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Monthly Archives: April 2011

AOL, Huffington Post Can Not Be Trusted as Journalists

Kara Swisher, at least for today, is my hero. Click her link. Follow her on Twitter. Kara Swisher has jumped into the ranks of people I trust, and if you read this piece, you’ll see why.

In that piece, Ms. Swisher, a long-time technology journalist who counts among her personal friends Bill Gates and Arianna Huffington, opens up. Kara talks about her finances, her sexual orientation, her relationship with her partner, and a problem at AOL and The Huffington Post that’s just so mind-shatteringly horrific and so absolutely reveals Arianna Huffington, Tim Armstrong, and AOL as being untrustworthy that I had to share it with you.

Reuters Fights Spam and Your SEO Efforts, But Does it Right.

This morning I found myself reading a post about Search Engine Optimization at Reuters. You know a topic has hit the mainstream when a news service like Reuters picks it up; I suppose the JC Penney SEO debacle mattered even more than I realized.

I decided to comment. I believe in adding value to others’ web sites by adding comments, and while that position might be cynically viewed as self-serving (it adds to the SEO juice pointed at us, and is part of the strategy we employ for our clients as SEO Consultants), well … I truly believe in it.

Julien Smith ROCKS, Redux (Happy Birthday To Me)

Julien Smith Rocks. I’ve said it before: The writing partner of how-come-he-gets-all-the-credit Chris Brogan has a knack for telling a story in just the right way, and somehow this just-31-years-old Trust Agent has done it for me. Again.

Read This (not completely safe for work) Piece. Julien Smith just plain makes sense, and although I maintain that swearing in print just isn’t necessary, nor a good long-term big-picture choice, there’s an important message here. It’s one I could do well to follow, and today being my birthday, I’ve decided to gift myself—and you—the opportunity to think about Julien’s words:

USA Today: The New Bastion of Business Change and SEO

It was fully nineteen months ago that I told you about the Washington Post writer who lost his job because his blog wasn’t getting read enough. In Internet time, nineteen months is an eternity. So with suggestions that USA Today is about to start paying their writers more if they get lots of page views on the Internet versions of their columns starting to circulate, it’s time to re-examine the way Internet traffic drives business change.

Howard Stern, Divorce, and “I Just Want Out” Business Change

I’m a big proponent of drawing on your personal life to make the things you say and write in business more “real”. I learned that lesson a long time ago, and although it can sometimes scare people away it serves me well when I do business with folks who know they’re getting the real me.

One of my influences, believe it or not, is radio personality Howard Stern (and he was actually on my mind when I wrote this story about Customer Service at Nissan of Manhattan).

I Just Became The Owner of AOL, Google, and GawkerMedia!

I am now one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. Watch out Zuckerberg; I’m coming for you.

In the wake of the Huffington Post / AOL merger, creating the biggest content farm in the world for Tim Armstrong to work with, a lawsuit has been filed by freelance journalist Jonathan Tasini on behalf of all the bloggers who have contributed to the Huffington Post without being paid. Not surprisingly, Arianna Huffington says the suit is without merit.

You’d better hope she’s right.

CardCloud: Finally (Almost) the End of Business Cards

Jeff Yablon Business Card on CardCloud

This is my business card.

Not terribly fancy. Not customized with a logo or pretty fonts. And it exists only in electronic form.

It’s been about fifteen years since IBM excitedly announced that they were working on technology that would let people exchange business cards automatically, just by shaking hands. That would require that each party have a little device in their pocket to make the exchange of “business cards” happen, and while the technology was developed far enough to make it a reality in a lab, no consumer product ever materialized.

Think All Crappy Internet Content is The Same? Turns Out Not

For a guy who’s written hundreds of software reviews and the occasional piece on theater, I don’t talk very much about reviews. IYM Software Review was a seminal player in on-line content, and I love playing with software, but my duties as a business change agent and Search Engine Optimization Consultant greatly reduce the time I have to play with minutiae.

A couple of months ago, I did have a chance to talk about reviews when I told you about my experience at one of New York City’s many “hot brunch spots”. In this piece on Penelope, I asked whether you could pay Yelp for a good review.

My Thumbs Hurt, But My Psyche Hurts More. STOP TEXTING!

As you know, I Hate Texting.

But I text. I text with my sons, my girlfriend and her daughters, my clients, a couple for whom I play landlord, and pretty much anyone who has my mobile phone number. I’ve gotten to a point where I’m more comfortable getting messages across in 160 characters than I ever thought I would be (feels huge next to Twitter‘s 140, huh?). Nevertheless, I hate texting.

I’ve learned to embrace the positive side of a medium that has always felt like yet another intrusive time and attention waster. Texting has its place.

Video Draws Traffic. Should You Use It? Probably Not.

I’ve mentioned before how much information I need to process each day. The word “overload” applies, and I suspect you have a similar problem. It raises the very real question of whether blogging is worth the effort.

The answer is “yes”, but you need to understand why you’re blogging. If you aren’t a media outlet with a huge following it better not be about aggregating traffic or selling ads based on the hits to your web site. And besides, The Content Farm Wars are going in an ugly direction.

Long Tail Marketing: It Keeps Working While You Sleep

This is only my second post in the last eight days.  Normally, I speak here five or more times per week. Due to some personal-life changes I’ve had a crazy busy schedule over the last few days, and while the discipline I use to keep writing here hasn’t waned, I simply have not had the time to weigh in very much lately.

It made me nervous. Would my readers disappear? Would the phone stop ringing? Turns out not; traffic to Answer Guy Central is up almost 19% this week compared to last week. Why? Because Search Engine Optimization and Long Tail Marketing work.

Did Ya Hear The One About The Lasek Eye Doctor & The Hooker?

I’ve been too busy to write for a couple of days. This makes me sad.

Not, however, as sad as it made me to hear that I might be responsible for any illegal things my clients do if I handle their Search Engine Optimization. A judge in the US District Court for South Carolina recently ruled that being an SEO Consultant for a company that sells counterfeit merchandise makes you essentially a co-conspirator.

Google To Reign In Android Fragmentation—Maybe

I’ve been an Android user since Verizon, Motorola, and Google got together and released the original Droid. While my SmartPhone has begun feeling slow and bloated as it’s aged and I’ve added app after app to my mobile arsenal of tools, I love my Droid, and I’m a real Android fan.

The problem with Android, though, is that there are too many versions of the operating system in use. Android comes pre-installed on SmartPhones, and while the geeky among us can make changes, the version you get from your carrier is what you’re stuck with.

How’s Your Reputation Looking? Do You Want To Fix It?

This week, an article about Reputation Management ran in Nick Bilton’s “Bits” Blog at The New York Times. The article said almost nothing, and I pointed that out.

Ironically, my comment was removed. Here it is was:

Problem is, so far the “reputation management” firms don’t actually manage anything. Reputation.com is a prime example; the good news is that they’re inexpensive, but the bad news is that they do little more than those companies that used to sell you “credit card loss protection”, which when you lost your wallet and needed them to help they’d basically tell you that you would need to contact all your credit card companies.

Are You Blogging? Is Your Competition? Does It Work? Why?

I read a lot.

In fact, it often feels like I read too much, and that there are way too many “experts” clamoring for my attention. I receive hundreds of articles each day in the news reader app I use in my Droid, and many of them are redundant. Hundreds of tweets fly by me, too.

The problem is wading through all that noise. And it’s become such a large problem that often I find the 140-character musings of the 40-odd people I follow on Twitter to be more useful than the more fleshed-out information in my news feed.





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