Well, a few hours of photoshop and a couple of days of Thesis 1.5 then 1.5.1, and rumblepup.com has a brand new design.  It most definitely represents the way I feel about blog design, and thankfully with a great framework like Thesis, it makes it even easier to fully realize what you want your blog to be.

I can’t say that I’ve used Thesis to it’s fullest extent, and I’m sure I probably came up with some goofy implementations of the custom.css code, but I’m happy with what I’ve acheived so far.  I’m sure there are some additional improvements I can do, and I’ll be getting to them as soon as I learn how to do them.  Thesis hooks have not been my best area of study, and I think I have a weird installation of Wordpress 2.8 going on, but eventually, I’ll get to everything I really want.

For the longest time, I’ve been using Thesis 1.1.  I knew how to work it, and in many ways, that framework was a bit easier for me to understand.  Alot of that initial Thesis framework was very similiar to a traditional wordpress theme, where typical functins existed inline in the code.  That is not the case anymore.  Everything concering the look, feel, spacing, layout, you name it, is handled by the onboard Thesis Options and Thesis Design.  Passed that, it’s the hooks baby, and as Chris Pearson promised me I would “pwn them“.  I’m working on that pwnage.

And in other news, this is probably my shortest post in a while.  Hope you enjoyed the brevity.

Today I’m 40. Forty. A 4 with a 0 behind it. Four decades. Yeap, no matter how I write it, it looks like a long time. Depending on how long I live, I could either be at the halfway mark or a little less than half of my life. But you know what? It hasn’t been a big deal. Really hasn’t. I’ve seen other doods go through strange midlife crisis stuff, as if hitting 40 was some kind of bell going off signaling the timer is running down. I was half expecting a last minute holy shit moment, but it hasn’t surfaced. Maybe it will, when I’m 45 or something, or maybe tomorrow. Who knows? People are strange that way.

What I have noticed is that I’m reflecting a lot lately. I’ve been looking at where I’ve been and where I’m going. I’ve been looking at the world around me and seeing the changes in life, technology, politic’s, ect. It strikes me that some of the changes in the world, the change to the flow of history, where things that I expected, like the evolution of computing, the internet, some political changes; and then there where things that happened that I wasn’t expecting at all, like the Teletubbies. Really, what’s up with that?

I’ve lost friends and I’ve lost family. My Uncle German, my aunt Norma, and the one that threw me for a looper, I lost my father Alfredo three years ago. I just don’t know how to express the way I feel today when I think of Papaluca. There is so much I wish I could tell him, and show him, and ask him. There’s this whole conversation that I need to have with him that I can’t. It’s tough. I’d love to bring him to my house, sit him down in a comfortable chair, hand him his favorite beer, a good cigar, and go:

Hey Papi, today I’m 40. How am I doing Pop? What can I expect now? What’s up with all this new eyebrow hair dood? What do you think of my new home? I’m working as hard and as best as I can. What do you think of my pretty wife? I love her a lot. Do you think she’ll make a good mommy? My car engine is a little loud, what do you think it is? Am I a good son Papaluca? Am I making you proud?

…

Of course, I’ve gained a bunch of things to. I started and closed a business, and now I’ve started and growing a new one. I have really good friends. I have a beautiful wife, and we’re gonna make big, beautiful rumblepuppies. I have my family, my mom Myriam, my brothers Lazaro and Alfred and his family, and my cousin Errol (Elli) and his family are still with me. My grandmother Maria (Doña Maria) turned 100 years old dood. She still gives me those awesome birdie kisses. I have a wonderful home, and it’s in a relatively calm neighborhood.  (Hey, big ol Cuban me lives there.  We’re loud folk) And the best part, I’ve still got places to go and people to see.

My body ain’t the same it used to be. Fuuuccckkk that part sucks. Yes,  I can definitely feel a bit perturbed at aging. I can still drink people under the table, but I gotta train for it. When I was in my twenties, I could stay awake for a week. Now that I’m forty, I can stay awake for a week with 4 hour breaks every day. When I was 20, a six foot tall wall was a hindrance, today it’s a freakin’ wall. When I was twenty, I could do 20 things at once. Today I can do 3 things at once, but I can prepare for the other 17.   When I was twenty, running was not that big of a deal, I did it for football all the time.  Today, if someone suggests running,  I suggest some other form of traverse, like a car.   I don’t remember much of my twenties, cause, you know, tequila.

