Take Photoshop Images and Automatically Create CSS for Web Design

When you are designing a website, most likely you are starting the project in Photoshop to get a better idea of what you want but eventually you are going to have to dive into first the structure of the page (HTML) and then the styling details (CSS).  The task of writing (and rewriting) code can be monotonous and frankly, is what most would consider to be the lionshare of website design. Things like replicating shadow and gradient work, border radius, stroke and opacity settings can chew up a ton of time.

Is there a way to automate these types of web design grunt work?

There actually is.  It’s called CSSHat and what it does is builds the CSS framework for what ever you are doing for you.  Below, you will see part of a graphic package I was working on for a client (I was built the powerpoint presentation).  The seminar is now over and I need to transfer this to the web so that the attendees can grab the exercise material.  In doing so, I simply grabbed the first part of the powerpoint and then built a button at the bottom of the graphic.

With CSSHat, I can build the button in photoshop and then, with a click of a button, it generates the css of the layer so that I can extropolate and add into into the css of the website.

csshat-example1

To generate this, all I had to do was select the layer and then open up CSS Hat.  It gives you the CSS and several preprocessors such as LESS to choose from.  You can also add the width and height, it generates all the webkits for the various browsers and if you want, can actually structure the class attribute to the beginning of the structure for you.

CSS Hat isn’t free.  It’s $29.99 but in my opinion is very much worth it if you want to build buttons and don’t want to tinker with things like shadows, gradients, and what not.

And in case, you are wondering, I have absolutely nothing to gain from suggesting it.

Check out CSS Hat Now

Tiered Links About to Take a Hit? Why co-citations matter more

We’re also looking at some ways to go upstream to deny the value to link spammers–some people who spam links in various ways. We’ve got some nice ideas on trying to make sure that that becomes less effective and so we expect that that will roll out over the next few months as well. And in fact, we’re working on a completely different system that does more sophisticated link analysis. We’re still in the early days for that, but it’s pretty exciting. We’ve got some data now that we’re ready to start munging and see how good it looks and we’ll see whether that bears fruit or not. -Matt Cutts

 

If you haven’t watched this video about upcoming changes for SEO by Matt Cutts, you should. And if you have been relying on so called tiered networks to provide you with powerful links, then this should be a wake up call that doing more of the same will eventually get you penalized.

For those who don’t know what a tiered network is, basically it is where you build a network of websites (usually via blogger, tumblr, wordpress, squidoo, etc. but the more sophisticated networks own the websites outright and use varying IP’s to misdirect intent) and then layer them like a cake.  As the layers grow outward, you start linking them up until finally all the authority points down to your main website.  Over time, the links become stronger and the “juice” pushes your rankings upwards.

The benefit to this is that, unlike subscription based link networks, you own and control what links get dropped onto the network which can lessen the SEO footprint if you know what you are doing.  Some networks are absolutely huge and have been honed and developed over years.

It works.  For now.  In fact, it works so well that a lot of SEO companies are in the business of building their own link networks more so than actually doing legit SEO and link building so they can plop down client links quickly.  Let’s face it.  It’s easier to own your links than to hunt for them.

And now Google has these types of networks in their cross hairs.  So how are they going to root them out?  I have a couple sneaky suspicions here, the biggest being relying more strongly on co-citations.

Co-Citations

Regardless of how big you may think the world is and the market, realize this ; in most cases, the legitimate websites all run in a profoundly smallish crowd.  Here’s an example.  Think of how many SEO websites there are- possibly tens of thousands.  However, when push comes to shove and you start filtering downward, you will ultimately come up with a couple thousand legitimate SEO websites which ultimately link up to each other here and there.  And then there are the top SEO websites which are not only linked up by the couple thousand afforementioned websites but who are more likely to link to EACH OTHER.  That’s how co-citations work.  And that is extremely hard for anyone to game.

So what happens when a new kid on the block comes in and gets little to no links from these websites?  How does it look when no one within your industry is linking to you but you are getting a ton of links from other websites that either have little to nothing to do with your market or if they do, aren’t getting links from other websites in the industry either?

That’s how co-citation works.  And it only makes sense that if most websites in an industry predictably link up to certain websites and the top websites within the industry link up to each other, then the legitimate websites that are lower would follow suit.  And like I said, even the biggest industries are pretty small, from a intertwined network perspective.

