Monk Development has launched a concept (3Prophet System) we thought was somewhat revolutionary in the web/seo world. It turns out the Editor of Wired Magazine wrote about this in October 2004 and coined the phrase the Long Tail.

The 3Prophet System allows companies to target 3 & 4 word phrases people search for online. We launched Musolist (some SEO Results) and it has worked so well we plan on launching a few more sites. (Chic Salons, League List, Direct Mortgage Group, Time to Get Awesome!, MusoSource, IT People and more…all of these will be aggregated at ZipWatch)

The phrase “The Long Tail”, as a proper noun, was first coined1 by Chris Anderson. Beginning in a series of speeches in early 2004 and culminating with the publication of a Wired Magazine article in October 2004, Anderson described the effects of the long tail on current and future business models. Anderson observed that products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough. Examples of such mega-stores include Amazon.com, Netflix and even Wikipedia. The Long Tail is a potential market and, as the examples illustrate, successfully tapping in to that long tail market is often enabled by the distribution and sales channel opportunities the Internet creates. (Full wikipedia on the long tail.)

One of my favorite quotes came from Joe Kraus, a founder of Excite. “The top 10 searches were thousands of times more popular than the average search, yet these top-10 searches represented only 3% of our total volume. 97% of our traffic came from the ‘long tail’ – queries asked a little over once a day.” (full Long Tail post)

Last time I had to throw something up in one night so I re-did my Monk Development site. Monk Development delivers web-based strategies for clients who want to expand in the internet arena. (Web development, Search Engine Marketing, Viral Marketing, Search Engine Optimization.)

I’m going to be re-developing a site for Musolist. Musolist allows you to list free classifieds to find musicians and/or bands in your local town. In the next 30 days the site will be totally revamped for you to use and will add a lot of new features. Post your free ads today. If you are a church planter this can even help you gather musicians to your worship team.

We’ll we’ve done a soft launch but there will be tons of mentioning Burnside Writers Collective in magazines, articles and the new books by Miller and others. Authors include Donald Miller, Rick McKinley, Jordan Green, Lauren F. Winner, Chris Seay. Musicians include Derek Webb and the Robbie Seay Band. Current articles include:

Arcade Fire, Funeral and The Killers, Hot Fuss
Interview: Al James of Dolorean
David Dark, The Gospel According to America

If you’d like to submit work to be included, email Jordan Green.

There will be many more tweaks to come. Email updates, ecommerce, some flash fun…but go check it out.

I’m helping a church re-do their website and move hosting companies. They currently use Easyspace. I was ready to transfer the domains (2) and whamo! I read the fine print:

If you are ready to transfer your domain away from us simply click “Proceed” which will take you to the secure online payment area. Please note that all domain transfers away incur an administration fee of £49.00 ex VAT.

These people are criminals.

The Burnside project I’m working on got some press in it too:

One of his big plans, in fact, is to make the Rose City the hub of a national network of unconventional Christian writers, which he’s calling the Burnside Writers Collective. There’s Chris Seay, the pastor at ex-witch Kelly Hall’s church in Houston, author of books called The Gospel According to Tony Soprano and The Tao of Enron; McKinley, pastor of Miller’s own congregation, Imago Dei, will publish Jesus in the Margins this fall. Miller is characteristically self-effacing, calling plans to coordinate the promotion of a select bunch of writers through a website “a bait-and-switch operation, a cynical effort to sell more books.”

Miller sent me a bunch of stuff this morning, so we should be wrapping up pretty soon. He also sent me an article from Relevant Magazine, where he mentioned Burnside again:

Miller’s currently planning a creative community called the Burnside Writers Collective, an outlet for a group of writers/thinkers/speakers who are writing similar literature. “I want to create a catch-all for like-minded thinkers,” Miller said. “There are some cool voices out there that I think are entertaining and real and raw and profound, so it will be cool to shine the spotlight on some of these voices.” The initial lineup includes Miller, McKinley, Houston pastor and author Chris Seay and singer/songwriter Derek Webb. “We will make their stuff available online, and then also plan river trips, conferences and this sort of thing people can go to, to spend time with them,” he said.

I’m going to see if I can post the article…it’s for the March/April 2005 issue.

We’ve just launched Monk Development. Monk Development’s services include web development, search engine optimization, SEM online marketing. We also built a SEO system called 3Prophet System which we’ll launch a full site for later.

monk n. - a male religious living in a cloister and devoting himself to contemplation and prayer and work.

Monk only works with a select group of clients that we become religiously passionate about. Upon gathering the clients objectives we ‘cloister ourself’ and ‘devote’ time to ‘contemplation, prayer and work’ on the project. There is no platonic dualism in life. Our work is unto God and is sacred.

I’m beginning a web project with a group called Burnside Writer’s Collective. It will collect a group of authors such as Don Miller (Blue Like Jazz, Searching For God Knows What) and Rick McKinley (Jesus in the Margins : Finding God in the Places We Ignore). It should be a pretty cool group. McKinnely has a three book deal, I believe he’s finishing his second. Miller is finishing another book right now so there is plenty to come. Keep your calendar set for February when it launches.