Red Pill or Blue Pill?

Posted on | January 28, 2011 | No Comments

Pretty sure this rabbit hole leads to a viagra or porn site.

PacMan

Posted on | January 8, 2011 | No Comments

I haven’t posted anything awesome in a while… so… here’s something.

It’s First Down, I Can’t Believe It!

Posted on | September 4, 2010 | No Comments

Seeing this GIF really brought me back to the days of my Nintendo and Sega Genesis. Seemed like every sports video game had at least one play that was unstoppable. They play if executed properly would always result in a touch down, home run or goal. I vividly remember Joe Montana’s Sports Talk Football, and utilizing the Fake Punt or Fake Field Goal on first down, resulting in a long Touch down. The voice over announcer would proclaim “It’s First Down and I Can’t Believe it… It’s a Fake…” I could spend the entire game executing the same two plays and dominating friends or the computer.

The NHL ’94 side-ways S move that always left the puck in the back of the net. I recall being disappointed with games that didn’t result in at least 20 goals. NHL 93 had a similar play where you could take the puck down the side and pass back to the center for a one touch into the goal.

Perhaps it was just me, but finding these perfect plays were just a part of the video game experience. I don’t think they ruined the game, but just taught game developers to do some serious beta testing and not rely on simple game logic. Now a days these glitches are near impossible to find. In fact I gave up 10 years ago… but the ones that I discovered still have a special memories.

It was always our goal as video gamers to discover these cheese moves first and perfect them before anyone else. It appears as though this guy has done just that.

The Force is with the Padres…

Posted on | August 28, 2010 | No Comments

30 some odd games left and the Padres have the best record in the National League, Best overall ERA and Bullpen ERA. But the source of the ERA’s power may of just been revealed. The bullpen features…Heath Bell, Mike Adams, and apparently Yoda.

RIP Don Coryell

Posted on | July 1, 2010 | No Comments

Today the Charger family lost one of if not the greatest San Diego Chargers Coach. He was one of the most influential NFL coaches of his time, and although he never brought one a Super Bowl ring, his coaching style and strategies are used by many NFL today.

LOST Finale

Posted on | May 24, 2010 | No Comments

Last night’s Lost finale was quite the marathon. 2 Hours of Cast / Writer Interviews with clips reviewing all the main characters, followed by the two and a half hour final episode. The entire night was pretty awesome. The final episode was well put together and through the focus on the characters once and more importantly their connections. The review served as a great reminder of the characters and their development over the six seasons, so when the final episode was aired, each characters story came to life, like the flashing of their memories. The entire even was such a feel good experience, with most of the castaways meeting in the afterlife together. I’m a geek at heart, but I’m not the angry geek thats going to be upset about Lost not following the rules or leaving questions unanswered.

During the episode with Mother and Jacob, hearing ‘All answers just Lead to more questions’ I was going into the final episode I believe that many of the questions and mysteries of the Island and the characters would never be answered, but still hoped for some closure on some of the big ones.

Unanswered Questions:

1. What was the Man in Black’s name?
2. What was with the ‘special powers’ some characters such as Hurley had?
3. Why didn’t Ben go into the church at the end? Where was Walt, Michael, Anna Lucia, Mr. Echo, etc?
4. What was the Cave of Light?
5. Time Travel… still… really?
6. What was with the numbers and why did they find Hurley?
7. What was with the Dharma Polar Bear and Dolphin Enclosures
8. Where can I download Drive Shaft’s single ‘You All Everybody’, cause its been stuck in my head.

The worst part of the night had to be the very end, when the local news cut in before the ‘Bad Robot’ closing sequence to tell us about a weak aftershock that happened during the show. Lame….

User Experience or Revenue

Posted on | May 13, 2010 | No Comments

Weighing the User Experience of your visitors and the revenue needs of the website is balancing act internet marketers address on a daily basis. One could say the best user experience web page is devoid of marketing and advertising providing your users with the information they are exactly looking for. Unfortunately without revenue its difficult to maintain and justify the cost of the maintenance and creation of the web page providing the information. The best revenue web page would be filled with advertising in the form of banners, sponsored links, and even pop-up/unders . Unfortunately, most people are not looking for the services advertise and bounce fairly quickly.

There is a general consensus that optimizing for user experience or revenue requires a marketing or product manager to favor one or the other. Over the page 10 years I’ve played with this balancing act, analyzed results, discovered the issues involved with both marketing scenarios and found a solution to the paradox.

The User Experience Page
User Experience is key for a functional website. It encompasses all aspects of the page from the content, to the links, to the imagery. A positive user experience could be defined as providing value and ease of use for any an every user that enters your site. The majority of your users are probably coming in from search engines, where they have already searched for what they are looking for when they reach your page; you objective is to ensure they find it. A clean user interface, easy to ready content, and visuals which add to their experience are all good things. Advertising in the form of pop-up ads, banner ads, and obnoxious video ads all detract from a positive experience. In an ideal page, built for the end user, advertising would probably not be found on the page as it serve your financial interest over their personal experience.

