If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

One way to make sure your linkbait is successful is to pick a subject that you believe in, are passionate about, and that will bring out an emotional response from members of your target audience.

Or you could play it safe and write the 5 ways Twitter is helping web 2.0 businesses.

The first is memorable the second is utterly forgettable.

Everyone remembers Evel Knievel because he did things that were memorable. No one remembers the 500,000 people who thought jumping the fountains at Ceasars Palace with a motorcycle couldn’t be done, and gave up without even trying.

As my friend Alex tells me unless you have the guts to stand out, you’re just part of the pack.

Class dismissed.

Last week July 18th through the 20th was this years BlogHer Conference. According to the Blogher website their mission is:

To create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community, and economic empowerment.

To those organizers I challenge them to look in the mirror and realize that you’ve now become the same evil and sexist pigs you started out with the goal of overcoming.
Is the BlogHer Conference Guilty of Sex Discrimination »

So over the years I’ve been asked more than once do I accept any guest posts, and they answer has always been no. Well I’ve decided to change that policy and try letting a few guests posts go out and see what happens.

So what’s it take to be accepted as a guest author? Well you don’t have to be an A-list well known SEO or social media blogger, I’m a big believer in giving people a break and paying it forward, so A-lister thru Z-lister you’re all welcome. Next your post has to be either informative, educational, or entertaining and you’re a shoe in if it’s more than one. Please don’t submit anything lame rehashing stuff that all ready out there and been said a million times. Also you don’t have to agree with me, if you love love love Google and think wikipedia is the best thing since sliced bread, bring it on, I don’t stifle people who have differing opinions. You’re spelling and grammar should be good … or at least not any worse than mine

Yes you can put in your own links, but if it looks like you are linking to yourself or all your friends in an overly gratuitous nepetistic fashion … well we might have a problem. You can go where you want with your subject, as long as it fits what I usually write about, if you need help picking a subject let me know.

That’s it so if this sounds like something you’re interested in get in touch.

UPDATE
Going thru requests no decisions made yet just hang in there folks

If you’re one of those kooky SEO’s that doesn’t believe that domain authority/trust is the single most important factor in SEO today, I really think you are either blind, stupid or both. Situations like the Tour De France really highlight the weaknesses in the Google Algo.

Google Loves Wikipedia - Even the Empty Pages »

Hey Google Going to Drop the Paid Links Hammer on Coke? I’m not sure how sending someone a mini fridge knowing full well they are going to blog about it is any different than sending someone cash for link advertising. Then again you created the two tiered internet justice world we now live in, and I’m just a squirrel trying to get a nut.

Eventually though more people are going start using the tactic, so maybe you should get somebody coding a “report refrigerator” link to your webmaster central control panel

We’re getting close to approaching critical mass on friend feed, and with twitter’s horrible performance and feature removal yes I think it’s time people start looking at friend feed.

if you’re interested you can follow me there Michael Gray on Friend Feed

Feel free to drop a link to your profile in the comments, spam from low cost credit card debt reductions with cheap viagra online will be ruthlessly culled

Here’s a perfect example of how to shoot yourself in the foot on Digg (link)

What’s going to get more attention, clicks, or votes …

“How to avoid laptop loss at the airport”

or

“US Airports Lose Over 10,000 Laptops Every Week”

If you’re wondering why your submissions flounder look at your titles are they more like #1 or #2? get the hint …

Unless of course you’re submitting stories from your competitors website, in which case go with #1 every time

So Fast Company posted an article entitled Six Jobs That Won’t Exist in 2016. Hey Fast Company Staff get your heads out of your collective asses and stop with the paginated articles … especially when you don’t need them … if you don’t people will stop reading you and you won’t be around to see if your predictions came true in 2016 or not.

So Seth Godin and Robert Scoble talk about a video by Fred. When you look at all the views of his videos he has over 45 million youtube views

Scoble and Seth go on to say how the traffic numbers aren’t important and it’s the quality of the viewers. Umm hey did you guys miss that his show has a sponsor Zipit Instant Messaging, which he uses twice in the video. Think I made it up … check out the LATimes

“They just think he’s the funniest thing ever,” said Valerie Moizel of the L.A.-based WOO ad agency, which found out about Fred after it conducted kid-centered focus groups for its ZipIt instant messaging product – which later showed up in Fred’s videos. “We watched them watch him – they fall on the floor hysterically laughing. They’re just mesmerized.”

Seems to me the zipit product placement is exactly in front of who it wants to be and the kids don’t consider it offensive, intrusive, or useless like 99% of all the other advertising out there. Lets not omit the facts just because they don’t agree with your world view next time … kthanksbye

… oh and for the record I am over 40 and I find Fred pretty funny

Last night I was using Google Maps to get directions and noticed a new feature, a camera icon located next to each of the steps on Google Maps. When I clicked on the icon I saw a picture of my house!
Google Knows Where I Live »

When Google switched to a single universal icon a few weeks back they created problems, the icons on my bookmarks toolbar are now … (wait for it) … IDENTICAL. The last two on the right are Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Central, so I have no idea which is which. Compare that to the Google Calendar, Google Reader, and Google Docs icons on the left which are different.

Yes I do use Google Reader, Google Calendar, and Google Docs after having tried many other options IMHO they are the best products in their category.

Today Google released an new feature that gives away traffic stats and keywords for most websites on the internet. However what everyone failed to notice is that Google laid everyone else bare, naked and exposed but kept their own stats locked up and private.

Google’s Two Tiered Internet World Sinks to a New Low »

Really I wasn’t going to post this but since Matt Cutt’s asked people to snitch on paid links again I thought I’d bring up another case of Google’s double standard and two tiered justice.

Hey Matt Cutts Be Fair if You Are Going After Paid Links »

Since Ron Paul failed to galvanize the interwebs I’m going to have to step up to the plate

So according to the google blog they think they have the duplicate content problem under control, I remain less than convinced. Here’s my original post, but as of right now google is giving everyone but me credit (screen shot below) lets see what happens:

Now that I’m back from SMX advanced and have had a few days to catch up I’ll share my thoughts. SMX Advanced 2008 Recap »

C’mon Facebook I really thought we had moved past this

It’s not that I care that you are telling everyone I bought tickets to Kung Fu Panda, it’s that you assume that I want you to by default. These programs should be opt in not opt out out. Yes I know almost nobody would do that … but that should be your clue that it’s a bad idea … just sayin …

You know it would really be nifty if Google, Gmail, Google Apps, and Gmail for domains were able to merge/sync contact data with LinkedIn really easily. It would be super nifty if there was a nice automagic script that did the hard stuff for you (you know the way computers are supposed to). It would be even better if I didn’t have to export a CSV, get the error screen (although I find goggle misspelling “ocurred” funny) and then manually monkey with the CSV file … just sayin …

Hey Mihai Parparita Google reader has really gotten better at the dupes thing but today … wow this one just went crazy. I’m sure it’s something Wired is doing wrong, but I’m hoping you can be smarter than them and fix it, cause as interesting as it is to know D&D has updated and it’s great I really only need to know once (click to enlarge)

Have a Gmail account? Log in unless you’ve set your preference otherwise you’ll get the AJAX UI. Now change your user agent to Googlebot, and refresh your page, it automatically loads the HTML version instead of asking you if you want the HTML. What’s up with that? Why would GMail need a UA detection branch in it programming? Does it seem odd that it’s there and that it works that way? I could understand a JS based switch but a UA based changeover … damned peculiar dontcha’ think?