I’m not on Hacker News a lot, but occasionally I do comment. When I do, you’ll see me there as sullivandanny. I’m also dannysullivan, but I can’t have that account. Forgot my password, and that’s that, apparently.

When you create a Hacker News account, unlike most places I register with, you’re not required to provide an email address. You enter the name you want, a password, push submit — if the name’s not taken, there you go.

I made my dannysullivan account 1,398 days ago. That’s nearly four years ago. I created the account to make the only comment I’ve ever done with it, on this discussion, about a story I wrote on Search Engine Land over the default search settings in Firefox allowing Bing to be one of the providers.

About two years ago, I got back into participating occasionally on Hacker News. I couldn’t remember my password to get back into my old account. There was no password recovery tool, either. As it turns out, this is because I never provided an email address after the fact. If you don’t add an email address afterward, then there’s no prompt to change your password, as there’s no way to email you a recovery option.

That makes sense, but it’s not explained. If you try to login, and there’s no email address on file, you don’t get told that. You just get told, “Bad login.”

If you’re like me, and have forgotten your password and never provided an email address, that’s why you can’t get back to your account. “Bad login” effectively means, create a new account.

I did finally got advice about all this from someone at Y Combinator last week. I’d also hoped that I could convince them to let me change my account name to dannysullivan, since that’s the name I use in many other places — plus, it’s not like the “other” dannysullivan on Hacker News is using it. But since I can’t authenticate that it’s really me (despite it being pretty bloody obvious that it is), no luck.

Again, makes sense, fair enough. Even if it sucks.

Right now, Wikipedia is busy asking for donations to stay afloat. Here’s a thought. If it wants donations, maybe open things up so that outsiders feel like they can contribute expert knowledge without wasting their time.

A Debate Over Notability

Here’s a case in point. About two weeks ago, Jessie Stricchiola let me know that her Wikipedia page had been deleted. Apparently, she wasn’t notable enough.

That’s absurd — this is the woman who was the pioneer in fighting click fraud, along with other accomplishments.

I cruised over to take a look. At the time, the page (well, the discussion to delete the page) looked like this, with this message at the top:

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article’s talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. As far as I can tell, the numbers are split about 7-6 in favour of delete. That’s not normally going to lead to a consensus to delete unless there are unusual circumstances, such as one side having significantly stronger arguments than the other, so much as that can be ascertained objectively. In this case, the final three unchallenged delete !votes—DGG, ItsZippy and Metropolitan90—demonstrate such strength.

At The Tone (If You Can Find It), Please Leave A Detailed Message

Already, I’m annoyed. As usual, trying to contribute to Wikipedia means that you’ve got to know what a “talk page” is or where to find a “deletion review.”

Because the page was already deleted, it had no talk page. And the deletion review, who knows where that it. I assumed it was the page I’d headed to. So, I ignored the instructions and shoved a big message at the top, detailing all the reasons why Jessie was notable:

I’m modifying this page despite the big warning not to modify it because, as the article was already deleted with a “consensus” of 7 against 6, there’s no way to add further comments on the original talk page.

I’m a notable person on Wikipedia, as well as an expert in search marketing. So for what it’s worth, you’re seriously questioning whether Jessie should have her own page? That’s just crazy.

The page should be restored, and immediately. She’s clearly notable.

First, I don’t see how Mkativerata starts off saying that 7-6 is not a consensus, but then concludes that it is. Clearly, it is not. When in doubt, err on caution.

Jessie was a founding member (not just a board member) and driving force behind the creation of the SEMPO organization, the search marketing industry’s largest trade group. That alone should make her notable. This is an easily verified fact: http://www.sempo.org/?page=pr_20030820

Here’s what I wrote about the group when it was founded in 2003, where Jessie is cited at the beginning: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2064338/SEMPO-Search-Engine-Marketing-Professional-Organization-Opens-To-Members

“I think a testimonial at the SEMPO launch meeting last month by one of SEMPO’s board members Jessie Chase-Stricchiola put it best: ‘When I tell people that I’m a search engine marketer, I want them to know what that means,” she said — or words similar to that effect’.”

Jessie was one of the first search marketers that highlighted the issue of click fraud. She was a pioneer in that space, and would be notable for her teachings and writings on that subject alone.

I don’t know anyone who spoke on this topic before her in 2002 — her pitch to cover it was one of the reasons I invited her in 2002 to participate in what became the first of many conference appearances: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2065421/Perfecting-Paid-Search-Engine-Listings

I’m hard pressed to think if there was anyone else with near her stature in this area, from as far back.

As I wrote in 2006: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2048086/The-Latest-Click-Fraud-Roundup

“Alchemist is headed up by Jessie Stricchiola, one of our long time SES speakers on the subject and a true pioneer in raising alarm over the issue”

That was referencing a BusinessWeek article that was also citing her company and work it did on research in the area with Fair Issac. Got it? When the credit card fraud spotting people wanted to understand click fraud better, they turned to Jessie:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060227_930506.htm

Jessie was an expert witness in a landmark case about click fraud that was settled with with Google. Wikipedia itself finds it notable to cite her for this on its own click fraud page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_fraud

As a long-standing leader in the search marketing space, she also co-authored a popular book on the topic. But wait, WorldCat only shows 12 copies holding in libraries or whatever.

Perhaps being #7 in the internet searching category on Amazon helps? Or #22 in web services? http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/69771/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_1_5_last http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/377886011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_2_4_last

Reading some of the debate on this is laughable. You want to figure out what makes a search marketer notable based on what you think makes an astrophysicist notable? In the search marketing space, speaking at conferences is indeed one way that search marketers are validated — it’s a type of peer review, because if you’re a bad speaker, you don’t get called back. Being referenced by other SEOs is a huge measure of respect, because marketers can be loathe to point people to other marketers.

Someone should restore this page. Moreover, you ought to expand it and do Wikipedia’s proper job of documenting notable people like Jessie, rather than relying on guesswork and whatever you think you can discover by just by searching the web for information on subjects you’re not expert in.

I am a subject expert in the field of search marketing. A notable one — after all, Wikipedia says so. But my type of first-hand assertion isn’t enough. Wikipedia would rather find third-party mainstream media resources that quote people, as if that is somehow better than first-party information.

