Coding In The Darkness

Wow 2010 is here already.

Looking back i don’t think any decade will be so jam packed with so many events in my life!

• I finished School, College & Uni all in the last decade
• Saw in the start to a new millennium
• Had 2 part time jobs, 2 full time jobs and 1 graduate placement
• Found my girlfriend, got engaged and had my first child
• Had multiple ideas about what career I wanted to pursue from (laugh now) F1 Race driver, Computer repair guy, Games Programmer, Web Designer, Teacher, Online Marketer to name a modest few
• Finally meet some really amazing people, made some great friends, shared some wonderful experiences and lost touch with too many faces, sadly

Looking back I don’t think I will ever cram so much into another 10 year period, I probably don’t want to either.

2009 also being the bad year it was for me I’m glad to see it gone, a year that I’ll remember due to losing my job with BT due to contractor cuts, the passing of some legendary people and the personal losses in my own family, especially my very dear Nan Win.

One thing i would like to do for the next year any way is at least once a week just write up what I have learned each week. We learn so much random stuff everyday it would be cool just to collect all that info and summarise in early 2011.

Well that’s it for my first post in the new decade, I’ll leave you now with one of my favourite photos,

It's very blurry but brings back some great memories

Its been over a month since my last post, incredible really, i have had much to say but so little time.

Ben's trips to the Job center didn't last long!

I will post an update my Social Media Experiment this week, although i can’t say i expect a massive improvement as i haven’t been dedicating much time to it. Thanks to the recent leaving then rejoining BT / Dialogics and finally leaving again i found myself without work, for 1 day!

So my current role if you haven’t checked my LinkedIn Profile is with a very new online retailer called shop.co.uk, they are a UK only online retailer and they / we are looking to join the likes of Play.com and Amazon in the online retailer environment. So my current role is “Online Marketing Executive” which basically means i optimise content pages, promote pages, help devise PPC campaigns, generate inbound links, create good content and lots more techniques i haven’t started yet (All white hat SEO techniques of course!)

i have also been spreading the word via the old fashioned word of mouth with my friends as Shop.co.uk sell many items very cheaply including two of the products i have been working on Sim Free Mobile Phone Handsets & Discount Perfumes, Discount Colognes / Aftershaves & Discount Beauty Products.

My role is with Shop.co.uk

I’m hoping i gain some great SEO experience form this role, it’s very fast paced and a definitely different environment from my last role. Lets hope it turns into something really great.
Oh i also wrote an online buying guide for mobile phones, it may be worth a look maybe you know someone who could use it? Either way here it is Mobile Phone Buying Guide.

Over the last two months i have also been doing some freelance work for friends and I’ll add links here as well as my online portfolio as soon as it all finished. One is for a friend who is a recent Dance graduate who is starting her own Dance class business called Rhythms, if you live near Southend i suggest you take a look.
The other piece of work is for my ex managers husband Anthony Bailey who is a Cambridge & Chelsea based Counsellor. He needed some SEO advice and we done some basic SEO techniques to help him get higher ranked in Google which proved quite successful. For his four main targeted keywords he now has 4 top 100 results including a #1 and a number #3. You can view Anthony’s site here Chelsea & Cambridge Counsellor.

Well that’s it for my brief update, i had more interesting stuff to talk about like the decline of MySpace & Bebo, where i think Twitter, Facebook & social networking is going in general with the mobile arena, plus other bits and bobs but another time perhaps?

Stay Classy

Ben Scowen

Was reading this article on the BBC Technology pages today – Robot To Create Facebook Page i may actually ask to be his friend, just to see what he is getting up to, what his status updates code be (”1000101 101001010 101001010100 100101″, “having a recharge”, “Why is it only female robots get multi core processors?”), will he speak to me on Facebook chat, invite me to join him on some apps or maybe he’s really passionate about his carbon footprint and has made a group that i can join.

First Robot to get Facebook profile

But it just got me thinking about what role robots will play in the future?

Me and @ShaunMarshal have had a few conversations which must seem ridiculous to passers by about;

• what robots will be doing for us in the future
• how long until we are living and interacting with robots on a daily basis
• how long before they overthrow the us and destroy the human race!

Even writing now it sounds crazy but as technology gets increasingly powerful and smaller how long is it until we enter an iRobot type world?
Thinking back to articles I’ve read and videos I’ve seen they have robots that look like humans, act like humans and learn like humans. Now add that to the fact that there are plenty of Hollywood movies where robots end up in charge and go on some murderous rampage.
What you get is a human like creature that learns how to take over the world with their legions of robot allies.

How long before we are all terminated?

