Mint - Cool concept, but doesn’t work for me
A few days ago I read about Mint, a free web-based alternative to Quicken, MS Money, etc.I thought I would really like using Mint because it was billed as being so easy - just put in your online backing username and password and it will automatically pull data on your spending trends, account alerts and more. This part sounded really cool - all of the software programs I have tried up to this point require a painstaking amount of work to sync with my online banking accounts.I can’t use Mint, though, because apparently it doesn’t support people like me who manage different bank accounts under one internet banking login. I currently have 6 - checking, savings and credit for both our Utah marketing business and personal use.I do not want Mint to pull my business banking data at all, but when I put in the username and password for my online banking it is only pulling one account (which happens to be from the business). I don’t see a way to change this so I guess I’ll just have to wait until Mint addresses the issue. I would think that at least having one checking and one savings account would be very common so I’m sure it will be addressed.As a side-note, it is entirely possible this is a user error which I have been prone to make as well (read zach’s comment to see why my workaround was pointless).
Overture Keyword Tool - Welcome Back
I didn’t really realize how often I use the Overture Keyword Selector Tool until I had to spend a week or so without it this past week (it’s been down).While there are some good tools out there I haven’t found anything with enough data to give meaningful estimates on small niche keywords. I was happy to hear from Dave this morning that it’s back up and running.
Clickriver by Amazon
I really meant to write my review of Clickriver, an ad service from Amazon that allows you to bid on keywords for Amazon searches, a few days ago. I was pretty blown away with how simple it was to create new campaign and push it live. I’m glad that I procrastinated waited, though, since I have been able to really see the ad network in action.The GoodFrom a usability standpoint Clickriver will most likely be the easiest place you will ever advertise. Any beginner web marketer can easily setup ad ad without getting confused or wondering what’s going on.So far, from what I’ve seen, the conversion rates are pretty good. People searching Amazon for products are usually in a shopping mode. If you have a webstore you would be crazy not to try Clickriver out.Your ads go live immediately and your ad stats are real time - anybody using Google with its seemingly inconsistent reporting latency will appreciate this.The BadYour ads go below the Amazon products that are returned on your search query. If you are in a very competitive industry you will probably have a lot of products in front of yours and will most likely have a very low CTR. If you are in a niche category this is less of a concern (on some ads we have shown up beneath 2-3 products, which results in a lot more click-thru’s).Clickriver doesn’t have any type of conversion tracking so you better either have some good analytics on your end or be able to make great decisions based on gut feelings - but then again, if that’s you, you’re probably into offline marketing, right? 
The ConfusingStepping back for a minute and forgetting how good Clickriver is for hardware companies like Sewell, why is Amazon doing this? I guess they really want to brand themselves as more of a technology company (internet retailers don’t trade for 123 times earnings).I guess my bigger question is why don’t they just let more companies join the Amazon network? Every time I have applied to sell through Amazon (they use an extensive network of drop-shippers), they have told me that our category is full. Now they’re going to take lower margins to send users off their site to complete a transaction that they won’t have any upside on.It seems to me that the best decision Amazon could make is to evaluate new applications based on the actual products the retailer sells as opposed to just the category they are in - we are getting way too much traffic for products that simply aren’t available through Amazon. But if they want to send the traffic my way, in post-bad-serve-Sewell-ping-pong lingo, “I’ll take it.”
Experts Exchange - a workaround
One of the most annoying things to me is doing a google search for a common technical problem and finding a site that purports to have the answer, but then tells me I have to sign-up to see the answer.Experts-Exchange.com is one such site that I stumble across quite often. Yes, registration is free, but it is lame to me that Google ranks them so high on competitive keywords. I was also confused at how they would rank so well since without the experts responses they are pretty light on content.Well, this morning I figured out how they do it - they allow the engines to see the full responses while the normal web users don’t. This is cloaking, but not the kind that you’ve heard all the bad stories about - Google allows this type of cloaking for various subscriptions services (such as some newspapers).So 2 takeaways:1) Google should penalize these guys - Google claims to be the champion of web usability and this is a serious usability issue.2) Just click on “Cached” under the Google description to see what Google sees - get all the content you want from EE without having to subscribe or login