esferic houses
It could be cool to be on a vacation period living there.
Mercy
's favorite posterous posts
Here's some stuff Mercy has liked. To find more cool stuff, check out Explore »
How to Reuse an Empty Altoids Tin... No limits to creativity...
* No limits to creativity...
How to Reuse an Empty Altoids Tin
Altoids candy comes in a variety of small, sturdy metal tins that
invite creative reuse. If you have one (or a giant stack) left over,
try one of these projects to put it to good use.
... http://www.wikihow.com/Reuse-an-Empty-Altoids-Tin
Posterous proves why Twitter works for Customer Service
This is a follow-up to my previous post on the use of Social Networking in Business. It's meant as a real-life example of Twitter being used for excellent customer service by the folks at Posterous.
It's also meant as a very serious suggestion to all tech companies- including non-tech companies who have tech-savvy customers.
Use Twitter!
Seriously, people. It works. Look, don't believe the posts about Comcast's success, or Dell's strategy to collect and rank customer issues (but you should at least read about them.)
Believe me. Here's an example:
Recently I've been playing with Posterous as a way to facilitate blogging. (To learn everything about the tool, visit the site). Basically it is billed as a way to fill the gap between Twitter (140 characters) and long blog posts that are often closer to essays. Since I tend to be a bit loquacious, I thought I'd try to use it.
So I go set up an account, set up email, and start emailing my thoughts to my Posterous page which will autopost to Positively Glorious!. Very quickly I start wondering if it is worth it. Cool idea- but is it a solution in search of a problem? Realistically, I can email directly to Positively Glorious! using a Wordpress Plugin, so why should I bother?
I start thinking about it, and Tags and Categories would allow me to separate my Posterous blog entries, maybe using a different position on my front page to show them. It would still overlap the communications channels, because I would have my Blog and a Posterous page, but it would at least be the start of something possibly useful- and hey, I'm a dedicated early adopter, so starts and possibilities are all I need.
So, I make a short comment on Twitter (actually- I used Identi.ca- which cross-posts to Twitter, but those are details):
"Posterous would be more useful to me if you could autotag and assign categories when you autopost to your blog using it."
Basically, I was just stating a mild frustration. However, that mild frustration was caught by a programmer at Posterous. The nice thing about Twitter is that I've never heard of this fellow, and he's never heard of me, yet mere minutes after I make a comment about Posterous to no-one in particular, I get a reply:
"@Mettadore funny you should mention tagging / categories. that's what i'm working on now. =)"
If you can't see the power of this- then I hope you are directly competing with me.
I send a comment out to no-one in particular, and immediately get a response back... from someone in particular. Not only that, but from someone who is already working on my problem! Suddenly, I start thinking that even if Posterous is not completely useful yet, I may just use it anyway. Why? Because there are probably people already working on whatever stupid little thing I may want. Now I know- or at least think I know- that very soon it's going to be something greater than I imagined.
Seriously people, this is an absolute no-brainer. And there's more. Because this morning I sent another comment to the Twitter-verse:
"Oops. Turns out that if you accidently try to blog to Posterous from the wrong email account- it'll automagically set up a new account. Bleh"
This time, I wasn't even complaining about Posterous! I was mainly saying that if you accidentally post from one of the accounts you don't have set up- then maybe you should pay more attention before posting. Posterous has a great system in that you don't need to set up an account before you post- but that means those of us with accounts need to be just a bit more... well, awake, before posting.
Anyway, the whys are not important. What's important is that minutes later yet another Posterous person responds to my note with:
"@Mettadore If you add your other email addresses to your posterous account, it will merge them all together."
See the pattern? Can I make it any clearer? I've already got email accounts set up and was really just complaining about my lack of coffee- but even then, there's still someone looking out for me.
And there's even more! (I sound like I'm going to say "if you call now-"). I responded to both of the people who responded to me. Thus, everyone following me- nearly 100 people with my relatively small Twitter following- will see my response to them. They can (and believe me, often do) look back at the person to see what I'm talking about.
Suddenly, you have the opportunity to have someone who's never heard of Posterous trying to find out more just because I was happy and wrote a note back. Again- that's not just a possibility. There are two of my friends who've asked me what Posterous is since this happened. They asked me specifically because of my Twitter posts.
I've still got issues with using Posterous. The main one being tagging and categories. Another being my frequent use of pull-quotes and such complex formatting. These are things that I'll have to iron out before using it religiously. Still, here's the meat: If my experience with Posterous were merely one of frustration and questioning- I might have given it up. However, my experience is one of possibilities and interaction. Thus, I'm posting this- a much longer post- using it. Something I never would have attempted before without pull-quotes (I may still add them manually to Positively Glorious!, since I'm a formatting junky).
