We officially brought BOTW Local to beta today, and I’m pretty psyched about it. We have spent the better portion of two years going crazy and screwing up other deadlines to get this out. We grossly underestimated the amount of work that would go into it, and we’re nowhere near “finished”.

The site is huge - like 16.5 million pages. So in an effort to not scare the hell out of the spiders we’re doing a somewhat slow roll out. Most of the site still contains “no-spider” tags. Thus far, we have only introduced the spiders to the following markets: Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Chicago and Austin. As we feel comfortable with the indexing and crawl rate of each market introduced, we introduce more. So far so good with tens of thousands of pages indexed, and many many pages ranking very well. More cities coming soon.

So all in all, it’s been a hell of a build. There’s still plenty more build to do with more than a few holes that need filling. And after that comes the really tough part - marketing and monetization. Oh the fun of new projects

I’d encourage any business owners to claim your business - it’s free with the JumpStart page. The user account is a little unpolished, and the entire sign up process is in the final stages of a makeover, but the business pages work, and they’re free.

If you find something that sucks, let me know.

I hope that this offering proves to be as successful as we plan, and that you find it to be a useful resource for your local information needs.

*Update* - A couple of weeks in and I’m feeling pretty groovy. I definitely feel markedly better than at the time of the original posting.

Yesterday, one of the interviewees, Lee Odden, was good enough to ask a handful of us for a recap of our interviews so that he could help to spread word of the book’s launch. As is often the case, one person’s good news is another’s excuse to lash out. After Lee’s post a comment rolled in on what a lame and self-congratulatory group we are. Sheesh - get a grip. We were all individually approached to provide an interview for a book on online marketing. I don’t think anybody was paid (I wasn’t), and we all spent time to try to provide interested parties with insight into marketing online. And we didn’t pick the name of the book…

But for the record - I am a hero. But not because Wiley claims I am. I’m a hero to my daughter when I sit down and help her with her science homework, or when I try to calm her down after an argument with her friend. I’m a hero to my son at t-ball practice, or when I teach him to use his words and not his hands. I’m a hero in my community when I volunteer or go out of my way to help a neighbor. I’m a hero at my organization when I set a good example or steer my people down the proper path.

Lastly, I’m a hero because I celebrate other’s accomplishments and successes, not hate them for it.

Recently I finally began to try meditating. I had been reluctant to give it a shot, figuring there would be no way that I’d be able to quiet my mind. Fortunately I have found that with mindful awareness, I have made strides in meditating, and now actually get a few moments of clarity. Sometimes I sit on the floor of my office and devote a half hour to meditation. Other times I try to grab a quickie - maybe five or ten minutes while I sit waiting for my wife (which I do a lot).

The objective of meditation is to just be. Sit and clear the mind. Recognize the thoughts as they arise and let them go. But it takes a little while to get there. I usually sit and repeatedly go through a mantra or two before I’m able to get there. My current mantra is from Buddhist meditation master, Kalu Rinpoche:

We live in illusion
And the appearance of things.
There is a reality.
We are that reality.
When you understand this,
You see that you are nothing.
And being nothing,
You are everything.
That is all.

Overall, I think it’s a pretty interesting concept. Staying in touch with friends, helping to plan an event, birthday reminders - all good stuff. I’ve even seen some colleagues make use of it from a business standpoint. In a nutshell, I think Facebook has a promising future, and could prove to be a next-gen search alternative (social graphing is way cool).

However, I’m taking a stand against all the bullshit that goes with the site. What’s the deal with the sheep throwing and gift giving? They’re fake gifts people. Zombie bites? Puhleeze. Pretend drinks? How about inviting me to have a real drink? Probably much better bang for your buck there…

This morning, I had a business associate “poke” me. Somebody I don’t know very well outside of a business relationship. WTF? So now am I supposed to “poke” him back? And then what? He pokes me again, or steps it up to start throwing things at me?  Shouldn’t we be working?

Call me weird, but I think it’s all a little, I don’t know, lame.  Maybe I’m a bit stuffy, but I have better things to do with my time than screw around with idiotic things on Facebook.

So feel free to friend me.  Invite me to your groups.  Let me know about any causes you are interested in.  Hell, even write on my wall and engage me.  Just keep your sheep and your pokes to yourself.

Giggle giggle.

Two weeks ago some sales reps from SureWest came by to tell me that they were going to be installing a new fiber optic line in my neighborhood. With promises of lightning internet speed and better TV reception (for HDTV) I was sold.

The contracted technician came by on Wednesday for a three hour install process (I needed him to go into the attic for additional lines), and after a quick call to tech support I was up and running. Running FAST:

Those numbers are pretty impressive - 18+MB on the download and over 27 MB on the upload.

How fast are you surfing?

• SureWest speed test
• Speakeasy speed test
• Speedtest.net