I still come to the conclusion that this is all retarded technology. Cool to have but definitely not necessary. You guys can argue nine ways to Sunday about all the fantastic things these phones do for you, but I am going to continue to pass on them. My shitty little phone is small and makes and takes calls. I have two gorgeous cameras to take photos with. In any condition. Good or bad light. Choose the right setting and you can snap perfection. My phone takes 2 megapixel photos. They basically suck. Why do I want my camera to take a photo?  Convenience? What is convenient about a crappy photo? My Canon is smaller and lighter than an iPhone and takes photos that Jobs over-priced brick could only dream of. These gizmos also take video. To that I say so what. I like using the Flip for quick recording. Easy to edit and post.

So now you are saying, “look dumbass, I have an iPhone. It takes calls, video, photos, surfs the web, has a GPS, plays games and you can watch video. You’d need a bat belt to carry all that individual shit with you.” I’d say you were right. Can’t argue with that. But I’m a snob when it comes to quality. I have found that I am typically unhappy with something that is a collection of stuff and a master of none. Like a TV that has a VCR and DVD built-in. They always suck. Individually you can always find something of better quality. I bet my $15 phone works as good or better for voice quality than your iPhone. It never crashes. It hardly ever drops a call. The battery lasts forever.

I was reading a review on Gizmodo on the iPhone versus the Palm Pre. The dude was talking about the screen quality while watching The Dark Knight. How exactly is it a fun experience to watch a movie on a 3-inch screen? I guess it’s better than nothing while you are commuting on the train for an hour. But seriously, who the hell wants to squint at a tiny screen? I’ve got a nice 32″ LCD at home. Certainly not one of those 50″ behemoths everyone has bought but definitely very cool to me. I can lay on the floor and watch whatever floats my boat in comfort. But no, you go ahead and hunch over your little 3 inch screen on the couch if you prefer.

I can’t believe how much these things cost. You folks who buy these things are getting raped and pillaged. They subsidize one of these phones for $100-300 while they lock you into a 2-year contract that sucks you dry each month. Holy shit look at the costs in the chart below from Gizmodo.

Monthly minimum is $70. Monthly practical of $95. Each month!? Really? Are you kidding me? Unlimited will ream you for $150 a month. $2K a year just for typical use. Is anyone really thinking this through? Are we really in a recession? Oh and lets not forget about the “App Stores”. How much is the average person dropping in those places?

Screw Steve Jobs. I can tell you right now I won’t be buying a damn thing from his over-priced empire (except his stock…ya’ll keep buying all his shit). Or any of the others either. I’m pretty sure I can get done what I need to with my $10 month phone. If I need to use the Internet I’ll come home and work on my 15.4″ laptop.. Yea, that experience is far superior to a smartphone as well. I don’t think I need to be wired every second of the day anyway.

I’m not a kid anymore. Maybe if I was in college and mommy and daddy were footing the bill I wouldn’t give a shit and figure I couldn’t live without Sally Fineboob texting me every 3 minutes. $100 each month out of my income to be  wired? No thanks. I’ve spent my life without one. I think I’ll survive just fine.

enact an unconstitutional tax collection scheme that would leave Amazon.com little choice but to end its relationships with North Carolina-based Associates.

Amazon then scolds the affiliate for not taking action to contact the their representatives to put a stop to this crap:

The unfortunate consequences of this legislation on North Carolina residents like you were explained in detail to key senators and representatives in Raleigh, including the leadership of the Senate, House, and both chambers’ finance committees. Other states, including Maryland, Minnesota, and Tennessee, considered nearly identical schemes, but rejected these proposals largely because of the adverse impact on their states’ residents.

