Archive for December, 2006

Holiday hiatus

Merry Christmas (a day late) and Happy New Year (five days early). I’m on vacation and will not be posting to bizhack for a week or so. (Unless I am hit by some burning inspiration that cannot stay inside.) hiatus, vacation, bizhack, john koetsier
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penisland: pen island

penisland: pen island

No, this site has not been hacked, and no, I have not decided to change my sexual orientation. Rather, this is a cautionary tale on the foolish choosing of domain names. There exists, unfortunately, a company called Pen Island. Said company wished, unfortunately, to have an eponymous domain name: penisland.com. Said domain name, unfortunately,...
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The best captcha is no captcha

The best captcha is no captcha

Nicolas Koenig recently posted ModernCaptcha, a comment spam protection technology inspired by Seth Godin that is far easier to use than most captchas. On the one hand, this is great because captchas suck. Hard. They’re difficult to read, annoying, slow down the user experience, and make people feel stupid when they can’t get them...
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Missing windows (1)

Missing windows (1)

Missing windows (1) Originally uploaded by johnkoetsier. Working at home today … we’re getting all the windows in our house replaced. The installers follow a sort of factory assembly-line model: first they take all the old windows out; then they put all the new windows in. Which means, of course, that I am freezing...
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One million wishes

Have you seen the Million-dollar blog post yet? It’s not a money-making scheme, it’s a money-giving scheme. Post your wish – one dollar will be donated to charity for each wish posted. Here’s mine: My one wish is not for “others” to be better, or for faceless governments to change policies, or for NGOs...
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What’s the story?

I’ve been working through a lot of product identification and differentiation lately, and this Seth Godin post really hit home: the story always matters. The most important point: “A commodity is only a commodity if you treat it like one.” So: are we going to treat our products as commodities, or will they be...
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Lots of people say “snaining”

OK, maybe not lots. But some – Google proves it. (Yes, this is about a recent post.) Google has 509 results for “snaining.” And the urban dictionary, bless it’s electronic little heart, has an entry for snaining. That horrible combination of rain that is not quite snow…but soon will be. Basically, it’s airborne precipitation...
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Pain worse than death

OK, I still don’t get it: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday ordered his staff to begin revising the California’s lethal injection procedure to allay concerns raised by a federal judge that condemned inmates are being subjected to unnecessary pain. (Full story.) I posted on this months ago: We’re only going to kill him if...
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Priceless spam

Priceless spam

Blogging software: $0 Hosting account: $20/month Half-decent Technorati rating: $very expensive (in time!) Spammers spamming anti-spam posts: priceless
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Little tip about using Google AdWords

(Make sure the page you’re linking to works.) adwords, google, ads, john koetsier
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A couple of quickies: biz, marketing, peanut butter

Here are a few things that have caught my eye lately. Usually these types of articles hang around in Safari tabs for days until I stick ‘em up on del.icio.us. Maybe I’ll start just blogging them, link-blog-style, from now on … How to have an overnight internet success story While any compelling Internet service...
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I give up – I am Judge Glenda Hatchett

I give up – I am Judge Glenda Hatchett

OK, I am Judge Glenda Hatchett, am black, female, a lawyer, a judge, and would love to come speak at your next corporate function for $35K. Please send me all your inquiries and requests for help. After all, everyone else does. Ahhh … the “wisdom” of masses … judge glenda hatchett, john koetsier,...
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OK now how did that make you feel?

Well it’s the morning after and I have to decide if I can still live with myself. Yesterday, of course, I dipped my toes in the (murky?) waters of paid reviews with Review: Search Engine Marketing Glossary. Today I see that my review has been accepted and I’ll be paid $30. A buck a...
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Review: Search Engine Marketing Glossary

This is a paid review. More details at the end of the post. SEO is a bit of a black art to me. I mean, I know all about the generalities of search engine optimization, and I think you’ll find a few of them reflected here. URLs of all my pages contain keywords; titles...
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Snaining

Ho hum, it’s snaining here in Langley, BC., Canada. (Snow and rain mixed together, for the uninitiated.) snow, rain, snain, snaining, langley, bc, john koetsier
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Welcome to Sparkplug 9, John Koetsier's blog on technology, social media, education, innovation ... and anything else that catches my fancy.

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