Feb
13
Posted in Internet
Oh, I’ve heard the horror stories. Yahoo!’s been kicking out innocent publishers from their poorly organized BETA program for a long time now. For some, Yahoo! accuses the webmasters of click fraud, for others, vague terms such as “lack of conversion”. They never lay out exact reasons or rationale behind their banning; they simply use and abuse their publishers when they feel necessary. Disagree with Yahoo!? Too bad! They obviously don’t care if you care about their relationship with you…
Let me first give you some background on my relationship with Yahoo!. I’ve been a Yahoo! Publisher Network member for almost two solid years now. I am what you would call one of their relatively bigger partners: I’ve been cranking out mid-$XX,XXX annually since the program’s beginning. I was originally invited to the program when I went to the Ad:Tech conference, hosted in New York in 2005, and met up with/became friends with a few representatives from Yahoo!. They wrote my name and information down, and a month or two later, I was invited in one of the first few rounds of publisher invites they sent out.
Anyways, this brings me to the bad news. Recently, I’ve had my ad targeting disabled in the Yahoo! Publisher Network account manager. This is a sad move on Yahoo!’s part, as I have always been a hard-line YPN fanatic when it comes to the never ending Google Adsense vs. YPN debate. For most of my higher traffic sites, I’ve previously switched out Adsense ads in favor of YPN ads, and have produced solid click-through rates and eCPMs ever since my induction into the program in late 2005.
Anyways, Yahoo! claims my “conversion is not meeting with industry standards”, and therefore, they believe removing my ad targeting capabilities will resolve the problem. Rather than taking it on themselves that their horrendous contextual ad targeting FAILS at delivering even 1/4 of what Google has to offer, they take the liberty to blame it all on me, when I am clearly not the one at fault. I have never abused the ad targeting mechanism, never targeted insurance ads on a gaming website, never tried to pry more money than I deserve out of their publisher network.
I immediately, of course, emailed the Yahoo! representative that informed me of this non-sense. Ever since ad targeting has been disabled, my click-through rate has remained the same, yet my RPC has plummeted over 80%. Goes to show that I wasn’t abusing the system at all, because my users are equally interested in the stuff that I targeted towards them, as they are the junk that Yahoo! now shows them. After the click-through, it’s not my fault at all if there is no conversion. They can’t possibly run a legit CPC program if they are going to impact publisher’s earnings based on after-click conversion. Then it’s not a CPC program anymore. It’s CPA, and they’re false advertising it as CPC so as to attract a larger market. Go figure.
The Yahoo! representative replied back and failed to even attempt to make a deal to re-instate my targeting powers. She even took the time to let me know that “[they] are doing [me] a favor by disabling [my] Ad Targeting, as [they] only provide this option for [their] long-time partners. Most YPN abusers are banned on the spot, no questions asked.” Thank you ma’am, but I pay for your salary. Stop treating me like a piece of cow dung and realize that this is supposed to be a symbiotic relationship. 50/50. Not Yahoo! > Robert Afnani. Anyways, she didn’t really get that so I gave up. My other two friends at Yahoo! have long since ‘moved on’ in careers, so I really don’t have any top-secret connection anymore to keep me going strong (at least till next Ad:Tech, heh).
The Yahoo! Publisher Network program has really slipped since it began. Gone are the days when RPCs skyrocketed past $1.00 a click. Gone are the days of friendly publisher/customer/client support, when a live Yahoo! representative would help publishers improve their sites to make more money. Gone are the days that Yahoo! cared to build a strong bond between YPN and its respective publishers.
Yahoo! really is a falling knife. I’m going to revert most of my contextual advertising space to Google now.
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Feb
11
Posted in Stocks
Day trading is an extremely stressful gamble to take part in. It’s no wonder NYSE day traders have been known to have the highest suicide rates among all white-collar jobs. Probably one of the worst feelings in the entire world has to be losing money in real-time on a risky day trade. There is nothing worse than seeing your hard-earned cash evaporating on a computer screen, leaving you powerless as you lose it all. The worst part is as we hold onto the stock, in hopes that it will recover, we’re often just slammed with more losses. At the end of the day, you pretty much lose all sense of reality. Your brain’s dopamine is reduced to near nil, and you feel like you’ve wasted your life.
