Hi Derek,

Nice to “meet” you. Thanks for stopping by my blog.

You wrote quite an attention grabber yesterday about the Evils of SEO. You called people who work in this business “brainless” and “soulless,” and proposed that in stead of doing “SEO,” we should all just “Make something great.”

Hundreds of comments later, you wrote a follow-up post explaining yourself a little further. I thought that was a classy move, and I was excited to have a little more discussion about why you would have a problem with someone specializing in “front end web dev” disciplines like ajax, javascript, flash, CSS, and yes…SEO.

But you weren’t having it.  You deleted my comment, because you were “not going to allow my comments to become ad space for SEO providers.” I linked back to this site (my personal blog – where there are no ads, there is no “hire me” sign, and from which I have never conducted any business, or tried to), and that got me busted. So let’s just chat here, shall we?

You want me to “Make something great.” And believe me – I do to! But can we talk for a minute about SEO?

Maybe we can see how it applies to you? Take your jobs for instance, all three of them. They look really neat. Next time I’m in need of a “Mag Cloud” I’ll be sure to hit you up. What does Mag Cloud do? Hmm…why don’t I google them and find out:

Oh good! They have an “about” page listed on their Google search results! I’ll click on that…

Uh-oh…it took me to 404ville. Man that’s really a bummer. If only there was someone the knew how to change that “about” link in the search engine results. Someone that could…I dunno, “make the site better.” I think that should solve it.  It would also probably make the site show up if someone was looking for information about magazine printing.

Right? Just make the site a little bit better…that should make MagCloud show up there.

The awkward thing is that now HP got dragged into this. They’re behind MagCloud. They’re tied with Derek Powazek. It says so right on his site.

Derek: Congrats on your post. It clearly resonated with a lot of people – and the polarizing hyperbole has thrust you into the spotlight. You made me realize that when a person talks about that which they do not know, they run a high risk of sounding really ignorant and really “ass” like. I really did need that as a reminder, so for that I say thanks.

As a side note – I will allow comments from assholes in the space below, even though this is a blog-post which is generally anti-asshole (figurative, not anatomical).

Update: As I cooled off, I realized that I too was being an ass. Feel free to read the comment thread for the full version, but here is what I am really trying to say to Derek:

There is great value in educating people (marketers, web developers, designers, whomever) about how search engines read and understand websites. Your claims that people should have “better content” or “better web development” but that we should not call that “SEO” may just be semantics, but I believe it’s more likely that they are quite short-sighted, and do not place any value on researching which keywords to use (because you say it’s “obvious”), or which competitors are already in that space.

About a billion people have chimed in today about the “black hats,” and those who I would call “spammers.” And because they’ve given SEO a bad name, we all have to live with that. But if you’re implying that there is no value in understanding search engines, I’d call you foolish. If you’re implying that we shouldn’t call it  SEO – I’ll still disagree, but I would say this has been a very silly exercise in semantics.

Dear Friends, Family, Colleagues (past, present, future), and complete strangers:

I’m happy to announce that I have accepted a position with space150 in Minneapolis, working in Search Engine Optimization.  I will probably write more about this in the coming weeks, and I’m thrilled to join such a brilliant group at ‘the Space.’  But first I wanted to share/vent/ramble about quitting my current job.

Yesterday afternoon I had to make one of the hardest phone calls I’ve ever made.  I had to call my boss – a woman who has been a mentor to me since I interned for her over 4 years ago – and tell her that I’ve accepted another job.  A call like this is obviously disappointing to any employer – and as luck wouldn’t have it, I had to interrupt her on her day off – while she was at Disneyland, of all places!

It was hard.  Really hard.  I managed to get everything out (I might recommend having notes for difficult calls like this one).  I sort of tried to explain some things about why I felt I should leave (all while I can hear children screaming on the rides behind her), then I really screwed myself over by telling her how much I respected her and cared about her – and I lost it!  I got all choked up and could barely get the words out, but I got through it and got off the phone.  She was, by the way, very kind and courteous – though obviously disappointed.

