SMX West 2010: 7 Questions For Steve Ballmer

So, there I was screwing around on the Twitter, instead doing shit I should be doing like looking for a job or blogging at this little shit hole of mine when I saw Mr. Wall had re-twatted something the Danny had twatted about asking Microsoft Overlord and Dance Dance Revolution Champion Steve Ballmer some questions and junk (holy shit, that was a long sentence. Is it even grammatically kosher?).  Of course, I had some questions for Ballmer.   I started twatting them when I realized it was a huge pain in the ass and perhaps I ought to quit being a lazy asshole and actually make a blog post about it or something.

After a nap and a slice of three day old Dominoes (pizza is made to sit out for three days, right?), and then a couple of ice-cold PBRs (thanks to the last remains of the snow drift I left them in around Christmas time), I decided to get busy.  I know these are questions I’m dying to hear Steve Ballmer answer, and I have a feeling you do too!

1. Where did you learn to dance?  Julliard?

2.  With all the software updates for Windows and the usually negative impact they have on computers running Windows, is it fair to say you’re working hand in glove with Steve Jobs to make people want to buy a Mac?

3.  Do you think you could take your buddy Bill Gates in a fight?  Cuz I totally think you could.  Even without the drugs, I think you’d beat him like a, umm, well, something that beats something very badly.  Not badly like beating him poorly, but you know, like making him look like he got hit by the pain train to Hurtsville with you wearing the conductor’s hat (oh, so know I think of something!).

4. Seriously, Bing?

5.  Is Microsoft’s business model of forcing loyal customers and businesses at knife point to buy the latest version of Windows and other bits of Microsoft software or run the risk of them not being able to use said software and OS with newer versions sustainable?

6.  Will Rachel and Ross ever figure out how to be in love?  I mean, it’s so obvious!

7.  I keep hearing how superior Bing’s image search is compared to Google’s.  Did you have it developed to make it easier for you to search granny porn?  It’s okay if you did, I’m not judging.

Well, that’s all I have.  Mr. Ballmer, if you would like to give me the answers to any of those questions, I’d totally love to hear your thoughts.  And dear reader (cuz I think at this point I only have one . . . ) if you’d like to ask your question here, that’d be fucking rad!

7 Obvious Search Industry Predictions for 2010

So, now that I’ve pissed away a month of 2010, I figured, “Hey, now is the perfect time to give my predictions!”  Totally fucking yawn, right?  Anyways, they’re obvious, so that should be even more of a reason for you to play some game on your iPhone instead of reading this drivel while you’re sitting on the shitter.  Oh, don’t tell my you iPhone people don’t use it while you’re sitting on the hopper.  How could you not?  It’s totally made for the toilet!  I imagine that as it was being developed, Jobs was all about making it for bathroom use.

Dev Lackey: Your Highness! We’ve found a way to not only make the iPod more friggin’ awesome, but also more like a “business” tool and sucker people into long term contracts with some cell phone company.

Steve Jobs: Really? What do you have, knave?

Dev Lackey: We call it the iPhone.  You can check email, surf the internet and make phone calls from anywhere, anytime!

Steve Jobs: You mean, I can download while I’m “downloading”?

Dev Lackey: With all due respect sir, you did that joke to death when we developed the Mac Book.  And please don’t make it again when we finally unveil the iPad.

Steve Jobs: Heheheh, you said iPad.  Which marketing douche came up with that name?  Get it?  Douche? ‘Cuz it’s called the iPad?!??!?  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Laugh with me, knave!  HAHAHAHAHHA!

Dev Lackey: (under breath) Where’s my gun.

Now, since we know that it was created for use in the stall and not the office, I don’t know why in the hell they made the damn thing white.  They should’ve offered it in brown, like Microsoft did with the Zune (too obvious, eh?).  Though, I don’t know who in the hell needs to listen to music while they’re in the bathroom, which really makes you wonder about Microsoft engineers and designers.  But anyways, this post has little to do with iPhone usage trends and more to do with my 7 Search Industry Predictions for 2010.  And yes, I realize some of these may have happened without my knowing since I haven’t been on the internet for over a month.  So, without further delay or narratives . . . .