“Yesterday,
All my troubles seemed so far away,
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay,
Oh, I believe in yesterday.”
-The Beatles
Yesterday, by The Beatles, represents how I feel when I lose a few thousand in a day in the stock market. It stinks. You regret every part of it. You could spend a whole month day trading, make $10,000 on a $50,000 cash account, and lose it all in one day. One hour. Heck, a few minutes. If only there was a way to go back in time… to yesterday, when troubles just seemed so far away…
It’s been proven that losing money has a bigger emotional effect on the mind than does making it. I don’t remember the source (I believe I heard it on CNBC during Power Lunch), but losing money has a 2.5X bigger emotional response than making money. What does that mean? The effect that losing $1,000 has on your brain releases the same amount of dopamine as making $2,500. Crazy, huh? We really do hate losing our money.
However, there are ways to stomach your losses. There have been many times were I’ve wanted to call it quits, cash out, and go cry home about how much I’ve lost. But I don’t. I keep doing it, I keep riding the waves, and I never give up. Here’s how I keep going:
- Go crazy - get some stuff you don’t mind destroying and place them nearby your desk. Believe me, it’s better smashing a $5 RadioShack micro-RC car to pieces then punching your 21″ LCD and cracking the display, or tossing your iPod out the window. It can get pretty bad sometimes, so make sure you’ve got something to squeeze on.
- Get an aquarium - you’d be surprised how stress-relieving an aquarium can be for your work environment. When times are at their worst, just take a look at nature. The fish go round and round, nothing bothers them. You be the same. Try to control your emotions and learn from the fish: don’t give up on life (or stocks) and don’t let anything bother you or keep you from cherishing life, however pointless it all may seem at the time.
- Listen to loud music - depending on whether your workroom is a public office or your home room, you may or may not need headphones. Just jam out. I personally drive around town in my Audi A4. Nothing better than cranking up the two 12″ Alpines to max bass tuning out the buzz of the real world. Which brings me to…
- Go for a cruise around town - hop in the car, roll down the windows (if it’s nice, sunny, and warm outside), and drive around town. Though this may or may not be fun depending on what make and model of car you have and how comfortable you are driving, but however you feel, remember to drive safely, and you may just return home a little less stressed out.
- Grab a drink - this should be one of your last resorts, and should only be done amongst a group of friends. Sometimes it’s good to get smashed. With the stock market, getting drunk and forgetting about it may be one of the best ways to pull through a big loss. The second you sell your holdings of the stock, you lose your money. But forget about it with the aid of alcohol, let the stock recover the next day(s, weeks, months), and you may even make some money!
- Play a video game - it can be fun, even for adults. My personal favorite is GTA: San Andreas. Nothing better than runnin’ around town shootin’ up everything you see within a 100 foot radius. Just make sure you limit your anger to in-game. I don’t want to be held responsible for encouraging the next mass-murdering day trader tomorrow on CNBC.
- Have a love life - when the market closes and you’re done for the day, stop thinking about the markets. Call up your girlfriend and do something fun. Whether it’s watching a movie or having sex, you won’t be losing as much hair as you will sitting behind the computer mindlessly lamenting over your loss. Having someone there for you is probably one of the best feelings there is.
Good luck, and don’t forget to get some sleep. Sleeping trouble (only in the stock market, where making money is mostly a gamble) away is probably the safest way to reduce stress and improve your chances at having a better, energy-filled day tomorrow.
