Topic of the Week: SEO

I've decided to research SEO - that's search engine optimisation to you (and me). I'll probably touch on SEM (search engine management, apparently, although it sounds more like management of the actual search engine - which would be Google's or Yahoo's job, surely? Anyway, I know what they mean).

Anyway, expect some posts to fly around.

But first, my take on some history.

Although I wasn't aware of it at the time, the Internet as such was born out of US defence research in the late 60s (say 1969). I may have heard of it as ARPANET or something like that in the 70s but it didn't really register. And I didn't see my first cabinet-sized modem until late 1975. It was painfully slow but usefully connected banks to central computers. It was the first hint of what was to come. However modems didn't really kick off until bulletin boards came into use in the '80s. I tried both out in around 1986 or so and could see some possibilities. I could see a use for modems, for sure. And the French caught on fast with a national network I think they called Minitel or similar. And it was about that time, or maybe 1990 at the latest that I saw the Internet running usefully at Sydney University (in text mode but able to exchange files - the first such file I saw was a graphic of the USS Enterprise, of course). So the building blocks were in place. Modems were out there getting used, the universities were churning out fresh graduates with a taste for the early Internet and early-adopter games and email systems were kicking around. There was pent up demand by 1993, and a full on explosion by 1994. Of course the clincher was the World Wide Web.

So what was SEO like in 1994? It wasn't much at all. The Internet and the Web were functional but search "engines" didn't really exist. We did searches for details held on servers, but there was little cross-referencing that I saw. What I did see were lists. And the lists grew and grew. pretty soon we had lists of lists. Coupled with early browsers and the "bookmark" function we could catalogue our lists as we found them. Primitive, I know, but the Web was a smaller place in the '90s. Out of those lists came the first search engines, and then came Altavista - the first really superior search system - and of course Yahoo. But Altavista was the hottest engine in town until Google launched with that classic no-frills look and a new algorithm that estimated popularity by counting links. Bingo. Now you could really ditch bookmarks and almost all lists - one search engine could just find the good stuff and rank it correctly most of the time.


By my personal reckoning we can say that SEO was born in about 1998, or '99 at a pinch. It was the result of those competing search engines and the new-fangled approach of ranking by linking. It's grown more sophisticated over the years as various players have tried to manipulate the search results to their own advantage - after all, everyone want to be found, don't they?

Armstrong goes with Astana team's testing - why double up when you don't have to? Will ppl now say it's not independent enuff? http://ping.fm/J4qIY

Small sample but US bike dealers report upswing in high end: http://ping.fm/xDIQZ

Before Google we loved Altavista. There's little to stop us switching again: http://ping.fm/2j0XR

More photoshopping - an ancient cockatoo that's survived the heat: http://ping.fm/QRmSF

Doing my photoshopping - here's an orb weaver despatching a bee for lunch: http://ping.fm/skCgp

Harvard blog on 'smart' vs 'dumb' growth: http://ping.fm/b9lTf

Google and IBM offer to WiFi your medical devices and store data globally: http://ping.fm/j4FVa

In denial: UK motoring magazine thinks 30mpg is good enough for a bloated fast 1.5tonne medium/small car: http://ping.fm/cOwvN

How about an Indian-built laptop for $20 now, hopefully $20 later? http://ping.fm/XHLm1

Google's Latitude maps and tracks your presence: http://ping.fm/OU59D

Desperately flakey uptake figures on Blu-ray takeup in Oz, 80% of which are actually PS3 sales: http://www.smh.com.au/news/digital-life/home-entertainment/articles/bluray-takes-off-as-prices-drop/2009/01/30/1232818694763.html

Enhanced GPS stalking tools, or a reassuring way to keep track? http://ping.fm/OvajI

What I could do with 20 Petaflops... well video editing would be quicker: http://ping.fm/uVagf

wordy insightful piece on crime, punishment and US cyclist Jock Boyer: http://ping.fm/GWtta

Instant cred. New pre-worn guitars from Fender: http://ping.fm/jfdgG

Shock horror: Wii Fit only works if you use it! http://ping.fm/PUd2Y

Excellent article on Canberra riders like Rogers, Hayman, Stephens: http://ping.fm/qsuwa

Interesting first-hand account of the Mascot road rage court case: http://ping.fm/RTpL0

I finally saw those baby Koels and they are actually juvenile Channel Bill cuckoos.. http://ping.fm/OVtM7

Why stop at software-related patent reform - what about IP law generally? http://ping.fm/SOtPh

Graeme Brown finally got his win at Le Tour Down Under: http://ping.fm/ZyQIx

I do like that ping includes video... just so hard to choose btween these social micro-blogr tools!

Read some feeds... if you dare

I am writing, I really am!

Try these for size:

Not just writing, but writing-related...

A crawl through the web exposed these ideas... not all writing-related, but mostly...

A BBC account of the genesis of the Blooker awards. The LuluBlooker itself. Worth remembering: Google's book search. Spot your book and complain about breach of copyright, or enjoy the wider fame and possible fortune that accessibility confers? Evidence from Businessweek that it actually happens. An O'Reilly blog asks, are blogs and bloggers up the the task of becoming books and book authors? Lifehacker on how to turn your blog into a book. A good read. Poynter offers some excellent writing tips for journos. Problogger on - again - how to turn your blog into a... you guessed it! If you write a Livejournal blog you can convert it into a book with this tool. Burridge on how to turn a Roller blog into a book format... More evidence. Blurb's blogslurper will suck you blog into a book format and then publish it for you, if you want. And here's a blog-to-PDF tool that looks useful.

Have fun!!

Songware?

