In everyone of my SEO projects, I feel the need to make processes more automatic and focus myself on something else. This is the case when it comes to checking a website rankings and the ones of their competitors. There are several tools out there I’ve tried, but none as advanced as the one I’ve recently found.
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PeopleJar, a new promising web 2.0 start-up has been launched recently offering easy-to0use tools for people to search and connect for recreational, social and professional purposes.

The concept behind the project is as follows: the Internet needs a one-stop destination for surfers to search and get found by people with various interested around the globe. PeopleJar has developed a robust highly-customizable search feature all other well-known web 2.0 players lack:

• you can search by any attributes you choose;
• you can create your own search and let the system update you of new members matching its parameters.

For example, browsing acting jobs, you can search by location, skill level or even personal attributes such as a particular spoken language or age group.

On the other hand, the site provides unlimited options for members to self-promote themselves (increasing their chances to get found and chosen over profiles with similar attributes). Filmmakers can add their portfolio and show off their video work. Actors can list their previous projects, schools and other relevant experience.

Furthermore, members can add networks and attributes which will be added after moderation.

All in all, we are offered an easy-to-use intuitional design with highly focused features (e.g. there is only one network per area unlike Facebook’s pages and groups) and exhaustively customizable search platform – everything you might need to get connected effectively.

You might imagine that I’m really busy since I haven’t posted on my blog for over a month. Well, I’m not, I have just been finding other things to do: reading a book, hanging out with friends or watching a movie. Luckily enough, I found some free time to update this blog. Also, opened a Romania blog, BoGD.ro, where I drop all my thoughts.

Since I’m a pretty active user on Digg and StumbleUpon, I get several requests for digging, voting or commenting every day. I’m always glad to help out when I’m asked. But I’ve noticed in the past months that social media has started becoming an automated process, where everything resumes to voting each other’s stuff without the slighest intend to socialize. I don’t understand why common sense is not applied online as it is done offline.

Some people think that because they have me added on IM, they can start asking for favors. Some even call me “friend” even if they don’t know my name. I for one like to start by introducing myself, asking a few details about the person I just befriended so that I can start asking small favors.

I think there is such a thing as friends online, but they’re not done by spamming them with links, asking for votes or shouts. If you have 200 friends on digg, it doesn’t mean that you can start asking for comments and shouts to each one. Start by telling me where did you get my IM from, tell me your name and what you do. Then we can establish a basic relationship. I’ve started deleting people that start by seding messages like “can you digg [link]?“, it’s too much.

Okay, the reasons I infrequently updates this blog is probably that I always find something better to do instead of brainstorming for ideas or exposing my thoughts here.

Regardless, I found a reasons to cut off the umbilical cord from my work, emails and blogs and attend B’estfest 2008. It’s a nicely organized festival, happening every year in Bucharest. It was held last Friday and several artists were scheduled: Alanis Morissette, Apollo 440, UNKLE, Cypress Hill and my personal favorite, Mark Norman.

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Between plurking, blogging and writing, I still have time for a little update on my very own plug, which I really neglected over the past weeks.

I am currently confronted with having to move to my own place, I got the opportunity to encounter one of the fuggliest types of people ever. I decided to round them up into a short, comprehensive list for the records.

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I know I said I’ll be posting more often, but it takes some time getting used to the new life: waking up at 11 am, yawning for 10 minutes, getting myself motivated for working, actually working and so on. It’s something on the softer side of life, so bare with me…

I just came from seing a cheezy comedy, What happens in Vegas, which turned out surprinsingly well. In this movie, this chick gets dumped by her boyfriend and decides to go to Vegas, where, whilst drunk, marries a stranger. To get straight to the point, she realizes she’s always trying to please others and forgets how to be herself. Basically, it’s a movie about following your instincts, doing what you love and going after those you love.

photo credits: rosephotosetc

Probably one of the reasons I seldom post here, although I have an idea every once or two days is the lack of time.I am caught up with work and some projects aside which I really love (the latter part that is). If you have been following me on twitter, you know what happened these recent days. After more than a year of doing SEO in one of the dullest industries you can come across, I’m moving towards what I love, which is web 2.0 and social media.

It’s a big step considering I have been working for 2-3 years for different companies. I can now choose where I work from, when I do it and what I want to do. My plans are pretty clear at this moment: write more on my blogs, take on more projects, write more linkbaits, contribute more to social media (just passed the 9,000 pages milestone on StumbleUpon) and take some more for myself. Plan on meeting new people, traveling more and just seeing how far I can go.

I’ll still be online most of the day and night active on digg, stumbleupon, reddit and the others, writing, chatting and blogging. So hope to meet new people and strenghten the relationship with my existing friends. Looking forward to a happy, productive summer! Thanks to all the friends that support me now and in the past!

I have recently did a guest post for Daniel from DailyBlogTips.com. This article continues the topic about StumbleUpon spring cleaning I have already tackled. After banning users that only stumble upon spam and commercial content, StumbleUpon is now going after spam websites.

Seems that the social media environment will be a cleaner one.

You can read the full guest post at DailyBlogTips. I would love your feedback.

I am trying to get a constant rate of updating this blog, but I am caught up with some other projects I am really excited about. But have some ideas in mind, I’ll keep you posted!

I was talking about a SEO strategy with a client when I was hit with one of the most absurd offers I ever came across. Indeed, SEO is a job where you cannot really make promises because there are a lot of unknown factors in the ecuation. This is a follow-up to another post I did about SEO and social media services that promises but don’t promise but don’t deliver, but this time with a twist: outrageous prices for practically useless things.

It seems there are a lot of clients with practically no SEO experience that believe that such a service is generally worth over $2000. Otherwise, I cannot explain the crazy offer that follows :

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I have recently heard news about StumbleUpon banning several accounts because the users submitted comercial content. Here is the message these unfortunate stumblers usually received:

Regrettably, your account privileges have been suspended due to a breach of our TOS. I respectfully draw your attention to our Terms, particularly with respect to the clauses which forbid the use of personal accounts for the promotion of a business, product or service, and also with regard to the sending of ’spam’ messages to other members.

Our terms can be found here: http://www.stumbleupon.com/terms.html

Under the circumstances, the restriction is unlikely to be lifted.

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