Insight into Google page ranking

Jon Haarstad had a great post on his blog about the Google page ranking system. The mysterious ways of page ranking are really not that mysterious as you'll see here...the Google geeks have a rational for it all. If you really want to get in depth on this topic, follow the links on Jon's blog and you'll get all kinds of fun calculations, charts, and formulas (and by fun I mean "fun" for the kind of people who know things like the numerical value of Pi beyond the traditional 3.14). If you're not into that just know it all seems to boil down to this...links. When you get linked to your page rank goes up. If you aren't linked to, your page rank will stay down.

The View of a Generation?

If you spend even minimal time on social media or social networking sites you've undoubtedly seen scores of self portraits like the one of me here. Spend about 16.3 seconds on MySpace and you'll find plenty of these.

My wife and I were recently eating dinner at Panera Bread and saw a girl sitting in a booth by herself snapping pictures of herself just like this. Panera has Wi-Fi so it's a natural spot for web saavy people to eat, hang out, and apparently snap pictures of themselves. Just today I was driving through Brentwood and saw some teenagers hanging out the side of a car taking pictures of themselves like this too.

I've come to a conclusion about these images: they are a picture of an entire generation. Think about it...if you've never taken a picture like this (particularly for the purpose of putting it online) you're missing an entire movement in the way people are relating to each other. There's certainly nothing special about the pictures themselves, but if you've got a picture like this it's a symbol that you're "in" on the new wave of relational networking. It's like this self-shot-picture phenomenon is a mark of a generation like poodle skirts and leg warmers.

The point here is simply this...there's a lot of talk about the adoption of technology, but there seems to be less talk about the culture woven throughout the technology. These images merely represent a slice of the culture. To understand the technology thoroughly we have to look to the culture in which it's being adopted. For now, maybe a picture is not worth a thousand words but instead a thousand pictures are a glimpse of an entire generation.

My Election Day Haiku

I voted today and have a little haiku of my observations:

Voting lines were long
Old people can't work machines
Should it be this hard?

Transcript of two bloggers with nothing to blog about

If you've ever wondered what a couple of bloggers talk about via IM when they've got nothing to blog about I'm about to pull back the veil...here's a conversation from a little while ago with my friend Chris. He blogs at PourOut.com. Here's our Google Talk conversation...

Bill: Hey Chris, I'm stuck...what are you posting about tonight ? chris: No clue. Bill: I got nothing chris: I'm working a great post for tomorrow night, but it's not done yet. Bill: I don't even have that I saw on Greg Verdino's blog that he's in the top 100K blogs on Technorati ...so I had to check it out too.... I'm in there also...pretty sweet chris: but I can't not post anything, right? Bill: no, you gotta post something chris: Mine's not. I have a couple of people who have blogrolled me (you and Greg actually) but freaking Technorati's not picking it up! Bill: the mystery's of Technorati are wide and varied chris: I'm pissed at those guys. Bill: I know chris: http://www.jaffejuice.com/2006/11/self_deprecatio.html Bill: but you're always pissed at someone...yesterday Verizon...today Technorati chris: you see this? Bill: let me check it out chris: I feel exactly like those guys 17 unique visitors today wow awesome Bill: cool chris: really, really awesome 17 whole people Bill: yeah, I can see what those guys are saying pretty funny chris: 16 of which were probably bots Bill: you check your feeds? chris: 7 again Bill: I get them at feedburner chris: awesome Bill: sweet chris: yeah, rock on Bill: you ever check out http://blaugh.com/? It's a great laugh for bloggers and web 2.0 folks chris: that's pretty funny actually i gotta tell you, i wasn't expecting much when i clicked that link Bill: come on give me some credit chris: just the name blaugh Bill: you should get the RSS feed...it's a great way to get them all at once chris: i read it as "blaaaaaaaahghggggghhhhhhuuutytythhhdhd" RSS? What's that Bill? kidding Bill: well Christoper let me just tell you nah, you can get that all here: http://microexplosion.blogspot.com/2006/06/rss-feeds-me.html Chris Thomas with the assist chris: http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/11/bitty_browser_g.html my new favorite bookmark on the blackberry Bill: I've been reading a lot about that stuff you like it? chris: i do i really do we need more mobile sites Bill: "we" as in you? chris: right i forgot you just have an expensive "phone" http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/beginners-guide-to-digg.html Good post about Digg I found it helpful Bill: tagged that's really thorough chris: on deli.cio.us? Bill: yeah chris: I'm really getting into that finally Bill: yeah, me too...I signed up months ago but didn't really start using it until recently I like that I can access the bookmarks anywhere (via the world wide web of course) chris: What's the world wide web Bill? Bill: but seriously...I had a few instances of wanting to go back to a site I bookmarked on my laptop while I was at worked work that is... and I didn't have it with me so deli.cio.us is the solution to the rescue Recording voicemail to chris@voxacious at 10:03 PM on Monday Voicemail ended with chris@voxacious at 10:03 PM on Monday chris: I couldn't agree more Seems as if I have a Google Talk voicemail from Bill Seaver that's one second long Bill: yeah, ignor that...I was just messing around a second ago...by they way...on a different topic entirely do you use an optical mouse? chris: yes mighty mouse worst mouse ever really Bill: have you ever noticed the cursor just starting to move from time to time? chris: yes Bill: I've got two mice here at home (both optical) and that drives me crazy it's like someone's in control of my computer chris: actually not on my macs but on my pc's Bill: you know what....now that I think about it, I've never had that happen with the optical mouse on my iMac at work chris: send me another voicemail, but longer than one second, i want to check GT out Bill: I don't have a mi on my computer I don't think Recording voicemail to chris@voxacious at 10:06 PM on Monday chris: ahhhh... Voicemail ended with chris@voxacious at 10:06 PM on Monday chris: on a completely unrelated note... Kim just said that Carrie Underwood won best female artist tonight and that when she was announced the winner Faith Hill looked into the camera and threw her hands up and screamed "WHAT???!!!?!" Guaranteed YouTube blast tomorrow Bill: tomorrow? give it 30 minutes ....and that may bump your blog post you were working on there's gotta be some comment in there for you chris: allright, i'm headed to bed. Bill: ok, see ya I got something to post tonight!! chris: and hey don't forget to vote tomorrow. Bill: don't worry...I will chris: you will forget? or you will vote? Bill: NOOOO I will vote now that I go back and read my response I see that it was totally stupid chris: always the last word... Bill: bye

