Articles by JDA

When android hits, we are going to see one of the first battles of apple and google. For the most part these two don’t really compete. Now they are going head to head in the battle of the mobile os.

Everyone knew about the iphone before it came out, but no one that I talk to outside the tech world knows what android is - most within don’t either. That’s a fundamental difference in google and apple. Apple is known for big build ups to releases and for big ad and pr campaigns. Google isn’t. Instead google is known for launching quietly and then crushing the competition with superior products. But apple is known for crushing competition too. The difference is really one of style.

So now, the question has to be what happens when two heavyweights colide? My guess is that the world won’t blink at android. My guess is that it won’t be half as asthetically appealing as the iphone. However, my guess is that over time it will crush the iphone.

Why? Not simply because it’s google. I know as well as anyone that google can’t win on name alone. If that were true a mass conversion to google docs would be underway. Google will win because its strategy is better and its better fit for this medium. Mobile isn’t about phones. It’s about the web and messaging. Right now apple’s biggest advantage is its ability to combine two devices into one. But as the way we use our phones evolves the google brand will be the one users are most drawn to. It may be a few years off, but in the long run I believe the mobile world belongs to google

I was in a meeting about seo Friday, and I was left pondering a question I’ve pondered before: where do brands belong in title tags?

There are really just two choices, the front and the back. If you put the brand name in the back, there is a chance a searcher might miss it. They might go to your site and never remember the name because it didn’t make that first impression. They remember the content, but not the brand.

On the other hand, putting the brand in front means giving up valuable keyword real estate. You are potentially sacrificing the only few words a user will ever see to get your brand name out. If it’s an unknown brand, there’s even a chance that will induce someone to skip your link.

So what’s worse? Well, I think our narcissistic and English basis makes us think that the name should come first. We read left to right, and from a hierarchical standpoint it make sense to use: site - section - page. It’s just the way we think. And we certainly don’t want to risk an opportunity to throw our brand in everyone’s face. Consider that and the fact that every uber brand in the world uses this structure (plus some very popular content management systems like wordpress) and you have a fairly compelling argument for placing your brand name first in your title.

But wait… you’re not an uber brand… at least most likely you’re not. So there’s a good chance you’ll benefit more from keywords first. Well… maybe. You don’t need to be Facebook SEOmoz to warrant the brand first title tag, but you also shouldn’t just go for it because that’s what SEOmoz does.

Unless you are well known in your target market, you really shouldn’t be putting your name up front. The key isn’t size, it’s brand awareness in your target market. If your name already means something throw it up front. If it doesn’t (which can be hard to admit) it gets the back seat to content.

Updated: I changed my example from Facebook to SEOmoz. I think this post is more relevant with this example, because SEOmoz is really using its brand recognition in the field to drive clicks.

The main reason I’ve ditched this blog is because I now moblog more than anything, and there is a very simple solution that I like for that. So now I have three options:

1. Continue using my “Stealth Blog” only
2. Use the same software as the stealth blog and create a new blog
3. Keep this wordpress blog and moblog on wordpress… and keep the stealth blog

The third option seems like the best though I have some good ideas for a new blog name which would be my reason for number 2… 2 or 3, I plan to try to get back into public blogging…. just hope some readers come back.

Cdm? Never heard of it you say? That’s because I just made it up. Seo, in reality, is a technical thing. It starts with the way a site is put together and includes things like title tag management. Cdm is often confused with seo, but I think it’s completely different. Cdm is content distribution management. Often thought of as seo, but the traditional thinking on seo really has two parts…and I don’t think it’s right to lump them together. Seo involves prepping a site to be search friendly - all of the on page aspects. Cdm is making sure someone notices. Your site can be technically perfect from a search engine’s point of view, but that really doesn’t matter unless someone thinks your site is worth their time. People think a site is worth their time if they’ve heard about it. You’ll rarely hear about a site unless it engages in some cdm. Furthermore, as search engines become more refined, thee on page stuff matters less. In the end cdm is more important than seo (though your seo should be nearly flawless) and it’s going to be the next big web service market (especially as seo moves in-house or dies).

I haven’t completely lost my mind, or changed my opinion on the value of web analytics. Instead, I just think you need to be careful. My warning is simple: Web Analytics can suck the life from your content.

If you have a combination of niche content and mainstream content (say you write a blog about music) if you only listen to analytics, you will kill your site. The web is built upon a foundation of availability of all types of content. Naturally mainstream content is searched for more than niche content, and you may see more pageviews for you mainstream content. It may not event be mainstream, it may just be your most popular content. The point is you can’t let the popular content become the only thing on your site.

Why not? Why not just make your site focused on the popular? A few reasons really, 1: niche content will be easier to win in the competition for traffic (even if it comes from a smaller pie) 2: Saturation makes the web dull - and 3: I don’t like it.

Lesson: don’t just blog about apple and google… it’s really boring.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not really using this blog again. There are really two reasons 1) this is too public, and I don’t really want a public forum right now - though I may again in the future. 2) Moblogging doesn’t seem to work well, if at all with wordpress. So, I now have a more private blog that allows me to moblog and not share everything with the world… but I will be posting here occassionally, when I feel the content is audience appropriate… in fact I might just post a few things now…

I think the lull is real, but I also think the lull exists in the realm of the trendy. Startups focused on current trends in the web aren’t going to stand out. What really stands out to me is a startup that is not focused on the trends… Right now that’s xobni, a startup that is focusing on the email client when everyone else is focusing on the browser. By bucking the trend xobni is completely avoiding the lull.

xobni didn’t take the same approach of trying to build a social network from the ground up - xobni built off a tool that was already social in nature, but that completely lacked social features. That’s the pitch anyway, but I could honestly care less about the social aspects of xobni - I love it because it makes outlook interesting and more useful. Improved search, conversational organization, easy file view and most importantly - intelligent presentation of information (which might just be where the ‘plug-in’ company turns into a business).

xobni’s not predictable, it has nothing to do with the semantic web or the mobile web, it’s not the next facebook or the next google, it’s not something anyone said would be the next big thing - it’s not trendy, it’s just brilliant (though the micorsoft move may have been stupid (even if I do like the company more for it)).

Web >> Lull >> Web 2.0 >> Lull 2.0? >> Web 3.0?

I think we’ve hit a wall. Not that I haven’t said this before, but I think my viewpoint has changed a little. Before when I complained about an innovation downturn it was based on a lack of independent startups that I found to be interesting (there are plenty of good independents - but I still haven’t seen a lot of great ones lately). The problem as I see it now, is with a general sense of contentment with the largest “Web 2.0″ sites.

