Figured I would give my good friend Paul at work a little link juice - although based upon comparing his Technorati rating to mine it might actually hurt him (he’s way more popular, but I’m still single and can take advantage of all the blog groupies so it’s a trade off).

Anyways, his site is called Blog de Purée and, like mine, topic hops a bit. He does have a lot of unique insight into the tech and web 2.0 world. Not only because he works with me and can harness my vast volume of knowledge (laugh track goes here) but because he has worked for several other web companies.

Some good deep reads:

1. Online rating systems can be manipulated by crowd-hacking
2. Can an online brand support gated or average content?
3. Helium member writes about being a member and earning money on the website
4. Wordpress as a content management system for niche communities
5. Social networking is no fish story on Angler’s Web site

Paul is a funny guy who I enjoy working with immensely both for his good attitude and irreverent sense of humor - which comes across in some of his writing. Definitely check out his blog.

Random Tidbit: So posting a link to my friend’s site isn’t random enough? Ok, how about a wiki composed of video game wikis? Pretty cool stuff.

I’ll admit it, I didn’t know that much about Motley Crue. I only have one album - which I believe is a greatest hits they put out a few years ago - and I was (relatively) young during their glory days. But a friend passed this on to me and I figured that since I liked the Jim Morrison book I bought so much I’d give it a read.

The book was quite simply awesome. It’s amazing that they did all that and are still alive to talk about it. From overdoses and car accidents to prison terms and insane groupies - they lived the rock star dream.

I thought the way the book was set up was kind of interesting as well. They keep switching view points between the members of the band and key members of their entourage. So every chapter is in a different tone from the last and many times explains events from multiple aspects.

I thought the key thing that I took away from it all that was even though they had made millions of dollars, sold millions of records and lived a life of excess - deep down they still felt like the goofy kids they were in high school (in some cases, Nikki Six sticks out the most as he admits this several times).

Makes you feel a little better knowing that even rock stars can be insecure.

Random Tidbit: Some interesting thoughts on Silicon Valley.

I was reading that Microsoft is valuing Facebook at around $10 billion.  The kicker?  Facebook is holding out for a $15 billion valuation.

I’m not an expert on web 2.0 values, however I do remember the web 1.0 bust (just in time for my college graduation with a shiny degree in Computer Science… but bitterness aside…).  I think Facebook is awesome, that it’s much better than MySpace, and possibly one of if not the gem of the current web 2.0 crowd (bigger than del.icio.us and/or Digg).  However, that just seems way too much.

The good news though is that if they’re worth that much, then my stock options with Helium will probably we worth a decent amount.  We’re no Facebook but the totals are only going up.  Barring another bust - which is always a possibility - I think I chose the right horse (my only other option at the time being Eons, which is laying off people).

Random Tidbit: Google has several new ideas percolating including a possible competitor to Second Life.

This is something I drafted up for a discussion on our boards at work and figured I’d pilfer as content. If I’m going to do the work anyways, might as well get some content for my site.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a tricky subject but one of the most widely accepted processes is having numerous, quality links from outside sites builds trust in a page and domain, helping both page and domain to gain value in rankings for the keywords associated.

There are a few widely accepted facts (since there are no certainties in SEO) I’ve discovered and seen in action that follow in (relative) order of importance (and not comprehensive):

