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.
I hope all of you in the States had a good Independence Day yesterday. My family and I enjoyed doing some much needed yard work, and then a trip back through time to Railroad Town at the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer.
Speaking of history, here are the headlines that got the most of...
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If your web browser works with Google web fonts, this post will look a little different to you than usual. That's because I've replaced the font for the content with a handwriting style font named "Architects Daughter".
Traditionally, when choosing fonts for your website, you've had to take two precautions:
Choosing fonts that most peopl...
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I just finished up a new video demonstrating how easy it is to generate high-quality, original blog posts using SEO Content Factory.
It also explains how this blogging method can get you better backlinks than commenting on other people's blogs.
Here it is.
Yesterday, Google announced a bunch of new social features, grouped under the name "Google+". Some of them look nice enough, but it's going to take more than "nice enough" to prevent its being just another ho-hum Google Buzz.
Google Buzz fizzled because it was just Twitter warmed over. We already had our relationships established on...
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When you have a good experience as a customer, do you tell anyone about it? Do you tweet it, post it on your blog, send them a testimonial, etc.?
You should.
Before I get into why it's so important, let me give a shout out to a seller who I recently had a good experience...
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I woke up this morning with an image in my mind that I'd seen years ago while living in San Francisco. We were in a drought, and people who used more water than they had the same month of the previous year risked significant penalties.
It was then that I noticed the green driveways.
Homeowners...
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For my birthday last week, my wife gave me a cover for my Kindle and an iTunes gift card. So naturally, the time I've spent browsing around the iTunes Music Store deciding what to get is now worth more than the value of the card (apparently, I haven't learned my lesson yet).
What I want...
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What is it about an expert that makes them so successful, while an amateur who copies them as faithfully as they can gets no results at all?
I read a comic the other day that got me thinking about that. So today, let's try a Riff on a comic strip. First, to quote an excerpt:...
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Yesterday, I wrote about some research from the 1960's into the forces that drive word of mouth advertising. The article was focused primarily on what inspires people to talk about brands and products. Today, let's focus on how to make content go viral.
As I said yesterday:
...the #1 key for viral marketing success is...
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If you can get it, word of mouth advertising is the most powerful form of advertising. It's delivered by trusted advisors (a.k.a. friends), and costs you nothing.
But attempts to intentionally ignite viral marketing campaigns usually fall flat on their faces. Why? And what can you do to improve your odds of success?
A few...
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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.)
