| LED Digest 1899: What's a Blog? + Client Conflicts |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ............................................... November 23, 2004 Issue #1899 ............................................... .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== Getting Started with Blogs ==-- ~ Peter D'Aprix "I am an ancient old guy and I can prove it. I still don't know what exactly a "blog" is!' --== The PayPal vs Merchant Accounts Debate ==-- ~ Brian Rideout "What are you using or setting up for clients? Merchant Accounts to accept credit cards, PayPal, or both?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Conflicts of Interest ==-- ~ Jeffrey L. Petry "My solution to the conflict...is to guarantee regional exclusivity to these clients..." ~ Michael Linehan "...your opinions don't really matter. And my opinions don't really matter." --== SMTP Servers & Altering the 'From' Field ==-- ~ Kevin Jackson "My post was an invitation to the vendor community out there..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Link Farm Problem ==-- ~ Peggy Deras --== Why Firefox? ==-- ~ David Yancey ~ Peter Warnock ======== NEW ==================================== From: Peter D'Aprix Subject: New Topic - Blogs I have followed and learned a lot from this discussion group over the years and thank all of you out there. I am an ancient old guy and I can prove it. I still don't know what exactly a "blog" is! I have heard them discussed, referred to, know some almost brought Dan Rather to his knees but I don't know exactly what they are, how to create one, how to host one, how to run one or even if there are 'blog" specialists. Are there blog centers on line that guide you through setting one up? How do they differ from a forum, chat room or just a web site? How much work is involved in administering one? Dangers? Pitfalls? Cost? You would think I would be more savvy since I design web sites for a living, but my advanced age makes me slow to pick up and absorb these new internet applications. Can anyone clue me in? Please be patient and kind and speak in simple words. I may be thick but not totally stupid. Many thanks Peter D'Aprix - Visual Communications http://peterdaprix.com ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Brian Rideout Subject: PayPal vs Merchant Accounts? I'm sure this has been debated to death but I'll ask again... What are you using or setting up for clients? Merchant Accounts to accept credit cards, PayPal, or both? Personally, I see PayPal only as the sign of an online merchant too cheap to get a merchant account and it doesn't give me a good feeling about the site. Anyone else feel that way or is it just me? Brian Rideout, President BKR Studio Inc. http://www.bkrstudio.com ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Jeff Petry Subject: Conflicts of interest > [My client's] opposition... saw [their website, which I developed] > and immediately contacted me about designing them a website. > Today my original client rang to say... that he felt I was in a very > bad "conflict of interest" position. - Mark Medlicott, LED 1893 I have been bumping up against the "conflicts-of-interest" issue more and more frequently in the increasingly competitive local and regional markets in Thailand, particularly in the Travel & Tourism industry, and the Real Estate market. In the last year, I've also noticed a new awareness of these potential conflicts by increasingly SEO-savvy clients and potential clients. They want to know what competitors of theirs I am promoting and how I view any potential conflicts, especially with regard to their rankings on their main and common keywords; e.g., "Thailand tourism", "Thailand real estate", etc. As these are two of Asia's more competitive markets, these folks are well aware that large sums of money are at stake here. (Ironically, however, I might add, there is still an unfortunate reluctance on many of these business owners' parts to front up any reasonable compensation to qualified Search Engine Marketers - though some rays of light are beginning to emerge!) My solution to the conflict - which has worked well for me so far - is to guarantee regional exclusivity to these clients, which they have invariably appreciated, and are willing to pay for in terms of not only remuneration, but also loyalty and longevity. For example, I have agreed with one client to promote only his company in the ruthless and cutthroat market that is "Phuket real estate", Phuket being one of Southeast Asia's top destinations for the world's well-heeled. After advising him that a competitor was interested in my services, he agreed to increase my salary in exchange for exclusivity in Phuket, and he has since become one of my best clients, and we have gone on to develop other related sites for him. He is pleased with the increasing business we continue to obtain for him, and we are happy in having yet another very satisfied customer, rather than two conflicting and competing ones. Furthermore, the competitor that we turned down was most