adamyntium

Category: technology

  • Click-to-call is the next big thing in Web advertising… but with a twist

    I just read on Darren’s Problogger.net site (via Threadwatch) that Google is testing out a pay-per-call feature in its AdWords program.

    The way it works (so far in testing) is that Google places a little phone icon next to specific trial text ads where text AdWords ads are normally placed on the righthand side of Google search results pages.

    When someone clicks on the phone icon, they get a call from Google and Google then connects them to the advertiser free of charge… of course, charging the advertiser an amount up to their max pay-per-call bid price.

    IMHO, though, this is one layer away from being humungously useful to advertisers. As it’s currently implemented, I think a lot of folks (like me!) would be apt to read the small text ad, click through to the site, and then decide whether to call the company from *there* or not.

    And by that point, there’s no easy way for the advertiser to know that I came via AdWords… which means that it’s basically flying under the ROI radar. This may not seem like a horrible problem, but let me tell you… for some advertisers (like one of my clients, who spends over $150,000 a month on AdWords alone!), it’s quite painful to wonder whether that cost-per-lead is unduly inflated because lots of customers are calling in their high-ticket orders rather than placing them on the company’s Web site directly. With the latter, this client can see the conversions via Google’s conversion tracker. With the former, the best the client can do is ask the purchaser “Where did you hear about us?” and 9 times out of 10, the person will say “Um, somewhere on the net” or maybe even “Google” but they’ll hardly know whether they spotted this firm via a natural or AdWords listing!

    * * *

    So here’s my idea: One of these companies… Google, Yahoo!, or Microsoft (with its Ad Center, not yet released in the U.S.) should implement a special javascript code that displays — on the advertiser’s site! — a tailored-per-client toll-free number when the referrer is a ad-click from Google, Y! or Microsoft. If the visitor isn’t from one of their respective PPC programs, then the javascript code would default to simply showing the company’s own default toll-free number.

    And one of the coolest things about this is that it’d be VERY hard to game or click-fraud. If the engine set, for instance, a minimum call length before charging (say, 15 seconds), you’re not going to get random “calling farms” in India making 16 second calls, IMHO :-).

    Of course, really cheap-ass companies participating in the program could say “Oh, hi! Let me quickly get your number and call you back…” but — especially when high-ticket items or subscriptions are at stake — I don’t think such behavior is likely. The annoyance of that would likely offset too much potential revenue from customers.

    * * *

    From at a technical perspective, I think this would be pretty easy to do. I understand that there might be some referrer-acknowledgement issues (e.g., people surfing in high-paranoid mode with referrer stuff turned off), but on the whole, I can imagine that advertisers would be willing to pay a premium for a visit + call… and consumers would be well-served, too.

    What are your thoughts on this? Am I missing a key problem here?

  • Helpful numbers to save in your phone!

    I invite you to go grab your cell phone / mobile phone / home phone whatever and program the following numbers into it:

    – 1-800-555-8355 (“555 TELL” — TellMe)
    – 1-800-373-3411 (“FREE 411” — Free411)
    – 1-888-392-7563 (“EZ ASK ME” — AskMeNow – Initial signup on site required)
    – 46645 (“GOOGL” – Google SMS beta – Google via Text Messaging)

    NOTE: One or more of these numbers may be U.S.-only… sorry 😐

    For details on each service, read on…

    TELLME
    I’ve been using this service for ages, and it’s really gotten me out of some tight jams!

    Via interactive voice menus, callers can easily get weather reports, serious and entertainment news, movie info, and much more. But the butt-saving features I’ve particularly appreciated are TAXI and DRIVING DIRECTIONS. The former will connect you (free of charge) with a local cab company, and the latter gives you step-by-step spoken driving directions between any two points in the U.S. (powered by “Microsoft MapPoint Technologies”)

    Supposedly, TellMe is ad-supported, but I have yet to hear any ads on the service.

    * * *

    FREE 411
    Tired of paying $1.25 and up to your greedy mobile or landline phone company for directory assistance? Then you’ll especially love Free 411! Not only does it find residential and business phone numbers for you, it also connects you free-of-charge (even to long distance numbers!) This service is apparently ad-supported (e.g., ask for Dominos Pizza, get a 15 second ad for a competing pizza place), but I’ve never heard any ads during the 3-4 times I’ve used this service.

