Disqus - Latest Comments for John Hunter

Re: Attack of the Comment Monkeys

John Hunter — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:44:28 -0000

One plugin that I like is DoFollow by Kimmo Suominen. It allows you to nofollow individual posts. So you can just nofollow some comments while following most. It is as simple as just clicking a link (so easier than some of the other plugins methods of doing this).

It doesn't really do the things you were hoping for though. Maybe they would add the features you like?

Re: How to Kill Sales During the Top Week of the Season

John Hunter — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 16:14:08 -0000

Good example. I am also reluctant to pick on small sites. However when a huge company does similarly lame stuff I am not hesitant. This is two years old but still - Gap closed their entire site for days.

Re: Is Dofollow a Spam Magnet?

John Hunter — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:31:06 -0000

I think they definitely are magnets but I don't think it is too hard to cope with. Akismet is great at weeding out most spam and the few individual human spam comments that get through are not tough to deal with. I also probably have fewer than most since the topic of my science and engineering blog often probably makes many go away. I would bet blogging related, SEO, entertainment, humor... blogs would attract far more.

Re: Blog Commenters: White, Black, and Gray

John Hunter — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 22:34:51 -0000

Good post. I agree with everything you said and I understand the "drive by" perception of many dofollow bloggers - because it is often true. But there is also the fact that in all forms of collective communication like blogs at the very beginning, before comment spam was common, or say email lists in days of old, it is very common to have a few prolific commenters and many that never comment (and then type out a comment and then continuing to read for months or longer before ever commenting again).

For that reason, I just worry the spammers may make dofollowers not take commenters seriously without multiple comments. I don't have a solution, because the drive by comments are much more frequent (in my experience) but I just want to pass that idea on so people understand it is not really an odd behavior to have very limited comments from many people. It is not a prima facia case that someone is a drive by commenter if they only post once and you don't see another comment - I guess that is all I really want to say.

I think the tactic I will use to be more likely to delete the url if I have a question and have the comment posted. Occasionally, I am sure someone will think it is "unfair" that I removed the link to whatever but it is my blog so...

Re: Cost-Cutting Consumers Trade Down from Steak to Chicken

John Hunter — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 17:30:13 -0000

No changes. Unless your personal situation changes you shouldn't need to change. If you do, almost all the time you should have changed when the economy was good.

Do people have too much personal debt? Yes. Does a bad economy call for action on this where a good economy did not? No. Do people save too little for retirement? Yes. Does a bad economy call for action on this where a good economy did not? No.

I was doing what I thought was right 10 years ago, last year and this year. I have never seen any reason to change my personal financial decisions based upon the economy.

Re: Quote of the Day

John Hunter — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:37:17 -0000

Great quotes. The blog is a great way to capture these memories. I was visiting home and found some old Christmas cards I made for my parents that both of us had complete forgotten. It was great to find that lost memory. But we didn't have a blog to catch all the wonderful exchanges like that you quoted.
.-= Lindsay @ Addiction Rehab Blog´s last blog ..Smokey Robinson Helping Fight Against Drug Addiction =-.

Re: Group Discussion: Annoying Toys

John Hunter — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:21:07 -0000

My solution for annoying toys is to give them to the kids of my brother: to pay him back for annoying me as a kid. Just kidding :-)

Re: Technorati Favorites – Interesting New Message

John Hunter — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:40:37 -0000

Technorati has great features. However, too often, those features fail to perform as well as they should. I still find them the best blog search for many searches (sometime Google is ok). I hope Technorati is able to improve the performance so that features can work more effectively than have been.

Re: Technorati Favorites – Interesting New Message

John Hunter — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:40:37 -0000

Re: Iphone – Lost $200? Learn from Steve Jobs and Mike Filsaime

John Hunter — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:00:15 -0000

I must say I don't get the explosion of complaints. Everyone knows prices for IT stuff decline over time (and pretty fast too). Granted this was a bit quick even for IT stuff but otherwise just the normal process. But Apple was smart to react to the complaints. We will see if people are happy with the $100 gift certificates.

