DISQUS

I don't see the problem. If they are following you how does that create a problem? Just don't follow them back? It's the same if anyone follows you manually and you follow them, and they start spamming links, you're just going to unfollow them.

It's only a problem if you use a service to auto follow people who follow you. But then, that's the risk you take auto following people you don't know right? And that's a service too so is that bad?

While I agree the whole people spamming thing is annoying, I disagree that it'll take Twitter down "faster than you can say Oprah".

I think it's also an awareness to the fact that it's all about reputation now more than ever, so more of the budget is going into making sure that reputation is spot on. I know that's why I started using Return Path.

This is true. I've created such a brand that I'm seeing tremendous growth even during a recession. It seems weird with everyone talking about business going down, and seeing my own going up, but I have spent a lot of resources on building my brand so it makes sense.

Email.

I use Twitter on top of my normal means of communication. It's great for things that don't warrant sending out a mass mail but is good enough for people to know. If it's down, then I can wait until my next email to add a PS or what not.

Woah sweet plugin (commentluv) I don't pay attention to them much but that is neat!

Tim Linden's last blog post..BAL 3: Tracking with Analytics

The key with traffic exchanges is to understand it's advertising, so you need to make ads for it rather than sticking your whole site in. I stuck a feedburner email subscribe form on some pages, and made ads that mentioned the topics I blog about, and went from 100 to about 400 subscribers within a few months. It can be tedious, but if you play around with it, it can be quite rewarding =P

Tim Linden's last blog post..BAL 3: Tracking with Analytics

You must like the link building plan site.. You linked to it twice and skipped on the advanced link building thoughts =P

I think it's the 1:1 ratio that gets people thinking "No Way". But what they forget, is each widget displays 5 links. They are getting ONE of their links displayed each view. Not 5.

So that means there are 4 other links to play with, and that's where the referrals and future revenue comes into play.

Some interesting info in there. Ya think Google is going to release less BETA things after this? =P

I've used a service that spun articles before. They might be bigger than the site I used but they weren't the first. Well, unless they are saying they are the first to use the term "Article Leverage"

Good point mincus. And then the big G would have to come up with a new plan on ranking the web =P

I bought a Thinkpad, my brother-in-law bought one, my mother-in-law bought one, and my father-in-law is looking at a Mac. Maybe you meant to say 49-year old man? =P

I tried out Google Checkout and it's a bit tedious to use. I'm selling advertising, and it's to people who are members of my site. However I'm not allowed to put the code on a page that requires a login, so I don't know which user is buying the advertising package. Instead I get to email them and ask them. No thanks.

(And when I asked if I could pass a username, the support person basically said "Why in the world would you want to do that?")

Ah that would make sense. ;-)

It should go away until there is some kind of standard. It makes no sense that something created to prevent spam is now supposed to be used for paid links. So that makes the spam and paid links the same again, so spammers would be spamming to get the same benefit as the paid links. Which is basically a chance that someone will see it and click it.

It would be helpful if the links in your post opened in a new window. I've had the spam protection telling me 8+5!=12 and I think it's because I had to hit back after clicking a link ;-)

Now that I know that, I'll try checking again a few days later every time I try to register a domain that is taken by search domainers. It'll be interesting to see if any of them are tasted.

I wonder if adding -wikipedia.com to all our searches would affect it any? If the big G sees everyone is trying to search for information but NOT on wikipedia, I would think they would track that too and rank it less.

I agree about the requiring signup policy. I don't bother with blogs that require a signup or block comments altogether (unless its very important).

I agree about the requiring signup policy. I don't bother with blogs that require a signup or block comments altogether (unless its very important).

Mark - I have a similar problem. The login page on the front page isn't https, but the next page is. It throws my password plugin off.

Experience 1 - I was told by Godaddy I would lose all my domains if I didn't pay $200 because someone sent a spam email with my domain in it. Even though they don't host me. I told them that the thousands I've spent on domains is good enough and haven't heard since.

Experience 2 - I was called by Godaddy because a bunch of domains were about to expire, and they gave me a special price to renew as many domains as I wanted for as long as I wanted, even ones that weren't expiring for a few years.

So there is the good and the bad but overall I've had good experiences (except with the abuse department, which thinks they own the internet)

I've been noticing it getting slower every day. I wonder if it has to do with the number of feeds. I can barely get it to load the index page. (right now getting 502 errors)

Isn't ham red?

Just remember to open the links in a new window.. I almost lost your blog clicking on the windows server picture link. First time here so I wouldn't have found my way back.

That's definately true. I had to stop taking feature requests for a script I wrote because people were asking for features that would turn the script into an "it does everything" script.