Ampers & Dot

The main concept to blogging is to add value and thought to the online community. (That or show pictures of female celebrities getting out of cars…) And the point of this blog has always been to discuss things I find interesting and have some semblance of insight to share.

Well today, seeing as how I’m too busy to have an opinion on anything, I thought that I’d share a few recent reads that I’ve enjoyed. Further, I think a few of these are so well done, that I don’t even have anything smart to add.

For example: ReadWriteWeb’s take on Web 2.0 and 3.0 terminology and the complete arbitrariness of naming the internet. This article singlepostedly explains why RWW is my current favorite blog. Everything written there is well thought through, well crafted, and authoritative on a subject. Plus- someone else finally agrees with me about stupid “web 2.0″ usage. RWW- great work.

About a week ago I read this article on “A Stranger in a Strange Land: A Windows Mobile Guy Meets iPhone” from PocketPC Thoughts. If you have an iPhone, or a WinMo device- you must read that article. It’s everything I’ve wanted to say and more. And it makes me feel less jealous of iPhone owners. So does PPC Thoughts’ follow up.

On Windows Mobile- it’s really exciting to see HTC launch a US campaign. Also cool to see it might be launching a new sampling of phones too… I mean, it had been almost two years since I’ve seen anything new out of the love-of-my-phone-life.

Mashable had a recent and awesome post on finding new music- which I hope to actually take advantage of this weekend. If you play around with any of these sites and find something cool, you are now obligated to tell me about it. Thanks.

And lastly- we finally relaunched our TechToons blog on the Prompt site. Spend some time going through the archives- there are a few hilarious ones back there. The ideas for each cartoon come from my colleagues- obviously a pretty funny and smart group.

That’s all I’ve got today- oh, but I heard a rumor that there’s funny stuff on the internet… let me know if you find any of it. I’m going to need some help once GTA IV comes out on Tuesday… and after that I’m going to be pretty glued to my xbox… it will be unhealthy and embarrassing. And I couldn’t be much more excited.

Enjoy the weekend!

Facebook chat launched this week, giving users yet another way to communicate with people they do, and do not, really know. The little instant message feature is incredibly similar to Google Chat - in that it sits on top of a platform that you must already have open. In this case, Facebook is assuming that you have its website open at all times, and if you love buying people virtual drinks as much as I do, then you probably do have it open 24 hours a day.

I’ve expressed my confusion over the current state of Facebook before, but to reiterate: I don’t really understand Facebook in its current form. It’s trying to do too much too quickly, none of it with any real quality. So enter the chat tool. It is indeed yet another way for people to communicate. Maybe this is because I’m no longer a Facebook “power user”, but it just seems redundant and cumbersome. It’s yet another aspect of Facebook that bogs down the already cluttered social network.

That’s right: Facebook is cluttered. Admit it- the “feed” is annoying. Even if you set up the preferences and individually ignore some streams, there’s just too much work involved to manage it. And this is coming from a guy who reads 1,000+ items a day through RSS feeds and follows a good sized twitter stream…

And it turns out that I’m not the only one. Inside Facebook, a sight dedicated to discussing new developments within the social network, recently wrote about what people hate most about Facebook. Granted, this was targeted at Facebook applications, but it still ironically highlighted one gigantically flawed concept: people don’t like what’s going on at Facebook.

As the charts illustrate, there are many things people don’t like about Facebook apps, the least of which being the completely useless functionality. And with more and more clutter, invites, and indicators, Facebook is starting to look like a 15 year olds MySpace page. Needless to say- this is not going to be a successful “tool” for professionals.

Chat might actually be an ok feature- and honestly, if I were still a power user, I’d probably be psyched about the chat feature. But if Facebook is working to bridge its way into the business world it needs to realize that professionals are less keen to communicate in a place where they are being attacked by digital pirates or getting poked by someone they went to school with years ago… these are two very different worlds that will not naturally overlap.

But in the end- Facebook messaging might be really cool though- I mean, it’s going to be awesome to finally have a way to keep in touch with people, right? I’ve been waiting for a long time for technology to evolve to a point where I can communicate with other people…

So if you want to discuss this more with me then you can email me on one of my dozen email accounts, IM me on Google Chat, IM me on MSN chat, leave me a Facebook message, write on my profile wall, DM me on Twitter, Text me, call me at work or on my cell phone, message me through LinkedIn, Digg, or my MeetUp profile, or you can stop by my place and say hi. Or, of course, you can leave a comment below.