But it seems a little surreal to me.  Inside my head, there’s an 18 year old rumblepup with long hair that’s looking out my eyes at the world.  He’s the one who still goes apeshit for music, and movies, and that sweet XBOX360 Elite I got for Christmas.  He’s the one that reaches for chocolate donuts and a gallon of Cuban coffee likes it’s no big frickin’ deal.  He’s the one that’s a fan of Warren Ellis.  He’s the one that hears the  word “boobies” and pokes his head up as if  the Continental Army just marched in.

“40 years old?  Bullshit, ” he says,  “I’m gonna live forever.”  Then their is the 40 year old with a bald head looking back in there and saying “Thanks for stickin with me kid, we’ve still got a lot to do.”

Early on in my marketing career, right about college, I discovered advertising and marketing giants that literally influenced the way I thought about all creative communication until present day.  Whenever I think about a new project or marketing initiative, one of the first things that comes’ to mind is; “What would Bernbach, Ogilvy, or Burnett do?”  Let me tell you right now, that if you don’t know these names, it would do you a world of good to find out.

Before the Cluetrain Manifesto, before Seth Godin and Viral Marketing, and before Mike Moran and Do It Wrong Quickly, there where these three.  They shaped advertising in their day, and the days to follow, and set a standard that knowing it or not, if you’re a good marketer, you already set yourself to follow.

What these three did and how they did it, in a time when the modern age of US consumerism was evolving in response to a more sophisticated consumer, was to explore advertising, and in relation, marketing, and created a new philosophy that mixed art and science to come up with some of the most successful campaigns anyone had or has seen since.

Just to clarify, I’m talking about Bill Bernbach, David Ogilvy, and Leo Burnett.  Ad men par excellence.  Go ahead and click on the links so you can learn yourself a little something.

And what do these three men have to do with today’s internet/ digital media world?  Simply this, “What’s true today was true yesterday” or my favorite, “All that’s old is new again.” These guys just didn’t change the ad and marketing space, the created new and exciting ways to explore it.  Just reading up on some of their campaigns will seem like complete déjà vu.

Bill Bernbach had an artistic and poetic bent the created a new way of thinking about advertising.  He was the mind that came up with the “Think Small” campaign for the Volkswagen Beetle, which is still recognized as the best advertising campaign of the 20th century. He just didn’t make some pretty pictures and some copy, he created concepts about the products he was trying to sell.  He made his campaigns exciting in a way that that very few had seen before.  He believed the good communication and good art would convey how good a product is.  He set out to prove that advertising and marketing was an art form, and those that did not treat it as such would fall by the wayside.    How many times have you seen bad marketing tank a product or service?

“Let us prove to the world that good taste, good art,  and good writing can be good selling.”

David Ogilvy was the quintessential advertising logician.  To hear him talk, you would think that creativity was a four letter word and should be burned out of the brain with acid.    He was into meticulous research and staying close to reality.  When he did a campaign, the first thing he did was learn everything, and I mean absolutely everything, he could about the product he was creating a campaign for.  When he created one of the best taglines for an automobile…ever, it was all research that led him to it.  “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”  This after he spent hours combing through the actual car, driving it, sitting in it, and generally bugging the shit out of the engineers.  So, putting both the product and the consumer in his mind, he found that one detail which made the difference.  The Ogilvy Method was used to completely know the product and the products clients.

“We in direct response know exactly to the penny how many products we sell with each of our advertisements. Your favorite music is the applause of your fellow art directors and copywriters. Our favorite music is the ring of the cash register.”

Leo Burnett was a branding animal.  There’s just no other way to say it.  He believed in creating an image around a product was recognizable and communicated the meaning of the product.  This is the man who created The Green Giant, Toucan Sam, Charlie the Tuna, and Tony the Tiger, just to name a few.  He concentrated on style and symbolism, creating what he called the “inherent drama” of a product.  Leo created a brand culture within his own company as well, using a big, black pencil throughout his career to symbolize the warmth and humanity of the people behind ideas.  Burnett was in all things very human and down to earth in his approach.  He believed in ideas, and the culture of ideas born from human imagination. And believed in having fun in what you create, and being bold and honest.