Re: Iphone – Lost $200? Learn from Steve Jobs and Mike Filsaime

John Hunter — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:00:15 -0000

Re: Bidvertiser Feed Advertising For Wordpress & Blogger

John Hunter — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 14:42:29 -0000

The results of a few quick searches seemed less than glowing. What are the most popular and best solutions that allow ads in regular Wordpress feeds (that is not using Feedburner)?

Re: Bidvertiser Feed Advertising For Wordpress & Blogger

John Hunter — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 14:42:29 -0000

The results of a few quick searches seemed less than glowing. What are the most popular and best solutions that allow ads in regular Wordpress feeds (that is not using Feedburner)?

Re: A Quagmire Of Ineptitude? – Yahoo | Microsoft | Google | AOL

John Hunter — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:36:08 -0000

I think Google would welcome a AOL-Yahoo merger. The thing that worries Google about Yahoo-Microsoft (I believe) is the huge cash position Microsoft has and the huge web traffic Yahoo has. That in combination with really smart people (both companies have that) and some serious long term thinking could be risky to Google. But really I think Google's main risk is nothing from outside but rather bad decisions and/or execution by Google. Huge amounts of money (like Microsoft has) however, make it possible for you to invest in 10 huge hopes to win against Google and even if they all fail you still have money to try number 11. Few others can afford that.

Re: A Quagmire Of Ineptitude? – Yahoo | Microsoft | Google | AOL

John Hunter — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:36:08 -0000

Re: A Quagmire Of Ineptitude? – Yahoo | Microsoft | Google | AOL

John Hunter — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:38:09 -0000

I think Google is being smart in playing this game (trying to make intelligent arguments that support their interests) for what they can. I don't really buy the risk though. I wish Yahoo (and AOL for that matter) had done a better job so there were more strong very large internet players. As it is I figure Microsoft is making a very wise move. And while people like to criticism Microsoft (including me) they do pretty well. They couldn't make several billion dollars a quarter if no-one found any value in what they do. And they should be worried. I use Ubuntu, Open Office and MySQL (which are free excellent alternatives to Microsoft's biggest money makers). And I think many more will follow to those or similar products in the future.

Re: A Quagmire Of Ineptitude? – Yahoo | Microsoft | Google | AOL

John Hunter — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:38:09 -0000

Re: Blog Search Revisited – Google vs Technorati vs Techmeme

John Hunter — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:33:45 -0000

I use both Google blogsearch and technorati (and technorati more frequently) but the last month or so I have been using icerocket the most. Icerocket has room to improve but with technorati being so slow so often I actually prefer Icerocket to both Google blogsearch and technorati now). But all could be much better.

Re: Blog Search Revisited – Google vs Technorati vs Techmeme

John Hunter — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:33:45 -0000

Re: Top 5 things I hate seeing in a new blog

John Hunter — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:02:27 -0000

The about page showing some default text is a killer for me. I can't believe how many blogs even months old still don't have it updated. Also I agree that cluttering the sidebars with long lists of ads (especially animated stuff) is annoying. Especially at the start you need to focus on bringing new readers to your blog.

In my opinion, taking time to add more categories is fine.

Re: Scoble was erased? Ha!

John Hunter — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 10:49:13 -0000

Well I guess my distrust pays off in this case. I don't trust others to own my significant data. Fine you can do what you want with this comment. But I can live with this comment being deleted. I would be very reluctant to trust significant content to another site. That doesn't mean I don't participate at all but that I keep the majority of my content under my control.

Re: I Still Don’t “Get” Facebook, Do You?

John Hunter — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 19:32:12 -0000

I don't think you are missing anything. It is a way for you to keep up with networks of people about all sorts of details you couldn't care enough about for an email, phone call or IM message. Potentially it can expose you to friends of friends, others interested in the same things you are... but I think that is rare rather than common. The biggest thing to learn from facebook is a huge number of people (a really huge number) want that kind of service. I find that amazing but there you go. I still have to guess use will degrade but since I never would predict use would reach anything like these levels what my prediction is worth is questionable.

Re: Google Is Going To Take Over The World

John Hunter — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 17:06:20 -0000

Very cool idea - Google continues to do the right things.

