Testing Yahoo! Publisher Ads

Color me curious.  I heard about Yahoo! Publisher, and I figured I’d see how it works.  I know how AdWords works from both sides—we use AdWords for the flower shop, and I know many of my fellow bloggers make gadget money from the program.  But I have to be different.

Yahoo! Publisher is still in beta, but you can sign up at http://publisher.yahoo.com/.  It was pretty simple—fill out a form and wait a couple of days.  I got my enrollment message today; I completed the registration and inserted my first ads a few minutes ago.  Setting up the ads is extremely easy—you pick any of the standard color schemes (or create your own if you’re feeling spunky), choose an ad size, create a reporting category, and copy a small JavaScript.  The script was an absolute cinch to insert into the default dasBlog template, and I’ll add ads to the other skins when I get some more time.  You can blosk ads from specific domains, and choose category ads to provide more general targeting to your site visitors.  You can even insert ads into the RSS feeds, but currently only on Movable Type or WordPress.  No big deal since the half banner fits nicely in the ItemTemplate anyway.

In addition to the ads, you can add additional services like Yahoo! Maps, Add To My Yahoo! and Y! Q, which is a contextual search (for instance, if you’re looking at a page about Apple computers, and you search for ‘apple’, results will be slanted to the company and not the fruit or child).

So far, I have to say this is a lot easier than I thought, and I’m going to try not to be annoying as I mess around with the different ad types and templates.

Now playing: Ryan Shupe & The RubberbandEven Superman

Picked Up My New Letterhead

I just picked up my new letterhead, and it looks great.  Ed Lackman at Guideline Printing was incredibly helpful in selecting the papers and working with Lynn Capestrani at Advertising Concepts to get the colors and bleeds just right.  It’s amazing the variety of papers available today, and how much technical information on each Ed has stashed in his head.  Lynn also designed the PowerPoint template I use (you can see that in my SAF 2005 presentation).  Lynn and Ed’s expertise made the whole process incredibly easy–I just had to pick a few things I liked, and they handled the rest.  Painless.  If you need design and print services in or around Pittsburgh (well, anywhere for that matter–they’re digital), I definately recommend both of them.


Everything features my logo (which you can see on my homepage at http://www.rjdudley.com).  The original logo concept was designed by Molly Masood, but she got swamped with other work, and so Lynn and I traded some work with one another to polish it off and get everything printed.  You can see the proofs below; the bright blue was toned down to a more navy-blue for the actual pressing.


Business Card Proof


Letterhead Proof


Envelope Proof

can’t…resist…another…iq…quiz…argh!!!!!

The DotNetDoc made me do it!

 


Congratulations, Richard!
Your IQ score is 135



This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others.

Your Intellectual Type is Facts Curator. This means you are highly intelligent and have picked up an impressive and unique collection of facts and figures over the years. You’ve got a remarkable vocabulary and exceptional math skills — which puts you in the same class as brainiacs like Bill Gates. And that’s just some of what we know about you from your test results.


Not to pick nits, but the second sentence should start “You have a remarkable…”


Here’s the link: The Classic IQ Test.  You’ll have to create a free profile, but that’s what GMail is for.

Galley Reviewer At Large for “Naked Conversations” by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble

I’m thrilled to be selected as a Galley Reviewer At Large for “Naked Conversations“, a forthcoming book by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble (yes, that Scoble, as if he needs the link).  “Naked Conversations” looks into how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with their customers.  I’m speaking at the Society of American Florists convention in two weeks on using a blog as a marketing tool, so this is very exciting to me.  In addition to this very blog, I also run The Weddings Blog at http://www.bloomeryweddings.com/blog, and my new site Florist Blogs at http://www.floristblogs.com.  I’m stoked, thanks to Shel and Mr. Scoblizer (can I call you that?) for the opportunity.

The Massiveness of Microsoft

I’m clearing out The Stack, and here are a couple of nuggets from the December 2004 Fast Company I’ve been meaning to blog about.  The article focuses on Innovation (and the perceived lack thereof) at Microsoft



  • Venture capitalists typically look at 50-100 deals to find a good $20 million investment.  Microsoft, with its $6.8 billion R&D budget, would have to cover some 35,000 ideas to keep on the same pace.

  • Google’s $1.5 billion in revenue would lift Microsoft’s top line by just 4%.

  • In the software industry, a research project is considered successful if it produces 10-15% annual revenue growth.  By this standard, Microsoft would have to create the third or fourth largest software company in the world each year to be considered innovative.

  • From its $37 billion in annual sales, Microsoft generates $9 billion in cash flow and $8 billion in profit; that’s twice as operationally efficient as GE and better than twice as profitable as IBM.

