Haven’t done a Brain Power post in a while, so here’s one for you.

Start at the green square. Next, find the shortest path to the red square. I’ve shaded the squares to make them easier to count.

What is the shortest path from the green square to the red square?

Leave your answer in the comments.

When it comes to blogging, I guess I’m a flip-flopper. I keep changing my mind on how to blog and how to separate my topics. But, that’s okay. There are some very good reasons to change your mind sometimes.

• Things Change
  Things do change. What was true yesterday may not be today. Certain things remain the same. One plus one is always equal to two (in base-10 math). But, other things, especially those regarding human behavior, are more in flux. People may think flashy graphics and music playing in the background is totally awesome one moment, and then become bored or even fed up with such websites months later. So, what was good then, might not be so good now.
• You Learn Things
  Sometimes you need to change your mind because new information becomes available. Or, you begin to see new trends on your website. A new, growing audience demands something different than what you’ve offered before. Or, they are attracted to the things you previously only rarely did, and now you feel you need to do it more often to maintain their interest. And, they may result in cutting back something else.
• You Realize You Were Wrong
  Everything you thought you knew turned out to be incorrect. But, it may not have been your fault. You might not have had enough traffic for patterns to emerge. But, as traffic grew, the patterns the “experts” told you about began to emerge and you have to rethink the way you had been doing things.
• You Have More Time or Motivation
  You may not have done something in the past because you just didn’t have the time or inclination to do it. And, present day, that might no longer be true. You might have gained more time, or you may have become more motivated to do things.

And, of course, it could be a combination of the things above.

With that in mind, I am (most likely and unless I change my mind again) going to start two new blogs.

First, I am going to spin out Antiques into its own blog. For one thing, it doesn’t really fit into this blog anymore, which I’ve said before. And, I even planned to spin it out before. But, then I started posting antique entries here and here. So, once again, I’m spinning…

Second, another blog, which I have previously mentioned, on gardening and houseplants. But, wait a minute, maybe I won’t. Oh, I am so undecided on this one…

Okay, so at least one new blog coming soon. Maybe two. Maybe not.

…to bring you absolutely nothing.

This has been my first chance to get on the computer all day. Sure, I should have scheduled a post to appear, but I didn’t think painting was going to take all day.

What? So that’s not good enough for you? You don’t want excuses? You want to see a video?

Okay, then click here for a cool Dalek security camera.

Last week, I wrote about having a personality for your website or blog. The focus in that post was on doing things with which you are comfortable. It’s difficult to achieve success doing things you don’t enjoy or that make you uncomfortable. With that out of the way, this time around it’s all about personality.

A lot of blogs fail. A lot of eCommerce websites fail. One reason is that frequently people succumb to the idea (which is often bred by the plethora of TV, internet and even spam ads promising us wealth just by having a website) that all they have to do is put up a website and the money will just magically start coming in.

I do web page design and hosting, and I once had a client that had me do a website for them. They had a single page website and did no advertising of any kind for it. I don’t even think they listed the website address on their letterhead or business cards. After three months, they cancelled it because they weren’t getting any business from it! At that time, it’d be at least three months before the search engines even indexed your website.

The other mistake is doing what everyone else is doing. People will create an eCommerce site, sell some products (either stocking them themselves or using drop-ship), and put up an online catalog. And wait for the orders to come pouring in. Now, there are countless other people doing the exact same thing and selling the same or similar products. Now, when given a choice between product a on one website or product a (the exact same product) on another website, which will you choose?

If your answer was “whichever has the cheapest price,” congratulations. You must be a Wal-Mart shopper. Now go to the back of the class.

People tend to think about price first. And, so if they’re running an eCommerce site selling the same thing as a bunch of other sites, their first thought will often be to lower their prices. Then, their competitors respond in turn. Eventually, the prices get so low that profits are hard to come by. If you can tough it out, it might work out well. Once competition is reduced or eliminated, you can raise your prices again.

The old adage is that you can offer the best of two out of three things: price, quality or service. If you offer quality and service, you must have high prices. Quality products and low prices means poor service. Great service and low prices equates to crummy products. You can probably name some examples of companies that provide all three, but those are rarities. For the most part, you’re only going to be seeing two of the three offered.

Now, personality is your secret weapon. It’s your plus-one option. You can two of three aforementioned plus add your own personality.

Personality is what helps you stand out from the crowd. You see, when most people set up their webstores or whatnot, they frequently just copy and paste the manufacturers’ descriptions. Or they’ll write their own, but they will be generic and boring.

Now, when you visit websites, and you see the same product offered at different sites, are you going to go for the lowest price? Maybe. But, what if the price is the same? And, even if it is lower, do you trust the site with the lower price? More than likely, you’re going to go with the site that grabbed your interest, didn’t have an unreasonable price and inspired some amount of trust. If someone knows a product well enough to write their own custom description, doesn’t that convey more trust than a website with a copied and pasted description that’s the same as dozens of other sites?

And, if you have fun on a site (or at a store), aren’t you more likely to return?

So, how exactly do you give your site a personality? Well, that’s up to you! Sure, that sounds like a cop-out, but, really, that’s something you have to determine yourself.

What you don’t want to do is just copy, verbatim, the descriptions offered by the manufacturer. Look at other sites. In just about any niche, if you view a lot of different sites, you’re going to see a lot of the same stuff. You don’t want to repeat what everyone else is doing. You want to make the site your own! You want to stand out from the crowd.

To better illustrate the idea of having a personality, below is a sampling of sites that have unique personalities. They could have just done a generic description and have essentially a “cookie-cutter” website like everyone else, but instead they opted to put their own spin on things. Mind you that a couple of these sites predate the rise of eCommerce, but, before the world wide web, they established unique personalities in their catalogs.

