Feel Reality

State of the State

2008-10-18T04:56:00Z

This blog has looked pretty desolate for a while now. I haven’t posted an update in a month and I really haven’t put much effort into it. Like a lot of bloggers I was using this as a way to vent, but then I got caught up in other ventures. A traffic spike of over 3,000 views in one day from an MSN featured story (you can probably guess the article) had me chasing meme’s, and I lost sight of what I was after.

First off, I have started several other blogs and I have become a huge fan of wordpress. This blog isn’t run on wordpress, I intend to change that, along with providing a look and feel overhaul shortly. A lot of my posts have been on internet marketing because that is the community that I follow and it is where a lot of my interests fall. That wasn’t the initial intention of this website though. My alexa rank has fallen over 100,000 points in the past month and I’ve done nothing but watch it dwindle. Some of you might have noticed the monitization, particularly the irrelevant dating site advert on the right and the kontera popups that seem to work for John Chow, but bring me in just pennies a day. I later read that John Chow is paid to use Kontera, which might explain his success with them in his income reports.

Shoemoney has revamed his blog and I like the new look. I also like that threaded comments are now following a more structured approach and I intend to use them in a blog that I will be publicly announcing shortly. I’ve also purchased a flip mino that has collected, dust for the past 2 months. Again, another trend I intend to change in the revamp. Things will become much more informative and engaging shortly. To aid in this movement I have decided to quit my full time job as a web developer. I mentioned in a previous post that I fall victim to the newest make money fast schemes often and that I (and anyone interested in the MMO realm) need to focus on what I know and what I can make work.

One downfall of my current blog is that the RSS feed is unreliable. It’s done through feedburner and more often than not, it’s not broadcast. I think this may have something to do with the current setup (expression engine). I’m really impressed with the ease of use and functionality of the current WP release. I like the new features they offer like XML RPC, threaded comments (plugin), and paginated posts. I’ve also built my own lightweight CMS that I have been using on client sites and I intent to expand on that for future projects.

When I rebuild, “projects” will probably be the heaviest category, since that is what I will be focusing on full time. I want to share my journey with you and log my efforts along the way. I even have a few experiments and successful endeavors that have made my life as a developer / marketer much easier. I intend to share these with you. I am not trying to package together a “Shoemoney Toolbox” for you, these are useful applications and resources that will help you do the every day things that online marketers and web developers need on a regular basis. I am an open source advocate and I hope to sort everything out so that it makes sense for both you and myself as I start this new journey. It should go without saying that I will also be launching a business website, this will give you a little more perspective into who I am and what I’m after. I will tie this in closely with my blog. I have amassed on a small group of highly talented individuals that I believe can help me achieve my goals and I can refer you to these people as well should you need anything done that is web related. Stay on the lookout and when the new face comes, things will be much more cut and dry. I am trying to unravel everything I’ve learned in my 5 years experience as a developer, self taught, self made and hopefully soon to be self sufficient .

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Google Gemini Horoscope…

2008-09-16T15:30:01Z

Not much to say about this one… I’m a bit worried:

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Playstation Wallet Wont Take Credit Card

2008-09-08T00:08:00Z

I was like a little kid on Christmas, I turned on my PS3, downloaded the update and BAM, now I can get movies and TV shows too! Sony finally started to offer full length movies in HD and Standard format for both rent and purchase. I whipped out my credit card and attempted to post $3.95 to see the Harold and Kumar movie. I don’t typically rent movies ( I am a bit OCD about other peoples gunk in my DVD player), but this process worked for me. Well it would’ve worked…

My credit card was rejected, it said to check my account settings and then call tech support. No number provided. Hmmm… I tried it again, no luck. I thought maybe it was just something w/ the formatting of the address on that credit card. So I tried another one… again denied. I Googled it to see if others have had similar issues. I did find something about not putting your apartment number on the second address line, so I tried that. Again no dice.

WTF?! Okay, fuck Harold and Kumar then, it’s not worth the aggravation. I checked my bank account and the other credit card account and I had about 7 hold charges for $1.00 from Sony. Okay… obviously you are validating this card because you put a hold charge on it. I went to bed angry.