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Feb
9
Posted in Internet
I’ve bought out many websites in the past. Some purchases have proved to be worthwhile, while others turned out pretty raw. In the end, my results really came down to how much I was prepared for what the site had to offer, and what my expectations for the future were before I bought out the site. Knowing what you are getting yourself involved in ahead of time is half of the game; having the patience to improve upon the site and recover the cost you had to pay to buy it out is the other half. Here’s a brief list of things to look out for before you spend your hard-earned bones on something that could be your next nightmare:
1. Don’t catch the falling knife - obviously, I like to use this phrase. Take a look at graphs of the website’s statistics. Check out third-party statistics as well; never put your full confidence in what the seller has to say about his/her own website. Alexa.com offers good generalizations of traffic/reach over time. You want to buy the site that is on the up and up, not the site that’s heading towards the gutter.
Many webmasters tend to think they have the “magic skills” that will heal a failing website. Sure, it’s possible, but more likely than not, the site will continue to grow/fall apart in the direction it was going before you got your hands on it. Websites are not like stocks: what goes up will not necessarily come down, and what goes down will definitely not come back up unless you have some sort of plan that will bring it back to the limelight.
2. Expect downtime - when buying out an established site, a lot can go wrong. If you are transferring over a site that takes up 20+ GBs of webspace, and collects thousands of unique views a day, you’re going to find yourself depressed in the corner of an inner-city bar, drinking the night away, if you don’t prepare yourself for the worst. DNS/nameserver transfers take 24-72 hours to fully propagate all over the web. This means at least a day or two of downtime, which will definitely take a chunk out of your traffic once the changeover is complete. Let your visitors know that there’s going to be downtime. Surprising them makes them think you’ve either got hacked, taken down by the FBI, or fell off the face of the planet.
Visitors tend to lose interest fast. When you’re down, they find something else to do, and when they find something else to do, they forget to come back to your site. Furthermore, a day or two of downtime could affect your search rankings, and could also tick off some advertisers (esp. if it’s a larger website with direct ad sales). Make sure you have multiple backups of the databases and site stored locally as well. Sometimes, things can really go wrong and files become corrupted beyond all recognition. Better safe then sorry.
3. Know the topic at hand - do not buy a website that you don’t have expertise in. Don’t buy a site that has to do about taking care of cats if you’ve never owned a cat in your entire life. Likewise, don’t buy a site about advanced SEO techniques if you barely know how to edit the .htaccess file on your webserver. Buy a site that you’re interested in, because when it comes down to it, you’re the one who’s going to have to deal with it every single day till the end of time (or when you sell it).
4. Make friends with the visitors - dedicated visitors tend to dislike site takeovers. The reason why they usually visit a site is because they like how things are going. When you buy out a site, you’re changing things up. And society doesn’t like change. Unless you plan to hire the owner and his staff to continue the maintenance of the site, a lot of things are going to be different. And people will notice, so don’t try and hide it. If anything, make it clear that you’ve bought out the site. Don’t make it too corporate-feeling though, you don’t want to scare off habitual visitors. Make it something smooth, like “Johnny is going to college now, so I’m going to run the site for a bit, but he’s going to continue to give me advice on how to run it for you all”. Corny example, yes, but make up something along those lines.
5. Don’t pay too much - generally, my formula for a website’s value is 10 to 18 times the website’s monthly income. However, there are a lot of other factors which should affect your pitch to the owner. If the site is unique (in design, coding, topic), you should offer more. If the site is just a run-off-the-mill forum site, or anything else based off a publicly available CMS, offer less. Your pitch should reflect the amount of effort the owner put into developing the site. Also, adjust your offer to reflect the site’s growth potential. A site that is niched and hard to expand is worth considerably less than a site which has the potential to attract millions of users.
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Feb
7
Posted in Internet
The other day, I was talking to a webmaster friend about working on a new joint project together. While brainstorming for ideas, a few different routes were investigated. Should we make one, unique website, which dominates its respective niche and churns out money, or create hundreds of small, easy-to-setup throwaway sites which collectively make a good deal of cash? How about make a large network of arcade gaming sites, publicize them on a massive scale (by pouring thousands into Adsense and other advertising programs), monetize them, then kick back and reap the return? Sounds easy enough.
