How to get a ton of hits on your blog...

...Just make a wild rumor about what Google is going to do next.

Interesting how powerful the blogoshere is if you say something people want to listen to.

But did I offend my core audience? My Bloglines subscribers dropped by 17 overnight. Or was it the last post with all the goofy formatting that annoyed people? My 15 minutes of fame and I am already feeling insecure.

An odd directory service for electronics

This email was just strange, so I thought I would share it. Apparently he thinks that he can sell a web directory service because when you search for a certain term plus 'TDE', his site comes up tops. Here it is (and isn't it ugly?):

Type the Prefix: TDE - Expanded to 375,000 Keywords and growing daily

ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY EXCLUSIVE

Get 100% Accuracy, Details, Phone, Fax, E-mail, RFQ links

nothing to buy . . . just type the prefix: TDE at all popular search engines

and enter TDE sites on engine's 1st page. They all begin with www...

Works with Google / Yahoo / MSN / AOL / Alta Vista / Netscape / Etc.
Prefix TDE Click on Keywords below to see!
---------------

Searching for DC and getting a comic book company and a capital city?

Type tde DC - See the TDE site: ww.DC-DCsources.com -
1st page
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Tired of searching for placers and getting employment agencies?

Type tde placers - See the TDE site: ww.PickAndPlaceSMT.com -
1st page
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Tired of searching for cable and getting a page full of TV stations?

Type tde cable - see the TDE site: ww.WireAndCableSources.com -
1st page
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Tired of searching for a case and getting a page of law suits?

Type tde case - See the TDE site: ww.CarryingCaseSources.com -
1st page
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Tired of searching for transformers and getting a page full of toy companies?

Type tde transformers - see the TDE site: ww.TransformerSources.com -
1st page

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Tired of searching for representatives and getting a page full of politians?

Type tde representatives - the TDE site: ww.ElectronicsIndustryReps.com -
1st pg
-----------------

Tired of searching for brokers and getting a page full of stock brokers?

Type tde brokers - See the TDE site: ww.ComponentBrokers.com -
1st page
---------------

Join the TDE here

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I know what Google's going to do next!

I've seen serious traffic on my church's website this month from Googlebots. Last year I added a Calendar to the site using the ical standard, and now the Googlebots are pinging the heck out of the php pages rendering the calendar. We're talking 90% of the site's accesses have been from Google this month.

My prediction is: Google Labs will be releasing a Google Calendar tool soon. You heard it here first.

The fact they are attracted to the ical standard is cool...maybe it can take off with their support.

UPDATE (2/24): Since there seems to be so many folks linking and reading this post, let me add a couple bits:

1. My guess is that Google Calendar would be a search tool, not a calendar application.
2. If you are interested in a cool calendar tool, check out Mozilla's Sunbird which can be rendered on the web using SourceForge's PHP based Calendar.
3. This is just a guess based on traffic on one site. Even if they are working on it, it may never get out of the lab.
4. Here's the stats I based my prediction on:

#	Hits		Files		KBytes		Visits		Hostname
1	19449	50.54%	19449	51.27%	437655	37.09%	0	0.00%	66.249.65.145
2	10903	28.33%	10903	28.74%	358780	30.40%	0	0.00%	66.249.65.244
3	3031	7.88%	3031	7.99%	167304	14.18%	0	0.00%	66.249.66.97
4	768	2.00%	768	2.02%	31179	2.64%	0	0.00%	66.249.66.239
5	408	1.06%	357	0.94%	4563	0.39%	40	11.90%	65.54.188.90
6	304	0.79%	304	0.80%	16402	1.39%	0	0.00%	66.249.65.205
7	277	0.72%	277	0.73%	10348	0.88%	0	0.00%	66.249.65.49

All those 66.249.* IPs belong to GoogleBot.

Dave sticks his neck out

I've signed on for trials of two industrial directory services this week, Kelly Search and Direct Industry. Here is a little bit about each:

Kelly Search is the English equivalent of Thomas Register/Net, but they are pushing for global coverage on the Internet. Publisher Reed Elsevier owns Kelly and is using its publications, like Test and Measurement World, to reach engineers and marketers like me. I have looked at Kelly before and noted they have a ton of categories. A $300 trial for three months gets me top-level listing and a banner. What they do differently is rotate positions of top-level (sponsored) listings, rather than have you bid for position. A local salesperson visited, which I found surprising... indicating to me serious commitment and high margins.

Direct Industry is also a global concern...the salesperson who called me was from France. Their service is more labor intensive, as they want to publish pictures and basic product descriptions, as well as press releases. They already had us listed and pictures swiped from our website. One advantage for global sales is that they support five different languages. The salesperson offered a three-month trial at no charge.

These guys won by offering trials. But I've been at this a while and will be watching to see what they deliver. The marketplace for such industrial directories has too many players, in my opinion, and without a clear, dominant leader, Google will still trump them all.

Trade pub newsletter goes RSS

Maybe I've missed this at the bottom of my email newsletters from Test & Measurement World:

Through our new RSS feed, Test & Measurement World will deliver headlines to your desktop as soon as we post stories on our Web site. You select the subject area that interests you, and we do the rest. Test & Measurement World Online Learn_RSS

Reed Electronics, T&MW's parent, has a couple other pubs with RSS feeds for their news. We've heard a lot about how RSS can save the email newsletter (Here is a testimonial on RSS from Greedy Girl), now RSS has arrived in the industrial b2b world! I've made my company's "what's new" page over using Blogger/RSS, too. Another RSS feed that I become the first Bloglines subscriber to.

