I love it! PayPerPost changed their name to IZEA today... a desperate move by a smarmy company that is the direct result of Google smacking down folks who sell paid links (which is what PayPerPost is--paid linking). The PayPerPost name might as well be "get your blog removed from Google Index" or "How to commit search engine Sepuku."I called it back in April... http://www.calacanis.com/2007/04/15/google-checkmates-payperpost/That being said, the CEO of PayPerPostIZEA, Ted Murphy, is one of the most stubborn and most delusional entrepreneurs I've ever met... I mean, the guy let me write "CalacanisCast" on his forehead.. come on! I'm sure he will keep changing his ideas around until a) something works or b) he runs out of money. I wish him luck and hope he moves from scams like convert marketing to transparent marketing.... and now we pray to the Google Gods:Google is good...Google is great...All hail the Google Gods for removing this plague from our village!We thank you Google for you love and kindness.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
There are two features I really hate about Facebook:1. Email alerts that force you to come back to the website. When someone posts to a wall, sends you a note, or posts do a group Facebook will send you a notification. That's great, except the notification email is like ten lines long and contains everything BUT THE MESSAGE. Here's the standard message... it's just such a waste of time.... UGH!!!Cathleen wrote something on the Wall for the event "Blogger Dinner & Drinks.To see what Cathleen wrote, follow the link below:http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=19192752832#wall_postsThanks,The Facebook Team___Want to control which emails you receive from Facebook? Go to:http://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php?notifications2. Having to autoconfirm each friend request with a two step process. UGH. Can't I just accept folks like on Pownce with one click without all this fancy popup nonsense!?!?!? It's such a waste of time. I think Facebook is moving away from their efficient design and starting to get caught up in the short-term page view trap. I'm sure someone doesn't want to send the notes saying "oh, 8% of our traffic comes from those notes!" What they don't realize is that folks might use Facebook 20x more for emailing notes if it wasn't so horribly designed. Also, folks might add more friends, more often if it wasn't so poorly designed. If you want to build the best social network out there make it the easiest to use with the least page view refreshes. Please God.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
A group of folks are getting together for some dim sum in NYC tomorrow night. Details at the Facebook group here:http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=19192752832We are looking at three different locations right now:1. Chinatown Brasserie 2. Jing Fong3. Golden UnicornChinatown Brasserie is more expensive highend, Jing Fong and Golden Unicorn are old school madness. Anyone have thoughts? If you're coming RSVP at the Facebook group ASAP.40 folks have RSVPed already... crazy.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
The Mahalo Daily video show starts Monday with the wonderful Veronica Belmont. You can find the show at http://daily.mahalo.com (MahaloDaily.com forwards you there). You can subscribe here. The video is also on Facebook, where you can join the Mahalo Daily Group. Oh yeah, you can vote for the trailer on digg too.I'm REALLY excited about it!For those of you who don't know V, she was the rising star at CNET over the past couple of years. She started as an engineer, but her on-talent and knowledge of all things digital quickly brought her out from behind the camera. She became the co-host of Buzz Out Loud with my friends Tom and Molly, and quickly developed a very loyal fan base. Over the summer Veronica and I were talking about her booming career and I asked her if she would be interested in doing a daily show for Mahalo. The concept was pretty simple: every day talk about something you find really interesting that is related (broadly) to technology, internet culture, or the media.Basically, just be Veronica! She was looking for a project to focus her talents on and... well... the rest is history. It took us a little while to get the show to the point at which we felt it did justice to VB's past work and what her fanbase would want.... be three months later we're there, and Monday it starts! (remember, remember the 5th day of November!). The topics would be researched by our team of Guides before and after we taped the show. So, if our researches at Mahalo were doing search pages ("SeRPs," for search engine result pages) on Halo 3, playing a guitar, or the Tesla electric car, Veronica could then go do a show about those topics. In some cases Veronica might find something interesting (as she is very apt to do) and send that topic down to Mahalo researchers for further investigation. So, imagine mashing up a daily video show like WallStrip or RocketBoom and combining it with the Wikipedia or digg... or something like that. The metaphor is not perfect, but it doesn't have to be... I think you get the idea: show + research = goodness.Yesterday we released a fun trailer that I make a cameo in (don't worry, it's my first and last time on the show!). Starting Monday we'll be (almost) daily at four days a week. After somefeedback we'll go to five. Some folks asked me "what does a daily video show have to do with a search engine?" Well, what does having a blog have to do with running a company? That's the question I would get every day four years ago when I said that every CEO/executive should blog. Today saying executives should blog sounds, well, obviously.In the future every company will have a video show, not just a blog.There is nothing like video to communicate a brand's value proposition than video. Imagine if Jetblue had a show about working at the airline? Well, Southwest Airlines does on A&E and it's really amazing! Now, Mahalo Daily is not going to be about the inner workings of Mahalo (we're not so vain.. sorry!), but it is going to be about what Mahalo is about: helping people. Our core value proposition at Mahalo is that we can help youfind interesting, high quality stuff on the web. Some folks call it discovery. Our tag line is "we're here to help," and the Mahalo Daily will convey that message to folks in an entertaining, fun, and informative way. Again, it's not a commercial for Mahalo. It's entertainment that will stand on it's own, but after you watch the show if you want to go deeper we're going to have a bunch of links for you researched by our super motivated and growing team of Guides (both full-time and freelance). Really looking forward to where Veronica and Tyler take the show... I've seen the first 10 or so episodes and they're great. I'm sure with some feedback from the audience Mahalo Daily will become a must watch.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