    Voice recognition is pretty decent, but the one time I stumped it, I was transferred to a human operator who was able to promptly get me the number I requested.

    Frankly, though, I do wonder how sustainable this is. Will enough companies really pay to have folks redirected to them? If people are asking for Smith Window Washing services, will they really be so easily swayed towards a competitor? I have my doubts. But in the meantime, I’m happy to use this very convenient free 411 service!

    * * *

    ASK ME NOW

    Need to know the capital of Wisconsin? Or find the phone number of a particular Citibank branch? Sure, if you’re near an Internet-connected computer, you could probably quickly and easily find this info yourself. But what if you’re busy or not near a computer? Yes, I have a Web browser on my Treo phone, but it’s slow, the screen is small, and it’s generally just a miserable experience trying to navigate Web sites with it.

    Well, Ask Me Now is indeed a viable alternative. You call their number, leave a message, and 1-3 minutes later, you get back text messages with the right answer. Or at least AN answer. In my minimal testing, Ask Me Now gave me the right answer to “What is the Capital of Wisconsin?” but gave me the wrong answer to “What is the phone number of the Citibank branch located on Diamond Street in San Francisco?” The person (apparently located in the Philippines) who answered my query clearly just quickly googled for the answer and didn’t bother checking on Citibank’s Web site, since the correct answer is available in the latter, not the former.

    This service costs 49 cents per query, billed to your cell phone account. Supposedly you can get free ‘automated’ answers, but it’s not clear to me what qualifies as free and not-free, even after looking on the company’s Web site.

    * * *

    GOOGLE SMS
    Another option is Google’s SMS service. Text message GOOGL (46645) to get driving directions, movie showtimes, weather reports, price comparisons, and more.

    I’ve found this service to be both wonderous and frustrating. For instance, when I asked it [What is the capitol [sic] of wisconsin?] it replied back “Did you mean CAPITAL…” and gave me an appropriate Web page… when I would have preferred for it to actually include the answer, not just a link, in the reply. Additionally, when I asked it [Phone number for Citibank on Diamond St in San Francisco CA] it replied unhelpfully: “Looking for map of [query]? Unfortunately map information is not available through Google SMS.”

    I had better luck with other queries, such as [weather 91360] and [what is the population of belgium].

    * * *

    YAHOO SMS
    Despite multiple attempts, I could not get this service to work. I kept getting an “Invalid…” message, with instructions relating to Y! Messenger, after even using the exact queries listed on this page. Bummer. Any Yahoo people out there wanna help me figure out what’s going on here? I’ve heard good things about Yahoo’s mobile offerings and perhaps there’s just something small / obvious I’m missing?

  • Google Analytics (formerly Urchin) free Web Stats is now live

    https://www.google.com/analytics/

    I learned that this was coming via this Information Week article.

    Lots of fascinating issues and implications!

    – How much of a further competitive edge will this give AdWords over other pay-per-click advertising services like Yahoo! Search Marketing?

    – Will this completely decimate small, low-cost Web Stats services like StatCounter? My gut is that it’ll make a dent, particularly amongst small to medium-sized businesses, but that for those who are looking for something very quick, easy to set up, and fast to browse, they may indeed stick with simpler solutions.

    – What will this mean for HitBox, ClickTracks, etc? Once again, I think this’ll significantly impact their share of small-to-medium-sized clients, but it’s very unlikely to rock any relationships with Fortune 500 / large firms.

    My experience with Urchin?
    I set up and used the service with a client a few months ago, and found it to offer fascinating insights and have very high potential overall, but it was frustratingly creaky (slow, a bit flakey) undoubtedly due to the high (millions of hits a month) traffic it was being asked to process for this client.

    With that said, though, I can’t wait to try this out on my blog and my other personal sites, and I will recomend it heartily to my smaller clients. Assuming Google manages to scale this decently, I can see recommending it to larger clients as well.

    Still, however, I’m skeptical that Google’s customer support will scale decently for this product. Urchin, er, Google Analytics is a very complex, frankly complicated service, and there are so many places in which users can become confused or overwhelmed. Thankfully, Google recently substantially improved their help documentation (a couple of months ago), but still…

    And hmm… perhaps Google will roll out a more limited and/or fully integrated version for BlogSpot folks at a later time?

    Anyway, I’m going to quit blathering and give this service a try now. 🙂

  • Ridiculously insane Web hosting deal… 77 cents a month

    First, let me offer a sincere disclaimer: I’ve debated whether or not to post this, because I’ll get free Web hosting credits when people sign up with the link below.

