In what has recently seemed like a decrease in user activity it appears that Plurk is trying to change its image a little.  When I head over to the social site this morning to login I was greeted with this new home page layout.

But is it enough, and did they really come up with a new design that is really going to attract new users?  It’s always been my opinion that the one thing Plurk fails to do is make itself stand out amongst other social networking and microblogging sites on the net.

Plurk is unique in the fact that it is built around a physical timeline and makes it easier for friends and fans to interact freely in the plurk timeline .  Unlike Twitter you are able to see everybody’s response to a person’s Plurk regardless of whether or not you are following the person.  The opens up the conversation significantly and can also open you up to meeting other interesting Plurk users.

Sadly Plurk has never done a very good job at selling these points to users on their site and has never had a very appealing home page.  The new design is even less appealing with a boring white background and the usual lack of anything of real interest on the home page.  At this rate it makes me wonder how much longer Plurk will stay afloat.  Most of my social media and SEO guru friends left Plurk ages ago and I only check it a couple of times a day.

What do you think of the new Plurk home page?  Do you think its an improvement or has Plurk fallen back into the days of early 2.0 sites? Are you a Plurk user?  Have you seen a decrease in user activity as well?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

So tonight I was looking up something here on the blog and I noticed that my Friend Connect avatars looked different.  Suddenly there were random favicon’s associated with various members of my site.  It’s possible they were there all along and I was oblivious to them, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.

I did a little bit of research to see if anyone else had noticed this and at the moment it doesn’t appear so.  I did some blog searching, Google searching, even checked the Friend Connect website and Google group and came up empty handed.  What’s strange is that I don’t exactly understand why the the icons are there and what they mean.

You’ll notice in one instance there is a Twitter favicon next to real estate SEO John Jones‘ avatar.  Below him you’ll notice that David Harry and a number of other members of my site have the Google favicon.

To see what it did I tried clicking on it.  When I wasn’t logged in to Friend Connect it did nothing.  I logged in to Friend Connect and tried it again; all this did was refresh the users Friend Connect profile information.

I am at a total loss as to what these mean and why some members have them and others don’t.  Furthermore what identifies what favicon your avatar receives?  Is this even supposed to be there or is this just something Google is playing with?

Here’s another interesting thing I noticed.  I went to scope out some other blogs that I knew had Friend Connect; including David Harry’s SEO Blog, Samir Balwami’s Left the Box, James Morris’ blog and Collective Thoughts and of all of these the only favicon’s I could find were Google favicon’s.  John Jones is the only person I have found so far that has the Twitter favicon in the lower right corner of his avatar.

What’s going on Google?  Anyone have any insight?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Over the last 6 months or so I’ve been mixing it up with the likes of Mr. David Harry AKA ‘TheGypsy’.  We’ve had some interesting conversations and more recently joined forces to combat the attack of the killer bounce rates.  But apparently camaraderie only goes so far; you see yesterday this fine chap from the great white north tagged me in a meme he got mixed up in. Following his post of 14 things you may not know, that might be interesting and definitely odd, he tagged me and a handful of other internet geeks to tackle the same task. Fortunately for us we were only tagged once and therefore only need to give 7 facts.

So here I am, about to regurgitate 7 things you probably didn’t know about me…

1.  In my lifetime I’ve only ever broken one thing in my body and it wasn’t even a bone.  In the 4th grade I took a line drive to the face while playing softball and broke my nose.  Jammed my nose clear up into my head, they said if it had been any worse it could have killed me.  Fortunately it didn’t and after some minor surgery they were able to tweak it back into place.

2.  It took me 9 years, 5 majors, and 4 schools to finally finish college.  I now have my associates degree in Graphics Design.  I was on my way to completing my BA in Visual Communication, but due to the birth of the twins and some hardships caused by the 14-16 hour days I decided it was best to stop at my AA.

3.  I spent five years of my working life at The House of Mouse, or as you probably know it The Disneyland Resort.  In 2001 I was hired on as a ride operator to help aid in the opening of Disney’s California Adventure.  For the next five years the Walt Disney Company would teach me a lot about what I know in regards to customer service and how going the extra mile for your customers really makes a HUGE difference.  During that five years I climbed the chain of command and gained a ton of attractions knowledge before leaving in 2006.  At the end of my career with the resort I could operate 8 attractions, train and  manage 6, and was lucky enough to do walkthroughs of Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion.

4.  This one ties in with the last one.  Because I did walkthroughs of both the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean I have some incredible pictures of both attractions, unlike anything the general public would get. Some pictures include Pirates of the Caribbean with no water in the flume, a pirate animatronic without its outer skin and clothing, and some shots from inside the ballroom of The Haunted Mansion.

5.  My body does not take well to the feeling of falling.  While most people probably feel some sort of panic or fear when riding on roller coasters, or rides with sudden drops my body has a very different way of reacting.  My body begins to shake uncontrollably.  While mentally I enjoy attractions like this, my body doesn’t do well with them at all.  Because of this I am usually the guy who will try anything once and depending on how my body reacts I might sit out from that point on.  Disney’s Tower of Terror or Knott’s Berry Farm’s Supreme Scream are two perfect examples of rides I went on once, but will probably never go on again.

6.  I was in a handful of bands during and after high school.  In high school I was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for an alt/grunge band Another Alternative and then after high school I continued the role of lead singer and guitarist in a couple of bands that were similar to the likes of Something Corporate without the piano.  An interesting tidbit on each.  My first band, Another Alternative, recorded our demo with Bob Moon who recorded albums for bands like MxPx and The OC Supertones.  In the later bands I was working with Chris Salomone the younger brother of James Salomone who at the time had just finished as the bassist for ska outfit Rx Bandits.

7.  I didn’t get into SEO…SEO got into me.  I had been building websites for a number of years and was aware of some of the basic principles of SEO, but had never really given SEO much thought in terms of an interest or a career.  It wasn’t until an employer promoted me to their website marketing division that I was thrown into the realm of SEO.  Once introduced I got the fever and have been sucking up everything SEO and internet marketing related that I can.  One sickness lead to another and I am now diving deeper into things like social media and SMM, though my love for SEO is very much still at the helm.

So there you have it 7 things about me you probably never knew and many of you probably never cared to know. But now that we’ve got that out of the way there is one thing that my fine gypsy friend has always emphasized and that’s pay it forward, so since he got me wrapped up in this mess I will do just that.  The following 7 souls have been tagged!

Audrey Seiberling
Anna Bourland
John Jones
Katherine Keller
Kristina Sanchez
Tamar Weinberg
Troy Ready