Feta Cheese - Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

Friday’s Quizzlet: Oil Can of Pain

Thanks to my friend Kate for the questions this week. If you too would like to contribute a round of quizzlet queries – please send an email to dave (at) davepye.com.

Appetizer: You’re prescribed a mood-stabilizing food instead of a drug. What would you want to eat?
Feta cheese. I am already of the sincere belief it is the cure for everything that ails me.

Soup: Whose superhero sidekick would you be and what would your superpower be?
I think Iron Man needs a sidekick. I would be the Tin Man and absolutely fuck up villains using my radioactive oil can.

Salad: What is the attraction of a magnificent bastard?
The knowledge that while in their presence it is safe to always assume the absolute worst.

Main Course: What would you like the opening line of your eulogy to be?
“Pack it up, pack it in, let me begin…”

Dessert: Describe a pleasure in which you do not regularly indulge.
I think I’d like to play more paintball, to be honest. I have seen some decent guns for sale at the local Canadian Tire and I think there are some folks in the area that partake, if my memory of certain drunken summer conversations serves. Golly knows there are enough open, forested spaces around here that would suffice. Yes, I think that might be something I will look into.

Why You Should Create a Google Profile Immediately

by Dave on January 15, 2009
in Nerdery

“Your name is your brand” – Me

I recently wrote on my search marketing blog how important it was to make sure that you paid attention to, and took the time to monitor, your standing in Google, Yahoo and MSN’s search engine results pages (SERPs). Potential employers spring to mind as the most obvious reason to wanna positively manipulate your presence in Google, but there are other advantages as well. Easily being found by old friends, people with similar interests, former business colleagues for networking purposes, etc. The practice is generally referred to as brand reputation management (BRM) or online reputation management (ORM) and it’s a big deal. So get started on a little managing of your own. Stack the odds in your favor.

Here’s a neat little Google account feature I discovered this morning – the ability to create a public profile. If you have yet to do so you should be given the option at the top of your main account page after logging in to any of Google’s services. I have just created one for myself, David Pye, in about 15 minutes and if you currently have a GMail account, use Google Reader, Google Docs, Maps, etc. – I strongly suggest you do the same. No doubt this page will quickly rank highly in Google for searches on “David Pye” (as it’s frigging Google) and I may even make it slightly less silly in the near future as a result. As much as I’m sure people want to read about how much I love feta cheese.

I’ve never had any trouble ranking well for “Dave Pye”, as I own www.davepye.com, but for the more formal iteration it’s been a challenge. There are quite a few David Pye’s of note out there – a woodworking guru, a war veteran who has transcribed his journal notes, a Nobel Prize winning scientist – and don’t get me started on the amount of searches I get to my site each month via people looking for info on the now defunct 60’s British rock label Pye Records. They must owe royalties to a lot of people or something – folks, I swear neither I nor any of my direct relatives have anything to do with Bowie’s back catalog.

My point is, the Google Account’s newish profile page creation option is likely going to be an easy way to get myself into the top 5 or so for people searching on “David Pye”. Do yourself a favor and create one for yourself, then read an article I wrote last year about 11 other free ways to manipulate your online brand/name reputation. This may be the most important thing you read all week. That probably should have been the first sentence of this post, but well done to you if you got this far. Now get to work!