What me have Jet Lag?

When you travel as much as I do you soon learn to over come jet lag as quickly as possible. Living in Hawaii there is no such thing as a three hour plane ride to somewhere. There is a twenty minute, a forty minute and ninty minute plane ride to the other Hawaiian Islands , but the next closest place is 5 hours plus I think.

Jet lag for most of trips is problem. China, Amsterdam, Bangkok Thailand, Tokyo Japan are the places I have been in the last 6 months several times to some of them. Amsterdam is twenty hours away, Tokyo is seven hours and Bangkok is twelve hours of flight time away. This is a lot of time and the air and plenty of time to develop jet lag.

Jet lag scientist define as the disturbance of circadian rhythm due to time zone changes from jet travel. Yes that about sums it up but I think of it as more of “dead man walking” for a few days after a trip. That means it feels like 8am when its actually midnite or you wake up at 4 am and you cant sleep again until noon when you feel like you will pass out.

So I thought of ten thinks one can do which I tried this trip from my condo in Bangkok.

1. Watch movies , the same one 47 times. In this case I was in Japan Airline and I watched GI-Joes over and over. This will make you go into a trance and you will actually feel rested although you will recite lines from the movie over and over again instead of orginal speech.

2. When your in a town like Tokyo make sure you stay on the same time zone that is from the town you left from. So when its 2 pm in one place make sure you are up in the other place even though it may be 3 am. Act like everyone in the new town is off not you.

3.  Dont sleep the entire time and when you get back sleep for 3 days straight and you will not feel abnormal.

4.  Sleep the entire time you are gone and you feel well rested when you get back.

5. Dont travel and stay home !

Well these are the best ways I can come up with to over come jet lag. Number 5 is a great way, unfortunately I cannot do that and will be traveling more this  year with two business ventures launched which will take some time away from Hawaii.  The Bangkok condo business takes some time and the Hong Kong based web company AiMiYo International takes a bit as well. With AiMiYo even though my web team works across the internet from home I get to go to meetings with clients etc. So ….who is more lucky I dont know.

doctor808

Dr. Michael Pasquale CEO AiMIYO LTD

Well I have been exceptionally busy over these holidays with some business issues other than Plastic Surgery. The office has been closed which has given me some time to put into my web development business personally rather than delegate. As many of you know and as my title of this blog states I am web designer and Internet geek. The team I have assembled and our web company is very unique. From the start we decided one of our area of expertise would be multilingual web sites. I would also add another important point which is that we believe that multilingual is not enough. A translation of a web page is not enough   because what is a web site  but a sales and marketing doorway. Even if the company we represent is not a classical sales of products type company,  it is still about sales. This means any company wants the web site we build to represent them in a most positive light. So in that sense it is selling an image to the viewer.

As I mentioned, multicultural- not simply translation of language. So what I mean by that is when we put a companies words into another language we do not just translate the words , but make the cultural message adjust to our audience as well. This is very important because the sensibilities of the Chinese for example , may not be the same as the French so the way material is presented may change , not just the words.

When we design a web site for different languages  our company AiMiYo LTD has the translation staff and the design staff from the culture (country ) on board with us  as a team approach. This multilingual, multicultural team is what makes our web sites different I believe. Please follow us as this grows. We are now building our new company web site at www.aimiyo.com for english, and in Japanese at www.aimiyo.jp. We will be adding languages over the next year such as Chinese , Korean , French and other  European languages as well.

Until next time

doctor808

Well back to my report from China Trip. The second part of the China Trip was at a conference in a place called Hangzhou which is outside a few hours of Shanghai. This is almost a resort university town. This was a big meeting of cosmetic surgeons from all over Asia. The talks were good and meeting various surgeons was fantastic.

Lots of Meals in China with Doctor808

The most memorable aspects were the people. I met so many people some old friends and some new. My friend and travel buddy is Dr. Cuvo who is a Genza Cosmetic Surgeon who I have known well for many years. Taka as I call him also gave a lecture in Dalian China with me,  as well his lecture here. His specialty is Asian eyes.

