A couple of ways that RF, and my attitudes towards it, have evolved since it started in August 2009:
I’m not as concerned with deadlines as I used to be. When I started RF, I was thinking in terms of the social media “hubs” that I’ve produced in the corporate world. In such cases, the site is typically part of an advertising campaign with a goal, a budget, and a timeline. The audience needs to be both earned and converted (for lack of a better word) within a few months. I couldn’t tell a client: “It’s true that only 500 people came this month, but don’t worry, they loved it, and we got one link from an influential site that I have a lot of respect for. We’re building a brand, and it will eventually pay off.” Read the rest of this entry »
I don’t know if they still do this, but when I was in second grade, all the kids gave little paper valentines to all of their classmates, regardless of gender. Our parents would buy them in a plastic bag of 30 or so, and we would write the name of each classmate on the valentine. Although these valentines were sometimes themed according to a popular TV show, they weren’t really cards, because they couldn’t be opened. The point of them was to get the kids familiar with the ritual. It’s Valentine’s Day, you’re a nice person, so you need to give valentines to others. The details can come later. Read the rest of this entry »
Every adult, as they watch this video, asks themselves what they would have done if they had been one of the children in this experiment. I can’t be sure, but here are my top choices:
I would have eaten the marshmallow.
I would have eaten the marshmallow while the experimenter was still in the room giving me instructions.
I would have thrown the marshmallow on the ground, stomped on it, and then sat there, glaring angrily at the two-way mirror.
I would have held off on eating the marshmallow, motivated purely by my plan to refuse the second marshmallow when it was offered.
I would have hidden the marshmallow, hoping to trick the experimenter into thinking that I had eaten it, and bravely foregoing the second marshmallow. Only I would know about my private marshmallow conspiracy.
I’m signed on to AIM, YIM, and gtalk pretty much every waking second. My friends, family, colleagues, collaborators, and business partners are all used to seeing me show up in their buddy lists every time they turn on their own computers.
So, when I block someone, they know.
I block many people, for short and long periods of time, on a regular basis, for a variety of reasons. Read the rest of this entry »
Short version: I’m trying to win a web traffic contest, and if I win, I’m giving away the $150 prize to one of the tweeters who helps me do it. If you don’t care about the explanation, you can just skip to the end of this post, where I have created a convenient 132-character tweet that you can just paste into Twitter, press enter, and you’re done. For those who want to understand why, read on.
A site called Small Biz Bee is holding a contest effective today and tomorrow. A series of hopefuls have written articles about small business. Each article has 24 hours from the time of its posting to accumulate unique pageviews. The one that has the most pageviews at the end of its period is the winner, and the author of the winning article is awarded $150.
My article went up today (12/03/09) at noon Pacific time, or 3pm Eastern time. So my article has until noon on Friday, 12/4/09, to accumulate enough pageviews to win. As I write this, that gives it about fifteen hours. Read the rest of this entry »
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