You are here: Home / Blog

What makes a great Third Place?

April 28, 2008 By 8 Comments

IMG_1317.JPG Third Places are those places where people meet, work, relax, study and socialize that are not home (First Places) and not work (Second Places). Think Starbucks, country clubs, some taverns and cafes, libraries, or even Barnes & Nobel. While Third Places used to be the norm in American life (Elk’s Clubs, VFWs, community centers), when suburban living became the context for the American Dream, Third Places started to disappear. With work, home and the commute in-between, there was less time, and maybe less desire, for these gathering areas.
However, now that people are starting to reappreciate urban living, and as more and more people telecommute, work as freelancers or are becoming professional nomads, Third Places are making a comeback.

[Read more...]

Share
Filed Under: Other Tagged With:

Typo in Mac Notification Box

April 8, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Either this is a typo in iCal, or someone at Apple has decided to use King James English:

Share
Filed Under: Other Tagged With: ,

Quick Book Review: Winner Takes All

April 3, 2008 By Leave a Comment

With football season long gone, television full of reruns and the lingering cold and snow, I’ve been on a reading tear the last couple of months.

Over the last 6-8 weeks I’ve read: The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, Power and influence by Robert Dislenschneider, Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins, Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich (wanted to read it before the movie came out), and just finished up Winner Takes All: Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, Gary Loveman, and the Race to Own Las Vegas by Christina Binkley.

Winner Takes All was spectacular! I definitely recommend it if you’re at all into hotel/resort development or investing, Las Vegas history, Steve Wynn, people with money, business profiles or all of the above.

I’ve always been fascinated by Steve Wynn. I remember the first time I visited The Mirage and heard his voice over the speakers while waiting to take the tram over to Treasure Island. At that time I didn’t know much about him but remember thinking about how his voice was so smooth and welcoming and really added a personal touch to this mega-resort. He collected art, brought his dogs to work and was keen on details. But Steve Wynn wasn’t just a hired gun running a corporation, this was his baby and we were there to enjoy the fruits of his labor… Actually, I was there to lose money at the craps tables…

I’ve stayed at the Bellagio (before the merger with MGM) too and, although it was wonderful, by that time I think Vegas had begun to lose some of its intimacy and “bigger is better” took over. The Bellagio is grandiose, but less cozy… Vegas became a little more like walking around the rim of the Grand Canyon instead of hiking its interior.

I think Wynn saw this too as his new Wynn Las Vegas is much more cozy feeling inside and less of a sidewalk spectacle on the outside.

Binkley’s book takes us through the large scale development and evolution on the Vegas strip over the last 20 years and it’s three biggest moguls. We get an inside look at Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian (of MGM Mirage) and, to a lessor degree, Gary Loveman of Harrah’s – as well as a number of other executives that came and went along the way.

From the mob to Howard Hughes to Steve Wynn, Vegas has had its share of characters who live large and dream big. This is a great story of three modern day moguls and how they made it happen.

Share
Filed Under: Books Tagged With: , ,

Search Engines Still Key to Hotel Bookings?

March 26, 2008 By 4 Comments

I’m not sure how earth shattering this is, but this post from HotelMarketing.com refers to a study showing that most people searching for a hotel are using a search engine to find hotels rather than going directly to a hotel’s corporate site. No big surprise that the internet is helping to commoditize hotel rooms just as it assisted in pushing airline tickets that same direction.

For most people, I believe, hotel rooms are booked primarily — in this order — for their location (city & state), price, proximity to desired landmarks, amenities, and then brand loyalty. No real scientific data there, just my gut instinct on how the average person goes about finding a hotel room for a family vacation, weekend getaway, business trip, etc.

I don’t doubt that brand does come into play if there are two hotels that match closely on the other factors. But average people don’t much care if it’s a Hilton or a Radisson in most cases. So, searching by destination, as this study suggests, seems perfectly matched to my theory. And, if you look at the search data you’ll find that a city name with a qualifier such as “discount” or “cheap” are the next most popular.

