Well in traditional getting splinters on the ass, because of lengthy periods sitting on the fence, I am going that way again. Branding as part of your marketing strategy depends on the industry and the individual business involved. For many industries promotional products are a great way to place your business in the consumers minds. It has a sub-concious effect where people naturally relate your business to the product in question. Some good examples of this on drugs is band-aid and google. Both are companies now synonomous with their respective products of health and search engines.

So how can apply this branding strategy to my website. Again it all depends on your focus. In most cases funds can be better directed at targetted campaigns but in some instances creating a brand for your site (particularly in a less competitive niches) can establish you as the go-to site for queries related to your niche. How you achieve this is difficult, and I dare say impossible without looking to spend any funds. But if you are serious the way to brand your site is by advertising on related sites and forums. And real advertisements, banner ads, not text links or signature links. Reviews on products related to your niche and press releases on breaking news within your niche are other great ways to establish your brand.

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General personal theme with an excellent flickr integration

Now, one of the owner’s of this coffee house has a crush if you will on a lady who comes in frequently.(Did i mention this owner was also female. All the guys reading this just became a whole lot more interested.) Some time ago, the husband and co-owner of the coffee house burnt some CDs for the loyal lady customer. For whatever reason, today as i was sitting there enjoying my latte, she offered to make him a ‘mix-tape’. My ears pricked up immediately at this point because as i think we all know, making someone a ‘mix-tape’ is one classic way of obtaining another’s affection.

My first question when the woman left was – Who did she offer to make the mix-tape for? (As i was unsure who she was speaking to.) The female owner responded by saying – I know right? To which i burst into gales of laughter as she was obviously referring to her husband. So she reiterates by saying to me – My girlfriend is hitting on my husband! The hysterics continued.

The origins of the mix-tape probably date back to the cassette and the ability to record songs individually or as an album from one to another. Putting the time and effort into selecting unique tracks and compiling them for a potential or current boy/girl friend was an excellent way of showing them that you think of them and how you think of them. It is a sure fire way of getting them to think of you as well. After all, who else would you be thinking of when you are listening to the mix that they made you?

I decided that now was an appropriate time to taunt my friend on her facebook wall about the morning’s amusing series of events. From my rather tame jest of – make me a mix-tape baby! – comes the totally unexpected response of – You make me one! Do it! I need some jealous-making stuff!! Lol. WTF?!? How does that work? On what planet do the rules of the mix-tape making process include revenge and jealousy? Despite all the blatant misappropriation of the mix-tape creation, i decided to accept this challenge. The theme of this mix-tape, of all things, was the number 3. I’ll let your collective imaginations ponder upon what that may be referring to. Children may read this so i can’t very well spell it out for you.

So now this is the part of the tale where we are going to analyse the female psyche. Remember, this is creative writing people. I love the ladies and this in no way represents my exact opinions.

What piece of insecurity requires someone to make something out of jealousy in the hope of arousing such emotions in their partner? Is this pettiness personified? Is this going to strengthen their relationship that they have obviously built upon mutual love and trust? Where is the gain in this? What motivates such poisonous actions? Come on girls! Speak up! If you want to retaliate that is fine. Try refusing to cook dinner instead. Don’t drag the reputation of the humble mix-tape through the mud to achieve your subtle goals. Leave the mix-tape out of your malignant squabbling. Nothing good can come of it. Music is to be embraced, shared, loved and enjoyed. Turn that stereo up!!

And by the way, the mix-tape i made was awesome

This is the first post by “The Maestro” who will feature wekkly here at Scribble Scratch. He was to provide a unique perspective on some of the topics I am covering but in true Maestro fashion, he has ignored all of my advice and wrote whatever the hell he wanted to anyway. – Adam

Sisters. Love them or loathe them, chances are you have one. And if you are unlucky (or lucky) enough not to have one then I feel for you because they really do make life much more fun. Or is that painful? Entertaining? Awkward? Embarrassing? Humorous? All of the above? I can say with confidence that it is all of the above and many more adjectives that would take too long to mention.