The problem with moving from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 is that people just generally don’t care. They don’t think Google is broken, they don’t think Facebook is broken and generally they don’t care about the difference between machine readable and machine understandable. The difference between machine readable and machine understandable is the key difference in Web 2.0 and web 3.0 (well at least in one generally accepted understanding of 3.0) - if there isn’t demand, it’s tough to get supply. Most entrepreneurs, in my opinion, are focused on getting quick run away success with a quick exit. Tough to get quick run away success if people aren’t craving what you’re making.

I understand wanting to see some gain from the time put into your endeavor, but if we keep focusing on the same things we can’t move forward. It seems people have gotten used to using a certain set of web apps/sites and aren’t really looking for anything new. So, developers keep making the same things and making incremental gains. This has lead to an overall downturn - a downturn in innovation and not surprisingly a downturn in financial investment. We’re seeing small ideas, not big ideas. There’s a general sense of what people like and startups make copies and incremental changes.

I know I say this every five posts or so - but it’s not all gloom. There are some things that are exciting to me right now. Chief among them: mobile and microformats. The mobile web is really starting to take off - I honestly believe that personal web browsing (not business) will be conducted more on mobile devices than computers within 5 years. Microformats are exciting… or at least they could be. I’m excited about companies that are trying to interpret them, not those that are merely adding them to their sites (though that is important too). A downturn may even be good for the web. If the possibility of financial gain decreases, fewer people will try to create me-too startups and those that are creating truly innovative applications will once again stand out.

Of course, there is a chance that mobile and microformats really won’t take off. If you would have asked most people what they thought the next big wave in the web would be after the first crash my guess is most would not have said social applications.

What do you think? Is innovation slowing? Is it good?

I just read an article on wired about how Google is not doing very well monetizing social networks (synopsis: traditional Google ads don’t work on SNs). It’s a quick read and doesn’t say too much other than hinting that someone thinks there is an answer - but it’s a part of a very interesting problem. Despite the fact that social networks do a great job of getting users and keeping users on their sites for extended periods of time they haven’t really figured out the best way to turn users into dollars.

I won’t pretend to have the answer and I think it is different depending on the type of social network - a network that includes localized content obviously has different monetization opportunities than a network that has a more generalized focus. However, it seems to me that the focus really isn’t in the right place. Text ads work on search because they are almost the exact same thing a person is looking for when they do a search - if you’re searching you’re looking for links to relevant content, and that’s what text ads provide. When you’re on a social network you’re looking for information about people and things you care about. That’s not as easy to monetize - you can’t expect one of your “friends” to pay so that their photos are given priority over another one of your “friends.” It’s tough because you don’t care who views your content on most social networks that aren’t for businesses. This changes when you either have a social network that people are using for business, or when you let others develop on your platform. Let’s face it - I hate platforms - but I also think they might just be the best way to monetize social networks.

When facebook added the developer network and then the app platform they created something that they can get businesses to pay for. It’s all free now, but if Facebook charged fees for setting up apps, fees for premium placement of apps, a fee per user, or any other fee based on their apps platform - companies (and some people) would pay it. The true value of facebook NOW is it’s ability to expose new ideas to a large audience. You can’t monetize the content created by individuals for their “friend” individuals - you can monetize providing companies access to a huge network - and I won’t be surprised to see it.

But… what do you think?

When I think about the future of web apps, I think of remoteness. I think of being in one location and being able to both read and write to others. I want to setup a page of my own that allows me to interact with other sites in both for both retrieval and contribution. Imagine, a site where you can see your friends interactions with other sites and interact with those sites without leaving your current location. It’s not that hard to imagine… right now this type of ecosystem exists within the confines of Facebook, where, for example, I can update my twitter status and see others twitter updates without ever venturing to twitter itself. This is fine, but Facebook is not the internet… I’m essentially talking about a decentralized platform. So, what is Friend Feed? Well, probably a lot of people reading this already know, but for those that don’t… it’s the read part of the read write decentralized platform. We’ve reached a halfway point where I can read from other sites without having to visit them, but I can’t write to most of them unless they are contained somewhere. I want to be able to have a module that I control that allows me to post to Flickr, Facebook, or Delicious (not the best example) without having to visit the sites or go through an API. We’re at the point where we can read most content from nearly anywhere… next we need to be able to write. I might just do this with motask… enable people to take the site with them to anywhere else they want, even completely rebrand it… but contain the information within my database. I’m still working the details out… but with the simple nature of motask, it at least seems possible. There are many more examples where this is beginning to happen… but they are coming along slowly and all too often are left to the tech savvy. Somewhere between opensource and silo data lies the future of web interactivity, figuring out the right mix will determine the future of the web.

At the end of the line, there’s only one big decision left to make - how exactly do I end this? Admittedly, I’ve thought very little about exit strategy from the time I started Lopico. When I started in 2004 - or rather before I started - I thought about it a bit more. I thought there would be a quick exit, I knew it would be a runaway success. I was wrong. I was not very internet savvy, and beyond the things I’d read in print magazines, I didn’t know much about the true nature of the internet as a business. I had to learn quickly, and I did. Now, I’m coming to the end of this journey that produced a website, that though not a runaway billion dollar success, was in many ways a great triumph. It’s here that I find myself once again forced to think about exit strategies. There’s a good chance I could sell the site, but I’m not sold on the idea just yet. A part of me just wants to shut it down and move on. A part of me wants to keep everything and relaunch in a year. The only thing I know for sure is that there’s at most one month left of Lopico, and then the exit (at least publicly) will be complete.

I have decided that I am shutting down Lopico in the coming weeks. It was a tough decision, but ultimately the best decision for me. There are two primary reasons for this decision: time and a desire to pursue other opportunities. Lopico has been a great learning experience for me, but I can’t dedicate the amount of time I need to make it what I want it to be. When I visit the site now, I am bothered by its look and its current feature set. While, I was in the process of a redevelopment and redesign of the site, I do not have the time and resources to make it what I want it to be - this is the drawback of having a single-person operation. I have often said (and it’s true) that the site can run on auto-pilot, but that’s not what I want. I don’t want a desolate and static (in terms of features) site. I want something I can be actively involved in - as I was with Lopico in previous years. With my current schedule, it’s unlikely that I can make this commitment to any site - but having Lopico just makes this more difficult. Lopico was a great experience for me - but my heart hasn’t been in the local review space for awhile - I want to move to other projects and projects that are more on the cutting edge. As long as Lopico remains, I will dedicate the time I have to it - time that could be used for other projects. By ending Lopico, I will free up what time I do have to explore other projects - something that is pretty exciting for me. So… yes, it is a little sad for me to be shutting down Lopico, but there’s more excitement in the possibilities of what is next. Thanks to everyone that has supported Lopico, I will also be posting on the Lopcio blog shortly.

