Business Life Archives - Page 180 of 186

David Sifry Writes about the Future–Janice Myint Please Don’t Read It

February 7, 2006 by Liz

David Sifry posted The State of the Blogosphere–Part 1 at the Technorati Weblog today. This post is research and analysis at its finest. The post is deep, broad, and replete with solid information, graphic visuals, and links to take you even deeper. Anyone who wants to understand the blogosphere should read it.

The information and analysis in this post will serve you in your online business. It will serve you as a student. It will serve you in casual conversation–when a friend wants to discuss the future of the Internet, or when someone tries to tell you all blogs are trashy online diaries.

Just a few notes–a taste–from the summary.

Technorati now tracks over 27.2 Million blogs

The blogosphere is doubling in size every 5 and a half months

It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago

On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day

13.7 million bloggers are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created

Spings (Spam Pings) can sometimes account for as much as 60% of the total daily pings Technorati receives

I sure hope Janice Myint doesn’t read it. Any Customer Service Team Leader at Technorati has enough to worry about. This post could be just overwhelming. Janice we still need you . . . please keep going. (When I went to check the link on this post, I got the “Sorry we are unable to complete your search right now . . .” message. At least now I know why.)

Everyone else go read it. This is stuff you can’t buy at any price and you won’t get in business school. The name of this post is State of the Blogosphere–Part 1. But it tells the future.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

MSN and Microsoft Joint Research Venture

February 7, 2006 by Liz

For my tech friends and my friends on campus . . .

MSN and Microsoft Research have launched a joint venture called Live Labs. The purpose of the venture is to create new Internet research opportunities and new academic funding Internet research. A companion organization, called Search Labs, will be creating innovative products from prototypes developed at Live Labs. The project is located in Silicon Valley, and they’re hiring.

The information goes deep and wide below the Live Labs announcement post if you’re interested in finding out more about it.

The project sounds more than interesting, particularly the part about academic funding.

It never hurts to know what MSN and Microsoft are up to.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

The SOB Directory Update 02-07-06

February 7, 2006 by Liz

Have you visited the SOB Directory lately? It’s got its own page–right there in the sidebar. Check it out! It’s constantly changing, updating, adding the links of the latest Successful and Outstanding Bloggers. You can browse there to find the bloggers who take the conversation at Successful-Blog back to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, and make us better. It’s a great place to discover a favorite blog to read–a blog writer you have something in common with.

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Directory. Click the link or visit from the sidebar.
Everything you need to know is on that page. Everyweek we add new SOBs to the list, no reason you can’t be one–you’re outstanding aren’t you?

Send Bios for the SOB Directory

If you already are an SOB, the Directory is my thank you to the Successful-Blog Community. It’s a way that we can keep connected, an annotated blogroll with logos, so to speak.

Why not send me 1-2 sentences about your blog? You must have a short description from some directory listing on your computer. Dust it off and send it along. Think of it as free advertising to a substantial readership.

By the way, if you’d have a better version of your logo feel free to send that too. Only one restriction–60 pixels high and not more than 200 pixels wide. That’s what fits.

In case you don’t know where to send them . . .e-mail them to me at lizsun2@gmail.com.

We’re making Success a habit.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Successful Blog Moves Back to the City–b5media

February 6, 2006 by Liz

Sometimes Success means Failing Faster. For sure it means knowing when to make things right.

Two Personal Heroes

I don’t have many personal heroes or maybe I have too many personal heroes. I guess that depends on how you define them. I do know this–two of them are my dad and business giant Tom Peters who taught me the principle above.

I’ve been talking and listening to all of you since we left 9rules/Fine Fools about where we might focus Successful-Blog. You’ve had great suggestions, given me super advice. You’ve loved some of the changes. Others, well, you’ve not liked so much. In the end, I have to admit that when all of the ideas are thought through and filtered, the answer is that Successful-Blog doesn’t belong in the Wild, Wild West.

We’re moving back to the city where we belong.

That’s why when you clicked in this morning you see some changes, the ads are gone . . . there might just be a few bumps here and there. Last night we moved servers and this morning we are are with

b5 media.

I want to thank everyone at Erati and Blog Media for all they have done for Successful-Blog to make us feel part of the family. You were heroes in how you saw Successful-Blog’s need to move. I really appreciate that.

More Personal Heroes

I want the world to know that I went to b5media, not the other way around. You already know that Jeremy, Darren, Shai, and Duncan are personal heroes. This move has only shown me what good reason I had for having those feelings. They made things happen quickly, painlessly, and I look forward to learning and growing with them. I also look forward to learning more from you.