Songware? It seems odd that a great live band like the Who would find itself promoting software-generated songs, but apparently Pete Townshend has been working - nay dreaming - about this for 30 years. Who's next grew out of Lifehouse - Pete's idea of a connectedness that expressed itself through songs... and was for Pete a glimpse of a future world where connectedness was pervasive, electronic and creative. Which brings us to The Method, software that apparently takes personal data like a birthdate, a photo, an audio file and a beat and produces music.

Pete talks about it here on MP3.com... The legendary Who guitarist and songwriter said... that he is set to launch a new Web site that he has been thinking about for nearly 30 years. Dubbed The Method, Townsend said the site will use music composition software to take a person's physical attributes and compose a brand new, personalized piece of music for that person.

"I've been thinking about this for such a long time," he said. "The gathering that the Internet offers is meditation. You lose yourself when you're listening to good music." Townshend said he hopes the site will provoke more people to take advantage of the immediacy of the Web.

And Yahoo! says this: Rocker Pete Townshend on Wednesday unveiled an Internet-based software program that will help music fans compose personalised tracks at the click of a button. The Who guitarist/songwriter said that with a voice recording, a digital image and a rhythm clapped into a microphone, his new "Method" software will create spontaneous digital music and allow anyone to be a composer, and possibly a rock star. "You can put data in and get a piece of music out. It's as simple as that," said Townshend, a technical wizard who pioneered the use of the synthesiser more than 35 years ago on the classic tunes "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Baba O'Riley." The project, which started percolating during his art school days in the 1960s, was developed by mathematician/composer Lawrence Ball and software developer Dave Snowdon.

From May 1, users will be able to get free access to the Web site (http://www.lifehouse-method.com) for three months, and will be able to compose instrumental tracks that they can e-mail or post on their Web sites. From August 1, it will become a subscription-based service.

Sounds intriguing, anyway.

Another way to go... Tumblr

One more blogging-tool-with-RSS-aggregator is never enough. If you want a sure fire way to get a blog started and don't want to get your hands dirty with templates, try tumblr. (Presumably tumbler is taken.) Mind you, you can still play dirty, as I have done here: http://gtveloce.tumblr.com/

Philosphically speaking...

The 14th to 19th century humanists believed that the study of the arts, including philosophy, should be conducted in an informal, conversational style, through conversation, debate and gentle discussion. Let's look at the intellectual ideas of four of these philosophers - Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger and Camus - yes, that Camus, the writer (there had to be a link here somewhere!).

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) wrote with a rare poetic beauty, while suffering from severe anxiety and depression. He worked through his troubles by developing his philosophic ideas. Indeed he came to see anxiety, rather than doubt, as the chief tool of philosophical questioning. He also rebelled against the abstract philosophy of Hegel, ensuring instead that his ideas - his underlying philosophy - is grounded in the concrete existence of the individual. He championed the idea that individuals are always in relationship with themselves, their environment and each other - for better or worse setting up anxieties that resonated within. It was this intermingling of challenge and change that Kierkegaard saw as the very basis for philosophical constructs. In this way Kierkegaard has influenced psychology and theology as well as philosophy itself.

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), emphasises the freedom and responsibility of the individual over all else. His "existential" philosophy, that "man is nothing but what he makes of himself" - became increasingly popular after the Second World War. It expressed and supported the cause of freedom for human beings, to make choices and to assume responsibility for themselves in a post-war world of relativism. Existentialists believe that to treat people "objectively", one step removed as it were, as mere "victims" of physical, biological or environmental circumstance - is to rob them of their essential humanity. Indeed, in Sartre's view, individuals should be accorded the respect that accrues from their unbounded possibility, rather than straightjacketed into mere roles.

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a controversial figure in the history of philosophy, if only for his commitment to German National Socialism, provoking the question as to how someone can be so philosophically insightful yet so blind at the same time. He is seen as a "systematic" existential philosopher but one whose influence extends beyond the bounds of existentialism alone.

And onto the writer - this is a writing blog after all. Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a French Algerian journalist, novelist and philosopher - and perhaps the most enduring novelist of his time. He used novels such as The Outsider, The Plague and The Fall to explore the consequences of existentialism, often taking things to extremes of absurdity to prove his point. The famous confrontation between Camus and Sartre dominated Parisian intellectual life for years and is sorely missed.

Books ain't going away

Book sales are climbing, despite the advance of online publsihing. Well so they say. I don't personally buy as many books. When I was in my 20s I used to buy 2-3 a week, and 3-5 magazines. Now I buy books in binges, for gifts (even for myself) about every 3-6 months. I've cut back about 70-80%. And magazines are down to 3-5 every 3 months. Now I'm no longer single, I have kids and I'm in my late 40s, so things are different. I've changed, and so have my habits. It's not just the Internet that has changed my ways, but it's a factor. I also don't send much mail. Most - almost all - of my writing is electronic and well, the computer is king. If I could carry the computer around as easily as the printed word then I think I'd just about stop buying books - except as gifts, I guess. I need the functionality of the book, not the book per se.

However I do treasure old books,and am loathe to let go of any of the thousand or so we have around the house. A really nice hardcover looks and feels right, and old tomes can be enjoyed in the hand in a way that the screen can't match. On the other hand when I want to read I do prefer to read online. Call me strange but the ability to call up references online, to cut and paste quotes, to add comments and to change font sizes at a whim are 'killer' advantages for me. Now as a 49-year old I'm probably odd in those habits, but how about the kids "growing up" online? What will they expect, books on their gaming consoles?

Forbes has an intersting article on this subject here.

Still slack.

Still slack after all these years. Well I have been busy at work! I have found some old manuscripts which I'll be scanning and re-writing - but that will take time. 2 plays and my unfinished novel - appropriately named The Endless. In the meantime I'm still blogging away.