Just please don’t fax me. I don’t know how to use that thing.

My good friend Dave recently launched a blog for his job at CD Chivas USA, the Carson, CA based soccer team in the MLS (that stands for “Major League Soccer”, for those of you too patriotic to accept soccer into America.  Yeah, that’s right, America has professional soccer.  And you know what?  It’s pretty good.).  His blog is the Official Bilingual Blog of Chivas USA soccer: an inside look into a professional soccer team, with updates on team news, scores, player profiles, and more.

A little back story on CD Chivas USA: (”CD” = Club Deportivo) the team is considered the “Sister Team” of CD Chivas Guadalajara, a team based out of, you guessed it, Guadalajara, Mexico (ok, I just like writing “Guadalajara” because of the absurd use of  the letter “a”).  The idea of CD Chivas USA is that it appeals to more to the large Spanish speaking population in southern California.  Unlike the local rival LA Galaxy, which appeals to faux-hawk enthusiasts.

Well, seeing as how my daily job often consists of helping companies launch and popularize blogs, it seemed only fair that I offer up a little advice to help the Chivas Blog.  After going through some very broad basics, Dave and I started to discuss Search Engine Optimization. 

Some of you may have seen this coming from this post’s title, but there is an inherent problem in this project.  The problem is that the idea of an Official Bilingual Blog of Chivas USA soccer, is that it would in fact be bilingual.  My original idea was to write it all in English and install one of those language converters to the site- but Dave, being fluent in Spanish and knowing how horribly those tools actually translate, is aiming to make this a true home for Chivas fans of any background and not alienate the Spanish speaking supporters.  Instead he is writing in both Spanish and English, depending on the topic.

So I’ve been reading up on as many sources as possible about bilingual SEO, but the main thing I’ve learned from it all is that there isn’t that much written on bilingual SEO…

The incredibly broad idea behind a standard SEO strategy is to improve search engine rankings, so that when someone searches for something online (which everyone does…) they’ll find your site first.  BUT- what if your readers aren’t always searching in English?  And what if you are writing half of the posts in Spanish? 

At this point, I should probably warn you that if you came to this page looking for authoritative answers, you might want to leave now… sorry about that.  But the following are a few things I’ve picked up, just by watching the site and some of its click stats.

• In a site with bilingual text, make sure any relevant SEO terms exist in both languages.  If this means repeating information, that’s fine. 
• As with any SEOd page, you don’t want to over do links to piss off the search bots.  You work way too hard to be seen as a Splog, so if you are repeating information and writing things twice, be cautious of how often links appear.
• Bilingually tag images.  By shortening the descriptions but having key words in both languages, both audiences will find what they are looking for.
• If you aren’t writing everything twice then make sure to write enough in each language to appeal to both audiences AND the search engines.  There’s a fine balance of alienating either language’s readers, but keeping relevant stories in each language published often enough will keep all readers happy.

There is still so much to learn about all this and if anyone has any advice on reading material (in English please) comment below.  The one problem I keep going back and forth on is the Page Title and Meta Content.  My instinct is telling me to stick with English because more people are searching for English text, but that just leaves the question: Is it better to get a huge percentage of those searching for Spanish text, or a small percentage of those searching for English text?  The answer is likely “which ever one is bigger”…

Anyway- If you want to check out the Official Bilingual Blog of Chivas USA soccer, then you can click that link or check it out on Google, which after just a month is up to #6 for “Chivas & Blog” and #31 for “Chivas USA”.

During an awesome social media discussion yesterday, I found the meeting sidetracked by a humorously disgruntled conversation about the public perception of Google.  You’ve probably never heard of Google, so let me explain this thing to you.  The best way to put it it’s this super futuristic “website” where you words into a box and it does this little magic trick where it finds ways to sell you products around the words you entered. 

Anyway… the discussion of Google started around the fact that Gmail still has its cute little “BETA” tag on the logo.  What the hell’s that about?  Honestly, it’s about the public perception.  It’s GOOG’s way to trick you into thinking they are this cute little startup, open source company that is trying out a new free product for you to enjoy. 