There were many of my Korean Colleagues there as well. One thing about Korea Doctors I know is that no matter what town or city we are in they always know the best places to go. So when in a foreign country I follow them as for what ever reason they are in the know.

Well rather than fill these pages with words I will just show you as they say… a picture is worth a million words.

We will start with a nice video of the entertainment. Notice the mask carefully that the entertainer is wearing. Watch it or you will miss it !

There are some great photos of this event. One is of my long time friend Dr. Woffles Wu from Singapore. His first name is like the famous Hotel there. His dad was a pretty well known lawyer in that remarkable city state.

Dr. Wu and Doctor808

I have known Dr. Wu for many years and he is well known in Asia, he produced a movie in Singapore. We have not seen each other since I visited him in Singapore many years ago. Seems my recent trips to Singapore never had the time.

Again as the only ‘white guy” the Chinese treated me with extreme graciousness and of course and took my picture every where I went. The food was excellent as well. There was special liquor we drank called Mau Tai and it was very strong. This we set on fire before we drank, so we drank fire !!!. I ordered snake which was unfortunately boiled. I have had snake before barbecued and it was very good. Yet boiled I do not recommend at all.

Dr Cuvo enjoyed some snake

Overall My visit to yet another Chinese City was very informative and again growth was every where. As a visiting plastic surgeon from Hawaii it was a great adventure. I will simply share some more photos of the event.

A Cosmetic Surgery Clinic in Hanzhao

Chinese food dumplings

First as previously stated, I was going to Amsterdam which is one of my favorite haunts. The reasons are many. First are the people , I love the dutch as they are always friendly like the Thai people. They are straight forward and get along well. The other Europeans are so…. shall I say snobby (over nothing)  that I dont care for them as a whole. Of course many are quite nice and good descent people , but the Dutch it seems as whole are the way I like people.  Lets take the Swiss in Geneva which are a French speaking people. Some are very friendly,  but overall I would rate that town as a small town with small minded people pretending to be important. If it were not for the bankers hiding the worlds money the place would be just another dying European city in my view. No new life. As the first President Bush would say “old Europe”. They tell me that you have to live there to appreciate Geneva and perhaps,  as I only visited but…..not my cup of tea.  That is my simple minded dumb American view. In this blog I dont review the great history ( like Nazi Germans influence ?) but that’s my basic feeling.  What I do like about Geneva is the kick boxing which is why I went and I will tell you more about that later.

Part one Amsterdam

Well we arrive in Amsterdam and  get there at our usual time of 7 am in the morning from a flight from Seattle. We have to wait for the hotel as check in is at 11 am. This is no problem becuase we can get a great breakfast at the usual spot.  This time we also wanted to look at property for a possible retreat so we scout around. This place is easy to scout as there is one way to see Amsterdam –Bycycle. We rent a couple at 15 euros a day and start to scout around. If you go please rent a bike.

As you can see there is no shortage of bicycles in Amsterdam. In fact they number over 5 times the population but no one knows for sure. There are  so many and they are everywhere. Anyone and everyone old, young , crippled , athletic and entire families use them as their main source of transportation’s. The bike roads are great and easy to use. Don’t wast your time with any other means of transportation.

This is one thing I love about this place everything is so easy to do. No traffic jams, no crazy people or homeless that you can see in the central part of the city. Its clean, organized and easy to navigate around on foot or bike.

I like it because of the people I meet and the kick boxing. Rose likes it because of the Art and Museums and Food. There are great restaurants and since Rose is Malaysian Chinese she has a chance to get real Malaysian food and eats there almost every day. Below is a picture of that restaurant located next to the Red light District. That’s the famous place with hooker on display in the windows. Sort of a another type of take out menu.

