Disa Johnson

Disa Johnson tag:,2009-02-25:/5 2010-04-20T20:08:21Z @AirDisa - Expert Search Engine and Web Technology Professional. Movable Type Commercial 4.23-en Experience Learning Something tag:www.airdisa.com,2010://5.150 2010-04-20T19:54:39Z 2010-04-20T20:08:21Z

There's no learning like experience. I'm serious. Go out and try things, like search engine advanced syntax. What I find SEO-type people miss when they rely on too many tools (and the like), are what they can get from the...

Why people put their heads in the sand on real source material in favor of second rate data amazes me. Don't be fooled. The best data for research on rankings in Google, is Google itself et al. The efficacy of third party tools that crawl and collect other data is weak.

View your indexing. There's so much more too. I'm building it into my software. The world of advanced syntax is lying in wait for you. Just use it. The handier you are with the tools of the trade, the better you can build a case for search business. Or just use my tools. Fancy a bookmark? Your very own Web crawler?

The SearchReturn SEO spider for iPad and iPhone works on other browsers too.

Stay tuned!
]]> I've Seen Wolves, Rams, The Future Alpha Search Engine tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.147 2009-09-06T12:59:21Z 2009-09-30T21:19:10Z

It must be difficult for people to change habits since they rarely do. When they do, it often takes considerable effort and time for them to do so. Try quitting cigarettes. You can be successful if you want. We've witnessed resistance to change with the advent of Web Search through the 1990s when habit was that people entered one word for queries. Imagine the results for [nutrition]. Those who were fascinated, driven by one spirit or another, decided to make a career focussed on Web technology specifically search for many because it was interesting, challenging and fun. It has since been viewed as a 'cottage industry' for a long time. It hadn't been recognized for years, decades, as the likely hero of the 'dot bomb' or the recent economic woes. Search was there. Search is there. Search is fantastic. Search is useful. Above all, search has become highly profitable. So profitable in fact, that Microsoft is freaked out entering the game in the biggest way it knows how. Microsoft is using its economic strength, its monopolistic, ubiquitous tentacles, usurping what it can from new media: The Web Revolution. It's taken a huge bite out of Yahoo! after snapping its jaws at it more than once. If it didn't gobble up some search, Microsoft would know that the train which left the station an hour ago, Google, will reach the prize alone without any competition. Google would otherwise dominate the future of everything connected.

Scary thought? Who knows. Google is quite literally the greatest software maker ad agency of today. Its hosted applications, its open source nature have ensured that Google is more than the search engine we knew. The search engine we knew is now unfortunately so littered with redundant spam, commercialism and terrible noise that it stinks. Google is polluted. Google may not have started that way. I turned my mom onto Google back in 1999. Now the Google legos are dirty in the search area. They need way more than Matt Cutts can do. The only thing Google is good for anymore is hosted software like GMail, Maps, Calendar, Docs etc. Google has become a Microsoft Yahoo! combination itself. The new Yahoo! dropped its investment in search, just like Google's search is junk, will continue to be junk. Google is a software maker (operating system!) re-inventing itself as the new Microsoft, taking Yahoo!'s lead neglecting search. Microsoft may actually win the search prize in the end. Particularly if Microsoft squares off and does a deal with technologies like WolframAlpha. WolframAlpha is quite literally the future of search. Forget what you've heard from marketers about their jaded "future of search" (they don't know anything except selling, selling themselves, selling out). The future of Web Search is to have an accurate engine for your purposes, not bookmarks to all possible answers from unchecked third parties. That's only good for comparison shopping.

Let me be clear. Altavista was my old favorite. It leaned more scientific. I miss it something awful. I'm going to mash up something fun at AltaDisa one fine day. I hope you like what I end up doing. I don't have uncanny aspirations to be a search engine. I'll just do something fun. Please be patient but don't wait. The future of search is here now. Take another look at WolframAlpha. The reason marketers are ignoring its real threat is because it doesn't lead to client sites. Marketers can't make any money with it. Why pay it heed? It can't be good for search marketers. It's the albatross that threatens their business. On the other side of the coin, they are right to say it's not a search engine as people know search engines to be. True. It's not a list of spam sites that try to sell you something you don't need. If you want something commercial, you can always Google it, or whatever. You will hopefully discover it at a reasonable cost, or you can always use a comparison shopping search engine. You might even navigate to a manufacturer's site directly, (if you know how to spell it). That's all a good thing. Spelling is fairly important, by the way. People that can't spell, can't use WolframAlpha. Search engines the way we know them aren't going to entirely disappear because people who can't spell aren't very smart. They're a dime a dozen with a dozen dimes to spare too. Shopping search engines like Google and Become spell for you. I think these are the successful shopping sites of tomorrow. That's not the Future of Search. That's the Future of SEO. That's the future for ad agencies like Google. Become works with merchants too. Typos are way different. WolframAlpha interprets what it can. WolframAlpha shows us the future of search, now.

