Now that's gushing that I approve. It's all about the next story. Read Bernie Borges Blog (B-cubed?)
http://www.findandconvert.com/blog/

Loading mentions Retweet

I'm trying out a new business model recommended by colleague Peter Baskerville. Peter teaches Entrepeneurship in Brisbane, Australia.

The new model is called PayMeToEdit@gmail.com. My first gig was the writing of a Knol (article) for Bernie Borges of Inbound Marketing and Twitter fame. Read it here: http://knol.google.com/k/bernie-borges/twitter-and-tweet-from-the-trenches/2tifj2f0i971r/1#

Want your own Knol page? PayMeToEdit@gmail.com. Fair and reasonable, always.

Loading mentions Retweet

A new and very exciting opportunity has come my way. Take a look at http://www.hookandgo.com/.

Getting the word out about this very cool, very green product is my new challenge. The company is owned by Bobby Winston, and he sells this farmers market trolley at his store in San Francisco's Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street. It's become something of a cult item, together with its ChicoBag that eliminates the need for plastic and paper bags. Bobby thinks he can sell a lot more Hook and Go's via the Internet, and I agree.

Got ideas? I'm all ears. In the meantime, I'm conducting my usual audit. If you are curious about the audit process, take a look at an animated PowerPoint slide at http://www.box.net/shared/co5hsh3t84. Anyone is welcome to participate in the audit by commenting on the blog.

nobarking

Loading mentions Retweet

Finally got around to setting up Picasa and PicasaWeb on my desktop and laptop. The result pleased me because Google's free software and SaaS offering make for one-stop photo manipulation and hosting. It works so well that I wrote a new article about it, to add to my three-article series at HowToDoThings.com.

The series is a procedural that helps readers prepare and place BIG photos into Craigslist ads. My motivation is simple: As good as Craigslist is, the tool set to prepare those ads is not photo friendly. It's garbage in, garbage out.

Those four little photos (300 x 225 pixels max) that each ad accepts don't really tell the story for many items. I'm surprised by the number of ads featuring small pictures turned 90 degrees. Yeah, like I'm gonna turn my monitor on its side to view the photos. Really, for the digital camera challenged, Craigslist could offer photo rotation and perhaps even an optimization algorithm for contrast and brightness. The service's upload software routinely resizes photos, and I believe it would be a small step to offer rotation and optimization via radio buttons.

There are better ways to get good photos into those ads, and my series offers guidance and insight. Collectively, the articles in the series have attracted around 75,000 page views, so I know the topic is popular. The newest installment is entitled

How To Use Google's Picasa Photo Hosting for Big Craigslist Photos

With this article in place, it struck me that Google's Knol experiment might also benefit from an article on the topic -- a fresh piece that steps away from the procedurals at HowToDoThings to gain altitude on the bigger issues. That old light bulb lit up in my cranium and suggested a "roundup" kind of article that would point to the HowTo procedurals. No repeating myself this way. And a roundup gives me opportunity to complain creatively.

Soon after the writing began, it struck me. What I'm really writing about is the power of pictures over words. Look at any Craigslist ad that uses top-shelf photos. The photos tell most of the story. Yet, great ads arguably occur less than 3% of the time. There's plenty of opportunity to sell your stuff using far better techniques than the average lister. And, for the word challenged advertiser, a big part of the copywriting conundrum can be solved with a great photo or two. Take a look. How do you think my article rates in this regard? It's entitled

Move that stuff! Pump Craigslist Ads with Big Pictures

nobarking

ps: I'm pleased to report that I've been invited to join Google Knol's Author's Foundation. I accepted after reviewing the mission.

Loading mentions Retweet

HowToDoThings.com offered an opportunity to pen an article on media kits and, with a full bookshelf of 'em as samples of my work, I jumped on it . What exactly goes into the creation of a successful kit? Over the years, I've been involved with some great efforts and take credit for several successful ideas.

I'd be pleased to learn your opinion, and hope that you'll also rate the article. Media kits are often "round filed," a tragic fate and the opposite of green in this day and age. Still, even in our recession you can't attend a trade show without discovering stacks of media kits in the press room... most of them destined for trash. If you have some ideas that add sense and sensibility to the topic, please comment. Here's the article:
http://www.howtodothings.com/business/how-to-create-a-media-kit

By the way, the article mentions a media kit I developed that spoke for itself, literally. It traveled with me on one of the most successful press tours I've conducted. I believe the tour led directly to selection of the talking chip as Innovation of the Year by EDN magazine. I still have the demonstrator safely tucked away. Should it go to a museum?

nobarking

Loading mentions Retweet

Over the weekend I worked on an Ikea wardrobe that caught my eye on Craigslist. It was an easy decision to snap up this spacious cabinet. To get it home, the seller disassembled it with my help. Ten minutes later we carried the pieces to my car.

