Guy McLaren

She is bright enough to have been accepted by MIT, yet she is beautiful enough to want to umm talk to and whisper sweet nothings in those oh so cute ears. However being a married man old enough well almost to be her Papa I won’t be doing that. Having said that her boyfriend better be nice or I will introduce him to my boot.

“Bunny” went to MIT no her real name is not Bunny and she is not even vaguely bunny like but I needed a name and the movie Just visiting came to mind. Bunny is a hottie but she kicks ass. So Bunny it is. Sorry gorgeous thou hast been dubbed. Bunny said it was lovely but everything was off. I understood her immediately having lived in foreign climes myself.

England as beautiful as she is, was wrong. When I looked at the sky everything was wrong, My beloved Southern cross was gone.  When I drove North it was the wrong bloody way. You see the horizon looked South when it was actually north.  Many other things were just not right.

The crazy thing is Bunny was telling me they gave her a credit card with a $ 1000 limit on the strength of her being an MIT student. No credit checks, no bullshit. She hadn’t even been in the country for more than two weeks. Now it seems to me that would be reckless lending. And they wonder why they have a credit crunch.

Hell if you had given me a $ 1000.00 as a student, boy would I have partied?

Bunny came home because Bunny got sick and the MIT doctors gave her ointment for a really nasty condition.

I looked at the pictures and immediately came to the conclusion that Amir Glinik, the creator of the Ferrari motorbike had probably seen one but I doubt whether he has actually ridden one. Then again I can say the same about many of the bikes on the road. Look at the Harley Davidson fer chrissake, you have to stop them to turn corners.

Ferrari Motorbike

I think the Ferrari Motorbike has been designed for one purpose only. It was designed to take money from Rich little boys that have small penis’s. The Ferrari motorbike is a posers wet dream. I am betting this machine will be available only to those with really deep pockets. I know the Harley crowd will love it especially if there are no baffles in the tail pipes.

Ferrari Motorbike subframe

It screams “look at me, I have a tiny penis but boy, am I rich and stupid?” Oh yes Amir Glinik is a genius. Imagine a concept guaranteed to part money from people that think they know what a motorbike looks like.

Ferrari motorbike fairing

Despite Amirs attempts at preventing me from using his images, I claim fair use how else would I be able to describe the bike. All pictures are copyright Amir Glinik. Amir if you had allowed me to know where they were I wouldn’t have copied them, I would have linked instead.

You can read all about this crazy project here http://3d-files.co.il/Ferrari_Motorcycle_01.htm

Social networking sites come in many guises and forms. I am going to tell you about the various sites and then you need to join them. During the next few weeks we will go into more detail on each one. At this stage I want you to visit them and register. Look at the various submission guidelines if they exist. Compare the voting systems.

Aggregators

With aggregators there is no need to submit individual blogs as the aggregator will use your XML or RSS feed to collect information from your blog. Every time you create a new article or blog entry the aggegators will post them automatically. The only effort needed with aggregators is visiting them and voting for the entries.

Amatomu

Afrigator

Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking sites do not as a rule have a voting system except for how many people have bookmarked a site or article. Sites like these generally have a manual submission button and don’t ask for much in the way of information. Your bookmarks are logged under your username and other people with similar interest will become friendly with you. They will then look at your bookmarks and in all likelihood bookmark them as well.

Del.icio.us

Stumble Upon

Social Networking

In some cases this is a misnomer. In my opinion the only reason for calling these sites social networking sites is the social element of people visiting and voting. The social element however can be subject to collusion on some of the smaller sites like MUTI. Sadly Muti does bring results for some of my clients but the collusion has led to the banning of a few sites. Be very aware that there are many of these sites that have unwritten rules. You may think because the input forms ask for the authors input they would accept the authors submission of his or her own articles. Because MUTI is an unfriendly Social Networking site I am excluding them from this list.

Digg

Reddit

SABloggerOne of my clients has been banned despite never having posted a blog here so I think there is a link to the MUTI clique. Maybe they will stay on this list but we will have to see.

fark

News Vine

True Social Networking

Face Book

Those should keep you busy for a while, Register, find me, add me as a friend. In the next few days we will visit each of these in turn and show you how to use them effectively.

Reading the article on ezines entitled a website without video I got to thinking. The author makes an empassioned argument that having no video on your website somehow makes it inferior. I cannot disagree more. There are times when video has its place, there are times it does not. Video can help strengthen your message but beware it may destroy it as well.

Remember the time lapse between download and boredom threshold. According to some that difference is as low as 3 seconds. I don’t know so much, personally I give most websites 10 - 15 seconds before I leave, never to reappear. I would guess that the average threshold lies somewhere in between.

If you are going to use video or flash even make sure it is either embedded in a text page or hyperlinked. Give people the choice as to whether they want to use their precious bandwidth watching your videos. Factually a large percentage of internet users when arriving on a flash site will skip the intro to get to the meat. The majority of people will decide if they want to watch a video and sadly the majority will give it a miss.