The Revenue Page
I think we have all seen these pages across the internet. The provide sponsored links disguised as additional content or articles. They are filled with display advertising intended to distract the user from the main content and generate a click or conversion. These pages support the financial needs of the website and webmaster. Unfortunately these pages are usually so over run with advertising users rarely return to the site and if they do it was probably by accident.

The Optimal UX-Revenue Page
The first piece is knowing what drove the user to the page in the first place. This is where you match user experience with revenue generation. If you rank for widgets in Google, Yahoo, or Bing, your advertising better not be selling sprockets on that page. If you don’t own a widget company, partner with one through an affiliate program. Write the content on the page to give specialized information regarding your topic, speaking to the benefits of your company or partners. There is a reason why every book in Oprah’s book club is an instant New York Times Top Seller. Her viewers trust her opinion on the matter, just like your users will trust your opinion on the widgets your selling.

The actual advertising on this page should be well thoughout. Avoid the traditional banner or giant image link ads. These generally have low low click through rates, as most users can identify and ignore them. I recommend advertising that engages a user. Forms are a great way of doing this. If you sell a widget for a bicycle, have a few drop down boxes where a user can select the make and perhaps the specific widget they are looking for. Another way is to display images of the product, detailing the specifics. The links should then send the user to your partners’ page for that specific product, or better yet a shopping cart page with that product already added. In this scenario you are giving the user exactly what they are looking for. These types of ads from my experience have 4-5x the click through and conversion rate of the traditional banner media. I like to only have the one ad on the page as its the primary focus, but if your topic spans another related product, go ahead and add a advertisement for that. Better yet, create a separate page for that specific topic and capitalize and build SEO for both.

Its often tough balancing both User Experience and Revenue. Its easy to throw a bunch of bad ads on a page for a short revenue boost, but the quality and credibility of the page will crumble. A well throughout marketing and user experience plan will benefit both the users and you as the website owner.

Padres – 32 games In

Posted on | May 12, 2010 | No Comments

So after 32 games the MLB season is about a fifth of the way through and the San Diego Padres are in a place where they ey and the rest of the general population never expected them to be, in First Place. Are the Padres that good or is the division that bad?

Padres ARE good
The Padres have achieve the 20 win mark on the back of their pitching staff and speed on the bases They boast one of the lowest starter ERAs and lowest bullpen ERA thus far. If I remember correctly the bullpen has only lost 2 or 3 games this season. That’s pretty tough for another team to contend with if you can’t get to the starter early. The Padres also boast the highest number of stolen bases in the major with 40. When the batters get on base they are running and stealing bags on a nightly basis. This makes for an entertaining game especially if they aren’t hitting home runs.

The Div is Struggling
With the exception of the Giants, the rest of the division is having some major issues. The Dodgers starters are not what they were, the Diamond back Bullpen blows up nightly and the Rockies can’t seem to put a complete game together. It will be interesting to see how the Padres finish out the 10 game span where they play the Dodgers and Giants five times each.

Team	W	L	Pct.	GB
Padres	20	12	.625	-
Giants	18	13	.581	1.5
Colorado	16	17	.485	4.5
Dodgers	16	17	.485	4.5
Diamondbacks	14	20	.412	7.0

SIXTHREEZERO – Beach Cruiser

Posted on | April 26, 2010 | 1 Comment

So last week Brandie and I went out to look at beach cruisers. With a tax check arriving next week, we took it a step further and just purchased a pair.

Originally when I set out to buy a beach cruiser I started going through countless Craigslist classifieds of stolen beach cruisers for sale. So many different shapes, sizes and states of disrepair. I thought it would be fun and economical to buy a cheap used one, sand it down to the frame and do it up right.

After visiting BeachBike.com‘s shop in San Diego, those thought were quickly dismissed. Kinda… I found a SixThreeZero Urban Man 3 Speed. I really should say Brandie saw it because it was purple and she thought it was a girls bike. After speaking to the store guy, he told us how the purplish color was a mistake and because of that it was discounted close to $100. With the brown leather seat and grips I was sold. I would buy the discounted bike and paint it.

That weekend, I pulled the bike apart down to the frame. I couldn’t get the chain or main pedal / spoke assembly off so I taped it up. After a light sanding, I slowly painted layer after layer of Black Metallic paint. It took about a can and a half and the greater part of the day to finally get the bike fully covered. I probably should of continued, finishing off that can of paint, but it was looking sick and I wanted to get it back together.

I just realized this picture sucks, so I’ll add some new ones later.

MLB 2010 Predictions (late)

Posted on | April 14, 2010 | No Comments

Completely blew it again. I missed posting my predictions by opening day, and now about a week into the season here they are:

Shane’s Predictions

Mike’s Predictions