Life in the Blue

While I am not the fashion guru like some of my friends, I like to think that I check out the sexy men in the pages of GQ Magazine enough to be fashionable. (For example I know that Reef sandals need to be out of your wardrobe lineup card by May 1st of this year.)

So I can keep all of my loyal readers up to date on the latest fashion trends on and offline, let me tell you what else is no longer cool. Text over pictures on websites. That’s right, ever since photoshop made its way into the hands of computer nerds, text has been fumbling its way on top of pictures with about the same level of smoothness I had in the back seat of a Ford Taurus on Senior Prom.

Like all things photoshop related, it is dangerous. It’s hard to read, looks trashy, and worst of all, it just isn’t cool like me.

Well those days are behind us now. Get out your css files because words over pictures is Bush. You hear that Audry! Bush League! From now on text is to be put only over a solid color. Get with it, it’s the 21 century my friends. Text over Pictures? What is that? The end result of having your sister-in-law’s 19-year-old friend, Sprinkles, design your website?

I know what you are going to say. “I am so good at pretending to be a graphic designer that I can pull it off.” No you can’t. It’s interesting that you should even go there. If you think text over images is cool, you are not only not good at pretending to be a graphic designer, you probably aren’t cool in any way, shape or form. In fact, you yourself are Bush League. This is where I come in, I help the little guy. Text over images. Please, get real.

So there you have it friends. Now go put on your reefs and go outside and play.

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For those of you too excited about the upcoming SES conference in New York to pay attention to the world around you, I wanted to share something with you to help keep you up to date on this internet world we work in.

Recently, a very clever individual posted an anonymous political advertisement on YouTube. The ad is a spoof of the famous 1984 Apple Super Bowl commercial announcing the release of its Macintosh computer. The 1984 ad is credited with forever changing television advertising.

The Hilary Clinton YouTube spot depicts Clinton as big brother, promoting conformity among the masses. Human drones watch until a female athlete races into the room and smashes the scene. It ends with a play on the text from the original 1984 Super Bowl commercial, claiming that 2008 will not be like 1984, a reference to George Orwell’s book, 1984. Finally it ends with the web address http://www.barackobama.com at the bottom. The commercial is so clever, the athlete in this 2008 commercial is even wearing an I-Pod.

As a disclaimer, I am not trying to share or support any political ideal or candidate with this post. This specifically relates to the way the internet has changed the political landscape.

This commercial exemplifies the ever changing online environment. Time magazine’s person of the year this year was “You.” A decision made by the editors to signify the user generated content sweeping the internet. From YouTube to MySpace to blogs to LifeInTheBlue, the game really has changed. Anyone with a computer and internet access can post articles, pictures or video to promote their views on anything they so desire. Great. The free exchange of ideas and the first amendment protect anyone from fear of persecution based on their own personal beliefs or opinions.

The individual who created the ad ended his silence on the Huffington Post Blog, by saying. “I did it, and I am proud of it.” He was identified as Phil de Vellis, an employee of the firm handing Obaba’s campaign, Blue State Digital. Unfortunatley, de Vellis was not granted protection for his cleverness. On his post, it says he resigned, but other reports say “Blue State Digital has separated ties with this individual. Mr. de Vellis has been terminated from Blue State Digital effective immediately.” So it is pretty clear to me he was given about the same options as embattled Minnesota Golden Gophers basketball coach Dan Monson, after leading the team to a 9-21 campaign this year: Resign or be fired.

It is important to note that DeVills made the commercial on his own time over the weekend, using his own equipment. There was no reference to Blue State Digital in the commercial he created. The company had no idea that he created the ad, and neither did any of thier clients. Still, for creatively voicing his own opinion, he was canned.

Unfortunately, I am afraid perhaps 2008 is more like the book, 1984. To me, his firing represents that indeed, big brother is indeed always watching. People are not free to voice their opinions as they please.

