WakeMate Technology Takes the Groggy Out of Your Morning November 24, 2009
Posted by Daniel in Uncategorized.Tags: sleep, startup, technology, wakemate
add a comment
This morning, my alarm went off at 6:00 am, welcoming me to the reality of another work day. But this morning, I just couldn’t take it. My head was just too heavy. So I rolled over and reset my alarm to 6:30 am (which is when I leave by to get to work on time). Turns out I was only 10 minutes late to work, but the extra 30 minutes of sleep just made me want to stay in bed even longer.
Anyone out there relate with similar experiences? Enter WakeMate to the rescue! Launching today, the startup WakeMate manufactures a Bluetooth wristband that (more…)
myTouch 3g from T-Mobile for under $100 – A Gift from Oprah September 10, 2009
Posted by Daniel in Uncategorized.add a comment
Finally, I don’t have to be sitting in Oprah’s live studio audiance to get one of her giveaways. Ok so she’s not exactly giving away T-Mobile myTouch 3g s but she did hook up everyone in-the-know with a temporary code to get it for $99 with a 2 year contract.
The promotion is to help her kick off her show’s twenty-fourth season; meaning she’s been on the air almost as long as I’ve been alive (I just turned 25). Wow, that woman has staying power. I guess giving stuff away helps.
Thanks for the deal Oprah. You just earned a handful of cool points. Keep it up!
Almost forgot – the promotional code is KICKOFF24
Enjoy your new phone!
24 Hour Fitness September 4, 2009
Posted by mikeglanz in Uncategorized.Tags: 24 hour fitness
add a comment
It’s a new world we live in. There is no more mediocre, or at least there shouldn’t be. Companies should be forced to be exceptional, and one company that can’t even cut mediocre, much less exceptional is 24 hour fitness.
24 hour fitness has spent to much time at the top in the California gym world. There is a new blog that has been started to spread the truth about the company, and I for one am endorsing it.
Daily Booth – A Picture Worth a Thousand Tweets August 18, 2009
Posted by Daniel in Uncategorized, WebApps, WebStuff.2 comments
So I was talking to my wife the other day about how nice it would be if we could send in pictures from our phones to Facebook (via the Twitter app). We already both keep up our Facebook status’ this way and it would be nice to keep up on our photo uploads. Well, where Facebook dropped the ball, Daily Booth picked it up.
Daily Booth Screenshot
From what I’ve gathered after exploring the site and reading various CNET and TC articles about it – Daily Booth is like a Twitter that uses pictures instead of 140 characters. You can add text subtitles to the photos, but the core of the communication is focused on photo interaction. For example, most of the comments on other people’s photos are photos.
One of the cool things about DB is that you can click Snap A Picture from within the site, allow it access to your webcam and viola – no tricky camera downloading, formating, or resizing on your computer before uploading. It’s all very easy/user friendly.
Snap a Picture
The CNET article I read basically dishes it out against Daily Booth saying it doesn’t measure up to Daily Mugshot – a site dedicated to watching your own pictures over time to see how you’ve changed. I agree with Jerry Cooke’s comment on the article, that the comparison was made incorrectly as each site serves very different functions.
We’ll see if DB gets any traction – other articles I’ve read are impressed that teenagers are getting so plugged into it (something Twitter isn’t so good at).
My only doubts come from the failure of video phones to really launch. We’ve had the technology in place for a long time now but no one seems to want to be seen in their PJ’s or wherever else in whatever else they might answer the phone in. I think the same might eventually be true for Daily Booth and other sites like it. We still live in a culture where people like to look put together and presentable as much as they can help it – which might put ceiling on who signs up.
Limewire Shares Music, Not Pizza July 2, 2009
Posted by Daniel in Uncategorized.add a comment
I’ve been a fan of the idea of sharing music among friends every since Napster started bringing people together in 1999. I’ve only ever heard of file sharing companies described as bullies on the news and in the courtrooms – causing me to lean my support toward them as the underdog.
