Mobile home park residents challenge rent control changes

CAPITOLA -- The city has received a petition calling for the repeal of recent changes to its rent-control ordinance, and if the signatures are confirmed, the City Council will have to approve the repeal or allow Capitola voters to decide.

A decade-long battle between the city and mobile home park owners over rent control seemed to reach a crescendo March 18, when the council voted to amend its ordinance, allowing for incremental rent increases and total decontrol when a current resident leaves the park. The decision was driven by a desire to reach a settlement agreement with Ron Reed, the owner of Surf and Sand Mobile Home Park, who had filed two lawsuits.

But the park's residents had one last recourse, filing a petition challenging the amended ordinance. They went door-to-door gathering signatures, and five minutes before the 5 p.m. Mondaydeadline they delivered the petition to repeal the changes to the city clerk. The residents gathered 875 signatures, well over the 400 required.

"There wasn't much else we could do," said Surf and Sand resident Shirley Hill, 80. "Either we get the petition signed and let the people vote on whether they want this mobile home park to stay here or not, or we file a lawsuit. We are mostly low-income people. We can't afford a lawsuit."

Mayor Dennis Norton said there was "no chance" the council would repeal the changes, and if the petition is verified, the issue will be left up to Capitola's voters.doesn't have any support except for some people in the mobile home parks," Norton said. "The community doesn't support it, and if the ordinance is repealed, we would be facing millions of dollars in litigation costs again. Then we will have to start by cutting major services that affect all our residents to find the money."

Councilman Sam Storey was not as quick to rule out a repeal, saying the council would have to review the issue again once the petition is verified.

Both the city clerk and city attorney will review the petition to ensure signatures were gathered appropriately. Also, the county elections department will check the signatures to make sure they come from registered Capitola voters.

Reed, like many mobile home park owners, has argued that rent control prevents him from getting a fair return on the property his family has owned for more than five decades. The changes to the ordinance were implemented to reach a settlement with Reed, whose two lawsuits challenge the city's decision to deny an application to close the park and the city's denial of an application to subdivide the mobile home park.

Capitola has spent more than $1.22 million to defend its rent-stabilization ordinance against various lawsuits, City Manager Jamie Goldstein said. About a third of the money for that defense has come from a mobile home administrative service fee paid by Capitola's mobile home park residents.

Reed was seeking $27 million in damages, a staggering figure for a city that has an operating budget of $12.3 million for 2010-2011.

The Surf and Sand residents' attorney, William Constantine, said the city is likely to win the two lawsuits based on previous court decisions, and that the cost of going to trial is not as steep as the $1 million the city projects.

The majority of Surf and Sand residents pay between $260 and $400 in monthly rent. Under the agreement, all rents would jump to at least $475 while low-income residents would be offered a minimum of a 34-year lease and rents will go up based on the consumer price index each year.

Moderate income tenants would have their rents raised to market level over an eight-year period.

If a resident terminates the lease and leaves the park, rent for that space could be raised to fair market value. Because the owner could raise rents to market level once a coach is sold, residents say all equity in their homes is lost because potential buyers would balk at both a high rent and a mortgage.

"There are a lot of people's lives involved here," said Surf and Sand resident Jack Alsman. "A lot of people don't have other places to go. I'm 65 and my plan when I bought this place in 1982 was to retire here. I'd probably be forced out of here if the ordinance stands."

Source http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/

Obama also "addicted" iPad 2

Barack Obama which is "love" BlackBerry device, but "fever" seems iPad also has spread to the White House.

Barrack Obama is particularly popular favorite products new technologies. He was the first U.S. president declared "addicted" RIM BlackBerry device. And, before the rush of iPad tablet, the boss of the Oval Office as well buy yourself a tablet this fashion. The media have discovered a second iPad on his desk.

Recently, information about hunting and "grab" the image of Obama holding iPad tablet 2 with Leather Cover Smart steps to super helicopter Marine One.

Earlier, this black president also acknowledged the mall iPad.

2 weeks ago, U.S. President was very frustrated with outdated technology at the White House. "This place is not the world of technology, we are lagging 30 years behind the world, " Obama shared at an event in Chicago

The Last Place She Expected to Be

“I’m beginning to feel more and more like I’m in the wrong place,” my mother said.

