Goodbye, Jill. I Hardly Knew Thee.

So there I was, in my self-imposed exile from SEO, search marketing, social media and all the other bullshit that was once this life of mine.  Life has been good.  I’ve been able to keep myself in ugly shirts, cheap beer and gin.  Whenever it was time to move the trailer house (read: people got tired of me stealing their internet to look at, umm, well you know), there was always just enough gas in the tank to move a block down.  I was living a gypsy’s dream (I was gonna’ say pirate, but I’m so sick of fucking pirates it’s not even funny.  I mean, fucking as in an adjective, not a verb.  For the record, I’ve never fucked a pirate.  Anyways, yay for gypsies, boo for pirates.).

Then, for shits and giggles, I decide to get on the SEL to see what’s shaking.  Now, in the past whenever I’ve decided to check in, it’s been articles about people bitching about the same shit they’ve been bitching about ever since Google was developed and started kicking the shit out of Netscape and AOL and whichever other dinosaurs were out there.  The main difference from what I’ve been able to discern is that instead of a Google Dance, they’re now called “updates” and given cute names like Panda, Penquin and SignUpForAdwords.  And people bitch about their rankings and then people are all “just create good websites” and blah blah blah.  However, this day,at the behest of Comrade Melanie, I sifted though fifty some articles about gaming social media and saw this.  Which led me to read this.

What. The. Hell.

I skip town on an industry for three years and then all of sudden it goes to hell.

There are two people responsible for making SEO what it is.  The first is porn.  Okay, so porn isn’t a person, but if it were, you’d need to buy him drinks at every search conference because we owe everything we have to porn (though I wouldn’t recommend shaking his hand.  Just sayin’.).  So let’s raise a glass to pornagraphy! Hurrah!

And next is Jill Whalen.

If it weren’t for Ms. Whalen, the mantra “create good content” would probably never have been uttered (I think, either way I’m giving her credit).  In a world of hand-wringing, whining, whinging and crying about the injustices of Google and other search engines, Ms. Whalen has always been a cool voice of reason.  In the opinion of this hack, her straightforward advice pretty much became the rule of creating a decent website.  I’m sure there are tons of other personalities that people think deserve this title, and I don’t disagree with their nominations.  But it was Ms. Whalen who helped tame the douchebaggery of this industry, and for that we owe her a debt of gratitude.  And also for giving free advice to anyone who was willing to read it and take it to heart.

So tonight, as you’re saying your prayers or sacrificing a goat on the altar of Sullivan, be sure to thank God or whoever the hell it is you worship that there was a Jill Whalen in our industry once.  We are all better for it.

And good luck, Jill, at your next endeavors and wherever your soul ends up aligned.

Sphinn Kills Voting. Apple Does Something. Life Goes On.

Wow.  What a day, eh?  Sphinn (or the Sfin, whatever) totally steals Apple’s thunder on whatever the hell that fucker in a black turtle neck was yammering on about.  Did not see that coming.  Whoda’ thunk it?

So, maybe there wasn’t any thunder being stolen, but still. On my the Twitter feed (believe it or not, I still look at that thing), it’s been getting more characters than Apple, unless you count from Syzlak (no, I do NOT want a friggin’ iPad!), who was the only one that said anything about an iPod or something Apple-related.

Now, what you’re really here for is the answer to the “What does Sphinn killing voting mean for me?” question, aren’t ya?  Well, here  you go:

• You’ll have to listen to people whine on the Twitter about there being no more voting on Sphinn.
• You’ll likely see a story on the Sphinn about people whining about there being no more voting on the Sphinn.
• You might actually read something interesting on the Sphinn.
• People will realize Sphinn said nothing about killing the comments section and go “Oh, umm, but there’s still no voting!”.
• Eventually, people will quit whining about Sphinn killing voting and find something else to bitch about.
• Sphinn isn’t killing voting on everything, just on the Sphinn.com, so you can still vote without really knowing what you’re voting about on other voting websites and your local elections (November is coming!).
• I will have finally realized I can use the bullet point thingy on the WordPress.

There  you have it.  Now that you realize life will still go on, and Apple will likely churn out some other “game changer!!!!!!” in a few months, you can get to doing whatever the hell it is you do.  Oh, and get out of line and go home.  Standing out in front of an Apple store waiting to spend money on next month’s paper weight makes you look like a twat.

Fruit Fly Traps. No, Seriously.

