Here's a thought: How about companies try to offer useful services rather than "optimize" their search engine results?
The problem is there are many companies that offer useful services that have NO IDEA how to promote a website. Many SEO consultants do little more than help write some intelligent copy, submit to dmoz and add some PPC advertising.
'
Also, many businesses have excellent products that get overshadowed by someone that has optimized their site for search engines. For example, the company I work for has a collaboration software product very similar to Groove, named iKE. In many ways iKE is a superior and more economical product than Groove, but when you search for Collaboration Software Groove, or articles about Groove come up many times, while iKE does not appear once. Short of optimizing our site, how are we supposed to get exposure or market share?
This seems like a complete waste to me. All I want is a phone number that rings my cell phone. That's it. I can see the ability to route certain numbers to voicemail at certain times might be handy, or permanently block certain numbers, but it seems like that could be handled by the phone itself.
I think this is going to be one more thing that takes more effort to use than the benefits it will provide.
OK, every one of these companies killed themselves.
Apple - Have never figured out that people want cheap hardware. It wasn't the fact that Microft's OS was cheaper, better, faster, anything. It was the fact that I could buy a PC for a third (or less) of the price of a Mac. Can't really give Microsoft much credit for Jobs being an idiot.
Sun - Linux has hurt Sun more the Microsoft. Microsoft has not made significant inroads to Sun's enterprise market, but Linux has.
Netscape - Sure, IE was eventually a better product, but without their distribution channel through the OS it would have been much more difficult to win that battle.
I'll concede both Borland and Lotus (of course I mentioned thos in my post). That still puts us at a questionable 5 examples. I'm not saying that Microsoft can't be a formidable oppponent when they want to, due to their resources and distribution system, not because of their innovation.
My feeling about Microsoft is they are NOT as software company, they are a marketing company. Their primary focus is not to make great software, their focus is to make, or more often buy (like the recent Groove acquisition) software that is 'good enough' to sell, and market the crap out of it.
I think any company with a really good product can successfully compete directly with Microsoft and come out ahead.
But I thought according to Star Wars lore, you couldn't "buy" a lightsaber. The Jedi (or Sith) had to build their own lightsaber.
See, this is where the whole Star Wars bit breaks down for me. If a Jedi gave in to the Dark Side, why wouldn't he open a corner store an sell all the light sabers he could build.
Bill Gates would, and we all know he gave in to the Dark Side a long time ago.
It has been proven over and over again that Microsoft succeeds against opponents who become complacent. Those that don't (Intuit is a good example) can fend off Microsoft's attacks. But I'm seeing signs that Google is already getting too full of themselves. If they're not paranoid of Microsoft, they're screwed.
Hmm... can you cite some examples. Sure, they won the big one against Netscape, mostly because they controlled the desktop market and gave IE to everyone. I think they pretty much drove Borland out of the compiler business, again because they control the desktop market and the Borland compilers couldn't handle Windows' quirkiness as well as Visual Studio could. What else? Wordperfect I suppose, although that's mostly their fault for being late to the WYSIWYG world.
Wow, that's three. Might be a couple others in the 'office' arena (lotus 123, etc...), but for the most part many businesses have thrived in spite of Microsoft competition. The only times they have had real success running someone out of business is when they can either give a product away for 'free', screw up the way a competitive product works on their OS or bundle the new product with something that is already selling. I can't think of one product, besides Windows, that Microsoft built and everyone just 'had to have'.
Microsoft never has, and never will be innovative. They should stay out of the search engine market, they don't have the right attitude for it. They will spend BILLIONS to reinvent the wheel. This is why they are much more well known for buying technology than creating it, starting with their very first product.
Re:Never write off Microsoft...
on
Gates on Google
·
· Score: 1
Yes, really. You might have been one of the many Netscape users who abandoned it for MSIE but there were far more MSIE users who never even experienced Navigator and who've never run any browser other than that that came bundled with their OS in their lives.
That's true, but in the early days of IE it was such a poor product that most of us went looking for an alternative. Microsoft did not 'win the browser war' until IE was a viable alternative to Netscape. The same thing is happining now with Firefox. The Current IE is WAY behind the times and people are looking for an alternative. Microsoft can probably retain their dominance if they can update IE to a 21st century product.
