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F*ck Google Ask Me

Posted July 22nd, 2008 by chrishambly
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But stop and think for a second, is this the mentality that Social Media is promoting?

Do not get me wrong, having advice from your friends is useful, but how much objectivity do your friends bring, do you have friends whom are brutally honest with you?

Just curious..

Then again, how much objectivity does Google provide you?

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Twitter Without Images Google Feast

Posted February 15th, 2008 by chrishambly
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This is what Twitter looks like when their image server don't work. Their images are stored on amazon big boys I believe, here: http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/ (that won't work by the way).

It's interesting to note that this is one of the reasons why your Twitter profile ranks so well in Google, oh you never checked? You should.

What you see here is what Google would see, instead of images they would see the text profile names, just as you see here, typically used as an "alt tag" AND "title tag".

There you go.

Some people I know have protected their updates due to their Twitter page out-ranking their blog or whatever domain they wish page.

You had that issue?

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Google Releases Social Graph API

Posted February 3rd, 2008 by chrishambly
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I'm excited about the possibilities of the Google Social Graph API as this will really open the potential for us all to use our connections much more openly than any current system in use. And more to the point we won't have our hands tied with "walled gardens" like Facebook, we'll be able to build our own using our social graphs.

The API already has a demo available which you can try out, I popped along to their demo and entered my twitter url and was impressed by the outcome which I have listed below.

Are you on my list?

Contacts you link to

People who link to you as a contact

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Debt Settlement Ads

Posted January 31st, 2008 by chrishambly
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Facebook advertisements are not so bad, in fact I find they are generally really subtle and unimposing, they just become part of the daily stream of my social graph updates.

I’ve experimented myself with a few ads recently for a project, and I found the demographic data Facebook provides pretty comprehensive for targeting just the kind of people you desire.

As an example I am currently targeting “liberal, moderate, and conservative men between 18 and 65 years old who are single, in a relationship, engaged, or married in the United States who like music production.” I’m not sure why I chose conservative men, as I look at it, in fact I should change that to cover perhaps more liberal minded folk and definitely include women too, however you get the point, the demographic is pretty neat, and my experiment is done.

I like the ads because I can pay for them on a per click basis and of course they are targeting people INTERESTED in what I’m selling.

I’ve used google adwords for literally years, since they were released actually in 2003, and as that system is also targeting contextually it makes for good conversions. However, I would say that google adwords probably would have more redundancy due to not all traffic landing on an ad placement zones to be totally pre-qualified.

I’m working with a new client now also to help them understand how they can use some of these technologies, the client works in the texas debt settlement and I spotted a competitor’s ad in my stream today, see below.

Pretty unobtrusive yet handy info if you are interested eh?

How do YOU feel about the ads in your Facebook Social Graph?

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Changing Communications

Posted January 28th, 2008 by chrishambly
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Yesterday I mentioned to my partner I intend to use Google Calendar on my mobile phone. I also stated she’d be able to track any updates in my schedule fairly easily. For example, suppose I made an appointment during the day, and input that into Google, she would be in a position to quickly cross-check my schedule should something come on the horizon that she needed to book herself.

I thought this was pretty neat, hmm but I was wrong. Apparently it would be a little redundant due to the amount of tweeting I do concerning my plans etc. She said “I only need to see what your are tweeting and I’d know”.

This made me think hard about what I actually do indeed tweet, and this has got me wondering about my tweet use.

Fact: I am using far less text messages a month than I have in the passed to send updates to friends. I recall in the late 90s I used to get through hundreds and hundreds a month, now I get through maybe 10 a week tops.

Fact: I do indeed tweet rather openly about my whereabouts and “some” of my plans.

Fact: I seem to be actively in communication with my social graph between the hours of 8am and 8pm GMT.

Fact: Not everyone in my social graph follows me on Twitter. However, most of the others use Facebook (my tweets get shown in my FB status). The ones whom are not in either system get an email, or lastly a text message, or private IM.

