Successful Blog

Great NEWS!

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Great News
to Announce

It is with great pride and sincere thanks
that I announce that Mr. Paul Scrivens and I
have reached an agreement in which I will become
the sole owner of

Successful Blog

What that means for our community is that Successful Blog
will be getting a new design and a new host.

Thank you, Paul Scrivens.

It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.
I hope to do so again in the future.
Sincerely,
ME Strauss

Great Find: 50 Coolest Websites

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Great Find: TIME: Tech Time–50 Coolest Websites by Maryanne Murray Buechner
Type of Article: End of Year List
Permalink: 50 Coolest Websites
Target Audience: Any Internet user

Content: Maryanne Murray Buechner defines one quality of cool as something you probably haven’t bookmarked already. She figures there is no value in pointing out what most people already know. The article is divided into five sections.

On the last page, Ms. Murray Buechner reviews the criteria for each section. As a publisher, I might have put this overview first to give readers a “roadmap” to the article. So if you’re like me, you might want to start there and then return to the sections that interest you most. The sections are these.

NEWS AND INFORMATION–less-traveled links to the real world.

LIFESTYLE AND CULTURE–great content and presentation that showcases a particular area of interest.

COMMUNITIES–sites that do a great job of connecting people for work, play, or other common interests.

TOOLS AND ESSENTIALS–sites chosen for their ability to perform a service.

JUST FOR FUN–as the name implies, entertainment.

I’m partial to the lie detector. Although it’s great to see Bloglines getting its due in the “real world.” The IpodLounge and some of the Just for Fun links were nice discoveries.

I think you’ll pick up a site or two from this list you’ll want to visit again. I just can’t imagine that you’ll know everything this list has to offer.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Thank you, Blogarithm–But Why?

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Remember when I spoke of backlinks that were totally bogus?

Well this has me totally confused. . . .

In checking my backlinks for Letting me be . . . random wondering and philosophy I found this link to Bookarithm.com, a page that says their subscribers subscribe to me. Being a visual person, I was taken by how the page on which I’m linked at a glance seems to imply that I am a subscriber too.

blogarithm page

We know I’m fair and I’m nice, but I’m not necessarily the most savvy chick. Until I checked my links, I didn’t know that this blog existed. At least I thought I didn’t, but maybe I had subscribed. The info said date added 10/25. Added to what? I wondered. Did I add it to Blogarithm and not remember? I’ve made mistakes before. You know that.

Thinking perhaps my memory was slipping, I decided to check whether I had signed up for an account–one that I didn’t remember. I tried to login. Here is the message I got.

blogarithm setup

Nice to know my memory is still in tact–or at least that theirs is as bad as mine is. I put on my detective hat and did a little blog-digging. Went straight to Wholinkstome to see what this blog was about. Here’s what I found.

blogarithm wholinkstome

Now I am totally, completely, undeniably, and utterly confused.

Why would a blog with a PageRank 7 need to link a little blog like me? I appreciate the benefit of the Google Juice, believe me. Thank you, Blogarighm, but I’m not sure I understand why.

I just got !!! The subscribers are likely to subscribe to Michael Noggs blog not to Blogarithm–I knew I was making a mistake in here somewhere.

As my friend Nancy says, “Liz, sometimes your so fast, and sometimes you’re sooooo sloooow.”

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Speaking of Zeitgeist–Don’t Leave Trends

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Blogger know thyself.

While you’re finding out how your readers search, why not personalize Google to find out what you might learn from your own search trends?

Just last week Google introduced Trends–a feature that lets you look at your top searches, clicks, and other info about your personal search activity. To use it, you only have to sign on to your Google account when you search.
All of the details are described for you at this page of the googleblog_blogspot.com logo.

The key features of Personalized Search offered through Trends are that it

  • Orders your search based on what’s relevant to YOU. Over time, new search results are ordered using your search history, particularly what you have clicked on in the past, to deliver more personalized and relevant results to what you are looking for.
  • Past searches–web pages you have browsed– are available to you for browsing, researching, and removal.
  • Labels and bookmarks you attach to your Personalized Searches can be accessed from any computer.