TN did the right thing. I contacted my rep and let her have an earful that these types of tax schemes would hurt the state more than help. I would lose quite a lot of revenue if I wasn’t able to participate in affiliate marketing. I don’t make a lot from Amazon but if Amazon is pulling out so could others. They could either stop the tax scheme and benefit from me spending the money or we could both lose. More states than not have come to the conclusion that it was bad business if all these companies stop allowing their affiliates to participate in their program. The states either get a little bit or they get nothing. The government in N.C. must simply be stupid.

On the positive side states like N.C. just eliminated a bunch of competition for the benefit of me and my state of TN.

Here’s the thing: If you don’t start paying attention to the politics that is swirling around you, particularly given that many states are on the verge of bankruptcy, you are going to lose. Politicians listen if they are contacted. They crave re-election over anything. I don’t know if anyone raised the issue in N.C. but those affiliates should be protesting in the streets if they care enough.

Here is the link to the blog that posted this with tips for what you can do in the comments.

For an Internet marketer it might be best to start thinking how this is going to affect you. Yea Google is the top dog and will remain that way for some time. But what if people start using Bing and they stay? Maybe Bing eats into Google’s market share by a few percentage points. This year it might be a few points. Next year a couple of more. Maybe Windows 7 is for real too and they implement Bing is that for search. Maybe Bing is used on Xbox in some manner. Who knows? Will people be more inclined to advertise on Bing? Will your Adsense revenue start taking a hit over the next year or two? Might be good to think how a viable Google search alternative could affect your online money making gig.

Google feels so…2007. It feels old and tired. Bing makes me happy. Searching at Google is boring. I took a screen print of an open search in Bing and will explain why I think it’s cool.

Anyway you slice it, Bing has pizzaz. Instead of a boring homepage for geeks and techies like Google has provided for ten years, with Bing you get a cool little photograph. It’s a nice change from the Google boredom.

How is the search experience? Fine, thank you. For all of us trying to find relevant keywords, or ideas, for our websites, check out the goodness Bing provides. Beneath your search term you get a list of keywords that pertain to your search. Google does this too so it’s not a huge win for Bing. But check out the related searches to the side. Google doesn’t provide that. This is helpful for those of us looking for ideas.

Speaking of search results. Google takes up more space with ads than Bing. It’s actually very cluttered if you compare it to Bing. These two following screen shots are taken from my laptop. Top to bottom of a search result. Notice the difference. With Bing, in the open window I can actually view 3, almost 4 results without having to scroll down. In Google, one barely fits on the screen before I’m mousing around. Interesting no?

Obviously the problem is the extra results for shopping. Maybe that is more helpful than not for people. And obviously the Google toolbar is a hindrance for results too. Google in their zeal to become everything for everyone has simply cluttered a typical search in my opinion. It just looks ugly compared to to Bing.

Okay let’s continue with the search results. To the right of each is a little slider bar looking thing. If you mouse over it a popup window appears giving you a preview of what that page is about. Pretty nifty. But dig what that means for your business. If you are writing crap for your website and just assuming that people are going to visit and click out via Adsense, I think this is another nail in that coffin. You are going to have to write shit that people will actually find useful or they ain’t going to bother visiting. They will just keep previewing until something works for them.

Below is a favorite feature of mine. The image viewer. It works really well. You can set up the listings in whatever manner you want as seen in the little icons. You mouse over the image and it pops up as seen below. If you click the picture then it takes you to another Bing page that shows the web site that it came from.

I like that it so elegantly displays the website the photo came from in another frame. It looks so much better than Google’s. Again the functionality is not that different but style is everything these days. Bing blows Google away. And frankly the functionality and results are comparable.

So there you have it. Bing is king. For IM purposes I like how it gives up ideas. BTW, check out the more tab and click over to xRank. It will give you further ideas of stuff that is hot for the day. The photo thing is cool because if you use photos in your sites/blogs then it will entice people to visit. I get tons of people visiting my sites through the photos I have posted. I think this will add to that. I’ve also noticed that I am getting more traffic each day on some of my Wordpress blogs and the Today.com blog from Bing searches. Mostly from folks finding a photo and visiting.

