Nic’s blog
I write about building businesses, failing and building a life, not a legacy.
Google-wise your post titles
This is something that I have read a million times when trying to optimise my blogging. Always make sure your blog titles are relevant, succint, effective and have keywords that are searchable.Obviously there is more to it than just the title (like the content) but the title is very important.Over the past month or two I have been receiving abnormal amounts of hits for very random, but very specific posts and post titles. Paying traffic fines online seems to be a massive search query at the moment. That was the title of the post, that is the search query and that equals hits for me.The Live Earth concert that just took place, I posted a very specific post about, very targeted and niche. This post is still receiving massive hits.This just goes to show how important search engines (not just Google) are and can be if you are smart about it.
Apparently Tyler has become a movement
Facebook is great and it definitely provides some interesting insights in to some interesting things:
I wonder what Tyler's status update was about here?I dig this dude. His youth, exuberence, arrogance, blind faith in himself. It's all very...um...uplifting. Tyler has undoubtedly become a movement. I am personally very moved. Hell, I just got up from my seat and moved over to the couch.Visibly, physically and geographically moved!
Amatomu drops unique counter on graph
It seems as though Amatomu has changed their stats counter/graph somewhat. Strange that no one else has picked this up:
Note that there is no BLUE line as there has been in the past. That blue line was, if memory serves me correctly, for unique users visiting your site.That line is no more. Maybe this has something to do with the massive growth that the site is experiencing. I'm sure we'll be hearing from Vincent soon on the issue as there is nothing on the developments blog.
The plan is here, it's voting time
I mentioned that I would be coming up with some sort of a plan. I have struggled and battled with internal strife and maintained my dignity - to some extent. Here is the plan for now:Gather a group of like minded bloggers (by that I mean bloggers who are tired of spammers on muti and self-promoting-spammers - SPS - on muti). Get these bloggers to vote down Spam and SPS on muti.Now you might ask who gets to decide what is spam and what is SPS? That's a good question. But let's rather ask: What makes spammers think that they can use muti as a service to spam me?I have spoken to Robert and a few others bloggers who are keen.The simple process is this: Spot a post on muti that is excessive self-promotion or spam and vote it down. Then comment on the muti post with "SPAM" for spam posts and "SELF PROMOTION" for excessive self promotion.I think that it is ok to promote your own sites or posts to an extent. It is when this self promotion becomes excessive and meaningless link-baiting, that it becomes spam. Simple.So, if you are interested in joining us on our voting down syndicate, please email me and let me know!Here goes...
Your idea, My idea, why's everyone so paranoid?
I read Tyler's post the other day and thought nothing of it. Then I noticed that Sessa and de Waal had blogged about it as well as others.I have a bit of a different approach to this concept than many of the bloggers have already taken. I say tough shit. I say what makes you think I want YOUR idea? I say, what makes you think that I didn't think of it first and that's why I got it out quicker? I say, I must be better, stronger, faster, smarter than you if you had the idea and lost out. That's what I say.Mike commented on Tyler's post asking him to name names and brand the ones that stole. Let me tell you that does no good. Mike is right though, the ones that "stole" ideas will meet their fate. The world is made round to go round and comes round fast.But I must reiterate, what makes you think that anyone wants to steal your ideas?My point? Your ideas are not original. Nothing that you or I can come up with will be a truly original thought. Those thoughts are all long gone. Show me an idea and I can show you another who has thought it. Give me an invention and I'll show you one just like it. Nothing is yours.My rebuttle question is this: Where did YOU get your idea from? Who are YOU ripping off? How self-righteous of us all to think that we thought the ideas and that others want to steal them? Who do we think we are?What a load of rubbish. I have not claimed to have an original idea. I am a man who implements not necessarily innovates. I cannot claim that at the 'ripe' old age of a whopping 23 that I have come up with anything great, wondrous or truly innovative or original. If you think you are that great, prove it. Don't complain that someone ripped off your idea.I bet that Alexander Bell wasn't the first to create the telephone and Henry Ford wasn't the first to create the motorcar. They were simply the first to release their inventions and receive the accolades. This is the way of the world, this has always been the way of the world. Simple.
Mweb advertise on top of Teasers
What a Brilliant advert, snapped it on my way home tonight:
The Mweb part of the advert reads: "MWEB PARENTAL GUIDANCE".For those of you who haven't seen the Teasers ad campaign - where have you been? - the ad below the mweb one has a revealing picture of a woman on the side...Mweb seems to be capitalising on this by placing their advert for their online parental guidance service over the Teasers ad.Sheer brilliance. But I wonder if Teasers needed to give Mweb permission or how the situation works? Any have an answer?