I’ve been playing with it for the last three days and here’s what the read out looks like.

Google Trends

I’m thinking this could be very useful for that “where did I see that” syndrome. No extra work, a better record. I like that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Blogging Life Technical Question

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Well my 2005 Karma-Skew Zeitgeist is still knocking me.

Can anyone tell me why all of a sudden my printer isn’t printing what it sees on a web page, but instead printing what’s behind it?

It is making me crazy. crazier, which, as I’m sure you know, is not a good thing.

I can pinpoint no action I have taken that would cause this change. I have already deleted my cookies and cleared my cache. I’m ready to reload my brower. Yes, it’s IE–no lectures, please.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Google Zeitgeist–Will Make ME Millions

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Think everyone’s in a foul mood?
Check Google Zeitgeist it could be true.

googleblog_blogspot.com Zeitgeist

The word Zeitgeist refers to the intellectual, cultural and moral climate of an era. It’s the taste, the outlook, the spirit of the times, so to speak. I think you can have a personal Zeitgeist as well. My own has been suffering from karma-skew all through 2005. I hope to master it in 2006, and I’m looking for every tool to do so. I think Google Zeitgeist might do the trick.

Every month Google interprets the latest search data it has collected for trends, bits of information, and patterns in user searches to make a statistical snapshot in the form of a report called Zeitgeist Watch. You can find it on the Google Blog. The information gathered by Google Zeitgeist isn’t particularly new, but where they take it is. The way they’ve thought-through Zeitgeist makes it a pleasure to behold and a joy to use. Despite my wariness of big conglomerates getting bigger, I just can’t turn up my nose at this one. It’s too much fun for a strategy fanatic like me.

Basically Google Zeitgeist lets you into the minds of Google searchers–our readers. Others attempt to do that, but Google performs it in a visually-friendly, intuitive fashion. They didn’t get to be Google, after all, by making things harder, now did they? Rather than just stopping with an alphabetical list of tags, they’ve analyzed the list into patterns of like-minded choices. This makes the bigger picture stand out.

As shown above, the Zeitgeist categories for October 2005 include

  1. Look It Up
  2. Popular Brick and Mortar Companies
  3. Popular Solo Singers
  4. What Else to Do On Line

The popular search term categories for October 2005 include

  1. Top Worries
  2. Popular Sports
  3. Popular Newsmakers
  4. Tabloid Fodder

The popular Image search categoriess for October 2005 include

  1. Popular Cars
  2. Popular Wizards and Superheroes
  3. Popular Bands
  4. Tabloid Concepts

Just by checking those three lists, we have a sense of what our readers might be thinking, and what topics might be hot. Look a little further, and find that Zeitgeist covers no less than 23 other countries beyond the US. As a person who is curious and fascinated by human behavior, this is like a major Christmas toy. It’s been out for a while now. So if you’ve not played with it yet, it’s time you give Zeitgeist a try. I can see posts in the lists for almost any blog.

But first I’m going to use Google Zeitgeist to invent a Television Game Show. It will have a 20-second song for the final round question like the one that Merv Griffin did for Jeopardy. That’s how I’m going to make millions.

Heck I bet after that the famousblog read by royalty, tycoons, and the rich and famous–Blogebrity–will move me from the C List up to the prestigious A List. Then it will be Veuvre Champagne for everyone in the Signature Room at the top of the John Hancock in Chicago. I’ll be buying and flying you all in. Which might be too nice and thereby force Blogebrity to push me back to the C List again. Oh well, I was only getting 15 minutes of fame to start with.

It’s the money I need desperately. I’ve got a kid in college you know. So the millions will come in handy. My son will use them to graduate from Georgetown. One day he will be a famous CEO of a mega corporation and maybe take of his mom in her doting old age and deterioration.

Thanks for these things will be due to Google and their Zeitgeist Watch lists–the little analysis program that made all of my dreams come true. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss