I’ve entered micro-celebrity status using Twitter - I’m in!

I am officially a “F Lister.”

STOP! Hammer Time.

That’s right! MC Hammer or “Hammer” is following me on Twitter. Man, he is too legit to quit (2 - L - hand swipe).

Check out what he’s up to aside from reality TV and giving much props to Jesus. MC Hammer on Twitter

If you want to be as cool as Hammer (minus the hand gestures, reality shows, huge pants and chapter 11) - go ahead and follow me… Warren Pattison

Bring Out Your SEO - SEO is Dead! AMEX & Washingtion State Claim

Sort of related to the Monty Python bit, but there seems to be a lot of press around a trend that SEO is dead or at least dying. Last week, American Express (AMEX) stated that they no longer consider SEO a viable online marketing tactic. In Fact, AMEX more or less equated SEO agencies to Snake Oil Salesman.

Search Engine Watch reports of a judgment against a SEO practitioner who solicited his services to small to medium size businesses.

A Washington-based company that sells search engine optimization (SEO) services to small businesses is prohibited from selling or advertising them to new customers under the terms of a settlement announced by Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna.

While the SEO standards debate rages, the search marketing industry continues to be perceived as purveyors of snake oil and predators of small business owners.

The company, Internet Advancement will no longer be allowed to solicit new customers for SEO services - however, they are allowed to continue offering SEO services to existing clients.

The court agreement states the following:

* Advertise or offer search optimization (SEO) services to new customers;

* Misrepresent its success rate, ability to provide top search-engine rankings or increase Web traffic or its number of repeat customers;

* Fail to disclose all material contract terms before customers have agreed to pay for services;

* Fail to respond promptly to consumer complaints, refund requests or other requests for services or information;

* Charge customer credit cards without authorization;

* Fail to process requests to cancel service or bill consumers after they have cancelled contracts;

* Represent that a customer isn’t entitled to a refund because the customer performed changes to the source code of his/her Web site unless a third-party technical expert confirms that the changes were made or authorized by the customer.

Let me know what you think - is SEO slated to truly become the Snake Oil scam of the Internet (aside from work at home and various enlargement pills)?

Facebook Optimization - Social media and web2.0 marketing:

I finally set up a profile on FaceBook.

My curiosity for widgets and gadgets got the best of me.

My initial impression is that FaceBook seems to by a hybrid of LinkedIn and MySpace rolled into one web UI.

I’ve made a few friend requests and managed to connect with an old friend I grew up with in Colorado who I haven’t spoken to in years.

I suppose I’ll need to hire a personal assistant in India to keep up with my FaceBook requests and what have you as this seems like it could take a great deal of time to maintain.

Let me know if you have any tips for a FaceBook newbie like me

American Experess (AMEX) - SEO Gaining in Irrelevance

SEO tactics seem to be taking a beating recently.

AMEX recently announced that SEO is useless in an Entrepreneur article.

Don’t waste money on so-called Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O.) specialists. Search engines are very quick to penalize sites that try to trick their filtering techniques, and once your site has been put on Google’s blacklist, it will take forever to get off.

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Happy Easter

Happy Easter!

I hope you all enjoy your Easter Sunday.

Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) download released

Vista SP1 is now available for both 64 bit and 32 bit Microsoft Operating Systems. However, if you have your Vista updates set to “automatic,” your Vista Operating system will not be updated automatically until mid April, 2008.

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Recession Proof Job = Search Marketing Professional

The economic forecasts of a looming recession are starting to get more and more bleak. Every passing headline seems to indicate we are no longer in stormy conditions, but officially in the dark ages.

The economy is now in a recession,” Harvard economist Martin Feldstein told The Boston Globe over the weekend. “It will last longer and be deeper than the last two recessions, which lasted only 8 months from peak to trough. It could well be longer and deeper than the recession in the early 1980s that lasted 16 months.

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SEO Raps on Search Marketing, Google Paid Search and Social Media

“gangsta” rap has finally made its way to Search Engine Marketing Education.

Mo Serious of Pop Labs has made a few videos that you can see on YouTube (click the heading links below to view the rap videos).

The videos of very clever in as far as creating a great link bait tactic for Pop Labs, but I’m not sure if these videos would actually acquire any new clients or cross-sell any existing clients….

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strengthsfinder 2.0 - strengths finder 2.0 results

A quick repost from another blog I lightly post to. The post below was made this last February…

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Ask.com Quits - Goes back to answering questions

Ask is doing an about face and going back to answering questions as in the askjeeves.com days.

I never thought Ask would last in the “search space” being that Ask allows advertisers… Read the rest of this entry »