Well, I got the G1 last week and I’ve had time to play with it and learn its various nooks and crannies. A lot of reviews out there focus on initial impressions, so I thought I’d change that up and focus on a couple things that I like and don’t like at this point.

(It’s important to note that this week the app store opens up to all, so alot of these things may be fixed in the near future.)

LIKES
-It’s a mini laptop in my pocket! C’mon! I find myself surfing the internet and checking email everywhere now…which could become a problem.

-App store. Like I said, it’s still in it’s infancy, but it already has a lot of cool stuff which have been covered intensively elsewhere. Scanning products, alerting me of “predators” in the area…all cool stuff. And yesterday a twitter app came out along with a lot of games. It’s only going to better from here

-Qwerty keyboard. I always wanted one, and I finally have one.

-Form factor. Some people knock it, but I like it. It doesn’t have that ‘cut-in-half-bar-of-soap’ design that the iphone has, but I think they went a cool route with it. It’s definitely more impressive in person than in pictures.

DISLIKES
-Battery life. It wears out fast. Real fast. Average use of the course of one day and the thing is almost dead.

-Now the app store is open to all, some are junk. Like crash the phone junk.

-Oh yeah, the phone crashes occasionally. There was an update today. Hopefully that should fix some of the issues.

-Dealing with jealous Blackberry and iPhone users. Yeah, they’re quick to point out the flaws, but we all know it comes from a deep seated jealousy over the phone they wish they had got.

-Flimsy feel. While I like the form factor, it does feel a bit cheap. Feels like if I was quick to whip the screen open I could possibly rip it right off. Time will tell how it withstands the rigors of daily pocket travel.

-TMobile’s 3G service. Still in its infancy and available no where around amish country. It’s a shame, but luckily it still connects to just about any wireless network and saves the passwords/reconnects easily. And really, when are you not around wireless?

So that is my initial impression of the phone. I do like it very much, and with Google I only expect it to get better and better until I can’t live without it. They’re already taking over the world, might as well embrace it.

So, I will easily admit I am a MySpace, Facebook, and “About” page stalker. I use the first 2 to keep up with friends and former acquaintances and acquaintances of acquaintances that I don’t actually talk to on a regular basis.

Yes, I want to know if you broke up with your girlfriend or boyfriend. And yes, I want to see if the girl I knew in high school is now fat. I know, I know, it’s such a female thing to do and it’s so wrong, but I still can’t shake that satisfied feeling seeing girls I may have been just a bit jealous of in high school or college get fat and ugly. I’m not proud of it, really I’m not, and given my values and morals, it’s SO wrong…but bad habits die hard.

It also makes me feel better about being the ugly duckling. I got finer with time baby, and most of them didn’t!

So anyway, my 2nd favorite form of stalking happens to be checking out people’s About pages on their website. If I’m gonna read your blog and/or site, I want to know more about you. Keyword there is YOU. I want to know more about YOU as a person. Yes, you can write about your credentials, but when it comes down to it, if I’m going to admire you and look up to your expertise and perhaps buy your product or service, I wanna know the real you.

I want to know how old you are, your relationship status, if you have kids. I want to know if you have skeletons in your closet, if you overcame some crazy obstacles to get where you are today. And you know what? If your spiritual life is important to you, be it Christian, Buddhist or Jewish, I wanna know about that too. I respect that kind of stuff, b/c it makes you seem more personal and accessible.

An About page that reads like an awards page, or a resume is…well, it’s boring. And yeah, I understand if you’re going for a very professional image, you don’t want to include that stuff. That’s fine, it’s your choice, but you just lost some points in my eyes.

I suppose I’m writing this with the Internet/Search Marketing and SEO world in mind. Anyone whose blog or site I come across, be sure that I’ll read your About page. And to those whose pages I leave feeling as though I know a little bit about you as a person, THANK YOU!

I thought I’d include my list of favorite and least favorite About pages in the world of Search.

The Least Interesting About Page Awards Go To:

#3: ShoeMoney’s Bio – To be honest, the main reason ShoeMoney made the list is cuz his writing style is pretty damn entertaining, but his bio seems a bit lacking. However, I will give him props for having some personal posts up.