So.. I just got back from Vegas, which has me thinking about the usefulness of travel booking sites. Traditional travel booking sites just don’t seem to get it. There was probably a time when these sites were very helpful. Way back in the B.G. (before Google) era, when people weren’t as savvy about going to an actual airlines site, or a hotel site, it was probably helpful. Now, people go to these sites, look for what’s cheapest and then go to the actual airline site where the flight will be slightly cheaper. Now these sites are banking on adding extra services and packages to try to compensate for their general lack of usefulness for the non-internet-intelligent (a shrinking population)

Then there are the referral sites, these seem to be headed in the right direction - but I think they are merely a piece of the puzzle. The process of showing prices to customers, then sending them to the airline’s site for a referral fee - is much closer to actual user behavior so it makes for a more useful and rewarding experience. My question is, why don’t the bundler’s add the referral function into their site? Use the bundler to look for prices, but give me the option of how I want to purchase the flight - either from the bundling site directly or through the airline or hotel. This way all of the customers that would leave anyway count for at least some revenue.

Then there’s the second piece - the add-ons. There’s a certain company that is trying to build a social network around travel conditions. This seems a little foolish - and this isn’t a replication of how people normally travel. Again the companies are trying to force customers out of their norms. Worst of all the information that is provided via this service really isn’t that helpful. Sure I can see how long the security line is right before I walk up to it… but what choice do I have at that point? And if I check it earlier, what are the chances the condition will be the same? These companies would be better off giving customers helpful information tailored to their needs throughout their trip. I don’t care about using the web on my phone to find out about a security line, but I would like to know about a lot of other things while I’m actually at my destination. Give me recommendations and partner with business in top destinations to give me access to discounts and offers that I can only get if I book through your service. This is the type of information that is always going to be useful and enticing.

Unless there is a change to start providing useful information and services that actually mirror or enhance real life behavior, travelers will continue to make alternate plans.

I know… I’ve been a little harsh on Facebook in recent post on the book, but there’s something wrong with the whole apps concept. I think it benefits Facebok immensely, the app developers slightly, and overall hurts the web.

The future of the book.
Probably the best benefit to Facebook is that it no longer has to deal with the vicious cycles that come along with being trendy. Instead of putting out ‘cool’ products and new features on a regular basis it looks to the community for the work, and it reaps the ad revenue and traffic benefits. Nice work if you can get it. Eventually, it will likely make sense for Facebook to begin charging its largest developers a hosting fee for their apps and give them some sort of premium placement in exchange - essentially charging app developers to do the work for them. Pretty smart, right.

The future of the apps.
This picture isn’t as pretty for apps and their developers. For some app developers success will come, but those will really only be those that can put out a large number of apps, and add to their collection on a consistent basis. The one-off developers (the majority) are the ones that get lost in the shuffle. As I see it, the product cycle of a FB app compared to a web app looks something like this:

Crude, I know… but I think it illustrates my point. The hot-now apps are now the ones exposed to the ‘fate-of-a-trend’ life cycle. They are enticed by the early rush, but are left with little to show for it before long. Facebook has a huge user base to expose your app to, but really all that does is speed up your product life cycle. It’s quicker to start, but also quicker to die. The users don’t care about the individual apps, they care about a steady stream of ‘hot-now’ items. And as long as new apps come out to replace the dying apps, the book maintains its stance.

Should I care? Maybe not. But, I generally dislike this trend of large companies acting as lords over the smaller. It’s a strange re-ordering of web power that’s taking place right now, and I for one, will not be creating facebook apps.

I’ve been making a ton of progress (well, relatively) on Lopico lately, but I still have a long way to go. One thing that is pretty much set at this point is the new logo:

Let me know what you think.

Search engine optimization seems to always be done from a backwards-looking perspective. A client comes to an SEM firm and says “what can we do NOW to improve our search rankings?” The problem would be a lot easier to fix if the site had been built with SEO in mind. Yes, SEO starts with design; and if you’re lacking in smart design then you’re coming into the SEO process with at least one strike against you (probably more). The good news for those that start with smart design is that you’re already a few steps ahead. When you get to the heart of it, there are only so many things one can do to separate one site from another in terms of SEO. Search-minded design is a thing that so few sites have, that it really makes a difference after the keyword stuffing and link baiting is finished.

If it’s important why don’t more websites do this?

The problem in my opinion, is that design, development, and services (things like SEO) are usually very separate. In fact, I can only recall ever seeing one or two search marketing firms that also offer design services. Design on the web is different than design in print or anywhere else - design on the web has to be smarter. You start with a logical layout, without tables, user Header tags intelligently, include alt tags, and ensure that your site looks good naked. Naked websites? That’s right, you need to make sure your site makes sense when you look at it without any design elements. For this I like to use the web developer toolbar in firefox. Use the toolbar to disable css and images and you’ll get a much better picture of how Google, Yahoo, and other search engines will see your site. If it makes sense naked, then you’re on your way to better optimization.

That’s easy right? So, why isn’t it done? Because, for the most part, this is not taught to web designers. Web designers are designers, not search optimizers - so they think in terms of design not SEO. They need to become both. From header tags, to microformats, this stuff has to be done at the design level. If you’re designers aren’t doing this, they are hurting your site in the long run.

SEO is easy, if you start with it in mind. It’s not a matter of difficulty it’s a matter of consistency and of site-wide or company-wide efforts.

More on SEO:
JD Amer’s SEO bookmarks on del.icio.us

… but nobody wants it. I tried to completely program, design and launch a site a couple of weekends ago, when I realized a couple of things:

1. What’s the hurry?
2. I’m not following my mantra of “assume it’s being built, go after what you’d want next”
3. Building to quickly is a sure fire way to fail

Sure, there are exceptions - I did motask in a little over a week, it had about 1500 uniques in its first 5 hours of launch and it continues to do fairly well in terms of growth and usage - but on average, you’re better off building for quality not speed. I wanted to get the new site up quickly mainly for the novelty of doing it in a weekend - but when the novelty wears off, you’re left with a half-assed site and a bunch of unresolved/undiscovered issues that you half to go back and spend time on anyway.

So, what happens to the new site (Frisht) now? Well, before I started building it, I had set a yearly goal of launching at least two new sites (not counting blogs which I can set up in about an hour) - I suppose it will become one of the two. The longer I take to build it, the more likely it is to not be junk. The more thought that gets put in, the less junky it gets - so, I’m holding off and hopefully before the end of April, I’ll be telling you what Frisht is all about.

A comment by someone (hi lisa) on my last post, posed the question: “what happens to Lopico now?” That’s a good question. I have a new job, live in a new city, and don’t have much time available for it. I’m working on getting into a better routine for blogging / writing code, but I’m not there yet. My simple answer for Lopico is: it’s not dead, but it’s not at its peak either. I’m more or less putting development of Lopico on hold. It’s set up in such a way that my involvement can be fairly minuscule and it will run just fine, and at least cover costs. I can’t be completely dedicated, but when I have time I’ll work on new features / design. I’m not going to throw it away (I still have too much that I want to do) but I’m not as dedicated as I would ideally be.

