Derek Powazek, a web designer and community builder, writes about online communities, SEO, and the business of internet products.
HN commenters cite his posts to rebut the 'you are the product' idea and for his advice that SEO is mostly obvious good practice.
I paste from http://del.icio.us/kragen/jpg. I'm as happy to see these guys fail as I am to see Bernie Madoff.
2007-06-03
http://www.flickr.com/groups/jpgmag/discuss/72157600223571831/
Clarifications in The Unofficial JPG Magazine Group on Flickr, thread started by Paul Cloutier 2007-05-17
730 words from Paul Cloutier about what happened with the JPG blowup. Still doesn't explain why the first 6 issues are still missing from the issues page, why the official 8020 blog is still full of lies, etc.
tagged: paul-cloutier fraud jpg
2007-05-19
http://www.flickr.com/groups/jpgmag/discuss/72157600222210270/
"context is everything", a discussion thread in The Unofficial JPG Magazine Group, started 2007-05-16
1200 words from Alana, the wife of Paul Cloutier, adding no new information to the scandal over Paul deleting the old JPG issues and rewriting history, but calling Derek Powazek a liar. Derek responds in 650 more words.
tagged fraud paul-cloutier 8020 jpg
2007-05-18
http://www.8020publishing.com/blog/2007/05/dereks_departur.html
Derek's Departure, from Paul Cloutier, via 8020 Publishing Blog
200 words subtly announcing his decision to back off on rewriting JPG Magazine's history, without acknowledging that it was his dishonesty that led to Derek's departure or providing an alternate explanation.
tagged decentralization-stories 8020 fraud paul-cloutier jpg
http://powazek.com/posts/534
The Real Story of JPG Magazine, from Derek Powazek, 2007-05-14
1500 words on…
From running a large OSS project, the general passive-aggressive (or just plain aggressive) complaint ratio to the amount of "thanks, this is awesome" ratio can be quite overwhelming and painful at times. Usually.
I've basically resolved to not complain about anything given to me for free, ever, at least on twitter, because I've felt so much of it. "Why I personally prefer X vs Y" is ok.
For twitter, it can be anything from a software project to some customer service guy somewhere, but it's important to remember that real people are out there.
That guy's boss might be a jerk to person XYZ about what you said about his software on twitter, even if you weren't particularly upset. And you definitely didn't make the author feel very good either. And who are you to complain when you couldn't build it yourself, and are putting in much less energy?
If you have a problem with free OSS bits, help fix it, or use something else.
If you've paid for something, this is what support departments and customer service groups are before too.
( This blog is good reading on the subject too - http://powazek.com/posts/3368 )
Footers are great. My favorite article about good use of footers (excerpted below)
------
When you're designing pages - specifically content pages - what is the best possible thing that could happen? I mean after the user has bought a computer, gotten internet connectivity, figured out how to use a browser, and somehow found their way to your site ... what is the single best thing that they could do?
Read. That's right, read. And read all the way to the bottom of the page. In this business, a user that actually reads all the way to the bottom of a page is like gold. They're your best, most engaged, happiest users. You know, because they haven't clicked away. They did the best possible thing they could do, and now they're at the bottom of the page. And how do you reward them?
With a copyright statement. Maybe, if they're lucky, some bland footer navigation.
If you ask me, that's just rude.
http://powazek.com/2005/09/000540.html
I'm getting very tired of hearing this. It's like we make up excuses for startups being dicks. There has to be a way to find business model that involves showing respect for your users and the content they're creating, while still making money on ads, offers, etc.
It also completely ignores the fact that paying customers get ripped off all the time, by the companies they pay money to. In the wider perspective, being a dick doesn't seem to correlate to receiving money from your user-base.
Here's an excellent text about it: http://powazek.com/posts/3229
> If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold.
I hear this all the time but it's message is a bit off. I'll quote this page http://powazek.com/posts/3229
1) Assumption: This is new or unique to the internet
2) Assumption: You’re either the product or the customer
3) My Favorite - Assumption: Companies you pay treat you better (Comcast Anyone?)
I'm just hoping you are not one of those people that believes that I should follow everyone (on Twitter) that follows me. If what I say interests you, follow me. I'll do the same.
Something like this: http://powazek.com/posts/2754
I agree with araneae, this would seem to be an awfully rare thing to do.