Now this is one heck of a nice find. Get some ideas, then go do something interesting.
You really have to wonder how a resignation letter like this winds up on the internet. But, it is great material for the folks over at Valleywag isn’t it! For a brief time I worked with Stewart as we tried to sort out the flickr/imagekind partnership. I found him to be an interesting, slightly eccentric character who has a real passion for doing things the right way. This letter makes the guy sound borderline crazy but I rather prefer to think he’s just an artsy guy living in the much-too-pragmatic world of the Silicon Valley. Had he been a follower of standard convention, we might never have gotten our flickr at all.
You just have to love www.asmallworld.net
This is certainly the social network of the over achievers. I was going through their auto classifieds today because sometimes there are some interesting cars. But, I just couldn’t help but smile as I was noticing the listings today.
Let’s see. Just on this one page we’ve got a Lamborghini Reventon for 2 100 000 USD, an SLR Roadster for 430,000 euros, a McLaren F1 LM engine, and a Bugatti Veyron. You won’t see that kind of activity on Facebook my friends.
I hate the type engine in Photoshop. The font sizes in your mock-ups do not reflect the font sizes you’ll actually use when trying to replicate your design. What’s a person to do? Well, in my case I keep Typetester nearby and I’ll occasionally remind myself of a few typography tips just to insure I stay creative along the way. As I get close to a “final”, I’ll compare various type styles on typetester, then grab my final chosen CSS selectors and create a new HTML document using those type selectors. I’ll then enter my placeholder text in my little the html page snippet and finally cut/paste that content directly into Photoshop. Doing this in your final step insures your chosen type in your designs mirror the CSS code EXACTLY. I’ll always go one final step further to get it exactly right. I’ll actually type the CSS into the final comp to really hammer the point home. It usually looks something like this:
My good friend Steve Lacey has settled in to the bliss that is being part of the Google development organization but he kindly sent me a link to some fantastic user interface design widgets that he knew I’d love. He was right.
Whenever I see a good discussion on SEO I tend to think its a good idea to share. In this case, we saw a very good dialog about SEO resources links on the “SeattleTech” email list which was initially kicked off by a post by Bill Bryant titled The End of SEO.
Tony Wright, developer of the web-based time management software called RescueTime responded with a great list of SEO resources from his personal SEO bookmark list:
Resources for SEO, Social Media Marketing, & Viral Marketing
If you want the PowerPoint deck, here it is. Please note: I wasn’t getting paid for this speaking engagement, so I didn’t go to great lengths to make a snazzy PowerPoint presentation.
Keyword Research Resources:
SEO Research Labs: (forgive the cheesy design) $99 and most of your work is done for you– a great option if SEO is not core to what you’re doing. You provide a description to what kind of site you have and a few core keywords. They provide a 6-sheet spreadsheet with information about up to 500 keywords, including estimated search volume, competitiveness of the keyword space, and more. Note that their data source is DogPile and MetaCrawler, which means that (depending on your market) the data might not be representative.Google Adwords (Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator Tool): Google Adwords provides some excellent tools to for adwords that also happen to be great (but not perfect) for SEO. The obvious benefit is that the data source is Google. The drawback is that the data is less-than-perfect for niche keywords. The keyword tool will give you a list of suggested/related keywords. Microsoft and Yahoo both have similar tools for their search ad offerings.
WordTracker: WordTracker is a suite of keyword research tools which also uses DogPile and MetaCrawler data. You can get an account for $8/day or opt for monthly/annual plans that are a little more cost-effective. Either way, it’s a good deal.
Google Trends: Google Trends (a labs/beta product) is a nice quick and dirty way to compare up to 5 keywords (here’s a comparison of shoes, footwear, and sneakers). Not ideal for heavy lifting, but it’s kind of fun and braindead easy. It also provides a stack ranked list of top regions/cities, which is interesting data for targeting purposes.