Re: Go Ahead, Try & Contact Us?

John Hunter — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 18:22:21 -0000

Great post. It is amazing how poor some sites are. Another amazingly bad practice: I find some sites where you are a customer and logged in and they ask for information (phone, email... they already have on file). You really understand they don't have a clue about even the most basic concepts of interacting in the internet age.

Re: Blog Search Sucks - Can Anyone Save Us?

John Hunter — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:37:25 -0000

I agree, I can't believe how bad blog search is. I find it amazing how bad Google's is. And then how bad it stays. And how Ask, Yahoo, MSN don't take advantage of this. Technorati for all there problems is still the best in my opinion. And as bad as Google's is I think they are next best. I wish somebody would do it well. I am perfectly happy if that would be Icerocket but they have not impressed me so far. I did look at it again just now and it seems better but still not great - still I will try it more...

Re: Does Your Product Or Service “Just Work”?

John Hunter — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 13:18:33 -0000

There is truth to that statement. I think largely do to how bad so many products are - that they don't actually work. The Kano model of customer satisfaction is an excellent way to view customer expectations.

The Kano model states that you have expected quality = it just works. Then more is better type - give me more at the same price and I am happier. But where you really want to get as a company is products and services that delight customers.

When you are delighted you are not easy prey to other companies. When you are satisfied you are ready for offers that say we will give it to you a bit cheaper or give you a bit more. But if you are delighted you don't want to leave and instead are telling everyone you know how great this product or service is.

I think it might be that in many cases now people are delighted if things just work - since it is such a huge bother to deal with junk that doesn't work and the thought of dealing with the lousy service on such failures is enough to drive them to tears.

Re: Never Price Yourself Too Low

John Hunter — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:59:26 -0000

The recent study of wines and prices show that people do indeed judge things to be superior just because they think it cost more.

A wine's high price adds to its pleasure, study finds
John Hunter's last blog post..Real Free Credit Report

Re: Fun, Do You Have It At Work & In Life?

John Hunter — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 08:19:31 -0000

Great post. To many people suffer with joyless jobs for too long. Here is a great cartoon on the topic: http://www.jsayers.com/thingpart/thingpart5.html

John Hunter's last blog post..Teaching Children About Money Matters

Re: “Lost” Revised Season 4 Plan

John Hunter — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:37:14 -0000

Thanks for the update. Just over an our to episode number 3 of this season!

John Hunter's last blog post..Don?t Use Performance Appraisals

Re: Friends and celebrity bloggers

John Hunter — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:22:00 -0000

Scott Adams.

Re: Secrets of innovative lean six-sigma

John Hunter — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 15:10:58 -0000

You are right they work fine, in fact complement each other when done right. A huge reason for the apparent conflict is so many six sigma efforts are focused not on what they should be but simply on cutting costs. My post today on process improvement and innovation

Re: Six sigma terms & definitions

John Hunter — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:50:13 -0000

My Curious Cat Management Improvement Dictionary might also be of interest.

Re: Can You Build a Startup Ecosystem Outside the Valley?

John Hunter — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:06:57 -0000

Great post, I believe it can be done but it is not easy. Boston is making some progress in that direction. There are many important factors including capital but a huge factor is one or more world class science and engineering universities because that can help with so many factors. I discussed these ideas in the Future is Engineering including links to posts by Paul Graham and Guy Kawasaki on the topic.

Re: The End of Free Content on the Internet

John Hunter — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:01:40 -0000

I haven't read the report but from your post I think you are right. The most common way to make real money is to market other services. And a big way people might not even think of is to market yourself and get a job.

They might not be paying you for your blog but they might have decided to offer you a job based on 1) what the blog says aobut your abilities and 2) your reputation...

Re: Paying Lip Service to Failure Is Not Enough

John Hunter — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:09:52 -0000

Great post on this interesting topic. Some people think ignoring failure is the right approach. And then you have a group that acts like failure is a great learning opportunity. I think you get it right. Failure stinks. Taking real risks mean risking failure. Taking risks can also result in great success. So we are best off overall if we allow risk takers to take risks and accept that there will be failures.