Thanks For Your Message; We (Don’t) Care About Your Feedback

Having left my message, I moved on. But yesterday, I got an email from Wikipedia:

The Wikipedia page “User talk:Dannysullivan” has been changed on

23 November 2011 by Metropolitan90, with the edit summary: deletion review

See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dannysullivan&diff=0&oldid=207042508

for all changes since your last visit. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dannysullivan for the current revision.

To contact the editor, visit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Metropolitan90

Note that additional changes to the page “User talk:Dannysullivan” will not result in any further notifications, until you have logged in and visited the page.

Your friendly Wikipedia notification system

To Hear Your Messages, Push % On Your Keypad

I love that last part — “your friendly Wikipedia notification system.” It’s anything but. I cruise back over to Wikipedia to see what my message is:

OMG, my message is a revision comparison of what’s been added to the user talk page that I barely even know that I have? Who creates this type of mess? Who tolerates this as an effective working environment?

My message tells me this:

In regard to your comments on this page, please note that one reason not to post additional comments to a closed AfD page is that, within a few days after closing, hardly anyone is likely to see those comments and thus posting there does not attract attention. I just happened to see your comments there today. If you want to challenge the deletion of [[Jessie Stricchiola]], you can follow the procedure at [[Wikipedia:Deletion review]]. –[[User:Metropolitan90|Metropolitan90]] [[User talk:Metropolitan90|(talk)]] 04:53, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

To Contact An Editor, Please Contact An Editor

No. No. No. So much wrongness here. So much so, that I cruised over to explain with a message to the editor on Wikipedia who left me this. I used the link in that email I got, the one that specifically said: “To contact the editor, visit” along with this link.

The page I arrived at told me this:

Oh, don’t post messages on the page I was specifically told to go to in order to contact the editor. Nice, Wikipedia. Instead, I should go to a different page, which I did.

Now look at this page I was sent to, and see if you can spot the helpful friendly way to send a message:

Yeah, there’s nothing like that. If you’re leaving a message about an article that was deleted, assuming you even know how to leave a message, you’re also informed to do it with an “appropriate red link” with instructions on how to make links red, except that leads to a page that doesn’t explain this, and OMG, did my head just explode over all this bureaucracy?

RTFM & If You Don’t Know What That Means RTFM

I hope it didn’t, because there’s more to come. In the end, I vent. Sorry Metropolitan90, I was mainly venting at the absurdity that is Wikipedia, but yeah, I’d had it:

Hey Metropolitan90, thanks for cruising by and leaving me this message: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dannysullivan&diff=0&oldid=207042508

Telling me that by golly, I left a message on a close AfD page (huh, what, can you just speak plain language?) and that hardly anyone will see those comments there (even though you did) and that if I want to challenge a deletion of something, I should use some arcane cryptic obscure Wikipedia deletion review process.

Here’s a little acronym for you. WTF?

Look, somehow in the insane closed little world of Wikipedia editors, where non-specialist editors pretend to be experts on what’s notable, you decided that this person wasn’t. You know, because you all couldn’t find enough references, in part because you don’t know the subject enough to even know how to find the right references — but even if you had, since you’re not subject experts, they mean nothing to you.

So, despite my general feeling that contributing anything to Wikipedia is a big giant waste of time, I actually left you all some pretty detailed references. At the very least, I’d think you’d have though hmm, maybe there’s enough there that this should be put up for re-review. And since you’re actually an expert on Wikipedia procedures — why didn’t you just do it?

What’s the point here? To have an accurate crowd-sourced encyclopedia, or to only have it be as accurate as the incredibly tiny few number of people who care to play in the high priesthood of Wikipedia editing allow it to be.

If it’s the latter, well, job well done. If it’s the former, well, you know what to do.

Geez, just to leave you a response, in the email I got, I was told to go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Metropolitan90

Which then told me at the top that actually, to contact you, I should come to this page. Which in turn, you know, isn’t particularly user friendly.

If you skipped all that, it highlights my frustration over all the acronyms and procedures that make Wikipedia, in my view, a closed little society that actually excludes subject experts from wanting to participate in it.

To Request A Review, Push The 10 Button On Your Keypad

But wait, there’s more. Remember, I was told the proper procedure was to follow the Deletion Review process. Let’s look at that page:

Hey, all I want is a form where I can submit some comments to someone with enough common sense to say “hmm, maybe we should reconsider this.” Instead, it’s like a novel — I’m only showing the first two of five major sections.

Oh — and it’s not even the right page that I was pointed at. That’s because, as best I can tell, this process is for pages that are being considered for deletion. I’m talking about a page that was deleted. Which means, yes, that’s right, a different page:

I wish my head hadn’t exploded before, because now it really would. This looks deceptively like what I want, a simple form. Enter the page title to get it undeleted. However — hey, how do you know the title of a deleted page? I suppose you can guess, but given how bureaucratic everything else is on Wikipedia, I have little faith.

Don’t Fold, Spindle Or Mutilate

More important, this process is only for pages that were “uncontroversially” deleted. What’s that mean? Well, say they were deleted through CSD G6. Whaaaat? Or if there was little to no debate.

How much debate is debate? Who knows. And what if there was debate? Go back to that first page that I said seems designed only to help pages that are being considered for deletion, not after they’ve been deleted.

Walls That Protect Also Divide

It’s insane. It really is. And with respect to the many hardworking people who have created a generally useful resource, it’s not a friendly resource. It doesn’t have systems, as far as I can tell, designed to help it improve. It has walls, walls you believe (with many good reasons) are designed to protect it from being vandalized. But those walls themselves are their own type of vandalization of the very resource you’re trying to protect.

Subject Experts Need Not Apply

Bottom line — I’ve gotten no indication that anyone at Wikipedia actually cares what a subject expert has to say on, well, a subject they’re an expert in. Instead, you drown in a morass of bureaucracy. It shouldn’t be this way.

By the way, comments are closed. It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I wanted this off my chest while I was dealing with it now, but I don’t have time to response to comments that might come up. I’ll reopen them after the weekend. If you really care to comment, come back then. If you agree, well, use all those share, like, +1 and tweet buttons.

