Tech pisstaker

The speed of search visitors

2008-09-10T07:32:00.000-07:00

Does Speed matter?

Absolutely, speed matters. Google have whole hydro electric dams dedicated to speedy delivery of search results. Browser developers burn out trying to load info faster than ever, and users spend a lot of money per month subscribing to ISP plans.

As a guy, a webmaster and a former educator and businessman, the speed of internet access is a major deal. The easier you can get online and the faster you can search for and find what you need, the more functional you are. And on a national scale, a speedy internet network, makes for a speedy and efficient work force with access to untold amounts of useful information to make you smarter and more productive and more alive.

Read more about this at Speed Matters, a very cool almost whistle blower type site, revealing just how backward the greatest technological nation on earth really is. Sorry, America, but it is true!

I am on a Verizon USB "high speed" modem right now, and that drives me potty. It is so bloody slow, and demoralising at times. A real disincentive to do stuff - and to think it is much faster than dial-up.

How fast are the visitors to this blog?

In Google Analytics you can see a breakdown of your visitors' profile, including their internet connection speeds. How fast are visitors searching, surfing, connecting to your site and heading out? It looks like the majority are still on doddery dial-up networks, but there is everything in between too, right up to insane mainframe connectivity.

OC3 - the fastest ever visit to this site

According to this definition OC3 is the fiber optic backbone of the internet. So an OC3 hit is like a visit from God! In my case however, they stayed 0.00.00 seconds, so I wasn't exactly blessed by their presence.

Optical carrier levels (OCx) start at OC1 and are planned to go up to OC48 2.4GHz per second. Visitors will be leaving before they even arrive.

Let's hear it for T1

T1 was the first digital service of use to man and beast, and like all good things, it is still in use today.

The T-carrier system, introduced by the Bell System in the U.S. in the 1960s, was the first successful system that supported digitized voice transmission. The original transmission rate (1.544 Mbps) in the T-1 line is in common use today in Internet service provider (Internet service provider) connections to the Internet.

Yet again, I guess I was pinged or they felt some bad vibe and left before they arrived, because the visitors clocked up zero seconds.

Cable connection

Now we are talking.

Coaxial cable was invented in 1929 and first used commercially in 1941. AT&T established its first cross-continental coaxial transmission system in 1940.

Three cheers for DSL

Here is the perfect balance between speed and discerning readership. Fast connection, and the patience to read a couple of articles per visit. These visitors, I like! And this is another succinct explanation of what is going on with this type of internet connection.

ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is the form of DSL that will become most familiar to home and small business users. ADSL is called "asymmetric" because most of its two-way or duplex bandwidth is devoted to the downstream direction, sending data to the user. Only a small portion of bandwidth is available for upstream or user-interaction messages.

POTS would drive me potty

DSL leads us on nicely to dial up or Plain Old telephone system. The biggest percentage of visitors to this site come proabbly via dial-up. They spend hours on the site, because they have no choice, with it loading at 2 words per minute. They come back for more, too. Thank you, I salute you.

What speed are you searching the internet at? Let me know.

btw Here is a full set of possible data rates available in the world today.

The search is on for Sarah Palin

2008-09-09T03:42:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin hit the big time when she was put forward as the right hand woman to the POW they may soon be calling PRES. Interestingly, SarahPalin.com does not produce any search results worth a vote, unless you think a forbidden result is a positive thing.

As the Search Marketing Gurus point out, the Republicans are missing out big time on this Sarah Palin internet search marketing opportunity. It is only the internet here, a place where millions find all the info they need to make up their minds about anything from Presidents to prostitutes to polish!

Searching for people by name

John Chow, one of the bigger names on the internet, (if you are into making money online - which I am not), highly recommends the use of your own-name domain. Once you become famous, or infamous, people search for you by name and your personalised site name should appear near the top of the Search Page Results. (That is the theory, this is the practice if you try to become famous on Google on the back of questionable popularity building!)

Poor Sarah Palin dot com is way down the list when you search for her by name. She probably hasn't been optimising the site with abundant link love. Although, perhaps we are making a mistake and forgetting she is a woman of the world, and she has an alternative domain, SarahPalin.eu? Or, maybe this dearth of online search success is toughening her up, making her learn the hard way that her party has no clue how to use the internet? This internet flop may be giving her a sense of how it feels when you fail to attract the demographic you have been planted to attract. So many questions, so many answers awaiting you, if you would only Google.

Obama's online dirty work unnecessary

It could be quite funny if one of Obama's team actually had the nouse to hijack the Sarah Palin domain name and fill it full of educational information - with a slight twist, of course. But somehow, Obama doesn't need to hijack Sarah Palin's dot com name and plant despicable ideas in the minds of his people now dithering and wondering if they shouldn't change camp at the 11th hour. No, Obama can relax and stay squeaky clean, because people with no affiliation whatsoever to his cause are already doing a good enough job of discrediting her with long tail keyword cramming.

If you search for Sarah Palin supports, there is no mention of her choice in bra, but there is a hail of bullets from sites ripping into her history of bear shooting from helicopters, creationist education and eloping. What other loosely connected phrases will emerge from the barrel of politically motivated search engine marketers who actually know how to harness the power of the internet? Beyond "Sarah Palin nude" an attempt to get votes for McCain's right hand woman by playing on the right hand of men, we must wait and see.

Meanwhile, as a person who is allowed to pay taxes but is not allowed to vote in America, I will stop searching for Sarah Palin dot com and leave her to float on merit to the top of the search results.

Do you read, and more importantly, believe what you read online about Sarah Palin? Let me know the strangest search result you found.

Bots searching TechPisstaker blog

2008-09-08T04:19:00.000-07:00

I run my RSS feed through Feedburner, and as a result I get to see a lot of traffic-related stats. The most interesting for me is the number of bots crawling the site. It has grown steadily from Day one, and yesterday this was a list of digital visitors.

Looking at another stat on Google analytics, there were more bots than real visitors to the blog yesterday! Luckily though, I have around 20 visitors who have subscribed to the feed so far, so I feel I am still writing predominantly for humans!

If you read this post on the homepage and want to keep up with regular posts from your Google reader, feel free to subscribe too.

Search articles from around the web

2008-09-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

Another week, another 6 posts added to the pile of human knowledge of search and search engines. On the 7th day it is time to step off the gas and take stock of what other bloggers have written.

