Right this moment, someone is trying to hack your website. And if you use WordPress, right this moment about 90,000 someones are trying to break in.
None of that is hyperbole. There really are bad guys out there trying to break the security on your web site every moment of every day, and there really is a broad-scale attack currently in-progress on web sites running the WordPress Content Management System.
I’ve been out of town, and so while Bob has been working, and our long-tail marketing efforts have continued doing their thing, I missed something a few days ago. Now, let’s tweak the Influency equation a bit. And let’s talk about why.
Last week, our old friend Adam Popescu wrote a story about … comments. It might seem like an unimportant subject, but in the Influency game very little is insignificant.
Popescu wrote about a subject that’s been on my mind for quite a while: what’s the right way to manage comments on your blog or website?
Truer words that you see above have never been spoken.
Ever since the days when I was The Computer Answer Guy, I’ve lived in a world filled with both end users and programmers. I’ve made it my challenge to bridge those worlds for decades now, which is why I find questions like “Where’s My Any Key?” so funny . . . and so real.
It gives me a unique perspective. When programmers back in the day talked about “spaghetti code” (programming code that’s so redundant and undocumented that it becomes impossible to maintain), I understood it in a way that most non-programmers or not-quite-a-programmers just can’t get a handle on.
Ack!, as the character in the middle would say.
Today, I’m taking our old “computers are too hard” refrain in a whole new direction. Ready? Content Management Systems Are Too Hard.
As we get ready to re-brand and re-deploy Answer Guy Central around Influency*, I find myself asking again and again: What’s hard about this stuff? Of course, the accompanying question is then, What’s Easy?
If you own or run a restaurant—or any business—you need to take a look at what’s started happening at WordPress.com.
I could almost stop there and move on with my day, but let’s spin things, OK? Just hopping over to WordPress.com might be fun, but more than likely it isn’t the right answer for your business.
WordPress parent Automattic is becoming a very important company. Assuming there’s any accuracy to these numbers, Automattic’s baby now powers north of 17% of all web sites, and there’s no real second place in this race; a couple of other CMS platforms show up in the statistics, but they’re way behind WordPress.
As smart as I’ve convinced me I am, at the end of the day I’m insignificant.
The picture above says it all. Each of us is lost in a much larger world, and when it comes right down to it any business owner knows that his or her goal is to get just a little bit bigger, to stand out.
There’s a lot of irony in there. From believing that Virgin America Customer Service might care what I think, to my musings on new forms of computing devices like the Google Chromebook, to my comments about über statistician Nate Silver, the fact that I believe I can make a difference when I’m so small is pretty funny. But try I do, every day.
“Did you see last night’s season opening episode of Breaking Bad?”
I didn’t; I just don’t watch very much TV, and despite one amazing review after another and strings of Emmy Awards, I don’t watch Breaking Bad, or Mad Men, and was never a 24 or a West Wing fan. Further, I got off the “did you see . . . last night” merry-go-round a long time ago; I’ve used a DVR for over a decade. TV has been an on-demand sport for me for a long time.
Sometimes, “Good Enough” is good enough. But only sometimes. And when designing your web site, you need to step up to something better than good enough.
This isn’t going where you think it is.
When Answer Guy Central was very young (and in fact was just the home of “The Computer Answer Guy“, this is how our web site looked:
Answer Guy Central Influency and Integrated Marketing, New York NY 10128
Copyright © 2004-2013, PC-VIP Inc
Livefyre? Bad Idea. But Not For Why You Might Think …
When you’re The Answer Guy, you need to have answers ready for tough questions. And for the time being, my answer to “is Livefyre a good idea?” is, sadly, an emphatic no.
This makes me sad, but probably not for the reason you’re thinking. Livefyre does what it’s supposed to do and we could see that from the moment we installed it yesterday. But technologically speaking, Livefyre is a bit of a mess. And while it tries to make good on its promises, like letting you keep all your Search Engine Optimization juice, Livefyre creates other influency-sapping issues. ... READ MORE of Livefyre? Bad Idea. But Not For Why You Might Think … at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (949 words, 1 image, estimated 3:48 mins reading time)