I should have put this in an ebook and sold it for $97, $47, $27, $17 dollars.

Well yesterday was the big day. It rained virtually all day. It was the most challenging bike ride I have done. I suffered greatly on the last mountain. But I did it. You can read about my ride at the 3-state 3-mountain challenge 2009 by clicking the link to my Wordpress.com blog. (No, I don’t suspect many will care or do so, but I am spreading some backlinks, so bear with me.)

Everybody uses Google. You want to find information on chocolate covered pencils then you simply roll over to big G and type in your phrase. Up pops about 1,284,291 pages of garbage. You hope to get lucky with the first page of listings and if not you surf through the dregs of ever decreasing quality of listings. These are results that has been indexed for days, weeks or months. Stale. And of course you have to wade through the parked domains that are utter shite and the listings from the link spammers.

Ah, but do a search in Twitter. People only have 140 characters to write in. If they want to know about those chocolate covered pencils they are going to get to the point and say what they mean. Targeted keywords. And in some “tweets” people throw out a link to a favorite site. And the best part? Use TweetDeck and leave the search on. Instead of getting stale Google listings you can get up to the second tweets of that topic. All day.

I know it’s not perfect. No, it’s not likely to replace Google. But if you want to know about a specific topic, this sort of, live search, is kind of interesting. People are good about disseminating information. We love to yap. If something cool or interesting pops up it’ll go viral on Twitter.

I’ve sort of dismissed Twitter for a long time. But now it’s the thing. And the “liveness” is very compelling. People are using it and it’s becoming very useful for more than telling the world you are eating a grape gummy bear on the swingset.

I don’t know if Twitter will be all that effective for that long tail keyword crap niche site you built. We’ll still have to play G’s game to get decent listings. But think about this: we all know that unless you have $100,000 or 5 years of time, you’ll never rank for weight loss. But if I do a Tweet and use that keyword, if someone searches for weight loss in Twitter my post will come up. Is it a stretch to think that people will search Twitter for weight loss? I dunno. The shit I searched for on Twitter was just as stupid but I came across some damn good resources. I could write a sentence on weight loss every hour and have a link to a money site.

I know it may sound like I’ve just discovered this. I haven’t. But what I’ve discovered is that it is now useful. And it is going to get more useful. Or spammy. Probably more spammy. But the potential for a different search and getting people to come to your site is compelling I think.

I’m simply looking for a better way to play this game than flog Google. I am sick of getting backlinks. It’s an exhausting exercise. You’ll probably never have more visitors from Twitter than Google for your crap niche site. But I think as people start using Twitter more and more they will see that using it to search for stuff is potentially more rewarding than Google listings. At least I hope so. Because Twitter as it is now levels the field for everyone.

In an odd way the Obama campaign reminds me of the Internet Marketing. All style and splash. Pull back the covers and it’s all bullshit. But American people have been seduced by charisma over substance. McCain is a tired candidate from a tired party…until now. Oh how I am intrigued by the selection of Sarah Palin.

I had conversations a couple of months ago to my dad about the possibility of Palin being the potential running mate. It seemed like an interesting choice given that it looked like Hilary was going to be the Dems nominee. I really didn’t think McCain would have the balls to pull the trigger on that choice but I was interested in her story nonetheless.

Up until now I had decided I would vote Libertarian. It’s a throwaway vote, but it registers my displeasure at the status quo. No matter what Obama preaches about “change” it’s all bullshit. Have we forgotten that the Dems have held Congress for the last two years and promised change yet nothing seemed to get done? Nothing really got better despite the promises. They say that when the Messiah arrives in the White House things will change. I doubt it. He seems to want to implement a Socialist policy. That is not a change I’m all excited about.

So how does the choice of Palin as a running-mate change my mind?