As was so often the case, she was the first to note this out loud, although my brother Michael and I knew it and were alternately pretending otherwise and making random stabs at solving the problem. In consultation with an elder care lawyer, my brother tried to make sense of New York State Department of Health regulations involving assisted living, “enriched” housing and adult care homes. Which was my mother actually in? We didn’t have a clue.

And why were they prohibiting us from hiring private-duty help for her or from even providing her with a wheelchair so she could get to meals and to the bathroom without falling?

Unbeknownst to us, we had chosen for my mother an assisted living facility licensed to provide extra care in only one way: We could sign a new lease for “enriched” housing, at monthly prices ranging from $150 to $1,150 on top of her current rent. This would buy her up to 10 hours a week of personal care, although she could never receive more than four consecutive hours.

Otherwise she was on her own or one of us had to be with her. Anyone needing more attention than that was expected to move to the on-campus nursing home. That place made me shudder and eventually prompted an epiphany on elder care.

When shopping for an independent living, assisted living or continuing care retirement community, focus on the nursing home that is either affiliated with or part of the facility. If you can’t imagine your mother or father winding up there, look elsewhere. This requires that you imagine the worst-case scenario, which nobody wants to do. But only by doing that can you be sure your parent will be spared moving to a completely new setting every time her condition deteriorates.

“Aging in place” is the mantra of elder care, ideally at home or in one facility that will serve your needs forever. It rarely happens. Things change. In the trade, moves are known to cause “relocation trauma,” physically and emotionally, for the frail elderly person, already sick and scared, and for the adult children, who must orchestrate everything.

As my mother deteriorated in her assisted living facility, I got her three hours a week of personal care. It wasn’t nearly enough. Many nights she couldn’t make it to the dining room on her walker. But getting her the wheelchair she needed would put her on the fast track to the unthinkable nursing home there.

Was there a chair we could borrow on difficult days, I asked? The facility had two, I was told. One had to be kept in the office for emergencies, and the other could be borrowed by signing up for it during regular business hours, a day in advance. So I would have to know by 5 p.m. Tuesday, say, that my mother was going to need the chair to get to dinner on Wednesday. Or maybe Wednesday’s dizzy spell counted as an emergency? But no. The emergency chair had to stay in its place. It all had a “Catch-22” quality.

I didn’t sign up for more hours of help because I was worried about money. The idea of going broke haunted me. At night, when I couldn’t sleep, I calculated when she would run out of money, then calculated when my brother and I would run out of money if we had to pay all the bills.

Consumed by worry, I felt work was the one safe place — but only so long as I wasn’t at my desk, where the phone rang incessantly. My sturdy, independent mother was now in perpetual meltdown. She was petrified, losing control of everything all at once, humiliated, enraged. The mood swings from sweet-and-grateful mom to it’s-all-your-fault mom destabilized me as nothing ever had before. I had reached a point of desperation. I needed help.

I had no right to expect someone to fix in short order a situation that had been deteriorating for months. But one day, in a conference room at a geriatric care management agency, that is essentially what I asked. At the table were one of the owners and a social work supervisor. I told them our story, of choosing an assisted living facility that could neither fill my mother’s needs nor let me hire someone to fill them. I told them I was coming unglued.

The two professionals agreed that the most important task was to find an appropriate facility. First, however, they’d broker a deal for her to get the help she needed in her current situation: they’d instruct her assisted living facility that safety laws, and my mother’s changed status, required 24-hour care and a wheelchair until we could find a suitable new home. Michael and I would go look at a highly regarded nursing home and an assisted living facility that accepted residents with live-in aides and wheelchairs.

They explained the pros and cons, financial and otherwise, of a nursing home versus an assisted living apartment with 24/7 help. They seemed to be leaning toward a nursing home because there, should my mother run out of money, as she likely would, her care would be paid for by Medicaid. In an assisted living facility, someone who can’t pay her own way must leave.

Things moved quickly now, but without that heady, anything-is-possible rush I remembered from the weeks surrounding my mother’s return to New York from Florida. Nine months had chastened all three of us.

