FrankNJohnson.com

This Is Fascinating

2012-04-14T01:24:55+00:00

This is pretty fascinating. My daughter has an interest in robotics, and I was looking at some TED videos. I came across this one that touches on robotics and think I will share it with her for a project she’s working on. In the video, Golan Levin of Carnegie Mellon shares about the hybridization of art and engineering.

Looking For A Great SEO Consultant?

2011-02-21T16:53:25+00:00

I would highly recommend Gravity Search Marketing. I first came in contact with this company through reading a book written by their principals Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin. The book is called Search Engine Optimization An Hour A Day. When I first read the book years ago, it quickly became my favorite book on SEO, and that hasn’t changed.

Then, when the company I work for was looking for SEO consultants, Gravity was recommended to us by our ecommerce platform provider. It didn’t take me long to realize that the company we were evaluating was run by the authors of my favorite SEO book and we quickly hired Gravity as our consultants.

We haven’t been disappointed! Jennifer and Gradiva spent a lot of effort and time to thoroughly evaluate our site structure, use of relevant keywords, placement in search engine rankings, etc. They have trained us in good SEO copywriting and continue to make helpful recommendations regarding url structure, page titles, etc. They are deeply committed to white-hat SEO techniques, so we don’t have to worry about being banned by search engines. Best of all, since we engaged Gravity, our search engine rankings and performance from natural search have definitely improved.

I would recommend Gravity Search Marketing without hesitation!

New Website For My Daughter

2010-09-24T19:02:08+00:00

I’ve recently launched a new website for my daughter at EmilyJohnson.tv.

As you can see from the screenshot above, my daughter is a soccer goalkeeper. She is passionate about the sport and wants to play in college. So we decided to create a website for her that would highlight her skills (both athletic and academic), display video of her highlights, and publish her news throughout her social media presence.

If you have any comments or questions about the website, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Samasource

2010-04-18T22:28:08+00:00

I watched a fascinating video today of Leila Chirayath Janah, the founder of Samasource, speaking at a TEDS conference.

From Samasource’s description of their mission:

Samasource enables marginalized people, from refugees in Kenya to women in rural Pakistan, to receive life-changing work opportunities via the Internet. The core of this concept is microwork - little bits of labor that can be performed anytime and anywhere that add up to a real livelihood for our partners. In parallel, we enable socially responsible companies, small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs in the US to contribute to economic development by buying services from our workforce at fair prices.

Also, see the Samasourcing blog.

My 6-Week Nightmare With Adobe Support

2010-01-17T00:33:00+00:00

I am in the midst of a 6-week saga with Adobe Support. Hands down, it’s the worst experience I’ve ever had. I wrote a running commentary on my situation while I was on hold at various points in my last phone conversation with support (and other departments) on January 8. The commentary is included in a letter I sent to Lambert Walsh (apparently the VP of Technical Services at Adobe, at least according to this post on an official Adobe blog) and Tracy Moisan (on Mr. Walsh’s staff) on January 11. I live about 20-30 miles away from Adobe headquarters, so I’m assuming the letter has now been delivered. But I’ve heard nothing from them yet. So I can only assume that no one at Adobe is interested in solving my problem.

The more I think about this, the more I have come to believe that Adobe needs people who:

1) will own their customer’s problems; and,

2) who are empowered to solve their customer’s problems.

No one I have spoken with at Adobe during this nightmare has owned my problem - instead, they want to pass me off to someone else. And no one I have spoken to is empowered to solve my problem. For heaven’s sake, all I need is a 24-digit number. Is there no one at Adobe who is empowered to issue a serial number? Sheesh ....

Crisis Relief For Haiti

2010-01-15T07:44:01+00:00

My friend Dave Dias recently filmed this commercial for mPower Giving, relating how we can use our mobile phones to contribute to crisis relief for Haiti in the wake of this week’s disastrous earthquake.

World Flix

2009-08-27T05:21:00+00:00

I was reading our local newspaper today when I came across an article about a new startup dedicated to improving quality of life for people in some of the poorest communities in the world through modern technology.

World Flix, with a tag line of “E-Philanthropy for the Next Generation,” is a fascinating project which combines online videos of social projects around the world with a PayPal-enabled donation system to raise funds for microgrants to worthwhile humanitarian projects.

