I just got this in – I don’t mean to review RSSMagician, but to simply pass along a coupon to anyone who’s interested in buying RSSMagician.

Use this when you purchase and you’ll save 20% on RSSMagician.

LUCKYYOU124112

It also works on their other products such as BlogSolution.

Here’s their site: http://www.rssmagician.com/

http://www.zealot.com/blogs/voice-message.wav

We’re on the Federal ‘Do Not Call’ list. These calls are obviously a blatant attempt to skirt around that.

If you’re getting calls from these people as well, please leave a comment. If enough of us come together, perhaps we can get the attention of an Attorney General somewhere.

So, being the nice guy that I am, I jotted off a quick email to him about it.  Naturally, used the email that had sent the newsletter from.  Of course a smart marketer would want to receive emails from his customers, right?

Nope.

Here’s what I got moments later.

 Thank you for your email.

I’m sorry, but email sent to this address is not read by a human.  In order to contact us with support issues, please visit our help desk at:

http://www.thehelpdesk.us

Anything that requires a reply should be submitted at the help desk.

However, If you have non-urgent questions or joint venture requests specifically for Joel, you may submit them at:

http://www.askjoelcomm.com

Due to the number of inquiries, it is physically impossible for Joel to reply to all of them, but they do get read on a weekly basis.

To your success!

The InfoMedia, Inc. Staff

Seriously, you can’t make up stuff like that.

I’ve also been cognisant of whether others do some investagating of me.  Sometimes I’ll hear subtile clues, for example if I mention something I’ve written recently some people will tell me that they did read it.  I’ve found it more striking, though, when it becomes apparant that someone has not even done a simple Google search and I think they should have.

Why should someone try to find information on the web about another person?  Well!  A thousand and one reasons, of course.  It can help in social situations.  I’m learning how to golf, for example.  I’m pretty bad still, but enjoying and looking forward to the ground drying out so I can play some more this summer.  Someone I meet who’s read that could get a conversation going with me about golfing.

But, more important than easing over awkward social situations, you can find out things you need to know about people you’re about to do business with.  Hiring a new freelancer to do some coding for your website?  What does Google turn up about that person?  You’d be surprised.  I have avoided freelancers in the past as a result of information turned up on basic searches.  You should too.

Adam Darowski tells us that The Blog is the New Resume.   (hat tip to Bijan Sabet for pointing to that post)  I do get a bit surprised when someone asks to see my resume.  I think it’s so obsolete.  I don’t believe that it necessarily has to be a blog, but creating a web presence seems to me a more effective way of showing potential employers, business partners, or investors who you are and what you’ve done.

But, still, Google shows more.  Google even shows what you wrote on the Usenet back before the web became popular.  Some people make it easy for others to find them online.  Me, for example.  On most community and social networking sites I use the same account name, petertdavis.  So, google petertdavis and it shows up nearly 20,000 entries.  Follow those links and find tens of thousands of more things, articles I’ve written, items I’ve posted, images, designs, ideas, etc ad nauseam.

Google yourself today to see what image you’re projecting on the web.  I don’t know any industry where this isn’t important.  I hired a carpenter recently, and I googled him.  If you want to work with web savvy people, it’s even more important.

I’m also surprised when I meet someone, and there’s nothing to be found about that person.  I guess I’m so far into this now that living in obscurity seems alien.  Even if someone’s in a witness relocation program, the Feds would be smart enough to create some info available on the web for their new identities, wouldn’t they?  To make them seem real.  Google yourself.  Nothing there?  Why not?

The other challenge I share with people with common names like Peter Davis, is  how to make yourself stand out among the crowd.  I started blogging early enough that my blog tends to stay near the top of the results for my name.  I do better when my middle initial is used, Peter T Davis.  I started using my middle initial quite a few years ago, when I came to realize just how many of us Peter Davises were out there.  But there’s still plenty of stiff competition for Peter T Davis.

So, stop and think a moment, what your web presence says about you.  What do you want it to say about you?  If you’re not already, should you be using the web to gather information about people?  We should all put at least as much thought into it as we put into resumes.

