I was tweeting about my current addiction to cashews, and I joked about contacting Emerald Nuts about sponsoring a blog post. (Half-joked. I’d totally love to set that up.) I couldn’t find them on Twitter, so I headed to the Emerald Nuts website…
…and proceeded to have to wait for their ridiculous Flash animations to load every time I clicked one of their internal links. It irritated me. I hope they have a mobile version of their site, since many phones don’t do Flash.
So I wondered if it was just me, and the easiest way to find that out was to conduct a quick poll via Twitter. I asked:
QUICK POLL: Do you ever WANT to see a Flash-y brand page, or would you rather just get down to business?
Not a single person who responded ever wanted to see a Flash site. Not one.
So brands take note: keep your flashy designs off the Web and keep it simple instead. We don’t want to sacrifice function for form.
After participating in Bulldog Reporter’s Mommy Blogger Panel, I must say that I started getting some much better pitches via email. However, the bad ones have not stopped coming.
Today’s bad pitch is actually quite hilariously irrelevant for my life and my blog, and I need to share with you how awesomely bad it is:
“Brush Buddies the makers of the wildly successful Justin Bieber line of oral products announced today, on Bieber’s 18th birthday, that Brush Buddies is inviting his fans to create their own Brush Buddies Justin Bieber Singing Toothbrush; as a gift, of sorts, from Bieber to his fans.”
That’s right, folks…stick Justin Bieber in your mouth, and he sings! (He’s 18 now. I’m allowed to make inappropriate comments like this.) No one in my house would ever want a singing Justin Bieber toothbrush. I can’t imagine anyone actually wanting one, but there’s just no accounting for tween girls and their obsessions.
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Resumes are supposed to be pretty serious things, right? I hadn’t worried about a resume in years since starting Phenomenal Content, but a few months ago, I did try to land a gig with the Cheezburger Network, so I got a little crazy.
They never got back to me, and I assume it’s only because they hired someone like Betty White instead. (I’d pick her over me, too.) Because I don’t think I’ll ever have a use for this particular version of my resume again, I figured I’d share it with you, the Internet. All you have to do is click on this link to see it in all of its PDF glory:
Writing a resume like a boss
Oh snap, that was fabulous, right? If it made you actually interested in hiring me, my email address was on there. Use it. I’m available for writing, blogging, proofreading, editing, and social media projects. I’m on Twitter (twice), Facebook, and Pinterest most often. If you don’t need to hire me to directly complete any of the aforementioned tasks, I am also available for consulting.
So I like to browse my spam comments before I delete them…just in case there’s a false positive. The most recent wave of spam comments I got was on my recent Merry Christmas video, where I sang a karaoke version of Santa Baby for fun. There was too much negativity in the social media sphere, and I wanted to post something positive to make people smile or laugh.
Imagine my surprise (and, admittedly, amusement) when I read this comment that had been spammed from that post:
The next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, but I actually thought youd have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you could fix if you werent too busy looking for attention.
Riiiiight. The commenter’s “name” was Cholesterol diet (amasidi0324@live.com) from healthycholesteroldiets.com – and if you want to block the IP address from your blog, it’s 59.146.188.76.
So this is a thing now? I don’t understand the tactic. A lot of bloggers would delete the comment simply because it was insulting – or possibly offensive, if they really were whining and looking for attention. 
It doesn’t make sense to me. The fake “Nice blog” comments are getting auto-spammed, so spammers are trying the attack route? I wonder if anyone is dumb enough to argue back…
Do you remember way back in August 2009 when I made a post about SEO Cold Calling, aka Contact Form Spam? It was lambasting a company (that I didn’t name) who tried to sell me crappy SEO services by using my copywriting services contact form.
Amusingly enough, I got a spam comment on that post a few weeks ago. Because the spammer intended it to be a publicly viewed comment (or not? – you’ll see why) I feel no remorse about leaving the email address and such intact. I don’t want the actual links to work, of course. Emphasis is mine to point out the ridiculousness.
