March 2009 Archives

My Twitter theme song is: Follow You Follow Me.

I do my level best to follow around as many people in terms of sheer numbers, as follow me. It's a relatively normal balance which promotes increasing your followers and keeping in the loop. Once I passed following more than just a few people, I had to move to using the Web instead of just the phone. Once I moved past following a few hundred people, I had to move to using an app.

I chose TweetDeck to start with. These applications can quickly run out of API calls and stop updating once you follow several hundred (or more) people and once you are followed by that many people as well. The more activity you see, the more these apps will stop updating. I currently use a combination of TweetDeck and the plain-Jane Twitter Web UI. I move to the mobile when I need all the noise to cease.

Therein lies the rub: Noise. Noise in the form of Blog RSS, and 15 headlines of essentially the same story is annoying enough. Tweets are nearly all original and they come at you fast, at a rapid-fire pace. So, I follow far fewer people to my mobile. I'm still alerted to the core small set I follow to the phone. The only recourse from being utterly distracted while you are engaging online, is trimming the people you follow for noise reduction.

Luckily, there are Twitter apps coming online pretty quickly to catch the wave of excitement. One I recently used thanks to  a Tweet tip from: @jeffbentley and @studawg is called Gives-a-Twit. I have a suggestion for them from my first use. The concept is straight forward: See who you follow that don't follow you back.

It's nice to see the collected avatars and their follow stats for judging what to do. It's a great noise reduction device, Twitter-style. That means, you can stop following those who don't follow back, have only a few followers themselves, or otherwise you don't recognize because they don't Tweet enough. What I found a really great relief is that using the service does *not* require the use of your Twitter password. It's just useful all its own.

Why clutter your Twitter stuff? If they happen to be someone you recognize as someone that Tweets fairly often, if their Tweets aren't really that impressive, that can help you reduce Twitter noise. Reducing noise helps reduce API calls with your favorite application, and really it helps you follow more interesting people with the extra mind space.

I love finding interesting new people and 'virtually' meeting them through Twitter. It's really fun, so it's a dangerous time suck if you don't reduce the noise. Get a handle on your Twitter. Here comes my tip for Gives-a-Twit: I recommend not setting up a Tweet ready to send that says in affect "I follow you, and you don't follow me."

That's not exactly a message that says anything but "I resent that I'm following you, and don't you have the common decency to..." Aw well. It wouldn't work anyway. And I would find it fairly annoying if I got a message like that myself. Instead, a simple link to the user profile allows me to do what I did with the service.

I determined whether the follow was worth it or not. There are many reasons I follow people that don't follow me back. Matt Cutts doesn't follow me. The thing is, he allowed me to follow him while he protected his feed. That's good enough reason for me, and his Tweets are worth it to boot (I mean: follow). I don't stop following people I solicited to follow in the first place. I follow people that are interesting.

What I was able to accomplish, was stop following 16 people that were just not doing it for me. As of this writing, I now follow 650 people (that's right, it previously added to 666). I have 739 who follow me. It's a good balance and I've been actively growing my base since last Valentine's Day. It will be interesting if I can keep up following as my follower numbers grow. It will be interesting to see what apps I think helps me sort it all out.

Stay tuned. Follow me @AirDisa today!

I was struck by reading in today's Chicago Tribune Business Section, the front page story about sponsored blogging. Popular bloggers can have a very real impact on sales and information. Their views are very often authentic. And when their views are not authentic, be aware that they may have incentive for that entry. Even if they are flown to a conference for coverage, that is a material gift that drives posts about the sponsor.

Bloggers who don't hold themselves accountable to their audience with respect to genuine views are becoming prevalent enough, that WOMMA has a code of ethics about bloggers accepting sponsorships. If that sponsored blogger doesn't write or doesn't write glowingly about the product, they risk losing the sponsorship in the next round of gifts or cash.

Ethics are left up to the lone discretion of each blogger in question That's true whether they choose to irresponsibly deceive their audience, and or they decide to post about something without disclosing the nature of a sponsored relationship with a vendor. They are still free to operate any which way they choose. That can include using their platform for personal reasons and financial gain.

The less authentic they are, the more they risk losing their most aware audience members. Genuine authenticity is only going to become increasingly important, because the more that is written for commercial purpose, and the lower quality of that writing, the immediate nature of the blog and the Tweet can turn into liability for the blogger. Be genuine. Take care to choose the support you get for your efforts wisely. Maintain a high degree of integrity.

Stay tuned.

