Ian M Rountree

Copywriter, Project Manager, Digital Marketing

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Examples of Progress – TRON Legacy

December 18, 2010 by Ian Leave a Comment

This is not a review.

I grew up with TRON being a massive force of innovation in the video industry. The ideas it presented – the way it presented them… It was a fantastic movie, for its time.

Many of my fellow Earthlings (that’s the Modern Earth Web Design team) and I attended one of the first showings of TRON: Legacy last night.

It was geeky. It was beautiful. It was a perfect extension and continuation of the original.

So, in honour of this, and of Video Saturday, here are the trailers for both of these movies. Enjoy!

TRON – Released July 9th, 1982

TRON Legacy – Released December 17th, 2010

How far we’ve come.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: disney, i feel old, modern earth, movies, reviews, tron, upgrades

Monetizing Blogs

December 9, 2010 by Ian 1 Comment

The important question is this: Do you want to make money from your blog, or because of it?

I don’t often agree with Bill Boorman, but when he said this, it resonated. Here’s why.

Let’s start with how to effectively monetize a blog. There are a lot of ways – and I’ll leave a giant caveat right here; I’m not an expert. I don’t do blog monetization for a living. So we’ll stick with the most common, fly-by-day ways to generate money.

  • Affiliate programs like selling ebooks, downloadables and subscriptions.
  • Ads like Google Adsense, adbrite, Chitika and so on.
  • Box ads from networks like [find some]
  • Virtual products you develop yourself.

And then there’s the drop-dead simple way you can generate business – rather than extracting money – from your blog.

  • Use your blog to generate business by demonstrating worth, knowledge, and care for potential clients and community members.

One of these approaches is far more simple than the other. Any guesses which one?

Oh, and why do I care?

I avoided ads on this blog for years. It’s never been my primary focus – making money from my web presence was just never something I considered. Sure, the idea of “passive income” was appealing, but I know better – having been blogging actively for half my life, I know there’s no such thing as just setting up a website and letting the cash roll in. Even super-adified blogs need content – and in order to make more money, better content is needed all the time. Dropping in some Google Adsense boxes on a mediocre blog isn’t the answer.

That being said, if you look to the right, you’ll see some ad boxes.

No, I’m not a hypocrite – let me explain.

I have no problems with affiliate marketing or advertising on blogs – I just believe it needs to be done well or not at all. Part of where most people fall down is defining what “affiliate marketing done well” is.

Me? I’m picky about the things I support publicly. I’ve written less than half a dozen book reviews in the last year. I’ve written no movie reviews. I’ve written no software or online service reviews that contained buy-this-now suggestions (though this is going to change soon). I don’t have Adsense boxes on my blog – I did, by accident, last week, but they’re gone now because someone pointed them out. Yes, there are some ad boxes – but every one of them relates directly to something that helps me get work done online. For example, Digging into WordPress helped me make the most of Standard Theme when I redeveloped the site recently. I believe that anyone who has the interest should pick up both, and get better work done.

However – as I’ve tried to explain clearly on the About This Blog page – I’m not selling ads, I’m not selling content. Because part of my work in this space is professionally-based, it should be clear that I’m using this blog as a community tool more than anything else. Of course I want to leave myself open to making money – who wouldn’t? – and for that reason, I’ve very selectively chosen some passive programs I can expend an incredibly low amount of energy on, basing the things I’m supporting (and which have the potential to support my blog) around the kinds of tools I use to get better work done, both for myself and for clients at Modern Earth.

Need a good professional WordPress theme? I’ll recommend Digging into WordPress and StandardTheme if you’re building for yourself. However, for any kind of broad business application, I absolutely believe there’s no substitute for professional quality designs, programs, and custom-built solutions. Modern Earth has some of the best web workers I’ve ever met, hands down.

At the end of the day, you really do have to ask the question – if you’re attaching your blog to your business, how does any monetization strategy fit in? And, when it comes to brass tacks, which is more important – and beneficial in the long run? A few ads – or a few new relationships?