So what is it about sisters that makes them so lovable or loath-able? They come in many shapes and sizes with a myriad of personalities. And if you are unlucky enough, your sister(s) probably has multiple personalities and you are never actually certain which beast within her you are actually talking to. I’m about to go into a (skin) deep analysis of these personalities that you may or may not have had the pleasure of encountering. Here we go……..

Personality Type 1 – The Cool Little/Older Sis.

This is probably the best of the personality types that you can hope your sister to have. The Cool Sister is fun to be around. You can socialise with her. You can talk to her about anything. She will buy you a beer if you’re short and then ask for a vodka red bull when you can afford it. Ok. Bad example. She’ll wing-man for you. Introduce you to her attractive friends. Help keep unwanted attention away from you. Assist you entering clubs when it is seemingly impossible to get in unless you have female accompaniment. This sister is the bomb. Borderline indispensable. A toast to the Cool Little/Older Sis!!

Personality Type 2 – The Princess

This is probably the antithesis of type 1. This sister is by and large, a bitch. And that is being nice. She is daddy’s little girl and committing murder and escaping without punishment is probably within the realms of possibility for her. She will sometimes display some of the traits of type 1. However, the interminable gap between such displays takes about as long as it would take to mow your lawn with nail clippers. Basically, if you have this type of sister, you understand the true meaning of agony and probably aren’t afraid of going to hell.

Personality Type 3 – The Comedienne

This is a rather rare type of sister. One that can crack a joke and have guys and girls alike laugh out loud. Or even in hysterics. Being funny is an invaluable asset. It endears you to everyone. And it is hard not to have friends when you are so good at making people laugh. Therefore, having a sister that can have you, your mates, her mates and anyone within ear shot giggling uncontrollably is a definite boost to your social standing. Keep the Comedienne close at hand………

Personality Type 4 – The Arrogant Intellect

This is also a rare type. Not because girls aren’t intelligent but because intelligent girls aren’t often arrogant. Although every now and again you will run into one with this filthy air of disdainful arrogance about her that you will strongly consider betraying your oath never to harm a woman or child. She is just asking you to headbutt her really. She will talk down to you. Consider your arguments and dismiss them without thought, regardless of how correct you are. Her nose is constantly in the air. Mortals aren’t within reach of touching this piece of creative and logical genius. Her prodigious talent isn’t worth wasting upon anyone without a PH.D. Chances are this sister has very few friends and you wont be losing much by cutting her loose from your list of associates.

Personality Type 5 – The Sportswoman

This is a useful attribute to have in your sister. The Sporty Spice look is good for her and it is good for you. A sports lover is going to be fit, which means she is likely to play team sports. I think you know where I’m going with this one. Her teammates are also going to be fit. Fit chicks are hot. Lean bodies. Athleticism. Flexible. Ok, ok I will stop. Sporty Sister = Good. ‘Nuff said.

Personality Type 6 – The Shy Introvert

This is not necessarily a bad thing. A quiet sister isn’t going to be annoying. She wont hassle you for money or favours. She will probably help you if you need it. The shy sister though isn’t likely to be much fun to hang out with on a Friday night. Sure you can go and watch movies or TV but you aren’t going to want to chill every weekend with your sister. The introvert is good for quiet time, just not party time. Not a bad one to be around but isn’t going to help you out much when it comes time to have a cold beer. Or six

Personality Type 7 – A little bit of column A, B, C, D………

This sister is one huge conglomerate of the previous 6 and then some. She could be the sweetest girl imaginable one minute and trying to knock your head off the next. She could show you a great place to hang out and introduce you to some cool people and then turn around and find her telling said cool people how much of a loser you are. You could be discussing the appropriateness of public displays of affection and then screaming about who’s turn it is to use the internet. This wild child can be angrier than Mike Tyson or nicer than Mother Theresa. It is a roll of the dice people, except this dice has 16 sides, with each side more bizarre than the last. Some might think that this variety is exciting. Some might think that it’s good to have such an interesting individual in the same gene pool. Others might detest the sight of her. Pray for her to be hit by a bus. Have a 5 tonne anvil fall on her head. Whichever way you lean, you can never say she is boring. Ever………

Why this analysis then? Well I have one younger sister living amidst the chaos I call home. I’ve watched her grow, even as I have and she never ceases to amaze me. She is one of the kindest and most loving people I have ever met. Intelligent, audacious, quick-witted, slow-witted (lol), generous. These words only begin to scratch the surface of who she is. I’m tempted to say that of these personality types she is a 7 but she is without doubt a number 1. She is the archetype Cool Little Sis and my life would be poorer if it was devoid of her.

