First Website Ever

Ever wonder what the first website looked like? I found it.

Oh and I bought an SUV...but it gets great gas mileage.

Understanding Google: The Phone Verification System for Google Local Business Does Not Work

This is what you can expect if you opt for the phone verification (as of 8/13/08)

1. You sign in to Google Local Business using your free Google account.

2. Complete the form with information about your business (two pages).

3. Google needs to verify this information with you to be sure that you are a legitimate business and they give you two options to complete the verification process. Your first option is a phone call from Google where you will be required to enter a four-digit pin number. Your second option is to have a postcard / letter sent to the address you provided in step two. Most people choose the phone call because that option seems to be more automatic.

4. Once you choose the phone call option, you can then elect to have the call made right away or in five minutes.

5. As soon as you chose the immediate phone call option, you can expect your phone to ring. When you pick up you will hear absolutely nothing. Keying in your four-digit pin will not work so don’t waste your time. The five-minute delay is not going to yield a better result either. If you change your phone number, entering your cell instead, it’s possible that you will get a call from Google and actually get to the voice recording asking you to proceed with the process by entering 1. If this happens just hang up. You will not make it past this stage.

6. Refusing to believe you’re hopeless, you research the problem. First on Google’s website, thinking there has be a FAQ section that addresses this obvious problem. When you find nothing, you run a search on Google and find even more nothing. The only place you will see enough information to satisfy you is on the Google Help Groups page where you can run a search and find more hopeless people like yourself.

7. You have the postcard sent. The End…unless you don’t receive the postcard.

If you’re an SEO like myself you’re probably wondering how this can happen. How could a huge behemoth like Google have such a major glitch in their phone system? Let’s face it…Google is aware of the problem. It’s been thoroughly documented in posts by Google Help Group members. The problem has existed for months at the very least without even an acknowledgement from Google that the glitch even exists. I may be speculating but I honestly believe Google has their own reasons for this and may not be so willing to share with the SEO community. If you’re an SEO this really shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. If you’re a Dental Office wanting a map and your address in Google’s listing…it most likely will. Here is some advice to you: skip verifying by phone and opt for the postcard.

Yes!

I love this!

Fuel and the Big Picture We Don't See

I usually don't like to categorize myself but I suppose if any of you ever met me personally you would see me as a typical, college educated, southern conservative white girl. I'm sure that there are some people out there who would make the assumption that I would rather drive an SUV over a Honda Civic. How wrong they are.

I find it both interesting and upsetting how we as a society disconnect from reality. The reality is that the price of gas is rising rapidly and the reason why it's rising is because we are consuming too much fuel. We are consuming too much fuel and we are not seeing the big picture or thinking about the fact our over-consumption is making the price of gas almost unbearable for our non SUV driving neighbors.

Something must be done to level the field. I saw something inspiring last weekend when we took the boat out. At the marina the price of gas was a dollar higher than the gas on land. I asked my boyfriend's stepfather, who works part-time at the marina, why so high? He said "well, you play you pay." What if we could apply that same logic to others who over-consume? You know who I'm talking about...folks who drive large SUVs for no real reason. I'm trying to be as sensitive as possible because my mother, father and boyfriend all drive gas guzzlers. Oddly enough they all complain about the price of gas. I would too if I were spending $75 a week just to go to work. Thank God I'm only spending roughly $32.

My hope is that more people will try to see the big picture when they go to purchase a new car. When I go to buy my next car these will be my most important questions:

1. Is it reliable?


2. Is it safe?


3. Is the price reasonable?


4. Will maintenance be too costly?


5. Does it get the best possible gas mileage?


6. Will driving this vehicle contribute to the rising cost of gas and make getting around more difficult for others?

Twitter Study

I'm giving Twitter a shot. So far it has required a lot more effort to find it useful than other things like Linkedin, Facebook and Myspace. Maybe I'm over-analyzing but I'm really having trouble understanding why something so simple and easy, "Twittering", requires so much effort and motivation.

Notes on Twitter (so far)

1. People should make an effort to communicate with their followers and get to know more about them and what they do.

2. I don't like connecting with people who have zillions of connections already. What's the point? Is Twitter a way to network with others...or is it an ant farm?

3. Twitter might be more interesting if my close friends and family were on there. But it still wouldn't compare to Facebook...or email.

4. Twitter has not proven itself to be useful to me for sourcing. It might be one day...but for now it's not.

Twitter Experiment

I'm going to stay on Twitter for five months, only connecting with people willing to reach out every so often. I'll update and also try to get to know them and what they do. I'm also going to keep my circle of connections small and reject requests from those who follow too many. I'll share my findings in five months.

Twitter is Overrated

If you haven't already heard of it, Twitter is the two year old social networking website, born out of lovely California, that a lot of folks in the Recruiting world are going gaga for. You basically just sign up, customize your page and find people to follow...and hope that someone finds you interesting enough to follow you. Then once you've got a few people you're following and people following you, you can tell them what you're doing...but only the people who are following you get to see your update.

Right now I'm following 21 people and have 14 people following me. I don't think I've had a real conversation with any of those people. If I could compare Twitter to anything it would be like being in a room with 21 people, nobody looking at or paying any attention to the person next to them. Just people saying random things about nothing specific...to the wall. I've tried to spark up something...anything, but nobody seems interested in reaching out. Perhaps Twitter isn't really meant to be a chat room. Maybe I'm missing something here.

Job Market 2009

I hope this doesn't happen...but then again that would make our jobs much easier.