racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

It’s been a busy week again for me, folks. Between managing a blog network, to coming up with content, to coordinating with people, I don’t know if 24 hours in a day are enough (there’s still my personal life to manage)!

So here are links to a few good reads.

• Make mine to go – This is an article I wrote on Forever Geek a year back. I was on a roll, with columns almost every day. Of course, that was also during the time I had this thing called blogging burnout.
• More recently, I asked on the Blog Herald whether I could trust my memories to web apps. I’m quite a fan of Flickr, but I’m wondering whether online and even digital archival are lasting. In a way, I think printed photos still rule.
• I’m also a Twitter fan, but I’ve been wondering if SEOs will soon be taking advantage of the linking powers of Twitter and other microblogging services.
• Here’s a thought on community blogging, over at our new blog Froodee.

So downloading Prison Break episodes take much of my time—okay, not my time, but my computer’s time (namely the Mac, since Transmission seems to do a helluva lot better job than Azuerus when it comes to stealing movies downloading Torrents). And then of course there are those other writing stuff. So here I am again with another blog roundup.

• Tony Hung writes on the dangers of linkbait.
• Here’s an interesting way to encourage your mate to blog.
• WTF with Technorati?
• Libraries (and librarians) are not obsolete, and why the “wisdom of the crowds” concept may not be wise at all.
• Acknowledging Problogging’s blue-collar class.

The “dangers of linkbait” issue is about those interesting gimmicks that some bloggers and webmasters have so people would link to their site. True, these could sometimes help jack up your inbound linkage, and consequently your Google juice and technorati ranking. But then again, you run the risk of getting banned if things get too hot. But is it really a bad thing to do?

As for the “blue collar class” of problogging, it’s about the dreaded pay-per-post and why A-listers should recognize the need for this new model of blog monetization. Actually I’m a bit guilty of finger-pointing myself. I’ve grown too reliant on my blog network revenue (i.e., “salaries”) and even AdSense that I initially had doubts when my mom said she got into this pay-per-post scheme with a local affiliate network. I initially told her that she might just be watering down her PR juice (because her blog might be seen as a link-farm) with all those affiliate links. But I guess bloggers have to start somewhere. And I would say with her readership and discussion (judging from traffic growth and comment threads), she’s rising fast to Internet stardom.

Is “wisdom of the crowds” really “wisdom?” JOAB thinks not always, and I agree. Sometimes things tend to turn into popularity contests, and what’s popular may not necessarily be relevant to society at all.

Enjoy the reads!

Not really.

But we do run a blog named Isulong SEOPH, as do perhaps hundreds of other people. Yeah, hundreds of other people who want a bite at that prize money, the honor of being number one, or just a chance to bite each other’s heads off in the heat of the competition. But what’s the difference?

We’re on page one.

And that’s by no means a small feat (remember, big feet = big s____). After all, we’re up against seasoned SEO professionals and enthusiasts. There are, indeed, people who optimize for the good ol’ search engines (Google and what’s-their-names), in order for their pet projects or clients to appear number one, or at least among the search results.

Moreover, Ia, Phillip and I are just enjoying ourselves, basking in the glow of the screens of our spanking new MacBook Pros (or is it MacBooks Pro?) while sipping our favorite cocktails in our respective corner-offices in Makati, which we’ve opened up for our great new startup, Go-Ogle!

Ok, I lie. But not about the page-one part. We rock! We’re about to pwn Isulong SEOPH! And we’re frickin’ n00bs at SEO, for crying out loud!

We do hope our projects would earn us those new MacBooks Pro and those large corner-offices in Makati (while we absolutely shun corporate life, large offices would be cool for frolicking around with expensive equipment in).

Oh, I lied about the alcohol too. No alcohol for you, Ia and Phil. You’re too young!

A bit of help

So now that that nonsensical thinking-aloud thing’s over with, I’d like to solicit your help. You see, our being on page one is by no means easy and comfortable. We now feel the pressure in a way, because we feel that we’re there by chance. Google must love the fact that we’re calling ourselves Go-Ogle. Or perhaps that’s because of early fluctuations in the rankings. Or it could be due to a host of other factors.

Fact is, we really do hope that our page-one status would be sustainable. We’ve tried to optimize as well as we could on-site, but we need help with off-site optimization, too, which would usually consist about 50% of optimization activities (or about 75% of the effort, I’d say).

So if you have hearts of gold, and would like to see your favorite young, struggling artistes win their share of the glory, do link to our Isulong SEOPH site.

The URL is:

http://www.go-ogle.com.ph/isulong-seoph

And the anchor link text should be:

Isulong SEOPH

Here’s a convenient code you can copy and paste onto your blogs or sites, for those who can access their templates/themes (or who prefer hardcoding their posts/entries or blogs).

<a href="http://www.go-ogle.com.ph/isulong-seoph">Isulong SEOPH</a>

What will you get?

Well, aside from our heartfelt thanks, we will link back to you on our Isulong SEOPH site. And you’ll also have first crack at what we’re developing for Go-Ogle!

There are probably a ton of other things we could help you out with in exchange, considering our interest in a ton of things (ranging from web design, basketball, programming, creative writing, cryptography, accupressure, kung fu, Swahili translation, et cetera). Just drop us a line. We’ve set up a mailing address at mail@go-ogle.com.ph . We’ll also be setting up an email group for discussion, soon.