Flower etailers have some pretty impressive conversion rates, according to Invesp in their article entitled Analysis of the Top Converting Online Retailers: Best of Ecommerce

In May, ProFlowers also made it to the number spot on Neilsen’s Online Marketing Charts with a whopping 35.7% conversion rate.

When you forget your wife's birthday, there is no choice but to do a search for flowers, and buy whatever plant life looks alive enough to get you out the shit. No need to cost compare, no time to procrastinate, perfect customers for internet-based retailers.

Interestingly, though, real-world flower businesses are way more successful in terms of revenue and pure business. A lesson to all who forget the millions without internet access or no interest in navigating the e-commerce world on a dial-up connection.

Shankri-La has posted a video of Google reader in Plain English, or more succinctly, the idiot's guide to Google Reader. Maybe idiot is a bit strong, but when you see the approach by the producers, Common Craft, you may be forgiven for thinking that every other presentation you ever saw was made by idiots with no concept of the "simplicity is genius" concept.

Money-Making Mike knows that everyone loves free, and bloggers should love all the help they can get with keywords. So, The Free SEO Keyword Tool post is a masterpiece in matching demand with supply.

Bang in a topic and the machine will give you a list of keywords to die for. In his opinion, based on plenty of success, it is the long tail keywords (terms that are loosely related to your main topic) that attract considerable search engine traffic. That is true in my experience too. Ursula Martinez and Chinese Porn have been stellar performers on my neglected Pisstakers site. Who would have thought!

And as a closing line, please check out the answers provided by Mr McGrath to 5 SEO questions that have been niggling me. If you care to add to / expand on any of them, feel free to share the knowledge.

5 search and SEO questions.

2008-09-06T06:05:00.000-07:00

There is a saying that the more you know the less you know. Therefore, the reality is, I don't know what I am doing with search and search engines, I blog by the seat of my pants, I am not an authority, I have no answers to these 5 questions. Help.

Can you help please? Over the course of running this blog on search and search engines,I surf around the web on a manic voyage of self-discovery in order to better pass on what I have learnt. I come across concepts and points that I don't fully understand. For the most part I try to find the answer myself, googling like a good 'un, scratching my skull, convincing myself that it must be so easy I can't see the point... but here are a few questions that have been niggling away at my gray cells, driving me nuts. Do you know the answers?

What does it mean? "companies will keep buying up their own search terms" I understand the words, but what is the search marketing concept being referred to here? Taken from this post on search engines and search marketing in Canada by Techvibes.

Why do some affiliate marketing companies not accept new blogs? Surely there is no extra work for them, and from little acorns large oaks grow...

What is the general dynamic behind why Feedburner subscriber numbers fluctuate daily? Is it the title of the content you post, or the schedule of your subscribers, or just the way it is, get over it?

Why is there such a discrepancy between Awstats and Google Analytics visitor numbers? Surely a visitor is a visitor is a statistic that could earn you money?

Does Google place all labels and tags from Wordpress etc in the Supplemental Index, or is it just an incestuous anti-Blogger thing?

Any constructive input would put me (and plenty of readers too, I suspect) on the right track with a fuller appreciation of the search world. If that isn't incentive enough, I will of course be your grateful beeyatch for life.

Integrate Search into your blog

2008-09-05T11:43:00.000-07:00

The problem with so much info on a blog, is ensuring that users can find what they are looking for. You need to integrate search options into your blog. Luckily there are a few in-your-face ways of doing just that. And remember - top right for your main search box!

Integrated Google search

Google do a search bar that can search the web and / or your site. I had one on The Pisstakers and it worked well. In fact sometimes it was easier for me to find a post from the search bar than to go to my blog editor.

Google custom search is finding new ways to integrate search for Blogger, which is quite useful.

Configure this widget on your Blogger blog and you can immediately search not just your blog posts, but across all the link lists/blogrolls you've set up on your blog and the links you've made from your posts.

Yahoo's new search platform could help blogs

Yahoo do a site search builder tool, you have to pay for it. Fortunately, they are discontinuing this idea in October 15th 2008! Good idea. I am not a believer in paying up front for search-related software. Not because I don't think people should be financially rewarded for their software, but because that pay-up-front business model is dead. In fact, what were they thinking, when you realise that Yahoo gets some pay per click or similar revenue every time you perform a search. Idiots, but not for much longer.

Search Monkey to the rescue with a whole new realm of options for search applications that no doubt will make their way onto a blog platform near you.

Search Flickr

To Yahoo's credit they also provide search results for your Flickr account. So if you enter your Flickr user ID into the Yahoo Images search box, and then copy the final URL and place that link somewhere on your blog, your users can search all your Flickr photos. Thanks to Loren Baker for that hint.

Swicki search integration

The Swicki search tool is a cloud-based search reference. You can add your own keywords, or if anyone else inputs a search term in your blog's Swicki search bar, Swicki will keep a record of it. If the keyword is relevant to your site, you can add it quite easily to the cloud. As in the Funny Tech Terms swicki, other people can contribute, which makes it a more valuable resource yet.

You can also make a bit of money from a Swicki by adding Adsense and receiving 50% of the income from a results page coming from a search on your site. And for fun, they value your Swicki based on number of searches. What's not to like.

Labels

Keyword clouds are a glorified tag or label list, a long time accepted way to fill your side bar and help visitors find items on your site. I am still unsure of the SEO implications of tags, as Google are still indexing new tags on this blog in the Supplemental Index. Up to 23 now!

Integrate RSS feed search?

RSS feeds are all the rage for searching the entire internet for relevant bloggers. At the moment you can share lists of feeds by offering your OPML files (the one that modern feed readers will generate for you under Export subscriptions options) for download.

That is a bit cumbersome and I was wondering if you could create an iFrame on your blog and link somehow to the search bar in your personal RSS feed reader? Or a clever mashup web 2.0 solution, maybe? Then your blog visitors could search for posts from all your favorite blogs using certain keywords - straight form your blog.

Twitter search results

Twitter is like a search engine these days. I have never tweeted in my life, but I know of people who do. They seem fairly balanced individuals. With a big enough following, you can ask a question and get a lot of answers. Those answers, aka search results, can be displayed on your blog.

That is the extent of what I can think of to integrate search directly into your blog. Got any more?

I have a few ideas coming up for other search options that could be placed just outside your blog.