Here’s an example. One of my clients writes about the HR industry. She goes to conferences. She is connected to a lot of people within her industry. So, it only makes sense that the links she gets are (1)SHRM related and (2)come from local, regional and (in some cases) national sources.  She is in the middle….among hundreds of other HR websites clamoring for respect from the upper tier of the industry.  And with enough conferences and enough networking, she will get there.  That’s the difference between those that rely on tiered link networks and those that don’t.

It would also make sense that those who link to her actually are within her network or tertiary network. None of the trackback spam that she gets is even close to being relative in those matters. The websites that go after trackbacks (and comments) won’t gain credibility without being in “the club”.  And no self-respecting webmaster would allow that junk on their website anyway.

 

Revisiting “Content is King” and Virality

Content is NOT king. It never has been. Your network is king. I’m not saying that your content shouldn’t be good. What I’m saying is that in a foot race, someone’s network can out hustle the greatest content in the world.

It’s why we have always had mediocre music on the airwaves.

It’s why some of the best films don’t make the most money (and if you live on ET, why you haven’t heard of them) .

And it’s why a mediocre product can sometimes steal the lion share of their market.

Folks talk about going viral as something that simply happens because the content was so good.  The cream always rises to the top philosophy is referenced.  If you are good enough or unique enough or funny enough, then ride it out, pay your dues and you will be rewarded for your patience.  It doesn’t happen as much as what most folks think though.  In the end, how you market yourself and how you manipulate the networks in control (by either outwardly paying for it or out hustling your competitors) will determine how far you go.

In other words, writing great content isn’t going to cut it.

I’ve talked about this before so I won’t droll on about it.  Just watch the slide show above.

How to Create a Unique Navigation Button in WordPress with CSS

Creating navigation is pretty cut and dry and straight forward.  You can adjust the navigation wrap and colors and add a customized menu in the menu settings.  But this is global.  Every one of the navigation tabs will look the same.  So what do you do when you want one tab button to stand out from the others?

different colored tabs

Doing this is incredibly easy if you know basic CSS as well as where to find the information. And this is what I am going to show.

In order to do this, you will need to download the fire-bug add-on for Mozilla Firefox (and install the mozilla browser).  Fire-bug will allow you to find the specific navigation menu item number to add to your style sheet.  On top of that, it is a great little coding cheat when you are trying to figure out what a website is doing, mark-up wise, to achieve the look.

  1. Add the menu item you want to the custom menus in your wordpress back office-  This can be found under Appearance ->menus.  In the event that your theme supports more than one menu location (a lot have two), you will also need to identify which navigation panel you are working with.
  2. Open up firefox (or a tab if you are using the browser by default).  In the top right hand corner, you will see the fire bug icon.  Click it.
  3. The firebug panel should open up at the bottom of your browser.  Click on HTML then the element inspector. This will allow you to hover over an element and view the page source of the element itself.element inspector
  4. Hover over the element you want to see.  Record the menu item number (see image below).navigation-menu id

Style the Navigation Button

Now that we have the menu item ID, we can style it like we style anything else on the page.  Rather than explain it, I will show the style I made for this page;

#nav-2 #menu-item-3619 a { background: #bf1e2e; color: white; -webkit-box-shadow: 1px 0px 0px 0px #333333; box-shadow: 2px 2px 10px 2px #999; border-width: 1px; border-style: outset; border-color: #333; font-size: 17px; } #nav-2 #menu-item-3619 a:hover { background: #333; color: white;

And there you have it.  Simple as can be.

How to Get Clients for your [Blank] Online Business When You Have None

client-workIt’s a catch-22.  You provide a service for clients but your clients want to see past work…of which you have little to none.  What do you do?

I don’t know what others do but I do know how I have managed to get clients when I first started out and personally, I think that anyone can do this if they have enough hustle to make it work.  I started with one client 2 years ago and since then have served a couple hundred in some shape or fashion( some have been merely consults).

These days, I’m a generalist in scope; I do SEO, internet marketing, and web design as well as hosting.    Last weekend, I had a job for an ad for print that had to be rushed to deadline.  But how I got started was a lot different than what I’m offering now.

I’m sure there are lots of way to getting clients and building a business.  This just illustrates how I was able to do it and some of the challenges that I have had to deal with along the way, from positioning yourself in the best place to make your offer, to the offer itself and all the way over to dealing with pricing and your time.