Next day, I tried it again. This time a new movie… Then on to the billing section of my account. Still nothing. I updated all of my settings to match the exact name and address used on my credit card, no luck.

So I grabbed the manual. Called tech support as suggested and after a pitch for the Grand Turismo Prologue and at least 3 “press this or that” prompts, I got deferred to another number. Not transfered, just given the number twice and then hung up on.

Ten minutes of hold time later, I got a rep. She had obviously been through this with lots of other people. She suggested completely omitting my apt #. I tried it and told her it didn’t work. She explained to me that I have to wait 24 hours because my account was locked. Apparently, if it denies you, you have to wait 24 hours before trying it again. What a shit service.

I assume if you’re reading this you are either A) Bored or B) Having the same problem. Has anyone found a solution? The rep suggested I go guy a Playstation 3 Network Card at my local rite aid. I have no idea where Rite Aid is… and I don’t care to find out.

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xp-vista-update.net Clipboard Hijack Warning

2008-09-02T15:48:01Z

This actually happened to me this morning. My clipboard was hijacked and I couldn’t copy and paste anything but a malicious URL.

Be careful when sending URL’s to someone and ensure that the URL you paste matches the intended site you’re referencing. The one I was hijacked w/ was xp-vista-update.net <-- obviously don't go there. Just figured you should watch out for it.

If you do accidentally visit the site, user input does not matter, and it drives towards handing you an Windows EXE file (read virus).

You can stop the clipboard hijack by closing your browser window (I did and it worked).

Apparently this has hit a lot of major sites recently including MSNBC and DIGG. See the threads below for more information.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1733

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20925461-Malvertisement

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MySpace overtakes Yahoo in display ad views

2008-08-28T15:09:00Z

By Yinka Adegoke

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc has lost its lead of the U.S. market for online display advertising to MySpace and its parent company News Corp’s Fox Interactive Media and MySpace, new industry data shows.

Fox Interactive’s collection of sites, led by MySpace, drew 56.8 million advertising views in June, compared with Yahoo’s group of sites which had 53.1 million, according to data from Web audience measurement firm comScore this week.

But while the statistic marks the rapid growth of MySpace in terms of advertising viewership, analysts say the social network site has struggled to draw top-dollar ad rates relative to Yahoo, known for attracting premium advertising rates.

“Social media gets all these ad impressions but not necessarily get the dollars,” said Colin Gillis, analyst at Canaccord Adams. MySpace’s cost per thousand (CPM) page views are significantly lower than that of Yahoo, he said.

A MySpace executive said it is closing the gap with rivals such as Yahoo, Time Warner’s AOL and Microsoft Corp’s MSN after the revamp of its home page in June, which has drawn in big-name sponsors such as Sprint and Wendy’s.

“Our CPMs have grown significantly,” Jeff Berman, MySpace president of sales and marketing, said of June’s growth spike. “Category by category, year over year, we’re up double digits.”

According to comScore data for advertising impressions, June was the first month that Fox Interactive has surpassed Yahoo, which saw ad views dip by around 12 percent from May.

While it may be too soon to say that MySpace has overtaken Yahoo for good, comScore data shows that Yahoo’s share of the display market has been trending down since July of 2007.

Yahoo questioned comScore’s measurement methodology.

“We believe there could be issues with the measurement that could be misrepresenting Yahoo and we are reviewing comScore’s methodology and working with them to resolve these issues,” Spokesman Adam Grossberg said in a statement.

ComScore spokesman Andrew Lipsman countered that Yahoo’s month-on-month drop in display ad view was an “organic decline” unrelated to any changes in the firm’s measurement methods.

Yahoo has often championed its leadership in Web display advertising—based on comScore data—even as it lost ground to Google Inc’s dominant lead in search advertising. Yahoo agreed in June for Google to supply it with ad services to run alongside Yahoo’s own Web search system.

Richard Greenfield, analyst at Pali Research said the redesign of the MySpace home page earlier this summer created a more compelling advertising proposition for brand marketers such as Sprint and Wendy’s.