1. It shows that McCain has balls. He could have played it safe like Obama (and his pathetic Joe Biden pick) and made a choice like Mitt Romney. But he went outside the beltway. You want change? How about a ticket that at least has somebody (Palin) that is a change. The lady has never been in Washington. Oh and did I mention that she is a female?
2. Palin is a Governor. A former mayor. It is my opinion that governing a State is by far better experience for running a nation than sitting in the Senate. As a Senator what do you lead? As a Governor she leads the State. As mayor she lead a town. And I will not stoop to belittling the fact she was a mayor like those asshole Democrat spokespeople.
3. She has an approval rating of over 90% in the great state of Alaska. I have a feeling Alaska will be sad to see her go.
4. I am pro energy. If there is oil in this country I want to go get it. I do not understand the Dems stand on this matter. She obviously understands that this country needs our own oil while we develop alternate fuel sources. I’d prefer to spend the money here in the US than send to it countries like Iran that hate us.
5. There was a comment by the Obama camp that said “”Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.” This is a quote from Bill Burton. Well heck, why don’t we go ahead and put a man with zero foreign policy in as president? Obama has been Senator for a couple of years. Yea, he’s ready. Bill is trying to spin her as being a mayor as a bad thing. Like no one has a history. That no one grows professionally. Seems like a reasonable stepping stone to me is to go from mayor to Governor. She may in fact not be ready to be President. Doesn’t mean that she can’t be ready within a year or so. And it’s not like she wouldn’t get experienced people around her to help. Right Obama? Or was that not the reason you chose Joe Biden to help you get elected?
6. She’s young. She’s female. She’s a hellava lot more fun to look at than the three senators. It must gall the Obama camp that McCain chose Palin. She’s younger than he is. She’s never been in Washington. Hell, she couldn’t be further away. Obama talks all this change bullshit and he goes and gets a man that has been sucking on the government teet for 30 years. McCain walks the talk and gets Palin. You effing couldn’t have more change than that. You know, you keep hearing how attractive and vibrant Obama is and how old McCain is. Well McCain has a young and attractive wife. Palin has a young and attractive family. This choice pretty much neutralizes the “Obama is hot” crap as superficial as it may be.

I enjoy hearing and reading the tired rhetoric from the Democrats about how this candidate will continue the same “failed economic policies of Bush”. Nobody believes that either candidate wants the economy to continue to stumble. I for one am not a big fan of income redistribution. Buying votes is unethical yet seems to be the platform the Democrats continue to stump on. Let’s take away all that money the “rich” make. They don’t deserve it. I have a problem with government taking money from people. Particularly when they mis-manage what we already provide it. Rich people are far smarter with their money than the government would be.

The announcement of Palin the day after the Obama speech was brilliant. Nobody is talking about Obama and Biden today. As a matter of fact it kind of makes the choice of Biden look a little sad and pathetic. Now everybody is looking forward to finding out who this Palin lady is. She’ll be the face of the Republicans all week. She doesn’t make McCain look so old anymore.

I can work with this choice. Though I wish it was somebody else besides McCain. Maybe Colin Powell and Palin. That would have been interesting. Palin doesn’t change my mind that the choices we have been given suck ass. But it’s now something I can at least consider.

The next couple of months are going to be fun. Obama and the Dems will continue to pound home the point that they are the agents of change. McCain will detail how he is the experienced candidate. Biden is chomping at the bit to get to the VP debate so he can show up the young lady. Like Internet Marketing, people are going to make promises that won’t and/or can’t be kept. They will do or say anything to continue their government employment. If nothing else you can marvel at the peaceful change of power in the United States. We the people have the power to get someone new in 4 years if it doesn’t work out. It’s our right. And it’s a beautiful thing.

Sorry for the political post. I had to voice my opinion on this. Much like the hype of Internet Marketing, I’m sick of the Obama hype. Tons of voters have no idea why they like Obama except that he is pretty and says he is for change. That’s crap. It was time to jam a few sticks in the machine.