I don't think the PG, PG-13, and R movie ratings are held to any degree of enforcement. They'll refuse a family and said family will go to a competitor's screens.
The point is that a 'family', or any group with an adult, can take any kids into any PG, PG-13 or R movie they want. You do bring up a good poing about people (children, whatever) yapping during a movie. It's ridiculous, every time I go to the movies lately (which isn't often) someone is talking through the whole movie. Most of the time I just don't go. Can watch the DVD at home cheaper, and it's quiet (if I can get the dogs to shut up).
One question though, what alternate universe do you live in where people tip 30-35%?????????
Interestingly, I recently read an article (maybe even here on slashdot) about the WSJ's online service and how they are getting serious competition by Forbes.
With WSJ's subscription service, their content doesn't get indexed by the search engines, so anyone looking for business news in Google is more likely to get links to the Forbes site. This fact has helped increase Forbes market share in the business publication arena.
Bottom line is a subscription based model is not always the best if you want to increase your web traffic. The company I worked for ran a small monthly newsletter for our customers for a few years. You had to be a customer with a login/password to access it. During some SEO work we decided to move all of our old newsletters into a free archive that could be indexed. Worked like a champ.
Spoken like someone who's never had to deal with the digital divide. It *is* real, especially in rural areas.
That is a GREAT point. I don't see this municipal broadband existing in larger communities, there is too much competition and the current ISPs are too well entrenched. Where this is really going to be a great thing is in all of the small towns across America. There are so many small communities all across the midwest that are in the exact situation you describe. If those communities can use tax dollars to provide broadband access it may even attract new industry and allow people that want to live in a small town to live and thrive there.
Personally I would LOVE to move away from the congested Front Range Colorado area, even if just by 10 miles or so. I work in IT, so could potentially get a job where I could work from home over the net if there was a small town with decent broadband access.
The point of the parent was that the farmers were using the water for crops that no one wanted - "making a living" isn't a good enough reason to waste a scare commodity.
My point was that "making a living" is a better reason to use a resource than washing your vehicle. I'm actually glad you responded though, but because it's worse than that.
People, in my experience California people especially, think that water is just a magic substance that the government magically provides for them. I am not sure about the particulars in California, or LA, but in Colorado here is how it works. Everyone owns water. Farms own water, cities and municipalities own water, etc... If the city I live in has severe water restrictions (which it did for several recent years) it is because the city is concerned they will run out of water. This has little or no impact on what the local farms have for water. Their water rights are owned independently.
In theory, a city could be completely out of water with people dying in the streets and the farms outside of town could still have water to irrigate their crops.
Oh, and as far as the subsidies? Don't get me started on that, the government subsidises the cotton (and MANY other crops) to keep production up and prices low. If they didn't subsidise the cotton production many cotton farmers would go out of business, cotton production would fall, price would go up and the cotton shirt you bought yesterday would be $50 instead of $10.
I am completely against subsidies, soil banks and the like because it just artificially manipulates the market. Most farm business out there is dying a slow death due to the artificial market, rather than dealing with the natural fluctuation of the market.
Yeah, because it's more important for you to have a patch of green in front of your house and a clean SUV than it is for a farmer to make a living. Stupid Californians, just make sure you stay in your own damn state.
toilets aren't modular, you cant just go buy one and put it in like legos, it requires a lot of plumbing and floorwork, too
That's not normally true. If you are replacing a toilet, the drain should be in the correct place. The supply line may not be quite right, but the plumbing required to adjust it's location should be minimal. Seems like they usually come with a flexible line for the supply, IIRC.
Actually, that is a misrepresentation of the movie. It does not do anything silly like gun-jamming or heart attack. What's interesting (partial spoiler) is that Bruce Willis' character actually generates the reason for him being sent back in time. It is one of my all time favorite movies due to the complex story nature, Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt's excellent acting ability and Terry Gilliam's genius. Ultimately the mission is accomplished and the people from the future do change the past. Of course the story ends there, so we don't know how the timeline is effected...
My favourite offroad toy (if I had the money for offroad toys) would be an Oka. A bit too heavy but carries lots and eats Unimogs and the like before breakfast as far as actually getting places is concerne
Got a good link for one of those? I'm always interested in anything that will eat Unimogs.