While chatting on Twitter I noticed talk of someone getting a scarf and I really wasn't sure what it was about but I recognized the handle RustyBrick. I noticed Barry, owner of RustyBrick (search marketing), blogging the conference sessions right at the cusp, when blogging began to get rather important.

It was exciting to see someone smart use the medium for a good purpose. What's true is, I quickly learned watching SERoundtable explode onto the scene, just how organized and detail-oriented he and staff were. It was Barry's personal army of bloggers letting the world know within minutes what some of us were saying on the stage. Brilliant success. He took it to the show in every way.

So, the Chicago weather was particularly cold the day I saw him exchange tweets about a scarf, I had left mine at my friend Jenn's house for Mardi Gras, and I simply replied with something to the effect that I wanted a scarf. I got a direct message from Barry and replied with my physical address.

I must say Barry, when your scarf gift arrived, I was feeling extremely cold. It was fairly nasty outside and I was more than thankful for both the note and the scarf. I did immediately feel better under the circumstances, and so I am very grateful to you. I took a picture after opening the packaging that night.



Thank you Barry!

New scientific study I read in today's Tribune revealed that polar ice is melting at a speed increased from what would naturally occur without human activity. I'm sure very few would be caught by surprise with that news. I think it is imperative that as a group we make some changes, but that doesn't mean we have to go totally without. There will always be people who, intentionally or not will contribute to greenhouse gases. It's about learning to make wiser choices, or disregarding environmentalism altogether.

So, it's great when I see people that volunteer their time, or are otherwise passionate about at least helping spread awareness of what's really happening. Just because temperatures in Chicago can get chilly, doesn't mean that things aren't warming dangerously. They are, and it is indisputable scientific fact. The warming trend really is dangerous too. Other human caused damage to the planet, such as deforestation, can rob us of a potential cure for cancer. It's hard to argue over the roar of chainsaws that deforestation isn't human-caused damage. It is.

I'm certainly no saint, but I've read many Union of Concerned Scientists guides plus their book, and done a reasonable job for as long as I can remember to keep my personal global warming hygiene in check. I think that right now especially, I'm making up for past transgression. I knew a lot less, and unwittingly took part in polluting activities. I like to grow far more aware every chance I get.

The key is to know what subtle changes to your lifestyle can in fact lessen your impact, if lessening your impact is what you desire. For one thing, I was just elated that I could get rid of my car when I moved downtown last year. I live in a high-rise apartment as well. Even old high-rise buildings like mine are energy efficient compared with a house that has more outside wall space.

Living downtown means I can walk anywhere. I can walk to the movies. I can walk to the cafe, to restaurants, to meetings and I can walk to Navy Pier and Michigan Ave. I can walk to Jimmy Choo shoes. I do, however, fly in airplanes (an incredibly environmentally taxing endeavor). Well anyway, I wouldn't have a platform to do much else without my career. So, the hell with it. I'll fly.

Al Gore will be here April 1st to give a talk at Chicago Theater. But in the mean time, I met some really fun Greenpeace volunteers on the streets after riding the El train and walking to a meeting on Monday. So I took some pictures. Meet Joshua and Kitty. I met them three times and had to stop to chat making that much of an acquaintance!

Taken Monday after a meeting with the development group in the building behind them...





They are fairly serious informing people about Global Warming as you can see. Kitty came all the way over from London. I am very appreciative of them doing what they did that day. I also grabbed a photo of the El train Red Line Chicago station (my stop)...



Stay tuned!

On Twitter, I talk a fair amount about Intelligentsia Coffee. Thought I'd share an awesome experience I had there recently. I had just arrived to start up a session of writing, and I settled into my favorite perch. It was so busy in the cafe that another patron took my coffee by mistake. I know this happens all the time. After a few minutes, not hearing my name, I went to the check on the coffee in case.

They were so apologetic that it happened. It was not even their fault and they began fixing up my coffee right then and there. I was also handed a card for a free drink. I was very pleased, went back and decided to buy several other items with more coffee. This is pretty special coffee, I even took a picture. They decided not to charge for the new coffee, even when I insisted that I pay for it.



These pictures below are thumbnails to larger versions...



Even the coffee is pretty...



View from my favorite perch. You can see El Train Loop station artwork...



If you're ever in Chicago (or Sunset Blvd. in LA), check out Intelligentsia Coffee. It's outstanding, and it's just a high-class operation. I visit practically all the locations and I use the WiFi provided by WEBbeams where I own an account.

Stay tuned.

