Site Re-Launch

Cereal 411 was a pet project for Spyder and I. Shortly after starting it, Spyder went on a partying spree and was rarely available so I devoted my time elsewhere and put it on the back burner. No big deal as it's more of a website for fun than anything. Well, today, it's re-launching. I'm testing more often with Spyder as well as guest judges. It's a fun site and can be very informative for your next cereal purchasing decision. Check it out.

-Trent

HDMI (2 meter) 6 foot cable HQ 1080P 1.3b

It happened

This is an actual un-edited screen capture(aside from clone-stamping the total views out) from Google Analytics showing that for FunnyNameMedia.Com, I get more traffic from Bing than from Google. Very interesting...

-Trent

New Site!

Here it is folks, a site that's been on the drawing board for quite awhile, but just barely coming to fruition. You may/may not remember Yom's Random Stats. Well Yom and I decided to expand the site a little and do apology videos. Turns out the apology videos were more fun, so I introduce to you, YomApologizes.Com. We'll have a new video every week where Yom apologizes to someone or something. The videos are actually pretty funny and you should check them out at the site.

Site Re-Design

It's about time, but I finally redesigned the Funny Name Media website. I'm still tweaking the CSS because I think it needs just a little more color, but I like the simplistic design of it. Let me know what you think, check out the site here.

Finally testing

Last month I told you I was going to experiment with Opera's Web Server. Well being busy and all, I just got a site designed and uploaded, now it's time to experiment with this service and see how viable it is. Not to skew the results of the test, I won't provide a link here. I'll test it for a few weeks to get the bugs worked out, then launch it and see how it goes. I'll let you know the results in a month or two.

-Trent

Is Bing gaining traction?

The almighty Google dominates searches, we've known that for awhile, but I have seen an interesting trend in my site analytics across all my websites...Bing is becoming much more prevalent. Google usually accounted for about 75% of my search engine traffic, Bing/MSN was maybe 5%. That's changing...in a big way. Bing now accounts for as much as 30% of my search engine traffic on some sites and consistently 20%+. Google has suffered some as a result, but it seems most of it's traction is gained from the other search engines. Either way, this is a bit surprising and curious. Have you experienced the same on your sites?

-Trent

Brand New

Pardon the pun in the title, but I'm actually involved now in launching an entire brand for an existing company. Everything from the marketing, SEO, web design, social media, etc. This is a huge opportunity and I'm very excited about it. The long hours will be worth it for experience alone. I'll post more details about it when I am able to.

-Trent

The Buzz

Yesterday Google announced a new project, and when Google moves, the world takes notice.
To sum up Google Buzz, it's their version of Twitter. You can post status updates and check in on what your friends are posting. It ties in with your GMail account. My question to you is, will you use it? Sure it's public and Wave is private, but why is it necessary to have multiple Google windows open to communicate? Only time will tell how this works out, but Google is definitely generating...er...Buzz with this one.


-Trent
Posted from my iPhone

Competing against myself

     Since I started my new blog, I've been dedicating a little less time to blogging here. And I guess it shows. The amount of views I get here is dropping slightly while the amount of views I get at Fail Hard Blog are going up dramatically. Soon they will pass each other and Fail Hard will be my most viewed blog. It will happen any day now. Can I blame people, no? This is more behind the scenes stuff, and the other...well it's quite a bit more laugh-inducing.

-Trent

Value

     That picture is my lunch bag that I take to work each day. It's going on a couple months of use so far and as you can see there's a couple holes and a tear at the top. Most people would throw this bag away and start using a new one. I'm getting my value out of this lunch bag. It might save me $1/year by only using my lunch bag a few times, but that's not the point. Customers demand value, and who's going to give it to them? Someone will, might as well make it you. Value does not mean low price, it's about the "bang for the buck". There is perceived value and actual value. Perceived value is crucial though.
      A good example of perceived value is the new Apple iPad that was announced yesterday. Many people(myself included) did not see any perceived value to it. That as an initial reaction is never good. However, there may be some actual value there. Getting the customer to realize that value is harder once the perceived value is diminished. Come out swinging, and just as important, stick to it. If you have sales or immediately change a price point, you diminish the value further. Avoid it if possible. Sometimes a mistake is made. I'll use Apple as an example here again. The original iPhone came out at a very high price point and after only a few months, they dropped the price. Since then, they've stuck to their price points whenever a new model comes out.
     Want another way to kill value, fees. Nothing turns me off more than seeing 'convenience fees'. I'll see a promotion for something that is a great value, but you see the fees and you realize they're trying to just make more money while trying to keep the value there. It doesn't work. Build that into the cost rather than add fees to your product or service.
     No customer is going to happily pay for something that has no value to them, so focus on building the value of your brand, product, or service.

-Trent