If you do any work with people other than yourself, you probably have at some point looked into task or project management solutions.

I’ve tried a whole bunch of them… HiTask, NozBe, Things, AceProject, BaseCamp, and too many others to count. So far every single solitary one of them has had a minimum of one totally fatal flaw. Even the almighty BaseCamp is, for my purposes, totally useless.

But today I found out about Flow and I have to say…

ME LIKEY!!

The single most serious fatal flaw I’ve found in most other systems is that ALL members of your “company” or “team” can see EVERYTHING ELSE the company is working on.  There are COUNTLESS reasons this is a terrible idea.  Not the least of which is proprietary information that you only want specific team/company members to see… but also just to not clutter up a developer’s list of items with marketing stuff that they have no involvement with, for example.  Flow solves this by allowing you to make as many “lists” as you want, and tasks within that list can be assigned to only specific people and nobody else knows about them (or the list itself).  PERFECT!  Now I can have a “Marketing” list that only myself, my designer, and maybe a marketing partner can see, but also have a “Development” list that only myself and my coders can see.  Loads of flexibility here.

I’m still in the first day of my 14 day trial but so far I’m super duper impressed.  It really feels like an application even in the web-browser version, and its free App integration on my iPhone 4s is phenomenal.  I am actually reporting bugs and defining tasks for my team by VOICE rather than typing!  It’s fantastic.

My only complaint so far is that Flow has no external calendar integration.  So while it DOES have due dates and the like, I can’t sync it to my Google Calendar and have all of my milestones or other important date-related items, in one place with the rest of my life.  If it had that… I think I’d be just about to my personal Holy Grail of Project Management Systems.

Actually, we’re currently working on adding calendar support to Flow, so you can view your tasks in your favorite calendar app. It’s not ready yet, but we should have it very soon. If you need anything else, just let us know. Thanks for using Flow!

The one thing I am still a little unhappy about though is their pricing.  Don’t get me wrong – in the big scheme of things it’s still peanuts.  But compared to most other apps I’ve looked at… they’re quite expensive at $9/month per user.  True you can get discounts for buying an annual membership or adding batches of people at the same time.  But I tend to work with people sometimes on very short-term projects of a few days to a week or two… so having to buy them an account is annoying.

Thankfully anyone can join your team at no cost and receive tasks, comment on them, mark them as completed, etc.  They just can’t CREATE tasks, add contacts to the team, etc.  And that suits me perfectly.

There’s also currently a deal running on AppSumo (current offer shown in the sidebar) where you can get an annual subscription for only $39!  I’m going to play with the trial account for the weekend but I’m pretty sure I’ll be buying on Monday.

So if you deal with teams of people like coders, designers, or any freelance or contract workers at all, I strongly suggest you check out Flow.  The only person I think it might simply NOT work for would be a hardcore Android user, as there is no Android App currently.

Hoping this helps you get into the Flow of things!  ;)

Jonathan

I just put this video up real quick to show something I think is just insanely awesome…

http://screencast.com/t/COHuk5yJCJBI

If you aren’t already familiar with Remarketing, and aren’t yet a member of VanCluteSolution.com, then you should check out my Remarketing Unleashed videos.  For the price you can’t find better info anywhere on the topic.

Are you using remarketing yet?  If so how’s it working for you?

Jonathan

Have a look at this.

A friend of mine and fellow marketer, is putting together an “opportunity listing site” and wants to get some feedback on the general concept, before he dives into the deep end on developing it.

I think it’s a pretty cool idea… I know quite often I’ve considered renting a mailing list, or otherwise wanting to gain exposure for something, but I’m not crazy about networks & brokers as they never know the whole story on the real sources of the data, etc.  I want to talk DIRECTLY to list owners, site owners, etc.  The REAL movers & shakers!

Opptly would give me the ability to do exactly that.  I personally think it’s a great idea and would certainly use it… what do you think?

JVC

Gauher shared some awesome stuff on today’s webinar, in particular an entire new traffic source that he’s making 300% to 400% returns on!  I’d never heard of this one prior to the call, and he gave it away for free.

Check this out, listen carefully and see if you can’t make use of some of the advice given here!

Jonathan

I’ve had a feeling for the last year at least, that the “SEO game” is due for a radical change.  I didn’t know exactly what it would be (still don’t exactly) but I’ve felt all along that it would be related to “personalized search results”.  In other words, each individual searcher getting their OWN set of results that is unique to them, and influenced by their past activities rather than just by some algorithm in a black box.

Based on some of the recent things I’ve seen change when I use Google (my search engine of choice), and by some information I’m not at liberty to discuss, I’m more convinced than ever that the “end of SEO” is coming.  Here’s why I think the way I do (based on things I can legally discuss):

1.  As Google goes, so does the rest of the (SE) world.  Every time Google implements something, everyone else follows suit – eventually.  So I’m using Google in all this discussion but it will apply equally to other SEs, just delayed.

2.  Google has been making search results more personalized for some time already, just by things like Geo-IP location detection.  In the last year, I was on the phone with a friend and we were trying to look something up together.  It was maddening because we COULD NOT get his results to match mine, because our IP addresses were returning different data.  This was true both of the actual search results, as well as Google Suggest.  Everything was localized to our individual areas.

3.  Google is constantly fighting the “black hat SEOs” who are trying to game their algorithm, so it’s in their best interests to stop them from ever being able to game any single algorithm.  Personalized searches would stop (nearly) all current BHSEO tactics cold.