1.  Google will do something that will get Mr. Gray all pissed off, which will cause him to bitch and moan a lot and I’ll spend some late night trying to decipher the one side of the conversation I’m getting since I don’t follow Matt Cutts.  You can also substitute Google with BlogHer.  And yes, I realize I could just follow Matt Cutts and get the whole conversation.  And yes, I also realize Matt Cutts has nothing to do with BlogHer, so you can’t simply just substitute BlogHer for Google and read this prediction straight through (get off my ass!  Remember . . . I haven’t been online for over a month . . . fuck it).

2.  SEOmoz will do or state something and someone will call them on their shit and then Fishkin will say, “Nuh uh!” while whoever is all pissed off will say, “Uhh huh!” and the whole bruhaha will spill over to the Sfin where I will largely ignore it until somebody who actually pays attention to this Jr. High hallway industry asks me if I’ve heard the latest on it.

3. Twitter will come out with some new “feature” which will piss everyone off, yet no one will leave.

4.  Ms. Whalen will make a fair, honest point on the Sfin and some ass will make an ass out of himself because he’s too busy showing his ass to assess that it was a fair and honest point.

5.  Some asswipe will say “SEO is dead” for attention and then get invited to keynote at a search industry pow wow.

6.  Lisa Barone will write some inflammatory post on that one blog she blogs on and there will be some dude that gets all bent out of shape and goes off on her, while 50 other dudes comment back to her defense.  The truth will be that all 51 of those dudes are hoping to see some knee sock pics, not talk about the post or anything else relevant.  And yes, I’m referring to you, you fucking pervo!  She’s somebody’s sister and daughter, you know!

7.  I’ll make some outrageous promise to claim to be writing on this shitty little blog and then totally renege on it a week later.  Or maybe month.  But probably a week.

So, see you in September!

7 Things I Learned On The Interweb This Week

What a week, huh?  GM files Chapter 11, California is down to its last dime (perfect time for someone to take over a government! Anyone game?) and it looks like David Carradine may have accidentally hung himself doing something he probably didn’t want all of us to know he was into.  Though, there is some good news.  Now that SMX Advanced is over, we can go back to looking at our Twitter feeds without seeing half a dozen twats about what we’re missing every five minutes.

So anyways, when I was putting this together, I was thinking, “Man, this may be the best one yet! Maybe this will be the ticket to regaining the respect of my colleagues.  Maybe I’ll get that coveted fifth reader!”  Then I finished it up and realized that it’s not only not as good as I had hoped, it’s pretty bad.  Like, I might be back to two readers.  I actually put effort into finding and noting stuff all week too and all it got me was this shitty post.  Oh well.  Either way, it was an educational week.

1.  It looks like Obama is going to fix the economny after all.

2.  The Excalibur needs to do a better job of keeping their employees busy.  The only thing sadder than robbing a store for smokes with a sword is using your mom’s Altima for a getaway car.

3.  Who needs Congress when you can leverage ICANN to fuck over the little guy?  Even if you stand to gain from some bullshit like that, you have to admit it’s bullshit.  This is why you should never trust groups of people.

4.  Can white women and black women get along?  Let’s find out with two bikini-clad contestants in a pit of Jell-O or mud!  No?  Panties and a pillow fight?  Ask a stupid-ass question, get a sexist answer.

5.  If California passed a stupid tax, they might actually get over their budget deficit.  What’s even more amazing, one of these stupid assholes actually not only graduated from law school but also passed the fucking Bar exam.  What the hell? Thanks for uncovering this dietary advice, Mr. Pilatowski!

6.  Few things make me laugh and smile as much as the thought of a cat shitting in a toilet.  I’d like to say that the video cracked me up, but thanks to my fucking awesome connectivity from Hughesnet I gave up after waiting ten fucking minutes for the fucking thing to fucking load.  Oh my god I need a fucking drink.  So tell me, did he sit there with a little magazine or newspaper like we do?  Just curious, because, you know, the whole Hughesnet thing and not being able to see that what I am to assume is a fucking awesome video of a cat shitting in a toilet.  Really, my dreams are simple dreams.

7.  A brothel in Nevada is actually creating jobs.   I know a lot of people are syaing this won’t pencil out because of the “needs of a woman”, but to all those naysayers, I disagree.  Men are willing to pay sex.   Imagine how little you’d have to pay them to work in a brothel.  Hell, give them a logo T-shirt and a free dinner at Sizzler and you’d still be turning away applicants.  This will work.

