DERRICH.com - crude, yet refined » Friday’s Finds

Friday’s Finds — 10/12/2007

derrich — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:25:27 +0000

This week was another jam-packed week for happenings not only in the Blogosphere, but in the news. Michael Vick has done wonders for Derrich.com. I think I’ve received somewhere in the neighborhood of 8,000 page views this week from Michael Vick-related searches alone. So, enough of that guy. Here are some other links I found to be interesting.

Brian Clark over at CopyBlogger poses the question, Is Google Evil? in his post, Hereâ€™s How to Stop Worrying About Google Once and for All. The part I found interesting is the discussion of how Social Media has made the push for quality, nonrepititive content. Like Brian, I’ve posted less but have received more traffic thanks to Digg and StumbleUpon.
Speaking of Social Media, the always helpful DoshDosh posted some helpful tips on How To Influence Social Media Users. Getting the big dogs on your side will do wonders for your traffic.
As some of you may know, I played football for Southwest Texas State University, which is now Texas State University. In December 2002, we were included on the ESPN SportsCenter Top 10 in the #1 slot because Katie Hnida of the University of New Mexico became the first female football player to score in a Division 1-A game. Last night, we were included at #1 on the Top 10 because Central Arkansas Quarterback, Nathan Brown, threw a school-record 7 TDs against us on National television. Save for our Divisoin 1-AA Championship run a couple of years ago, that’s the extent of our SportsCenter appearances. Great. Good thing my high-school squad is undefeated.

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Friday’s Finds — 09/21/2007

derrich — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 06:36:57 +0000

Social Media has played a huge role in my online experience this week. Chalk another one up for StumbleUpon (SU). I thought I’d share a couple of helpful links I found via SU; show how Su has helped my traffic; and, introduce you to some more social media that looks just as promising.

This week, Brian Clark over at CopyBlogger posted an interesting study about using instructions in anchor text versus descriptive anchor text. Maybe this observation needs to be narrowed down to split articles and previews, but the results of the study were pretty interesting. Click here to read more.
Ben Yoskovitz of Instigator Blog did a guest post at CopyBlogger. Normally I wouldn’t lead you to one blog twice in Friday’s Finds; but this post expands upon the previous post, “Click here”. Ben suggests using links and specific styles of anchor text for different reasons by offering Five Types of
Links and how to use them.
Referrals have played an important role in my traffic this week. I received a total of 1,445 referrals from Google for Kyla Ebbert (the Hooters waitress kicked off the Southwest Airlines plane), 3,405 referrals from StumbleUpon for the Andrew Meyer taser story, and 280 referrals to my NFL Week 2 recap by being linked from a larger sports blog. Tad Chef over at SEO 2.0 shows a similar breakdown of traffic on his blog…declaring StumbleUpon “the most successful social browsing service”.
BlogCatalog has introduced a new feature called Groups, which is currently in beta. From what I can tell, it is very similar to StumbleUpon. I urge those of you that use BlogCatalog to check it out.

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Friday’s Finds — 09/14/2007

derrich — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:49:10 +0000

So much has happened this week that I had to contain myself for this week’s Friday’s Finds. Here are a few posts I found rather interesting…and useful. I hope you find the same.

Tyler Ingram has experienced a large fluctuation in his Technorati rank as of late. I have as well. I’ve finally reached the “Top 10K” status (thank you, thank you, *bow*bow*), but for a few days this week, I dipped down to 5,082. Tyler has made it easy to monitor your Technorati rank with his Technorati WordPress Plugin. I plan on adding it to my blog; he just released version v0.2. Be sure to check it out, and download it for your blog.
Josh Alper over at The Feed discusses how the New England Patriots got off easy for cheating despite the fines and the potential loss of draft picks. Shame on you, Bill Belichick! I wouldn’t be surprised if he started walking around in shame with that hood pulled over his head. Apparently, he’s pretty tight with Junior Soprano.