Fact: Google isn’t a startup.  They were founded in mid ‘98, went public in ‘04 and currently have over 19,000 employees.

Our debate went on to discuss how Google has access to all practically all the data in the world and how it’s nearly impossible not to be evil with that much power.  Then we got to Google’s services and things got a little trickier.

We both admitted to using Gmail, Google reader, and obviously- the search engine.  And we both admitted that we were happy with the services.  The problem in all this being: Google is really, really good at what they do.  Similar to Microsoft’s Outlook- we use it because it’s perfectly functional.  If there were other options as appealing then we’d switch… well you know what?  There aren’t.

And there’s the problem: the discussion kept coming back to the line of “but until someone makes a better alternative, it seems like we’re stuck with Google”.  We both agreed that there is no point in penalizing ourselves just to fight the system.  This is like the year I ran Linux (Kubuntu, to be precise) on my laptop because I wanted to prove that there were better, cheaper, sleeker alternatives to Apple and Microsoft out there.  Well you know what?  There aren’t.

But here’s where things get even more interesting.  Think about a decade ago when AOL was one of the top email services.  Where are they now?  And what about Apple even?  A bit over a decade ago they had almost no market share, but just this week we learn that Apple holds down 32% of operating systems.  That’s just crazy!  And what it shows is that no size of grasp on an industry is safe. 

Google’s 70% share of online searches might be dominate today, but there is just no saying how we where we’ll go to search in the future.  Big Google might own the web now, but it’s fairly safe to say that the next players in the industry are likely infants in the space that can eventually grow into giant killers.  Because keep in mind that in 2007 Google had $16.6 billion in revenue, but just ten years ago today it didn’t even exist.

Or, Google keeps building, keeps buying, and keeps evolving until we live in the Googopoly where we browse on gPCs with gOSs and all Google Apps, while watch GoogleTV (with Google ads, of course), and using gCrowaves eating Google Toast.

And in all fairness: if these services are as good as the ones being cranked out now, it’ll actually be a pretty cool and highly functional world.

If you’ve ever read this blog before then you’re probably overly aware that I enjoy numbers, online video,charts and graphs, and search engine topics. If you already knew I like these things then meet me at section “2″ while we bring the stragglers up to date on things. If you haven’t read this blog before, then go read a few other posts and you’ll immediately learn how geeky I am about these things. Then you can pick up meet me at the next paragraph, labeled “1″… we’ll wait…

1. Oh, hi- you’re back! Thanks for reading a some other posts- I appreciate your time. Wasn’t that great though!? I know, thanks. Ok, well now that you’re up to speed you can resume with the rest of the group at #2

2. Good, now that we’re all together there is just one last bit of required reading: Compete’s chart of top YouTube search terms

Basically, the chart shows you what people were searching for on YouTube in the month of March. I have to say that this is both fascinating and hilarious.

First and foremost, let’s just get this one out of the way. Who goes to YouTube for porn? The site is pretty well known (at least I thought) to have a strict “R” rating… to me this is like buying candy at a health food store. I mean, if you’re going to do it wrong… do it right!

But interestingly, what the chart shows us is that actually a LOT of people go to YouTube for “sex” and “porn”. With over 60 million viewers last month and .21% of all YouTube searches for one of those terms… we can only assume that there are at least two million idiots out there (or one extremely horny dude searching over and over again…).

Anyway- let’s look at another weird part of the chart - the number 10 search term: “Funny”. Do we, as a society, really have that much time on our hands that searching for something “funny” is a good use of time? Don’t get me wrong, one of my favorite sections of YouTube are the hilarious clips (and it’s a pretty well known fact that I’ve seen almost every America’s Funniest Home Videos ever), but I’m more interested that people are searching “funny”.

No real direction, no focus on anything, but something “funny”. If you look at the rest of the top ten you’ll see there are only a three general terms (Sex, Porn, Funny) and the rest are for specific content.

I guess this shouldn’t surprise me. The beauty of YouTube is that it’s all there. All of it. There are videos for anything you can imagine, so of course people are just browsing. On one hand this is a great thing for YouTube because it provides a home for people to find “whatever”. But on the other, this is a huge opportunity for other online video providers.