This may work out for the best. If I make it more of a long term project, and worry less about getting new features rolled out every so often, then I will dedicate more time to getting the right mix of features… at least that’s one potential path. And if it takes me a couple years until I can back into it that’s fine. Letting it grow slowly and adding some years to the Lopico domain will give me a better place to resume when I do get a chance to put more effort into it. I can’t really say what the ultimate future is, but I will say that the whole experience has made me want to start more things… and if that’s the best thing to come out of Lopico I’ll consider it a success.

Things have been pretty dead on this blog lately… mainly because I started a new job. I am now working for a web / software company in Chicago and it’s taken up most of my time. Once I get into more of a routine, I promise to write more (feels like I’ve said that before). In the meantime… since I am always looking to promote my readers, leave a comment or send me an email and I will gladly link to / write about whatever it is that you’ve been up to.

First up: my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law recently authored a novel for teens that I told him I would link to. Check it out if you like (and no I did not set up the site): Writing on the wall.

I feel like I’ve been putting a lot of content on the web lately, and I’ve barely even written on this blog. A conversation with a friend / former co-worker today made me decide to list approximately all of the places that you can find content produced by me on the web. I’m sure I’ll forget things, but here’s my list:

Sites I’m actively working on:
1. Lopico
2. The Daily JDA
3. JDA’s Food Log Blog
4. Chicago Mustard (just starting… don’t judge it too harshly yet, please)
5. World’s Greatest Resume
6. motask
7. Amehigher (just restarted and I’m killing it in the next week)
8-11. New projects in varying stages.

Web 2.0(ish) sites I use through general membership & visit at least once a month:
1. Lopico (daily)
2. Facebook (daily)
3. Twitter (daily-weekly)
4. del.icio.us (weekly)
5. MySpace (monthly)
6. Highrise (daily)
7. Box.net (monthly)
8. Basecamp (daily-weekly)
9. motask (weekly)
10. Pandora (monthly)
11. Last.fm (monthly)
12. Google Reader / gmail / calendar (hourly) (no sure if these count)
13. Digg (monthly - but passively)
14. claimid (varies)
15. pbwiki (monthly and declining)

And I also use Flock and Skype.

Not sure if that’s more or less than you were expecting… but I’m 100% certain I am leaving things off this list. I may update it. And in case you don’t get the title: click here.

Web 2.0 is over… in case you weren’t aware… and I think Facebook killed it. Facebook has been the talk of the web since it launched the developer platform, and continues to steal headlines with its ridiculous valuations and ad network that is a little too perfect. These things have changed / are changing ways in which we use the web, and I’m pretty sure it is for the worse.

I was getting ready to write a post on Hulu and Facebook and how the tide has turned into a state in which we are seeing the potential of the web being realized… then I realized how far off I was. Facebook hasn’t revolutionized the web, it has stifled it. I remember not long ago always reading about new independent startups coming from all over the globe… now I hear about Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and efforts like Hulu that are born out of corporations not individuals. The swing hasn’t taken full effect yet, but while the world is applauding the brilliance of Facebook developer platform and Google’s “Open”Social, I’m a little scared. This is a serious detraction from innovation. Instead of trying to build the next great website the developer community seems to be focused on building the next great Facebook app. That’s a big problem. As a result of Facebook platform and the notion that, “you don’t have to build a network, you can just use Facebook’s,” I think we at the beginning of a downward spiral in terms of independent innovation.

And now Google has entered the game with its “Open”Social. A platform that masks itself as open when all it really does is steer developers away from developing for the web and into developing for large corporate sites. Developing for social networks rather than for the web does little to drive real innovation. What it really does is perpetuate the success of sites like Facebook and gives the developers of the insignificant parts of the whole a false sense of accomplishment.

When I think of what Web2.0 was, I think of big-eyed independent entrepreneurs out to change the way the web worked… not followers out to build a little piece of a big site. I think back to the early days of del.icio.us (before it was purchased and entered into the unfortunate life cycle of a corporate product) and the first time I used Digg (a product I openly hate, but did respect), and I wonder when we will see innovation like that again. I don’t know when it will be, but I do know that it won’t come from a Facebook app.

Facebook is not the internet, it’s a part of the internet. Your Facebook app is a part of a part, that seems pretty insignificant to me. The web needs innovation, challenge, and a ton of voices… if we just develop for a handful of large companies (and only use the services of those companies) the power of the internet is lessened. We need more independent developers and leaders, and less followers. Platform is not a buzz word it’s a death knell. Of course, I’ve been saying that web 2.0 was ending since January 06… so maybe I’m wrong.

Quick post today…

I used to always think “I wish x product/service was in existence” then I’d come up with an idea. Now I think “if x product/service was in existence, what would I want next.”

Continuing with my posts on the thoughts and concerns I have about Lopico, today’s post concerns the structure of reviews.

One of the biggest issues with any local review site is the content of the reviews. There are many issues involved, including among others: accountability, bias, saturation, and the reaction of reviewed businesses. Reviews on Lopico currently attempt to find balance through structure. When you review a business on Lopico, you’re asked to input both “what you like” and “what you would change” about the business. Lopico has always focused on the positive, as it is intended to be a directory of only favorite businesses, but the “what you would change” input also provides an outlet for constructive feedback to the businesses listed on Lopico. That’s the plan anyway. Things don’t always work out that way.

To this point my answer to the issues surrounding user reviews has always been providing structure, but that too has problems. I’ve been experimenting outside Lopico with a more free form method of writing reviews with my own Tumblr microblog. Truthfully, I like this method of reviewing better. I like that I can write as many reviews as I want about a business and I like that I dictate the structure. The challenge (and I think I have the solution) for Lopico is finding a happy medium.

I know I have some smart readers, even though comments have been slim lately, so tell me something you think about user generated local reviews and the best ways to tackle the problems

If you’re like me, you’ve been watching a ton of post-season baseball. Maybe not a ton, but certainly enough to have all of the lines from the Frank TV commercials memorized. Along with the humorous Frank Caliendo commercials, there are also the very annoying Dane Cook “There’s only one October” commercials. I don’t really think the Dane Cook spots ever really stood a chance of being enjoyable, but the most damage was perhaps done by TBS. One of the Caliendo spots takes a direct stab at the line “There’s only one October.” Now every time I see the Dane Cook spots I think to myself “that really is a stupid slogan.” Somehow TBS decided it was ok to use one commercial to belittle another, and then re-run the belittled ad thousands of times. The message gets mixed and the viewer gets annoyed. You cannot mix messages this way if you want your audience to attach meaning to the message or to buy into what you are trying to communicate. To me, this was a horrible marketing mistake, but also a good lesson.

Thoughts?

