May, 2007

Blogging — No Comments
23
May 07

To hell with XML-RPC pings

I finished my first iteration of an RSS feed. It was my first attempt and the only thing that does not validate is the date. But whatever, if Technorati doesn’t validate then I don’t have to.

After this I was trying to research how to send out XML-RPC pings to let blog directories know that I exist. Needless to say it’s a bit more complicated than I care to spend a large amount of time on. Eventually after reading lots of documentation I stumbled upon this article by Marjolein Hoekstra at MasterNewMedia. I decided to start using Ping-o-Matic instead of trying to automate it myself. It’s easy enough that I could even create a link in my admin section to automatically ping a bunch of directories at will.

In other news, Technorati went down just as I was fiddling with that. Techcrunch has a witty comment on it.

Alberta / Entrepreneurship — No Comments
23
May 07

Late night for two “young” entrepreneurs

After applying for a business loan with my bank I drove like mad across the city to participate in a focus group for The Edmonton Council of Advanced Technology. Essentially this organization is attempting to act as a mentoring/incubator program for technology startups in Alberta, specifically Edmonton. One of my mentors, Jim over at Ambers Brewing sits on the board and invited myself and Timo to attend.

Some key points that I mentioned to the group as I walked in late were:

  • An organization of this type must be Available to anyone who comes seeking help. Many organizations of this type are hard to get ahold of and when you do they bounce your calls around and make it difficult to learn.
  • A mentorship program of sorts would be wonderful. I would love to pick up the phone and be able to quickly ask my mentor what I should be keeping in mind as I go negotiate a lease. Many places offer textbooks and stock guides but many don’t provide interesting mentors to grow under.
  • The public image for the organization should be friendly. I was rather put off when I first read about ABCTech because it was wafting of snooty biotech and oilsand technology dreams. Had I never known Jim I would have dismissed ABCTech as out of my league.

There was a lot of important people there, and definitely a lot of money. I’m slowly realizing the importance of networking. However I still don’t believe in marketing yourself if you don’t actually have much to offer. These will be some great people to know for next year when I enter the Venture Prize business plan competition. I’d share my idea but that could lead to trouble ;)

After the focus group and dinner we made our way back to headquarters and proceeded to polish off the pending update. We worked until around 1:30AM when the new site designs were finally put up.

Business / School — No Comments
22
May 07

Do your research!

I have been involved with a small team of like-minded students where we were pitted against numerous business case studies in preparation for a province wide competition at the end of June. Needless to say we took first place and joy and happiness gushed forth.

After school was finished we were asked to essentially be “guest advisers” to one of the consultants that helped us during our competition. We spent our regular amount of time preparing a presentation for this small company run by two young entrepreneurs much like myself. Unfortunately we (read: I) made the mistake of being over confident in my knowledge of the industry and therefore my team didn’t do a proper amount of research on key points.

Making recommendations without properly researching your audience is a bad idea. For starters, chances are they know just as much as you do, especially if they have gotten this far.

Essentially I ended up getting grilled about my knowledge of blogs and the superstars who surround them. While it’s good, I’m not quite an expert yet.

In the end they really enjoyed our point of view and many of our recommendations. It was the one little slide that hung over the room like thick fog.

There isn’t much to say now other than I live and I learn.

Lessons learned include:

  1. Do research
  2. Know your audience
  3. Do 1 and 2 until you know your shit

Remember kiddos, if you’re going to say something, back it up.

AdSense / Google / Web Design — No Comments
21
May 07

Don’t use AdSense for Search!

AdSense for Search is completely useless.

If you own a website and have ever considered putting a Google Search box on it, don’t. Recent experiences at my company have shown that it is all but useless. We average 30 million page views per day and that little search page, which is even nicely skinned to match the site, earns us around $3/day.

From the stats I can generate I would say our demographic is too tech savvy to randomly use the search built into our site. Rather, our users have a set way in which they conduct a search and they are sticking to it.

Really the best part of AdSense for Search is to monitor the top 25 queries that go through it using the Advanced Reports tab in AdSense. I won’t lie, ours are slightly disturbing and are a prime example of when not to listen to the masses when determining a brand focus.

AdSense for Search doesn’t hurt to have in place, but it takes up valuable real estate I believe can be put to better use.

3rd on Whyte / Entrepreneurship / Nexopia / Work — No Comments
20
May 07

Entrepreneurial Forays

A few readers may be aware that I am seeking to take something on, be my own man, run my own business.

I’ve been eying a nice cozy Internet cafe on Whyte Avenue since October. With school out of the way things are finally starting to take shape. I’m in the throes of finding a source of financing and meetings are being held. Hopefully sometime next week I will have more news.

This cafe is a means to an end for me. I have no intention of pouring the rest of my life into it, but rather to use it as a source of greater income to accomplish future goals.

If I manage my time wisely I will be able to retain my current job with Nexopia and manage this cafe. Odds are against me so we’ll see what happens.

As Benjamin Franklin said “Well done is better than well said.” I will make an update when I have news.

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