Mini-Blogs, Set Three

Conversations on Advertising



Me: "Wow, that was the most awesome commercial ever."
Co-Worker: "Wait? How is that like a mini-mall?"
Me: "It's probably as close as a furniture store can get to being like a mini-mall."
Co-Worker: "But a mini-mall needs more than one store, doesn't it?"
Me: "Well, being a flea market is kind of like having multiple stores."
Co-Worker: "But how is even like a flea market? It's not a flea market at all."
Me: "...Well, that's irrelevant. The fact of the matter is, it's a memorable ad."
Co-Worker: "But does it make you want to shop at this place."
Me: "Not only does it make me want to shop there, but when I have a daughter, I will offer her hand in marriage to the owner."
Co-Worker: "Won't he be a little old by then?"
Me: "Yeah, but with advertising like this, he's sure to be loaded by that time."


Google & Me
You may notice that I no longer have any AdSense ads up any more. This is because Google kicked me from their service. I pressed them as to the reason, and they told me it was due to this post, because in it, I say the following:

"Take a look around some time at the ads on here. Some of the actual websites can be pretty funny to look at (just don't sign up for them). And whenever you do click on something to laugh at, I get a few cents in my pocket."

And this, in and of itself, breaks the terms of service (I can't tell people to click on ads). I told them that I'd take the whole post down and never make mention of it again if they'd be forgiving. Unfortunately, that didn't appease our Google overlords. And so, I was no longer welcome at AdSense. (I still think that the real reason is because I made fun of their ads, but whatever). So, I decided to take off my ads, since their not doing anything for you me.

Still, when I received a postcard from AdSense (postmarked while we were still on good terms), I got a little teary-eyed.


Google & Me, Part 2
Let it never be said that I hold grudges. I'm currently using another Google application (which I'm sure is run by a completely different part of their company, away from those AdSense folks) called Google Analytics. This is a really interesting/useful tool, and if you use Blogger, it's really easy to add to your blog. Basically, if nothing else, it tells you the following things:
-Visits and page views on a daily basis.
-Percentage of visits by new and returning users.
-The relative locations of your visitors (I find this the most interesting).
-Percentage of visits from various sources.

After having this a few days, I can say the following things:
-Wow, very few people comment (relatively). I have about 120 unique visitors on a day, and very little of that translates into comments. I guess you people like to stay silent (by the way, I can only account for inviting about half of those visitors, so if I've never met you, hi!).

-I have visitors from all over the world! My biggest hot spots are Oakland (meaning Berkeley), Los Angeles, Long Beach, and...Schaumburg? I guess those are my Chicago relatives. I also think I know who's coming from Santiago Chile. The two most interesting places I've seen are Ojala, in what seems to be Sweden, and the delightfully-named Chungbuk, in what I first thought was Vietnam, but turns out to be South Korea (once again proving my ineptitude with geography and navigation).

-It's fun splitting up pie charts into pieces!


A Rose by Any Other Name...
I think they just mulched or manured the plants by my back door. And that sucks, because I need that door open to keep cool. .....My God, does it reek!


And Just Because
Here's a cool online Spirograph-like thing. It's especially fun to watch it work while listening to this music. Almost hypnotic.