“It shows how the redesign is allowing MySpace to reach far beyond the ‘social media’ advertising category and to target far larger portal advertising budgets,” said Greenfield in a blog posting for investors. He said this was a negative omen for big portals like Yahoo as well as MSN and AOL.

article source: reuters

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McKinney Fab Five: Karrissa Theret’s friends

2008-08-27T04:24:00Z

Korree Blair
Cameron Cangelose
Lauren Gordy
Courtney Hosea
Kelly Lockhart
Brittney Rader
Maxine Ridling
Kait White
Lindsey Wilson

Have to narrow it down a bit but it’s a start. Does anyone still care? I noticed a large influx of traffic from the long tail of McKinney Cheerleader keywords on my blog yesterday. Either someone is doing some research (bots?) or we are all a bit stumped…

I’m sure the MySpace page is closed down, but their are alternatives, the wayback machine for example. This is why you shouldn’t have built that MySpace page during your younger, wilder years (provided you’re still young and possibly not wild now).

By the way, for those who are curious… here is Karissa Theret’s myspace profile (shockingly set to private now): http://www.myspace.com/karrissa_30

Think it’s real?

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The Caffeine Nap

2008-08-20T04:08:00Z

I read about this concept in a magazine somewhere, or maybe an online article? Some type of feature on MSN or Yahoo!. Why do they need the exclamation point in their name? We don’t call it GoogleTMing. Anyway…

The idea is that if you drink a cup of coffee and then take a 15-25 min nap; you will wake up energized and refreshed. It was a tip intended for college students, but my life isn’t that far off of a stressed and restless college kid. So I tried it tonight. I was going to drink the cup of coffee and plug away on some projects I had tonight, but I figured what the heck, let’s try the caffeine nap.

If one cup is good, two cups must be better and if coffee works, than espresso has got to do really bump up the effectiveness. So I drank two cups of espresso (or whatever you want to call the juice that comes out of a Senseo) and hit the sleep timer on my alarm clock.

I’ve never used the sleep timer, apparently it doesn’t work as intended. I just woke up an hour and a half later with a bad headache, acid indigestion and 6 hours left until I have to go back to work.

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Donald Trump Bails Out Ed McMahon

2008-08-16T17:08:00Z

Donald Trump knows how to make the best of a difficult situation, in fact he capitalizes on them. In interest of full disclosure I will admit that I am a fan of Donald Trump. I know he is someone that everybody loves to hate, but he brushes it all of with ease, because he knows how to play the game of life.

Ed McMahon’s story was of epic fail proportions. Here you have this guy, eighty five years old with five kids and trophy wife… you think he has a large enough nest egg to ride it out to the end. He was living it up and leaving nothing to legacy. He lived hard, drank hard, and drowned himself in frivolous luxuries. The problem is; he outlived his life expectancy. He ran out of of money before he could die on his last dollar. Ooops.

We hear the opposite side of the spectrum all of the time, those who lived modest and died with hundreds of millions in their account. Some people make money just to make it, because they are good at it, others make it to spend it. Trump is both archetypes, Ed McMahon is only one them.

We like to watch this happen. The Britney Spears burnout, the Lohan drug induced downfall, Paris Hilton’s DUI. The opposite of the American dream is America’s guilty pleasure. Mike Tyson burned through over $300 million faster than it took him to make it. Nobody expected it from Ed McMahon though. Ed McMahon was the black swan, and that makes the story even juicier.

While America was Googling Ed McMahon’s salary, investigating his alcoholic intake and throwing money at trash rags capitalizing on an old man’s downfall, Trump fixed the glitch and walked out a hero.

We haven’t heard much from Trump lately, he is busy, buying things out from imminent foreclosure, investing in a buyers market, having a hay day during our “economic crisis”. I highly doubt he is too interested in flipping houses, but a 7.5 million dollar home on the market for 4.5, the cost benefit analysis doesn’t leave you stuck with chump change. I’m sure Ed McMahon got a fair lease rate, I am also sure it is as much as he could possible afford to give without going broke.

Trump is known for his philanthropy, and I believe that he gives back more than most people credit him for. It’s not just a tax write off, he really is trying to help and he really did bail Ed out when he needed it. However, you would be horribly mistaken to believe that Trump wasn’t walking out ahead on just another day’s work.