{ photo by lexn }Anyone want to grab dim sum/Chinese food on Thursday night in NYC?I've started a Facebook group... This is a totally open invite... anyone who wants to get together just join the group. When we get a headcount we can pick a place.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Productivity at Mahalo has gone off the rails this weekend as Guitar Hero III was released... I had no idea how popular the game was, so instead of fighting the productivity drain we've taken another approach: embrace it.We're going to be playing the game for the next 72 hours at the office and we've got a bunch of Guides working on SERPs for things like:Guitar Hero 3 HyperspeedGuitar Hero 3 Secret AchievementsGuitar Hero 3 Song ListGuitar Hero 3 TTFAFGuitar Hero III CheatsGuitar Hero III ReviewGuitar Hero III Walkthrough Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock If you're playing the game and you want to help build these SERPs start suggesting links or posting to the message boards (when you do the guides get an email with your suggestions instantly!). Perhaps we should host a "flash conference" for GH3. ;-)Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Yesterday I wrote about how my new Klipsch speakers were going bonkers with a wild blaring alarm sound and how I could have avoided it if I had just researched the speakers in their forum or the Amazon reviews. Well, the speakers are working now (no idea why) and last night at 9:33PM--while I was doing Kanye West's STRONGER at the Mahalo karaoke party--I got an email from someone at Klipsh.My post was written at 12:32PM. So, due to my blog I was able to get direct customer support within nine hours. That's kind of rad and I think it's the future. I have searches setup for the "calacanis" and "mahalo" and I respond to folks who blog about us in two minutes to two hours on average I would say. In fact, if you go do a search for Mahalo you'll see that many time I'm the first comment under a blog post. For me engaging with customers is one of the most important things you can do in business.In fact, if you want to be on my radar the best thing to do is blog about what you think about Mahalo because you can be 100% sure I'll read it. Some of the folks I have a really deep blog relationship with right now are folks like the SEO GreyWolf, Technosailor who loves to predict my doom, the self-loathing gossiper Owen Thomas, and the highly-cantankerous CenterNetworks. I've secretly (and loving) named them the "Calacanis Wack Pack" (hat tip: Howard) since these guys are exactly the kind of folks I WOULDN'T hang with in the real world typically. Online? They take half my attention! They're very smart... they fight up, bust my chops, and keep my honest. I love them... I mean, I hate them often... but I love them for caring and speaking their mind--even when they're wrong. As they say on Facebook, it's complicated. Now, is this Klipsch early response because I'm a (supposed) "A-list" blogger or because they are tracking such things? Did someone email them my post? Who knows, who cares... they are on it! Frankly, I don't even know what the team "A-list" means and I've never bought into it since anyone can be on the A-list if they blog intelligently for a couple of months/years. In fact, being the A-list of a bunch of misfits--which is what bloggers (myself included) typically are--is like saying you're the Mayor of an insane asylum.Congratulations! Putthe ball in the basket Chief! It's easier than you think, Chief. But I digress... the Klipsch speakers that I hated yesterday because of the problem that went away I now love because I feel like someone at the company will solve the problem instantly for me if it comes back. Now I can recommend to folks they get Klipsch products because a) they sound great and b) if they have problems at least you know they really care.That's more than I can say about the @#$%#$% folks at Asurion! OK... I'm off to the speaking gig at UCLA. Here's the email name removed... j~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Hi Jason,My name is [TKTKTK]--I work in the [TKTKTKT] departmentat Klipsch. I came across your blog concerningthe trouble you've had with the 2.0s. I'm curiousif you have contacted us for help in getting themexchanged? They carry a one year warranty. I'malso aware of other complaints on our forum andamazon.com, but we do analyze our data closely tofollow product trends and address issues asnecessary. The internet is an extremely skewedexample of how well a product is performing, andin the case of the 2.0s, they are a solid systemoverall.I'm sorry you feel no one at Klipsch is listening,but honestly nothing is further from the truth.We absolutely honor warranties on all ourproducts, and if there was a defect discovered inthe design of any model, an engineering changewould be made promptly--implemented in the nextproduction run.Our forum is a peer to peer support network, andnot all posts are responded to by Klipschpersonnel. We do have a very sincere relationshipwith our customer base however, and allcalls/emails are answered as promptly as possibleby customer service and tech support reps who workfor Klipsch at our engineering and administrativeheadquarters. Any reoccuring complaints arephysically walked downstairs to our engineers tobe addressed promptly. We have nothing to gain byknowingly selling defective merchandise!Please also note that the Ultra 2.0s have been outof production for many months, replaced recentlyby the Groove PM 20 model.If you have any questions or need help setting upan exchange, please do not hesitate to contact me.Thank you![TKTKTKTKKT]Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