“Creative ideas flourish best in a shop which preserves some spirit of fun. Nobody is in business for fun, but that does not mean there cannot be fun in business.”

Three big names and three big ideas; the vision, the research and the brand are three of the most important concepts in any campaign.  If you’re not using these, then you’re not doing a good job at promoting your product.  It’s not just text links and traffic, but believability and communication.  In this internet age where we judge things by traffic, clicks and conversions, I often wonder what these three would have done.

Between you and me, I think they would have kicked our collective asses.

Yahoo Giants Of Advertising.  I suggest it highly.

Bill Bernach on GOA.

David Ogilvy on GOA

Leo Burnett on GOA

Yesterday I posted a about the problems I see with Thesis.  Since Santa’s gonna be here any day now, I’ve got a set of wishes that I’d like to pass on to Chris Pearson on his ongoing work with the Thesis wordpress theme/framework.   Now, Chris might make me look like a big dummy when he releases COSMO/ 1.4 and this stuff is already in there, but I’m just pointing out what would make me PERSONALLY happy.  Apres moi le deluge and all that stuff you know.

1. Page, Post, and Archive Layout capabilities.  For instance, doing it oldschool, I modified the rumblepup theme for a 3 column layout on the front page and archive pages, and 2 column on the actual posts.  Why?  ‘Cause I’m a BAMF, that’s why.
2. More “sidebars.”  COSMO was originally going to be a “Magazine” type of wordpress thing.  Can’t really do that with only 2 sidebars.  Since you’re handling a lot of the layout dynamically; How about adding some kind of “Choose the number of sidebars you want” kind of thing.
3. 1000px!  I chose Thesis for a couple of reasons.  One of them is that it uses available space on  the screen in an elegant way.  If you switch to a 2 column layout in the current thesis, you back to 800px.  Keep some 1000px options dude!
4. Footer Divs.  Could use an easier way of adding content in the footers.  Why?  Although some people think that footer content is going the way of the dynasour, I think it’s still a viable area that can add to the user experience.
5. While we are on the footer….  Let’s try to look at multiple sections choices, such as 1,2 and 3 column choices.
6. A better commented css file.  Yes, I can read a css file, but a lot of the bloggers who don’t need to learn somewhere, and comments as to what and how each css element affect the design will not only make a happier customer, but a better blogger and a better advocate for thesis.
7. Hooks are awesome, but….  The Thesis hooks system is killer for me, but like I said before, it takes some patience and experience to really put them to use.  Sugarrae’s tutorial went a long way to help, and nothing is like experience, but I think this could be a simpler process.  When you’re done with COSMO, please come back and ’splain a few things.  Rick is doing awesome, but he’s all alone.
8. EVERYTHING.  I want it to do everything.  Anything and everything I want my blog to do, Thesis should do it and now.  (Ok, I’m kidding, but some new bloggers actually think this way)

Again…Chris can blow me out of the water with 1.4, and all this shit is in there, but maybe not.   Look, in the end, Thesis is what it is, a premiere theme offering much more than what other themes offer, and that in itself is a knee knocker.  However, I’d like to see it taken up one more level.  Chris Pearson is someone who pushes the envelope (ooh, Top Gun reference no less) and I think he has plans for pushing harder.

First things first, I love the Thesis Theme from Chris Pearson (Yes, that’s an affiliate link.  Click on it, it’s good for you).  I’m running my own customized version of it here on rumblepup.  In fact, I’m running at least three others.  I’m sure you’ve seen one of your favorite blogs start using it as well.  I thought I was all cool and stuff when I was an “early adopter” of it, and I reveled in all the creative ways bloggers where customizing their own Thesis powered Wordpress blogs (I just can’t bring myself to use the word ‘pimpin’ anymore).  But try as I might, I’m starting to get a little “meh” about it.

The base design of Thesis, in and off itself, is really a great layout; 1000px width for plenty of space, a great markup, 3 columns to put all your stuff, a neat media block where you can put video or images, and a killer header menu.  What’s not to love?  In fact, the blogging community has loved it so much, it has earned widespread adoption.