The Michael Vick apology on eBay ends today. The current bid is $10,200. The proceeds from the auction benefit The Humane Society of the United States’ (HSUS) efforts to end dogfighting and other forms of animal cruelty through its Animal Cruelty Response and Reward Fund. If you haven’t seen his notes…they’re just some points jotted down on an Omni Hotels notepad. Kinda impressive despite a bad situation.
Ms. Danielle offers up another option for advertisers to make money online from a place where people are already looking to spend. You can buy text link ads on Amazon…one I’m definitely considering. I already use Amazon Associates, and I’m pretty happy with the results I get from that.

Friday’s Finds — 08/17/2007

derrich — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:10:44 +0000

There were number of interesting stories I read on various blogs this week. Many people were writting about keywords and making money again. I try not to inundate myself with too much SEO/SERP stuff and ad service sites to keep my brain from feeling like it just got pureed in a blender. A couple of posts did hook me.

Ms. Danielle introduced her readers to Digital Point’s Search Engine Keyword and Back Link Tracker. What better way to see if your SEO efforts are effective? Visit Danielle and learn how you can track your keywords.
In his blog, Behind The Rhetoric, Michael Kwan writes an extensive review of Publisher Spot. The site was created by Tyler Cruz in order to make sense of all of the ad networks popping up. It is sites like these that save my brain from melting away. Read the review, and then check out Publisher Spot.
Speaking of being pureed in a blender, I StumbledUpon a site, WillItBlend.com, that features a video of the iPhone and answers the question Will It Blend?. When I said I would pass on the iPhone, I didn’t have this in mind. But I’m glad someone tried it.
CASH for COMMENTS is holding a blogging contest to win a 24â€³ wide screen LCD monitor. That’s one way to get paid. The contest is being sponsored by Elite Baseball Instruction dot Com which gives baseball training videos in hitting, pitching, infield defense, and outfield playing. He is also giving away a Free 4-Hour Workweek Book to enter early and the winner will be updated on the same blog post to drive traffic to their own site. Click here for more details the 24 inch LCD giveaway. If you enter by September 1st, you could win a copy of the 4-Hour Workweek.

If you have links that you think might be of interest to people, please feel free to email them to me at derrich [at] derrich dot com. I’ll check ‘em out, and consider them for Friday’s Finds. And in case you missed it, I decided to captain a team for the upcoming Alzheimer’s Association Memory Walk. Please check out the post and consider giving us your support. Bloggers can benefit with some back links, so everyone wins. Enjoy your weekend.

Friday’s Finds — 08/10/2007

derrich — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:57:51 +0000

So many factors come into play when running a blog. It’s almost a mind-numbing experience. But once you get the hang of it and find your passion, everything else becomes second nature — did I use the right keywords in my title — is my anchor text optimized — the list goes on. Here are a few posts I’ve read over the week that talk a little about each of those factors.

While selecting the right keywords is useful for every post, Erik Karey focuses on aligning his blog, with the term Internet Entrepreneur in his post about proper keyword selection. Frankly, I’m happy to be #1 when searching for Derrich.
The WordPress Blog provided some stats for the month of July that I found rather interesting. In July alone, 133,000 blogs were created with over 2 million posts. Geez. Check out the rest of the July wrap-up for more stats.
For popular searches, I like to use good ol’ Google Trends. Well, that’s good for Google searches. What about results from other sources? There’s a tool at SEOmoz.org that aggregates popular searches from other sources — Technorati: Popular – Flickr Hot Tags – Del.icio.us Popular Tags – Yahoo! Buzz – Top Overall Searches – Google Hot Trends – eBay Pulse – AOL Hot Searches – Lycos Top 50 – Ask Top Searches – Amazon, Most Popular Tags – Amazon, Movers and Shakers – Amazon, Best Sellers – Amazon, New Releases — and stuffs them into one list. The cool thing is all of the popular searches for each of these sites are also listed.
Jamie Harrop appeared as a guest blogger on Jane May’s blog, Daily Web Ideas. Jamie suggests that a blogger’s worst mistake is breaking their blogging routine. I happen to agree. When you skip a day or two…or a week in Jamie’s case…it’s tough to get back in the groove.
Loren Baker, editor of the Search Engine Journal, did a great job of sparking up some conversation this week. He heard that Google PageRank may be removed from the Google Toolbar. Most of his readers didn’t seem to care either way. What happened to the idea that PR is king when it comes to page validity and trustworthiness? How quickly we toss these quantifications aside. First Alexa, now Google PR?

