AJ Kohn › Comments

"Nice work here Justin. I see this filter impacting host crowding on the first page of results. https://www.google.com/search?... (4 Yelp results) https://www.google.com/search?... (8 Yelp results) It would be nice if they exempted the site: queries, though I suspect we SEOs are one of a handful of industries that uses that operator on a regular basis. It'll be interesting to see if they test different weights of host clustering via this filter over time." - AJ Kohn

"I love this post but I think it's less about the word 'No', which I find to be very powerful to keep focused and on task, and more about the phrase you must have: 'It never hurts to ask.' I believe in that mantra 138% and live it every day. That pretty girl in high school doesn't get asked out as much you might think because the guys are afraid to ask. That's amazing and sad. Gretzy has it right (as always). You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So take your shot. Ask for what you want. The worst that happens is they say no (or you never get a response from that email you sent or voicemail you left). But more often than not you get a response and you get some (if not all) of what you ask for. It never hurts to ask." - AJ Kohn

"Well you can pick out your piece of data but I can too. Here's one that shows Google+ usage released in January. http://www.globalwebindex.net/... And then again in April showing Q1, 2013 trends. http://www.globalwebindex.net/... And while activity is higher on Facebook in this report it also makes it clear that Google+ does have a material active user base. In addition, self-reported from Google I/O just the other week was 190M in the stream and 390M across all platforms. Now in my due diligence I see far more reports showing positive momentum on Google+ rather than negative, but you're free to think otherwise or choose one report over the other. It's certainly easy to compare Facebook with Google+ but doing so with a basic 'it's a social platform' mentality leaves out a tremendous amount of nuance, which I touched on in my first comment. As for marketing, I'm not sure how much more cross-platform marketing you can do at this point. It's pretty tough to get away from Google+ when..." - AJ Kohn

"By nearly all measures G+ is one of the top three used social platforms (with Facebook being first and Twitter and G+ about the same). So, hasn't it really already tipped in some ways? People seem to believe that usage on G+ should mimic that on Facebook. Why? It's a different platform with different features and goals. Right now G+ is the leading video collaboration platform via Google+ Hangouts. Where's Facebook on that? They have that bohunk Skype integration I guess but c'mon. That's not to say that Facebook isn't doing well, but the comparisons become very difficult in my opinion. It's selective comparison. "Well, maybe they have an account on G+ but they don't actively use it." That's a typical refrain. Yet, this is the same type of model seen on Twitter and no one seems to pick a fight with them on the issue. The real aim of G+ isn't truly social but to identify active preferences that help Google deliver more relevant search results and along the way if it breaks the monopoly..." - AJ Kohn

"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new..." - AJ Kohn

"I'm not sure this is exactly what you're looking for but there are a few links in this post around using usernames to confirm identity. http://33bits.org/2011/02/16/u... If the username can't be confirmed in other platforms that could certainly be a red flag given the large digital wake™ we leave online." - AJ Kohn

"Submission error? That's not good. Were you able to resubmit? I don't see a response for you so please try again and let me know if the problem persists." - AJ Kohn

"Thanks for participating and for the feedback. The 4-point scale is shorter, which hopefully make the assessment easier (and alleviates the neutral answers). But perhaps that's not happening in practice." - AJ Kohn

"Thanks for your help." - AJ Kohn

"So the term RSS is the query syntax people use to find RSS readers? Try a different term like 'Google Reader' and you're not going to get nearly the same type of graph. The problem with using RSS as your term is it mixes the use of RSS as a technology verus the use of RSS from a content consumption standpoint. In addition, how many people read your content via a Reader (and there are tools to get full feeds) rather than visit your blog. They might visit to simply share that post with friends or they may arrive at it outside of what can be tracked. So claiming that email is more effective based on those metrics isn't really comparing apples to apples is it? Gaining readership and exposure is important. As for interaction, I find it difficult to believe that email is a scalable alternative. Not only that but those replies rob the actual post of valuable meta content (i.e. - comments) that could make the post more valuable for readers. RSS readers will survive because people need to..." - AJ Kohn