appreciative of our "ethical standards" and told us to contact him if we ever stopped working for his competitor, our client. In short, win-win. We do the same with hotels and resorts without any major conflicts or problems; i.e., we'll only take on only one "Pattaya Resort" but this won't stop us from promoting a "Chiang Mai guesthouse", which is obviously not a direct competitor. In fact, these clients sometimes come to cooperate with one another when putting together a visitor's tour package; again, everyone's happy, and networks develop. It's my belief that if more of us practice and maintain the highest ethical standards that the sordid and unscrupulous elements who taint our profession and sully our craft will move on to pushing pills, encouraging gambling, or anything else that might give them some short-term gain; but PLEASE... clear out of our field! (Not that they read anything as relevant as the LED Digest!!!) To sum things up, I agree wholeheartedly with Heather, Lloyd, Shari, and others who have written in that you're either on the High Road or the Low Road, despite living in a Buddhist country that places a premium on "the Middle Path". Thank you for maintaining the best discussions I have yet to come across concerning our profession and challenging livelihood. Keep up the good work! Jeffrey L. Petry, Ph.D. M.D., Lanna Consulting Co., Ltd. www.lanna-website-promotion.com Chiang Mai, Thailand ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Conflicts of interest > Bottom line is that although the two businesses > in question produce a similar product, the companies > themselves are completely different, and the website > can reflect those differences. - Kathy Wilson Anderson, LED 1898 This says it all. But right now, the second business is not different at all. Currently it is in direct competition, just across the street against a very small range of products of company 1. And 2 copied 1's brochure! He SAYS trellises are eventually going to be a small part of his business. Ask him to phone back then and he'll truly be able to have a very different site. For all the 'it's no conflict' opinions - your opinions don't really matter. And my opinions don't really matter. The main consideration is number 1 thinks it is a severe conflict - So Mark, are you going to make such an enemy out of #1 that you maybe cripple your own business? One my island community (population 10,000), we have a locally owned video store. Recently a chain moved in. Their openly stated goal is to completely take over the video store market throughout rural/small town North America. I wouldn't do a site for them even if video store number 1 never phoned me to express concern over 'conflict of interest'. I'm with Tom Aman on taking the high road on this one. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy. ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Kevin Jackson Subject: SMTP servers Re Altering the 'From' field in email: > (1) spammers lie, and they often use stolen credit card > info to set up accounts... (2) there is no law that says anyone > has to accept your email and (3) if you give too many of the > bad guys too many chances in a very short time nobody will > be accepting mail from your ISP but you. - Sheryl Coppenger, LED 1898 Perhaps I should have prefaced my post more strongly with the statement that we are the people that have to deal with the frustration, anger and confusion of business customers - one group of end users who put the money into the system to begin with. We are not, and never have pretended to be email software producers, Systems Administrators, or the people who configure ISP's, hosting services or mail servers. I have the greatest amount of respect for all of the above, and I merely want to pass on the echoes of voices raised in anger that we have to deal with on a daily basis. My email is an effort to communicate this as an opportunity, not a criticism. I have tried to make sense of the many different solutions and decided that it is best left to those who are most qualified and experienced to do so, and we will stick to what we are good at, which is trying to bridge the gap between the highly technical stuff and the organizations using that stuff. I also do not envy the people who have to handle email at ISP's, and I know enough to know that only the best, most experienced and most specialized people should be doing this. There are qualified people around to tackle this challenge, it just seems possible that perhaps proper incentive has not yet been offered to get them working together on a viable solution. I have great faith that once the problem is properly expressed, and the resources at hand, any technical problem has a solution. However it is critical that we not lose sight of the bigger issue here, which is: spam, email viruses, email fraud etc., and the subsequent degradation in the quality and quantity of email services provided by ISPs are exacting a huge cost on the credibility of our industry in the eyes of the general business customer. Service-based