Here are some key things that I did to get my first clients.

Lesson #1 If the market share is small & competitive, choose a similar vertical

Doing SEO for local businesses in a small market like Memphis is hard.  It’s hard because there are other more established businesses you are competing with.  In my case, I was competing with the local paper, the Commercial Appeal.  I wouldn’t be able to find the work without severely cutting my prices to the point where it would be uncomfortable.

I already had a couple SEO clients but in no way was I going to be able to feed my family with what I was getting paid.

So, I decided instead to go into website design, something that I was familiar enough to work with but not an expert by any degree of the imagination.  The next year would have me learning as much as I could about javascript, jquery and CSS (which, incidentally is ongoing). It wasn’t a fake it ’til you make it kind of scenario but at times it sure did seem close.

I figured I would be able to pivot into SEO and marketing from the relationships I built with future clients.  And I did.  But it took time and several wrong turns.

Lesson #2- Segment the Market.

When I first started, I was a “specialist”, meaning I offered my services to a particular segment of the market.

piece of the pieActually, that’s only half the story.  I already had a couple clients that I was doing SEO for but I quickly found out that getting local SEO clients was difficult because they didn’t understand the value of an ongoing SEO service and we didn’t have the relationship in which they could trust me.  So, I decided to begin with website work.

A lot of new businesses make the mistake of saying they do everything for everyone.  The problem is that the less segmented you get, the more competition you have from other competitors who likely have deeper pockets for advertising and more experience than you.

Of course, you can’t segment too much.  If you do, you won’t get enough work to make a decent living.  There is a sweet spot though.  For me, initially, it was to build affordable websites for musicians, artists and photographers and offer hosting for them on the back end to bulk up my return.  A lot of my decisions were based on my existing network of friends and colleagues (more on that later).

So I decided which professional group I was going to go after and then I went after them and positioned myself as a specialist.

This has changed as my business has grown over the last 2 years but this was how I was able to get my foot in the door.

Lesson #3 That’s Nice but What Makes You Different?

And for god’s sake, don’t say price…

There are currently 3 design companies in Memphis that take the lion share of work and probably a few dozen people like myself that compete for the scraps.  Segmentation was the first thing that made me different from the rest.  While everyone out there was vying for anyone and everyone, I decided that I would position myself as the go-to guy for local artists.

And that’s exactly what I did.

I had an immediate advantage over other web design companies when it came to musicians.  For one thing, I was a musician myself and understood the market.  I could talk the language of the musicians.

I also had training manuals.  The way I looked at it was since most musicians would have to update their website in the least, monthly, rather than having to pay someone like me to update it for them, I could teach them how to do it themselves (which was a learning process in itself).  This produced a hell of a lot more value than having some web designer build something in which their client couldn’t control.

And then there was my network…..

Lesson #4- Find a network that can distribute your offer.

network to get clientsWho would you be more likely to go with?  An ad you found online or in the yellow pages or clipper or from a recommendation from a friend or acquaintance?  This is the part where who knows you becomes important and can do big things for your business if you are willing to hustle a little bit.

I don’t have a website for my business.  I have never advertised via PPC or print.  No flyers were printed.  In fact, my only ad medium (if you can call it that) was referral based.

People Do Business With People They Know and Like

If they don’t know you, they like to do business with suggestions from people they know and like.

That’s a hard thing for most to swallow.  Because it means that you need to be out there as opposed to throwing up ads everywhere.  The other option is to pitch cold.

Most businesses have to pitch cold which is frankly, hard.  And this is the problem that most new businesses find themselves in even if they have a portfolio of their work.  Luckily, I have never had to deal with this since all of my clients either come from existing or clients I have worked with in the past or a network of people that I am associated with.  Because most of the calls I field are pre-sold, it’s not a matter of convincing them why they need to choose me as their provider, it is just a matter of whether I can do what they want and how much it’s going to cost.

I know that’s old school but it beats the alternatives.

So How Did I Get There?

You can’t rely on simply your friends and family for business.  Usually, there isn’t enough business that comes from that. How I was able to start to get business was by finding organizations and groups that had the most potential for my market segment.  I found 2 non-profit organizations that were geared toward budding bands and musicians and that had a nice database of members.

