Aaron Sorkin to Write a Movie About Facebook.

Oh the horror!

I’ve just agreed to write a movie for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about how Facebook was invented. I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I’ve started this page. (Actually it was started by my researcher, Ian Reichbach, because my grandmother has more Internet savvy than I do and she’s been dead for 33 years.)
Ian Reichbach writing on behalf of Aaron Sorkin on the Facebook Group that asks Facebook users to write to movie for them.

Looks like someone just read Wikinomics!

I doubt a movie just about how Facebook was invented would be interesting… Then again it could also be 90 minutes of this:

Gemma Christine Wallace writes:

I just read an article on the BBC website - and you CAN’T write a film about Facebook - darnit! That was my idea, and have already started getting the plot together. And it wasn’t going to be about the inventors, as they merely planted the seeds that have grown. It’s the relationships, 6degrees of separation between the bedroom geek and stardom/ greatness that make facebook interesting. I am sooo disappointed. You have success, recongition on your side where as I am a mere scrat.

Hey, I feel you pain Gemma! I am sure there are hundreds of us who are both creative and actually use Facebook on a daily basis. We can all come up with our own awesome plots!

I have a TONS of Facebook screenplays in my head. All quite subversive actually. One is a mockumentary about Freddie & Dick those two guys who are married on Facebook. Another one actually unfolds over four medias and Facebook is only one of them. I was very surprised that the second story was loved by a 60 year old woman who has never used or seen Facebook.

But will a movie about Facebook have wide appeal?

If Sony is going to put a lot of money into this then maybe other production companies will see the topic as worthy on investigation. And you can’t have only one movie about Facebook come out by itself. You need at least two movies about one topic to come out within 6 months like Dangerous Liaisons/Valmont (1988) or Armageddon/Deep Impact (1998). Can you name two or three similar movies that came out together in 2008? (C’mon readers, use the comments to do the research job for me. I left you the easy decade!)

In 2009, let’s have:

- Facebook: The Base Wing by Sorkin
- Facebook: The Garden of Eden by Gemma
and Facebook: The Mockumentary by me

Analytics Into Action - Google Tech Talks - August 19, 2008

I have made it a point to watch at least one GoogleEngEDU Teck Talk per week. I often download the more entertaining ones to my Samsung - P2 for later viewing. This video has practical information for all those who have a website and track visitors through stats, whatever program they use.

I always install Google Analytics upon launching a new site or making a huge change one website that isn’t using it yet. Stats are only useful if you know how to read them and Matt Bailey explains how.

From Youtube:

Analytics Into Action

Analytics according to Captain Kirk - The original Star Trek series explains many of the principles of analytics and the necessary tools for understanding visitor motivations, segments and website analysis. By looking deeper into the trekkie phenomenon, analysts can better understand how to make website data actionable and enjoyable. Speaker: Matt Bailey

American Messiah by Charlie Cardinal

I have not written on the blog for a while so I thought I would start showing you the projects I have been working on for my clients.

Author Charlie Cardinal has decided to publish his story via an episodic Wordpress blog. American Messiah is the story of powerhouse Billy Lansky as told by his long-time assistant. It is published twice a week on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

The Fix: Duplicate Post Titles Broke My Blog!

Thank you so much for your help the other night– it worked! What a great, simple solution! Your help was amazing and very timely! It was so clear and useful, especially because of the screenshots and step-by-step directions you sent me. I am not tech-savvy at all, but was able to easily understand what you wanted me to do, and the fix you recommended worked like a charm!
- Stephanie

So what happened to Stephanie? She recently moved from Typepad to WordPress and noticed that WordPress gets all confused when presented with duplicate post slugs. WordPress will never let you get away with creating duplicates. While you may be able to create posts with the same title, WordPress always appends the slug (this-is-a-permalink-page-slug) with a unique number.

So what do you do when you import duplicate data from somewhere else?

First, try to revert to the classical post structure in Settings > Permalinks (or Options > Permalinks.) Depending on your version or setup, this might be all it takes to distract WordPress long enough to go change your duplicate posts slugs manually.