Happy Friday, everyone!

Friday’s Finds — 07/20/2007

derrich — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:05:35 +0000

Recently, I’ve been using StumbleUpon to increase my traffic. It has worked like a charm. But after using it on a daily basis for the last couple of weeks, I can tell you that it has much more value than simply generating traffic. Your eyes are opened up to the Internet like never before. I’ve made a couple of good friends, and it has proven to be yet another great way to take advantage of social marketing. To some of you, StumbleUpon is old news. To those of you that haven’t started using it yet, get over there. Here are some blog posts about StumbleUpon, one of my most recent stumbles, and a quick shot of sports.

I’ve stumbled upon many different websites, pictures, and videos. Some grab my attention, others get the “thumbs down”. Jesus of the Week was one I stumbled yesterday. It shows images of Jesus on a variety of canvases from wheels to buildings to belt buckles. Goes to show…Jesus gets love on more than toast and tortillas.
Apparently StumbleUpon has been busy making its mark on a variety of people. You won’t just find bloggers there. There is a whole new audience looking for specific things…and discovering new things. TechIndustryNews has posted an Alexa snapshot showing trends from StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Digg.
The Web Urbanist has posted a list of the 8 funniest things ABOUT StumbleUpon. If you use it regularly, you’ll find that these are painfully true. I know a couple of people that Stumble all day and all night.
If you’re wondering what the top stumblers look for, look no further than BloggingMix.com. Rocky has asked some of the top stumblers 2 questions: [1] What do you usually look for to stumble (article, video and podcast)? and [2] What do you advice bloggers to do in order to increase their chances of getting stumbled upon? To find out how to get stumbled by top stumblers, head over there now.
In sports news, the FBI is investigating an NBA referee who allegedly was betting on basketball games. Nice. First the childish tirade by Joey Crawford and now this. Read the rest of the article by Murray Weiss over at the New York Post. I can’t wait until they announce his name. Sorry, Ookie. This takes zero attention off of that dogfighting indictment.

Friday’s Finds — 07/13/2007

derrich — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 15:24:51 +0000

So, it’s Friday the 13th. I was going to throw out some “scary” or “superstitious” links to commemorate the day, but I’m not superstitious (maybe a little scary, though). I’ve decided to lead you to the blogs of my Top Commentors to thank them for their contributions to Derrich.com. Without further ado…

This month’s top spot goes to Leo Chiang. Actually, he’s been a comment whore on just about everyone’s blog this month. Leo bought a new camera this week: a Pentax A10 digital camera. Coincidentally, I’m in the market for a new camera. This thing fits in an Altoids box. And if its good enough for Leo…
Gregg Hawkins is a familiar face I haven’t seen in awhile until recently. Thanks for stopping by and bestowing your knowledge upon us. Gregg wrote a great post that lists some unwritten rules for blogging. A great list for beginning bloggers, and a noteworthy reminder for you seasoned folks.
Warren Buffett is a name with which many are familiar. Our good buddy at the RetireRichBlog makes an excellent suggestion with regard to investing in the stock market: It’s time to buy Sears Holdings. I couldn’t agree more. This reco goes along with my thoughts on buying stocks on sale.
If you speak Turkish (I think its Turkish) and you are interested in investing, check out green’s blog, Mikroproje.com.
Matt Propst has participated in the Bloggers’ Tournament, interviewed me on his blog, and is now a Top Commentor. Thanks, Matt. On his blog, Fleeing The Social Scene, he talks about having difficulty selling Text Link Ads on his blog. If you have some suggestions for Matt, stop by and let him know.
Irwan has mission: financial freedom. He poses the question “Are Investors Doing The Right Thing?”. Check out his blog Irwan.biz for some more articles about investing.
Andrew Kontra is a new a face at Derrich.com. Quite frankly, I’m a little confused by what his blog aims to accomplish. But he did create this video (I have yet to watch it due to viewing limitations at work).

