Store of the Day Index

I created an index to the store of the day program. I created the Store of the Day as an effort to fund open community calendars (eg, Salt Lake or Denver Color).

Rather than putting a ton of ads on the calendar, I can have automatic links to the Store of the Day. A store of the day feature also lets me have an active rss feed for the directory.

This system does not give me enough money to hire a minimum wage clerk to maintain a calendar, but it pays for hosting. Lets see, there's currently 469 stores in the Store of the Day rotation. The system shows 324,567 page views on this feature since 2004.

At current ad rates, one is lucky to make a dollar per thousand page views. Since these are ultra targetted ads, I am probably making $5 per thousand page views.

An extra index for the feed might increase the traffic.

Sadly, this is the closest I've come to creating a working profit center for a web site.

Photos from America's Past

The Denver Post has a delightful selection of photos from 1939-1949

Crocs with No Socks

Trying to reduce my carbon footprint, I've taken to wearing Crocs with no socks.

The nice thing about Crocs shoes is that they are waterproof and washable. I wash my Crocs in the garden with a hose.

This saves the wear and tear and socks and reduces the number of washing loads by a tiny fraction.

The down side to washing Crocs in the native plant garden is that the Pussytoes now have a wicked case of athletes' foot.

Crocs are made in Boulder. The only real complaint with Crocs is that they don't have wide shoes, so I bought a size too large.

Crocs currently has a stackable coupon: Take 10% off at Crocs.com with code CROSLITE10 now thru end of day Wednesday and nonstackable: Take 20% off at Crocs.com with code SUMMERLUV20 now thru end of day Wednesday.

Twitter Users

NOTE to Twitter users: If you would like a link in the Community Color directories, but don't want the hassle of joining the site, simply follow either of the accounts CommunityColor or yintercept. If there is a relevant website in your profile, I will follow it.

As for the accounts: CommunityColor has updates to the CommunityColor program. yintercept is filled with philosophical musings and Libertarian style rants about national and international politics.

I am only interested in listing local sites:

The goal of Community Color directories is to help promote local web development. These directories are interested in sites from the Mountain West (Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Missoula, Mt)

When a person joins me, I look at their location. If they are from one of the communities served, I then add the link in their profile. I also add links from any of the sites recent posts ... if they are of interest to the community.

Note: I also follow my Twitter DMs. So you can DM me a link. If it is related to the communities served, I will list the site.

If you want a link in the directory, but don't want the hassles of joining the site, just follow me ... yintercept.

Fire Suppression Mishap

My webhost shows the following message:

On Saturday, February 20 2010, at approximately 2:20 p.m. MST during an annual fire system inspection of our data center the fire suppression system was inadvertently triggered and discharged into the data center environment. The discharge of the fire system has affected the hardware and operations of our servers. Not all servers have been affected by the discharge. We are working to restore servers and services as quickly as possible. Due to the nature of this interruption we will be experiencing extended outages.

The Community Color web sites were sparodic during the weekend and went completely dead Sunday night. Hopefully, they will come back to life soon.

IRS Fraud Site

Hmmm, this is odd. While updating my list of tax related web sites, I stumbled on a site called "irs-fraud.com" which invites people to blow the whistle on tax cheats.

Domain Tools tells me that the site is located in the Antigua Tower in Panama, Panama.

That a tax-fraud reporting site is located in an internaional tax haven is itself quite telling.

You can report tax fraud simply by filling out an IRS form. The IRS site says you need to ship the form to Fresno, Ca.

Hmmm, Fresno is about as bad as any third world nation when it comes to online fraud. I decided not to list this site.

I've actually come across quite a few tax related sites with no address and that use a proxy server to protect the site's owners. I would never give my identity to such a site.

Poster Stores

My Stats show the community color web sites pulled in twelve hundred bucks in the fourth quarter of 09. It is up from the previous year. The sites make about the tenth of what I would need to make one minimum wage job.

I did a great deal of work during the year replacing failing online merchants with new merchants.

I decided to concentrate on merchants offering widgets. A widget is a program that updates automatically with current inventory.

For example, I've been working on All Posters stores. I like the AllPosters.com program because the widgets add some content (pictures) with the possibility of making revenue. The Poster Store for Moab shows images of arches ... a visually pleasing subject.

The revenue has been scant. I've earned $15.00 for 1000 clickthrus so far. It takes about 100,000 page views to get 1000 clicks. So far, I've yet to find a niche on the Internet that is not marginal.

Seven Million Hit Mark

The offcials stats page shows the Community Color directory page just passed the seven million hit mark. In actuality, I crossed this line a month ago. The program deletes the stats for a page when I delete the page.