In 2.3.3 You will find the slug in Manage > Post > Edit Post as one of the expandable options on the right side.

In WordPress 2.5 you will find the post slug right under the title. Be aware that you have to click [Save] under the title and then [Save] again on the right else your changes will not take effect. Click on the picture below for a more visual clue.

Now that may not work at all, espescialy if you can’t edit offending posts. The you’ll have to pull out your database ninja skills and go into your database to do the deed on Mr. Slug yourself.

Don’t worry you can do it. The following instructions come with screen shots with big red arrows because I KNOW some of these buttons seem quite elusive at first glance.

Go into PhpMyAdmin (usually in your CPanel). The first screen you see has a list of tables on the left. Click on wp_posts.

A list of column will appear on the right side. Click Browse to view a list of the posts in your blog.

In the next screen you will have to find the row with the post you have to edit. To make things a little easier for you you can sort the title column so your duplicates will show up next to one another. The click on the pencil.

There you go, you are in the same room with your target, Mr. Slug. The first Arrow point to the title but the second one point to the culprit, the slug.

You can modify the slug to add a number to it but since your slug counts for Google relevancy points, why not just add a juicy word in the slug. It will show up in the URL but not in your title. For example instead of this-was-a-great-day you could make it this-was-a-great-sunny-day.

Here you go and if you have questions you can post them to the WP-Pro mailing list where I try to answer questions as much as I can because it exposes me to new bugs and issues and allows me to grow as a WordPress Pro. All I ask in return is that you tell me if it works and some questions I will feature here for other people to use.

You can also send questions to me directly.

Review: Dave’s Online Videos

After seeing one of Dave’s screencast I was intrigued to join his online video service and watch him explain a few of his concepts. Most of these topics lead to a series of videos that can add up to a few hours of watching. These are narrated screen casts so it’s VERY visual and quite painless to take in. All of these videos are available here and you can probably go through the series that pertain to your business model within a few weeks.

I never join online marketing services so I didn’t know what I was going to get but I was pleasantly surprised. Here is a list of the titles that can apply to blogging. The are many more that deal with marketing techniques and eBay.

Advanced Blogging Secrets
How to create titles that bring the hits!
5 Methods for Getting Instant Traffic Within 1 hour!
Setting up a Word Press Blog using an Addon Domain Name
Setting up a Newsletter … from start to finish!
A Unique Method to Finding what People Search for on eBay!
Watch me DOUBLE my Adsense revenue … I have PROOF, watch this!
How to Setup a Free ClickBank Account
How I Made $768 in 5 Minutes - The Launch Leech Method (NO list required!)
Creating a Membership Site Using Aweber, PayPal, and Protected Folders
How to create an ebook product, website, and Paypal delivery system
How to Make Money with Google Video and YouTube
List building tactics using eBay, Google and other methods
Setting up a Web Site Series
How to Make Money by Giving Away Reports on eBay
Google + ClickBank = Online Profits!

There are many eBooks gems that relate to blogging available within the membership site but I am still going through each one of them to validate the content (and pointing out to Dave what is out-of-date!) I know you don’t have time to read 12 200-page eBooks so I will post a follow-up on this with my hot picks.

Getting WordPress To Work (My Hosting Gripes)

In the past week I have pondered the question: “How much time is too much time to spend getting something to work?” It seems like I have spent most of the week trying to get things to work, most of it time I will never get back. Often, when it is for me, I seek out an alternative, make something from scratch or postpone it indefinitely. When it is for a client I have to be more careful about when I draw the line. If it doesn’t work, how much time should I spend hacking it to work when doing so obviously “voids the warranty”. But that is a whole other subject.

This week I learned that not all hosting works with WordPress not matter what hosting companies sell you on.

I have a client who is hosted on Yahoo Small Business and he hadn’t noticed that his RSS feeds don’t work. Of course if you have a blog with no valid RSS feed, very few people will be able to pick you up. Yahoo promotes a plan at less than 9$ a month for hosting that support WordPress in one click.