It’s be honest time.  Er, rather, as honest as a bastard like me can be.  I don’t have anything enlightening to say, though to be fair, if you’ve read more than one post you know that by now.  And frankly, if for some reason you stumbled upon this blog to help you with your search marketing plan, if you haven’t figured it out yet, you’re totally fucked.

So, why bother writing, and why bother writing now?

I have no fucking idea.  I’m out of gin, for starters, and am sick of beer (I don’t even know how the hell that happens, but it has.  Wonders never cease!), rather, sick of beer for now. Maybe it has to do with the combination of insomnia and lack of liquor (LOL, as I call it), but there was almost a compulsion to share something useful.

Before you start jumping my shit, I never said I didn’t have anything useful; I just don’t have anything enlightening.  Pay more attention.

Anyways, so I bought some organic fruit.  Again, why I was buying fruit and not gin, and organic fruit to boot, is way the hell beyond me.  I figured maybe I’ll listen to all those hippies or something and help Mother Earth or Gaia or whatever the hell they call this rock these days.  Lord knows it wasn’t for my health, so I won’t even pretend I was trying to be healthy or some unbelievable crap like that.  But as I was saying, I bought me some organic fruit and now my house is damn infested with fruit flies.  Seriously, it’s not a plague of Biblical proportions, but those little red-eyed motherfuckers are annoying.  That’s what you get for not buying shit sprayed with DDT like they do in Mexico.

Now, I don’t know the best way to get rid of those little fuckers, but I do know of a highly effective way of getting rid of them that actually involves drinking and theft.

First, you quit being a cheap ass and pony up a few bucks and buy a case of bottled beer.  Something fancy and classy, like Miller High Life or PBR bottles or something.  Sure, you could use canned beer, but trust me, you’ll want the bottles.

Next, you drink all of the beer.  All of it. Maybe only some of it.  Just drink beer is my point.

After getting good and beered-up, you sneak over to your neighbor’s house (well, sneak as much as you can after polishing off a half-rack of tall boys while watching Pawn Stars), and, assuming they’re fancy people, liberate a bottle of their oldest red wine.  If you’re neighbor isn’t fancy, like mine wasn’t, you may have to keep checking down the road until you find one.  I don’t know why, but the more expensive the wine, the more effective the fruit fly bait it is.

Now, drink a few more beers while carefully pouring a little bit of red wine into each of your beer bottles, thus turning them into fruit fly traps.  Place a trap wherever you see those little fuckers.  And be glad that you didn’t end up drinking all of the beer after all.

With the fruit fly traps set, you can now pass out.  If you haven’t passed out, but are out of beer, eat a few Advil and a glass of water.

In the light of midday, or whenever you roll your lazy ass out of bed, the reasons for using beer bottles, and not cans will become obvious.  First, if you’re searching for a little skunked beer to work as your hair of the dog, you’ll be able to judiciously choose which bottle you’ll want to drink from.  Next, and more importantly, a see-through bottle will allow you to delight in those little drunk bastards drowning in a wino’s nirvana.  You may think to yourself, “Oh, that’s so cruel!  They’re just little flies!”, but after living with the little fuckers for a week getting into shit that isn’t even fruit, you’ll be glad to see their little drowned asses in the bottom of that beer bottle.

Hmm.  The being sick of beer bit is making more sense.

OMG! Google Is Spying On You! And Bears Shit In The Woods!

So, now that I have internet back, I jumped on the Twitter to see what was going on (apparently I had some time to waste after being sans interweb for three weeks).  Looked like the same ol’ same ol’.  Except for everyone passing around an article from the New York Times about people getting all sorts of pissed off about the Google snooping on people and their personal data.

Really?

This is news?

What the fuck?

Getting upset about Google scraping and using your personal data from free products of theirs is like being pissed off that you got diarrhea from eating sushi out of a dumpster on a 90 degree day in Mexico City.  I mean, c’mon!  It’s what they do!  That’s why that shit is free!  It’s not fucking trigonometry!  Let me guess – you also think the new friend you just met in the bathroom gave your that hit of heroin for free just because you have kind eyes?

That doesn’t mean Google isn’t a bunch of assholes.  But seriously, if this surprises you and/or upsets you, then you are in for a rough, rough life.  Let’s just get it over with now.  Those jeans do make you look fat.  We know you only wear a size 7 shoe and those are socks in your trousers.  That isn’t oregano in your kid’s backpack and he isn’t going to be chef, unless you count cooking meth in your basement as being one.  And don’t even ask about your fucking hair cut, ‘cuz it does make you look stupid.