Wikipedia has become one of the top visited sites. They don't sell anything. It doesn't pay Google to send people to Wikipedia. People tried to spam Wikipedia and list their clients in Wikipedia. Luckily, with enough effort, the thing survived. Wikipedia continues to be useful today. It's still a top visited site. That's the sort of resource that people can count on. It's like Amazon versus Crazy Joe Electric's wide screen TV sale. You may pay more at Amazon. Amazon is a merchant you know is not likely to have a breach of security that threatens your credit card number. With Crazy Joe Electric (I made the name up by the way), the business operator might either sell you the TV for less, or sell you a stolen TV, or worse. Your credit card might get stolen and sold. You never know. Unless you know Joe personally, you're at the mercy of the Wild Wild Web. That's the trick of the Web. There's not a bona fide way to tell one thing or another about what you're reading. People get in trouble. There are Web ratings for merchants, which make it possible at all to buy things, or else no one but big-box merchants would be doing e-commerce at all.

Now take information. How many sites are out there to provide free access to information? News sites might even try to charge for access to content (Rupert Murdoch, AP comes to mind). Other sites display banners and text ads (Google!) to make the information pay for itself. Google is the biggest ad agency in the world. In my opinion, they are not a search engine anymore. They are a software maker / ad agency looking to eat your lunch. This is not the Web which was how the Web all started. This is the Web we know now, which has transformed into a commercial enterprise (not necessarily a bad thing). There is a caveat, however. People learn how to do interesting things wrongly, or misdiagnose themselves rushing to the doctor, or are otherwise somehow misled by the utter junk that can be found on the Web. They are misled by people who can't spell, people that exercise hate. It's all in Google. Just go to Google, Google it. You'll get all the junk I've been talking about. You'll get spam. You'll get hate speech. You'll get misinformation. You'll get phishing sites, drive-by downloads, hackers, crackers, whacks and weenies complaining about each other, ad-infinitum. Search engines were supposed to help us sort through the mess. Google is the mess.

Enter WolframAlpha. It's not a search engine as you know it per se. It's just accurate. Accurate is all that it is. If you can learn to enter queries correctly, it will provide you information without leading you to any junk. Junk is not possible. It has information on the most interesting (non-commercial) things in the universe, which is what the Web is really good for in the first place. It does it in a clean, sterile room without a hint, without a germ of commercialism. That makes it utterly useful. I am anxious to watch WolframAlpha continue to evolve. It answers like Hal 9000 (the machine Craig Silverstein of Google famously invoked at a 'Future of Search' panel at a marketing conference). WolframAlpha literally is the future of Web search here and now. It's just not like a search engine the way people are used to thinking about search engines. It reminds me of the feelings I had using Altavista a long time ago. It requires decipherable input (it's somewhat forgiving for that) in order to coax what you want out of it. Try the sample queries. Try the tutorials. In the very least, get the information out of it that is more important than price information on a new digital camera. If you are going to query for medical or nutritional information, anything scientific, if you ever thought to use computations in a query, WolframAlpha is the winner. I think it's the Future Alpha Search Engine. I used it today, too.

Stay tuned.

]]> Disa Johnson: Good Breakfast Ideas tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.143 2009-08-09T15:08:02Z 2009-08-09T16:09:52Z

We all want to look our best. I have some particular needs regarding health and beauty that I think any and all readers should get something from. I am writing this after doing some meal plans and reading up on the latest findings on food and nutrition as it affects bloating, water retention and other nagging things which undermine self confidence.

Don't skip breakfast. Drink things that contain lots of water, no alcohol. It's Sunday. I may break that rule on alcohol. The key is moderation in all that I do. Since I have goals, I sometimes really plan out what I'm going to have. I am lucky enough to have a grocery store in my building. I don't have to plan very far out.

This morning, I knew I had some wheat bread for toast, a tomato and a little yogurt in the refrigerator. That doesn't sound like much. It's fairly well-balanced though, all in all. I also had one serving of Kashi cereal left. That's actually all that I have save for coffee and tea. I tread lightly when I can.

Nutritionally, the wheat toast gives me carbs for energy and mood balancing serotonin. The cereal adds fiber and additional carbs from the grains. It also contains protein and omega-3 from flax seeds. The main thing I'm missing, I can easily make up for at lunch time. I'm missing protein.

Eating flax seeds is not the ideal way to get any of the nutrition, since they should be ground up and not whole. They are whole in the Kashi cereal. That's no good. Grinding causes them to deteriorate within 8-hours, and it's messy. I don't enjoy grinding flax very much these days. I used to a decade ago.

I still have a dedicated grinder for when I might use it for a meal. It goes well with yogurt, on cereal or salads. It adds good nutty flavor and a load of fiber and nutrition. The yogurt, with it's probiotics, is really good for digestion and reducing water retention weight. Avoiding sodium and eating Potassium rich foods will help balance this.

For lunch, I should prepare something like a baked potato and something that will add to the protein for the day. I'm actually looking at new recipes now, planning a trip to the store. It's too hot for Lollapalooza. Maybe next year. I want to stay in the cool building and do some development work today.

