Cartoons

I’ve praised Greg Sterling before, but he deserves way more praise, especially from me.

Greg is an outstanding writer and works way harder than I do. First, he posts his insights at Screenwerks and blogs a heck of a lot at Search Engine Land as the contributing editor. You can read his impressive bio at this page.

So why does Greg totally blow me away and make me look lazy? Well, all this time I just assumed he was based on the east coast, but then I remember over the weekend he was based on the west coast. Why is that significant?

I get up at 5:40am (EST). Greg is always with Danny and I in the AM morning search news rush at about 7am or so. But Greg is on the west coast, so that is 5am (PST). He is often up at 3am (PST) getting work done. That is 2.5 hours earlier then I get up. That is crazy devotion.

After he is done with the blogging he then does ‘real work’ all day. Real work for Greg are constant calls, meetings, and emails. I wonder what time he goes to sleep.

Greg, we at Search Engine Land could not do it without you! You deserve huge credit for the SEM industry!

Last night, for the first time in history, my wife met Danny Sullivan’s wife.

Danny is in for the AdAge conference and he cleared one night off his schedule to go out for dinner with my wife and I. Danny’s wife came in with him, so it was the first time my wife met Danny’s wife.

My wife always wanted to meet Danny’s wife. She had questions for her, such as:

• How do you put up with him?
• Do you use the Internet
• Do you like his hours?
• And other questions one wife of a blogger might ask an other

During dinner Danny and I rarely pulled out our phones to check feeds or email. I did show the popcorn and goldfish iphone tricks but that was pretty much it.

I won’t share all the details of the night but I would like to thank Danny and wife (that is what we call our wives) for dinner - it was really nice.

Man, such a small world. Years ago, when I first started going to the search conferences, I felt like I was the only orthodox Jew to be found at them. Soon after, my old high school buddy, Eli Feldblum began going to the conferences. I think I first saw him at SES San Jose back in 2005? Maybe? It was nice to see a familiar face at the conferences, which he continues to go to until today.

Anyway, today, him and his business partner at Rank Above (the picture at the top is Eli with his two business partners, aka couldnt find a picture of them) stopped by to say hello. Well, technically, they flew in from Israel. Eli founded Rank Above about a year ago, after moving to Israel from New York. He is one of the many Jewish people to “make aliyah” or move to Israel after living outside of Israel. He was able to successfully start a company, an SEO company, that employees 13 people now. Very impressive, after only one year.

You might remember Eli as being the one who helped orchestrate the synchronized swimming event at PubCon a year or so ago. A picture might remind you:

Still doesn’t ring a bell? Eli also worked at Did-It before that. A picture for that also:

Anyway, now he is running a successful SEO company in Israel. He supports 13 families, including his wife and his newish, cute baby girl.

Thanks for lunch Eli and RankAbove! My treat when I go to Israel in February.

It has been a while since I attended the IM NY events, but last night I was able to make it.

It was held at Le Marais Steakhouse in Little Italy. A bunch of SEOs were there, including Tamar, Greg, Frank, Todd, Tedster, Kevin Heisler, Chris and two girls. One girl was, I think, Frank’s friend and the other I just don’t know her name.

Anyway, I ordered some chicken dish, it was excellent. Tamar got this duck Moroccan thing, looked weird to me. Frank’s girl was a veggin - yea, seriously. It was the first time I met Kevin - nice to meet you, too bad you sat on the other side of the table… An SEW vs. SEL thing?;-) Anyway…

I am pretty sure Frank is to thank for the bill. Thank you Frank - see image above. It rocked and I sure want to come again!

That was the start of the night. I left first, b/c I wake up way too early…

Shimon Sandler tagged me on When I’m NOT doing SEO…

Well, if you read my personal blog, I guess you are. You know all about what I do when I am not doing SEO.

But for a hobby, I love playing basketball. I play three times a week, when I can. I have been bad the past few weeks, missing nights because of work. But I love playing ball.

