My mom died in September after a long battle with cancer. In October, I sold all her personal property, except for some items that I expected would be useful during the auction or for the buyer.  Thus, there’s a folding kitchen table, a couple of chairs, a desk, and a lamp for each room, a variety of window coverings (blinds, shades, drapes), and many tools.

Apparently the main house is 864 square feet (not including the enclosed front porch or the utility room).

Click here to view a series of 131 photographs of the house (on Google Plus).

The house will be sold “as is,” and requires some immediate work. The house needs some plumbing work to fix a couple of leaks, and carpentry work to repair those areas. (We turned the water off in October to avoid any risk of further water damage.)  If you look at the photos, you can also see some issues with the exterior siding.  The garage is the worst part: the rear portion, which seems to be an “add-on” to the original garage, is settling (listing, leaning) significantly, as you can see in the pictures.

There are actually two lots (the house and garage are on one lot, while the other is vacant).

My mom bought the house 15 years ago for $26,000, but we expect that the auction price will be much lower.  We’re conducting an “absolute auction,” which means there is no minimum bid or reserve amount.

The mortgage was paid off in December, and the property taxes are paid in full.

The auction will be conducted at the property, by William Wilson Auction Realty Inc., on Wednesday, February 15 at noon. There will be a preview (inspection opportunity) one week earlier, on Wednesday, February 8 at noon.

While researching “giveaway” marketing strategies recently, I found a web site (EveryDayLifeToday.com) promoting a wide range of attractive free prizes.  Superficially, the site seemed legitimate, but it’s now clear that it’s a scam.

First, let’s look at why most folks would initially consider it legitimate:

• The site includes a Privacy Policy.
• There is a “Contact Us” page which lists a street address, an email address, and the names of three editorial staffers.
• There are “Official Rules” for their sweepstakes, with fixed deadlines for each drawing.
• They promise that winners will be listed after the drawing.
• There’s a page inviting prospective advertisers to contact them.
• Rotating third-party advertisements appear on the site.
• Most prizes identify recognized national brands (Apple, Sony, Wal-Mart, Ikea, Schwinn, DeLonghi, Home Depot, etc.), and some of the prizes are modest-value tangible items with limited appeal.
• Searches for phrases like “everydaylifetoday.com scam” bring up no negative results (until this blog post was picked up by Google).

But that’s all superficial stuff. Here are some warning signs:

• Their sweepstakes entry forms remain active long after the listed deadlines;
• They never actually list any winners (not even vague references like “John S. of New York”).
• The email address listed on their “contact us” and “advertising” page is invalid (emails to that address “bounce”).
• The phone number listed in their “WHOIS” domain registration record is invalid.
• There is no clear business name (corporation, LLC, etc.).
• The site’s business model is unclear (where do they get revenue?).
• The street address listed is a multi-tenant office building, but no suite or office number is listed. One of the tenants is an “executive suite/virtual office” company.
• The entry form doesn’t include safeguards against abuse (such as a “captcha” verification code).
• All of the rotating third-party advertisements that appear on the site appear to come from a single dubious advertising network.
• The site appears to have evaded detection by “credibility tools” like McAfee’s SiteAdvisor.

Is this is a scam? It sure looks like it.

What are they gaining from this scam? I don’t know. They ask for a name, email, and mailing address (a combination of data that’s useful for “data mining” and other marketing purposes), but they don’t ask for a birthdate or telephone number, nor for gender, age, birthdate, income levels, or interests (as many other giveaways seek). And the omission of a “captcha” verification probably means that they’re being flooded with bogus data and entries from automated tools (and other scammers).

It’s possible that this is just someone’s “pipe dream” business, created on a whim with the hopes of finding a way to make a profit.  It doesn’t appear to be an “orphan site,” since there are new giveaways being posted (though they might have been queued up many months or even years in advance), and eventually some of the “completed” giveaway links disappear.

Most likely, the entire site is just “bait” to attract people to click on the paid advertising.

Now what? What can anyone do about this? I’ve notified the dubious third-party advertising network whose ads appear on the site, but otherwise there’s really nothing left to do.

Unless, of course, we call this scam to the attention of “the right people” who have a motivation to protect their companies’ reputations. But how can we do that? Perhaps some of the right people will find this article: Apple scam, Sony scam, Wal-Mart scam, Ikea scam, Schwinn scam, DeLonghi scam, Home Depot scam, Nespresso scam, Dyson scam, Bulova scam, Sharp scam, Quattron scam, MacBook scam, Apple fraud, Sony fraud, Wal-Mart fraud, Ikea fraud, Schwinn fraud, DeLonghi fraud, Home Depot fraud, Nespresso fraud, Dyson fraud, Bulova fraud, Sharp fraud, Quattron fraud, MacBook fraud.