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Friday’s Finds — 07/06/2007

derrich — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:18:36 +0000

There is no particular rhyme or reason to this week’s edition of Friday’s Finds. A little blogging help mixed with a little fun. Was it just me or did every day this week feel like a Friday?

Mark Ghosh suggests a few things before you publish on his blog, Weblog Tools Collection. In the recent debate on using the â€œread moreâ€ feature just to increase pageviews, Mark doesn’t necessarily think its a good idea. I happen to use it on occasion when I’ve written an ultra-long post.
I just thought this was funny. In case you haven’t already seen it, visit JohnCow.com. No. It’s not a typo.
Problogger, Darren Rowse, posted about what I’ve been trying to accomplish since I learned about Google Trends…and that’s how to capture seasonal traffic for your blog. While my use for Google Trends is more specific to things I would normally write about on a daily basis, his scope is a little broader characterized by seasons. He gives good suggestions on how to keep track of old seasonal posts and suggests how to bring those back to life to increase your traffic.
If you enjoy reminiscing about the good ol’ days (in this case, the 80s), then visit Ms. Danielle. She’s got a great series called Flashback Friday that is usually amuzing and thought-provoking.
Jean Gray is one of the bloggers that have questioned the validity of ViralTags. On her blog, Letters From The Soul, she provides an alternative to ViralTags. Not quite as effective, but definitely a useful tool, Adam Kalsey’s Button Maker allows bloggers to create an 80 x 15 button for free. Here’s my button. Feel free to use it to link to Derrich.com.

Friday’s Finds — 06/22/2007

derrich — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:37:46 +0000

As we near the end of the month, I usually take a closer look at how I can improve upon blog monetization and how to increase traffic. As my AdSense revenues have gone down, I’ve adopted a couple of additional sources that have worked fairly well. Here are some posts from around the blogosphere that I think you’ll enjoy that discuss these very issues.

Randy, otherwise known as the Grown Up Geek, points out that many bloggers are experiencing a downturn in AdSense earnings. While most were chalking it up to a “summer slump”, Randy discusses what is causing AdSense earnings to fall.
Paula Mooney has published an updated list of blogger salaries, and *this guy* is on the list…um…#86 out of 120 bloggers. But I did make the cover (thanks, Paula). The Top 5 is led by 2 domainers rounded off by Markus Frind at Plenty of Fish, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, and Matt Drudge behind the Drudge Report.
Curious to know how much your blog could make from Google AdSense? Paul Wilson at MyMarketer.net posted about the AdSenseMeter. That’s right. If you don’t currently run AdSense, now you could get a rough estimate of how AdSense revenue your blog might generate. Of course it’s a little inaccurate since it is limited to a defined CPM for your blog, not to mention it uses Alexa to determine your traffic count. But it is a cool tool that I wish was accurate. At a $2 CPM, my blog should make $695 in July.
I’ve received alot of traffic from StumbleUpon lately after inserting a bookmarking plugin, which puts icons at the bottom of each post. Terence Chang at the Blah Blah Blog shows us how to Stumble a page without StumbleUpon toolbar…and how to tell if a page has been stumbled.
Contests are always good for increased traffic. Kenric at Live Learn Invest is having a contest to win an iPod Shuffle. The contest is sponsored by Printed Circuit Boards.

That does it for this week. Enjoy your weekend!

Friday’s Finds — 06/15/2007

derrich — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:09:17 +0000

I was all over the category board this week with my posts. So, I decided to stay consistent and share some posts from this week that I read. In keeping with the “all over” theme this week, here’s my regurgitation of miscellaneous overflow. (Sorry if you’re reading this before lunch).