Isn’t that what success is all about?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Google Blogger–403 Forbidden–How Could You Let that Happen!

February 5, 2006 by Liz

Dear Dr. Eric Schmidt and Larry Paige,

I realized last night that, as a Blogger blogger, I am a guest in your home or should I say a captive visitor. Darn, I thought I was a welcomed customer. What made this clear was when you locked me in my room and forbade me access to my stuff. My own parents didn’t use the word FORBIDDEN, nor have I ever used it with my child.

Yes, I realize that you at Google did not actually write the script for the 403 error code that uses the word FORBIDDEN, but you’ve been in business long enough to know how it works. You’re at the top. You get all three of the big Ps–the Big Press, the Big Paychecks, and the Big Pain when things go wrong.

Blogger has put on a show of the worst customer service and total random inefficiency I’ve seen in ages. It started about 2 days ago with outages. Then random inability to access Blogger blogs. Last night I was able to reach the dashboard of my Blogger writing blog, but not my blog itself–even from its own dashboard. I received a 403 Forbidden access error, because I was being read as a directory. It told me to contact myself and give me permission!

This was an opportunity for Google to show some care for its customer. Instead here’s the current Google Blog post still up.

Google has an informative, how-to blog for everything, except for it’s Advertising cashcow Blogger.

You might say, “What about Blogger Buzz?” The Blogger Blog is fun to read and chatty, but it offers little information about how to use Blogger. A post here too might have made me think that Google cared. It also might have made me know for sure that it was a Blogger problem and not a problem with my computer. This is the current post Blogger Buzz.

The email abyss Blogger Help offers a return reply that says go search the help database. Then write again. Of course, then it never answers. Been there. Done that many times. It’s been that way for every email I’ve ever sent.

Google makes products, such as sitemaps, that don’t work on Blogger. To use them people have written scripts on Greasemonkey that go through Firefox to rewrite your software. Blogger customers are forced to get help from other Blogger users. That’s not customer service. That’s leaving customers to fend for themselves.

When I look at your corporate structure, it’s very telling. I don’t find the word customer anywhere.

Larry, you write ten points that you call the Google Philosophy. You explain each one carefully. I bet most users (that’s what you call us isn’t it?) have never read about them and will be surprised to see them.

Let me remind you what they are.

Focus on the user and all else will follow.
It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
Fast is better than slow.
Democracy on the web works.
You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
You can make money without doing evil.
There’s always more information out there.
The need for information crosses all borders.
You can be serious without a suit.
Great just isn’t good enough.

My answer: Get a Blogger blog, and you’ll see that where Blogger is concerned NUMBER 10 IS REALLY NOT A WORRY.

Why not try what Technorati has done recently . . . decide that customers are people who deserve support, not users who will always be there. Hire a full time Blogger Customer Service Team. Don’t make your customers do your work for you. That’s not nice.

How could I possibly, tell a new blogger that Blogger is the platform he or she should use to be successful?

I’m the nice one.

Sincerely,

ME “Liz” Strauss

PS. I forgot to mention. I could not get to Blogger Status. I didn’t remember the address. Why don’t you have a link to it under Blogger Help on the Dashboard? There was no notice to go there.

UPDTATE—If you came to this page because you got a 403 Forbidden Error, the URL to find out what’s going on is

http://status.blogger.com/

That’s where you can get up-to-minute information about what is going on.

Google for some reason can’t see to get that information where people can find it. So they send you to Successful-Blog, because they know that I have it. Bookmark this page because, as we all know Blogger and Blogspot go down A LOT

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Thanks Janice. Keep Going! We’re with You!

February 2, 2006 by Liz

I sent an email to Janice Myint at Technorati just now. It said thank you for a great start–more movement in 5 minutes than happened in five months. It also said she has the voice of Successful Blog if she needs it.

STANDING OVATION FOR JANICE MYINT!

It’s obvious why they hired you at Technorati, Janice. You like customers–and now we like you too.
It’s a class act that brought you out here to the boondocks twice to reply to our posts. Thank you, Janice, for knowing what Customer Service is about.

Please don’t give up when things get really tough–because they’re going to–stuff up there is really messy. Know that you can hide out here, if you need to and that we’ll help you if we can.

–ME “Liz” Strauss.

PS Still dying to say something about how it took a woman . . . but I’m still the nice one, so I won’t . 🙂