Yep, that’s a new word, or at least I think I made it up (and if I didn’t, it’s like me to think I made up a word). The bro-conomy, to me, is the economy that exists between “bros.” Or better put, between people that you have, or would like to have, a more than a business/client relationship with - it’s something quite special. So special in fact, that in receiving a $90 dollar sweatshirt for $300+ dollars of work, you are immediately satisfied and feel that you got the good deal.

Think Bro-conomy, Think Big

So how does one crack the bro-conomy nut? When I was at an agency I noticed the guys who were making the deals getting all sorts of cool shit. Occasionally it would trickle down and I would get something like the aforementioned hoody or a circle-hoe. But for the most part it stopped right before the schwag hit the creatives. I think the most important part is exposure to clients. Before the end of this long winded, much adu about nothing post, I’ll talk about web design, a few tips to help one thrive in the bro-conomy, and a few of my own personal bro-conomy stories.

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Popularity: 61% [?]

Awhile back when Digg was first getting popular, I figured it wasn’t long before someone would come in and try to pollute the system. Apparently that is happening. While occasionally I do submit my own stories to digg, as it is a good tool for shameless self-promotion, it is unfortunate people are taking such measures as paying people to digg their stories. Of course as with any popular healthy system, it’s gonna attract sharks.

More specifically, the cnet article gives out some numbers:

Companies charge as much as $15,000 to get content up on Digg, said Neil Patel, chief technology officer at the Internet marketing firm ACS. If a story becomes popular on Digg and generates links back to a marketer’s Web site, that site may rise in search engine results and will not have to spend money on search advertising, he said.

I would be curious to see how acurate these figures are. It seems strange that somebody could manipulate digg to this effect.

Read the whole article here.

Popularity: 12% [?]

There are those folks out there who do great work, speak at panels, and have a loyal following of admirers. And then there are those who would like to be doing something similar, yet can’t seem to get the traffic they so desire.

Since the launch, of what James Hall defines as a “bloatfolio” (i believe he has a new one coming any day now), I have been engaged in a few practices that I believe are succesful traffic drivers to this site.

What follows is a list of what I have done to drive traffic. I was toying with the idea of making it a top ten list, but I think I will save my big top ten list for, “Top 10 reasons why I am the most amazing blogger on the internet” post. Ha! Anyhow…
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Popularity: 12% [?]