I’ve now run two promotions, each for two weeks. In the first, I gave away a $10 Amazon gift card (drawing 593 entries from 11/30 to 12/14/2011). In the second, I gave away a collection of 40 used books (bringing 343 entries, from 12/15 to 12/28/2011).

I didn’t really think much before launching the first giveaway, but was pleased to find that a substantial number of new followers appeared to be teachers (my target audience). However, I decided that my second giveaway would offer a prize that would be uniquely attractive to classroom teachers: a set of 40 used young-adult novels for a “classroom library” (I expected this prize to be less attractive to non-teachers).

Unfortunately, neither Facebook nor Hooplasoft (the provider of the “app” which powers the giveaways) provide any way to determine a new follower’s profession (or other information, except what’s publicly visible to non-friends on Facebook).  The relatively small number of participants and the expected seasonal “lull” during the winter holiday period combine to make any statistical analysis meaningless.

LessonIndex.com‘s Facebook page attracted a total of 812 new followers (rising from about 900 followers ON 11/20 to more than 1,700 followers on 12/29/2011). Estimating the total cost of the promotion at $100 (including the cost of prizes, shipping, and my time), I’ve added 800 new followers at a cost of about 12.5 cents each.

I was appalled each time I heard you use “jew” as a verb, when you meant to say you were “cheap” or “taking advantage of me,” because I needed to quickly sell everything in my mom’s house before returning home.

But I didn’t say anything, and although I was annoyed each time you abused the word, I don’t think it showed.

What should I have done?

I wanted to say, “Please, don’t use ‘jew’ as a verb, because it perpetuates a negative stereotype.”

I wanted to say, “Who taught you to use that word in such an offensive way?”

I wanted to ask, “Do you realize how ignorant and unpleasant you appear when you say that?”

I wanted to say, “Please leave.”

I wanted to say, “I’d rather donate everything to charity instead of selling my mom’s stuff to someone as offensive as you.”

I wanted to say, “You’re not a Jew, you’re a dumb hick who’s too stupid to know when you’re being offensive.”

But I said nothing at all, and it’s actually possible that my discomfort led me to sell stuff to you at lower prices than I’d otherwise have accepted, because I wanted to avoid confrontation and get rid of you quickly.

What was really going on? Why didn’t I react? Was I just numb because of the circumstances (selling my mom’s property, six weeks after her death)?  Was I focused on self-interest, wanting to sell everything quickly for as much as possible? Or did I hold my tongue out of habit, as I did when my grandmother made “unintentionally offensive” use of the terms “jew” and “darkie” (before her death nearly 20 years ago)? Or was I silent because I was afraid that I might learn that you were typical of the community, which might not react well if I took offense? (I’d already noticed that I hadn’t seen a single black or Asian person in the county.)  Did I assume that you were typical, and view other people unfairly in the following days?

How would I respond if someone used the word “jew” as a verb when buying something from me at a yard sale or flea market here in California? It’s hard to imagine it happening here, but I suppose I’d do exactly the same thing: I’d feel upset, and I’d view that person as offensive and ignorant, but I’d say nothing.

What should I have done?

First, it’s critical to recognize that many computer users don’t “maximize” their web browser window. Although the screen resolution might be 1024×768 or larger, the window size might be smaller.

Second, you must recognize that most users would be quite uncomfortable reading text that’s spread across the full width of their display.  Instead, text should usually be displayed in narrower columns, with a maximum of 800 pixels, but usually even smaller, especially for small fonts.

Third, many visitors may use the “resize” or “zoom” features in their web browsers, to view your web page with larger fonts (or just plain larger). Note that “control-plus” and “control-minus” function differently in different web browsers (in some browsers, the font size is changed but not images; in others, the entire page is enlarged, including text and images).

Here’s a link to a useful article discussing web design and screen resolution: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/screen_resolution.html

Don’t let that confuse you: they’re not  often not relevant. Here’s why.

This week, while viewing the Google Analytics Dashboard for my LessonIndex.com web site, I noticed that during August, the bounce rate had increased by a few percent, and average pageviews per visitor had declined slightly.  (“Bounce rate” refers to the percentage of visitors who view just one page at a web site.)