Personally, I find that a balance of large and small sites is the perfect portfolio. It’s much better to keep your eggs split into many different baskets, especially online. In a virtual world where your money-making machines are intangible, and consist only of thousands of lines of code stored in a server somewhere far away from your home, there’s no telling what can go wrong. Server outage, DDoS attack, site hacking, script corruption, crazy man with a gun raiding your datacenter: they all can ruin your day. With large, thoughtful sites set as your main “income generators” and your small, pre-scripted sites set up as “backup generators“, you’ll be sure to have a steady flow of money coming in everyday of the week.
Owning large websites can have its benefits. For one, they look much better on your portfolio. When company’s are interviewing you for a new job, they’d much someone who was the chief editor, lead designer, and founder of IGN.com then someone who uploaded a bunch of pre-made arcade templates to a server and pressed the magic “GO” button on the install script. These are two totally opposite extremes, but it gets the point across.
They’re also more brand-able. A large website consists of a site which has a vast following of users. You can easily leave an image in user’s heads when they visit; they’ll remember what your unique website’s domain name is called, but they won’t remember what ‘the arcade site’s name that their friend yelled to them from the other side of the computer classroom’ is. Not to mention that more brand-ability means more advertisers. Advertisers love associating their product/service with a web property that’s known to lead its respective niche; brand-ability means more money for you!
Everyday I see tons of new webmasters make this decision. Do they want to be ingenious and rock the Internet with the latest idea? Kevin Rose of Digg.com did that. Mark Zuckerberg of FaceBook.com did that. John Chow of JohnChow.com did that. Or do they want to be the “lame ducks” of the Internet generation: feed off the larger sites, attract users through black hat SEO techniques, and copy the money making techniques of thousands of other Internet developers?
Which path will you follow to your success?
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Feb
5
Posted in Business, Real World
Utilizing tax write-offs is a great way to essentially make ’something out of nothing’. For business owners and self-employed individuals, which includes owners of Internet-based companies/websites, tax write-offs are the bread and butter of making the most of your hard-earned money. With the US tax season right around the corner, it’s about time you start compiling a list of things to write-off . Whether you use TurboTax software or consult with an H&R Block representative in order to get your taxes done, there are many legitamite ways of pushing your tax dollars to their limits. Though write-off eligibility could vary from person to person, and sometimes depends on which tax bracket you’re a part of, there’s always a way to get some reduction on your taxes. After all, Uncle Sam doesn’t need all your money.
1. Write off a room in your house/apartment - if your place of residence has multiple rooms, dedicate one of the rooms to solely business activities. Doesn’t have to be the master bedroom, even something a little bigger than a walk-in closet will do. You can write off the value of the room (which, when appraised, may be much higher than you might think) as a business expense, and save a few hundred (or maybe even thousand) dollars.
2. Write off all electronic devices that you need - heck, buy yourself a new top-of-the-line computer every year. Want that new 22″ LCD monitor? Buy it! How about a new PDA or iPhone? Buy it! As long as you can prove to the IRS that at least a portion of it is used for business work, you can write off a respective portion of your taxes (although you may need to capitalize it and depreciate it over time, but essentially, it’s a write-off).
3. Write off a new car - depending on where you live, you could buy or lease a new car and save a chunk of money. Though this mainly applies to people who have more than $30K a year in taxes, you could, using a tax loophole, buy a new luxury SUV that weighs over 6,000 pounds and write-off $30K of its value in the first year (might want to check with your H&R Block adviser on this one). Thinking about leasing? Well you could lease a new 2008 Mercedes C-Class and write-off a major portion of the lease if the car is ‘mainly used as a business car’. Might want to keep the mileage low though, for auditing reasons (wink).
4. Write off gas - use your car to goto Kinkos and make copies of advertising contracts? How about driving to BestBuy to buy that new computer you’re planning on writing off? Well yes, you can write off all the gas that it takes you to get from your home to your destination and back, as long as the destination has something to do with your company’s interest.