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Spanish Basketball Photo Disgraces China

2008-08-13T04:11:01Z

Spain’s Olympic basketball team posed for an advertisement just prior to the Olympic games that is spurring a lot of controversy. The ad which was made for the Chinese footwear manufacturer Li Ning, portrays the Spanish players in a team photo tugging on their faces in order to deliberately slant their eyes, while surrounding a center court outline of a Chinese dragon.

The Chinese company responsible for the ad has sidestepped the initial outrage, claiming that the photo wasn’t meant to be racist. Chinese officials are outraged and disheartened by the gesture. The Organization of Chinese-American’s has publicly denounced the ad campaign stating “It is unfortunate that this type of imagery would rear its head during something that is supposed to be a time of world unity”.

The Spanish basketball team defeated China in an 85-75 victory, during which the Chinese crowd continuously booed the Spaniard’s efforts.

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McKinney Cheerleaders Fab Five MySpace Page

2008-08-10T19:56:00Z

MSN posted a story on the McKinney Cheerleaders (Fab Five) on their A-List Page. Apparently articles featured on this page are followed by a list of “live search” listings. My Blog was #3 on those listings, resulting in a huge rush of traffic to my blog. On the internet they say content is king, but finding the right content will make you king. Well, that and a huge dose of traffic and notoriety. The point is, for those of you following my blog, I did a short post on spotting trends before they happen, in this instance, it paid off well for me.

Well.... kind of. Anyone who has lost money quickly on PPC ad campaigns will tell you that conversion rates drop when numbers increase. The trick it to tweak your ad copy to convert better, and to continue to split test and tweak until the well runs dry. Some times, you have no control over the decline, you just have to ride it out. Last Friday as a result of the MSN rush (The A-List effect?) I had over 3,500 people hit my page. I’m sure you can tell by my Alexa ranking, that was well beyond my conventional traffic numbers. My Adsense ads were relevant to the topic less often that I would’ve liked and I converted around 4% of my leads. Not bad, but not great either. Beleive it or not, Cheerleading photographers don’t pay much for internet advertising. Damn Shame.

So hidden in this post I had to give you a little morsel of what you were looking for. Right?

How do we uncover those MySpace photos? The girls identies have been hidden… but the internet often leaves little left to be untraced. If you stuck it out and read through my rant, it will pay off, I promise.

The start. McKinney Texas is a relatively small city, it has 107,530 residents.

The Newsweek story about the girls MySpace page photos quoted…

“The pictures posted on MySpace.com looked like the latest installment of ‘Girls Gone Wild.’ In them, cheerleaders from McKinney North High School in Texas exhibited all variety of bawdy behavior. One shot showed a bikini-clad girl sharing a bottle of booze with a friend. Another featured a cheerleader and several other girls in risqué poses offering glimpses of their panties. But the most infamous photo of all was taken in a Condoms To Go store. Five smiling cheerleaders dressed in uniform posed with large candles shaped like penises. At least one of them appeared to be simulating fellatio. ‘It would be an overstatement to describe any of the photographs as pornographic, but it would be an understatement to describe them as harmless high jinks,’”

The above clip was from a magazine article published in Newsweek on January 2nd of 2007. Here is the full article: http://www.newsweek.com/id/37993/page/1

Get to the point already?!

Okay, so best guess is that the McKinney Cheerleaders ran rampant during the 2006 school year.

Classmates.com (you have all seen the banner ads).

We find all students that graduated between the years of 2005 and 2007:

There are no Therets....Cross referencing photos does reveal a possible match....

There are some cute girls and a few look eerily similar to the girls in the publicized photos.

(to be continued)

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McKinney Cheerleaders fab five controversy resurfacing

2008-08-03T06:53:01Z

Almost a year and a half ago a story broke about a group of 5 cheerleaders, known as the Fab Five, terrorizing their local school and apparently taking control over the teachers and principal. The principal resigned in shame. The girls: Linda Theret, Michaela Ward, Karissa Theret and several others victimized everyone in their surroundings by committing such atrocities as “talking on their cell phones despite being told not to” and photographing themselves in uniform in a “condom shop.”

