The flood gates have opened, the beast has awoken, the penny has dropped, insert whatever you like here. The point is, it seems Digg has finally done the right thing and ‘unbanned’ a whole bunch of domains (including swollenpickles.com) that it had previously black listed. This is good news, but a key question remains unanswered, why were these domains banned in the first place?

Currently the general consensus is that if too many ‘Diggers’ mark a submission as spam, then the originating domain is placed on the list. Too many times though, posts are marked as spam because diggers either a) don’t agree with the points the post raises, or b) are relying on the comments of other diggers to draw a conclusion (or in other words, without even reading the post themselves).

Everyone has a right to an opinion. Whether or not you agree with what someone else writes or not, they still have right to present their views, and the right to be heard. It is a dangerous situation when a vocal minority can use existing systems to bury the things they don’t want to hear, and as a result, have that voice banned from ever speaking again.

Whilst this great ‘unbanning’ event, may be a big step forward, and signal a change in Digg’s policy direction, I would hope that it is not just a one off, designed to subdue the increasingly out spoken anti-Digg movement.

Just got lucky and picked up tickets to see Nine Inch Nails on the Australian Tour in May. Playing smaller venues this time around, as aposed to the 10,000+ sized venues of the last tour, so the ticket buying process was tense.

Now I just need to wait until May so that NIN can rock my fragile little world...

"As we go to air tonight this 84-year-old grandmother remains locked up in her nursing home room chained to a cupboard." As an opening to a 'current affairs' story, that is one sensational attention grabber! Anna Coren, host of Channel Seven's current affairs program 'Today Tonight', proves that she has slipped comfortably into the role vacated by former host, Naomi Robson. An 84 year old grandmother chained to a cupboard is sure to attract it's fair share of attention, particularly from the news media.

The Herald-Sun followed the issue on their website this morning.

Reporter Nicholas Boot opened his report with the words: "Shirley Frey would have to be the oldest person in Australia to be kicked out of a nursing home."

"But this feisty 84-year-old is refusing to budge, chaining herself to her room."

So far, this has all the hallmarks of a sensational and emotion charged story. Well it would be a sensational story... if only it were factual! » Read the rest of the entry..

If you could put anything on a bumper sticker, what would it be? Honk if you hate people? Through the great PayPerPost I've found CustomizedStickers.com, and they'll put whatever you like on a sticker. Customized stickers are always great give aways. Come up with something funny and use it to promote your brand. If your in a band run off a batch with your myspace address and start getting them out there, hand them out at gigs. It's surprising how effective that can be in getting the word out.

Having checked out their website, the best part about CustomizedStickers.com is that they will allow you to submit your own artwork. This means that if your a photoshop or illustrator guru you can design whatever you want and get it run off in sticker form.

I've had custom stickers made up in the past, and can vouch for them as being great for creating mobile 'billboards'. CustomizedStickers.com offer the facility to request a free quote, so I'd recommend taking up that opportunity prior to taking the plunge. Unfortunately they don't ship internationally, so that rules me out, but if your in the US and in the market for some stickers, check them out.

This post has been sponsored by our good friends at CustomizedStickers.com

Just did a weird online test that told me that I can apparently drink 427.41 cans of Coke Zero before croaking. Remarkable. I'm not sure what would kill me first, the caffeine, my exploding bladder, or the extreme buildup of natural gases. Science is a wonderful thing. I thought I should share that.

Following my banning from Digg, I decided to do a little 'digging' of my own, and in the process I've stumbled across some interesting information.

Here's an interesting "how to" comment posted on a blog post titled "How to be a dirty digger". Clearly illustrated how someone could get you banned from Digg. You could call it "How to get your competitors banned by Digg in 3 easy steps".

I've also learnt that a "Digg Mafia" exists. The conspiracy theories are gaining strength, not to mention credence! Apparently the Digg Mafia are going to cost creator of Digg, Kevin Rose, millions. The post at Techtites is an interesting read, but perhaps the comments that follow are far more interesting. It appears that there is quite a bit of PDA tossing going on there, as nerds on both sides wage war.

A list of some of the higher profile bans that have taken place recently, which have probably led to the Boycott Digg campaign.

Look for my exciting expose, "Why Digg traffic is dead traffic" in the very near future.

As my cool rock star self does battle with my almighty geek self, I find myself drawn toward reading more and more about developing websites, gaining web traffic, and search engine optimization (SEO). I’ve toyed with a couple of theories here and there on this site, but by and large, all that has just been for a bit of fun. I am slowly learning though. Two months ago I had no idea what a ‘301 redirect’ was, but after doing a lot of searching, followed by a liberal dose of trial and error, I think I successfully solved that case.

SEO is still a bit of a mystery to me though. One of the big barriers to picking up SEO has been the butt load of jargon that goes along with it. There is the whole white hat/black hat thing, CPM, CTR, CPC, Pay Per Click, link baiting, link farming, sandbox, SERPs, and I could probably keep going on, but then I’d risk losing you. If you’re new to this, like me, then you’ll find the Apogee Search SEO glossary a useful source of information on the jargon that lurks within the search engine marketing world.

Actually, I’d also recommend checking out the Apogee Search Blog as it also has some high quality information you may be able to put to good use.

Thank you to Apogee Search for sponsoring this post.