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.
The easiest products to sell are those that solve urgent problems. People are looking for solutions. All you have to do is be findable.
But what if you've got a solution to a problem that nobody's noticing?
Even if solving it would have a big impact, the sad truth is that those solutions are a...
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Do you think it's honest to use emotional appeals to sell products? Or as an honest marketer, you should stick strictly to the facts?
While lies and deception are clearly out of bounds, opinions differ on where the line is between an honest emotional appeal and manipulation. If you shy away from emotional appeals to...
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Back in December, I posted a list of blogs I read, and why. That'll serve as a list of some of my favorite internet marketing teachers (I won't say "gurus", since some people seem to dislike the term).
So here's the question for this Monday: who are your favorite internet marketing teachers, and what earns...
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Over at the Official Google Blog today, Matt Cutts wrote a little about what they're focusing on in his neck of the woods:
...we recently launched a redesigned document-level classifier that makes it harder for spammy on-page content to rank highly. The new classifier is better at detecting spam on individual web pages, e.g., repeated...
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Once upon a time, a moose decided to get into internet marketing. He was concerned about starting off on the right hoof, so he headed over to the Worrier Forum to find out which guru everyone recommended following.
King Luigi, an orangutan, had just launched a blogger coaching program named "The Jungle Blog" that was...
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A few days ago in my "Monday Question" post about cleaning up internet marketing, I mentioned Sylvie Fortin's Internet Marketing Sins. If you haven't read it, please go there and get your copy now (it's free -- no opt-in required).
Back in 2008, Sylvie published Internet Marketing Sins, listing 15 practices that she believed were...
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Seth Godin did a blogging seminar a few days ago. Zen Copy posted a series of tweets about it. Ryan Healy tweeted about the tweets. And now I'm going to blog about a few of them. Credit where credit is due.
The first tweet that caught my eye:
Coin a term or two - be...
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Internet marketers don't have the best reputation. And if you look at some of the techniques that are not only prevalent, but openly taught and recommended, it's no wonder.
Many of the big-name "gurus" are either consciously raking unsuspecting customers over the coals, or are so caught up in their own inner-circle echo chambers that...
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Next week, I'll be starting a new regular feature on the White Hat Crew blog: Question Monday.
The idea is this: while every blog post welcomes comments, most posts tend to answer the questions they raise. Question Monday posts will be all about the comments. They'll focus on raising and fleshing out questions, and consciously...
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The other day, I was listening to a podcast. The first minute or so was spent on music, sound effects, introducing the podcast, and a sponsor's message that seemed to go on forever. By the time the content started, I had opened another webpage and was already tuning out.
Then the host came on, introduced...
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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.)
