Christopher, [SHOCKER] The creator of DigiBizPro kills himself …

My first thought was holy shit. That’s awful. So I read down and Jack Humphrey is pitching some mothereffing IM product.

The creator of DigiBizPro practically KILLED himself last night to personally make sure things were back up. Yes, this guy hasn’t had sleep for the last 38 hours just from helping everyone.

Really? You are going to jerk around people’s emotions to get a sale? So this is the depths you will sink to get people to read an effing spam email?

I don’t offend easily. I’m not crazy about political correctness. But I have a thing about civility. Clearly we continue our spiral into the gutter. Pathetic man. Truly pathetic.

I dislike the time consumption of writing the post, coming up with a title and splashing a few tags into the post then having to go down to the bottom and deal with the SEO Pack. You have to scroll up and copy and paste the title. Then you get pissed because you already posted your tags so you have to type those out again. Then you get to come up with a groovy description of the post. I’ve been writing posts for the TKA article directories all day and am sick and tired of dealing with it.

I’ve been doing this on just about all of my self-hosted blogs. Except one in particular that I just never got around to adding it to. Funny thing happened. That blog gets the most traffic of any of my self hosted blogs. By far. I rank like a god for excellent keywords. I get well over a thousand visitors a day.

Now along with this blog I have three other blogs that hover in roughly the same niche. A network of sorts but not really. They each have SEO Pack to deal with. They get half the traffic. Not bad but nothing like the rogue blog. All have about the same amount of backlinks but really that’s irrelevant as far as the whether SEO Pack is worthwhile or not. The point is that a blog can survive, and thrive, nicely without fooling around with the thing.

I get a stupid amount of traffic with my Wordpress hosted blogs and they don’t have SEO Pack either. The thing is keywords do not matter to Google.

From Google:

At least for Google’s web search results currently (September 2009), the answer is no. Google doesn’t use the “keywords” meta tag in our web search ranking.

And the description does not matter to Google either.

Even though we sometimes use the description meta tag for the snippets we show, we still don’t use the description meta tag in our ranking.

But dude the title is important. Sure it is but I’ve already got one of those. I don’t need to add another. So in my estimation SEO Pack, at least for posts, is a waste of time. Maybe to juice your home title it is worthwhile. And if you want to play nice you can add a description. But overall it provides nothing for me except as an all in one time waster.

Just another case of me zigging while the herd zags. Mileage variables are engaged.

This is like the ultimate circle jerk. Internet marketers teach their minions to write a review about a Crapbank product. But dude don’t I have to buy the product? Why no Johnny. You just need to read the salespage and write down 10 benefits of the product. Write another article on 10 tips of using the product. They won’t really be reviews but we’ll title it as a review so Google and its searchers will be tricked into thinking that your site is an actual review. You’ll build a crappy little blog on Blogger and write an article for Ezine. Even better if  you can be clever and write it like it’s a review but really not. Pretend you have bought the product. They’ll be clicking your affiliate link all day long.

I can’t imagine how many ebooks are out there that “teach” people to write so-called reviews on products and post them to the web via blogs and Adwords landing pages. It’s maddening. Actually it’s not because after a while you simply give up and realize that nothing is going to be truthful about IM products, particularly Crapbank  stuff. Reviews will be crap. Testimonials will be crap. The product may or may not be worthwhile but you can bet there will be a ton of hucksters telling you how great the thing is. You cannot believe anything you read on salespages or review sites. It’s pathetic.

Just once I would like to read a testimonial that says “Dude, I made $75 after using your blueprint and getting my site put up. It took 3 weeks but it looks like the system has potential.”

But no we get some douche saying “Gladys, this product is going to be a hit. I can already think of a dozen ways this will help my business. You’ve done it again. Thanks!” Really? Nothing is said that indicates to me that the thing is worthwhile. I don’t need cheerleading. I want to see how someone else took the product and made cold hard cash using the freaking system. But no, you NEVER see that in testimonials. And if I do now I wouldn’t believe it. Yes, that’s cynicism that you smell.

I love the JV emails. I’ve been receiving those blood sucking eye sores for about 4 years now. Not once. Not once has anyone promoting some other guberus product explained to me how they were able to make thousands of dollars. Oh you can bet your sweet ass that they’ll tell you how YOU can make fat stacks. Just another disingenuous review of a product that no one seems to have actually used.

