notes

I have officially ditched K2. I know very few of my readers actually make it to the site on a daily basis, but it was slow. I tried displaying only the 4 most recent posts on the site to see if that would help, but it was still a little slow. I think I may have an answer with my newly implemented theme: Tarski. And… with my recent modifications, the site was probably at its ugliest since I started using WordPress… it was really time for a change.

I’ve also added my photo to the blog… what a narcissist.

It has been a while, but you should look forward to tomorrow’s post if you’re interested in Lopico. I’ll be dual-blogging some highlights and low points both from the first six months of the new Lopico here and on the official Lopico blog (not sure if the official will go out tomorrow); and I think you’ll get a better less edited version here.

Random notes:

• I’ve been very busy with school lately. For example today I had my first class at 8:30am and my last class finished at 9:30pm. I only left the school once, for lunch.
• I hate the new look Google Homepage. All G did was add a plus button to all links, and now the page looks 100x more cluttered
• I’m working with a guy that wants to blog, but sent me a first draft of a post that is 14 pages long. This one’s going to be interesting. My initial thought is “Tasters Choice” {Tasters choice, used to air commercials that were always to be continued. I think blogging is a medium, like the commercial, where you only get a small window in which to convey your message, so I may try to replicate that with him.} I’ll let you know how it plays out.
• I think I know what I’m going to do with ohpj.com (four letter domain name I bought last year)
• I’m almost ready to launch amehigher.com (which will be my online business card + marketing blog); design is the main hold up right now
• and I’ve added a sidebar widget to my blog that you can only see if you come to the site.

Little Blogging time leads to lists of interesting topics, do with them what you will.

1. ZapTXT - Site allows you to track RSS via sms. I blogged a different way to do this, but my way (yahoo! sms alerts + Technorati Watchlists) requires a few steps. This is an all in one resource, and probably works better. Anytime you can eliminate steps in a process your users will be happier and more likely to use your product. I’m going to give ZapTXT a shot.

2. Seo Keyword Intro Videos (1)(2) - I’m always happy to plug an Akronite (and to be clear this Akronite has no idea that I’m going to blog this) - I came across a couple of great SEO intro videos from a local Akron SEM firm. If your interested in refining your search engine optimization process (or more likely you don’t have one) check out these two videos. This is an almost identical process to one that I used at an Akron Law Firm, and it works.

3. My new app - I’m building a new mobile app, anyone interested in testing email jda[at]jdamer[dot]com. The initial feedback from my current tester (singular) is very positive, as is the feedback from those that I’ve shown it to. I’m using it all of the time and it’s really helping my productivity - planning to publicly launch the first extremely simple version sometime next week - I really only need about 3 more hours of coding and then it should be ready, just a matter of finding those hours.

- J.D. Amer

For the past two days I’ve been working on search integration for Lopico, and it’s good enough… in fact it could be up, but it’s not perfect. I’m having some design problems (ie of course) and there is at least one feature I’d like to add, so it will have to wait. It’s too easy to go with good enough. If Lopico is going to be as succesful as I’d like it to be, I can’t settle (like I used to) for good enough. Of course, I’m very serioulsy considering selling lopico - so who knows.

Some may hate this style, but I like writing in random unconnected thoughts…

1. I watched a great presentation today by Walter Sabo of Sabo Media. I should really watch more c-span. A lot of what he said in his talk about radio was very applicable to blogging. I hope that he monitors RSS feeds for Sabo because I’d love to get a hold of his power point slides from that presentation. The presentation was mainly about how radio creates engaging content, much of it is applicable to the blogosphere. I found it interesting that the conference discussing radio was called the “New Media Conference.” This post probably breaks all of the rules of engaging content, sorry. If I can’t get the slides I’ll try to do a rehash in a future post.

2. Facebook Notes is nearly unacceptable. Its very confusing that it is called notes for the sake of avoiding being called a blog, yet allows you to import blogs from other places on the web. However, since there are no RSS feeds for your notes I would have to agree that it’s not a blog. MySpace does lose any of its edge from callings its blogs blogs, or from having RSS. Either go all the way on blogs or don’t waste your users time.

3. The other day I visited Edgeio for the first time in a while. I’m still pretty unimpressed. However, I have been impressed with Mike Arrington’s lack of posts on Edgeio and any new features that it may have, he’s become very good with conflicts (he is a lawyer after all). What I’d like to see with Edgeio is an expansion into other areas. Use the same technology to do a Yahoo Answers type service — I want to tag something question and have someone give me an answer. I often see people blogging looking for an answer from their readers - the market exist, the technology exists, it’s time they met.

4. Very cool moment the other day when I heard that the Grotto on Merriman had its Lopico ranking posted in the restaurant. Gave me an interesting idea… more on that someday.

5. No one reads comments, but if you were wondering if I was an idiot after my last post on Sold Signs, I think that the comments are worth a read.

Maybe 5 short posts would have been better… I’ll catch up soon.

I haven’t blogged or done much of anything online lately, because I’m in transition. There are a lot of things that I would have blogged had I been in a less transitional phase… so here is the quick version:

1. Scoble is 100% correct. It’s weird but bad fonts really hurt the linux experience. I’m still using Ubuntu, but that little extra would make a huge difference.

