Technology Evangelist

Gmail Archive - The Least Understood Button

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:35:57 -0600

Gmail's archive feature is likely the least understood button found on Gmail's navigation. What exactly does archive mean?

Archive does not mean "backup" or some other form off off-site storage. It also doesn't mean that it files things away in hard to reach areas.

What Archive does to: It moves email out of your inbox. That's it.

Archived email is still immediately available using Gmail's search function or by clicking the All Mail button. The beauty of Archive is that it hides emails that you have processed. Once you're read an email, or read & responded to an email, clicking the archive button will save the email (or conversation) OUTSIDE of your inbox.

Once you're done with emails, stop looking at them. Turn your inbox into a place for pending issues ONLY.

My persona workflow: Read, Reply, Archive. Process, then hide.

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Verifying Comment Spam Phrases

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:40:04 -0600

Sometimes I come across blog comments that are just a bit too generic. They're complimentary, but don't mention anything specific to the topic of the post. When this happens, there is a good chance the comment is a piece of spam.

Here's an example:

It's certainly polite, although it also says nothing related to the topic.

Other hints: Keyword stuffed username, SEO site, and an email address a human would never use (test@)

If that wasn't enough, I searched for the blog post's phrase on Google and found this:

WOW! That 10-word sentence has been indexed 17,300 times by Google.

Looks like that spammer has had quite a bit of success getting their spammy comment past thousands of bloggers.

Google Indexing Audio Files?

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:56:56 -0600

A thread on WebmasterWorld (via SEO Roundtable) suggests that Google is close to adding a new type of content into their indexing mix. To date, in addition to typical web pages, they index PDF files, Word docs, Excel, PPT, RTF, txt, and swf and a few other formats found here.

Adding MP3 into the mix would be incredibly cool since a ton of very interesting content found on the web today is hidden inside audio podcasts.

Many podcasters have been going through the work of transcribing their podcast productions in order to generate easily indexable text transcripts. Should Google manage to auto-transcribe the contents of MP3's for indexing, this may become slightly less important.

However, my initial take is that transcription would still be valuable since Google will still have an easier time indexing text over taking their best guesses at what was said in audio files. Hard of hearing and non-native speakers are also big fans of transcripts since it allows them to consume or read along with audio content that would otherwise be inaccessible.

DoApp: Climbing the App Store Rankings

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:19:20 -0600

Minneapolis, Minnesota based widget and mobile application developers, DoApp, is climbing the rankings of the Apple iPhone store with their myLite Color Strobe and Flashlight application. It's quickly moved from 47th to 14th among free applications since Monday. Impressive.

So, what is it? Here's a video someone shared on YouTube showing off the application:

DoApp's marketing VP, Graeme Thickins, breaks down what the company has learned about how to succeed in the iPhone App Store.

In this case, they started this application at 99 cents and later changed the price to free. While that may be a questionable business model long-term, I think they have proven that they can build popular software.

Flash: The Rubik's Cube of Website Design

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:42:35 -0600

Quick question: What could you do faster? Teach someone how to win a game of solitaire:

Or solve a Rubik's Cube?

Clearly, solitaire is a much easier game to comprehend since the rules are almost immediately obvious. A Rubik's Cube, by comparison, is much more complicated and takes more advanced problem solving strategies to master.

To me, this is similar to the difference between serving websites using HTML vs Flash. HTML is to Flash what Solitaire is to the Rubik's cube. In this case, the person who needs to understand the game isn't a person at all, but a search engine.

If you think it may be valuable for search engines to be able to read the content of your site, understand the navigation, and rank it competitively, do you think you're better off building a site with a solitaire styled structure or a Rubik's Cube? The same information could be presented in either form. But which one will be easier for search engines to comprehend?

Search engines, including Google, have made some recent progress in their ability to index Flash sites. That's a good thing for people trying to find content that web designers have chosen - largely unintentionally - to hide. But it's not nearly as powerful as what they can do with more traditional presentations of data on the web.

Rand Fishkin has more on why Flash remains problematic for web design on SEOMoz.

Google Reader While Driving?

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:06:28 -0600

Minnesota, being slightly to the right of California politically, recently passed a law banning text messaging while driving. While the intention is fine, I think this particular law is absurd since the state already has laws banning inattentive driving. Why should particular inattentive practices be singled out?