SEO Resources:
SEO Ranking Factors (SEOMoz) - This is the mac daddy of SEO resources. Rand & crew (fellow Seattleites!) have turned the SEO world on it’s ear by giving away reams of information about SEO that a few years back everyone was trying to sell via some cheezy ebook. Their ranking factors page is a list of categorized factors that matter in SEO. They asked a pile of SEO experts to rate these factors on importance and then present them to you stack-ranked in their category. If you read one page in this list, this should be it.WebmasterWorld - WebmasterWorld is a HUGE forum. The discussions around SEO are often useful, but the signal-to-noise ratio isn’t ideal and there is plenty of misinformation to be had here, so take it with a grain of salt. It’s a fabulous place to ask questions if you can’t otherwise find an answer.
Matt Cutts - Matt is the voice of SEO from Google. His blog is a wealth of information about SEO, but you should recognize that Google has an agenda (a relatively level SEO playing field), so he’ll be less forthcoming about tricks that might give you a competitive advantage.
SearchEngineWatch - A great resource. There is plenty of content that you have to pay for, but there’s lots of free content too. Be careful when searching for content here– this resource is old. SEO advice from 2002 is probably not as authoritative as a more current article.
Search Engine Spider Simulator - JavaScript/AJAX are lovely and all, but they can destroy your SEO if you’re not careful. Google has been promising to have their spiders actually render JavaScript, but for the time being you should understand how your site (and the links on it) display and perform with JavaScript is turned off (!). Check it out on Lynx or run your pages through a spider simulator like this one.
SMM Resources
Guide to Linkbaiting - A slightly irreverent guide to the art of linkbaiting.30 Social Media Venues - A list and description for 30 of the top social media venues. Each one is unique!
SocialPoster - A bookmarklet that lets you easily cross-post your content.
NoFollow Attribute (wikipedia) - A description of the nofollow attribute ( an HTML attribute that essentially removes SEO juice from a link). Nofollow was a response to SEO spam (comment spam in blogs being the prime example). You definitely want to have an understanding of this before you seriously engage in a concerted linkbuiding campaign.
Viral Marketing Resources
Viral Marketing is not a Marketing Strategy - Great blog post summing up my thoughts on trying to be overtly viral with a non-viral product.What’s your Viral Loop - Great post on the “engine of adoption” concept by the same author as the above article (Andrew Chen).
Guarav Oberoi followed with a great SEO link of his own. His email:
I am an SEO newbie too and often find myself referring to a highly useful post on SEOMoz that summarizes various basic SEO techniques into a cheat sheet format:
The Web Developers SEO Cheat Sheet.Thanks to Vanessa Fox - a respected Seattle-based SEO expert for her subsequent follow up email:
For keyword research, you can also check out this article on search engine land:
http://searchengineland.com/070709-082957.phpI previously linked to the SEO checklists we have on Jane and Robot in another thread, but mixed in with all of that are some SEO tools we recommend, including keyword research tools and diagnostic tools:
http://janeandrobot.com/admin/Pages/seo-developer-tools.htmlAs for the death of SEO, I mostly try to stay out of that conversation (although I think it’s ultimately going to just become standard best practices in webdev, marketing, and usability, rather than a siloed activity), but I did give in and do a blog post a while back on the supposed evils of SEO:
http://www.vanessafoxnude.com/2008/03/03/seo-is-the-worst-thing-ever-invented/Also Rajat Garg from http://www.pilotoutlook.com had some great links:
Try out SEOpen, SEO Quake (Firefox plugins) and SEODigger for getting lot of useful information on competitors.
I found myself saying this today and I realized it is the shortest way to state the truth.
You must do twice as much.
Twice as good.
With half as much resources.
In half as much time.
No. I’m not kidding. This really does summarize my experience. You can go ahead and read between the lines to flesh out some of the less obvious things that make all of the above possible. For example, how can you do twice as much in half the time if you don’t have an unusual ability to be good at several different crafts that (would otherwise) require twice as many people in a “normal” organization? In a start-up, for example, there is no place for a CEO who is not at least exceptional at most marketing disciplines OR is exceptional at shipping high quality products that people like to use. Preferably, the CEO has an uncanny knack at both of those things. Similarly, there is no place in a start-up for a marketing exec who can’t actually execute on his or her own ideas. If you have to send all copy writing and creative out to a firm, how does that help the start-up do twice as much on half the budget? I’m not a big fan of start-up ceo’s and execs who are only capable of being strategists. Being good at strategy is a necessity. An assumption. Being able to do all the other tactical things well within the confines of massive constraint is basically the key. If you’re one of those few, you just might have a shot. Just remember that gravity will always conspire against you in the process. Gravity doesn’t want start-ups to succeed. That’s why most do not. And that’s the last thought I have on this start-up founder question. If you give up at the same point where “normal” people give up, you’ll wind up being another unhappy statistic.
