightly unexpected or challenging, these feelings return. I, for one, encourage them. Here’s why:
Feeling inadequate is what moves individuals forward. In many cases, it can cause a person to actually be more mindful, precise, and careful with what they are doing. I would be more concerned about not feeling inadequate while engaging in something new as this could result in complacency and/or lack of passion.
So if you’re involved in a new business venture, career, school program, or even parenthood, embrace the inadequacy. You’ll be better off because of it, and you’ll learn faster. That’s a Smooth Harold guarantee.
An anonymous slashdot reader writes “Google’s advertising sales vice president, Tim Armstrong, said this week in an interview that 2005 was the turning point for online ads. Older businesses went from trying out the internet as an advertising venue to investing full-on.” From the article: “‘The experimenting and testing phase begun in the 1990s has ended. Corporate ad buyers are investing now,’ he said. Jupiter Research estimates the U.S. online advertising market will grow 28 percent over last year, to $11.9 billion in 2005, moving to $13.6 billion in 2006 and $15.1 billion in 2007.”
Now’s the time ladies and gents.
(Source: Slashdot)
The dot com bubble was based on hype, but the premise behind that hype was legitimate. At $38 per monthly site visitor (the average for recent deals) good site traffic is worth good money. I’ve recently started running ads on some sites of mine that have very little traffic, but I’m amazed at the little money I make of them. Once traffic grows exponentially, which it does, decent traffic can explode into great traffic, which equals healthy ad revenues.
Here’s a great article on monetizing web traffic: High Traffic Monetization [Business 2.0]
This post is a follow up to The Crazy World of Domain Real Estate from a few days back. Here’s some helpful hints for those wanting to get into the domain name game and strike it rich (or die trying).
There you have it! Good luck brokers…
(Source: Business 2.0)
This one is very relaxing and very cinematic. Great use of filters and with the Peter Pan ending, it’s one great music video. At least someone is making forward progress with the medium.
[via Don Loper]
A very cool thing for one of my favorite websites.
Happy Thanksgiving to all you SH readers out there. Some things I’m thankful for on this day of thanks (In no particular order, sort of):
May the turkey be juicy, and may you kick off the holiday season with a bang!
(see also, Wikipedia)
I’ve been a Business 2.0 subscriber for over a year now, and it is by far the best business magazine out there for entrepreneurs and for soaking up new ideas, remotivation techniques, and entertaining news bits. Other than being the best business magazine, it’s also the cheapest. You can pick up 12 issues for a cool $6.99. This months issues along has a half dozen great articles. Usually I might find 1-2 articles I like in other magazines. This one is filled with them month in and month out.
I don’t pitch a lot of products like this, but the writing, information, and presentation of this printed mag is top notch.
What do you do to stay young at heart? I’m not talking about some boring adult answer, I’m talking about something you do that makes you feel like a kid that might make you embarrassed to talk about.
I for one play video games. I’ve recently been playing Mario Kart for the Nintendo DS. It’s a great little game that let’s you race anyone in the world via a wifi connection. It’s fast, it’s easy, and it’s fun. I also enjoy watching baseball. Sure lot’s of adults do this too, but it reminds me of my childhood, so I watch it faithfully, without all the silly baseball cards.
So what do you do?
With the rise of identity theft, it is now legal to get (3) free credit reports per year, one with each of the major credit bureaus. Never pay for a credit report again and know what’s on your report.
Business 2.0 has an insightful article on “Domainers” and “type-in” traffic. A domainer is an individual that buys up domain names, and then monetizes them by referring the type-in traffic to advertisers. A type-in is simply someone that manually types in a desired search phrase directly into a URL.com rather than going through a search engine. Type-ins are said to make up about 15% of internet search.
From the article: “I have one laptop, no employees, and no product whatsoever — none! This is magic. Magic, he claims, that’s earning him $2 million a year.”
(Source: Business 2.0)
AOL’s got problems. Even with the huge boost in ad revenues by purchasing Weblogs Inc (who I write for), the online service can’t stop people from heading to the exits. They have lost more than 300 subscribers per hour over the last three months. You have to be doing something wrong to loose than many customers per hour.
(Source: Light Reading)
Many of you know I’m big on blogging. I started last April and have never looked back. At the time, I was reading a lot of business books, articles, and magazine editorials, and was soaking up a lot of good information. Smooth Harold then become my breeding ground for thoughts, ideas, understandings, and everything else I care about.
Blogging has really become the networking of the 21st century, at least for me that is. It has provided me with opportunities I’d never dreamed possible. I’ve closed business deals by blogging. Just recently I landed a multi-phase consulting project with a local company. One partner found my site through a comment I made on another business blog and liked what I had to say about disruptive technology. The rest is history.
I’ve even recently been hired by Weblogs Inc. (an AOL company) as a freelance writer which has always been a dream of mine. It will give me the opportunity to become a better writer and work under a great editor and writing team. Very exciting times.
You don’t have to start a blog to benefit from them. Just read them! It takes time to update a blog, and it takes timely updates to keep people coming back. So if you can’t do that then at least post comments on other sites/blogs that link back to your website or email. If people like what you have to say, they will trust, like, contact, and want to associate themselves with you. It takes time, but it pays to blog.
Say hello to Google Analytics. Say goodbye to Site Meter.