Stay tuned.

]]> Client Center Upgrade tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.142 2009-08-07T13:05:26Z 2009-08-09T16:05:55Z

Yesterday we crafted a new Yahoo! Backlinks uploader. We did this on behalf of an agency that plans to use the Client Center to monitor a large number of addresses, as many as 750,000. The file that we used to import contained over a million addresses because of duplications. It was over 70 megabytes of plain text.

We worked over the data, adding the necessary whitespace delimiters (tabs) and text (including URI escape chars) to model the file after a Yahoo! Site Explorer backlinks TSV export. That was necessary for it to work with our uploader. The new worked-over file ended up being over 90 megabytes.

Our original code for the uploader was built for Yahoo! exclusively, although we could format files and use it. That was moving too slow for us for this bigger file. So we set about the job of upgrading the parser and data extraction routine for addresses. The new extraction routine will simplify the rules for many more file format.

We now have a version operating at lightning speed. All users should notice a speed difference immediately. If you experience any problems at anytime, for any matter relating to the Client Center, please notify us by one of many means by which you can reach us. Free support is available through Twitter. We'll make another announcement when new file formats are supported.

Stay tuned.
]]> Use Powerful Words tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.139 2009-08-04T12:42:14Z 2009-08-04T12:46:09Z

Powerful words must be in your copy. Make it real copy. Use subject matter that you get to write about authoritatively. Speaking of subject matter and good writing, one fascinating thing about how we grow as people living the cultural...

Language affects the attributes of our life skills. Choose good words. This should come as no real surprise. That is why there is no glory in being proud that one can't write or spell correctly. It amazes me that that has any cache, especially in an industry that is so strongly tied to business success as online writing and marketing. It's the very unruly nature of the Web that allows for this.

The power of the medium actually allows people with little to no writing skill to write and appear authentic or smart, no matter if they really are. Don't get caught in the trap of playing along, silly. It's short lived success with a glass ceiling at best. Be authentic without showing off any inability to spell correctly, not without true wit. It does not come across well to the right sort who can see through it.

Words are seriously powerful. They can affect how you live your life. Words have already probably shaped how you are. In a Newsweek article, I read about evidence that our language has an influence on our very abilities, our skills with living in this world. That means the higher the language abilities that you can attain, the better odds you have for achieving greatness.

Don't shy away from learning to write better. Read from those whose prose speaks to you. It'll help define you and your style. If your style is about celebrating the heights that you can reach, versus cashing in on darkness and deceit (as search marketing is so often accused of doing), then you can operate on higher levels and succeed while enjoying the good life.

Stay tuned.]]> Microsoft Bing Yahoo! Search Deal 10-Years tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.133 2009-07-29T12:13:50Z 2009-07-29T13:53:23Z

Last night, I spoke on air at Webmaster Radio (dot) FM about the imminent Microsoft Bing and Yahoo! Search deal. As expected, this morning (about 30-minutes ago), Bing announced on Twitter, linking to the official news that Microsoft Bing will...

Webmaster Radio (dot) FM about the imminent Microsoft Bing and Yahoo! Search deal. As expected, this morning (about 30-minutes ago), Bing announced on Twitter, linking to the official news that Microsoft Bing will power Yahoo!, and that Yahoo! will leverage its considerable relationships with major search advertisers to exclusively handle the advertising side. The deal is reputedly worth guaranteeing advertising dollars for Yahoo!, as Microsoft can easily afford to sweeten the deal that way.

Microsoft will also compensate Yahoo! from traffic and revenue resulting from traffic that originates from Yahoo! sites and affiliated network at a share of 88% over the fist 5 years. Panama and Search seems to have been given over to favor Microsoft Bing Search and Advertising platforms. That appears to be an admission by Yahoo! that Panama just failed to compete.

Paid Inclusion could lose its value when the switch to Bing happens. Unless Yahoo! can insert the feed somewhere with Bing search volume, there's no telling what will happen with inclusion deals past and present. It would be insane to leave that rich content, even when paid, on the table. That's literally leaving money on the table. Either Microsoft or Yahoo! will likely figure out a way to benefit by Paid Inclusion advertisers.

The key to making Paid Inclusion work, is understanding how it might not fit into Bing at all. If not, then finding search volume somewhere down the chain. Popular affiliated sites could make sense as a destination for the feeds. It's just that without being part of Bing, the value of Paid Inclusion is practically lost. Will Yahoo! control the first listings in Yahoo! Search? Or is it wholly over to Bing? Only time will tell what they decide to do. It's looking pretty bad for Paid Inclusion.

In the mean time, there's plenty of time. There needs to be regulatory approval of the deal. I said last night that I expect this would pass with government regulators. After approval, Yahoo! would make the transition within two years. That buys a lot of time for current Paid Inclusion deals to ponder the next strategy. Paid Inclusion will at least be as valuable now as it was yesterday until the deal is approved by government regulators. Even after that, the technical transition could take some months but no longer than two years. If you're an advertiser, plan ahead for this.