This is a chance for other video sites to make a name as the authority of content. No, you won’t have “everything” - that’s what YouTube does. So what do you have? This is the reason I love WineLibrary, Funnyordie, or Hulu (no Hulu doesn’t pay me, I just talk about them all the time because it’s awesome). WL is the home of videos on wine- FunnyorDie has much of the comedy I would want online, and Hulu has all the network shows I’d want. I don’t need to go searching because I know the source already.

YouTube channels are only the tip of the iceberg and in the coming months I expect to see many more specialty video sites pop up and declare themselves as an authority on the subject.

If I were creating an online video channel the first thing I would do is look at the Compete chart and see what people specifically want (hint: rhymes with Busic Fideos). The audience is there- they just need a place to find the right content. As YouTube continues to expand it will only become more of a hub for generic searches and less of a place to find what you’re actually looking for.

UPDATE: It turns out that NewTeeVee (great online video site) wrote about a Music Video startup site today.
UPDATE 2: I’m really, really smart.

“Things I like” wasn’t meant to become a weekly segment… but as seeing I’m especially short on time this week (working with a client five hours ahead on UK time), let’s just pretend this was planned.

Without further ado, let’s jump into another thing I like.

Things I like #2: Google Trends

This is an incredibly simply and basic tool that I find myself using daily.  And although I’m sure that everyone in the business is likely well versed with this page and might find today’s post worthless, this segment is about things I like… And I like this.  So I’m writing about it.

The more and more I learn about Search Engine Optimization, the more I’ve become fascinated with what people actually search.  I’ve become naturally intrigued by how people use search engines- from the keywords and strings they are using- to the topics themselves. 

Enter: Google Trends.  Appropriately titled, Google Trends is a repository of information on the most common search strings entered by a given date.  Basically it collects all the common searches from a day and ranks them by volume.  There are a few fun ways to use this:

• The daily top list which shows, believe it or not, the top searches for the day
• Daily top list by date.  What were people looking for on specific days?  How about your birthday?  My birthday last year was the day after a great episode of the office, hence all the DunderMifflinInfinity searches…
• Trends over time.  Enter in a search string of your own to see the volume of searches since the data started being collected (unfortunately, not that long ago).  Here’s a good example: Candy.  Searches for candy spike at the end of October, end of December, and in the middle of February.  Wonder what that’s about?
• Trends by region.  Google, with its omniscient prowess, also breaks down search results by geographic location, which provides for more fun.  Example: Squash.  Big in Connecticut and Massachusetts… surprise surprise.
• Comparing competitors.  Enter in multiple names separated by commas and enjoy some simple market analysis.
• And lastly: News.  Using the daily list, I find use the trends to find out what’s going on out there.  Here’s an interesting thing I’ve picked up over last last six months: 3-4 of the top ten daily searches usually come from Today show topics. Thanks Matt Lauer.  Also, almost daily one of the top search strings is about a sex scandal.  Oh America, we’re so mature…

Anyway- with my obvious affinity for graphs you can see why I like this Google trends.  Give it a go and let me know what you think- and let me know if you find anything funny.  Like the way yesterday morning - five of the top twelve common search strings had to do with income tax forms or extensions…

If you’re like me and you have a hustling bustle of a social life, filled with crazy parties, gallery openings, regatta galas, and aquarium christenings, then you likely don’t need any tips on weekend plans.  But on the off-chance you are looking for something to do this, or any other weekend, then today’s post will be especially relevant.

Just in case there are no special shows at the zoo this weekend, or no good cricket matches in your area, and you’re looking for something to do, I thought I’d list off a few of my personal favorite “completely nerdy weekend projects” to give you some ideas of what to do when you have some downtime and are feeling really geeky.  

So let’s jump into the list of “Completely Nerdy Weekend Projects”
(Preface note: I have done every single one of these things listed- so if you have any questions, let me know)

Speed up your Windows boot time
Being a Windows Mobile junky- I want my computer up and running immediately.  I want to press a button and have the digital world at my fingertips.  I don’t want to wait more than 30 seconds for it.  Unfortunately, one of Window’s built in “features” is the continual slowing down of all things processor related over time.  Thanks Bill.  But there are a lot of ways to fix your computer’s boot speed- likely to get it below 30-45 seconds. The best resources that I’ve used are: PC-Hell’s Guide, ExtremeTech’s (extra-nerdy) Guide, and a new one to me, but comes highly recommended- TweakXP.