The story held little weight when it was first released and was probably laughed off. However, just before the dust settled a Hollywood agent contacted the girls and offered them a contract for their story. Now, after just having enough time for production, perhaps on the brink of the film’s release; the story is coming back as “breaking news” and it’s HOT!

This is definitely a case where truth is stranger than fiction, but did the actions of the “fab 5” really warrant this kind of attention? It sounds like nothing more than your average varsity cheerleading squad.

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How to Add an External Hard Drive to a Playstation 3

2008-07-27T01:45:00Z

Article Republished with permission from wikihow.com

If you have the 20 gigabyte PS3, which is no longer produced, you may want to have a bigger hard drive. It was quickly found out that you can replace the internal hard drive in it using a standard laptop hard drive, but they are overly priced due to their size. It has been figured out how to add an external hard drive (which is much cheaper) to the Playstation 3 and still get all the benefits of having it all internal.

Steps

Purchase your external hard drive. Most hard drives will do, but some may have incompatibilities. Western Digital is one that works fine.

Once you have your external hard drive purchased, use the USB cord provided to connect it to a COMPUTER (not your Playstation 3).

IMPORTANT* Once your external hard drive is connected to your computer, go to START, CONTROL PANEL, ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS, COMPUTER MANAGEMENT, and select DISK MANAGER on the left hand side options. Select the external drive and read the “File System” type. If it says “NTFS”, right click the disk and select “Delete Partition”.

A. The reason you needed to delete the partition is because it MUST be FAT32. However, Windows XP will partition a hard drive into FAT32 but only in 32 GB partitions. Go to start,settings, control panel, administrative tools, computer management, disk management in the new box that opens. Using an open source OS like Linux will allow you to use the built in Gparted to partition the hard drive in most file structure formats with no size limit like on XP. This way will allow you to partition a drive into FAT32. You must instead go to DOWNLOAD.COM and search for “Swiss Knife”. Download the program that comes up (CompuApps SwissKnife V3 x.xx) and install it when the download completes. Once the install is complete, run the application and select the external hard drive you need to partition. On the top select the following settings: (Partition Type: Primary), (File System: FAT32), and (Volume Label: [whatever you want]). Then at the bottom, select “Create” and you’re done.

Alternatively you can format using the command prompt: format h: /FS:FAT32 (This works if you are running Windows Server 2003.)

If you are on Mac OS X, open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app, pick the drive, and click on the ‘Erase’ tab. Pick ‘MS-DOS (FAT)’ for the file system type, and click on the ‘Erase’ button. This will reformat the drive in FAT-32.

Once you are SURE the partition is FAT32, open “My Computer” and double-click on your empty external hard drive. Now, you will want to create a folder system identical to that on the Playstation 3. Right click to create a new folder and name the first folder “Photo”. Do this for “Music”, “Video” and “Game”. When you are finished, you should have 4 folders total in the hard drive. Each folder should (at this point) be empty.

Now, you can load all the music you want into your music folder, all the video you want into your video folder, and all the photos you want into your photo folder. Your game folder should still be empty.

At the bottom right hand corner of the screen, left click the green arrow in your icons list and select “Safely remove...” Once your computer tells you “XXX drive can now be safely removed”, unplug the hard drive from your computer.

Now, you can connect the hard drive to your Playstation 3 and use the extra space to save information and access all your extra content saved on your external hard drive.
Congratulations, you now have turned your 40, 60, or 80 gigabyte Playstation 3 into a much larger one for all your multi-media needs. Enjoy!

Tips

Adding an external hard drive to your Playstation 3 does not void your warranty.

It is unknown if there is a maximum size limit that the Playstation will be able to recognize. A 1000GB HDD has been proven to work, however the maximum size is probably much higher.