But also that this reasoning should be understood. Failure under the right circumstances should be avoided but may be a reasonable result. Risky moves and failure in other circumstances should be seen as much worse. All failure is not the same.

Re: Performance Management or Madness?

John Hunter — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 17:16:31 -0000

I will give a recommendation to include Dr. Deming's thoughts on Performance Appraisal rather than a title suggestion.

My blog post today, Illusions - Optical and Other, is related to this topic, though in a way that may not obvious to some. Performance management suffers greatly from people beliefs that are not supported by evidence (ascribing causation where it does not exist...). Peter Scholtes: Leader's Handbook provides an excellent guide to how managers can manage performance and as the 9th chapter of his book indicates (Performance without Appraisal) performance appraisal schemes are not the answer.

Re: Your (Internet) Reputation Precedes You

John Hunter — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 09:55:40 -0000

It is true there are obviously errors to avoid, however, there is also opportunity to improve your career prospects by creating a positive online presence.

Re: Can I Give You Some Feedback?

John Hunter — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 10:04:41 -0000

Hi Mom :-)

Re: Five Bloggers Who Actually Help You Make Money Online: Introduction

John Hunter — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:40:27 -0000

Good post. There certainly is lots of useless "advice." Finding useful blogs is a great step toward making your blogs successful. One reason I think the good stuff is passed by, by many people, is that the useless stuff sounds easier. Those that real offer value don't promise just do these 2 things for 3 weeks and you will be rich.

Addiction Rehab Centers Blog's last blog post..Robert Downey Jr. Rehab Success

Re: High PR Link Directory List

John Hunter — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 08:31:02 -0000

I would suggest a separate page for the directory links. Some of the directories page ranks seem lower than currently listed on the sidebar. Thanks for the links.

Lindsay @ Addiction Rehab Centers Blog's last blog post..National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month

Re: How to Succeed at Article Marketing

John Hunter — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 08:39:55 -0000

Excellent post. There are tons of posts talking about similar topics but this gives simple realistic advice. It shouldn't be a secret but that you need to provide something of value to readers seems to be lost on many. And the idea that creating such articles is a way to long term results is a key, I think. Too many focus on extremely short term results and get frustrated when they don't immediately see huge benefits.

Lindsay @ Addiction Rehab Centers Blog's last blog post..National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month

Re: Spam Free Outlook

John Hunter — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:04:33 -0000

Gmail is spam free. I find it by far the best spam filter I have ever used.

Lindsay @ Addiction Rehab Centers Blog's last blog post..National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month

Re: Out of Office Posts

John Hunter — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:11:01 -0000

I think that the best option is to schedule posts for the absence. I must say I don't care for posts saying someone will be away. If the options is just a gap of 4 weeks or a post saying the person will be gone for 4 weeks, the gap is fine with me. Some people might feel differently but that is my opinion.

Re: New DoFollow Rules - Thanks to Andy Beard, Spam Catcher.

John Hunter — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 19:57:11 -0000

Nice post. I like the spam catching reward for humans. Sorry for the praise :-) I totally agree that name should be a person's name (if they want to leave some worthwhile comment without a real name - then don't include a website either.

Re: Red-Light Cameras Increase Accidents: 5 Studies That Prove It

John Hunter — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:51:00 -0000

Ok, so lets say that the studies are conclusive. What actions do you suggest? If safety is important i would guess reducing accidents is important. Does that mean actions you suggest such actions as removing red light cameras and spending money to re-engineer dangerous intersections? If so what money should be used to re-engineer dangerous intersections? Gas tax funding? Or is just eliminating red light cameras what you suggest? Any suggestions on reducing the more than 40,000 people killed every year in the USA in traffic accidents? I would guess (without any evidence) red light cameras cannot account for a significant number of those deaths.

Re: The lazy blogger - Bull3t's Blog

John Hunter — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:44:18 -0000

:) That site is awesome. The results are great. But really it is too much work - they need a really lazy option where you just select like 3 or 4 things and it generates it for you (with random choices by theme or something).