Blain Reinkensmeyer over at Stock Trading 101 auditioned online to be the Next Internet Millionaire. Out of literally 100s of auditions, Blain made it into to the Top 50 Finalists. Be sure you head over and vote for Blain.

Andy Beard gives us yet another great post to bookmark with his SEO analysis. I’ve read a number of posts regarding the optimization of SEO. I find Andy’s thought process through permalink post structuring fascinating. I’ve always wondered the same thing, but simply shrug it off and move on.

NetBusinessBlog posted a list of John Chow look-a-like blogs. Luckily, I’ve only been told that once in the 9 months I’ve been blogging. I love cars, so it’s a no-brainer. Besides, my car can beat John’s car. Just sayin’.

Speaking of car pictures in your header…and stuff…Derrich.com is getting ready for a little facelift. If you haven’t been to Nate Whitehill’s blog in awhile, check it out. He had a car in there at one point. At least he’s still got a road. Yes. I realize it’s symbolic…ish.

David Airey, a graphic designer in his own right, had his post, “World’s Best Logo Designers“, added to the Wikipedia page for Logo in the External Links section. Hey. Who cares if it’s gone by now (it’s not). Congrats to Dave!

Martin Reed over at Community Spark suggests that it doesn’t hurt to experiment with your blog. I couldn’t agree more. Trial and error has allowed me to discover what works and doesn’t work. And be sure to ask your readers. They’ll tell you. Jane May agrees with this concept as well.

The Everyday Weekender tells us why he’s a drunk and not a beer snob. Hey, EW. I don’t care what those test results show, you’re a beer snob in my book just for choosing the beers you did. Good little list. Now, I’m thirsty.

And congrats to Tony Parker and the San Antonio Spurs for winning its 4th NBA Championship!!!

Friday’s Finds — 06/01/2007

derrich — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:19:02 +0000

It seems that the month of May was a SEO and blogging focus for me. Not necessarily as reflected by my posts (GO SPURS!!!), but just my personal exploration to optimize SEO, improve monetization, and increase traffic…somewhat heightened by my participation in PodCamp San Antonio. So, I thought I’d include some posts that touch on this subject, and hope that you’ll benefit from them as I have.

Earlier this week, I wrote about adding the Share The Link Love plugin as part of the “U Comment, I Follow” Movement. Aaron Brazell at Technosailor.com posted a list of plugins that will help make your blog sticky.
While Ed Lau struggles with finding his chunk of the blogosphere, 16-year-old Yuvi at YuviSense.net takes uber tech blog, Engagdet, dismantles it, and then carefully reassembles it. What better way to understand and analyze Engagdet’s traffic than an in-depth analysis. He succeeds in finding Engagdet’s chunk.
Lucia at BigBucksBlogger.com spends some of her time helping fellow posties over at PayPerPost (PPP) with a variety of issues that come up. Using ad sources such as Kontera ContentLink with PPP is against the TOS. But some bloggers found that using the tag wasn’t enough. So Lucia shows you how to remove Kontera by modifying templates.
Daniel Scocco over at DailyBlogTips.com presented his list of Top 25 Blogs About Blogging. He considered “blogs that have a high percentage of blogging-related content. Topics might range from blogging tips to monetization, from news to building communities or business blogs”…and used Google PageRank, Alexa, Bloglines Subscribers, and Technorati Authority to score the candidates. I was surprised by some of the results.
Marco Richter at FitForFreedom.com adds to his series of ultimate lists with the ultimate RSS Subscriptions List — full of posts on how to increase your subscribership.

If you have any links to suggest, please feel free to include them in your comments. Thanks and TGIF!!!

Friday’s Finds — 05/25/2007

derrich — Fri, 25 May 2007 16:16:55 +0000

In today’s edition of Friday’s Finds, I’m going to show my Top Commenters some link love. I appreciate their offerings…even if it is to make fun of my golf picture. I’m always looking for feedback as well, so bring it on! Thanks to everyone that contributes to the crude, yet refined community that is Derrich.com. Now without further ado.