The food at the Malaysian restaurant is authentic and quite good. Here you can study Malaysian Chinese, in their natural habitat eating good Malay food. This I believe  is their normal “in the wild ” behavior to eat eat eat.  Such are the Chinese…did you know that when you go into a Chinese persons home they don’t ask how are you,  but the first thing they ask is “Did you eat yet?”. If you find a Chinese person in the wild some day just ask them.  They will tell you its true. The couple at the Top are the owners by the way- her name is “Candy and his is Buddha” , I am not kidding.

Amsterdam is famous for legal drugs ( not hard ones) and everywhere you go are the “coffee houses” where you can buy either hash or marijuana cigarettes and smoke it right there while you drink coffee. Not that I would know,  but I was able to observe this. It appeared fun and seemed harmless enough. Yet I think it must appeal to a different crowd as I am a doctor. Everyone knows doctors don’t smoke pot. In case you want to know what these places look like I have several pictures below. They tell me that its cheap to buy and is high quality.

These establishments are everywhere scattered among the sex shops. I have a picture of one sex shop and of some of the evil weed that people smoke. Why people make such a big deal about a silly plant I can still cannot figure out. Its like anything else in my view–abuse it and it may cause problems. So I remind my readers that as I am a libertarian I am against government regulation of such. Amsterdam has no crime attributable to rampant drug use like we do in The States. The criminalization of this plant and other such drugs is why in my view we waste so much money. Libertarians believe if you want to kill yourself who are we to stop you, as a freedom loving bunch. We believe in a freedom to self destruct.

Well the above is only a very small part of Amsterdam,  there is something for everyone there. Art , Museums , food , drugs, sex, business deals, Muslim and Buddhist temples, churches and and a wide variety of everything. That sums up Amsterdam ,  which is a city of extreme diversity and more important— tolerance for diversity. I watched one night at 5 am the practicality of the place as the party goers were in one square when some drunken hell raisers started a fight. The police cleared them out in less than ten minutes with Horse Riding police they were there in seconds appearing from nowhere. They were professional,  efficient and cleared the crowd with out any evidence of brutality nor disrespect. They did their job quickly and the party on the street continued. I was impressed.

Bicycling around I looked over many properties and potential places to live. Signs were posted as shown :

Ideally one would not need a large place,  but some place to call home in Europe so you could have a home base. A base camp if you will.

Yet there are catches in the Amsterdam’s real estate market. Interestingly, one must be careful about what are some unusual laws.

If you buy a place and leave it empty , squatters may take over and inhabit there and you may have a ridiculous time trying to get them out. They in some case have more rights then the owners who they are not paying rent too. Crazy?  Well yes, but that is Amsterdam. I never saw such a bad deal for property owners. The original idea was that the city did not want empty buildings around by absentee land holders or something like that. Well it seems to work and the properties are all well kept. Yet maybe its been taken to far. I have more research to do in these laws.

Geneva

Well I went to a kick boxing place in Geneva where my old instructor from Thailand recommended as he was recruited in his younger years as a Swiss Muay Thai fighter. There he went on to be a Swiss national champion before returning to his home in Thailand where I first met him.

This gym was quite busy with over twenty fighter level members and huge intermediate level trainees in Muay Thai. They take their fighters to Thailand once a year for training. This gym is run by a Swiss fellow and his Thai wife. Very nice place I recommend to anyone. Unfortunately back in Amsterdam I could not find the Merijo Gym which is the famous gym there I trained at before a few times. This gym apparently moved location and due to time limitations I could spend too much time looking. So I trained on my own while in Amsterdam jumping rope , weights and shadow boxing and of course cycling hours a day.

That’s about it for Geneva to me that’s all the two itself offers. I did meet a few people and had brief conversations shall I say. The Swiss don’t speak much english There main languages are German and french. They also have that attitude of your stupid if you only speak french. As example I asked a cab driver to take me to the Hotel Savoy. He looked at me like I was nuts. I pronounce Savoy as most Americans would like rhymes with “JOY”. So he finally figured out what I was saying as he pronounced as Sav-0-aaa a definite french accent. But what I found most ridiculous was the scolding he gave me. “I have been driving a cab for 15 years and never once have I heard that way to say Savoy” he said in a most condescending manner. I could not help but tell him back—” I believe that you have not in your limited life experience of driving a cab in Geneva heard any other variation”  as I chuckled to myself. Score one for the American verses the Geneva Red neck cab driver with a “limited ” small mind. So it goes. I left Geneva vowing never to come back…well maybe I will for the Muay Thai.

