Blog
June 21, 2012
As humans, we love to put labels on things. It helps us understand our world and make sense of objects and concepts in relationship to each other and our surroundings. Naming things also gives us a convenient way to communicate with others about our experiences and interactions; something which helps us find commonalities, discuss solutions, and work together to improve our understanding of whatever it is we’re trying to understand. No matter how much we might feel compelled to argue that putting a label on something only serves to limit its meaning and box it into a rigid structure of thought, that is exactly what we do each and every day. There’s just no getting around it... Continue reading
July 17, 2011
If you're one of the many online publishers who saw your organic search traffic and rankings take a significant hit after Google's recent Panda update, you've no doubt been scrambling for ways to adjust to the new Post-Panda world order. Since the stated aim of the (so-called) farmer update was to de-value "Low-Quality" content in the SERPs, it's only logical that you would start by focusing on ways of improving the content on your site to be more in-line with what Google thinks of as "High Quality" content... Continue reading
March 17, 2011
I've been riding the online content rollercoaster for a while now, freelance and full time, at startups and at public companies, through thick and thin, long tail to head, from stubs to feature length articles and back again. I've helped produced seven thousand word expert instructional pieces with videos, images and purpose – and I've also been partially responsible for language butchering hundred word abominations wrapped in adsense. And while I may not have written them all myself, I still feel personally responsible for having helped to create and manage systems that allowed them to be published and promoted. Don't get me wrong. I'm incredibly proud of the majority of the content I've helped produce as an editorial director and content manager over the years. But as with a lot of things in life, it's the ones that got away that always seem to come back to haunt you... Continue reading...
February 27, 2011
The online "Search" business is a billion dollar industry for one basic reason: it is often the easiest and most efficient way for people to find what they are looking for. Whether it's finding out who is buried in Grant's Tomb, when your flight to Las Vegas leaves, or where to buy that camouflage Snuggie©, search engines try to get us to our object of desire as quickly as they possibly can. But no matter how much search engines have evolved, they still don't have the ability to read minds (yet). Because of this, they have to rely solely on the data that we (the users) give them in the form of our search queries in order to decipher our INTENT. And while some queries are easy to understand ("what time is the super bowl?", "stock price of apple", "trader joes locations"), others may suggest a wide variety of possible intents ("electric car battery", "toilet broken", "justin bieber murder dismember")... Continue reading