Last time, I talked about the challenge of conversions on Lopico, but there are other challenges as well. Recently, I revealed the top 25 most voted for businesses on Lopico; something I hope to repeat on a quarterly basis. The Top 25 represent perhaps the biggest challenge to Lopico - concentration. Of the Top 25, the majority are businesses that are in Akron or have a presence in Akron. So, I was able to get a strong amount of input in Akron, but I need to be outside the Akron market too. It’s a good list and a good start - but three years into Lopico I need to be doing more in more places.

The easiest way for me to get rid of this problem is with advertising. I rely (most of the time) exclusively on organic results. When I advertise, I see growth in the markets I advertise in. This is easy enough, but unless the money spent to advertise leads to quality conversions, I’d rather not spend the money. I am sort of at the point of “grow or die” with Lopico - and to grow it’s going to take a larger time and monetary investment that I can provide right now.

There is something to be said for concentrating growth, then expanding, but I don’t know that Akron is exactly the market that can fuel the sort of growth needed to expand to other areas. It hasn’t been thus far.

How would you guide Lopico into new markets?

Today, I’m going to take you through a my viewpoint on conversions on Lopico. That’s what it’s all about. Getting people to Lopico has never been a real problem for me. The problems lie in the conversions. The first person to comment with any suggestions related to this post gets a preview of the next version of Lopico, that has never been seen before, and a preview of the new site that I soft launched today.

There are essentially five types of Lopico users:

1. Info grabbers
2. Adders / Businesses
3. Reviewers
4. Voters
5. Rock stars (people that do it all).

The info grabbers are fine - they make up the majority of Lopico’s visitors and they are the people most likely to click on ads - but I want more from them. The info grabber is not someone that is leaving the site in any better condition than when they arrived. These are the hardest people to convert. Their mainly just trying to get the info and go. I’m working on a couple of features geared toward this set of users. More features that don’t require sign-up, like the recently launched Reliability Score, will help in this area.

Then there are the Adders. These visitors add businesses to the site, but too often do little more. Some never come back. I have a pretty good idea of how to fix this problem and it will likely go away before long. This is often where businesses tend to fall - they want their information listed, but have little desire to participate in any social aspects.

The next toughest group to convert are the reviewers. These users tend to only write reviews and rarely if ever vote. This is great, but I’d like the next step to be taken. Reviews make for interesting content and comprise a large portion of all page views on the site… but these people have accounts and I feel I could get more out of them. I have a couple of ideas here too.

Voters are usually pretty easy converts. Well, the heavy voters anyway. There are people that will go on Lopico everyday to vote, some stick around forever, some come for a month or a couple of weeks and then move on, but these people definitely add value to the site (in more ways than you might think). Best of all, the amount of time that these users spend on the site usually leads them to engaging in other activities such as writing reviews and commenting. I have ideas to boost this as well - and hopefully you’ll see all of these ideas come to light in the next version of Lopico.

Finally the Rock Stars. These users take advantage of all the features that Lopico offers, BUT… they need to be converted backwards. These are typically not the ones that generate any revenue for Lopico. So, they are my favorite users - but they do the least for me in terms of direct monetization.

That was a little long, and certainly could have been three times as long, but that’s a general run-down of my users. Comments = rewards; put your best foot forward and let me know what you think I could do to convert more users in any of these groups.

The “Quick Ideas” series that I’ve been doing is coming to an end… on this blog. I decided that I am going to move it to its own site. I really enjoy writing the Quick Ideas series, and it has been a favorite in terms of traffic - enough that I think the posts deserve their own space. I registered a new domain today, and while I would like to develop my own blogging platform, I am going to do a simple wordpress install and should have the new site up by the beginning of next week.

That’s my plan anyway. If anyone has any suggestions, or would like their ideas on the new site, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

For some time politics and the web have been quite good friends. But, the political web is somewhat unbound. Political bloggers are everywhere, espousing their opinions in their small piece of the web. This week’s quick idea brings them together. “Second Congress” (which would not fly as a name because it is derived from Second Life) would pull political bloggers / thinkers into a social network in which real debates take place, and the best thinkers shine.

Basics: Everyone gets a page / blog; you build a network of friends and supporters; compete for fake campaign currency and the best of the best are chosen to a simulated congress. Essentially simulate government, but let it be run by the unfunded, less-supporter-biased masses that spend their time online. And kick it all off with a big publicity stunt in which you actually fund the campaign of the highest rated user to run for office offline.

I would love to build this, but don’t have the time / resources (unless someone wants to help me make this a reality).

Quick Ideas is an ongoing series in which Josh Amer publishes one idea for a website or product each week.

Every week I receive an email from iTunes called “New Release Tuesday,” I’m sure many of you receive the same. I nearly never read it, but think it could be valuable with a little tweaking. I don’t read it because it is, for the most part, not relevant to me. The email includes listings of the most popular new releases for the week - the problem is, I don’t listen to most of the bands that make the email and I’ve gotten so used to it being irrelevant that I won’t open it even if it is relevant. So… tweak it. Make it more relevant, and deliver it to me in an RSS feed or any way I chose.

Here’s the idea: let me select a handful of bands, or look at my listening / purchasing history and do it for me, send this info to a database, when the selected bands - or related bands - release an album I receive a notification in my RSS reader or other medium of choice. Amazon does this with purchase history (in email), but I want it more customized and I want to be able to add things that I haven’t purchased. In fact, this would probably work better for a company like Pandora or Last.fm. Pandora could theoretically create a custom RSS feed for me that would notify me when bands I’ve liked - or that the service believes I would like - release new albums.

And it’s not just about new music - this type of system could be built around any type of product. The opportunity is there, it’s just a matter of time.

I’m happy to say that the blogger - Jason Therrien - that posted the post that caused my reaction in my last post, has replied in the comments. I have responded there as well… but I think more needs to be said.

First - I do hope that Northeast Ohio succeeds. I hope things happen that make me say… I should move back. At the same time, I am extremely happy in Chicago and not really sure what can be done to make me say that.

Second - Jason’s response is welcome, as all responses are, but there was one response that really gave me pause. It was George Nemeth’s. He didn’t write anything about it on BFD, but in his del.icio.us bookmarks he wrote - “Not sure what to say about this.” I don’t think he should be. Two reasons: 1. I probably don’t know enough about recruiting to make the type of statements I did; 2. more importantly, he’s not part of the problem. The NEO community needs more people like George, more that point out great things, more that drive the conversation about change - and they need to be louder. Is he one of the saviors that I said NEO has too many of? I don’t know, but he’s probably doing more than those that want to be.

Third - the response I would have liked to hear was “Josh, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe I can tell you some things that will change your mind.” If that happens, I will happily spread the word on my blog, and to those I know in NEO, about Indenti-fyi and why it is going to work.