And therein lies’ my little problem.  Everybody is using the theme, with little or no changes to the base layout of it.  In all honesty, there is NOTHING wrong with “run what you brung,” and the first step to any kind of online success is GETTING ONLINE.  There are a plethora of “hurray rah rah” quotes you can stick in here, but at this stage in the internet game, even a business card site is a step in the right direction.

Success always breeds imitation.  See something that works, try it yourself.  And here is where Chris Pearson really made a theme that kicks ass.  Out of the box, with a few clicks of the mouse, you can change your theme to THREE different kinds of layouts, and a whole bunch of customizations you crank out just by clicking off options.  NICE.

In fact, it’s so nice, that one look at the theme on someone else’s blog, and bloggers just had to have it.  And have it they did; you just have to hand it to Chris Pearson for being an awesome marketer and an awesome theme designer.  The buzz and the affiliate program he put together, along with a little push from influential blogs like Brian Clark’s Copyblogger and Rae Hoffman aka Sugarrae, spread the theme like wildfire, and just impressed the shit outta me.

So…back to my problem.  The theme is being adopted by blogger after blogger, and with all the tools at their disposal to “customize” their Thesis framework, most opt to choose to do the same thing, over and over again;  A header image, three columns, a whole bunch of advertising, or they stick an image in the upper media box, and viola, another obvious Thesis theme.  Does it work?  Of course it does!  It’s a good theme.  Am I starting to get really tired of seeing only slight variations on the theme?  Ooooooh fuck yes.

You know, maybe I’m just being a dick.  I don’t mean to be, and for the most part, I’m trying to be fair. The truth of the matter is that we see this same theme layout over and over because most of the adopters are new or obviously not design orientated.   This group of bloggers are trying to blog professionally,  or at least making a courageous go at it. (some hurrah’s and huzzah’s here folks)   And the inherit danger I am seeing is that there is something that might be lost.

Brand.

Over and over again, online success comes down to a few principles, and one of the most important in my mind is your online brand.  I don’t want you to think in any way that brand is only visual.  It’s not.  It’s a mixture of a group of things that create a corporate culture.  But the visual aspect of any online presence is right up there in the top five things which make the wheels spin.  A recognizable brand is important folks.

That’s not to say that there aren’t any original takes on Thesis.  There are some customizations that are just out of this world.  So good you can’t tell what theme is actually being used.  But for the most part…not.  I’ve started a brand new personal game as I travel the web.  I call it the “and there it is” game.  I average about 2 Thesis spot’s a day now.

I guess you can say that this problem is actually an indicator of a much greater problem, the general suckiness of free blog templates.   I mean, have you seen some of these things?  The good themes get used up so quickly by so many people that when critical mass hits, it’s hard to tell one blog from the other.

When I started on the internet, at a time I affectionately called “the cute ducky animated .gif days”, website design was in its “design” infancy.  Only a few really knew how to do it well, and the rest where just learning.  Those early designers who knew what they where doing, like razorfish, became millionaires, then sold their company and the rest of us grabbed up any html template we could.   These sucky templates where all over the place, and the free ones where the worst of the bunch.  Yellow characters in 6pt Times New Roman on blue backgrounds and a bunch of shiny, blinking .gifs all over the place, oh the humanity!

As the wordpress blogging platform evolved, so did themes.  But as great designers started popping out themes…uhm, well, less than great designers started popping out themes…a ton of themes…lot’s and lots of themes.  Frickin’ teal blue and brown background themes where all the elements are REALLY, REALLY BIG, and the text is really, really small.  Most look like they where designed by someone who just got Photoshop and wanted to show off their mad skills at making beveled rounded corners.  It was template hell all over again.  And what separated really good themes from really bad themes was that the really good themes where ALL OVER THE PLACE, or they cost money.  Thesis is both; a professional theme that costs money and is ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Thesis 1.3.2 was a fantastic roll out, but in all honesty, doesn’t let me do what I really want to do and doesn’t let the average blogger get past a certain point.  The manual isn’t really that thorough, and a few bloggers had to stand up to simplify it.  The frame work doesn’t really allow for granular changes once you have made a decision on the basic layout, because the entire layout is based on the inside Thesis functions.  Whereas before, with 1.1, which was a little more traditional,  I could grab one the theme files, do some changes, rename it as something else, or just change ‘cause I’m a badass that way, and bust out something I need.  Or get some awesome help from Rick “the animal” Beckman.  That’s not the case with the current Thesis, though Rick is actually going batshit crazy with all the work he’s doing in the forums and as support tech extrodinaire, or busting out Open Hook, new installation after new installation are now just different column layouts, but basically “and there it is.”

