You want to know how to stay on top with organic search? It's to have relevant ad-free content to whoever is searching for your stuff and is spider friendly. Which, for the most part, means no flash, no javascript, and certainly no PHP-generated content. How many times has it been now where a major search engine has changed the parameters of how content gets picked up?
A random thought about Twitter's Twitter
I had a rather amusing thought just now. Why doesn't Twitter have more followers on its Twitter account? It has just over 4.4 million followers and about 1,000-and-then-some tweets for a service that touts more than 75 million users. That's pretty shoddy marketing if you ask me.
If I were Twitter, I would have integrated how to add a follower (using http://twitter.com/twitter as a live example) to the how to get started steps for new Twitter accounts. Or better yet, pull a MySpace and have everyone follow Twitter at the inception of their account. No?
If I were Twitter, I would have integrated how to add a follower (using http://twitter.com/twitter as a live example) to the how to get started steps for new Twitter accounts. Or better yet, pull a MySpace and have everyone follow Twitter at the inception of their account. No?
Blog Structure
Today I'm thinking about an alternative index structure for my food blog. I've gone through a few revisions, but with the available plug-ins for blogger, there isn't much that I can do as far as site organization goes. By default, posts are archived by year and month, and this is really unhelpful if I wanted to look for a specific recipe. I added cooking method and ingredients as major tag categories, which show up on the left-side navigation and all the posts that have exact match tags to those will show up in the feed when clicked on. This produces other unfortunate results. For example: desserts. I have made a lot of desserts. While they are all of different cooking/baking methods, every dessert recipe I have ever blogged will all show up in reverse sequential order (newest first) on that category list.
Recently added features to the site include: by popular demand (shows the most requested on recipes on the site) and LinkWithin's "you might like this" add-in which shows related posts by keyword tag. It's not terribly accurate but it's better than nothing. Maybe what I need is a master index of kitchen notes and food recipes. But how to cleverly serve up this content...
It's debatable whether or not I'll allow 3rd party advertising on the site, such as AdSense or BlogHer. Even though I am a diehard marketer, I hate looking at ads. That's not to say I don't have a few ads embedded in the recipes or kitchen notes with Amazon associate links. Besides, if anyone is to make money off my writings, it should be me. I haven't seeded the site onto more popular global sites or recipe exchanges because I would like to create my own e-book first and publish it through Amazon Kindle and/or Google Books. What stops me is the notion that there are at least 100 million home cooks in the US, and while few of them write about their recipes in the print or digital space, there are many who do, and I'm not particularly interested in turning this into a full-time venture.
The food blog is my online cookbook. It's so that I can access the ingredient ratios and cooking methods wherever I am, as long as friends/family have an internet connection. And, it's better system than the paper-based one I use now (scribbled onto random pieces of paper, unused parts of envelopes, the cardboard backing of writing pads) that I have clipped together with one of those bag clips. I write about successes, mistakes, and troubleshooting, but not quite with the writing skill of Cooks Illustrated. The majority of bloggers seem to only focus on successfully-made recipes and very rarely do they talk about what went horribly wrong in the kitchen.
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
Attended an Amazon webinar today that covered their Simple Email Service. I have yet to test it out. Initial impressions suggest that you should stick with your existing email service provider for basic email marketing broadcasts because there aren't a whole lot of tools nor analytics built yet for SES. It is a basic as basic gets.
A few things to note:
There are two types of email sending options: formatted or raw message; both of which are also supported by API functions (SendEmail, SendRawEmail). The basic feedback analytics are reminiscent of basic web stats (GetSendStatistics API) which will tell you about delivery attempts, rejected messages, hard bounces, and spam complaints. And, everyone's lists are served up separately, so even if you have an overlap of customers with another business that also uses Amazon SES, their spam complaints do not affect your broadcasts (unlike how Gmail blocks spam).
Most ESPs have sending limits built into their pricing contracts. Amazon is no different. Every SES user is assigned a quota (max number of emails that can be sent in 24 hours) and an access level (everyone starts out in the sandbox to test SES features and can send up to 200 recipients a day), which is tiered. However, you can only send to and from a verified email address.
Pricing. ESPs that support small to medium sized businesses such as iContact, Bronto, Vertical Response, or ConstantContact, shouldn't fret about Amazon's pricing structure. Pricing is tiered and is based on the combination of two elements: data transfer and CPM per email message.
