| LED Digest 1954: Word of Click |
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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 This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. April 5, 2005 Issue #1954 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= <Moderator Comment> ~ Hate to do this... --== Beware of Internet-centricity ==-- ~ Rod Aries "I really don't need word of mouth, I only need 'word of click'." ~ Alex Hughart "We have customers who don't even have a computer!" --== Should I Worry? ==-- ~ Will Bontrager "It's good to have more than one solution from which to choose." ~ Noah Price "Several ISPs I've encountered seem to think the forged domain is in some way guilty..." --== How Important is Server Location? ==-- ~ Michael Linehan "...going for the cheapest hosts is a case of false economy." --== Blogging ==-- ~ Brett Atkin "Isn't RSS just a new twist on push technology used by the PointCast service from the 90's...?" ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== To Bounce or not To Bounce ==-- ~ Tom Aman ===== CONTINUING ================================= <Moderator Comment> Boy do I feel like a big jerk. I was all ready to make my big announcement that I'm taking the rest of the week off, and then I see all these fantastic posts. Now I feel like a real killjoy. Well this is still going to be the only issue this week. But it kind of sucks! There are some great discussions going on, and I'm sorry to put them on hold. I'm traveling to the Caribbean for my brother's wedding. Should be pretty sweet! I'll be gone until Saturday, and I could easily bring my laptop and work like usual, but I thought what the heck - live a little, so I'm taking the time off! So we'll see you next week - on Monday. No sense waiting an extra day until Tuesday if we're taking this week off. Make it a great week, Adam --------------------------- From: Rod Aries Subject: Internet-centricity - 'word of click' > Here's a news flash from the Real World. > Most consumers spend a lot less time on > the Internet than the members of this > discussion list. - Martha Retallick, LED 1953 Umm, that may be a truism for most, but I only want internet customers. I learned a valuable lesson, kind of my own 'news flash,' in 1997 when I placed a Yellow Pages ad. My revelation was, "If you advertise in the real world, you get real world customers." I know this is painfully obvious to most, but I can be a slow-learner. Soon, after my very first yellow pages paying client, the insight hit me like a 10-hour parking lot resurfacing and toilet paper procurement meeting. After the second client session where we changed a single phrase 8 times in 20 minutes, (as my mind is screaming, "it is just a damn magnet, not a Mona Lisa") that little phrase, "if you keep doing what you been doing, you will keep getting what you been getting" went off in my head.. it just CLICKED. When I advertised in the yellow pages I would get calls from REAL WORLD prospective customers that wanted to TALK on the phone with me, that wanted to FAX their layout ideas (back when we did design - we quit that in 2000) and everything else real world people do, including, oh-my-gawd, MEET in person. I never renewed my real world ads again. Of course there was more than one time after that when (you probably could hear this through your walls) my wife would scream, "Get a REAL job!" (as in real-world job), as I struggled to replace the real world dollars with more than just hopeful keystrokes and fantasy electrons. Furthermore, the internet, and my aversion to the giant sucking whirlpool of real world clients consuming not only my work time, but my personal time as well, helped me learn how to refine my focus. I have to admit that posting to LED Digest (thank you very, very, very much) and the old I-Sales saved my internet career and taught me how I could attract internet customers instead of those globs-of-glue real world people. My posts starting in 1998 ( http://howtointernet.com/postings/postings.htm ) brought me a substantial number of projects, although that was not my intention. I found that the better the post (or at least the more provocative) the more business I received. I quickly realized (duh) that not only would I never advertise in the yellow pages again, but, for my needs, it was extremely stupid of me to do so in the first place. Soon I started to write monthly articles for a national trade journal http://www.mortgagepromote.com/articleslist.htm that was five years ago, or 25 years in internet years, which gave me another avenue to attract business without going through real world agonies. I found that rather than be some type of car dealership where I cater to budget car buyers, luxury car buyers, smog certificates, car mats, pine tree scents to hang from the mirror and fender-benders, I cut out all the riff-raff (like, Sure, I would be happy to special order a 78mm o-ring washer part for your car, that will be $11.89, and 45 minutes of