The things that are exciting about this news, is a rejuvenated platform to compete for search with Google. Whether that comes from Yahoo! past, Microsoft Bing's future, there's never a good reason to have just one search provider. As is the case with Microsoft's browser division for Internet Explorer, the company relaxed after winning dominant market share leaving room for new upstarts like Firefox. Google's search quality has been in a steady decline since it's wide appeal began in earnest (back in 2002).

Google's search quality has had to endure being the top search provider, and what that means in terms of commercial noise (spam) targeted specifically at undermining their search quality. Big online ecommerce over the last decades have proven that website owners and big box merchants alike will do practically anything to gain top search engine rankings. For the past 7 years, that has meant Google alone, and not Yahoo!. Commercial sites now have to plan for a strong likelihood that Yahoo! Bing will become a contender again.

Yes, Yahoo! could have been a contender. It flippantly dismissed the search back in 2002 when it saved a small fee for Inktomi powered search, and offered Google instead. Google capitalized precisely as Inktomi had warned Yahoo! they would, by just growing their site into the behemoth that it is today. Google's world changed from being a small upstart search engine based on hypertext analysis to a major software provider that competes with Microsoft. Microsoft is now in real danger that Google will make them less and less relevant.

That's today's thriving competitive search marketplace making its way into all sorts of industries. In my opinion, that's the real story here. Google has Android, Chrome OS and cloud computing with applications that traditionally were Microsoft's bread and butter: Office. Google has the online worldwide audience captured by their free offerings including Maps. This is threatening the very core of Microsoft's business in all ways except gaming and their XBox. Microsoft has not done very well with Windows Mobile or Zune.

The XBox, however, is a popular gaming console. During the next 10 years, the period that will coincide with this search deal, search will find its way into every conceivable device and access point across the globe. Apple just rejected Google Voice for the iPhone App marketplace yesterday. Microsoft is already poised as a player, poised as the player that Google must take on directly without flinching. There is room for both which makes the competition even more fierce for dominance in these down stream marketplaces. Just imagine the whole competition.

Stay tuned.
]]> Disa Johnson's Coffee with Sophie Walker tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.132 2009-07-28T10:57:38Z 2009-07-28T11:17:39Z

One of the last coffees I had the chance to enjoy before hitting the road back in May, bound for Portland and Bend, was at Intelligentsia. I had the chance to meet at the cafe with SearchReturn link builder Sophie,...

When I met with her, we had a coffee. Whenever I get the chance to have a great coffee where they style the top, like they do at Intelligentsia, I take a photo. I have one or two other pictures I took before heading to Portland, Bend and then Seattle, which I'll feature in more posts. Here is a picture of that coffee I had with Sophie back in May.

Sophie is the staff member with the most experience using the link building application. She has been working with the program since it was first developed. Her feedback has become part of the application. We've adopted one or two features based upon her direct suggestions. Sign up for link building, and chances are you'd have Sophie helping with strategy and potentially link building. Her success rate with clients is high.

Stay tuned.

]]> Google Twitter Rankings Increase Again for Disa Johnson tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.131 2009-07-27T13:58:32Z 2009-07-27T14:41:00Z

It's been a while since I last optimized my Tweets. It was back in February when I needed some fast rankings for Disa Johnson. I recall looking at the current rankings for my name, noticed rankings appearing quickly for a...

Disa Johnson. I recall looking at the current rankings for my name, noticed rankings appearing quickly for a negative blog posting about me, I immediately commenced my reputation management campaign using Twitter.

It only took hours for Twitter to rank above the blog post that attacked me. Not bad at all. I recorded everything from then on to document the entire process. The thing I didn't like was my Tweets weren't all that natural anymore. I wanted to stop tweaking them for my name. Above all, you have to be authentic in Twitter.

In an interview I gave last Friday, I stressed the authenticity factor for success with Twitter above all others as the most important thing. Sure, there are ways to get your message in. It falls on deaf ears though, unless your Tweets are natural and authentic. Then you can succeed, like I am succeeding.

After I got top rankings by changing my name at my company site Search Return LLC, and I got this 'Disa Johnson' blog started, (started unexpectedly for Reputation Management needs, can you believe it?), then I started another personal blog and a Disa Johnson Bio site. I populated every profile that was ranking in the top 30.

It all worked perfectly. I no longer had to juice my Twitter profile with Disa Johnson. I was ranking perfectly well and basically legally flooding Google, which was the only place the negative post appeared top 10. It's still in the top 10 results but is now slipping again with Twitter. The more the guy writes about me anymore using nasty headlines the more a fight will continue.

Luckily for me, it would now be a fight where the purpose has been successfully usurped by me. The more attention the matter gets from now on, the more my real story gets out in the face of his false facts and hate speech. As long as there is no fight, then I get to make it just a sidebar issue in my life, and simply refer to it for fun every now and again.