Blog Backup/Archive Solutions

I've been blogging steadily now for just over five months and a while back I got to thinking that it would be nice to have a backup for my blog...because you never can tell what might happen. I don't expect Blogger to lose all my posts, but I've wanted some assurance ever since I read a story by well known blogger, Robert Scoble, who talked about one of the first blog systems he was on lost all of his posts from years ago.

I was told last week about a free solution called BlogCollector. BlogCollector is a free download that backs up your blog and even converts the blog over to a PDF file if you want. Unfortunately BlogCollector limits the number of posts that it will download (and it doesn't tell you how many that is). It also doesn't convert the images in your blog over to the PDF. You can get unlimited saved posts if you're willing to pay the $68 fee. Overall this is a good application and was the only one like it I was able to find.

I also discovered ExpressPDF, which is a pretty cool free application that allows you to convert a website, Word document, or Excel document to a PDF. I used ExpressPDF as a backup for my blog as well. It's essentially a screenshot of the blog (or any other website for that matter) but it's a nice way to at least get a copy of your blog in a place you can control. I now have a PDF for each of the last five months and will begin to do this at the end of every month as part of my routine.

If you're interested in just storing your blog data somewhere (aside from your own hard drive), there are many free online storage options available. I've used Box.net and it gives you a free gigabyte of data storage on their servers. I came across this Tech Crunch article from earlier this year that gives a good overview of Box.net and other online storage options.

Backing up your blog may not seem like a big deal...but if you put a lot of time into what you're writing, wouldn't you want to know that you've got your own personal copy of your blog at the end of the day? I do.

3 ways to get bloggers to hate your website

Ok, so let's say you're not interested in bloggers talking about your organization. In fact, you're more than not interested...you don't care if they like you or not so you really don't want to make their lives any easier. If you think bloggers are annoying little wannabe writers with nothing better to do than sit in front of their laptops while sipping double chocolate mocha latte frappuccinos this is the post for you. Here are three ways to get bloggers to hate your website (but what do you care?):

No permanent links: Bloggers love to post a link to the exact part of a website or story they're talking about. If you don't have a way for a blogger to reference it as a permanent link there's no way they can be guaranteed their reference link will still be there a day later...they'll hate that about your site and may purposefully avoid talking about you.

Bad image files: Bloggers love to spruce up their posts with pictures or logos of the people or organizations they're talking about. Most of the time they'll grab the image from the site to post to their blog. You won't want to do that for them...that would make their lives too easy. In fact, if you can prevent them from copying the images at all that would really get them to hate your site.

Don't give personal email addresses: Bloggers are natural connectors and will occasionally want to ask questions or make a one-on-one connection to the people/organizations they're talking about. If they can't find a personal email address on your site (or at the very least something like info@yourwebsite.com...which will annoy them a bit but not get them to hate your site) they'll never be able to connect with you. Undoubtedly bloggers talk about their connections which can only perpetuate the discussion about you and your organization. Since you're not interested in that just give them a generic form to fill out or an 800 number with an automated voice that answers the phone.

If you are interested in bloggers talking about you (and maybe even loving you) do the opposite of everything above.

PodPoint Relaunches Website

PodPoint.net relaunched its website today with a great new look and some cool new functions. It looks like they've retooled their focus a bit to not just help churches and ministries develop and launch their podcasts but also to serve as an aggregator for other Christian podcasts.

It will be interesting to see how PodPoint progresses because it now has an entirely different (and broader) appeal. Not only can a church or ministry get help with the development of their podcast, but now anyone looking for Christian oriented podcasts has a one-stop-shop for the top Christian podcasts available today. I think this was a smart move for PodPoint. Also, while you're there, check out their "learning center" has some good general information about podcasting.