Re: Is it possible to thrive without exploiting fear?

John Hunter — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:02:34 -0000

The focus on fear is disheartening. I especially find the "6 common household items that may kill your child - News at 11" announcement annoying. To me those practicing such methods have lost credibility. They have cried wolf too often.

Re: Making Your Blog Popular

John Hunter — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:07:44 -0000

Great post and accurate. I don't really like the drug dealer analogy but it seems to be working for you. The most common advice bloggers need to follow is to create great content: I think too few bloggers focus on creating great content. Once you have a stable of great content then focus on expanding your reach.

Interacting with other bloggers can be key over the long term.

Re: Blogging is Dead, According to Wired.com

John Hunter — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:58:38 -0000

Yeah that is crazy. There is plenty of over-hype by bloggers about how you can get rich easily. But the idea that they are dead is not accurate at all. Now if you want to say 95% of them are dead yeah that is true. Just look how many blogs don't have a post in the last 6 months. But blogging is alive and well for those that are willing to commit to it. And yes, as you mention, you can reach a point where other methods of communication might be better suited for much of what you want to communicate. That doesn't mean blogs are dead.

Re: Are you blogging for money or for fun?

John Hunter — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:08:43 -0000

I agree doing both is great. I started out blogging for fun and to try and provide useful information to help others. Now I am trying to make some money to allow me to cut back and maybe eventually just work for myself.

<abbr></abbr><abbr>Lindsay @ Drug Rehab Blogs last blog post..The Discovering Alcoholic</abbr>

Re: Wordpress Tips

John Hunter — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:55:28 -0000

These focus popular links sites can be great. The key is getting a community that is active and sensible. The hardest part for very focused topics is building a large enough community that voting provides a valuable input (if only a handful of people vote it doesn't do much good).

<abbr></abbr><abbr>Lindsays last blog post..Alcohol is a Major Cause of Drug Rehab Admissions</abbr>

Re: Corporate hypocrisy by HP

John Hunter — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 20:16:19 -0000

The best most of us can do is expose such bad behavior. It is up to those who control the votes of shareholders to act (which includes those representing most posting her probably - as anyone with an index mutual fund or large cap... probably owns some HP stock). If there are board members that were not in on it, they can either try and oust those that knew, or resign, or face the consequences.

Most likely the consequences won't be much, but if the behavior is not accepted and publicity continues eventually action will be taken. As soon as most significant thought leaders turn away though the effort will likely stop. Keep up the good work publicizing such bad behavior.

One potential area for pressure against those who take such action is through other boards they sit on. And through places they might want to speak. If a business school brings her in to speak what does that say about their commitment to ethical behavior. I'm sure the school has classes on ethics but what do their actions say?

From HP's web site: "She also serves on the advisory board of the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, as well as the conference board's Center for Corporate Governance, and serves as the director and a member of the executive committee of Larkin Street Youth Services in San Francisco." You might ask the conference board's Center on Corporate Governance how to oust a board chair that has broken the law and violated the policies of the company and see what they suggest. I can't imagine they would respond to me. But they might get enough pressure if you ask them (and others take on your cause) to be compelled to respond. I think that question is exactly the type of thing they are in business to address.

Re: HP has major ethical problem, day 4

John Hunter — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 14:51:55 -0000

H-P board to discuss Chairman Dunn's fate:
"The board of Hewlett-Packard Co. will hold a phone conference on Sunday to decide the fate of Chairwoman Patricia Dunn" http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.asp...

Re: Has your Facebook account been “erased” by Facebook?

John Hunter — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 15:23:25 -0000

Just don't join networks where the primary value is locked up inside. If you don't control most of your content don't join (and if the value is locked up inside their system don't bother).

For social networks I can see they might add value by providing useful tools to improve connections (but if they can't figure out a way to be open and interact easily with mainly internet based content don't waste your time with their old proprietary thinking model). I just don't see much need to participate in an enterprise where I would have to invest my time and energy and content and hope that the company decides not to be evil for the rest of the time I want to deal with them.