Look everyone. You don't have to run out and set up a Twitter account and keyword RSS feeds for searches relating to your company immediately. Just at least promise me you'll think about it. Maybe as the nights get longer, you'll sit by the fireplace one evening with a glass of wine and actually give it some thought? Can you promise me that?
Me? Hell, it's fundamental to my business plan- even if the VCs never see it mentioned.
By the way, if you're directly competing with me, remember: Twitter is all hype- completely useless.
you are my sweetest d o w n f a l l .
I remember her singing this live for us NYU students. Amazing.
Regali ambigui
Umh... cioè dico ma che criterio avrò mai usato per scegliermi gli amici? Ma che sono regali da farsi questi? :)
Però... è efficace :P
Its all Greek to me
12 Greek Words You Should Know
Along
with Latin, Greek is probably the language that most influenced other
languages around the world. Many English words derive directly from
Greek ones, and knowing their origin and meaning is important.
Below you will find 12 Greek words that are commonly used in our society. The next time you hear someone saying "Kudos to you," you will know where it comes from.
1. Acme
The highest point of a structure. The peak or zenith of something. One could say that Rome reached the acme of its power on 117 AD, under the rule of Trajan.
The acme of modular, factory-built, passively safe reactor design, however, is found in South Africa. People there have been experimenting with so-called pebble-bed reactors for decades. (The Economist)
2. Acropolis
Acro means edge or extremity, while polis means city. Acropolis, therefore, refers to cities that were built with security purposes in mind. The word Acropolis is commonly associated with Greece's capital Athens, although it can refer to any citadel, including Rome and Jerusalem.
The Beijing Olympics torch relay reached the ancient Acropolis in Athens on Saturday amid heavy police security and brief demonstrations by small groups of protesters. (New York Times)
3. Agora
The Agora was an open market place, present in most cities of the ancient Greece. Today the term can be used to express any type of open assembly or congregation.
The most characteristic feature of each settlement, regardless of its size, was a plaza—an open space that acted as a cemetery and may have been a marketplace. It was also, the archaeologists suspect, a place of political assembly, just as the agora in an ancient Greek city was both marketplace and legislature. (The Economist)
4. Anathema
Anathema is a noun and it means a formal ban, curse or excommunication. It can also refer to someone or something extremely negative, disliked or damned. Curiously enough, the original Greek meaning for this word was "something offered to the gods."
Some thinkers argue that while collaboration may work for an online encyclopedia, it's anathema to original works of art or scholarship, both of which require a point of view and an authorial voice. (USA Today)
5. Anemia
Anemia refers to a condition characterized by a qualitative or quantitative deficiency of the red blood cells (or of the hemoglobin). Over the years, however, the term started to appear in other contexts, referring to any deficiency that lies at the core of a system or organization.
In comments to the Dallas Morning News, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, the lone dissenter in last week's decision to keep the federal funds target at 2%, said the U.S. faces "a sustained period of anemia" and that "in the second half of this year we will broach zero growth." Last week Fisher wanted higher rates, his fifth-straight dissent in favor of tighter policy. (The Wall Street Journal)
6. Ethos
Translated literally from the Greek, ethos means "accustomed place." It refers to a disposition or characteristics peculiar to a specific person, culture or movement. Synonyms include mentality, mindset and values.
Consumerism needs this infantilist ethos because it favors laxity and leisure over discipline and denial, values childish impetuosity and juvenile narcissism over adult order and enlightened self-interest, and prefers consumption-directed play to spontaneous recreation. (Los Angeles Times)
7. Dogma
Dogma refers to the established belief or set of principles held by a religion, ideology or by any organization. Dogmas are also authoritative and undisputed. Outside of the religious context, therefore, the term tends to carry a negative connotation. Notice that the plural is either dogmata or dogmas.
It's not a new type of web, it's just where the web has got to – it's also a terrific excuse for much chatter on the blogging circuit, and a huge amount of dogmatism. (Financial Times)
8. Eureka
The exclamation Eureka is used to celebrate a discovery, and it can be translated to "I have found!". It is attributed to the famous Greek mathematician Archimedes. While taking a bath, he suddenly realized that the water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. He got so excited with the discovery that he left his home and started to run and shout "Eureka!" through the streets of Syracuse.
Those eureka moments in the shower or on the bus when something suddenly starts to make sense only happen if you keep plugging away. (The Guardian)
9. Genesis
Genesis means birth or origin. There are many synonyms for this word, including beginning, onset, start, spring, dawn and commencement. Genesis is also the name of the first book of the Bible.
And when Mr McCain headed to the safe shoals of policy wonkery, Mr Obama flayed his idea of calling for a commission to investigate the genesis of the financial crisis as the resort of politicians who don't know what else to do. (The Economist)
10. Phobia
Many people wrongly think that a phobia is a fear. In reality it is more than that. Phobia is an irrational and exaggerated fear of something. The fear can be associated with certain activities, situations, things or people.
