ConvergeSouth is happening this Friday and Saturday down the mountain in Greensboro, NC. I’ll be speaking there on affiliate marketing and web2.0 stuff, but there will be some real luminaries from the tech world there as well. Should be a blast!They’ve even put together a spiffy map if you’re in town:
ConvergeSouth 2007 Venues:Google Maps
Let me know if you’ll be there and we’ll grab a coffee.
While downloading mail from GMail via pop today (something I do every month) I got this wonderful screen on my GMail acct (which, of course I use for work and personal mail):
That’ll learn me, eh? Especially after I left a few glowing comments about GMail on Andrew Wee’s post about GMail memory usage.
I’m chocking on the irony here, folks.
Anyways, if you want to reach me please use the me@samharrelson.com address.
I’ve been using the release client of Ubuntu 7.10 (the final release is due this Thursday) for the last few days and think it’s a great step forward for the Ubuntu distro. Lots of great features (better power management, integrated Compiz, better monitor resolution, new Gimp, Tracker search etc) make this my favorite distro so far.
Just wanted to note that this morning there was a huge update in the repositories for all sorts of programs and the Ubuntu desktop. So, if you’re already using 7.10, prepare to hand over some cycles to the update manager!
I’ve been following the Ellington Hotel / Condo issue here in Asheville for a while and I still don’t understand the various arguments from the critics (“the building is too high!” “it will cause too much traffic on Biltmore!”, etc). While I am a fan of sustainable growth, it doesn’t seem as if the Ellington will add anything unbearable to the Asheville skyline or the already crazy traffic on Biltmore. The locals know how to avoid all that anyway 🙂
ASHEVILLE – For opponents of The Ellington hotel and condominium building, a key question as the project goes to City Council tonight is whether city streets can handle the additional traffic. For backers, the answer is clear: no problem.
Seems like more political pandering by city council members seeking re-election to me.
CITIZEN-TIMES.com: Ellington critics question accuracy of traffic studyPowered by ScribeFire.
Macy tore her ACL on Sunday while doing her favorite thing in the world… chasing squirrels around the yard.
She’s undergoing surgery on Tuesday morning to repair the tear, so keep her in your thoughts if you don’t mind. She’s not happy about being benched or going through rehab.
Put me in Coach on Flickr – Photo Sharing!
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Steve Rubel writes on his MicroPersuasion blog that there is a looming recession in the pay per click advertising business and gives 5 reasons why he thinks this is so:
For the last several years, search engine marketing has been on a tear. While the big advertisers sat on the sidelines in the beginning, they have lately been ramping up their spend on pay-per-click advertising, primarily on search engines but also affiliate sites like those that run Google Adsense.
However, I am calling a top to this market now. Here are five reasons why a pay-per-click advertising recession looms. (If you depend on Adsense for the bulk of your revenue, this applies to you as well.)
Steve is an always thoughtful writer and one of my favorite bloggers, so you should definitely head over and read his 5 reasons.
Nonetheless, I have to disagree a bit (not just because I work for a paid search agency). I’ll keep it short and sweet and say that Steve is correct in his 5 reasons as to why pure search marketing on a PPC metric will hit a glass ceiling (if it hasn’t already). However, smart marketers and advertisers have already noticed this trend and have positioned themselves to evolve with the marketplace. This is especially true with his #2 (“Transition to CPA”) and #3 (“Rising Costs”) reasons. However, there is still a promising market for the search companies and agencies wise enough to blend PPC into a CPA or affiliate model and insure performance metrics that work out on the back end. Rising costs are definitely an issue for the PPC world to tackle with, especially in the realm of ad networks like Commission Junction with their respective commission structures. The trick there, as many search agencies have already figured out, is to go direct. So, I agree with Steve that the PPC model in its pure state will see a cap or even downturn. However, smart marketers and advertisers have already seen the writing on the walls (or search results) and have moved to make their businesses flexible and wide enough to deal with these market changes. Look for those agencies to rise to the top.Awesome…
Just when you thought the current crop of “I make money blogging” bloggers couldn’t get any more annoying, here’s even more fuel to the fire:
Ad network AdBrite announced this morning that they have begun selling full-page ad units of the sort that you’ve no doubt seen on some of the bigger, more old-school web sites like PCMag and the New York Times. Now you too can interrupt your readers’ time with a full page ad in the middle of their time on your site.
More power to the “I make money blogging and so can you!” crowd out there, but I just don’t see why you’d want to pollute your space of creativity and expression with ads that are probably not going to make you much (if any) money anyway. Sure, a few ads here and there are fine, but interrupting your readers attention and experience by throwing up a full page ad before they can visit your site or splicing AdSense units into your post just seems pathetic to me.
For bloggers with less than a million page views per month, the trade off just doesn’t seem worth it since all you’re doing is propping up the ad networks by participating in these schemes.
AdBrite: Full Page “Skip This Ad” Units Now Available for Everyone
One of my main passions offline is research into Dura Europos. I had the privilege to catalogue, photograph and work with much of what remains of Dura Europos’ artwork while a grad student at Yale (Yale led the Dura Europos excavations in the 1930’s and brought thousands and thousands of pieces back to the Yale Art Gallery where much of it resides in the basement of the Gallery now).
I’ve always been intrigued by the Synagogue at Dura Europos. It’s an amazing and even puzzling place for westerners who like to assume that Jewish communities have always followed the non-graven images rule strictly in their worship spaces since Sinai. However, the Dura Europos Synagogue is filled with artwork, both biblical and pagan in nature, and shows a complex artistic tradition that extended beyond the Syrian desert where Dura Europos is located.
Here’s a well thought out (and researched) post expanding that idea entitled “The Protestant Revision of History” from the Turretin Debate Blog (Turretin was a Reformed theologian who was especially influential in Calvinist and Puritan circles… evidently this blog should be read through those lens):
Neither were later Jews against images and veneration. The ancient synagogue at Dura-Europos, which was destroyed in the mid 200s AD is filled with icons and imagery. And ancient house churches from the same period were also found containing icons. As the Christians inherited Jewish worship practices, they must have been guided in interpretation of Exodus 20:4 by the Jewish practices, which clearly were not iconoclastic. No wonder Orthodox churches are covered in images, since the Jewish synagogues were the same. And yet there is no condemnation of the Jews by Christians over this issue…Protestants think to themselves that the early church must have been
primitive and basic, with no relationship to the ornate and colourful
world of Orthodoxy with its churches and vestments. But the facts and
archeology say differently. Ancient Jewish and Christian worship is
characterised by the ornate, by images, icons and symbolism. The
ancient Christian catacombs contain icons, including those of Mary
holding the Christ child as would be familiar to any Orthodox
Christian. (Ouspensky, Leonid, Theology of the Icon, Vol 1, Crestwood,
NY (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press), c1978, pp. 74-75).
Fun stuff to ponder on a beautiful Monday afternoon!