Information had to be gathered from several sites before these steps were successfully completed, so this is some of the best information you are going to find on how to do this on the web.
If you want to play video on ps3, you can use Aimersoft PSP Video Converter, it fully support output of PS3 Video(480p, 720p, 1080i) MPEG-4 perfectly:http://www.aimersoft.com/psp-video-converter.html or you can use Red Kawa PS3 VIDEO 9 which will do exactly the same thing as the Aimersoft converter :http://www.redkawa.com/videoconverters/ps3video9/

PS3 now supports DivX movies, so if your movies are in DivX format, you do not need to convert them.

Alternatively, or in addition, you can replace the factory installed internal hard drive with a 2.5” mobile drive of any desired capacity.

Warnings

Do not try to connect an external hard drive formatted in NTFS to your Playstation. It will not cause any kind of damage, but your Playstation 3 will not recognize the drive at all if you do. Also, if you lay your Playstation horizontally, do not place the external hard drive on the right side where the exhaust fans are aimed. The air coming out of the Playstation is very hot and will surely cause your external hard drive to malfunction… possibly permanently!

Related wikiHows

How to Change the Wallpaper on a Playstation 3
How to Burn a Playstation Disc Using Nero

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Add an External Hard Drive to a Playstation 3. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

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Steve Jobs Missed the Mobile Web - Bill Gates Missed the Web

2008-07-22T01:20:01Z

When the web was still in it’s infancy Microsoft and Netscape both strayed away from following an open set of standards in hopes of securing their foothold. Microsoft and Netscape wrote proprietary JavaScript and JScript rescpectively, both companies rendered HTML and CSS loosely and neither browser manufacturer seemed to have much regard for giving the developers, the pioneers of the web space, a path to follow. This lead to tacky grey buttons that read “This website is best viewed in IE on Windows” or “Optimized for Netscape Communicator”.

It wasn’t until the W3C called in the big guns and created a standards coalition that we began to have websites that rendered properly in more than one browser. The transition certainly wasn’t a smooth one and probably created more forks than it did band aids. Developers were forced to use browser detection and create compliant sites (to show that they could) in addition to browser specific sites, to accommodate for the millions of internet users still using archaic browsers.

Modern browsers like FF2+, IE7+ and Opera 9+ are closer to spec while still remaining backwards compatible. Code hacks, and browser detection can be left behind of the most part, aside from a few IE Conditional comments and such. It has been over 15 years since the first browser was created and we are just now starting to settle on standards that have been in place (albeit evolving) since the beginning.

Commercial interest in pwning the web created this mess, and you would think we would’ve learned something from it.

Steve Jobs, the do-no-evil savior behind Apple revolutionized music by introducing the iPod. The iPod was (and still is) more than just a way to store, transport and listen to music on the go, it’s a fashion icon. The white earbuds, the smaller the sleek design and soft curves, the innovative wheel dial… it worked and it worked in a big way.

Steve Jobs last big hoorah of his career is undoubtedly the iphone. Unless you want to count the macbook air, which is neat, but not certainly not an icon. 3G iPhones are near impossible to get a hold of and their second hand market prices are ridiculously inflated, just as the first gen device was when it was released. When the iPhone was announced Apple’s stock was at around $85.00 a share, it’s tripled and come back to a double. Apple is a hot commodity right now and they are quickly gaining market share.

Apple’s success has not come without it’s pitfalls. The iPhone, which is opening up the mobile web in fad fashion, the way the iPod did music has it’s flaws. There was a lot of controversy over the delayed release of a Developers Kit for the iPhone. I wont get into that controversy, the bottom line is, the iPhone does require specific, proprietary code to develop applications on their platform. Yes you can view the NY Times on the 3” screen, but any iPhone user will tell you that doing so is a lesson in futility. iPhone specific websites are popping up as big name companies push for an entrance into the new platform and therein lies the rub.

Are you going to need a Treo Site, a Voyager Site, a Razr Site and iPhone site to reach the .mobi community? Well, maybe not… developers are resorting back to their old ways and implementing browser sniffing and platform sniffing redirects (read code forking) only this time it’s worse. There is more to account for on a mobile site, structure and navigation on a mobile platform is often radically different from a usability standpoint. In other words, developers are forced to create entirely new sites, not just entirely new pages. You can’t blame this all on Steve Jobs, he just brought a product to market to fill a need. However, he didn’t make it easy for competing browser manufacturers to create a mobile browser on his device. Don’t expect firefox on the iPhone any time soon, in fact John Lilly, the CEO of Mozilla openly states that Mozilla has no intentions of creating a browser for the iPhone because Apple intentionally makes it difficult to do so. They don’t want outsiders to disrupt the user experience.