Don't act smart, don't be dumb

Got an email with a problem, got an email with a solution.

Problem: Go Daddy, the Super Bowl also-ran, sends me a Valentine E-card. A foofy one with roses and script writing. My own wife didn't even send me an e-card. So what's the point? And why doesn't this match their Super Bowl ad? A valentine with a bimbo would have at least been consistant and interesting. (FWIW: Most of Go Daddy's other emails come in as spam due to pushy marketing content.)

Solution: From Justin Hitt, who talks about making communications profitable in his latest newsletter:

No matter what anyone else will tell you: there are three and only three reasons to communicate with a customer. These reasons are more important than anything you've been taught about business communications.

The THREE reasons are:

• To extend mutual benefit,
• To increase value received,
• To process a transaction,

...WARNING: Don't communicate with customers to impress them, talk about yourself, to tell them what to buy, to put down a competitor, demonstrate your graphic skills, to satisfy your managers, or even to develop your brand.

Interesting that I think Go Daddy sent the e-card to do everything in the warning message.

Get your weather report in RSS feeds

Like most people, I've found using RSS feeds to keep track of blogs and newsy sites. But how about the weather? I've found it really handy. You can't get it from weather.com...but you can from the alternative Weather Underground (wunderground.com). Find your city and get your feed. A very cool drop-down menu to add to your feed tool, too.

Trade show hotel reservations

One of the biggest hassles with going to a trade show is getting rooms booked. The show wants you to book rooms through them...but why? In a pre-internet world, this may have made sense, but today I doubt it. I found this explanation when looking for rooms to the OFC show in Anaheim:

"Avoid future registration and exhibit pricing increases, read below to better understand why booking within the OFC/NFOEC Housing Service is so important!...It has been the customary practice of the events industry in the United States to secure a block of hotels rooms for the use of attendees to their events...." Hotel Reservations

The above statement (prepared by convention trade group) goes on to blame online services for eroding room bookings through the show. Well, duh. Things that were "customary" ten years ago may not pass muster anymore.

I checked available hotels and they offered top-tier hotels near the convention center from $144 to 175 a night. I've booked at the Days Inn a block away for $59 on my own. It appears they have reduced the number of hotels they contract with, as I think the Days Inn used to be a choice. And it looks like they have also eliminated shuttle busses to the show, which will be a surprise to a lot of folks. (Personally, I don't mind a little walk in the beautiful California weather.)

Tis the season...for solicitations for trade show services

We've got four trade shows coming up in the next two months, which is nearly all our shows for the year. These are big shows at big venues like Cobo Hall and Anaheim Convention Center. We've got 10' and 20' inline booths, nothing fancy.

But boy do we get solicitations for services like: plasma screen rental, shipping, and booth rental. Clogs up the fax and email. I guess there is a certain percentage that needs these things and they are clueless enough to need to be bugged. Besides, everyone knows that you are supposed to buy the Plasma screen with a company credit card, then take it home after the show ;)

A story: Last week I got a call from the senior VP of one show's Daily News--you know, the kind you find outside your hotel door every day of the show. Gotta close the books, he says, $1,500 gets full page ad in three issues plus 500 word article. Wow, almost too good to be true, send me some more info, I ask.

He calls back to discuss the offer with me and I put him off for a day. I miss his call back and actually feel compelled to call back--to tell him no thanks. I call back (pull up his email with his phone #, not the # on the voice-mail) and get a receptionist who says he is almost never at this number. Really, I think, why would he list it on his email? She said she would have him call me back.

Ten minutes later I get a call from different guy from a similarly sounding Daily News saying "A little bird told me you might be in the market for advertising at the show". He's asking for 3,500 for a half page ad. When I ask, he says he is different than the other publication. Sorry, no thanks, I bail. No call back from my buddy the VP, either.

While neither is the 'official' daily, hearing there are two certainly makes me question the validity of both. Of course, the shady dealings themselves are enough of a red flag. Glad my instinct was to say no to these clowns.

Firefox watch at my industrial/B2B site

Here are the stats for January at my company's website (using FastStats):

Internet Explorer 6: 81%
Internet Explorer 5: 8%
Firefox: 7.7%

If you haven't checked your site in Firefox yet...you better. The borders of the tables in mine look different and the font-size is smaller, but everything else seems to work. (A couple months ago, you may recall, I had to fix the guestbook form to work in Firefox.)

Five steps to a better impression

We've all learned that first impressions are important, but its not all its cracked up to be. Jim Berkowitz's CRM Mastery E-Journal links to a report on a scientific study that distills the following truths (my summary):

1. Finish strong--the last impression is strongest.
2. Get the bad experiences out of the way early--See #1.
3. Combine the pain, segment the pleasure--the number of experiences is more memorable than the size/importance of a single interaction.
4. Build commitment through choice--Let them feel in control.
5. Give people rituals and stick to them--Be predictable.

This is supposed to apply to customer service, but you could apply these rules to any number of relationship scenarios...even blogging.