Douglas Karr's Articles on Martech Zone
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PHP: Using Is.gd API to Shorten URL
Just read an article on the benefits and pitfalls of shortening URLs over at SEOmoz. I utilize the Is.gd API to do this: function doCurlRequest($url, $variable, $value) { $api = $url."?".$variable."=".$value; $session = curl_init(); curl_setopt($session, CURLOPT_URL, $api); curl_setopt($session, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); $data = curl_exec($session); curl_close($session); return $data; } function doShortenURL($longurl) { $url = "http://is.gd/api.php"; $variable = "longurl"; $shorturl = doCurlRequest($url, $variable,…
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We Hired an Attorney Today
It’s not a bad thing. Every week, for more than a year, I’ve had a reminder from 43 things to Start a Successful Business. That’s a tall order! Starting a business is one thing, making it successful is quite another. I’ve had quite a bit of success with the blog and I continue to get additional engagements because of the…
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WordPress and MySQL: What’s Your Word Count?
There’s been some talk on blogs about the average word count of a WordPress post. Some light has been shed that search engines will only weigh the impact of the first x number of characters, where x is currently unknown. As a result, anything after that is simply a waste of words. I’m rather garrulous with my blog posts so…
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Google Adsense Now Monetizing my Feed
For quite some time I ran affiliate marketing ads in my feed using the PostPost plugin I developed for WordPress and Commission Junction advertisements. It wasn’t really a source of any significant revenue, though, perhaps a few dollars a month. This week, I applied with Google Adsense to convert my feed from Feedburner to Google. The process to do this…
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The New Business “Cards” Are Here!
When I posted about purchasing some new business cards, I received some great recommendations. Included were metal business cards and even a business card using a tag cloud. I decided to go in a completely opposite direction from my original cards. When folks hand me their business cards these days, I don’t have them for long – I get home…
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Starbucks: The Inflation and Devaluation of a Brand
The United States really didn’t understand what coffee could taste like. Coffee grinds were flavored with chips for a long time, which helped maximize the profits of coffee companies. I had a friend who worked in a packaging plant, specifically on the equipment that filled and sealed coffee containers. He told me they changed brands all night, but never changed…
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Recommendations for Business Cards?
My son and I are watching American Psycho. It’s a disturbing movie, but the business card scene is my favorite (Huey Lewis is a close second). I’ve had blog-based business cards for a while, but now that I’ve changed my domain name, I’d like to get something very unique. Any ideas? Nothing in bone, please.
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You Don’t Know what Marketing is
Have you given much thought to the word Marketing? As with many words, the definition has been distorted and redefined over time. Wikipedia provides the following definition: Marketing is an ongoing process of planning and executing the marketing mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion often referred to as the 4 Ps) for products, services or ideas to create exchange between individuals…