The danger for OTAs and Search Marketers or resellers depending on search marketing, though, is the risk of becoming nothing more than a price and amenities comparison engine that enable users to pick out a property, from a location search, and then go directly to the chain’s website to book the room. This study suggests that just that is happening:

“The BDRC said bookings are increasingly being carried out on hotel sites but third parties such as Expedia (40%), Lastminute.com (36%) and Ebookers (22%) continue to feature prominently during the research stage.”

If all you sell are hotel rooms, how do you differentiate from the rest of the pack? How do you use all of those great rankings to convert visitors to buyers?

Here may be a clue… The PhoCusWright Travel 2.0 Consumer Technology Survey, published in December of last year, says that,

“When it comes to making travel purchasing decisions, most American travelers would rather see the options for themselves than simply act on the recommendations of others. In fact, travelers want to view the options in detail via pictures, online maps and video.”

Frankly, I’m surprised at the fact that hotels aren’t trying harder to compete head-on in search engine marketing. Aren’t they leaning on their brand a little too much? Or are we just doing the hard work for them?

Search engines dominate how consumers look for hotels

Share
Filed Under: Online Marketing, SEM, SEO, Travel Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

HDTV and MOJO – Television Made in Paradise

March 21, 2008 By 3 Comments

I love High Definition television! And when you combine HDTV with a DVR, you end up with the ultimate tool for wasting time, burning brain cells and enticing the senses. My fanaticism for NFL football went from a solid 9.5 to 11 after adding HD and a DVR. Currently, my setup looks like this:

  • 42″ Phillips LCD HDTV (only 1080i though)
  • Kenwood AV Receiver
  • Comcast HD DVR
  • Sony Progressive Scan DVD/CD
  • Apple TV 2.0
  • Wii
  • 6 piece Boston Acoustics Speakers

Probably not going to impress a major audiophile, but it works out pretty well for me. So anyhow, HDNet and HD Movie (Mark Cuban’s networks) are great for HD, however when it comes to quality of programs, it’s getting hard to beat the MOJO Network! Do you get MOJO? If not, you gotta call someone and ask for it!

Three shows that you shouldn’t miss (watch them online if you don’t get MOJO):

  • Bobby G: Adventure Capitalist – Follows around Bobby Genovese, founder and owner of BG Capital Group, Ltd. and BG Capital Management Corp. Bobby is an adventure loving and filthy rich, a bit eccentric and genuinely a good guy (it seems). It’s a great snapshot of the life of a person who has made it in business and still manages to have fun – and he isn’t full of himself or an a-hole. He’s Canadian, they’re all cute and cuddly, right?
  • Wall Street Warriors – This show follows the life of several Wall Street folks ranging from hedge fund managers, stockbrokers, floor traders and day traders. The “characters” are very diverse and you can actually learn something about how deal makers function and a bit about their personalities.
  • Three Sheets - It’s drinking show, it’s a travel show, it’s about people and cultures. All great things that are even better when combined, like gumbo.

I also dig Start-Up Junkies, but I’ve worked for an Internet start-up and it’s all just a little too familiar for me. Plus the internet marketing guy on the show makes me want to throw things at him, and that would hurt my HDTV.

Share
Filed Under: Other

How do You Find the Best Airfares?

March 10, 2008 By 2 Comments

Between search, meta-search, customer review sites, aggregators, OTAs and everything else the internet can throw at us – it’s actually getting harder to make travel arrangements on the web.  What??  What I mean is, the more information to sift through, the harder it is for most people to make a decision on what to buy.  It’s a fact that when faced with an overwhelming amount of choices, many people opt for no choice at all.

Airfare, however, still seems to offer limited choice – and therefore should be simpler to decide on.  And it is, for the most part.  Generally, from most cities, there are 1 or 2 choices that fit my schedule and my budget.  But if you’re a flexible traveler, how do you decide when to travel and when to buy your ticket to ensure that you get the best deal available?
Here is my method:

  1. Search for my ideal travel dates in Orbitz, using flexible dates to see the fares for the days around my ideal travel date.
  2. Pick the best rate that works for the day(s) I need to be in my destination.
  3. Make sure that if I’m staying an extra night at the destination that the extra hotel night and/or expenses don’t exceed the extra cost of traveling on my ideal travel day.
  4. Proceed to the airline’s own website to book the ticket directly and thereby avoiding the $5 service charge (and possibly getting some bonus miles in the process).

