Christina Gleason – Founder of Phenomenal Content LLC
I got all angry about Google’s Matt Cutts waxing poetic about Amazon Mechanical Turk as a form of sweatshop labor for linkbait. I shouldn’t be surprised that they’re not just interested in getting the written word on the cheap… they actual want professional artists to work for free! (Because Google really has to worry about their budget these days – they only reported a profit of nearly $1.5 billion in the first quarter of this year.)
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Back in April, I wrote about how my mommy blog had been targeted by a comment spammer. Since then, Carla from My SEO Gal emailed me, and I need to share what she told me.
Carla apologized for spamming my site. In her defense, she didn’t realize it was spam until she followed the link to my blog post from her referrer log. I hope she doesn’t mind me quoting her email to me:
I truly never meant to spam your blog at all and I feel absolutely horrible and have definitely lost some sleep over it this past weekend… after careful consideration, I have removed the service from my site. That is not the type of reputation I want to portray to anyone nor do I want to offer a service to anyone that might be unethical or disrespectful to others.
I appreciate that she took the time to respond to me and to reconsider the service she was offering. This story has a happy ending. I only wish that the gazillion other people who are spamming blog posts would have the same revelation… but I think most of them know what they’re doing. And they just don’t care.
Thanks, Carla, for caring.
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My political leanings are far to the left, and I am very passionate about workers’ right. I am disgusted when employers provide water for their farm workers because they legally have to, but then they intimidate those workers not to drink the water or take bathroom breaks. Farm workers die in the California heat every year due to exploitation by their employers. It’s despicable when employers lure foreign workers here with the promise of a good job, only to perform the bait and switch with low pay, no vacation, and simple theft of wages and tips. And don’t get me started about Wal-Mart’s “labor relations” – forcing employees to work off-the-clock, violating the FMLA, and not allowing their employees to take federally mandated breaks.
If one more person tells me that employment is voluntary and that if you don’t like the work you don’t have to do it – I’m going to scream.
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If you’re recently self-employed like I am, you may have somehow forgotten that your quarterly estimated taxes are due tomorrow. And it’s not like when you file your tax return in April… this isn’t a postmark deadline. This is a “we need your check in our hand” deadline.
Oh snap.
If you’ve properly enrolled with the IRS to make your payments online at EFTPS.gov, you’re all set. (For your federal taxes, at least… You’re on your own for your state and local taxes.) Or if you’re like me, you enrolled with your EIN instead of your SSN, and you can’t make a 1040-ES payment as a business entity.
[insert angry noises here]
There’s still hope! You can pay your taxes RIGHT NOW at Pay1040.com, a service of H&R Block. I paid both my federal and my state taxes through their Web site. So they can’t penalize me for being late. [thumbs nose at IRS] I was charged a $3.95 convenience fee for both tax payments – the same amount for the hundreds I paid the state and the thousands I paid the IRS. It’s a better deal than you get when you e-file your tax return in April.
So pay your taxes NOW.
I have not been compensated for writing this post in any way, shape, or form. I am just very pleased that I could use this service to avoid getting a penalty for a late payment on my estimated taxes.
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According to Matt Cutts of Google, Internet marketers should avoid the unethical practice of buying links by paying a few pennies to the folks who complete tasks via Amazon Mechanical Turk and scoring free links from their efforts. Let me rephrase that: Google says it’s wrong to pay for other people to link to your Web site, but it’s totally cool to score hundreds or thousands of links – not by paying a professional copywriter to create an awesome resource for you – but by spending about 20 bucks for a handful of people to perform cheap labor for you with Amazon Mechanical Turk. Don’t believe me? Watch this video.
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Yeah, I’m going there. I love to watch @graywolf get his panties in a bunch about paid links and sponsored reviews, especially in light of the proposed FTC regulations. I love it mostly because I agree with him. I’m totally in the “white hat” camp – anything I work on is done with Google’s rules in mind. It’s smart business. But yeah, I think their whole ruling on paid links sucks because of the glaringly obvious double standards. I do the whole no follow thing when I review products, but I wish I didn’t have to. I disclose when I’ve received products for free, and I’m pretty honest. I mean, look at my Zarbee’s cough syrup review.
I’d like to officially announce my availability for brand advocacy for products and services I already love. Since I already love them, there’s no conflict of interest that might arise from being compensated for promoting products I might not personally believe in. (I’m not into that whole fake thing. I’d like to protect my personal integrity, thank you very much.)
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My best friend graduated from college over the weekend. It’s been a long haul for her, as she has been plagued with health problems that prevented her from getting her degree earlier. I’m so proud of her!
To celebrate her accomplishment, several of us took her to dinner at our local Carrabba’s Italian Grill. My husband Tom and I had never been to Carrabba’s before, and it was nice to know that we had an overnight babysitter so we could enjoy a nice dinner out with adults and not worry about hurrying home to the little guy.
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Today is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Day, something that means a lot to me. In case you didn’t know already, I have CFS. I don’t keep it a secret. I feel it’s better to be open about my illness than to hide it. I know my limitations, but I also know what I’m capable of.
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After two months of preparations, it’s finally time for me to announce the launch of my new company – Phenomenal Content LLC. If you are looking for content creation services, you’re no longer hiring “just” an individual – no matter how talented this individual may be. 
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