I wouldn’t say we were smarter, only that we knew how much we didn’t know. Also, we were well on the way to changing our definition of success. My mother was never again going to have the life she had in Florida. She was never again going to be self-sufficient, independent of her children’s interference, and we were never again, until her death, going to be free of the responsibility for her well-being. Three people who were family more in name than in fact, not estranged but certainly distant from each other’s day-to-day lives, were now working in harness, our goal a safe harbor in which my mother might live out her dwindling days.

Michael and I went to see the Hebrew Home for the Aged, on the banks of the Hudson River in Riverdale, N.Y. We intended to look at a small assisted living building on the main campus, even now clinging to the reluctance of adult children to “put away” their parents. But it was already inadequate to her needs.

Instead we toured the skilled nursing floors, each with 48 residents, two R.N.’s and six certified nurse aides. The admissions director, unbidden, said the ratio of aides to residents was “never enough.” Her honesty was appealing.

Our next stop was another assisted living facility, also in Riverdale, run by a corporate up-and-comer in the field. This was one of their newer properties, less than half full. A pushy sales person offered a discount on a one-bedroom apartment, with room for a live-in aide, $3,295 a month, rather than the list price of $3,650. Warning bells went off. The speil continued, but we weren’t listening.

Our minds were made up. Hebrew Home it would be. This was the most important decision we had made so far, and my brother and I found ourselves utterly in harmony, led to it as we were by my mother’s clear head. Rather than balk at our clumsy efforts to be good children, she had given us permission to do the unthinkable. She would go to a nursing home after all.

Source http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/

Make Money From The Stock Market With These 7 Free How To Videos.

Online PR News – 30-April-2011 –OnlingTradingCash.com announces the release of 7 free videos that assist investors with making money from the stock market.

(Celina, TX - April 29, 2011) - OnlineTradingCash.com has released 7 free videos for investors that want to learn how to make money from the stock market and cash in no matter if the market is Bullish or Bear. "Stock and options trading are a great vehicle to make a full time income from home if you know what you are doing", comments Mike Meares, owner of OnlineTradingCash.com.

"That is why my company put together 7 outstanding videos that walk through how many home grown investors are making money from the stock market." These videos are offered from his site located at http://www.onlinetradingcash.com.

Mike went on to say, "there are many people that want to learn how to use the Stock Market as a vehicle to make a monthly income, but they are nervous because of all of the so-called risks. Building a trading business and managing by the numbers helps reduce these risks greatly and can provide a simple method to making money monthly and even daily."

As a matter of fact, one of the videos covers the four risk that one needs to be concerned with and how to avoid them. Each video provides insider information that provides insight money making stock and option trading strategies for the non-professional.

Making Money From The Stock Market Videos That Are Included For Free.

- Stock Trading as a Business.
- Profitable Positions.
- What is the Goal of the Stock Option Trading Business?
- The 4 Risks of this Business and How To Avoid Them.
- Expiration Week and Options Positions.
- How To Make Money in the Stock Market
- How to Make a Guarantee Profit By Locking in Profits.
- Market are in Turmoil and How To Profit From It.

All of these stock market and option trading videos are delivered online on high speed servers. The quality is outstanding and the information is enlightening. Visit http://www.onlinetradingcash.com to get instant access to these videos.

Source http://www.onlineprnews.com/

D.R. Horton profit rises on tax benefit

(Reuters) - D.R. Horton Inc (DHI.N) reported higher-than-expected margins on Friday as the economies of scale associated with being the biggest U.S. homebuilder helped to offset weak home-buying demand.

Horton's gross margins of 16.2 percent are helping it make money despite stiff price competition from cut-rate foreclosures and short sales that are depressing housing prices as the downturn nears its fifth anniversary.

Margins were down from last year's 18 percent, but still higher than most analysts expected.

Horton, which has operations in 26 states, reported earnings of $27.8 million, or 9 cents per share, for the second quarter ended March 31, up from $11.4 million, or 4 cents per share, a year earlier.

Wall Street analysts had expected a loss of 5 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The profit included a tax benefit of $59.2 million because of a favorable ruling from the Internal Revenue Service that allows them to stop paying a certain reserve, spokeswoman Jessica Hansen said.

