Kate Phizackerley - Musings

It's a day or Internet oddities.  I've just found a software manual which claims to impart it's knowledge in an hour.  It's 176 A4 pages long!  Fortuately I am a fast reader but I wonder for how many people the hour claim is hyperbole?

I've been browsing ISO 3166, the international standard of country codes.  It ought to have been dull reading, but Scotland, despite being a separate Kingdom, doesn't merit it's own country code. 

There is no separate ISO 3166-1 code for Scotland. It is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and its codes GB, GBR and 826 apply to Scotland, too.

Of even greater sensitivity is the status of Taiwan which is classified as the Taiwan Province of China:

Since Taiwan is not a UN member it does not figure in the UN bulletin on country names. The printed edition of the publication Country and region codes for statistical use gives the name we use in ISO 3166-1. By adhering to UN sources the ISO 3166/MA stays politically neutral.

There's a sort of logic to those two.  I'm not sure I agree with them, but one can see that there is some justification.  For me, though, it all breaks down when we consider Ceuta and Melilla, the two tiny Spanish  outposts on the Moroccan coast, respectively 19 and 12.3 square kilometers which are recognised with a country code:

Ceuta and Melilla are jointly identified by the reserved code element EA

I'm sat watchingt the uncut version of Pier Morgan's interview with Dannii Minogue.  It must surely have helped Dannii's popularity.  She comes across really well and very caring.

She was known as the botox queen a couple of years ago.  I wonder if it was that she didn't want her face to show the emotions she was feeling?  I think she is now self-confident enough to allow people to see how she is feeling.  It's a lesson many of us have to learn the hard way - but ultimatley we are better, happier people when we learn it.

My mobile showed battery at 40%. I turned it off for a meeting. Now it's back to 90%. Very odd.

Just to show that normality has been retained.  I'd like to celebrate the departure of the terrible twosome, Jedward.  After their antics at Boot Camp I have had very negative view on them. I was pleased to see Olly in the bottom as well.  He can sing, but he's another guy I dislike.

I'm backing Joe to win.

Some were worried that the post yesterday wasn't me.  It was and now I'm writing about Disney Princess birthdays - which I know even less about than Twilight.  Jessica who sold me the other two lenses, has just sold me her top lens about Disney Princess Birthday Cakes.  It was expensive.  This one will take a full 6 months' of earnigs from the lens to recoup my investment - unless I can increase the income from it.  Good commercial practice.

I'd totally missed how big a deal Twilight is.  I bought a couple of Squidoo lenses.  One was Beautiful Gingerbread houses.  I paid about 3 months income for that one.  It's a seasons lens so that could be a problem, but I know about gingerbread so I knew what to do with that.  Promotion has pushed it into the top 100 lenses on Squidoo.  Out of more than a million lenses, that's a decent performance.  I won't manage to keep it that high, but it's doing pretty well.  I wrote lenses about black cake icing and making royal icing to help support it.  Writing about cookery isn't my usual thing, but as a regular author these days I ought to be able to write about just about anything.

The second lens I picked up was about Twilight birthday cakes.  Squidoo pays royalties each month depending on traffic.   The 2,000 most popular lenses are in the top tier and paying most, perhaps $15 - $20 per month (plus and sales commissions).  The next tier may pay as little as $3 per month. The Twilight lens was just clinging to the top tier but I was worried it was going to drop out so I paid about less - something like 2 months' earnings - because I felt it was risky.  I knew nothing about Twilight.

Well, it seems that Stephanie Meyer's Twilightl is one of the hot teenage franchises at present and a new movie, New Moon is out this week in the USA.  I'm learning a lot.  I might even read the Twilight Saga books - or maybe just watch the movies.    So traffic has been hot.