I was working on a post that I realized might cost me every contact I have in Northeast Ohio. It was in response to this post: http://growcleveland.blogspot.com/2007/09/steering-herd.html - that says that those of us that leave NEO suffer from herd mentality and lack information.

I’ll skip the details and get to the meat of my argument: NEO has too many saviors, too many ideas of ways to reshape the region, and too many failed attempts. All this seems to be coupled with a fear to give up power at the top (think Arshinkoff) - which really doesn’t ever lead to change. There needs to be one concentrated effort and there needs to be large scale effort.

The post I pointed to earlier talks about a recruiting incident with 2 people - NEO needs to be talking about 1000s of individuals and about recruiting companies rather than college students. I don’t want to say anymore, because Cleveland doesn’t need anymore talking-head-would-be-saviors-without-real-actionable-plans… and I don’t even live in NEO anymore.

There’s a tremendous amount of talent in NEO - but that’s simply not enough.

I wasn’t using my regular IP address yesterday, so everything that I did yesterday went into my Google analytics data. That’s not a problem - that’s easy enough to fix and the data from one day from me is small enough to lack relevance. The problem was a search query that I did… and the number of times it showed up in my keywords from yesterday. I searched for something once, it showed up four times. All from the network I was on, all seemingly from me. It wasn’t something a standard searcher would query and I imagine it was one of the first times - if not the first - it has been searched for. So… one query, four queries, that’s not a big deal, right? No, not in isolation, but if it does in fact happen on a larger scale, then yes… it is a big deal. If I don’t have accurate data, then many of the decisions I make are based on incorrect beliefs.

So, what’s the moral of this story? Don’t just rely on Google Analytics - which I know many, many people do. Diversify your tracking methods and make sure you have solid data. I’m sure most of you already knew that.

And by the way…
Yesterday was the third birthday of Lopico - for more on the year that was, read this post.

This one comes solely from the high quantity of searches that have been getting people to my site since Facebook Apps launched. The queries in question are things like: “facebook gmail” or “get gmail in Facebook” - as many of these as I see a day, I think it’s fairly clear that people would like to read their email through a Facebook app. I haven’t looked enough at the Facebook platform documentation to know if this is possible, but I can’t really think of why it wouldn’t be - other than it would appear to have a point to it, and I think it may be a requirement for Facebook Apps that they all remain useless.

Thoughts? Is anyone doing this?

I am no longer the most popular Josh Amer in Google’s SERPs. This may have something to do with the fact that I haven’t called myself Josh Amer on this blog very many times. This may also have something to do with the fact that Google now recognizes Amer as the abbreviation for America and throws America into the SERPs. Or maybe it’s just about YouTube.

That’s right there’s a new Josh Amer in town… and he’s on YouTube. So, he’s now beating me in SERPs for Josh Amer. Sad. But I was actually trying to increase my ranking for JDA – which I did (and I imagine the people at JDA software hate me some days) – not Josh Amer. I didn’t think I’d lose Josh Amer at the same time. So, with the pending rebrand of this site I intend to change my post by name to Josh Amer. Finally me. No more JD Amer, no more JDA… just the Josh Amer people in real life know so well.

Will that be enough? I imagine I can work my way up to the top, but the lesson is the same. Video is extremely valuable and is only going to become more so… even for SEO, which may not be the first thing people think when they think about video.

Speaking of video:
I’m not really a full time resident of NEO anymore, but that’s no reason why I can’t give a shout or two to some of the best video producers (in my opinion) on the web. Sage Lewis does great informational SEO videos (and one great video about some site you may have heard me mention); Matt Dickman does some of my favorite video on the web – he actually turned me on to Mahalo after Jason Calacanis did so much to turn me off from it; and then there’s Jim Kukral who is an affiliate rock-star, and also on top of all things web, including many great videos. Check them all out: Sage | Matt | Jim

I’m often surfing the web and wish that I could copy a handful of things, paste them somewhere, or type a quick note - without leaving the browser and without signing in to a service. I’m sure there are some places that this can be done, but I most frequently find myself using Gmail and sending myself emails. Even that’s too cumbersome some times - I want speed, and Gmail can be mighty slow some days. I want to arrive on a page and have it just be an open text area, I start typing and then if I chose, I can login to save what I typed or send it to someone. It’s an extremely simple idea which is why I think it must exist. A good to alternative to having this as a website would be a firefox extension. I created a rough build of this idea (in about seven seconds) but without any of the saving or emailing features: you can click to check it out if you like. It’s literally four textareas, that’s it. What could be easier?

It’s been a busy week, I know this probably isn’t the best in this series, but I wanted to keep up my promise of keeping it weekly. Let me know what you think, or if this exists and I’ll give credit where it’s due.

Oapmeal.org is a new project that I’m working on that will be a sort of launch pad to reading blogs. When I talk to people about blogs, one of the first questions is always, “what are some good blogs about X topic/field/industry, etc.?” The best I can usually do is point someone to tagged posts on Technorati, or one of the hundreds of blog directories. For people that I’ve worked with on blogging I create a topic focused OPML file for them, to give them the user experience of reading blogs on a specific subject. What’s an OPML file? It’s a file that contains a list of blogs that you can import to most rss readers, that automatically subscribes you to the listed blogs - more to it than that, but that’s the general idea for how I will be using it. So… Oapmeal will be a directory of OPML files that I will manage, with some community support, that people will be able to take and use to get started reading blogs on a particular topic. That’s a pretty simplified version, and I’ll have more details as more progress is made.

If the only person that ever uses it is me to tell people where to go to find blogs, that’s enough for me - not setting the bar too high on this one.

Last week for my “Quick Idea” I did a post on sending a text message to find free wi-fi. Since then I’ve found a couple of ways that currently exist to attack the problem. These seem to be the best:

4Info
How it works: Register your cell phone number at www.4INFO.net, send a text message to 4INFO (44636) with the word “wifi”, a space, and then either a zip code or a city name. You will receive one or more text messages back with the locations listed with address.

Hotspotr.com or m.hotspotr.com on your phone
This is just a list of hotspots, both free and paid, that does have a mobile friendly version. No text messaging though.

ilovefreewifi
This one would be my favorite, if it delivered on what Lifehacker promised. It is a community driven site where people list places with free wifi. Lifehacker did a write up in which it depicts the service as almost exactly what I had hoped for in last weeks post. It claims that you can send it a text and get a list of places w/code back, that then you reply with for more info - the problem is, this doesn’t seem to be communicated anywhere on the site. Oh… and if you live in the Cleveland area (which I still kind of do for a few more days) then you only have 2 spots to choose from and the service is more or less pointless, unless you start adding wifi spots.