I went to my network of people locally.  And one of those people knew someone who happened to work one of the  local non-profits.  I arranged a meeting and made my pitch;  I would offer a deep discount for their 1,800 members if they went with me as their designer AND webmaster.  They bit.

I then turned around and pitched the other non-profit and, with a little name dropping, was able to get them to sign on as well.

The next week, I got my first design client.

Lesson #5 Give Them a Reason to Keep Coming Back

Initially, my pricing model relied on keeping existing clients happy because I charged monthly.  By doing so, I was able to give the appearance of being cheaper than I actually was.  Another benefit was that it would buffer the slow months with a steady stream of income.

And, on a more practical side, I was able to constantly stay in the client’s field of vision.

When I mentioned this to a website designer in Nashville, he expressed a concern that my clients would pay for my design and then drop the service after a couple months.  I didn’t think so though.  Today, I have retained over 80% of my clients.  My first client is still with me.

The point is that once you start to get clients, you want them to continue to be your client until they decide that they don’t need the service anymore.  You want them to come to you for revisions.  You don’t want future pricing to become a concern in the future.

If recurring income isn’t possible for your client base, you still need to think long and hard as to what you can offer to them that will increase their LCV.  This way it doesn’t become so much a volume issue as much as a quality issue.

Lesson #6- Pricing what you are worth or Pricing on Demand

Pricing Sweet Spot

I foolishly under priced my services initially, thinking that I could put a system into place that could help me better manage my time and streamline each action.  It didn’t work out though, mainly because each client has different wants and needs (for instance, some want newsletters, others want scheduling plugins, some need ecommerce capabilities and others want user generated parameters, etc..)

The biggest problem with my initial prices was I charged a flat fee.  This seemed like a great idea because most people who are searching for anything that has to do with the web are somewhat price sensitive (unless they are a business and you are talking to a department head).

The flat fee pricing schedule worked well for awhile but as my jobs started to increase, I started to realize that I may have made a mistake.  This was okay when I was dealing solely with musicans because they were predictable with their needs. When I pivoted into dealing with real small businesses though, I found it hard to charge the same price for someone who wanted a simple website versus one that needed ecommerce functionality.

About 7 months into it, I figured out I was working too hard (in my opinion, not theirs) for too little and since I was suddenly in demand, I could use pricing to lower my workload.

The funny thing about pricing is it is both a friction point in sales (there is no way I am going to pay that…I will look around) and a benefit (he must be good if he is charging that price).  Demand didn’t go up but it didn’t go down either starting out.  So, I increased my prices even more until I reached a sweet spot where I was getting enough work to be busy but not so much that I was miserable.

I have since fixed this by doing some soul searching about the value of the service I am offering versus the value of my time.  Initially, I charged what would have been the equivalent of $20/hour.  Since then, the hourly charges range from $50/hour- $200/hour, depending on what I am providing.  Mind you, I don’t tell my clients my hourly rate…I just figure out a time frame it will take for me to get it done.

Image Attribution- http://www.flickr.com/photos/joepemberton/3305233165/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/roboppy/1928986168/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/djwtwo/8177516875/

Do Exact Match Domains in Local Search Work?

Let’s not kid ourselves here.  Exact match domains still work and will continue to work until the end of time.  The reason is plain and simple.  If I am doing a search for “Target”, chances are very good, I am looking for information that has to do with target, the brand, in spite of the fact that I could be looking for something else.  And Google is going to provide me with the information that it thinks that I am looking for.

If you are searching for drunkonlife, then chances are good that you are looking for my brand and google will likely supply you with information that relates to my brand.

Sean’s theory on how Google decides what EMD’s are good and what aren’t is plausible although I bet it is more simple than that.  Things like bounce rate and time on site can be very misleading.  After all, if you are searching for a phone number to a business, you may be on the website as little as 5 seconds and if you aren’t, then it may be more indicative of a poor user experience (having to click more than one page) than interest, right?

You could argue that a website that is there to provide a quick contact phone number and a little information wants the user experience to be as short as possible.  You could say that in this case, a longer TOS or lower bounce rate could be a bad thing for the user.

emd

 So, what metrics may influence (local) ranking in the post-penguin era of SEO?

A while back, I was working with a local client (doing design, not SEO) and she was ranking very well for a high volume search word in a competitive market.  This was despite having fewer links than her big brand competitors.  Here are some key areas that she did well in (and the reason why I think she was able to rank well with her exact match domain.)