Reassembly was a different story. Several of the factory-machined screw holes were stripped out. On a cabinet this large (six feet tall), you really need to be able to firmly secure the bottom and top to the sides. So, I used a technique discovered years ago to rehab the stripped holes. I took photos so you can read and view all about it at

Loading mentions Retweet

I am delighted to report that my Dental Implants article on Knol has been indexed by the search engine at Google, but not Yahoo. On the issue I discussed in yesterday's entry, Knol's tech support offered this:

As a general rule, if near-duplicate content occurs in several places on the web, the oldest and/or highest traffic pages will tend to be returned, while newer and/or less popular copies will tend to be suppressed. Does that help clarify what I meant? We will work on improving our publishing feature set. Knol will improve both as we develop Knol-specific features, and as we share and inherit capabilities in common across other Google applications such as sites.google.com and docs.google.com. Thank you for your patience as we continue to develop t...
by Knol Help - Tue, Feb 17 - 6:29PM UTC

I appreciate this response and definitely appreciate the search engine indexing. However, the response suggests my article is a copy that is newer and less popular. HOWEVER, my original article on Dental Implants was written on Knol more than two weeks before my desktop published Scribd.com PDF version. So, Knol tech support has it backwards.

The Scribd PDF is much more popular than the Knol version: 1,641 views vs. 832 views at this moment. The Knol article went live on December 22, 2008, while the Scribd PDF went live on January 8, 2009. Importantly, Scribd publishes indexing information, and reports the following:

Google Bot has been here 64 times.

• First crawled about 1 month ago.
• Last crawled 1 day ago.

Yahoo! Bot has been here 30 times.

• First crawled about 1 month ago.
• Last crawled 2 days ago.

MSN Bot has been here 5 times.

• First crawled 26 days ago.
• Last crawled 1 day ago.

With indexing, SEO has a chance to work. This is important to authors who invest workmanlike effort in factual material. Scribd earns high marks for index reporting. Patients contemplating dental implant surgery need to be aware of the risks, the mission of my article. I want it to have a chance to rank high and so does Scribd. This is a clear message for the managers at Knol.

nobarking

ps: Knol's comment about support for Google docs is good to hear. I'm a user of Google docs, which offers desktop publishing tools (and import capabilities) that are far superior to Knol's tools. Since I tend to produce work that is liberally illustrated, strong layout tools are appreciated by author and reader alike.

Loading mentions Retweet

Overnight, a debate ensued with tech support at Google's Knol. Using the help function, I asked why my article on dental implants was not being indexed by search engines even though the article appears to be attracting a lot of attention at the Knol website. Put simply, the URL for this article will not "hunt" when you search for it with Google or Yahoo or any other engine. It only hunts when you use the Knol on-site search tool.

This means that Susie in Kalamazoo will not find my Google Knol article in search results when she types dental implants into her browser's search window.

It's easy to try. Cut and paste my article's URL into your browser's search window. Include "site:" in front of the URL (this is an Internet standard to determine if a specific website is being indexed by search engines):
site:http://knol.google.com/k/murry-shohat/prepare-for-dental-implants-with-3d-x/2srzofgvr8kjr/4#

Here's what Google reports:

Your search - site:http://knol.google.com/k/murry-shohat/prepare-for-dental-implants-with-3d-x/2srzofgvr8kjr/4#

- did not match any documents.

Here's what Yahoo says:

We did not find results for: Your search - site:http://knol.google.com/k/murry-shohat/prepare-for-dental-implants-with-3d-x/2srzofgvr8kjr/4# - did not match any documents. Suggestions: * Make sure all words are spelled correctly. * Try different keywords. * Try more general keywords.. Try the suggestions below or type a new query above.

Obviously, the URL is alive and well. It's just not being indexed, which means that it won't show up in search results. Since Google sells ads that are placed within the articles (there are several ads included with my article), advertisers are not getting any benefit if surfers can't find and select this article when they search for dental implants. And of course, as a Google AdSense client, I don't receive my 2 cents.

Of course, if you type the URL (without site:) into your browser's main window, the browser finds the article. But Susie does not know this. She first needs to find the URL in search results.

Tech support at Knol responded that my article is being indexed in spite of the evidence above. What they actually found is my similar article at Scribd.com, which is being indexed. It's not the same article. My Knol article only shows up in search results if you use Knol's site-specific search tool, not your browser's search window.  So, I've responded with the evidence from Google's search engine. I'm waiting to hear a reasonable response. And, reading through the help inquires made by others, I see I'm not alone. Google's spiders don't index Google's Knol website? WaaaaasUp with dat?

A future post will discuss dual placement of similar material, which I have done with my implant article as well as my Brizzle cake article. Am I violating rules?

Loading mentions Retweet

Having attempted to whet your appetite with an opening blog entry for a delicious cake, let me turn to something serious: medical errors.

