Monday, February 19, 2007

What's wrong with Dave Pasternack

  I became familiar with Dave Pasternack in 2004 while at Interchange. We operated a operating a pay-per-click search engine called ePilot and Pasternack became known for masterminding the PPC game. Dave Pasternack is the genius behind Did-It and not only has he devise a great SEM methodology, but he's automated it into an artificial intelligence engine.

Controversy Start
  While Dave is well established in sponsored marketing, he has picked a fight with the SEO industry Making broad statements like "SEO is not rocket science" and that it is a one-time effort (see my responses to both of these below).
  SEO Help and Return Fire. Googles prevention of Google Bomb's has left the industry looking for another global example of SEO. In light of this and Pasternack, ThreadWatch has introduce a contest rewarding anyone that can get the #1 Google search result for "Dave Pasternack". War has started and it's creating quite a stir with 100's of people creating sites for him. Infact, RelevantAds has got into the game with this site, but with a slightly different twist as you can read about below.
  Side note: It's funny to consider that the $1,000 prize has created this much excitement and stir in the online community. This might be the most cost effective Web Development expirement. Consider the possibilities of this capitalizing on this sort guerrilla marketing effort...

Where's the Beef
  Is Pasternack off his rocker? In his interview, he indicated that only SEOs are offended by him, convenient since that is who is trying to offend. As you may know, my companys product RelevantYellow has an SEO component. Should we also take offense to Pasternacks despise for SEO? Lets evaluate what he's actually said...

"SEO is not Rocket Science"

  Pasternack has got a lot of exposure with the assertion that SEO is not rocket science. Take a look at Pasternacks SEM technical white papers; is that rocket science? To 99% of the world, yes, but to me and probably anyone with a B.S. degree can see that he's simple applied basic mathematical principles to an auction model. Not genius, but that sure is a cleaver approach. I agree, it is not rocket science; after all, that was a good term 50 years ago, but today, even my 10 year old nephew can build and launch a rockets.

SEO is Brain Surgery
  The problem is that probably none of these SEO brain surgeons are actually certified, nor are they invited to work on their patient. So, think twice about the African voodoo doctor perform open skull surgery on your headache. While it might fix your headache, it will undoubtedly lead to secondary infection. See my article SEO is Brain Surgery.

"SEO is one-time"
  For a few percentage of the Worlds population, this might be true. The fact is that your data is growing, evolving and thereby the organization of your information will change. SEO is Information Organization. The search engines try to organize the Worlds information (in fact that is Googles Mission). Site owners, are the king of their own content and are best equipped to organize it. Googles algorithm, in general, rewards sites that are well organized. Providing detail when called for and grouped summaries at the top levels. Unless you are dead, your information is constantly growing and so should your organization of that information. Bottom line even for the most basic website, it should be tuned and organized on a regular basis.

ThreadWatch Contest and RelevantYellow
  RelevantYellow has entered the contest by submitting Pasternacks company, Did-It. They should be a great business client example for us too, infact, Did-It does not exist in the core business directory; so we've got what is considered a new business on our hands. Unfortunately we have entered the race a bit late, nevertheless, it will hopefully get Did-It on the local map.
BTW- the Did-It client page for Dave Pasternack is here. RelevantYellow's purpose in this competition is to promote the use of local search optimization and promotion of business data. For more information please see the RelevantAds Dave Pasternack disclaimer.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Collaboration Tycoon - Richard Lusk, Foldera

Richard Lusk is CEO of Foldera, a cutting edge messaging and collaboration company. They've created quite the buzz with over 400,000 eagerly awaiting their next generation email & collaboration product.

I'd like to connect with Foldera and how they've constructed their next generation infrastructure and interfaces. Though most don't even recognize it, the email industry is in it's infancy. Today's systems are very much the same as when the Internet first started. Besides the visual upgrades, nothing has really taken us to the next level.

The advancement of communication is marked with progression in society. Each technology tool has brought us a more effective means of conveying information to others. New solutions in online collaboration will share information through various applications such as Instant Messenger, Calendar, Voice, and email furthermore they will helps users organize that information so that it can be digested, stored and used more rapidly. The evolution of digital communication will truly make todays systems look like antiquated smoke signals.

As an example, I've been slinging my PocketPC with IM, VM, email, voice capture & recognition, video and photo as many for over a year. In order for me to effectively share that information with todays services requires a combination like: YouTube, Flickr, and Sharepoint; taking dozens of minutes to publish each time and the information isn't contiguous, but in completely disconnected silos. Using these sort of features in a combined, organized way is the future I look forward to.

And while that future might be just off the horizon, the advances that Richard's Foldera provides are proported to be a significant step in the future of online collaboration and unified communication.

About Richard:
Richard is known to be known to being communicative and open with the blogging community. He has an obvious genius for information organization and has successfully raised capital, bringing Folder OTC. See more on the Foldera management team site.