EdWords@polledemaagt Calacanis heeft wel meer herrie gemaakt de laatste maanden, o.a. in SEO-landin Rotterdam11hours ago Polledemaagt@bas Heb je die herrie een tijd geleden meegekregen tussen Calacanis en Winer (als ik me niet vergis)in Tilburg11hours ago basvandenbeld@Polledemaagt, ja grappig bedacht he van die Calacanis? Aparte vent, maar wel slim...in VoorschotenPermalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
How to Plan a Killer Halloween Party How to Trick or Treat Safely How to Plan a Kids' Halloween Party How to Carve a Killer Pumpkin How to Have the Best Halloween Costume at the Party How To Cook Pumpkin Seeds Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
I bought these well reviewed Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 2.0 PC speakers and they sounded amazing--for 30 seconds. Then they let out a high pitched scream that won't stop. I woke up the whole house, puppies and all... GRRRRRRRRR.... If only I had read this review at Amazon... or the Klipsch forums where folks are venting on the Klipsch folks--and NO ONE FROM Klipsch seems to be listening!!! Ummm... hey guys are Klipsch... if you're going to blog and put up forums you might want to interact with your customers! Anyone has any ideas for great speakers for my computer? [ Note: As with all customer service problems, it is best that bloggers link to each other, write thing up on Consumerist, and post to delicious so that the customer support people get the clue when they see a bad review on their Google SERP. ]Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
A lot of folks have been asking me about Google "slamming" sites over the past week for selling paid links and/or *perhaps* cross-linking between blogs/blog networks. [ Note: I put slamming in quotes for a reason.. if "slamming" means making the Google index better, well, that's just fine with me. ]As many folks have pointed out, I essentially came up with the the concept of interlinking a blog network. Of course, that idea came out of the concept of a blogroll which I did NOT create. Let me give some background on what I'm talking about.When we started Weblogs, Inc. we wanted to create 100 blogs that would help each other through shared infrastructure. That infrastructure included things like software, sales, and marketing. Marketing came in the form of three devices:a) the "ad slice" unit at the top of the page. This was a thin line that I came up with to alert folks to breaking items around the network. I thought of it like a ticket symbol. It worked really well and it's used all over the Internet today. b) the second unit was the blogroll which, obviously, I had nothing to do with creating.c) the "WIN grid" which was a table at the bottom of ever blog that showed a half dozen Weblogs, Inc. blogs and the last three headlines from each. It worked well and almost every blogged network has stolen borrowed it. Now, NONE of these units were created for SEO purposes. In fact, we never tracked search engine traffic since it was such a small percentage of our traffic in the early days (like five percent... really). Over time the search traffic grew and folks assumed that we created these unit to create links between blogs--nothing could be further from the truth. We made these units so we could promote the stuff we were working on. Engadget users would love Joystiq and HackADay we thought, so why syndicate some headlines. My thinking on this was like NBC promoting CNBC and Bravo... or ABC promoting Disney. Just an obvious way to get your product out there to people who might be interested in it. It had zero to do with SEO. In fact, nothing we did at Weblogs, Inc. we SEO related... we were just too busy to focus on SEO because we were growing so fast, selling so many ads, hiring so many bloggers, and trying to keep the servers up and running. Really. Additionally, folks started requesting to buy links on our side bar so we came up with adunits similar to Google's ads and placed them on the sidebar. Over time we learned folks were doing this for SEO reasons and we discontinued the program. Tim O''Reilly had a similar issue with his blog network with the same paid text link buyer. Anyway, Google is justified in dropping the page rank of sites if they think they are gaming the system and sites need to make a decision if they want to work with Google or not. I suggest working with them. The folks at Google are good people and I'm sure they don't want to make good sites suffer. They just want to make better result for their users, so I support their efforts to fight paid links. It's a good idea for everyone.*If* I was running Weblogs, Inc. and the blogs got dinged I would reach out to Google and ask what we could do to correct the problem and just do it. Engadget and Autoblog are the definitive blogs on the internet for gadgets and autos (based on traffic alone) and to punish them does not serve the users of Google or Engadget/Autoblog. My guess is AOL will find out from Google what is going on and resolve it and all will be good in the world again. If the cross-marketing techniques we came up with are confusing search engine I don't see any problem with removing them. At the end of the day Google, Engadget, and Autoblog are all boats in the same ocean... they rise an fall together. I'm sure they will work it out.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Mahalo is turning out to be a very fun place to work. We eat lunch together four days a week at a 30 foot long table, we play basketball together, and we've got a writers group every Monday night.The How To group has started doing some food articles. Last month after a lunch debate about deep fried coca-cola, candy, and pizza they decided they would put the recipes to the test. They bought a fryer and every FRYday they fry something.... this week they deep fried... wait for it... bacon. Oh yeah, they made a video. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
