Exploring for Ideas at Technorati

April 22, 2006 by Liz

Going Exploring

I can’t help it. David Sifry hooked me. He did it when he let them name that feature at Technorati Explore. Had he only said, “Okay call it Browse.” Browsing is a nice thing. I’ve even been known to do it. I’ve browsed through books and browsed while waiting. Yes, I know how to Browse.

My life would be so much easier, if only David Sifry had chosen Browse instead of choosing Explore.

But no. My friend, Dave probably was a kid a bit like me. He probably knows the exact appeal of exploring. Maybe he even remembers hearing someone saying, “Where you going?” and answering back “We’re going exploring. Wanna come along?”

Slam dunk marketing that name. Explore. Even better, it lives up to its promise. [Read more…]

MUST HAVE: Content Theft Series

April 18, 2006 by Liz

This is more than a GREAT FIND. It’s a MUST HAVE. It’s going straight into the survival kit. Lorelle from WordPress has put together an amazing series of documents replete with facts on copyright and intellectual property that every blogger should have at his or her fingertips.

Great Find: What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content by Lorrell at WordPress
Type of Article: series on content theft
Permalink: http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/04/10/what-do-you-do-when-someone-steals-your-content/
Target Audience: Anyone who puts content on the Internet

Content: Lorrell at WordPress, one of my personal heroes and a highly respected web journalist, did extensive research to pull together a series of three documents on what to do when you find yourself in the unhappy situation of having your content stolen, hijacked from your blog or website. The series goes deep with uncountable links and resources. Her advice is straightforward and crystal clear. The series covers the topic completely. I’ll let her describe it.

This is the first of three articles. This article covers tips, information and resources to help you deal with copyright infringement, the theft of your blog or website content. The second article includes helpful links and resources for finding stolen content and copyright infringements. The last article in the series examines the growing trends in content theft such as image hotlinking, website hijacking, and abusive use of feeds to replace original content without permission, as well as other copyright infringements on the rise.

Lorrell takes you through each part with step-by-step advice and sends you to the experts for more information. I’ve taken classes on copyright that didn’t cover the subject nearly this well.

Do yourself and your content the favor of checking this out. Click the screenshot to get started.

What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content?

Part 2: Finding Stolen Content and Copyright Infringements

Part 3: The Growing Trends in Content Theft

I need to write a poem to Lorrell at WordPress like I did for Improbulus.

Some of you must have had experience with content theft already. What happened? What did you do about it?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
Great Find: How to Back Up Your Blog

Thinking Inside-Outside the SEO Sandbox

April 11, 2006 by Liz

Learning by Getting It Wrong

Remember your first web site or blog? You had to learn so much about coding and Search Engine Optimization. Bet you learned most of what you know now by doing–OJT, On the Job Training, otherwise known as getting it wrong and fixing it. Those were valuable experiences.

The thing about learning by getting it wrong is that you remember what you did. Tweaking a template and having your sidebar fall off is WAY more powerful than anyone telling you how not to code something.

As much as I wish that WordPress had an undo button, I know I’ve learned more because it doesn’t.

Think like a Search Engine

SEO folks think like Search Engines. They buy and read Aaron Wall’s SEO Book and its updates. They follow and discuss Matt Cutt’s blog, and the Google Blog–probably not this one, the Google Blog, but this one Google Research Blog–or maybe all of them. They check in at Yahoo’s Search Blog, MSN Search, and with other SEO hangouts, such as Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Round Table, and Threadwatch. So I do some of that–the first half at least.

But reading doesn’t help me half as much as doing does.

Thinking Inside-Outside the SEO Box

I’ve been searching out experiences to help me think like a search engine. I use my stats to watch how search engines route traffic to my blogs. Sometimes they hit right on the page that has the content being searched for. That’s not interesting. I expect that. They’ve invested powerful resources into research in doing that right.

Sometimes they hit right next to where they should. THAT I find puzzling and intriguing, especially when the page in question is tagged with the exact search term that was entered.

It happened again this morning. Someone searched for “nextsplogs.” The searcher was sent to the home page of Successful Blog rather than to the page called SOB Business Cafe 04-07-2006, where Nextsplogs actually appears twice–in the text and as a tag. Is it because the term is singular in one and capitalized in the other? Hmmmm. I wonder.

I don’t like things I don’t understand, and I want to understand this.

I’ve learned a lot from watching my stats, but this kind of thing my stats can’t help me crack.

Build Your Own Search Engine

Just when I was about to give up on my chance of knowing, along came this post from the MSN search weblog, Build Your Own Search Engine. I thought, here’s a way to learn by doing. It’s not an actual full-blown search engine–it’s search engine macros–and it’s an early BETA version. That suits me just fine, though. It gets my brain and hands in the process and I can even watch how the parameters have to be tweaked to work right. Just reading the comments about it, I can feel myself getting smarter.