MyDigitalLife blogs put me off
I really struggle to MyDigitalLife (MyDL) blogs. It's not the blogs themselves or the bloggers, it's the fact that on Amatomu all MyDL blogs appear with a single author, MyDigitalLife. Immediately that puts me off.I have glanced over and ignored countless posts by MyDL bloggers for this reason. In stark contrast, I enjoy reading Iblogs, Amagama and other who have individual authors listed on Amatomu.The reason? I think that it is due to the fact that in my mind it appears as if MyDL is trying to own the content of all their blogs and thus alter editorial content.I was asked to post SA Rocks posts on MyDL a while ago. I started using the service and received little to no feedback. I then noticed my current issue with them on Amatomu and have yet to post another SA Rocks post on MyDL.Simply put, bloggers on MyDL need to take back their blogs.
I'm not tight, I just prefer Xbox360
I recently purchased an Xbox360. I deserved it. I worked hard for it and I didn't need it.Buying something that you want is always more rewarding than buying something you need. I need some new clothes - I'm tired of losing the office fashion show - and I need to get myself mobile internet of some kind. These things can wait. I WANTED AN XBOX360! So I got one. Simple.My tip to make you feel good today: Go and buy something that you really want. It doesn't have to be expensive, just make it something you want. Trust me, after the initial guilt settles, you will be the happiest person around even if it is just for one day.
Voting, ranking and rating is getting to me
I have a plan, it's a cunning stunt that will cripple any and all voting, ranking and rating systems or sites. It will work. You will see. Spammers and everyone else for that matter will suffer.You will know when it is in place, wait, maybe not.
The Muti model and Zoopy spam
Recently I have been making use of muti alot. I am not sure what marked my return but I am thoroughly enjoying the site. That was up until today's abuse (and a fair amount this week) of the service by Zoopy. Within an hour Zoopy had voted themselves on the the muti charts over 5 times (it is against the rules to have more than 5 submissions (to the same hostname) inan hour).This really got my goat so I took it upon myself to let Neville know about this. Neville is great and responded fairly quickly to my irritation with feelings of agreement and frustration. He is at a bit of a loss about what to do with potential spammers, spammers and general wrong-doing. He asked me what my opinion was and I was also at a bit of a loss.My suggestion is to open it up to the people using muti. This is the purpose of this blog post. I want to know what you all think a possible solution to the above-mentioned problem could be. But first let me actually elaborate a bit more from Neville's perspective:
Remember that muti started out as an experimentto see if a reddit like site could work in a regional contextsuch as South Africa. For this type of site to work it needs 3things:1) a sustainable # of active member2) a suatainable # of submissions3) voter participationMy assesment is that muti has 1) and 2)but on 3) there are not enough people participatingIt is to me a very interesting question as to whySouth Africans are not participating in 3)
I think that Neville has stumbled upon an extremely interesting and poignant issue here. Participation. Participation is absolutely crucial to the success of this sort of site as well as just about any web 2.0 endeavour.One of the solutions brought up is to weight voting according to reliability of user, length of time a user has been registered, reputation, k-index, kudus and/or number of submission to muti. But writing this post I think that a better way to solve the problem is to possibly find a way to incentivise people to get involved and vote the good stories up and the rubbish, boring, old, irritating zoopy spam down (OK enough zoopy bashing, sometimes they post good stuff).So, what do you think a possible solution is? And how do we prevent the muti elite from taking over the world?
Facebook suggestions
I have some suggestions for Facebook. These are things I want, think need improvement or would like to see added soon.1. Enough with the Apps. I'm over it, you're losing me.2. Provide RSS for groups, wallposts, topics in groups and other things so that I can place discussions from groups on to other sites or blogs.3. Allow me to import RSS in to a group not just a profile. For example, the SA Rocks RSS in to the SA Rocks group on Facebook.4. Expand the Facebook Apps concept a bit further. Allow me to register group members from my blog in to my Facebook group. Thus creating more registered Facebook users and more SA Rocks Facebook group members.I would love to hear what suggestions you have about Facebook and things they need.
Is Google Analytics having issues?
Is it just me or does it seem like Google Analytics on a dip?Here a screenshots of the last few days of three of my sites:
Either my code suddenly got misplaced in all three websites, or google analytics is on the frits, or... HORROR... my sites just suck!?