  1. Verified Local Address
  2. All the information across the various review channels accurate and synonymous with each other.
  3. Quantity of reviews across the review channels- in particular, google places.
  4. Few links but more importantly, no low quality link indicators; links coming from sources you would expect.

This is by no means a comprehensive list but are the things that I personally think affected her rankings.  In other words, I probably couldn’t take the .net version of her EMD and rank quickly without some serious work and probably wouldn’t rank for it without going the same route that a real business would go when they are trying to rank in local search.

Should You Use Exact Match Domains for local search?

Most of the time, the domain name comes secondary to the actual business brand.  So, while you could potential rank quicker with an exact match domain, this shouldn’t be the reason why you select the domain.  In all likelihood, an EMD that isn’t reflective of the brand’s name will just confuse the visitor.

In the rare case where you haven’t chosen a brand name, you could include the keyword in with your brand although the city or area would be equally important.  (ie. Memphis Eyeglasses & more, Memphis Dental Group, Germantown Farmer’s Market, etc.)

WordPress Frameworks vs. Child Themes for Freelance Web Design?

wireframeI recently came to an epiphany about design and work last week working with my latest client.  Typically, when it comes to design, I have a protocol that I go with that looks something like this-

  1. Get a “feel” about what the client wants, design wise –  This is usually done personally but can just as easily be done over the phone.  A lot of times, for clarity, I will ask for them to email me some websites that they like.  Other times, in the event they have a logo, I can get a very clear perspective into color scheme development.
  2. Make the client aware of the work they will have to do-  Usually this is in the form of a wireframe design which I will send to them with notes and suggestions for content development.  The problem that most businesses face when it comes to design is they don’t understand that they have a role in the process as well.  A wireframe gives a typical blueprint for what you, the web designer, is thinking and gives the business an idea of the work that will be necessary on their end.
  3. Develop a list of functions that will be necessary to make the website-  This is trickier than you may think because different clients have different needs.  For instance, this particular client wanted a calendar in which her customers could make their own appointments and pay and have the calendar automatically update itself.  The good thing about working within a large community is that usually there is something already out there that can be used (in this case there was) and it is just a matter of tricking it out and matching color schemes.
  4. Figure a “how long” timeline (for pricing). 

For the last couple years, I have done this by starting out in photoshop and wireframing the design.  This gives the client a much clearer outlook on the work ahead for them as well (after all, they are going to have to create the content).  That’s the first part.

And then I start with the design, using a framework theme like Catalyst, Headway or ,in a few cases, Genesis.  This has been from scratch, until now.  The vast majority of my designs use the wordpress platform.

My average time frame for a  from scratch web design for a small website is usually about 30-40 hours after the initial consult.

Difference between designing from a wordpress framework theme versus a child theme.

A framework theme usually gives you more freedom to do whatever you want.  It’s limitations are usually dependent only on your skill as a designer.  A child theme is prefab.  As in, the areas where you can place your widgets are static.

Usually, a child theme also has integrated plug-ins into the theme as well.  So, a “slider” becomes a part of the design for the child theme.  A child theme is really made for people who are looking for a design that they can simply plug in and immediately start working on.  Think plug and play.  Business-in-a-box.  White label.

Most people who use the Genesis framework usually choose a child theme for their website.  As a result

That’s how most people use child themes.  But I discovered that the benefits of using a child theme for design is pretty cool when you actually know what you are doing.  And it can totally save a bunch of time because usually the look and feel of the theme is already professional.

Which brings me back to my client.  She told me what she wanted.  And I found a child theme that had nearly everything she wanted, which set me back $40 (and saved me several hours).  From there, it was just a matter of deleting a php line here and adding one there and screwing with the CSS to make it less white label and more original.  In other I tweaked it.  (For anyone wanting to see it, you can check it out here.)

But is it cheating?

I don’t think so.  I think that ultimately, the value is based individually.  In other words, if the client comes away with a feeling that what they paid for was worth it and I come away with doing it in less time because I cut some corners, then it’s a win/win in my mind.

Because, as website designers, our ultimate purpose is to produce work that makes the client happy.  And most clients either don’t know what we would consider the easy parts of CSS or don’t want to fuck with it.

I hear a lot of designers scoff at the notion of using pre-made templates  but the reality is that if they like it, why would you put yourself through the trouble?

It’s About Taking the Right Shots.

