Greg Hartnett

The Friday before Memorial Day weekend - I have spent the majority of the day having fun at the desk. Surfing fun stuff, looking at cool Wikipedia articles (here’s one, and here’s another). In between the goofing off, I was able to tackle some work, and decide on some high level ideas.

It started innocently enough, looking at an AP clip about Bus Uncle. A quick trip over to YouTube, and half the day gone. With an upcoming speaking gig on web 2.0 media, I guess I can justify it as research.

Let’s hope that you’re not on a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 next time you fly.

In a somewhat surprising turn of events, a Houston jury today convicted Enron pirateers, Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay. It would appear that the jury didn’t buy into the stories of the “smartest guys in the room”. With the thousands of lives ruined, and the billions of dollars lost, the jury didn’t seem to care about the boom days and the excitement that the 90’s brought to Enron investors and employees.

Lay now faces up to 165 years in jail, and Skilling’s 18 19 convictions should pile some time on as well (175 years). That should give them many nights thinking about their errors. “Ethically challenged employees”. Ha.

I’m not a fan of Senator McCain. While everybody denounced Kerry for being such a flip-flopper, McCain appears to epitomize the pandering politician. His double talk, and playing to the crowds and cameras, demonstrate that John McCain stands for political business as usual.

I would go so far as to say that his returning donations made by the Wyly family was nothing more than an attempt to manipulate public opinion. The Wyly family have long been backers of the GOP, and McCain has long been a friend of corporate money. Why would McCain bite the hand that feeds him here? Simply to provide the appearance that he is tough on campaign reform, and attempt to distance himself from what could potentially turn out to be illegal money.

For all his tough talk on reform, Senator McCain reeks of corporate America. I find it hard to imagine that anything would change for Joe Public under an administration lead by McCain. Who does he represent? Not conservatives. Not liberals. Definitely not me.

See Also:

Lobby Watch
George Bush’s Wise Guys
John McCain’s War on Political Speech
John McCain on Government Reform
Free Ride
Open Secrets - John McCain

I have been getting crushed with trackback spam for the past 5 or 6 days. Not as badly here as on the BOTW Blog. On my blog, I have been getting hit with only a dozen or so daily (one of the benefits of having little to no PR). Unfortunately, on the BOTW Blog, we had the options set up to accept trackbacks automatically, without moderation, so the spam cup runneth over. I spent a couple of hours of Saturday cleaning up, then another couple of hours Sunday. After which, I changed the moderation settings. So, while the tarckback spam continues to roll in, at least it is not rendering our blogs useles.

It would appear that I’m not alone in my troubles. Some of the blogs that I frequent seem to be experiencing similar issues:

Jim Boykin’s Spam Problems
Scoble’s Trackback Spam - a bunch of people in the comments report of similar issues

and others…

BOTW Blog search
Google Blog search
Technorati search

Pretty clever, though the fact that tens of thousands of people have already died makes it less than funny.

More from the creator, Adam Kontras.

My wife, Lily, has wanted to get back to work for awhile. As a mother of two young children, she has become adept at multitasking, crisis management, negotiating, time management, budgeting, planning, and the thousand other tasks that come with successfully running a family of four.

Fortunately, we are in a position that the decision is more of a lifestyle choice than a financial necessity (though the money definitely helps). As such, she has the leisure to apply her skill set to something that she enjoys doing. Additionally, she wants to be able to do something that provides her with the flexibility that she’d like. And, of course, she’d like to be the boss.

After putting our heads together, and with the advice of some friends (thanks Roger), she has decided to start her own online venture. We are in the process of getting the legal paperwork together (LLC stuff, EIN, bank account), and smoothing out the rough edges. Next up, some domain name purchases, site(s) set-up, and initial business model launch. Pretty exciting for her. While I look forward to helping her find her way around internet marketing, I anticipate that I will learn a thing or two from her as well.

I’m sure that you’ll see links here in the future, provided that her content doesn’t suck

Best of luck Lil, though I am sure you will do splendidly.

For inspiration see You, Inc.