What's more with a bit of promotion, suddenly my lens wasn't just ranking in Twilight Birthday Cakes, it is ranking right at the top of Google on Twilight Birthday.  Now that was an unexpected.  So I have been brave and just re-focused the lens so that it covers Twilight birthday parties as well as cakes.  That's a risk because Google may take a mood and I might loose all the traffic.  But if the immediate change works, then I am home and dry.

It matters.  Google Adwords reports that "twilight birthday cakes" which the len was optimised for when I bought it is getting about 720 searches a month.  "Twilight birthday" is getting 12,000.  It's sat at #8 on Twilight birthday at present so that isn't too bad.  If it can cling to that then traffic should go up now I've changed the title.  Most people who saw it weren't looking for Twilight birthday cakes so a title of that wasn't going to get clicked through.  So I've made the title more general - I just hope that those who want Twilight cakes don't shy away from it now.

So it could be a disaster.  A lens which was going to make me $20 a month might not.  Even if it works, there isn't a higher tier so there is no immediate upside.  The plan if I can get general birthdat traffic is to add other lenses on those topics and try to move some traffic across to them so they rise up the tiers.  They will need to be written of course.

So why have I taken this precarious route to getting traffic to those lenses, rather than just promote them directly?  Simply because I don't think they will rank well quickly.  There are lots of other Twilight lenses on Squidoo and they need to outperform them if they are to stand alone.  Realistically, one really strong "portal" lens pulling in as much trafic as possible is the best bet.  Then I can add lenses about Bells Swan, New Moon, Stephanie Meyer, Twilight Birthday Parties, Tiwlight Jewelry, Vanpire Novely food or anything else I can think of!  I've started a New Moon Birthday Cake lens but decided to spend the time re-profiling the Twilight Birthday lens instead.  Not sure when I will get back to it.  Tuesday I'd guess.  It should be a decent lens as the Bella Swan birthday scene is one of the big ones in New Moon and is on YouTube - I've watched it.

Which is course is part of this article.  I need to promote that Twilight Birthday Cake, Parties and More lens, as it is now!, as much as I can to try to keep it ranking in Google.

All good fun.  Well all good practice anyway.  And maybe in a couple of weeks I'll know enougth about the Twilight Saga to write a Twilight quiz!

I'm not someone who believes in worrrying about strict spelling and grammar online. Much of what we write is transient, of the moment, and so long as it gets the sense across the additional time spent agonising over spelling and grammar would, or me, be better spent creating more content, answering more questions whatever. Spell checking is not a discipline which yields great benefits or the time spent. Maybe in official reports it is worthwhile, but for general material, emails and blog posts, time spent is disproportionate to the gain. I do try and correct typos as I write, but I'm not going to spend hours on it.

One area though where it does matter is people's name. I was embarassed yesterday to learn that I have always spelt one person's name wrong. *shame* I'll fix that. I know I get upset if people mispell Phizackerley - either with an 'f' or as Phizackerly. That last 'e' seems to catch people out.

The thing is, there are people who spell their surname as Phizackely. I bet there is even a Kate Phizackerly out there somewhere too! And I bet she doesn't want to be mistaken for me and more than I want to be mistaken for her!  The world is a small place. With people relying more and more on Google, spelling of names - of both people and places - is important so that information can be found. Google does a decent job of suggesting alternative spellings, but it's best not to rely on it. So, while I'm not going to worry about typos in running words like "but", "beautiful", etc which add little additional information, key words like names and other items which could be search keys are more important and it is worth getting those spot on.

The XFactor crew just didn't touch those songs tonight. Other than Joe and Danyl their voices don't have enough presence, but Joe was lazy with the range and Danyl just plain boring.

Covering those songs - and generally failing - just proved again how massively talented Freddie Mercury was. Perhaps the greatest rick/pop singer of my generation.

I've moaned about it before. Google Reader is the worst Google product I've come across by a clear mile.

The latest irritation was I had a configured search to pull a certain very narrow range of articles from Technorati - essentially a heads up of any blogs which mention me (ie filtered on Kate Phizackerley). It worked successfully on Newsgator for more than a year and for 3 months on Google Reader.