Keep most of your content under your control. For example even if your content is in Blogger, the ability to backup (and move) your blogger blog essentially leaves the content in your control. Then if Google decides to be evil you just take you backup and post it elsewhere.

Re: Google Merges Blog Search with General Search Results

John Hunter — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 16:18:34 -0000

What they really should do is give us a one click way to view blog results for the search we just did (like you can for news...). Plus they need to improve blogsearch itself. But even as it is I find it useful at times.

Re: Google Checkout Promotions Cost Google $58 Million in 2006

John Hunter — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 07:45:42 -0000

I agree, this is a very good strategy by Google. Google certainly could use some (or at least a) revenue streams that are not ad based. And it seems like a market in which Google could very well succeed. Google can afford to invest some money today for a long term payoff. What could Google buy outright for $68 million - not much probably? Investing in this strategy to gain a significant share of a profitable market seems very wise to me.

Re: Google Getting Personal on Video

John Hunter — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 16:50:27 -0000

Interesting. It seems to me Google could be looking at videos those similar to your profile have been interested in. Also I could see throwing in somewhat random videos to get stats (somewhat like a "control" in scientific experiments). Or perhaps a combination of those two options...

Re: Deming had it right 60 years ago

John Hunter — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 16:49:13 -0000

Great post. I am a strong believer in Deming's ideas and also that most of what is needed is not new ideas but better execution of ideas that have been around for a long time.

Re: Experience vs ability

John Hunter — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:37:50 -0000

Exactly right. I find the attempt to quantify the unquantifiable annoying. Yes I can understand you might want an expert for a position. Number of years can sometimes be helpful (but I would say under 1% of the time that it is used in hiring). The same for college degree. all things being equal I can see using measures like college degree and number of years, but almost never are all things equal.

Admit that you have to use judgment in hiring and then do so. Try to do sensible things to make your selection more effective over time but I doubt you will find any evidence that screening on years of experience helps.

For more see: http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2006/10/07...

Re: Is Customer Service Dead?

John Hunter — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 19:53:31 -0000

I find it very frustrating customer service is so bad - and getting worse in my experience. I do not agree that service is closely correlated with price - yes some thing that cost a lot provide good service but tons of things that cost a lot provide bad service and cheap stuff comes with great service. Bad service is much more correlated with bad management than the price that the customer pays. Customer "service" examples: Customer Hostility from Discover Card - Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog customer service posts.

Re: Is Customer Service Dead?

John Hunter — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 10:52:28 -0000

Cheap good service: Amazon.com - much better service than most online applications. Good service is about the entire customer experience - not about having poorly designed systems that require the customer to be held by the hand to get decent service. Amazon does a great job of changing the rules of the game to provide excellent service without requiring an employee personally deliver that service - most of it is automated.

Many small restaurants (often family owned...) with cheap prices provide great service. Google - great search, great email, free. Cruchfield (the product service is incredible) and Cannon (call up and get help on your Cannon product) are completely different than any other organizations I have called to get support - they are actually helpful, just like if you called up your best friend who is an expert on the topic you need help with. Most farmer's markets. Southwest and JetBlue (compared to the other airlines). Trader Joe's. Good Expensive customer service: Ritz Carleton.

Re: What is a Good Bounce Rate For a Blog?

John Hunter — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:11:32 -0000

I really question whether one figure can really tell you too much. You could get a very low bounce rate by being practically impossible for anyone but your friends to find. They read it and continue to and you have a low bounce rate.

I would like to get exposure to many more people. But the more non-targeted traffic you get the higher the bounce rate is likely to be. It is true that great content will lower the bounce rate. But it is likely easier to decrease bounce rate in other ways that don't help you - very enticing links that get clicked but don't really give the reader anything of value. So you keep them for more than one page but not for the long term.

It is interesting to track bounce rate. However as my bounce rate bounces around I really believe that variation is more due to the variation in the traffic finding my blog than the "worth" of the blog. Granted taking measures to lower the bounce rate are good but I would rather get lots of new readers even if many bounce away than get far fewer new readers and a slightly lower bounce rate.