    But I’ve decided that this deal is simply too amazing not to share, and I just can’t feel that guilty for using an affiliate link (when being up-front about it) in this context. I’ve already set up an account for myself, urged my good friends to get accounts, etc.

    Here’s the deal:
    – 4.8gb of space (increases weekly by 40mb)
    – 120gb of monthly bandwidth (increases weekly by 1gb)
    – Plus shell access, mySQL, mailing lists, ftp, etc. etc. etc.
    – Free 1-year registration of a domain
    – Unlimited domain/subdomain hosting

    …for $9.24 *TOTAL* for the first year (77 cents a month).
    After that, it’s $7.95 or $9.95/month (still a fab deal), and perhaps even cheaper by then.

    Here’s how to sign up:
    1) Click here.
    2) Click on “Managed Web Hosting.”
    3) Click on the “signup now” button under “Crazy Domain Insane.”
    4) Select the 12 month term.
    5) Make sure to enter promotion code 777 to receive the special pricing!

    * * *

    I do welcome your frank thoughts both about this post and about DreamHost. My experience with DH so far has been generally good… a relatively straightforward signup process (with my account active in under 2 minutes), a friendly forum… but on the flip side, my control panel was initially slow, and I find the CP to be a bit unintuitive. Site speed, thankfully, seems pretty fast.

    Lastly, I’d like to give a hat tip to the fabulously cool and useful deals site SlickDeals.net, from which I initially learned about this offer.

    UPDATE: Comments closed on this entry due to the enormously lame spamming by tons of competing Web hosts… not actually offering any particular deals, just glomming onto any mention “Web host” in a blog entry. Losers.

  • Yahoo! and Google Maps… add more common sense, please

    I don’t know about you, but the vast majority of searches I do on Google Maps and the splendiforous new Y! Maps (beta) are for directions from my apartment in San Francisco to somewhere else in the city. Here’s the sort of search I’d type in by default:

    [{my address} to 16th and valencia]

    But both Google and Yahoo! choke on this search, and choke bad. Yahoo! gives me an error message saying the address could not be found, and then nonetheless gives me directions to Valencia, Arizona. Google performs no better here; it asks me “Did you mean Valencia Road, Bromsgrove, Hereford and Worcester, B60, UK?” Suuuuuure, Google, I’m going to get in my car and drive from San Francisco to the UK. 😉

    Where’s a Common Sense module when you need one?

    For starters, how about assuming that if I don’t add on a city, state or zip code, that I’m intending to travel within my home city. On G, one can already define a default starting point. And I’d assume that, when logged in to one’s Y! account, Yahoo already knows one’s home city, too. Not to mention IP sniffing possibilities, too!

    Or even better yet, if it’s not too computationally resource intense, it’d be great if the engines could assume a 100 mile radius and prioritize by proximity. That means if I type in 123 Mission St and I’m in San Francisco, I probably mean to indicate that street in SF or nearby, not somewhere in Minnesota. Since most of us don’t have zip codes handy when we’re doing directions, it’s a lot faster and easier to type [555 myhomestreet 94112 to 123 mission st] than [555 myhomestreet 94112 to 123 mission st, san francisco, ca].

    Lastly, I understand that sometimes requests ARE ambiguous (maybe I meant mission street in a nearby city, not SF, despite failing to specify it)… so the services should always preface the results on such ambiguous requests with something like this:\

    NOTE: We assumed you’re traveling to 123 mission street in San Francisco, CA. If this isn’t right, please retype your request and specify the city and state.

    And heck, for that matter, why can’t I type [1531 19th ave to 99 valencia st] and have it assume I mean San Francisco (based upon my signin, my past searches, my IP address, whatever)?

    Am I on target here, or would such assumption-makings on the part of the engines be more trouble than they’re worth?

  • In Brief: Things that every blog should have (but too many don’t)

    I’ll note up front: my blog UI currently sucks (as I’ve said many times before) and I WILL fix it eventually. But like a brilliant marriage therapist that can’t maintain a healthy relationship, I’m going to lecture y’all on some blog-musts 🙂

    – Include a CONTACT ME link or info. Oh yeah, and an ABOUT ME blurb or link.
    – Enable “Subscribe to future comments.” (why this isn’t standard in blog software is beyond me!)
    – Let me subscribe to your entries by e-mail. Not everyone uses or likes RSS.
    – Categories! I know Blogger is working on this (really) but the rest of you not using Blogger have no excuses! 🙂

    RELATED ENTRIES:
    – Jakob Nielsen offers (mostly) spot-on blog guidelines
    – Blogger DON’Ts (how to gain admirers, get money, stay employed, etc.)

