Antone is the creator of White Hat Crew, and the owner of Gecko Tribe, LLC. He's an internet marketer, blogger, and programmer.
Unlike some people who know what they want to do by the time they’re out of diapers, my path to internet marketing has taken a few twists and turns.
I don’t recall what I might have wanted to do early on, but by the time I graduated from high school, my interests were mostly in writing and music. I entered college as an English major.
After a year of college, I took two years off, which I spent in Japan. By the time I returned to school, I was thinking more practically (which may or may not be a good thing!), and registered as a math major.
Math is one of my strengths, but it didn’t take long to realize that math majors spend 99% of their time studying mathematical abstractions rather than the interesting real-world math I’d studied up till that point (hey, it was interesting to me!) And they take very few classes that deal with history, philosophy, the arts, etc.
Next, I considered majoring in business. I soon decided that marketing was the only area of business that wouldn’t bore me to tears. But before I could switch majors, I switched schools and ended up as a Japanese major instead.
I considered double majoring in Japanese and marketing, but eventually decided it would be better to graduate in whatever major I could complete most quickly. Japanese beat out marketing by one semester.
After graduation, I worked for a few years in the Japanese department of Claris, a subsidiary of Apple Computer, first as a software test engineer, and then as a programmer.
The 3 1/2 years I spent there were good, but then in 1998, it was time for a change. Aside from a few short stints as a contractor, I’ve been working independently ever since.
Today, I’d describe myself professionally as a programmer, internet marketer, and blogger.
Personally, I’m a husband, married since 2002, and father of three.
It's well known that customers are more likely to buy if they believe that the product they're considering is scarce. Scarcity increases the perceived value of the product and prevents people from procrastinating their buying decision (which often leads to forgetting or changing their mind).
The internet marketing industry is infamous for the unethical use...
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In case you'd missed this (I had), YouTube has created a widget to help you get more subscribers to your channel.
You probably already knew that you can embed your YouTube videos on your website. That gets it viewed more. But if a viewer likes it, how do you get them to take the next...
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I'll keep this brief today -- just a comic and a quick comment...and yes, the license for this comic allows me to hot link to it. Click to see it bigger:
Rather than choosing completely random combinations of words, a strategy to make passwords easy to remember is to choose words that mean something togethe...
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Writing yesterday's post showed me one of the powerful side-benefits of Blog Riffing: it creates an archive of ideas to help you remember what you've learned.
As you read blogs and other sources of ideas, do you write down the thoughts they inspire? If so, maybe you don't need Blog Riffing -- at least not...
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Last October, I posted a review of the book "Made to Stick" (which I highly recommend reading).
Today, I decided to try applying a little of the Made to Stick Stickum to my business. So I opened up Google Docs and created a spreadsheet with seven columns. The first contained the names of all my...
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Some brands' value is all about their products. Others transcend the product. We all know which kind of brand we want: the profitable kind -- the one with the "mythological" aura.
Seth Godin wrote:
There are dozens, if not hundreds of entertainment mythological brands. James Bond and Barbie...
There's clearly a Google mythology and a...
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Two key things that affiliate marketers need are content for their websites and products to promote. One of the tools at Instant Affiliate Accelerator is the Affiliate Meta Search Tool, which enables you to search for blog, news and YouTube content, plus products from a variety of affiliate marketplaces, all in one place.
It gives...
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There are two ways to increase engagement with your audience: by surprising them and by getting rid of surprises.
Not very helpful information!
On the one hand, surprises -- violations of expectations -- are useful for shaking people out of the stupor of their daily routine. On the other hand, once someone has come to...
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It's time again for a report on which headlines got the most of my blog broadcast emails opened and click through last month. Where you see (+), (++) and (+++), that indicates that the headline in question was at the top of one of the other lists (with (+++) indicating the #1 position).
Highest Open...
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ClickBank has posted a new set of rules for vendors to rein in some of the unethical practices that their marketplace is famous for. Given that it's been nearly 4 months since they started talking tough about certain practices that are still rampant, it may not be time to declare victory yet. But we can...
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Split Test Content, Exit Intent Popups, Hover Stripes, Seasonal Ad Rotation, and much more.
TriggerNote is an Interaction Engine for your website. Use pre-configured "Recipes" to create exit hover ads, exit interstitial ads, etc. Or mix and match your own combinations of over 20 Triggers and Actions to make your website respond to visitor actions, grabbing attention, and customizing on the fly to speak to each unique visitor.
Hi.
I'm Antone Roundy.
I'm a strong believer in ethics, and have always tried to practice and promote ethical behavior in an industry where many slip over to the dark side.
At White Hat Crew, I'll share insights into internet marketing, with extra emphasis on ethical issues.
Read my Internet Marketing Ethics Manifesto
Join a Blogging Team
Blog & Tweet Easier
Guest Post
New to this blog? Start Here
Riffs on a Purple Cow is a Kindle eBook containing collection of articles I wrote, inspired by Seth Godin. Download your copy from Amazon.com.
It's also a demonstration of the blogging and business method outlined in my eBook, "How to Build and Operate an SEO Content Factory", which you can download for free in either of these formats:
PDF | Mobipocket (Kindle, etc.)
