Maine Creative Services

English is a living, breathing language, constantly adding new words to express new ideas. At least that’s what my high school Latin teacher told me. (Or was it Father Reid, my Greek teacher?)

Here are some new words, coined for a Valleywag contest. I’m not sure how many you’ll be able to use in your Internet marketing or copywriting materials, but it’s worth taking a moment to the authors’ cleverness. Among the winners:

WiFired — Getting thrown out of an Internet cafe for spending 4 hours ‘working on your startup’ after buying one small mocha.

Typerventilating — Rapidly sending instant messages. Having a panic attack via AIM.

Sext Messaging: Sending salacious text messages to somebody, replacing phone sex.

Hotsquatting: “Borrowing” open wifi connections wherever they are found.

Bee break: The act of sneaking off to the bathroom in the middle of dinner to scroll through one’s BlackBerry.

Gushroom Effect: The gush, awe and fan-base increase proportional to the size of one’s or a company’s estimated wealth.

And my favorite, probably because of its throwback to classical Greek…

Goobris: The arrogance exhibited by many in (Silicon) Valley, especially those that believe “the geek shall inherit the Earth.”

The Finnish town of Nokia, made famous by the cellphone company, is going mobile. All mobile, all the time.

Sound like a giant marketing stunt? Nope. Actually, the cell phone maker moved out years ago and had no role in the town’s decision. It’s cheaper.

Nokia’s municipal workers will get cellular handsets. The only landline phones will be connected to fax machines.

Idea: Pitch competitor Ericcson to subsidize the move — and get the town to change its name while they’re at it.

From: Associated Press via MSNBC.com

We saluted writer Anne Lamott on (OK, shortly after) her birthday recently. Today the author of Bird by Bird was a guest on Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me, the very funny NPR news quiz. Hear it here.

Another tip of the writer’s hat to William Zinsser, author of the classic, On Writing Well. Next month HarperCollins releases the 30th-anniversary edition. It’s still one of the very best books on writing that I’ve ever read. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to improve their writing. Z had a profound influence on my own work.

NPR’s All Things Considered interviewed Zinsser last week. (Yeah, I missed it, too.) I guess the interview focused on writing memoir (probably because of the recent James Frey Million Little Pieces fiasco).

You can hear the Zinsser interview here (but I’m not sure how long that link will be good). Even more important — read his book!

Yours in better prose,

Tom

Darren Rowse is a blogger’s blogger. He’s actually making a comfortable living via his blogs (yes, he’s got a bunch of them). His primary income comes from the ads on his sites, via AdSense and Chitika mini malls.

Sounds like a perfect way to make a fortune, right? Fat checks rolling in every month, and no pesky customers or clients to have to deal with. ;-)>

Well, if that’s how you’re making your money (or would like to) you ought to read Darren’s 10 Steps to Guarantee You’ll Never Make More than 0.14 cents per month with AdSense.

It’s his “top 10 tips for a guaranteed earning of 0.14 cents or less per month from your blog.” Darren’s dour tips might come off as a little heavy-handed in the humor department, but they’re true. And he knows his stuff.

Does your business take PayPal? Don’t, um, “forget” to pay your taxes. The IRS has just won court approval to turn over information about people who may try to fiddle the taxman by hiding income in other countries. I.R.S. Asks PayPal for Taxpayer Data

A federal court gave the I.R.S. permission to ask PayPal for information on American taxpayers who have bank accounts or credit/debit cards from financial institutions in more than 30 countries that are reputed to be tax havens. Question is, will Paypal comply?

A spokeswoman confirmed the company received the summons, but said they’re still evaluating their options. “The privacy of our customers’ information is something we take really seriously.”

Gee, you mean payPal isn’t a free pass?

As if you needed another reason to optimize the content of your Web site for search engines…

A new survey uncovered this shocking news: Most people get no farther than the first three pages of search results before clicking a link — or giving up and switching to a different search engine. Actually, almost two-thirds (62%) clicked on a result on the FIRST page. 90% clicked a link in the first three pages.

Interestingly, the survey indicated that many people still don’t understand how search engines really work. One-third mistakenly assumed that the links on the first page were the best quality — that’s why they showed up so high.

Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Watch, said you need “good pages, text rich content, and good links pointing to you.”

Psst: Don’t forget to “optimize” your content for human readers, too.

Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur’s Journey calls it “probably the most important component, the glue that keeps my business together.” It’s his email autoresponder and list builder.

An autoresponder, as the name suggests, automates the process of responding to emails (or signups) from clients and prospects. Instead of writing individual responses to each query, an autoresponder can send one response, or a whole series of emails. They’re a great way to follow-up customer inquiries, and even distribute your company newsletter. (You DO have a company newsletter, don’t you?)

Like thousands of other businesses, both virtual and bricks- and- mortar, Yaro uses and endorses AWeber. His complete review is here. If you’re not familiar with autoresponders and how they can simplify and benefit your business, he explains it here.

One of the things that distinguishes AWeber is their enviable record of email deliverability. They claim over 99% of the emails they handle arrive at their intended destination, without getting snagged in sp@m filters, etc. If so, AWeber is doing a helluva good job.

After reading Yaro’s review, I realize (yet again) that I’m way overdue taking AWeber for a test-drive. After all, I write, design and distribute newsletters for several different clients. For the past few years I’ve used a different company which costs more and doesn’t even offer the autoresponder feature — only email distribution and list management. I definitely need to carve out some time and check them out.

BTW, if you’re starting or building a business, you really ought to check out Yaro’s blogs. In spite of his wild hair (or maybe because of it?), he offers lots of valuable content. Visit:

Small Business Branding
Entrepreneur’s Journey