Current CPM is $0.10 per thousand messages sent. Data transfer pricing is as follows:
Pricing examples:
1000 email messages to one recipient per day with content size 10kb
= 31,000 recipients sent per month
= 3.1 GB in/out data transfer
= $3.73 for the month
1000 email messages outbound to one recipient per day with content size 100kb
= 31,000 recipients sent per month
= 31 GB in/out data transfer
= $10.70 for the month
Amazon EC2 users are already subscribed to the free pricing tier and are capped at 2000 messages for free each day.
To get started with Amazon SES:
Subscribe
Verify email addresses / create your own whitelist of verified addresses
Send Email
Request production access
Get Feedback
Limits on sandbox accounts: 100 whitelisted verified addresses, up to 10MB per message (because most popular email readers cannot handle more than that).
Limits on all accounts: Does not support SOAP or file attachments
A few things to note:
- Supported APIs
- Built-in Features
- Sending Limits
- Access Levels
- Pricing
There are two types of email sending options: formatted or raw message; both of which are also supported by API functions (SendEmail, SendRawEmail). The basic feedback analytics are reminiscent of basic web stats (GetSendStatistics API) which will tell you about delivery attempts, rejected messages, hard bounces, and spam complaints. And, everyone's lists are served up separately, so even if you have an overlap of customers with another business that also uses Amazon SES, their spam complaints do not affect your broadcasts (unlike how Gmail blocks spam).
Most ESPs have sending limits built into their pricing contracts. Amazon is no different. Every SES user is assigned a quota (max number of emails that can be sent in 24 hours) and an access level (everyone starts out in the sandbox to test SES features and can send up to 200 recipients a day), which is tiered. However, you can only send to and from a verified email address.
Pricing. ESPs that support small to medium sized businesses such as iContact, Bronto, Vertical Response, or ConstantContact, shouldn't fret about Amazon's pricing structure. Pricing is tiered and is based on the combination of two elements: data transfer and CPM per email message.
Current CPM is $0.10 per thousand messages sent. Data transfer pricing is as follows:
| Data Amt | Cost |
| First GB | Free |
| up to 10 TB | $0.15/GB |
| next 40 TB | $0.11/GB |
| next 100 TB | $0.09/GB |
| 150+ TB | $0.08/GB |
Pricing examples:
1000 email messages to one recipient per day with content size 10kb
= 31,000 recipients sent per month
= 3.1 GB in/out data transfer
= $3.73 for the month
1000 email messages outbound to one recipient per day with content size 100kb
= 31,000 recipients sent per month
= 31 GB in/out data transfer
= $10.70 for the month
Amazon EC2 users are already subscribed to the free pricing tier and are capped at 2000 messages for free each day.
To get started with Amazon SES:
Subscribe
Verify email addresses / create your own whitelist of verified addresses
Send Email
Request production access
Get Feedback
Limits on sandbox accounts: 100 whitelisted verified addresses, up to 10MB per message (because most popular email readers cannot handle more than that).
Limits on all accounts: Does not support SOAP or file attachments
OPB Advertising
If you reside in the Portland metro area and wake up to the radio tuned to an OPB station, you may have noticed that it's pledge week where the radio station tries to encourage passive listeners to convert into active subscribers. Have you ever wondered if the minimum $5 donation actually does anything? Well, by itself it doesn't. Collectively with tens of thousands subscribers it could; though not as much as partner (business) sponsorships bring in.
OPB's media kit states that "OPB Radio dedicates no more than 3 minutes per hour to sponsorship spots, while commercial radio airs eight to 15 minutes (or more) of commercials per hour." Just in today's 6-7am time slot, I heard sponsorship messages from 13 advertisers. This roughly translates to $455/3 minutes per hour in revenue. That set of ad sponsors generates about $9k/month if only advertising on weekdays for the month. It's still relatively inexpensive, though, advertisers like Angie's List need to book weeks or months of radio time to gain the mindshare and exposure that established partner advertisers already have, such as Fred Meyer, Visa, or Microsoft.com/cloud.
Now, take into consideration that primetime radio is a lot like primetime television with a scaling ad rate based on what shows are on and when. In the morning's broadcast, during one of the pledge interruptions, OPB said that the three most expensive programs that are syndicated by NPR (costing roughly $1 million per year in broadcasting fees), are the Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and the Weekend Edition slots; which are KBBI's most expensive ad slots. One could surmise that the advertising model is about the same from one public radio station to the next. It's a model that works, why fix it?