• American Science and Surplus - If I were to win the lottery, this would be one of the first places I’d be going shopping. They could have just done mundane, boring descriptions of their goods, like other surplus stores, but instead they decided to inject a little fun into them.
• Archie McPhee - Fun stuff, and they also have fun with their descriptions. I’m pretty sure this is where I bought my rubber chicken. And the Martian popping thing. I think MrBaconpants and Michelle will like these. And, they’ll no doubt want to try the bacon jelly beans too.
• The J. Peterman Company - It was originally started in 1987, parodied on Seinfeld, and went bankrupt after Seinfeld went off the air. Then, it was purchased by another company, which in turn went bankrupt, after which, John Peterman bought back the rights to his name and restarted the company with a group of investors that included John O’Hurley, who portrayed the fictional Peterman on Seinfeld. (Read the Wikipedia entry for more.) Now that all that’s out of the way, what made J. Peterman so popular in the first place was its use of stories and product illustrations (rather than photos) to present its catalog (and now website) in a unique way.
• StampandInk.com - Okay, this one falls into the “shameless plug” category, since it is my website. I’ve tried to inject some personality into the site, so it’s not just the same as every other site out there. I’ve been more successful on the art stamps than on the ink pads in that regard. But, with a future update pending, I hope to greatly improve on that! Not to mention other things I’m not going to mention.

If you want to increase your chances of success, give your blog or eCommerce site or even your retail store a unique personality!

First time I’ve seen any type of fruit on this tree, which seems to pop up everywhere. Never knew what it was before. But, now I am able to identify it as a Mulberry Tree!

Now, where can I get some silkworms?

Visit Wordless Wednesday for more.

All righty then… I haven’t done a list o’links in a while, so here are thirteen for Thursday.

1. Rose (no, not that Rose) wrote about Bloggers Anonymous. If you’re addicted to blogging, and if you’re reading this you just might be, you’ll want to check it out. Even if you just think you might possibly be addicted, it’s worth your mental health to check these things out. Don’t wait until your brain is oozing out your tear ducts. Act now!
2. Michelle shares details on how you might be able to get yourself a vintage postcard, if you’re lucky and willing to spend $3 to take the chance.
3. Robert goes people collecting…
4. The Untwisted Vortex and Rolando decided to have LASIK surgery done on their eyes.
5. Jeanne got robbed, intellectually.
6. Day 33. Joanne is still MIA.
7. The other Michelle (or was this Michelle the other Michelle?) attempts to fend off an invading army.
8. At long last, I updated (the WordPress installation and a new post–all in one night!) the StampReport.com!
9. Whichever Michelle this Michelle is might like this article on scanning objects for use in digital scrapbooking by Scraps of Mind. Then again, maybe not, as using real life objects would mean some cleanup would be involved.
10. Bobby writes about how you can ethically steal blog content, then changes his mind a bit, so be sure to read all the comments too.
11. The Rich Minx went the distance.
12. Mike took a presidential photo.
13. Little Too talks about her surgery.

How about that? A proper base-10 thirteen this time around. Possibly my first…

Now, it’s your turn to do some thinking… Post your thoughts in the comments and get some link love…

This week’s question: What is a babe?

What qualifies someone as a babe? Most commonly, women are referred to as “babes” or “hot babes,” but can men be “babes” too? (I have heard women using the term in much the same way that men do.)

Is “babeness” defined strictly by looks, or do personality and attitude come into play? Can a nice girl who’s not attractive be a babe? Can an attractive woman with a lousy attitude be considered a babe?

Post your thoughts in the comments. Or, if you prefer, do a blog post on your own blog about it and leave a comment here telling me about it. I’ll do a follow-up post summarizing everyone’s thoughts–maybe even do a fancy graph or something–and link to the respondents.

Pete of My GPS Camera Phone Photoblog asks:
Why is American cheese so yellow? What’s up with that? Is there some reason behind it? Is it a carryover from the Velveeta days? If so, why did they make it so yellow?

Well Pete,

American cheese ranges in color from white to yellow to orange. The color varies based on the quantity of rat urine that leeches in during the processing of the cheese. But, it’s okay because that urine gets pasteurized before the cheese is finished. The whiter the cheese, the less contaminated it is.

Seriously, though, American cheese is a processed cheese and it was originally made using cheeses like Cheddar and Colby. So, that’s where the color originates. Nowadays, it usually is a completely processed cheese with no natural cheeses blended in. The color can come from the ingredients in the cheese as well as any colorings that are added, and can vary by manufacturer and production process.

Learn more here: American cheese.

Do you have a burning question you’d like answered? Send it to: askdcr@dcrblogs.com.

Look very carefully, and see if you can see something hiding in the background behind the torn leaf. It’s above the little white spot near the branch.

Visit Wordless Wednesday for more.

Since no one wants to be a guest blogger, we’ll move along to the next piece of advice offered by the “blogging experts” and that is to have readers ask questions.

You see, that helps you generate content your readers are interested in, which keeps them coming back for more.

Mind you, it doesn’t really help grow your site if the same three people are asking the questions all the time. But, if you can get three people to ask questions, that’s half your readership right there. So, 50% participation is a pretty good deal, I think. Let’s go for it!

Okay, so you know the stuff I blog about and, for those that don’t, well look at the old posts. You can ask me any question. Anything. Well, no “adult topics” or anything like that. And, let’s nix politics too. There are enough political blogs out there that no one’s reading so why bother with another? At any rate, try to keep your questions within one of my topics.

Or not. I’m begging here, so I can’t be too choosy.

So, send your questions to: askdcr@dcrblogs.com. That address, of course, may change one day if I start getting a bunch of “Official [insert name of little blue pill]” junk mail.