Yeah, and because only a Land Rover idiot was dumb enough to try. The truck hasn't changed in the 30+ years since.
Look at any film you may see with relief effort in Africa and examine what they are driving - why, they're Land Rovers.
Or maybe just because they are left over from the colonial days, or because it's one of the few reasonably priced 4x4s built in Europe - which is a HELL of a lot closer to ship from than the US. If you notice, most of the other stuff used in African relief efforts isn't usually state of the art either.
They are relative cheap
Maybe in your part of the world, here in the US they are a pricey status symbol of the SUV crowd.
For the most part they remind me of the old 50's Willys CJ3A. They too were small, cheap, easy to repair and simple. They would go absolutely anywhere as long as you didn't want to go more than 25MPH. Jeep as moved on Landrover should too.
Also be careful with your statement. For example, I doubt users running X apps with a remote display have a disproportionate performance impact, but your statement lumps them in with console X users.
Yeah, actually thought about that. Just didn't seem easy to articulate. Good point.
Oh, tell me you did NOT reply to my post with a link to a Landrover site. You are just wrong on SO many levels.
First, the Baja Claw is generally a accepted to be a good sand tire. If I was mudding and needed traction I'd use a Super Swamper.
Second, the amount of traction that's good for a sand tire depends on several factors. What I've found over the years is that a vehicle with low horsepower generally does better with a smoother tire will spin, keeping wheel speed up and not digging in to the sand. If you have enough power, a tire with more traction will actually work better, as long as the air pressure is low. If you look at the trucks that race in SCORE you will see that most of those have aggressive tires with transverse ribs, unlike the Landrover article you cited.
Third, Landrover is the most overrated, underpowered, ridiculous excuse for a 4x4 on the PLANET. If you doubt I know what I'm talking about, show me a Landrover that can do this.
Finally, the word is TIRES, spell it with me T-I-R-E-S
Perhaps NASA could learn a thing or two from rednecks in 4x4 pickup trucks? *smile*
No, that's the problem right there. NASA's down in Florida, all the rednecks they hired build mud boggers, don't know anything about desert racing. Shoulda got somebody from out west (Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, California) with experience in the sand to build their rig.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a thought: How about companies try to offer useful services rather than "optimize" their search engine results?
The problem is there are many companies that offer useful services that have NO IDEA how to promote a website. Many SEO consultants do little more than help write some intelligent copy, submit to dmoz and add some PPC advertising.
' Also, many businesses have excellent products that get overshadowed by someone that has optimized their site for search engines. For example, the company I work for has a collaboration software product very similar to Groove, named iKE. In many ways iKE is a superior and more economical product than Groove, but when you search for Collaboration Software Groove, or articles about Groove come up many times, while iKE does not appear once. Short of optimizing our site, how are we supposed to get exposure or market share?
Sounds more like Demi Moore than Paubla Abdul to me. I hear Demi even wants a child...
This seems like a complete waste to me. All I want is a phone number that rings my cell phone. That's it. I can see the ability to route certain numbers to voicemail at certain times might be handy, or permanently block certain numbers, but it seems like that could be handled by the phone itself.
I think this is going to be one more thing that takes more effort to use than the benefits it will provide.
(breaktrough could be, to make it as cheap as or even cheaper than normal concrete)
Yeah, like for my driveway. No more cracks - Woo Hoo.
OK, every one of these companies killed themselves.
Apple - Have never figured out that people want cheap hardware. It wasn't the fact that Microft's OS was cheaper, better, faster, anything. It was the fact that I could buy a PC for a third (or less) of the price of a Mac. Can't really give Microsoft much credit for Jobs being an idiot.
Sun - Linux has hurt Sun more the Microsoft. Microsoft has not made significant inroads to Sun's enterprise market, but Linux has.
Netscape - Sure, IE was eventually a better product, but without their distribution channel through the OS it would have been much more difficult to win that battle.
I'll concede both Borland and Lotus (of course I mentioned thos in my post). That still puts us at a questionable 5 examples. I'm not saying that Microsoft can't be a formidable oppponent when they want to, due to their resources and distribution system, not because of their innovation.
My feeling about Microsoft is they are NOT as software company, they are a marketing company. Their primary focus is not to make great software, their focus is to make, or more often buy (like the recent Groove acquisition) software that is 'good enough' to sell, and market the crap out of it.
