Google Custom Search

Today’s screwing around with the search results and lack of customization in search in WordPress took me to all kinds of interesting plugins to change what you use to search WordPress. For the most part none of them really matched what I was looking for by default. It did however bring me to a little side project that Google has worked in previously called Google Custom Search. I spent a bit of time looking it over while taking calls at the day job and I have to admit I am intrigued. While I am not fully sure it is exactly what I need as a search solution for WordPress there is a good chance it is a step in the right direction.

Of course with how my mind works it got me thinking. A custom search engine could have countless possibilities if done right and Google is just giving it away (or charging at a low price for a few extra features) for what is quite an amazingly well put together out of the box search solution. I’m going to have to play around with it more when I get back from vacation but I have to say I’d be surprised if this didn’t find it’s way into one of more of my projects that pop up this year.

Vote No On Bill – SB 3353

I was recently informed from The Performance Marketing Association that there is a bill coming up for vote in Illinois this year that is going to try to enforce an ADVERTISING tax on marketers online. They are basically attempting to impose sales tax on anyone who is advertising a product and sends them to the person selling it.

Basically anyone who has any sort of affiliate tax is going to get hit with sales tax beyond what both the customer and retailer get hit with. Let me get this straight:

• I don’t take the money from the customer.
• I don’t deliver the product to the customer.
• I don’t know who the customer is.
• I ADVERTISE the product.

But I’d be having an additional sales tax ADDED to my already taxed income from online referrals? Not only this but anyone I work with out-of-state would likely end contracts in IL as that is exactly what happened in New York, North Carolina and Rhode Island when they imposed the same tax. The entire tax they will try to take out will become non-existent by removing the ability for online marketers to even work with companies looking to advertise their products as they will stop working with anyone in the state to avoid the tax.

SB 3353

Amends the Use Tax Act, the Service Use Tax Act, the Service Occupation Tax Act, and the Retailers’ Occupation Tax Act. Provides that a retailer or serviceman is considered to be (i) maintaining a place of business in the State and (ii) engaged in selling personal property at retail in the State if the retailer or serviceman solicits business within the State through employees, independent contractors, agents, or other representatives. Provides that a retailer or serviceman is presumed to be soliciting business through an employee, independent contractor, agent, or other representative if the retailer or serviceman enters into an agreement with a resident of this State under which the resident, for a commission or consideration, directly or indirectly refers potential customers, whether by a link on an Internet website or otherwise, to the retailer or serviceman, if the cumulative gross receipts from sales by the retailer or serviceman to customers in the State who are referred to the retailer by all residents with this type of an agreement with the retailer is in excess of $10,000 during the preceding 4 quarterly periods ending on the last day of February, May, August, and November. Provides that the presumption may be rebutted by proof that the resident with whom the retailer or serviceman has an agreement did not engage in any solicitation in the State on behalf of the retailer or serviceman that would satisfy the nexus requirement of the United States Constitution during the 4 quarterly periods in question.

If you are an Illinois resident and are against this bill

Email Your Senators at the addresses below:

Louis S. Viverito

viverito@senatedem.state.il.us

James T. Meeks

senmeeks@sbcglobal.net

M. Maggie Crotty

crotty@senate.state.il.us

Susan Garrett

ilsenate29@sbcglobal.net

Mike Jacobs

jacobs@senatedem.state.il.us

Jeffrey M. Schoenberg

Schoenberg@senatedem.state.il.us

Chris Lauzen

admin@lauzen.com

Bill Brady

bill@bradyforillinois.com

Randall M. Hultgren

district48@senategop.state.il.us

Matt Murphy

senatormattmurphy@sbcglobal.net

Template to e-mail Senators

Subject: I oppose SB 3353 - internet referral nexus bill

Sincerely,

Or, A Guide On How To Alienate YOUR Customers

Now this news is actually from last month. I somehow missed it last month when Engadget reported that this was happening but it was pointed out to me last night and I’m nothing but annoyed with the idea. I don’t care if you are lazy or enjoy not having 10,000 books around your place like myself or enjoy ‘being green’ but the eBook (and for myself the Kindle) has been a boon. I live in a condo in the city. I do NOT have room for a library. I enjoy having 1 decide that I can have all of my books on. So let’s take a look at what happened here.