Rewire your desk/entertainment center
As we’ve learned in the past, I’m a bit obsessive about organization.  Well there’s no better fix for me than nicely ordered electronics cabling.  And conversely there is nothing worse than disastrous cabling. The best tips I have for this are: keep your power strip somewhere easily accessible for easy adding/removing components (so you’re not climbing over a desk every day to plug in your laptop…) Unplug everything first, separate the cords, and start from scratch.  Then use pipecleaners to secure excess cable.  I also swear by cord clips

Cleanup your desktop(s)
First start with your physical desktop.  Ok good.  Now how about your computer’s desktop.  How many icons you got there?  Can you even see your desktop?  Oh come on, you still have the icon to Bonzai Buddy on there!?  And is that an AOL shortcut?  Use that link above and then just start deleting.  Then whatever’s left- start sorting and wait until next weekend when you can…:

Reorganize your digital media
This one is more daunting to me than any of the others… mainly because I’m a lot less talented at it.  But searching and digging for local files on your computer is just stupid, but probably happens almost daily.  Do you have eight versions of your resume saved in My Documents, all with the same title but different dates?  Archive if you want, but if it’s not relevant then there’s no reason to keep it.  And this brings us nicely into the last weekend project:

Backup your important files
This one is easily the most important and even more easily the most often overlooked.  Just do it.  Two easy ways: 1) This little puppy that continuously backs up your data automatically (or some of the cheaper alternatives from Western Digital are equally awesome) 2) Do it manually, for free, without any hardware.  Read about GmailSync and let it blow your mind.  Then once your mind is feeling better, download it and use it.

And that’s it.  That should keep you busy for the next month and a quarter. 

For me this especially rainy New England weekend, I’m heading up to Maine to avoid the big-city distractions of Boston and focus 100% of my attention on the Masters with some great golf friends (I’m assuming you read the post yesterday on how absolutely bonkers I am for this weekend and leaving my apartment and skipping town to watch TV makes sense to you).

This year I’m rooting for the defending champion: Augusta National, who kicked the ass of every golfer last year and made the best of them work for every stroke.  YOU DA MAN AUGUSTA! 

Those who know me IRL know that along with being a pretty big geek, am also a huge golf nut.  Also, those who know me “in real life” probably have no idea what “IRL” stands for… But being a gigantic golf fan, there is simply no bigger or better week of the year, than the week that is currently upon us.

MASTERS WEEK!

Seriously, I can’t build my love for the Masters up enough.  Without exaggeration, I’ve been nearly too giddy to contain myself for the last month just leading up to this. To me it’s better than Christmahannabirthdayikah of Julysgiving.  It is an uber-holiday.  Four days of true bliss and excitement.  Two of which, are sadly weekdays.  I had contemplated taking the two days off to slob around my apartment and see if I could go eight hours straight without leaving the couch… but after “The Hell Flu of 2008″ I pretty much need to be in the office more…

So what does an insane golf enthusiast do?  Simple answer: Masters.org 

I’ve been a longtime fan of online TV - and I have to say that the Masters site does it better than just about anyone.  There’s nothing worse than slow loading, choppy video.  Or super low-res webcam type shots that make you feel like some kid in a dorm room is about to start lip-syncing to the Backstreet Boys. 

Now unfortunately, the Masters site only has rights to Amen Corner, but it makes up for this in the following ways:

• High quality video source.  I’ll just say this now: the consumer market is done with low-res.  Sure, we’re not ready to stream HD yet, but at least give me standard def. 
• Real commentators.  This can make or break a golf tourney- and Augusta National really pulls through- even online.  Having real commentators makes it just as rich to watch as it would be on TV
• Interactive features.  Want to pull up the scoreboard?  Just click that button- and it won’t navigate away from the video, or even slow it down.
• Good buffer.  This will be tested today… but in the past the video stream has been relatively steady and not choppy.  I’ve developed a zero-tolerance policy for skipping online video.  Here’s a note to online video sites: if your video pauses to buffer- I go do something else.  And I’m likely not coming back.

Right now we’re on the verge of online video really taking off.  Sites like Hulu, that I’ve discussed before, are making it simple and desirable to watch TV online.  As more and more video companies are popping up every day- I think that the key to making yourself standout is to follow what the Masters site is doing.