I think any company with a really good product can successfully compete directly with Microsoft and come out ahead.
But I thought according to Star Wars lore, you couldn't "buy" a lightsaber. The Jedi (or Sith) had to build their own lightsaber.
See, this is where the whole Star Wars bit breaks down for me. If a Jedi gave in to the Dark Side, why wouldn't he open a corner store an sell all the light sabers he could build.
Bill Gates would, and we all know he gave in to the Dark Side a long time ago.
It has been proven over and over again that Microsoft succeeds against opponents who become complacent. Those that don't (Intuit is a good example) can fend off Microsoft's attacks. But I'm seeing signs that Google is already getting too full of themselves. If they're not paranoid of Microsoft, they're screwed.
Hmm... can you cite some examples. Sure, they won the big one against Netscape, mostly because they controlled the desktop market and gave IE to everyone. I think they pretty much drove Borland out of the compiler business, again because they control the desktop market and the Borland compilers couldn't handle Windows' quirkiness as well as Visual Studio could. What else? Wordperfect I suppose, although that's mostly their fault for being late to the WYSIWYG world.
Wow, that's three. Might be a couple others in the 'office' arena (lotus 123, etc...), but for the most part many businesses have thrived in spite of Microsoft competition. The only times they have had real success running someone out of business is when they can either give a product away for 'free', screw up the way a competitive product works on their OS or bundle the new product with something that is already selling. I can't think of one product, besides Windows, that Microsoft built and everyone just 'had to have'.
Microsoft never has, and never will be innovative. They should stay out of the search engine market, they don't have the right attitude for it. They will spend BILLIONS to reinvent the wheel. This is why they are much more well known for buying technology than creating it, starting with their very first product.
Yes, really. You might have been one of the many Netscape users who abandoned it for MSIE but there were far more MSIE users who never even experienced Navigator and who've never run any browser other than that that came bundled with their OS in their lives.
That's true, but in the early days of IE it was such a poor product that most of us went looking for an alternative. Microsoft did not 'win the browser war' until IE was a viable alternative to Netscape. The same thing is happining now with Firefox. The Current IE is WAY behind the times and people are looking for an alternative. Microsoft can probably retain their dominance if they can update IE to a 21st century product.
I don't think the PG, PG-13, and R movie ratings are held to any degree of enforcement. They'll refuse a family and said family will go to a competitor's screens.
The point is that a 'family', or any group with an adult, can take any kids into any PG, PG-13 or R movie they want. You do bring up a good poing about people (children, whatever) yapping during a movie. It's ridiculous, every time I go to the movies lately (which isn't often) someone is talking through the whole movie. Most of the time I just don't go. Can watch the DVD at home cheaper, and it's quiet (if I can get the dogs to shut up).
One question though, what alternate universe do you live in where people tip 30-35%?????????
My managers simply refuse to use anything proposed by us, the development team, and named subversion.
Wow, your managers actually listen to anything your say? Crazy. My manager wouldn't pay attention long enough to actually object.
The ratings specify for R that children under 17 are not permitted
| Actually "Under 17 Requires accompanying parent or guardian".
Interestingly, I recently read an article (maybe even here on slashdot) about the WSJ's online service and how they are getting serious competition by Forbes.
With WSJ's subscription service, their content doesn't get indexed by the search engines, so anyone looking for business news in Google is more likely to get links to the Forbes site. This fact has helped increase Forbes market share in the business publication arena.
Bottom line is a subscription based model is not always the best if you want to increase your web traffic. The company I worked for ran a small monthly newsletter for our customers for a few years. You had to be a customer with a login/password to access it. During some SEO work we decided to move all of our old newsletters into a free archive that could be indexed. Worked like a champ.
Spoken like someone who's never had to deal with the digital divide. It *is* real, especially in rural areas.
That is a GREAT point. I don't see this municipal broadband existing in larger communities, there is too much competition and the current ISPs are too well entrenched. Where this is really going to be a great thing is in all of the small towns across America. There are so many small communities all across the midwest that are in the exact situation you describe. If those communities can use tax dollars to provide broadband access it may even attract new industry and allow people that want to live in a small town to live and thrive there.