I’m proud of the work I did at 5 Alarm Music: the clients I took care of, the business I generated, the marketing initiatives, and the relationships that I have established.  I will enjoy watching that company grow, as I’m sure it will.  I’ll just be watching from the outside now.  The next two weeks might be strange and awkward, but I’m looking forward to wrapping up this chapter, and starting a new one.

In any case – yesterday was bittersweet, but the hardest part is over, and I am thrilled about joining the ranks at space150.  You’ll probably hear me geeking out about SEO a little more often – although this is still my personal blog, and I plan on keeping it personal.  Sorry, that means you’re still stuck with half-written lists of life lessons, silly stories of killing baby birds, and gratuitous polls trying to teach my wife gender lessons.

Thanks for reading.  I’ve been looking forward to this day, and I’m happy to share it with you!

Ok, so if you know me very well, you know that I don’t generally like “Big Computer” (aka Microsoft) and its products.  I would rather not have to restart my PC 5 times a day, and I also don’t like paying large sums of money for software that is available elsewhere open-source style.  Plus…from my limited knowledge of web design, servers, and Content Management Systems…Big Comp. is just plain annoying to try to work with (ASP?  Please!).  So I’m a mac fan, an open source fan, and a bit of a linux geek too.

BUT…as you know part of my job  at  5 Alarm Music, is to manage and edit the blog (plus I write here, and on rockworms every now and then).  We’re using WordPress, which I would give a B+ because it’s simple, easy to use, and generally very bug-free (except for line breaks–geez I hate that I can’t get hard line breaks!).

However, even I don’t enjoy having to log on and use the WSIWYG editor within wordpress.  It’s decent, but not great, and even though it autosaves every few minutes, if I loose Internet connection while writing, I risk loosing my post!

Mkay…so to quit rambling,  and get to the point: this morning I read a post from a new blogger I’m reading (he writes about communications and IT in churches!), and he promoted Windows Live Writer.  It’s really pretty nice!  I can draft posts offline, and the editor is truly  WSIWYG, because it analyzes the style from my blog, and emulates it; so my posts actually look just like they will once they’re published.

Well Big Computer, you may have won this battle, but you haven’t won the war (for my heart)…yet!

PS Whatever happened to Microsoft Buying Yahoo! anyway?

Have you ever been to a smoothie joint, or one of those asian tea places and ordered a drink with “boba” in it?  If so, you know that boba are these marble sized balls of tapioca that they put into your drink of choice.  Then they have to give you a special fat straw, because these slimey spheres would instantly clog a regular straw.

So as you start to take your first sip of this beverage (I usually go for a smoothie with some combination of mango and another fruit), you are surprised–although it’s not like you can’t see the buggars–by about 4 or 5 boba balls leaping up the straw and into your mouth.  You then have to sort of chew on them…or if you want, they’ll just slide on down your throat.

If you have never experienced boba, or even if you have only tried it once or twice, you are saying to yourself: what’s the point?  That doesn’t sound very enjoyable at all!

You might also feel the same way about twitter.  This farily new (actually it’s about a year old, which makes it old school in the internet world) web-phenomenon where you can post your answer to the question “What are you doing” in 140 characters or less.

Again…what’s the point?  That doesn’t sound fun?  I don’t get it?!?!Twitter and boba,  both share a strange trait, in that they are both “acquired tastes.”  Strange at first, even awkward, but once you try it a few times, you start to become addicted–even obsessed!  I will leave the boba tasting up to you, but here are a few reasons why I am addicted to twitter:

1) No need to be eloquent!  You’ve got 140 characters to say your piece.  It’s not like it needs to be Pulitzer material.

2) Finding stuff.  People use twitter to send links to interesting stuff around the web.  Good times!

3) Meeting people.  Since everything seems to revolve around “the almighty network” twitter is a cool place to find friends in similar industries.

4) Twhirl.  Oh man, just when I was starting to get hooked, I download twhirl, now I’m really hooked!  Twitter clients like this one let you “tweet” with friends almost like instant messaging.  They only difference is that the rest of the world can see your conversation.

