Eric Joiner's Freightdawg.com - The Logistics and Supply Chain Blog!

DUI Lawyers, Student Loans, SEO and Google

Freightdawg.com has been active for a little over a year. The content is deep and generally of high quality. There were nearly 300 articles published on unique topics here in the last year.

What's interesting is that the more I know about blogs, and especially how Google Adsense advertising works, the less I believe that "logistics" oriented blogs will ever directly pay for themselves as a web blog.

Thats ok. I don't do this to make money directly from blog advertising. This is a niche blog.  My reasons for producing Freightdawg.com are much more personal.  I simply believe there's a lot to say about an industry I have spent 25 years of my life in.  I also have directly gained from new and deeper industry contacts, industry association relationships and customer contacts. Those things alone made freightdawg.com highly valuable.

What I find hugely revealing however, is how much different advertisers pay for online advertisements. Check this site out.  Top Paying Adsense Keywords. This site lists the amounts paid by Google Adsense advertisers for click throughs by specific subject.   Logistics and supply chain aren't anywhere near the top of the list. Like I said, thats ok. What surprises me is what IS at the top of the list.

DUI lawyers and Student Loans. Check the link above.  "DUI Lawyer Long Beach" pays $87.88 per click through.  I guess that's because Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears hang out near there. To be honest, I thought mortgages would be at the top. They used to be.

There is a concept called long tail SEO (search engine optimization), that looks at what words generate the most searches at Google, then using that list to determine what you should to write about on your blog in order to maximize ad revenue.. Typically, those topics which generate the most demand also command the highest advertisement revenue.  Unfortunately, I find it only modestly useful if you have a niche market you want to serve (like freightdawg.com).

Guess what? This entire article is an SEO exercise just by the nature of how Google will deal with it. I mentioned top rated advertising topics, so thats likely to impact the banner ads on this site.  I also bolded topics that Google likes.  I also mentioned SEO (search engine optimization).

These days it's not only about the quality of the content, but what you write about.  Logistics and supply chain might not be the most popular blog topic, but it is strategic to real world economics.  Thats why I write about it.   

Meanwhile I'll chuckle a little about figuring out how to include Lindsay and Britney into a Freightdawg article. If you see banner ads with those topics on freightdawg soon, now you will know why and see the proof of what I'm talking about.  By all means, CLICK THOSE ADS!!!

Cha Ching!!!

Eric

Add Freightdawg.com to your social bookmarks!

Airline Flight Tracking: Two Cool Tools

Fboweb.com has announced implementation of an online flight tracking system that integrates with Google Earth.  This allows you to see in near real time, flight activity at major airports such as Atlanta (ATL), LAX, New York (JFK), San Francisco (SFO) and Chicago O'Hare (ORD).


FBOWeb and Flightaware.com are both Great Tools to Have.
This tool, along with a similar application from flightaware.com, allow tracking of individual flights as well as general traffic.    I've found a number of business applications that are very helpful.   

I've used flightaware and Fboweb.com to track flights after I have gotten home from a particularly hairy business flight.   It's interesting to see exactly what diversions the pilot actually made before that "one wire" landing at ATL.    

Parcel Carrier Operations
More importantly, last February on the eve of Valentines Day,  the US mid-west was hit by a major snow storm that hampered flight operations throughout the region.  Parcel carriers such as UPS, DHL and FedEx were hit hard on the evening prior to the delivery of many thousands of flower shipments for Valentines Day. The interrupted operations put this fragile cargo, along with chocolates and other sensitive shipments at risk. Operations were disrupted for a whole week for all three carriers. If flight operations are impacted you can also be sure that truck traffic is too as shipments are diverted to surface modes and trucks back up at the hubs waiting on direct induction to the air networks.

Tools like Fboweb and flightaware allow a user to immediately see traffic flows into airports like the major parcel hubs at Memphis, Louisville and Wilmington, Ohio. Over a 24 hour period you can track airport activity and get a near real-time sense of the impact of a storm like this on both your own operations as well as that of competitors.   (That could be significant when one parcel carrier owns and controls flight operations at the airport (DHL) and others only have priority take off privileges.) 

When companies like 1-800-Flowers and FTD make 80 percent of their revenues on just two holidays (Valentine's Day and Mother's Day), it is imperative to be able to see and understand weather impact on parcel carrier networks. 

Flightaware.com - A Paparazzi Favorite!
The press has known about the flightaware.com tool for some time.  When the University of Alabama went hunting for a new football coach,  both fans and newsies alike often tracked the whereabouts of influential trustee, Paul Bryant, Jr.'s Gulfstream I, N323P. When his airplane took off and landed in Augusta Ga., then took off and simply circled for 45 minutes, then landed and flew back to Tuscaloosa...virtually everybody knew that an interview with University of South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier had just taken place. When Nick Saban was eventually hired,  the fans and the airplane paparazzi knew the tail number of the jet that was involved. This can be a real "Where's Waldo?" exercise. There were rabid Crimson Tide fans who spent days "interpreting" the coaching search by tracking PBJ's Gulfstream as well as university aircraft used by UA Athletic Director, Mal Moore.

(Just for fun...go to flightaware.com and use Bryant's jet registration number, N323P and you'll be able to see the last several flights that airplane has made.   When used for a coaching search, a circus can and did erupt.)