Go on over. Take a look. It’s an inside-outside the box way to learn SEO.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
MSN and Microsoft Joint Research Venture
SEO The Secret Life of Search Engines
Check Google Backlinks Through Yahoo
SEOÃ¢â¬âThe Value of Outlinks to MY Blog

Great Find: 10 Reasons to Love Google Desktop

April 11, 2006 by Liz

Keith Dsouza and I shared some email this week about using Google Desktop. He’s an all-out customer evangelist, and he can give you 10 reasons why you should love it too.

Great Find: Top 10 reasons why you should love google desktop
Type of Article: Product Review
Permalink: http://www.keithdsouza.com/google-news/google/top-10-reasons-why-you-should-love-google-desktop.html
Target Audience: All internet users

Content: In this article, Keith Dsouza outlines 10 of his favorite reasons for using Google Desktop. I say favorite, because his writing is filled with such enthusiasm, I have no doubt that he could give you another ten, if you asked him. He also lets us in on a secret that–he’s developing a new plugin for it. Keith uses several plugins already–for Sidebar, Scratchpad, and Del.icio.us. He also uses a filter to keep his RSS feeds right there. If you’re thinking of using Google Desktop, Keith is the fellow you want to know. Click the screenshot to read about what he’s been doing with it. I’m sure that he’d help you, if you want to do some of the same things.

Thanks, Keith.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Find: How to Create an RSS Feed

March 17, 2006 by Liz

I didn’t find this Mark Wade at the R Web Designs blog did, and he has a fine write up on it. Click Mark’s logo to read his analysis and to see his fabulous blog.

Great Find: The Robin Good’s How to Create a RSS Feed from Any Web Page
Type of article: Blogging basics how-to article
Permalink:http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/03/09/how_to_create_a_rss.htm

Target Audience:All web users who want to know more about RSS feeds
Content: Robin Good points out that at some moment in the future you might want to follow the updating of a web page that doesn’t have an RSS feed.He answers the question, Can you create one? with a resounding YES!. Click Robin’s logo to access the article.

Thank you, Mark for finding this page. Thank you, Robin for writing it.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Find: Absolutely Del.icio.us Tool Collection

March 12, 2006 by Liz

Folksonomy and tag categories got your eyes crossed?
Has social bookmarking started controlling you rather than the other way around?

The Addiction

Hi. My name is Liz and I’m a social bookmarker.
At first I just did it on the weekends to keep track of a few sites and articles I liked. Then I started social bookmarking to get new ideas. Soon it became a daily habit–once, then twice, then many times a day. I got to recognize submitters names and tastes. I started submitting myself–things I saw that I liked.

Social bookmarking utilities were both a great boon and a great downfall to my productivity. I could go there to find a passel of spectacular ideas. But more and more I found myself lost in an enchanted forest, thinking I’d leave after the next look, or the next, or maybe the next. The disorganization of the folksonomy became an addiction–I kept thinking the next title I saw might be the fabulous prize I was looking for. It was intellectual gambling.

That’s when I knew I needed help, and I found it at Quick Online Tips.

The Prescription

Finally, someone has collected tools and tips from all over the Internet to help Social Bookmarking addicts.

Great Find: Absolutely Del.icio.us – Complete Tool Collection from Quick Online Tips
Type of article: List of posts on tools for using Del.icio.us
Permalink: http://pchere.blogspot.com/2005/02/absolutely-delicious-complete-tool.html
Audience: Anyone wants to make the most of social bookmarking
Content: This list offers well over 100 posts that discuss how to use del.icio.us to get the most out of it. You’ll find the Beelerspace Beginners Guide as well as the popular Slacker Manager post, the Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.us users. Most of the hints and helps here will work with any social bookmarking utility you use.

Click the screenshot to begin a new life of tackling that taxonomy.

Absolutely Del.icio.us Tool Collection Screenshot

If you try this at home, don’t read the entire list at one sitting. Choose one or two to explore each morning. Then come back to tag my best work to share with your friends. 🙂

Benefits for the “Magic Middle Man”

Social bookmarking is a powerful tool for research, idea generation, and promoting your business. It’s a great way for those of us in the Magic Middle to exert our control as an audience. Learning how to use it efficiently and effectively can

boost personal productivity,
offer ideas to promote your brand and your business,
provide a venue to showcase your best work to a wide audience,
and has an immediate, if short-lived impact, that may gain a few new readers.

Of course, I exaggerated the downside of social bookmarking at the start of this article, but the temptation to spend too much time exploring is also very real. How do you keep social bookmarking from eating up your time? How do you use it to its best advantage?

–ME “Liz” Strauss