For all those out there with a sister, whether you love or loathe her, you can’t deny that even if it is only sometimes, you are glad that she is there. I know that I am. And I love her as much as I love anything else in this world.

Now I just need to make sure she never reads this!

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A simple, 3 colomn theme, which is back by popular demand. Very professional finish, with easy visuals and a strong structure that reduces clutter.

33. Use social proof. Ever entered into a restaurant because the place was packed with people, or didn’t enter one because it was empty? That is social proof in action. If you have a good number of RSS subscribers already (I would say over 500), you could display it on your site using the Feedburner feed count widget. This might motivate people to give your RSS feed a shot.

You may of noticed that I didn’t write up my first RSS experiment the following day from my original post in this series. Well there is a very good reason for that, I was unable to reveal the details of my experiment as this would make the void my first RSS experiment. So what exactly was my experiment?

Does having a high subscription count effect the number of new subscribers?

Essentially I wanted to test the theory that by having a large number of subscribers, and displaying this figure on the site, that this will encourage new visitors to subscribe because of the herd mentalitly, “if XXXX amount of people like this site, then I probably will as well”. Ths was suggessted by Daniel in the original post as tip number 33, which I posted above.

To test this I swapped out my feedburner stats with a static image of my feedburner subscribers with an extra 80,000 or so subscribers. Then I left the site for a week and reported my subscribers as you can see in the image below. Other than the feedburner stats and a different weekly post everything else remained constant with the site (at least on my side of the equation).

Conclusions

Well the results are inconclusive. It was on par with previous weeks and no discenible changes were recorded. In addition there are quite a few variables that I would prefer not to exist. They include:

• The number of subscribers I post. Perhaps 80,000 is too high on the scale and people tune out.
• The site has a relatively low number of visitors and subscribers which causes difficulty in determining accuracy of changes. Nothing I can do about this one.
• Testing over 1 week throws a lot of additional variables within the test, particularly the number of type of visitors I get for the week.

Week 2

So to try and get more accurate results I have repeated the test for another week, with a few minor changes. Mainly:

• A new weekly post
• Changed subscriber count from 80,000+ to 800. Daniel mentioned over 500 so it may be more accurate with Daniel’s suggestion.

Here are the results:

Conclusions

Again nothing much to conclude other than it doesn’t make much difference at all. It seems there must be other factors at play that are far more important in getting people to subscribe to the site, at the very least this site. However its more important to conclude that it does not negatively effect your subscriber count, but in my logical opinion, a high number of subscribers adds credibility to you and your blog.

Let me know if you have had a similar or completely diferent experience by posting your feedburner stats, by leaving a comment below.

<< Part 1 – Growing Your RSS Subscribers

Before I make my argument I think its important to point out, that in no way am I attacking the various forums, and online opinion sites. These people are far too happy to provide opinions and disagree with each other. Only need to drop an atheist in a Christian discussion to watch the feathers fly. But in the blogosphere (god I hate that word, not sure why I chose to use it), this ability to disagree or just say no is non-existent. The following quote from the Simpson’s sums up the situation pretty well:

Mr. Burns: Where did I go wrong? I made all the right moves, didn’t I?
Burns’ Underlings: Yes, sir. Absolutely.
Mr. Burns: Oh, I see it now; you’re nothing but a bunch of yes-men. I was making all the wrong moves, and you were too gutless to tell me!
Burns’ Underlings: Yes, sir. Absolutely. Every move the wrong one.

One can only assume that the individuals involved are generally looking to suck up (no this is not a continuation of the orgy analogy, get your head out of the gutter) to some of the major players to earn favors for their own future developments. Its human nature for the weak to butter up with the strong. But amongst the major players there is no discernible differences, no conflicts, no different point of views, the environment seems to becoming more mundane and more bleak by the day. It is beginning to feel like a Florida retirement village, repetitive and uninteresting mantra being retold over and over again by enthusiastic yet stupid people. Of course their success allows them a position of power, particularly when you are blogging about blogging, being successful is proof that you are generally right. But at no stage does that mean you are always right. Hell Enron was generally right, but it didn’t mean they were long-term successful. The roman empire was generally right but despite killing the human re-incarnation of God, they also lost power. I will bet my left nut (my right nut is to valuable to gamble no matter how sure I am), that Yaro Starok, Darren Rowse and Daniel Scocco are not always right as well.