  • Voicemail inefficiencies… anyone got a better way?

    In order to access my voicemail with AT&T CallVantage on my phone, I have to do the following:
    1) Hit “***” then my 5 digit password.
    2) Press 1 to go to voicemail.
    3) Press 1 to LISTEN to my voicemail.

    Also, leaving voicemail for friends isn’t much more convenient. Why isn’t there something like texting, but in voice? In other words, it’s 2am, I just had a great idea I wanted to share with a friend but I don’t want to wake her up. Why isn’t there any easy way for me to shoot her a quick voicemail without ringing her phone? (or is there?)

    I know, I know, I’m being a total whiner lately, but it just seems to me that there are some great opportunities here for companies like Skype and even traditional telcos and cell phone companies.

    P.S. — Others have also understandably ranted about how broken actually leaving voicemail in general is. Used to be, when we’d call a friend, we’d hear “Hey, I’m not home. Leave a message” [beep!] and we’d leave a message. Now we have to deal with “If you’d like to leave a page, please press 1. If you’d like to leave a voice message, please press 2 or wait for the tone…” Yeah, yeah, I know I can press * (or is it #?) or something like that to skip through that, but I think it varies by carrier, and I figure with my luck I’d accidentally hang up. Blegh.

  • Installing software is often a miserable experience (even with Apple!)

    This entry about a fella’s (nasty) experience installing Quicktime made me both chuckle and nod in understanding.

    Apple has a reputation of being so easy to use, so consumer friendly, so I gotta ask: what the $&@#! were those folks smoking when they went ahead with this install process? This is about as consumer-hostile as you get. It’s annoying and downright rude.

    In fairness, Apple’s not the only company that should be forced to sit in a corner and repent. Other misbehaving miscreants include AOL and Real; I installed the most recent beta version of AIM only so I could play with the new Plaxo integration (which is actually slick and damn cool [see disclaimer]), but I sure as hell didn’t want a stupid Web browser (“AOL Explorer”) piggybacked on top, nor did I ask to have AIM sit in my system tray and be present upon every Windows startup. And regarding the Real Player, well… despite being very tempted to install it so I can watch some in-Real-format-only clips on the Web, I’ve put off sullying my new computer, ’cause I remember what a splatting mess the install was last time.

    Look, companies, I know many of you have quasi-monopolies or oligopolies, but these are fleeting. Honest. I truly believe you’re going to get your butts kicked on the ground if you continue to treat your users — especially influential geeks — like saps who are expected to just roll over and accept all of your default system changes and detritus.

    There are lots of awesome programs that do behave themselves: asking the user if they’d like to have things run at startup or if they’d like icons placed here or there. Some of the install processes even include prominent AND NON-LEGALESED terms of service, so we don’t have to either scroll through 478 lines of gooblygook or worry about what happens if we just ignore it.

    * * *

    It may take a while, but we users will win in the end. So, dear companies, now is the time to do the right thing… before it’s too late. Earn our trust, serve our needs and (maybe) then we’ll be amenable to your upgrade offers and cross-promotions. Get us to love, not hate, your brand and you’ll be rewarded in the long term.

  • Jakob Nielsen offers (mostly) spot-on blog guidelines

    Jakob Nielsen is one of the granddaddies of Web Usability; he’s offered for years lots of strong and (IMHO) often very smart opinions about what practices and designs on the Web make for good user experiences. I don’t always agree with his assertions, but I am very impressed by his recent blogging guidelines.

    Here are the key sins he warns against:

    1. No author biography
    I completely agree. This provides much-needed context. Is the person talking about their employer? A competitor? Are her political views colored by her association with a particular organization or religion? And so on.

    2. No author photo
    A photo is worth 1000 words. Particularly if it’s a serious mugshot, a playful pic, a lovey-dovey shot, etc.

    3. Non-descript posting titles
    I like teasers sometimes, but (and I need to take this to heart) they should indeed be used sparingly. And as Nielsen notes, key words — relevant to the specific audience — should always be used up front.