Look, I can’t really talk a lot of shit here, because I’m still trying to figure the whole hooks and ladders bit with Thesis as I write this, and I’m sure I’m going to get smacked around for it, but it seems to me that once you made some basic design choices via the custom options, it’s no more soup for you.  I like different layouts for different sections of my blog.  Why?  ‘Cause reading a little column down the left third of the screen kinda sucks, but that’s just me.  The answer for this and other design stuff I would like to do I’m sure are in the hooks someplace, but I see another problem on the horizon.  Will I eventually “get it?”   I sure I will.  But I have about 10 years experience makin websites from scratch.  Some bloggers have about 1 – 2 years of working with wordpress and themes, and not a lot of flight time with the deeper nuts and bolts of design, which might or might not help them get past a certain point.  But now if the average blogger want’s to really make a unique impact with their blog, they have to think about brand.  If they want to create a brand, then they have to delve deeper into design, or hire somebody who can design it for them. It’s the nature of running a website.  You want it real special, you have to work at it.  Don’t want to work at it?  Then you get a website that looks the same as everybody else’s, and there goes you brand.

Chris has thrown down a gauntlet with Thesis that a lot of other professional theme and web designers haven’t.  He laughs in the face of other “premium” themes and says “Oh yeah, you with your three color choices, my theme gives you ALL color choices, ha ha!”  But I think that there are a couple of things that could really and truly make a difference here.  I hear that Thesis 1.4, affectionately named COSMO, ’cause it was gonna be something else but Mr. Pearson the badass changed his mind because badasses do that shit, will address my “you’re being a dick” concerns.  I’m really hoping for it.  I have some tips, and I’ll be sharing them, but as usual, my posts are biblical in nature, so I’ll follow up with my “tips to the Thesis man” tommorow.

Oh deary me.  Seems I’m the latest one to get hit with the china domain name scam.  Haven’t heard of it?  Oh, this is a cool one.  You don’t have to take my word for it, it’s been going on all over the place.

You see, this nice domain name registrar company in China has noticed that one of their customers is trying to register YOUR domain!  And, to make things even worse, they are trying to register your Intellectual Property Rights as well!  Well, this gosh by golly good ol Chinese Domain Name Registrar has decided to do the right thing and contact you so you can avoid this whole mess!  They will allow you to head off this nefarious domainer at the pass and register the domains with them on your behalf.

What a cool company huh?  They’ll be happy to send you a list of all the domain names this international terrorist mastermind has given them to register, along with their special “you almost got robbed but we are here to save you” rates so they can  register it for you!

Wow, bestweb-service.net is great ain’t they.

It works like this.  They start going through the Internets, and find your domain.  How?  How’d you find this site?  They just did, trust me on this one.  Then they check of possible combination’s of your domain name, but ending in different tld’s, that are available, then hit you with a scary letter that sounds like this

Dear CEO&Principal,

We are a professional Internet consultant organization in Asia, which mainly deal with the global companies’ domain name registration and internet intellectual property right protection. Currently, we have a pretty important issue needing to confirm with your company.

On Nov 26, 2008, we received an application formally, one company named “SUSNES Holdings Ltd.” wanted to applied for the Internet brand “badassdomain.com” and some domain names through our body.

During our preliminary investigation, we found that these domain names’ keyword and internet brand is identical with your trademark. I wonder whether you consigned SUSNES Holdings Ltd to register these domain names through us or not? Or is SUSNES Holdings Ltd your business partner or distributor in Asia? Currently, we have postponed this application of this company temporarily already. In order to deal with this issue better, please let the principal make a confirmation with me by telephone or email ASAP.