To me? That's perfect Reputation Management. I sustained the onslaught of personal attack by a blogger and his fans. I survived intact, lived to tell the tale and at my own pace. Is there a negative ranking? Yes. It's slipping away into the past. Maybe soon it will only surface top 10 using advanced search.

Who knows? Who really wants to promote falsehoods? I'll just point it out where people do, including the original post itself without promoting it in search engines. I think it's become a nasty little liability for the author, not me. That suits me fine. What was strange for me today, was noticing the Twitter ranking is number one again, just like before I changed my name at my company site. Twitter is beating us all on my name even after I started flooding.

I'm not the only one who noticed this new Twitter ranking power. I thought it was just me yesterday when I recorded the ranking change for my own purposes. Then I noticed this Tweet from @ogletree and realized that it isn't just me. That's an interesting development, but not one of great consequence (except a positive thing for my little campaign). It's great for me.

Stay tuned.

]]> When Reputation Management Goes Wrong tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.130 2009-07-17T11:31:34Z 2009-07-24T21:24:02Z

Lifestyle Lift (to employee): "Put your wig and skirt on and tell them about the great experience you had." This is taken from an email discovered by the New York State Attorney General's office during an investigation into 'Astroturfing.' You can read more about it here: http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2009/july/july14b_09.html

How many times have you been paid to consult on Reputation Management? How many times have you heard some bad ideas coming from your client? Did you decide to do the right thing? Did you decide to advise them against acting poorly in response? When you have a gut instinct that what they're asking you to do is bad then always choose the right thing to do. It can come back on them. It may come back on you too.

For this one case, (there are many cases where companies have gotten away with Astroturfing), how many times have you heard your clients complain that their competitors are doing bad things in posting reviews? Have you heard clients say that they're considering doing bad things themselves as a response? Have you advised them against it? I hope so. They would be acting in a disingenuous way and you would be party to it.

What about those companies involved in competition who decide to post negative reviews about others? You wouldn't want misinformation written about you. Would you? It's happened to me. Misinformation is finally out there about me too, after more than a decade in business without it. It's hurt my search business. It's really not funny to have happen. It can mean the difference between staying in business or not.

The thing to remind people, is that while they can get away with it while they do it, there is a chance that down the road they could be looking at a hefty fine or something else. Who knows? It's just really never a good idea. I have not quit my own reputation business. Stay tuned on that. This is part of my message in response.

I found myself in a situation where I've had to defend myself for months. It hurts my ability to operate freely. It happens in my rankings where potential clients and partners look for me. A person with the means, decided to attack me in my rankings. He decided to attack me in response after I beat him in a relatively small, private legal matter regarding his use of images that belonged to me.

Can you imagine that I asked for a call to correct his mistakes? I demanded he take down images that belong to me. I have that right, don't I? He never called me. Instead, he posted additional misinformation that spun it to make himself look like the victim. As if! He promoted his posts with Twitter, Sphinn and Digg. At least it was deleted from Sphinn as (personal attacks) should be. It still ranks on search for my name. Damage done.

It's mean. It hurt. His audience could care less about what's real. They thought it was all pretty funny, funny that it was even happening at all. Never mind how I felt. Never mind the truth getting in the way of a funny, viral joke. Some of his friends thought it was fun to participate. It was actually very mean-spirited. One of the comments from the OP called me an 'it' (as if I didn't belong to the human family).

There was much worse from his audience. I had an actual privately delivered threat which hinted at physical attack. All of this (except the threat) is still online, ranking. His headline makes sure it sticks by clicks. The trick post has staying power that way. It's SEO gone bad. It's when reputation management goes wrong. He lost a small legal matter. He chose to attack me publicly in response.

It's never a good idea. He spun it around and attacked me as if I had a problem. I have a problem with him having used my images, posting misinformation, then continuing to publish additional misinformation, promoting it to the point it resulted in physical threats against me. Imagine asking someone to stop using images of you that were used without permission, then ultimately being physically threatened for it.

Imagine being told to never show your face in public again. It was pretty frightening, actually. I was called by some really hateful names. All I could do was gather evidence of what occurred, keep myself from responding anywhere but with my own websites. That way I can rank alongside it all with my message, just as I would suggest to for my clients.

I don't need to promote this article in Twitter, Sphinn or Digg. It wouldn't really matter if it was promoted. It would result in more people searching my name and clicking whatever result, including the bad one just to read the tabloid. Patience and discretion are virtues I have from acting professionally for decades.

A few clicks and a little attention to this isn't going to hurt me any more than I've hurt already. It'll rank just fine. I really don't need to promote my personal brand. Read about who I really am here: Disa Johnson. Time is on my side. As the Rolling Stones would say: "Yes, it is."

I recovered my composure. I quickly began ranking on words I originally had no use for, (including my own name). It's useful to me now. I'll make it so. One thing is true: I kept my cool as much as anyone could under the circumstances. I felt like I had ended up as my own client, (but without the pay).

