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I have to wonder what it says about our society that Cafe Press and Frazzle are now selling Charlie Sheen merchandise like hotcakes. I mean, really? Charlie Sheen? He’s the druggie nutball who keeps calling radio stations with rants about his boss, CBS, and his show, Two and a Half Men, right?

While I wonder what people are thinking, it’s impressive really, that Cafe Press and Frazzle have already started producing merch, and did it quickly, according to a report on Fox News. Cafe Press says they can start producing things like t-shirts and coffee mugs in about an hour after seeing a new trend. Why is this possible? The web, of course. If you’ve been living under a rock and have never purchased anything from Cafe Press, then you need to know that they make t-shirts and other personalized items. You can create a t-shirt or whatever, and have it printed and shipped to you. They also have just about any saying or cause you could ever want already designed and ready to print. So, once they start seeing a certain trend, they knock out a design and put it on their site for purchase. Pretty cool, very much making use of the money making opportunities the web has to offer. It’s smart. I am sure they have folks watching Facebook and Twitter, as well as their own site, gauging the trends and predicting what will come next. Smart, but a little reprehensible. Is there anything they won’t print? A quick search of Cafe press revealed a baby onesie that says “My Conduct is Bitchin”. I really hope nobody buys that for their kid.

As for Charlie Sheen, he has helped some folks make a little money on all his crazy antics, but I continue to wonder what that says about the society we’re living in?

I’m an optimist. I think to be an entrepreneur, you have to be. You just have to dig in during the tough times and work hard to make your business work, and you have to believe it will.

We all know we are finally starting to see the sun after some pretty dark years in the world economy. We were just starting to look toward what comes next, and now we are being told in all sectors that things are going to get bad again. Rising oil prices due to revolutions happening all over the Middle East, food shortages due to crazy weather this winter, and the value of the dollar dropping are all contributing to this feeling of impending doom that is leveled over the country by the media.

Now, I know all these things are happening, and yeah, it’s a little scary. But I have to look on the bright side. Maybe all this trouble over oil will finally force the administration and Congress to address the matter of drilling in our own country. We have massive, massive amounts of oil in the Dakotas, let’s take advantage of that, bring some jobs, create some capital.

As for the food shortage, I think when there is a possibility that people won’t have enough food available, maybe we shouldn’t be making fuel out of corn, and use that food for …food.

So, the bright side of things. That’s really not as tough as you might think after all that. Things are looking up, even with the higher gas prices and some talk of food shortages. According to a recent article on Fox News, business owners all over the globe are beginning to see an uptick in business. They are starting to hire.

A poll by the Young President’s Organization revealed that (direct quote): “61% of CEOs feel conditions are improving (up 46% from the last quarterly survey) and 67% of respondents believe conditions will continue to improve in the next six months.”
Read more: http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/legal-hr/2011/02/10/optimisim-businesses-applicants/#ixzz1FlHxJkY7

This is a survey taken all over the globe, with all sizes of small business. I think if the guy in Sri Lanka thinks things are looking up, certainly the folks here in the US are going to be finding jobs and getting back to work in the near future.

One really interesting point made in this article is that many times, people don’t think to reach out to small businesses. They go to the big job sites and think that they can find everything there. Not all small businesses use those sites, and if you have listened to any news reports in the last couple of years, you know that 70% of all jobs in America are with small businesses – so check out the small business sector! We’re here, we’re successful, and we need people.

Buzz Words, Jargon, Lingo, Industry Speak…

With every industry comes it’s own niche vocabulary. In an industry such as ours, that vocabulary changes and grows on a regular basis, so I thought I would give you the run down on a few terms that have become more popular in the Web/Tech/IT industry lately. I find this sort of thing helpful when I am taking on a new project in a area that I am not real familiar with, such as vegetable gardening, as I have taken an interest in the last few years. Or, as my wife and I have found out in the process of building a home, there are all sorts of terms and phrases we had to familiarize ourselves with throughout the construction of our new home.
So, for the non-web industry reader, I have a few new(er) industry phrases I thought you might find interesting. If you have one to contribute to the list, please do it in the comments section, and I’ll add it later. I am sure to miss something vital, or not realize that others don’t know what it means.

