After being in San Diego for a week having fun at WITS, I decided to only go to Boston for 1 day instead of the full conference.  I woke up yesterday and headed to the airport with no luggage (what an awesome feeling).  I was constantly checking to make sure the usb key with my presentation was still in my pocket.  Once I got seated on the plane, I was given more good news - since all passengers were accounted for we would leave earlier than planned.  A nice 40 minute flight and I am landing in Boston. Read the rest of this entry »

Just got back from my quick trip to Boston Pubcon and before I flew out I made a quick detour to the YPNBlog party.  As always the Yahoo party was great. I’ll post my 12 hours in Boston review tomorrow.

Today on Current TV (who has a partnership with Google) they were talking about search volume and how it can tell Google when a site is down.  Apparently a large spike in searches for a website address is a very good indicator that a site is down.  They then gave several examples of sites like flalottery.com that recently went down. 

Its weird when I can get helpful hints from watching tv.  Now I just need to figure out how to monetive this tidbit.

Despite having over half a million servers sold in China last year, Chinese officials have made it illegal to run an email server unless they grant you permission.  The punishment is a fine for about $3750 USD.  Which may not seem like alot of money but do you really want to upset the Chinese police? 

http://www.isc.org.cn/20020417/ca346007.htm

http://james.seng.sg/archives/2006/04/10/china_to_regulate_internet_email_services.html

Technorati Tags: chinese government, email servers

While I was at WITS several people asked me about my bachelor party plan.  Before I turn it over to my event planners I think I should lay down some ground rules.  For example no cameras allowed (I learned that lesson from my brother-in-laws mistake).  I definitely want cuban cigars.  What other ground rules should I make? 

• strippers - Yes/No
• prostitutes/call-girls - Yes/No
• women allowed - Yes/No

Is there anything else I am forgetting?

I’m a bit behind my blog reading and I just read Chris’s post about unjust labor practices at Google  and other notable notes.  I was shocked to learn Google used cookies and porn to get their employees to work for almost no money.  Good find Chris

In case you have not had the pleasure of spending sometime at the bar during a conference with me (or were too drunk to remember), I have nine siblings.  Which means I have a birthday, anniversary, graduation or some other event to attend almost every week.  I normally enjoy this but this year is just crazy since my sister is being married in July, I am getting hitched in August and my brother has picked March.  That’s right 3 weddings in 9 months.

I didn’t realize how crazy it would get until the planning for the extra events started.  There are 3 bridal showers, 3 bachelor parties, 3 bachelorette parties, 3 “meet the new family” events and a bunch of other stuff I am positive they made up just to make my life crazy.

Last night my fiance reminds me of her families upcoming events and our friends that are getting married.  How am I supposed to juggle these events and still find time to hang out at in the bar at conferences?  Maybe I’ll start combining these events with conferences.  I’m sure my fiance would be happy to get married at SES San Jose and I could make WITS my bachelor party.

Q: What tools do you recommend for keyword research?

• A: Just as you would get a second opinion from a doctor, I like to use multiple sources for keyword information.The tools I’m using most frequently these days are Keyword Discovery and the new enhanced Google Keyword tool with its seasonal information. Other tools I use are Nichebot, Yahoo Suggestion Tool and WordTracker.That said, I would caution anyone to be careful to not rely solely on Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome and congratulations to Yahoo! Publisher Network on the launch of the YPN blog.  It is always nice to see a big player like YPN take the time to help the Internet community by fostering good communications with this “two-way street”. 

It was also cool to check out the video they posted on the YPNblog.  It gives a tour of their offices and has lots of the team members in it.  I did notice one important thing missing in the video - their coffee bar.  Which according to this interview on Sugarrae is their favorite spot.

Just got back from another great Webmasters in the Sun event.  For anyone that doesn’t know about WITS, it is a small gathering of Internet people that know each other and like to have fun in beautiful warm places.  This year was even better than last year in San Diego thanks to the great work of Keith, Ted and Floriana.  Here are some of my highlights:

• Sitting in the beautiful California sun and having some drinks (ok ALOT of drinks and great food and great cigars) with good people
• Having 3 luxury boxes to watch the S.D. Padres baseball team (I was told SD stands for south dakota) and also the fireworks display that followed it
• Seeing the face of the game store owner when I bought out almost his entire poker chip supply (thanks to jake and TrueLocal for helping find the store)
• Thanks to Injury Board for getting a full bar delivered to the poker room, it helped keep the game going well after 5am
• Betting if the waitress would say yes or no when asked if she believes in true and everlasting love - I won, she said no 
• I think Lou and Mickey’s restaurant needed an extra roll of paper to print our bar bill
• Having Rae ask people the “death is not an option” question
• Having Keith ask Rae the “f*ck, marry, kill” question
• My scariest moment - a waitress telling Champagne Jimmy that the more expensive champagne tastes better - believe me he knows this and luckily for my credit card he did not get the Krug
• My sad moment - Having my credit card company call me to ask if I had lost my credit card since they noticed alot of large and unusual charges.  This is when I realized I no longer go out and party enough.
• My sadder moment - Going to the airport to fly home as a bunch of people jumped into a stretch limo for a fun night in Mexico. (I really need to party more )

Somehow in between the parties I found time to talk business.  I can’t provide much of these details but let’s just say there are alot of helpful things coming soon that are going to really benefit the Internet community.  It’s gonna take a few weeks to recover from this one.