Re: Phoenix Real Estate Has a 64% Chance of Dropping in Value, Some Say…

John Hunter — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:49:35 -0000

Seems to me the odds are higher (in my fairly uneducated opinion) but, as you say a decline is not that meaningful a measure. A decline of over 10% might be something significant to consider. A decline of 3% versus a gain of 1% is pretty meaningless.

Re: Mortgage Rate Freeze

John Hunter — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:43:12 -0000

I have to look into more what it actually is, but if I understand it the government is paying nothing, giving no other incentives (like reducing taxes owed). With that being the case I can't see why some people think it is bad. Now as to whether it is close to a fix for the whole problem that seems to be a pretty obvious: No. But if all the government is doing is using some moral suasion I don't have a problem with it. It is an interesting case where no single mortgage holder owes enough to harm the lenders but together the class does hold enough to harm them.

"If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." J. Paul Getty

Individual mortgage holders are in the first situation, together they are in the second. It seems to me if there really is some significant amount of freezing of loan rates thaa will have a significant impact on how much harm the foreclosures do to real estate prices and the economy.

Re: Do It Yourself Short Sale

John Hunter — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 12:43:55 -0000

Ignoring the merit of doing a short sale on your own or not, of course the seller has to pay the realtor if they use one.

> Reducing (or eliminating) the commission on a short sale only puts
> that money in the lender’s pocket, not yours.

If, for example, someone sells the house and the total proceeds after everything has been taken out for fees, paying of the mortgage etc. is -$8,000 then they owe that. If it is -$12,000 they owe that. Granted there might be cases where other deals are struck with the bank to avoid foreclosure but in the case where the owner is just selling it themselves then any costs they chose to take on they pay. The difference is not in whether they pay but the form of paying - in one case any costs reduce the check they receive. In the other the costs increase the check they have to write.

Re: In Search of Customer Service Excellence

John Hunter — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:22:23 -0000

Home Depot (long ago had such customer service) but there management made decisions to spend money enriching themselves instead of providing good customer service. The result is tons of dissatisfied Home Depot customers.

Re: Phoenix Under $200K Market. And, A “Generation Y’er” Speaks

John Hunter — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 18:44:49 -0000

Good news and what is to be expected at some point. My guess is this a too soon for a real significant improvement in the market. Even for lower priced stuff. But one of the things that will likely happen as the market starts to turn around is people that just want a place to live start buying. And then the numbers of those people start to put a large dent in inventory.

Re: My Favorite Thing About Opening My Own Brokerage

John Hunter — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:03:41 -0000

Good luck. Being your own boss is a great reason. Of course that has its own huge host of challenges but at least you get to decided how to tackle them.

Re: Phoenix Real Estate Guy Sells Out? Advertising on Blogs

John Hunter — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:58:12 -0000

The concept of ads don't bother me. Only bad ads (mainly flashy animated ones - or ones that make noise) really bother me and will lead me to try and avoid the site. I may be a bit biased since I have my own web sites with ads but I understand that those that are working to create content I like may want to be paid. Some ads can even be useful.

Re: My Friend at the Olympics! Photographer Extraordinaire

John Hunter — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:07:11 -0000

Thanks, great photos. One thing I like about blogs is the personal connections that are shown (like this post).

Re: DateDesigner.com - Cool Site of the Week

John Hunter — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:24:01 -0000

Good post, thanks for the link to that useful site.

Re: Why Paid Blog Comments are a Waste of Your Money (and my time)

John Hunter — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:59:23 -0000

I agree. Here is the preceeding post on my RSS feed: One Wrong Way to Get Links. There appears to be an epidemic of those who want to spam, emailing the blogs they want to spam by mistake. I guess the caliber of people that you can hire to spam comment for you might not be that high.

<abbr></abbr><abbr>Lindsay´s last blog post..Brett Favre Overcomes Painkiller Addiction</abbr>

Re: If You Make Only One Change This Year…RELAX!!!!!!

John Hunter — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:04:06 -0000

A big way to reduce stress is to exercise. When I don't get enough exercise I can feel myself get more and more tense and stressed about stuff that really isn't that big a deal.