John’s been doing some reading. Academic economics to be exact. The paper he cites theorizes that through pricing, the used car industry created a “Market for Lemons” by pricing low-quality autos where quality autos should be priced, and overpricing the real quality cars. John shows us how that applies to the search engine marketing industry.

I like this analogy. I’m not so sure we’re there yet, though. Crack a joke about a used car salesman, and everyone gets it. Crack a joke about a SEO, and unless you’re in an after hours Pubcon Vegas party, you get blank stares. It is an apocolyptic prophecy of the industry, but he could be right.

The reason I’m not convinced that SEOs will end up in the same jokes with used car salesmen and personal injury lawyers is that I’m not convinced that search engine marketing will remain a stand-alone industry. I don’t think it’s going away. Not at all. But, I think it’s going to be more and more integrated into the existing marketing industry. More companies will have an in-house SEO and less will outsource.

But then, even that may play more into John’s vision, as the smaller companies who can’t afford to have an in-house SEO will still outsource. And, the smaller the company, the more price-conscious they’ll be, and thus the more likely to hire the boileroom SEO service. caveat emptor

http://www.marketingprofs.com/5/destefano1.asp

here’s what I see:

Contrast that with what Google thinks you should see:

Naughty, naughty. Just something I found when searching Google.

Give it a read!

I’d love to have any feedback, either here or there in the comments.

And, what should I write about next!

I think that a lot of the people who are in the SEO industry, who are doing it solo, suffer from a similar affliction.  Heavy on the ideas, light on the implementation.  I know that applies to me.  I can come up with a dozen great ideas in a day.  A great idea for a company isn’t worth much.  To me at least.  The value lies in the implementation.

What good is an idea if you can’t get it off the ground?  I can’t count the number of great ideas that I’ve had over the years.  Sometimes I go as far as registering a domain for the idea.  I have a hundred domains that have a great idea behind it.  When exactly I think I’ll have time to build a hundred businesses, I don’t know.  No answer to that question.  It astonishes me when I meet people who do the same thing.

What’s the solution?  I think for me that there’s a ceiling that I’ve reached.  Working solo has been a lot of fun.  Too much fun. It offers a flexibility that cannot be rivaled.  To get to the next level, though, I think that I need to be part of a team.  I’m not sure what team.  Sometimes I think that it doesn’t even matter what the idea behind the business is, I could add value to anything.  It does though.  Matter, that is.  It has to be something I could be passionate about.

When I was a graduate student at the University of Maine, a favorite professor told me that it isn’t enough to have talent.  You need to have a passion for what you’re doing.  My passion didn’t lie in becoming an academic.  I had a passion for doing research.  I didn’t have a passion for teaching, or the politics in academia.

When I launched the Small Business Forum, I was passionate about it.  It disappoints me that the investor that I sold it to doesn’t have the same passion.  He hasn’t brought it to the next level.  But, I don’t believe I could have brought it to the next level by myself.  Wearing many hats is part of being an entrepeneur.  Wearing many hats stifles passion.

Adam McFarland has a passion for his venture, Sports Lizard.  He also started a venture with some friends, but I think that’s less of a passion, and more of a calculated venture aimed at making money.  Is a passion enough?

I don’t think passion is enough.  Maybe it was for the professor at UMaine.  He has a tenured position; he doesn’t need to worry about where next month’s mortgage is coming from.  Most of us entrepreneurs do worry.

Shared passion, a good idea, and implementation are what lead to entrepreneurial success.

I’m quick with the off-button on my speakers, but it did take me a couple of seconds to get it.  Too late, though, the damage was done.  She’s probably scarred for life, she’ll never use Onebox.   Of course I’m joking about that, but it is a horrible noise and voice and it did scare her and she did cry.

The point, though, is that web designers put so little thought into their sites.  Exactly what does Onebox think that their flash intro does to enhance their customer experience?  I’d really like to know that.  And, exactly who are these idiot designers that think that flash has to have stupid music, and why do they drill it down your throat instead of asking first?

So, if you’re developing a site now, forget the flash with the stupid sounds.  If you have a site that does this, remove the flash.  It really sucks.  You don’t need it.  It annoys people.  It makes babies cry.

Lidia Davis – born February 22, 2007