I’m not certain why the government doesn’t throw every resource at this problem that they can. They won’t open up more areas to drill offshore. We can’t drill in ANWR. They won’t support funding of new initiatives like wind and solar. Yet this is a country that clearly uses and abuses a shitload of energy. We need to try everything. We need to do everything. It’s so stupid to hear people talk about drilling, like “if we drill today the oil won’t become gas for your car for another 10 years.” So? WTF are we going to be doing in ten years? Paying $300/barrel for dwindling Middle Eastern oil? Drill now and work on alternatives in the mean time. Let’s do it all.

So I’m supporting The Pickens Plan. T.Boone Pickens is a Texas oilman. He sees where the lack of planning has gotten us. He wants a change. He’s not running for office. He’s simply offering a plan that no one else has provided. Pickens says  that neither Obama or McCain has offered any plan of their own. It’s truly amazing as this is the biggest problem this country is facing. I guess we are in denial. Maybe the collective believes that it’s just a matter of time before oil and gas comes back down in price. Think you’re ever going to pay $1.25/gallon for gas again? Think again.

Take some time and read his plan. Maybe sign up and show your support. If you prefer an energy policy put out by the bozos running for president then I guess do nothing. Obama’s great plan is a windfall tax on big oil. Brilliant guy that one. McCain’s isn’t much better. But at least he later said he supported building more nuclear plants. It’s something. We should do that as well.

On January 20th, 2009, a new President will take office. I’m getting behind the Pickens Plan to help ensure that our voices will be heard by the next administration.

It’s a freaking phone.  Are we that bored with ourselves that we need a device to talk to someone on, take a picture and listen to a tune? Hell, everyone already has an mp3 player. Why do you need another one? Why does your phone need to take a picture? Why does your camera need to make a phone call?

Why are people standing in line for something today that they can walk in and buy in a month? Why would anyone pay $5-600 for a freaking phone? And pay activation fees? And data transfer fees? And get stuck in a stupid contract? The phone will cost like $3,000 over the life of the 2-year contract. Does that not seem like a lot of money?

“But it has so many great features!” My mp3 player which is the size of my finger and holds more songs than I’ll ever care about listening to, cost $35. It’s great. My phone was free. Has a camera on it even. But guess what? I have a digital camera. 5 megapixels. Flash. Takes amazing pictures. Videos. I can drop it in my shirt pocket. Cost about $200.

So the big thing everyone is jonesing over is the web browser. How exciting. Why in the hell would you want to look at the Internet on a screen the size of a wallet? I have a gorgeous 15-inch widescreen laptop to surf the Internet. It’s pretty neat. It’s portable. Convenience? Can we really not survive in this world without looking at the Internet wherever we are?

So who buys this thing ultimately? Business people? They are given a Crackberry at work. Why tote another phone around? Already sick of the one they have. Apple will never wrest that market away from RIM. So that leaves normal consumers. I think for most budget conscience people the price is too high, like most Apple products. So who over-extends themselves for this thing? My guess is HS and college kids are the ones who buy it mostly. Mommy and daddy who can’t say no will probably be funding that purchase. Or maybe not. How many credit cards are used to purchase this phone? Financing that $600 probably becomes thousand of dollars after the minimum payments. Today is a good day for VISA and Mastercard. Maybe tech geeks who have to have all the groovy new appliances too. The average guy, the ones who barely know how to surf the Internet. The ones calling me to fix their wireless router will care less. Too expensive. They get a free phone with their plan. And they already got sucked into buying an iPod. They don’t have the time to care about all those lame-ass YouTube videos. Especially not for $100 a month when they already have three phones on their plan for $70.

Understand, I hate cell phones. I carry mine for safety mostly (bicycling). I find their use annoying. There is no etiquette involved in their use. I’m a real grump about them. So I have a definite bias. I just think standing in line for one is stupid. It’s a freaking phone and the cost is ridiculous. C’mon America.