2. 355 is okay. Seth Godin has a web 2.0 traffic list and Lopico comes in at 355, I’m okay with this but only because my rank tanked when I took the site offline. Needless to say this wasn’t the best time for these results to come out. Lately the traffic rank has been top 30K, which would put me up in the 230 range. Of course, I don’t believe in Alexa data too much.

3. SocialMeter. I wanted something like this a while ago, glad to see it has arrived.

4. I will release a new version of Lopico Mobile in a couple of days, this one is called Mobile Marks. It’s a way to access your Lopico bookmarks on your phone. m.lopico.com

5.Random Thought: What good are sold signs? Don’t they prevent people that are looking to buy a house from calling you? I guess getting sellers must be more important than buyers.

hope that holds you until next time…

I’m leaving Portage Lakes. Sad, and not only because I will now have to change the title of my blog. I will still be in Akron, but the owner of my house has decided to sell it. It’s been a great time living on the lake. Other than the obvious great lake location, I’ve gained a new appreciation for this part of Akron. I’ll only be about 20 minutes away but I doubt I’ll make the trip back very often… although I may make an exception for Pav’s.

I don’t like giving out dates and projected plans, because they always change. However, I’ve set the date of July 18th for the Lopico relaunch on the new Lopico Blog. That’s only one week away - but I think I’ll make it. I work better with a tight deadline anyway.

Not long ago I was talking to a friend about a possible web start-up that he was thinking of pursuing. I couldn’t get into the project for a couple of reasons, but I did give him some ideas and a list of sites that I felt would be useful to him. The list of sites is geared towards the type of start up that he was/is pursuing, but I thought that I’d post it for all to share.

1. Instant Domain Search (http://www.instantdomainsearch.com): His proposed site name was taken so I sent this link as a way to try to find a new name. This is one tool that I can’t get enough of.
2. TechCrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com): If you’re going to be in an industry you need to stay on top of what’s happening in that industry. TC was an obvious choice.
3. Base Camp (http://www.basecamphq.com): Great free project management software - essential for web developers.
4. del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us): You may not think of del.icio.us as a web start-up must have, but I do. del.icio.us led me to countless resources that helped further the progress of Lopico. Now, I mainly use it to tag great design examples or code examples - I wouldn’t waste the space on my browser favorites, but web bookmarks are perfect for these types of sites.
5. Cool Site of the Day (http://www.coolsiteoftheday.com): A very 1.0 choice in my mainly 2.0 list, but this site can be very helpful. I did CSOTD and it worked very well for me. $27 to get 5000 visitors that want to see your site. I think that’s a pretty good deal. No, it’s not the best deal ever, but it will introduce your site to an audience that may not otherwise have found out about it.
6. Seth’s Blog (http://sethgodin.typepad.com): An essential read for marketing on the web. I also threw in the idea virus e-book.
7. Okdork.com (http://www.okdork.com): This one was driven by the college focus of his proposed site. Noah, the blog’s author, has a lot of good insight into the college market having worked at facebook. Aside from that it’s just a good read for a young person wishing to get into the web business.
8. Techmeme (http://www.techmeme.com): I thought this one might be a little beyond what he was looking for, but like TechCrunch this is a great way to stay on top of what’s happening in the industry - okay the best way, but the scope was probably beyond what he needed (for now).

The only other suggestion that I had for him was a feed reader - which if I had to pick one, I’d go with Rojo.

Let me know what I missed. What sites would you tell someone to visit if they were trying to get into the internet business?

… J.D. Amer.

Quick run down of the highlights from my week off:

Monday:

• coded and launched sports noise
• did an SEO consultation

Tuesday:

• started training for a marathon
• took honorable mention in web2.0 awards
• quoted on Cnet

Wednesday:

• Set up some 37Signals stuff for my bloggers
• worked on school stuff
• watched Ronin for the first time, I’ve owned the DVD for 3 years
• actually went out at night

Thursday:

• Recoded the lopico homepage to make it 100% valid xhtml (only 16,000 more pages to go)
• Got a new laptop! (and all it took was 4 hardware failures before they gave me a new one)

… and I still have a few days left.

I’ve been way too busy to blog lately, but here are a few quick notes:

1. I’m starting a new blogging network with 6 bloggers from accross the USA.  I’m the only one that has blogged before, and I don’t think anything like this project has been done before - more details later.
2. Lopico has a new look homepage, including a display of recent lopico lovers reviews. Unfortunately this isn’t exactly consitent with the rest of the site - but it’s a good reason to redesign the interior pages.
3. Lopromo has been scaled back and should be ready to go in the next few weeks.
4. Not long after I said that Digg was falling into the worng hands, it was used in a newly deceptive way - altering stock prices.
5. I decided that I am going to run a marathon in the fall.
6. Craigslist may be getting a makeover.

The last point about Craigslist is one that I plan to revisit once I have time to blog again (something along the lines of .. everyone says craigslist design is part of its charm, but apparently the Craigslist crew thinks otherwise…), but who knows when I’ll have time.