Tracksuit CEO

By Daniel Hope

Vs.
Photo Credits: NPR

I wrote recently about the use of Bing in its past tense, inspired by a hilarious and fateful conversation Scotty Iseri had with his boss.  I have been trying Bing out a bit lately and have been impressed with its search results. 

The Vanity Folder

One thing I teach my students is to set up a vanity folder in their RSS reader.  This is a folder where you unapologetically subscribe to all things pertaining only to you (your name, your company, etc.).  In this folder I tell people to include Google Alerts and other search engine results.  Getting Google Alerts via RSS is a little tricky but this tutorial should make it easy.

Practicing what I preach, I performed a quick search for Daniel Hope on Bing:

Just as I expected, the top spot is taken by violinist Daniel Hope.   Daniel Hope is a British musician who grew up hanging out with Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar.  He has even jammed with The Police on his 239 year old instrument (purchased from Menuhin on a 15 year note).  Judging by fame and talent alone, the UK’s Daniel Hope deserves the front page in any search engine’s results.

But look here at the #3 spot:

Who is this impostor Daniel Hope talking about LOLcats?  Oh wait . . . that’s me!  The Daniel Hope who began writing under the pseudonym Tracksuit CEO; whose true identity was probably one of the worst kept secrets in the history of anonymity.

When I began blogging in June of 2007, the violinist Daniel Hope dominated the first pages of Google, Yahoo! and all the other search engines.  But my current place in the search engine results is a testament to the SEO power of the blog. 

Here are the steps I took:

• Started a blog (the original was a free blog on WordPress)
• Posted original content (and kept it current)
• Encouraged conversation (comments, links, etc.)
• Posted my blog links to Social Networks (Digg, Delicious, etc.)

These are powerful steps and can be applied universally to any blog in any industry.  So while the violinist Daniel Hope was busy practicing his arpeggios, the blogger Daniel Hope was busy practicing his linkbaiting. 

Speaking of linkbaiting, the title of this post mentions a smackdown.  This may be a bit sensational; no suplexes were dealt and no atomic elbows were dropped, but it does make for a great title.  And anyone who has practiced the dark art of linkbaiting knows that each campaign’s success hinges on a great title.

If I ever do have the singular pleasure of meeting the other Daniel Hope, I hope we can both agree that the Internet is big enough for the two of us.  If not, I think we should meet on neutral territory; settling our differences with a dance-off.

Click here to show your support for Iran on Twitter

Subscribe to Tracksuit CEO

By Daniel Hope

Below is a picture I created with the LOLBuilder on icanhascheezburger.com.  

I guess I needed some LOLz after watcing CNN almost all night for the latest on what is developing in Iran.  All kidding aside, I do have a very serious hope that the voices of the protestors will be heard and their wishes and votes honored.  In any case, the country will never be the same after this and it will be for the better.

Everyone should do what they can to let Iran know that we support a truly democratic process.

Some things you can do right now:

• If you have a Twitter account get a green overlay on your avatar
• Pick up a green Iran wristband – $1 of each purchase goes to organizations like UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders.

Hang in there Iran!

Click here to show your support for Iran on Twitter

Subscribe to Tracksuit CEO

by Daniel Hope

Almost a year ago I wrote an in-depth analysis of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s blog.  I pointed out the many things he was doing right and also gave him some unsolicited blog advice in the spirit of international goodwill.

One of the points of advice I gave Ahmadinejad was to get a Twitter account, in fact, I set one up for him.  After setting up @PrezAhmadinejad I did an initial tweet:

I then used the email form on his blog to send him a message saying that if he or his handlers wanted the Twitter account that I would send them the password:

In my post I chose not to get into the leader’s human right’s record, his holocaust denial or any other scandalous political matters.  I simply offered the advice and the account in the hope that the transparency that goes hand-in-hand with social networks like Twitter would have some positive effect on its user.

In light of the turmoil surrounding the recent Iranian election results I decided to revisit my post with a few new items to report.

My Twitter Offer is Off the Table

My offer to Ahmadinejad of a Twitter account is no longer valid … mainly because I forgot the password.  I set up a separate email to do the Twitter account and I can’t even remember the password for that account, so it’s pretty much a lost cause.

That said, it looks like there won’t be any more updates to the account.  As it is now @prezahmadinejad only has two followers: @dickcheney and @tracksuitceo (yours truly). And if you look closely at my avatar you will see that it has a green overlay.

If you aren’t already aware of it, to show your support in the fight for democracy in Iran you can got to http://helpiranelection.com and with one click you will get a green overlay on your Twitter avatar.

Guess Who Does Have a Twitter Account?

Okay, my effort to get the Iranian leader on Twitter failed, but look who is on Twitter:  MirHossein Mousavi is Tweeting as @mousavi1388 with no fewer than 21,517 followers at the time of this post!

I also give him some serious Web 2.0 credit for also having a Delicious account so we can see which websites he is reading and bookmarking.

What about Facebook?

According to this news story the Iranian ban on Facebook was done for two reasons:

The Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) reports Iran’s new ban on Facebook is aimed to stop supporters of reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi from using the site. But CAP News has learned that the ban also comes in the wake of the failure of its incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to garner more than a handful of “friends.”

Wow, that must have been embarrassing.  Especially considering that Mousavi currently has 77,974 friends on Facebook.

On Friday we will see what the election results look like and we can only hope that the best candidate will win.

Click here to show your support for Iran on Twitter

Subscribe to Tracksuit CEO

By Daniel Hope

After the success of my last few posts about Scotty Iseri and his public firing, I decided to introduce “Bung” into the urban lexicon.

When my definition passes review on Urban Dictionary I will post the link so you guys can vote it up.

And if anyone wants Bing stickers, TechCrunch has them for free!

Subscribe to Tracksuit CEO

by Daniel Hope

Thank you to Scotty Iseri and his office antics!  I got a huge traffic spike yesterday as you can see here:

We have been told by Scotty to stay tuned, he may have been fired (this was caught on video) but he says he’s not down for the count.  We’ll have to wait and see what that means.

His firing may not have been a big surprise, what with him singing songs about how he can’t get fired in spite of a laundry list of general office misbehavior, most of which was captured on video.

In the episode below he gets chewed out for his inappropriate attire:

In the video below he receives the email that must be the precursor to his boss screaming repeatedly, “fired, fired, fired”, like a maniac.

Good luck, Scotty.  If I had been your employer, I hope I would have found a way to harness your creative energy because apparently there is a lot of it!