Houston

I want to not have to borrow money from my kids to pay the bills and put food on the table like my parents did with me.

I want to be my own boss, because I have some innate aversion to having my livelihood be at the whim of anyone but myself.

I want to be able to have the luxury of being able to do what I want, when I want without being constrained by the amount of money I do not have in the bank, because although the romantic in me wants to swear up and down that happiness cannot be bought by material things, the realist in me knows that money makes the world go round. And, to quote Boiler Room, "Those who say money can't buy happiness doesn't fucking have any."

I want all of these things because at the end of the day, when I have a family and my kids ask me about my life story, I want to be able to look at them and tell them I came from nothing and made the life I live of luxury, void of financial stresses and the like, all by myself through unadulterated hustle and the belief I am meant for greatness. I want to be able to tell them that they, too, can achieve the same as long as they beat the fuck out of any obstacle life throws their way.

I want to be me.

I've been experiencing this problem for over a week now.

You can send me an email at houston.barnettgearhart@gmail.com.

Never heard of Barret Brown prior to this, but I found a very interesting article on him here: http://www.dmagazine.com/Home/D_Magazine/2011/April/How_Barr....

First off, we're not spamming the search engines. Spam, by definition, is unsolicited and is sent by someone who has little concern for who receives it. The websites will all be highly-optimized, and optimized in such a way that they are put in front of the eyes of those who are looking for a specific solution to their problems; a solution we provide that is 100% legitimate. So, by it's very nature, this network of sites is not spam.

That being said, I agree that automation is key here. But, automation ≠ bad design and content. There are automated ways to go about generating quality designs and content. All that's necessary is that the people manning the tools to do so know what they're doing.

Point taken about the designers. Going forward, I will be making everything as cut and dry as possible, i.e they should do A, B, and C, no questions asked.

I really like your idea about hiring a dev to code something that can output mass websites that aren't 100% replicas of one another, so I will look into that.

I don't doubt building 1K sites in a week is possible, but you have to remember that while my knowledge of this industry is pretty advanced for my age, I am still young, so I don't know what's all out there in terms of software that makes the ability to build 1K sites in a week a breeze. So, do you think you could recommend pieces of software that would assist me in that endeavor?

The reason I brought up the "stripping them of their creativity" point is because I have an aversion to the belief that you must pigeon-hole yourself into a job that is not fun just because you need to make ends meet.

Pretty much everyone around me - friends and family, both - have always told me that I need to go the traditional route of working the blue collar life to achieve success. But, I've never been that type of person. I landed the job I have now by rejecting that belief entirely, and I'm in a position to achieve more success than those same people who hounded me to embrace it and I'm only 19. That being said, it obviously informs me in the business realm. I guess I'd see myself as a hypocrite if on one hand I have this belief that you should do what you love to do and not be forced into a job you hate because you have to make ends meet, or because it is what is expected of you, while on the other hand, I'm forcing the people I hire to do exactly what I reject.

I admit that I may have an immature view on things. I don't know everything, nor do I have any intent to come off as knowing everything. Hence, this thread! I've only been doing this for a couple months, but the nature of the industry I work in requires that I adapt quickly and assume roles that requires more experience than I have currently. To make up for that, I am reaching out to those who know more so they can help inform my ultimate decisions.

I am leaning towards being 100% business-minded, and suppressing my feelings of hypocrisy, because in the end what will matter is that I got the job done and put the infrastructure in place that catapulted the business into greater profitability. Not whether I preserved my life philosophies. Nonetheless, I think a good discussion could arise out of the whole preserve philosophical pureness for the sake of money, or not dilemma.

Anyways, going forward I will for sure write out a report for the partner. It may take me a bit to put together, as I will need to brief him on the history of what exactly we're doing, but I think I can sway him to see my side.

And, I never thought about hiring a dev to create a script to alter the designs programatically. I will definitely look into that. The only thing I see being a problem is how the script would be able to make each change with the proper font and color scheme, unless we developed a library of all possible fonts and color schemes that our designers may use that the script could access to make the changes seamless.

Can you explain why you think they're "mentally and spirtually ill boys"?

Before reading the dox info from "The A-Team" on Lulzsec, and now Lulzsec on "The A-Team," it seems that within this particular group of people there's a rather large transgender population.

Anyone else find this interesting?

What's the point in sharing it in this setting?

While I understand what you're saying, I think the professional setting in which that material is being passed around warrants a discussion on whether or not it should be passed around at all.

I might be making a mountain out of a molehill, but I can't help the fact it irked me that a video clip that shows the death of 4 men - most likely passed around as something "cool" and something to be glorified - is being passed around by law enforcement.

Just seems kind of tasteless, I guess.

To those who actually downloaded the torrent:

Did any of you happen to watch the 4-second-long video clip of what appears to be 4 men being gunned down by helicopter? Any theories on why it's there?

Thanks for commenting, patio11. Appreciate it!

Without trying to sound like an arrogant blow-hard, I would say I'm one of the most vital employees in the company bar none. As the months pass by, I continue to take on more & more responsibilities & today my boss pretty much confided in me that other than him, I am THE creative force in the company.

When I go into the meeting, I don't want to come off cocky. I want to come off confident, which is why I'm trying to gather as much info as I can about this stuff.

I really think the benefits thing should be factored into the equation. It makes sense, right? I know benefits are necessary. But, how do you quantify that? Just do some research into what it'd cost to buy those benefits myself and factor it in?

