Cameron Olthuis

Very funny animated video…

Are you in San Diego? If so read on…

Every month we hold a Refresh meetup where a bunch of us web nerds get together so we can talk shop and drink coffee. Sometimes we have formal presentations but usually we just get together and discuss a central theme for the month. Tomorrow is that time of the month again so if you’re in San Diego or the surrounding area come on out.

This month we’ll be talking about social media, both from a users and marketers perspective. The meeting location is at Milano Coffee Co. See you there.

Last week there was a big uproar when the National Pork Board threatened Jennifer Laycock with a cease & desist letter for the use of “The Other White Milk” on one of her shirts. They felt that she was infringing on their trademark for “The Other White Meat”. Hundreds of people blogged about the story and several others sent angry letters to the National Pork Board letting them know how ridiculous they were acting.

Just a week later I am happy to see that the National Pork Board has not only apologized to Jennifer but their employees are also conducting a fund raiser on behalf of Mother’s Milk Bank. Kudos to the NPB for stepping up the plate, admitting their mistake, and taking it one step further by helping a related non-profit organization. Kudos to those who supported Jennifer as well. Bacon for breakfast sounds good tomorrow.

In addition to our roles with ACS, Neil and I have been hired as evangelists for Text Link Ads (TLA). This is something we are very excited about and it was a natural fit for us seeing that we really like the company and the people behind it.

We are still very committed & focused on building ACS to be a great company and will continue to blog on our company blog, Pronet Advertising. Some of our duties for TLA will include…

1. Blogging on TLA’s Link Building Blog.
2. Participating in discussions around the web that involve TLA.
3. Handing out swag at conferences and speaking on TLA’s behalf, we will also be speaking on ACS’ behalf too. We will also help with the TLA booth at various shows.
4. Putting on special events and parties for TLA.

TLA is an awesome company that provides a great service for both advertisers and publishers.

Brian Provost wrote a great article outlining 8 simple steps for building traffic for your Internet startup. Here is his list…

1. Defensible traffic
2. Buy good domain names
3. Hire competent Internet people
3 a. Hold off on hiring MBA’s
4. Understand the cost of traffic
5. Build links
6. Engage your community
7. Engage social media
8. Push, pull, prod, and poke marketing

I’d like to add another one.

9. Usability - Nothing will keep a visitor from returning to your site more than poor usability. If they can’t figure out the value prop or how to use the site then you’ve just lost that person that you worked so hard to attract. And chance are they won’t ever return. It also helps if you have something of value in the first place.

My friend Jennifer Laycock who runs Search Engine Guide and The Lactivist has been threatened by the National Pork Board for selling a shirt that says “the other white milk”. The reason they are threatening to sue her is because they think she is violating their trademark “the other white meat”.

Sure, female breasts are plump and juicy but who the hell is going to think of pork when they see a slogan like that? Come on. Obviously just another case of big corporation trying to bully the little guy. Well they obviously don’t know what they just got themselves into but they’ll soon learn their lesson, you just don’t mess with the blogosphere. We fight back and in the end it will be a big loss for the pigs, or maybe it’s a win for them (the little piggys) since less of them will be slaughtered in the coming weeks.

I’ve boycotted pork for years because beef just simply tastes better, but now I have another reason. If you want to help consider emailing the following folks…

Jeff Hartz - Director of Marketing Communications
(515) 223-2629 JHartz@pork.org

Joy Johnson - Vice President Marketing
(515) 223-2631 jjohnson@pork.org

Michael Wegner - Vice President Communications
(515) 223-2638 MWegner@pork.org

Teresa Roof - Public Relation Manager
(515) 223-2616 troof@pork.org