With that in mind, Greg Swan attended an event put on by the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) that covered dealing with work overload and the web called Too Much Information? Surviving Data Overload.

Here is what Greg realized while at the event:

Exactly. It goes to show how absurd this particular law is when someone can conceivably drive with their knees while changing playlists on their iPod with one hand and browsing the latest posts to hit their Google Reader on their smartphone with the other.

A Pay Per Click Lawsuit That Has No Chance

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:22:15 -0600

According to TechDirt, Google is being sued by a lawyer who claims Google has been practicing "fraud, business code violations, and unjust enrichment" because he didn't get any leads out of $136.11 he spent on pay per click advertising.

His perceived underperformance comes from the source of traffic he was being charged for. The ads he is upset with Google about ran on parked domains and error pages. Pages, he feels, are incapable of delivering valuable, lead generating traffic.

This seems confusing on many many levels to me. Here are a few other things he could do rather than sue:

1. He could test the performance of his ads, then make adjustments to his campaign if he's not satisfied with the results. A $136.11 lesson learned.

2. He could check the box within his Google AdWords account that would prevent his ads from showing on content related sites. In general, pay per click search traffic converts at a higher rate. However, for that reason, it also tends to cost more per click.

3. He could lower his bids for content targeted traffic. It probably would convert for him eventually. For the right price per click, he'd probably be very satisfied with the results.

4. He could work on his own website to improve the conversion rate. Perhaps there are things he could have done to his site that would have allowed him to generate leads from the traffic he did receive?

I don't think I could explain this any better than Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim, who wrote:

I’m guessing that his ad campaign just plain sucked. After all, if it didn’t, surely he’d have enough leads coming in from Google’s other channels to keep him busy enough to not have time for frivolous lawsuits.

A class-action of people who didn't read the manual.

Airline Seat Tray Advertising

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:32:43 -0600

When all else fails, just inundate your customers with advertising. That seems to be US Airways' theory based on the ads I was presented with when I lowered my seat tray on a recent flight.

Frankly, I don't have a problem with the advertising as long as I see a corresponding reduction in my fares.

Which I didn't see.

Which is the problem.

Limitations of Google Spreadsheets

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:53:09 -0600

I've become a big fan of Google Spreadsheets over the past few months for a number of reasons. The primary being the ability to collaboratively work on a single spreadsheet simultaneously from more than one location. That's a powerful feature that's particularly valuable in data gathering situations.

But it has a few limitations that are worth noting as of this writing. Over time, I see no reason why they won't get worked out, but they could be deal killers for you today depending on how you use spreadsheets.

1. No multi-column sort. Say you want to sort ascending by column C, then ascending by column D so D breaks the ties of column C. You can't do that today. Only one-column sorting is supported.

2. Clipboard limitations. You can only copy 1000 cell's worth of data at a time. So a 250 row x 9 column spreadsheet would take a minimum of 3 copy/pastes to move somewhere else (offline or to a different online spreadsheet). It copies the first 1000 cell's worth of rows, so it's easy to tell where it left off, but it's still painful if you deal with spreadsheets of any weight.

3. Safari formatting. Spreadsheets works in Safari, but I've had some issues with cell focusing. For example, clicking into a cell will often focus my cursor in the cell above the one I wanted. It's not the end of the world, but not as polished as I'd expect.

4. Limited menus. Spreadsheets supports a lot more commands than the limited menus would lead you to believe. If you have experience with other spreadsheets like Excel, try using the commands shortcuts from there to see if they're supported. Fill-down is an example that comes to mind. Spreadsheets does it, but there is no menu option for it today.

What would you add to this list?

Portland Airport Has Power

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:51:56 -0600

Check out the upper right side of the above sign. Notice the mention of WiFi along with something below that that's equally important: Power Outlets.

How cool is that?

Show me a computer that doesn't use power. How hard is that to understand?

Thanks, Portland, for understanding what computer users need in 2008.

WiFi Policies by Hotel

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 08:04:41 -0600

I'm currently writing this from a Westin Hotel where I'm unhappy. Why? Because, after paying a good chunk of change for a room, dealing with pleasant staff, and finding an immaculately prepared room upon my arrival, I was then forced to pay $13 for an Internet connection.

That's insulting.