my time to fill the order - oh yeah, if it doesn't fit, just return it, no problem...), and left most of that to people (mostly real world people) who want that for their business. I chose, as my partner beat and beat into my head, to concentrate solely on the "luxury car" projects. I used to have a partner and 6-8 employees. I now have the same partner and one employee (but 23 computers) and a small network of off-site, per-job programmers. We won't "handcraft" anything anymore because it is so inefficient and we will only undertake projects that are large and involve extensive programming. My business has doubled every year since I started it. I now have more real world time than ever and drive and pick-up my daughter to and from school every day, not only go to all her home games, but her away games as well. The only time I venture into the real world now is when I am asked to speak at conventions (I hate shaving and having to wear long pants...). My wife was a full time partner in a law firm... I rescued her from that insane real world life of 10 minutes to put on make-up, take a long drive down interstate 5, office politics and client squabbling by setting up her own online business. I feel like screaming at her, "Get a VIRTUAL job!" (turnabout is fair play, you know). I now probably average one inbound phone call a month (I took my number off most sites) at the most (I don't even have a cell phone). And we turn away probably 98% of the potential customers we do receive as we pretty much quit doing services for others and now concentrate predominantly on applying our knowledge to our own services. Sadly, we haven't even updated our main site we use to attract customers in over two years... > And remember word of mouth? As in, one person > talking face-to-face with another? That's still a very > powerful concept out there in the Real World. Yeah, but with millions of people as internet users, I only need a very small and specific type of customer. To paraphrase the PlayStation byline, "Live in your world, work in mine". I really don't need word of mouth, I only need 'word of click'. Rod Aries http://www.beaconsbeach.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Alex Hughart Subject: Internet-centricity Thank you Martha! We have customers who don't even have a computer! Pretty good endorsement for word of mouth since we advertise on the Internet only (not because of our myopic views but because of ROI; hopefully, we'll venture out to other media, soon). Speaking of ROI, have you noticed lately a drop in Google conversion rates vs. Overture/Yahoo? I'm trying to make sense of data but when you add rumours, hype and unreliability of tracking in general to the mix, the whole thing just makes me want to fall in a coma. Alex Hughart http://www.bonsavon.com ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Will Bontrager Subject: Should I Worry > My worry is that someone will report daisy.co.uk as a > spammer and I'll have to go to all the trouble to change > my e-mail address to something else. - James Miller, LED 1952 > Many of these actions are completed using a web > site's contact form ... What they do is embed a > carriage return, followed by a Bcc: header, > followed by hundreds or thousands of email > addresses from their spam databases. - Joe Halbrook, 1953 If you, reader, are a programmer or work with programmers, "Web Page Form Anti-Hijacking Considerations" at http://willmaster.com/antihijack provides an example line of code that can stop such hijacking in its tracks. Why let a spammer get your domain shut down? If you're not a programmer, the article presents a ready-made solution, one of our own commercial programs. > I'm working on a project to offer a new CGI > script that will format a secure RSS feed that > is updated when a contact form is submitted. What a great idea, Joe! Spammers can't send spam emails with a form that doesn't send email. If you can present a secure form for the webmaster, with the original email quoted, then the email might be answered right there and copies sent to the webmaster's mailbox. I've discovered that "easy" and "simple" are two ideas that people really like. It's good to have more than one solution from which to choose. The more we as a group can trip up spammers, the better off our legitimate businesses will be. Will Bontrager ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Noah Price Subject: Should I Worry > I have a spam challenge system on all the other > possible e-mails for daisy.co.uk to stop spam. - James Miller, LED 1952 You'll stop spam much more effectively by simply rejecting undefined addresses. By sending challenge replies, you're creating more responses to the other forged innocent bystanders. By rejecting unknown addresses during the SMTP connection, the actual sending server gets the error rather than the innocent forged "From." > My worry is that someone will report daisy.co.uk as a > spammer and I'll have to go to all the trouble to