Poorer communities have a phobia of undercooked food. Very advanced societies enjoy their fish and meat either raw or very close to it. To the French their idea of cooking a steak is so perfunctory one might as well hack the thing off the cow and tuck in. (Financial Times)
11. Plethora
You have a plethora when you go beyond what is needed or appropriate. It represents an excess or undesired abundance.
In California, for example, some neighborhoods have been blighted by the plethora of empty homes. Joe Minnis, a real estate agent for Prudential California, knows foreclosed homes in San Bernardino that have been systematically stripped, trashed and tagged by gang members. (Business Week)
12. Kudos
Kudos means fame or glory, usually resulting from an important act or achievement. It is interesting to notice that in Greek and in the Standard British English, Kudos is a singular noun. Inside the United States, however, it is often used in a plural form (e.g., You deserve many kudos for this accomplishment!)
They deserve the kudos because they could be deemed responsible for the marked improvement in the commercials during Super Bowl XL last night. (New York Times)
Tips for a new blogger
I appologize for this post being so long, I didn't intend for that to happen
Since there is a good chance I won't be online much, if at all, anymore I want to tie up some loose ends. Recently I have had a few people ask me what I did to get Debian Today to become so popular so fast. Mind you I have had so many web sites over time I can't even count so this wasn't my first go at things. Usually I fail pretty hard with getting traffic but I think my bits of experience from each place helped me in making the blog take off. Debian Today had a little over 200,000 unique visitors in it's first 31 days of being officialy on the net. A good deal of these visitors returned regularly as well as subscribted to RSS or ATOM feeds. 200,000 is by no means epic but it is a wonderful start. Instead of writing an email and sending it to the people that asked me I decided I would post it here so that other people can see if they like. Mind you I am not even slightly a blog expert, SEO expert or anything like that. I am just a guy who has a blog that did well its first month.
Location, Location, Location...
What holds true in brick and mortar businesses holds even more true on the internet. In the case of a web site or blog location I mean your domain name. Make sure you have a good, easy to remember domain that also is descriptive in what the blog is about. Take some time and really check what is out there, what already exists and what is available. You can add a godaddy domain search to the firefox search bar pretty easily.
Don't ignore the "About" page
About pages are pure SEO gold. This gives you a place to explain exactly what your blog is about and get some key word and phrase action going on. Don't skimp on the about page but don't write a 3 page article about your life leading up to the page. Be direct and to the point explaining the exact purpose for your blog. Make sure to use key phrases people searching for your blog, or similar blogs would type in to google. Do not however go overboard with the keywords and phrases.
Use Wordpress
I can't stress this enough. Wordpress is so incredibly simple, easily skinable, free, and takes care of a lot fo the SEO nonsense in site design for you from the start. You can either install wordpress yourself on your own host via Fantastico, or an other script installation program your host might provide or you can get a free wordpress with a subdomain at wordpress.com. I have used blogger, livejournal, phpnuke, postnuke, joomla, e107, geeklog, as well as other CMSes and blog sites and never have I had as much success than I do with wordpress.
Things you NEED that are already part of wordpress or can be installed easily
- Pings - You can easily configure wordpress to ping every known blog directory on the planet
- Simple user front end - Sure you may be an XHTML and CSS whiz but sometimes just plugging stuff in to the rich text editior is faster and easier. The front end also manages images, videos, and audio quite easily. Seriously your grandma can make a professional looking site with Wordpress.
- Plugins - Seriously there are so many plugins for Wordpress that you'll never be able to try them all. Some plugins I find very important is the XML sitemaps plugin for google, All in one SEO pack, Social Bookmarking Reloaded, pullquotes, WP site cacher, wp automatic update, and plenty more.
- Trackbacks and permalinks - Wordpress allows you to configure your own permalink style and makes trackbacks incredibly easy.
- Update by email - You can either set up a secret email address that will post to your wordpress or you can use posterous to post to wordpress.
That is probably enough WP fanboy posting for now so I'll move on. But seriously, use Wordpress, it's free and easy, and heck it even works great with posterous
.
Site Maps
Having a website is worthless if google and the other search engines don't know it exists, or only know part of it exists. Use the Google XML Sitemaps plugin for WordPress. You can use these XML sitemaps for google as well as other search engines and it will get your site crawled with more accuracy.
Google Webmaster Tools
Google is becoming more and more webmaster friendly by the day. Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools as soon as you can. This will help you with controling site maps, crawl rates, finding keywords and search phrases that are working, or not working and more. Recently they tied in google analytics with Webmaster Tools as well so that makes things even easier. Staying on top of what Google thinks and knows about your site will help you a lot over time.
