Should all blogs be removed?

Steve Burnard, business developer at Adobe says in .net October issue 2007:

“I would remove blogs, for the followiing reasons: They’re personal opinions, usually by people who are unqualified to have an objective opinion. They can be out of date, yet will still be reference as valid”.

Steve Smith on SEM in Econtent

Some quotes from Steve Smith in his column Follow the money in Econtent March 2007 Vol. 30 Iss. 2:

“Buying traffic is the easy part. Keeping those eyeballs is where things get dicey… The problem with buying traffic from search is that unless you have a strategy for converting those new users into brand loyalists, you will find yourself repurchasing that eyeball again and again. Maybe that is good for ecommerce, but it seems to me a disastrous strategy for content…”

“…the smart SEM strategy always combines with good SEO. You learn from the successful keywords you buy in order to optimize the page and get those same results free from organic search the next time. But that stratgey, while less costly, still keeps a site addicted to the new opiate of content, search”.

Tim Bray on XML in Linux journal

“I’m horribly unsatisfied and keenly aware of all the ways in which XML could have been better, mostly by being smaller and simpler. XML adressed a huge, painful problem (standardized machine-independent data format) at the right time, and it didn’t suck just enough, so it became the default solution”.

Said by one of the editors of the XML specification 1.0 Tim Bray in Linux Journal november 2006 issue 151.

But he also concludes to the pro of XML:

“…I’m happy that the world has bought into the notion of sending data around in a way that is thouroghky internationalized and radically independent of any programming language or operating system or hardware”.

Quote on the danger of Internet from Swedish psychologist

“Parents, keep track on your children at the computer. Internet can be as life itself. It can be dangerous”.

A quote from the Swedish psychologist Christer Olsson catched from Aftonbladet 19 november 2006.

Jeff Bezo on customers on the Net

“If you have an unhappy customer on the Internet, he doesn’t tell his six friends, he tells his 6,000 friends.”

Jeff Bezo, CEO Amazon.com

I found this quote in the book Hot text by Jonathan Price. I haven’t found the primary source for this quote, but maybe someone know? Maybe from an interview?

Stefan Engeseth on enterprises use of consultants

“If someone is swimming in wrong direction he or she bumps into and irritates. Enterprises need someone who swims in wrong direction and breaks patterns. But unfortunately the punishment is so hard for employees doing it that instead the enterprise have to take in consultants”.

Quote by Stefan Engeseth in an interview in Computer Sweden 20 November 2006. Stefan Engeseth is a well-renowed consultant and has written the best-selling books One: a consumer revolution for businesses and Detective marketing. His blog is called Detective marketing.

But hey there! I think he needs a language consultant to help him spell ;-)

Christer Hermansson on review lists and fiction in libraries

It’s always refreshing reading the column “Inblick (eng. insight)” in Biblioteksbladet (eng. Library Magazine) written by librarian and author Christer Hermansson, even if you don’t agree or understand him. Read this translated quote:

“Not like absent-minded looking through review lists from BTJ with worthless judgments by self-satisfied amateurish critics. The librarians are still clutching the BTJ review lists tight like alcoholics hold their bottles”.

BTJ review lists are very common lists of book reviews written by underpayed so called critics used by public librarians in Sweden to figure out which books to buy.

Christer also says that librarians should be more active with marketing fiction in libraries. Last sentences of the column quoted here:

“It’s time to begin working purposeful with fiction and show the authors the respect they deserve. 96% of the Swedish authors can’t live on their authorship, according to Sveriges författarförbund (eng. Swedish society for authors), but 100% of the Swedish librarians can live on managing the books of the authors”.

Christer Hermansson is a Swedish author and has written fiction in the genre absurdism. The latest is: “Pappa Luigi betraktade mina smala handleder (eng. Daddy Luigi looked at my thin wrists)”

Bruce Schneier on Microsoft an DRM

Sometimes you hear these splendid similes like this one from Bruce Schneier in Wired News 7 September:”…trying to make digital files uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet.”