Category Archives: Las Vegas

Landing in Las Vegas

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Despite the Medford to SFO delay that kicked me to the next SFO to LAS flight, here I am in Las Vegas having arrived about 3 hours later than planned. The Best Western Mardi Gras is turning out to be a super value – I paid about 45 per night for a room that’s huge and clean with a big kitchen. The hotel is one of the closest to the Convention Center which I’ll be able to walk to in about 10 minutes and, most importantly, there’s free WIFI that was not even advertised as an amenity. I should put together a WIFI guide to Las Vegas. I think the major strip hotels charge a lot. Last year at the Hilton I think WIFI was an extra 9.95 per day where the Imperial Palace, if I remember right, has a one time 9.95 fee regardless of length of stay.

Tomorrow WebmasterWorld 2006 begins with a Guy Kawasaki Keynote.

Medford Airport WIFI

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Sure is nice to have the WIFI going here at Medford Airport since my plane just got delayed by over 2 hours.   I’ll need to redo the SFO to LAS connection but hopefully there are many flights and I was getting in pretty early anyway.   Connectivity is somewhat flaky – not sure why but it’s been problematic all along, but it’s still good to have it and get a bit of work (or chess!) done while I sit here.

Webmaster World Las Vegas

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WebmasterWorld is one of the two big conferences with really advanced SEO information and it starts Tuesday.

About 1000 people will gather in Las Vegas for info, conferencing, and interaction with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and ASK folks. Many of the best internet marketing folks in the world are here, and it’s always a fun time.

I’m looking forward to it!

Picasso’s “La Reve” $139,000,000. Hole in Picasso’s La Reve: Priceless.

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OK, so I’m not a fan of Picaso and really should not think it’s kind of funny that Las Vegas Mogul Steve Wynn wound up elbowing his own masterpiece, planting a large hole in the middle of one of the world’s most valuable paintings.

In fact one of the most enjoyable things I did in Las Vegas last year was tour Wynn’s Bellagio Museum of Art, at that time showing a fantastic impressionist collection with a nice audio tour covering the history of impressionist paintings.

Phew, lucky I kept my Elbows to myself.

Walt Disney World > Las Vegas ? !

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I’ve seen Amusement World quoted twice now indicating that Walt Disney World’s four main parks see a combined attendance of about 40 million people per year.    Las Vegas reports about the same number of annual visitors.   This seems incredible, as Las Vegas has dozens of huge resorts and it would seem represents a much greater total investment.    Perhaps it does but the per person spending is much greater, justifying the bigger investment?   Perhaps Disney is counting people twice if they go to more than one of their parks in the same visit?

More research needed.

Hey, here are some fun Las Vegas Statistics I like the fact that the Shrimp Cocktails at the Golden Gate have zero inflation.

A Google Nightmare

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Jeremy! Oh no it’s happening ….. to …. me …..

I had a talk a few weeks ago at WebmasterWorld Las Vegas with the most excellent Mr. Jeremy Zawodny. We were concerned about the way people are starting to change their writing styles and subjects to comply with search engine preferences.

Today I noticed this happening to me as I was about to NOT POST this note critical of Google. I almost thought “hey, I’m beeing too hard on Google. They are a suberb company and the most excellent Mr. Matt Cutts, Google’s new uber blogmeister and global search guru, could not be a better spokesperson for the company as well as being a really great fellow.

Matt was also at Webmasterworld Las Vegas where he went out of his way to answer complex questions and treat everybody with great respect. I’ve talked with him at some length and Google should be simply thrilled to have him out and about making friends and keeping Google tops on the “coolest company/coolest people” list for many technology watchers.

BUT, greatness brings great responsibility, and here is where I think Google is falling short right now big time. So with apologies to the most excellent Googlers I’ve met I offer this in the spirit of constructive criticism:

My great fear about Google:

First, massive spam onslaughts cause Google to accept huge amounts of collateral damage for legitimate sites.

THEN, Google’s market share insulates them from the needs of the web community and makes them immune to criticism.

THEN, Google fails in their OBLIGATION as a MARKET LEADER to provide basic and thorough support for sites they have delisted or downranked.

THEN, People accept all this and fail to rant against it because people are sheep, sucking up to Google and thinking stupidly that search rather than content is what the web is all about.

THEN, even otherwise intelligent people often argue, in dumbfounded ignorance of historical precedent, that Google has no obligation to the community to work hard to identify the damage it has caused and to effectively deal with the problems it’s dominance has created.

Wait – this is not a nightmare – it’s happening RIGHT NOW!

Yes, Google has a new program to communicate with damaged sites but it’s weak and small. The support system does not provide access to problem solvers, rather to canned info.