SEO alone doesn't cut it anymore
Not that long ago a good SEO compaign was all you needed. Now days you will get incredible amounts of traffic from the various social sites around there. StumbleUpon is your friend! I used to always digg my articles and post them on reddit, delicous, and other social bookmarking sites but would only gain like 5-10 visitors from the whole thing. If you write a good quality post then give it a thumbs up and a review on SU. Make sure you have the right keywords and tags, this is essential to getting people who will actually enjoy your content on your page. For example I mistakenly clicked the wrong keyword for a post and the average user from SU passed by within 2-4 seconds. When I use the correct keyword and good tags (don't go overboard on tags) I have SU users stay about 2 minutes on average. This means more than likely they are going to say they like the page and then it will get sent to more and more people. The more targeted you are, the more people like it, the more it gets stumbled, simple as that.
As I said I used to digg and social bookmark everything. Some people say to do this but I find that it doesn't work. Instead set up a social bookmark/link plugin that will put a "share this" set of buttons at the end of every post. If people like it they will digg or bookmark it and more than likely that means someone else will. The Digg effect is serious and can be a bandwidth killer so be prepared.
StumbleUpon Optimization
Stumblers won't stay to read unless you grab their attention. You have about 1-2 seconds to grab their attention long enough to skim your article, then if they skim and like they may possible read it. Make sure you have something interesting and attention grabbing above the fold. I suggest pullquotes for this as well as an image if you can pull it off. It honestly isn't easy to get an image that goes with the article for everything you write but if you can find something good on flickr or one of the other sites then slap it on there. Using strong text to highlight some key points of interest for the skimmers as well as a couple pull quotes can do amazing things for keeping people on the page long enough to decide to actually read the post. Make sure to keep the interesting stuff above the fold otherwise they won't ever see it and take in to account that people use different resolutions and the fold may be in a different place. You can use Browser Shots to find out what your page looks like in all kinds of browsers and operating systems all with one easy step.
Quality not quantity
This is a subject that people disagree on. Some people say just post a lot and you'll get a lot of pings and crawled more which will bring more traffic. As much as it would be nice to post 2-3 times a day or more with quality content it just doesn't happen unless you have a full time writing staff. Post quality, end of story. Take the time to really go over your articles, check spelling and grammar obviously but also try clean up uneccesary words (something I struggle with) and other junk that will just take up more space in the content that really matters. My basic rule of thumb with making a post is that if I stumbled on it and didn't want to read it then I shouldn't be posting it. Take time to write articles in advance. I try to get at least half of my weeks posts done on the weekend so that I don't have to rush to get something out in time.
Post at a targeted time
Think about what kind of readers your blog will have and then try to figure out when the most likely time for them to be reading blogs about the subject would be. Take in to account time zone differences (if applicable) and the amount of time it will take your post to be pinged and posted on places like google blog search. My target audience is at work so I post at 8am Eastern Time (US) and if I have a second post I do it at 11am. This covers the people showing up to work and browsing for a bit and the people browsing at lunch across the US and has served me well. If your blog is more of an after work or late night type of deal then post at thos times. Just make sure to remember that it won't instantly show up everywhere, give it an hour to start showing up on directories and other places.
Get your link out there
This is the stuff you've seen a thousand times so I won't go in to great detail. Use your link when commenting on blogs, but don't just spam it around, actually read the blog and make a worthwhile comment. Comment to similar blogs and make friends with those bloggers over time, this can come in handy when you really want to bring in hits to a specfici post. Put your link in your forum signatures (don't spam you link in forums!!) and post to sub forums that allow links to your sites. I personally never sign up for new forums in order to just get my link out but I do make sure to let people know on the forums I am already active on that I have a new project going with out spamming.
Read other blogs
I can't stress this enough. Read as many other blogs as you can to learn how other people are doing it. You'll pick up on good places to put keywords, places to highlight, good areas for pull quotes, and will get to know the community better. The more you read the more you learn about what you are doing.
What else?
When I started writing this I thought it was going to be a few paragraphs then it took off to something kind of large, especially for posterous. I know this isn't everything I've done but it's all I can pull off the top of my head at this moment. If you have tips or questions please leave a comment.
Oh yeah that's one. Give people a reason to leave comments on your blog posts. Creating an interactive community with your readers makes them want to return more often and feel like they are a part of your blog, because well, they are a part of your blog.
Monetization
I mean to cover monetization right from the begining but I forgot. I think you need to focus on building a reader base before your really start slapping your visitors around with ads and other junk that will just turn them off. I will write about monetization a little later but for now this should get people started. Once again, post any questions, comments, tips, tricks, or flames, in the comments section.