Canadian Blog Search Engines

2008-09-04T03:42:00.000-07:00

I am afraid I have never been to Canada, or, is it, I am afraid, therefore I have never been to Canada. Whatever the philosophical angle, I thought I would mention the topic of Canadian Blog Search Engines. (CBSE's)

Google first brought CBSE's to my attention via Analytics. It was the most searched-for keyword phrase of visitors to my site. Surprising, seeing as I haven't adressed this particular niche. Soooo let's take this one bit at a time.

Canada

As I said, I have never been to Canada, so what do I know, but this guy has a good opinion of the country - and Canada's attitude to search.

Canada for my money is the greatest nation in the world. We have the beautiful Rocky Mountains, prairies, lakes, rivers and streams. (We have one third of the world's fresh water supply.) We have hockey, we created Superman and we invented the telephone. We take care of the old and the sick and each other. We use search more than anyone else, someone just forgot to mention that to the advertisers in Canada.

OK, so I see references that could apply to Britain in that eulogy, (was the greatest nation on earth, beautiful rocks, priories, Lake District, the Thames, my mother played hockey as a girl, the NHS and they IM like nobody else on earth) but I get the idea about Canada being a cool place where the internet plays a major role in daily life. In fact...

Canadians use the Internet more than anyone else in the world. We perform more sophisticated queries, are more focused in our online behavior, and do more searches. So why then if you were a Canadian business targeting the Canadian marketplace would you not use search to reach your audience?

Wherever there is internet, there is a need for search, but there is a criticism leveled here that commercial sites don't harness the likes of Adsense search engine driven ads. Who knows why this is so. Perhaps the profitability of online businesses in Canada doesn't suffer because of this aversion to search marketing? Perhaps they don't see the sense in taking on search-related expenses just to grow a business to pay for those expenses. It wouldn't be the first time Canadians looked at things differently from their neighbors.

Canadian Blogs

If a company wants to educate itself on a topic, there is a wealth of blogs out there from specialists in the field. You just have to find them. I am of no use to anyone as a resource for Canada specific search blogs. For what it is worth, I read McGrath.ca on a regular basis, and used to peruse John Chow, till I grew sick of Chinese Canadian food shots and the insane amount of money that guy is making. So ends my library of blogs, north of the border.

But doing some search of my own, I see there is a whole raft of top Canadian blogs going for awards. I haven't read them, sorry. Looking through, however, I couldn't see much about tech in there. So perhaps the above criticism of commercial sites being search marketing averse is true, due to a lack of local info? Let's delve further in the Canadian blogger gene pool.

Canadian blog search engines

What where how why when tech blogs are there in Canada that talk about Search and search marketing? This Canadian blog search engine is somewhat sparse on the ground with its list of Canada blogs.

Moving on, Acrosscan, clever name for a Canadian search engine, but a bit of a dead end looking for Search marketing blogs, and Canadian search engine blogs wasn't much better. Frankly, I gave up and resorted to Google.ca.

The only trouble with the 250 strong list of search related blogs is - despite asking for Canadian web pages - this excellent Google result isn't Canada specific. So what am I to conclude from this quick meander into Canada?

Basically, I need to sharpen up my search skills, and / or Canadian companies really are struggling for a Canada specific pool of search related info. Anyone with a handle on this situation care to shed some light?

Google chrome -atose

2008-09-03T06:04:00.000-07:00

OK, so everyone is talking about downloading Chrome, a new kind of browser from search giants, Google. I however am not swayed, not since all that kerfuffle following the greatest marketing flop in search engine history, Cuil, courtesy of those ex-Google guys. That was so embarrassing, reading the PR on Yahoo, then all wide-eyed, telling Mrs Ed all about this fantabadozy new search experience from the creme de la creme, who knew their stuff. And we all know what happened - it turned out to be a very un-cool search engine.

So to protect myself from further Google-related product launch distress, I am starting off Chromeatose. I am not going to say wow, the Google browser is the future, right here, right now. All I will say is that I am vaguely alert to the possibilities of a browser that has no address bar. I am 1% above indifferent to a browser that is capable of running the next generation of apps straight from the internet and making Windows desktop obsolete. And I can almost feel a pulse when contemplating Incognito, the privacy function that divorced porn surfers have been fantasizing about since they got caught by the disgusted ex-wife.

I wish Google well, I hope Chrome delivers, and I hope it prompts Mozilla to stream line and make lean again, the now bloaty Firefox. As we were, search fans! Cool calm and collected.

Why bother with Search Engine Optimisation?

2008-09-03T03:21:00.000-07:00

In my limited opinion, Search Engine Optimisation or SEO as the acronymists like to say, can be defined as: the endless tweaking of content as you strive to convince robots that you are an authority on your niche topic.

Rather like counting stars, one day you will reach the end, but by that time new stars will have been formed and you begin the process all over. There is actually a lot more to SEO than targeted keyword-rich copy, but SEO even at my most basic level of understanding has its rewards.

Means to a rewarding end - SEO

Having a focused / optimised site is not just a means to an end, to brag about having theoretically perfectly targeted content. It is not just about becoming an authority in your eyes, or in the algorithmic eyes of bots, or in the eyes of a few family members. SEO brings a reward beyond pure authority.

The aim (or the potential) of an optimised site is lots of search engine traffic and SERP bragging rights! When that traffic arrives, you can offer the reader something of value, beyond a well crafted title! In this post for instance, I hope to offer a great piece of search engine optimisation info, (that SEO is great!) or launch readers off to an SEO topic from real authorities, or provide a link to some sort of search-related product that the visitor appreciates. Something the reader appreciates enough to return.

Put another way, if the content is targeted and relevant, then the visitor from a search result will probably like what they read. They will hopefully choose to act beyond just scanning the words and stumbling on, and the blogger gets a reward - (a place in the visitor's bookmark bar, a referral to a friend, a mention in another post or on different sites, a click through on an adsense or other advertising link, an invisible nod of agreement, or a smile.)

So you should bother struggling with Search Engine Optimisation techniques, and talk with authority to the people you want to address. And don't be afraid to learn to talk to the robots too. Underneath it all, robots are people, you know, just a little two-dimensional in their binary ways. They feel your pain as you struggle to string together keywords, and reward you when those words might add value to their human searchers.

Tweak and tweak the content on your site until the stars come out. And then tweak some more. SEO is worth the bother.

Wordtracker keywords: the key to good copy.

