Huis - Jake Matthews

SEO - The most basic Explanation of SEO Ever

A lot of my friends who are not in SEO and Search Marketing ask me what is SEO?  What the heck is it that your company does and why then heck are you never out and about and always sitting in front of a computer?

Here is a really basic explanation from a VP at Network Solutions.

NOTE: by no means and I endorsing Network Solutions ability to SEO a site; they are a hosting company.

Web Design & Development Style Guide

I'm sure that many of us are really familiar with the basics of web site development and design and the process behind it, but it's always worth it to circle back to the basics of a web style guide and process guide.  There are many resources available on the web to find new an interesting techniques and to shore up your foundation for building web sites.

The Web Style Guide by Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton is a great starting point for beginners and "non-technical" people who are involved in the interactive space.  If you are interested in web site design / development and business development in the interactive space, this is a great resource.  It is a quick easy to read guide.

UPDATE: Does anyone else rely on specific guides to continually hone skills?  I'd be interested in your input.  Thanks!

Ask launches new interface in Sandbox form

Ask X launched in sandbox form - pretty cool.  It comes with a "fade in" search engine result page, which is a pretty feature.

Have fun asking!

NYSIA Meeting - Keynote Alan Warren, Google

At one of the most recent NYSIA meetings, Mr. Alan Warren, Director of Engineering, Google spoke on a couple of really interesting topics.

Inside Google:

He discussed how Google is essentially a "flat" organization in the sense that there is very little vertical hierarchy.  There are Engineering Directors, VP's, Tech Leads and everyone else, and that's essentially it.  The "everyone else" are essentially computer science whizzes.  There are very few
QA engineers because everyone checks their own code and programming sequences.  The level of self testing is unparalleled. 

Google is obviously scaling out their offices and their teams and here is what he had to say about that:

• Local engineers are extremely valuable, so Google is scaling out to many remote sites with teams based locally.
• There are currently bout 250 engineers in Google NYC
• 3 engineers per project
• 1 tech lead for total project
• of the 8000 employees at Google - about 1/2 are engineers
• Employee time allotment breakout:
• 70% spent on search and search advertising technology
• 20% on new product development
• 10% for engineer's free research time

He says that Google is really into producing all of their own systems and they are really trying to break convention in so many ways as they try to organize all the world's information.  Google's "Ten Things" were reiterated a couple of times throughout the program.

Some of Alan's product specific comments included the fact that he's working on Google's wireless products and so is most of the NYC office.

Yahoo! Launches New Mail Interface

Yahoo is rolling out a Beta of a new mail interface.  It is very similar to a Microsoft Outlook interface with convenient drag and drop and mail preview window features.

I like it so far!

Is Google Eclipsing Yahoo?

Here is an interesting article on Google vs Yahoo and Google's acquisition of YouTube. How does all of this play out in the search market and how does it play out on Wall Street?

Google Eclipses Rivals With YouTube - washingtonpost.com

Also, you might access this as a resource on John Battelle's (Battelemedia) blog.

So, Is Google eclipsing Yahoo?  We'll the fact is Yahoo still has more eyeballs and at this point, that's what really matters.  Yahoo has forged itself strong loyalties with eMail, Yahoo! Finance and particularly with Yahoo News.  Don't count them out.

Just [the headache] I needed.

I recently had a bad experience purchasing a new laptop computer (pc) at Circuit City. After seeing the low price advertised on my Sunday paper, I bit on it and went to the store to buy "Just what I needed."

After selecting the computer, I was up-sold on Microsoft Office, Norton Antivirus and Webroot Spysweeper.  And, I was informed that the 1 year warranty on the computer would not be valid unless the softwares were installed on-site by Circuit City's IQcrew (a group of punk kids sitting behind a wall playing online games).

I wanted to take the computer home after I paid for it, but was then told that the IQcrew needed 3 hours to install the software, and that at that point I could come back to pick up the unit.  When I came back later that day, the salesperson was nowhere to be found and the I was told by the group of service technicians that it was going to take another 10 minutes to finish it.  I ended up spending another 30 minutes waiting while they performed what seemed to be very simple installation and configuration processes.  The IQcrew seemed to be backed up with other service jobs and installations and my job was simply in queue.  This was completely understandable, considering some low pricing of merchandise in the store, they probably had a lot of work to do.  However, to be told the computer would be ready at a certain time, and for that not to happen was very disappointing - particularly when you are running a tight schedule, several hours wasted on a weekend can be a bit disturbing.

The kicker of the whole story is that when I finally got home and opened Internet Explorer and attempted to set my homepage to a certain favorite Internet destination, the softwares (that were so diligently installed by the kids on Circuit City's IQCREW) were blocking all attempts to change the homepage.  I used all known methods through Internet Explorer options, then Norton's support (1 hour chat session) to resolve the issue, but was unable to do so. 

Today, I am able to change my homepage but only after about another 2 hours of follow-up on the phone with Microsoft Support.  The representatives at Microsoft walked me through about 8 different processes, restarting the computer in safe mode and turning on/off various functions and options 3 or 4 times finally allowed me to change my homepage in IE! 

Still though, after all of this troubleshooting, the Microsoft Reps were unable to say definitively weather or not this was an Internet Explorer bug, a problem with the Office installation, a problem with Norton Antivirus or Webroot Spysweeper.

I then suspected that the homepage problem may have been caused by settings implemented at Circuit City.

Circuit City has ineffective local, in-store customer service. And at the East 86th Street Store in NYC, they hire jokester, idiot kids to who don't know how to properly install software.  This figures well for an electronics retailer, but I was surprised by the amount of time it took to get answers and assistance from them.  In calling the local store at East 86th street in Manhattan, I was unable to get anyone on the phone.  When I made some follow up calls to the store on a Saturday afternoon, the line rang and rang only to go to a voice mail that said the store was closed!

I took to the web again and after filling out a form on Circuit City's website, I received a call back from a rep who said that the store manager would contact me in a couple of days; this was over 2 weeks ago and I yet to hear back from them...So much for Circuit City's tag line "Just what I needed"; it's more like "Just the headache I needed".

This whole experience also leads me to think that Apple Computer really has something going with the MAC - for sure.  PC's are just a flat out pain in the *ss.

Here an interesting like to a company / customer satisfaction review website and you can see that Circuit City stinks and they will give you "Just the headache you neeeded."

Search Engine Strategies Conference

This week I attended the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, California.  It was a blast!

10e20

I have recently joined as partner in the Search Engine Marketing Agency - 10e20, LLC.  This the most exciting time of my life.  I'm partners with some of the most talented people I have ever met and our firm does the most amazing work for our clients.

Legacy Stoneworks

One of my favorite Web sites.  I was instrumental in the build-out of the site.  It's my brother Kristian Matthews'  and and his wife's company Legacy Stoneworks, and the company produces some of the most beautiful natural granite buildings and building stone construction work.  What is so unique about this company is that they not only produce the stone from their own property, but they also install the stone.  This is one of very few companies in this industry that is acutally vertically integrated in such a manner.

Please visit www.legacystoneworks.com

Thanks!