If You Like Searching and Hate Reading...

I came across a new search engine yesterday called SearchMe that takes a more visual approach to search. Personally I think it's very cool to see the results and be able to flip through them iPod-style.

Using SearchMe is pretty easy, drop your query in the search box and then if applicable you can choose the appropriate category.

Above I used my last name and you can see I had the choice of dentists, painters, actors, religiousy folks, and advertising. Because my modus operandi here happens to be strategic web based narcissism I clicked on Advertising & Marketing.



This brought me to a screen full of screen shot results for Dumouchel as it relates to Advertising and Marketing. You can see my LinkedIn Profile, my Yahoo Search Ambassador page, and the Systems & Marketing Solutions web site amongst other results. You can flip between results using the arrows at the bottom of the results page.

SearchMe has some basic setting for you to play with as well. You can block adult results, choose night or day color schemes, and choose to either open your selections in the same window or a new one.

The thing I want to find out is if they are pulling their own results or if they are piggybacking off of another engine. The results I pulled for various queries that I follow didn't match what I typically see in the big 3. Plus it doesn't have robdumouchel.com indexed at all just yet.

I think we're going to see a lot more visual search in the future, and I'm kind of excited to see it develop. I know some big corporations like AT&T are exploring the space (they're calling it POGO), but I'm rooting for a break out little guy.

Even Google has been adding visual elements to their SERPs. First it was maps and videos, and now today I found that the result for my LinkedIn profile has my profile picture beside it. I hear they're going to do this with Facebook too.

I'm really interested to see how this progresses and if it pulls any mainstream attention. I think as a society Americans would prefer to not read stuff if at all possible, so Visual Search has a lot of potential.

Rob’s Recommended Reading of the… um Last 2 weeks or so

I’ve been a busy boy the last couple weeks with new clients coming online and the end of my semester at school rapidly approaching. I’ve been keeping a list of good stuff for you guys, it just hasn’t exactly made its way to the interweb until just now.

Does This Campaign Make My Ad Group Look Fat? An exploration of how Adwords is kind of like a Psycho girlfriend and what you can do to cope. I wrote this for my Adwords Monster Blog, it's been floating around the office for a month while we tried to figure out if it would be funny to people that aren't us. I think it's awesome personally :)

12 Reputations Every Company Should Monitor Online Some good tips from Andy Beal who will probably visit my website now that I mentioned him. Hi Andy! He gets into some things you might not have thought to monitor like key executives and PR people.

10 Reasons Why Everyone Should Love PPC I thought this was a great take on the upside to PPC. I really like the control you have over the medium, the ability to split test easily, and the ability to start and stop at will.

The True Cost of SEO I have to try to explain to somebody at least once a week that SEO is not free. The traffic is free, but what is your time worth? How much do you have to pay an SEO to get you started? How much did your web guy charge you to implement changes? That stuff costs money even if the clicks don’t!

Study Shows Targeted Ads Make Users Uneasy There they go again proving things that don’t need to be proved. Of course people feel a little weird when they stop and think about it. But if an ad is properly targeted a user shouldn’t notice it.

Best Practices When Moving Your Site (by Google) Google’s Webmaster Central Blog gives out some pointers on moving a site to a new domain without nuking your rankings.

Where are all the Google Data Centers? I’m such a cool guy I found you a map!

21 Reasons Why Twitter is Bullshit I’ve come to like Twitter, but I’ll admit at least 2/3 of this is basically true. I’m personally having problems with number 17: “Just ‘cos you work on the internet, and Twitter happens to be on the internet, does not mean Twitter is work.”

While I’m talking about Twitter, Check out this Video with the Twitter Founders. Notice towards the end when asked about monetization there is a 4 minute diversion about being a global resource first and the money will follow or some crap. They did however launch Twitter Japan with an ad block in it. Sign of things to come that actually turn a profit?

6 Ways That Bloggers are Like Rappers Pure genius :) Can’t wait to see Shoemoney on Cribs, he better have a Lambo or at least a Rolls.

The Web 2.0 Site Screw You Coefficient You didn’t know we did math here did you? A fun explanation of how unpopular features that might make money get implemented into websites.

Do You Have My Stapler? I didn’t realize Milton was on LinkedIn  And by the looks of things, his LinkedIn question drummed up at least 24 leads in regards to the whereabouts of his stapler.

Danish PM Finds Running Partners on Facebook How cool is that? Honestly. It’s stuff like that that makes me want to move back to Scandinavia.

You Walk Wrong! As somebody that logs 20-30 miles a week on foot this was really interesting to me. Plus it explains a lot of the weird aches and pains I get in my knees and hips. If I could walk around barefoot and not be looked at like a crazy person I’d be all about it. I would still buy shoes out of force of habit though. The Vivo Barefoot shoes they shout out in the article are kind of interesting to me, but I don’t think I would part with $150 for shoes that are barely shoes.

According to My Shoes, I am Quite the Leader

Just to prove that you can prove anything you want scientifically, as it turns out buying shoes is a sign of a leader. (Always buying sneakers? It’s the sign of a leader) According to the article:

“Got a passion for buying sneakers? It could be a good sign, with a poll finding that people who buy three pairs of sneakers or more a year are far more likely to be a leadership type than other people.”

So if you buy more than three pairs of sneakers a year you are 61 percent more likely to have the qualities of a modern leader. The qualities of a modern leader turn out to be pretty awesome. You get to have ideas, vision, and a style that is both inclusive and decisive. What does that even mean? Oh yeah, nothing. Honestly who comes up with these studies? This just in… candy found to be delicious.