Over the weekend, without asking, Google Reader dropped the filter and has sent me *everything* added to Technorati. My Inbox

I really hate Google Reader. I've moaned

I'm ultra cynical about Web 2.0 marketing. In the bad old days someone, networks of contacts were seen as a group to market to ... And that was bad enough. Web 2.0 marketing as exhibited by sites like Facebook takes it to the next level of using other people's networks of contacts as a marketing opportunity.

It's no wonder people are starting to resign sites like Facebook. The interface is cluttered but fundamentally intruding prominent advertising into social contact, and pimping someone's contacts is going to turn people off.

I doubt Facebook will ever turn a profit. I suspect that increasing monetisation will drive people away. Already FB seems to be reincarnating as a games platform (at the expense of uncluttered dialogue) any maybe that's where FB's future lies.

So apparently all of us who moaned had an effect and Cheryl Cole sang the first verse on Sunday. In all honesty though it wasn't great and she was out sung by Alexandra Burke the week before with Bad Boys and then outperformed by Whitney Houston.

On Saturday Simon had reduced her to tears. Not a great weekend for Cheryl

David Cameron wants to portray a middle class look so his wife is relegated to shopping in M&S and Primark while he struts in what is clearly a very expensive made-to-measure suit. Hmmmm.

And she's bought into playing the second class citizen!

I'm not as in to it this year. With the possible exception of Lucie nobody has really caught my eye. The format is starting to feel a little tired. Hopefully the live shows will perk it up but I have so say I think the BBC does a better job of promoting Strictly (which I don't watch) than ITV does with X Factor.

Maybe when I have seen them all perform live nex week I'll get more excited.

News from the Valley of the Kings is now at 10 1/2 in the Google rankings. Like Platform 9 3/4 it seems like such things can happen. 50% of searches are showing it at 10; 50% at 11. That can really only be described as a ranking of 10.5. Just 1/2 a place to go to reach the critical front page of Google. When the new blogs come online over the next few weeks, that should be enough to secure a front page slot. It'll take time for them to gain authority and to push hard, but over 2 or 3 months that'll happen.

It's important of course as until they start ranking in their own right, the new blogs will be relying on second hand traffic relayed by NVoK.

And yes, you'd be right. At present I'm consumed with web development. It's a major, massive time commitment but the reality of the Internet is that if you want traffic you need to spend the time .. And what's the point of spending hours writing articles for a blog unless they are read?

Victoria Tube Station is used by thousands of rail passengers a day. It's cramped, badly organised and dingy. In fact it's so cramped it often has to be shut for 5 minutes a peak times to control congestion.

Now Westminster Tube Station, which doesn't have to deal with thousands of rail commuters, has an underground exit for MPs. It's bright airy and spacious.

Tourists I hear you counter, tourists not MPs. Hmmmm. So why is Tower Hill so poor then? Why is Covent Garden so utterly inadequate?

Neat!

I'm wondering if Simon Cowell learned something from Leona Lewis.  Before Leona, the business plan seemed to be to make money from the live shows, give the winner a record deal during which they would pay back even more with a number one single at Christmas then a album of covers which did reasonably before he or she was quietly dropped.  All very short term.

One or two of those that came second or third may get a record deal as well if they looked as though they had a dedicated following, but again nothing really long term.

Then along came Leona Lewis who has made millions and shown that a great winner can make Simon an absolute fortune.  The trouble was, some of the past contestants have been backed by emotion by fans who wouldn't back the artist in the lomg term. 

For 2008, there seemed to be more of an attempt to stretch artists to find breaking points and drop anybody weak before the final.  Alexandra Burke was clearly stretched to ensure she was versatile, and she'll go on to have a steady career.  Probably not as stellar as Leona Lewis, but good long term income for Simon and Serco.    However, Eoghan Quigg nearly snuck in there and wouldn't have done as well, so for 2009 I expect things will be even tougher to that the Eoghans of this world don't make it to the final.

