Disqus - Latest Comments for afhill

Re: American Discovery Trail Marathon Race Report

afhill — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:38:50 -0000

how was New Mexico? One of the guys I ran with did that one the day before :)

Re: American Discovery Trail Marathon Race Report

afhill — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:58:30 -0000

Yes, but sometimes I wish I'd be less carefree and more diligent about training and putting in a good effort!

Re: A Belated Boston Marathon Race Report

afhill — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:56:24 -0000

Boston is such an amazing experience, though! To really "get it", you should read my first Boston report. I thought the same thing: what a hassle and expense. But then you get there, and you're an absolute superstar! The whole city embraces the event and you will get stopped and congratulated if you show as much as a limp the next day.

Seriously, Marathon Monday is a holiday that everyone celebrates! I love going by the biker bar and seeing all these gruff folks chugging beer and cheering on the runners. It's definitely a fantastic experience!

Re: President Obama Calls Kanye West a “Jackass”

afhill — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:58:01 -0000

Can't believe this hasn't been posted here yet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxKIcrDsJAs

Re: A Belated Boston Marathon Race Report

afhill — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 20:53:03 -0000

Ooooh I bet New Orleans would be great!

Andrea F. Hill

Re: WordPress Attack Underway: WordPress Users Must Upgrade

afhill — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:01:43 -0000

(and yes, I know that's not ideal, but I've certainly seen it time and again with different developers I've had doing custom work for me)

Re: WordPress Attack Underway: WordPress Users Must Upgrade

afhill — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:58:56 -0000

Hi Matt - that's true of course, but many folks modify different core files to achieve the functionality they want (where theme just modifies the front-end display, not the actual functions)

Re: WordPress Attack Underway: WordPress Users Must Upgrade

afhill — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 09:35:30 -0000

that's what I love about using the thesis theme - all customizations are contained within the themes folder.

Sorry, I know that doesn't help you right now -- just a consideration for future projects.

Also - I think this may only be an exploit if you were using 2.82 or 2.83? So if you haven't updated in awhile, you may be ok?

Re: Simple Often Is Best

afhill — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:03:04 -0000

oh, definitely. When I first drafted a response I started to write about marketing vs product:

you can drum up some initial interest/buzz about something, but if the product isn't solid, it won't continue to be popular. On the flip side, if you have a great product, it can continue to do well on that reputation alone. That's where you are: the great, well-known product. :)

Re: Simple Often Is Best

afhill — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:00:56 -0000

>The tools aren’t cool because they’re the new shiny object. They’re cool because they let you work more closely with people.

Exactly right... except, you're Chris Brogan. You don't need the fancy buzzworthy tools because you already have tremendous reach. In other instances, gimmick or novelty is required to make people stand up and pay attention. I don't watch the Discovery Channel - I don't even have cable. but FrenziedWaters raised my awareness of upcoming programming.

Re: My New Facebook Like Toolbar - What It Is and How You Can Get One

afhill — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:43:39 -0000

I just installed the toolbar on my blog, and am considering it for a website I work on. I'm not sure about the recent/random posts features though; if those will just go to different pages on the site or not...

Re: RSS: interesting or boring? (Hint @marshallk and @louisgray, we’re not normal)

afhill — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:11:06 -0000

'Interesting or boring' is an interesting question.

'Useful or not' would be easier to answer.

Subscribing to RSS feeds is useful for those who don't want to go check 50 different sources.

It's really useful for publishers who can push out their content in different locations: again, lowering the barriers to get the info out there.

For people who want to be on the bleeding edge of news, not so much.

It occurs to me that that even goes back to the name "Really Simple Syndication". RSS is about the widespread distribution, not the immediacy.

Oh, right, your actual question. Is it interesting or boring. I guess as a strategist, I don't expound the virtues of an RSS feed to a client. Yeah, it's kinda a given if you have a blog, twitter feed, etc. But I don't expect great returns just for having a feed: I'm more likely to want to DO something with the feed to really make it useful for users. Because nope, I don't even try to tackle Google reader anymore.

Re: Pikes Peak Marathon Race Report

afhill — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:43:24 -0000

the grapes were good, except at one aid station, they had seeds! I used to like oranges, until one day the acidity got to me.