Again it may sound like crazy, paranoid ramblings of a mad man but for those of you who have a similar instinct to me i urge you to watch The Terminator 1 – 3, A.I., iRobot, Transformers, RoboCop, Universal Soldier and that one where the robot guy is driving a yellow taxi, so we can anticipate any form of attack!

I shall be keeping a firm eye on this whole robot up-rise, i just urge you that global warming may be threatening are world over the next 100 years, but the dawn of a robot age could be soon upon us!

Update!: Now Japan has developed Worlds first robot teacher! > Actually quite funny looking at the pictures, is very freaky, but where will this lead us, teaching is a well paid job, will robots be the future of teaching?

I found this blog whilst googling the other day and thought it was just such good advice i had to pass on.

Google doing it's searching magic

SEO Gold – http://www.seo-gold.com

I will be viewing posts regularly as there just seems to be some good information there about Search Engine Optimisation, I’m still learning and perfecting the craft and i wish i had found this site months ago!

I think its worth checking the SEO Tutorial post first, to help get your head around the whole idea and references. Also helps to teach you the good and bad ways to do SEO, although they mention they fit into neither bracket as they test both ways in a test environment i just find it helpful that someone is presenting all the information clearly without pushing the one and only “correct way to do it”.

Also the fact that the advantages and consequences for doing SEO cleanly or doing it the risky naughty way are very interesting and hopefully the more people who have a better understanding of the subject means that we will always have search engines pointing us to the best and correct content.

Let me know if it helps you in anyway, or you could let SEO Gold know yourself!

It’s a deceiving title i know,

After using WordPress for just over a month now i am really impressed with it, so much so that i have been desperate to try out the install version on my own server.

So after a friend gave me some web space [ Cheers Rob ] and i finally bought the URL and created my website i am ready to say goodbye to codinginthedarkness.wordpress.com and hello to http://codinginthedarkness.com/blog/

Hopefully this won’t impact on my Social Media experiment to much as i am seeing small improvements, this blog now comes forth on the ben scowen search.

So i will be copying over all of the posts in the next day or two, setting up my theme, tracking code etc but blah, so please hold on whilst i update and hopefully I’ll see you in my new web dwelling.

Goodbye WordPress.com

Wow it’s been 12 days since i started my social media experiment, I’ve been putting this first update off for a while as i have been busy with life and my own site but i think now is a good time to see just how everything is going.

Before i get into the numbers i thought I’d just give my overview and thoughts. I think i have been doing an OK job so far of actually trying to boost my web presence, i have been blogging on a occasion basis, updating my twitter feed and looking at trends, as well as regularly checking my Google rankings. But i know i need to do more, so I’m gonna up my game as far as blogging and twitter goes so hopefully by update #2 i feel like i should have a 8/10 for effort rather than the 3/10 i feel like so far.

Coding In The Darkness meets Google spider

Although if you have a look at the image to the right, Google found my blog after 45 minutes of posting, so i was very happy with that! I’ll wait to see how well my other posts and website go down but was shocked to see that the blog was picked up so quick when it wasn’t ranked in at least the top 10 pages before and it jumped to 6th.

So the stats so far;

• Twitter follower increase by 5 to 31 (I have had more followers but i seem to be losing some, maybe i am not interesting enough!)
• Blog views was 128 now 223 with an average of 5 views per day
• Facebook – i have decided to drop this stat as i just think it won’t be a good measure
• LinkedIn – still 23 connections, i haven’t done much with LinkedIn put i am looking to get involved with groups soon so we’ll see what comes of it, hopefully some good connections

Google Results

• ben scowen – 5,650 results, 7 out of 10 on the front page are all me and this blog is 6th!
• “ben scowen” – 121 results, same as above

I haven’t looked at anything else yet but i am going to try and impact the top 100 for:

• scowen
• ben! – Will have some competition for that one
• Not sure what else maybe London freelance web designer etc, let me know your ideas.

That will do for this update, i am off now to write some code, buy my domain and re-enter the Twitter-sphere, but next time i am going to add some data from various twitter mash ups, and some more blog stats, but before i go here is a great piece by MediaSnackers who have a guide for entering Social Media for beginners >,
enjoy.

I have to first give credit to Jon Devo for the inspiration for this post, all know i often see similar links on Twitter and Facebook for retro cartoons Jon pulled one out of the bag that i haven’t heard in what must be 10 years… “Bots Master”

When i read his status update the main characters name hit me “Ziv Zulander” i just thought hold on, i know this, then a quick Google and YouTube later and the childhood memories flooded back like a Thames Water pipe!
Here is the video form my pal YouTube;

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLKYOSiW7U4]

The reason i loved seeing this again is the fact that when discussing old tv/cartoons with friends (as we regularly do Shaun) i just haven’t ever heard or brought up Bots master even though i loved it ,come to that point i don’t think i ever discussed it with anyone at the time, however Teenage Turtles, Transformers and the like all got a solid mention.

