At Blog Indiana; Twitter

Sitting here at the Blog Indiana conference on IUPUI's campus, in their new student center (nice!)

Also set up a Twitter account. Like I was with blogging, I'm very skeptical of Twitter and its uses. There's no way I'll be fanatical like many Twitter users who update about everything they do ("I'm in the restroom right now!"), but it might be a fun, free tool to work with.

Indianapolis, asides, media, technologyTristanAugust 16, 2008Twitter, bloggingComment

SEO technique: name your children uniquely

As the administrator of a handful of websites, I'm often learning new techniques about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. Basically, SEO is all about using web-savvy techniques to move your site's ranking up in search engines like Google. So, for example, if I was starting a company to sell widgets (which I'm not, because - face it - who needs widgets?), but there were already 10 widget-selling companies on the first page of Google when you search for "widgets," it would take an awful lot of work (and good content on my website) for my new widget company to even show up in a Google search result. So SEO is basically a mysterious set of quasi-scientific methods designed to help people find your site more easily by increasing the likelihood that it's seen in a prominent space on a search engine. Some say SEO is dead or dying, which likely enrages many who've built careers on it. This belief is built on the premise that Google, Yahoo et al are becoming better and better at filtering out worthless content and finding what's truly good, whether it's optimized for search engines or not. At any rate, I have a proposition for those looking for more SEO techniques in the wake of Google's continual evolution: name your kid something unique! Seriously: "Tristan Schmid" isn't the most difficult search engine term to get a high ranking for (of course, now that I say that, people will probably try to knock me out of relevant searches just for kicks), and if I were to create a company called "Tristan Schmid Widgets Inc.", all it would take would be some simple traditional marketing, and people could find my company online. Or not, since my name doesn't have the additional T on the end that so many people would likely type. Anyway, people like Lindsay Lohan's mom have been cultivating their children to make them money for quite awhile, so it's inevitable that someone follows my advice and names their kid Buydietpills.com Jones. Or not.

asides, business, family, nonsenseTristanMay 12, 2008family, internet, names Comments

Comparing the candidates’ views on green policy

Care about climate change/the environment/our national energy policy? If you drive a car, eat food that travels via a gas-fueled vehicle, use electricity, or are alive today, you should. Thus far, the presidential candidate debates have been sidestepping the environmental and energy-related issues. Not to say that the war in Iraq, health care, and the economy aren't important, but everything's related, so we should give consideration to other things. This handy-dandy chart from Grist compactly compares the candidates' viewpoints on greenhouse emissions caps, fuel economy standards, renewable energy, biofuels, coal, and nuclear energy. Since few people in the mass media are talking about these things in the primaries, you might want to research it yourself before picking a candidate.