Without one-time items like the tax ruling, the company would have reported earnings in-line with Wall Street's expectations, wrote Wells Fargo analyst Adam Rudiger.

Second-quarter revenue fell 18 percent to $733 million, and orders declined by 23 percent to 4,943 homes. In 2005, a peak year for homebuilding, the company sold more than 21,000 homes in the Southwest alone.

Orders are a leading indicator for builders, which do not recognize revenue until they close on a home.

LONG SLOG, EASIER COMPS

U.S. single-family home prices fell for the eighth straight month in February, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller composite index, which showed a year-over-year decline of 3.3 percent for 20 cities.

Horton says the road to recovery will be a long and tough slog.

"The homebuilding industry over the next two to three years will be very similar to what it has been for this year, with the potential for slight improvements but not significant improvements," said Chief Executive Officer Don Tomnitz on a conference call with analysts.

Investors give Horton's management a premium for being more realistic and accurate in its assessment of the duration and severity of the downturn, said FBN Securities analyst Joel Locker.

The company's business model focuses on lower-end homes for first-time homebuyers, which means it benefited more than many of its peers from the federal home buyer tax credits that expired a year ago.

As a result, Horton faced difficult comparisons that will ease in the second half of the year. In its second quarter last year, orders rose 55 percent.

The easing of those comparisons in the second half of the year sets the company up for an improved perception of its prospects that should translate to gains in share price, said ITG analyst Demir Gjokaj.

"This is going to be the last quarter for Horton for truly bad trends" in revenue and order declines, he said. "From now on, it'll be slow growth."

Shares of Horton were up 2.9 percent at $12.45 during morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Source http://www.reuters.com/

Google Shortener and Its Affect on SEO

We have witnessed the shot in popularity of social media between all age groups in recent years. And it is evident that even Google has gone social!

Bangalore, Karnataka -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/28/2011 -- Google has already implemented “real time search” on its search engine where twitter feeds appear on the search results. By this, it is apparent that social media content should be optimized just as any other online marketing content. Google is using twitter and facebook links as ranking symbols!
For instance look at its list of acquisitions:

• Video Sharing: YouTube

• Social Networking: Orkut

• Blogging : Blogger.com

• Image Sharing: Picasa

• Wiki: Knol

• Social Search: Aardvark

Also we can consider Google Buzz which acts as a social network inside Gmail and Google Wave project.

Let us consider url shortening service widely used on twitter which limits its content to 140 characters and in facebook status updates where 420 characters is the limit.

Whether shortened links used in your webpages are a threat to Search Engine Optimization? Or is that just a misinformation? Do URL shorteners pass anchor text?

Check the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMkltd6dZzU

Google’s Matt Cutts addressed the issue in a recent video posted to Google’s Webmaster Help YouTube channel stating – “Custom URL shorteners are essentially just like any other redirects”. He explains- “If we try to crawl a page, and we see a 301 or permanent redirect, which pretty much all well-behaved URL shorteners (like bit.ly or goo.gl) will do, if we see that 301 then that will pass Page Rank to the final destination.” He continues. “The Page Rank will flow through. The anchor text will flow through, and so I wouldn’t necessarily worry about that at all.”
Being reassured on that let us now dwell more on URL shortening and beyond social media.

1. Your website traffic definitely depends more than only on url keywords!
Consider our browsing behavior. Mostly we find new sites through search engines. But once finding that - if we are to visit it again, we either bookmark it or enter it directly in the address-bar if we remember the url. There is also autocomplete option on our browsers. So featuring a keyword in the url is not a mandatory rule for getting high traffic.

2. Make your links manageable and pretty
If your website has lot of affiliate links, you do not want a messy page there. Url shortening is not only the option but becomes a necessity at this point.

3. Use 301 redirects!
This is interpreted as moved permanently! Refer what Matt Cutt has explained. If you have to change the file names or move the pages around this is considered as safest option. Also it preserves the link juice for your website and never upsets your internet marketing strategy.

4. Using short urls for short term links
Links on twitter tweets and the ones in SMS marketing are meant for short term visibility. If you are using shortened links on your blog or website where a more descriptive link would drive long term traffic you are doing it all wrong!