Alright, time to find some pants to wear to the Wal-Mart.  Apparently they’re getting all fancy and junk and are going to require such things now.  Fucking rich people ruin everything.

SEMpdx SearchFest ’09! Woohoo.

Another year, and another fine Searchfest.  It seems to get better each year, though I’m kind of bummed about this years lack of PDXers speaking.  I mean, you have Mintz, Syzlak, the Search Commander . . . these people know shit! And they’re local!  But at any rate, either way, this thing just gets better and better.  Seriously, all you all should get your asses to this event.  Want to see what you’re missing?  Well, then find a good live blogger and not me.  But at any rate . . . .

It’s a relief to see that Danny is not planning on disrobing like he did at SMX Advanced a few years back. He sounds a bit tired, sounds like he’s doing quite a few of these keynotes and is just trying to catch up.

Apparently, a few years back, Danny responded to a statement about Portland search by saying Port-where? Portland, Oregon, motherfucker! Read your itinerary, son! He defends himself by saying that there are marketers in Maine.  Okay, sure, give Maine some props.  But we all know Stumptown is THE Portland.  Get with it.

Alright, shit is getting some speed now.

Finally the mystery is solved SEM=SEO+PPC.  Wow, is it 2002 already?

Link building is still an unfortunate portion of SEM – the Danny should really just decree that link building doesn’t matter anymore.  Maybe then the Danny Deciphles and the Cuttlets will be all happy and junk.

Glad to hear the Danny stressing the importance of usability. Too often people try to just polish a turd.  But if a motherfucker can’t use your crappy site, they ain’t gonna’ pull any triggers.  Or certainly you’re gonna’ be leaving money on the table.

Btw, sem != seo  That’s right.  I don’t know what that means, but I thougth math would make it look more important.

The Danny sings the shit out of John Dvorak of PC Magazine.

I always love how often the Danny uses the word dude, even when he really shouldn’t be.  It’s kind of like that lovable frat boy/surfer your sister brought to Thanksgiving last year and made everything awkward.

Trying to rename SEO…not sure why, it sounds like it’s just to avoid being called snake oil salesmen. Seems kind of silly to just rebrand instead of agreeing to not talk out of our asses. Also, didn’t Syzlak rename SEO as searchability some time ago?  Just sayin’, me and the Syz are ahead of the curve is all.

Get rid of crap hat – huh?  Then what will we where to parties?

Danny Sullivan has become the Nancy Reagan of crap control; his orders are to just say no.  And now we’re going to launch an expensive, never-ending war against illegal crap content.  Great.  The street price of crap content just went up ten fold.

Mushrooms have kicked in, the Danny’s talking about a fairy land with dolphin unicorn dragon rainbows. And then the Danny says no hype cycles, only bicycles. He shows one, it’s lame. Told you all the Danny was a hippie.

Now we’re onto pixeldust – the man is loaded. Side note, there’s some guy in here wearing a white flat brimmed hat, not a fedora…the other one, the one that smooth guys on islands where. Like, someone that would be behind an evil scheme to put Magnum under.  Man, this is a fucked up city.

Nice to hear Danny just breeze past Paid Search, not saying that it’s good or bad, big or little, but more that it exists and is about on the same par as SEO. Very political.

Ahhhhhh, Wonder Twins references. Meh.  Syzlak did that already too.

Time for coffee, hair of dog and being awesome.

So, Here We Are

Yeah, it’s been a while again. Who knows.  I feel like I should live blog some shit, but I’m lazy, sick and in a shitty mood.  So who knows.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, stand by for news!  God bless, Mr. Harvey.  My radio sucks without you.

Anyways, yeah, we’ll see what happens.

7 Things I Learned On The Interweb This Week

Alright, while fucking the Streko was playing rockstar this week and riding around in rickshaws with Lisa Barone on his lap and being famous and shit, some of us had to fucking work. Am I whining? Yes. I’m fucking jealous. I wanted ride around in a man-powered cart in the Streko’s lap. And I’m totally secure in my masculinity to admit as much.

I was gonna’ go on and on about my week, but I’ve bored you enough already. Here’s some shit I learned this week. As it turns out, little of it has to do with search engine optimahmization (sorry, Syzlak).