I managed to effect some positive change so that the other postings at least stopped ranking well on my friend's name. It's still ranking on her name, but at least not on page one anymore. Once indexed, these things can last practically forever. That's why I have ample opportunity to pull anything up as examples, even if he chooses to delete all his stuff. He dabbled in hate, which is dangerous for him long-term.

It's still ranking in the middle of page one on my name. I am the one with the story to tell since the truth resides with me anyway. I did what I could to minimize it. I'll do what I can short of refraining from telling my story. I had always planned to write a book. I can afford to do way more than he can. It still hurts.

The thing that really had me decide to write about this again on a blog (at this point), was that Michael Arrington of TechCrunch decided to publish materials that were sent to him by a hacker who stole email from the founders of Twitter. I really think that was crass of Arrington, (crass like what happened to me), but to a far greater extent more damaging to Twitter than what happened to me.

The communications Arrington published were meant to remain private, just like my legal notice was sent privately. Arrington and the nuisance blogger both share that they decided to publish stuff they shouldn't, just because they can. They both claimed that the 'newsworthiness' of publishing the materials gave them the right to do so. That's the same instinct that attracted my harassment in the echoes of later commentary.

From a criminal legal standpoint, it may be true that they're safe from prosecution for this behavior. At least their attorneys seem to be reassuring them they can do what they want without worrying about criminal liability. They may be confident too, that the likes of Twitter wouldn't file a civil suit, one which they wouldn't be perfectly happy to defend.

That's just rich. The attorney's are going to make a mint off the case if a Twitter civil suit ensues. The whole thing has lost its integrity a long time ago. There is very low journalism here except that which would interest a tabloid 'newspaper.' Arrington has profited greatly at the personal expense of Twitter and its employees.

It all came at a cost, in my opinion at least, that TechCrunch has become a 'popular' online tabloid to me. Perhaps that was the hacker's aim? Arrington even claimed, wrongly, that he had been given a green light to publish it. This is much like what I experienced with false claims about what I had said and done in private.

People are gullible. There were no discussions with me whatsoever. I can only imagine what may have not transpired with Twitter ...which Arrington claims as fact. Citizen journalism at its best? My personal experience drove me to such sarcasm about blogs and using my newest blog for it. Love the irony in that.

I am not happy about these transgressions happening to us and the Web. It's further evidence to me that people will do anything to promote their personal brand at the expense of others. I don't think the personal email correspondence from Twitter should be in the hands of a hacker, much less a bad actor like Michael Arrington.

Arrington's personal brand increases at the expense of Twitter and its employees. The Web's gawking users lose too. This brings me to my latest musings on the industry. I hope given Google's good financial news that this moment ushers in more signs of economic recovery for us all. Maybe we'll all act better if there's ample business for everyone.

It's a wish. I think Internet marketing has its place. Even when I came into marketing during the mid-1990's without any sense for marketing, (but from technology), marketers were paying the bills. I had to overcome an automatic disdain for marketing. I learned it. Don't fall for the 'All Marketers are Liars' sense for marketing things. Don't trade integrity for cheap plastic thrills. I've done my best to avoid dressing anything up too much.

Take this stark contrast between images of fast food in advertisements, versus images of the real food. Makes me feel queasy, looking at that. It just shouldn't feel right to market things with lies. Intentional misspellings hurt me a lot during the assault on my personal being. Leave lying to the unscrupulous. Listen to your instincts and act with the better nature of your personal being.

Let the lying marketers lie. They lose in the end. I might have made more money in my life. I chose to avoid marketing anything that doesn't seem right to me. Some would say, leaving money on the table is not smart. I would challenge them to a game of marketing chess. I can whip them on that point. The fact is, wealthy living with money has its own costs. A tabloid life of plastic thrills doesn't appeal to me.

A greater experience from doing things smartly, a person ends up enjoying a higher sense of being a class act. That's my way of living richly with what I have, within adequate financial means (that affords me plenty of life's luxuries). I don't have actual needs that aren't satisfied. There's room for me to grow financially, too. It should be thought of as part of the whole that makes a life of intention.

I argue it's a far better pathway to improve one's personal abilities for life, than to work like the Dickens to afford an excessively large house, (especially with today's economic environment). Most of these things people do, especially to obtain cheap plastic thrills including the all out assault on my online personality, seem to require them to increase their own personal brands. All too often, this comes at someone else's expense.

You'll see people with a gullible audience talking about how it's 'all about your personal brand.' These tend to be the sort that attack others. Don't listen to it. Make sure that your own personal brand has nice qualities. It's about authenticity. Not all marketers have to be liars. Not all personalities have to be offensive.

I would think you want your brand to promote an amalgamation of the better parts of society. Promote life online where life online meets the reality out on the street (or in the countryside). Discover where you truly fit in the scheme of this modern life. Live a life of good intentions. It's your ultimate marketing message where all others originate.

If you've followed my story at all, (chances are that you haven't), but you might see some strong hints about how I really feel about what happened with my own little saga. So, let it play. If you have 30-minutes or so, I highly recommend taking a look at the following video: "The Machine is (Changing) Us: YouTube Culture, Politics of Authenticity."