Oh, so now you love me, Amazon? After dropping its affiliates as sacrificial pawns in its game with California over paying sales tax, Amazon won a one-year reprieve — and now it wants its pawns like me back.

Welcome Back

Here’s the email I just received:

As you may have heard, California Governor Jerry Brown has signed legislation repealing the law that had forced us to terminate our California Associates. We are pleased to invite all California Associates whose accounts were closed due to the prior legislation to re-enroll in the Associates Program.

If you haven’t already re-enrolled, please click here:

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/reinstatement/main.html

When asked to sign in, please use the same email address and password that were previously associated with your Associates account. To make your return to the Program as seamless as possible, when you re-enroll, your account settings (login, Associates ID, payment information, etc.) will be the same as they were previously. Traffic you referred while your account was closed won’t be eligible for advertising fees.

For further information about re-enrollment, please click here:

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/t48

Thanks For That Affiliate Fee Holiday!

For three months, plenty of Amazon affiliates in California haven’t changed any of their affiliate codes. Amazon would know, just as it did before, that all those affiliates were still sending it traffic, generating sales for it, and all without it costing Amazon fees as it did before.

Is Amazon offering any of those fees to the affiliates it dropped? Nope. It just got a three month affiliate fee holiday. From the FAQ:

What about traffic I referred while my Associates account was closed?
Californian Associates who re-enroll will begin earning advertising fees for traffic they refer as soon as they agree to the terms of the Operating Agreement. Traffic referred while your account was closed will not be eligible for advertising fees.

If you have any doubt that Amazon can track all this, think again. After reenabling my account, I can see that for July, I generated $1,500 in net sales for Amazon; in August, $2,000; in September, $2,300. Next to each of these reports, which Amazon itself provides to me, the amount of advertising fees it paid me is also listed. It’s $0 for each month.

Any apology for the out-of-the-blue “you’re dropped” notice it sent back in June? Nope.

Such is business. Hey, I re-enrolled, so I really shouldn’t be complaining. I’m sure plenty of other people will, to. Perhaps I’ll get dumped next year if the state and Amazon don’t settle their differences.

Solutions For The Excluded

By the way, if you’re in a state that Amazon has dropped, I’ve got two easy solutions for you that I’ve tested: SkimLinks and VigLink. Both serve as “super-affiliates” on behalf of others. You insert a bit of their code on your web site. Then if you have any links to sites with affiliate programs, they automatically add their own affiliate codes.

This means you can be an affiliate without having to sign-up for a bazillion affiliate programs. In the case of Amazon, it also means those in states that Amazon has dropped its affiliate program might be able to continue being an Amazon affiliate through these companies.

SkimLinks, for example, is based in London. That means it wasn’t dropped as an Amazon affiliate — and if you used its code, then you earned Amazon fees through its account. The downside is that you earn less than as a direct affiliate. But if you don’t want to change all your codes, SkimLinks and VigLink are very attractive.

I tested both over the past two month. In both cases, I didn’t have to strip any of my old codes — both have ways to “override” my codes with their own. I never understood how VigLink managed to stay an Amazon affiliate despite being based in California — I asked them twice about this and got no answer — but they did.

I wrote about VigLink more last year at Search Engine Land. That explains how its codes, as well as those used by SkimLinks, are both deemed perfectly fine by Google. That’s handy given that Google Ventures backs VigLink. I’m currently using VigLink here, but I go back-and-forth between both programs, as I find it interesting to see how both work in the real world. If you use the links to either above, disclosure time, I earn referral fees.

For more background on the abrupt closure by Amazon earlier this year, from my not-happy perspective, see An Open Letter To Jeff Bezos On Terminating The Amazon Affiliate Program In California.

Dear Jeff–

Thank you for your letter today, informing me that after seven years of being one of your affiliates — and having earned for you about $150,000 in that time — that you “deeply regret” unilaterally terminating my contract with Amazon to be an affiliate. I also especially appreciated the part where you reassured me that this action wouldn’t affect my ability to keep buying from your company. Nice touch.

I deeply appreciate that after so many years of supporting your company, and earning my 4.5% cut over those years (as I figured today, looking at my stats), that you’ve decided that I should be a pawn in your fight with my state. That type of loyalty really makes me want to support you in the future, should you restore your program. It also encourages me to want to continue shopping with you.

Jeff, I’m fortunate. Unlike the case with many of your affiliates, this won’t have a big economic impact on me. Having affiliate links here on my personal blog is more a hobby than anything else. I’ve got a successful day job.

But I don’t like unfairness in general. I also don’t have a lot of time to waste. And right now, I feel like you’ve just delivered a double-dose of both.

Cut The Program & Keep The Links

I’m not sure how many affiliate links I have on the blog. Not that many, maybe 25 to 50 in all. But until about an hour ago, those links were worth something to you. Now, because of your squabble over the sales tax issue, you’ve decided to just take for free what you’d previously paid for. If I don’t find time to track down and kill those links, you keep grabbing orders that get made through them and keeping the cut I previously received.

Over the next day or so, you’re going to get a lot of orders this way. Bigger affiliates will eventually move. Plenty of smaller ones won’t be bothered to change. But those small ones that don’t will add up into plenty of money for your company. You, of all companies, really understand how all that long tail stuff can mount up, right?

I’m not a big fan of class action lawsuits. They just enrich lawyers and let the plaintiffs end up with a $20 coupon to buy goods from the same companies that wronged them in the first place. But thinking about all those links that will keep earning you money for free, I kind of hope someone files a suit against you. They probably won’t win, but you deserve a little hassle, too.

I Get To Be Your Pawn With Only 10 Hours Notice?

You want to just up and terminate my contract with you with only ten hours notice? Hey, to be honest, I don’t even know what my contract is — or was — with you. I suppose you granted yourself these rights. Most big businesses tend to do so.

But really, it only occurred to you today to give your California affiliates this notice? I’ve checked. You’ve sent nothing to us about this. Nothing yesterday. Nothing in the past month.  Nothing at all, not until now. Since you clearly want to make us your pawns, maybe you could have told us sooner?

Then again, it might not have made a difference. See, I think you should collect sales tax. I don’t care what your “it’s unconstitutional” arguments are. Go argue them in court, with the people you’re upset with. But collect sales tax in the meantime. I’ll give you a simple reason why. It’s fair.