"Yes! It's amazing how some folks are on this carousel where they have a poor track record yet continue to get gigs because ... it was a poor record at a big company. I don't know. I'm still a bottom-line kind of guy. Did you take the business forward? That's what I look for. Mind you, I'm all for crashing and burning if you learn from it but at some point if you have a history of crashing and burning ..." - AJ Kohn

"I love that last paragraph. I too optimize for happiness or lifestyle. And in the end, if you're willing to take a few risks, I think the former leads to the latter." - AJ Kohn

"You really need to write a book about this and get it widely read. Because there are (way) too many ICs who feel pressured to become PWs, who feel guilty about not being good at or wanting to do much PW. The path to success is supposedly in taking on bigger and bigger teams. It's the question you get asked when you're interviewing up. How big a team did you manage? Frankly, the better question is how much did that team accomplish, but even then I always wanted to show the difference I made. That's not always about me, me me either. I take great pride in some of the folks I managed. Three in particular who I thought were just incredible and it was just my job to help them get as much done as possible. I function well as a PW when someone knows 80% of the job, can pick up something quickly and run with it. I function poorly as a PW when someone knows 50% of the job and requires more (repeated) guidance. So the problem for someone who is more IC than PW (which is sort of how I identify)..." - AJ Kohn

"I like the idea but there's an issue of federation isn't there? If it's an AMEX loyalty app then, immediately, there's less of a market and less value overall. So any of these companies would immediately shrink the potential growth of Foursquare. Mind you, they could use the data to become smarter but ... that seems like a big ask given the current data they're already mining. Instead, perhaps a neutral party within the payment space makes sense. Paypal (as a way to catch up), Square or Google Wallet (who seems always on the cusp of something great.)" - AJ Kohn

"I wrote about this recently when I talked about Google's (not so) evil strategy. http://www.blindfiveyearold.co... Reducing the friction to using the Internet increases usage which increases revenues. It's really that simple." - AJ Kohn

"Congrats Hugo. Sounds like a great move and I look forward to reading more since I completely agree about exploring varied topics." - AJ Kohn

"It's funny but when you (or I) say this I feel like it falls on deaf ears. What's that quote ... success comes slowly and then instantly? I'm probably mangling it, but the idea is that it takes years and years until you're suddenly getting that recognition and have a platform. There's a tremendous amount of work that goes into it which goes largely unseen. I see people who want to get that type of success and popularity quickly. It sounds awful but I think the fact that it's slow is important. You weed out the ones who aren't willing to persevere and put in the time consistently. Not only that but the time it takes to get there is also the time where you figure things out and learn. It's the time where you hone your craft." - AJ Kohn

"The tips here are quite good and I'm trying hard to embrace number 7. But the start of this piece and your admission terrifies me personally. I know time is a scarce resource but it'd be hard for me to let go of that detailed knowledge. Sadly, it does seem like it creates a bit of an iceberg in my path." - AJ Kohn

"The thing is, Google+ shouldn't be measured based on the direct traffic you drive from the platform, nor for Authorship mark-up. That's not what makes it infinitely more valuable. It's the fact that it allows a brand to put their thumb on the scale of SERPs." - AJ Kohn

"There's far too little discussed in our industry about this topic. I'm fascinated about why people remember or share certain content. You've hit on most of them though I often think of these in more rudimentary ways and how they connect with specific emotions (or memes). The only thing I'd add here is that in all of these there are different levels of inertia. Reducing the friction to sharing is still perhaps the number one hack to getting your content shared more often. Even without understanding the why, if you can shorten the distance between intent and action you're going to be rewarded." - AJ Kohn

"While I can't relate to the personnel, travel and work/life balance issues, I can completely relate to the 100% concept. Like you I coach people on the 'done is better than perfect' method but I find it terribly difficult to take my own advice. I think my problem is that I know 100% isn't possible but by targeting such a lofty goal I'm always going to be in the 90s. What happens if I start accepting 90%? Do I wind up always being in the 80s instead? Mind you, I've gotten better at accepting when I don't meet 100% in the last few months. Part of me enjoys that ... freedom and part of me fears it's the beginning of the end." - AJ Kohn