So where exactly did all this hostility come from? Well I wrote a post about a poorly thought out email Daniel sent to me. You can read it here. Part of the post was to give Daniel a fair chance at rebuttal or simply admit that he did not think out the email all that well. I went to his site, to inform him about my post, and noticed that he had posted about the article that is referenced in the email that he sent me. its important to remember that this blog post, only linked to the actual article and that the post is not the article itself. So I thought I would check the feedback and see what other like-minded individuals said about it. Lets get some honest and balanced feedback via the comments shall we.

Wow, Daniel!
Thanks so much for putting this list together and offering your expertise in getting more traffic. I can’t wait to read the entire 100 ways.
Karen

Thank you so much Daniel for the time taken to provide us such an awesome post. Probably need to take some time to read and digest. I will certainly implement it probably not all but those that can be implement directly first. Thanks again.

Great! an awesome post over here. I really agree with those points and they got to work.
I can see that they all seems to be killer articles..
Thanks for sharing.
Regards

Thanks. This is really amazing list. And needs time to analyze it but your summed it up really good

Half of them didn’t even read the article yet were not afraid to hurl superlatives to their messiah. This pattern continued for 20 + comments without a single negative or even neutral comment. Now I do not mind giving some credit, but this constant reinforcement of average work just leads to more mediocrity. And this is by no mean a direct attack on Daniel, but merely one example of the stupidity we now have to wade through on the Internet to get something real.

And its not only the illiterate masses who are guilty of this. When is the last time you read something negative from the most popular bloggers. When is the last time you found two articles in direct disagreement, and when is the last time you saw them comment on each others blogs without giving each other a compliment. I would post an example of the last time this happened but there is none (within the last few years anyway). Surely there is more than one way of going about your blogging? Surely there points of difference between bloggers philosophies, processes, methods, or at the very least their opinion on the various issues facing bloggers? Its a blogfest orgy I tell you, and no I am not attacking these guys simply because I wasn’t invited to join the sexual fun. Although an invitation would of been nice.

Perhaps it is up to me to provide a different point of view. Its up to me to find inconsistencies in arguments, to call a spade a spade, to argue against the status quo, to highlight inaccuracies, to publicly condemn stupidity, to remove just some of the love that exists in the blogging world. But I am just one man, with comparatively little reach, perhaps its in fact, up to you the reader, the visitor and the commentator, to break down the love. Its up to you, to stop feeding egos with pointless comments, to stop ignoring things that don’t seem right, to ask for more information when only the very basic is provided, and most importantly to form an opinion and disagree when the time calls for it. Together if we can just alleviate the issue, even by the a little bit, we have played our part in removing or at least stopping more internet garbage from wasting bandwidth.

N.B. I am happy to be a hypocrite and welcome pointless positive feedback to boost my out-of-control ego. I also strongly discourage any form of disagreement with me and my post. Take your negative attitudes elsewhere, thank you very much. This blog is moderated, and run tighter than the North Korean Media (did you know they showed the 7-0 drubbing by Portugal live, which was the first live game in North Korea. Guess they won’t be doing that again).

1. The email is definitely borderline spam in my opinion. I will concede that it links to one of Daniel’s sites, and that the site is marginally on topic but as far as providing resources that are on par with what you expect when signing up to his list, this email is way off the mark. Granted that I expect plenty of spam from these list anyway it was probably the construction of the email that has most upset me. The list is aimed at the very simplest of webmasters, at the very start of the webmaster journeys with no insight for an experienced webmaster, or a self confessed demigod of the Internet strata that is myself. Simply setting the tone for the article once by adding the word, “new” or “beginner” would have avoided this whole issue and ironically robbed me of something to post about. Well played Mr Scocco.