Step #1: Embrace new technology, for this example let’s go with I don’t know- The eBook. Simon and Schuster was one of the first major publishers to not only embrace the idea of a digital book but actively encourage it’s use.

Step #2: Build a community and loyal readership. Kindle digital novels outsold physical books over this last Christmas. Sales overall are UP on digital copies. People enjoy them.

Step #3: Delay ALL digital copies of the novels you publish for 4 months after a hard cover comes out. I don’t get it. Are you worried that there will be less of a profit margin over the hard cover? You don’t have paper your printing on to cause that AND you can always jack the price up $5 on release for 4 months. That’s the concern is that they believe consumers will believe a new book is only worth $10 regardless of the media and sales will go down. I think I just addressed how to take care of that. Mark it up at the beginning. It’s NOT unheard of. Maybe you are worried about piracy? HELLO. DIGITAL COPIES OUTSOLD PHYSICAL COPIES OVER CHRISTMAS. Sorry. Bad excuse.

I’m pretty sure step #3 is the one anyone who has a business going should learn to avoid. Seems kind of like a practical idea.

The whole thing just gives me a headache that as a consumer I cannot get the novel I want to read on release date because you are purposely holding it back. I don’t care if you mark up the price to start with. It’s acceptable if that’s what you want to do. Just start doing it now not before the outrage that will ensue because of doing this and trying to do a markup later. I don’t know who in your marketing team pushed this idea and who agreed to it but they should all be fired. This is one customer who is not happy.

Blogussion Releases Their Thesis Theme For Sale

While I was a bit town on writing a plug for Blogussion’s Thesis Theme (personal reasons and nothing you need to know about,) I cannot deny that Alex really knows how to put together a well designed and laid out theme. So aside from being built on the Thesis Framework (which you need to run the theme) this has built in a ‘few’ useful features. The main ones to throw out there would be:
* Color chooser
* Logo manager
* Ad management
* Widgetized header and footer
* Admin panel controlled “big navigation” menu with dropdown menu options

While this is just the tip of the iceberg there are quite a few more worth checking out as well. If you haven’t seen Blogussion’s page you should really check it out to get an idea of what you are getting with the theme itself.

If you haven’t seen the theme yet head over to the sales page by Clicking here to view more details

If you have seen it why don’t you:

This Is How To Entice People To Market For You

While affiliate marketing always helps to encourage people to sell your product, something about being able to make money, there is another way. If the product you sell is something that people want and doesn’t cost you quite a bit you can offer it to them for free.

So what StandOut Stickers are doing is offering free custom stickers made up for you in turn for advertising their site. While stickers aren’t useful for everyone, quite a few niches being able to sell or offer stickers in a promotional manner is a huge deal. Being able to get a test run done for free and if they work out having them ready to use immediately is priceless.

So if you are looking to have custom made stickers purchased head over to StandOut Stickers today! If you are looking for doing some cross promotion with them check out StandOut Sticker’s Blog!

Thesis – The Theme That Does It All

This one is going to be short and sweet since if you are into blogging and use WordPress at all you know what Thesis is, if you don’t I’ll probably be doing a write up on it once I’ve had some time to fully sit down and play with it.

So as many of my close friends know I have about 10 projects in the works at various stages of development. Recently I’ve decided on a few of them that Thesis might be the perfect extra bit of originality to use in a theme to get things up and running. I’m still playing with the framework that is provided in hopes I can use this to actually make something decent- we’ll see.

I am going to attempt to use it on two sites initially: A central company homepage as well as an online store/front end for a Zazzle shirt site. We’ll see how it all comes together and I’ll let you know as I make progress.

How Much Data Is Passed Through Online?

Not only is this entertaining but actually kind of useful for anyone out there who likes to try to know random Internet trivia. Some of what is listed here really is kind of interesting just for how much data really is transferred online and how it would be converted into physical forms of media.

