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Amen Brother

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

Everything takes three times as long as you think [to get done], plus meetings.

Merlin Mann, speaking the truth about client work at Phoenix Wordcamp.

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2008 Macworld Keynote: The Small Business Perspective

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

Apple's new MacBook AirYet another Steve Jobs Macworld keynote presentation is in the books and, as would be expected, the Apple faithful are all abuzz. As a major fan (and consumer) of Apple’s products, Jobs’ annual keynote is very much the equivalent of Christmas morning for (Mac) geeks. Present company included.

At the moment, most of the buzz coming out of this morning’s presentation is surrounding the new MacBook Air, Apple’s almost-but-not-quite-ultra-portable notebook computer. Weighing in at less than three pounds and barely 3/4″ inch, it’s clearly one sexy machine, and one that I’m sure will sell like crazy.

Sitting back and digesting this year’s event, I’m focusing on today’s announcements from the perspective of a small business owner; what did Steve Jobs unveil that we can really incorporate into our workflow to help us work better, faster and more efficiently for our clients?

Read the rest of this entry »

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Google Reconfigures Its PageRank Algorithm

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

Google has apparently rolled out a fairly significant change to its PageRank algorithm, which is a major contributor to ranking websites in user search results. Changes in PageRank can cause significant alterations in traffic to some websites, and that appears to be the case with this latest change.

Lots of folks are weighing in on exactly what may be the specifics of the change in the algorithm, but right now it appears that sites most significantly hit are those that either: 1) sell text links to other sites; and/or 2) have a high rate of links between blogs/sites on the same network. For example, a number of prominent technology blogs, such as Engadget, are a part of large network of multiple sites and employ a large number of “cross-site” links on nearly every page of their sites. In many ways, this is a means of “beating the system” to improve Google search rankings, as Google’s search algorithm rewards sites which feature large numbers of incoming links (from other websites). It looks as if it’s now (more-so than ever) important that those links be from true outside websites (not other sites owned by the same company or apart of the same network).

This is clearly something that will most significantly impact some of the larger players in the blogosphere, particularly any companies whose revenue model is built entirely on Google ad dollars. Despite this, it should also be a lesson to smaller companies and websites that their search engine rankings can be impacted and that they should focus on developing quality incoming links to their site in order to best increase their search rankings. Relying on manufactured outside links simply doesn’t cut it any longer, and it shouldn’t. Good for Google for correcting this loophole in their algorithm.

(via Kottke)

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First Verizon and Sprint, Now AT&T: Vonage Faces Another Patent Infringement Lawsuit

Saturday, October 20th, 2007

VonageThe major telephony players continue to pile on Vonage, the seemingly lame-duck leader in U.S. VOIP (Voice Over IP) service provider. After losing a patent infringement case to Verizon and reaching a settlement with Sprint Nextel, Vonage is now facing another round of litigation, as AT&T filed a lawsuit Friday alleging infringement of a number of their patents related to accessing IP phone networks with traditional telephones.

In many ways, it’s a shame that Vonage continues to get beat down by the larger phone companies. While some have offered competing VOIP services, in most cases they’ve not offered the competitive pricing and feature lists that Vonage brought to the table (which isn’t entirely surprising, as VOIP technology is a direct challenge to their established land-line and cellular businesses).

As a small business, we’ve found great value in many of the services Vonage offered. Bainbridge Studios’ primary phone services have been provided by Vonage since early 2006 and the flexibility they offered, including the ability to manage voicemail and call logging via a web-based dashboard, the flexibility to offer additional phone lines in multiple area codes and email notifications of new messages are all features we’ve made great use of.

Given their increasingly rocky standing and the non-stop barrage of litigation, we’ve begun seriously considering alternate providers for our phone services. Whatever alternate provider we ultimately choose, it’s unlikely to be one of the traditional phone companies, as they simply don’t seem willing to offer the same kind of value and service options that Vonage has. And that’s a shame.

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What’s the Worst Possible Way We Could Approach This?

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007

What’s the worst possible way you could approach a task? That’s an interesting twist on traditional problem solving and one that Cameron Moll suggests. Outlining the worst possible outcomes, scenarios, features, etc. of a project at its outset can give you and your team and unique roadmap of hazards to avoid.

Once you clearly understand what you don’t want the end product to be, you’re well on your way to effectively addressing the task at hand.

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