There is plenty of url shortening service providers out there. Make use of them well where you need very little effort but as and only when the situation demands.

Soppnox solutions has always stood apart for its capability and quality in SEO Services. Be it search engine optimization services for websites, online marketing, pay per click campaign management, social media marketing, internet marketing, web analytics Soppnox expertise in all these areas to cater to the varied needs of its valued customers.

Source http://www.sbwire.com/

The Status Of Search Engine Optimization: April 2011 Edition

As you may or may not know, I have been practicing search engine optimization since 1996. I have seen quite a few changes in the industry. There have been a lot of major changes, like when Google first showed up on the scene, using links as an SEO factor...

...(we had previously been concentrating only on on-page factors such as meta tags), and we have had minor updates that have really only been "blips" on the radar. So, right now, in April 2011, what is the status of Search Engine Optimization?

Over the years, we have had a lot of updates and changes in the Search Engine Optimization industry. We all know that Google is a major player, so most of what Search Engine Optimization experts such as myself concentrate 70 percent of the time on Google's organic search engine rankings and looking at factors that effect Google rankings. And then there's about 30 percent of the time spent looking at factors that may effect rankings on Bing.com (which show up on Yahoo.com). That's related to the search engine market share of Google versus Bing.com.

Search Engine Optimization

So, what should you focus on right now, today, in April 2011? What has changed? Really, nothing has changed in a major way. It's still business as usual. Build a quality web site, with lots of good informational content about your subject, publicize the content (properly) on other web sites, get links from other web sites to ALL of your content, and you will be just fine. Create a site that is good for your users and something that they like, and the search engines will reward you for it.

In other words, quit chasing the Google algorithm and worrying about all of the "minor" SEO tweaks that you could be doing and worry more about the fact that you're not creating great content on your web site. That said, there are "best practices" that you still need to adhere to:

- Search engine friendly web design
- Unique content
- Make sure your on-page factors are in check (i.e., proper title tags, meta tags, heading tags, alt tags, etc.)
- Add good content to your site on a regular basis
- Do proper publicity for your content (use social sites, link building, and press releases when appropriate).

Google Panda Update

As you have probably heard, Google has updated their algorithm yet again, with this latest round of updates called the "Google Panda" update. I can honestly say that my major "sites" and the majority of the web sites that I do SEO for have not seen major rankings decreases because of the Google Panda update. But again, I believe that is mainly because of the five factors I just named above (Search engine friendly web design, unique content, on-page factors, adding content, proper publicity).

There are, though, a lot of good resources (perhaps too many) online that are talking about the Google Panda update, and many of the factors that you should start looking at (a checklist, so to speak). I have taken some time to look at what people are saying, and have narrowed it down for you a bit. To save some time.

Webmasterworld has a great update thread here on Google Panda, that is worth reading. If you don't have the time to go through over 15 pages of chatter, here are the major points:

"" User behavior: G gathers it from Chrome, Toolbar, etc. and factors it in. Eg. bounce rate (back to the SERP they came from) " was listed twice and has spawned many rumors so far.

" Reading levels: If you go to "Advanced search", you can filter SERPS by "reading level". Think about it, test it!

" Bad templates: Too many pages using one single template (WordPress like) could cause GBot nausea.

" Internal links devalued, only external really count

" Thin pages cause substantial bigger problems for a domain

" Duplicate content snippets on your page cause substantial bigger problems

" Too many external named links "widget keyword" instead of "more..." (eg) cause penalties

" Missing positive reviews from the usual review sites count as a minus the (low) quality of a link destination could backfire on the quality score of the link source

" missing certificates/page seals of organizations (BBB maybe?) could give a missing signal

" Content above the fold: implying that G renders the page and estimates the content quality early shown

" Text blocks with an (ancient) date of publication could catch a devaluation

" Spelling and grammar: errors might get you sacked

" Technical elegance gives extra points (loading speed, clean HTML)"

Seobook also chimed on Google Panda:

"Here's a stab, based on our investigations, the conference scene, Google's rhetoric, and pure conjecture thus far:

" A useful document will pass a human inspection
" A useful document is not ad heavy
" A useful document is well linked externally
" A useful document is not a copy of another document
" A useful document is typically created by a brand or an entity which has a distribution channel outside of the search channel
" A useful document does not have a 100% bounce rate followed by a click on a different search result for that same search query .