A Small Orange web hosting offer fantastic customer support for website owners.

Need a hot friend to take your mind off those burning search engine issues? Check out Adult FriendFinder

Funny tech terms is a pisstake of serious tech terms all wrapped up in an interactive Swicki. Add your wit to the mix.

.

Search engine tips from around the web

2008-09-02T03:22:00.000-07:00

There are loads of articles written every second about search engine topics. Rather than perpetually add to the confusion with another post of my own, I will list a few posts that caught my eye.

Roll your own custom Google search engine takes you through several scenarios: from displeasure at Google's imperfect search results (due to gaming) to bookmarks, to searching bookmarks on Delicious, to a roll-your-own Google search engine that addresses ALL those aforementioned issues.

BlogNetNews The Pisstakers, in a more lucid moment, explain how local news is aggregated and monitored, thus making it easy to search for reliable stories relevant to your neighborhood.

11 killer Research strings to find stuff on Google provides a simple list of codes that will narrow your search results - down from infinity to better targeted results.

Search engine comic strips has a couple of amusing comics related to search engines!

Top SEO blogs has an ultimate list of popular blogs related to Search Engine Optimisation. If stats are your thing, this is your kind of post.

And how did I find these posts? By searching for the term "search" in my RSS reader, NetNewsWire, a free software title from NewsGator.

Search engine forum sex

2008-09-01T06:24:00.000-07:00

I registered to a couple of upstanding Search engine fora, to keep up to date with what is hot for discussion in my genre of choice. Surprisingly, sex is everywhere.

Phunn (sex) with Sphinn

One forum linked to a tongue-twister SEO article about issues with Sphinn, a site you may be familiar with. (It is a sort of guest book StumbleUpon type submission site). Once you get past the author's repetitive joke of adding "ph" to every other word, you get to learn that they have unearthed a whole lot of Sphamming going on.

Read the What's Sphinn? page. Profile Name: Password: ...
sphinn.com/submit.php?url=http://blog.payperperv.com/
hot-ass-latinas-3/&title=Hot+Ass+Latinas+%233 - 16k

In this case, not all publicity is good publicity, because Google actually indexes Sphinn's submissions. The bots don't really know how to square away the appearance of hot ass latinas on an informational non-adult site, so Sphinn becomes a little less search engine optimised than the owners would have hoped.

The strange thing is, Sphinn seem to be blissfully unaware of what is going on. Even I check my analytics to see who is linking to me.

First most popular activity on the internet?

A tag line introducing one search engine forum says

Search is the second most popular activity on the internet

I couldn't help thinking that the number one activity is probably jerking off to the results?

All in all, I think I will learn a lot from these forumz. Google for Search Engine forum, and you may well find one that you feel comfortable in too, assuming search engines are your thing!

College search engines

2008-09-01T03:53:00.000-07:00

When I was a lad, choosing a college or university to study at entailed a trip to a library and endless hours researching glossy prospectuses. Nowadays, we have college search engines to the rescue.

Budding academics, aka young people delaying their entry into the hopeless workplace, can sort through thousands of educational establishments and courses in the comfort of their own home. Computer access means they can ogle photos of good-looking students and yelp with joy at the prospect of endless partying, without regard to glares from snooty librarians.

And you know what, these niche college search engines actually deliver accurate results. You would hope so, when you consider the fairly restricted amount of info they have to handle. When compared to the universal knowledge of man that Google and co have to index and search, college board has an easy job matching naive young people to money hungry colleges.

The college selection process

First, what type of school? Decide what letters you want after your name. 2 years of study gets you the equivalent of a big tick, 4 gets you the chance to call yourself a BA, or BS with a little c.

Second, are you a public or private kind of student? Either way your folks will be bankrupted, and the republicans will still accuse the deans and lecturers at your college of being subversive lefties.

Third, size matters. Are you a small town kind of student, enjoying one-on-ones and a candlelit evening meal in the refectory, or do you like the rough and tumble of 15000 testosterone filled colleagues, bumping and grinding you in every class.

And then, setting. I can't sum it up any better than the original text.

Are you drawn to the big city, to wilderness, or to a little of each?

Ooh, a little wilderness please.

The College Board provides yet more angles to help oyu to sort through 3800 establishments. Like, which part of the country do you want to study? I would go as far from home as possible, so that any embarrassing incidents only go noticed by people who don't know me.

Having input New York as a potential locale, you get down to a mere 271 options.

So, two pages in to the selection process, at long last you have to decide what you want to major in. (This process is very telling. Rather than starting you off with a selection of courses relevant to your abilities and disciplines of choice, they want you to be socially comfortable before all else. Huh!)

So to keep it real, I plumped for French Studies as a major. There were still 271 possible colleges to choose from.

And the cost of tuition. Ouch. Based on what it actually cost me to study in the UK a few years ago, I put it at $25000 and asked for colleges offering financial aid to International Students.

How competitive do you want your college to be?
Wow, how times have changed. You used to have to have brains to go to university, now you just need to have gone to school, which as I understand it, is a legal requirement for all children? Just to be elitist, I asked for selective. Wouldn't want to share a class with a bunch of dunderheads for 4 years. How many colleges want a picky git like me? 12!

What sports do you like? I like cycling but there is no option for that. I guess after what Lance Armstrong achieved, there is no point trying to be the best cyclist in history any more. I chose film as a pastime. So out of 12 colleges in New York, how many will take me when I click the Next button?

Unfortunately there are no New York colleges willing to offer me a place. Either they charge more than $25,000 for tuition, or they charge more than $25,000 for tuition!!

So I don't get a chance to select housing or academic programs, or whether I want to be the only white guy at an all black female college.

To be fair, this college board search procedure is very comprehensive and I could really get some great pointers to what it was I wanted to study and where. Do you think it is something that help you or your family members make an educated decision? I know I preferred the glossy brochures, but look where I ended up studying!

Why search engines fail

2008-08-31T06:38:00.000-07:00

Search engines don't literally break down, leaving you with a sad error message: Sorry, but I can't take the stress of searching billions of pages any more, I'm staying home today. It would be better, more honest, though, if they did just that!

According to two major search engine surveys by Mondosoft and Infonic, crap, inadequate, inaccurate and bogus search results turn up between 60 and 74% of the time.

