Brian Mark - Guitaraholic

I'm going to SES in NY next week, so I'll be heading out on Sunday. Anyone that sees me there, mention this post and I've got toys for the first 100 that ask. Stress Balls with a catchy slogan on them. TOOLBARN.com Don't stress, we have the tools to fix it. This reminds me of some other (rejected) marketing slogans we've tossed around here. Ok, so they haven't all been tossed around while printed on a stress ball, but you get the idea. Most of these were mentioned as a joke at one point or another, but then got some thought before being rejected. If you want "Tickle me Elmo", you know where to go. If you're serious about Power Tools, come to the barn. There are three things that were rejected about this one. First, the search traffic could have been wrong. Second, we're referencing that giant among e-commerce giants, which probably wouldn't have been the brightest move. Finally, we didn't even have our full site name in there. Tired of...

Yesterday, as we were meeting with our local Sun VAR, he mentioned that some data pipes had been run into their area. He wasn't talking the normal data pipes that we hear about every day. No, not just a T-1. Not a DS-3. Not an OC-3 at 155Mbps. No, he was talking INSANE bandwidth. Definition of Insane My usual definition of insane is doing the same action over and over expecting different results. But that doesn't apply here. Perhaps X-Treme would fit better. This is like the X-Games of bandwidth. He was talking about OC-192's, which are 10Gbps each. But he wasn't talking about 1. Nor was he talking about 2. He was talking about 50. Yes, that makes 500Gbps. What could possibly require that type of bandwidth? Better yet, how can I attach a server at the end of those cable runs? Just how big is this? I'll leave you with a visualization of just how big of a data pipe I feel this is. I doubt it actually occupies all that much space physically, but in our virtual world si...

I'll be speaking at 3 sessions in the upcoming SES show. I spoke for the first time 1 year ago in NYC at the Shopping Search Tactics session. In San Jose later that year, I repeated at the Shopping Search Tactics and also did the Vertical Creep session. In Chicago, it was the 3rd round of Shopping Search along with a Search Ad Buyer's Forum. Coming up this time in New York? Well, I'll be busier, and I'll miss a few that looked fun. 1) Shopping Search Tactics (4th time) 2) Search Ad Buyer's Forum (2nd time) 3) Retailer SEM Tactics (New session) So, what will I be missing? The Search Ad Buyer's Forum is up against a few good ones. Eric Ward is someone I always enjoy hearing in the Link Building Basics. Since I've seen that one already several times, I'm not going to worry about missing that. Practical Copyright & Trademark Guidance for Webmasters and SEMs Your competitor is bidding on your trademarked name. Some splogger is profiting off of your cop...

I've been following the v7ndotcom stupidity - I mean SEO contest - just a bit. Every now and then I see a link to the search results . I just came across one of the best ads yet based upon those keywords. Sergey Says Eat my V7ndotcom Elursrebmem ! www.isthisyourcat.com Obviously poking fun with the name of one of Google's founders, but it sure made me laugh. Very simple and to the point, which took someone with a warped sense of humor to start in the first place. Kudos.