Let’s Make Amazon A Fair Trade Company

First, it’s fair to the affiliates that have helped build your business. You could collect sales tax and continue to have them support you, rather than suddenly make them all angry. Angry perhaps at the state, which is what you hope. But also angry at you.

For another, isn’t it time you grew up and became a real business that can compete against the bricks-and-mortar shops you undercut? Can’t you still win against them, even if you play on a more level playing field?

Of Borrowing Stores & Exporting Revenue

Look, I like to save money as much as the next person. And believe me, when I’m walking around in a Best Buy or Fry’s Electronics, I’m checking prices against Amazon.

But, I’m also feeling guilty if I’m checking out a product for a hands-on verification in these other shops that I might buy from you. I feel so guilty that that unless there’s a really big price difference, I’ll stick with them. After all, I like having them there. They give me the one thing you don’t. The ability to really experience an actual product — though with your great return policies, that’s growing less of an issue.

Still, for some people, that 8.25% tax (at minimum, since some counties and cities tack on more), can be a big enough difference to send those in-store shoppers — and in-store testers — heading over to your place.

That’s a pretty nice business to have, isn’t it? Merchants who invest in real stores effectively serve as your stores, too.

Some of these stores guarantee to match your prices, but they can’t beat that sales tax difference, can they? So when you write to me that the new California sales tax law is “supported by big box retailers, most of which are based outside of California,” I don’t really care.

Surprise. While I’m an Amazon affiliate (or was), I actually support those big box stores, too. And even if they’re outside California, they do collect sales tax — which in turn supports my state.

Affiliates Are Also Californians

Oh, yeah. That’s another issue. Not only are you sucking purchases (and thus potentially jobs) out of my state and undermining those retailers, but you’re also not letting the state earn off the sales tax like those retailers who actually are based here do. That makes me feel really good as a Californian.

Now sure, lots of us affiliates here have been earning off of you — and thus ourselves being taxed by California — so the state has been getting revenue from you indirectly. But that brings me back to the fairness.

Collect The Taxes; Fight Without Us Pawns

You could collect the tax, voluntarily. You could keep your affiliates, give back to the state, be more competitive with those retailers here and not cause all this ill-will that’s more about enriching your company than fighting the good fight.

So, Jeff, if you want to fight this, go ahead. But don’t make us your pawns. Take an hour of programming time to make a change to start collecting those taxes, just like you already seem to do in states like New York where you have a physical presence.

I like Amazon. I like buying all types of products from you. I depend on you especially these days for music and video rentals. Don’t make me hate you. Don’t make me seek out an alternative to your affiliate programs or worse, an alternative to buying from you period.

Thanks,
Danny

NOTE: For my search marketing readers, wondering about affiliate links as paid links (which are bad with Google), I usually nofollow these here, in the odd posts where they appear. Older ones might not have nofollow. But Google’s said fairly recently that most major affiliate programs do not need to have nofollow attached to them.

Also, I don’t pretend to understand Amazon’s arguments with California or other states. I claim no expertise in this. Violet Blue has written a nice background piece on some of the issues here that you might find useful. There is also round-up coverage on Techmeme.

While I don’t know the legalities, I do know that affiliates in California are clearly being used by Amazon in a fight it has with their own state. I think Amazon can fight that fight without penalizing them. And it should.

Postscript: See my follow-up piece, Amazon Welcomes Back Its California Affiliates.

A sad and strange story — a man in the UK killed after a text was misread as saying “nutter.” Even stranger, how I came to be reading it via the Huffington Post — several sources removed from the original story. My discovery chain.

I follow the Huffington Post’s tech account on Twitter, so I saw the story hit my Twitter feed, as shown above. That took me to the Huffington Post’s article:

Here, I see from where the first arrow points that the Huffington Post seems to be summarizing a CNET article. But then, there’s a Daily Mail reference, as the second arrows shows. Oddly, the third arrow shows the Huffington Post shoving some of the story into what appears to be an ad box — which contains one of those misleading acai berry ads I wrote about. Sigh, Huffington Post, sigh.

I suspected that the CNET article itself was drawing from the Daily Mail, so I headed to CNET next:

The arrow shows how the Daily Mail is cited, making me think it was indeed the original source for CNET. But notice the box — the story itself is attributed to the UK’s Bolton News. Hang on to that.

Off to the Daily Mail. I hate going there because the Daily Mail used one of my images without permission and is still using it after I contacted them. Anyway, what did the Daily Mail write?

If you read the story, it seems like there’s more going on that just a single word that got corrected that lead to the murder. A string of abusive messages is said to have been exchanged between the two men. The person convicted of manslaughter was actually the person who sent the “nutter” message, not the person who received it.

But beyond that, notice the arrow. The Bolton News is again cited — the Daily Mail appears to have done nothing here but work off the Bolton News report.

As for the Bolton News, while it was credited by the Daily Mail –  and then again by the News.com — it got a link in neither place. Meanwhile, the Huffington Post doesn’t bother to credit it at all.

As it turns out, the original story is online. It wasn’t hard for me to find it. I went to the Bolton News, searched for the victim’s name and found it along with several others.

Bottom line? It’s can be difficult to draw the line between fair use. The Bolton News is published by Gannett’s Newsquest Media Group. Maybe Associated Newspapers’ Daily Mail has an agreement to use anything from Gannett. I doubt it. A quick scan suggests that the Daily Mail merely rewrote what the Bolton News published, which was kind of sucky — but even that might not be against fair use.

What really sucks is that the Daily Mail gave the Bolton News no backlink. This is the 2010s, folks — you link back. And if News.com if working off the Daily Mail’s rewrite — at least try to find the original source, since the Daily Mail cited it.

As for you, Huffington Post. You’re all growed up and part of AOL now. You should backtrack to the original source as well — and provide a link.

It’s not always easy to track an original source, especially when a story has gone far and wide. I know. I deal with this all the time at Search Engine Land. But we should all try — and it wasn’t even hard to do, in this case.

Also see my past post: How The Mainstream Media Stole Our News Story Without Credit.

I’m pondering allowing Groupon to lead my life for me — saying yes to every offer that comes along. Here’s a look at how my life would have already been improved over the past week, if I had done so!