Read about some of my sports adventures in my sports category.

So now I need to tag others…People who are SEOs but not at the search conference… tough one…

- Joost De Valk
- Donna
- Kim Krause Berg

There ya go.

Jim Lanzone, the CEO of Ask.com, is a great guy. He is fun, hard working and really smart. We used to be more chatty before he became the CEO, but now he is flying all over the place with his new responsibilities. In any event, it was great to feature a picture of him, hanging loose at the Ask.com Year End party this year.

Now, Jim, why wasn’t I invited?

Tamar, besides for loving to blog, also really loves Schwag. She is the girl who runs around the exhibit halls with huge duffles collecting tons of free Schwag.

She decided to start a blog presenting all her cool schwag. The blog name is Schwag Addict!

Great idea Tamar. It should land you some new neat schwag!

Li Evans has this great series of articles named Women of Internet Marketing at her Search Marketing Gurus site.

In her last column, she interviewed Vanessa Fox. Vanessa earned her popularity when she worked at Google to create what is now known as Google Webmaster Central. She was one of the most influential people on bridging the webmaster community and Google together. Since then, she worked at Zillow to launch some sweet projects and now she is at an entrepreneur in residence for Ignition Partners and also the Features Editor at Search Engine Land (yea I write there also).

In any event, besides for Vanessa being incredibly popular and fun to work with, she said something really cool about me in her interview. And I quote:

Q: What’s a typical day like for you, since you are also an editor at Search Engine Land?
A: I don’t think I’ve had a typical day yet! I normally check in on what’s going on in search in the mornings. Barry is amazing at news coverage. I don’t think people realize just how hard he works at making sure he knows absolutely everything that goes on all over the web. When I have time, I pitch in on news coverage.

And…

Q: You are in charge of recasting *drum rolls*… BUFFY! *going to go with Season 3 here*, which SEO’s do you cast as the following?
Xander: I think Barry’s a bit like Xander. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t think people realize just how much he does, but his contributions add a lot. Sort of like Xander in “The Zeppo” when he managed to save the school from a bomb created by the zombie football player, Walker, Texas Ranger fans and no one ever knew.

Now honestly, you know you have watched at least two episodes of Buffy!

Thank you so much Vanessa - comments like these really make it all worth while! Those words are even more special coming from someone like you!

Every Friday night sundown to Saturday night stars up, is the Jewish Shabbos. Orthodox Jews hold the laws of Shabbos and do not do “work” on Shabbos. It gets a bit complicated, you can read an introduction to the Laws of Shabbos at Aish.com, but in short, for people like Gary and myself, it means no using computers or Treos or iPhones on Shabbos - a whole 25 hours or so.

I do this every single week, so it is not a big deal for me. But Gary has never done this, since he is not an orthodox Jew, he does not hold the same things as I do. After Gary married Lisa, I invited them to come spend a “Shabbos” with us. They took us up on the offer this weekend. It was really nice to show Gary and Lisa our Shabbos routine and customs. But it was even nicer to spend time with the both of them without the distractions of a computer.

I can’t imagine how hard it is to turn everything off for 25 hours. I mean, I do it every week, but if I had to do it once when never having experienced it before - that sounds hard.

In any event… Thank you Gary and Lisa for coming - it was really special. Hope to have you guys back soon!

Here are some, not all, of the holiday cards I got from various companies in the search space.

The cards above come from Ask.com, Google, Yahoo, Indeed, and Debra from Alliance Link.

All of them were personally signed except for the Google card. Yahoo’s card is the most interesting, in that you can actually plant it and it will grow. Yes, really. The card is made from “seeded paper,” so I can rip it up and stick it in a pot. Then it will grow over time. In fact, I already stuck the envelop in a pot.

A lot more green when compared to Yahoo’s yodeling card from last year.

Happy holidays guys and thanks for the cards!

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