Archive

Archive for October, 2007

Below a Buck - what happened?

October 29th, 2007

Wow so after I got all excited copying Shoemoney’s Below a Buck idea, it looks like he is making so little from that site he doesn’t even care if it’s up anymore. A quick visit to the site shows an error:


Warning: connect() [function.connect]: Can’t connect to 127.0.0.1:11211, Unknown error (0) in /home/websites/belowabuck/html/config.inc on line 15
Could not connect

Looks like their memcached server is down or something… oh well. We are doing well with CarsForaGrand!!

Update: It’s back up. Maybe they are making money after all?

web marketing , ,

StumbleUpon Paid Ads Feedback

October 29th, 2007

I have been using StumbleUpon’s Paid Ads for a few weeks now, and have some feedback.

Biggest thing: Budgets
Right now you can set a daily budget for all your ads, which seems cool but is really ineffective. This is compounded by some of the problems below and I will get into those. Yes I know you can in theory control this by using the # of visitors per campaign option, but is still not as effective as saying “spend $100 on this campaign per day.” This allows us to more accurately measure ROI using the SU program.

Setup vs options
When you set up a new campaign, you can only set destination url and one category. Once your campaign gets approved you can go in and add some paramaters like Country / State / City targeting and gender / age range of visitor. Cool, but why can’t I do that on setup? Also being able to select one category is really limiting. Why can’t I say show this page to people that have these 3 categories but NOT this one or show it to anyone who has any of these 3 categories? Seems pretty simple.

Let me know!
You have my email address, use it! Because of the manual approval process (which I understand completely, you don’t want spam/pr0n sites whatever), we have no idea when our campaigns go live. So you end up with a situation like I had this morning, where I had an old campaign in there that had run out of $$$ so wasn’t running. I added some new campaigns and then added some $$$ for them and went to sleep. When I checked them this afternoon the old campaign had resumed and sucked up most of my daily budget. So yeah its my bad for not pausing it, but at least let me know when campaigns are approved and start getting traffic. Also if I had a daily budget per campaign, this could be avoided.

Basically, I love SU’s ads program, $0.05 per semi-targeted visitor is cheap, and SU traffic is generally pretty good. I always average over 2 pageviews per user and under a 30% bounce rate. Pretty good no matter what your content is.

geek stuff, stumble, ventures, web marketing , , ,

What Happened to Jason Calacanis?

October 29th, 2007

I used to read Jason’s blog all the time. Nowadays I can just get a pulse of what the hotbutton issues are for the day, and visualize what his blog looks like. Link to Mahalo SERP page for this, link to Mahalo SERP page for that.

Right now Jason has 15 articles on the front page of his PR7 blog, calacanis.com. Of those 7 promote the idea of “human search” or link directly to Mahalo. 5 of these exist for no reason other than to link to a Mahalo SERP. Of the remaining posts, 2 are devoted to Jason declaring his “a-list blogger” status and getting his laptop speakers replaced, 1 is promoting his facebook group, 1 is talking about what other people are saying about him, 1 is an insightful post about Google removing paid links and what he would have done about the situation if he were still running Weblogs (interestingly enough he also says all the cross linking on Weblogs blogs was not for SEO), 1 is linking up Brian Alvey’s new comic book site, 1 is a review of smartlinks (talking about how they link to mahalo), and the last is a youtube video of a little kid rapping.

The posts I take issue with are the Mahalo SERPS, I know he is just promoting his new company but it feels a lot like linking strictly for Google’s benefit. I know tons of people read his blog, so I don’t have a problem with his self pronounced ‘a-list blogger’ status, I am glad he is getting replacement speakers and as a leader of a tech company it is important to know what people are saying about you. Funny stuff and linking to your friends is all good too.

I really was into Jason’s blog when he was promoting Weblogs, and in retrospect I guess he hasn’t really changed the blog that much, he has just started a new company I’m not all that interested in. In past days all those links to Mahalo would have been talking about handling his staff of writers, tech problems related to publishing, content on his network, stuff that I am into. Now its all human powered search and I’m sick of it. I know you need PR7 inbound links to drive free traffic to your serps by getting them in google’s serps, but come on! At least if you are going to give yourself all those inbound links take off the “nofollow” on Mahalo’s outbounds!

My 2 cents.

Oh yeah, and when was the last time he mentioned the Knicks?? Just kidding, I know that was a low blow.

geek stuff, web marketing ,

Google Adsense Channels are not reporting

October 25th, 2007

So for the last three days Google Adsense has not been reporting properly. I guess I am spoiled by the big G always being so on point, so I am a little confused by this one. The situation is when you login to your normal Adsense control panel you are presented with an overall view of that day’s earnings and you can hit a dropdown for detailed stats by channel. Every Adsense publisher I know uses channels to optimize and track their ads, this is a heavily used feature of the program. To have it not working is disheartening to say the least.

I understand that every website / program has problems from time to time, but usually Goog will let us know on the Adsense Blog or something. Jensense hasn’t even posted anything, and she is usually on every little rumor. The only peep from Google has been users posting Adsense support responses on DigitalPoint:

Hi,

Thanks for your email. There appears to be an issue with channels not
properly tracking data, rest assured your aggregate data is registering
all impressions and clicks.