Today, the first of my six kickboxing classes (cost $25) would have begun.

Yesterday, I would have eaten $25 worth of “American Pub Fare” for only $12 at a local restaurant.

Last Sunday, I’d have enjoyed a 90 minute Segway tour along a local beach for $37.

Last Saturday, I’d have relaxed doing the first of my 10 yoga classes, a bargain at $29 for all of them.

Last Friday, I’d have dined on vegetarian, vegan and “raw fare” – a $20 meal for only $10.

Last Thursday, my medical weight loss program would have started, a $225 investment in divesting a few pounds.

Last Wednesday, I’d have watched bellydancing at a local university playhouse, $45 for two tickets.

Last Tuesday, I’ve have made myself pretty with a haircut, wash, blow-dry and conditioning all for $39.

Seriously, it might be fun to try a Julie & Julia adventure taking up every Groupon offer that comes along. If you had the time, and the money, looks like you’d be doing a lot of relaxing and eating!

Cast your mind back to July. Fast Company launched its “Influence Project,” a scheme supposedly designed to see who has the most influence online. The results are in! And the winners aren’t anyone that Fast Company mentions in its write-up about the project. That’s how stupid the entire thing was. [NOTE: Turns out, the winners do make it into the magazine in a separate article -- more below].

Fast Company initially pitched the effort this way:

This experiment will show what happens when an individual takes an audience at rest and applies an unbalanced force–through suggestion, advice or direction–that converts it into an army of action. That’s power that can be quantified and lead to an understanding that can be applied to both the largest and smallest of networks. No doubt it’s profound to address a million followers and get 100,000 of them to respond. But what does it mean when you have one hundred friends on Facebook and 97 of them click through to a site on your recommendation?

The clicks and networking and connectivity (out to six degrees!) collected in this experiment will provide a compass for where real influence lies on the Internet.

Awesome — we’ll finally know who has real influence! If you ask me (and SF Weekly did, in its write-up on the project at the time), about who has influence on the internet, you’ll hear some familiar names. As I said:

Steve Jobs decides not to include Flash on the iPad, which causes a huge ripple among web publishers. That’s influence! But this “Influence Project” will measure none of that.

It’s fair to say that some of the most influential people on the web aren’t going to take the time register in a project, to begin with. I mean, they’re influential! As part of being influential, they’re probably busy doing the things that made them influential in the first place, not worrying about proving their influence.

Can you see Eric Schmidt, Steve Ballmer, Carol Bartz or Steve Jobs – all of whom are fairly influential people on the web – taking time from running their companies to register?

There was plenty of criticism about the project, and how it would play out. But no more guessing or speculation. The final results are out. And the most influential person on the interwebs is …. Shoemoney!

Shoewho? Most people outside the SEO and affiliate marketing spaces probably won’t know the name. Shoemoney (sometimes written “ShoeMoney” is the online moniker of Jeremy Schoemaker, who runs the Shoemoney blog. Shoemoney is a great guy. He has a well-deserved, loyal following. But respect to Shoe, he’s not the most influential person on the web. He’s just a master of playing Fast Company’s lame poll in his favor.

How about some of the other most influentials? Here’s the top ten:

By name, they are:

1. Jeremy Schoemaker
2. Shefqet Avdullau
3. Tod Sacerdoti
4. Cory Boatright
5. Greg Clement
6. Frank Kovacs
7. Sebastian Saldarriaga
8. James Dunn
9. Richard Lee
10. Pace Lattin

Congrats to each and every one. You worked your networks, proved your influence according to Fast Company’s own rules, and you deserve to be included in Fast Company’s story about the project’s final results — “The New Faces Of Social Media,” which starts out:

From YouTube celebrities to chief social-media officers, these unexpected players exert outsize impact and power online — offering new channels of communication that businesses can’t afford to ignore.

You deserve to be there, because you are absolutely the unexpected players according to this poll. But you’re not there. Sorry. I guess you weren’t the faces Fast Company was looking for.

Who is there? The story starts out with a profile of Justine Ezarik, “iJustine,” who we are told:

The most effective participant by far in this regard was iJustine; she converted 4,800 of her friends and fans into participants — 15% of the eventual 33,000 participants.

Odd, I thought Shoemoney won. Oh — but wait, she’s the most effective of those in the “YouTube Celebrities” category that Fast Company decided needed to be created — one of six categories that were never mentioned in the initial project.

Overall, the winners are like this:

1. Justine Ezarik, YouTube Celebrities
2. Jill Fletcher, Chief Social Officers
3. Gary Vaynerchuk, Gurus
4. Christopher Poole, Cabals & Compatriots
5. Greg Allan, Specialists (apparently, it’s kind of hard to tell)
6. Jonah Peretti, Filters

Shoemoney, by the way, would be considered a “guru” by many. Not only doesn’t he get listed as the top guru. He’s not mentioned in the guru section at all. And as best I can tell, none of the top ten in the poll got mentioned at all.

I thought the project was lame from the start. Ignoring those who actually won the contest is even lamer. Far classier would have been to have done the story about the real “new faces” that won. They actually have a lot of lessons that Fast Company’s readership probably could learn from.

Postscript: Fast Company editor Bob Safian commented below that the winners are mentioned in the magazine. Indeed, there is a separate article about them, with interviews and covering the polls actual results. You’ll find it here, and it’s worth a read.

I was surprised that I missed this. I looked — and looked — for a piece like this. But you only find it listed if you go to where Fast Company lists all its stories by print magazine edition, something that I didn’t find that obvious.

The project slideshow itself was listed in an email to participants (I got one of these, as I signed up to see how it worked but didn’t promote it). It was also listed on the home page of the Fast Company site. That slide show linked to an About page, which in turn linked to that  “New Influentials” write-up, then another link back to the slideshow, plus a link to the blog about the project:

I went back to each of these — and back to the Fast Company home page — to scan for any reference to the winners. I found nothing. But after Safain pointed at the magazine table of contents, the “The Influence Project” took me there:

All of which shows two things. Fast Company needs to think better of its cross-referencing. And had I bothered trying to ask Safian or someone at the magazine, I’d have saved myself a blog post.