Dear UK, A Modest Proposal

And I’m not talking about eating Irish children.  At least not right now.  I have nothing against the Irish, and frankly, they look a bit tough and chewy.  Now, nice, suburban American kids that have been raised on sugar, starch and TV is gonna’ probably be more like veal.  Why the hell are we talking about eating children?

Anyways, tonight I was watching the BBC America on the TV and after sitting through a re-run of Top Gear (the one with the Tesla. If they’re gonna’ show re-runs all the time, why not the Vietnam episode more often?) followed by The In-Betweeners when it occured to me, all you all are more like us than those Euros.

No offense to mainland Europeans, but, c’mon Great Britain!  I mean, do you all really, I mean really feel like you have more in common with those people than us?  Sure, you like Europeans because they’re not Americans.  I get that.  But when you get down to it, we’re just the Onslow to your Hyacinth Bucket – you people are all fancy and junk while we’re, well, we’re not.  But like Hyacinth, you all don’t fit in with those fancy Euros either.  You may go to the fancy garden party, but in the end you leave with your dress soiled and pushing Onslow’s car.   And why?  In a really fucked up way, it’s because we’re family.  Plus, we only had a few decades of fighting with you, while the various incarnations of the United Kingdom has been fighting with various parts of mainland Europe for centuries.  I mean, hell, you all burned down our White House and we still wept for your Princess Diana.  Can you say the same about the French or the Lithuanians?

If you think about it, we’re the way we are because of you all.  Who were the pilgrims? Some crazy religious people you chased over here.  And then after a while you sent some criminals, soccer football hooligans, capitalists and other ne’er do wells and before long, BAM! we have the United States of America.  When you get down to it, what you don’t like about America is really a reflection of what you didn’t like about yourself and tried to ship off.  And I can’t imagine what that says about Australia.

So, how about it?  You give the European Union the finger, and come hang out with us and maybe we’ll start a club with Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand?  For starters, we all talk the same, which will cut down on the need for translators.  And you can get back to doing what you do best – have fancy dinner parties with New Zealand  while we drink beer and watch horse racing with Ireland and Australia.  And I have no idea what Canada is doing over there in the corner.

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

Alright, so after a year of spotty updating, being lazy and plain ol’ fuck all, it seemed like this was another educational week.  You’d think this would be a bit like a bicycle or something – you know, easy to fall of or something.  Anyways, there were some things that seemed like easy homeruns.  But were they?  Oh hell no.  I mean, Li’l Krazy Kim pushes the reset button on North Korean currency and I got nothin’.  Then there’s a punchline in this whole dynamite packing elf and mall santa story, but I just can’t find it.  I mean, that guy’s mugshot is straight up squirrels juggling knives and as I stare into those crazy-ass eyes, I still get nothing. Nada.  And it seems like the motherfucking thing writes itself!

So, anyways, as usual, prepare to be disappointed.

1. It’s good to be rich and famous. Except for that whole wife beating the shit out of you thing when she learns that you’ve been fucking around on her.

2.  I’m glad I’m not a chick. I mean, seriously, 85% of all women will be miserable? And they still can’t pee on tires?  Mother Nature has a fucked up sense of humor.

3.  Old people ruin everything. And by old I mean everyone over 24 years old.  Yeah, that likely means you.  Because, you know, some college kid has more money to spend on stupid shit than you do, you working slob (thanks, mom and dad?).

4.  The Argentinian Legislature are going with a ladder match to pick their next leaders.

5.  Count Chocula’s honkey cousin apparently likes those girly vampire movies too.

6.  Nothing says “creepy as fuck” like digging up your dead wife, making a clay body for her corpse and then sleeping with it.  Except maybe digging a hole next to her grave in the cemetary and sleeping next to said dead wife.  Sweet, but totally fucking creepy.

7.  Twitter is making it so much easier to spot society’s douchebags.

And there you have it.  Have a totally fucked rainbows and unicorns weekend!

Oh, So NOW You All Hate the Twitter

Once upon a time, there was this awesome guy who did awesome stuff named SEO Hack.  He was handsome (sorta’, if you squinted).  He was intelligent (well, at least on the short bus).  He had class (he put the ass in class!).  And when this thing called “the Twitter” was rolled out, he stood alone and dared to say he hated it.  All he could think of was telling people when he dropped a deuce, took a piss or watched the neighbor smoke a cigarette (that guy smoked a lot of cigarettes).  He was in the minority, but he cared not.  He hated the Twitter.

