Internet Marketing, Make Money Online

A fascination for writing, and a bit of SEO, has led me down some interesting paths recently, notably looking at the power of providing answers to questions that people typically ask their friends, yet when confronted with a search engine the query typed is often a series of grammatically incorrect words.

I don't have any howto articles on this blog, actually maybe I do but they were written so long ago I've forgotten them. The recent trend amongst information sources, is to pose a question as the article header, and then answer the question in the article body, and the latest site I've come across that uses this approach is the Mega How to site.

Now, in case nobody has noticed, I'm a guy, so I like to read guy things, for example how about How to build a catapult?

The author of the article has tried to make the process simple, I think more detail could have been included without sacrificing the goal, but it illustrates my point quite nicely. Now, not having a workshop, I'd be inclined to make a catapult using PVC pipes because I can cut these to size on the patio, and I'd look forward to shooting water filled balloons at the kids in the street.

Being a big kid again with a catapult is just the sort of thing I'd do, on the other hand, priding myself on being quite macho I also like reading about other guy topics like How to make a crossbow. I'd never make one, but imagine suddenly being thrust back in time to an age where wild animals roam and you need to eat, or defend your family. Yeah, that's why I'd want a crossbow.

When teaching English to Asian (and Spanish) people I often run across the issue of them not understanding the difference between countable and uncountable nouns.

Of course for English native speakers, most of the time we aren't even aware of the difference, we simply use the correct rule from many years of speaking the language and absorbing the rules by osmosis. Yet for students of English, the rules for determining whether a noun is countable or uncountable can be tricky.

Now, before anyone thinks I'm going to prove that I know what I'm talking about by spouting obscure examples, I need to say that in English, as with all languages, there are exceptions, and modern spoken English isn't always faithful to the rules of old.

Despite this, some expressions just don't sound right, and most native speakers haven't become so lazy that we can throw the rules away.

So, for the benefit of anyone who really would like to know why I'm writing all of this, I've discovered that practicing countable nouns regularly makes a huge difference to my students spoken English.

The simple rule to be kept in mind by the student is that a countable noun has both a singular and plural form, for example a pen, or many pens, a computer or some computers.

Uncountable nouns are usually only singular, such as news or furniture. Simply, ask yourself if you can have one news or one furniture. The answer is no, you can't, making these nouns uncountable.

The most common problem I face with students, and countable and uncountable nouns, relates to the words many and much. Often I hear students interchanging them, they themselves know something is wrong, but often they fail to realise their choice or much or many is incorrect, instead assuming that the noun in question needs to be altered in some way.

A lot of practice usually solves the issue.

About a month ago I remember reading a newspaper article that a blind man here in Ronda had taken it upon himself to create a map of the tourist monuments, with descriptions, and the entire map had been written so that other blind people could use braille to use it.

This is a fantastic idea, and one that will surely make a huge difference to the enjoyment that blind people visiting Ronda will get from their time here. At this stage the map is in Spanish, so tourists from other languages won't benefit, but I've heard they plan to look into other languages in the future.

Anyway, Juan Manuel Medina, the chap who designed the braille guide and map of Ronda, and actually a really nice but shy guy, was presented with an award last week for his work, the award being for tourism innovation.

The poor guy couldn't contain himself when escorted onto the stage, he's very shy, and tears were streaming down his face, I couldn't help thinking that having the mayor of Ronda shake his hand after he'd received his trophy, in full view of the press and tourism bigwigs was a real highlight for Juan.

Of course it begs the question, if a little town like Ronda, which really isn't one of the major tourist destinations of Europe can step up and issue a braille map of the city, then why can't other cities? Ronda certainly isn't wealthier, just more committed to making sure disabled visitors are able to enjoy the city as well.

One of the most interesting discoveries I made recently is a new website dedicated to answering the question Why Does...? It seems like a really simple concept yet most websites I've ever come across talk about the answers, instead of the question.

Let me try to rephrase that, I don't think I'm making myself clear. When I want to know something, and if I don't have the information close by, the best source is the Internet, and especially my good friend Google. My problem of course comes down to phrasing my search so that I get the best results, and often this means guessing about the answer rather than just asking a simple and direct question.

Search engines are more or less stupid, they scour the web looking for articles to index, but context is often missing, so let's say I want to ask the question Why does my nose keep bleeding? or Why does my elbow hurt? Normally I wouldn't expect to find an exact result that answers my question.

The Why does website is in this regard quite unique, as someone looking for information I don't need to worry about guessing possible answers, or rearrange my thoughts to maximize the chance of finding what I'm looking for, I simply need to ask a question.

In SEO terms it is brilliant, as for extending the power of search engines so that they become truly useful, well I'm sure this is the logical next direction of things to come, after all, if I go to a doctor I'll ask Why my elbow hurts, he or she will ask what I've been doing and run some tests, and a the end will be able to give me an answer. I would never say to my doctor "reasons for sore elbow" or "elbow injuries that don't heal", I'd look pretty stupid if I did.

So the fact that a website is asking the kinds of questions we ask each other is in my opinion quite a radical step. It brings us closer to real communication with computers, and makes it much easier to find the information we really want.

This morning a friend sent me photos of Sydney's harbour bridge during the huge dust storm that hit yesterday, wow, absolutely incredible photos, I've never seen the sky look like this, it is truly the 8th wonder, although no doubt the people in Sydney were scared witless when they saw it. Godzilla isn't just terrorising Tokyo anymore, he's moved to the south Pacific.

I'm sure you'll agree, wetting your pants at the site of this wouldn't be unreasonable, I know I'd be running... really fast to get away. I'm not the kind of guy to wait for the government or army to clear things up.

By the way, the photo below is the original, that's what the bridge in Sydney actually looked like, the one above is photoshopped, if you hadn't guessed.