It's the Last Week of the Dealers United Deal. Are You In?

In case you missed it, this is the last week of the Dealers United website deal for August. Included in it are options for discounted SEO services, plus a month-to-month website offering using the amazing KPA Connect platform.

Car dealers would be wise to take a look at the deal and move forward with taking the next step in improving their digital marketing. Deals like this are rare.

As I posted in Soshable:

This deal is exceptional in many ways. As car dealers become accustomed to challenges they face with their website vendors, having one with a proven track-record and measurable search engine success is at the top of mind for the most web-savvy and aggressive dealerships. In the end, it comes down to 3 things:

Read more.

Neil Armstrong Didn't Like Exercise

I don't want to make it seem as if I'm trampling on the memory of this great man, but it should be noted from a quote he once made that exercise wasn't high on his list and his reasoning is actually pretty sound. He lived to the age of 82.

"I believe that every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don't intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises." ~ Neil Armstrong

The Saddest Place on Earth

How can they do it? How can they be so crass and uncaring to not allow puppies OR ice cream cones. There is only misery here. Nothing more.

Checking Out the New Blogger

I couldn't tell you when the new one went live or what it's all about, but apparently Blogger is all new and has a better interface than ever before. I'm avid on both Tumblr and Wordpress but I've never really gotten into Blogger. Today's the day.

Here's a picture. How does it look?

Getting Back into Blogging about... Me

Originally, the whole idea behind a "weblog" was to give people who weren't traditional content publishers an opportunity to express themselves. The phenomenon grew from a place for people to rant to a full-blown source of news for many.

I have always been a niche blogger in that I create blogs based upon whatever topic I want to cover and write from there. This particular blog was supposed to be a place where I could talk about more personal issues as well as place links to stories and other forms of media that I enjoyed.

I got away from the concept mostly based upon personal bandwidth that wasn't enough to keep up with everything happening professionally. After a long spell of writing only about those niches that appealed to me professionally, it's time to switch gears and revise the good-ol' personal blog for JD Rucker.

That's me. More to come.

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Read more about me here or feel free to contact me at JD Rucker.

Gas Prices are Down. Will SUVs Go Up?

That's the real question, isn't it? The gas price explosion of the last couple of years has made casually buying a sports utility vehicle a thing of the past. People are more aware of gas mileage than ever before, so will the drop in gas prices make it easier to sell them?

I don't think so. Now that people are more conscious of what is going on in the world with the environment, many feel good about their decision to get out of the Expedition and into the Prius. More importantly, many people were caught off guard by the sudden hike and they found themselves making life-changing decisions based upon it.

SUV sales will stay low.

They won't make the same mistake twice. SUVs will remain a luxury for a while to come.

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Read more about J.D. Rucker on this blog.

Call for Causes on Social Media

A couple of articles that I wrote last week received strong feedback from social media users. The concept: social media sites, with all of their power, should be able to do more in the way of promoting charities and other causes.

Social Media Charities

Social Media and its Users for Causes

This is a topic that I feel strongly about as there are very few things that take up more of my time than social media and charitable events. If there was a way to combine the two, it would personally save me a lot of time.

Then, of course, there's the matter of it being the right thing to do.

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Read more by JD Rucker on this blog.

Rugged Laptops: At These Prices, Why Not?

Over at TechScienceReview, we took a look at one of the most innovative creations to come to computers, and I never even knew they existed before.

These technological wonders called rugged laptops absolutely blew my mind. Considering that they are about the same price as many normal laptops, a guy like me who is on a plane 5 times a week really needs one for the go.

This article goes into detail and offers a video that really puts it all into perspective. When it comes to rugged notebooks, there's really only one thing to consider -- how much?

Read more about computers on my blog.

Social News Watch Wants Digg to Give People Another Chance

With all of the recent bannings, it's no wonder that the front page of Digg has decreased in both total number of Diggs as well as quality in content. The front page, already in shambles since the introduction of the Recommendation Engine, has taken a turn for the worse and started focusing on stories that just should not have made it.

Over at Social News Watch, one story points to the heart of the trepidation that has engulfed the top end of the Digg community. They are banning people left and right and the bans are permanent. If they listen, they will realize that they shouldn't make the bans against script users permanent.

It's not rocket science. People made a mistake. Give them a second chance, Digg.

More Digg Ban Stories will be coming to my blog soon.

Automotive Blog Network: TK Carsites Blog on Driving Sales

With so many industries coming to the table across the blogosphere, having the automotive industry start to make a play is a nice change. Over at driving sales, TK Carsites has a blog that has 4 of their top executives leaving posts.

It's actually very refreshing seeing information from a vendor that car dealers can use. Advice, predictions, and trends fill the posts with informative commentary from people who understand the business.

More stories about automotive blogs will be posted to my blog soon.