WebProNews

Tag: Ted Ulle

  • Longtime WebmasterWorld Admin ‘Tedster’ (Warren “Ted” Ulle) Passes Away

    Warren “Ted” Ulle, a longtime forum admin at WebmasterWorld has passed away, leaving the SEO community in mourning. WebmasterWorld founder Brett Tabke wrote in the forum last night:

    I am deeply saddened to tell you that long time administrator and member of WebmasterWorld, Tedster (Warren “Ted” Ulle) passed away Friday in his sleep with family near…

    Ted was a dear friend of this community and everyone involved. He always made time to talk to people regardless of their circumstances. He was one of the most friendly and approacable people in the entire industry. It was for that very reason that he was voted to be awarded the WebmasterWorld lifetime achievement award last year. While Ted had been sick for quite some time, he never showed it or bothered anyone with it. His strength while facing it, was inspirational and trademark Tedster.

    Tabke says the post will be updated with more info on memorial funds/charities in Ted’s name.

    While I didn’t know Ted personally, it’s been virtually impossible to cover search and SEO without seeing his name and posts frequently. I’ve certainly referenced his words numerous times, particularly throughout the Google Panda update era.

    It’s clear that Ted has been a very influential, well-liked and respected member of the SEO industry. All you have to do is peruse the WebmasterWorld thread and see what his peers have to say about him.

    image via WebmasterWorld

  • Social Media Has Been Around for Centuries. It’s Not About the Tech.

    Connecting with people shouldn’t be about what social networks you’re using. It should be about connecting with people. Yes, you need to look at where your audience is at, but you shouldn’t be using Twitter just for the sake of using Twitter if you’re not using it to communicate to the right people. 

    In fact, we covered a report today indicating that only 6% of American adults are using Twitter. As Joshua Duncan noted, retweeting the article, "Don’t forget about the 94% that aren’t."

    WebProNews recently spoke with Ted Ulle, the Senior Search Analyst for social media consultancy firm Converseon, who had a lot of interesting things to say about information architecture, comparing it to social media. It’s engagement," he said. "It’s actually promoting engagement, and that’s a big deal."

    He had some other interesting things to say about social media itself as well. "The technology that allows you to connect to people in your marketplace should become invisible," he said. "It should get out of the way, and that is the evolution I see happening, and that’s one of the reasons that social media is so hot these days – because it’s people connecting with people."

    Ted Ulle Talks Social Media"You can use social media sites without being geeky," he added. "My mother could use social media. She appreciates that kind of thing. She likes to talk to people. That’s what it’s all about."

    Ulle’s not the first to suggest that social media’s always been around, but he brought up an interesting tidbit about the history of print. "Many newspapers around the Philadelphia area, even before the independence of the United States, used to print their newspaper with blank pages and blank space in it," he explained. "The idea was that you would buy a newspaper, read an article, write down your comments about the article and pass the newspaper onto somebody else. You had social media. It was print…it didn’t matter. It was exactly the same principle."

    An article from Slate.com talks about this in more detail. 

    "What you have is a return to humanity plus a whole new empowerment of the average person," he added. "There’s no question that any brand who thinks they can just push a message out and fool everybody is going to have to wake up pretty fast, because that’s not happening so much anymore."

    "The techniques are evolving, but the principle was always engagement," he concluded. "Always, always, always."

    His words echo another recent conversation we had with Patrick O’Keefe of the iFroggy Network, who suggests simply treating your followers like people.