And now it’s all he fucking does all day long.  Well, more like occasionally every now and then.  But he does it more than he updates this crappy, forgotten blog.

Anyways, I’ve noticed lately in my Twitter whateverthehellyoucallit that there are a lot of people who hate the whole Retweet button.  They hate it so much, they’re starting to call Twitter names.  Well, maybe not names, but they are pissed about something.  Blog posts have been dedicated to it.  People have gotten on the Sfin and voted to hate it (or something like that; it’s all details, really).  All of a sudden, the microblogging platform that could has pissed off a whole shit load of people.

First off, all you all are late to the “I hate Twitter” party.  I had it already, emptied the keg and turned off the lights.  Where the fuck were all you then?

Secondly, really?  All you all are getting panties all knotted up over a friggin’ button?  I don’t get it.  I mean, it’s not like you have to use the fucking thing!  Don’t like it?  Then don’t use it.  Just get all ol’ skool on that shit and put “RT” in front of your retweets.  Seriously, I can still see them if you do that.  It’s not like they disappeared.  It’s not fucking rocket science.

What I think this boils down to is that people are looking for something to be pissed off at.  Much like a hipster at a fucking hipster convention (lock the doors and burn the building!) trying to be more ironic by mocking his friend’s Atari t-shirt (I know, who’da thunk he had friends?!?!?), the people who are hating on a stupid button are simply looking to be pissed off.  When you look at it, in the whole scheme of things, this retweet button bullshit is small potatoes.  Take it from a guy who’s always tilting at idiotic windmills getting pissed off about stupid shit – it doesn’t matter.  Really,you’re all still gonna’ die in 2012 regardless of your feelings about the stupid retweet button.

So, go ahead and hate the Twitter and bitch about the retweet feature.  I mean, hell, I’m sitting here watching the Golden Girls bitching about people bitching about the retweet thing.  Afterall, bitching and moaning about shit that doesn’t matter IS the American way!

Oh, and whoever voted down Ms. Whalen Jill in the Sphinn comments, you’re a douchebag.

the Ruper Is Wrong and Mark Cuban Is An Idiot

After writing my intelligent and awesomely insightful post about Rupert Murdoch’s misguided plan of having all his content de-indexed from Google (and I assume Bing, Yahoo!, Cuil, etc., etc.), I read what I thought might be an intriguing post from Mark Cuban, who, according to this post title, I think is an idiot.  His post pretty much confirmed my suspicions.  He’s an idiot.

I’m not talking just about his supporting all the “9/11 was an inside job” kooks, though that surely makes him suspect.  I’m not even talking about his inability to apparently use a question mark (there’s no space between the last word in the sentence and the question mark!!!!!!  Geez!).  I’m talking about his premise about how the Ruper (what they call him down at the YMCA) is having all his content pulled from Google’s index.

The problem is, instead of telling us why the Ruper is right, Mark Cuban just talks about how Twitter was a game-changer (hate that word).  And that’s fine – Twitter has changed the game some.  But that story is soooo three months ago.  Cuban doesn’t tell us anything other than Twitter is awesome and Rupert Murdoch is smart.

However, he doesn’t address Murdoch’s going to a paid content model.  If I followed a link on the Twitter to a fucking site where I had to pay money for a fucking subscription to read the damn article, I’d be pissed.  And I imagine the same could be said for other people.  It isn’t going to make NewsCorp any more money.  It’s likely going to piss people off and the only people who’ll shell out the dough to access their news are either other journalists or Fox News true believers.  If I were advertising with Murdoch’s properties, I’d join the other rats fleeing that sinking ship.  And I haven’t read anything saying Murdoch isn’t pursuing a paid content model.  It’s idiotic, and, again, it’s putting ego over profits.  Counting on only the Twitter and Facebook to push your brand is also 1999 thinking.  To support that kind of idiocy makes you an idiot too.  Though, not knowing how to use a question mark and joining the kook squad does too (okay, I’m an asshole and going back on my word of those not making Mark Cuban an idiot).

It’s his ball and he can do with it as he wants, just as Mark Cuban can use his network and name to pursue the whole Bush Administration caused 9/11 angle.  But if you’re gonna’ tell me that Rupert Murdoch is right and I’m an idiot, tell me why, don’t just lay more fucking platitudes on the Twitter.

And don’t call me a netizen.