Oh and of course I just call people a lot more these days too.

There we go, my communication methods have change considerably, and become almost free.

What about yours?

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Gmail Tip Username + Whatever

Posted January 22nd, 2008 by chrishambly
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Gmail Tip

You might not be aware of this (I wasn’t until recently).

You can use your gmail username with a + after it with absolutely anything and you’ll still get the email.

You what?

Yep, for example my username is “chambly”, so I could let’s say use chambly+disposable@gmail.com and I’d still get the email.

Or chambly+yahoosignup@gmail.com and I’d get the email still.

Why is this so cool?

Well you can use different combinations for different contacts you may meet, say +business, +friends, or say +spam if you want to sign up to a site but fear spam. You can then set up filters in gmail to filter your mail based on the +whatever, keeping you very organised and your precious username lean.

I love that tip, think it's handy yourself?

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Web2.0 Halloween with Google Inclusion

Posted October 31st, 2007 by chrishambly
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Ok so I have had to “buy in” to Halloween this year, of course I did, I have a 14 month old daughter and a qualified school teacher for a partner, these type of activities are essential!

So we bought a pumpkin from the local Pumpkin Grotto (lovely sideline a local farm is laying on this year, rammed with the orange orbs and various other spooky delights), and whilst there I grabbed a set of pumpkin carving tools to go with it (great idea).

The carving kit came with a bunch of template which I strapped onto the said fruit ready for daddy to carve! As you can see the tools are comprehensive.

Carving was a piece of cake, well fruit actually, and surprising to me didn’t take that long at all. The conversation between me and Jo then went on to what to use for the candle, she wasn’t keen on a candle as there will be a group of babies, and a gaggle of mums, so she wanted it to be safe!

If you read my blog a fair amount you’ll probably know I like risk to an extent, I enjoy unpredictability and in this case I fancied a flickering candle inside the lovingly carved fruity.

However, pressure won over and cleverly Jo thought that my Google Light/Radio would be a great idea to use inside Peter Pumpkin.

Now this Google Light/Radio is actually my first gift from Google way back in the first year of entering their Adsense program, (yep they supply gifts if you earn well), and well, anyway I’ve always cherished my Google Clock Light Radio device which pulsates changing pastel shades.

In fact it's so neat it turns on off off depending on how you orient it through 90 degrees.

So there we have it, it turns out that we have a Peter Pumpkin of the Google Web2.0 variety, well the party will be social anyway, and of course have the web connection.

Made me chuckle so thought you might too.

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Search Engine Optimisation

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Having been involved with the web, in a business sense, since the mid 90s I’ve found that it has been essential to practise search engine optimisation (SEO) in every aspect of my online work from forums, blogs, articles and links, you name it, my head is in SEO.

If you are reliant on the internet for your traffic it makes crystal clear sense that you ought to optimise all of your content for the search engines, to provide them tasty food that will keep them coming back for more, time and time again.

Ignoring appropriate SEO is akin to taking cash and setting fire to it, if your site is not optimised to rank very well you are simply throwing away prospects and essentially income, from whatever means that may be, affiliate links, google adsense or product up-selling.

I’m also fully aware of the power of “word-of-mouth” or new/social media communities and I am an advocate for that approach 100%, but the secret really is in a blended approach, you can have a large community all digging your content for you with various tools, but that community is infinitesimally small to the power of ranking on the first page of google within a competitive niche, period.

The other thing many people working exclusively in social or new media don't always get is that their own tight-knit community of "diggers" are often not the prospects, not the customers, so hence no income generation!

I have operated for a variety of clients over the years helping them to optimise for their niche market, tweaking code and content here and there and creating a variety of campaigns and methods for organic growth of back-links (essential activity), of course social media now helps immensely with the later IF the rel="nofollow" tag is omitted.

I am available for SEO and Social Media contracts, just inquire and we can have a chat about what you want to achieve.

I’ll gently challenge you and leave you with the tools to empower yourself too.

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