Text and well compressed images though not as pretty as the flash and the video model still brings better results. Having said that a well crafted viral video can be of major benefit. It seems that when people receive these in their inboxes, they are happy to pass on the ones that have entertainment value. Here is the thing though, I have seen many entertaining videos that leave no real impression of the brand. entertainment without a message is not going to benefit your business.

I spotted this blog and was unable to comment due to some error in the system. I was wondering how balanced and depth the research was that was undertaken to reach his conclusions. Its a nice marketing blurb for all the parties concerned. As I have not tested many of the systems I will not comment. I like to keep my opinions reasonably clear of bull and definitely would rather err on the side of truth.

The list mentions 10 sites, My first impression was that many of the sites that are being proclaimed superior are all in the same network as the author. So is the author giving his friends a little nudge in terms of publicity or does he actually believe these are the best that South Africa has to offer?

I agree, Amatomu and Afrigator are brilliant projects. Both are in need of a little something to smooth out the ride. There is nothing that can stop these from going all the way to the top. I use both and find Amatomu brings better results at this stage. I would not write Afrigator off.

So far I can’t fault his thinking. Being a member of MyGenius I can only add that this is an awesome idea but it is by no means as good as it could be. There are a few things that could be done to improve the user experience. But would I drop it from my top ten. No, I don’t think so.

So far so good, but then he added MUTI to the list. Here I have to disagree, MUTI has lost credibility in the view of many because of off line collusion among some members. MUTI has no set of rules or guidelines to give new members an inkling of what is expected. Self promotion has been declared against the rules by a few members and they actively collude to remove self promoting articles from the list. Off line collusion will destroy social networking whether it is to raise the profile of some, or to do the opposite. I would not add MUTI to the top 10 because factually the management are condoning the actions of these members. Sadly this is not going to allow for the transparency offered by sites like DIGG or REDDIT. I think its the number of users than can influence a result that makes a difference. On MUTI 6 or 7 users can control the site. My advice to MUTI is to kill that collusion before you destroy your credibilty entirely.

As to the others I will delay comment till I have had tome to actually look at and test the systems myself. I cannot judge them without testing them first.

A few sites worth mentioning here that could change the way of the web,

Marks SA Blogger based on the Pligg platform So the site is not unique nor is it claiming to be but it offers a much needed service. As long as Mark does not fall into the MUTI trap this site may be of benefit to the community at large.

Guaranteed South African This is one of my own projects, still needing a lot of work. But membership is rising slowly. A networking site with more than just a blog for the members. This site may still take a while to get to where we want it but watch it none the less.

Out door photoNothing original here but with membership climbing and good results for the owner of the site, I think that is a good startup.

There are a few others I will discuss at another time, but don’t write off content builder either. This project started a month ago, already has 38 sites and growing. A economical offering for the small business that does not need knowledge of HTML or other net technologies to get your site active and working in less than four days. You can be on GOOGLE in less than a week following the instructions we offer.

Many disagree with the simplicity of our template but none have condemned the system itself, or if they have they did so without ever testing it. Suggestion have been made that I should switch to Wordpress as it’s alledgedly better. I would then just be yet another Wordpress template creator. My system is more than just a blog with a pretty template. I am sure Wordpress may do what I want to do, It may offer what my clients need, but what word press does not offer is personal service, a voice on the other side of the phone.

For all the noobs out there, this lesson and warning will be of immense value to you one day. As one who has been a victim of this kind of behaviour on a couple of occasions, and to my chagrin, on one occasion the person that created the first post unwittingly feeding the zombies and the ghouls that haunt their fiefdoms in cyberspace. From personal experience I have found that witch hunts take place on the web. Gangs of users spotting a weakness will, like hyenas, attack and destroy anything that they perceive as a threat. Facts are that envy politics are a great problem throughout the world. Maybe you have a great product, but the hyenas will attack any perceived weakness and once they get started there is no stopping them. Freedom of speech is something I have heard it called more than once.

Incredibly most of the attackers are anonymous. They never stand up to be counted. They slink like jackals in the dark nipping at an exposed flank. Never will they target their prey face to face. I have seen this happen over and over on the internet. One person will say something, another will back him up, maybe a third will assist. Once this occurs the faceless ones start appearing joining in the attack. Despite never having spoken to the people they are attacking they seem to gain atavistic joy from the attack. Its a base primal instinct that causes this mob mentality. In the deep south of the USA lynch mobs acted on this instinct. Kangaroo justice is meted out in Africa by mobs with this impulse. These people don’t stop to think, they act on their deep seated need for superiority when they have deep seated inferiority complexes. They are cowards and fiends that can only be active in the relative anonymity of the mob.

The reason I have written this article is to tell you that you don’t have to have done anything wrong, you need to be perceived as a threat to somebody and this will happen. You may unintentionally break some unwritten law that you had no way of knowing about and you will be mauled by the mob. I am going to give you some advice (that I would have been very grateful to receive) should this happen to you.

Ignore the attack and continue with your life as if it did not happen. I entered the fray defending myself and my product. Some friends also tried to defend. This is a waste of time and effort. Stay out of it. I should have known better because I have seen this happen before, multiple times. Unfortunately your instinctive reaction is to defend yourself and pass on some of the hurt you are feeling. It’s a natural reaction, but get past it. It will not help at all. If you do retaliate, you just add fuel to the flames. If you don’t, the curs will get bored and seek an alternative target.