5. Write off the food you eat - taking a trip to StarBucks to talk to a prospective client or business partner? Write-off the Grande White Chocolate Mocha as a business expense. Taking fellow staff to dinner at a up-scale restaurant? Write it off (all though you can only write off 50% max of business food expenses)!
6. Write off your server(s) - obviously if you are running an Internet-based company, you’re going to need to have some sort of hosting/servers. Make sure to mention that as a business expense, I mean, what else could you be using a dedicated server for?
7. Write off your donations - care about a particular cause? Want to look philanthropic without losing your shirt? When donating to various causes, whether it be the Ronald McDonald House foundation or the Salvation Army, feel free to write-off all the donation amount from your taxes. Kill two birds with one stone (or save two birds by donating to the PETA)!
And finally, a word for the wise: save ALL receipts and keep detailed logs of all purchases you made that relate to your business. IRS will screw you if you don’t have proof of purchase/usage. And this list is by no means complete; there are many, many more ways of making use of your tax dollars more efficiently if you own a company, just do some more research (or hire the tax guy, and make sure he knows you want to get the write-offs you deserve)!
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Feb
5
Posted in Stocks
Today was a sad day for the NYSE. The DOW closed down 370 points, the biggest one day percentage drop since February 2007. Personally, I suffered major losses. I bought 500 shares of both NWA (Northwest Airlines) and ABK (Ambac) on news that oil prices dropped and a recovery plan is in the works for the bond insurers, respectively. However, they both closed down around unch, but I bought too high mid-day when they were both on an upward trend, so I suffered major losses by the end the day (don’t want to name specifics, but I lost in the $X,XXX).
Market plummeted because Federal Reserve Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker dropped the “R” word in a speech today. What is the “R” word? Recession. And that obviously scared the bee-Jesus out of investors. Not to mention poor financial sector reports and other misc. bad news. Heck, I was just watching CNBC, and they declared today as “Terrible Tuesday”. Boy, they were sure as hell right.
As they say, you win some and you lose some. So far, my stock portfolio over the past month still has a 4% increase, even after today’s substantial losses. And I’m pretty sure we’ll bounce back tomorrow. Markets have been declining heavily for a few days now. It’s about time for investors to regain their confidence and buy some damn stocks. How does “Winning Wednesday” sound to you?
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Feb
4
Posted in Internet
The creation of a strong image is what brings success to individuals, partnerships, and even corporations. People need to know who you are, what you do, where you do it, why you do it, and how you do it in order to be interested in what you have to offer. And interested people means WoM (word-of-mouth), which means more sales and more traffic. It’s a damn domino effect!
On the Internet, branding is no less aggressive as it is in the real world (TV, newspapers, trade shows, etc). With the intense competition for publicity as the over-saturated Internet ad market grows, companies sometimes go a long way (with increasingly deeper pockets) in order to get the word out on their new releases. The traditional methods of advertising no longer work: Internet users have turned a blind eye to the boring standard IAB spots we’ve been using for years. Aligning products and services with high traffic websites is the new thing, and effective branding is the key to doing it.
There are a three main ways of implementing branding successfully online:
3. The “we’re better than them” method - the company flexes its muscles and makes users feel as though there is no competition; that the company is superior, no questions asked. Effective in viral WoM.
Ex. Microsoft blasts Gamespot.com’s PS3 section homepage with Xbox 360 wallpaper and super-leaderboard-size ads.
2. The “we care about our partners” method - the company tries to show that they care for a service (such as a website) by aligning themselves in a personal way. Effective in spreading positive reaction towards the advertiser in a large community.
Ex. Axe purchases “presented by” statement on PSP3D.com’s logo, and performs a site ad spot takeover.
1. The “we are really rich” method - the company slams the target audience with a large amount of advertising, and likewise, press attention in order to create an “in-your-face” effect which imprints an image in user’s heads. Effective in getting users to remember said product/service, as well as spreading WoM.
Ex. Storm Warning Unrated DVD performs full site takeover (wallpaper + roadblock + logo). The works.