Life as a LinkedIn group manager isn’t much fun, given the limited control you have over your group. Now LinkedIn’s rolled out a new discussion format that makes things even worse, not to mention confuses the difference between “discussions” and “news” items. Apparently, LinkedIn has serious Digg envy. Let the spam commence.

How Things Were

Previously, LinkedIn Groups had a “discussion” area, where anyone in the group could start discussions on topics with other members. In addition, there was a separate “news” area where anyone could submit news items to share. These have now been merged — and without any heads-up that I see being given to the poor suffering LinkedIn group administrators out there.

Now, I oversee our Search Engine Land group. For about a year now, I’ve had some very strict rules in place, with the primary one being that discussions shouldn’t include links, because way too many people were starting “discussions” that were merely product pitches, attempts to get traffic to blog posts or outright spam. I also had rules that no one was supposed to submit news stories. Again, this was to fight spam submissions that added little value to the group.

Rules & Premoderation Wishes

For those who care, you can read more about these rules as they are posted in our LinkedIn Group, here and here. To ensure people saw them, I had them flagged with big “READ FIRST” headlines and tagged to be at the top of the default discussion mode. I had to do this because LinkedIn has failed to give LinkedIn group admins the ability to moderate discussions and news items submitted.

Today, I still don’t have moderation controls. To make matters worse, I can’t even feature the rules in the way that I used to. You really, really suck, LinkedIn.

Policing LinkedIn: Old School

Let me step a bit back and share what I sent LinkedIn last November, documenting what a joyful experience I had to deal with working with their terrible group system on a daily basis. My routine, as I explained to them (feel free to skip all this, if you don’t want some back history on LinkedIn problems):

Visit the Search Engine Land group in the morning.

Hit discussions and sort by most recent, so that I can see what new discussions have been started.

Look for spam or people who simply start a “discussion” that’s really a link drop.

Copy and paste the person who started the discussion’s name, since I can’t remove and block them from the discussion itself (FEATURE REQUEST). Delete the discussion.

Go to manage. Search for the person. Hope I can find them. Sometimes people join, post, then quit so you can’t remove and block. Well, why not preapprove? Because that’s a pain. Let me locate ANYONE in LinkedIn and proactively block (FEATURE REQUEST). Also, when I’m dealing with some names, looking them up can be hard since I have to figure out where exactly the last name begins. You get lots of people who also have “names” that are generic descriptions of what they do.

Remove and block that person, when found. Be VERY CAREFUL not to accidently hit the Change Role link that’s right above the remove and block button (at least it doesn’t say Promote To Manager” any more. Rinse and repeat this for each person who has abused the discussions feature.

Go to News. Curse again that I can’t restrict news to just come from my own feeds or whatever feeds I want to enable (FEATURE REQUEST). Instead, in order to keep people on the Search Engine Land Group updated with news from Search Engine Land, I also have to let anyone submit. Wish at least I could premoderate.

Sort by Latest News, to see if there’s any really junky submissions. Open each article to review it, which loads with that really annoying LinkedIn frame. Then open the comments for each story, in case I need the person’s name in order to remove and block them. I also leave the news tab open, so that I can delete the stories.

Curse that for the past five days now, LinkedIn has stopped pulling in our own news feed. Wonder if the support message I sent on Friday will get answered. Decide that I will just turn off the News portion and then curse that you have to have both Discussion & News together, not separately (FEATURE REQUEST).

Later in the day, a summary email will go out to all members of my group. Often, despite the fact that I’ve killed offtopic discussion and news spam, it will still be there, because it was automatically prepared at some point. Wish that I could get a preview before it went out, or I could manually trigger a send if I want (FEATURE REQUEST).

In the news area, I just want to have news from my own site or a collection of sites to go out.

In the discussion area, I want to be able to have only approved discussions go live.

These don’t seem that hard to implement. At the very least, I wish I could toggle what I want, news, discussions and/or jobs. Jobs is options, but to have news, you have to have discussions (and vice versa).

Since that time, LinkedIn made only one improvement, the ability to easily click on someone’s profile and select the “Remove, Block & Delete All Contributions” button. That wiped them out, along with all the spam they submitted.

That button is still around, but locating it is harder. More important, trying to ferret out the spam and unauthorized submissions in now an incredible nightmare.

The New Horror Show

Here’s what I see in my group right now:

Previously, what I chose to feature as a discussion was right at the top of the page. Now, my “Manager’s Choice” gets shoved into the lower right corner (marked A in the screenshot above). In place of my choices, LinkedIn decides on its own which are “popular” topics and shoves them up high.

Even further up, LinkedIn shoves an invitation for people to “Like” new “Discussions” (marked B in the screenshot above). The problem is, these aren’t discussions. These are predominantly articles that have flowed into our group from Search Engine Land’s news feed. And soon, they’re also going to be any links that anyone in the group decides to share, despite that being against our group guidelines and despite experience showing that we’ll be flooded with spam.

In particular, take a close look at the new “Start A Discussion” section:

See the “attach a link” section? That’s a big, huge fat invitation for people to start spamming us with links. It also fundamentally changes one of the unique features that LinkedIn offered over Facebook. It was more “discussion” oriented, more designed especially for business professionals to ask question of each other and get help. Worse, it’s difficult to tell when you’re going to click on a “discussion” and get sent out of LinkedIn to a news article or stay within LinkedIn where an actual discussion is taking place.

I can’t even police my group rules. Without asking me, LinkedIn just made these changes to merge news and discussions, explicitly encouraging members to share links without bothering to ask the group administrator (that’s me) if I wanted this. I can’t turn off the functionality, either. My only choice is to completely kill the new combined “Discussions” section entirely.

I don’t really want to do that, because that’s what made our group compelling — members could talk to each other and do so in a largely spam-free environment.

Policing for spam is also harder, because all the feed content gets mixed in with new submissions / discussions or whatever LinkedIn is calling them now. After finally locating the “new discussions” link that was previously easy to find:

I have to scan through all the news feed “discussions” from us to spot things that members have submitted:

Then I have to look at each submission to decide if it they violate our group guidelines — not that some of these people submitting can even find our guidelines now.

Basically, LinkedIn has shoved Digg down my throat. I don’t need that — Search Engine Land’s sister site Sphinn is already expressly designed for people to share internet marketing news stories, complete with a moderation team that fights spam.