Danielle…that’s Ms. Danielle to you…entertains the idea that perhaps one day, the algorithm set in place to determine a site’s value would go away completely. Instead, this appraisal would be determined by user-generated data. As Google’s data minefield expands, so does the likelihood of this theory.
Many bloggers know Wendy Piersall as the Internet’s premiere eMom offering suggestions to build a “powerful blog” while maintaining a balance with your everyday life. The first lady of the blogosphere offers a behind the scenes look at her life outside of blogging.
She’s sweet, she’s innocent, and she’s not to be effed with on the road. Kelly Cho has a small case of road rage and she’s trying to get it under control. While I can relate to her distaste for “clueless” drivers, I’m no road mercenary like Kelly.
Matt (Internet Business) at InternetBusinessDaily.net is a 22-year-old entrepreneur dedicated to making money on the Internet. Yesterday, he shared some interesting news about the .cm domain name scandal.
Webtools is an great resource for…well, for webtools. That covers an array of categories from blogging to mobile to Internet browsers. They’ve posted an article about using fingerprint recognition on mobile phones…an added security feature in today’s growing e-commerce society.
Ever hear of Graco? No. Not the infant products. The leader in fluid handling systems and components! Well, “Warren Buffet” at the RetireRichBlog.com breaks down the stock giving investors several good reasons to buy Graco (NYSE: GGG). I hate the charts, but he definitely makes some good points.
Shaine Mata is one of the coordinators of PodCamp San Antonio, which was very well organized. Shaine shares with us a quick sketch biography of Shaine Mata.

Stop by their blogs and don’t forget to leave a comment or two. Contribute to their community as you have with mine. Have a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend!

Friday Finds — 05/18/2007

derrich — Fri, 18 May 2007 15:36:51 +0000

Yesterday I was over at The Wrong Advices reading Dan’s daily dose of d-d…uh…dlogging (sorry, it’s early and I haven’t had my coffee yet). He discusses how being a female on MyBlogLog has its advantages. I couldn’t agree with more with Dan’s assessment. So, I’m going to use his post to segue into this week’s Friday’s Finds. A fitting way to make up for missing last week.

Danielle (that’s Ms. Danielle to you) shares with us her first golf experience with coach and fellow blogger, Gary Lee. Her performance reminded me of the time I shot a 72. Its only a matter of time before we meet on the course…and she whoops my butt.
Jane has “winner” written all over her. Not only did her blog, CareerRamblings, win the first ever Bloggers Tournament but the popularity of her personal blog has skyrocketed in only a month. Consider buying a review from Jane today.
In a related post, Ilker Yoldas over at The Thinking Blog discusses The Cute Factor and how it can benefit as a marketing tool. She would know. She has over 3,500 members in her MBL Community. (BTW, Ilker is a “he”. DOH!)
In keeping with the “Chicks That Can Beat Me At Golf” motif, Patricia Hannigan, author of Golf Girl’s Diary, promotes golf as an effective tool for women in business. Do you offer lessons, Patricia? If you haven’t read by now, I need some.

Please don’t forget to visit a few of my other fav femme fatales…the good kind. Kelly Cho, Wendy Piersall, and Kumiko Suzuki. Have a great Friday!

Friday’s Finds – 04/20/2007

derrich — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 16:01:40 +0000

For today’s list, look no further than the Derrich.com Top Commenters List. I wanted to find a way to repay my Commenters without using a simple Top Commenter Love thread like last time. Happy Friday! And Happy reading.

Blain over at Stock Trading 101 has initiated a second edition of his Guess The NASDAQ Close contest. To enter, simply enter your guess (NASDAQ close on Friday, 04/27) as a comment here in this post. The grand prize is $100. Why wouldn’t you venture a guess for a hundred bucks? The contest ends THIS Sunday (04/22) at 9:00 EST. So, comment today.
The Retire Rich Blog takes annual earnings since 1996 and compares Intel to AMD…showing how Intel remains the solid stock choice.
Ed Lau may be 3rd on the list of Top Commenters, but he’s definitely a frequent visitor (as evidenced by his MyBlogLog avatar is constant rotation). Ed has made a more personal post today regarding his experience in college…recommending that students unsure about their post-college pursuit should take a year off to help you refocus.
Happy Birthday to Kelly Cho…dot com. Kelly’s blog is 1 month old today, and she shares her stats and experiences with us. Pay her a visit when you get a chance, and consider subscribing to her feed.
Derrik Dyka over at FlippingRich.com might be known for his insight on the real estate market and for his T-Shirt ad campaign, but little did you know that the blog offers real financial insight as well. Sunny Yee discerns load and no-load mutual funds, and explains the different fees associated with the two.