Disa Johnson is fondly recalling her trip to the Dark Side of SEO, and Chicago politics. While we now have a president in office from Chicago, (which is fantastic!), we also have a rather frightening history of the gang known as the Chicago Outfit. They were brutal, and members have recently been sentenced by the Justice Department's Operation Family Secrets. Some of the characters, and the most violent scenes in the movie Casino were based on real events and people from "The Outfit."

Chicago, famous for crime is also famous for having corrupt officials. Purely for tongue-in-cheek fashion, I'm going to point to this post on our disgraced Illinois governor that said amazingly naive things on television. He lived just outside Chicago and will eventually have to settle in a cell. Even after such amazing hubris on the air, the fellow still has fans! Remember though, it's the quality of what you write in a blog that matters if you want your stuff to last more than a day (or less than a day as in last week's attack).

This entry is not something worthy of submitting to Sphinn. It's not meant for Digg. There is lots of material out there from bloggers that really isn't worth promoting - oh, but they do! It's stunning to me that people can continue to be fans of someone like Blago. Just remember, free speech is a guarantee that you can speak up about whatever you want. You are free to write things that are pure speculation so that you can create Digg or Sphinn worthy entries for traffic and hits. Social Media optimization has its brutes. Don't promote everything you write automatically just because you can.

This isn't an entry for Sphinn. For me, the Disa Johnson "Chicago Outfit" is something I want to associate with something entirely different than bad behavior and character assassination. I want to write about fashion! So, of course, I'll weave some of that into AirDisa. Search Return is all business, AirDisa is more like Danny Sullivan's Daggle in that AirDisa is purely about Disa Johnson. I also plan to write about the whole transition process (for those who are interested and care about that stuff) but not here. I have more domains coming online.

With respect to my Reputation Management campaign, incidentally, it's going extremely well. I secured my place at the top with the first true number one on Saturday (first time I know of that anyone but a volleyball player named Disa Johnson has had it). Just between you and me, I'm happy to promote her for Disa Johnson, aren't you?

Some got caught up in a series of personalization confusion and pathetic speech against me last week. It's all recorded for posterity (and as a fascinating case study on the matter). Watching this unfold was none other than Fantomaster of course! After my visit with him and Disa Johnson's Trip to The Dark Side of SEO, Fantomaster was witness to events as they unfolded. Fantomaster and I, we know our SEO. A blogger like Blago is allowed to write a title with anything in it to bait readers and get hits. It's done on purpose.

So, what would Disa Johnson write about style? Well, I'm officially the newest Chicago Fashionista! Look for upcoming  material - Disa's got plans. I expect I'll write about the Chicago Outfit. My gang here isn't violent, we're not into character assassination. You'll find no cheap thrills here. We're into style! My style, what Oilman calls my "snappy" style, is my initial Chicago Outfit Disa Johnson put on display in Santa Clara at SMX West. Look for the next physical installment in June at SMX Advanced.

I have goals and inspiration to make them. I'm diligent about recording things accurately. I've recorded my weight loss on a daily basis since last July 2008, and recorded my caloric intake everyday. I've charted it all, and my physical trainer has started to record my workout progress since last January. I weigh less than I did at anytime in my thirties. I wrote some Excel Macros that calculates the amount of caloric intake I can have in any given day. I track the whole thing start to finish, just like I record rankings (sans personalization). Who says search marketing skills don't come in handy for your personal life?

Stay tuned.

Well, Disa Johnson is just going to get on with it now, and act like the Queen of Cool whatever may come next. Things are looking good today. I applied some pressure that resulted in a targeted edit, even if more blight was added. It didn't last an hour. My SERPs are safe enough to just fill them up with Disa Johnson ad infinitum. Interesting stuff about me and SEO on the way. It's too easy when you are a smart enough SEO to choose a field of battle and mind your own business just kicking ass. I can relax now and just succeed with text.

So, people have asked me about the name Disa Johnson. It's true, they do! Well, let me tell you. The name Disa originally is a heroine of Swedish legend. I do herald from (northern) European descendants with a bit of Scottish tossed in for good measure. There is also a Disa Orchid, and I find it rather fun to read about them. Anything new that comes along which I discover, either on Disa the legend, or the Disa Orchid, I promise to make an entry.

Both of these references can be found searching Wikipedia. I just thought I'd include links above for your convenience. Sure, it'll influence AirDisa in Google search for Disa Johnson. People who want to search Google and navigate to learn more about me, or someone else that carries the same name, they might want to know more about the origin of the name itself. For me, I own the name. So I can write about it authoritatively. My own bio can be found at Disa Johnson (.com).