I got tired of having my hair long, so yesterday I went to a fancy hair cutting place and chopped it off. It’s now pretty damn short. The one thing I told the girl in charge was that I didn’t want to look like a banker. Seeing her tattoo sleeve and paperclip through the eyebrow, I thought I was in good hands. Unfortunately, it came out exactly as I had dreaded. Put me in some khakis, and I’m ready for an interview at IBM. Fuck! Luckily hair grows back…

Ouch. 173 kmh??

After months of looking, and a handful of trips between coasts, we have finally chosen a house. It was a pretty exhausting ordeal, moreso for my wife and inlaws than me. My wife and my inlaws did a ton of the footwork - exploring numerous communities in the greater Sacramento area. We finally decided on beautiful Roseville CA. The schools are good (we can actually send them to public school), the location is awesome (a bit over an hour to Tahoe, and 15 minutes to Folsom Lake), and the community is great.

We anticipate closing on the deal, and getting the keys within a couple weeks. For the time being, we have our hands full with choosing new floors, counter tops, paint, etc… As the pictures show, the house is in great shape. With some minor modifications, we will be good to go. Only the first 16 pics in the set are of the new house - the remainder are other houses we looked at during the hunt.

Anticipated move date is Monday July 10. We’ll fly out, and hopefully find our cars and stuff waiting for us in front of the house. Instead of going with the traditional moving van, we have decided to use PODS. I can’t stand the idea of dealing with scummy movers - just talking to them on the phone trying to get a quote gives me the willies.

The house is large enough for me to have my own office, so the plan is that I will be working from home for the indefinite future. Fortunately, there is ample commercial space within a few minutes of my house, so if I can’t work out of home, I can easily pick up an office closely.

For the next couple of months, we will be pretty fixated on the move. We have a fair share of stuff to box up, an SUV to sell, and two vehicles to ship. All in less than two months. Big fun…

This morning, Brian was interviewed at ABC studios in NYC. With the recent rise in gas prices, the travel industry has taken some hits, and as a principal of Hotel Hotline, who better to opine on the subject?

I tagged along for moral support, and to step into the spot should he have gotten hit by a truck or an uncontrollable case of stagefright. Luckily, neither transpired, and I was more or less a groupie

The whole thing was really a blast. It was my first time in a national news room, and the entire experience was a bit overwhelming. I was ready to do my Snoop Dogg imitation in the green room with some gin and a blunt, but they stuck us in a conference room until show time.

I sat in the main news room while Brian was on, and tried to get as many pictures as I could. The security guy asked me to stop taking pictures, because some of the ABC brass were meeting behind me, and would not like me taking pics. Luckily, I was able to grab some pretty decent shots anyway.

I took a lot away from the event, and should I get called on for a future TV spot, I think I will be less anxious that I would have otherwise been. Kudos to Brian - and viva la Hotel Hotline!

Check out my pics here - Prince Goes Hollywood
See the interview here

I am inclined to think that this is doctored…

In what appears to be an ongoing saga, a new chapter has unfolded in my battle with CEO spammer, Matt Heaton. If you are jumping into the story here, you should first read the preceding posts:

Assuming you skipped over those links, the Reader’s Digest version is that Matt spammed his clients, requesting they come read his personal blog. I tried commenting, he deleted the comment, I posted about it. Repeat.

Last week, Bluehost sends out some announcement regarding some upgrade to service. At the bottom of the email, once again there is a link to his personal blog. Whatever… Trying to avoid the impression of being a complete ball-buster, I had decided to let it slide. Shortly thereafter, in what I can only interpret as an attempt to intentionally piss me off, Matt sent me the following email:

I just sent another mailing. Hurry and write a blog entry about it

Thanks,
Matt Heaton

So, this clown comes in and craps on my sandwich. He then elbows me in the ribs, and laughs in my face about it. I don’t understand it, but it provides for some fodder. Not how I would choose to deal with my clients, but to each his own.