Image by Andrew Magill.

Filed Under: Marketing Strategy Tagged With: ads, adsense, blogs, business, business plans, chitika, endorsements, google, monetization, money, reviews

Business Book Review – Inbound Marketing

December 3, 2010 by Ian 1 Comment

A blogger, an SEO and a social media expert walk into a bar…

One of the tricks about building a good library is finding books at every level of expertise. For new media workers, this couldn’t be more important – we all have varying degrees of skill in the ten or fifteen areas we need to approach regularly in our jobs because, let’s face it, none of us is “just an SEO” or “just a blogger.” With so many of our skills being relatively new, and so maleable to the moment of their use, we not only need books that address multiple levels of skill across a variety of disciplines, we also need material that’s at once precise in its detail, and timeless in its theory.

Inbound Marketing: Get Found using Google, Social Media and Blogs is exactly the right mix of these attributes.

The book focuses on the wide-funnel approach new media tools are allowing businesses to use to grow. The premise, that many businesses now have the ability to grow simply by making themselves available on the web, is a big deal these days – and it’s working for a lot of people. Using new media tools, companies like Zappos and foundations like Wikipedia (both featured in the book) have done amazing things; in addition to building business or awareness, they’ve participated in a fundamental cultural shift. The Pitch, as it was even five years ago, is no longer the only way to get customers. The secret is now (as it always has been, but for different reasons) to Be Remarkable.

Each chapter in the book tackles a range of subjects from simple definitions of blogging, social media, and inbound marketing theory – all the way up the chain of specificity to customer conversion on blogs, landing page best practices, and picking PR agencies. The format really appealed to me – definition, reasons behind the benefits of whichever subject was being looked at, followed by a case study highlighting a great example of people doing it right. This practicality worked quite well, lending a sense of education, and the feeling of action-ability to each subject.

For example, here are the sub-headings in the chapter on blogging, one of the longest in the book:

  • Getting Your Blog Started Right
  • Authoring Effective Articles
  • Help Google Help You
  • Making Your Articles Infectious
  • give Your Articles a Push
  • Starting Conversations with Comments
  • Why Blogs Sometimes Fail
  • The Gift That Keeps On Giving
  • Consuming Content with RSS
  • Subscribe to Relevant Industry Blogs
  • Contribute to the Conversation
  • Tracking Your Progress
  • Inbound in Action: Whole Foods

In fifteen pages, Halligan and Shah take the reader through the entire cycle of effective blogging – from design needs to article development. It’s an impressive feat, especially since the information is approached from a universal best-practices direction.

And that’s just blogging – there’s so much more in this book.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media marketing, what skills to hire for when searching for marketing professionals, choosing and measuring PR agencies… The range of subjects isn’t just fit for a marketing professional, much of this information could be used by anyone doing online work – and should be! Web designers could benefit from understanding how marketers use conversion tools and metrics. Programmers who understand the needs of bloggers could help develop better systems.

The list goes on.

Inbound Marketing is an interesting read. The presentation is highly textbook-like in its instructional tone, but Halligan and Shah have a dynamic writing style that keeps interest for longer than any instructional text I’ve ever read. The subject matter at once applies to beginners looking for an understanding of basic online marketing theory – and provides insights for intermediate marketers as well. Experienced web professionals may find themselves a little under-informed by this book – but I’d still heavily recommend it as a reference, especially when looking to communicate at a more introductory level.

In short; Inbound Marketing belongs on the reference shelf of every online professional, because of its no-nonsense approach to very complicated subjects. The broadness of its information means the book itself will remain relevant for some time.

I say; buy it if you haven’t already. Get Inbound Marketing: Get Found using Google, Social Media and Blogs by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah from Amazon.

Small Update: This book has been revised and updated as of 2014 – but I haven’t read the new version yet, so I can’t endorse it in detail. I’ll probably read it eventually, and a link to any future book review I do of that edition will go here when and if it is written.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: blogs, book review, books, marketing, resources, reviews, social media, thumbs up

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