Stay tuned!

]]> The New York Times, They Are A Changing tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.129 2009-05-24T23:09:07Z 2009-05-25T14:36:35Z

So, reading my Sunday copy of NYT, I was informed as a 'discerning reader' that my rate for home delivery is going up. Fine. Damn. So, how do I really feel? I'm much better thanks. You can expect a few more blog posts as I return from being sick with the flu. Not *that* flu, mind you. By the way, that coffee was taken to go, and back on the 18th. I have some catching up to do! Do you like my orange thongs?

The flu. Mexico City must be commended for alleviating what could have been a much worse and far wider flu epidemic. I'm sure people are tired of hearing news about it, and some actually think the whole issue was overblown. It makes me upset that people think the news was overblown, that it was too much. It really got the attention it should have gotten, that's the underlying truth on the matter, regardless what less scientifically inclined people think.

You know what I think? The increased access to sources of information has created an atmosphere of information overload more now than ever before. People used to wonder about the Internet causing information overload, and that was long before now. The people that were noisy about it in the past, have since been silenced because of search engines. Search engines were to find the needles in haystacks of information glut, and served to shut them up.

Now the noise has has reached a fairly serious fever-pitch level today. I'm not on an anti-freedom rant here, but I think it's too much nonsense. Don't mistake what I'm saying. Information overload is a well-known way to obfuscate actionable information. I continue to subscribe to my physical copy of The New York Times because the information in it does not need to reach me at the speed of light.

The journalism in physical papers tends to be superior than anything the Internet can produce, unless a valid journalist produces it. If I go looking for some special piece of information, the Internet usually is a great source for that, for it is incredibly vast. The news? Other than for stupid pet tricks. I don't need the Internet for news other than anything big and quick breaking and serious all at once, like some new freaky storm about to blow my house down. Global warming will kill us all in the end.

The Internet is great for fast breaking news. It's the news in the middle where the Internet leaves me wanting. The middle is where I can read about who President Obama nominates for the next supreme court justice. I'm not in politics (yet), so I don't really need to know the very second he makes a choice like that. I want to read about what people think after Obama makes his choices.

People write utter nonsense and speculation on the Web (like what produced my recent Reputation Management crisis), it pollutes the world with misinformation and utter nonsense. Some people spam dating sites with posts and one liners in order to find a wife. I see that junk all the time. I'm amazed how gullible and naive people are. Has everyone given up? I think all this has corroded the Web and blithe bloggers with little to no HTML skill are largely to blame for wrecking it. Thanks.

I'm not going to trust any blogger on the Internet to tell me what to personally think (I'm amazed how many do). I'm going to make sure I get my view from the thoughts of people that I trust to give me a perspective that I can believe in. As for Obama's supreme court justice choice? I'm going to see it, hear it and read about it in my sources of information (radio, print, TV *and* Web).

It's the thought provoking analysis that beats the immediacy of the Web in my opinion. The Web is great for stupid pet tricks and entertainment news. It sometimes breaks newsworthy events that are then properly supplemented by traditional media perspective shortly afterwards. I view it all. That's me, in a nutshell. I'm a savvy information consumer with today's news sources (worried about the future of newspapers).

Stay tuned.

]]> Disa Johnson: Cafe Latte tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.125 2009-04-30T15:03:26Z 2009-07-16T15:56:00Z

This image courtesy of Disa Johnson's fun at Intelligentsia Coffee in Chicago! What's true is, so much has gone on since this was taken, including the Bing launch, that a whole series of upcoming blog posts are due. That will...

Stay tuned!

]]> Disa Johnson's Coffee of the Day, April 27th 2009 tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.128 2009-04-28T13:35:59Z 2009-05-07T13:04:40Z

I can't tell you how great it is to have such a fine restaurant as The Publican so close to the Coop. Not only did I get the chance to have a nice dinner with Sam and Patrick just two...

The Publican so close to the Coop. Not only did I get the chance to have a nice dinner with Sam and Patrick just two nights ago, but I also had gone there myself to try it out back on the evening of April 27th. This is a picture of my chocolate tort with hazelnut ice cream, Intelligentsia coffee, cream and raw sugar cubes. Check out the stylish platter and silverware.

It was a meal to remember. This is my coffee of the day post. Since this coffee came with a whole meal that included fantastic beer, I will at least offer you a peek at the dinner. I had a great chicken dish, perfectly prepared. What's notable is that I weigh less today (and when I ate this meal too), than at any time during my thirties. Who says you can't eat like this and get fit at 40?

Well, it would go much faster if I didn't eat like this, I know that part is true - hah!

Stay tuned.

]]> Chicago Tribune Tweetup - Color and Style tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.127 2009-04-25T19:47:12Z 2009-04-25T20:14:53Z

Last night I had the chance to hit the Chicago Tribune CLTV's 'The Cheesburger Show' Tweetup with @cshel and @daver. The sliders were good, or so I hear (since I had eaten and didn't try them). The drinks were good...

