I learned a few things week about marketing. Let me preface that with the observation that I’m a marketing novice. OK, that’s being kind, I’m somewhere between a marketing misfit and a marketing boob.

But a few marketing concepts sunk in:
Number 1 – People click on text ads. This week a text ad ran for samhilliard.com on another site and it drew hits, at least as long as the ad was in rotation. We’ll see what percentage hang around next week 🙂
Number 2 – Free is a hard handle to push off of. In other words, if the product or service is free, it’s hard to argue for the value of that product or service unless it’s bundled with something else that costs money.
Number 3 – It’s best to swim in an ocean with few sharks. There’s about 498 trillion blogs and roughly a billion more created each week, because blogs breed like rabbits on Ecstasy. Perhaps soon even computers will have their own blogs.

So I’m going to take these lesson and apply them back to the site this weekend and determine how to improve things.

Imagine for a second life came with a dollar menu similar to the Golden Arches but instead of a double cheeseburger or a yogurt parfait, cooler things were available for sale. I’m not talking just about food, but other single use items that are just as timely.

Presuming that were an option, here’s what I’d like:
1) A witty comeback guaranteed not to result in getting fired, arrested or a fight.
2) A token that I could present to a bum who tried to squeegee my car windows clean that would halt him in his tracks. Not only would he spare my windshield, he’d do it without a grudge or insult.
3) A sheet of Kleenex that didn’t scrape my nostrils raw after the other hundred times allergies forced me to blow my nose. If the tissue didn’t smell like recycled paper that would be better still.
4) License to destroy the cellphone of anyone sitting around me in a movie theater who decides to make an outgoing call after the film starts.

And lastly….
5) An item from the dollar menu at the Golden Arches that doesn’t taste like either salt or cardboard.

Almost forgot to blog today and that would mean, well it would mean the blog wasn’t updated 🙂

Hard to believe it’s been almost six months and the only interruptions have been technical (and even those were minor). One day maybe I’ll work out exactly how much time I’ve invested into this site. Then again, perhaps it’s best to avoid calculations like that since it’s probably more than I realize.

Anyway, I’m sweating like a pig. It’s time to drag out the window AC units from the closet so Buddhapuss stops panting. I’ll be funnier on Thursday. Or something.

One of these days, Monday will feel some other way than being wedged inside a black and white rerun of the Twilight Zone. That’s long been a goal of mine too, to look forward to Monday with the same intensity usually earmarked for the weekends. Despite my efforts, it seems that if something is going to go askew, it’ll be on Monday.

Take this particular one for instance. For months it’s been unseasonably cold for spring, nary a day over sixty five, with night time temperatures hovering near the forties. So I get the idea to load up on foods that require broiling, thinking the stove will heat up the place and make the apartment all toasty nice as dinner broils in a homemade marinate. Only today is the first day of a week long heat wave, and the low this week will shatter the high of last week.

Yeah, I’m real bright spark sometimes, I swear. Anyway, it’s time to go bake myself in the furnace, err, kitchen. Can’t have that roast exploding from neglect.

On the writing front, I decided to revisit The Ridge Runner for awhile while still pressing ahead with the first draft of Velocity. Either I’m going to soil both of them irreparably, or something cool will come of it.