Specifically, errors made by dentists who, increasingly, are offering surgery to place titanium dental implants into our jaws. Every dental organization I've surveyed agrees that implants have achieved status as the "standard of care" for missing teeth. This is big. It means that dentures, partials and bridges will be used less and less as dentists switch to implants. A dental implant can even substitute for some root canals.

Dentists like implants because they are considered an outpatient procedure (hospital not required) and, importantly, implants produce strong cash flow -- about double the cash flow of a single crown.  Furthermore, a dentist who places implants avoids referring the patient to a specialist. The treatment money stays in the dentist's office. And, as insurance plans add implant coverage, the incentive to place them is increasing.

It's win-win for your dentist, and dentists are flooding training courses sponsored by professional associations, dental schools and entrepenuerial implantologists partnered with implant makers who profit from the procedure. But is it a win-win for you?

Is your dentist properly trained to offer implant surgery? Dental implants require deep drilling into the maxilla (upper jawbone) and mandible (lower jawbone). This is NOT normal dental work. In all the years that you and I have been going to the dentist -- all those times when the dentist used his drill on our visible teeth above the gum -- he probably never, not even once -- drilled a 4, 5 or 6mm wide by 8 - 13mm deep hole into our jawbone!

Malpractice attorneys say that medical errors are the increasing result as ill-prepared dentists negligently drill into alveolar nerves in the mandible, or perforate the sinus cavity by drilling too deeply into the maxilla. Increasingly, permanent numbness and pain in the jaw, lip and chin are the outcome. Even skilled oral surgeons make these mistakes. Importantly, mistakes are 100% avoidable through the use of long-existing technology called Cone Beam Computed Tomography, or CBCT. It's estimated that 95% of North Americans live within two hours of a CBCT X-ray scanner (75% of us are a mere 30 minutes or less from a scanner, and the luckiest among us have dentists who are installing now-affordable CBCT systems).

A CBCT X-ray locates nerves and other vital structures with precision, and provides true three dimensional views. With CBCT, the dentist literally sees into your jawbone in 3D and can measure available bone with a precision as small as 0.07mm. Compare CBCT to X-ray systems in the typical dental office, which show only width and height, not depth, and do so with distortion as high as 38%.

Like dental implants themselves, CBCT should be the standard of care for implant diagnosis, treatment planning and actual surgery. To help speed patient education, I've researched and written an illustrated article about dental implants and CBCT at Scribd:
.

Essentially the same article is also online as a Google Knol :
http://knol.google.com/k/murry-shohat/prepare-for-dental-implants-with-3d-x/2srzofgvr8kjr/4#

These two articles are achieving high view rates and have earned site awards as "HOT," "Top Pick Knol" and "Top Author Knol." I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic as well as comments and recommendations on my article.

Loading mentions Retweet

This is my initial Posterous blog entry. I've blogged for others and enjoy the freedom of simply writing what's on my mind. However, being helpful and useful is my goal.

Very recently, I entered a Dummies contest at Google's Knol site. I'm not fond of the formatting tools offered by Knol. They get in the way. However, I do like Google's overall approach because it represents the best ideals of the open source bazaar, a free marketplace of ideas, ideals, opinions and both meritorious and genuinely bad content in a peer-regulated environment that lets users vote articles up or down. Over time, I think Google will improve the desktop publishing toolset or let writers use their own.

The contest entry I prepared is a recipe for a cake I've made dozens of times, a cake that always brings compliments. I titled the piece How to bake a Brizzletm cake (for dummies). The winners will have their work featured on the Dummies.com website.

Because of my dislike of the Knol tools for photos and layout, I decided to produce a PowerPoint presentation of this pictorial recipe, and then publish the presentation at Scribd.com. And, I think it's a wow because Scribd's presentation engine, iPaper, does a fab job converting the PPT file to flash for excellent browser viewing.

A surprise awaited me: in just a few hours, my recipe had pulled so many page views that the Scribd algorithm for popularity awarded the piece a coveted "HOT". An earlier article I posted at Scribd took 15 days to earn HOT.

Viewers willing to join Scribd.com for free may download the presentation as a PPT, with full formatting intact (including animations). Wow, what potential for document sharing. I'm going to try out private document sharing and plan to blog on the topic in the future.

Would you like to take a look at the article? Here's the Scribd piece:

The Knol version is here: http://knol.google.com/k/murry-shohat/how-to-bake-a-brizzle-cake-for-dummies/2srzofgvr8kjr/6#

Hey, help me win Google's Dummies contest by rating the article and leaving a comment at the Knol site. Then visit the Scribd site and say you like the article, save it as a favorite and download it. Maybe my animated recipe in PowerPoint will whet your taste buds and you'll bake a Brizzle cake. Highly recommended by me and maybe 50 others who have had a slice over the years!

Loading mentions Retweet