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MiriamEllis
Thanks Dave!
This was such fun, and I am just loving this series of Matt's. What a treat to have a client featured in his column.
Miriam
This is a revolutionary tool and should be of immense assistance to business owners trying to organize their review acquisition process. Really cool, Michael!
Miriam
Step 6: Hire an SEO who is actually going to be able to accomplish steps 1-5 for you.
Like you say, Mike, most small business owners are going to get crosseyed reading that list, as thorough and good as it is. It's brilliant that you figured this out! But Google needs to make this easier. Agreed.
Miriam
Cavan -
Thank you for coming to comment on this.
So, in the Marriott scenario, would this mean that Marriott would need to assume the role of customer in order to edit the listing back to the proper url? Is that what it comes down to or am I misunderstanding.
One thing about this...it's happening on Yahoo! and they have an actual phone number you can call to speak to a local rep (unlike Google). Has anyone alerted Marriott to this? They obviously need to know about it, and maybe their first step should be to call Yahoo and show them the problem.
Miriam
Geez, Mike, that is seriously disturbing. Marriott needs to get with it and claim their listings or claim that back, to begin with, and then they need to get in touch with the spammer.
The trouble is, there's nothing in place to prevent the spammer from going in and changing it back to their own redirect URL the minute Marriott's back is turned. This uncovers a very real problem and I think your legal questions deserve answers.
Really good article!
Miriam
Well, I'm assuming they would. Wouldn't they?
I hadn't thought that they wouldn't....Hmm....
Miriam
The discussion going on on this post is really great. I'm so glad you found it useful!
Miriam
I'm glad you posted about this, Jill. I thought it was just me.
I know that there are sites and blogs I consider must-reads multiple times every day.
A month ago I was visiting Sphinn 2-3 times a day, maybe more. However, I'm now coming here maybe once a day. It's stopped feeling like a must-read to me. What's on the front page seems not to have changed hardly at all in the past couple days, and the What's New section seems to be overloaded with facebook-twitter-makemoney-SM posts to the point where I'm lucky if I see one topic on a whole page of entries that hits me as must-read.
Sphinn has the authors and the ability to be essential reading for most of us, but it's not living up to that for me, personally, right now.
Interesting topic.
Miriam
Matt, this was a completely awesome article. I LOVE reading about small business success stories. Really, really cool. These folks sound so smart. Lovely to see.
Miriam
Wow, seeing it, Barry.
I wonder how that will alter user behavior. It's a whole new ball game.
Thanks for covering this.
Miriam
I appreciated the points made in this article, but the one I have often seen cited and which I differ with is the concept that simple praise is not welcome.
While I know I much prefer it when my blog's readers leave in-depth comments agreeing, disagreeing, sharing their special viewpoints, I don't feel annoyed by my regular readers remarking, "this was great."
I'd rather have them leave a note of praise if they've read the article than not bothering to comment at all, you know? It's a nice way for them to say they appreciated an article, even if they don't have anything major to contribute after reading it. In other words, those small comments are like a little thank you note, to my mind, and I like them.
Miriam
Story: Why Spam Google Groups?
That made me laugh, too, Kevin. Thank you for the kind comment!
Miriam
Just a note of thanks to everyone who sphunn this series of 5 interviews. Sadly, none of them managed to go hot, and my guess is that this last one is about to disappear because of the age threshold, but I want to let the sphinners know, I saw the repeated support for this series in your kind sphinns, and the conversations that took off in the comments section of my blog were just terrific! I'm so glad to know so many people got something out of this series.
Thanks, all!
This was so clearly and concisely written. I really like the way you set this out in steps for new folks to follow, Jill. Nice job - very useful!
Miriam
What a timely and important article! I enjoyed every bit of this and completely agree with what it puts forth.
As a two-man shop, it's become impossible for us to do it all. We need the help of experts we can trust, and at the same time, absolutely love it when peers bring us in for what we do best.
Wondeful article!
Miriam
Pssst...hey buddy, can I sell you some local SEO? Come around to the back door.
Haha, I agree, let's rejoice in a small but dedicated group of bloggers who are so truly enthusiastic about Local. It's exciting to be part of this and to be learning from such great people.
I so appreciate your kind support, Iamlost, and yes, I did notice that Rand's interview didn't go hot either. I guess the majority of Sphinners are more keenly interested in other subjects, but at least we do have a local section here at Sphinn for those to whom this stuff is the exciting part!
Miriam
I really appreciate the kind words, Iamlost!
Yes, Mike's inteview sort of crept up and up but never hit the front page of Sphinn. It was, however, stumbled by a very nice fellow and that was just wonderful! What I liked best was the discussion that ensued in the comments on that article. More great information from Mike and others who added their input.
David's interviews has some gems in it! I'm really glad you enjoyed it.