So, after reluctantly coughing up the dough, I hopped online to see what I could learn about which hotel chains offer free WiFi and which ones don't. And what did I find? This awesome chart from HotelChatter.com:

Thank you. Thank you, Hotel Chatter for putting this together. It will be a great guide for me when booking future travel reservations. I now know that I should never stay in any of Starwood Hotels' higher end properties. Why should I pay more for a room that comes with an additional WiFi tax on top of the higher room charge? That's absurd.

It looks like the charging for WiFi policies of major chains are pretty consistent: The more you pay, the more you pay. If that's the case, I'll pay less to pay less. Instead of 3-stars or more, show me 3-stars or less.

Next step: Does anyone know of a travel site that allows users to filter for hotel properties with free WiFi? That's something I'd find truly valuable. Expedia doesn't seem to offer this, or if they do it's certainly not obvious to me.

Ecological Decline of Newspapers

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:34:50 -0600

Steve Rubel has some interesting thoughts today on whether today's eco-conciousness, which is partly driven by rising gas prices, may make people reconsider whether they really need a print newspaper delivered to their door every day.

Put that together with the ever-increasing quality of online experiences - including mobile - and the choice is becoming more and more clear to many.

In fact, I read Rubel's post this morning on my Treo Smartphone while sitting in a hotel lobby that had stacks of today's local newspaper. It made me wonder what I could do to prevent hotels from dropping a newspaper on my door every day.

Similar thoughts are popping up regarding delivery of yellow pages, unsolicited junk mail, and just about anything that takes time to process at home while making people wonder, "why am I getting this at all?"

What Would You Do With One Outlet?

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:59:23 -0600

Imagine you only had access to one power outlet (and no splitter). How would you make the most of your situation?

For example, assume you have access to the one outlet here:

What do I have plugged in? My computer, of course.

After that, my next most important thing to power is my cell phone. However, I can do that off my laptop via USB, so that keeps me to one outlet.

I don't need a clock, TV, or radio since my computer covers all of that.

In a pinch, I could unplug my computer for an hour or so while using the outlet for other things. That would allow me to use the outlet to make toast. Life is good.

What's Going On? #1

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:28:45 -0600

This is a quick look at what's going on around the web today:

Apple Insider is reporting that you can now use an iPhone without the phone. Perfect. A lot of people are pleased with their phones, but would love to have an iPhone to replace an aging iPod.

Read/Write/Web takes a look at email's future in a world where blogging and Twitter are growing in popularity. I know that blogging has cut down on the number of emails I send. Rather than send interesting things I find to my friends, I just publish them to a blog. Over time, the blogs help me discover others who share similar interests, which is something email never did.

Seth Godin wonders why marketers are considered to be more similar to lawyers than statesmen. Can't someone market products effectively while maintaining the honesty of a statesman rather than blind advocacy?

Microsoft's Don Dodge says that Microsoft was smart to buy search start-up, PowerSet. Whatever improves MSFT's current search offering is certainly a good thing. Time will tell whether this does any good.

In real estate news, MinnPost, together with 612 Authentic, take a tour of homes for sale for $25,000 in Minneapolis. Century 21 agent, Constance Nompelis acts as tour guide.

Minnov8 reminds us that towns that were bypassed by the railroad shriveled up and died, which has some interesting parallels for today's railroad: broadband. The Minnesota legislature passed a bill to create a high speed broadband task force to figure out how to provide broadband throughout the state. Unlike the railroad, broadband could conceivably provide service to every town and every home - if we work together to make that happen.

Copyblogger takes a look at how long blog posts should be. In my opinion, you should stop when you have nothing left to say, so . . .

Tracking Sources of Business

noemail@noemail.org (Ed Kohler) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:36:54 -0600

One thing I've learned this weekend while traveling: If a hotel reservation agent asks you how you found their property, don't say, "I found you on Google Maps Mobile on my phone."

They don't have a checkbox for that.

Which makes me think that they likely don't have check boxes for a LOT of the ways that people find their properties.

They probably advertise in their local yellow pages, just in case someone wants to rent a hotel room in their own town. They, of course, are also found on thousands of online travel sites, travel directories, and - of course - through traditional travel agencies.

The challenge I see here is that sources of business are diversifying more than ever, yet tracking hasn't kept up. Because of this, people on the front line are put in a position of fitting new sources of business into old business assumptions. What's missed is the glimpse into what new channels are bringing in business, which means they'll miss out on the potential of new advertising opportunities.

And they'll also over-spend on legacy advertising systems since their previous assumptions are inadvertently reinforcing the value of those systems.