Jamie's blog

So I wake up today and realize the Beijing Olympics have begun. I'm not in beijing, and I'm too busy to watch any of it this year. But i did peek around on the internet and saw A LOT of hype about the Opening Ceremonies, the record billions of viewers it will attract, and the quirky pianist Lang Lang who played a the ceremony.

Awesome. Just yesterday Google launched their new beta tool Google Insight. It's basically just an extension of Google Trends, but it provides some really valuable insight. By entering popular search terms, you can learn more about any given keyword's popularity over time, the direction it is trending towards, the seasonality of the search term, and the geography of those searching.

If all the keywords you are jockeying for in paid and organic search are falling off the radar like searches for George Bush, you're probably in the wrong business or focusing on the wrong words.

On the other hand, as Jim pointed out if you're a cat skiing operation in BC like Backcountry Snowcats, score, because bc catskiing is one of the biggest searches that includes 'cat skiing'.

But more important than all of this is that John Mccain's recent ad campaign was totally out to lunch. It said Barack Obama is the most popular celebrity in America, and shows shots of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in the ad. Guess again. Check Google Insight for Barack vs Hilton vs McCain and you'll see that presidential campaigns aren't so 'hot' afterall. Well, Barack is catching up, and McCain is just jealous because he isn't on the list. Same goes for Harper, but who didn't see that coming?

We digress... but this is way funnier than search engine geek speak anyways. Enjoy the vids...

And the comeback...

As if it isn't hard enough already to stay on top of Google's ongoing search engine changes. Does anyone else wonder why there's so many new, incredibly random search engines being introduced?

Bored of the plain, text-heavy search listings on Google and other major search engines? Searchme might just be the solution. Sure the private beta launched in March, but it's only Beta and a lot of folks won't have seen it yet, so I thought I'd give it a nudge in the blog.

Guess it's a good couple days to be working and living in Squamish. Well when isn't it, but especially this week. While we were happily working away yesterday with all the usual tools - internet and power - Vancouver web companies (and everyone else) had neither.

While over 50% of Squamish's working population apparently commutes to Vancouver or Whistler for work, the lucky few who live AND work in Squamish (aka us VentureWeb people) have it made.

Inline Image

Another fun tool I cam across. Will help to add a little life to blog posts, etc. SnapCasa (http://SnapCasa.com) makes it easy to add screenshots to your website or blog post that automatically refresh themselves every 7 days. So if the page changes, so does the image in your blog.

Here it goes, testing 123...

A modern technology. Cool toys out there these days. I just made my self a 'Sprout' in a few minutes. The new release has lots of cool tools and is super easy to use. Great opportunity to make quick and affordable widgets, banners, and promotions for any kind of online marketing campaign, or just for fun.

I'm still a complete newbie to Twitter, and still don't know what the point of it is (nor does anybody, really). But hey, at least the guys at WebProNews have launched their alpha version of a new search site called 'Twellow', at http://www.twellow.com/.

It's no secret that we at VentureWeb world headquarters are keen on outdoor recreation, travel & tourism. From mine and Jim's education background in tourism and sports management, to Olly's unexplainable interest in 'Spirit Moon' wildlife T-shirts, we see it everywhere.