Man this was a smart idea. When wireframing I tend to remake this stuff over and over. Just go download your scrollbars and mouse hover states from here. Pretty smart idea.
Curious Office participated in the seed funding for CoolSpotters and were are thrilled with their launch and fantastic press coverage. Good job everyone!
It’s been awhile since my last blog post and in fact this week I’m in Hawaii. But, I wanted to congratulate Max and Alexis over at Wishpot on the closing of their round. As a side note, I got a chance to meet with another firm involved in this project - H Farm in Italy. Very cool company, nice guys and beautiful work.
I’ve been in Palo Alto for the last few days meeting with a bunch of investors to help out Imagekind. One thing I noticed is that people saw me pull my Mac out onto the conference table and they all kept asking me if I needed an adaptor for use with the projector. I thought it was rather interesting that all these VC’s kept proactively asking this question as they knew that my DVI video output was not going to be immediately compatible with their VGA input for the projector. At the last meeting of the day, I asked one of the partners why all these VC’s kept offering an adaptor before I even had a chance to get settled. Were there really that many people pitching deals on Macs?
In their estimation, approximately 40-45% of all entrepreneurs pitching deals on Sand Hill Road do so on Macs. 40-45%! That seems pretty astounding huh?
Traveling down in the Valley today! Oh, you can feel the energy in the air…
Ok, I didn’t originate this list. I’m just sharing it. This list fell out of a great post by Rand Fishkin over at SEOmoz titled “I’m Getting Pretty Tired of Startup Advice that Doesn’t Include Any Mention of SEO“. I posted some comments as I thought the right conclusion is more about perspective around ALL the things that make a start-up work (and not just SEO). But the conversation got lively and Justin M. Laing of MerchantOS subsequently shared some of the SEO feeds he follows regularly. It’s a good list and I hope he doesn’t mind me posting the list here:
SEO Book.com - http://www.seobook.com/rss.xml
SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog http://feeds.feedburner.com/seomoz
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/feed/
–others–
Graywolf’s SEO Blog http://www.wolf-howl.com/feed/
:: Link Building Blog :: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LinkBuildingBlog
BlogStorm http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogstorm
Blue Hat SEO-Advanced SEO Tactics http://www.BlueHatSEO.com/feed/
Copyblogger http://www.copyblogger.com/feed/
Dave Naylor a UK SEO http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/feed/
EricWard.com - Content Publicity and Link Building Expert Commentary and Tips http://www.urlwire.com/articles/ericward.rss
Greg Boser - Search Marketing Consultant - aka WebGuerrilla http://www.webguerrilla.com/feed/
Jennifer Slegg - An SEM Consultant http://www.jenniferslegg.com/feed/
Jim Boykin’s Internet Marketing Blog http://www.jimboykin.com/feed/
LinkJuicy http://www.linkjuicy.com/feed/
Linklove http://www.vdgraaf.info/feed/
Scoreboard Media Group http://feeds.feedburner.com/scoreboard
Search Engine Journal http://www.searchenginejournal.com/feed/
SEM Seattle http://feeds.feedburner.com/semseattle
SEO Class http://seoclass.com/feed/
SEO Egghead by Jaimie Sirovich http://www.seoegghead.com/blog/feed/
Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills http://www.shoemoney.com/feed/
Stuntdubl Business Search Marketing Consulting http://www.stuntdubl.com/feed/
The Funnelholic http://funnelholic.com/feed/
Tropical SEO http://tropicalseo.com/feed/
Wiep.net - SEO & Link Building blog http://feeds.feedburner.com/Wiep