Surfer? ;) - Kisha

Same here bro... same here... - AJ Batac

"Like I said, everyone takes a different path and journey. So maybe that's not for you. For me resolving to be comfortable with contradictions works. I spend less energy figuring it all out and more on just ... being. I appreciate you sharing because it let me reflect on where I am. I tend to like fiction (I think it's more truthful than non-fiction) so I recommend The Ghost In Love by Jonathan Carroll. http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Lo... It's a strange novel but there's a theme in it which might resonate, about who we really are at any given time. Enjoy and be well." - AJ Kohn

"A thought-provoking post. I'm not sure I or anyone can really provide much advice. I tend to think we all have to take our own journey. How one discovers and ... actualizes (yikes, did I say that?) is very personal. I'm constantly taking a self-inventory and, frankly, am very hard on myself. I've had a crisis of confidence a few times and those were brought on largely by myself and not anyone else. It's important to talk those gremlins out of your head. For me I embrace the things that shaped me, the good and the bad. I was grew up in Philadelphia in the Rocky era with the name Adrien (Yo Adrian!). I wasn't a popular kid. I was overweight. Fat? I don't know but I wasn't like the other kids. Oh, did I mention I played the flute? That's a big winner in High School. I didn't get picked on that much because I had a few people who stuck up for me. Scary people. Popular people. To this day I don't know why they did, but I'm thankful. But for whatever reason, maybe it was the music I..." - AJ Kohn

"Hastags are often event driven. I 'watched' one of the Presidential debates using Twitter's hashtag stream. It was absolutely a form of media. It was meta-entertainment. http://www.blindfiveyearold.co... To me, Twitter is the glue between screens, between TV and the Internet. And to get the most out of that experience, you'd have to be watching it live. That's mighty important to traditional TV and why Twitter is becoming so cozy with Hollywood." - AJ Kohn

"In general I agree that the difference is between a search and browse experience. It's about the expectation of a defined set of results - of specificity due to a search query. Here, pagination makes sense since there's structure and intent behind that interaction. A browse experience has little structure and is undefined which makes infinite scroll a better interaction. I think infinite scroll for browsing products in a category makes sense but if I search for a specific product on that same site pagination might be a better experience. Of course the actual type of content that is on the page can also play a part. Google doesn't use infinite scroll on web search results but does on image search. I'd argue, again, that it comes down to specificity and ... confidence. Google's confident they'll return the 'right' 10 results based on your query on web search. They are not confident of that in image search, nor should they since the variation in what type of images one might select for a..." - AJ Kohn

"It's interesting. You've actually got it backwards. The red herring is all this algorithm stuff that you take second hand from SEOBook. If you understand Google's true mission you'd know that self-driving cards would actually translate into a huge amount of revenue for Google." - AJ Kohn

"Who are these people who got good service at Roxx on Main? It's a slow Tuesday at this place and there is no silverware on the table. That doesn't change quickly. My coffee nearly got cold waiting…" - AJ Kohn

"Like I said there's a lot to like in what you say. But 'great content' is a bit of a hand-waving phrase that, in my experience, usually produces less than great results. While it would be great to think that everyone could get the basics right and write great content, I find that few do this. What you or I may think of as basics might be a foreign language to someone else. I have to remind myself of this quite a lot actually. The term great content and 'writing for users', unfortunately, often gets translated into writing something like David Mitchell might write. I absolutely love fiction writing, but writing for the web is different just as grant writing is different from haiku. A good SEO helps to harness all of the expertise and passion of those in house producers to ensure that they're being as efficient as possible and getting their content in front of the right people. Nothing makes me more depressed that passionate content that isn't going to be widely read. SEO is most..." - AJ Kohn

"I don't think you can fault people for reacting to a rather strident post on a topic for which, by your own admission, you don't have a competency. I'm frustrated because you have a nugget of truth in your thinking. Content is hugely important and it's not just what you say but how you present it that matters. Yet, you seem unwilling to recognize that a good SEO can help determine how to ensure that content finds the right audience. I can't tell you how many times I've had to explain that the way in which they're referring to something is NOT how the customer is searching for it. Apart from the vast technical expertise we must have, we focus on understanding intent and syntax so that we can guide content creators. And I agree that it should be done by those in-house, those who are passionate and knowledgable about that topic. Truth be told, I rarely talk about rankings. I talk about productive traffic. Because ranking for a word that doesn't do anything for you is meaningless. So a..." - AJ Kohn