That’s a lot more than I knew last week, which is just one more reason for me to continue doing the “Quick Ideas” posts - but this weeks may be a little different in that I will likely take on the idea in the next week or so…

Recently, one of my best friends approached me with an idea for a scaled back laptop for Kids. Irrespective of the fact that it’s probably already been done, I think it has some merit. Where we differ is on what to include. He thinks it should have basic software for word processing, calculating, etc. I say all you need is a browser.

We are now to the point where everything the average user needs to do can be done online. The OS and the Hardware are nearly irrelevant. For the average user, they are (or could be) completely irrelevant. It no longer matters whether I run OSX on a Mac Book Pro, XP on an old Gateway, or Ubuntu on a Dell. If I have highspeed access on any of these, the differences are negligible - that is, if I know where to go when I’m online. The days of traditional hardware and software companies are coming to an end. If you’re a software company, and your focus is not on the web, you should probably look for a new job. If you’re a hardware company and you think you have any job other than getting me to the web in the fastest cheapest way possible, you too need to think about new employment. There will always be the high-end (machines for non-average users), and there will always be fashion (macs = trendy), but middle of the road hardware producers like Gateway, Toshiba, HP, and others that strictly appeal to the consumer set are gong to lose their place.

All you need is a connection and a browser, the rest is irrelevant.

Please, tell me why I’m wrong.

I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Chicago with “nothing” to do from 1-5; so I go with the T-Mobile day pass, pony up the $9.99 and suddenly I’m connected again. Yay productivity! But… I hate Starbucks, with a passion. The reason I ended up here is because I didn’t know where else to go and couldn’t really find a hot spot without… a hot spot. I could browse the web on my phone, but that’s sort of a pain… that’s right I don’t have an iPhone… or even a cool enough substitute. Checking my Gmail ad nauseum is about the only thing my web connection on my phone is good for (that and my Lopico mobile marks, of course). So here’s what I want: I want to send a text of my zip code to some web service that will come back with a listing of nearby spots with free wifi (doesn’t have to be exclusively free, but that’s what I’d prefer). Each spot on the list comes with a unique ID next to it in the list. I text the ID back to the service and it responds with contact info.

Biggest fall back of this idea: not everyone knows their zip code, especially travelers (like me today… though I think it’s 60604 or something close) who would benefit the most from the service.

Does it exist? Thoughts?

Just kidding… but I am pretty proud of my online resume, which now shows up in the number 1 (or 2 depending on index) slot for the query: “world’s greatest resume” on google.

If only people actually searched for that…

worldsgreatestresume.com

My problem with wikipedia is not that anyone can edit it, it’s that I don’t know who edited it (most of the time). My proposed solution - Accapedia. Same basic concept except: the editors are identified by more than an IP address, you must have a .edu email address or be invited to be a part of the site (invite is probably better), you have a profile that demonstrates why you are an authority in this area, and you include a reputation system. Sort of Wikipedia with a social aspect, and less anonymity.

Thoughts?

A little while ago I subscribed to a free email tip of the week related to marketing. It’s valuable when it comes, but it makes me a little upset when I don’t see it in my inbox every week. If it were monthly and only came once a month, that would be fine… but it says it’s weekly so it had better come weekly. As the publisher of the Daily JDA - a semi-weekly if your lucky blog - this makes me quite the hypocrite. So, it’s time to rename the blog. I have some ideas, and would consider moving to a new domain, but I’d like to hear a few others first. If you have any ideas please comment or email. Thanks.

Who doesn’t hate an acronym? Corporations for one, they seem to love them. While I’m sort of in career limbo I’m working with a company on possibly developing a blog or six - to help in this task I came up with the RICE acronym of best uses for corporate blogs.

Reputation: building up your image, making sure you are proactive in make yourself look good before the press makes you look bad. This one is more important in some industries than others - but everyone could use it.
Information: this is the type of blog the Lopico blog is. It’s all about what your doing and explaining things to your customers.
Communication: really the heart of every blog, but my emphasis with this point is on letting people communicate with you; not just shoveling your info on them (for shoveling, see: I).
Expertise (or expertification if you need the consistent ending): That’s the type of blog I wish I could say that this is. Using your blog to establish yourself as an expert is a great way for a corporation to use a blog and usually the easiest answer when someone says, “why the hell should we blog?”

It’s quick, easy to remember and most importantly helps explain some of the most common uses of a blog - use it or don’t, but it works for me.

I’ve been thinking lately that the majority of SEO is accidental. Think about it, for all of the queries that you do, how many sites do think intended that they come up for that query? All of them want to come up for as many phrases / keywords as possible, but for the most part they don’t think of the query that you’re doing unless it is a popular one. The vast majority of search is for the uncommon query and increasingly for longer queries.
This makes the majority of SEO accidental.

What does this mean? To be honest, I’m not real sure. What I think it means is that most websites are beatable in the race for search rankings. If you focus on a greater number of queries with less competition, instead of a few queries with high competition, you should be able to match if not exceed the traffic you would get from the high volume queries. And for those big queries, you’re probably better off buying keywords via AdWords. Why? 1) cheaper than hiring an SEO firm (but you should do that anyway). 2) it makes you look reputable - you may disagree, but if you’re willing to pay to get someone to click that usually means you’ve invested in your business and you’re not just playing SEM games. Personally, I’ve sometimes found that paid links are more relevant for keywords with high SEM competition. 3) you don’t need to have perfect seo to pay more than the next guy for an ad. Easiest way to win a keyword: pay for it.

A while back, I mentioned a notebook I have where I write one new idea for a website (or improvement to a website) everyday (that’s the book on the left). I’ve sort of fallen off the everyday wagon, but still do a pretty good job.

I also talked about sharing some or all of them at some point and I think I’m ready to do that. There are a few I want to keep to myself, but I’m going to try to do at least one a week in a new series called: “Quick Ideas.” Since today is the first day I’m even going to throw in an extra idea (though the two ideas are related).

Making TinyURL Better
TinyURL, for those of you that don’t know, is an easy way to condense long URLs. Instead of a huge URL with a large number of variables, like an Amazon URL, you are given a very short (might even say tiny) URL (something like: http://tinyurl.com/3dwovf) that points to the long URL. The service has recently increased in popularity as Twitter implements it for messages that contain URLs. But, I have a problem with it: I want to know how many times people click on my TinyURLs, even if they go to a site that I’m not tracking. This would be a very easy implementation, and would give me a personal interest in TinyURL. By that I mean there would be a reason for me not to switch to a competitor like URLtea. If I have an account with TinyURL already and all of my tracking is in the TinyURL system, I’m less likely to leave for a competitor. Just a thought.

Bonus: EdURL
This is one I thought about a lot while I was writing my final paper in law school. Create a uniform system for citations of web documents based on a tinyurl style site. I used a lot of web resources for my final law paper, which meant a lot of space dedicate to URLs in my footnotes. Good for hitting your page requirement, bad for… everything else. This idea would be more about building a community and support for your standard… but it needs to be done.