Best Regards,

Lydia

Auditing Department (HK)

Tel:     00852-95660496
00852-95660489
Fax:     00852-82261011
Mail:      lydia@bestweb-service.org
Web:     http://www.bestweb-service.net

Wow, how nice, so I took the bait to see what would happen, and I sent them this.

Lydia,

I have owned “badassdomain.com”, net and org since 2005-10-16, and have registered the brand as a Trade name.  So What exactly are you blathering about?

I have no idea who is SUSNES Holdings Ltd, they are not my business partners in any way, shape or form.  Wait, are those the guys I see hanging out at the local gin joint with a couple of hookers, a crack pipe, and a donkey with questionable underwear?  I mean, I don’t frequent these kind of establishments, but those fuckers owe me money.

Please feel free to contact me should you have any further questions.

Thank you.

Mr. Rumblepup
CEO&Principle&SuperHeavyweightChampionOfTheWorld
“badassdomain.com”

To which Lydia quickly and kindly responds:

Dear Mr. Rumblepup,

Have a nice Thanksgiving Day!  Thank you for your reply. If you have no relationship with them. According to our working experience, there are 2 possibilities:1.SUSNES company is a domain name investment company, they want to register these names before you and sell back to you to gain profits;2.It may be a commercial method, SUSNES company is consigned by your competitor to register, they are trying to replicate your idea and let your customers feel confusion.

We knew your company has registered the domain name “badassdomain.com” and own the intellectual property, this is why we informed you. But now SUSNES company do not want to register your trademark or domain name “badassdomain.com”, they wanted to apply for other domain names and internet brand you have not registered yet.

Following are all the domain names and internet brand which are submitted by SUSNES company:
1. Domain name
badassdomain.cn
badassdomain.com.cn
badassdomain.net.cn
badassdomain.org.cn
badassdomain.asia
badassdomain.hk
badassdomain.tw
badassdomain.biz
2. Internet brand
badassdomain

Because domain name takes open registration, this is international domain name registration principle. So SUSNES company has right to register it. As a domain name registrar, we have no right to stop their application. I think you must know some cases about the domain names grabbed by the third party,we also won’t want to see similar things happen.

As the company whose trademarks relate to the applied domain names, you will get the priority to register these domain names and internet brand. If you think these domian names are important to your company,we can send you a dispute application form and help you to register these domains within dispute period, this is a way to prevent domain name from grabbing. Of course, each company has their own idea. If you don’t think their registration will confuse your clients and harm your profits, you can give up. In order to proceed next step work better, please give me your decision as soon as possible.

Best regards,

Lydia

..

Now, you have to understand that at this point, it’s 4AM in the morning and I’m feeling a wee bit wicked.  I mean, this is just entertainment at this point, so I respond on more time.

Lydia,

I’m sorry, but I can’t understand a fuckin’ thing you have written.  Not only does this read like the wacky information you find on those Chinese Herbal Tea Diet Pills, like “the state of obesity is the fact of being too fat” (Ha, that one always gets me) but it’s also so incredibly eyeball socket grating as well.

I mean, what does ‘Thank you for your reply. If you have no relationship with them.‘ supposed to mean?   Are you thanking me for my reply as long as I don’t have a relationship with them, because if I do, then to hell with me?

‘According to our working experience’.  Wow, your working experience actually SPEAKS to you?  Mine hasn’t spoken to me since I went to work for Siegfried & Roy all those years ago, but that’s another story.

‘they are trying to replicate your idea and let your customers feel confusion.‘   Oh yeah?  Well what if my customers are not allowed to feel confusion huh?  I mean, I know the Chinese State pretty much controls everything over there, but over here in the US, the only people who control anything are the ones with the big tanks.

‘they wanted to apply for other domain names and internet brand you have not registered yet’ OHHH, is that all?  Go ahead and let them have those domains.  I’m good with that, cause none of my customers are in China, and you know, I own the .com and everybody knows that there are those Chinese Malware Sites and all.

‘As the company whose trademarks relate to the applied domain names, you will get the priority to register these domain names and internet brand.’ Now your just trying to make my head spin.

‘If you don’t think their registration will confuse your clients and harm your profits, you can give up.‘ NEVER, NEVER will I give up.  Don’t you understand, that this is my calling in life?