Other than these issues of looking for property , relaxing and Muay Thai the most memorable issues was the Bicycling. I truly loved that around Amsterdam and I will do it again and again its a bike paradise. I also thought I will take a motorcycle trip around the country and maybe to others next time I go.  That will be fun. As far as business goes , well I did see some plastic surgeons in Geneva and was impressed but the Swiss are known for a long History of cosmetic plastic surgery. I also spoke with some Web Designers and found out about the local community in terms of Web design and marketing as well as in Amsterdam. There will be some of the best Internet and media conferences coming up these next few years like next fall which I will plan for.

Well my dear readers I don’t want to bore you with too much, so I will go over some other details in later blogs as I am still suffering from jet lag. As always enjoy.

Doctor 808

Recently,  I hijacked my cosmetic surgery friend’s ( in Tokyo)  –Mixi.jp  account. I did this for various reasons , one being that since I have a web development firm that works in all cultures and languages I wanted to gain an understanding of this. Secondly,  its very hard to get your own mixi.jp account unless you have a Japanese cell phone so I just stole his. Sorry Taka.

Mixi by the way is a Facebook on steroids , for those of you who want some understanding of this. It has a login page which list , your profile , friends and what your friends are saying in their blogs. The blog summary  is a very popular item. If you see something interesting you can click and follow that persons journal. There is one the big differences I noticed between the myspace type things and the facebooks of the world and Mixi. The Japanese take their blogs very seriously and there are millions of them. Many Japanese house wives entire world seem to be blog-o-centric.

One other thing I noted is that “everyone is paranoid” which means that not only are the internal security controls very tight,  but most people unlike Face book or Myspace will not put their own picture up. Its Iconic images or many men for example will have woman’s pictures as theirs probably of some models. Also of course there are  the Japanese Pokeman type images seen,  as well as flowers , fruits vegetables etc. This makes it difficult to tell who you are clicking on. In my case its even more difficult because I do not read Hiragana, Katakana or Kanji,  as of this date. So I spend half my time with translation software trying to guess what they are saying. This can be most difficult. Take for example the case of a place called First Kitchen which is a food store in Japan. The Japanese have a funny habit of abbreviating many things so they shorten the words– like Family Mart becomes Fami-ma. Well according to some sources First Kitchen becomes ” fukkin” when they speak abbreviated format. So as you are reading someone’s blog it is feasible that they say ” My friend and I went fukkin”. Sorry for that,  but it illustrates my point of possible miscommunication very well. So when I translate I do not get the full meaning of the blogs.

最初の台所  or  パイズリ I apologize to those offended,  but I think I have this right.

I am also informing you that unless you know Japanese well you probally will not make any friends. I have two friends, my  Japanese web designer and someone who I have no idea or what they are.

The other interesting thing is you can see who visited your page unlike facebook or myspace. I for example was like an elephant in a china shop clicked around not even know what I was clicking and someone told me their friend asked them why I left my footprint? Perhaps they thought I was a trouble maker?  At any rate I suppose one must be senistive to these issues.

Overall I like this mixi. From a web development point of view I did see some advertisments from some cosmetic surgeons and other things. I dont know if viral type marketing like one can see in Youtube or Myspace is possible. Yet I think is see some value but not like in American Social Media.

I have not discussed with my Japanese associate yet but at some point we will find an answer with regard to using Mixi.jp as a marketing tool for our clients. As far as plastic surgery marketing–well like I said I did see two Japanese cosmetic surgeons advertise. I will keep you updated in any significant issues of Mixi but dont expect much until I can learn more Japanese language.