This is how you do legitimate SEO. When appropriate, you can write about the keyword you're interested in ranking for. Just start by writing well and doing what comes naturally. If I have a bona-fide interest in the subject, as I have a bona-fide interest in my name, I can write about Disa Johnson all day long. In fact, the word: blog, (short for Web log) is meant to be rather like a journal. I can journal ad infinitum and I don't always have to refer to my name. It's the quality of writing, the intent of an entry, and moderating comments that can make a blog outstanding.

So, there you have it. Disa Johnson: Queen of Cool. She's smart, dresses smartly (or is a snappy dresser according to Oilman) and tries to keep her smart ass in check when under duress. It even sometimes works. Disa Johnson has the courage to continue, stand up against naysayers to make it to SMX Advanced in Seattle no matter what happens next. I am working hard towards looking my best when I'm there and putting my best foot forward.

I have always been open and free with my SEO expertise, offering my help in conference settings for a decade now. That's how people know me, respect me and they count together as reputation equity. Whatever happens from here, I intend to continue to thrive with dignity. You should want that too. You should want that both for yourself, and perhaps wish it for me here and now. That would be good.

Stay cool.

Updated March 11th, 2009



I can only ask that ShoeMoney delete his entries and quit polluting my name. He continues to publish bad info (using Heather's name is wrong on many levels) and it is still ranking. I'll repeat myself from below: If you want to work in a professional setting, people will Google you. If you plan to go out on a date, people will Google you. It's personal, and it's important.

The next time I sell Reputation Management services, I am going to use myself as an example of someone that pulled the trigger under great duress and spent resources during the economic crisis to defend my good name. Despite that I have succeeded in bringing it down six positions in Google after three weeks of work, it's work that I wouldn't have otherwise had to do.

Less than a month from Jeremy's original publish date, with some three weeks of online actions, my query is recovering fairly well. Jeremy is obviously blissfully unaware of the strife he caused me with bad facts and a complete disregard for respect towards me, his elder in this industry. It's a shame, really.

Original Post March 7th, 2009:

Medium-term plans for Reputation Management with [Disa Johnson] are paying off within three weeks of starting concentrated work. The story unfolded with quick rankings via Twitter, which I can now relax a bit and stop using my query in all the messages. That will come as a relief to my main followers, and Danny Sullivan.

Other short-term strategies, getting profiles up at various social media sites also paid off relatively quickly. The Google search engine fancies these sites for navigational queries, the most personal of all reputation management needed. If you want to work in a professional setting, people will Google you. If you plan to go out on a date, people will Google you. It's personal, and it's important.

The number one spot is a neutral listing. If someone is looking for the volleyball player, they deserve to get her. I like volleyball a lot, incidentally. Having a listing like that is like Danny Sullivan, the race car driver on the Indy 500 circuit. He deserves to be in Danny's result set.

I've owned number two (and sometimes three with a folded result) using Twitter within 2 days of starting optimization, just by tweeting a lot. I solidified that ranking fairly well using 'Disa Johnson' in my messages. It worked like magic. I also published some quick domains that were on idle, and bought some more to flood the result set.

I do *not* recommend flooding as a tactic. If you find your name polluted by an idiot, like Jeremy, perhaps it can make sense. It's dangerous. Be forewarned.

This is where the medium-term strategy started kicking in. It's almost 3-weeks. I previously owned several domains without content, and I put quick bio HTML pages up in a directory on my webserver. I then pointed DNS settings for various domains at the folder. That meant that there will be content to crawl under new domains. This works particularly well for Microsoft's Live Search.

I then started this blog with another domain name (AirDisa) and began blogging as much as I could under the circumstances (full-time work load). This whole thing has turned into quite a little catalyst for getting me out of my dark SEO cave from the past several years. I really hope you like it in the long run.

Anyway, the medium-term plan has started to pay off. Now I own 3 of the top ten domains showing up. I influence 3 more via social networking profiles, I influence 1 additional (SMX bio page) and 1 site is friendly to me (Danny's Daggle post). The top listing is neutral, and only number 4 is an irritant that I hope to knock out soon or have the author delete.

Search Return is also number three - thanks at least in part to a new link from my friend Eric Ward. We've been working together on our Link Building application called Squid, and now I have links pointing in from his website. Search Return began at number 9 and within a day of Eric linking, the listing jumped up to number three - ahead of the offending post.