Along the way in 2008 two great stars dropped out - Laura White and Ruth Lorenzo.  Simon voted Laura out and I always suspected there was something about her personal life he didn't take to, but having heard the pre-releases of her single on her site, I don't like them at all.  She's should be turning out records like Katie Melua but that doesn't seem to be what we are getting.  I'm worried her career won't live up to her great voice.  In this case, I suspect Simon may have been right.

I still think he missed the greatest opportunity with Ruth Lorenzo though.  Able to sing in both Engkish and Spanish she could have hit the Hispanic market as well as the English language one.  She has the potential to be huge.  Let's hope so.

So for 2009, I expect the series will have got much tougher for X Factor contestants to leave Simon with another Leona Lewis or Alexandra Burke.

Every time I post about what it going to happen to my blogs, I get overtaken by events and something different comes about!  I have now syndicated the main gallery for the PT Phiz blog into this portal.  Commenting unfortunately takes people back out to Wordpress but that cannot be helped. I'll try to create some decent links to bring people back neatly.

The second portal however is on hold for the moment.  The reason is that there may be major changes coming for News From the Valley of the Kings.  I've offered to create an Egyotology News portal with some other bloggers.  If that happens, then News from the Valley of the Kings will be moving into that portal.  I may syndicate it back into this portal, but that remains in doubt.  Until it's future is decided there's no point making more major changes here - I'll just squeeze more into the navvar!

I've embarked on another blog overhaul.  When one starts out, it's hard to know what one is likely to want in the short term.  I'm just about to delete one blog which never really got going  - because a blog wasn't the right format for the material.

The big task though is reworking the portal.  The PTPhiz news is being replaced with the main gallery of artwork, with the news posts relegated to the sidebar.  That's a bit technical to achieve because that isn't the structure of the "data": the news remains the main blog so far as Blogger is concerned and the gallery is just a re-syndication of the Wordpress blog.  It works but I need to spend time on the layout.

Similarly, this blog is moving too.  It's going to become an anchor blog on a second portal.  For those accustomed to having it as part of the same portal as my News from the Valley of the Kings portal. don't worry.  That'll still be possible too as I'll resyndicate it into the sidebar of Theban Moon.  Don't worry, it'll make sense when you see it and I think you'll prefer the new layout as will be able scan both of my personal blogs at the same time. None of the web addresses will change so no bookmarks will need to be changed. There's nothing you need to do, just don't be surprised when you see the top bar change colour.  (I've still not decided what colour scheme to go for - that's one source of the delay in implementing the change.)

There's also a new blog about my lenses on Squidoo.  You can find it at http://phiz.squidtop.com. It's sat on a Wordpress multiuser site because that was where it was best to host it in terms of terms of the Squidoo community. Probably of no interest to anybody outside the Squidoo community.

You know an area has a drugs problem when the bin for sanitary waste in the ladies loo has a sharps warning label!

Sadly all of Newsgator's free offerings will be withdrawn at the end of August. I was using a mobile application and an Outlook application. Newsgator kept them in sync so if I read something on the mobile, it was marked read in Outlook. And when I couldn't get to either my own laptop or mobile, I could read online - which was kept synchronised too.

They were great ... And free.

So I've migrated to Google Reader. I'm a fan of Google generally but I don't think Google reader is one of their better apps - and reading in a browser is my least favoured option but that won't change as Google wants to move people away from applications towards just working in a browser. That's their Microsoft-killing strategy.

Now my reading list is secure, I think I'll look what Microsoft offers as an alternative to Google Reader. I don't like this headlong rush to working in a browser. There's an option in Outlook I could turn on ... Just so long as I can find a way to use the streams when mobile (ie on the mobile phone).

The march of technical change isn't always forwards.

