Be Unreasonable – Aydin Mirzaee’s Take on the World.

We just announced over at FluidSurveys.com that we will be offering one time fee surveys. This is a big development as many customers around the world have been requesting this from us and we feel that now is the time to deliver. We’re very excited about this and hope that our customers enjoy the offering

Essentially, anyone can create a survey with FluidSurveys and collect unlimited responses for a one time fee of $19. Most other survey companies will charge $19/month. We decided to change the way the game was played and offer our pricing on a per survey basis. We feel that this will serve the needs of a great deal of people. Please head over to FluidSurveys.com and give this a try!

Well, according to this article, they do: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html
I have to admit that reading this article did make me shiver. Conspiracy theorists will have a field day with this bill It even conveniently bears the Rockefeller name. Yup, this’ll definitely get some attention.

I got the following email today an thought it would be nice to share:

“Swine flue, as much as they say, is not so dangerous. You will have a high fever for a couple of days; there will be a small change in your appearance; and then you will get well. Below is a picture of someone who has just recovered form a swine flue. As you can see, it is really not that bad.”

As many of you know, ReviewRoom is one of the products of my company Chide.it. ReviewRoom is essentially an application submission and review system in a box. If you ever need to accept applications online, you need ReviewRoom. Now, what do I mean by Applications? Well, how about an application to a business plan competition, an application for a scholarship, a loan, a grant, admissions to a program, and much much more…

The best part is that ReviewRoom doesn’t stop at just helping you accept applications on your website, it also helps you review those applications (with a group of reviewers) and helps you make decisions on them (i.e. who should win the competition? who should get the grant?).

What is so great about ReviewRoom v2.0? For one thing, we’ve taken all of the feedback that we’ve gotten from a variety of customers:

Carleton’s Foundry Program
TiEQuest
New Ventures BC
Forty Under 40
uOttawa EIEF
Ottawa Community Loan Fund
Impact
and much more…

We’ve incorporated all of the feedback and this new version is truly impressive. Further to this, customers will now be able to modify their competitions on the fly and even create their own competitions without ever having to talk to us… They could just set up the rules themselves. Impressive? We think so. We’re looking forward to this new launch…. will put up another post when it’s ready.

Aydin.

I’ve recently become very interested in search engine optimization. It’s quite an interesting field as it’s always growing and changing. Like most other fields, you’ll really have to follow a lot of blogs/forums in order to keep up to date.

A question that I’ve recently been asking myself quite a bit is whether we should launch international versions of FluidSurveys… i.e. fluidsurveys.ca, fluidsurveys.co.uk, etc… The primary reason for this pondering, of course, is because FluidSurveys currently ranks very well in Canada but not as well in the United States. It’s interesting because we have offices in the US and Canada and we target users in both countries. In terms of our customer base, we have customers all over the world…

So the question is, why do we rank so well in Canada and not so well in the US?

From what I’ve been able to gather, this primarily has to do with the fact that most of the backlinks that we have pointing to the website come from Canada and our webservers are located in Canada. It seems very weird that search engines should even care where a site is hosted. I always figured that people would host their websites wherever they could find good service… Why should someone have to host their website in the UK if they want to rank well there. Although, I can’t be certain that this is a determining factor, I hope that it isn’t…

In terms of Top Level Domains, yes we do own some international domains but we have them all pointing to the .com (permanent redirects). All of our backlinks are to the .com as well so those domain names shouldn’t play much of a factor.

But, backlinks can’t be the only factor though… it wouldn’t make sense since search engines would still have to determine which countries the backlinks belonged to… I suppose top level domains are one of the ways that search engines can figure out which countries those backlinks are coming from… I think that the one remaining factor is content… I think that the content on the domains probably plays a major role here as well…

So, if I had to summarize, I would have to say that the most important factors in ranking well internationally (in order) would be:

1) Content in Your Website (name of country, name of city, language)
2) Meta Tags (i.e. specifying language)
3) Backlinks from Websites from your Country
4) Top Level Domains
5) Location of Your Server

Again, there is no way to know for sure unless of course someone from Google/Microsoft would like to weigh in…

Aydin.

I convinced myself maybe a year or so ago that Facebook was getting old (it really is… even my grandma is on Facebook). So… naturally, my use of the website has dwindled quite significantly. Every now and then, though, when I do log in, I see something that catches my attention. Today, I found out that a friend of mine who happens to live in Ottawa, whom I haven’t seen for a couple of months, just got married. Wow. That’s pretty big news and without Facebook I would’ve still probably found out… but, a lot later.

The problem is that I really don’t feel like logging into facebook everyday. Too much work. I would really love it if Facebook just gave me a feed of my facebook news so that I could just view it from my feed reader (Google Reader). This would make life a lot easier. I read my news everyday and I consider this social news to be just another source of news. I already am subscibed to a feed of my own profile through Google Reader (i.e. if someone posts a message on my wall or perhaps replies to something I posted, I’ll see it in my feed reader)… but, I can’t see my friends’ news feed through my feed reader.

You know, the funny thing is that Facebook knows that this will have to happen eventually… yet, they take their sweet time to do it. If it’s going to happen, just make it happen now. Really. I realize that they want us to visit their site so they can make advertising revenue… but, really, just put ads in your feeds… accomplishes the same thing… here’s to hoping.

Aydin.

Everyone in Canada is looking for Canadian Online Survey Software as a result of certain privacy and security concerns. As a result of the US Patriot Act, Canadian Institutions are looking for companies that also store all of their data in Canada for security and privacy reasons. The good news is that FluidSurveys will store your data in Canada when you sign up from Canada. Sign up for a Free Account Today.

At Chide.it, we deal a lot with Federal and Provincial Governments in addition to Universities and Colleges. One of the first questions that prospective customers ask us is, where is your data hosted? FluidSurveys is our Online Survey Product and the good news is that all of the survey data is stored in Canada.

You’d think that where your data is stored is not such a big deal. However, this very concept is taken very seriously amongst Canadian Institutions. As a matter of fact, the British Columbia Government has taken extra measures to ensure that institutions in its province do not use web services that store their data in the United States as a result of the US Patriot Act. For more information, check out this article from Osler.

Was wondering the other day… of the people who visit this website, how many people are male and how many are female? Take the poll and let me know!

Click Here to take this poll…

Powered by FluidSurveys.com

I Received this letter from the University of Ottawa with regards to “Project Hero.” Project Hero will wave tuition fees and 1st year dorm costs for children whose parents were killed while serving for the Canadian Military. I’m impressed with the initiative. Here is the letter:

Despite an overcast sky, summer is here and that means summer vacation. I will take a break and resume my snap-shot emails in mid-August. However, I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you a wonderful summer. Thank you to all for your excellent work and for your tireless efforts that contribute each day to the success of our university.

Some of you may have read a story in the newspaper this morning about the University of Ottawa being the very first university to participate in Project Hero. The idea behind this initiative, spearheaded by alumnus Kevin Reed, is for Canadian universities to offer free tuition for children of Canadian military parents killed in action. The University will also waive on-campus residence fees for the first year of undergraduate studies. I’m proud to say that everyone at the University of Ottawa embraced the idea with enthusiasm. The tuition waiver will begin in September 2009.

It’s the least we can do to ease some of the worries that may plague those who put their lives at risk for our country every day. For more information, I invite you to read the news release.

Have a great summer and happy Canada Day!

Allan Rock

President and Vice-Chancellor