My long-term plans? Now that sites which aggregated the offending post have faded into page two and beyond, I've gotten the main ranking to move down a couple of positions. I intend to apply pressure regarding the inaccuracy of the entry. I might persuade it's deletion. He should remove it as a gesture, an acknowledgment of messing up and in apology.

Since the sites outside his control will never delete the content, he can never make up for his bad judgment, but he can delete his own entry. I can use the power of the pen. The basis of the offensive ranking includes Heather's name - and it shouldn't. Including Heather was and is totally crass and just plain wrong.

In fact, I can talk about it on the air, write about it in blog entries, and tweet about it in Twitter all day long. I have far more energy to protect my name than he does for sullying it. The fact is, it is all due to ShoeMoney's violation of Intellectual Property ownership.

Stay tuned.

After Disa Johnson's Visit to the Dark Side of SEO, as the warm embers of our fire fade to gray ash, after the phantom stories of last night's dream, after our slumber from night, and as the sound of the dawn's innocence begins when we waken - I beckon you for a walk in the fresh air. Let us visit our little Link Building garden to see "The Bookmarklet and the SQuiD" grow.

There are any number of ways to spot, nurture and protect sprouting new link targets, and most of these methods result in the need of great care and management. Our gracious gardener is none other than Eric Ward. He has carefully planned, planted and nurtured our bed of multi-colored roses and our row of Daffodils. He has trimmed our hedges and he has minded the grass. The fresh scent rises now, as the morning glow begins to heat the earthbound treasure of fresh links coming up out of the ground.

Before the day begins. Before the week's busywork ends in forgetfulness for yet another weekend of fun. Before the malaise of our mind-numbing commitments, and our deadlines are sure to hastily expire, (they will expire whether you keep them or not), suspend for now these things on your mind and pick up for a walk in the Link Building garden green.

How do you set about keeping track and reporting to your clients? Take a brisk tour of The Bookmarklet and the SQuiD this morning, provided by our tour operator and the developer lead on the SQuiD project: Jake Scruggs. His is a developer's view. In turn, Eric and I will provide further assistance to users. There's something nicely hidden in the obvious that makes this application special.

The Bookmarklet feature briefly mentioned towards the end of Jake's 10-minute tour hints at things to come that will allow search engine optimization expert users the opening of new doors into ways of doing things in SEO never before possible. That will be thanks to special Javascript written by our very own Fred Polgardy. This all comes with a management application for the most important job you can do to achieve rankings the correct way: Link Building.

So, take a little tour, see what we have growing in our Link Building Garden Green. Maybe, if you set about the safe and proper way to build links to your site, and your clients, you will come to like having a management tool at your finger tips that helps you keep track the way we do. SQuiD helps you manage large lists of pages and it has built-in search capabilities with reporting features you can use with your clients.

You can look forward to forthcoming information, tutorials and guides by the brightest minds in Link Building and SEO. You can especially look forward to the neat little Bookmarklet branching off and thriving, as it grows with fruitful new features and supplies magical benefits to you and your organization. Welcome to the Link Building "Garden Green" with The Bookmarklet and the SQuiD.

Stay tuned.

One of the newish services that I hadn't much experience with was NaymZ. I had some colleagues that sent me invites to connect with the service, and I had taken the time to visit the website but not yet decided to spend the time necessary to complete yet another personal profile.

I understood what NaymZ was trying to do, and I knew that I could always create a profile if it ever achieved critical mass. When the whole reputation management on queries for my name raised it's ugly head, I went about doing the sorts of things that would populate my listings as much as possible, with profiles that I maintained.

The most successful thus far has been Twitter, followed by Facebook, LinkedIn and so on. I got advice from a friend (thank you Rhea!) that NaymZ also seems to rank very highly in Google (the one engine where this issue is nastiest). So, I set about marking up my NaymZ profile.

It took a little while to connect it with various other profiles, and the UI had browser issues on some occasions, (the very reason I resist spending time with newish sites). You know what? It worked like magic. The NaymZ profile debuted at number 8 in Google. That's a pretty good sign that the profile will stick around in the top 10 for as long as I keep it fresh.



So, what do I think you should do? I think you should follow my friend's valuable advice and create a NaymZ profile page to protect and or repair anything from appearing top 10 for your name, (at least for as long as Google is a profile cowboy). The reason these profiles rank so well quickly, and without too much bother, is that you don't have to worry about link building.