I think that rather than blame Google and all the rest for the failure of a search engine to deliver the correct goods, the blame should lie with providers of content. Bottom line, Goooooooogle have the brightest stars on earth programing the robots, but unless all our articles are titled, tagged and optimised for the robots, how can we expect the bots to index articles correctly?

Too often, indexed info is a cluster, and imperfect humans searching for imperfect info equates to a match made in search hell. Unless you already know the answer, the odds are that you won't get a comprehensive set of results.

Miserable failure

If I were into job security, I would want to be reincarnated as a search engine. A job for life, and paid gobs of money for referrals, regardless of how far short you fall of the mark. What is not to like about that? Any human operating consistently at a 60-74% level of ineptitude, would be out of a job, much less earn a lot of commission for a job badly done.

(I talk idealistically, however, and in fact, I don't need to die first and come back later in order to make my dream work gig come true. The evidence suggests that anyone who works for the government can operate as a miserable failure with impunity!

At least I tried, is a catch phrase uttered frequently by inept government officials still in a job!)

Talking of failing, do you know the number one answer to the search query "miserable failure"?

Not George Bush's autobiography any more, but an article by a search engine forum, discussing the embarrassing state of affairs when George Bush's autobiography did appear top of the search results for miserable failure. It was the work of Google bombers, a concerted effort to generate enough links to hit the top of the search engine results.

Good ole Google, politically unbiased, defused the Google Bomb and terminated a link from the top search result to the White House.

Judging by the fact that I am now aware of this recent history for the first time, it sounds like this was a bomb that was diffused, but is still ticking away. What an oxymoron!

Funny Tech Terms

2008-08-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

Tech can be so dour and precise, just try reading a TechCrunch report, but really, it needn't be that way. To prove my point, I set up a Swicki (a cross between a search engine and a wiki) entitled Funny Tech Terms, my attempt to lighten the atmosphere in tech land with some light-hearted definitions.

All you need to see (or contribute), is follow the link from the sidebar, or if you are reading this from your Google reader, follow this link, and take a look at the definitions.

If you want to add your own gem, or comment, then be my guest, (by clicking Comment on this post at the bottom of each entry). Feel the power.

If you want to launch your own site-specific Swicki, go to the Eurekester home page and launch one.

So far, I have had more people visit the Swicki than read this site, so I guess I am doing something wrong here and plenty right with the Swicki!

There are thousands of Swickis, check them out and add some variety to your search experience.

(Today I notice the Swicki servers are sooooo slow. Cricket aficionados may appreciate my revised definition of Swicki, from Search plus Wiki to Server plus Sticky Wicket?

Twingly, a search engine from Sweden

2008-08-29T22:54:00.000-07:00

According to my Feedburner feed details,

Twingly is a Swedish service that indexes blog content and then offers news sites a product which automatically finds and publishes links to blog posts in which the specific news item has been mentioned or referred to. From the Twingly website: Twingly r en bloggs kmotor och pingtj nst som r den saknade lnken mellan bloggvrlden och media. Twingly samlar in bloggar frn hela vrlden - redan ver tio miljoner.

Well, what can I say to the Swedish except, try breaking up your sentences into manageable chunks so that we don't require the lungs of Michael Phelps to read to the end in one breath.

And never let it be said that I don't make everyone welcome and try to communicate with Swedish search buffs in their own language. Kişileri istedikleri bilgiye veya Web sayfasına ulaştırmayı amaçlayan "Internet tarayıcı" servislerdir. That was a definition of a search engine in Swedish, (thanks to the Swedish English dictionary)!

My English definition of Twingly is: A blog search engine that is going to challenge techorati as an index. Good luck, and a quick question. "Why bother?"

Fastest search engine - MSN

2008-08-28T22:02:00.000-07:00

I am a guy, and speed matters. And I wanted to know which is the fastest search engine, in terms of delivering a result. I had to laugh when I read the short descriptive blurb that accompanied a post about super speedy MSN search.

MSN is the fastest search engine. It only take a couple of days ...

They were of course, (oh of course, now I read the context) talking about speed to rank a site.

Interesting how you have to be so careful what you write when there is a robot about. These digital detectives are crawling like bad boys in hell for info to make posts relevant to people's search criteria. As you can see, they sometimes home in on material that, in their warped minds, conveys the point you were making, when in fact it misleads the searcher.I was mislead.

Locate Me

So, back to searching for the fastest service in terms of balls out speed. On several occasions, the name Locate Me keeps coming up. The Fastest Search Results all the time' And blow me with a feather, the UK company's results just seem to explode onto the screen. I have no clock precise enough to time it, but they do. 0.16 seconds to produce results for Tech Pisstaker. Google, the slouch came in at 0.21 seconds.

The weird thing is, Locate Me is powered by Google, but it claims to be, (and seems to be according to my claims), faster than Google. I wonder how that works?

As with most things in life, there is no such thing as a free ride, and I presume the results you get with Locate me aren't as indepth or targeted as a pure Google search? Oh what a good guess, Ed. Locate me have literally half the search results as Google, 1090 v 1990. There you go, more speed, less quantity.

Is the quality still there, though? Does Google have an extra 900 results that are, to be blunt, a complete waste of time? Answer, it looks like Google really are pretty cool. On page 10 of the search results, Locate Me only had what I call 2 relevant results, whereas Google had 5. That is pretty telling / damning if you like to go deep.

But if we are serious for just a nanosecond, who really looks much past 2 or 3 pages of results? Exactly, the silence is deafening.

So, I would try Locate Me for a short while and see if you get used to it. If you don't get on with it, you aren't exactly lost to Google forever.

Now, who is the fastest ... to comment!

Rollyo via Google alerts

2008-08-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

Rather than go to all the bother of typing a few words into the Google bar and searching for everything there is to know about, I don't know, hot search engine, Rollyo, why not set up Google Alerts and let Google bring all the latest posts straight to your inbox.

This is an example of a day of Rollyo search engine alerts from around the web.

I didn't get an overwhelmingly warm and fuzzy feeling about the roll your own search engine. Lukewarm at best?

But then, if you want to search for video, maybe Rollyo is the one for you. JollyJo, tv buff, was quite praiseworthy in his Rollyo and its competitors summary.

Trooker and Rollyo boast significant databases and powerful search techniques that return relevant results without dreck. With a little work Purevideo could challenge them. Kewego and Viral Sauce have a long way to go though. Viral Sauce is one to keep an eye on since it has yet to enter beta testing, leaving it the most open to change.