Miriam
It's funny about the YP thing...I am getting very opposite feedback from different folks. The interview I posted today with Tim from Convert Offline has some interesting stuff to say about YP. Times are 'achanging for sure.
I am thrilled that you love the series! That really makes my day.
Miriam
Like Kim, above, I don't see a need for Desphinn. This comment field is a fine place to disagree with an article, if you have the time or interest in doing so.
I predict that the desphinn will act as a vehicle for further embarassing displays of bad manners and infighting here and will simply make Sphinn a more contentious, not a more useful, environment.
It's striking me that when Sphinn was launched, a whole bunch of people walked into a new room. We were each given the facility to positively reward such content as we found praiseworthy, to ignore whatever we found immaterial, and to discuss the merit or lack of merit of anything that was sphunn. The atmosphere was a positive one, focused on sharing and praise.
The Desphinn button declares that negativity will now be an important part of the culture here. Everyone in the Sphinn room has to take a second look at their 'friends', wondering if they are about to be given the equivalent of a 'put down' any time they speak up. "How stupid were you to sphinn that?" says the desphinn button.
Is this really something you want to say, to any human being?
Because this is an open discussion, I want to add to this that Google was founded by two men with ties to the Montessori school of thought. One of the hallmarks of the Montessori method is that participation, not competition, is what creates peaceful, useful societies. Confident people tend not to need to put down their peers in order to feel powerful. In point of fact, causing others to feel humiliation or pain is generally abhorent to compassionate people.
So, someone isn't as with it as you about what the Sphinn community will like. Someone writes with less skill than you. Someone isn't as adept as you at finding the best stories. Your silence, in the form of the absence of your sphinn-vote, not only communicates in a non-confrontational way that this person needs to improve if they want to be recognized, but it also saves you time and removes the temptation for you to be spending a lot of your valuable time landing all over peers you find foolish. All of us in this industry are awfully busy people.
Some people, I know, call what goes on at Digg/Reddit/Etc. 'all in good fun.' I, personally was really shocked by what the Stumbleupon users said to Marty Weintraub recently. It hurt me to see someone making racial threats to a Jewish man. I was disturbed by Jen Laycock's story yesterday about a Social Media mob coming to the defense of the boys who had clearly stepped over a line with their video.
Do you think Sphinn's users are going to make better showing in this regard? I certainly hope so, but having witnessed some of the unplesant infighting already here, without desphinn, I believe we are on the verge of seeing a lot more of this in future. The bizarre attacks on Rand Fishkin showed me that Rand is capable of handling criticism with an impressive degree of aplomb. He can take it, in other words. But should he have to?
The powers of ignoring what you find useless and of engaging in sincere discussion where you find it important to do so are already very strong powers. The community Sphinn will create for itself wherin negativity is given its own shiny button puts a different power in all of our hands. I come here for education, but I know that for many, this is truly a social setting. It is, after all, Social Media. Over the coming months, it will be very interesting to see the negative aspect of the way people socialize. So many sphinners are expressing real excitement over this new power. I suppose that says something important about this community.
As for me, I continue to feel that put downs make for a poor learning environment. I've taken a lot of time writing this response. It's something I've been thinking about over the past few weeks. I value reading the other comments in this discussion.
Whoa, I must have been writing that at the same exact time as Bill's comment, above. I was really glad to hit submit and come back here to discover that a clear-headed and very professional man like Bill is seeing the potential harm in this function for the Sphinn community.
@Michelle - I thank you for your reply. You are quite correct - Montessori is founded on the concept that individuals are responsible for themselves and for the way they interact with their community. Unfortunately, in SM, just like in the real world, there are always irresponsible, rude and thoughtless people. Because positives and negatives are just part of life, desphinn's negativity, perhaps, makes this community more true to life.
But that's the thing...this isn't real life. We get to CHOOSE (amazing) how we want online communities to be. It's a bit like remaking the world, and I guess the idealist in me feels disappointed that people would choose to go out of their way to be negative in a virtual world. I'd like people to be nicer than that. Oh, well.
@Danny - Very good of you to reply. It's hard for me to see what you're saying. Desphinn isn't negative? It strikes me so strongly as the opposite of positive (sphinn), I'm not sure what else to call it besides negative. But, just as you say, you think this will be good for this community you are working so hard to build, and I am going to watch, for sure, to see what must be your vision of how this will play out.
@Kim - I really thank you for responding to what I wrote. I guess both of us care enough about Sphinn that we don't want to see its value lessened (at least in our own estimation). I guess my baseline fear here is that a permissive attitude toward negativity will simply generate more negativity. I have seen this happen elsewhere on the web, with ugly results, and these things make me feel worse about mankind. On the one hand, that's a pity, but on the other hand, it is a study in human nature, if one can view the evolution of SM dispassionately. I thought what you wrote was terrific!
Miriam
Story: A Small Business Marketing Success Story: John Tuggle, Guitar Teacher