Famous Map Makers: Pieter Van Der AA

Pieter Van Der AA Map

Pieter Van Der AA

1659-1733

Pieter Van Der AA, a famous publisher during the beginning of the eithteenth century was apprenticed to booksellers’ trade at nine, later to be come a bookseller and auctioneer.

Acquiring the map plates of earlier cartographers and map mappers, Pieter Van Der AA, was famous for re-issuing several important maps in the eighteenth century.  His most important work was the Galerie Agreable Du Monde, a 27 volume TOME that was issued in 1729 and contained over 3,000 plates.  What makes this so rare and sought after is the publication size, just 100 sets.  Common among his engraving are large maps with separate frame borders that eventually contained maps printed into the blank area.

Read about more famous cartographers and map makers.

Michael Jackson Dies at age 50

Pop giant Michael Jackson, who took to the stage as a child star and set the world dancing to exuberant rhythms for decades, died on Thursday, TMZ website reported. He was 50.

There was no official confirmation of the reported death and spokespersons for Jackson could not be reached for comment.

“We’ve just learned Michael Jackson has died,” TMZ said.

“Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon at his Holmby Hills home and paramedics were unable to revive him. We’re told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back,” the entertainment site said.

Michael Jackson Dies at age 50

It added, “A source tells us Jackson was dead when paramedics arrived.”

Earlier, the Los Angeles Times said the singer had been rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital by fire department paramedics who found him not breathing when they arrived at the singer’s home.

The newspaper said paramedics performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the scene before taking him to the UCLA Medical Center hospital.

Jackson had been due to start a series of comeback concerts in London on July 13 running until March 2010. The singer, whose hits included “Thriller” and “Billie Jean,” had been rehearsing in the Los Angeles area for the past two months.

The shows for the 50 London concerts sold out within minutes of going on sale in March.

His lifetime record sales tally is believed to be around 750 million, which, added to the 13 Grammy Awards he received, makes him one of the most successful entertainers of all time.

He lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on charges of child molestation.

There were concerns about Jackson’s health in recent years but the promoters of the London shows, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson had passed a 4-1/2 hour physical examination with independent doctors.

Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, in Gary, Indiana, the seventh of nine children. Five Jackson boys — Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael — first performed together at a talent show when Michael was 6. They walked off with first prize and went on to become a best-selling band, The Jackson Five, and then The Jackson 5.

Jackson made his first solo album in 1972, and released “Thriller” in 1982, which became a smash hit that yielded seven top-10 singles. The album sold 21 million copies in the United States and at least 27 million worldwide.

The next year, he unveiled his signature “moonwalk” dance move while performing “Billie Jean” during an NBC special.

In 1994, Jackson married Elvis Presley’s only child, Lisa Marie, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1996. Jackson married Debbie Rowe the same year and had two children, before splitting in 1999. The couple never lived together.

Jackson has three children named Prince Michael I, Paris Michael and Prince Michael II, known for his brief public appearance when his father held him over the railing of a hotel balcony, causing widespread criticism.

In memorium: Michael Jackson dead at 50
03:20 PM PT, Jun 25 2009

As news reports and shocked reactions ripple around the world about the news of his death, it’s impossible not to reflect on the eternal and profound mark he left on music and pop culture at large.

While there are countless nerve-tingling moments in his storied career, few had as cataclysmic and immediate impact as his performance of “Billie Jean” on the now legendary “Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Forever” TV special in 1983. For anyone who was there or watching it as it happened, it was a moment that literally changed pop culture overnight.

In celebration of the music and memories, here is that magical moment to relive all over again.

Please feel free to use the comments section to share your thoughts, memories and remembrances of the eternal King of Pop.

– Scott T. Sterling

The Three Who Died: Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon

Yesterday began the deaths of three major figures, each of whom played a part in the advertising world throughout their careers. The latest and maybe most relevant is Michael Jackson, who reportedly died earlier today after suffering a heart attack; he was 50. Before him was Farrah Fawcett, who battled cancer for three years before succumbing to it; she was 62. And yesterday we learned of the passing of Ed McMahon who was 86.

Each of these loved personalities lived his or her life in the limelight and as part of their celebrity status were offered advertising opportunities. The ads they took part in stick out in many of our minds (though we’re not airing the Pepsi ad where Jackson’s hair is lit on fire, for obvious reasons). Jackson and Pepsi, McMahon and Publisher’s Clearing House, Fawcett and Noxzema.

Looming Commercial Real Estate Crash: Where did all that content go?