2. I mentioned the list is simple in both it aim and its substance. It really is not worth sending out an email for, particularly for a new website that is not fully finished. So not only is it off topic for the majority of his list it is also a very blatant attempt at link bait, Stevie wonder could see through it. Essentially Daniel has said, this is some of my best work check it out, and has attached his reputation to something very much below him (I understand the hypocrisy of claiming something as “below” them, being a demi-god of the Internet myself everything is below me, including you). Your representation for quality is like your virginity, once its lost your never getting it back.

However this experience has raised some further points that are definitely worth pondering. Are you now pondering what I am pondering? (“Sure Adam, but how structurally sound would a candy house actually be?) Not that, I am pondering how important it is to treat your list with the utmost respect. I am now at square one again with Daniel where he now has to earn my trust again. Naturally a webmaster would think of a list as an insignificant email, a single digit amongst their massive list of subscribers. It is all too common to tear your list into percentages of openings, clicks and actions. But this depersonalization of an email address may very well be a poor business decision.

This experience is a lesson for me to never forget that behind each email address is a person who I must treat with the utmost respect, being totally honest, and providing information that will be of value to them. A person who loves and reveres me and expects nothing short of perfection and whom will never get anything less. I am there god and that person is a member of my flock, whom i must protect and nourish, and yet at the same time let them grow, prosper and make decisions on their own.

If I may be permitted to direct this post back on topic for a moment, the second thought worthy of further pondering is how it is now apparent to me how pointless list can be (top 100 list, not email list), particularly list on a topic that has been done 100 times before. It would be as absurd and pointless as giving a Nobel peace prize to a newly elected president with little to no foreign policy experience and even less achievements to date at the point of receiving the award. Its utterly pointless and would never happen. So when viewing a top 100 list on a topic done extensively before you would at least hope for some new information. Nope. Well the information provided should give a new view-point, way of implementation. No. And that is the issue with these list when they do provide information they don’t give any substantial information on how to apply it correctly. It is like buying a shelf from Ikea and not getting any assembly instructions, you have the tools and direction to achieve your goal, just no practical idea of how to get there.

We learn two things from this. When writing a list provide some insight on each point or at least a link to further information. And secondly when using a list for information never apply an idea directly from a list, do the necessary research to know and master the technique so that your time and effort is used effectively. I could probably pick any of the 100 tips from Daniel’s post to prove my point but I will stick with the first one.

1. Add a blog to your website. If your website is static (e.g., a corporate site or an online store), consider adding a blog to it, where you’ll write new content regularly. This will give your visitors a reason to come back, and your search engine traffic will increase too. If you need a blog software, check out WordPress (it is free and easy to use).

How ambiguous is that for a tip. He may as well of just said, “get more traffic” and marked it down as an inspirational article that inspires rather than informs. Lets not even mention the fact that Daniel’s main blog has a new post every day on blogging, which he has now summed up this amazing amount of knowledge, tips and advice into a 2 sentence tip (oops looks like I did mention it). It provides no real blue-print to achieving your success other than a link to a blogging platform to use. Other than knowing vaguely about blogging a new webmaster has no new weapons to add to their arsenal and nothing tangible has been gained from their experience. At the very least there should be a link to Daniel’s own website to provide a second step so that the user can “increase traffic to their site” by “adding a blog”.

I have sent off an email to Daniel for a chance to rebut my claims and am hopeful he takes me up on the offer. I have to at least thank him for the insights I have discovered from his innocuous little promotional email and have decided in a manner of goodwill, to let this one little indiscretion slide. After all he usually delivers much higher quality stuff and his blog is worth checking out.

First thing was to find some expert opinion and I found a nice list of 50 tips to increase your RSS subscribers by my old mate Daniel Scocco at Daily Blog Tips who is nearing 50,000 subscribers so looks like a safe bet on this issue. In an effort to not overload you with information I have provided a summary of the tips below as well as my opinion on each (in brackets). What will now happen is a series of experiments using one tip at a time and comparing the results. I will let you look over the list first and post my first experiment tomorrow.