Wall Street: Stuff that makes ya go "Hmm....?"
Wall Street brokers have been known to track the jet whereabouts of Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and other business leaders.   For instance, what does it mean when the private aircraft of two senior business executives from rival firms happen to land within 10 minutes of each other in Peoria, then five minutes later another jet lands with a major venture capitalist aboard?  Is a deal in progress or is it just an amazing coincidence?   "Inquiring minds want to know!"  Notice however, that I said "Peoria" and not "San Jose", where such occurrences are normal.   Stocks can rise and fall on this stuff.

Whether tracking  Aunt Minnie's flight from Topeka or measuring traffic flows for business operations,  these tools are fun to have.   Google Earth is a must.   It's highly educational for kids as well as adults. 

Limitations
The primary limiter to these tools is that they only work on air traffic in the US. You can see international flights, but they must either start or end in the US.  For security reasons, there is a delay of a certain number of minutes to display of flight information as well.  However for most recreational and commercial purposes, these tools are about as "real-time" as needed.

Users can access the Fboweb interface for Google Earth at: http://www.fboweb.com/3d.

Eric

clipped from biz.yahoo.com fboweb.com Announces Free 3D Flight Tracking On The Internet Thursday March 15, 10:15 pm ET Feature allows tracking of live aircraft using Google Earth ORLANDO, Fla., March 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Aviation Data Systems, Inc, operators of the popular fboweb.com flight tracking and aviation information portal, announces enhancements to its free 3-dimensional flight tracking application, which is open to the general public. The service combines the web portal's flight tracking data with the mapping capabilities of Google Earth, the 3D map browsing program freely available from the search giant. "The 'wow' factor is off the scale," said Andrew Green, President of Aviation Data Systems, Inc. "The service provides a singularly unique and fascinating way to follow US flights in real-time across the United States." Services Provides Excellent Visual Representation of Data Users can access the service over the Internet by pointing their web browser to http://www.fboweb.com/3d. Users must also have Google Earth installed, a program freely available at http://earth.google.com. From the fboweb.com website, users can enter the airline and flight ID of any commercial flight operating within US airspace, and Google Earth will launch, showing the user's selected flight and all surrounding traffic.  Using the controls within Google Earth, users can then pan, zoom, and tilt the viewer to show the aircraft from any angle, and compare its location to ground reference images displayed within the map browser.

Add Freightdawg.com to your social bookmarks!

UPS vs.Google

I like Stumbleupon as a tool to surf the net.  It's a great tool for taking you to corners of the web that you ordinarily wouldn't "stumble upon" (sorry for the pun!).   This evening I happened to hit a link containing pictures of the Google offices in New York, China and "the Googleplex" in the Bay area in California.   

Having been a proper dot.communist in the early 2000's, I recognized scooters, Low fat, high energy snackage and foozball as trinkets to the fact that most of these employees are extremely young, extremely smart, and easily bored...but nevertheless probably work 70+ hours a week. Hell, why not?  Google is worth billions of dollars and I'm fairly sure some stock options are involved.

Logistics is a traditional business.  Meaning old school suits and ties, majority (tall) white male senior management,  and especially traditional ideas on how to make a profit. And...if your company is based "overseas", you probably have a few senior folks who are in their positions for no other reason than they talk funny but are part of the home team.

Logistics companies also have another attribute.  The shipping business typically requires fewer people relative to the massive capital outlay necessary to compete.  Billions of dollars are spent on infrastructure costs like jumbo jets, massive freight hubs, thousands of trucks, and don't forget the fuel to operate all those assets!   UPS and Google both have barriers to entry, but the styles of business environment are polar opposites.  Nevertheless, both seem to work.

"Is UPS the anti-Google?"

UPS is a massive transportation company with a highly engineered product designed to use standardized methods to hit standardized goals.  The difference between a parcel giant and an information giant is one thing...parcel carriers deal in physical reality.  Google deals in virtual reality.  When weather is a factor, forget the foozball. 

What intrigues me is to wonder what the value will be of the stock options given to both UPS and Google employees in 2004 in 20 years (2024).  New environments like "Second Life"  will endeavor to blur the edge between what is real and what is "practically real".  When an old school retailer like Sears sets up a sales floor in virtual reality...lets face it...its time to think hard on this.   How long will it be before there are virtual drop boxes from UPS, DHL or FedEx in Second Life!?

Eric

Now this is Cool: Twingly Screensaver

This is possibly the coolest thing I have seen lately.  Called the "Twingly screensaver" by PrimeLabs.com, this screen saver application visually depicts blogosphere activity in real time!   It installs and acts as a normal screen saver within Windows XP but also can be interactively used as an application on your desktop. 

The PrimeLabs web site has a neat video of how this works if you want a preview before the download.  Be prepared to navigate through a little Swedish on the site though!

One word of warning: This is a realtime streaming list of global blog posts.  This includes adult themed material.  Unfortunately, this beta version of Twingly Screensaver does not have a filter mechanism.

TECH NOTE: To use it, you need a video card that supports OpenGL.

Well worth investigating!

Eric

---

PS: Quote of the Week: (Dave Barry, Humorist)

“One day soon the Gillette company will announce the development of a razor that, thanks to a computer microchip, can actually travel ahead in time and shave beard hairs that don't even exist yet”