DeVills ends his blog with – “This ad was not the first citizen ad, and it will not be the last. The game has changed.” It has indeed changed, and it’s time to get with it. While I realize that De Villis worked for the company handling Obama’s campagin, the sentiment is still there: Do whatever you want, as long as it is exactly what I say.

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March is the best time of year. The weather warms up (it’s a balmy 70 in heart of the Missouri Valley today), the birds are singing, people are in a good mood, and it stays light well into the evening hours. I still believe in going on Spring Break and St. Patrick’s Day is a National Holiday. Finally, a nation wide sporting event second only to the Super Bowl provides all Americans with a popular past-time everyone can participate in. Just when everyone is in a good mood, corporate American finds a way to ruin it.

Every year during the first week of the NCAA basketball tournament, there will be a plethora of studies released saying “The NCAA Tournament costs employers several billion dollars or more in lost productivity.” Basically you can insert any number for the dollar value you want and someone will claim it’s true. The theory is that employees stop working to participate in (heaven forbid) something fun, such as an office bracket pool. The lost high quality work time will result in corporations being sent to the poor house because their employees can’t possibly handle a distraction at the office.

The phenomenon is strictly subscribed to by those in corporate America’s management. The following is just a sampling of headlines warning about the black hole of productivity that is the NCAA tournament. “Workers Take Break for NCAA Tournament”; “During NCAA Tourney, Bet on a Loss in Productivity”; “Chore a Bore, What’s the Score?”; “Will Tourney Hurt Businesses? You Bet”; “March Madness Fouls Out With Bosses”; “Madness Dunks Productivity”; and “NCAA Cuts Into Workers’ Output.”

So I get it. Every once in a while the enjoyment of life manages to sneak into the workplace and corrupt the cubicle walls that surround the working man’s 9-5 daily life. So what happens? In most cases, workers receive about the same liberty as 5-year-old who stole a cookie from the cookie jar.

For example, my sister (who knows about as much about basketball as I do about fashion) tried to access the site our friends use to enter their bracket. Upon doing so, her internet shut down and flashed ’site forbidden - work is for working.’ Forbidden? Wow, that’s pretty serious. My dad, who has worked for the same company for over 25 years cannot access any sites regarding sports during the tournament either. What does he do to combat this you may ask? Well, last year he though that it was so dumb that after 25 years he couldn’t even look up a box score that he sat in his car for the entire afternoon in the parking lot, listening to the broadcast on the radio. Now that’s lost productivity.

How they come up with their estimate is about as junk economics as in comes. In concocting this lost-productivity estimate, they don’t acknowledge that personal time is built into every workday. Workers routinely shop during office hours, take extended coffee breaks, talk to friends on the phone, enjoy long lunches, or gossip around the water cooler. It’s likely that NCAA tourney fans merely reallocate to the games the time they ordinarily waste elsewhere. Likewise, many office workers who don’t complete their tasks by the end of the day stay late or take work home.

Finally, the fear that millions of workers will waste time watching the games live for hours at the office is groundless. More than two-thirds of the games are played on weeknights or weekends, when very few employees are at work. In addition, there is plenty of evidence that people experience reduced interest as the tournament progresses, and are back to the daily grind not a day after it started.

So let’s get real here. Employees need to be happy. If your employees hate their jobs, your company will not be as successful. The lost productivity from disgruntled workers far out weights the lost productivity from someone looking up a box score online, or talking about the performance of the local squad in the tournament with co-workers around the water cooler.

And let’s keep this in perspective. In many European countries, workers miss basically the entire summer, sometimes they go home during the day for naps.

