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.
Have you ever had an idea for a revolutionary product or marketing campaign, that you built on pure adrenaline, launched, ... and then waited as tumbleweeds blew by? Have you ever set up a blog, posted a bunch of great content, and then ... tumbleweeds? Have you ever been involved in any project that you...
[read more]
One of the biggest pains when sharing content via social media is that you either have to visit all the major sites, one-by-one,or ignore some of them. It's similar to the "too many in-boxes" problem that I blogged about a few years ago. Only this time, it's "too many out-boxes".
The solution is to use...
[read more]
When you release a new product, it's easy to fall in love with the early adopters. They're the first people other than your mom to tell you your product is as good as you dreamed it would be. They give you your first taste of revenue. And they give you hope that they'll be the...
[read more]
I noticed something interesting today. Now that my feed reader displays the number of Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn shares for each story, I couldn't help but notice a big difference in how often stories from different feeds get shared.
Here's a quick sampling (the numbers are Facebook/Google+/LinkedIn):
Mashable's last 5 stories...combined: 0/0/0.
Maybe those storie...
[read more]
One of the things my brother, Thor, talks about in his new book, Small Business Revolution, is the power of embracing opposites:
...one of the primary reasons people struggle without a correct model of an entire system, is because they fail to understand the interplay between yin and yang, between the opposites within the system....
[read more]
I came across an article the other day talking about a concept you've likely heard before. But it sparked a new idea.
The main idea is that some of your prospects will be more motivated by potential gains, and others by fear of loss. So which kind of sales pitch do you use to promote...
[read more]
I don't know that I've ever attended an event dedicated to business networking. But I've attended business events with the intent to do some networking.
From what I hear, my experience was pretty typical: most of the time, networking events just don't work.
It's not that networking is simply a failed idea. Most, if not...
[read more]
On his blog today, Ryan Healy threw out an interesting question:
Imagine that for one full year you could not read any business books you hadn't read before"¦ and that you were only allowed to read business books you had previously finished reading.
Which books would you re-read?
You can click the link above ...
[read more]
If your website got dinged by Google earlier this year (or if you want to make sure it doesn't get dinged as they continue to tweak their algorithms), you may be wondering what you can do about it.
Yesterday, SEO testing fanatic Jerry West wrote:
Most web masters who are having the most success overcoming...
[read more]
I love the line from The Police's 1983 album, Synchronicity:
We were at a policy meeting / They were planning new ways of cheating...
Sometimes it seems like that's all marketing and politics are. Okay, most of the time. But it doesn't have to be that way. And though you might not believe it from...
[read more]
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.)