This one click installs a crack version of WordPress 2.3.2 with permanently active plugins that promote Yahoo!’s services over others. I suspect this is killing the regular feed but I couldn’t find documentation about it.

Officially Yahoo! is NOT recommended by WordPress for hosting anymore but the articles promoting the fact that it used to be are still coming out first in Web searches.

I convinced my client to move to my own hosting service because of the shady plugin situation and also because Yahoo! Small Business hosting in painfully slow. It takes me 35 seconds to log into the dashboard! I have never had trouble running blogs off 1&1 and host all my beginner blogger friends and non-profits on my own developer account. I find it’s easy for my clients to find their way around the slick management interface (much easier than CPanel). One thing that is interesting with 1&1 is that the hosting is very generous with domain pointing, databases and even free domains included. The 1&1 Home package has 2 domains included with others being 6.99$ per year. You can build a blogging empire with an account costing as little as 40$ a year. Right now this plan is free for 3 months with no cost to setup.

I love having alternatives.

As an experiment I subscribed myself and one of my clients to A Small Orange. I had been a client before and never really used the account to its full potential. I like that company nonetheless. They offer quick competent support via e-mail with people who never make you fell like you are dumb for asking a question. I could not get WordPress installed because of a permission issue. Incorrect permissions prevent you from being able to edit your code or plugin files and don’t allow for SEO-friendly permalinks to be used. I tried installing WordPress every which way it could be done (manually, Fantastico, SSH, etc.) to no avail. I tried to fix the permissions manually after the install. I followed the clear and quick instructions I got from customer service to a tee and still failed to make WordPress work. I looked into the forum and tried implementing the tips I found there but failed miserably and informed the support that I reached my limit and would like a refund. I gave it a day of back and forth and that is a VERY long time by my standards. I figured if I found the solution I would put all my clients on ASO by default as the price cannot be beat.

I am used to installing and configuring WordPress in 15-30 minutes and that is why I charge very little for doing it for others. I’d rather spend my time fixing complicated problems or customizing WordPress than installing it.

More Lively Video Options For Your Products

Tire of boring old galleries? Animoto offers easy to make, free 30-second videos to display your pictures in a very engaging way. You will need about 15 photos to create a video. These photos can be easily pulled from online photo catalogs such as Picasa and Flickr. You can choose from many music styles and remix your video at will. Post the end result in you blog or choose from automatic posting in a myriad of online communities and Youtube.
Featured below are some of my 2004 pictures from the Hudson British Car Show. This year it will be held on May 25, 2008.

Flickr Video: Turn That Frown Upside Down!

Flickr video launched a few days ago and I didn’t look into it beyond noticing the sleek integration and video quality. Compared to YouTube, it’s outstanding!

Some people are mad. I don’t understand why.

The new video-sharing feature lets Flickr ‘Pro’ users upload 90-second videos. Some users are protesting that the site will become full of crap like YouTube. How is allowing users who pay 25$ per year to upload really short video clips going to make Flickr worse? First of all, spammers will not pay to pass along their crap. Secondly, 90 seconds is not long enough to compete against YouTube’s generous 10-minute video allowance. This limit in length will make it hard for people to repost copyrighted content. Would you watch a whole TV episode if it was sliced into 15 or 30 clips? Didn’t think so.

Say hello to portrait oriented videos! Pictured right is Les Chutes Dorwin à Rawdon, Québec, Canada. Chipple, friend and former employee who moved to Japan, shot this video at a 16:9 aspect ratio showing the new possibilities that await when you turn your camera sideways!

Flickr is also good at managing adult-oriented content. When Flickr was still in Beta I once searched for the word ‘Eye’. I got a really odd result page filled with pictures of babies and penises and a few actual eyes. (I have a screen shot somewhere…) Normally this would totally turn me against a website but I really like Flickr and with more than 1,400 pictures uploaded, commented and tagged, I am personally invested in their success. Instead of throwing in the towel and saying “Well we can’t really control what people put on our website, it’s the Internet you know…” They have kept things classy. I’ve been very satisfied with Flickr’s implemented of content rating management on many levels. I wholeheartedly support a company that put a lot of effort into managing its users content without completely squashing free-speech or refusing adult content based on arbitrary rules that puts ‘breast cancer’ on the same level as ‘breast pictures’. I have a safe-rated account and it efficiently blocks all inappropriate (flagged) and adult content from my view but will not prevent me from finding artwork from an artist who just happens to paint nudes.