But the recent actions of some Limewire employees have challenged where my loyalties lay. As I was browsing through Tech Crunch I found a disturbing article (The Infamous 2009 LimeWire Pizza Fiasco) chronicling a physical altercation between the employees of a small New York music label, Dovecote Records, and employees from Limewire.
Limewire
Limewire
According to the story, the Dovecote employees mistakenly took some pizza from a tray set out for a Limewire company party. After useless apologies fell on deaf ears, the truth about the employee’s identy as Limewire staff came out, enfuriating the small record label’s employees – who quickly calculated the value of their 2 stolen pieces of pizza as incomparable to the money and music stolen by the file sharing giant.
The Dovecotes grabbed full boxes of pizza and made their heated escape, but not without being showered by pitchers of beer and roucous threats from Limewire staff.
I understand this is a war for freedom of file sharing, but come on – 2 peices of pizza. Limewire, if you’re really about sharing everything royalty free, then lighten up a little – it’s only pizza.
SEO Newbie Tools May 13, 2009
Posted by Daniel in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
So I’ll admit it – I’m an SEO noob. Trying to glean any and all knowledge and wisdom about optimizing that I can – reading articles and listing to podcasts. Search Engine Optimization is such a dynamic field that it feels impossible to ever fully wrap my head around all the techniques and tricks. But I’m getting there and I figured I’d share some of the sweet tools I’ve found or people have recommended.
One of the most helpful learning tools I’ve come across (from my buddy Mike) is the SEO Fundamentals Pyramid created by Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz.org. It’s really helped me focus my efforts in a diverse and confusing SEO world. Plus all the podcasts and articles I’ve read back up the Pyramid’s basis that all good SEO stems from having solid, accessible content.
I mentioned podcasts – Webmaster Radio has a great podcast called SEO Rockstars. Most of the show is over my head but there are tips, advice, and tricks scattered throughout the show that I pick up on. Plus Dave Ramsey says if you want to be a millionaire hang out with millionaires. So I keep listening hoping to rise to that level.
I’ve also got a few of Firefox add-on toolbars – SEO Book toolbar, SEOmoz toolbar, SEO Quake bar, WebDev bar, and the Google toolbar.
SEO Quake: has my favorite density feature. And easily toggles on and off.
SEO Book: I very much appreciate the Search Engine Ranking Checker built into the SEO Book toolbar. And I love the SEO X-ray tool, which reveals headers, title, META description, META keywords, external/internal links, and has a keyword density tool.
SEOmoz: is the only one with unique tools and rating systems such as Domain Moz Trust Rank. However you have to have a registered SEOmoz account to log-in to enable the basic tools. If you want to see the ratings for the other tools you’ll need to pay for a pro-account. The toolbar also has quick link access to SEOmoz SEO tools which are awesome if you are willing to pay for a pro-account. They also have an awesome collection of SEO articles to check out.
WebDev: Just helps me strip the site down to its basic text and links – to see what the spiders see.
Google Toolbar: I know what you’re thinking: “The Google toolbar?!?” But I use it
because it provides the most up-to-date and accurate Google Pagerank.
That’s basically it. Those are the main tools I’m using. Feel free to comment if you have any advice or better tools.
Importance of Domain – Free Online Gradebook August 1, 2008
Posted by mikeglanz in Uncategorized.Tags: SEO, SEO Tests
add a comment
A couple months ago a friend of mine asked me to look at the SEO for their site TrackMyGrades.com. Its a great web based software that allows teachers to… well track their grades. I did some research on the competition and realized that not only did the competition have vastly inferior products, but that they had almost no SEO marketing whatsoever.
While looking around at the competition I found it interesting that the second most used keyword – “Free Online Gradebook” was completely was available as a .com domain. I purchased it immediately and setup a free wordpress blog there. Mostly for curiosity to see how it would rank. The results?
Astounding – Within a month – with no inbound links, no traffic, no posts, no content (besides what you see up there currently) I was on page 1 for the keywords, and then page 2 for the keywords “online gradebook“.
Take it or leave it – online gradebook and free online gradebook test results may very – but I’m pretty sure google places a lot of importance on domain.