  • Microsoft spends $6.8 billion each year in R&D.  IBM spends $5 billion.  The annual R&D budgets of Oracle, HP, Dell, Apple and Sun combined are less than Microsoft’s.

That’s big.

Blog’n My Way To PDC

Technology Usage Improves Businesses – Butler Economy on Resurgence


Butler, PA – Butler’s business climate has been on a steady upswing since September, 2005.  Analysts attribute the improvement to better usage of technologies based on Microsoft’s .NET platform, among other products.


This technology transfer has largely been through the efforts of consultant Richard Dudley.  Dudley, co-owner of a local flower shop (The Bloomery Florist – www.bloomery.com) and a former molecular biologist, is seemingly a direct pipeline from Microsoft to local businesses both large and small.  Aside from direct interaction with clients, Dudley shares his knowledge and experience through his blog (at http://www.rjdudley.com/blog), articles authored for ASP Alliance, presentations at the Butler Area Dot Net User Group (www.badnug.org), and in the ASP.NET forums and Microsoft newsgroups.


“PDC (Professional Developers Conference) 2005 was great timing for me, ” says Dudley, “I was implementing a multi-portal SharePoint Portal Server solution at one company, and participating in the Maestro beta program with another company.  The PDC sessions were invaluable material for both current projects and future planning.”


It didn’t take Dudley long to bring his PDC-gained knowledge to a large group of small businesses.  In another stroke of lucky timing, Dudley was already scheduled to speak at the Society of American Florists (SAF – http://safnow.org/meetings/convention.cfm) national convention in late September by the time PDC was officially announced.  Dudley’s presentation focused on marketing through blogging (something he does with his flower shop’s blog at www.bloomeryweddings.com/blog), but his interactions outside of his panel were just as valuable.  “At SAF, I interacted with a number of businesses that could benefit greatly from Microsoft Point of Sale solutions, Small Business Server, and Microsoft’s new Small Business Accounting product.  I was able to make recommendations to my fellow attendees, and help locate experts in their geographic areas.  Being exposed to these products at PDC enabled me recommend appropriate technologies based on the business needs.”  Dudley also favors wider adoption of Microsoft’s .NET platform.  “The floral supply chain is very international, with products coming from a number of different countries.  The .NET platform’s globalization capabilities make it a superb development tool for our industry.”


Back home in Butler, Dudley’s understanding of business processes and technology have had a positive impact upon his clients.  More than one client cited his ability to automate time consuming tasks.  Replacing a manual process with an ASP.NET and SQL Server-based solution saved one client 9 man-days per month.  “That was huge.  Sometimes, automation is seen as a threat, so it’s also part of my job to point out the benefits of what we’re doing.  One of my favorite quotes comes from a recent Fast Company article, ‘PrairieStone’s finely tuned system uses automation in a particularly sophisticated way — not merely to cut costs or speed up processes, but to free workers from the routine parts of their jobs so they can offer their highest and best contributions.’  It’s a great thrill for me to enable knowledge workers so they can offer their best contributions.”


blogging my way to pdc

Microsoft didn’t kill Apple. HP Did. Apple Helped.

Note: the following is opinion, based on my personal experiences over the last 20 years in the corporate and academic worlds, using Macs and PCs alike.


In the early days of the Mac, Apple had a chance.  A very good chance.  Many big businesses were already accustomed to the slick interface of Xerox ViewPoint workstations, and the Mac offered a very good facsimile of them.  People found them easy to use, they were comparably priced, and they ran all the popular software (such as WordPerfect and Quattro, and even some Lotus 1-2-3 variant).  But then something happened that made business communication look respectable.  HP brought out a relatively inexpensive laser printer that worked only with MS-DOS or PC-DOS machines.  It’s not that HP didn’t want to work with Macs, Apple wouldn’t open the architecture to let them.  Up to this point, most business printing was done on 9-pin dot matrix printers, which looked crappy.   Quality printing had to be done via a huge client-server beast that had a central printer somewhere in the basement.  HP brought that quality printing to the desktop.  But only for the platforms that wanted it.  At this time in history, PCs were still relatively rare, so being able to communicate from your PC and have it look as good as they IBM Selectric was very desirable.  Business wanted the high quality laser printing in a bad way, but it would be another couple of years before Apple would bring out their first LaserWriter.  By then, it was vastly inferior to its counterpart, the veritable HP LJ III (some of which I’m sure are still being used somewhere).  Even though it would be many more years before Windows 95 would be released, DOS and OS/2 -based machines were already deeply entrenched in businesses.  It would be nearly 10 years before HP’s laser printers could be used with Macs that weren’t on a network.  And by then, it was way to late.  Was Mac a better interface than DOS?  Hell yeah.  But DOS had better printers.  Say what you will about Microsoft’s backroom deals, but IMHO, it was really a combination of a printer and a very closed technology that kept Apple out of the business market.