Now this is very telling.  Kevin Durant is arguably in the top 3 as far as best current NBA players goes and some would even say that he is the BEST player out there.   He has 3 scoring titles under his belt and is as good of a closer as any.  When people start a conversation about the best in the league, his name comes up alongside Kobe Bryant, Lebron James and Carmelo Anthony.

But if you read the recent SI spread about him, you wouldn’t think so.

I’ve been second my whole life. I was the second best player in high school. I was the second pick in the draft. I’ve been second in the MVP voting three times. I came in second in the finals. I’m tired of being second. I’m not going to settle for that. I’m done with it. – SI

This is what separates the good from the great. There is always room for improvement, even if it means it comes in tiny increments.  He approaches the game the same way the best businesses do.  For example, last year, he hired an analytics guy to show him areas where he could improve.  It’s like he totally embraced the 80/20 rule and found the sweet spot.

I think that the common belief is that you need to take a lot of shots to be a superstar.  This past year, Durant took less shots.  Still, he came within 40 points of getting another scoring title.  How’d he do it?

Durant has hired his own analytics expert. He tailors workouts to remedy numerical imbalances. He harps on efficiency more than a Prius dealer. To Durant, basketball is an orchard, and every shot an apple. “Let’s say you’ve got 40 apples on your tree,” Durant explains. “I could eat about 30 of them, but I’ve begun limiting myself to 15 or 16. Let’s take the wide-open three and the post-up at the nail. Those are good apples. Let’s throw out the pull-up three in transition and the step-back fadeaway. Those are rotten apples. The three at the top of the circle — that’s an in-between apple. We only want the very best on the tree.” – SI 

It’s not the amount of shots you take.  It’s the type of shots that you take that have impact.  In other words, for a business, you need to discover what you do well and then find ways to improve it even more.  Life is largely a percentage game and success hinges on discovering what you do well in your life and honing that.

How to Add Google+ Comment Functionality without a WordPress Plug-in

My mantra is if you can easily do something without a plug-in on a wordpress website, it is probably a good idea not to.  There are a lot of reasons why you shouldn’t…security being probably the most important reason.  Anyhoo…

With that said, Google+ quietly added the ability to use it’s commenting system on your website.  The benefit to this is that it makes comments less fragmented;  this can be extremely beneficial for anyone who is active on the social media website and wants to tie both the commenting system of Google+ within the fabric of thier website.  Of course, the downside of adding it is that regardless of what Google+ members claim, it is still a far second to Facebook in terms of engagement although if you are tech head geek like myself, it may be a perfect fit.

Implementing this is extremely easy and just requires a couple things-

Google Authorship verification- Most mention putting this into the <head> of your page although you can also add it to your footer or your sidebar.  The key here is to have it on all the pages where you claim authorship.  The easiest way to do this is to add this little bit of HTML to a sidebar widget-

<link href=”https://plus.google.com/[ID]/” rel=”author” />

(change the [ID] part to your google+ ID)

Add the code in the appropriate place

The second part is adding a bit of code to make the comments pull up on your website.  If you are using the Catalyst Theme, then this is as easy as adding a “hook” before or after your comment section and placing the code below into the hook box.

<script src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js">
</script>
<g:comments
    href="<?php echo the_permalink(); ?>"
    width="642"
    first_party_property="BLOGGER"
    view_type="FILTERED_POSTMOD">
</g:comments>

The little bit of php code in that pulls up the correct permalink URL.

I have yet to play with it on a website that doesn’t use a Framework theme but I would imagine it would be as simple as adding the code in the comment.php file in wordpress and then styling and positioning it where you want it (disclaimer- like I said, I haven’t played around with it on a website that uses a standard, free theme, so the risk is on you…back up your shit.)

That’s about as simple as it gets.  I need to give a shout out to browsingthenet for giving the code and if you want more functionality, they have other bits of code that you can add (like a dynamic google+ commenting portion) to make this happen.