5) Shameless self promotion.  In all honesty, I started tweeting because a friend suggested I use it to help build links to our website at work.

Sometimes (like just now) I have to check myself and not get too silly on my work account, and save the antics for my personal one.  I forget that I’m representing more than myself on there, and that it is entirely possible (although highly unlikely that my wit and charm would be a turn-off to potential clients; *sigh.

But do yourself a solid.  Try twitter.  Try boba.  Both very weird at first, but addicting after a few rounds.

In case you were wondering what happened, I tried to introduce my twitter account to my wordpress blog this afternoon.  I find keeping up with twitter to be a lot easier than blogging–mostly because I’m lazy, so if I can share something clever in 140 letters or less, I’m all for it.  Somehow my wordpress decided to retroactively re-post all of my “tweets” as blog entries.  So Matt (the sole subscriber of this blog) probably got overloaded when he opened up his outlook 2007 RSS reader.

I hope this teaches us a valuable lesson…don’t use any sort of Microsoft Product to read RSS feeds.

Ok so today I have officially switched from blogger to wordpress. I’ve been working with a consultant (must plug Tom Parish), at work who is helping us to build a stronger web presence for 5 Alarm Music . Since we are going to be implementing a wordpress blog there, I thought I’d get used to it here too.

The installation was a breeze (they claim 5 minutes, and they’re right!), and I’m thinking about switching rockworms.com over to wordpress too. I’ll have to consult with Kyle and Adam on that one, but Joomla has proven to be too much muscle and just plain complicated for what we need.

So here is my new years resolution: Blog more. This blog has been pretty random to date, and I can’t promise that will change much–but I’ll do my best to update here, and for music stuff I’ll post on rockworms.

Let me know what you think of the layout!

So I’ve been on the waiting list for the beta test of “Hulu” which is Newscorp (owner of Fox, Myspace, The world…)’s supposed “youtube killer.” You’ll notice that lot’s of content from broadcasters (NBC, FOX, etc) that used to be all over Youtube, has now been pulled for copyright reasons. The reason is, that all those networks have tentitively agreed to meet on the same playground: hulu.The system delivers decent picture quality (but not anywhere close to ABC’s HD player), and it seems pretty smooth. The coolest part is that it allows you to embed content from the site on your own page (in part, or in whole). So here, for your viewing pleasure, is Season 1, Episode 1 of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Enjoy!

So obviously the new domain is working now. I guess I can’t whine about GoDaddy since they actually called me to see if I needed any help. The guys spent some time walking me through everything, and now it seems to be working. I guess we’re cool daddio. You and your semi-pornographic Superbowl commercials have won back my loyalty.

And now for another picture of Amy shoveling snow:

All is well with the world…

Ok,
so yesterday I was trying to get my blog on, and I kept getting this lovely note from our friends at blogger:
After a while I thought I’d get clever and skirt around the folks at Google (who own Blogger–if you didn’t know). I decided to buy my own web domain! That’s right. I went on godaddy.com and it turns out www.craigsanatomy.com is available! So I antied up my $14.95 for 2 years and then started looking at hostinig options. When I realized that it was going to cost me like $70 (and let’s face it, this blog will never make any money–it doesn’t matter how many google ads I put up), I decided that one probably wouldn’t go over so well with my beautiful wife (shown here shoveling snow).

So then was back at the mercy of the blogger’s hosting. Well the good people at blogger give step-by-step instructions for how to use a custom domain with there service. Like a good boy, I followed all the instructions (something about a CNAME and a DNS sumpin’ er other). And wouldn’t you know it? My page is now a free ad site for GoDaddy!

Ok troops. I think I know just about everyone who reads this blog, and half of you are my wife (great with snow, bad with web server issues). If you have any sort of help, or suggestions I’m all ears! In the meantime, I’ll just be resting peacefully over here are blogspot. I may try this again and just leave it alone for a couple days. So check back every once in a while to see if I made it!

Much love,
-c