    4. Links Don’t Say Where They Go
    This is an important issue all around the Web. While I’ve been guilty of this sin in the past, I totally agree that it’s rude and/or just annoying to link words like “here” and “like this” and so on. It’s also really bad from a search-engine-optimization standpoint (HINT: Y! and Google et al DO care what you’ve used for your linked text 😉

    5. Classic Hits are Buried
    I’ve been trying to avoid this problem by including a “Related Links” tidbit at the bottom of many of my newer posts. With that said, though, I still get really frustrated that my “best” writing sometimes goes completely undiscovered and unloved. 😐

    6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
    This is a pet peeve of mine. What were the Web log software designers thinking when the put a calendar front and center? I mean, seriously, how often do blog readers think: “Gee, I simply MUST see what Fred has written about on July 22nd, 2005!” Uh, no. Like Jakob wisely notes, people are curious to learn more about what you’ve said on a particular topic. I think I’ve done a good job bringing my topic lists front and center (listing related topics at the top of each post, and all topics on the right of each page), but perhaps I can do so both more efficiently and less obtrusively when I (finally) overhaul my blog.

    7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
    Here is where I strongly disagree with Jakob and other folks like Duncan of the Blog Herald. When publishing was in meatspace (e.g., via dead trees), sure, it made sense to stick to a schedule. After all, one was typically PAYING to receive a publication (magazine, newsletter, etc.) on a regular basis. And before RSS readers came along, it was also understandable that people wanted to know how often a particular site updated its content, so they could know to check it every Wednesday night or whatever.

    But with RSS feeds so ubiquitous now, this is no longer relevant. In fact, not only am I perfectly happy to subscribe to blogs that post irregularly (but with interesting content), I’m often negatively overwhelmed by blogs that publish a zillion times a day. Hence, despite their consistently entertaining content, I rarely ever read Boing Boing or SFist anymore because I simply can’t keep up. The unread items just pile up, and I end up just marking them all as read after a couple of weeks go by.

    8. Mixing Topics
    I’m really struggling with this issue myself. On one hand, I KNOW that if I trimmed this blog to talk only about Google or dancing, for instance, I’d likely get a much larger and more loyal audience. And probably more targeted and lucrative ads, too. But I blog stuff that I enjoy blogging about, and I hate to change that. The thought of maintaining a bunch of separate blogs sounds like a pain in the ass, and beyond that, I think of Jeremy Zawodny and Robert Scoble — both of whom unrepentantly mix in talk about their personal interests — and (not that I’m in their league) I note that somehow their blogs remain popular :-).

    9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
    Amen. I’ve already written about the topic of cautious blogging in the past:
    – “Got business aspirations? Neuter your blog or suffer the consequences.“
    – “‘I know all about you, Adam’ — Context and queasiness“
    – “Letting it all hang out.“

    10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service
    This really is a no-brainer. Similarly, I highly advise folks to get an e-mail address in their own domain (e.g., lasnik.net). Sure, you can still easily use Yahoo! Mail or Gmail or whatever by using forwarding, but you then at least have excellent mobility should you choose to change Webmail providers in the future. Plus .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) looks rather professional and is a lot better than .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (or, frankly, any aol.com address; all of them scream “neeeeewbie!”)

    * * *

    What are your thoughts? Do you think Jakob got it right? Do you agree with my comments as well? Any additional blogging sins to note?

    * * *
    Other related links:
    – “Blogger DON’Ts (how to gain admirers, get money, stay employed, etc.)“

  • $1 will cure the Blogspot splog problem (and related problems)

    THE PROBLEM
    As Chris Pirillo and others have noted, doing a search on practically anything nowadays returns a deluge of spam blogs, or “splogs,” that are comprised of a bunch of randomly scraped-together sentences automatically stolen from around the Web. Typically, the sploggers create these blogspot blogs just so they can slap AdSense ads on them and earn cash from unwitting surfers who land there, see that all the content is crap, and then get away by clicking on one of the ads on the page.

    Sounds stupid? It is. But sadly it’s actually lucrative for the sploggers. And Google’s caught in the middle because — while, yes, they’re earning money as well out of the deal — their search index is becoming less and less useful… and that can undoubtedly hurt the company’s long-term viability. Say what you will about Google, but they are nothing if not forward thinking… so this is a problem that they are certainly seriously tackling in the background.