Flickr is part of the solution I offer all my clients who do visual arts. There is no better community to share crafts, paintings and other art. It is on Flickr that a publisher noticed my work and contacted me for a book deal. I welcome the human and business benefits that come from displaying my work on Flickr. I hope my artists will be excited about Flickr video’s ability to properly convey the three dimensional aspects of their work.

The Fix: Why are these bad blogs linking to me?

Written on March 16, 2008 at 3:51 p.m.

Today I posted an article in an unpublished blog and got a trackback spam within 60 seconds. What is a Trackback or Pingback spam? It is a notification that another blogger has linked to one of your articles.

The correct usage of a Trackback is to notify the original poster that you are following-up or expanding on their idea or have found the article they wrote interesting. Trackbacks are a good thing unless they are used by unscrupulous folks looking to automatically steal bits of your content to quickly fill up blogs with highly targeted content.

This isn’t new, but I get this question a lot. My clients are people who have a specific area of knowledge that they share on their blog and WordPress makes it easy for them, even if they don’t have any technical knowledge. They are not necessarily up to date on the hundred and one ways people use the Internet to dump their ‘natural’ viagra, shady mortgages and crazy rates credit cards on us.

You can also read Splog Reporter.

What it looks like

Why do they do it?

Try to make money the lazy way. These are so many of these splogs using the same software that I figure someone is selling the code with a how-to-get-right-in-24-hours type method.

How do they do it?

As an example I picked the quickest spammer: x7g.net. This server runs multiple Wordpress blogs on a variety of topics that automatically copies fetches parts of your content and refers back to you. Their robot can fetch hundreds of posts a day, maybe more. Unfortunately, their system never attributes the content to the right owner. It does put a link to your article at the end.

When visitors click on the Adsense Ads x7g.net makes money until Adsense blocks them… But since Google’s Adsense policy is to pay revenue share that occured before the ban, it encourages Sploggers to do it again.

Some bloggers may see it as a quick source of incoming links but why publish links that come from spammers. Splogs are routinely banned from Google. This renders the links useless or harmful and may hurt your Google PageRank in the end. Here is an interesting article about Reciprocal Altruism and the use of Trackback or Pingback.

What can you do about it?

Simply refuse them and after one or two refusals you will not get spam from them anymore. The latest version of Akismet treats those comments as well so it will help you keep your blog tidy and relevant to your readers.

BTW those types of comments can fill up a database quickly. If your blog is detected as accepting comments or trackbacks without moderation spammers can quickly fill up your database and break your WordPress Installation.

Priority No. 1: Upgrade Your WordPress Installation

I have been upgrading blogs to WordPress 2.5 at the rate of 3-4 per day. It’s not that it takes THAT long to do. It’s just that I have other things to do. So this little blog only got updated today.

When talking with a new client I often look at their blog installation and notice that a lot of them are running versions below 2.3.3. WordPress is the most used blogging platform out there simply because it can be customized to do most anything you want, but that also means that spammers will try to take advantage of your blog to gain free links. While this issue in WordPress has been fixed since February, more than 600 000 WordPress blog are still running version 2.3.2 or less (the numbers represent WordPress blogs indexed in Technorati only and are represented in red in the attached chart.).

Yesterday, Technorati ceased indexing hundreds of thousands of blogs they suspect have fallen pray to link spammers.

Google has already taken action against blogs who fall pray to spammers by banning them from the index. It is very hard to get re-indexed once you are banned from Google. So don’t wait another minute and upgrade to 2.5 or if you can’t do it yourself, contact me. I can do it in 30 minutes flat and have time left over to help you take your blog to the next level.