Doctor 808

Since I am an nternational plastic surgeon and my internet company is international,  in that we have capability for  multiple languages both in my plastic surgery office,  as well as web company ,  I read blogs in other languages.  Yet as my readers know, I barely can read some Romaji Japanese at this point, so how do I do that?  Well I use translations software.  On my Mac , I have a button on the browser that if for example I am reading  this blog:

「ハワイ美容整形外科」　豊胸・二重・脂肪吸引・フェイスリフト・フォトフェイシャル・レーザー脱毛・スキンケア

Which says something to the effect of Hawaii Cosmetic Surgery I click on my translate button and whoopee— its in english!  It is not accurate in Japanese , but I get the idea what the author is talking about. It works much better for simplified Chinese and European languages these are clearly translated . Unfortunately Nihongo is not so easy.

The blog to the left is about various aspects of Plastic Surgery in Hawaii, notably my practice. The  interesting issues about these Japanese Blogs is the bloggers. The culture it seems takes a more ” diary “approach to their blogs. They are heavily scattered with a lot of insight into the bloggers mind. I wonder if this is due to the nature of Japanese culture,  where there is the public face and then the face which is hidden. That means that there has been pressure on Japanese society to all stay within some very confined limits. The nail that sticks out,  gets hammered down so to speak. So the blog especially if anonymous or a written in psuedo-name. allows for greater freedom of expression.

On the other hand the American Blogs are more expressive of individualism it seems and its about the author and what he or she thinks should be said and DIRECTLY. As example , I will tell you I am the best plastic surgeon in Hawaii and perhaps the world (said with tonque in cheek) but the Japanese are more subtle and have a certain humble aspect so they would not say that.

If this is good or not,  you have to judge for your self , but I believe this is what I see when comparing the blogs by Japanese writers and American Writers about Plastic Surgery or other topics such as Hawaii vacations and the like.

Another aspect I note about American Blogs is they are usually very commercial, as many blogs are becoming. In my case of www.doctor808.com which is a mixed plate of Web stuff , Plastic Surgery, Travel and Muay Thai I tend to simply bring the reader into various aspects of my life so they can perhaps figure some of these things out how they help. I also enjoy entertaining and as my readership continues to grow I get more comments to my email.

Yet there is a commercial aspect to this blog as well. It is one I have discovered indirectly which does help with my internet company. That is the value of blogs to help gain ranking in google. This is pure advertising but it works great. Some SEO blogs really give the reader nothing in return meaning that their purpose is to gain rank or clicks and earn accordingly. It is well documented that this adds to how well a web site will rank in google. As mentioned in an earlier post about ethics of some these internet companies I strongly disagree with the making your blog for pure commercial benifits as does google. So I think of it more as two way street. I try ot bring good information, written by me as well as entertainment to my readers. In return my blog becomes valuble and the commercial aspect comes with that. That is difference between my blog and the blogs my company promotes and the borderline fraud of some blogs out there who write nothing but keywords and seek to try and obtain rank only. They are rather ruthless with no redeeming value.

At any rate, I suppose my point is lets keep the internet clean to some degree and in doing so we can have our own interest in mind as well. You have to give to get I suppose and I dont think there is anything wrong with that. Yet taking all the time is another story I will save for another blog. Seems many Americans are turning into takers more than givers these days. It gets back to the golden rule of treat others as you would be treated.

doctor808

American Eagle

Today we completed http://www.militaryplasticsurgery.com which is our newest web site creation for Plastic Surgery and Military Members ( yes including military discounts) . Appropriate I would say for the 4th of July!

Military Plastic Surgery Website

Many Americans hardly know anymore why we celebrate the 4th of July. This day in 1776 is thought (although there is some debate) that the Declaration of Independence was made and signed. The story is very interesting, in that the founding fathers of the USA were taking an extreme risk to  discuss such a thought as to gain independence from the British Empire. They easily could have been hung or drawn and quartered for such treasonous act.  We today in the USA forget how much freedom we have now ,to say what we want and to discuss freely ideas. This simply was not possible in 1776.  A person who spoke against the King of England at that time could have paid for his or her words with his or her life. It is unfortunate today we have taken our freedom for granted and there is high risk of  losing that freedom . President Reagen said we are only at any time one generation from losing our freedom.

