I recently came across ShoeMoney talking about BlogRush and decided to give it a shot. If you look in the right sidebar near the bottom, you can see what essentially it is. BlogRush is a traffic exchange program for bloggers. What it allows you to do is group yourself with other blogs on the same topic, and provide links that might be of interest. For doing this you get credits, which then allow you to be displayed on other sites.

My only issue so far, though, is that I can’t pick a good category. Mine is such a general purpose blog, I thought “Entertainment” then I thought “Business”. Right now it is on business but I don’t know if it will stay there. Regardless, check out BlogRush as it has just started and the response has been amazing. Check it out here.

I never really planned to get an Apple iPhone.  I have been far removed from the cult of Apple since the shine of my Steve Wozniak Autographed edition of my Apple II GS wore off many years ago.  However, I saw a perfect synergy between poor mobile device UI and Apple’s shining UI strength. Now I am fully onboard with the Apple iPhone.  So much so there is another resource site I would like to direct you to that will likely contain information about the iPhone as it becomes available.

Introducing AnyIphone

There are some things I like about you but some I really hate. Right now I am going to discuss one of those things I hate. Your editorial policies and implementation are nothing short of a comical joke. Every time I go through disapproved ads or keywords I feel like I am taking a trip to the fun house. There is clearly no rhyme nor reason for how and why some ads and keywords are approved while others are rejected. Heck the reasons can change from one day to the next.

My favorite, though is the ad rejection that has no text at all and no explanation or reason for why it was rejected. This is a lot of fun. I hope you guys enjoy wasting my time with your idiotic editorial system. I use a lot of different systems and yours is the only one I have a complete lack of respect for, it is nonsensical and just a big waste of time.

I work hard to make sure my ads are within guidelines, my sites are what is required and my keywords are relevant. Are there occasionally issues there where I might miss a keyword? Absolutely, but 99.99% of the time everything I have is clean. Yet I still have to fight through some amazingly lame reasons for rejections.

For Example:

“Contains non-standard text, or its meaning is unclear.”

What does that mean? My ad does not contain any non-standard text, and I can assure you the meaning is perfectly clear. Just because whomever is assigned to edit my ads does not have a proper understanding of English, does not mean my time should be wasted. If I get a rejection from another PPC provider, I take it seriously, and I will investigate, see where a mistake might have been made and try to fix things. With Yahoo! my first response is to just re-submit because you guys are off your rocker 99% of the time. Then I re-submit and they go through fine. Why? Because there was nothing wrong with them in the first place.

So Yahoo! Search Marketing, you have to get your editorial policy and systems under control. They are entirely ineffective, they are not making your ad presentation better to the visitor, you are losing money, and you are wasting a lot of advertisers time not to mention your own. This should be a fundamental priority for you guys as it is one of your biggest weaknesses right now.

Signed,

Concerned on the Internet

A lot of discussions have surfaced lately about Google Adwords Radio Ads. The primary impetus for this has been the fact that Google has been offering a $400.00 coupon to help with the creative effort. I have been cautioning people to tread carefully. As someone with past experience dealing with traditional media outlets for advertising, it is a very different beast from online marketing.

This morning something unusual happened. I listen to a lot of radio during the day. When I am working the radio is on most of the time. This morning I heard what I am positive was a Google radio ad. Is it possible I heard others before? Sure. However, I suspect a lot of Google radio ads are more traditional advertisers, so they would not be so easily identified. This was someone who clearly was an internet marketer moving their craft to the radio with the help of Google radio ads. The advertisement was an offer for one of those XBox 360 deals where you can get a “Free” XBox 360. The catch is you have to complete a bunch of other offers and jump through some hoops to get this “Free” XBox 360. These kinds of offers are common place on the internet, although slowly and surely people have taken more issue with them and their claims. The search engines are more skeptical of running ads for them because they do not actually offer anything for for free.

Here is where reality and the protective cacoon of the internet collide. The established media outlets like television and radio are monitored much more carefully by the Federal Trade Commission. On top of that you have people listening who are much more likely to report people and not just accept a misleading ad. On the internet there is still a high level of tolerance of acceptance that other forms of media do not enjoy. I forsee if these ads become more prevelent that the FTC will take action and that the impact will eventually filter back to internet advertising. I think if these entities never advertised on traditional media, it may have taken much longer for all of this to happen. This will essentially expedite a crackdown on misleading or misguided internet advertising. How long will it take? It is anybody’s guess. It partly depends on how prevalent the traditional internet advertisers are in taking part in Google radio ads.