Anyhow. Ad slots for the aformentioned slots range from $20 to $35 per mention. There are only a couple slots where advertising is not allowed: BBC World Service and PRI's The World.
Related:
OPB Media Kit
OPB Auditor Report 2010-2009
KBBI Alaska Public Radio
OPB's media kit states that "OPB Radio dedicates no more than 3 minutes per hour to sponsorship spots, while commercial radio airs eight to 15 minutes (or more) of commercials per hour." Just in today's 6-7am time slot, I heard sponsorship messages from 13 advertisers. This roughly translates to $455/3 minutes per hour in revenue. That set of ad sponsors generates about $9k/month if only advertising on weekdays for the month. It's still relatively inexpensive, though, advertisers like Angie's List need to book weeks or months of radio time to gain the mindshare and exposure that established partner advertisers already have, such as Fred Meyer, Visa, or Microsoft.com/cloud.
Now, take into consideration that primetime radio is a lot like primetime television with a scaling ad rate based on what shows are on and when. In the morning's broadcast, during one of the pledge interruptions, OPB said that the three most expensive programs that are syndicated by NPR (costing roughly $1 million per year in broadcasting fees), are the Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and the Weekend Edition slots; which are KBBI's most expensive ad slots. One could surmise that the advertising model is about the same from one public radio station to the next. It's a model that works, why fix it?
Anyhow. Ad slots for the aformentioned slots range from $20 to $35 per mention. There are only a couple slots where advertising is not allowed: BBC World Service and PRI's The World.
Related:
OPB Media Kit
OPB Auditor Report 2010-2009
KBBI Alaska Public Radio
Art takes a Street View
Google launched a new powered by site called Art Project, and while many of you who don't get out to museums that often or never, it is not that good of a substitution for actually going out and visiting a museum. Alas, I am just a bit disappointed in how Google launched this new service. Most museum websites do a better job displaying their galleries online than the gimmicky view offered by Art Project. What appalls me the most is the lack of copyright watermarks on all the photos. In the site's privacy policy there is a statement about use of the imagery, but who is really going to take the time to read the mice type?
Having seen the following museums in person...
Archaeological Museum at Olympia (Greece)
Art Institute of Chicago
J. Paul Getty Museum
Japanese American Art Museum (Los Angeles)
Los Angeles Metropolitan Museum of Art
Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles)
National Gallery of Art
Norton Simon Museum
Portland Art Museum
Seattle Art Institute
Shanghai Museum (China)
Smithsonian Institution
Topkapi Palace Museum (Turkey)
...and many others
I am not impressed by this horrendous stab at art appreciation by Google.
If Google really wanted to help museums attract more business and on-site foot traffic, they could have launched it as a new web-hosting service (with free, limited time public viewing) for current and archived museum gallery pieces. I don't know what this is. Flickr for museums?
There is a certain awesomeness when you stand in a gallery filled with the works by Monet, van Gogh, Seurat, Renoir, or Degas. Is it the smell of the paint? The creak of the gallery floor? The quiet murmurings of other museum patrons? The stillness that evokes the imagination when viewing art?
To me, Google Art Project is just another thematic image-hosting site.
Having seen the following museums in person...
Archaeological Museum at Olympia (Greece)
Art Institute of Chicago
J. Paul Getty Museum
Japanese American Art Museum (Los Angeles)
Los Angeles Metropolitan Museum of Art
Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles)
National Gallery of Art
Norton Simon Museum
Portland Art Museum
Seattle Art Institute
Shanghai Museum (China)
Smithsonian Institution
Topkapi Palace Museum (Turkey)
...and many others
I am not impressed by this horrendous stab at art appreciation by Google.
If Google really wanted to help museums attract more business and on-site foot traffic, they could have launched it as a new web-hosting service (with free, limited time public viewing) for current and archived museum gallery pieces. I don't know what this is. Flickr for museums?
There is a certain awesomeness when you stand in a gallery filled with the works by Monet, van Gogh, Seurat, Renoir, or Degas. Is it the smell of the paint? The creak of the gallery floor? The quiet murmurings of other museum patrons? The stillness that evokes the imagination when viewing art?
To me, Google Art Project is just another thematic image-hosting site.
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