So, what's the bottom line? What do you do now if you want your web site to rank well in the search engines? Take a look at the points both the experts at Webmasterworld and SEO Book, Aaron Wall, are saying. But don't forget about the main core Search Engine Optimization principles that I mentioned above. If you invest your time and energy towards creating a search engine friendly web site with great content added on a regular basis and you publicize that content properly, when these "updates" come along you will
Source http://www.searchnewz.com/

5 Environmentally Friendly Home Updates Everyone Should Know How to Complete

This is guest post by Lou Manfredini, Ace Hardware's home expert. Lou is a nationally recognized home and do-it-yourself expert who has an energetic and entertaining personality. Lou is a master at giving tips on greening your home, home maintenance, home projects that can save you money, and do-it-yourself projects in a way that even the most novice do-it-yourselfer can understand. He has authored five DIY books and hosts a nationally syndicated TV program called House Smarts as well as The Mr. Fix It Show, Chicago's number one Saturday morning radio program.

Turn your eco-friendly "to-do" list into a "to-done" list with these five simple, yet impactful, home updates. The changes below can be easily incorporated into your regular routine, so you can help the environment without giving up your weekend.

Stop using CFL bulbs. Most people are surprised by this one, but while CFLs (compact fluorescent lights) use less electricity than conventional bulbs, LED is by far the better choice. Sylvania, Phillips and GE all make LED bulbs that look like conventional options and give off great light while using a fraction of the electricity.

LED lights cost approximately $20-$49 each, and can last up to 50,000 hours - or up to 6 times longer than CFLs. In addition, LED bulbs contain no mercury, so disposal and breakage are less hazardous. Next time you need a light bulb, defy convention and reach for an LED.

Use No VOC or Low VOC paint. Traditional paints contain chemicals that emit toxic fumes during application and as the paint dries. Advances in technology have made it possible for paint manufacturers to create vibrant, durable paints that emit little to no toxic gas.

Look for brands such as Benjamin Moore, Royal by Ace Paint, and Sherwin Williams for great Low VOC and No VOC paint options that don't sacrifice quality or safety.

Install a water filter on your kitchen faucet. You will be amazed at how attaching a small unit to your kitchen faucet will improve the overall taste and quality of your drinking water. Look for one that screws directly onto the end of your faucet and allows you to switch the filter on or off.

This critical feature extends the lifespan of your filter by letting you switch to regular tap water for washing hands or doing the dishes. Brita, Culligan and Pür all offer quality faucet filters for around $25.00-$35.00. This small investment will more than offset the cost of not buying bottled water and the planet will thank you for eliminating all of that plastic.

Try the new organic fertilizers. Natural lawn care has vastly improved in recent years and you can now stay green in more ways than one. Depending on where you live, you can find companies like Miliorganite, Ringer and Jonathon Greene that offer full lines of natural products to help your garden grow with little-to-no impact on our environment. These products are just as easy to apply as chemical options, if not easier. So go green and get back to enjoying your yard quickly and safely.

Switch to earth-friendly cleaning products. This one takes no time at all - just switch over as you run out and eventually you will have a healthier home. Almost all of the major cleaning product manufacturers have developed greener options for the home, some better than others.

You want to know what you are getting, so check out the ingredients to be sure you have more than simply "natural ingredients." In my experience, Seventh Generation, Green Works, and Mrs. Myers are solid choices for your home. Bonus? No lingering chemical smells!

See, that wasn't hard. Five simple changes to things you are already doing and the earth will breathe a little easier as a result.
Source http://uk.ibtimes.com/

Keep the conversation going

I was new in town and newly divorced. After working as a reporter post-college, I'd been a stay-at-home mom for more than a decade. Now I was a single mom needing to make money to support my family — and my most recent skill was organizing bake sales.

“Why don't you work at a newspaper again?” said a longtime friend. “That's what you like doing.”