So I wonder what it means when you buy 3 pairs of shoes at time with a frequence. I have a thing for classic Vans slip-ons, I buy tons of them. Every month or so I cruise the Van's Outlet and scoop up all the weirdest size 11's they have. (BTW If you have unique tastes and live near a Vans Outlet you can score great shoes for between $10-20 instead of the usual $45-60.) Luckily being a full time internet professional I can show up to a meeting in pink shoes with bats on them and it's ok.

Anyways, I digress… so what kind of leader do these make me?



I'm going to go ahead and say and awesome one.

If you'd like to buy me some new shoes (11's) to feed my leadershipy-ness, you can do so here.

Twitter's Error Message... Honestly What's Going On?

I've been playing with Twitter a little bit, I've given in to the SEO peer pressure. I figured all the cool kids are doing it so I guess I should too.

Anyways I always figured Twitter was a happy, friendly, fluffy website. I mean it's called Twitter, you tweet there. But their error page troubles me a little bit. I mean honestly did the bird go rogue and destroy their robot? That red eyeball is kinda creepy man. It's got a demon robot sort of vibe going on... I'm just saying.

Rob's Recommended Reading of the Week

Here's this weeks best posts and stories from around the web according to my favorite source, me.

Ten things you didn't know about Facebook. A guest post by Jesse Stay on Guy Kawasaki's blog.

Expanded Broad Match Speaks German Now Too? Scheiße! An article I wrote for my Adword Monster blog earlier this week.

Guide to optimizing PDF's for search engines

Microsoft on determining Search Engine Spam from Email Spam. It's kind of a no brainer when you think about it.

How to mail a brick to junk mailers with their own envelopes. If it isn't mail fraud somehow, it's genius.

You Want SEO Standards? Well, Here Ya Go! Recently everyone has been all bent out of shape over how one sets standards to an industry that basically has no rules. I think this sets the matter straight :)

The Ten Worst Job Interview Questions Ever. My favorite interview question ever: "Where does your boss think you are right now?" asked at 2:30 on a Tuesday. (It was my "Saturday" btw)

Married Soldiers Now Allowed To Live Together In Iraq. This just makes me happy on the inside. Soldiers, especially soldiers with families, get messed with so much that it's nice to see the Army doing something good for all the separated overextended folks out there.

Google Algorithm Exposed! Holy crap!

Since somebody obviously didn't get the message last week, Don't mess with the internets!

Aaron Wall's new Rank Checker, cool tool for quickly checking your position in the SERP's.

It's Cool the CIA uses Google too, hopefully they don't start using YouTube and Twitter.

Mountain Man Probably Scares Chuck Norris, Luckily He Wants to be My Friend

This week I got a friend request from a guy nicknamed “Mountain Man,” who also happens to be my Myspace Friend Request of the Week. Sounds pretty illustrious, hey? He stood out for two obvious reasons 1) he’s a dude 2) He looks like a ripped homeless person that is either an unemployed shoe-bomber or a roadie for Matisyahu.

Normally when I get a friend request and I can’t figure out a good reason as to why we should be connected I deny, but with this I was far too curious to miss out on what Myspace greatness might be waiting for me… Oh and my best guess as to how I got friended – the Adword Monster is 8’11” with a bodybuilder body type.

Once I got to the page and started fishing around, the guy is actually really interesting. He works out alone in his garage and does crazy person stuff like eat whole eggs. Whole as in white, yolk, and shell. He gained internet fame on a bodybuilder forum as a breakout personality. It looks like he’s trying to spin some of that notoriety into marketing momentum for himself, his band, and his ideas. He’s done a good job of harnessing accidental internet niche fame and making it work for him.

If you get a chance, check out a full interview with Mountain Man on BodyBuilding.com and his Myspace page.

Oh and I added him btw. Partially because he’s interesting, but mainly because he scares the hell out of me! Would you tell that guy no?

And finally for your viewing pleasure… the right(?) way to eat an egg.

Best Website Error Message Ever

I was cruising iStockPhoto today for some images to make a mailer for one of my websites and as it is prone to doing it died on me. But as a consolation prize it gave me the best error message ever.

10 Obscure Rob Facts

As a general rule I refuse to participate in the furtherance of chain-letter-esque e-mails and bulletins. But I recently got one that my special lady friend made me do and it actually turned out pretty interesting. I did however resist and refused to "tag" 10 other friends to continue the propagation of the horribleness that is a chain bulletin.

10 Odd, remarkable, possibly true, useless facts about me:

1. According to the State of California I am 6 foot 9
2. I was once in a Swedish Teen magazine
3. I have an expert badge for grenades and bayonets eventhough I’ve never actually harmed anybody with either
4. I obsessive compulsively read about 9 million blogs every day partially because I can’t help it and partially because it’s part of my job
5. I’ve been paid to explain Myspace to old people
6. I’ve had dinner with the Finance Minister of Sweden and wouldn’t eat anything his wife (the former ambassador to Japan I think) served because, well... it was gross
7. I was High School athlete of the week in the Milwaukee Journal when I was a freshman
8. I shared an elevator with the Ying Yang twins in Sherman Oaks one time
9. I might be an extra in the Lindsay Lohan classic I Know Who Killed Me, but out of principal I won’t rent or buy it to find out
10. I want to sell my truck and buy a Vespa so no one ever asks me to drive again and I only have to fill my 2.5 tank every 200 miles or so