I never knew

In the same vein as my previous post, this article on ethical search engine optimization hits on a lot of good points. I especially like the way he splits the field in three categories.

• Search engine optimization: Ensuring that your code and content is appropriately organized and easy for search engines to interpret accurately.

































































• Search engine exaggeration: Reinforcing your desired keywords through frequent repetition, hidden keywords, etc.

• Search engine deception: Creating content, pages, etc., that aren’t intended for human consumption, but are instead designed only to pull in search engine traffic.

  You can also see it as a scale, going from “helping search engines” to “screwing with search engines”. Obviously, you have a better chance of your tricks working for a long time when you are helping.

A very, very good, pretty detailed article on how blogging can help businesses. The content is interesting but he also quotes and links to a variety of good ressources reinforcing his point. A good starting point for a lot of content on the subject. One of the highlights for me, is the way he brings in RSS; yes there are now millions of blogs but readers’ “blog reading potential” is augmenting also.

And the thing is, anyone can do it. Because blogging is still in its infancy, the effects are only going to increase. Although readership grew 45% last year, the majority of blog readers read less than 10 total blogs. We firmly believe this number is low, because people haven’t discovered efficient ways of processing the information overload. There are thousands of blogs created every second and thanks to RSS technology, the number blogs people are going to be able to keep up with is only going to go up. When RSS becomes a mainstream technology, current readers will only read more blogs and a new crop of voracious readers will emerge. While millions of readers looking for content should be reason enough to focus your energies on them, the importance of courting these influential, eager and financially secure readers should not be undervalued.

Use blogging (content) and good coding (readable content) to draw search engine results, not SEOs.

Google’s goal is not to help those people make money. They actually spend money on fighting SEOs, not helping them. They also spent a lot of money buying the largest growing and used blogging tool out there, which should also give you something else to think about. Google knows that the moment their results aren’t solving people’s solutions or giving people answers, is the moment the people go somewhere else to find things. They have the best programmers and an army of PhDs dedicated to the problem. They’re worth billions. If you’re a small business, (putting aside the fact that these practices are morally and ethically questionable) wasting money on fighting Google might be the worst thing you could possibly do financially.

Required reading for anyone doing business on the web.

Niiiice. I had that bookmarked for a little while but hadn’t tested it yet. Meebo is a nice little web interface lets you log in to multiple messaging services and use them through the browser. Will come in very useful next time I drop by the Grande biblio which blocks all ports but 80.

The most astute readers (and ehhh, those who are here all the time because it’s only been a couple of hours) will have noticed that there is a little banner at right, leading to the Les Blogs 2.0 conference page. I’ll be there. w00t!

Thanks to the ever working energizer m-c, via her meïdia studio—which I will collaborate with on some projects—and a little governement program she uncovered we will be attending Les Blogs 2.0 in Paris. I’ll let her give more details when time permits since, after all, she did all the work but in the mean time, if you are a reader of this blog or have buddies who might be interested in collaborating/contracting with/meeting/having a beer with us during the 5-6 days we will be there (Decembre 2nd to 8th or about), we’d be more than happy to know about it. The main purpose of the trip is networking with related companies and potential clients so go nuts, refer people!

As I’ve mentioned before, I was in Bar Harbor last week, Lightspeedchick gives some details and mentions this:

A favorite highlight among many: taking Martine, Ed and Patrick on a hike which I remembered as “not really that challenging”. Of course, this was almost ten years ago when I was into rock climbing, and it turned out to be in fact the most difficult that Acadia National Park had to offer, a near-vertical 1000-foot climb over just a quarter of a mile! (No ropes!) Although we were, in the end anyway, happy to have met the challenge head-on, there were some moments where I thought some of my best friends might never speak to me again. But by the end of the day everyone had once more found their happy thoughts.

I’ll add a little quote from this page detailing some of the trails around Acadia:

The Precipice Trail is probably the most well known and certainly the most challenging trail in Acadia National Park. It is a non-technical, but almost vertical, 1,000 foot climb up granite ledges to the summit of Champlain Mountain. There are many iron rungs and ladders along the trail and it is only recommended for experienced, physically fit hikers who do not have a fear of heights. (emphasis mine)

Just so you know our group “levels” for those skills were:

• Experience: One climber from years back. 3 non climbers, pretty much non hikers.

































































• Physically fit: Good to average I’d say.

• Fear of heights: 3 out of 4, 2 of which mentioned past instances of dizziness when faced with heights.

  So… yeah, a bit tense in parts. Won’t do it again unless it’s on Amazing Race for a million. Still, fun to have done it. Mmmmh maybe fun isn’t quite right. Satisfying? Closer.

  The shocked faces of the couple we talked to at the top when we told them which way we had come to the top by is also worth remembering.

Depuis peu je suis de retour en ville après 8 jours à Bar Harbor. C’est juste 8 jours et c’est encore les USA mais quand même, grosse coche entre un bout de Maine ou mon cellulaire ne connectais pas et la grande ville. Dans les 15 premières minutes sur l’île:

• Un chauffeur de taxi qui me cri après comme un malade (ma fenêtre était fermée pôv’ con.), je pense parce que j’ai ralenti sur la jaune et arrêter avant qu’elle soit rouge au lieu de “crisser ça dans l’fond” pour passer. Il dépasse ensuite du monde par la droite aux lumières.

































































• 5 coins plus loin, un espèce de saôulon qui cri comme un malade sur le bord de la rue, traverse devant moi à la lumière en “sacrant une claque” sur la voiture.

• Un gars qui gesticule parce que nous sommes 2-3 voitures à passer devant lui…. sur notre verte. Non mais quel culot on a!!

  Mais, évidemment, ensuite en attendant la verte coins Mont-Royal, y’a 4 jolies demoiselles qui traversent devant moi. Ca compense ;)

La plus belle histoire du monde

A Short History of Progress

So I’m watching Law and Order and I’m reminded of a post I thought about last week. What is your favorite “trademark sound” from tv shows and/or the one you find the most distinctive. Not theme song, just a sound or few notes. Examples:

• Patatuhh. Patatatatuh! (with fast cuts of NY landscape) on the dearly departed NYPD Blue.

































































• TunnTung. on Law and Order, at every transition. As Lightspeedchick would say: Murder, tunntung, get in the car tunntung, talk to judge, tunntung.

• Twing twing! Pah pah twing twing!! the background music playing every time Kirk on the original Star Trek was fighting a purple guy with horns so he could get his hands on the purple chick in a bathing suit.

  Others?