I recently tried to look up where a Hallmark store was in Portland and of course I first searched online.  Perfect… I found one that was close enough to stop by and grab a card.  We headed out and went to the mall where the Hallmark was listed to be at, and much to our surprise, when we asked a local mall employee they said it wasn’t there any more.

That got me thinking, with all the commercial foreclosures that are piling up, there’s a ton of incorrect content online – so where does this content go when a business closes its doors?  Who’s responsible for taking down a business listing or updating a new address for that business listing?

The current commercial real estate market is a nearly $8 trillion industry that is having its troubles.  “Really since the start of the year the trouble is coming out of the woodwork as far as notices of default, foreclosures, bankruptcies,” said Bob White, founder and president of Real Capital Analytics, a real estate market research firm. “It’s growing alarmingly fast.” Currently, some $50 billion worth of commercial mortgages are in default or foreclosure. White and others in the industry say the worst is yet to come.

With $1.72 trillion of commercial real-estate loans outstanding in the U.S. today, and $300 million of that sum coming due this year alone, the Federal Reserve hopes to launch a program by next month to refinance large commercial properties such as office towers and malls. Although the sector isn’t in big trouble yet, rents and occupancies are starting to fall, and the Fed aims to provide up to $1 trillion of new credit to head off a “looming crisis” of spiraling commercial foreclosures.

It sure looks like a lot of commercial property address listings are going to be changing over the next few years.

Defensive Domain Registrations: Blackwater vs. XE.com

Blackwater Worldwide has decided to change their name to “XE”. Here’s more on the article about the blackwater name switch.

So, we all know about xe.com, a currency conversion website.  My initial thought is that there’s no way that Blackwater will be able to get their hands on that domain, so what’s second best?

XEsecurity.com – nope, this was registered by XE.com Yesterday.

XEinternational.com – nope, this too was registered by XE.com Yesterday.

XEinc.com – There it is! This one’s been registered by the Blackwater group since 2004.

It should be interesting to see what happens here, I could easily see XE.com really pushing this trademark issue considering that they are making defensive domain registrations based on the news of the Blackwater name change.

Mastering the Google Content Network

Think about this for a second…

Google has the ability to display text ads on millions of websites that have a reach of millions of vistiors every day.  These sites include well known media outlets, blog networks, and niche communities.  With Google’s content network you have the ability to tap into these sites with targeted and relevant ads.

So why wouldn’t you want to?

Historically Google’s Content network has really had a hard time driving conversions, rather they would drive a lot of clicks, but all of that traffic had a hard time converting.  In the middle of 2007 that all changed, Google started cleaning up the content network and advertisers have been flocking to re-try the advertising medium.  One of the big changes that Google made was allowing you to see which URLs your ads are showing on.

Ok, So How do I Optimize for the Google Content Network?

Daniela Araujo is an expert at optimizing for the Google Content Network and she has some excellent tips on how to drive up conversions within the network.

Here are some tips from Daniela:

* Include in an ad group, not only very specific keywords, but also generic keywords that describe the specific industry or field for each product or service;
* Run separate campaigns on Google content and search, because a keyword may not have equal success in both channels. Also, budgets and bidding can be managed more efficiently when content and search campaigns are running separately;
* Ensure that your ads average positions remain above position three (3), as most sites publish only three Google ads per page;

There are 3 more tips over at Daniela’s site!

My $4/day Isn’t Enough: Starbucks to cut up to 12,000 jobs, close 600 stores

Starbucks Corp announced today it plans to close 600 underperforming stores and eliminate as many as 12,000 full- and part-time positions.

Howard Schultz, the coffee chain’s founder and chief executive, retook the helm in January and quickly announced plans to shutter 100 underperforming outlets. With U.S. sales growth slowing, he slashed plans for store openings and shifted the company’s most ambitious expansion efforts to international markets.

Starbucks said the closures are spread across all major U.S. markets and that 70 percent of the targeted stores have been open since the beginning of fiscal 2006. The accompanying job losses would represent about 7 percent of the company’s global work force.Starbucks estimated that total pretax charges associated with the planned U.S. company-operated store closures, including costs associated with severance, would be in the range of $328 million to $348 million.

The Seattle-based company aggressively opened stores in areas such as California and Florida, which have been hardest hit by the U.S. housing downturn. Some investors, worried that the company had built too many outlets in the United States, pushed the company to increase the number of store closures.

Starbucks also said it will open fewer than 200 new U.S. company-operated stores in fiscal 2009, down from 250 previously.