[via: Gizmodo.]

So what are the benefits of this? Well I’ll go through the full feature list. But my favorite part is that I get a second phone number for free. It’s easy to keep myself updated with a second phone number I can use for business purposes with it’s voicemail and ability to call from it. Of course that’s not nearly all that’s useful from this service. The second best part? There’s already a Blackberry application for it. Yes I’m able to rock Google Voice with a Blackberry application which was from Google itself.

One number for all your calls and SMS
* Call screening – Announce and screen callers
* Listen in – Listen before taking a call
* Block calls – Keep unwanted callers at bay
* SMS – Send, receive, and store SMS
* Place calls – Call free within the continental US and to Canada
* Taking calls – Answer on any of your phones
* Phone routing – Phones ring based on who calls
* Forwarding phones – Add phones and decide which ring

Voicemail as easy as email, with transcripts
* Voicemail transcripts – Read what your voicemail says
* Listen to voicemail – Check online or from your phone
* Notifications – Receive voicemails via email or SMS
* Personalize greeting – Vary greetings by caller
* Share voicemail – Forward or download voicemails

More cool things you can do with Google Voice
* Conference calling – Join people into a single call
* Call record – Record calls and store them online
* Call switch – Switch phones during a call
* Mobile apps – Try our apps for Blackberry and Android phones
* Mobile site – View your inbox from your mobile
* GOOG-411 – Check directory assistance
* Manage groups – Set preferences by group

When I setup the account I had no idea I had all of these options available. I blindly clicked free invite with a “ohhh new toy” mentality in mind. Now though? I am quite happy with what I’ve signed up for!

Still want more details and sick of me typing? Watch the video!

Companies That Own Up To Mistakes That Don’t Have To? Winners

Recently I won a contest from Teenormous that allowed me to pick a free shirt from one of the sites that they are associated with. I was e-mailed the coupon code, went to the site, picked a shirt, put in the code, and was ready to go! Well I thought I was until I saw that the coupon didn’t cover S&H. While I know most contests would cover S&H I didn’t think it was a big deal and put the order through. $5 for a shirt is a lot better than $20 so I wasn’t really going to complain.

Teenormous though didn’t feel right about this. They contacted everyone who had picked a shirt through this site and offered us a way to make up for it. While one would think that would just be a S&H coverage they instead offered us a free shirt (with S&H included) from one of the other contest sponsors. So for winning we actually were able to pick 2 shirts instead of 1. THAT is how to have great customer service and get good press at the same time. Thanks Teenormous for taking care of your customers. I was both surprised and impressed with your response to the situation and am overjoyed you went out of your way to take care of your readers. That’s really how to win customer loyalty right there.

I know it’s been quiet around here as of late. Between a very hectic work schedule the past couple of months, a lot of things going on with the family, having my social life, AND keeping all of my actual projects this blog has fallen to the wayside. Of course as stated in the first post on this site it was mainly made for me so I’m OK with the lack of updates. Those that still come to the site may disagree as it’s still pulling in traffic on a daily basis. Which is kind of surprising.

What To Expect

This New Layout – I’m currently using Blog Theme from Woo Themes which I plan on customizing a bit over the next few months. It’s simple, straight forward, laid out nicely, and look decent by default.

WordPress Plugin Reviews – I plan, at the very least, to try to review one new plugin each week for WordPress. I test out at least one a week so I want to fit in at least one for a review.

Online Service and Application Reviews – More of the same! This is what I was heavily doing before I took a bit of a break from the blog. I am going to narrow my focus on these though. From this point on I will focus primarily on those services and applications that I feel would be useful to bloggers and entrepreneurs.

More Project Updates – For as much as I do on the projects I work on I never really got around to writing updates here on the major changes to any of them. This will be changing.

Friday 5 – While I do not expect to do this weekly it will be on my list of posts to work on. When I see 5 outstanding blog posts in a week I will be sure to share them with you!

With everything going on in work and projects right now I can guarantee you that this personal blog will not be nearly as active as it was for a bit. However I will have it back on track in the near future for at least a few updates each week.