State Versus Teddy Bear

In what seems to be an effort to prove they have nothing better to do, the state of Vermont is taking on a teddy bear. The Vermont Teddy Bear Company is making a “Crazy for You” teddy bear, and the state’s Human Rights Commission has asked the company to stop production immediately. Why did it get their attention? The bear wears a straight jacket, and the Human Rights Commission believes that is a form of discrimination against “those who have suffered from psychiatric conditions.”

Being Vermonters with backbones, the Vermont Teddy Bear Company has refused to back down to these governmental threats. It’s made a big splash in the press, even some of the Liberal papers seeing this for the idiocy it really is. I encourage everyone, support the Vermont Teddy Bear Company by buying their products http://www.vermonteddybear.com and buying their stocks, ticker ‘BEAR’ on the NASDAQ.

New Web Business Ideas

I get this a lot. Either people ask me outright for an idea for thier new website, copy one I’ve already done, or ask me for an opinion on a site they’ve started. I’m always reluctant to tell someone an idea, not because I’m miserly with my ideas, but because if the idea doesn’t pan out, then I’m to blame. Well, of course it’s not my fault, but I get blamed nonetheless. I’ve accepted that people are going to copy my ideas, and it’s my responsibility to outdo them at every step. The ones who have their great new idea are the ones that crack me up. I can’t count how many times I’ve had an idea pitched to me that you can find any day of the week for sale by the dozen on Ebay’s website selling section. Ohhh, another freelance website? You want to go into ecommerce, and your site will be ready as soon as you find a drop shipper? And, just what the world’s been waiting for, another do-it-all hosting company.

So, how do you come up with an original idea? Don’t ask, me, when did I get appointed as the creative idea guy on websites? Seriously, though, I think I come up with at least twenty good ideas a day. Far too many for my little company to handle. What do I like? I like niche websites. So, most of my ideas are niche ideas. Throughout your day, keep in the back of your mind that you’re looking for inspiration for a new website. You’re sitting with your kid watching television? How about a website that has articles discussing children’s tv shows from the point of view of a concerned parent?

How do you know if your idea is one that will make a good website? Well, the first thing I do is try to find out if people are looking for information like that. One of my favorite tools for that is the keyword suggestion tool at Digital Point If you search around with that tool, using variations of words you think people might use when searching for the type of content you’d put on your site, you’ll get a clearer picture whether you’d get traffic, and you will come up with more specific ideas on articles to write.

Forget the notion that it has to be something you love, or even know well. You can always hire someone to write content, pick up free content, or something like that. You want to go for something that’s going to attract traffic firstly, but secondly, something that will be attractive to advertisers. It’s more difficult to measure this, but one quick rule of thumb is to go to Google and search the keyword. If a lot of ads show up on the right column, it’s a good guess that there are advertisers for that type of content (including using Google’s own Adsense). If nothing show up on the right, you may as well shelf that idea.

Support the Tsunami victims – Donate to the Red Cross

I have heard from a number of people in different places that they just don’t know how to offer help for the victims of the Tsunami. I urge anyone who wants to help, but hasn’t already and isn’t sure what else to do, visit the Red Cross Website and make a donation.

Fired for blogging? Another corporation telling people to shut up?

In light of the recent SLAPP against me, I’m seeing a growing trend, a blogger friend of mine getting fired for blogging. My support goes out to Jeremy, thought a firing is a bit different than a law suit, I guess we’re in the same boat. How many other cases of people being fired for their blogging are there thus far? I’ve heard of some, the Delta Airline employee for example. You know, this is stupid. Fire someone for blogging? A public relations nightmare.

Am I being sued, or is he suing a newsgroup?

RE: http://www.k6az.com/forums/acg_federal_lawsuit.pdf

This is very interesting, to say the least. It’s been four or five years since I’ve really been active on rec.collecting.coins but I do run an industry leading coin forum I don’t know what they’re playing at, by naming me in that suit. My first reaction is this is a SLAPP. I have little experience with law suits, but stand firm in my convictions.

Google Toolbar PageRank – – you may have misconceptions about it

One of the most commonly misunderstood subjects about Google is PageRank. It’s difficult to understand the whys of how Google approaches this, making some facts very secretive and some very public. But, there are some things that we can understand, such as the PageRank as shown in the toolbar.

Toolbar PageRank is a snapshot of real PageRank. The most recent toolbar PageRank update happened just a couple days ago. What the toolbar is now showing is how the PageRank appeard at some point in late December.

How do I know this? Well, because it included PageRank from some links that I added in mid-December, but not some that I added on December 30th and 31st. It’s possible that Google captured the PageRank on Christmas weekend itself, and updated the toolbar on New Year’s weekend.

Why is it important to understand that this is a snapshot? The PageRank you see in the toolbar is old news. The search engine itself updates PageRank on a daily basis, more or less. In fact, it depends on the importance of the site how often it’s updated. If you get a link from a very important site (high PR), you’ll get updated far more quickly than if you get a link from a low PR site. You can test this by adding new links and monitoring your positions before, during, and after.