businesses like ours are taking a huge hit in support time and credibility as a result, and our clients will jump at almost any solution we suggest. What is most frustrating is that our vendors do not seem to be feeling the same amount of pressure, and that is generating a lot of resentment - even anger, which translates into rapid action if the opportunity presents. We do not create the solutions, we try to find the best ones available and set them up for our clients. In other words I believe I am echoing the thoughts of many in our industry in saying: I am showing you the money, now show us the product! My post was an invitation to the vendor community out there that is in the business of creating these solutions to take advantage of the opportunity. Cheers Kevin Jackson Biz-Zone Internet Group Inc. http://www.biz-zone.com/ ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Peggy Deras Subject: Link Farm Problem Hello Fellow LEDers I have a new problem with my web site. A large link farm is linking to my site and I can't figure out how to track them down to send a cease and desist letter. I have sent a letter to ServiceMagic (the link recipient), but they deny any involvement Any suggestions? I am concerned I may be bumped out of my hard earned rankings. Peggy Deras, CKD, CID Kitchen Artworks www.kitchenartworks.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: D Yancey Subject: Firefox > I'd like to put out an open call for practical feedback about > the Firefox browser... What are the real and practical > advantages of Firefox, besides just sticking it to Gates > & Co.? What are the disadvantages.? - Dirk Johnson, LED 1894 I started using what was then named Firebird a year ago, when it was still buggy and when the great people who were developing it had almost no support, no money, no visible plan and certainly, no pretensions about how much work and time would be needed for Firebird to rise to the status of a serious browser candidate for the masses. My reasons for being patient with the subsequent string of "two steps forward, one step back" releases and name changes were the tabbed browsing features, mainly, along with a very strong bookmarking toolkit. I work with, typically, 40 or more open windows at a clip, and IE was just a killer in terms of memory use and performance. I am also concerned about IE's endless security holes, its total lack of improvement for 3-4 years now, and its lack of compliance. Firefox simply helps me get my work done faster, and track the sites I need to track better. I could care less about probs with ActiveX since I don't use sites that require that technology. I know that millions of new Firefox users are enchanted with the many search tools and options, but for most business users these will not be that big a deal, normally. As to the 'extensions', a few words to the wise: while many of them work just fine, the ones that get involved with tabbed browsing tend to be buggy, or even fail from release to release. This is totally understandable to someone with a background in complex software, but will no doubt be frustrating for some LED readers who see these features as Firefox's paramount advantage. The Firefox team is trying to integrate tabbed browsing better with the core functions, but in doing so they've had to (hopefully temporarily) exclude certain very powerful features like "save session" (which in earlier releases saved all open tabs and quickly re-opened them on a re-start.) All my colleagues are using Firefox, but all understand that there are occasional hiccups, as it matures. The point is that if you cannot deal with an evolving platform, then it may be best to wait for Firefox 2, or even for M$oft to get its browser act together. perhaps, circa 2007? In his original post, Dirk asked that we not simply 'bash' IE and its owners, as a justification for trying something new. Well, in fact, Dirk, I am, if anything, possibly more of a free market advocate than you, but think that the technical and engineering community have plenty of reason for calling IE and M$oft what they have proven themselves to be, time and again: sloppy designers, poor testers, careless maintainers, and, generally, a company that uses its monopoly power to justify obsolete and market-unfriendly products. If they were doing their job, there would be no groundswell for Firefox, or for that matter, PHP / MySQL, Linux, and a growing agitation for an alternative to Outlook and other Office components. David Yancey http://www.vivante.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Peter Warnock Subject: Firefox Firefox recently released the version 1 which is considered to be a complete program without a significant number of known bugs. Searching the current page, is one of it's attributes where it is definitely better the IE. Since there are a number of sites that require IE, there are some add-ins that allow you jump between the two programs easily. Peter Warnock Webstruction.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics." - Francis Bacon |