    THE SOLUTION
    But I have an idea that’d solve the issue faster. It’s not entirely ‘democratic.’ It also risks some ‘friendly fire’. And initially, it’ll be a major pain in the ass for Google and a minor pain in the ass for anyone wanting to set up a blog. But hear me out… 🙂

    Google should require a $1 credit card, ACH bank payment, or paper check payment from any blogger who wants his or her blog to be indexed.

    But note that…
    – Anyone could still create a blog for free.
    If you wanted to have a blog to communicate with your friends or family or workgroup or whatever, no sweat. You’d just give ’em the URL, let them subscribe to your RSS feed, etc., no payment required.

    – Google would create a special subdomain for the paid blogs.
    blogspotgold.com or whatnot… so that other search engines could easily filter out anything in the blogspot domain.

    – Google would allow any current blogspot user to ‘upgrade’ for $1 and would automatically redirect their URL permanently.

    WHY THIS’D WORK
    – It would likely no longer be economically feasible for spammers to create 10,000 disposable splogs.
    – Even if the economics worked out, Google could limit the number of blogs created per credit card number or bank account.
    – Google’s creating its own payment processing solution anyway, so they’ll soon have the payments part covered.

    WHAT WILL HAMPER THIS SOLUTION
    – Sploggers could use stolen credit cards, though I think it’d be difficult to do this in bulk.
    – But most critically, there’s the frustrating issue that even a $1 payment could end up publicly silencing voices that should be heard.

    MORE ABOUT THE SILENCING-VOICES PROBLEM
    While I’m all for accountability and taking personal responsibility for one’s communications, I also recognize that there are instances in which folks desire — and often should be accorded — anonymity.

    For instance, what about Chinese dissidents who may want to blog about their feelings and experiences or even blog about upcoming protests? Is it inconceivable that the Chinese government could pressure Google into handing over identity information gleaned from a dissident’s $1 blogspot payment? Even if Google takes pains to sincerely insist that it will *NEVER* do such a thing, will everyone trust this promise? And what about whistleblowers?

    Or what about those people — particularly in non-industrialized countries — who may not have a bank account or credit card but still want to blog?

    A POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THE SILENCED-VOICES PROBLEM
    Perhaps, instead of denying indexing to all non-paid blogs, Google could simply — upon request — pre-screen all such blogs for indexing consideration. For instance, something like the following:
    1) Person sets up free blog and blogs a minimum number of substantive (non-sploggy) posts over a minimum period of time.
    2) They then submit this blog for indexing consideration to Google.
    3) If Google determines it to be non-sploggy, they then elevate it to blogspotgold, and provide a free redirect from the old URL.

    Admittedly, though, sploggers could retaliate in this context by submitting bazillions of obvious-crap blogs just to clog up the reviewing queue. However, if it were impossible to submit a blog for consideration until it had been around, say, 3 months or 6 months… that would make it harder to do a mass-submit “DOS” [denial of service style] attack. Spammers are not patient people.

    * * *

    So I’m curious… what do you think about all of this?
    1) Would a $1 payment really prevent most or even all splog from getting into the indexes of Google, Y!, and all other major players?
    2) Would there be bad ‘collateral damage’… or could this be reasonably minimized by the ideas I’ve specified or through other means?
    3) Know of any anti-splog options that are better than my $1 idea? (hint: capchas alone aren’t the answer)

    * * *

    UPDATE at 9:00PM PST, 10/16/2005:
    People have pointed out to me that children and young teens typically don’t have credit cards or even bank accounts, and that it seems unfair to single them out for a waiting period. So here are some other ideas (with the first two stolen from current Gmail policies :D)

    – Get a blogspotgold account via text message.
    True, this requires a phone… or a friend’s phone.

    – Get a blogspotgold account via invite from current member.
    Allow each current member to hand out up to 10 tokens a month, and if more than 2 of them are used to create splogs, then don’t give that member any more tokens for a year.

    – Distribute blogspotgold tokens via schools (administrators, teachers, whatever)

    * * *

    UPDATE, 10/18/2005 at 1:45AM PST:
    Ah, Google responds to the outcry! I had no doubt that they’d be taking all of this seriously (I know that the Blogger folks are sincerely passionate about blogging!), but it’s nice to see their public acknowledgment of the problem nonetheless.

    Also, the prolific geek, Chris Pirillo (of Lockergnome fame) has proposed his own top ten list of Blogspot anti-splog solutions.