Thoughts?

If this isn’t your mentality, it should be. To me there is nothing more exciting in business than a product launch. You’ve poured hours / weeks / months into something and you’re finally ready to unleash it to the world. It’s exciting, and if you’re like me you try to get as many people talking about it as possible on that first day. When I’ve launched web projects of mine, I’ve done it with thousands more visiting my site than the usual daily attendance. The day motask launched I had my first 1400 uniques in an hour - that doesn’t really happen with motask anymore. The problem is carrying that excitement over. But it shouldn’t be. For as many people as there are that have used any of my sites or your sites / products, there are millions more that haven’t. That’s why you need to launch your site / product everyday. Pack as much excitement as you would into introducing it to the world as you do introducing it to an individual. Your product can be brand new to someone or a group of people everyday, find these people and get them excited… and do it everyday.

I’m a great person to start with… tell me about your product and I’ll blog it.

Anyone as obsessed with all things internet as I am is going to use web services for nearly everything they do. Job search is of course no exception. Jobs searches comprise a huge chunk of all activity done online, so naturally there are tools to make job searching easier. I still find the whole online job search process a little “messy” to say the least - and that’s a big reason that online search and submit is not the biggest part of my job hunt, nor should it be yours. The general job search tools available aren’t really the best and those aren’t the tools that I’m finding most rewarding. Two online apps that I have been using a lot and having great results with are Box.net and 37signals’ Highrise.

Box.net
Box.net is simply an online storage space. Everyone can get 1 gig free space (with upgrades available) to store, with a few exceptions, whatever you’d like. Why is this helpful in my job search? Two reasons: 1) I use 3 different computers, always having the same files available without carrying them around is very helpful, and lets me know that I am looking at the most current version of my resume or any document. 2) Sharing. Box lets you share files with anyone and will even give you a link to your files to make them public if you’d like. This is great for the online version of my resume - rather than store my resume on my own server space I upload to box, link to it on my site and always have the newest version available. True, I could upload the newest version to my server every time I update, but why not use the convenience of Box.net? Further, I have my resume available to download in a few different versions including Microsoft Word - my resume site is on a linux server… rather than go through any trouble to try to get the linux and Microsoft components to work together, I use box and my downloads work perfectly.

Overall, Box.net is a very solid program - my only question is why larger companies - like Microsoft - aren’t doing this. **See update** With the majority of the world still using Microsoft as their office suite, offering storage just seems to make sense. If I’m uploading Word2003 documents because I don’t know that a newer version of Office is available, Microsoft can be right there to tell me. Of course, if you know enough to use a web storage service, you’re probably up to date on the newest version of office - but you get the point.

Highrise
I tend to like products from 37signals, which is why I was so disappointed when Highrise launched. When it launched all I could think of were the ways in which it could be better and how messed up the purchasing plans were. I still think both of those things, and actually have what I consider to be a great idea for a competitor, but for now Highrise does just enough right to keep me using it every day. Highrise is billed as a simple CRM service - which means you can track your conversation with your contacts and add tasks related to them. I’ve used it since the day it launched for both personal and business connections. Now I’m using it even more as I track who I’ve talked to at what companies, what was said, what I need to do next, and any notes on my overall feeling about a job. It works very well for this, the only problem for me is that with only 250 contacts available in the free version it’s only a matter of time before I need to start deleting people, upgrade, or build my own service. Not really looking forward to any of those options.

My favorite way to use Highrise is for personal use. These are the relationships that really matter most, so we should pay as much attention to them as we do business relationships - I don’t always do this, but Highrise has helped. At first it’s weird to take notes about conversations with your friends, but they never seem to mind when you ask them about something a few months later that they expected you to forget.

Summary: Box.net rocks, Highrise is as good as it gets for now - use them both, thank me later.

I’ve more or less given up blogging. I think you all knew that. It’s a matter of time and phase in my life. I’m actively pursuing a new job in Chicago, IL at this point and don’t really have time for blogging. Ironically, I always tell people blogging really isn’t a big time commitment and they can do it easily. If you read my last post, you know that I’m also writing a novel. At the time of that last post I was at 10K words, now I’m at about 20K - so that’s been a time consumer as well. Then there’s my full time job, my renewed dedication to working out at least 3x a week, the Lopico redesign, and of course my personal life. Job search has been the biggest time consumption and I’m pretty happy with the progress (I’ve had some great opportunities come up, but none really seemed perfect) - but if anyone knows anyone in Chicago that can help me even more, I’m always looking to make new contacts.

So, for now blogging is taking a back seat… but I wanted to check in and let any of my readers comment on this post with anything exciting they are up to and if you’d like I’ll post about it. Also, for those that are into my posts on Facebook, I think you’ll enjoy this article on Publishing 2.0, which I came across this morning as I was trying to catch up on my blog reading. I do miss blogging, but I’m not at a point where I can get back into it… or am I?

I started a new project this weekend. I’m writing a novel. I wrote the first 10,000 words this weekend which means I have between 50-90,000 left to write. I’ll do it. It was a lot easier to get where I am than I anticipated, but I know the hardest parts are ahead. The book is a work of fiction about life and relationships. When I tell people some of the details the typical reaction is to ask me if I’m dying. No, I’m not dying. The main character is in a situation very similar to mine, with the exception that he is dying. I don’t want to get into to much more detail than that (I know, that’s not much to go on) but I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it later. Am I at all qualified for this? No. But then again I wasn’t qualified to start my first website either. Everyone has to start somewhere, for me it’s just a matter of fitting this into my schedule. Somewhere between work, looking for a job, trying to get back in shape, web stuff, and life, I need to write another 65,000(ish) words. Ideally, I’ll have the first draft finished by September 1, realistically it will be much later.

Since I like my readers - especially the ones that comment - I thought I’d give you a sneak peak at the next version of Lopico. I am speculating getting out of the local reviews game - but that doesn’t mean I can’t play with the css a little before I go. And please, let me know what you think…

What I think is most brilliant about Facebook’s openness is the branding behind it. Really. I haven’t heard this mentioned and maybe it’s an unintended consequence, but this move really switches Facebook from being a “Cool” brand to a “reliance” brand. The sustainability of the brand greatly increased through this initiative… and Facebook didn’t have to do that much.

If you’re not familiar with FB apps the elevator pitch goes something like: people build applications that run completely within facebook. This exposes the app to a huge number of users and takes advantage of the viral nature of facebook. It’s working very well for some - for example, iLike has more people using the site on FB than on the iLike site.

So I know what you’re thinking - if it’s all about the third party apps how does that boost FB’s brand? I’d say that there are two ways. First, the creators of the apps will be pushing big time for them to spread on the site. This is what I mean by switching to a reliance brand. It’s no longer just cool. If I develop