Donald Trump Sells his $100 Million Dollar Home

Donald Trump sells his $100 million dollar home to a Russian fertilizer billionaire, Dmitry Rybolovlev”:

“This acquisition is simply an investment in real estate by one of the companies in which I have an interest,” Mr. Rybolovlev said in a statement released by Alan Basiev, the head spokesman for Uralkali. It “does not represent a decision by me to live in the U.S.”

If the deal closes in the next few weeks, as planned, it is likely to be the most expensive sale of a U.S. single-family home. “This is the highest price ever paid for a house. And I think it’s a bargain,” said Mr. Trump.

The developer paid $41.4 million for the estate at a bankruptcy-court auction in 2004 and did a cosmetic renovation. Some brokers describe the house as a teardown, saying the property, among Palm Beach’s largest parcels, would be more valuable if subdivided

SMX Advanced Seattle Pictures + Shoutouts

SMX Advanced in rainy (very rainy!) Seattle was a great conference! All the usual suspects were there + a few new faces. I went up with Mike Rosenberg, Lisa Peyton, and Sean McMahon.

Our CEO at EngineWorks was asked to speak at 2 different sessions, one on building value into your SEO company, which was covered on the Bruce Clay Blog and the Search Engine Roundtable, and the other was about Funding, Valuing & Selling SEM Businesses.

On Tuesday I had the chance to meet a lot of great people in the industry.

Over at Acquisio, I had the chance to meet their new CEO, Martin Le Sauteur. Acquisio has developed a PPC management tool for agencies, and they recently have added quite a few new features.

My good friend, Justin Davy at Scripps Networks, introduced me to A.J Negahban. In case you don’t know this company, they’re the ones that own HGTV, the Food Network, DIY Network, and many other properties.

If you think way back to a few years ago you’ll remember a company called Become.com – it’s old yellow brand and business model has since changed and they are going full bore ahead with comparison shopping in a quickly growing market. I had the opportunity to meet Jon Glick, VP of Product Search & Comparison Shopping and Arjun Jayaram, VP of Engineering. It was great to hear what is new at Become and it sounds like the company is poised to grow significantly over the next 5 years.

An agency in Seattle called Portent Interactive was great to talk to while in Seattle. I talked to Stacy Conner and Tom Schmitz and it was great to hear about what Portent is working on.

DoubleClick was well represented at the conference and i had the chance to talk with Michele Goldberg about what’s in DoubleClick’s future, the answer… you’ll just have to wait 2-3 months and see!

Bend, Oregon is a hot spot for SEO companies. Smart Solutions‘ President, Mark Knowles was at the conference, expanding the awareness of his Bend Software Development Company. My colleagues at EngineWorks went out to Umi Sushi in Seattle with Mark and it was great to hear about the new product that Mark’s company is launching very soon.

Also in Bend, I met Mellissa Jenson from Acxiom, which is a data company and it’s interesting to hear what they’re doing with consumer’s data to learn how to market more efficiently to them.

At Bruce Clay Inc, It was great to meet Chris Hart, whom is heading up the company’s east coast expansion. I also had a good change to talk with Bruce Clay about a few international optimization ideas.

Sean McMahon, the CEO at EngineWorks introduced me to Tim Mayer, Yahoo’s VP, Search Business and he was great to meet. Tim’s involvement in the industry goes all the way back to Inktomi, where Sean worked with him to put together an arrangement for TrafficLeaders’ Paid Inclusion product.

I also was happy to see Scott Hendison, Todd Mintz and From SEOmoz: Rand, Jane, Rebecca, Guillian, Scott. David Mihm was also at the show, along with Julian Chadwick from PDXPipeline.com, Chris Winfield, from 10e20, and Ben LLoyd from Amplify Interactive. While at the conference I had the chance to also chat with Bob Tripathy from Discover.com, Marianne Sweeny from Ascentium, Stephan Spencer, Founder & President at NetConcepts & Brian Klais, VP Search at NetConcepts.

At the end of Wednesday I had the awesome chance to meet Michael McDermott, the VP of sales at Resort Technology Partners. RTP offers point of sale & ecommerce solutions for resorts around the world.

Are You a Leader? Just look at Your Shoes

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 that other people.

Mindset Media, a media company that examines personality traits of different consumers, found that people who buy more than three pairs of sneakers a year are 61 percent more likely to have the qualities of a modern leader.

These qualities were defined as having ideas and vision, and a style with others that is both inclusive and decisive.

The survey of 7,500 people, using market research group Nielsen’s online panel, found multi-sneaker buyers were 50 percent more likely to be very assertive and 47 percent more likely to be spontaneous.