And those rates might seem dismal to many folks: 90% bounce rate, 1.3 pageviews per visitor. For an e-commerce retailer, or a community forum web site, these would be horrific figures — but for LessonIndex.com, they’re fine.

LessonIndex.com is a web directory site, and most visitors are referred by search engines, arriving directly to a specific “literature title” page. I’ve designed these pages to be self-contained, so that a teacher searching for a Huckleberry Finn lesson plan immediately sees all the related resources on a single page. She never needs to view any other pages at LessonIndex.com, but will click on links to the resources she needs, on other web sites.

Likewise, customers find many e-commerce retailers’ web sites through search engines, often while searching for a specific product, and the search engines often deliver the customer directly to the page describing the product the consumer wants.  Of course, to complete a purchase transaction takes several extra steps (add to cart, check out, fill in form, payment, confirm), but most visitors will still exit the merchant’s web site immediately, resulting in “bounce rates” of 60% to 80%, with average pageviews-per-visitor often under 2.

And an online community forum may also draw significant traffic from search engines, with visitors shown a specific discussion thread that answers their question (or isn’t relevant); again, the bounce rate might be over 50%.  However, visitors who stay and explore the community forum site often view many different pages, so even with a bounce rate over 50%, the average pageviews-per-visitor is often 3 to 5.

But the raw numbers can be highly misleading, because they combine all sources of traffic into a single metric.  As I mentioned, most visitors to LessonIndex.com (90%) are referred by search engines, and arrive on a specific literature-title web page that matches their search phrase.  What about the other 10%?

Some visitors (6%) are referred by other web sites which link only to the home page, and others (4%) type the URL directly into the browser window.  When I “drill down” to view data only for the home page, the bounce rate drops below 40%, meaning that “more often than not,” visitors click through from the home page to a specific literature-title page at the site.

So what happened that made my “bounce rate” increase, and my “average pageviews per visitor” decrease?  During August, search engine referrals increased faster than other sources of traffic (rising from 87% to 90% of total traffic).

That’s an important piece of information: I’d prefer to have a more diverse mix of traffic sources, to reduce the impact of changes in search-engine algorithms.

But when I adjust for this change, the “bounce rate” and “pageviews per visitor” haven’t really changed at all.

Finally, it’s critical to remember that nearly all of the data reported by Google Analytics are “intermediate metrics,” which can easily be manipulated in ways that don’t actually affect the site’s more meaningful measures — including “profit.”   (Lies, damned lies, and statistics.)

Unfortunately, the early reviews aren’t encouraging. They report that the book is a mish-mash, starting with adoring interviews of school-reform advocates, but ending with doubts and uncertainty about those same reforms.

According to these reviews, Brill started with a strong bias (anti-union, pro-reform) but gradually learned that the issues facing public education are much more complex, and that nobody really seems to know how to improve public education.

I’ve decided not to pay $15 for this book.

Some early reviews:

• New York Times (Sara Mosle)
• The Nation (Dana Goldstein)
• Washington Post (Jay Mathews)
• Wall Street Journal (Joel Klein)
• “Fact-Checking pages 1-100 of Class Warfare“ (Gary Rubinstein)
• Education Week also published an article about the book’s revelations about the “Race to the Top” process

Related book reviews by Mark Welch:

• 2010: The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (Diane Ravitch)
• 2002: And Still We Rise: The Trials and Triumphs of Twelve Gifted Inner-City Students (Miles Corwin)

To date, I’ve only been able to identify one merchant who began collecting any state’s sales tax after enactment of this law: Amazon made a strategic decision to “collect the tax and sue” in New York, after its retroactive enactment of the law in 2009.  Amazon hasn’t repeated that strategy elsewhere.

In June, I posted my question on a popular affiliate-marketing discussion forum, asking if any publishers or retailers could identify any companies which began collecting sales tax in any state as a result of the “Advertising Nexus” issue. Nobody could name even one.

I also left a phone message and sent an email to Assembly Member Nancy Skinner, the law’s sponsor in California:

Ms. Skinner: I left a phone message, but thought I’d clarify my question. As you know, I’m upset about the “Advertising Nexus” tax law, which forced Amazon to stop paying me for advertising on my web site.

But I’m open to learning more about [how] California and other states benefit from this law. Specifically, could you name ANY online retailer which began collecting ANY state’s sales tax because of an “Advertising-Nexus tax law”?

I’ve only been able to identify one: Amazon made a strategic decision to “collect the tax and sue” in New York, though it hasn’t repeated that strategy anywhere else.

