Author Archive for Brooks Van Norman
I value good design, growth, effectiveness, simplicity, profitability, lots of sleep, tons of laughter and above all, freedom. If it makes money - it's a business. If it doesn't make money - it's a hobby. Period.
Amazon Launches Page Recommender Widget
Finally. This widget is something that makes a lot of sense and it one of the better contextual ad products I’ve seen in a while. I like it because it works with each of the pages that is loaded, rather than just keywords within only the site itself.
Microsoft Tricks People Into Confessions about Vista
While at the same time creating some pretty good video content for their site called the Mojave Experiment. Users are asked to candidly rate Vista, whether they would upgrade to it, etc., and the responses are overwhelmingly negative.
The End of the Newspaper Industry
Newspaper publishers are not doing a very good job of fighting the trends killing their business. Disruptive technology (like micropublishing) and the eco-movement are making it very hard to sell hard copy print. Newspaperdeathwatch.com is a great resource [...]
Promote Your Blog with Video at Blog Gears
Blog Gears just launched a site that I think is going to help bloggers (and others) promote themselves with something that I have been talking about for a while - video. Blog Gears allows you to upload a video up to 90 seconds in length and target it to a specific audience who then vote [...]
Blog World Expo in Las Vegas - Are You Going?
I have been thinking about attending Blog World expo in Las Vegas next month. With the exposure I’m seeing in the blogosphere, I am seriously considering going. Of course, I can resist not going and shooting something while I am there.
Let’s Make Some Crappy Graphs
Here’s a great way to kill some time…. or to dazzle your audience into their next PowerPoint coma with …drum roll please Crappy Graphs!
Mass Category Edit Plugin for WordPress
Too many categories to feed? Today I needed to quickly clean up the categories on this site because I had too many and they no longer reflect the direction the blog is going. I found a little known, but very useful plugin for WordPress called [...]
New Blog Theme Rocking Out Soon
Just a quick post to let everyone know that I am going to be rolling out a new blog theme this coming week. I’ve just finished testing and assessing Michael Pollock’s new new Vybe theme theme from Solostream Media[...]
Should You Blog Under Your Own Name?
The concept of putting yourself out there on the web really seems to freak some people out. Admittedly, when I started this blog project, I too was little wigged out blogging with a domain that is my own name or that I might forever hamstring myself professionally. Also, fear of strange people [...]
Small is a Weapon, Not an Excuse
So said Seth Godin, in a post about his experience dealing with a small vendor through Amazon. Seth goes on to say a few things that I have been screaming about for years when it comes to small vs. big businesses. In his post he says: “The web is a great equalizer. A tiny business can have a better website than a huge [...]
Do you really need archives?
This one seems a no brainer to me. Do you really need archives on your site? Does anybody ever look at them? I peeked into link usage in my Google analytics for this site and a couple of others that I’m running…and without exception the Archives link is either NEVER used, or rarely.
In fact, [...]
So you want to build a business online?
I have learned many many things the last 90 days in my assessment of the blogosphere. I have much to tell. Covered some interesting “ground”.
I’ve interviewed, studied and watched total winners and some fantastic losers.
It is likely that I’m going to write about this because it’s a subject that I’m getting jazzed about after [...]
There is A New Search Engine in Town Called Cuil
It’s about time someone took a grassroots run at Google. I was just having this conversation last week when I was in California about how people who work for large corporations see better ways to do things and then go out and do them by themselves. It seems even the cool Google can’t [...]
A Week In California
A few of you wondered what happened to me last week. Well, it was the first week since I started the blog that I didn’t make one entry. This was deliberate. In fact, I was in California on business. I flew out of Vancouver to San Francisco and spent a few days there meeting with prospective clients. This visit was followed up by [...]