What I asked for (such as in this LinkedIn product forum) was premoderation. What I heard back was:

Pre-moderation is definitely one of the additional moderation tools in the near-term pipeline (among which is the digest-quality-scrub option discussed in another thread in this forum)

More than a half-year later, I still don’t have it — but I do see LinkedIn found time to make my life, and probably those for many other group moderators, a hell of a lot harder.

So, here’s a request to LinkedIn. Give moderators back the “classic” look if they want it. If you can’t, then the very next thing I want to see from LinkedIn is the ability for group managers to premoderate what goes out in our groups. Because they are OUR groups, in the end. For me, if I can’t control spam, if I can’t ensure a good signal for my group, I’ll just shut it the hell down.

Are you a list admin who’s unhappy with the changes? Chime in on the discussion thread I created in the LinkedIn Groups Product Forum.

Sometime earlier this year, YouTube seems to have dropped support for the 480 horizontal width embed size. I’m hoping they’ll bring it back. Bigger isn’t always better.

Most of the sites I work with have editorial column widths of about 500 to 530 pixels. That means the main column at those sites is that wide. Any video or image I want to embed needs to fit within those dimensions.

YouTube used to offer all these dimensions:

• 480×295
• 560×340
• 640×385
• 853×505
• 1280×745

In March, it told the world that by default, a larger size would not be selected. That’s fine with me. What’s not find is dropping the support for the smallest 480 width option. That was never blogged about, that I can see. It just quietly went away.

As a result, anyone like me with an editorial column width that is smaller than 560 pixels has to manually resize YouTube videos. That means picking a new width and making sure you’re using a 1.627 ratio, as described here. Fun!

What I really want is a tool that lets me enter a column width, any column width, and have YouTube create the correct embed code. Please?

While I’m begging, I’d also like a way to make an embedded video begin playing at a particular time within the video. YouTube does offer a way to link to a video to make it play from a particular time code. However, there’s no way that I can see to do the same with embedded videos.

When the iPad came out, I pondered going with the 3G option. However, buying a third data plan in addition to the one for my phone and computer was too much. Fortunately, Verizon’s MiFi mobile hotspot option made it easy to have one plan shared by my iPad, my computer and even my kids using their Nintendo DSi game machines. Below, how the mobile hotspot has worked for me, along with thoughts on tethering, broadband cards and other MiFi options including the new Sprint EVO phone and hotspot combined.

I Used To Tether

My wireless life used to be easy and cheap before I shifted to the iPhone in July 2008. I had a Windows Mobile phone on Verizon, which gave me high speed access on my phone plus tethering for my PC (see EV-DO Broadband Laptop Access Through My Verizon Phone). Of course, technically I wasn’t supposed to tether — but the third-party PdaNet software made it easy, and I never had an issue with Verizon caring that I tethered (PdaNet, by the way, today offers tethering for Android and the iPhone).

The iPhone pulled me away from Verizon, at least on the phone side. The iPhone didn’t tether, leaving me with a great phone but no option for my computer. AT&T oddly didn’t seem to have a decent broadband card that supported the Mac, at the time. Verizon did, so I stayed with them just for data.

From One Data Plan To Two

Part of me hated feeling like I was paying twice for access. But at $60 per month, my Verizon data card easily paid for itself. Hotels charge upwards to $20 per day for access, and I often travel two or three days per month. Plus, at conferences or press events, I was always the person who had access when the WiFi inevitably failed. In addition, my access wasn’t going through a WiFi connection that was often open to public eavesdropping, such as by Google Spy View, er, Street View cars

My card was a UTStarcom UM175 USB modem (newer models are now sold). About the size of my thumb, it slotted into a USB port. It was such an improvement over tethering. Tethering often had little glitches where the computer couldn’t find the phone, or the phone didn’t sync right to the wireless network. It generally worked, but there was noticeable pain involved. But my USB modem was virtually bulletproof. I’d plug it in, and I’d be online in less than a minute. No hassle, no problems.

Keep Your Tethering

That convenience further made me feel like I never wanted to go back to tethering again. For me, the money I might save using my phone as a modem might get lost in hassle. So even though the iPhone looks to finally get tethering in the US, a year later than expected, I’ll probably stay with Verizon.

Since April, I’ve been using a MiFi 2200 mobile hotspot from Verizon. This little box is about the size of a credit card, as thick as three credit cards and very light. When you turn it on, it puts out a WiFi signal that up to five devices can use. It’s like a regular WiFi router. You can broadcast the WiFi location name, and you can password protect access with a variety of security levels. You talk to the hotspot through WiFi, then it sends your data request out through Verizon’s 3G network.

Mobile Hotspots: Made For iPad

It’s an awesome solution for the iPad user. I just turn on my WiFi, and the iPad finds it with seconds. The WiFi itself finds the Verizon network in less than a minute, often in only a few seconds.

I’ve never had the problems Fraser Speirs describes. I found his post through John Gruber’s excellent The Good and the Bad Regarding AT&T’s New Data Plans article today. But I’m using Verizon in the US, while Fraser is using 3 in the UK. Different providers, different networks — that might be part of the issue.

The Verizon’s MiFi has its own battery, which is supposed to last around two or three hours. I don’t know, because so far, I’ve never run my iPad that long with it to find out. Today, I used it for 1.5 hours straight, and I still had a solid green light indicating plenty of charge. I also configured the MiFi to save power if it’s not sending or receiving data within five or ten minutes (I forget the exact configuration, but you have this option). In addition, I always turn it off when I’m not actively using it.

If I ever thought I was going to seriously need the MiFi for with the iPad for an extended time, I could also buy an extra battery for it. You can open the case and drop a fresh one in. Alternatively, you can power it off any external USB power adapter or your computer, but more on that in a bit.

While I await the Apple Store ever getting any decent iPad cases in stock, I’ve been using my Case Logic netbook Case Logic Netbook Bag. It’s got a nice little pocket that holds my MiFi perfectly. I slip my iPad out, and away I go. That link leads to Amazon, by the way, where I earn a bit if you buy one of those bags.

