Bad Internet Marketing

Because of the popularity of this blog, I get these emails just about every day. It is so crazy… I want any potential “internet marketers” that are reading this site to know that I don’t do paid-blog posts or any of that nonsense.

Companies send me FREE STUFF all the time. You should see my studio – I’ve got piles and piles of crappy stuff… everything from camera equipment to gadgets. I always tell people ahead of time that I only review it if I actually like it. This is because I am super-busy… and people are too busy to read 1000 reviews… so I just stick with the best stuff.

So, of the hundreds of things I have to review, I usually do only about one every two months. Don’t get your hopes up, marketers… and certainly don’t send me lame emails like this one I got a few days ago:

One of our major clients are currently working on making their website more visible in a particular Google search and we have indicated your site as a potential partner in this venture.

What we would like from you is a banner on the homepage and/or an article in the form of a blog post, product review or something similar. Our content is bespoke, tailored for your site and written by one of our professional in-house copy writers; we always ensure that content is relevant to both the client and the hosting site.

Daily Photo – Time Frozen in the Ancient Village

I feel like I’m in a hurry to take photos of all these ancient places before they become homogenized. I worry that in 10 years that every place will look like a typical street corner in Plano, Texas. Know what I mean? There’s nothing horrible about having a Home Depot and an Applebee’s within every five mile pod of super-structure, but it can lose a bit of charm after a while.

This is a famous old village in China where the legend tells of two phoenixes hovered endlessly, transfixed by the beauty they saw below. It’s located in the western part of central China’s Hunan Province. It’s called Feng Huang Cheng (“feng huang” being the Chinese name for the phoenix), and I’m happy I got to spend a few days wandering around its mysterious bits. This is a good overview of the city, and I’ll have many more from the insides coming soon enough.

BTW, if you are wondering how I made this… you may be interested in the textures tutorial.