I just pulled out the latest spam email from my garbage bin. The product is for some Crapbank Adwords product. Dropped it into  Google to see how many reviews were up for it. Yea the vultures have been busy:

You know maybe this product is the real deal. But you’d never know it with the bullshit above. Lots of killer SEO here. But mostly just bullshit reviews…of the salepage. I think I’d be annoyed if this was my product. Unless I didn’t care and knew it was crap and was simply trying to make a buck. Who the hell knows anymore?

So I know what you are thinking. I do the same thing when I knock some IM product. Yea but here’s the difference. I say straight up that I haven’t bought the thing. I tell you why I’m not buying the thing. And you don’t see many affiliate links leading to money making opportunities dripping off my post. If I’m positive about something it’s because I bought the damn thing. I’ll post a review of it with affiliate links because 1) I want to make a buck or two every once in a while and 2) I think it might be of value for someone else. As always there is the potential for mileage variability.

Looking though Crapbank and then doing a search for the product and review it’s pretty clear this is a money making tactic. If this is your schtick then that’s cool. Making money to purchase that third Ferrari is a fine thing. It’s just that it’s all a lie. It clogs up the web with more garbage. Immoral people making money on people that don’t know any better. It’s not for me and obviously I have an opinion about it but it seems to me if you are going to title your article “Product Review” then it should be a real hands on review.

If I had a product to sell I’d round up 5-10 of my best readers or friends. I’d give them the product and say that I thought this product would help doing whatever. Give it an honest try for 3 months or so. If you’ve made money or whatever then I want an honest testimonial of the results. With real data. Then I’d hit the market with it. As it is most of the people who get an advance copy of the products have absolutely no time to see if could work before the clown is trying to make a buck on it. What are they complimenting in their testimonials? Font type? Sentence structure? Entertainment value?

I hate that I will never be able to discover that one product that would make me easy money. It’s probably out there. Some technique that makes all the lights go on without blinding me with boredom or disinterest. Maybe there is an Adwords system that is easy and that I wouldn’t lose my rapidly worthless dollar bills on. Maybe there really is some auto system to magically write a thousand well-written pages of niche crap while I sleep. I’ll never know because those that came before it burned my ass good. I’m done trying out the latest $197, $97, $77 masterpiece. At least until honest reviews detail the facts how it has the potential to be a success for me. I have yet to see anything of the sort in IM. Just more of the same empty promises.

So, I got an email from a (or the) product manager at PicApp. I’ll post his email followed by comments:

Hi splork,

First thank you for the original post and for the mind change one as well (-:

Direct feedback from users is the best thing we can get to improve ourselves. The strip on every image is our way of monetizing our service.

Instead of adding ads on top of the images (which we used to do….) we now add a related images thumbnail gallery on the black strip (to encourage the readers to click on and open a photo gallery of related images which is a feature for the users and on the photo gallery we display ads which gives us monetization).

We hoped this would be less intrusive than putting the ad directly on the blogger image. Obviously, your feedback is that the strip is too intrusive and damages the image integrity.

We accept this feedback and will start testing less intrusive options (like a static icon on the bottom corner), the changes should be visible in the coming weeks.

It would be great if you could tell us what you think about the options we’ll display (directly or on your blog) and again, open for any ideas, suggestions or feedback you can give us.

Regards,
Roi
Picture (Device Independent Bitmap)
Roi Gold
PicApp Product Manager

When a company representative makes the effort to reach out and respond to criticism I am always impressed. This doesn’t happen much. I take the time to critique things online and offline. The offline world, especially food companies and restaurants, responds quickly and effectively. Online folks rarely respond. PicApp did and as you can see above they are looking at options. Doesn’t mean that they will be implemented because ultimately their business is to make money, but at least they are listening to end-users.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this tool for use again. I need what it offers but I don’t care for the blaring band across the photos. I made a suggestion in my return email. If you want to use this tool then I suggest you send them some feedback as well. Or make some comments on Lost Ball. They are listening.

Not just any video mind you. A very special Powerpoint kind of video. Apparently you copy your article into the software and it converts it into a video. With a cool robotic voice and everything. Everything being really exciting visuals. The kind you might find in cheesy 1997 stockphoto floppy disks. As the robot reads your article to the brain dead viewer the words splash across the screen. Death by Powerpoint spam.