Blogosphere News
Maybe you’ve noticed a couple of new graphics in my sidebar. OneDayBlogSilence.com has organized a one-day “moment of silence” in memory of the victims of the tragedy at Virginia Tech. That day will be April 30th. I plan to participate, and I hope you will consider it as well.

Derrich.com has been nominated for Hottest Daddy Blogger in the Blogger’s Choice Awards. *blush* While I don’t know about all that “hot” stuff, I’m certainly flattered by the honor, and hope that you will place your vote for Derrich.com. Have a great Friday!

Friday’s Finds – Friday The 13th, April 2007

derrich — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:29:21 +0000

Since today is Friday the 13th, I tried to come up with some links that are…well, Friday the 13th-ish. So, sit back and enjoy. Well, you might have to sit up to use the mouse. But you know what I mean.

The fear of the day Friday the 13th is referred to as friggatriskaidekaphobia or paraskavedekatriaphobia (say that real fast 13 times). The fear of the number “13″ is called Triskaidekaphobia. Kendra Van Wagner on about.com provides a list of phobias. I think my biggest phobia is pteromerhanophobia — fear of flying — one of the many characteristics I share with B.A. Baracus. What are your random phobias? Do share.

What better way to spend Friday the 13th than by catching a thriller? Disturbia releases today in theatres everywhere, and Jettie Kernion offers a clean, unbiased review of Disturbia on Cinematical.com. Check out the Disturbia trailer. (Personally, I’m going to see Red Line tonight.)

Got Domain? Well, my good friend, Nomar, at KingNomar.com talks about stepping up your domain parking potential by setting up a proxy website. Proxy websites are great alternatives to parking and can potentially put a little more cash in your pocket.

One of my favorite blogs to read daily is WallStreetFighter.net. My buddy, Shane, has a hilarious post today: Top Ten Shirts For Geeks. Be sure to check it out, and if you like it…digg it. I know I would.

Derrik Dyka over at FlippingRich.com is having much success with his FlippingRich T-Shirt campaign. Read about it’s sweeping the nation. Even Sanjaya is rocking one. Geez, I can’t stand that guy. Seriously? Sanjaya? C’mon America. Stop voting for this clown.

Friday’s Finds — 04/06/2007

derrich — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:04:16 +0000

It’s been an interesting week in the blogosphere. It seems like everyone is addressing a variety of issues from SEO to affiliates. I found several helpful posts today about these topics. When you have a moment, take a look at these.

Problogger, Darren Rowse, answers a reader email regarding a growing affiliate relationship…at a point where change may be necessary. Darren talks about how to cultivate an existing relationship and how to supplement any time (money) lost.
Lorelle VanFossen at The Blog Herald emphasizes that making a good first impression is first priority in a blog relationship (as with any). Lorelle discusses what types of first impressions make go the furthest.
Mitch Harper at HarpzOn.com explains how optimizing keyword density can help increase traffic to your blog.
As you all know, all of the above is useless without setting goals. Read about Nomar’s experience at KingNomar.com.
Lastly, Saman (aka, Godzilla Killer) at Samanathon.com suggests that you download the latest version of the WordPress Database Backup Plugin, which features automatic backups. Cool!

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter…and if you don’t celebrate Easter then just have a great weekend anyway. Hopefully everyone enjoys the second winter of 2007.