As you can see, the advertising techniques presented above are, simply put, ruthless. Some viewers would call them annoying, others would call them marketing masterpieces. But the gist of it is that the early techniques for advertising are obsolete. With interstitial, video pre-roll, and other types of interactive advertising popping up all over the Internet, webmasters are trying their best to make more room for more ads, and advertisers are trying their best to better allocate their ad dollars to achieve the biggest bang for the buck.
In 2008, it’s all about the branding. The 468×60 banner of yesteryear is worthless.
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Feb
4
Posted in Hobbies
Time to show off the whip! Let me start off by saying that I don’t think my ride kicks serious ass. It’s not a fast car, but a luxury car. It’s extremely comfortable, responsive, and the handling is just simply unheard of in its class. Ever since I’ve owned this car, I’ve developed a deep taste for Audi engineering: this car is amazingly fun to drive even if it’s barely pushing 180 HP stock.
Anyways, I picked up this 2005 Audi A4 1.8T used from HBL in Tysons Corner, VA about six months ago (after totaling the previous whip, which was badass). I haven’t done any exterior aesthetic modifications really, I’d rather save my $ for a better car in the near future.
But here are the performance mods:
- Stage 1+ GIAC flash
- TT fuel injectors
- Forge SplitR diverter valve
- RS4 sway bars
- And… that’s it…
Pushing about 230-240 HP. It’s MUCH better than stock, but still, slower than most made-for-speed cars on the road.
Was thinking about going Stage 2 and throwing in a K04 turbo, as well as getting a TIP flash, but may not do that as I really do plan on selling this car within the next 6 months for something a lot better (especially since it’s nearing 50K miles). Even with a warranty up to 100K miles, I don’t like messing with aging German cars, I have heard some horror stories in the past.
I also have a nice audio setup. Two Alpine Type R 12″s in a sealed box, powered by two Alpine M650 amps. Powerful setup, but this car shakes a shit ton when the bass is maxed out, unfortunately. Oh, and the car IS Quattro (Audi’s all wheel drive system), even though the bumper lacks a “Quattro” tag under the “1.8 T” tag. I got rear-ended a month ago by some idiot, and when they replaced the rear bumper/trunk, they forgot to put the badge up.
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Feb
2
Posted in Business, Stocks
With Yahoo!’s market shares losing nearly 40% of their value just in the past three months, and no immediate recovery plan in sight (at least anything announced publicly to analysts and investors), there doesn’t seem to be much light at the end of the tunnel. The 50% increase in stock value on 2/01/2008, upon news of Microsoft’s offer, only goes to show how bad Yahoo!’s situation is: the buyout is the only way they can potentially recover, unless they take some drastic measures to curb their losses. And by drastic, I mean revolutionary. Something that can best Google’s offerings. Something that will change the face of the Internet as we know it. Otherwise, at this rate, Google will continue to absorb users, advertisers, and effectively, potential cash from Yahoo!.
On a personal note, I have recently stopped using Yahoo!’s publisher advertising program, as their RPC (rate per click) has plunged since the program’s onset. Their lack of support for the big publishers, and extremely limited advertiser pool has sent that program down the tubes. I know many fellow webmasters who have also flocked back to Google’s Adsense for their contextual ad serving needs; Yahoo!’s just not cutting the check anymore.
There are a few precedents of technology corporations taking over competitors. The Sprint acquisition of Nextel was one such monumental failure of a purchase. Sprint, with a mindset to use Nextel’s failing network (famous for the push-to-talk walkie-talkie fad) to expand their own network, and hopefully boost their customer reach and better overall service, literally dropped like a rock after reeling Nextel in. After reaching a 52-week high of ~$24 a share in stock value just after the purchase (which falsely boosted investor confidence), Sprint Nextel has plummeted to the point where, just the other day, Sprint announced they are writing off most of Nextel’s purchase value (near 30 billion dollars). Check out their one year stock performance:
This doesn’t necessarily mean that Microsoft will tank if they buy Yahoo!. If they manage to work on Yahoo!’s search algorithms and promotion, and refine advertising stances as well as vastly improve Yahoo!’s publisher advertising network (which is still in BETA even after years of development), they might have something which could potentially take a chunk out of Google’s market (which creates most of its respective revenue from the Adwords/Adsense program as well as sponsored search results).