1. Deep links are better. Using a blog example a link to a post is better than a link to category page. A link to a category page is better than a link to the blog’s homepage. Why? Because each link gives a little “link juice” (value that search engines associate with a page) from the referring site. Typically the more broad a page the stronger it’s natural link juice. Basically your home page naturally has more link juice than a new oist on “Why kittens are cute.” This is because of the way web page hierarchies are setup (it’s too long to go into detail here) so the “link juice” passed from the referring site will make a bigger impact on an post (which has very little “link juice”) than the home page (which already has a lot of “link juice” both from internal and external links). Think of it like this – you have an ounce of real juice to share. Your home page is a swimming pool, a category page is a kiddie pool, and an post is a cup. In which one would you see the biggest impact? The cup.
2. Niche links are better. An article about “Why kittens are cute” will get more “link juice” from a site about (and recognized as being an expert – ranking in search engines – for) animals (good), cats (better) or kittens (best) rather than a site about golf. Why? Because search engines (SEs) give more value to links from perceived experts in the niche. If you were buying a computer and one friend you had was a computer programmer and the other was a ditch digger in whose opinion would you place more value? Probably the computer programmer – same thing with SEs.
3. Links from sites with greater site age and trust are better. Trust is built through many ways, but basically it’s a catch 22: if other sites trust you (link to you) for keywords, you are trusted for those keywords (and can then pass on that trust). Site age refers to how long a site has been indexed in the search engine – the longer it’s been indexed the more trust. Google especially weights in site age and trust more than any other SE. Trust is also built in part (it seems) by how often your site is updated. Sites that have been stagnant for a long time (months, years) gradually lose trust to more recently updated sites under the impression that the information goes state and/or becomes dated on updated sites over time. This can be offset if others sites are regularly linking in to the site. Example: on a certain keyword a site that has been updated recently and regularly gets lots of incoming links is better than a stagnant site with lots of fresh incoming links or an updated site with few fresh incoming links which are both better than a stagnant site with few fresh incoming links.
4. Links with keyword built text are better. This does not mean make a link that says “cats, kittens, animals, ….” etc. SEs can pick up on that and call it “keyword stuffing.” This does mean that a link to the kitten article is more valuable if the link text (the words between the opening <a href=”..”> and closing </a> tags) says something like “an article about why kittens are cute” than “kittens” or “cats”.
5. Links with titles are better. The anchor tag (<a>) has an attribute called “title” in which you can put further keywords. This is especially good for links that are auto generated. A good example is “read more” links you see sometimes on blogs that link to the whole post. This can also be used to make a normal part of a sentence a link but still get the keyword effect. Example: … Check out this <a href=”site.com/kittens” title=”Why kittens are cute”>great article about cute kittens</a>.

Some of those are basic and more for beginners (my intended audience when I crafted it) but there is still some value for the intermediate SEO out there.

Conclusion: there’s more to SEO than to simply have a lot of sites link to you. One good site (a trusted authority in your niche) is worth dozens, hundreds or even thousands of links from smaller sites, blogs and web directories.

Random Tidbits: Sticking with the SEO theme I found 2 great items on SEOmoz (view source for an example of title tag use on that link - not that SEOmoz is going to get a lot of link juice from the likes of me).

1. Matt Cutts on Nofollow, Links-Per-Page and the Value of Directories - Matt spreads some knowledge on several hot button SEO topics including use of nofollow, which is sometimes misunderstood. Matt works for Google (SEOmoz calls him their “spam guru”) and is one of the best sources to understand Google.
2. SEOmoz’s SEO Expert quiz - test your SEO mettle in 75 questions. See if you can beat my horrible impressive 55%. Seriously, the best part is at the end it shows you the correct answers along with a brief description. Unfortunately, you can’t save that page to keep that information - unless you print it as a PDF to your computer.

So I just finished watching the Patriots beat the Chargers 38-14 and the general feeling I get is one of vindication.  All week Coach Belichick has been villainized for what happened against the Jets.

Let me say that what he did was wrong and we were punished severely - to the point that it went beyond what we deserved because I feel they wanted to make an example that not even the Patriots can get away with something like that.

What stands out most in my mind is all the people that said this has been going on for years and that the Patriots don’t deserve the reputation they’ve gained and the Super Bowls they’ve won.  In my mind it’s obvious that there are too many coaches and players that have left the team - McGinest, Romeo, Mangini, Givens, etc. - that would have had to have been in on it for this to have been a long running thing.  Someone would have spoken up before now - even Mangini just last year - if we had been cheating all along.

We proved tonight that we have quality players, superior coaching, that we’re hard working and are simply better than anyone we’ve faced so far.  We don’t need any edges - which by all accounts we didn’t even get from the taping - to plain and simply outplay you.

With the Bonds and the McGwires making us so cynical about our sports heroes has it come to the point that a team that has defined what makes football great, that has been a model franchise and has grown to take the Cowboys spot as “America’s Team” can make one mistake - granted a big and stupid one - and blow all of their goodwill in one shot?

Watching the Patriots’ players crowd around Belichick after the game and congratulate him you know those closest to him believe and trust in him.  I think if Tom Brady and Tedy Bruschi - two of the finest players in the NFL - can vouch for him then we should too.  If I’m wrong and we did really get this far by getting an illegal edge than there really is nothing good left in sports.  But I don’t think I’m wrong.

Random Tidbit: Andy Rutledge provides another strong argument to design with web standards.  I know one of my goals is to continue to make my code better and more standards compliant for many of the reasons he mentions - is it one of your goals as well?  Trust me, when it comes to making large site wide changes down the road, you won’t regret it.