DISQUS

Very interesting, but I guess it goes to prove it's all perception or at times marketing. Surely someone has to draw a line somewhere eventually though?

After the whole debacle with AP and bloggers, isn't it ironic that they now choose to republish tweets and facebook messages. Can't they generate their own quality content?

I don't know why, but Zombies seem to have really gone mainstream since "Dawn of the Dead". My fave zombie movie remains "Shaun of the Dead" a comedy, love story with zombies. :) It's all that and more. Another one that's just so terrible you'll keep watching much like many do a train wreck is "Zombie Strippers" although that's certainly nsfw or family for that matter.

I'm certainly going to get my hands on the World War Z! :D

Well... I'm not a Microsoft Fan... but IE7 has been kind to me as an end user... and a bane of my existence as a developer.

Isn't this basically the same as telling Ferrari that they can't insist that the buyer use the Ferrari engine but rather make them pick one - and set it up themselves? Surely if they don't want people using IE they should simply come up with a whole better package. Bring on an OS that's better. I can hear the shrieks now... I'm a Linux fan who always favored Netscape... but times change. I'm still a Linux fan... but lets face it Windows and IE are a standard unto themselves... Kind of like VHS was... time for someone to bring out the equivalent of the DVD!

I see your saber and raise you one lightsaber :P

The biggest problem I've found so far with social media is that the executives in charge of marketing for many companies simply arrive bringing nothing to the table. If they won't engage their audience what do they really expect?

I don't get what the whole fuss is about really. The only thing I hate about Facebook are the continual requests to sign up for new applications. I think the redesign has been the smartest thing yet. At least we can bypass much of the spam.

Worried about those that dislike it? Well as far as I can tell it's only a very small percentage of the users, and I'm sure that paying the bills is well worth it. Those that are complaining are not likely to leave anyhow. I would be interested to know how many of those folk that signed the petition this time round also signed the last one. I think it would prove that they are more than happy to enjoy a free service no matter the design.

Robert's last blog post..Too Cuil for You

Yup... just what we needed even more "experts". Worst part is that just about anyone can pass the test muddying the waters even more.

Then again, perhaps that is what Google are wanting to do now? Fight good SEO by making sure everyone can call themselves SEO experts?

Robert's last blog post..Local Search and Optimisation

I'm all for easy access to anything. But lets face it, some folk are afraid of having their internet search patterns monitored, this will give Google access to all of their info. Sensitive, personal Info!!!

Then there is always the problem of forgotten passwords :P

Anyhow, this is one service I WON'T be using.

hahahaha!

Grant: Agreed!

I do think that much gets lost in the garble of what goes on with Twitter. I do however consider Twitter a fantastic source of news and info. So often someone will tweet a link with a short description that I know that I just have to follow. Mostly I just look out for these links... Jim I pretty much always follow yours ;)

Twitter is so much more descriptive than a feedreader.

@ Stephen: Oh the joys of living in a first world country where capitalism forces competitive prices. However, with Apple now using Intel chips... it's a PC ;)

I think Gebadia got it right, Apple is cool. Again I go back to my disposable income point that they are aiming all kinds of devices iPhone, iPod...etc. These are cool devices. A standard MP3 player isn't, a Blackberry... isn't. Heck my Nokia 9300i is uncool and a brick!

Diversification is a great way of not putting all your eggs in one basket. This is where the Apple model has really won.

I would love to see like vs like sales. ie. All PC notebook sales vs MacBooks, iPods vs MP3 Players and so on. I'm pretty sure this will prove my point.

Stephen you might have a point there. I'm not a member of the Blackberry crowd... don't do Microsoft... (I'm really not a fan of their OS - okay so Win98SE worked) but I'm no Apple Fanboy either. Here in SA an Apple notebook costs about twice the price of any other system so it's pretty much an "elite" group that get their hands on them. It's far more a status symbol than anything else.

Negativity is something I've not really picked up so much from either group I've not really sensed "sour grapes" of any kind.