Lets not forget, however, the main difference between Microsoft and Yahoo! structure: they operate and create their main revenue from two totally different markets. Microsoft has been for years developing and producing a tangible retail product (Windows, of course), and successfully selling it to billions of consumers all around the world. Microsoft has a solid growth plan with multiple layers of fiscal protection, not to mention it’s backed by the richest man in the world, Bill Gates. Sure, Microsoft has been also spending R&D money on improving their presence on the Internet, but so far, all progress has proved lackluster. Heck, the only reason “Live Search” gets any traffic is because IE’s homepage is MSN.com. When a monopoly still fails to compete against Google, you know you’ve got some issues.
Microsoft’s budget appropriation over the past few years has been extremely poor, and their innovation in the world of technology has been near nil. The Zune was poorly accepted by public as it featured no major incentives for iPod users to switch over (not to mention the branding factor that Apple’s marketing dept. did a hell of a job on, which Microsoft utterly failed to reproduce), Vista was void of any real-world improvement to give corporations a reason to re-train staff and spend thousands on new licenses for PCs, and various web ventures like Live.com failed to even barely entice Internet browsers to change their homepage from Google. IE 7? A joke compared to FireFox, king of the browsers in this day.
If I were Bill, I’d be wary of this deal. $44.6 billion dollars is a lot of money, especially for a web-based company. The web bubble continues to grow with each and every over-priced dot com sale. The poor spending habits as of late will surely come back to haunt them in the distant future. Microsoft surely won’t go out of business, but they may be in for some hard times ahead if they go through with this deal. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.
Digg: http://digg.com/business_finance/Yahoo_Is_Microsoft_Trying_To_Catch_A_Falling_Knife
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Feb
2
Posted in Internet
Whelp, what a day! The blog landed on the homepage of both Digg.com and Fark.com, two of the leading Internet community news/content sharing websites. Thanks guys!
A few people have mentioned I need a server upgrade. Well, yes and no. I own a few dedicated servers for all the websites I run; I am not running off some shared hosting crap that some have suggested. This blog currently runs on a Intel Xeon 3060 Dual Core Conroe Processor with 4 GB of registered RAM. Today’s downtime was not bottlenecked by a connection overload, but actually, a CPU overload. Memory usage maxed out at 93.6%, with the highest recorded server load at 121.06 (cPanel experts, you should know what I’m talking about).
Reason? Well, since I haven’t used WordPress in a while, I kinda over-estimated its efficiency at processing large requests of data. It really stinks. Probably one of the worst pre-made CMSs that I’ve had to deal with. Furthermore, this blog actually runs on the dedicated server of one of my other, rather large, forum websites, which also has a poorly coded CMS (vBulletin). I wasn’t really anticipating the immense scale of attention that the stories received, so I didn’t get a chance to properly prepare the server for heavy load (minimize useless services, enable caching, etc).
So yeah, there you have it. In an effort to protect the uptime of my other site, which is a money maker (this blog makes peanuts; I can’t sacrifice real sites for the blog unfortunately), I was basically forced to temporarily suspend this blog (hence the 404, 403, 550 errors people were complaining about) so as to ensure the main site’s uptime.
I pay unlimited bandwidth for my rack of servers, and as much as I appreciate hordes of people informing me the blog is down, I don’t appreciate derogatory comments regarding my server and administration of the server thereof. I have complex load-balanced, multi-server setups for some really big sites. My point? I’m no amateur, I’ve been running high-traffic websites for years and have dealt with the ‘Digg Effect’ many times successfully.
People tend to be overly-stereotypical that teenagers don’t know jack about servers and all the advanced techniques needed to properly maintain a website. But I consider my age is a bonus, not something to be shy about; Internet is my turf and ain’t no one gonna call me an amateur without proof to back it up!
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