Lauren Arvonio, a spokeswoman for Mindset Media, said sneaker buyers were more likely to fly by the seat of their pants.

“It is often said you can tell a lot about a person by the shoes they wear, and now we have some hard data to back that up,” Arvonio told Reuters.

“What is interesting is that these personality traits held true across the board, regardless of age, income, or gender.”

Previous Mindset Media surveys found that people who pay their credit card bills off each month were more likely to be “highly deliberate,” thinking through their actions, but also less modest than others, likely to brag about their habits.

Hybrid car owners were found to be 78 percent more likely to be highly creative than other people and less dogmatic.

(source)

7 Types of Advertising To Drive Sales

What Kind of Advertising Do You Do?
There are millions of ads online every minute of the day that are pounding your eyes and your pocketbook with messages to try and persuade you.

As an advertiser you have to decide how to get through all that noise and put the story of your product in front of potential consumers. Here’s a list of the different types of ads that people are using right now to sell their products. Some of these may be new to you, consider them, they may lead to the bulls-eye that you’re looking for.

Page Takeover Advertising – I love these! Myspace was one of the first large advertisers to really use these and they were highly effective. Gawker Media also offers these type of ads across all of their properties. So why do these ads do so well? – simple, they’re a brand play. In the advertising world, we like brand plays because they the simply need to catch your attention and make an impression on your to be successful. They cant be ignored unless you surf off of the site that you’re visiting, which may be a drawback, but again, if these ads are targeted well, they will do well.

Audible Advertising – These are some of the most annoying but the most attention gaining ads that you will encounter online. We’ve all surfed onto a site and within a few seconds we find out speaker blaring a song or an advertiser’s message. I would stay away from these ads since they tend to give users a horrible experience… unless you can find a creative way to use them. Yes, they may seen temping, but using audible ads is a really good way to have your end-user fire-up their ad blocker.

Animated Flash Advertising – These ads bring in a huge amount of revenue for advertisers, simply because they are so eye catching. But does that make these ads any less annoying than other ads such as audible ads? The ads that jump onto your screen and seemingly float around your browser are of course some of the most difficult ads to close or stop. Again, these ads can be very effective, but only if highly targeted and not intrusive.

Advertorials Advertising – These ads are really good for SEOs to consider. There has been all kinds of controversy surrounding paid links in the last few years, but at the end of the day, there are many companies that pay another company to feature content on their site. Yahoo Finance, for example partners with content providers such as Forbes.com and CNN.com. This is a large partnership, but there’s other opportunities out there to put your company’s story in-front of a site owner and have them write about your site and give you several links. Yes, you may have to pay for it, donate a few $s, send them a product or 2, or other tricks, but at the end of the day, these are really good ways to promote your brand and company.

Video Advertising – This growing market is basically going straight up. Since Google bought YouTube, advertisers have been itching to get into video ads and content publishers are answering their interest. Video ads have 2 different types, pre-roll or interstitial ads. Yahoo uses a lot of pre-roll ads whenever you click a video on their network, while the CW TV network uses a lot of interstitial ads when you watch old episodes of your favorite TV show. There are also text ads that are starting to show up in videos. Google announced in February that advertisers can now do AdSense with ads. Launch participant Brightcove said in a release that “Publishers and content providers can control which videos get which ads and when the ads play in each video.”

Pay Per Click Advertising – these ads are the bread and butter of Google’s market share and there’s a reason that they are – its because they work! PPC ads can be some of the most targeted and trackable ads online. My company offers PPC Management as one if its services, and with that service you get an entire team of people optimizing your campaign. One of the nice things about PPC ads is that they can be tested and tested and tested. I’m talking about all kinds of things such as…GEO targeting, broad keywords, negative keywords, A & B testing, landing page optimization, arbitrage and many other strategies that can lead to your success.

Affiliate Advertising – This is an amazing concept…take your product and give it to 100s of people who want to promote it and then give them a small percentage of the sales that they bring in. Now, that’s a powerful concept and its one that is a win-win situation for the advertiser and the affiliate. Granted, there are ways to inflate affiliate earnings ( I just did a quick talk about this to a company in Oregon last week!) but if managed correctly, you can minimize your risk by using an affiliate program to have other people promote your product. Affiliate programs shift the risk and the capital ($) investment that would normally be spent on an advertising campaign.
Lots of Options!
I hope you have some ideas brewing in your head after reading this post. More than anything, I just wanted to get my readers thinking about how to tap into the consumers that need their products in a different way.

Some additional reading:

3 Types of Advertisng Users don’t like
Types of Ads that people block
An Interview with Friendster Marketing VP