1. Cloud Computing – is the back end of all things web and computer related – it is what goes on behind the scenes. All the computation, design, software, data access, and hosting that do not require the users’ knowledge of the actual location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. The”cloud” is the web, and the computing is…well, everything that makes the web work.
2. Data Mining - is simply the compiling of information from various sources – analytics, databases, and so on and using that information to create business strategies for the web. The process is a tool to create “business intelligence” out of data collected by various means. It’s used for all sorts of online applications, marketing, of course, as well as phishing, detecting and stopping phishing and other fraudulent activity, and probably any other application you can think of where data is needed to perform a task or plan a strategy.
3. Business Intelligence – is the creation of knowledge of a certain business or organization by compiling analytics, history, news, data mining, benchmarks, and other information gathering. This information could be used by the company itself, or compiled by competitors, used for competitive strategy.
4. Social Proof – is the same as reduced friction – as in, you saw a product on a blog, and felt better about trying it. Or, your friend posted a new restaurant on Facebook, saying how great the food was, and you decide to give it a try. You have some measure of “proof” that you are making a good decision. Word of mouth, or blog, or other social media – you get the idea.
5. Crowdsourcing – Basically, this is a sort of outsourcing of a large project. For example, you might want to know how chili is traditionally made by home cooks in each state, for a blog post. You might put out an invitation on your blog for cooks in each state to submit their recipes to help you compile the data you need for the post.

So, here’s a start, I’ll try and keep you posted on the newest lingo – and if you have one to add to the list, please post it in the comments and I’ll add it. Gotta keep it up with the terminology, right?

In the last week two major retailers have been penalized by Google for what many would term “grey hat” practices. They employed some different strategies that some might find questionable, and others might think that perhaps there were no direct Google policies against it, so why not go for it?

There are many, many ways to plan and implement SEO strategy, and some of them do fall into a grey area. A really good SEO won’t try most of them, and will stick to what is considered “white hat” or “ethical SEO”. Overstock.com, as of yesterday, their rankings dropped to the 5th or 6th pages for many phrases that they had been ranking well for in the past, according to the Wall Street Journal. Overstock approached colleges and universities, asking them to link to product pages for bunk beds and other items with a 10% off discount for college students and faculty. It’s a good idea, except that it doesn’t fall within Google guidelines. I don’t know that I would call it unethical. More stupid, since you really don’t want to be penalized by Google. Therefore, it falls into the “grey” category.
JC Penny has also has some trouble in recent weeks with Google. It seems that JC Penny did not do their homework before hiring an SEO, and ended up getting more than they bargained for. You’d think they would have questions for this SEO when they were suddenly ranking first for everything from area rugs to dresses. It was eventually brought to light that the SEO was employing some seriously stupid, and majorly black hat SEO techniques. I guess the guy paid a good bit to throw a couple thousand links back to JC Penny all over the web with anchor text like “dresses” and “samsonite luggage” and hundreds more on sites all over the web. Some had a vague relevancy, but most did not. So, JC Penny’s rankings are tanking. JC Penny is also firing back, unappreciative of the “exposé” by the New York Times, or Google’s response. Within hours JC Penny’s rankings all fell significantly.

So what is up Google’s sleeve after a month of big retailers using some grey hat and black hat strategies to gain rankings? They’ve come up with algorithm designed to weed out “cheaters” and low quality sites. What’s a low quality site? Any site that does not serve it’s own purpose: link and content farms, ones with no copy or little copy, just ads, or copied content. The new algo will help Google determine how people interact with the sites. It’s supposed to weed out low quality sites, but the specifics of how it works, of course, have not been released. Some data from Chrome, I am sure helps them determine what users consider low quality sites.

I think that no matter what search engine you use, you have to consider what has always been the case with search. This algo changes none of that – you still have to go with high quality content, fresh content. And a white hat SEO…

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380306,00.asp
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/02/25/did-googles-algorithm-update-go-far-enough-on-content-farms

If you’ve read here for very long, you know I am a fan of LinkedIn.com. I think it can be very useful in terms of networking, marketing, finding new hires, (or job searching), and whatnot. If you follow their blog, you’ve already seen this, but they have developed a series of short videos to help the small business owners utilize LinkedIn to their best advantage.
Done in a retro/80′s style, they are helpful and funny but a bit basic, tutorials to the many ways LinkedIn can be used to promote your business.

The videos, which were made in conjunction with FedEx, are a six part series with tips on everything from handling your company, your customers, your online reputation, and more. I highly suggest you check them out. They are worth more than a good chuckle, you might even get some good info out of them.

Check them out on LinkedIn’s Blog.
Here’s a link to the first one:
http://fedex.linkedincreatives.com/video/01/

Go watch the videos, I’d like to hear what you think of them –