And an enlightening, or is it overwhelmed few words came from this global teacher, likening Rollyo to Technorati with a dose of Wiki hero worship thrown in.

The highlight of the alerts in my inbox is from the aptly named Rant 'n Rave. He asks, How rude can I be about Rollyo? The answer is "fairly"! Rollyo screwed with his Blogger blog, which is a heinous thing to do. He couldn't quite put his finger on the coding issues, so he just ripped into the developers, with a very non-PC and tell-it-how it-is slur

...found Rollyo very American and not to my taste at all.

Maybe if it were of Armenian origin, it wouldn't have offended his cultural soul, and of course, no Armenian would dared to have upset his Blogger blog.

As I said , all this information has been landing in my inbox every morning, thanks to Alerts. Without this service, I probably would never have found much about Rollyo that hasn't been written before, a hundred times.

To get Alerts, sign up for a Google gmail account, and it will appear as one of the many services available to you.

Bots from various search engines

2008-08-26T21:27:00.000-07:00

When I think of bots / robots crawling the web, indexing many billions of pages daily, my thinking generally stops at Google bots. But that is incredibly narrow-minded of me, the world is full of similar info-munching robots. There is a rich robotic tapestry of search life out there, and the Feedburner feed for this site has listed some of the search engines finding my posts.

Blogscope

Blogscope unleashed a few crawlers. Welcome, Canada! According to the blurb,

BlogScope is an analysis and visualization tool for blogosphere which is being developed as a research prototype at the University of Toronto.

That sounds a very high brow project, with 29 million blogs under the microscope. I am proud to be a specimen for the Toronto search posse. (Shame they use the word "blogosphere" in their summary. Don't they know it is so 2007, and to some, it is actually offensive ! Ask big wig tech heads like Paul Boag, they HATE that word. Blogosphere schmloggersphere...

Moreover

Moreover is a weird name for a search engine, but they have a different angle - current awareness. Whatever! That is like a baker advertising his wares as current bread. Despite the pretentious tag line, they own a discerning bunch of bots, finely tuned to unearth the feeds of unlikely lads like Tech Pisstaker.

Moreover polls xml feeds for use in a number of applications such as an enterprise news aggregator

Technorati

Technorati search bot. AAAArgh, a search engine profile with another reference to the blogosphere.

Technorati is a real-time search engine that keeps track of what is going on in the blogosphere - the world of weblogs.

I saw somewhere they have 112 million blogs on their list. That is a lot of crawling. I am not a huge besotted fan of Technorati, (this blog post on the Untwisted Vortex site will add some light). Anyways, as this is a new blog, I am grateful they called by - you bunch of creepy crawlers, I wonder how long it will be before they break my heart again.

So, there we are, some real life robots, brought to your table by Ed. What strange obscure robots are sizing up your files? Check out your stats, let me know, I will do a bit of research for you and include a link to your site in the post.

Swicki, the search friendly wiki

2008-08-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

You have all heard of Wiki, the online reference library that every Tom Dick and Harold can update from home, correctly, or incorrectly. And you have all heard of search engines, of course, compiled by robots, programmed by men with foreheads the size of a small sky scraper. Now meet the crossover point, Swicki. a social search portal.

In the words of the people behind this cool concept

With every search, vote and click, your swicki generates more relevant results and turns into a valuable asset for you and your community.

In other words, the search can be tailored exactly to what my readers are interested in.

For instance, that tag cloud in the side bar is a list of keywords I have used in posts on the Tech Pisstaker so far.

Swicki has graded them by the number of times they have appeared. If you do a search by keyword, for instance "INDEXING", you get taken to the search results page, which is powered by Google. The cool thing is, my site visitors can modify and improve or correct the search results. Search meets wicki. Simple.

Contribute to Funny tech terms swicki

Ordinarily, the reference and information required by most tech readers tends to be deadly serious and spot-on accurate. The swicki for say, Techcrunch, is one such example. However the swicki for Tech Pisstaker has been set up to fill a hole in the market, and reflect the humor in tech. It is quite simple.

My first contribution to the Swicki was Indexing, a perfect way for Google to employ otherwise useless robots, and I included a URL back to a post on this site about Indexing a Blog. This isn't all about me though, it is a community deal, where you can vote, and contribute your own ideas.

To add a definition to my poor start! just click on INDEXING, and click on Comment on this post at the bottom of the entry from pisstaker. Then add your own touch of humor related to indexing. It can be a one-liner or a story, whatever grabs you.

If there are no definitions from Tech Pisstaker to be found when you search the swicki buzzcloud in the sidebar, be the first! At the top of the search page is "Comment on this search" which allows you to write your own definition. Please be so kind as to link to a relevant post on this site, and then we can all contribute.

One day we will have a body of work that will be able to boast a swicki that can raise a smile from even the dullest tech geek.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoyed that public service announcement. Search on, dudes!

search engines v social bookmarking

2008-08-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

Here is some tech trivia related to search engines and social bookmarks.

Did you know that according to Nielsen the stats people, (not the singer) there were 4.8 billion searches performed on Google last year. If every one of those searchers found your site, you would be in big trouble with your host provider.

Another enlightening gem: according to Quantcast, Digg, the number one social info site has as many visitors in a week as Technorati and Delicious combined get in a month. Who would have thought!

So, in terms of hard numbers, if I submitted a post to Digg, and if every one of their users searched for my latest submission - and if they all acted on their desire to know what the hell I was writing about, I would have over 10 million potential Digg fans here per month. (God forbid they did all show up, as Blogger would have a fit with the extra load on the server. They would presumably have to open another sluice gate on their hydro electric dam.)

Conversely, which is a strange way of introducing the most popular bookmarking site for bloggers on the internet, if you fave this blog with Technorati, in theory, with a 100 percent hit rate, only 1.4 million people would find me. Likewise, bookmark an article on Delicious, about 1.3 million people could search, click and surf to my door.

The mesage behind the tech trivia

It sounds like I am a complete Google whore, and disdainful of sites sending potential traffic in the single digit millions. True, I tried to be Web 2.0 friendly, but call me old fashioned... Anyway, personal preferences aside, here is my observation of how much effort a webmaster should invest in search engines v social bookmarking.