Fridayâ€™s Finds – 03/30/2007

derrich — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 17:53:29 +0000

Happy Friday, everyone! Just a random shout out to the San Antonio Spurs. Blow the Utah Jazz up tonight. Ok. That’s all I’ve got. On with the linkage.

Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land posted a great step-by-step overview of Google’s new Per Per Action AdSense feature complete with screenshots. Great stuff!
Neatorama is a site that…it…it’s got so much random stuff on it. I love it, and I don’t know why. But, it’s definitely neato. Anyway for you hardcore sports nuts, here’s a list of 7 great sports scams, scandals, and hoaxes as determined by Alex at Neatorama.
I plan on watchin’ on Blades of Glory this weekend (yes, I said “watchin’ on”). But next weekend, Grindhouse comes out. Anything Robert Rodriguez hits home for me (except for Spy Kids…sorry, Robert); he’s from San Antonio…and I attended the same elementary/middle school as he and his 34 siblings…well, 7 or so. Rose McGowan with a machine gun prosthetic? Fuhgetaboutit. Harry over at aintitcool.com discusses the movie premiere of Grindhouse in Austin, TX no March 28th. Apparently, the introduction was just as entertaining.
PJ-Comix of dummiefunnies posted the Karl Rove Rapping video with his own commentary. I’m sure many of you have seen this video by now, but if you haven’t — watch it. He is the epitome of white boys can’t rap (sorry, Paul Wall, Bubba Sparxxx, and Eminem..you guys are cool). You can’t hate Rove for spittin’ some flava in such a formal setting. Kudos, man.
This find is from February 21st…Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger tells us how to run a blog competition in order to [1] find new readers, and [2] make your blog sticky. Darren…I added you to the competition, man. I thought we were cool. In all seriousness, though, this is a great post and helped me plan the 2nd edition of the 2007 Bloggers Tournament. Thanks, Darren. Now if I can figure out how to get this darn super glue on my blog…

Round 4 of the Bloggers Tournament ends Sunday. This has been a great competition so far and I’ve made many new blog buddies as a result. To my new visitors, thanks for stopping by. I really do appreciate it. And as I’ve said before, I make every effort to return the visit. Be sure to subscribe to Derrich.com if you haven’t already. Y’all have a great weekend! TGIF!!!

Friday’s Finds – 03/23/2007

derrich — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:00:23 +0000

Well, I decided to try a new post series called “Friday’s Finds”. In most cases they’re Thursday’s finds; I just post them Friday…in case ya missed it. Here are a few interesting posts I found around the blogosphere. Ok, well, I didn’t have to look THAT far. These folks are MyBlogLog community members, or have been kind enough to link to derrich.com. So without further ado…

In case any of you are on the job hunt, particularly the college student body, here are some helpful job fair tips from Jane and John Anthony over at CareerRamblings.com
This weekend, I’m having a bunch of old college buddies and friends from work over for a crawfish boil. Natron Drach posts about barbequing in Wisconsin among his other food reviews. I’ve always wondered what grilling out in the snow was like. I’ve always wondered what snow was like.
Matt Coddington over at NetBusinessBlog informs us about Google’s attempt to alleviate click fraud with Pay-Per-Action advertising, in which a consumer must take further action after clicking, such as buying a product or filling out a web form. I suppose the AdBlackList is a viable alternative until this is made available.
When I drive, I tend to blast the radio and sing…or rap. Anyway, let’s not talk about that anymore. The point is I tend to set my phone on vibrate and stuff it between my legs so I can “hear” it go off. I read this post about how cell phones lower fertility in males on shackkdiesel.com. I guess I’ve got to come up with a different way…that is, if it’s not too late.
And for my female readers, Ms Danielle over at Pinkdeals.net features numerous sales on those things you guys “apparently” need. Lancome is offering free shipping on some makeup stuff, and BCBG handbags are on sale as well. Go crazy, ladies!

Needless to say, I threw that last one in there (sorry, Danielle). Just showing a little link love. And don’t forget that voting for Round 1 of the 2007 Bloggers Tournament ends today at 11:59pm CST. Be sure to vote for your favorite blogs.