So just relax. You won’t lose a billion dollars, unless your employees go sit in their cars the entire afternoon. March is a happy time of year for all of us, and let’s keep it that way. Come Thursday evening this week, I plan to be sitting with the windows open, enjoying the spring time air, sipping on a cool Bud Lite, while the sound of Jim Nantz and Billy Packer bring a smile to my face…

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On the weekends I moonlight as a college basketball analyst. Every year I take part in the great tradition of breaking down the bubble all over this great bracket land. I enjoy filling out my bracket on ESPN and entering a huge bracket contest with my friends on Yahoo Sports. But before the bracket breakdown begins, I like to predict all 65 teams in the tournament, along with their predicted seeds.

For those of you too involved to Google ‘bracket breakdown,’ let me give you the short of it. There are 65 teams invited to the NCAA tournament There are 31 automatic bids for teams from winning their conference tournaments. This leaves 34 teams to be invited who have had good seasons, measured by a variety of factors. This year, 26 teams are safe bets to be in, leaving 8 spots to fill.

For those 8 spots, I think two additional from the Colonial are good to go. I know the first thing people will argue with is my decision to include Drexel. There is no reason for anyone to choose any of the other bubble teams over Drexel. Among their 13 road wins, are wins at Syracuse, Villanova and Creighton. Add to this an RPI which is better than most other bubble teams at 39, they cannot be left out. To that end, Old Dominion swept Drexel, has a better RPI and won at Georgetown. Including thier conference champion, three bids for the Colonial from me, end of discussion.

Any of the following reaming ‘bubble teams’ have blemishes on their resumes worse than a plummeting click thru rate. Terrible finishes to the season from Clemson and Oklahoma St. .500 or worse in the SEC eliminate Arkansas, Mississippi and Mississippi State. Air Force, Missouri State and UMass lack a big win in several opportunities. Utah State, Vermont, Bucknell, and Santa Clara are good teams, but just not enough grit to their profile.

The two best teams who won’t be included are Akron and Appalachian State. Both won more than 25 games, but low strengths of schedule and no real big wins will leave them on the outside looking in at the big boys.

The last six teams (in no particular order) in would look something like West Virginia, Syracuse, Michigan State, Kansas State and Stanford. The last three out would probably be Purdue, Texas Tech and Georgia Tech. For me, Georgia Tech’s loss to Wake Forest to end the season was just too much to overlook. However, if you wanted to argue for either Purdue or Texas Tech to take the place of any of those last five teams, I couldn’t argue and could live with it, with one excpetion. Texas Tech cannot be included and Kansas State left out, due to thumping the Wildcats gave them in the Big 12 Tournament.

Now that we have the 65 teams, I try to seed them. If you want to argue with the seeds, leave a comment making your case. Seeding is tougher because so many teams are equal. In any year, there are about 12 teams that clearly fill out the top 1 thru 3 seeds and 12 teams that won their conference tourneys, but just don’t compare to the rest of the field and fill out the bottom spots. But seeding the teams between 4 and 13 is like deciding which episode of “The Office” is the 6th best of all time. They are all good. They aren’t all timers, like the one where Jim hid Andy’s cell phone in the ceiling. The teams seeded 4th thru 13th are like the episode where they played basketball or the one where Michael and Dwight went to the president of Dunder Mifflin to try to stop the closing of their branch. They are all very equal, and a case can be made to move them up or down.

That said, here is my bracket

NCAA Tournament Seedings

• 1 Ohio State, North Carolina, Kansas, Florida
• 2 Wisconsin, Georgetown, UCLA, Texas A&M
• 3 Pittsburgh, Memphis, Oregon, Southern Illinois
• 4 Washington State, Nevada, UNLV, Texas
• 5 Maryland, Louisville, Arizona, Tennessee
• 6 Creighton, Notre Dame, BYU, Virginia Tech
• 7 Virginia, Marquette, Boston College, Vanderbilt
• 8 Butler, Duke, USC, Villanova
• 9 Indiana, Xavier, Kansas State, Kentucky
• 10 Winthrop, Virginia Commonwealth, Syracuse, Gonzaga
• 11 Michigan State, Stanford, New Mexico State, Old Dominion
• 12 West Virginia, Davidson, George Washington, Drexel
• 13 Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wright State, Holy Cross
• 14 Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Oral Roberts, Long Beach State, Albany
• 15 Belmont, Eastern Kentucky, North Texas, Miami (OH)
• 16 Niagara, Central Connecticut State, Webber State
• 17 Florida A&M, Jackson St

So leave a comment if you have a beef, or to woof after they announce the bracket on Sunday evening and I am proven wrong. Either way, Let the Madness Begin!