I guess they also had pb&j rollups, which would have been great, but I missed them :(

Re: What are we getting into?

afhill — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:35:23 -0000

I think the fact that this has the downhill is part of what makes it
so heinous! That's what tears your legs up :)

Re: 12 Things That Suck About Social Media Consulting

afhill — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:46:04 -0000

Hey Brett,

I don't think it's the greatest biz model at all - but I suspect this is in part why monetizing any service is a challenge. When you're passionate about something, you'd do it for free, and are happy to share your knowledge with others just so that things are done as well as you know it can be. But that doesn't (directly) pay the billls. Certainly, it can help grow your reputation and skills, and indirectly that can lead to greater things, but giving away what you can well earn money at doesn't appear to make a lot of sense on the surface.

p.s. I think many designers would take offense at your believe that they can deliver their dishes without input from the community. Good design is effective design.. which necessitates someone to impact.

Re: 12 Things That Suck About Social Media Consulting

afhill — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:16:46 -0000

>Clients want results, not strategy.

this is a fantastic insight. We may think that people care about why we decided to promote a given content item, or ignore a certain outlet, but they really don't. It can be tough for those of us who take pride in our work, because so much more may go into it than people really expect. But I guess it comes down to analogy: do I care how long that sauce simmered before the third ingredient was added. Nope - I just care about the end result. Sure, some folks may be interested in the details, but in the end, we're paying for the dinner.

Actually, even as I write this, I see the other side. I find it odd that often we tell our clients the specific tools and techniques we use - some of that IS the magic behind the curtain.. perhaps giving them the food they ordered is sufficient, rather than divulging the secret of our success.

Re: Six SEO Experts on Twitter

afhill — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:28:12 -0000

One of the first places I looked was myfirsttweet.com, but it reported an error. I don't know if someone would be able to tap into that twitter data unless twitter really let them.

Also... does seeing a history of your tweets truly make sense, if twitter is intended to be "in the moment"?

Re: Six SEO Experts on Twitter

afhill — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:03:34 -0000

I'm amused that the first tweet you get to is your calling me out on a twuck up! I tried to be helpful to go back and find an earlier tweet, and oddly enough, couldn't find the tweet you linked to.

Evidently twitter's history feature has a 160 "page" limit, and because you've tweeted since you linked to that specific tweet, it's now fallen off your history as well.

I saw it on your history, and then to validate, looked at mashable:
http://twitter.com/mashable?page=160 vs http://twitter.com/mashable?page=161

I wasn't aware of this limitation before, I'd be curious to know if that is a random number of pages, or if there is some logic behind it..

Re: Why I Deleted my Facebook Fan Page

afhill — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:54:17 -0000

that could be read two ways:

1) the page is not centered around you
2) "it" - the reason for people to communicate and gather, is not for the purpose of being your fan.

I know which you meant. Just interesting that the phrase could be interpreted either way.

Re: Why You May Not Be Able to Claim Your Facebook Page Username Come Saturday

afhill — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:11:28 -0000

I would have preferred they just charged for the service to weed out (some) squatters.

Re: Death of the Domain Name - Long Live Search Engines

afhill — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:11:56 -0000

>No one finds my site by researching me

ah, how I wish clients recognized this. If someone already knows you, they don't need a search engine. If you want new people to find you, then you need to be aware of keywords and content that are topically relevant.

Re: Last Chance for Boston Marathon Race Report

afhill — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:16:16 -0000

it is a small race, and they call out which lap you're on when you pass the start/finish line. Yes, they've been known to mess up before, but they figure it out by the next time you come around!

it's great for crowd support, as well!

Re: Retweet.it Turns Retweeting into a Traffic Exchange

afhill — Sat, 30 May 2009 15:24:03 -0000

hm, and then I went back and actually visited the site :) I thought it was closer to magpie, where things were sent from your account automatically. Here, if it's opt-in, I don't think it's such a big deal...other than the obvious chance for abuse. You get 'charged' a credit for every retweet you get, even if the tweeter is completely out of your target market and therefore unlikely to generate you any benefit. It's like cost per impression, with no ability to ensure the right people are seeing the tweets.

So I am still not a fan, but now for a different reason.

But ya know what? I'm still gonna try it out, just for kicks...

Re: Retweet.it Turns Retweeting into a Traffic Exchange

afhill — Sat, 30 May 2009 15:19:47 -0000

This is a question of recommendation: if you know that you may be associated with a tweet a friend sends out, are you going to be more selective about who you befriend? This is similar to the idea that people are aware that their friends' actions on facebook may reflect back on them.

Re: A good treadmill run!

afhill — Sun, 17 May 2009 16:54:40 -0000

I got a refurbished 2nd gen shuffle from Apple for $40. The newest shuffle has the controls on the earbud cord and I don't use their headphones so I wouldn't be able to use it.

I think it's great; I load it up with all running music and then I don't miss not having a screen at all - I know whatever comes up will be good. It's definitely better for me than lugging around my iPhone - I don't know if it would be that much of an improvement over a nano.