To be found on Google, you don't need to do anything with your blog theme. Most people just "Google" straight from their browser, to search and find what they want. Search engines did a smart thing by marketing and promoting themselves via Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla, the 9800lb gorillas. Google offer Apple for instance, a fraction of a cent every time you use your google search bar in Safari. (It is a win-win-win. Browsers are developed from the proceeds of search, Google earn from adsense etc, and users get free access to the world's online info.)

And when I say "people" Google, I mean "humankind" as we know it does.) From pins to penises to pi r squared, it is all accessible to everyone from the Google bar.

On the other hand, social bookmarking sites are the domain of the few. Those few, admittedly a classy, discerning, techy bunch, have spawned widgets as their de facto method of choice to disseminate information around the web. The trouble is (if we talk numbers) these widgets are the domain of webmasters and bloggers - not consumers of content - so the whole scene is niche oriented. What can I say, there may well be 112 million blogs logged in Technorati, but only 1 million and change people call by and use Technorati's search services to find material.

Social bookmark search v search engines - it is a non contest, purely a niche battle, the few cocking a snoot at the masses as they google How to optimise bookmarks.

On the plus side for bloggers heavily invested in social web 2.0 site promotion, these widgets are on the small side, so an itty bitty Fave me logo won't exactly fill up your precious blog real estate. But if you compare Google traffic with even Digg traffic, these bloody widgets deserve to be tiny. In terms of potential traffic per pixel, pah, what's to lose! Stick 'em on there. Technodliciousrati, whatever you like.

Pixels per potential visitor

But now, for something really sickening. Take a look at your blog and I bet you have invested a lot of space dedicated to recent visitor widgets. I know I have.

If we use the metric of pixels per potential visitor, things like MyBlogLog are a waste of fricking space. 85,000 poxy people, like me, go to MyBlogLog every month to circulate. That is less people in a month than go watch a game at Wembley on a Saturday afternoon. And there is probably more conversation going on after the game. "If I was the bloody manager..."

My point, look at the square footage the gallery is taking up in my sidebar. If you work on pixels per potential visitor to my site, that widget should be .098 sixteenths of an inch square.

Just saying.

I wager you have no clue about the hard traffic facts, and like me, you are probably allocating a lot of space to widgets that really don't send the volume of traffic your gut might tell you. Check out the top 30 bookmarking sites and see the underwhelming potential for yourself.

Meanwhile if you could just Google, Stumble, Prop or Buzz it, I would be most grateful for the help!

Search engines ignored my tags

2008-08-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

Within 48 hours of submitting this blog's URL to Google and completing all the other "Hallo search engines" stuff, I am pleased to announce that a full list of current Tech Pisstaker posts, all 4 of them, were indexed on Google. I am absolutely distraught however, that Google considers labels (or tags to you and me) to be duplicate content. Duplicate content is not something you expect to get called up on after 4 hard grafted posts, but, I did. Every useful tag, lovingly crafted by my unsteady hand on a blog platform distributed by Google (oh the irony), has been deemed duplicate content, and sent to the Supplemental index, or search engine purgatory, as we call it.

Supplemental Index

So what does that mean exactly, Supplemental Index? In the search engine world, it seems to be the equivalent of the second division, or the unfunny guy in the duo comedy act. The results will appear in search results, but way down, slapped into obscurity. And ironically, those results will be labeled Supplemental.

Excuse me while I take the piss for a second. Logically, in the search results, Supplemental Index is a sort of label, and Google doesn't like labels, so all entries labeled Supplemental Index should eventually end up relegated an infinite number of times to the darkest recesses of the internet? I jest. One layer of purgatory is enough to make your hard work almost irrelevant in the search results.

Tags, to love and cherish, or to reject like a cheating lover?

I thought labeling or tagging as I will call it, was the way to go these days, so I was in the Love camp. However, tags really annoy bots. Each tag is basically a URL that refers back to the content of posts you have written. Therefore, robots treat the tag (URL) as an address with content it has already indexed. So they don't rate the tags very highly at all.

I know, stupid that they cannot tell that we are trying to be nice to real users, leaving sign posts for humans to more easily find content. And especially stupid when you think that Technorati, the biggest index of blogs out there, (112 million of 'em) is built around tagging. But love them or loathe them, that is where bots are at, on Google at least.

So do we dump tags to please the search engines? There is a good discussion about tags and duplicate content on the Dummies Guide to Google Blogger. Enjoy a very in depth and techno savvy explanation of the issue, followed by the usual to and fro, ebb and flow of theories and hopes of contributors' comments.

Personally, I will keep using tags within posts, because even Google tell you to create content suitable for humans, not robots. Also, I have signed up Tech Pisstaker to Technorati, and will be adding tags there too. They need a voice you know.

Supplemental index tips and links

Btw, to see how much of this site is on the main index I typed site:techpisstaker.blogspot.com into the Google search box, you can do the same for your site. And to find out the extent of my presence in the Supplemental index, I typed this into the Google search box site:techpisstaker.blogspot.com *** -view

If for any reason your whole damn site gets relegated, punished or PR challenged, follow the advice on the SEO book to get yourself out of the supplemental index.

About Ed

2008-08-22T19:54:00.000-07:00

No need to search for answers as to who is behind this tech oriented blog - it is me. I am sort of known by a very few people as Ed, the Pisstaker, and til now I was only recognisable by my cartoon persona, a large faced gent with a shit-eating grin. But now there is a real face to puke at. Well, half a real face, the rest is pure Elvis latex.

What can I say, I am a product of my own time spent working, living and eating in Europe, US, Africa and Asia. After observing the good, the bad and the indifferent, at age 40-something, I am now a confirmed cynical git who especially hates gadgets and "things" and the speed of change. Unfortunately, I cannot resist taking to my hi tech computer and researching the very things I should be avoiding.

- If you are seeking a light hearted opinion that usually revolves around "It is a bloody con, hardly anyone can be trusted to do the right thing these days, who gives a toss what they say, it is all lies." then I am your kind of guy.

But rather than ramble on pointlessly about anything and everything (it is pointless, right!) I am going to focus my attention here on search and tech trivia stuff.

Mrs Ed is my biggest critic, but I hope that before ripping into me, you at least read what I write!

How To Get Search Engine Referrals With A New Blog

2008-08-22T10:12:00.000-07:00

If you want referrals ie traffic to your blog, you need to be indexed on the planet's most used search engine. I explained here how to submit a URL to Google. You should add a site map and submit your RSS feed too - oh and authenticate your site ownership by uploading a file or some meta code to your home page. Then those pesky bots will be all over your site like a rash of algorithms, not pretty.