The thing my method doesn’t account for is knowing WHEN to buy the ticket…  2-3 months out is usually not possible for most business travel.  I just finished a book where the author recommends only booking 4-5 days out and using Orbitz pricing to determine where you should start bidding on a Priceline (Name you Own Price) ticket.

Farecast.com gives you a recommendation of when to “Buy Now” or “Wait”, but it doesn’t really give you a flexible dates option.  I recently ran across flyspy.com (beta) which let’s you look at rates on a graph for up to 30 days and lets you adjust for day and length while highlighting the lowest fare. But it doesn’t really give you an idea of what the fare may do if you wait to buy your ticket later (like farecast).

It seems to me like there is an opportunity for a main-stream air-only search engine that encompasses the best of these two models.  However, with little or no commissions given on air-only bookings, a revenue model might be difficult to come up with.

How do you find the best deals on airfare?  Let me know in the comments and maybe we can create an aggregated list of sites and/or suggestions…

Share
Filed Under: Travel Marketing

SEO for WordPress Blogs

February 18, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Here is a free white paper released by Blizzard Internet Marketing and written by my Pubcon friends Mary Bowling and Carrie Hill.  If you’re blogging – or getting ready to start – this white paper is an easy to follow guide on setting up your blog with WordPress and tweaking it in order to maximize your search engine exposure and reap the rewards of a well optimized blog.  There is also a great list of plugins that help you get the most out of your blog.  In fact, after reading the white paper I setup the contextual related posts plugin, which you will now see under the comment section of my posts.

And, if you’re planning to attend Search Engine Strategies in New York next month, be sure to stop in on the workshop that Mary will be teaching, A Crash Course in Local Search, on Friday the 22nd.

Thanks, Mary!

New White Paper Released- SEO for WordPress Blogs

Share
Filed Under: Blogging, Optimization Tips, Search Engine Strategies, SEO, WebMasterWorld

Simplified SEO in Three Steps

February 12, 2008 By 1 Comment

Disclaimer: I know that this is a completely over-simplified version of search engine optimization and an SEO expert is really what most sites need to kick their search engine marketing into high gear… But, I wanted to boil it down to just a few things that any site owner can do to help out their rankings with just a little effort. Depending on a number of factors, these changes may make significant increses in your ability to drive search engine traffic, or it may be much more subtle. But with the time that you’ll invest, it’s surely worth a shot…

  1. Make sure the engines can see your content. The simplest way to do this is to use your web browser to view > source. Do you see your content in the code? More than 2 or 3 times in the last few months I’ve had people ask me to take a look at their site and I’ve found that the entire site was nothing more than images or was completely constructed in frames. If you view the source of your site and don’t see your page copy, neither can the search engines. Also, make sure you’re using keyword phrases that users are actually searching for in your page copy. To help figure out what those keywords are, visit: freekeywords.wordtracker.com.
  2. Rewrite your title tags. The title tags on your site serve two purposes. One is to help the engines know what your pages are about, the other is to encourage users to click on your listing in the search engine results. Write a unique title tag for each page of your site that includes one or two of those keywords from step one. In fact, use that keyword first in your title and stick your company name at the end (unless you’re specifically targeting your company/brand name). Keep titles to around 70 characters. Send that list to your web developer or update them yourself, but make sure each page has a title that is unique to its content and assures users that your site is what they are looking for when they see it in their results.
  3. Get more incoming links. Link building is a discipline in and of its own. Very simply put, you need quality incoming links to your site in order to obtain top rankings. To start ask friends to link to your site, next ask strangers to link to your site. Don’t spam strangers (or friends!), ask them nicely to trade or add a link to your site because you have complementary businesses or content. Join the chamber of commerce to get a link from their member directory. Put out your press releases through PRWeb or send them to bloggers and publishers of newsletters in your industry. There are hundreds of ways to build links, if you commit a few hours to it every week you will soon be reaping the rewards.