4.  Google makes money from advertising.  The better the response to the ads for their advertisers, the more Google can charge for them.  Advertising is a quality vs. quantity game for Google.  I saw some recent metrics on how much money they make from their “big budget” advertisers vs. everyone else… it was staggering.  A tiny minority of their advertisers are responsible for the VAST majority of their revenue.  The more they can do to push the “little guys” out of Adwords, the better it is for them as a company.  Personalized searches should give even better results for the big players, and make it that much harder for the little players to work their way into the organic OR paid results.

5.  With the introduction of Google+, Google has a huge wealth of data they can mine.  Once people adopt this platform (assuming of course that they do), then Google will begin knowing things about you that they can use to tailor your search experience way further.  They’ll know things about your friends, about which of your friends you are most similar to, who’s taste you most likely share, etc.  Add to this the new “+1″ concept, and Google has an incredible amount of information about things you like, and therefore are most likely to want to see related items come back in your search results.  Eventually over time they’ll be able to build some sort of relational map between different search results and the people who liked them, and more precisely target individuals both for organic search results, as well as paid advertisements.

I could probably come up with more, but I think that’s enough to get the point across.  All of these things together, mean that the days of being able to SEO for a specific term and get that term to rank universally for everyone – are soon to be gone.  How do you SEO a term when there is absolutely no guarantee that the same search term will return the same results for any two people?  And how do you check your rankings when they’re now meaningless?

I think SEOs had better start changing their ways – and FAST – or they’re going to find themselves overnight, the victims of a complete and total loss of traffic to their sites, with absolutely no way of recovering it.

Jonathan

I just got this email from Amazon.com:

Hello,

For well over a decade, the Amazon Associates Program has worked with thousands of California residents. Unfortunately, a potential new law that may be signed by Governor Brown compels us to terminate this program for California-based participants. It specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers – including but not limited to those referred by California-based marketing affiliates like you – even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.

We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It is supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. We deeply regret that we must take this action.

As a result, we will terminate contracts with all California residents that are participants in the Amazon Associates Program as of the date (if any) that the California law becomes effective. We will send a follow-up notice to you confirming the termination date if the California law is enacted. In the event that the California law does not become effective before September 30, 2011, we withdraw this notice. As of the termination date, California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned on or before the termination date will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.

To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect their ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com.

We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. We are also working on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.

Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team

OK, does anyone else besides me think this is absolutely insane??  Not that Amazon would choose to terminate all California affiliates, but that the government would entertain legislation like this???

Perhaps I’m missing something as I am almost rabidly non-political, but if the largest affiliate networks like Amazon, eBay, and Commission Junction terminate affiliates in states that pass this kind of legislation, then won’t revenues DROP dramatically, resulting in LESS sales tax revenue to be collected??

PLUS, say I was generating $200k/year with one of these affiliate networks.  I now lose all that income, which means I also don’t pay INCOME TAX on it!

I fail to see how this could be anything but a completely losing proposition for the US economy.  Online retailers lose new customers and revenue that was being previously referred, affiliates are now potentially “out of a job” and contribute to the country’s unemployment problems, and the government gets less tax money into its already-barren coffers.

Seriously.  WTF?!?!?

Jonathan

OK did I miss something?  According to Google’s AdPlanner, Wikipedia.org accepts advertising and is in the Google Display Network:

Advertising Accepted

Yes

Google Display Network

Yes

Can someone explain this to me?  I see no ads on wikipedia and never have… ?

Jonathan

Just throwing this out in case it’ll help someone else. A friend of mine has am awesome team of 6 working on his internet marketing business, but he’s got some down time between projects and is looking to keep them busy.

I took him up on the offer and kept one person busy for a few days, but that was about all I really had in terms of overflow work. So to help them out, I’m putting the offer out there to you as well.

If you’ve got any sort of online work that needs doing, but especially higher-end technical stuff like custom WordPress plugin development, or troubleshooting & fixing PHP on your sit(s), or solving server issues, etc… drop me a comment below with a way to reach you and I’ll put my friend in touch with you directly.

His team are all between $10 and $15/hour and in my opinion, are extremely high quality workers. I’ve been amazed at how fast they’ve completed pretty complex tasks that I expected to take many times longer than they did. If you’ve got the work for them in the next 2 weeks or so, I strongly suggest you grab them while you can.

The team is based in Pakistan and communicates via Skype during their working hours (approximately 11pm to 7am Eastern). Their written English is quite good and I’ve had no communication problems at all, even when sending them Jing videos to explain what I need.

Again, leave a comment below if this would be useful to you and I’ll put you in touch directly.

Jonathan

I don’t spend a lot of time on Youtube, but I could spend hours pouring over these…

Gary Halbert Live Videos

As you may guess from the URL, these are videos of Gary Halbert, master copywriter and direct marketer, speaking at I think one particular event, the System Seminar. They aren’t in the right order from the Youtube search and some of them are multi-parters, but definitely go through and learn from these. Some truly astounding stuff!

Jonathan

I had a feeling this might happen, and it’s unfortunate but sometimes business just isn’t pretty.

Someone is claiming I have stolen his product idea and developed it without him.  As with most claims people make in life, there is a core grain of truth buried in there, but it simply did not go down the way this person is claiming and he’s doing one hell of a spin job on reality.

I’m simply not going to say anymore on the subject.  I’m not naming names – even though he has – and I’m not going to get nasty about it.  For whatever it’s worth, should you hear this story, you can make up your own mind what you believe, and act accordingly.

Jonathan

P.S.

We had agreed to not discuss the matter with anyone, and not to speak badly of one another just because our business arrangement didn’t work out.  And now he’s gone and done exactly that.  To me, that speaks volumes.