Quick thoughts on 2 unrelated online services

Aug 15 2008

This combined blog post about Twitter and QAlias came about half out of laziness and half because I didn’t think I’d have enough to say about each of these to warrant doing this in two posts.

Let’s talk about Twitter. For those of you that don’t know, Twitter is a “micro-blog” where users blast out short messages (140 characters or less) about what they are doing. Beyond that, the first thing you should know about Twitter is that it is HIGHLY addictive. I’ve been doing this for 3 weeks or so now and I feel constantly compelled to grab my phone and write a message or “tweet”.

But what isn’t immediately clear about Twitter is what makes it useful. This is still a little cloudy for me, but I’ve found it a neat way to connect with people (friends, stangers and even celebrities) and makes an unconventional sounding board for insights or ideas. It’s sort of like sending an instant message to the world.

Want to follow me on Twitter? Go for it at http://www.twitter.com/erikwolf

I was introduced to QAlias by a fellow by the name of Andy Greider (and in the spirit of demonstrating the service I have linked to his QAlias profile). Essentially, for $10 a month, they will purchase your name in pay-per-click ads on the search engines to ensure that you appear at or near the top if anyone searches for you.

The ads link to your QAlias profile, which is fine, but the template is a little limiting. For example, I can only link to one of my web sites (I chose my blog). Go ahead and Google “Erik Wolf” and you’ll find my profile. You’ll also see that I’m usually competing for paid real estate with Erik Wolf the professional golfer and that QAlias won’t outbid the big sports sites for top billing. But that’s OK

While I’ve been appearing on page 1 on Google organic search for quite some time before QAlias, I do see the value in this as I (like many people out there) have a fairly common name and it’s been difficult to beat out the other prominent Erik Wolfs out there. If not for this blog and my businesses, I’d likely have trouble maintaining first page placement. So I’d recommend QAlias for anyone with a common name and is having trouble getting ranked well, or anyone that just doesn’t have much web presence period.

The jury’s still out on whether or not I’ll keep my QAlias going long-term but I’ll probably give it another couple of months and see what happens.