Category: Websites

Voting on ads…

Business / Video / Websites

For several years I’ve felt like there’s something missing from ads – specifically video ads. More specifically, web-based video ads. Voting. We all remember those especially good ads. The kid reading the ingredients on a container of Breyers ice cream; Verizon’s “Can you hear me now?” campaign; Connect Four’s “Pretty sneaky sis!”. Of course, those ads were all pre-internet, so the way they rated commercials was by sales and by advertising teams crunching sales numbers. But so many ads are just awful and there’s no way to let …

Finally dumping GoDaddy… for Google

Business / Customer Service / Technology / Websites

GoDaddy has long been a staple in the domain and website hosting market for many years. Over the past many years though, they’ve gotten increasingly worse in customer service and price. There are many alternatives that people are happy with, and I’ve tried many. Several years ago I moved most of my web hosting, and the hosting of most of my clients and friends, off of GoDaddy’s terrible hosting services, but I’ve left domains there. (And so have many others.) Last month I had my final bad experience …

Hashtag Database

Blogging / Business / Databases / Marketing / Searching / Technology / Websites

In 2010 when I first wrote about QR codes, several friends say, ‘nah, they won’t take off’. I’m sure people said the same thing about hashtags. Well, hashtags will soon be included on packaging for major brand products, just like QR codes. #Hashtags are more than common now and there are dozens of websites that promise to give businesses ‘tracking data’ to determine how popular a tag is – in other words, see just how many people passed along the message that was trying to be conveyed. Facebook …

Google search results fail

Technology / Websites

Google is now returning search results that are “missing” words you’ve searched for – which is the point of adding words to a search! Years ago, Google allowed the use of operators in search queries. Specifically, the + and – signs. A query with a + sign in front of a word meant that the word MUST be on the page returned in the results. Just as a – sign meant that the word must NOT be in the page returned in the search results. Then Google changed …

Combine your cash gift cards

Business / Technology / Websites

Over the years I’ve gotten a number of ‘cash’ gift cards (Visa, American Express) which, unlike a store gift card from Starbucks or Target, act like debit cards. They have a cash value that you can use anywhere. What would often happen is, I’d use part of the balance on the card, but leave some remainder. I’d forget about the card or I just didn’t want to deal with using multiple cards when paying for a purchase. Eventually I’d take the card(s) out of my wallet and they’d …

Netflix bait-and-switch?

Business / Technology / Video / Websites

I’m a HUGE fan of Netflix. I started with them around 1998, when they only offered DVDs. They were the first major player in what became the streaming video market. Today, I looked up a movie I’ve wanted to see – “Due Date”. When I did the search on Google, the page on the left is what came up… when I hovered over the movie poster, the “Play” icon was displayed, with the text “Start Your Free Trial to Watch”. Once I signed in, I went to play …

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