Using Markdown for real this time

OK so yesterday I started a post meaning to talk about what Markdown is and why to use it, that post flew off at a tangent and didn’t really cover anything to do with Markdown.

Briefly.

Markdown allows you to write plain, easy to read text that can be then automatically formatted into HTML for example for blog posts like this.

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Using Markdown

I recently stated that I didn’t see the point of Markdown.

I was wrong, in fact so wrong that learning how to use it has made writing blog posts so much easier, O.K well…

Markdown + iA Writer + AlfredApp + Renaming a couple of keys on my German keyboard so I can use [ and ] easier.

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Startup Tools

If you’re starting up a new business there are so many tools available out there, here is a quick selection of some options that I know and recommend.

Unbounce

Unbounce is a self-serve hosted service that provides marketers doing paid search, banner ads, email or social media marketing, the easiest way to create, publish & test promotion specific landing pages without the need for IT or developers.

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How not to launch your new product

O.K so these are just personal gripes but let me know how you feel about them too.

Virlnet, well they say some things but I’m not really sure what they mean, and to sign up to be notified about the launch and learn more I have to give them access to my Facebook account, errr NO!

Virlnet 560x330 How not to launch your new product

A friend of mine Brett Nyquist made a good comment on Twitter which I wanted to add in here:

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Focus on your writing

Some people need tools and focus some just need more writing skills.

I’m the latter, for me it’s not the tools that I need it’s the practice.

Minimal writing apps are all the rage, I have to admit I’ve checked most of them out at some point or another.

I came to the conclusion for me that the app doesn’t matter, it’s what I am writing and just doing it.

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Frequency caps in Adwords

Ad Retargeting or Remarketing as Google calls it is a pretty effective Ad tactic.

If you don’t know what it is then Retargeting, in the case of Adwords, is a cookie that gets placed on your computer upon visiting a companies site that has activated remarketing in their Ad campaign, later when visiting other sites in the Google content network then Google know that you had an interest in certain sites before and will show you ads from that company again.

The main problem with many companies is they don’t set up Frequency caps, ie. how many times your ads are being shown to a site visitor.

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Why are those Adverts following me?

Did you ever have the feeling that you we’re being stalked by an Advert on multiple websites?

Well you probably are!

It’s called Retargeting.

In a nutshell retargeting works by tracking you the visitor, when you visit site X it places a piece of code on your computer, this then tells potential Advertisers when you visit another site that you have been interested in a previous product from Site X.

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Not your language, not your problem?

This morning I had a complaint against a local Telecom company (don’t we all).

Long story short, ordered a phone and they didn’t tell me it was out of stock and would be 3 weeks delivery when I placed the order, blah blah blah, when asking what can be done about it the customer support agent replied:

‘what would you like me to do? Bake you one?’….

WWWHHHHAAAATTTTT!?

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