Our military , the young men and woman who serve to protect that freedom seem to be a group who know well what freedom lost can mean. They have seen it with their own eyes and heard it with their own ears in Afghanistan,. Iraq and elsewhere,  the misery brought on by dictatorship and years of lack of freedom. We need to really look around and see the world as it is, learn history and current events and see what leads to loss of freedom to prevent that from happening here. It can happen and is happening as you read this. The Romans did not notice either,  until it was too late and they lost their republic. It seems a republic ( USA is not a democracy , never was but  a republic) like ours can only last maybe two hundred years…??

I just hope our young people will take the time to really learn something about our history, not just about what is cool or the trend of the day. I do both so can you. You can do cool things and learn history , keep current at the same time.

Plastic Surgeons 4th of July

On the fourth of July, this plastic surgeon does what many Americans will do, that is barbecue outdoors. In fact,  I just finished two of the most juicy hamburgers I have ever known. I cooked them myself on my lanai on a charcoal grill. I dont care for the gas grills which are popular, it just does not taste the same. Also we had pork-n-beans and potato chips with a side of pickles,,,hmmm good.

I don’t eat that way often,  other wise I would need liposuction myself,  but on occasional holiday its fine. Its a sorta of traditional issue on the 4th of July for this plastic surgeon in  Hawaii. I wonder if the military in Afghanistan and Iraq are having hamburgers and hot dogs too?

I think many are and we hope they are safe!

So for any of my readers who follow this blog either for Muay Thai Kickboxing , for Web design or Plastic Surgery in Hawaii—yes its cool,  but lets take a minute and really appreciate what today is. Take a few minutes and look up some facts about Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin and others who signed that declaration on this day in 1776. It a day that changed  the world.

doctor808

Dr. Michael Pasquale

I have not written for a while about the progress our web development company is making. We have now a few clients,  as we expect a slow start and this is intentional. Our concept is to give a ethical quality product at a reasonable price to those in the beauty industry ( although we will take on other projects , this is our primary focus).

Many in the beauty industry such as Cosmetic Surgeons, Plastic Surgeons and Spa and Skin Care professionals are actually very naive about the internet. Consequently we see a lot of our friends being taken advanatge of by unethical internet hawkers. As example , one of our clients was paying her “internet guy” about 300 dollars per month for web site maintenance and putting a few pictures up. 

She was a real estate agent and she asked me to look at her web site and see if  i could make any improvements. I set down with the client and she tried to pull up the site. Suddenly she says “Oh thats right my internet guy told me hackers had gotten into it and messed it up”. I then asked the client when this occured and she told me about two months ago. I inquired further and asked her why was it not back up after 2 months. She explained that her internet guy had told her it was French Hackers who really destroyed a lot. 

Well that is one of the best song and dance routines I have head from an “Internet guy ” yet. Those french must be pretty good hackers to keep a web site off line for two months. Two months of maintenance fees to her Internet guy with out any web site visible??? Needless to say that seems very odd indeed. 

The point I am making is that to someone without much Internet knowledge, such tactics to get paid for not actually doing some work can and do work. Yet I think as professionals , these unethical types stain all of us and make us look bad. I told her to give me his number and I would happy to help him for free  get rid of these “french hackers”.  

There are so many victims of if not down right fraud , lazy excuses and needless delays. Who knows how much money she lost in those two months? In her business one sale could be 100,000 us dollars as she dealt with high end properties. I know I have in my early years lost quite a bid of money by simply listening to my “web guy”.  

I am not sure what advice to give to new people who are starting to realize how much a good web presence can add to a business to avoid scammers. Yet i think the best is….if it does not seem right it probably is not. What to do? Well just like in medicine get a second opinion!! This could save you thousands of dollars. If the second opinion is different than the first , well then get a third opinion. I know I get questions all the time and have no problem with a “free consultation” if you will. 