Other Notes Worthy of Discussion:

I actually wrote this pretty quickly but there are some things to consider that merit thought-

  • This is a HACK.  The plug-in is a HACK as well.  What this means is that the commenting system is not meant for the wordpress platform and works because it essentially hacks the Blogger platform to pull the comments.  While Blogger somehow ties in comment notifications into its comments, you won’t be getting any from folks that comment from Google+.  This poses a few problems but the biggest one is SPAM.  You won’t be able to effectively moderate comments if you don’t know they exist.  Currently, Google + does not support 3rd party applications.
  • There isn’t a backup system for comments-  Which means that should you decide not to use the Google+ commenting system after a few weeks and delete it, you lose the comments.
  • It’s run by script-  Not too big of a problem but understand that the crawlers can not see the text of the comments…and if you are still a big believer in comments helping with random keywords, then you probably don’t want it.
  • It could alienate those not on Google+-  Like I said earlier, Facebook has a much larger community than Google+ and if you aren’t in a few of the popular markets that Google+ caters to (like tech), then it may cause you get less comments.  Also, anonymous commenters may not post (although that isn’t a bad thing in my opinion).

If a Zombie Apocalypse Happened Right Now….

zombie

Last month, while I was at my wife’s grandparent’s Easter dinner, something crazy happened.  We were in the living room, watching my daughter open up her easter presents she got from the Easter bunny (apparently the Easter bunny…and Santa…go to both our house and the grandparents to give her stuff…)  The TV was on the Duke / Louisville game and in the midst of the 15 minutes of easter-present-giving chaos, someone was being carted off on a stretcher.  The looks on the faces of the players and the coach looked as though someone had died.

And I missed it.

Now, I could have continued watching and eventually pieced together what had happened.  Instead, I went to twitter and instantaneously got the scoop including a picture of the rather gruesome accident, which incidentally, I could have done without.

Last Thursday, while the whole Boston Marathon chase was going on, rather than get the report on CNN, I instead kept updated on Twitter.  In fact, the stuff the news anchors were reporting was roughly 30 minutes behind the crowd sourced information I found on twitter.

Was all the information right?  Absolutely not.  But then again, neither was the information that the news channels were reporting either.  In fact, as the new news went live on TV, the crowd sourced information was debunking a lot of it as myth.  That’s how fast Twitter is.

I’ll go one step further here.  If there was ever a zombie apocalypse, I wouldn’t turn to FOXnews for information….

Of course, if you aren’t on twitter, you probably still believe that it’s for people who like to discuss what they are eating that night.  It’s not, although there is a social network reserved to show you what you ate (I’m looking at you instagr.am)

Conspiracy Theories and Twitter.

tinfoilhatAll you conspiracy theorists, you have officially been served.  In the past, a conspiracy has always been the result of one giant, faceless group that is planning something dastardly to the unwitting public.  Usually, it’s the government or some shadow group within the military.

But crowd sourcing information debunks conspiracy theories before they can even take shape these days.  Why?  Because the news is no longer being driven by a select few entities.  People, as in you and I kind of people, are the reporters, editors and publishers for what’s happening right now.  And to believe in conspiracy theories these days means that essentially you have to think everyone is out to get you because anyone can now report the news.

Twitter foils (and inspires) conspiracy theories.  Imagine what would have happened had Twitter been around during JFK’s assassination.  Do you honestly think that the conspiracy would have held water if it was untrue?

And then there is the Boston Marathon conspiracy.  There have been allegations that this is the work of the US government in an attempt to establish further control over their citizens (I have heard even more ridiculous conspiracy theories that fall just shy of martians conspiring with the president to create a world order).  There are some who allege that the brothers are simply pawns in an illuminati vision of total world domination.

This may have been plausible once upon a time.  But today?  Come on.  A conspiracy becomes less of one when real people other than news outlets are able to report things as they are happening.  And two guys tossing homemade hand grenades out of the window of a car and regular people reporting it kind of puts them in a not-a-victim kind of light.

1-2 hands in the information pie makes the conspiracy theory angle roll but there are now too many unrelated hands in the information pie for that to hold water.  It’s one thing to hear news anchors bloviate about their own theories but it’s a completely different thing when your uncle’s brother is tweeting things in real time about what is happening in his neighborhood.

Can conspiracy theories still hold up with twitter being around?  Sure.  But it certainly makes them less plausible.

The point I’m making is that if you really want live news or instant updates, don’t expect to get it from old media.  Because there is a time delay between a journalist or anchor digesting it and spitting it back out for consumption.  The world is no longer about who has the most firepower.  Information is king these days.  It’s just a matter of choosing the right firehose to decipher it.  And Twitter gets high marks in my book.

Zombie Apocalypse?  Bring it on.