Some people have recommended that I just shut up and move my sites if I don’t like it. Unfortunately, I don’t deem that a viable option. First, it would really piss me off that I’d have to be inconvenienced to move hosts for a handful of sites because this bozo can’t play nice. Secondly, the sites I have hosted there are prepaid for a year - with approximately six months left to renew. So, I am supposed to take a bath on a few hundred dollars worth of hosting because I don’t want to tolerate being spammed, then taunted??

Regardless of the money though, it comes down to the principle. Even when I decided to let it slide, he goaded me on. So the dance continues. Perhaps a few more of the following types of results will dissuade him:

On Mother’s Day, peace activist Cindy Sheehan will join with mothers from all over the world in a gathering outside of the White House for a 24 hour vigil honoring those killed or wounded in the war on Iraq.

Fortunately, most of us have other plans on that day. We’ll spend the day with our wives and/or mothers, and celebrate the time together as a family with our kids, and other loved ones. We’ll laugh and play, with nary a thought of the tens of thousands of families worldwide that will spend this day like many others - mourning the untimely loss of their child.

While I am not trying to guilt you out of enjoying your plans, I am sure that your heart does indeed go out to these poor families. Sometimes, there is an opportunity to do something small that can help. This is one of those times. For as little as $3, you can send a Mother’s Day rose to Washington DC to show the mothers of the fallen soldiers that you stand with them against the war.

It will definitely be the cheapest rose you find for Mother’s Day, and probably more appreciated than the ones you pay $120 for. Take a minute (literally) to get involved. See ActForChange for more details.

I am picking up on a nice trend - still subtle, but gaining momentum.

People are finally beginning to realize that content truly is king. I know that we have all heard that catchy little phrase a couple hundred times or so. However, I think that the notion is finally beginning to sink in. Kudos to the efforts of link development moderators, search engine marketing professionals, conference speakers, and other industry influencers. Through their collective endeavors, more and more, site owners are realizing that the quick and dirty route often leads to mediocre results.

Webmasters are learning that their users crave good content. What good is the traffic you generate if the user is going to bounce when they see that you have craptastic content? Why spend all the effort and money to lure users in, only to piss them off with a lackluster offering? Instead of obsessing on how the user can help them, webmasters are looking at how they can help the user. Sweet!

So what’s behind this transformation? Did webmasters drink the kool aid to spread this message of altruism? Probably not. More likely, they have learned through positive reinforcement that the quality content is what gets links, and tends to gravitate towards the top of the SERPs. That’s not an accident. You see, the engines need your quality content as much as your users thirst for it. In an effort to provide relevant results, engines will seek out, and reward your quality content with prominent listings, and lots of visitors. Webmasters and bloggers will link to your content because it provides value to their users. Your users will return to your site because they value your content, and they may even become evangelists, telling friends and co-workers about your site.

It’s a pretty dramatic change, and it takes some introspection and experience to fully appreciate. However, once you see the true picture, the pieces really begin to fall into place. You’ll find your work more enjoyable, your marketing efforts less demanding, and your resources spent more effectively. Additionally, your site should now be higher caliber and less prone to a whammy or other algorithm tweak. Building something that will endure should help you to sleep a lot better at night.

As a web enthusiast, internet business owner, and technology evangelist, I hope that this progression gains steam.

Further Reading:

Normally, I don’t make use of my personal blog to tout the virtues of my company - we have the BOTW Blog to do that. However, today I will make an exception.

Two years ago, BOTW launched it’s first promotion - a handful of dollars off each submission. We use the promotions as a way of giving back to the members that support us. It has worked out very well, for both our users, and for BOTW. So, we have been doing the promotions on a somewhat regular basis for the last two years.

This month, in recognition of our second anniversary of promotions, we are offering a slight discount, 10% off all submissions. However, for each submission using the special promo code, you will be entered to win a new Apple 17″ MacBook Pro. That’s right - the mac daddy of the laptop world. Just use the following code to save, and enter to win: WINMAC. Using this promo code in Step 2 of the submission process will automatically deduct 10% off the submission price, and will enter you to win. The offer is good through the month of May, with the winner being drawn on Friday June 2. So head on over to BOTW, and start submitting. Good luck!