Yes, I know – increased traffic, too many people, the town has to raise revenue somehow… but, for the love of Pete, it’s March and the meters are going back up!
link: Lumina News – Paid parking returns to Wrightsville Beach
We take clean drinking water for granted. We go to the sink, fill up a cup and off we go, but 1.1 billion people in the world don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water.
This Thursday night, the social media types in Wilmington will be gathering for the Wilmington Twestival to raise money for charity:water. Charity:Water is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing clean water to developing nations where unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease.
One of my favorite clients, Indo Jax Surf School, has generously donated a week long group surf lesson to be raffled off. There will be other prizes, drinks, food and the chance to meet a lot of local people that you may only know by their screen names & avatars. Plus, you’ll literally be saving lives.
Tickets are $15 online & you can get them at http://www.amiando.com/twestivalwilmington.html.
Credit goes to Ty Downing of Perspective Internet Marketing for kicking this event off locally at well as the Star News and a whole slew of volunteers & local businesses that are donating their time and resources.
What: Wilmington Twestival
Where: Port City Pub – Wilmington, NC
When: February 12, 2009 – 6:00 PM
Why: Charity:Water
My wife and son discovered the Arboretum here in Wilmington this week. So, we spent parts of Saturday & Sunday afternoon there taking pictures and trying to keep the offspring from falling into the water features.
Ah, good times.
The Arboretum is free, open to the public and a beautiful place to relax for a little. We especially like the Japanese Garden area, but we are biased that way.
Link: The Arboretum @ New Hanover County
More Photos: My Puny Flickr Set
File this under I-totally-didn’t-see-this-coming.
Craig Thomas & Sheila Brothers have made the jump from WGNI to mornings on the yet to be launched Sunny 104.5. They’ll be broadcasting on WILM-TV as well from 6-7.
Like, wow!
link: StarNewsOnline.com
Congratulations to client Abba First Mortgage for breaking the top 10 in number of mortgage applications submitted by a XSites customer.
Abba First is also now on Twitter where they can be followed for mortgage related news.
Now, I’ve just got to get that twitter feed on their blog…
I do a lot of social media. I’ve got accounts set up on just about every major social media site I could find, but I concentrate mainly on Twitter and Facebook. I don’t do a lot of shameless self-promotion not because I think it’s evil, but because I find it to be a personal turn-off. God didn’t wire me to be P.T. Barnum and it turns my stomach to see half-truths thrown out in the name of marketing.
Then I start getting followers on Twitter. They’re linking and pimping and demanding that I act NOW! There’s so many of them and, gee, they seem to be doing pretty well. Maybe I should do a little of that?
But I find a scrap of wisdom in my RSS feeds this morning. A quote from the prophet of social media marketing:
“Either you are on the path of the TV Industrial complex, and you’re prepared to promote and spam and spend and make average stuff for average people… or you are busy embracing the new media for everything it can offer.”
Read More: Seth’s Blog: What to do when the new thing doesn’t work
Ah, Seth, you are my hero.
NORAD is tracking the big guy in the red suit once again this year. As I write this, Santa is making his was across Japan.
You can track him via their website, Google Earth (in 3D – Whooo!), or via @NORADSANTA on Twitter.
You might have noticed the new header photo at the top of all the pages. I’m trying to remain seasonal with the look of things, but I’m fairly sure that’s going to backfire when I get caught up with projects and I’m still wishing you all a Happy Easter during the dog days of August.
Ah, well. It’s Christmas now and even tho Enchanted Airlie is over, there’s a Flickr group with some nice photos. Just try to pretend that most of them weren’t taken in 70 degree weather.
Inspired by some horrors I’ve seen this past month. Good SEO is not:
Here is a quote from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines:
Quality guidelines – basic principles
- Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”
- Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
- Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
- Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.
Now, all this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t build without search engines in mind. Man, that would be just goofy. However, it also doesn’t mean that you should be building your site for search engines at the expense of your visitors. Remember the rule of thumb above, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
I got the below item from Chris Andrews at City Buddha today (disclosure: City Buddha is a client) :
I would like to take this last oppourtunity to remind all of you about the fundraiser we’ve been having here at City Buddha.
We’ve joined forces with some of our fellow downtown business’ to help provide a little support to two very important organizations here in the Wilmington area. We’re accepting womens and childrens clothing, as well as personal type items for the Domestic Violence Shelter and Services. In addition to them, we’re also accepting pet items for the Pender County Humane Society(a no-kill shelter), pet food, collars, used blankets(can be used as bedding), as well as monitary donations for either group.
We know it’s tuff times for all of us, but please consider those who are less fortunate then us, and let’s try to pitch in. In return for helping out, we here at City Buddha are willing to give you 5% off your entire purchase for every item you donate, up to 8 items(or 40% off). Also for every purchase you make with donations, we’ll give you an entry for a chance to win a free nite stay at the Wilmingtonian B & B, a gift certificate at Caffe’ Phoenix, and a gift basket fillied with goodies for you to enjoy! Other partcipating business’ include,
Dog Gone Crazy
Edge Of Urge
Finkelsteins
So you can also go into any of these business and take advantage of various discounts with them as well. The drawing for the above mentioned prizes will be held this Sunday, Dec.21st, at 3:00pm at Slice of Life, 122 Market St. and Mayor Bill Saffo will be there to draw the lucky winner!
So again, you have thru this Sunday,to take advantage of this discount reward, and a chance to enter the contest. But more importantly, let’s try to help these people and animals out.
Chris Andrews / City Buddha
Things I’m Reading