Then it struck me all the cartoons i see now for Ronnie and my Niece Kelsie are just so educational to the max, or just seem to grown up to really be cartoons. So here is my flashback list to the days when cartoons where cartoons and not the fancy computer generated 3-D edu-fests like they are now. Not that i am dissing the educational content, i am glad they are like that but where is the fun? Handy Manny, Mickey Mouse Club thing a ma bob and Winnie and Tiger adventure detective agency thing, i dunno i want huge robots who rap once in a while and say cool things like “Roll Out”!

For all you 80’s and 90’s kids enjoy,

Transformers
Mask
Pole Position
Jayce & The Wheeled Warriors
Skeleton Warriors
Biker Mice From Mars

Feel free to tell me your favourites or just ones to mention and ill add them to the list (with contributor) later.

Also just wanted to add this video i saw taking (feels a bit like someone was trying to copy Family Guy for some reason?) a pop out of the Gobots

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVQhppk7sFk]

… I’d be happy with a hundred!

I have been keeping a watch on this for the past 2 or 3 days now and i just find the whole concept very funny. (Link to story here)
The fact that a) CNN @cnnbrk has only just got ownership of the account, so technically they have only really earned the last 80,000 or so followers, b) That of all of the twitter accounts out there it has fallen upon Ashton Kutcher @aplusk to try and steal this race.
I have nothing against Ashton, i like him actually and i have chosen to follow him because his posts seem interesting enough, i just was surprised that there is only one news feed against two celebs for the first mill (Including Britney Spears @britneyspears who is third).

I suppose it confirms the fact that we are more interested in celebrity culture than news, well celeb news is news but you know what i mean.

I like the whole story as its just a nice fun story in the news for a change and whoever wins the Malaria charity’s and suffers will benefit which is great. Also the special number followers who will get games by EA is cool and should help up the numbers!

Also found this of Ashton on YouTube helping to fight the cause, all i can say is one man, nearly a million followers, what would happen if this guy ran for president, or worse if Britney Spears did!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma8AcfKGaEI]

Anyway if you want to follow me and help me get to 100 followers i can be found here @BenScowen, maybe I’ll do something for charity too, but you will get no games!

TTYL

When it comes to writing a good blog, content is king, in-fact when it comes to writing web content or even updating facebook and twitter if your content is boring then it wont get clicked. But where do you or i fit into all of this?

I’ve been reading  alot lately about what makes a good blogger and web writer i guess unsurprisingly it’s similar to writing a good book, you have to know your audience and present your content in an interesting way. But how exactly do you do that when there are no doubt thousands of blogs already which know your audience and know how to grab them in?

So I’ve been thinking what do i need to do to find my voice, grab my audience and most important find what to write about.

I reckon it will take me a while to figure all of that out nut for now a little link dump is in order:

http://www.socmedia101.com/ – Very cool site i found a few hours ago, i will be checking often
http://www.viralvideochart.com/ – Try not to get addicted, good tool for learning if your interested or a great way to waste 30 minutes!
http://www.gosquared.com/liquidicity/archives/category/helpsheets – Great for Web Designers – Simpellz!

Hope that craves your thirst of Ben for the day…

I suppose the title sums up this post, i talk to lots of people about Social Media, Networks on the web, and Google and SEO rankings etc, but am i right?

Basically as it stands i have:

• 175 Friends on Facebook
• 26 Followers on Twitter
• A very Old MySpace and Bebo page
• A nearly finished Web Site
• YouTube & Flickr accounts
• And this blog which needs a good shot in the arm

I admit i am selective and don’t add just anyone, i know >90% of my FB friends for instance.

So the EXPERIMENT!
How famous can i get by the end of the year?
Basically i have no idea how i am going to measure it but i want see how many “friends”, “followers”, “subscribers”, how high up the google rankings i get when i search for “Ben Scowen” (and how many are actually me).
I have to learn a lot more about good blogging, SEO, Social Media but there is no better test subject than myself.

So i will set some rules to make the test fair throughout and not cheat.

1. I will not request people to be my friend, follow etc, they must want to join me on there own accord
2. I will blog, tweet, video blog etc as often as possible but at least once a week
3. On certain sites i will become or follow someone but not ask them for a return, i want to make myself visible without forcing myself upon people.

That’s it for rules unless i get some good suggestions, i will post weekly or monthly updates on my progress with graphs etc for all you stat geeks out there.

That’s it, if you have any advice, or can find anyone else who has done similar so i can compare please let me know, but for now,

Stay Classy (Maybe i need a new non Ron-Burgundy sign off?)