change > my e-mail address to something else. You will almost certainly be affected by a large number of forgeries. Several ISPs I've encountered seem to think the forged domain is in some way guilty, and block mail from domains that are frequently forged. One even blocked mail from the IP address the domain reverses to, which had nothing at all to do with the spam delivery! Noah Price http://www.prxy.com/ noah, prxy.com ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Server location > We use a UK based dedicated server and I wonder if I would > benefit from the cheaper [server hosting] deals available in the > US. - Richard Stubbings, LED 1951 How cheap? I've only had personal experience with a few cases, but all my clients who were on an econo-host regretted it bitterly. The saving was quickly blown by the increased inconvenience and problems. My belief from many years is that going for the cheapest hosts is a case of false economy. There are probably good ones, but is £3/month worth the possible hassle? > It is better to have a UK location as your support > will work the same hours as you. I don't have to phone my host often, but when I do I'm certainly glad it's in my work hours and not in the evening when I spend time with my son. Michael Linehan ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Brett Atkin Subject: Blogging > I see blogs as a simple way of getting people used to uploading > a daily news about their products, company, sports club etc. - James Miller, LED 1953 James, Blogger essentially works as you describe. You use a template that is broken down into different sections of content. Some sections can change as often as you post a message. Some sections changes as needed automatically (archive links for example) while other sections change as needed manually (links to other blogs). But you can't integrate those different pieces of content into other parts of a web site (I'm speaking only of how Blogger works). That is the piece you're working on now and is how my blog works on my site. I display the 3 most recent headlines on my home page. I could easily place them anywhere I want, on any page I want, any way I want, if I chose to just by using simple HTML and ASP. The secret (it isn't a secret really) is to build your own blog using a scripting language and a database. Mine uses ASP (VB Script) and MS Access. I have a secure area of my site where I post my messages using an HTML editor to format the post. I also use ASP to create the XML feed. Taking this one step further, I could apply the basic functionality to update various pieces of data throughout the site. In the end, it is all just data, data in, data out.... The ability to do this has been around since the beginning, what is new is the way people are using these abilities in conjunction with a push technology (RSS). Isn't RSS just a new twist on push technology used by the PointCast (http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_17/b3626167.htm) service from the 90's or the service that Avantgo provides to my Pocket PC? The other "invention" was services like Blogger that allowed anybody to have a web site without actually having a web site. Is a blog really different in functionality terms than a discussion group? Not at all. Instead of anybody creating a thread, one person does. The ability for a "discussion" is present in both though through the use of comments. Thoughts? Brett Atkin ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Tom Aman Subject: Bouncing > I wonder if bouncing actually confirms the address > and brings more spam or if it's a complete waste of time... - Fred Cherney, LED 1951 Fred, please do not bounce these messages! Essentially, all you are doing as wasting your own time and adding to the email traffic on the Internet for no real purpose. Possibly one in a couple thousand of your bounces will result in a spammer removing your address from a mailing list, but even this is probably wishful thinking. In the vast majority of cases, one of three things will happen: 1. The spammer will just ignore the bounces (since he/she doesn't really care - sending the spam doesn't cost much anyway and some percentage of bounces is to be expected) 2. The address will either have been shut down, will never be used again or is a fake to start with (something like
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
is obviously a fake) 3. The "From" address in the spam to which the bounce will be sent is not the spammers address - it belongs to an innocent third party (the spammer just grabbed an address at random from the mail list being used to send the spam). I get several bounced messages every day that fall into this category. I didn't send the original message so the bounce is just like yet another spam in my mailbox. Tom Aman Aman Software ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains © Copyright 1995-2005 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Happy Wedding John and Suzanne! |