‘In order to proceed next step work better, please give me your decision as soon as possible.’ I mean really, What the Holy Hopin Horseshit is that?  Does that mean you want my next step better work, or are you warning me about a hole in the floor, and to be carefull where I work?  Or is that step?  What, do you think people in America can’t walk or something?

Ok, since you said please…here’s my decision.

Go away and take a course in ‘Using your brain to think – The Curly Method‘ and see if we can get some better communication going.

Yours Truly

Mr. Rumblepup

CEO&Principle&SuperDeluxeHamburger

badassdomian.com

I haven’t exactly gotten a call back yet.

Even if it’s old, it’s important.

Don’t Vote

www.maps.google.com/vote

When I started blogging, I really didn’t consider what it meant to me, or what I was going to do with it. At the time, I knew that it was growing into an important medium, and I also knew that the changes I was seeing in the online world, especially with more interactivity between web site users and web site owners, was increasing in new and wonderful ways, and blogging was just one of them. I’ve always been an enthusiastic web user; It’s safe to say that I’m a fan of the web. Whether you call it Web 2.0, or 3.0, or any other litany of buzzwords to try to label this growth we’ve experienced in technology, the growth of the internet community was always something I expected.

To me, the internet…just is. It evolves and moves and reinvents itself in both small and big ways. The promise of what the web can be either gets fulfilled on a daily basis, or is reinvented to give us web enthusiasts even more to look forward to. Programmers, developers and the people that use the internet have always asked, out loud, “What can it do next?” And the intrepid among them say, “let’s find out.”

In all honesty, when I started my first blog, I felt like I had just joined the club of the “cool people.” Now I have a blog just like them, and I can be an equal participant in this whole internet popularity game. In retrospect, these were feeble ambitions to say the least, and honestly, not a good reason to do it at all. My father had a saying, “If you’re going to do anything, do it right, and for the right reasons.” Now that I’ve taken the time be introspective and to really be truthful with myself, it’s important that this idea of honesty of intent be something I steer myself by.

I didn’t start blogging for the right reasons. At times, I’ve felt as if my blog site has sat here, patiently, just waiting to be a pundit for me. Have I wasted my time blogging? No, I don’t believe that. Complacency aside, I still did some really cool shit. I did interviews, and have considered important topics, but I haven’t let my blog site live up to its full potential. There is so much I could have experienced and learned, if I had just realized what it could have been.

I knew it (blogging) was a fantastic way for personal branding, and as such, a great experiment in personal growth. Being OPEN about your thoughts and ideas online not only gave a blogger a seat of authority in a particular field, but also in many ways, it’s a recorded journey of one’s own growth in that field. One of the coolest concepts behind blogging is that behind the words on the screen, there is a human being typing away at a keyboard, someone with enough gumption to sit there and tell the world, or at least those in the world that are interested, what he or she sees and feels about the topic at hand. Popular bloggers built up personal communities as time went on, and as their readers grew, so did their own knowledge benefit and grow from this exploration of it. Their own readers would suggest new and interesting concepts that either the author hadn’t thought about, or the ensuing discussion sparked a re-examining of. Damn. That’s just cool beans.

We are human, critics of modern man aside, and our propensity and habit to grow and change is a daily occurrence. There are things we know today that we did not know yesterday. There are things we believe today that we did not believe yesterday. I’ve changed in significant ways over the years, and my one regret is that I didn’t make more of a valuable public record of it.

It’s not that I’m an attention whore, or even think that I could have been some kind of blogging sensation, SEO “rock star”, but looking back at what my blog could have been, and could have meant, as a record of not only my own growth, but as a way to learn and experience by just the act of putting into words those topics I’ve got a pretty good handle on, I see missed opportunities, and the lack of participation in the very thing I am most excited about. The truth may sometimes hurt, but the facing of the truth gives a learnin’ that’s irreplaceable; it can only push you to be better at what you want to do and be.