Hitwise, we find Salt Lake City is approaching the 3 million hit mark. Provo is near the three quarter of a million hit mark. The newer Colorado directories are moving along as well. Denver approaches the half million hit mark with both Colorado Springs and Boulder at the 100,000 hit mark.

Internal pages are hopping along. There's been 180,000 views on the venue pages, and 1.5 million hits on the review pages. These figures are low as I delete the hit counters when I delete the pages.

Currently there's 20,000 links in the directory. I have deleted 6,000 old and broken links. About a quarter of the web sites listed have gone dark since starting the directory.

Regulating the Internet

It looks like the heady days of the Internet is coming to an end. The new adminstration plans for regulating the web. The first target of the FTC is "Internet Endorsements."

Apparently, one of the dirty practices of the Internet is that tech firm developing a new product might do something underhanded like give bloggers a beta copy of the product. The blogger will then test the product and write a blog about the test. The blog post might include a link to the manufacturer.

A site writing book reviews might receive a free copy of a book from an author or publisher. The reviewer will read the book and write the review ... benefitting from having a free copy of a book.

Dirty practices, like beta testing products, are done by evil corporations in a concerted effort to build hype for a product.

The new regulatory regime wishes to stop this evil practice by demanding that bloggers clearly state any benefit they might receive for writing a blog post or otherwise listing a link.

The FTC plans to go after corporations engaged in dark practices (like beta testing) and slap them with a hefty $10,000 fine.

According to the FTC, bloggers can be safe if they simply write in each of their blog posts any benefit they receive from the post.

This new regulatory regime makes me sad, as I think bloggers should benefit from their actions. Personally, I never faulted anyone for being paid for their writing.

I have not received any free products for blogging. However, I am engaged in another dark practice of the internet called Affiliate Marketing.

[gasp]

The goal of the Community Color project project is to promote community-centric web development. What I do is list all of the web sites I can find find for a community in the Mountain West. For example, Boulder Color lists web sites and blogs from Boulder, Colorado.

Whenever I find a site with an affiliate program, I join the affiliate program and list the affiliate link. An affiliate program pays commissions on sales.

This evil practice means that there is a possibility of my benefitting from sending traffic to the site. I don't benefit much ... I barely cover the cost of hosting, but it is a benefit, and (if you follow leftist thought) any benefit received for work is evil.

Several of the sites in the Community Color program have a web browsing blog. These programs will periodically highlight a site. The Salt Lake Site has 925 such reviews. About 35 of the sites reviewed have evil affiliate programs.

I always had multiple disclaimers on the site to help people differentiate from affiliate listings and free listings. I spent the day strengthening the disclaimer and thinking dark thoughts about the FTC and the stupidity of their new ruling.

Looking through the book reviews in the newspaper ... they don't say if they received a free copy of the book. The restaurant reviews don't say if the reviewer received a free meal or extra treat for being a reviewer ... when we know perfectly well that companies send free products to media outlets for review.

I have not received any free products for review, but I have purchased CDs and books from other media concerns that did receive free products.

I've watched the video from Mary Engel several times trying to figure out how to stay in compliance with the regulatory regime, and feeling absolutely sick to my stomach that the administrations is going to start going after bloggers for engaging in practices that are common among the newspaper and publishing industry.

Happy Black Friday

I've been working myself ragged tossing up coupons and sale notices for Black Friday. I usually don't have much web traffic on Black Friday. The biggest time for online sales is December 10th, which is pretty much the latest you can order stuff and expect it by Christmas.

You can find the sales links on the page: aFountainOfBargains.com. The sales support the site CommunityColor.com. CC is stuck in a rut, to add more functionality, I need to move to a different server which is currently out of my budget. Strong Xmas sales might turn that around.

Halloween Links

I spent several hours updating the Salt Lake Halloween page and the Denver Halloween page.

Realizing the people will travel for a good maze or haunted house, the Salt Lake page lists attractions all along the Wasatch Front. The Denver Page lists attractions along the Front Range.

The directories are the most complete source for Halloween in these markets ... because I unabashedly included all the links I could find on the other Halloween directories.

Twitter Tip

I just did an experiement: The site Bit.ly makes short urls. For example, the string http://bit.ly/mcSRz leads straight back here.

You can paste the stort string in a twitter post. Twitter will make the shortened URL hot.

Twitter makes any string beginning with www. hot. If you replace the "http://" with "www."

http://bit.ly/mcSRz
www.bit.ly/mcSRz

The new link seems to work and you save three characters ... which is important in a world limited to 140 characters.

PS: I am not with bit.ly and can not guarantee that this hack will work forever. (Back to twitter (twitter links).

Sharing Videos

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.