Here’s a sample of what you’ll see when you visit worldflix.org:

World Flix, which “microgrants 100% of your donation” to humanitarian projects, says this about themselves:

World Flix is a non-profit organization determined to change the world one video clip at a time. We have three underlying philosophies: 1) Through modern technology we can assist thousands of people around the world by bringing their issues to the public through video clips and the Internet; 2) Everyone deserves to know the joy of giving which is why we specialize in microgrants and small donations; and, 3) Donors should know exactly where 100% of their money is going and be able to see the tangible results of their donations.

I’m so impressed by this use of modern technology for a greater good, and I would encourage you to visit the World Flix website and learn more about this new organization and how you might be able to help.

Finding E-Commerce Sites On The Yahoo! Merchant Solutions Platform

2009-03-27T22:02:00+00:00

Not sure if this will help anybody, but I thought it was a neat trick.

Awhile ago, a company I work with was interested in finding ecommerce sites to partner with that made about $2-3 million dollars per year. I told them that sounded like a Yahoo! Store to me, and that there was an easy way to search for ecommerce sites hosted on the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions platform.

Every site hosted on the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions platform is required to have a privacy policy which begins with this text (automatically inserted by Yahoo!):

This site is hosted by Yahoo! Store.

We can use that fact to search for Yahoo! Stores on any subject. Just go to Google (or your favorite search engine) and enter something like this:

+“This site is hosted by Yahoo! Store” +{your choice of keyword}

The result will be a set of links to Yahoo! Stores which pertain to the word (or phrase) you chose as a keyword.

Some Examples
Yahoo! Stores related to baseball
Yahoo! Stores related to fashion
Yahoo! Stores related to food
Yahoo! Stores related to music
Yahoo! Stores related to scrapbooking

As I said, I’m not sure if this will be helpful to anyone, but in case it is, I thought I’d mention it.

Google Your Name

2009-02-28T17:53:00+00:00

Seth Godin has a good article on his blog today — Personal Branding in the Age of Google.

He gives an example of a friend who places an ad on Craigslist for a housekeeper and then Googles the names of three applicants. The results are humorous but sad at the same time.

I googled my name a few moments ago — I’ve done that in the past, but have to admit that I don’t do it regularly enough (I was about to set this up as a weekly calendar item, but thought better of it and set up a Google Alert which will email me results every day — Trackle could be helpful with this as well). The results were encouraging — nothing embarrassing! But I did notice that the fourth result for my name was a Twitter post. When I post to my Twitter account, I am often not thinking about how it will look to someone searching for information about me. Something to keep in mind.

Seth Godin is right when he writes:

Everything you do now ends up in your permanent record. The best plan is to overload Google with a long tail of good stuff and to always act as if you’re on Candid Camera, because you are.

A word to the wise for those interested in maintaining their personal brand online.

Tip of the hat to @chrisaperez (also see Chris’ blog).

The Perfect Checkout

2008-10-07T20:40:00+00:00

The latest issue of Catalog Success magazine includes an article by Amy Africa, an expert in ecommerce strategy. 5 Steps to the Perfect Checkout is a solid summary of ecommerce principles which, if implemented, will minimize abandoned carts and thus increase conversion.

While much of what she shares has been said before, there were some jewels of information which made me sit up and take notice:

Before building a one-step checkout, start with a more traditional five-step checkout to identify the sources of cart abandonment. I might add, if you currently have a four- or five-step checkout and are considering moving to a one-step checkout, make sure to mine all available data to get an idea of where your potential customers have historically abandoned your shopping cart.
Too many alternate payment options can increase abandoned carts. This was an eye-opener for me because multiple payments is currently all the rage. It makes sense though. Many ecommerce strategists have, for example, said that too many choices on the home page can lead to confusion for your customers. Why wouldn’t the same principle apply during the checkout process?
It is important to include your phone number in your checkout pages. While we are fond of the idea that the web should replace the call center, including your phone number in your checkout pages is actually a hedge against abandoned carts. If your potential customer wants to call you while they are in the midst of the checkout process, it’s because they are having a problem and are on the verge of abandoning the order.

Those were just three of the jewels I found. I would encourage you to read the entire article.