The resolution of the iPhone’s native resolution is 320 X 240, which consequentially is exactly half that of the computers that were capable of when the web was born (640 X 480). The iPhone doesn’t need a web browser, mobile devices for that matter, really have no NEED for a web browser. Dot Mobis and the introduction of mobile specific “web sites” give us an opportunity to rethink the purpose of the platform. What should this device do, how can it do it effectively and how can we develop a set of standards to allow this venture to grow into an economy of scale? We have to stop forcing the square peg into the round hole.

What should your iPhone do for you?

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Catching Trends Before they Blow Up

2008-07-20T00:15:00Z

It’s easy to get caught up in hype and get all excited about an idea that you think will be the next big thing online. The problem is, by the time you hear about it, a lot of times it’s too late to act upon it.

I was reading an article in an old Domainers Magazine about investing in profitable ccTLDs. Frank Shilling, a highly successful domainer with millions invested in his properties, stated that the domaining industry is becoming gentrified. Large VC firms and hedge fund investors are now taking note in the value of online assets which is pumping the value of the properties held by first generation domainers. One of the more controversial “golden rules” of online marketing is that you need to have first movers advantage to really profit from a new idea or trend. A lot of us jump in early at every profitable opening that we see, we don’t invest the proper amount of time to exploit the effort and we jump out as become discouraged and enticed by the next big thing.

However, as Frank pointed out, first movers advantage does help, the rich will always get richer, but exposure and publicity allow MMO efforts to remain profitable as they head into the the long tail. For example, in domaining, quality, industry specific domains that lend well to the online arena have always commanded top dollar. Purchasing a domain like cars.com, sex.com or even something plain like “walkers.com” is going to be a 8,7 or 6 six figure investment respectively. What the general public doesn’t understand is that ccTLDs and platform specific TLD’s (like .mobi) can still command a good 6 figure sell price. If the domain industry didn’t garner the attention and participiation that it has today, this wouldn’t be possible. The more eyeballs you have monitoring something, the more profitable it becomes. Domaining is often compared to the real estate market since it is in a since a “virtual property”, but as investors build domain portfolios, we know have a currency exchange on our hands, a stock market if you will.

As I mentioned in my about me page, I often catch myself losing focus and getting caught up in the next big trend. The ”Crazy Catch by Ball Girl” viral video post on my blog received over 1,000 uniques this month as a result of one small digg comment that was later deleted. I tried to spike traffic again in a similar trend post (the one just before this) and failed miserably. I even took a risk and posted something that could be seen as controversial, knowing controversy sells. In this case, it didn’t.

The moral of the story (for those of us with morals remaining) is that jumping after trends will leave you empty handed. You need to make a solid investment of time and money into your efforts to make money online (and in life for that matter). Get rich quick is always appealing, no matter how many times we fail at it. So it’s back to the grind. I promised a projects post on a few MMO blogs earlier and I didn’t come through w/ it. I’ll try to get that up by the end of this weekend. I hinted at it in an early post… it’s related to proven methods to make small amounts of money on a reoccurring basis. We will see how it works out, but the lure has been cast and I’ll continue to throw bait out there (just maybe not jail bait).

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Top Affiliate Challenge Secret

2008-07-13T17:35:01Z

There was one good secret shared on this season of the TAC. While throwing out acronyms on flash cards Randal mentioned “BANS”. He didn’t elaborate, he just spelled it out for us. BANS, Build a Niche Stores are simple eBay API driven sites that can be set up based on a specific niche. So when someone searches for “polly pocket jewelry” on Google, your custom store complete with live eBay listings pops up. BANS are very search engine friendly and they are starting to breach the tops of the SERPS for both long tail key phrases and large niches. It’s not too late to try, take a look for yourself…

Click here to Build a Niche Site

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