Surely North Carolina or Rhode Island should be able to identify some merchants who started collecting sales tax for those states after the Advertising-Nexus law was passed there. But they won’t say.

I’m not even going to be picky: I’ll include any merchant who changed their sales tax policy “near the time of” any PROPOSAL regarding an Advertising-Nexus bill, even 18 months before or at any time since, and even if the bill didn’t pass.

I’ve posted the question to several experts, who’ve all said the same thing: “That’s an interesting question.” Nobody has been able to identify a single merchant (other than Amazon in New York) who has begun collecting sales tax in ANY state, in a situation in which it could conceivably be argued that an “Advertising Nexus” proposal might have been a factor.

I would appreciate if you could identify any merchants you’re aware of, who have begun collecting sales tax for ANY state as a result of the “Advertising Nexus” issue being raised.

Ms. Skinner has not responded.

I’ve noted in other posts here that I believe that these laws are unwise, ineffective, and unconstitutional. They’ll eventually be stricken down by federal courts (but as legislators have noted, any taxes collected during that time would be kept by states). There are several much more effective, fair, and legally plausible strategies if states actually sought to force out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax. (Since those other strategies would actually be fair and effective, few legislators dare to propose them, and no lobbyists will support them.)

But given the precarious financial situation in California and other states, and my personal belief that out-of-state retailers should be required to collect sales tax for all states which impose them, I’d love to see some benefit from these laws. Seeing such benefits might reduce the sting from losing 26% of my advertising revenue on July 1.

But so far, the only effect of these laws has been the termination of advertising relationships with many thousands of web publishers (small businesses) in each state, shifting revenue away from states which enact “advertising nexus” laws, and thus reducing those states’ income-tax revenues while collecting no additional sales taxes.  Some of these small businesses have actually moved to other states, in order to retain their advertising relationships — thus shifting jobs, payroll taxes, and 100% of their income tax to other states.

Please prove me wrong: please identify any company which began collecting sales tax in any state as a result of any Advertising-Nexus Tax Law (“Amazon Tax”).

Today, when I tried to submit a comment to a Facebook post, a pop-up window informed me that I have been temporarily “blocked” from posting comments, due to “abuse.”

The nature of the “abuse” wasn’t specified, so I had to think back: what have I done lately, and specifically what have I done differently recently?

My conclusion: over the past few days (especially during the three-day July 4th weekend), I’ve been more active in posting comments expressing an “opposing view” regarding a “political” topic (education reform and high-stakes testing).  I’ve tried to be polite and factual, but I’ve been challenging misrepresentations used by proponents of “education reform.”

Today’s example (which triggered the “block” message) is how education reformers are misrepresenting the National Education Association’s (NEA) policy, adopted this weekend, acknowledging that “student learning” should be included as part of teacher evaluations.  The NEA was extremely clear that “student learning” is not properly measured by any current standardized tests, and that such results from these flawed tests should not be used in evaluating teachers. Some education-reform advocates are misrepresenting the NEA policy as supporting the use of standardized tests in teacher evaluations.

What I suspect is that when I commented on posts by these education-reform advocates, they or their other “followers” responded by flagging my comment as “abusive.” What I don’t really know is whether these people actually viewed my comments “abusive,” or whether they simply disagreed and wanted to express their displeasure.

Remember that although Facebook lets us “Like” a post or comment, it doesn’t provide a “dislike” or “disagree” or “thumbs down” feature. (I’ve blogged recently about how Facebook may be transforming the meaning of the words “friend” and “like.”)

If someone disagrees with a comment, they have two options: post a response (which requires thought and effort, and which might lead to further exchanges of information or ideas) or simply “flag” the post as abusive.  Nobody reviews these reports for accuracy or motive, but instead Facebook has algorithms which automatically block activity after a certain number of reports; the same is true for nearly all large online communities.

This is a clear message that my personal interest in certain “political” topics, and my desire to correct errors and engage in discussion, are triggering reactions which are interfering with my professional use of Facebook.

The immediate effect of this experience is that I’m going to stop posting comments that reflect disagreement or opposing views, or which challenge factual misrepresentations in Facebook posts or other peoples’ comments. I’ll disengage from discussions beyond the enclave of people who mostly agree with me.  I’ll “unfriend” a few people, and I’ll “unlike” a bunch of Facebook pages.  I’ll say less, and I’ll hear less, and we’ll all exchange fewer ideas.