Make an appointment with the editor, my friend said. Don't ask for a job. Instead, explain your situation, say you want to get back into newspapers and ask for advice.

So that's why, almost 15 years ago, I was nervously heading into the TimesDaily office of Executive Editor Kathy Silverberg — and heading out a few minutes later with a job.

At first, that job didn't bring me back to the newspaper office much: I wrote articles about local businesses for advertisements and special sections.

Then, Kathy asked me to work part time doing things nobody else liked doing: Writing weddings, logging in calendar events, retyping columns. But I loved it.

I enjoyed being part of the newspaper family. My identification badge became a prized possession.

Soon I was part-time permanent. Then full-time temporary. And finally, permanent full time. With each move, I wrote more and typed less. A couple of years after my first timid walk into the newsroom, I was a real reporter.

And, amazingly, I was a columnist, too.

I remember I'd written some column-like articles for the Lifestyle pages and felt that tingle you get that means “This is a good thing.” I'm not sure my then-editor ever

officially approved a column — one day I simply said, “Here's my column” and she said, “OK. Thanks,” and that was that.

I'm eternally grateful she said “OK,” because writing this column has been an honor, a privilege and an incredible amount of fun.

But, sadly, this is my last one for the TimesDaily.

There's only one thing left to say: Thank you.

Thank you for spending time with me every week. Thank you for the messages. Thank you for hanging with me through weddings, graduations and band-booster meetings. Thank you for the shoe shopping, the football games and the tips on husband training.

Thank you for being there during laughter, tears, celebrations and losses.

Plenty of adventures are ahead, so visit my blog, Coffee with Cathy, at cathylwood.wordpress.com. Pour a cup, sit down and let's keep the conversation going.

You won't believe what 3-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable said the other day.

Source http://www.timesdaily.com/

Michigan SEO Agency provides a complete internet marketing solution

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About the Author

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Contact Details-

Tintin Clover
Michigan Seo Agency
701, Shikhar
Near Vadilal House
Mithakali 6 Roads, Navrangpura
Ahmedabad
Tel: +91-932-709-5049 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +91-932-709-5049 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
soniyapankajpatel@gmail.com
http://www.michiganseoagency.com

S0urce http://www.indiacompanynews.com/

AOL Trolls for SEO Bait… Uh, Make That “Exposure-Compensated Bloggers”

Only a few weeks after AOL fired Moviefone editor-in-chief Patricia Chui for daring to suggest that the company might welcome fired freelancers back as unpaid bloggers, upper management has apparently had a change of heart. No, not about Chui. About the whole unpaid blogger thing. AOL wants 8,000 free bloggers for Patch, the company’s network of hyperlocal coverage. In eight days, too, naturally.

The real reason? To draw more search-engine traffic via SEO, of course.

Such an about face does cast AOL demurrals about the “please write for us for free” invitations in a disingenuous light. Chui wasn’t the first AOL editor to bring up free work. She just caught the bullet for being the second one to mention it in public.

Lots of free blog posts = attention from Google = ka-ching!

But then, the idea was always to get writ

Frankly, I have a hard time believing that HuffPo put in that much effort, as it would have involved something like 40 bloggers per HuffPo employee, most of whom aren’t even editors. But set aside the math for a moment. Each Patch editor will have to watch over 5 to 10 bloggers while doing everything else they have to do. And apparently the report that AOL would hire hundreds of new Patch staffers to help make the job more manageable was another of those management statements that weren’t meant to be taken literally.

After all, hire more people? Wouldn’t that cost money?

Only a few weeks after AOL fired Moviefone editor-in-chief Patricia Chui for daring to suggest that the company might welcome fired freelancers back as unpaid bloggers, upper management has apparently had a change of heart. No, not about Chui. About the whole unpaid blogger thing. AOL wants 8,000 free bloggers for Patch, the company’s network of hyperlocal coverage. In eight days, too, naturally.

The real reason? To draw more search-engine traffic via SEO, of course.

Such an about face does cast AOL demurrals about the “please write for us for free” invitations in a disingenuous light. Chui wasn’t the first AOL editor to bring up free work. She just caught the bullet for being the second one to mention it in public.

