Best of Where's My Jetpack - Leonardo on YouTube

Color me stupid, but I finally uncovered the not-so-secret fact that I have a Picasa account by default. I found every image I've ever uploaded to Blogger all in one place, even the duplicates, edits and changes. I've made a few of those 3,000 images public and I guess I'll let it serve as a place to piss off professional designers who cringe at my crude concepts. But that's always how I've worked: "Here's what I'm thinking. Make it better."

Found one I like. I think I did this at my last full-time gig as I was waiting for some CMO with his head up his ass to see if he could remove it. There was a lot of downtime on that job. This was just over a year ago. The point was, as I recall, that even Leonardo would find himself facing a community of clowns and critics if he were to unveil his work today.

Click for the massive

Engaged In a Conversation

UPDATE: Stuart was kind enough to send me an email and I have since removed his last name from this post. Seems he outsourced a link-building project on a freelance board and was surprised to find the guy who took the job was not playing by the rules.

I hate the guys that comment on blogs like this:

"Cold air is certainly a relative term, but a name brand cold air intake is engineered to retrieve the air from the coolest part of your engine compartment. Cooler air has more oxygen by volume and therefore ignites better which turns into to increased power." - Stuart [last name redacted]

So I sent them a note on their "Contact Us" form.

Hey, Intake Systems:

Not sure if you have a guy named Stuart working for you in the area of "online presence management," but he's spamming my blog in your name.

Please see here: http://wheresmyjetpack.blogspot.com/2010/08/well-stop-when-someone-sues-meantime-we.html

I will let slide his grammatical error at the end of the comment, but you'll note that his comment has absolutely NOTHING to do with my blog post and is of the haphazard copy/paste variety that annoys people to no end. This is not a good marketing technique and anyone who told you it was is feeding you a line. If they are an outside agency, you should fire them now.

We have come to expect these tactics from Third World operators of foreign currency exchange sites, Costa Rican real estate developers and (in the old days) Russian pornographers, but I'm sure that an upstanding auto supply specialist such as Intake Systems does not want to be associated with such practices. You're doing well in other areas: you've got the requisite articles stuffed full of keywords and opportunities for people to "like" those articles on Facebook or share them on Twitter, but you have to tell Stuart to knock off the blog spam.

I see your headquarters is in Ocala, not too far from where I live north of Orlando. Go Gators!

I have a good rule of thumb for you when questioning whether or not an online marketing practice is a good one or a questionable one: Ask yourselves, "What would Tebow do?"

Don't make Tebow sad.

Thanks,

Dave

PS: Since you chose to "engage in a conversation" (as your marketing genius likely told you to) I will continue that conversation now over at my blog. See here: http://wheresmyjetpack.blogspot.com/2010/08/engaged-in-conversation.html

My, Cheap Lots of Costa Rica, What an Incredible Translation Service You Have!

The better to comment-spam your blog with!


"Hello I want to congratulate to them by its site of the Web of the excellent looks like entertained and very good very to me it elaborated. I invite them to that they explore a little on my Web site."

How Not To Do Social Media

One of the most visited posts on this blog over the years has been the Land O' Lakes Butter box trick. It is also the most spammed post on this blog. Usually I delete them as soon as they come in, but I'll leave the most current one up, just as a lesson on how you shouldn't promote your business on blogs. Never mind the bad grammar, as I don't speak Spanish and am not one to make fun of anyone who can speak more than one language. But the form is the same in all of them, "Love your blog. Please keep it up. Now visit my site that has zero to do with anything being discussed here." Here is the current comment, verbatim:

Sure, it was probably automated. (Wait, it can't be since I have the word verification feature turned on. So someone is actually pasting this comment in along with their linked name and typing in the captcha.) So what has the site owner lost in terms of time or resources? Probably very little. But is a link buried in a mildly trafficked blog post comment thread really that valuable when you risk looking like a shameless spammer?

Parkrrr points out in the comments that it's all about Page Rank, which is all about links, and one time a long time ago BoingBoing linked to me, giving that post some rank. So it's a piggyback link game! Well, screw you, Costa Rican Land Pimps. Your comment goes away now.

Still You Need Some Graphic Seance

Thanks, "Andy". You make blogging fun. Let me guess: you are in Affiliate Marketing?

ISSKT - from Denmark

Hey, Typepad. I have excellent vision, but you're hurting my eyes with your comment verification puzzles. Like the 4th character here. Is it a "g," or a "9?"





I always get them wrong and then they give me an easier one.

Blogger's word verification jumbles are much easier, and sometimes they can even be pronounced, like this one.





Isskt. (Pronounced like "biscuit" without the "b.") Sounds like a new widget for bloggers, or maybe a photo and video sharing site. I just checked at GoDaddy and isskt.com is available. Somebody grab it quick! Do you know how hard it is to find available 5-letter domains with a .com suffix? Why do you think so many of the new media emerging companies have such silly, made-up names? Hell, that image above could even be your logo. Just add the word "beta" to the bottom, throw on some Web 2.0ish shiny sheen and maybe make the second "s" face the other "s" backwards, like two snakes kissing.

Pretend you're from a Scandinavian country when you launch the thing and the bloggerati/technorati will love you and jump on board. You'll be all the rage for a month and then Google will buy you.