There you have it. Just a few simple steps that anyone can do to help their search engine rankings. Again, you won’t replace a search engine marketing expert with these, but they may help you get to the place where you can afford to hire one…

Share
Filed Under: Link Building, Optimization Tips, PR, SEO

If David Lee Roth tried out for American Idol…

January 25, 2008 By Leave a Comment

It might sound something like this:

Runnin’ With The Devil (DLR vocal track)

That was bloody brilliant!

Share
Filed Under: Music, Other

The Perfect Internet Marketing Conference

January 2, 2008 By 8 Comments

Today a guest post from SEO Mary Bowling, who I had the pleasure of meeting at PubCon last month:

I’ve attended 3 unique internet marketing conferences this year, each hosted by a different big-name producer. Each had their own strong and weak points and none of them were ideal. So, I started thinking about all the best things that would go into planning the absolutely perfect conference.

Here are the ingredients I crave:

Registration

  • A really enticing preregistration discount. Give me some ammo to take to the controller to get her to shake the money loose to pay for this.
  • Quick and easy registration. Maybe even online.? Self service kiosks where you can print your own pass?

Venue

  • The venue’s in a big hotel or directly adjacent to one. It is so much more relaxing to be able to go to your room if you need to during the day than it is to have to commute to the conference area and make your headquarters there.
  • Free wireless in the hotel rooms. Come on, the internet is a required utility for the set of people who go to an INTERNET marketing conference. You don’t charge them extra for water or electricity. Why make them pay $10-15 a day for internet access? And no, if we’re going to get any work done at all during the conference, please don’t expect us to conduct it in noisy and distracting common areas, so free internet in the lobby doesn’t count. If you can’t negotiate free internet, then at least get the hotel to include it in the room price. Then, we’ll never have to know.
  • Free wireless internet access in the conference area and adequate bandwidth to accommodate all the laptops in the audience. A lot of the people typing away are blogging about what’s going on at the conference. Do you want them complaining about inadequate internet service?

Amenities

  • Power to the people! Electrical outlets would be everywhere so that we could stay fully charged throughout the day and into the evening sessions and events.
  • Good food. You will be judged by the food you serve and the way it is served. A cold box lunch from a long table? or a long buffet of catered food we’ll all be blogging about?
  • Comfortable chairs. We can sit on hard plastic chairs all day, including at lunch, but we won’t be comfortable. Can we have a bit of padding, please?
  • Tables, as well as chairs in every session room. They call them laptops, that’s not really the preferred way to use them.

Sessions

  • Good acoustics and audio equipment. We want to hear what everyone says in every session. That’s what you’re selling and that’s what we’re here for.
  • Prepared presentations. No matter how celebrated a speaker may be, it ‘s disrespectful of the audience if they do not make any effort to prepare for their conference role.
  • Coordinated sessions. It’s a total waste of time when more than one speaker in a session gives us the same information. The moderator should review and coordinate the presentations to insure against the dreaded duplicate content.
  • No pitches. Nothing ruins a session faster than a speaker trying to sell the audience on their product or service.

Networking

  • Networking opportunities. Give us plenty of meals together, parties, evening sessions, exhibit hall time and creative events, like charity poker tourneys and roll-playing extravaganzas. Who we hook up with is often as important as what we learn.
  • Friendly, accessible speakers. It is so cool to have breakfast with an SEO hero or two. Meeting and speaking with the speakers is a highlight of any conference.

Here are a few niceties I’ll throw in, too: dimmable overhead lighting in the session rooms; comfortable temperature; snacks and drinks available throughout the day and at least a 10-15 minute break between sessions.

Mary Bowling is the senior SEO for Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc and blogs about optimization.

Share
Filed Under: Blogging, Online Marketing, Other, Search Engine Strategies, WebMasterWorld
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »