I discovered a fun site called UtahBizTube.com which hosts YouTube style videos from Utah. The site allows videographers and production studios from the area to upload their work.
The site is focusing on creating business and product profiles for Utab businesses. They have a few personal videos in the mix.
UtahBizTube is the type of site that can truly ignite the local design community as it provides both an opportunity for the local design community to show their works and for businesses to introduce their wares. I am hoping that this business proves a success.
Needless to say, I will be taking full advantage of this site and have taken to posting their videos on the sites in the CommunityColor.com family. I made a page to index the videos as I embed them in my site.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
On Being a Twit
I just opened a new twitter account with the name CommunityColor. This twitter account is for the CommunityColor family of sites. I will use this account to promote things in the communities served by CommunityColor directories (Colorado, Utah and Western Montana).
I have personal twitter account (yintercept) that I started a few years back. I was using the account to follow local sites.
Well, during the current health care debate, I thought I would take a stab at promoting an idea called a Medical Savings and Loan. This reform adds a guaranteed loan to a Medical Savings Account. The guaranteed loan makes the system a viable option for lower income folks.
Replacing health insurance programs with a Medical Savings and Loan would give people equity in their health care. This would eliminate the problem that occurs when people change jobs.
If one defines "progressive" as something that creates big benefits for lower and middle class workers, the Medical Savings and Loan is the most progressive form of medical reform.
I started using my personal account to promote this idea.
My observation is that engaging in national debates detracts from my efforts to promote local communities. Having two accounts will help me keep a separation of these two efforts.
NOTE, I will be going through my following and followers list and refollowing people with the new account.
I have personal twitter account (yintercept) that I started a few years back. I was using the account to follow local sites.
Well, during the current health care debate, I thought I would take a stab at promoting an idea called a Medical Savings and Loan. This reform adds a guaranteed loan to a Medical Savings Account. The guaranteed loan makes the system a viable option for lower income folks.
Replacing health insurance programs with a Medical Savings and Loan would give people equity in their health care. This would eliminate the problem that occurs when people change jobs.
If one defines "progressive" as something that creates big benefits for lower and middle class workers, the Medical Savings and Loan is the most progressive form of medical reform.
I started using my personal account to promote this idea.
My observation is that engaging in national debates detracts from my efforts to promote local communities. Having two accounts will help me keep a separation of these two efforts.
NOTE, I will be going through my following and followers list and refollowing people with the new account.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
New Domain -- MS&L
There is a new site in the CommunityColor.com family of sites. The domain is www.MedicalSavingsAndLoan.com. This site introduces an exciting approach to free market health care reform called The Medical Savings and Loan (more).
A medical savings and loan adds a guaranteed interest free loan to a medical savings account.
An interest free loan you ask? How can a company provide an interest free loan?
The answer is simple. In a standard loan, one charges the premium for the loan in the form of interest. This does not work in the case of medical loans as injury and illness reduce the capacity to pay back the loan.
Rather than charging the premium on the loan, the system charges a premium to access a guaranteed interest free loan.
I opened a disqus thread on the topic. If you would like to comment please use that thread as it will be more robust.
A medical savings and loan adds a guaranteed interest free loan to a medical savings account.
An interest free loan you ask? How can a company provide an interest free loan?
The answer is simple. In a standard loan, one charges the premium for the loan in the form of interest. This does not work in the case of medical loans as injury and illness reduce the capacity to pay back the loan.
Rather than charging the premium on the loan, the system charges a premium to access a guaranteed interest free loan.
I opened a disqus thread on the topic. If you would like to comment please use that thread as it will be more robust.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Finding Local Sites on Twitter
The Community Color directories had reaced a plateau as I was finding it increasingly difficult to find new local sites.
I am simply amazed at the number of small local stores that forget the most important detail that needs to be conveyed in their web site: Their Location! The thing that I find rediculus is the online merchant who puts privacy contols on their DNS record.
Anyway, I started trolling through Twitter. As a fair number of twitters include their city and state in their profile, I've been able to find dozens of new sites to the local directories.
When I started trolling twitter, my knee jerk reaction was to check out people's "following" list. I realized that I would find more interesting sites by following people's "followers" list.
My guess is that if a person wanted to build a huge twitter following, one would troll the followers list. Based on the premise that followers are more likely to reciprocate a following, I assume a person wanting to build a following would have better luck following the followers to following those with a large following.
Ofcourse, I am not sure if there is any value in having a following list of thousands as it would make the list unreadable.
BTW, I started Twitter in March 2007. I have 91 followers. It is strange, I have almost zero desire to invest effort in building a following.
I like that I can find local sites for my directories. So, I will be hitting Twitter with a vengeance until I stop finding interesting local sites.
I am simply amazed at the number of small local stores that forget the most important detail that needs to be conveyed in their web site: Their Location! The thing that I find rediculus is the online merchant who puts privacy contols on their DNS record.
Anyway, I started trolling through Twitter. As a fair number of twitters include their city and state in their profile, I've been able to find dozens of new sites to the local directories.
When I started trolling twitter, my knee jerk reaction was to check out people's "following" list. I realized that I would find more interesting sites by following people's "followers" list.
My guess is that if a person wanted to build a huge twitter following, one would troll the followers list. Based on the premise that followers are more likely to reciprocate a following, I assume a person wanting to build a following would have better luck following the followers to following those with a large following.
Ofcourse, I am not sure if there is any value in having a following list of thousands as it would make the list unreadable.
BTW, I started Twitter in March 2007. I have 91 followers. It is strange, I have almost zero desire to invest effort in building a following.
I like that I can find local sites for my directories. So, I will be hitting Twitter with a vengeance until I stop finding interesting local sites.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Recession Taking It's Toll
Tallying up the Q2 2009. The take for Q2 had fallen from $1,463 to $766. That is is fell from about a quarter of a minimum wage job to about an eigth of a minimum wage job. Costs are about $300 a quarter. So really the take is about a 1/16th of a minimum wage job.
The lack of a funding source has kept me from adding features.
To make matters worse, many of the links in the directory have gone dark and the directories are showing signs of excessive link rot.
The lack of a funding source has kept me from adding features.
To make matters worse, many of the links in the directory have gone dark and the directories are showing signs of excessive link rot.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Protophoto Blog
There is a small number of nice photos in the ProtoPhoto.com web site. The goal of ProtoPhoto was simply to create a browsable structure of photos of town. I was concentrating on showing what a town looked like ... opposed to the idea of showing what a deep and artistic person I am.I decided to add a blog to the site. The blog would show pictures which I like. The goal is to show one photo a day. This way the site will have regularly changing quality content.
The photos will drive traffic into the Community Color directories. For that matter, it turns out that most of the traffic in the Community Color family of sites comes from the photo site.
The first picture is of the columbine pictured to the right.
Monday, June 08, 2009
My Account Update
I've updated the "My Account" page on the Community Color web sites. There is a myAccount.html page on each of the community directories, e.g. gjct.com/myAccount.html. The page is the same for all of the communities as the community sites are really nothing more than different entry points into the same program.
The my account page now lists all of the user's links on the many account page. I've also added some advanced features for super users.
I removed a few broken links from the myAccount page.
I apologize for leaving the broken links up for so long.
The my account page now lists all of the user's links on the many account page. I've also added some advanced features for super users.
I removed a few broken links from the myAccount page.
I apologize for leaving the broken links up for so long.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Deleting Photos
I finally got around to adding a "delete" button to the photo gallery on ProtoPhoto.com. Many of the photos were taken with a circa 1999 camera that had a maximum display size of 640px. I decided to move up to a standard picture size of 1024px for all new photos.
The delete button will help me clean up lower resolution photos and those with broken links.
My goal is to replace all of the photos that are easy to replace. My first camera had a maximum display size of 300MB. With my second camera, I was taking pictures at a 2MB size. Now, I am up to 6MB size.
I've been thinking about adding a new site where I sell the 6MB pictures as Stock Photography. I am still looking into all the legal ramifications of stock.
I had hesitated to create a delete button in the past because the pages were indexed in Google. To reduce problems with broken links in search engines, the delete button simply replaces the photo page with a URL forward command and marks the picture file for deletion at a later date.
The delete button will help me clean up lower resolution photos and those with broken links.
My goal is to replace all of the photos that are easy to replace. My first camera had a maximum display size of 300MB. With my second camera, I was taking pictures at a 2MB size. Now, I am up to 6MB size.
I've been thinking about adding a new site where I sell the 6MB pictures as Stock Photography. I am still looking into all the legal ramifications of stock.
I had hesitated to create a delete button in the past because the pages were indexed in Google. To reduce problems with broken links in search engines, the delete button simply replaces the photo page with a URL forward command and marks the picture file for deletion at a later date.
Monday, April 06, 2009
New Index Page
One problem with the current design of the community color directories is that they concentrate the traffic in the top tiers of the directoris. So, you will see more traffic on the music page than the bands page.
For this reason. I decided to experiment with a new index page that diverts more traffic to the third tiered categories in the directories. So the index page for missoula now lists randomly selected categories, while the dir.html page still just shows the top level of the directory.
The other advantage of this design is that it will allow me to develop the sites as something other than just a directory.
So far I've changed Missoula, provo and Denver.
For this reason. I decided to experiment with a new index page that diverts more traffic to the third tiered categories in the directories. So the index page for missoula now lists randomly selected categories, while the dir.html page still just shows the top level of the directory.
The other advantage of this design is that it will allow me to develop the sites as something other than just a directory.
So far I've changed Missoula, provo and Denver.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Prev, Next ... Cool
I spent the day adding Pevious / Next buttons to the cool site features of the CommunityColor.com directories. The buttons just use the characters <== and ==> in the title. Some one wanting to see all the reviews can easily click through the pages.
This review feature started as an afterthought. I wanted some way to give an extra link to notable sites. The reviews were an ugly block of text with a link. While reading all of the negative political blogs, I decided to morph the reviews into more of a blog about the local web community. So, I started putting stock photos on the reviews and what not.
The page for the Boulder Youth Symphony shows the direction I am currently headed. It has a picture of violin, a dark background and just looks a littler nicer. If you follow the arrows back in time, you will find the older reviews are just shabby text pages.
I also just figured out how to get CSS positioning to work. I had been putting the credit for Microstock photos under the picture. In other cases I made the whole picture hot with a link to the credit. With CSS positioning, I can put the credits in the lower left hand corner of the picture.
The picture on this post has a hot link going to the International links. There is a link on the lower part of the image that goes to the image credits.
The previous/next buttons make the site reviews a bit more blog-like as it is now possible to navigate through all of the reviews just by clicking the arrows.
This review feature started as an afterthought. I wanted some way to give an extra link to notable sites. The reviews were an ugly block of text with a link. While reading all of the negative political blogs, I decided to morph the reviews into more of a blog about the local web community. So, I started putting stock photos on the reviews and what not.
The page for the Boulder Youth Symphony shows the direction I am currently headed. It has a picture of violin, a dark background and just looks a littler nicer. If you follow the arrows back in time, you will find the older reviews are just shabby text pages.
I also just figured out how to get CSS positioning to work. I had been putting the credit for Microstock photos under the picture. In other cases I made the whole picture hot with a link to the credit. With CSS positioning, I can put the credits in the lower left hand corner of the picture.
The picture on this post has a hot link going to the International links. There is a link on the lower part of the image that goes to the image credits.
The previous/next buttons make the site reviews a bit more blog-like as it is now possible to navigate through all of the reviews just by clicking the arrows.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Dex Now Knows More
This little project took about 12 hours.
I put a DexKnows.com ad at the bottom of the Community Color web sites. The goal of my site is to list all of the web sites from towns. DexKnows lists businesses.
There is a nice symbiotic relation here. If you can find a local web site, perhaps you can still find what you are looking for in the yellow pages.
DexKnows.com just did a major upgrade of their site, which required that I change all of the links on my site.
To add functionality, I spent the day matching all of my categories to the DexKnow keywords. The DexKnows.com box is now prepopulated with both the town name and the DexKnows search term that best matches my category name.
If you choose a page in the directory (say Moab Art). The DexKnows Box at the bottom of the page is populated with the keyword "artists" and the town name Moab. Simply clicking the DexKnows.com logo in the box will execute the search.
If you went to Boulder Cycling you will find the box prepoplated with the term "bicycling" and Boulder, Co for the town.
It took about 18 hours to match the category and keywords. Hopefully this little bit of functionality will improve the directory experience. If not, I killed two days for nothing.
Being a good programmer, I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to roll out the change into production.
I put a DexKnows.com ad at the bottom of the Community Color web sites. The goal of my site is to list all of the web sites from towns. DexKnows lists businesses.
There is a nice symbiotic relation here. If you can find a local web site, perhaps you can still find what you are looking for in the yellow pages.
DexKnows.com just did a major upgrade of their site, which required that I change all of the links on my site.
To add functionality, I spent the day matching all of my categories to the DexKnow keywords. The DexKnows.com box is now prepopulated with both the town name and the DexKnows search term that best matches my category name.
If you choose a page in the directory (say Moab Art). The DexKnows Box at the bottom of the page is populated with the keyword "artists" and the town name Moab. Simply clicking the DexKnows.com logo in the box will execute the search.
If you went to Boulder Cycling you will find the box prepoplated with the term "bicycling" and Boulder, Co for the town.
It took about 18 hours to match the category and keywords. Hopefully this little bit of functionality will improve the directory experience. If not, I killed two days for nothing.
Being a good programmer, I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to roll out the change into production.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Widget Dex
In internet lingo, a widget is a small piece of code hosted by one web site made available for display on other web sites. YouTube videos are a great example of such a widget. Anyone can grab the object code for a video and paste on their blog.My first experiment with widgets was a total disaster. The widgets were a bait and switch. I put the widgets on my site. One day I fould my web site was spewing forth popups and other internet nasties. Really evil people made fun widgets, then had them install browser helper objects or parasiteware.
Because of this, I wrote off widgets for a half decade.
This last year, I started playing with widgets again.
Yesterday, I was thinking about ways to improve my sites. I decided to dramatically increase the number of widgets on display. My hope is to create a index of widgets from the area served by Community Color (the mountain west).
To keep track of the widgets, I made a little widget index program. This will help me track down and remove widgets if the widget host turns to the dark side of the net. The summary report shows widgets by community. It will take me awhile to find them all.
Anyway, if you are from the Mountain West and have a youtube video or other widget that you would like me to list; please reply to this post or send me the link with my contact form.
Creating widget is a great way to build web traffic.
When building widgets, please don't become evil. There is enough evil in the world.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Blogger Features
I was playing with bloger features today. On the settings page, there is an Import/Export feature that allows people to back up their site. I am not sure when that appreared. I looked for such a feature in the past and did not find one.
The layout manager has a feature for adding RSS feeds in the side bar. Not knowing which community site to favor, I added the feed for the main CommunityColor.com site.
If only I could coax a few people into adding the feed for their town on their blog; it might be enough to salvage the community directory project.
Adding the feed is simple. One simply selects the RSS Feed gadget in the blogger layout manager. The wizard asks for the address of the feed. If you wanted to add the Boulder feed to your site, you would use the site URL followed by "/rss.php" as follows:
http://BoulderColor.com/rss.php
The Provo Link would be:
http://provoutah.us/rss.php
etc..
The RSS feeds simply highlight a site from a given town each week. The goal is to create community awareness. The selection of sites is basically random. If there was someone who was eager to promote businesses in their town, I would be happy to set them up so that they got to choose the reviews.
After adding the RSS feed to this site, I decided to shorten the titles of the feed items.
The layout manager has a feature for adding RSS feeds in the side bar. Not knowing which community site to favor, I added the feed for the main CommunityColor.com site.
If only I could coax a few people into adding the feed for their town on their blog; it might be enough to salvage the community directory project.
Adding the feed is simple. One simply selects the RSS Feed gadget in the blogger layout manager. The wizard asks for the address of the feed. If you wanted to add the Boulder feed to your site, you would use the site URL followed by "/rss.php" as follows:
http://BoulderColor.com/rss.php
The Provo Link would be:
http://provoutah.us/rss.php
etc..
The RSS feeds simply highlight a site from a given town each week. The goal is to create community awareness. The selection of sites is basically random. If there was someone who was eager to promote businesses in their town, I would be happy to set them up so that they got to choose the reviews.
After adding the RSS feed to this site, I decided to shorten the titles of the feed items.
Friday, January 02, 2009
Re-inforcing Pages with Microstock
One interesting use of MicroStock is add images to older web pages that are central to your site or your site's message.
For example, the Community Color blog index is important to my work building community directories. So, today I spent a Microstock credit and slapped an image to the page. All of the different programs that crawl the web will note the addition of content.
After adding the image, I used the LinksAlive Microstock crediting program. The image on the page links to a page with the graphic design credit and back to the index.
With this trick of re-inforcing content, I am now tempted to go back through my blog and add relevant stock images to pages of import. Assuming, I can find some.
For example, the Community Color blog index is important to my work building community directories. So, today I spent a Microstock credit and slapped an image to the page. All of the different programs that crawl the web will note the addition of content.
After adding the image, I used the LinksAlive Microstock crediting program. The image on the page links to a page with the graphic design credit and back to the index.
With this trick of re-inforcing content, I am now tempted to go back through my blog and add relevant stock images to pages of import. Assuming, I can find some.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
MicroStocking Up for a Graphic New Year
I will be adding tools to improve the profile features on CommunityColor.
I just added a feature for crediting Microstock Photograph. This very simple tool lets you record the information needed to credit the graphic designer of stock photos. You then link to a page with artist credits. The credit page has a link to the artist and one back to your project.
Crediting the source of Microstock images is good netiquette. I wrote more on the
y-intercept blog.
Note, I grabbed the following photo from fotolia. Clicking the image goes to a page crediting the photographer. The page has a link back here. So, by being good netizen, I end up with a link back to my blog post.
I just added a feature for crediting Microstock Photograph. This very simple tool lets you record the information needed to credit the graphic designer of stock photos. You then link to a page with artist credits. The credit page has a link to the artist and one back to your project.
Crediting the source of Microstock images is good netiquette. I wrote more on the
y-intercept blog.
Note, I grabbed the following photo from fotolia. Clicking the image goes to a page crediting the photographer. The page has a link back here. So, by being good netizen, I end up with a link back to my blog post.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Site of the Week Updates
I've been working feverishly to get a Site of the Week review up for all of community directories in the Community Color family. I am doing this because I want to have an RSS Feed with regularly changing content for every site in the program.
The script rss.php produces the feeds. So the RSS feed for Boulder Color would be BoulderColor.com/rss.php. The feed for Park City is pcut.net/rss.php. I stagger the site reviews throughout the week. Provo's review appears on Sunday. Colorado Spring's on Monday, Fort Collins' on Tuesday ...
The page KewlHist provides lists the review along with the review day. The summary shows that there are 2,848 reviews in the system. The program has had a little over a million hits. (That is 361 hits per review).
My hope, of course, is that, as the program grows, people will subscribe to the feed for the local community and the program will provide a little trickle of traffic to small local web sites.
The goal of the program is to provide a random cross section of web sites. The program was not intended as an award. The program might best be described as a blog about web sites from a community. The blog has one or more posts per week.
When you look at the RSS feeds, you will see there are entries titled "Site of the Week." Others have the title "Site Review". The "Site Reviews" usually contain additional resources about a site. For example, for band, I might have a link to a YouTube video, their myspace page or to the iTunes section for their band. For authors, the review will contain links to their books at online bookstores. In some cases, I put links to coupons published by stores or widgets. The official site of the week review will always be noncommerical. The "Site Reviews" will contain a mix of commercial and noncommercial resources related to the site.
The script rss.php produces the feeds. So the RSS feed for Boulder Color would be BoulderColor.com/rss.php. The feed for Park City is pcut.net/rss.php. I stagger the site reviews throughout the week. Provo's review appears on Sunday. Colorado Spring's on Monday, Fort Collins' on Tuesday ...
The page KewlHist provides lists the review along with the review day. The summary shows that there are 2,848 reviews in the system. The program has had a little over a million hits. (That is 361 hits per review).
My hope, of course, is that, as the program grows, people will subscribe to the feed for the local community and the program will provide a little trickle of traffic to small local web sites.
The goal of the program is to provide a random cross section of web sites. The program was not intended as an award. The program might best be described as a blog about web sites from a community. The blog has one or more posts per week.
When you look at the RSS feeds, you will see there are entries titled "Site of the Week." Others have the title "Site Review". The "Site Reviews" usually contain additional resources about a site. For example, for band, I might have a link to a YouTube video, their myspace page or to the iTunes section for their band. For authors, the review will contain links to their books at online bookstores. In some cases, I put links to coupons published by stores or widgets. The official site of the week review will always be noncommerical. The "Site Reviews" will contain a mix of commercial and noncommercial resources related to the site.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
RSS Feeds
The goal of the Community Color program is to encourge people to browse through local web sites. The sites target the mountain west (where I live). The programs include a site of the day feature. The selected sites are pretty much random. It favors charity and arts sites.
I decided to break down and make RSS feeds for the reviews.
The feed lists the last 30 SoDs with the most recent at the top. If people subscribe to the feed, then they their feed reader show a local site a day. The towns with RSS feeds that get updated regularly are:
I admit, I was hesitant in adding an RSS feed because the SoD program is not about the content of the review. The goal of the program was to encourage people to explore random local web sites. The review itself is just filler with an ad on top.
In recent months, I've been using the review to put in widgets from or related to a web site. For example, if a web site has a YouTube video, the review will contain tha video.
The next step in my RSS project is figuring out how to syndicate the reviews. Comments welcome.
I decided to break down and make RSS feeds for the reviews.
The feed lists the last 30 SoDs with the most recent at the top. If people subscribe to the feed, then they their feed reader show a local site a day. The towns with RSS feeds that get updated regularly are:
I admit, I was hesitant in adding an RSS feed because the SoD program is not about the content of the review. The goal of the program was to encourage people to explore random local web sites. The review itself is just filler with an ad on top.
In recent months, I've been using the review to put in widgets from or related to a web site. For example, if a web site has a YouTube video, the review will contain tha video.
The next step in my RSS project is figuring out how to syndicate the reviews. Comments welcome.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
AOL Demonstrates Worst Form
I can't believe this. Apparently AOL shut down their hometown program. If you had a web page with the program you get a sorry, you're hosed page. All of the links and work you did are now gone.
I can see closing down a program.
The polite thing is to give participants in the program a URL forward option. URL forwards aren't resource intensive and can help people salvage their web building efforts.
Fortunately, I did not lose a site resulting from AOL's actions. I large number of links to AOL which are now broken. I guess I have to delete them all.
This tears my heart apart as many artists, authors and crafts people were using the AOL service.
If you had an AOL listing on the CommunityColor.com directories, you will need to add them back to the service.
I can see closing down a program.
The polite thing is to give participants in the program a URL forward option. URL forwards aren't resource intensive and can help people salvage their web building efforts.
Fortunately, I did not lose a site resulting from AOL's actions. I large number of links to AOL which are now broken. I guess I have to delete them all.
This tears my heart apart as many artists, authors and crafts people were using the AOL service.
If you had an AOL listing on the CommunityColor.com directories, you will need to add them back to the service.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Contact Information
Perhaps the most surprising thing I've come across in building the CommunityColor family of web sites is the large number of business web sites that hide all of their contact information.
The phenomena is especially strange for inherently local business. If you are a wedding photographer; the first question on a potential customer's mind is your location. Location is the primary concern for people looking for photographers, restaurants, kennels, hotels and the many other services which revolve around location.
I had perplexing conversations with a real estate agents who was paying out big time for unqualified leads in places where he could not practice while losing all the free leads that he would have received if he simply put contact information on his web site.
I can see why bloggers, artists and political pundits might want to hide their contact information. I think it is a grave mistake for businesses and people selling online to exclude information.
I love buying from small internet shops; However, I will not purchase from sites that don't have clear contact information. Before buying online, I check the DNS entry for your site, along with RipOffReport or other services to make sure you are legit.
If you have a web site about a business, I strongly suggest that you update the information on aboutus.org, keep accurate contact information on Alexa.com and make your domain registration public.
Unfortunately, spammers troll contact databases. In making contact information public, you should be careful to protect your primary email addresses. One suggestion is to create a throw away email address for your domain registry. For example, you might use "spam@domain.com."
The phenomena is especially strange for inherently local business. If you are a wedding photographer; the first question on a potential customer's mind is your location. Location is the primary concern for people looking for photographers, restaurants, kennels, hotels and the many other services which revolve around location.
I had perplexing conversations with a real estate agents who was paying out big time for unqualified leads in places where he could not practice while losing all the free leads that he would have received if he simply put contact information on his web site.
I can see why bloggers, artists and political pundits might want to hide their contact information. I think it is a grave mistake for businesses and people selling online to exclude information.
I love buying from small internet shops; However, I will not purchase from sites that don't have clear contact information. Before buying online, I check the DNS entry for your site, along with RipOffReport or other services to make sure you are legit.
If you have a web site about a business, I strongly suggest that you update the information on aboutus.org, keep accurate contact information on Alexa.com and make your domain registration public.
Unfortunately, spammers troll contact databases. In making contact information public, you should be careful to protect your primary email addresses. One suggestion is to create a throw away email address for your domain registry. For example, you might use "spam@domain.com."
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Five Million Hits
According to my handy little hit counter, the directory page of the Community Color family of directories is just about to trip 5 million page views. The most popular sites are SLSites.com, which had 2M hits, Provo Utah dot US, which is up around 500k, followed by Denver Color and gjct.com which have 300k hits.
NOTE: The hit counter is low. For example, the counter is attached to the page; so, when I delete a page, the hits go away. The counter only counts hits on the dir.html page. The calendars, review pages and photo directory get tons of hits.
There are currently 18109 web sites listed in the directory. That is an average of 276 hits per listing. I've placed a number of test links in the directory. Sites in the directory get about 100 hits a year. This depends upon their location in the directory.
Note, I've deleted over 4477 of the entries as web sites go dark. About 20% of the sites added to the directory have gone dark. The turnover of web sites is higher than I had expected.
Ad revenue is currently at the point where I would need 5 million hits a year to provide one minimum wage salary for the year.
NOTE: The hit counter is low. For example, the counter is attached to the page; so, when I delete a page, the hits go away. The counter only counts hits on the dir.html page. The calendars, review pages and photo directory get tons of hits.
There are currently 18109 web sites listed in the directory. That is an average of 276 hits per listing. I've placed a number of test links in the directory. Sites in the directory get about 100 hits a year. This depends upon their location in the directory.
Note, I've deleted over 4477 of the entries as web sites go dark. About 20% of the sites added to the directory have gone dark. The turnover of web sites is higher than I had expected.
Ad revenue is currently at the point where I would need 5 million hits a year to provide one minimum wage salary for the year.
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