High quality, quick streaming, real TV production value, and some solid interactivity.  You do that and you’ll net yourself a huge chunk of viewers.

Alright, that’s it for me- I better head into work early if I’m going to get anything done today… especially if something might be distracting me… can’t think of what that might be…

Last week I read a pretty thought provoking post by Mass based Social Media Rockstar, Chris Brogan in which he answers answered the question “What Does Facebook actually DO for Me?“.

The answer, it turns out is “not that much”.

(Side note: if you find anything I write remotely interesting, you should also probably visit his site regularly - actually, you should stop reading my blog now and just go read his instead. Admittedly: he’s much better at all this than I am.)

I found the comments to his post equally interesting to his original question. Scroll through them and you’ll find that very few people are actually that happy with Facebook these days, nor do they find it incredibly useful.

Similarly, last week another Boston based blogger wrote about the (all too common) comparison between Facebook and AOL- claiming that “Facebook is a fad” (read that post too, he comes to a pretty similar conclusion that I might eventually get to). The point is: the novelty is gone and the functionality is disappearing. Because no, I don’t want to buy a virtual item. And no, I don’t want to throw a digital sheep at someone.

And that’s the thing: I don’t really “get” Facebook right now. In its current state, Facebook is stuck in a state of preadolescence. Stemming into high schools, but still trying to be the cool thing for college students, and now branching into the professional world of office networks, job searching, and parents. In its attempt to impress too many people at once, Facebook is like an awkward middle-schooler, trying to run but stumbling over its recently lengthened legs. See, Facebook isn’t dying, it just no longer fits into its old clothes. (Hopefully you’re still with me on this puberty analogy, because it’s going to continue…)

If you remember, one day Facebook woke up and had an application platform. This growth-spurt made it looks really silly because just because there’s an API doesn’t mean people knew what to do with it. Of course the early apps were stupid - that’s just Facebook growing up. Maybe that whole zombie thing was just a voice-crack on Facebook’s path to becoming a man.

Do I think Zuckerberg has the idea of how to fix this? Actually, no - he’s dealing with his own development right now (note: I just pulled a Zuckerberg/puberty joke- it was way too lowbrow…). But if he keeps poaching Googlers then chances are the little $15,000,000,000 company might grow up and serve a real purpose after all.

As more developers have more time with the Facebook API, I can only assume something functional and interesting will come along. Right now it might be a gawky teenager, but with its strong financial backing and talented internal development staff, Facebook has the potential to grow into a fully functional member of our society.

The larger question, to which I’d love an answer, is: What does an adult Facebook do? And how does it make money? But that’s a topic for another day…

So during this awkward adolescence, what do I use Facebook for? Blog post material. And not much else.

For a while now I’ve had the idea to have a weekly column to promote something tech-related that I actually use. As a Social Media Consultant I’m basically online all day long and come across many links, sites, social networks, toys, software, hardware, and so on, that help me be more productive and happier in my daily work. I’ve got the kind of job that has an infinite to-do list, so anything I can pick up to make me work more efficiently, I’ll do it. With hopes that I can help others be more productive on the web, I’ll pass along my knowledge and someday you can buy me a beer to call it even and we can then become less productive together. And thus the Things I Like series was created.

Things I Like #1: TASKBAR SHUFFLE

Let me start off by saying that I’m a bit of an organizational freak. For me to work productively everything has to be in place and ready to go. With my desk, this is pretty easy, as moving papers into folders is a task I mastered years ago. Unfortunately, digital items are trickier and not always movable.

Here was my problem: every day I come into work, start up Outlook, then my to-do list/time tracker, then my RSS feed, then work for clients in order of priority (remember, I didn’t say “organized”, I said “organizational freak”). By doing this, I accomplish a perfect order to everything in my taskbar (the bottom row of open applications in Windows) and I can quickly navigate to any one I needed. From left to right I always have Outlook, Task Tracker, RSS. The three biggies. But what if one of them accidentally closed?

Everything would be screwed up. I’d actually have to quit applications to get things back in order. Enter: Taskbar Shuffle. As the name suggests, Taskbar Shuffle allows you to drag and drop items on your taskbar to put them in any order you want.

This little application has saved me countless minutes a day- being able to open applications in any order- and drag them into the order I like them. Is it silly? Yes. Do I care? No.

Go get it free at the nerdcave