@cshel and @daver. The sliders were good, or so I hear (since I had eaten and didn't try them). The drinks were good and I can attest to that one or two times. It looks like I'll probably head out of town tomorrow and up to Schaumburg to hang out again over drinks and food.

We stayed out late and got ourselves a meal after midnight. It was three in the morning by the time I made it home. So, getting up for my color and cut at Maxine's wasn't the easiest thing for me to do. I knew it was going to be another incredible moment where I would be transformed and so I was excited enough that lagging from the late evening didn't really slow me down.

What can I say? Patricia and Jasen at Maxine Salon are simply amazing. A huge part of what I'm able to accomplish is because I have gotten such quality help from consummate professionals. Jasen has maintained my hair the perfect color since January. Patricia was my original starting point for transformation last year She is the well from which all this springs, and Patricia is just such a great personality that I have to have her on the air with me after we launch AirDisa radio.

I am up at the Broadway Intelligentsia, after a short trip into Reckless Records, for my latte of the day. This one is particularly good. The Barista put a little heart in the artwork. This is turning into a fun little series of images. Who else is going to capture all this great work? I believe that from now on, I'm obligated to whenever I can. Disa Johnson's Latte of the Day.

Stay tuned!

]]> Reckless Records Chicago: Record Store Day tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.126 2009-04-18T21:14:36Z 2009-04-18T22:35:32Z

I'm a sucker for nostalgia. I recall my teenage wasteland and listening to records. That's vinyl records to those who grew up without them. I spent a lot of time in record stores. I can't shake calling an album a...

Reckless Records in Chicago on Record Store Day) that you can't get from online music stores. Free Posters!

The image of records and music is indelibly inked on my mind. Perhaps I'll get a tat someday too, so it'll be visibly etched on my skin. It's 22 minutes a side for an LP. Imagine. LP stands for Long Play record. A double LP is exciting for both the artist and the fan. All the inspiring artwork and images that accompany tunes on a double LP, I would pore over it for hours.

Quicker than a sinking newspaper, music on the Web and the digital format fully wrecked the record business. I got into computing in the late eighties because I knew what was coming. How many search marketers know that I had a career as a musician? Probably less than ten. How many know that I learned computing and search in order to learn how to succeed as an artist?

I can trace my thoughts all the way back to years before seeing Peter Gabriel in concert. The Peter Gabriel 'So' album was the first record, recorded entirely digitally, mastered digitally, and pressed onto compact disc - a new digital format back then. Yes, I'm a dinosaur, but for some reason, I sort of prefer it that way - please don't ask me why. It's probably because I love record stores.

A few years earlier, I had seen a LA Times piece about a new-fangled thing called a digital modem, and I determined then and there that music could (in theory) be transmitted computer-to-computer over PBX phone lines. I knew then and there that it was only a matter of time before people would begin doing so. I wanted to do so.

What a revelation it was for me! My first comment on a blog, (actually the precursor to blogs: a guest book) was exactly my rant about this possibility, announcing what I intended at the time. I wanted to start distributing music independent of a label, my music and the music of friends. I could get music out to the public without being a signed artist. I could be an online label for others. I was way ahead of my time. It was the mid-nineties. Only one search marketer has ever seen that post, and we laugh about it to this day.

Hearkening back to those great old days, and from even before then, I now have a radio show on the way with AirDisa. I am far more interested in getting back to my roots than moderating or speaking. Music, art, even fashion (yes!) and other topics I want to explore to extend the search marketing advice I will freely give away on the air. I'm really excited about Disa Johnson and AirDisa Multimedia. Multimedia. I'm a sucker for nostalgia.

I've moderated or appeared on conference panels for the last 10 years. I don't really need to moderate any longer. I admit, it's rather fun to help panelists shine, or at least communicate to the audience, even when I don't necessarily agree with what they are saying. I plan to continue to support Danny with his conference series, and will make very few exceptions to appear anywhere else.

So, here's today's coffee post for you. I'm at Reckless Records for Record Store Day, listening to musicians and browsing the tunes. They have a great domain, don't they? For this entry I took a quick coffee break so that I can enjoy a nice cup from Intelligentsia, which is a block and a half from the store. The store is moving even closer to Intelligentsia. All the more reason to call this a favorite spot to spend a great Saturday in Chicago, such a great music town. Enjoy!

Stay tuned.

After previewing this post, I checked Twitter and at least one follower is headed to Reckless Records today too. That's fairly awesome. A mini tweetup with jamesus. Yay!

]]> Hot Cross Buns and Coffee tag:www.airdisa.com,2009://5.124 2009-04-16T22:27:13Z 2009-04-16T22:33:40Z

If you think I'm being smarmy for posting delicious pictures of buns, you're right. I couldn't resist these buns. I love a little sugar in the morning. It's a nice treat, and these buns did it for me today. That,...

Stay tuned.

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