1. Some people like smilies and emoticons way too fucking much. And it’s ‘stache! Not tache! what the fuck is a tache?!?!? This isn’t like everyone changing the meaning of FTW and me not getting the memo, is it?

2. When trapped on a boat, “youngsters” turn into little old ladies, though there’s no word on if they also become chain smokers. Good news to those of you desperately clinging to your youth and afraid of turning 30 – even at 25 you’re apparently still a youngster! And even better news for people who are fans of the word youngster – people still use that word in the new millenium! Hurray! It’s a win for everybody, really.

3. Good news – the severe downturn in the economy is encouraging more high-quality, high-end prostitutes! Bad news – nobody can now afford these higher quality prossies and are stuck with worn-out, crank-addicted streetwalkers of yore. And yes, I just used the word yore.

4. There’s a sure-fire way to fuck up your babies and give them a kafka complex. I have to thank the Bloggess for this one.

5. There’s one compelling argument that will keep me from shoplifting forever.

6. Some people don’t need an economic downturn to fuck up their home values. I keep wondering at which point this person decided this was a really, really, really bad idea? At 80 cats? 70? When the neighbors started pointing her out to her children, saying, “Smell that woman right there? That one that smells like cat piss? She’s a crazy cat lady. If you don’t eat vegetables and finish high school and go to college you’ll become a crazy, smelly cat lady too”?

7. It’s the end of an era. Now I have no excuse to do my Cookie Parade march. Yes, I march for cookies. But not just any cookies – Cookie Parade cookies. Don’t ask what I’ll do for beer or gin.  Hat tip to this classy lady for the bad news.

So, anyways, yeah, a pretty worthless fucking week. Hope you have a good weekend and junk.

7 Things I Learned On The Interweb This Week

Anyways, so what a week, eh? Turns out that brawl Lisa Barone tweeted about was from some crazy motherfucker named the SEO Champion (was it a full moon last week?). Just when I thought the Industry was running out of crazies, another one pops out of the wood pile like a mole on speed (yes, I’m aware that makes no sense). Then, and this isn’t confirmed, and I don’t know that I want to know the truth, who stops by this shit hole (I can’t decide if that’s two words or one) den of awesomeness? Someone going by Boser (I know!!!!!!! Boser!!!). And just when Thursday rolls around and I think I’m gonna’ get some SEO shit done, I blow the whole day reading my new heroine (sorry, bossman. I’m not being paid at the “give a shit” level yet). In the meantime, The Worst SEO Blog Ever! is still getting a, er, buttload of traffic (well, it’s a lot for me!) from poop porn related keywords. And hell, I even gave out some great link building advice! Go me!

Plus, I kind of learned some shit this week. And here it is.

1. There is no god or justice. But I can still hope he’ll be traded between the Aryan Brotherhood, the Crips and Latin Kings like an old gym sock found under a fourteen year old boy’s bed (that’s why I started doing my own laundry) for packs of cigarettes.

2.   Shaun Hogan is not Nick Hogan.  And, therefore, cookie-stuffing isn’t jail house slang for anal rape (though I’m pretty sure eBay is gonna’ try and bend ’em over).  And I need to watch less of the VH1 and the E!, or at least start paying better attention.

3. I need to go to yard sales more often.

4. Nothing gets your white supremacist girlfriends moister (more moist didn’t sound right) than talking about assassinating Barack Obama. And thanks to these assholes, anyone driving around with rifles and meth is going to look like a fucking racist.

5. If you rob a store, don’t text the details to your buddies. And for godsakes, don’t hide out in the place you’re robbing. Seriously – are kids getting that stupid? When I was at an age where robbery seemed appropriate and even moderately admirable, we didn’t have any friggin’ cell-phones. Oh hell no. We had smoke signals. Sure, they were a bitch to deal with at night, but they taught you ingenuity and self reliance. And hey, burning shit is fun!

6. Nothing sez “counter culture” like corporate sponsors. Or $295 tickets.

7. I wish bulls knew how to use handguns.

Alright, all you all. Have a good weekend and junk. And remember, you can get drunk on Saturday and Sunday nights this weekend.  Salud!

7 Things I Learned On The Interweb This Week

Alright, another busy week but I actually posted more than once and I got the seven put together!  Go me!  To celebrate I’m gonna’ have a gin and tonic lunch.  Fuck productivity.  That’s what you get for not sending me to a conference.