[aads]money[/aads]

I suspect the particular radito station I heard the ad on would not have even run the ad if someone went to them directly and asked to buy the time. I am sure this was filled at a corporate level, where the oversight on actual content in ads does not seem to be very stringent. I suspect they are thinking Google is doing some kind of checking/verification of these ads before they deliver them. This particular radio station is part of one of the largest radio groups in the United States.

One final note, and one other thing that I warned people about, that targeting is very important in all advertising but especially important in radio advertising and television advertising. This particular ad was completely misplaced in the time slot and station it was on. It was not a market full of people who would run to their computer to get a free X Box 360. So beyond hastening in more regulation on internet related advertising, it is likely they will not even cover their costs to have run the ad.

The New York Times has written a very interesting piece about the behind-the-scenes working of Google and their search algorithm. This kind of information is of primary importance to people who are trying to increase their Search Engine (SERPS) Rankings, especially in Google. It is clear the factors taken into consideration are much more complex then anyone could have imagined.

For me personally, the most interesting part is that they are already
using personal search data to alter and define searches for you. So for example, it uses the example of Dolphins for the Miami Dolphins or aquatic dolphins, I just checked with my logged in Google account, to see about Cowboys. My logged in account and a non-logged in account returned the same results. Now I am a big Dallas Cowboys fan. I will have to see if I can train my search to get the results to be altered.

One other interesting note I found in the article is that Page Rank is only one of a hundred factors or “signals” as they refer to them, that they use to determine what people want. I also find it interesting they attempt to anticipate whether a query wants fresh or established results.

You can read the New York Times article Here

What indeed. I guess I should explain and potentially disclaim myself as I get started here. I actually had a previous rambling blog to cover subjects of interest to me, at http://aeiouy.us However, it has gone neglected for a while now as my work has consumed so much of my time that I simply got away from keeping it updated. Then a few months ago something happened. I had been eyeing the aeiouy.com domain since I first started doing web publishing back in early 2005. Unfortunately the listed sticker price was much too rich for my blood.

Anyways a few months ago, I noticed the domain name was still for sale and still for the same price it was when I first checked on it many years ago. Suffice it to say I made an offer and we made a deal. I was glad to get it. Aeiouy is an identity I have been using online since 2000. It first started as a character name I used in a game called Everquest. From there it morphed into my most common pseudonym / net identity. So for years and years I have been using the name, and it is something that has stuck with me, even expanding outside playing MMORPGs.

So with the domain available, I decided to re-launch a blog to cover topics of interest to me. Included in those are Sports. I am a huge sports fan, but I am biased mostly towards the Dallas area teams. The Mavericks ouster this year was heart-breaking, almost as much as the loss in the Finals in 2006. Then I will likely dip into entertainment, which for me is mostly television and movies. I am not really a celebrity-phile. In other words I am not that much into what celebrities are doing, but I am very interested in television, movies and all that surrounds that.

Next we have Internet Affiliate Marketing. This is primarily what I do, along with web publishing to make a living. How I came about to get into it is a long story, and certainly one I will tell sometime in the future. Suffice it to say, it has provided me with a ton of opportunities and a very bright future. I hope to share some of my own insight, past struggles and experience, and also point out things that might help out others interested in such things.

Then we have Online Games. Massively Multi-player Online Games, or Online Role-Playing Games to be more precise. This has been my primary gaming outlet for close to 10 years now. I don’t really spend any reasonable amount of time playing games outside the MMORPG genre. As mentioned I got the name Aeiouy from a character I made in Everquest. So it is a key part of my story. I still play a lot of games and keep tabs on things. i will share my strong opinions and insight on games as it comes to me.

Finally we have Unusual Things and Y Not?. Unusual Things is really just for anything odd or quirky I might come across. I doubt I would be writing on this regularly, but from time-to-time I come across odd happenings and would share them here for you all. Y Not? is simply for everything else. Sometimes I might write about something that is outside the lines of the rest of the categories and I will put it here.

I am always interested in feedback, suggestions, ideas, products to try out, web sites to check out and the rest. So feel free to hit me with whatever you got.