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A SEO friend asked me about the content network yesterday. Content network is a hip word people like to throw around when they are hanging out with thier friends, kind of similar to geotargeting. Really, most know little about the content network and view it as a black hole that sucks away thier budget. In many ways, they are right. When I hear the words content network, I cringe. Sometimes I think of the content network as a bunch of Black Donnellys mobster types sitting around a dingy bar all day counting their cash and talking about where is the best place to hide assault rifles.

Disclaimer – There are many fine publishers who work to provide relevant advertisements embedded within unique content. This article does not apply to you. I have nothing to say but good things about what you do, and sirs, do not change a thing.

That out of the way, his question was this - “My Uncle Buck is doing some PPC for his site and is getting some non-converting traffic. For example, one site has referred 24 total visits, with an average of 1.0 pages viewed per visitor, and another site with 133 total visits and an average of 1.02 page views per visitor. Neither site has any conversions. Is this from Adsense or Adwords, and what can he do about it? Basically he doesn’t want to pay for referrals from these crappy sites.”

My friend, I was once like you. There was no way to identify where the traffic was coming from, or to stop traffic from those sites. The easiest way to identify possible click fraud or fraudulent sites is to look at the number of pages viewed per visitor. Sure, it’s possible that every now and then someone will come to your site, be totally uninterested and leave without viewing another page. But look at the first site; it had 24 visitors without a single person looking at another page. And the second site was equally as bad with an amazing 133 visitors, but no one is browsing past the landing page the site. This data alone should be enough to report to Google and ask for a refund from obviously fraudulent clicks. That can be a timely process with little benefit, so the best thing is just be sure to shut them off totally.

When Buck looked back as his log files, he was able to identify which sites were sending the non converting traffic. One of the sites as just listed as an IP address - 67.29.139.199. I later found out that other people had problems with this as well, and it was actually an IP owned by click fraud ridden ABCSearch. Read more about there spammy practices here.

The other site was another crap site I have never heard of called SearchFeed. Take a look at this site. It provides nothing for the user other than a search box that returns only PPC ads. I can’t see any legitimate customer coming from this site with the intention of buying whatever you’re selling.

So to answer his question, this traffic is coming from the content network, so it’s adsense ads. If Buck goes to an adgroup and clicks on the summary tab, it will show him the separation between what is coming from the search network (Google Adwords) and the content net work (Adsense).

If Buck wants to turn off the content network for the whole campaign (you can’t do it just for the adgroup) go into Edit Settings for the campaign and uncheck the box next to content network. If he still wants to run some content ads, I would recommend he check the box for content network, then check the next box for “let me separate prices for content clicks.” Then on that summary tab of each ad group, he can click ‘edit’ next to his content network bid and lower it. This is a good idea because usually content bids are lower than search bids.

Finally, at the top of the page that lists all of his ad groups in a campaign, there is a link at the top that that says “add excluded sites.” Then a box comes up where he can put in the URL of sites he doesn’t want traffic from. This will block your ads from those sites for the entire campaign. Buck would have to do this for each campaign in the account.

So there you go Uncle Buck. LifeintheBlue at your service. The point is that there are worthless sites all over the internet. They exist for no other reason than to display PPC ads and steal legitimate advertising dollars. Advertising on these sites will leave you with a depleted budget and no conversions. The greater issue here is that Google and Yahoo need to work to shut down this practice all together, but, in the meantime follow my advice and you will be living a life in the blue.

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