If I'm irritated with IE8 that's nothing compared to my loathing for Windows Update. I had just finished writing an article last night and was about to click send when Windows Update rebooted my machine without a by-your-leave. It has done it before - it interpets pressing enter anywhere as the permission it needs to restart the computer. Article lost.

I was decidedly irritated.

I have been amazingly loyal to Internet Explorer.  It has been by browser of choice for years.  I have both Firefox and Chrome as well - and often have all 3 open - but 80% of my browsing has done in Internet Explorer. 

I downloaded IE8 a couple of days ago and totally hate it.  It's dreadfully slow -although speed was supposed to be it's big benefit.  I've had to turn Compatability Mode on for several sites.  Even Google sites are badly handled.  For instance the Blogger editor doesn't allow the use of cut and paste using keyboard shortcuts (CTRL-X, CTRL-V and so on) and even the DEL key has been disabled.

Unless Microsot get IE8 sorted out real soon, my relationship with IE is over.

Is the reason why doctors are no longer testing for Swine Flu that the Government maybe doesn't want to have statistics on how widespread H1N1 now is?

Just caught the last 10 minutes of this old b/w film on BBC2 while waiting for the athletics coverage to start. Large sections of the dialogue are un Chinese (I won't say Mandarin as it may not be) - without subtitles. I wondr just how much of the typical BBC2 Staurday afternoon can cope without subtitles? It may just be the section I caught, but still.

Not that it's unique, of course. I've noticed a few sections of Spanish in the West Wing that are presented without subtitles, but that seems fair enough. Shirley and I last year did watch a terrible DVD - I can't tell you what the movie was about as after we'd watched it, we still didn't know. Some Latvian ice hockey team I think. This was a film supposedly presented for an average Americn audience. It had some lengthy sections in French which had subtitles, although we would both have coped without. There were short passages in Italian. Subtitles for those were appreciated, but they were so short they weren't really necessary. The big problem were the lengthy sections of Latvian dialogue - presented without subtitles!

Grace Jones was on Jonathan Ross. Many other singers of her age have lost their voices. As her core style always was closer to speech set to music than song, voicewise she has fared much better than many of her contemporaries.

I'm quite enjoying seeing MPs squirm when their expense claims are revealed from the database. Many of us have been saying that such comprehensive databases are a threat to privacy. Maybe MPs will now better understand those concerns.

I'll be writing something in the next few days about #amazonfail on my marketing blog but here lets just say I think it's a combination of deliberate policy (to suppress certain LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) books and a cock-up. Computer algorithms do turn up some weird surprises.

For my main personal blog, I'd just posted about the Aria "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana", from La Wally by Catalani. and sung by Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez. In opera terms it's a pretty obscure piece, but hauntingly beautiful - if you've never listened, I popped a YouTube vid on that link so do listen. Then, under the "Related Videos" is Mungo Jerry's "In The Summertime". Now, I happen to like that too - but then my musical taste is broad - but how are the two related? Well, after a bit of digging, it seems somebody who also posted a video of Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez singing "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana" also posted a video of "In The Summertime". Related? Only very tenuously. That's the trouble with algorithms: they don't always give the expected results when faced with real-world data. I suspect that was a part of what happened with #amazonfail.

So here's a live version of In The Summertime ...



Now seriously, do you think the two are really related?

Kryton has kept rather better than the others I think ...

The Government have indicated they don't favour minimum charges for alcohol. Could this be because any price increase would benefit the retailers not the Governement? Expect tax rises though, based on a policy goal of reducing binge drinking.

You've got to see this. It ranks alongside Freddie ate my Hamster as an all time classic ... reported in the Sun of cours.e

It's the title of The Best of Freddie Mercury Solo and it's brilliant. Simply wonderful.

I've written before about Freddie's voice. Technically amazing for a guy. It goes to show that being world class and enjoying what you do is all that it takes for success: and doesn't automatically guarantee happiness.