Do fonts matter?

A bit late spotting this one, but it was too good to pass up just because it's 3 weeks old.

Nokia decided to ditch Nokia Sans for a new font: Nokia Pure.

They also have a long post justifying why this matters.

Your digital brand

So, what's in a name?

When I google "Travis Larson" the results are pretty interesting (like most people, I will only look at the first page)

First of all, the Travis Larson band comes first and second on the results. That is awesome. Maybe it is a bit egoistic to follow a band just because it shares my name, but who cares? The Travis Larson band is awesome!

Next on the list is some Travis Larson from Florida who promotes himself as an SEO professional. My hope for Florida Travis Larson is that he isn't using automatic backlink creators (even though he promotes them) to push up results, because that is the height of douchebaggery. It's crap like that that made me abandon Google for Blekko when I need a quality search result.

Next comes linked in profiles - cool. I'm on linked in. Not bad that I (a non- Travis Larson SEO professional) still end up on the first page of results.

Then it's the same Florida Travis Larson's twitter. Kudos for him for getting 2400 followers. I suppose it's because he follows 2000 people himself.

Then it's my blog! Finland Travis Larson rules without quite understanding why (I am a web designer with background in search engine marketing and direct marketing).

And then the final 2 results are Travis Larson band again.

So my call is for everyone to link to the Travis Larson band page: let's keep the awesomest Travis Larson site top of the list.

And on a side note, when you want to see where you really rank on google, make sure you scroll to the bottom of the search results page, click "view customizations" and view the results without google's improvements (google moves items up on the results based on your search history, so the results are biased if you don't do this).

An attempt at rebranding (that must be crushed!)

As the 150th anniversary of the Civil War approaches (commonly taken to mean when the Confederates attacked Fort Sumter on April 12th), the Southern States are still sticking to the same fiction they have been spouting since reconstruction: the war was about states' rights.

It makes sense to try and rebrand history this way. After all, they were mainly fighting to preserve slavery. That's not something to be proud of.

It's our duty to not fall for Southern revisionist clever marketing. Slavery was a central theme to the war - just read the documents of secession to see how central slavery was.

True, the North did not enter the war to end slavery - they entered the war to preserve the Union. But as the war progressed, freeing the slaves became central.

Hell, even Haley Barbour admits that the war was about slavery. To pretend anything otherwise is to fall victim to the nefarious side of marketing...

The most sensible use of social media for businesses

Frosmo has the best use of social media for businesses I have seen to date - use Facebook connect to get people to log in to your site for A) a contest or B) some other benefit.

It's a natural way to leverage social media and try and get some visibility to your business in a way that seems natural and useful for the people involved. After all, who wants to have ANOTHER user name and password just to enter some contest or get customized info...

The great Friday round up (on a Monday)

Well, after a serious case of the bubons the copydude is back in business and I wanted to round up my favorite Friday memes.

-Best rant: Off the pill
Thoughtful, honest and hilarious.

-Best acoustic: Kalie Shorr
Makes the song listenable.

-Best remix: Friday - slowed 5x
Eat your heart out Sigur Ros

-Best of the best: Stephen Colbert sings Friday on Jimmy Fallon
Well, it's been pulled for copyright violation, so no links. But it was epic...

And finally, best of the worst, it's the Chipmunks version...