I think nesh gets it right with the "belonging" point. It's the elite belonging that's the cultish part :)

Well Apple's marketing is among the best. But I think what is missing is the loyalty in following that they can generated. Lets face it Apple are more cult-ish than the Moonies ever hoped to be ;)

Okay, that's a bit extreme but I think you get the point. Not to mention they have targeted one group that actually has disposable income in the younger groups with many of their products.

Jim, Thanks.

A thought: "If everyone agreed there would never be a need for change. Without change there would never be invention. Without invention there would be no progression."

Okay, I know that I've stolen that from someone. I just don't know who.

Well... If a blog has a good community then each blog post is pretty much just a seed, it's the discussion and the comments that follow that is the real gem. Of course you need a good post followed with good comments.

I enjoy the sharing of opinions. I don't always agree (heck I'm argumentative at the best of times ;) ) but usually take something from a good post.

So true. I must confess that on a business level when I want something I want it now! It seems the world has reached a truly Macdonalds culture where everything is instant and disposable.

Getting home I'm almost the opposite. While I feel somewhat isolated when the internet is down (hey, this is Africa it happens often) I don't need to be on it 24/7 I just like the comfort of knowing that it's there. Often I'll let my mobile take a message rather than answer, emails I get back to in the week and I'll wait for anything off of an a-la-carte menu.

I think it's a balance that we all need to find. Sadly business is ruled by those with a good turn-around time, even if at times the expense of quality...

"Welcome to Macdonalds... would you like fries with that?"

@ RocknRolli: :) no worries, just that Toolbar PR is a pet hate for me. I loathe it! I would attribute it to being possibly THE reason for the current sold link/nofollow link fiasco that we now see.

@ RocknRolli: If you go back to my comment you'll see that I do state that the PR has little effect on crawl rate. I can pretty much guarantee however that the real PR (that which Google calculates and NEVER shares) is quite valuable for deep indexing. If your homepage has a high Google PR (not to be confused with the Toolbar PR) then it is more likely that the deeper pages of your website will be indexed. This is particularly valuable for very large sites.

@ Kim: Big problem I have with PR is PR. Can anyone really define PR as we know it? As far as I know it's just a number that my "SEO Quake" plug-in gives me. In my experience that particular number has little effect on the crawl rate.

@ Douglas L. Perry: don't confuse hype marketing with simple SEO. If nobody can find your website... what use is the content?

@Samantha McDuffee: I would be interested in running a good study on that one. Then again, I guess some would say that a conversion rates of 1% of 1,000,000 is better than a conversion rate of 10% of 1,000. It's all really about your goals.

@ Julie N: I'm not sure how you can aim your blog purely at SEO? Any SEO worth their salt will point out that a website with no quality while ranking well still won't provide desired results. However I do maintain that quality content optimised properly will rank well and will convert too.

I've recently moved a very large website. With minimal rewrites but a good system of XML sitemaps the site was re-indexed and is now generating more traffic than before. Believe it or not, but I reckon Google do a decent enough job of figuring out the move on their own. Provided you map it out for them.

@ Donald: Once again, agreed. Flagging one checkpoint won't get you banned or penalized, but a few coupled together could do harm. But a few bad links won't do too much damage, if any. I said as much on the first "dofollow" post a little while back and still maintain that. I think the whole fear of following links is unhealthy and bad for the net as a whole. If the search engines today can't figure out the good from the bad then they simply need to change.

@ Donald Forrester: To the most degree I agree. However I would argue that by linking to a few dodgy sites you could be placing links to your own site in the same category. As all links from your site are blanketed with the same trust aspect. This could end with a flagging of sorts.

However... yes, any link strength is diluted by more links. Internal and external.

@ Bambi Blue: I would argue that quality content will always win over property optimised text. Mostly because if the search engines can't find it, it doesn't matter how good it is. Right now Google still can't figure out what is real quality and what simply is popular.

That said quality content that's been optimised will always win ;) *we hope*

@Xbox... Um... no :) SEO will be around for as long as companies fail to do the basics in web development.

Consider the greatest football team alive. You still need a coach to guide them. SEO is that coach for great content.

@Suzanne: I think if anything that goes to prove that the quality is in individual pieces and not just the home/landing page of any site. If anything it has shed a positive light on the Google Toolbar PR (which I have long thought to be utterly pointless).