Together Gather - Effective

Bloggers Together Gather Party ..

Venue: Federal Hotel, Kuala Lumpur

Date: 9 March 2007

Time: 6pm till 11pm

Dress Code: Anything

Charge: RM35 (payment made before 18 February 2007), RM40 (payment made after 18 February 2007)

I was first introduced to this party through skthew.

About Marketing..

Such gathering is important because it is related to the very fundamental of blogging. First of all, we all blog for many reasons, but the bottom line is the same, which is to evangelize something. And this may come in different flavours such as sharing, ramblings, giving thanks and appreciations and etc. The business term for all these is marketing, we want to talk about something and hope that someone will eventually read it. Otherwise, better don't blog, just keep an off-line diary.

Optimization ...

So, once you started a blog or a web site, the next thing is to make sure that at least there are some readers. Well, depending on your mode, some blog like this blog which is operating on amateur mode, occasionally we might put in some advertising means to generate some "for fun" incomes.

But the question is that how are we going to do the optimization in the right manner ? Because Google has strict definitions on a few things...

1. Googlebombing
2. Spam blogs and comments

This is further elaborated when it comes to monetary issues.. as such when Google addresses its policy for Adsense where it states that ...

A publisher's site may not have invalid clicks or impressions on any
ad(s), including but not limited to clicks and/or impressions generated
by:

- a publisher on his own web pages
- a publisher encouraging others to click on his ads
- automated clicking programs or any other deceptive software
- a publisher altering any portion of the ad code or changing the
layout, behavior, targeting, or delivery of ads for any reason

The above statement which was quoted from Google Adsense simply means that you need "God's help" and "luck" to do the marketing, and not by yourself.

For instance, if you have just started a blog... You can't encourage people to visit it, but you can only tell them that you have such blog and hope that they will go and read it. Because if you put persistency and high chances is that people will go at least once and eventually they will click on the advertisement (which in this case is illegal by good faith).

Reality ...

The fact that this blog has been experimenting with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for 3 years because it is a good IT research topic. Some may think that it is illegal, unreal and not reflective but the issues are real.

To learn about what we have discovered about SEO throughout the years, check out this link.

Think about this... if you have just started a florist and setup a web site. You want to be searchable through Google and other major search engines. And the fact is that the florist business is not something which you have invented yesterday and many have already done similar things long ago.

And if it is your wish to be listed as the number 1 spot for the keyword "florist"... if you try to Google it now, the top 5 results are:

1. Florist.com
2. ftd.com
3. Decidio
4. blooming.com.my
5. FLORIST (software)

Now, if you think blooming.com.my don't deserve to be there, then there is something wrong with you. Because blooming has been around and is also selling what you are selling. Unless you have real natural roses which can last for 10 years.

But your business strategy requires that your web site must be at least same page as blooming.com.my or best still, on top of it.

And if you just keep it there..., I tell you frankly, it will never going to happen. Because you haven't make a difference.

This is why I used to call it "the case for spam".

The case for spam ...

What I was trying evaluate and not suggesting is that to become successful, you just got to do the extra work, run the extra mile and some call it, be a bit more tricky. Just like there is an article analyzes how Asia's richest man Li Ka-Shing can become so rich through his companies Hutchison Whampoa and Cheung Kong, the author is calling it "dirty game". It often uses the word "subversion".

The idea is that, you got to find a way to be stand-out. In the conventional method, companies like Google and Microsoft would go around hunting for the best talents around, in order to become more competitive than competitors. And that is legal. However, when it comes to web-aggressiveness, things are often mixed-up with fraud, abuse and spam.

If you have just created a new product, no one will look for it... Unless you decide to use money to pay for the advertising. Yes, I mean you got to pay, otherwise, perhaps you have a case for spam or just stop dreaming!!!!

Google's Solutions ..

Google knows this well. Google needs content to survive while at the same time it has no intention to own all good contents in the world other than a few really great ones like youtube.com

So, they know that all publishers would like to be listed and get indexed and not only that, to be on top. But this is not possible if you have been reading my previous words...

So, the concept of long-tail seems like a good way out of it.

The long-tail concept states that we have now moved away from the culture where monopoly influences dominates. Which means instead of just buying from blooming.com.my, long-tail economy certifies that it is absolutely normal (not insane or socially-correct) to buy from alternatives. This is good for buyers' perspective. For vendors' perspective, it gives assurance that you will get business no matter how small you are.

So, it all seems like Google's technology is well educated with long-tail concept and eventually, whoever is in the business will get a fair share of something. To prove this, it is hard. But you may try.

However, the bottom line of long-tail is that there must be a beginning and the end. Because there must be a provider or gatekeeper who states where the long-tail starts and ends. Otherwise, we have to ask Stephen Hawking. To elaborate, if this world has 100 Google, then Google cannot be Google of today. It will be Goooooooooooooooooooooo1gle, amongst Gooooooooooooo10gle or Gooooooooooooooo100oogle. So, long-tail concept is not applicable to the big boys... like Google, Microsoft, Apple and etc. Theirs are monopoly and to be extremely aggressive and stand-out.

Alternative Solutions ..

Due to the fact that Google determines your web sites' popularity according to how relevant it is to keywords, and they evaluate it through the pageRank technology where it determines how many references have been made to your site.

This is a fair deal, because if today Microsoft invented Windows Vista, buy searching for Window Vista, the first spot should be Microsoft. And this is possible because when you think about Window Vista, you would reference it to Microsoft.

But if you don't have the means to continuously innovate new products... then it is hard for people to make reference to you. Then for the new florist, he or she might as well shut down the newly created web site.

But the hope is that there are alternatives..

1. Get listing to aggregators, such as MyLink and PPS.
2. Attend bloggers function such as Together Gather.
3. Make your contents more relevant to people's interest (entertaintment, gossip and etc)

Conclusion ..

We should borrow the idea from Jeff Ooi that bloggers lend context to issues.

Blogs' contents tend to solve things which conventional media can't do or won't think about. For instance, this blog is a good place for researcher to find out what people are searching for which has relevancy to technology, business and Malaysia. Check out the Jan 2007 searched terms which landed on this blog.

Do attend the party if you have time !! If you need more information, please email to tggenquiry (at) gmail (dot) com

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