Lots of free blog posts = attention from Google = ka-ching!

But then, the idea was always to get writers to churn out massive amounts of free material, because, as I’ve noted before, that helps search engine optimization. A major reason for Huffington Post’s success has been thousands of bloggers raising the site’s search engine prominence.

The more new material that goes up with some thought behind it, the more attention search engines like Google pay. The more attention, the more traffic. The more traffic, the more ad revenue — and, boy, does AOL need that. For CEO Tim Armstrong to put Arianna Huffington in charge of editorial would have been unthinkable had he not wanted to implement a similar approach throughout his organization.

But AOL’s rollout of the strategy again epitomizes its sketchy management approach, if Jeff Bercovici’s story on Forbes.com is even half-correct:

Patch, AOL’s network of hyperlocal news sites, is trying to recruit as many as 8,000 bloggers in the next eight days, according to editor in chief Brian Farnham.On Friday, Patch editors were told to start recruiting bloggers in preparation for the launch of its blog platform on May 4. Yesterday, Farnham issued a memo with concrete targets: Each editor is expected to sign up five to 10 new bloggers by then.

Farnham’s rationalization is that Patch is a “startup” and that Patch editors would have to get used to “changes and moving fast.”

Go hyperlocal, young blogger

A nice thought, that. Now, time for a reality check. Hiring bloggers that are good and getting them into place — particularly when you want them to donate their services — isn’t easy. One way HuffPo pulls this off is to dangle the possibility of building a huge audience, because of the site’s huge traffic. Most of the Huffington bloggers are virtually unread, so the promise is empty. However, at least it sounds like it could be true.

What will Patch offer? Hyperlocal means focusing on a small area. That means limited audiences, so it doesn’t provide a big bargaining chip. And then there’s the added work for the existing Patch editors. As sources inside AOL have told me, people actually go over the Huffington Post blog entries, providing some degree of copy editing.

Frankly, I have a hard time believing that HuffPo put in that much effort, as it would have involved something like 40 bloggers per HuffPo employee, most of whom aren’t even editors. But set aside the math for a moment. Each Patch editor will have to watch over 5 to 10 bloggers while doing everything else they have to do. And apparently the report that AOL would hire hundreds of new Patch staffers to help make the job more manageable was another of those management statements that weren’t meant to be taken literally.

After all, hire more people? Wouldn’t that cost money?
Source http://www.bnet.com/

ers to churn out massive amounts of free material, because, as I’ve noted before, that helps search engine optimization. A major reason for Huffington Post’s success has been thousands of bloggers raising the site’s search engine prominence.

The more new material that goes up with some thought behind it, the more attention search engines like Google pay. The more attention, the more traffic. The more traffic, the more ad revenue — and, boy, does AOL need that. For CEO Tim Armstrong to put Arianna Huffington in charge of editorial would have been unthinkable had he not wanted to implement a similar approach throughout his organization.

But AOL’s rollout of the strategy again epitomizes its sketchy management approach, if Jeff Bercovici’s story on Forbes.com is even half-correct:

Patch, AOL’s network of hyperlocal news sites, is trying to recruit as many as 8,000 bloggers in the next eight days, according to editor in chief Brian Farnham.On Friday, Patch editors were told to start recruiting bloggers in preparation for the launch of its blog platform on May 4. Yesterday, Farnham issued a memo with concrete targets: Each editor is expected to sign up five to 10 new bloggers by then.

Farnham’s rationalization is that Patch is a “startup” and that Patch editors would have to get used to “changes and moving fast.”

Go hyperlocal, young blogger

A nice thought, that. Now, time for a reality check. Hiring bloggers that are good and getting them into place — particularly when you want them to donate their services — isn’t easy. One way HuffPo pulls this off is to dangle the possibility of building a huge audience, because of the site’s huge traffic. Most of the Huffington bloggers are virtually unread, so the promise is empty. However, at least it sounds like it could be true.

What will Patch offer? Hyperlocal means focusing on a small area. That means limited audiences, so it doesn’t provide a big bargaining chip. And then there’s the added work for the existing Patch editors. As sources inside AOL have told me, people actually go over the Huffington Post blog entries, providing some degree of copy editing.