Archive for July, 2010

Oh, Facebook – Why Must You Rehost Wikipedia?!?

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

In a move perhaps inspired by Google Map’s adoption of Wikipedia content and Google’s overall preferential rankings of Wikipedia, Facebook has been testing out articles that are highly similar to Wikipedia’s. In fact, Facebook’s article pages have actually sucked in Wikipedia’s initial article content for topics in a great many cases I’ve seen thus far:

Wikipedia articles on Facebook

From my perspective, this sort of breaks one of the great benefits of hypertext that made the internet great: linking to source content. (more…)

Corporate Psychopaths First Go In & Shank The Strongest

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519), infamous lady of the Borgia family who purportedly poisoned rivals.

Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519), infamous lady of the Borgia family who purportedly poisoned rivals.

I’m periodically reminded of some of the worst people I’ve had the pleasure of working with in corporate America. While everyone’s worked with people who are merely negative or less-intelligent or annoying, the worst-of-the-worst people are downright evil and malicious.

We spend so much time at our workplaces that morale and enjoyment of the people you spend your life with becomes very important. If one of those people is a sociopath, it can really put a strain upon your workdays. Strange that I would still think about these people, but negative incidents stick with you a lot stronger than positive ones, in many cases.

Some of these psychopaths float from company to company, leaving destruction and casualties in the wake of their passing. You can identify them pretty quickly — I remember one woman who introduced herself to me via an email note that was a fairly blistering flame — truly awesome intro for a relative newbie who can’t possibly have the full context of what/how/why things are done at a company. I say that it’s easy to identify corporate psychopaths, because, when they arrive at a company, they often go in seeking to shank the strongest first, like the new alpha-male, entering a prison block! They’ll attempt to sideline and eliminate the high-performers in order to be able to manipulate and control the entire environment.

These people are pretty wheels-off, out-out-of-control in many cases. They are primarily out for personal gain with no regard to anyone else, and/or they are out for inflicting unhappiness upon others for the sheer enjoyment of it.

Oh, the stories I could tell — (more…)

Is it “Game Over” for Internet Yellow Pages SEO?

Monday, July 19th, 2010

In my article on Search Engine Land today, I outline how the recent local SERP testing being conducted by Google has the potential to not only reduce organic traffic to Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs) and online directories, but could also freeze out many well-marketed small-to-medium businesses.

So, is it “game over” for IYPs? Should they throw in the towel and move their promotional dollars to other, greener pastures?

IYP SEO - Game Over?

My answer to that is a confident “no!”, and not merely because I do SEO consulting. (more…)

The Escher Effect Invades Bing Maps

Sunday, July 11th, 2010
I noticed that the beta version of Bing Maps, which adds cool functionality to their mapping interface, has a fair degree of the “Escher Effect” now appearing in the Bird’s Eye view (aerial photos):
Escher Effect at the Williams Tower, Houston Tx (formerly known as Transco Tower)

Escher Effect at the Williams Tower, Houston Tx (formerly known as Transco Tower)

 

As you may know, the “Escher Effect” is caused by the digital stitching-together of quantities of aerial photos, some of which are taking at different times, and from different angles from one another. (more…)

Twitter Geolocation Randomly Moves Around

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

I have been experimenting with the “Add your location” setting on Twitter, and it’s not making a good impression on me.

Twitter's Geo Location Service

First, it ought to allow one to set either an absolute location, or to request that it set location dynamically, based upon where your geolocation is. If you were a small business proprietor and desired to Tweet on your business account from home at night, you wouldn’t want your home address location to appear on your Tweets, nor would you want some location that’s different from your place of business.

Twitter does allow you to select alternate location on a menu from what they’ve automagically selected for you. (more…)