I’ve escalated your issue to one of our tech specialists. We’ll get back
to you shortly. I appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

Sean
The Google AdSense Team

My guess? The last post on the Official Adsense Blog is about being able to manage your ad units from your control panel as opposed to modifying the code on your pages. This probably involves you being able to change things by ad unit and channel, and somewhere in there they had a bug in the reporting code. But come on Goog, let us know!!!

update: Seems to be working better but still showing a disparity between aggregate stats and channel stats. Google Groups has some more info as well.

geek stuff, web marketing ,

Microsoft Punks Hollywood - Nerds Always Win!!!

October 24th, 2007

Remember when Halo 3 came out? People went nuts, long lines and all that, and by the end of the weekend the game had brought in over $170 million, making it the LARGEST ENTERTAINMENT RELEASE EVER.

Feeling punked already, some Hollywood guy named Mike Hickey, an analyst at Janco Partners, commented, “The audience on this game is the 18-to-34 demographic, similar to what you’d see in cinemas. This could last for several weeks.”

He goes on to say that another box office drought may be ahead, as the release of Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto IV looms in the distance–current ETA the first quarter of 2008.

Not feeling like they were punked enough, Microsoft executive Bob Frederickson said “We thought we’d get some good sales, but nothing like this. With escalating ticket prices and the crappy movies Hollywood has been putting out, People are just hungry for entertainment.”

Yuk yuk yuk…. funny stuff.

geek stuff , ,

Need a Car? Got $1,000?

October 24th, 2007

Just launched a new site that finds you cars for $1,000 or less, all makes and models. Good for collectors looking for restoration projects, or for someone who needs some inexpensive transportation.

CarsForAGrand.com

Check it out, comment here. Thanks!

Yes, I got the idea from Shoemoney and his Below a Buck site, but he lags. Took him 2 1/2 weeks, took us a day. Just kidding, I love shoe and his blog is an inspiration. Remember Shoe, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!!!

ventures, web marketing ,

San Diego Wildfires

October 23rd, 2007

Fires have been raging throughout San Diego County the last few days, and it has been amazing to watch the process. We went through a similar ordeal in 2003 for the Cedar Fire, and it was much worse. This time around, fire officials responded MUCH better, and we have one confirmed fatality as opposed to 15. The best coverage has been on KFMB, our local CBS affiliate. They have several fire maps and the best web and TV coverage. Thankfully, most of my friends and family are ok and their properties unharmed. Thanks for everyone’s concern, it has been really great to see our community band together like this.

Side note, props to Who’s Your Daddy for donating over 300 cases of energy drinks to the emergency workers who had to stay up for more than 24 hours staffing relief centers.

san diego ,

People DO get arrested for linking to stuff on the internet

October 22nd, 2007

Popular TV streaming site TV Links has been shut down and the owner arrested. I won’t link to it here because someone has put up a typical domain parking page for the clueless traffic. Keep in mind this guy, who lives in the UK, wasn’t hosting any copyrighted content. He wasn’t stealing anything. He LINKED to streams that are publicly available on the internet. Hmm, who else links to copyrighted content? I would love to see them try and arrest Sergey and Larry for that shit.

As usual there are tons of TV Links replacement sites popping up, so nothing has been solved from a copyright protection standpoint, just the ruining of a young man’s life.

file sharing / p2p, geek stuff, rant

Bird Feeder

October 19th, 2007

I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. “What a beauty of a bird feeder it is” I thought as I filled it lovingly with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue. Then came the shit. Bird shit was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table…everywhere!

Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket. And others birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn’t even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio.

Soon, the back yard was like it used to be…quiet, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now let’s see….. Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, and free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen. Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families; you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor; your child’s 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn’t speak English. Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to “press 1 one” to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than “Old Glory” are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.

Just my opinion, but maybe it’s time for the government to take down the bird feeder. If you agree, pass it on; if not, continue cleaning up the crap!

other ,

Stuff You Didn’t Know

October 17th, 2007

The longest one-syllable word in the English language is “screeched.”

“Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”.

Almonds are members of the peach family.

The symbol on the “pound” key (#) is called an octothorpe.

The dot over the letter ‘i’ is called a tittle.

Ingrown toenails are hereditary.

The word “set” has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

“Underground” is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters “und.”

There are only four words in the English language which end in”-dous” tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters is
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.

The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimau
ngahoronukupokaiwenuakitanatahu, a New Zealand hill.

Los Angeles’s full name is “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula” and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, “L.A.”

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

In most advertisments, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.

Alfred Hitchcock didn’t have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.

Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays.

Donald Duck’s middle name is Fauntleroy.

Al Capone’s business card said he was a used furniture dealer.

The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.

Steely Dan got their name from a sexual device depicted in the book ‘The Naked Lunch’.

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

The Ramses brand condom is named after the great phaoroh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.

There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, “therein” the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.

Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

John Larroquette of “Night Court” and “The John Larroquette Show” was the narrator of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra’s “Its A Wonderful Life”

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up.The frog throws up its stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of it’s mouth.Then the frog uses its forearms to dig out all of the stomach’s contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.

Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

The male gypsy moth can “smell” the virgin female gypsy moth from 1.8 miles away.

The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti.

The name for Oz in the “Wizard of Oz” was thought up when the creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z, hence “Oz.”

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

‘Stewardesses’ is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.

To “testify” was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.

The combination “ough” can be pronounced in nine different ways.The following sentence contains them all “A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.”

The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning “containing arsenic.”

Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.

The word “Checkmate” in chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the king is dead”.

The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of lore when the engines were pulled by horses.The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight
staircases.

geek stuff, other, play