#2: Graywolf AKA Michael Gray – Graywolf cracks me up, especially when he rips into Google, so I know his About page could be a bit juicier.

And the award for the #1 least interesting About page (to me at least) goes to…

Mr. Andy Beal (& Marketing Pilgrim) – Cool accent & great writing aside, Mr. Beal’s About pages read a bit too much like a resume.

But don’t sweat it guys, I still love (and read) your sites!

Now let’s move on to the best!

The Most Interesting About Page Awards Go To:

#3 Rae Hoffman AKA Sugarrae – Her About page has some cool personal info, but what really makes her #3 on the list was sharing her very personal story of how/why she got into internet marketing in the first place. It’s impossible not to respect her for her strength and fortitude after reading that!

#2 Jonathan Volk – Okay, so I just love that he mentions his girl. I’m a chick, so sue me. Also, I may be biased, since I’m very openly Christian as well and love when people aren’t ashamed to admit it in public!

And the award for the #1 most interesting About page goes to…

Mr. Aaron Wall! – A bit on the longish side, but it keeps you hooked. Aaron has definitely led a hard knock life at times, and I gotta say it’s refreshing to see that even successful people have made some stupid decisions or mistakes in their lives.

There you have it…the best and the worst About pages in the SEO world. These also happen to be some of my favorite sites, but hey, that’s just a coincidence, I promise….

I know I missed some good ones though…any About pages you all can think of that are either great or suck?

Alright… so Tuesday at SMX East was pretty insane.  I don’t want to get into the details now, but make sure you bookmark BigWatah.com, because something drop dead awesome is coming soon.

On the train ride home today I’ll be posting my “real Big Watah post” along with some insane pics and the whole story.  So, make sure you go to BigWatah.com right now and bookmark it.

Here’s a quote straight from Big Watah himself…

“I’m sure that Barack Obama has had a ‘Big Watah’ night at least once in his life”, Brent (Big Watah) Payne.

SEOmoz used the stage set by day one of SMX East to announce two huge developments for internet marketers. Both developments will make assembling quality data easier for internet marketers. How you use the information you are given is 100% up to you.

SEOmoz Indexes The Web
Sorry, Mr. Gore… you could only hold them off for so long. SEOmoz discovered tons of cool information while indexing the web. Here are some of my favorites:

• 42% of all links are external (pointing off a webpage to another site)
• Under 2% of all links are “nofollow” (still around 2 billion links, however)
• The average webpage has 32 links pointing to it (both internal and external)

SEOmoz Releases Linkscape
Twelve months in the making, Linkscape provides “unparalleled link intelligence” to the internet marketing community. With Linkscape (and an SEOmoz PRO membership), a website and data on 30 BILLION other webpages can be analyzed to determine:

• mozRank (aka link popularity)
• mozTrust (trust level of a site to the eyes of a search engine)
• Full Lists of Links (ranked by importance)
• Anchor Text (a ranked and complete list of link text that points to a site)
• Domain Juice (an estimate of link popularity of all webpages inside a site)

Most of those tools can only be utilized by PRO members. The free version of Linkscape provides a snapshot of mozRank, mozTrust, external links to a URL and Google PageRank. The best data is clearly available to PRO members only.

For a more detailed explanation of Linkscape, check out SEOmoz’s Linkscape comic.

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I am pleased to be here writing my first ‘official’ ProspectMX blog post on a subject that I truly love – Twitter!

If you’re not quite sure what I’m talking about, maybe we should start with a brief explanation. Twitter is a ‘Micro-Blogging’ / Social Media, kinda thing. You can follow people that interest you… and “Tweeple” can follow you. I know that’s a pretty basic explanation… but I have lots to cover so moving along. 

I’ve been using Twitter since March of ‘07. Now that the company is on the radar, and even CNN & Fox News have been quoting their twitter streams on live newscasts, I think it’s time for the average everyday SEO Joe to make sure that your clients / customers are efficently using this FREE service.  So where to start?

• Pick a memorable username (maybe the name of your company?)
• Spend 10 minutes making a custom background
• Check out Twellow – align yourself w/ ppl that interest you
• Speak your mind (be transparent!)
• Do get a TwitPic account (Uber Cool)
• Don’t become a Tweethead! – it’s okay to go offline from time to time.

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