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I know that link building is hard. That’s why I don’t do that sort of thing for a living. But if you’re going to do it, at least try to do it right. And by that, I mean: don’t spam people, and when trying to pitch bloggers in a personal manner, don’t try to automate “personal.”
Case in point: It’s great to actually check out someone’s blog, determine it’s a good fit for your client (or your own site), and let the blogger know you’ve done a little research by mentioning one of their posts that you found to be relevant to the site you want them to link to. Get this part wrong, and it’s obvious you’re just faking it – and that almost never goes well.
Here’s the bad link request that inspired this post. (And I’ll spare you the broken HTML that displayed in the body of the email when I received it.)
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So when I had the concept for this post – Save My Ass – it was because I realized that it’s been five years since the gastroenterologist told me I should come back and see him in five years for another colonoscopy. You see, my mom’s brothers have all had cancerous polyps in their colons. That wasn’t enough to get me to have one before I turned 30, but I was having a host of other issues, and mainly the doctor wanted to know why I was so anemic and why I had so many GI problems. Then he found a bunch of polyps in there – thankfully benign, but combined with the family history, enough of a concern to have me come back in five years. And now, my dad’s lingering indolent lymphoma has set up camp in his colon, so it’s been making me nervous…
Did you know that the average colonoscopy costs $3,000?
That’s on average. When you have to have polyps removed and biopsied, the cost goes up. And my husband’s health insurance plan sucks – we have a $5,000 deductible. So the idea was I’d ask people to hire me (well, my company) to write enough blog posts to pay for my colonoscopy. Save my ass. Get it? But come to find out, we’re only about $900 away from reaching our deductible, and our insurance plan considers colonoscopies a form of preventative care - and therefore not subject to the deductible, because they cover it.
So my literal ass does not need to be saved. My figurative ass could use some help.
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Yes, I know this email was an attempt to scam me out of money, but I caught a phrase or two before I deleted it. I’ve gotta give them credit. At least they are getting more creative. I’m going to use bold print to emphasize my favorite passages; comments in italics are my additions.
MS Maria Cristina Gam
CREDIT ACCOUNTS OFFICER
HEAD OFFICE
BANCO DE ORO UNIVERSAL BANK
12 ADB AVENUE,
ORTIGAS CENTER,
MANDALUYONG CITY
PHILIPPINES.
Good Day,
I sincerely ask for your forgiveness for I know this may seem like a complete intrusion to your privacy but right about now this is my only option of communication.Though,this medium (Internet) has been greatly abused, I choose to reach you through it because it still remains the fastest medium of communication. However, this correspondence is unofficial and Private, and it should be treated as such. Therefore you should take this information to yourself because all the information you have here is very very confidential and reality. (OMG! Reality!) This mail might come to you as a surprise and the temptation to ignore it as unserious could come into your mind; but please consider it a divine wish and accept it with a deep sense of humility. This mail is written and intended to solicit your assistance to be presented as NEXT OF KIN to my late Client’s estate. Considering the sensitivity of this email to you, I advice that you keep its content to yourself. [Oops.] If you are not willing to do this with me, please delete this email an [Oops again. I think you left out a few words!]
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I was one of the millions of people ranting about how much I hated the “new Facebook” released yesterday. (Unlike most people, I actually tagged Mark Zuckerberg in my post.)
There’s a really easy fix to get rid of the ridiculous “top stories” format and just read your friends’ status updates in reverse chronological order the way you used to do by clicking on “Most Recent.” Here’s how to get Most Recent posts on Facebook…
Bookmark this page:
https://www.facebook.com/?sk=cf
You’re welcome.
Ten years ago, I remember sitting at my computer desk in our old apartment when the phone rang. I have no idea what I was doing at my computer – and the Internet wasn’t like it is today. We may have even had dial-up Internet service at the time, which means I wasn’t online when my mom called to tell me that a plane had flown into the side of the World Trade Center.
I remember feeling a moment of sadness for the people onboard, but I didn’t feel the full weight of what had happened. I thought it was another freak plane crash, no reason to believe anything sinister was taking place.
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