MiFi: A Pain For My Laptop

Life’s not so pleasant when it comes to using the MiFi with my laptop. I prefer to connect using it in what I’d call “modem mode,” rather than through WiFi. If I’m on my laptop’s battery, I don’t want some of my power being sucked down by WiFi. Instead, you just run a USB cable between your computer and the MiFi, and that lets you connect with WiFi being off.

Sort of.

For one, you have to use the Verizon VZAccess Manager software. That’s not a big deal. It’s free, and it’s available for both Mac and PC platforms. But for it to work, it has to see the MiFi as a device — and it’s like Russian Roulette for that to happen.

Somtimes the software sees the device right away and all goes well. Sometimes it sees it, tries to turn it on, then gives up and says there’s no device. Sometimes, it doesn’t see it at all.

I’ve tried every type of technological chicken sacrifice to figure out the logic of getting things to work consistently. I’ve tried:

• Plugging it in with the software loaded and the device off
• Plugging it in with the software loaded and the device on
• Turning it off, then on after plugging it in — and with the software loaded
• Turning it off, then on after plugging it in — then loading the software

And other things. Sometimes, I just give up and just use WiFi. That ALWAYS works. At least, it always works after I did an easy reconfiguration.

Using WiFi & Charging At The Same Time

See, I still want the darn thing plugged into something, even if I’m using it in WiFi mode. If it’s plugged in, then it keeps the MiFi’s battery charged. I’m paranoid about batteries. I always try to keep them topped up for that worse case scenario for when I have no power.

If you plug it into your computer, it might not charge. Part of that might be down to the USB cable your using. There are some types designed to supply power only, apparently. Some are designed to supply data. Here’s some discussion about this. I once grabbed the wrong type, and I had great difficulty getting the thing to charge off my laptop. Now I always take the cable that originally came with it, and I have no issues.

It also comes with a standalone charger. But apparently, if you use that, it won’t put out a WiFi signal. That’s easily solved by following the instructions described by CNET here. I did that, and now I have WiFi whenever I want, even if it’s charging.

I sure miss the simplicity of the USB modem I used to have. However, having the single device that works with both my laptop, my iPad or any other wireless gadget I want to use is great.

How About One Phone To Drive Them All?

When I was at the Verizon store in April, I pondered getting a Palm Pixi phone that also works as a mobile hotspot. How awesome is that? Use your phone’s data plan to also run your laptop and your iPad. That’s how it should be!

Yeah, but I wasn’t going to shift over to the Palm. My iPhone, even my old creaky iPhone 3G, has been doing its job just fine, even compared to a nice shiny Nexus One (see No, Your First Impression Isn’t Wrong: Android ISN’T As Nice As The iPhone). And I speak as someone who lived with the Nexus One exclusively for a week, when I was traveling in Europe in April. I still preferred the iPhone — though I really, really hated the lack of multitasking when I went back to the iPhone.

Ah, but since then, the Nexus One has gained the ability to tether and be a hotspot! Pity Verizon doesn’t have the Nexus One, though. Then I’d be more tempted. Verizon does have phones like the Droid Incredible, but I don’t think they’ve yet been updated with the latest Android 2.2 “Froyo” software that provides tethering. And when they do get it, I’m expecting Verizon will do some stupid thing like try to charge you an amount equal to having a completely separate data plan.

How About A 4G Phone & Hotspot?

What about Sprint? Tomorrow, they begin selling the HTC Evo. We’re talking Android, with hotspot and 4G. Oh my, oh my.

Well, I’ve got one of those. Google handed them out at their Google I/O event last month, so I got one for free. So far, I still find it to be like the Nexus One — kind of clunky compared to the iPhone. In addition, it’s slightly larger and thicker than the iPhone, but that’s still enough to feel huge when you hold it in your hand. It reminds me of my old Dell Axim PDA in size. Big screen, very pretty, but perhaps too much phone for me.

I’ve used the hotspot feature on three occasions, in San Francisco, at San Francisco International Airport and at John Wayne Airport in Orange County. Each time, I’ve given up and shifted back to my Verizon card. I can connect OK to the phone very easily. But if there’s a 4G signal, as it says at times, I don’t see the speed difference. What I have noticed is that it often “stalls” and fails to load things at all.

Other people might have much better experiences. Other locations might be much better. Others might tolerate the occasional glitches for one device that does it all.

Heck, it’s very tempting. For $70 per month, Sprint offers the same number of minutes I get on my iPhone (450) plus unlimited data for my phone and my computer and iPad. In contrast, I pay $60 per month to Verizon to power my non-phone devices on top of the $70 I pay to AT&T for phone service.

Waiting & Watching

Personally, I’m waiting to see how the summer plays out. I’d like a new phone, one that actually can record video and which works nearly as well as my current iPhone. I expect all that from the iPhone 4. But I’ve also had it with AT&T. I’m tired of going places where, if more than three iPhones are in the same place, they suddenly emit a distortion field that seems to disable all of them. If Verizon announced it had the iPhone 4 tomorrow, I’d be there, in line ready to go.

Apparently, Apple will announce the new iPhone next week — and we should be seeing it from AT&T soon after, from what I’ve read in various places. From what I’ve also read, I don’t get the impression we’ll be seeing a Verizon-version immediately. Personally, I’m holding out hope that Apple will give AT&T a month or two longer of exclusivity, so that AT&T can get people to renew under a contract (one they’ve just made more expensive to break). Then maybe after that, Verizon will get its shot.

I’ll wait and see. I don’t need that new phone as soon as it’s out. Sometimes patience is best, in things Apple. My existing phone still works pretty well. If the iPhone doesn’t come to Verizon, screw it — I might very well go the Android route.

Why not Sprint? I’ve used Verizon for a very long time. I know that its mobile broadband network works. Works really, really well. I’ve been all over the US, and I almost always get a good, solid broadband connection. I’ve been at many conferences, and very rarely do I have problems (last month’s Google I/O was a notable exception. Verizon sucked there.

Maybe in a year or two, I’ll feel like enough people are going wow over Sprint’s 4G network that I’ll make the plunge. But since mobile data is my primary need, on my phone — on my computer — on my iPad — Verizon remains my personal top choice.

NOTE: I write about products on this blog because I find them interesting, not because I’ve been paid to write about them or because I may have received them for free. Occasionally, I have affiliate links to products. Often, I don’t. My disclosure page covers these topics in more detail.