Our company is taking things slow, declining a few clients for reasons that we know we cannot offer them anything of value at this point. We are taking on clients who we feel confident we can benefit. That is our approach , slow steady growth. We try to under promise and over deliver. I hope that will make for a successful formula. 

Doctor808

Japanese Study

                     A quite morning of study  for Doctor808 ???

This morning I was up at the crack of dawn determined to get in my Japanese study time. I left the house early after  I spoke with my significant other and did the morning dog routine. I jumped  into  my hummer, drove to Starbucks and then sit down for an hour of study before work.  It was going very well, I had two pages of lesson completed both spoken and written. THEN THEY CAME……

A Gang Of Cantonese!!!

I have nothing against Chinese people , in fact my significant other is Chinese. Yet here I am trying to study,  enjoy in a  nice tropical breeze, the peaceful quite with my favorite coffee. This is all  very  conducive to study. All of sudden an Asian man walks up and starts pulling outside tables together near me.  He not only pulled one but then two and then a total of five tables and 15 chairs.   He lined them up all in nice neat row , next to me.  A t first I thought he was crazy as sometimes homeless people come around there and do strange meaningless things such as that. Then I realized —OH MY GOD –NO NO NO, it was evident he was preparing for a crowd and getting chairs and tables together for THEM. 

 I am not against Chinese per se,  but when you are trying to study a gang of Chinese having  social event next to you  is not a great idea. To make matters worse they were not just any Chinese,  but CANTONESE speakers. The difference is huge when compared to the  main land Chinese who speak Mandarin. Cantonese speakers when in a group sound like a major fight is going on as they talk. Its not that they are fighting , but it is the nature of the dialect. This is much different than Chinese Mandarin dialect which actually  is very calm , sweet and like a song. Chinese are much like Italians, my ancestry, they are very loud when being social.

I had to end my study as the loud sound of Cantonese chatter was overwhelming. First one person yakking then another  then all talking at the same time. It appears as if there is strong competition for talking!! I found  myself thinking back when I worked in China Town in New York City and the words I had learned in Catonese  from those days were entering my head without permission.

No longer could I think to myself “Genki Desu KA? ” but now I was thinking ” Ne Ho Ma ?“  My thoughts were taking a beating , my blocks to the environmental distraction were failing and had failed. As the cloud of asian languages were confusing, overwhelming and non stop swirling about in my brain—I was having second thoughts about learning Japanese , maybe I should learn french.

drmap

Duplicate Content Police

As most  SEO types  know , duplicate content is a problem with web site marketability and ranking. What exactly the effect of duplicate content will be is not entirely known or understood, but we do know that its not good.

My team and I discovered today while researching another issue  that a major web development firm has sold duplicate content containing web sites to many individuals and sold them as ‘unique” and individual. We know the prices they charge for web sites and they are very high priced , high end custom web sites.  The expectation would be that it would be unique content as well. The fact that these high end web sites have failed to use unique content and bypass the wage they would pay a content writer to our company is shocking. 

The next question is what to do about it?  Well first I asked our attorney and he stated he was “interested ” and since he is contingency type who only takes fruit bearing cases it gives an indication.  Since this is a large web development firm which makes a lot ( I mean a lot) of money for what was thought be good work has now its dirty secret discovered it makes us wonder who else.

When a client pays  for a high end web site ( in the $6000-$20000 range) a ethical company would give them what they pay for. Yet here is an example of where a company obviously saves itself money at the expense (ranking, marketability, creditibility and thus money) of the less sophisticated consumer. As a professional you would expect a self described leader in the industry not to engage in such practices. The simple duplication of content on at least a dozen of the high end web sites is shocking.  This is not china or india but the good old USA and the content was not changed in the least, I mean duplicate exactly, word for word!!!

Well we are not the web police but we do plan to pursue this rapidly.  We will keep you informed as to the outcome.

I wonder if any one else has seen this from not some kid in a basement from a major major player….???

Please let me know.