Search Return is fairly solid top 10 on the name by itself, but there really aren't that many links relating to my name yet which point to Search Return. I have already created a SQuiD account, and achieved at least one new link through my own Link Building application. The number 8 or 9 Google ranking for Search Return at this time is practically only due to the HTML.

Link Building for Search Return is my long term plan for getting close to number one. In the mean time, I needed to act quickly. Thus far, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo and now NaymZ have all had varying levels of success with top 10 Google rankings. They all make up the quick 'damage control' plans. AirDisa (this blog) is my interim plan, succeeding at debuting and moving up to page two within two weeks.

Search Return figures into my end game.

Stay tuned.

Another entry in the Saga of Reputation Management gone wild, (regarding my name polluted by the ShoeMoney fiasco), I first succeeded in using Twitter to get AirDisa to number two in Google. That pushed the offensive post down a notch.

Danny's original blog posting was directly underneath, and I was fine with that. I was only concerned about things like syndicated news (Online Marketing News for example) making appearances in the top 10. I began with using my Twitter account. It's very easy to act fast with Twitter.

Tweets by me suddenly picked up and became noisy. Tweets in January were 200+ and in just the 10 days prior to my new ranking, I posted 600+ Tweets. Plus, I started them all using Disa Johnson. That began to tire people like Danny. Twitter is holding at number two. I'll back off it a bit and still keep it fresh.

The second approach I took, was to freshen every profile service that has the chance to rank for my [disa johnson]. I was already active with Facebook, and I needed to get more active with services like LinkedIn. That work has begun to pay off. My Disa Johnson LinkedIn profile is now just underneath Shoe. I'm afraid Danny dropped out of the top 10.

I got some excellent advice to head over to Naymz and create a Disa Johnson profile there as well, since apparently they rank highly on names. I accomplished that this morning. I had added a blog post at MySpace, and I should keep that fresh as well. Same goes for a Yahoo! profile, which I had created in January anyway, and Del.icio.us too.

While Shoe's post was dislodged from number two, and Online Marketing News syndicated version dislodged from three to number seven, there is work to do to get these fresh profiles and fully populated. Their rankings should stick. I'm anxious to see this blog make an appearance in the top ten (debuted at number 43 for [disa johnson]). I will then deliver Search Return for making a play for number one with some new Link Building using SQuiD.



Stay tuned.

It was a fiasco alright.

The thing that was most disappointing to me, was that Jeremy Shoemaker and Shannon Poole did not limit their discussion to me. They chose to include my relationship to Heather. Heather is (and has been) my very best friend in the search community. My relationship to Heather is none of their business. They got all of it wrong. They were also in the wrong.

As posted in Tweets the afternoon of Tuesday, February 17th.

I must say how proud I am of our search industry. Response from SMX has been really great! It's also interesting to see who gets it wrong. Some people seem to refer to me, post about me completely false information without taking the time to care about facts before publishing.

This is like old school versus new school. In the old days, no one would write about a colleague without fact checking first, reaching out. Without the correct information, people would be highly embarrassed going on record and talking about or writing about something false. Why is it that today, some people feel compelled to raise their star by reporting instantly anything they hear?

Is it the immediacy of blog? Is it RSS propagation madness where readers look at the same headline 15 times with small variations by SEOs looking to score limelight? I-Search was rational because there was time before a post went live, and the authors had time to catch me before I published it. Plus, they trusted me to look after them. I had the readers and posters best interest at heart.

Today, it's a free for all and hurtful to some. Flames would not get published in I-Search, and when I dust off Search Return Digest, I hope the audience listens, even if it's 24 hours old. I mean, what's so important to know about some slight change to SERPs that you have to know before 5pm today that tomorrow would be no good?

It was interesting to witness just how people react to me when I'm not staring them in the face. Anyway, they also seem to move too fast and take what doesn't belong to them. That's where it becomes fairly more serious. In all the immediacy of Twitter, blogging, Facebook and MySpace, the hasty need to be reminded: there are laws governing use of stuff.

So, if you blog, don't take images that don't belong to you, write something salacious about colleagues based on what you know nothing about. I have an interest in controlling my message, obviously, and the trials and tribulations dealing with it are very fascinating to me. I've been witness to awesome colleagues, who have treated me with respect before SMX West, and afterwards. Just amazing - thank you!

I had to go to the Web to find where people treat me unkind, use my news as a platform to make themselves seem somehow bigger. My story somehow just helps people shine, or illuminates the true nature of their beliefs. The most interesting part are the falsehoods. The best part are my friends and respectful colleagues. Thank you for everything - especially Danny!