I know there's not some algorithm to determining my salary, but is there a rule of thumb for figuring it out.

Would an average of 1 & 2 result in a good valuation? I can figure out the value of my contribution almost to a T with some things, but there are other things that are a little harder to put a definite value to, i.e the copy I write for our websites.

I want to come into the meeting with research at the ready. And, thanks for bringing up the external credibility aspect. I didn't consider that, so I will have to factor that into everything.

Spammers will always win. If it is made by the hands of a human, it is pretty much common sense that it has aspects that can be exploited.

But, that's not to say the amount of spam can't be minimized. I can't say for sure, but it doesn't look like Wired has /any/ sort of spam prevention technology re: their article comment section. A tool such as Askimet (http://akismet.com/) can quell the amount of spam, but it won't eliminate it completely.

If you're trolling, fuck you.

But, if not, my mom is a psychiatric nurse and currently works at a behavioral health hospital & I would be more than willing to forward this message onto her to get her opinion on whether what you're explaining can be diagnosable and treated with pharmaceuticals.

As for the depression, I've been there. I just recently stopped taking Zoloft for bouts of depression that I've had for most of my life, but didn't realize until I finally hit rock bottom.

At the least, you should see a psychiatrist and request to be put on antidepressants. However, there is a slight chance it may increase your suicidal thoughts, so if you decide to go this route to quell the depression, you will need to closely monitor your thoughts and contact your psychiatrist if you feel like you want to kill yourself.

That being said, like I said before, I just recently stopped taking my antidepressants. They helped pick me up, but I wouldn't be where I am today (copywriter for a rapidly expanding Internet marketing company in Tempe, AZ) if I didn't dive head first into something I was passionate about (i.e writing foremost, and all things tech, second).

So, you should sit down and write down a list of all the things you like to do. Make it comprehensive. Then go through it one-by-one and ask yourself whether you could wake up every day happy to go into work to do whatever item is on your list. Ask yourself whether you'd feel accomplished and good about what you do. Put a check mark next to those you answer in the affirmative to and then go through the check marked items and narrow it down until you find 1 to 2 things that you are super passionate about.

Once you find those, start mapping out a way to secure jobs in those areas. Whatever you do... don't sit at home and seclude yourself. Seclusion, in my book, will 100% lend itself to suicide if it continues for long enough.

Sorry for the long-winded response, but I've been in your position to an extent and I have a friend who suffers from bipolar 2 and he hasn't sought help and he continues to spiral downwards. If I can, I'd like to play some part in helping you get back on your feet.

If you want to talk, hit me up at houston.barnettgearhart@gmail.com. I'll respond whenever I get the chance.

Facebook is a tricky nut to crack.

I have a few questions (and these will go off track of the topic at hand, but can possibly help you): Are you split-testing ad images and ad copies?

What happens is that once you put up an initial batch of ads, Facebook will begin sending impressions. However, it doesn't spread the impressions equally. 1 to 2 of your ads will receive all the impressions.

They don't really respond well to fucking with your campaign once you set it up and the initial run of impressions have been sent.

It seems that this is what you're experiencing.

This is definitely possible through a content locking gateway. I'm programatically retarded, but if it's not urgent, I'll have my programming friend write something up for you.

But, yes, this can definitely be done.

Re: "Facebook would be better if it were to target people in a specific location geographically." Wouldn't that be the case for all small businesses?

It's almost instinctual for people to want to share things that have played a part -- large or small -- in adding to their quality of life. That being said, I don't think it depends on the what type of service the small biz offers, nor the audience that it panders to. Especially not the latter because whether you're selling aardvarks or zyzzyvas, if someone enjoyed their experience purchasing said aardvark or zyzzvya, they'll naturally be inclined to share.

That being said, I'm not exactly sure your last question fits into the equation. Even if the small biz generated most of its clients through mediums like direct mail and the like, that fact alone makes little impact on if the small biz should advertise via social media platforms like Facebook.

The question really boils down to whether or not Facebook ads (being that they're display based) is a better option for small businesses over Adwords, due to the inherent fact that Adwords allows the small biz owner to target specific keywords that essentially act as pre-sell for whatever product or service they offer.

I see a lot of small businesses advertising on Facebook, but mostly for businesses that are no where near where I live. A lot of people would quote the fact that there aren't many small businesses advertising on Facebook as evidence that Facebook is not a good platform for generating customers. I'd say that's more because people are unaware of how to successfully create Facebook ad campaigns to generate those customers than anything.

Appreciate your input, unlikelygeek.

Question: Can you elaborate on what you mean by, "It's been our experience that it will take a few weeks either way for the algorithms to settle into a pattern that works well and any big chances will throw everything off"?

Thanks for the response, ffumarola!

Got some questions, though. In your opinion, why is Adwords better for a commerce company and Facebook better for a comedy club?

The reason I ask is because I could see a way for commerce companies to leverage the Facebook ad platform in such a way that it becomes a better option over Adwords. Namely, you can leverage Facebook's ad platform in ways you can't with Adwords. For instance, you can achieve comparatively lower CPCs by creating a Facebook page for the company, and then use the Facebook page as not only a funnel towards whatever the company wishes their prospective customers to do, but as a way to closely interact with their established customers.

But, again, I can definitely see where you're coming from. I guess the question boils down to where Facebook falls into the context of expanding a business.

So, open question to all: What type of companies are better suited for delegating their online advertising budgets to Facebook, and what type of companies are better suited for delegating their online advertising budgets to Adwords?