Anyways, what a week, eh?  I mean, the Georgians and Russians are dragging us all to WW3 and all we get is Olympic coverage and a bunch of other shit that won’t matter when it’s all said and done.  Thanks, MSN and MSNBC.  Keep up the stellar work.  Oh well, I guess I’ll spend this weekend working on the bunker and acquiring generators and firepower.  You all have a good one too.

1. Getaway car drivers are great idea.

2. Perhaps I should have been paying more attention to the Olympics. Or at least to the Eastern European teams.

3. StumbleUpon is reunited families torn apart by, er, well, I don’t know what the hell they were torn apart by. But it must have been pretty traumatic because on of those fellers looks pretty pissed.

4.  You could read Lisa Barone’s live blogging stuff from the conferences, but for real conference feel read her tweets.  For realsies.  Let’s be honest, the industry is a lot like high school (sometimes junior high) and these conferences are like formals and dances.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, we go for the educational aspects, but truly, the real reason to go is so we can see some of the drama we only read about on the interweb.  And her tweets from SES SJ 08 give us just that.  Through her Twitter thingy we got read about fights, hijacked sessions and all kinds of crazy crap that makes a conference worth going to.

5. They didn’t find big foot in Georgia.  I knew it was too good to be true, but a little piece of me still died inside.

6.  SEO Champion can’t write and is fucking crazy.  Interweb marketing rule number one:  you have to know how to write or else how the hell is anyone gonna’ understand any thing you say or rant about?  Seriously – it took me ten tries to decipher some rant that was posted about a session at the conference and my only real conclusion is that this guy or any one on his crew cannot put together a fucking coherent sentence to save their asses.

7.  Bill D. is one of the coolest motherfuckers ever.

Guess Where I’m Not? SES San Jose ’08

Another conference, and another week of getting to listen to all the lucky bastards who are there talk about how fucking awesome it is.  At first, I was thinking I was glad I didn’t get to go.  Who needs to meet people and learn stuff and have a good time, right?  But then, I read a tweet from Ms. Barone that went something along the lines of, “a FIGHT is breaking out in the conference room between the speaker and an attendee. OUCH“.

Two things:

1.  Following Lisa Barone on the Twitter finally paid off.

2.  I’m fucking pissed that I missed another fight!  I’m always late to the good fights!  It doesn’t matter if it’s two bums fighting over the last swallow of Mad Dog or two old women fighting over the last ashtray at the Bingo Hall, if there’s a fight, I miss it.  Doesn’t matter if I’m there or not.  If you want to stay away from violence, then I recommend you find yourself a seat next to me.

So, instead of whining about not getting live blog the talks and learn a bunch of crap and get drunk off my ass for free do some networking, I’m going to pull a page from the Streko’s book and try to make my SEO fantasy an SEO reality (for some reason I always imagined my SEO fantasy to be much more interesting and involve gratuitous nudity).

SES San Jose 08 Is A Dude Fest. Happy, Mr. Gray?

In my email this morning, I saw some message from the Search Engine Strategies people about how they updated the list of speakers for SES San Jose 08 or something or other. Hell, I think that’s what it was. Doesn’t matter; I was friggin’ bored, so I clicked on it.

What did I find, you ask? Michael Gray got his wish – an SEO sausage party!

Seriously, are these people not paying attention? Lord knows I’m not a feminist. I mean, I like chicks and all that, but this isn’t about me taking a Women’s Studies course. This is about some big-time industry event seemingly not finding any capable women to speak at their SEO conference*. It’s not like SES San Jose is something me and Syzlak put together in the backyard and invited our favorite drunks people we respect. Hell no. This search marketing conference represents the fucking industry. By the way, if Syzlak and I were to put on an event such as SES San Jose, you can bet your ass we’d have more ladies there than just strippers. Well, I hope. Actually, probably not. It’d likely be just the two of us bitching at each other while getting drunk. Without strippers.

So, anyways, congrats, Mr. Gray. You have taken the mommy bloggers to task and now have a total dude-fest for you to party down at. Now THAT is power!

*I know that there probably are some women speakers there, but looking at the page I linked to, you’d think they were “second class citizens”. 😉