Dave Chase in his column at iMedia "Sugarshots: The Big Picture" expounded on the virtues of Open-Source Marketing Plan. In his article, Dave explained the main ideas came from James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations."

This author’s open-source marketing plan, as announced on June 29, 2005, is mainly for small and medium-sized businesses. By keeping it simple, this author hoped it can be useful to businesses with a limited budget, can get "more bang for the buck".

The objective is to gain 3000+ inbound links within one year by sending:- A. 48 free-reprint articles in one year. B. 4 free e-books in one year. C. 4 free software similar to corporate gifts or freebies D. 6 press releases in one year.

Getting many inbound links is vital as a hits generator - sources for new visitors. Sometimes, internet users on reading the articles, e-books or using the freebies may visit the originating site directly.

The site www.seecrets.biz started in early May 2005 with one article. In the following two months, ten articles were submitted and two press releases were issued. All these are available at this author’s site with the dates concerned.

After two months, over 300 inbound links were obtained. It is difficult to be accurate because Google does not list back-links from sites with PageRank of less than three. During the first few weeks, counting was easy when the number was less than 100.

The results from the Google, Yahoo and MSN search engines on July 9, 2005 at 0800GMT are as follows (the figures within the brackets represent the total competing pages):

"Seecrets" got 1(7570), 1(1040) and 1(3681). "Stan seecrets" got 4(338), 1(215) and 1(737). "Joe Nogood" got 4(694000), 8(1330) and 1(2447). "Rebrand software" got NR(84000), 15(88800) and 11(31124). "Open source marketing plan" got NR(26.7million), 10(5.2million) and 12(1million). "Open source marketing plan" got 3&4, 6&7 and 2 through the Press Release sites. (Please note that "NR" means not ranked in the top 20.).

The first three keywords (seecrets, stan seecrets and joe nogood) are important to this author’s site’s brand.

The keywords (joe nogood, rebrand software and open source marketing plan) were only introduced in late June 2005. The last two are relevant to the site’s activities.

These are the preliminary results. Readers can always inspect this author’s website and decide that no unfair or illegal methods were used. Knowledgeable readers should be able to see the meta-tags with ease.

This author’s take

Whether these results are good or not, it is up to the readers to decide. It can be a useful guide for website owners to improve upon and hopefully report back to the Internet community.

This is the first step of a long journey. There will be more mountains to climb, battles to fight, obstacles to overcome and so forth. This author is satisfied that the chosen brand has taken root. Whether this root can grow to support a giant redwood tree or just a bush that will wither away in the next few years, is yet to be seen.

This author wishes to thank the fine people behind rushprnews.com, isnare.com, ezinearticles.com, bloggeroff.com and many others for making this tumultuous journey for this techie-turned-Internet writer, a smoother one.

The Joe Nogood Gift Store Story – Joe runs for Political Office (Episode 2)

[Author’s note: Joe Nogood and JoeNoGood.com are fictional. It is an experiment to portray current events and issues (where angels fear to tread) in a lighthearted perhaps entertaining manner. Below is a conversation between Joe and his longtime buddy, Stan.]

Joe: Let’s go and visit DMV.

Stan: DMV? You’ve just renewed your driving license last week.

Joe: Not the Department of Motor Vehicles, you dummy. The Drunkards of Mountain View – they’re so fixated on brandy, burgundy, booze stuff (referring to their search algorithms’ names). They are drunk with their own success.

Stan: What name will they use for their next algorithm?

Joe: BS.

Stan: But, BS is an organic matter. What has that got to do with booze?

Joe: Ah, the Danes use plenty of that stuff to make methane gas. By using genetically modified bacteria, you can use this BS stuff to make ethane gas, the precursor of ethanol – pure 200-proof alcohol.

Stan: Why visit these drunkards then?

Joe: All their rankings stuff are BS. Somehow, they managed to convince the whole world and make a lot of money in the process. They may provide a few pointers on how to be President.

Stan: President?

Joe: By using DMV in our pages, DMV is related to roads and being a middle-of-the-road candidate, we’ll occupy all top 100 rankings for all our web pages. Joe I. Nogood is running for President with the slogan "I NoGood".

Stan (thinking to himself): Joe has a way of making the irrelevant, relevant. Just maybe, Joe will make a great President. Maybe.

[To be continued]

Stan Seecrets Postulate: Where we originate is the same – our mothers’ womb. Where we are heading is the same – six-feet under. In between, we communicate. (Inspired by George Santayana, Spanish-born American philosopher - There is no cure for birth or death save to enjoy the interval).