1. Have a big RSS icon (Will replace my set up with a very standard Icon and make it bigger)

2. Display the RSS icon above the fold (Happens on every page other than the home page. May be worth testing)

3. Display the RSS icon on every page of your blog (done)

4. Use words.

5. Write a post asking for people to subscribe (Have Done with limited success. May repeat)

6. Use the FeedSmith plugin. (done)

7. Offer email subscriptions. (Will definitely Try)

8. Use an email subscription form. (see above)

9. Encourage readers to subscribe at the bottom of every post. (I do it at the top of every post in a less than ambiguous fashion. Will amend, then test).

10. As few steps as possible. (At the moment it is one step, may reduce to zero steps and see how it goes)

11. Use icons to offer subscription on the most popular RSS readers.

12. Have clear focus on your blog. (No chance the blog reflects my mind which is….Squirrel!)

13. Publish new posts frequently and consistently. (Not going to happen to improve my self-confidence. If I am able and the content is decent may try and increase frequency of post)

14. Don’t exaggerate. (Me? Never)

15. Write valuable content. (Done with bells on)

16. Write unique content. (No-one is quite like me or you or you or you…)

17. Don’t ramble or go off topic. (Do not read the above comment on 16, or 12, or 22…)

18. Use your RSS feed link when commenting on other blogs.

19. Run a contest. (Seems a bit superficial…perfect!)

20. Offer random prizes to your subscribers. (I will stop emailing you if you subscribe…hmm probably not)

21. Write guest posts. (Been There, failed that)

22. Welcome the new readers. (My face is on every page what more of a welcome could they possibly want)

23. Go popular on social bookmarking sites. (Its so easy to do and all. This will probably be my next series but not for RSS, for more visitors)

24. Explain to your readers what is RSS. (Hmm, may need wikipedia)

25. Have a special “Subscribe” page with all the info and links there.

26. Create a landing page on your blog to convert visitors in subscribers. (no)

27. Send traffic to that page using PPC. (No)

28. Write an ebook and ask people to subscribe in order to download it. (too much effort)

29. Launch an email newsletter with Aweber. (very Good Idea, although the results may be inflated considering I already have several thousand subscribers)

30. Offer a full feed. (So chips with the hamburger. Got it)

31. Clutter your website with ads. (probably need to read the whole post for this not to sound stupid)

32. Don’t clutter your RSS feed with ads. (Done)

33. Use social proof. (Most likely my first experiment. Stay tuned (by subscribing to my fed perhaps??(Can you do more than one bracketed comment at a time)))

34. Offer breaking news.

35. Mention that subscribing to your blog is free.

36. Use pop-ups to encourage subscription to your newsletter. (Not gonna happen)

37. Use an animated RSS feed icon to draw attention. (Good Idea)

38. Use feed directories. (No)

39. Email first time commentators encouraging them to subscribe. (seems slightly desperate. Perfect)

40. Make sure the feed auto-discovery feature is working.

41. Offer a comments feed. (seriously does anyone subscribe to this? And more importantly if they do why?)

42. Offer category feeds. (Probably a good way to keep my feeds on topic, on the rare occasion I post about the same topic more than once)

43. Run periodic checks on your feeds.

44. Recover unverified email subscribers.

45. Leverage an existing blog or audience.

46. Use cross feed promotion.

47. Use testimonials on your “Subscribe” page. (Not sure if my testimonials would reflect awfully positive and not sure if you can use your own testimonial, is that taboo?)

48. Get friends to recommend your site and RSS feed on their blog. (Friends…of course..I will ask them *Chirping Crickets*)

49. Do something funny or weird while asking for people to subscribe. (I could stand on my head but no-one would probably see it)

50. Start a long series so people subscribe to keep update with it. (Hmmm, where have I done this before?)

Growing Your Subscribers – Part 2>>

If you are not some sort of Internet moron who somehow has stumbled on my unambiguous website and completely missed the legend that is Paul the psychic Octopus well I have some good news for you. Paul has made further predictions (not on the result of football matches) but the future direction of the Internet and those who dwell upon on it. I will get back to this, but first I want to examine the theories of how this superior being came to existence:

1. Pure Coincidence – I thought in the effort of balance I would examine this obviously untrue and patently false accusation that it is mere coincidence that Paul the Psychic Octopus has correctly predicted the outcome of all the matches at the world cup. I suppose it is pure coincidence that 9/11 happened when that date represented by the font windangs is a plane and two towers as well.