Not only does Spam come in an email, a blog, articles and comments, but now you can actually watch it. It’s fantastic. Google certainly likes videos. Bet you’ve been dismayed to find three You Tube videos ranked above your cool website too. Get around this jam by converting your article to a video. And that robo-voice is so sexy. Bonus! You can add your own voice or an mp3 if you don’t like the robot.

It seems like the technology for this is pretty cool. I don’t know what it takes to program a deal like this but respect for the idea. But seriously who the hell is going to listen to this crap? No one wants to read most of the stuff that is put out there much less having some lame PLR read back to you like a Powerpoint presentation.

This is one of those ideas that seems great at first. Everyone wants videos. They rank and they can get viral pretty quick. But no one has attempted video spam to this degree as far as I know. This has the potential to be abused severely. But people aren’t going to dig having some robo read an article back to them. With words streaming along. Follow the bouncing ball children!

Another bad IM product. Interesting idea though.

There is an appalling lack of civility on the web. It’s truly pathetic.

Even if you are posting up photos of your favorite actress or something and it shows options for other photos they can view, they still pretty much leave your site for more. It may be free but it’s virtually useless. I mean, who the hell wants a third of the photo covered with an ad? It looks fugly. The only saving grace is that if you use the small photo it doesn’t show the advertisement.

When I came across this application I was at work. I posted a few photos on a blog or two and the advertisement band did not show up. Yea, our firewall pretty much blocked the script it uses to pull the black band ad. I get home and see the ad and think it’s not as great as I thought but hoped that it wouldn’t be plastered on each photo all the time. No, it’s pretty much plastered on each photo all the time.

So back to self creation, theft and ugly public domain freebies.

I decided to pick on Niche Horde today. I could very well be the only person that has seen the demo of this thing that sees no reason to spend $47, soon to be $97, on the thing. Now why is that? It certainly looks cool. You download a piece of software that you install on your computer that communicates with the NH server and it helps build a database of niche keywords. Everyone that participates gets to savor the goodness of everyone’s efforts. The future is now and that future is cloud computing. Wonderful.

Have you ever put a client software on your computer before? Sometimes it’s downright unpleasant. Before you know it your CPU cycles are maxed out. This thing is supposed to work every 60 seconds. Really? I’m going to have a (potential) spike in my CPU cycles every 60 seconds? No thanks. So you say just run it on another computer. That is actually a great idea if you have one to spare. I don’t.

Ok, so maybe sacrificing a fraction of you computer performance is worth it for the greater good. What do you get for the effort? Apparently a shitload of keywords. It goes out and continually pulls in data based on hard coded values for phrases that have no more than 500 competing web sites and gets at least 500 searches a day. It also gives you the Adword bid for that word.

I actually don’t see a downside to that if that is the kind of info you need in your life. If you are the kind of person who constantly looks around for niche shit to write on then by all means you need this tool I guess. But for me, the last thing I need is another 2 million, and growing, list of keyword phrases to fret over to build webpages on.

Ok everyone knows I am taking a break of sorts from creating niche sites and adding content to my few supersites. New one included. Honestly I am not trying to figure out what keywords to write on. At least not every time I decide to start tapping away at the keyboard. I circle around a general topic and write until I’ve had enough. This could be anywhere from 400 to 1,000 words or more. I’m just trying to add content. From time to time I’ll look in the Analytics and see what people used to find my post. If that keyword phrase is a hit then I’ll incorporate it into future posts.

See, I am building my own database that I don’t have to share with anyone. If I need keyword seeds then Google has a perfectly fine search tool to use.

When I was looking at the demo movie on NH I was curious about one of the keyword phrases that popped up. It looked choice. Virtually no competition as far as the numbers go. Lots of searches. So I went to Nichebot to investigate the keyword phrase and the competition. Just about the whole top 10 was PR4s and PR5s. Um the competition numbers may have been favorable but the Pagerank showed a different story. Even if you use this tool you have to check the competition past just how many there are found. Nothing is ever as easy as it seems.

Niche Horde is cheap. If you buy it today it will only cost $47/year. If you are able to sling niche sites super fast then by all means this might be the tool for you. But if you are concentrating on getting a few sites right then you don’t need the added distraction of playing with yet another keyword tool.