Personally I would LOVE to move away from the congested Front Range Colorado area, even if just by 10 miles or so. I work in IT, so could potentially get a job where I could work from home over the net if there was a small town with decent broadband access.
The point of the parent was that the farmers were using the water for crops that no one wanted - "making a living" isn't a good enough reason to waste a scare commodity.
My point was that "making a living" is a better reason to use a resource than washing your vehicle. I'm actually glad you responded though, but because it's worse than that.
People, in my experience California people especially, think that water is just a magic substance that the government magically provides for them. I am not sure about the particulars in California, or LA, but in Colorado here is how it works. Everyone owns water. Farms own water, cities and municipalities own water, etc... If the city I live in has severe water restrictions (which it did for several recent years) it is because the city is concerned they will run out of water. This has little or no impact on what the local farms have for water. Their water rights are owned independently.
In theory, a city could be completely out of water with people dying in the streets and the farms outside of town could still have water to irrigate their crops.
Oh, and as far as the subsidies? Don't get me started on that, the government subsidises the cotton (and MANY other crops) to keep production up and prices low. If they didn't subsidise the cotton production many cotton farmers would go out of business, cotton production would fall, price would go up and the cotton shirt you bought yesterday would be $50 instead of $10.
I am completely against subsidies, soil banks and the like because it just artificially manipulates the market. Most farm business out there is dying a slow death due to the artificial market, rather than dealing with the natural fluctuation of the market.
Yeah, because it's more important for you to have a patch of green in front of your house and a clean SUV than it is for a farmer to make a living. Stupid Californians, just make sure you stay in your own damn state.
toilets aren't modular, you cant just go buy one and put it in like legos, it requires a lot of plumbing and floorwork, too
That's not normally true. If you are replacing a toilet, the drain should be in the correct place. The supply line may not be quite right, but the plumbing required to adjust it's location should be minimal. Seems like they usually come with a flexible line for the supply, IIRC.
Virtual Reality has been generating very positive effects is, unexpectedly (?), therapy against phobias...
Maybe I can use this to get over my fear of women...
Actually, that is a misrepresentation of the movie. It does not do anything silly like gun-jamming or heart attack. What's interesting (partial spoiler) is that Bruce Willis' character actually generates the reason for him being sent back in time. It is one of my all time favorite movies due to the complex story nature, Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt's excellent acting ability and Terry Gilliam's genius. Ultimately the mission is accomplished and the people from the future do change the past. Of course the story ends there, so we don't know how the timeline is effected...
My favourite offroad toy (if I had the money for offroad toys) would be an Oka. A bit too heavy but carries lots and eats Unimogs and the like before breakfast as far as actually getting places is concerne
Got a good link for one of those? I'm always interested in anything that will eat Unimogs.
First car to go from Alaska to Cape Horn.
Yeah, and because only a Land Rover idiot was dumb enough to try. The truck hasn't changed in the 30+ years since. Look at any film you may see with relief effort in Africa and examine what they are driving - why, they're Land Rovers.
Or maybe just because they are left over from the colonial days, or because it's one of the few reasonably priced 4x4s built in Europe - which is a HELL of a lot closer to ship from than the US. If you notice, most of the other stuff used in African relief efforts isn't usually state of the art either.
They are relative cheap
Maybe in your part of the world, here in the US they are a pricey status symbol of the SUV crowd.
For the most part they remind me of the old 50's Willys CJ3A. They too were small, cheap, easy to repair and simple. They would go absolutely anywhere as long as you didn't want to go more than 25MPH. Jeep as moved on Landrover should too.
Actually the controllers at JPL ARE in California...
Yeah, but they're probably hippies.
Also be careful with your statement. For example, I doubt users running X apps with a remote display have a disproportionate performance impact, but your statement lumps them in with console X users.
Yeah, actually thought about that. Just didn't seem easy to articulate. Good point.
Perhaps NASA could learn a thing or two from rednecks in 4x4 pickup trucks? *smile*
No, that's the problem right there. NASA's down in Florida, all the rednecks they hired build mud boggers, don't know anything about desert racing. Shoulda got somebody from out west (Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, California) with experience in the sand to build their rig.
They need bigger wheels! Knew they shoulda opt for those shiny 18" !
Not bigger wheels, bigger tires. Shoulda went with some 44" Baja Claws.