One of my very first posts on my old blogger account was about web design and, ahem, Front Page (C’mon dude, this was a freakin’ decade ago.) I deleted it two days later because I found this really cool website called A List Apart that made my theories on good design look like ugly dried boogers. I decided I was better off improving my design knowledge than passing myself off as Tim Berners-Lee. Along came awesome tools like Dreamweaver and Adobe 5.0 (changed the world) and I didn’t express myself or what I was learning. I had my opinions, of course, and had learned a couple of things, and forums were there, so I had a chance to soapbox my brand of snake oil.

But, I let that little blogger thing sit there, right up until Google bought it, and then let it sit there some more. The only thing on it, I think, was a post about throwing fried chicken at midget porn stars while they were passing gas, or something. Here I am, Mr. BigShot Marketing dude, with some years in the field, and I write one measly post using poopy humor.

This lost opportunity for self discovery and learning through writing and exploring has made me realize how disappointed I’ve been. I had plenty of new and exciting things I was applying as a designer and marketer that I could have explored beyond the studio. During this time in my career, I was experimenting using new branding position marketing techniques and digging deeper into cost of acquisition metrics. I had read and poo-pooed six sigma theorems, and then worked with colors from the CMG, Color Marketing Group, to focus on the psychology of color and it’s affect on target audiences. Search, in particular, fascinated me and it’s ever growing potential. Instead of trying to find customers, businesses were in a position, if done correctly, to let customers find them. This was really exciting stuff, and I was a part of it. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to say, I just didn’t say it.

I’ve had this feeling about my blog for some time now. Exploring my blog, I’ve found some real gems of authoring that I’m happy and proud to have accomplished. The interviews with search and web experts, my reaction to the death of search engines and the subsequent search experiment I did. But there was some, well, just silly stuff on this blog which I only put up as a way to feel like I’ve accomplished something, when all I really did was post up a silly picture. I like silly pictures just like anybody else, but I didn’t achieve anything with them. So I deleted them.  If you’re looking for a silly picture I’ve posted, you might get a neat ol 404.   This blog, really, is about me and my personal journey, with an invitation to you who are reading to add something you feel is important to the dialogue. I might help you out, or you might help me out. And if somebody else comes along, well, they might just help us both out, or in turn find answers that lead them in a new direction. We might connect, or we might realize the differences in philosophy that are important for us to confront in order to establish our own identity and platform. That’s the promise of the web that I wanted to benefit from, and be a part of. That’s the rumblepup I wanted to be, and am determined to be.

Will I present my ideas on Search? Of course I will, I love the topic.  I believe in SEO. Will I address my views on the Internet Industry. Sure, why not? I’ve been in it for 12 years. Will I pass myself off as a big SEO muckity muck? Nope. There’s much more exciting things going on in the world other than any attempt that I might make of writing another treatise on “5 things to improve your search rankings” I mean, if I see another article on “10 tips on improving your blog’s traffic” one more time, I’m gonna puke up the Jungle Juice I had in the third grade. That’s not to say that I won’t be interested in 10 NEW things about traffic, I’d jump on that apeshit style, but you better come up with a better headline.

Rumblepup.com is not going to pretend to be an SEO blog. Rumblepup.com is and will be about rumblepup, who can do SEO and SEM, and explore the areas of growth I’ve been missing out on. As a real good friend told me, “It’s good to take stock of your intellectual inventory and readjust your personal plan.” That’s cool shit right there, and something I can believe in.

What am I going to blog about next?

Only the things I believe in.

SEO Dark Lord – 100%

Are you an SEO Expert?

I’m as big a fan of Rand Fishkin and crew over at SEOmoz as anybody, but I really didn’t understand the point of the exercise.  This test really only proved that I passed SEOmoz’s questions.  I mean, I super respect Rand, but he is not the end all be all of the industry.

The questions, to me, where very simple, and some where outdated.   Some questions  even seemed to be open to interpretation.  One stood out, which was:

#63 Which major search engine serves advertising listings (paid search results) from the PPC program of one of the other major engines?

I answered Ask.com, but now with the Yahoo!/ Google advertising deal, that one’s a little old.

However, it’s a neat little link juice thinger, and I had some fun.

Well, after we implemented our fix, mr. sql injecting hacker has been shown the door.  Today we where attacked three more times, both in the url and it seems in our open form fields, and as I’m apt to say when I do a beat down, FUACATA.

Bye bye sql injection hacker.