The faceless hordes have no conscience, they have no love for mankind. They are cyber terrorists and bullies. But they are bullies only when they can do so from the screen of anonymity. The sweetest of people in real life can be the worst of the worst when nobody knows who they are.

I have a weakness, it’s called anger. Over the past week or so I have been in a rage that has tired me and it was all unnecessary. If I had ignored the bullies and terrorists they would have gone away, slinking back into the night, to their cess pits and hovels.

After having spent some time around social networking sites here are a few things I have learned.

You have different types of people and they have different agendas. Some people seem to think that anything commercial is bad, this is not what social sites are for. Some seem to think that spamming these sites is OK, Thats what they are there for, right?

I think the the word social networking is a misnomer in many instances, sure Facebook is a social site, but its also used by many as a business networking tool. As a method of keeping your teams up to date, can it be beaten?

Digg, Reddit et al are referred to in that genre as well, but the most popular information available on these sites is anything but social. Its normally news or tech. That makes me think that social is the wrong word to use.

The new kid on the SA scene is SA Blogger. On day one the most popular post was a political news story, hardly social is it?

But back to the point of this article, Social networking can be good for your business if you become a part of the community. Some communities will reject you without thinking about what you have to offer but a lesson long forgotten, that needs to be revived is the art of lurking. In the old days in IRC people would join the chat rooms and lurk until they understood the dynamic of the room. Only then would they start taking part. I think this would be a good strategy for some of the smaller social networking sites.

I recently learnt about the unwritten rules propogated by the community. On one Social networking site self submission is frowned upon. In fact it is not frowned upon, it is actively targeted and killed. The lesson here is that sites that have that type of mentality and membership for want of a better word will implode.

They chase away new people with their attitudes and superior knowledge. Noobs need guidance not heavy handedness. It’s amazing throughout the history of the net, noobs have been sneered at by supercillious all knowing old timers. Strange how quickly they forget that they were also noobs once upon a time. Fortunately not all old timers suffer from this niche superiority complex and some noobs will survive the initial hazing and stupidity.

Lets make today, “Be nice to a Noob day” shall we.

Today I am going to introduce you to the club called Google and the concept of the pretty girl. This article is an excerpt from my report which you can have free by joining our mailing list. How many of us in our youth joined the cues at clubs and watched the “beautiful people” bypass the queue and walk straight in. Now we know that anyone can get into the club, its just the wait that differs. I heard the argument last week that anyone can join Google. Just go to the submit page button and you will get spidered. I don’t know why but it seems Google isn’t keen on you buying your own ticket. You get added to the queue but spidering may happen, well, whenever.

Some sites are pretty girls, Google loves them and the queue gets shorter. Finding these sites is not always easy. Becoming friendly with these pretty girls is not always easy either. We here at traffic department know some of these pretty girls and can introduce you. I hear you ask, Is that all? Sadly no! The introduction is good but you still need to prove your worth. In previous articles I have talked about quality content, I have talked about Spam and why this won’t work.

Search engine optimisation or as the Americans spell it optimization is the big thing. People are out there selling their services for thousands of dollars, pounds, rands and more. I will tell you that the money spent may not be the best investment you make.

In recent days many link directories have lost their page rank. It is assumed that Google is penalizing them for having paid links. In my opinion many directories exist for only one reason and that is to farm links. Link farms were appearing higher in the Google rankings and in many cases were just a waste of time and effort.

Link Farms and Directories

Directories that are created purely to sell links or get rankings are not worth joining. Having said that, I know that industry specific Directories can be good for a business, yet directories without any useful content are doomed to failure.

Links back to your website are important but heres the thing, Having links from paid directories with no ties to your business are a waste of time. A site dedicated to Linux was penalised for having paid for links to casinos and adult content sites. I am sure you will agree that those have no link to linux.

Quality Links

I bet everyone is wondering what a good link is.
Links from industry specific sites are good.
Links from blogs dealing with the subject at hand.
Links in sites with authoritive and relevant content
Links from sites that do not link to link farms and questionable sites
Links in Blog Rolls.
Links you have not paid for.

You are who you associate with

So the thing here is when you ask someone to link to you check their credentials. If the majority of sites linking to you link to questionable sites you will not get credit for those links, In fact you may even get penalized. You are known for the company you keep.

Some of the biggest directories on the net have just learnt that the hard way. They are not even appearing at the top of the list when searching for their brands. Directories that are feeling the pain include; Aviva. Alive, Big Web Links, ewebpages, Directory Dump, Elegant Directory and many more.

Free for all (FFA) directories

Another place to stay away from are the Free For All(FFA) directories, They give you no benefit whatsoever because they are link farms that the Search Engines do not approve of. Before trying the short cuts rather write an authoritive article and submit it to ezines and other sites that desire good content.

Using the power of the internet is. Search Engine Optimisation helps get hits, but good quality content can do more. Are you a half full or half empty type person. Watch this video and tell me.