The same submission process should be repeated with those other dogs of search, like Yahoo and MSN. (I do wonder why they even bother. It must be a pride thing, to say you are being rogered daily by Google!)

And if you are a Blogger user and have trouble with adding your site to the Yahoo index, read this great tutorial from Bloggertricks. In the comments, you will also find answers to issues, like, bloody hell, Blogger doesn't want to save the Meta tag provided by Yahoo, what do I do?

What to do with your referrals?

You could just stockpile the visitors away in a little cupboard and one day announce to the world that you had 3 million visitors via Google, and had almost zero comments, zero income, and a humungous Google Page rank. (Did I mention the pisstakers in that same breath? btw, the humor site is back online thanks to an intervention from A small orange, the web hosts of the decade.)

Alternatively, if you have a new blog and want to keep making money from your search engine referrals, read this post by one of my favorite bloggers, Mr Mike Perry. I like him so much I ripped off one of his blog post titles!) The modest but insanely perceptive Cornish gentleman shares his simple techniques to keep a new blog in the robots' targets and keep that advertising revenue ticking over.

Although he wears a suit, Mike is not a tech or SEO guru, per se, and thank god for that. Communication in the realm of making money online is his forte, and he knows how to explain the link between Google, rabid searcher / surfers and loadsacash.

In the future, I will be finding more search and tech trivia info from other bloggers like Mike, whose sites are not really tech oriented, but they do post little insights that would find approval with my more techy audience. Let me know if you have a post I should link to or feature.

Index a Blogger blog on Google, and create a site map

2008-08-20T18:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday another Blogger blog was born, and after sorting out a freebie theme that wasn't garish, poorly laid out and cookie cutter to the extreme, I wrote a first post, published it and went to bed.

Whether you like it or not, everyone Googles for information, so you need Google to index your site if you want to be found on the internet. So, the first administrative duty was to submit a URL to the search engines, and set Google and their bots loose on the site, so the world might know that the Tech Pisstaker blog was actually in town.

Considering it is an all too familiar process that applies to anyone using Blogger or any other sort of web site known to man, why did it take me so bloody long? Rhetorical question, the answer to which is, "Because it isnt as simple as just sending them your new URL." So shoot me if the following steps are obvious to you, they weren't to me.

Index your site with Google

With an ache in my stomach, knowing I was contributing to Google's unassailable position in the search engine world, I trotted along to the Add your URL to Google page, and added my URL to the sites-to-be-indexed list. Apparently it will take some time for the robots to crawl the site. That surprised me, considering this blog is so small.

I thought it was time to sit back and wait, but reading on, a simple URL is not enough to give the robots a 100% chance of indexing all your site. You need to give them a bloody map!

Add a site map

According to Google, site maps are high on the priority list for a newbie blog webmaster trying to get an audience. Apparently the super intelligent robots may need an extra hand to find those pesky pages that won't show themselves under normal crawl conditions. (Are they referring to those rare pages with a decent post on them, maybe?)

Unfortunately, blogger blogs can't just create a site map like everyone else. Blogspot from Google is a closed affair. After much to-ing and fro-ing, I found a Submit a Site Map post aimed at Blogspot idiots like me who missed, found and subsequently misunderstood the line on Google's site about "Note: If you use Blogger to create and publish your blog, (me me me) Blogger automatically submits a Sitemap for you."

Well, it doesn't happen like that. According to another instruction, you have to physically add a site map yourself. And that really screwed me up, because, as I said earlier, in Blogger, you cannot access any files to plonk your site map in. The answer is to use your RSS feed URL on the upload a site map option. Doh! So fricking simple when you know how.

Authenticate, authenticate, we have a problem

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to sleep, you find out it is best to authenticate the site ownership. Wouldn't want someone trying to promote your site for you behind your back, would you? (If one of those A-listers wanted to, sure why not!) Anyway, when the sitemap is dealt with, you have to copy and paste some code into your homepage and the bots go out and verify you are the site owner.

I am in the system now, dutifully awaiting a bot onslaught, and hopefully that little summary will help any new site owner, specifically Blogger blog owners, step into the blogosphere, and avoid an hour or 3 of fruitless searching.

Next, I will tell those half wits at Yahoo and MSN all about my site, and maybe get a few callers from their minority search results.

Search, Scroogle and the iPhone

2008-08-20T05:32:00.000-07:00

Everybody now has a mountain of info that needs to be mined, and search engines, the perfect tool for the job, are all the rage

Before my last website, The Pisstakers, lapsed and got taken over by kinky porn promoters, one of my more useful contributions to universal online knowledge was the Search section. (Sorry, in the interest of public mental health, I can't offer a link to prove it, but in the future I will share past ramblings on search gems like Kartoo, Rollyo and paid to search ideas such as Blingo.)

Scroogle

Scroogle is one of dozens of wannabe search engines populating the remaining 1.5% of the market still to be cornered by Google. Their angle? Apart from their whimsical Victorian Google look, Scroogle allows you to search on Google without being traced.

Within 48 hours there is no trace of your search, no logs, no IP address, no search info. The Scrooglers presumably think it is wrong / unnecessary / creepy for Google to keep records of what you search for. I agree. It is also a clever way of preventing Google from growing organically off the back of your search patterns. A shame their philosophy is the proverbial fly swatting the elephant, but perhaps in time, they will make an impact and privacy will return to public life.

Yes, searching your searches. A wonderfully sad concept. Where will this hall of infinite search end? Human nature says it won't. Unless Scroogle invest in their own hydro-electric dam and up their server capabilites a gazillion-fold, Google's search engine is going to expand and its stranglehold is going to tighten inexorably.

Search on the iPhone

Talking of search, strangleholds and rage, iPhone 3G is out and about, and people are complaining about the lack of search in Mail. Never fear, Apple had thought of it, but it was too simple for most people to find. An Alley Insider contributor defending his excellent iPhone to the death had to repeat himself several times until it got through to the detracting minority.

Running down the right side of the contacts list is a small magnifying glass and the letters A through Z. A tap on the magnifying glass brings up the search function.

As usual, I do not own the technologically wonderful phone I am referring to in this post. I am in the Zoolander phone camp, and the nearest I got to an iPhone was walking past the queue outside the Apple Store one damp Monday morning.