The fun, frustration and entertainment that is Sphinn

A while back I crossed over 300 submissions and now standing on the cusp of the century mark for ‘Hot’ submissions. And what does that mean? It means I have officially Sphunn out of control… lost into the depths of obsession that only comes with an addiction to all things search and web marketing. As such I decided to capture some musings from mount madness;

How do we know I have an unhealthy obsession?

• I am friggen’ there reading at 8am after the kids go to school and read it as I once did the morning paper.

• When others reach for the Stumble button…I head to Sphinn (where’s my tool bar Danny?)… and then, if I remember it… I Stumble… Digg? Never heard of it.

• I muse over data from topical percentages to up and coming Sphinners… that’s nothing new though.

• Thought my kids names were Danny and Donna for a spell…

• I am less concerned with ‘Going Hot’ – if one person finds the info useful, great! My work is done… if I find something interesting, I post…not looking to hit home runs….

• Almost all of my Stumble/Twitter friends are Sphinners… a sheltered existence

• Sphinn is mentioned in 31 blog posts here on the trail since last fall

• My wife is ready to throw my laptop out of the window when she spots the Sphinn logo…

• I was insane enough to create an awards show (with m'homey Jeff)

• Seen many folks come and go, experience social media burn-out, many a drama unfold in the comments to the point of musing over a weekly gossip column for Sphinn… ('til I realized I had a life)

• …. I am writing a post about my time there….

Glue Pages - A new take on universal search

Seems Yahoo is beta testing its new search concept, GluePages, which combines text, images, video, jobs and more in the search results. It seems kinda fresh, but I have only been playing around with it briefly. Here’s a screen of a search for Google (yea cheeky, I know);

Apparently they chose India because that market has,” a growing number of new users, plentiful local content, and a large number of developers who can develop applications around Yahoo's technologies.” – according to Tapan Bhat, a senior vice president at Yahoo.

The search terms for it are limited and targeted to the Indian market, but you can still get afeel for this type of hybrid navigational searching. Give it a go; Yahoo GluePages (use a common search query)

… let me know what you make of it…

 Apparently the injury to Dave's hand has affected more than his typing. For whatever reason he's given me the keys to the blog and entrusted me for the day. Let's all wish him a speedy recovery, but do keep in mind the obvious opportunity to guest post here while his faculties may not be completely intact. Kidding aside, I'm sure Dave would appreciate a few more guest posts while his ability to type is limited.

The Immeasurable Value with the Greater Return – by Steven Bradley

A few months ago here on the trail, there began a discussion on the value of social media marketing. Specifically, looking for more information about the following:

1. How to plan a program ( with a real-world example)
2. How to time manage said program
3. How to measure and manage costs
4. How to measure it (KPI)
5. How to determine ROI (return on investment)

The discussion continued, first with responses to the above questions from some offering social media marketing services and then with a look at the qualitative value of social media. If you need a refresher, you can read each of the three posts;

• The Value of Social Media Marketing
• The Value of Social Media Marketing Part II
• Qualitative research and Social Media Marketing

The Qualitative Approach

I want to continue the discussion, focusing mostly on the last of the posts above, the qualitative value of social media marketing. There's a tendency for some to want to find and measure the direct ROI that comes from playing in social communities, but most of the value is indirect and more difficult to measure.

Are TwitterWhores the wave of the future?

 ..so I was following TechCrunch’s unhealthy obsession with Scoble selling out. This time around it’s not about him selling ad space on his blog, but actually Twitter related;

“he’s experimenting with Twittering adverts for perennial sponsor Seagate. He later twittered “I am just having a little fun getting a conversation about microblog advertising going”

This all made me uneasy and being typographically challenged I created this;

… is that where it’s headed?

*The following is a guest post from David Snyder; life saver and SEO blogging junkie.

I let out a juvenile giggle every time I listen to SEO’s and other Internet marketers’ rail off their initial strategies, strategies that rarely involve high quality content creation plans. So often the cliché, “Content is King,” is screamed through blogs, but rarely is it the king of online marketing plans.

Without quality content why would anyone come to your site? Without quality content why is your site relevant enough to rank? Without quality content how will you convince anyone to utilize your site the way you want it to be utilized?

Ok, step back. Understand something before we continue my rant, coming from a heavy writing background, having taught writing for several years, the reason I got into Internet marketing was my love for writing.

So, obviously I am biased.

If you are still reading this post, it is possible your content needs some help.