With tens of millions of users (but probably not the purported 100 million though), MySpace.com is a force to be reckoned with. Especially when you consider that MySpace apparently drives more traffic to online retailers than MSN Search, according to some recent Hitwise data. But MySpace is hard for us adults to get our heads […]

I’m so sick of getting lame link requests where they can’t even bother to look up my name, let alone come up with a request that’s actually compelling. What blogger in their right mind would respond favorably to link request spam like this: Subject: Information for your blog and a Favor Greetings Blogger! I stumbled […]

Yesterday my company Netconcepts released a research report / white paper titled “Chasing The Long Tail of Natural Search.” The analysis was based on data garnered from 1.2 million unbranded natural search visits to 5,000,000 pages in January 2006 measured across 25 branded online merchants. According to our research, here’s what the “average” well-branded merchant’s […]

Microsites can be really good at going “viral” if they are clever and have “pass it on” appeal. Subservient Chicken, Burger King’s microsite was such a site. It featured a person dressed up in a chicken suit wearing lingerie. You could give it commands by typing them into a box. Pretty weird. Not surprisingly, it became […]

Optimizing your site for higher search engine rankings is an obvious activity for anyone with a website. Optimizing your site for higher conversion rates is another obvious one. But how about optimizing for higher advertising revenue — specifically, a bigger check from Google for the AdSense ads that you display on your site. Consider for […]

Oh, nevermind. Somebody already has! Don’t get me wrong, Jakob’s a brilliant guy with a lot of important things to say about website usability. But useit.com is just plain ugly. Design By Fire has come to Jakob’s rescue with Design Eye for the Usability Guy. They’ve given him all the ingredients for a fantastic extreme […]

Reports are coming in that “Google bombing” doesn’t really work any more. Specifically, the theory is that now at least one of the words in the hyperlink text has to appear on the page being linked to, for the Google bomb to still be effective. But if that’s the case, why is George W. Bush’s […]

It is interesting that Amazon.com has launched a new program called the Mechanical Turk where people in the world can earn small amounts of money doing tasks that are not suited to computers/artificial intelligence. Amazon bills it as “artificial artifical intelligence.” So, if you wanted to have a whole bunch of images organized and tagged, […]

Automotive company Lexus (more accurately, Southern California Lexus Dealers) has signed a 26-week deal to sponsor podcasts at public radio station KCRW in Santa Monica, California. The deal is based on CPM (cost per thousand) which means Lexus will be paying for the actual number of downloads the podcast will get. The company’s links and […]

I don’t know about you, but I found this ad (on the right) by Virtus Communications disturbing and downright offensive. It was in the print brochure for the Italian Film Festival which took place the first half of this month in Christchurch, New Zealand. I wonder what the heck the company was thinking when they […]