2. Supreme Being – Perhaps Paul is not merely a conveyor of future predictions, but some sort of aquatic demigod who has come to earth to eat mussels, entertain visitors, predict football matches, and start a series of events that will ultimately result in the demise of the human race and the planet on which we reside. OK maybe not entertaining visitors but consider what if he isn’t predicting the matches so much as he is imposing his will upon the destiny of the earth?

3. Back to the future – The most likely of the theories that surround Paul, is that he is of this world, but merely a passenger back through the passages of time. After intensive investigation is has been extrapolated based on Paul’s testimonies, that he is actually from the year 2080 and is 75 years old. Paul has been quoted stating “swim, swim, bubble, eat, ink, ink, swim” which roughly translates to “I used to swim in a private aquarium for my master, however some time in 2080 I was fed some out of date mussels and fell terribly ill. In a desperate attempt to make me better, my master underwent some experimental treatments, involving tin foil, a microwave, testicles from an ox, a copy of twilight, a unicorns horn and a modest American. OK I made the last bit up about the modest American, but some sort of accident occurred during the procedure causing a wormhole through time, in which I tragically fell into. I arrived in a German aquarium and was luckily placed in a position where I can tell my story because the aquarium people thought it was a clever idea to get football predictions from an octopus.”

So knowing that Paul is from the future I decided to ask for some insights in the future of the Internet particularly relating to webmasters. Unfortunately I was not able to secure the services of the octopus whisperer (who translated the above piece) so I was forced to merely place in glass boxes filled with mussels into his tank with two possible answers to the questions I pose to Paul. It is important to realise that I asked Paul to choose the closest correct answer so the answers are limited to how well I predict future trends. So here is the full transcript of the interview:

Adam: Hi Paul, its a pleasure to meet you, how are you?

• Option A: Fine
• Option B: I am a god-damn octopus what do you care?

Paul: Option A, Ink, Ink, Swim

Adam: I have been told by a reliable source that you are not in fact psychic, but have travelled back in time and was hoping to ask you some questions about the future. Let me ask you whether or not you know about me in the future and how well scribblescratch has done.

• Option A: You have become supreme overload of the earth, on the back of huge financial wealth and popularity gained through the growth of your website scribblescratch.
• Option B: You have become the supreme overload of the earth, on the back of huge financial wealth and popularity gained through the growth of your website scribblescratch.

Paul: Swim, chew, Option B

Adam: That very interesting although a fairly predictable outcome there. It has been recently predicted the generation x/y/z lacks the social co-ordination to become successful in the business world because of an over-dependence on technology and socializing via the new mediums. How exactly does Generation X/Y/Z stack up?

• Option A: Compared to the baby boomers? Ha its no contest, they are the most destructive, self-indulgent in history and are looked down upon as such.
• Option B: After Skynet was launched there really is no need to succeed in the business world.

Paul: Option A, death stare, bubble

Adam: It seems Apple, Microsoft and Google are the 3 big players in the various markets today. Will they still be around in 70 years? And if so are they still as dominant?

• Option A: They are much the same as today, diversifying with new technologies, they have many more competitors but are still looked at as being the most powerful player in their respective industries.
• Option B: Are you referring to the great three world republics of Googlonia, The democratic Peoples republic of Microsoft and the United States of Apple?

Paul: Option A, ink, swim

Adam: Is Steve Jobs still referred to as enlightened entrepreneur?

• Option A: No, he is still considered a tool
• Option B: Definitely a tool

Paul: Takes the mussel out of both boxes at the same time. Then inks.

Adam: What has been the most exciting advancement for the Internet in your life-time?

• Option A: Virtual Reality is the norm where you can experience almost anything imaginable.
• Option B: Spammers have been outlawed world-wide with a minimum penalty of death and enforced vigorously.

Paul: Option A

Adam: This interview and article is obviously becoming a farce with no real point, so for my last question whats the best condiment with calamari?

• Option A: Soy Sauce
• Option B: Tartare Sauce

(Paul smashes his glass aquarium and goes on a rampage killing 15 aquarium workers. He is shot by an off duty police officer, and we all enjoy a nice deep fried lunch with tartare sauce).