Is This New? How Barry Schwartz Created RustyBrick From the Ground Up

Gary 0:10
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Search Off the Record, a podcast coming to you from the Google Search team discussing all things search and having some fun along the way. My name is usually Gary. And I’m joined today by Lizzi Sassman from the Search Relations team of which I’m also part of. Say Hi, Lizzi.

Lizzi 0:28
Hi, Gary. Hi. Oh, did I do it appropriately now? And now I’ve thrown you off.

Gary 0:35
Oh, no, nevermind, that was Lizzi. And continuing with our Spotlight series in which we present folks from the larger search marketing community who inspire us, today we have a very special person, someone who’s pretty close to my heart and someone who I enjoy hanging out with when we get a chance at conferences. Barry Schwartz. Hi, Barry.

Barry 0:55
Hello. I’m very nervous. And I have to inspire people?

Gary 0:59
You already do that. And you don’t even know.

Barry 1:04
Aww I’m gonna cry.

Gary 1:05
I mean, you inspire me in some weird sense, I guess.

Barry 1:08
Well, thank you I guess. I don’t know how to take compliments. But I appreciate the compliment.

Lizzi 1:13
That sounds a little bit more accurate.

Gary 1:15
I mean, when I was on Twitter, you inspired me to talk less, for example,

Lizzi 1:21
Is Barry the reason why you’ve been silenced?

Gary 1:24
Actually, no, which is very surprising to me. Barry has been following us around, much like a stalker, on Twitter and looking at what we are doing, and why are we doing it and taking our words apart. And it’s actually super useful to us. And I think that many people will find this weird, but it is in fact very useful, because then we pay more attention to how we are saying things. So it leaves less wiggle room, except when we actually need the wiggle room. So I do think that having Barry around is actually super, super useful on Twitter.

Barry 1:58
I mean, yeah, you have to say that because I’m right here in front of you talking to you.

Gary 2:02
Trust me, I don’t have to. And I actually say things and Lizzy can testify.

Lizzi 2:09
Yeah, he would say it behind your back as well. I can confirm that.

Barry 2:11
Good to know. Well, I appreciate that.

Gary 2:14
Yeah. So usually, at the end of each episode, we actually just get around and talk about the interviewee behind their backs, just to make sure that we voice our opinions in a way or other but that’s actually off the record. You’re you’re not invited.

Lizzi 2:32
Wait, we are off the record right now. Would this be off off the record? Like is it even a step removed? We’re off the record right now. No?

Gary 2:40
Are we though? Anyway, Barry, who are you? And why are you selling links on Search Engine Roundtable? This is a question from the Webspam Team.

Barry 2:50
It’s a good question. So I’m Barry Schwartz. I started a blog probably almost two decades ago, just to sell links on my website. And then Google decided to do something crazy and come out with this nofollow attribute for some reason. And they’re like, “Well, now you need no follow links on your blog.” And I’m like, but no, I labeled them sponsored. And then I fought with you guys for years and years and years. And then you decided to press a big red button. And then my website went poof, and it’s gone. That’s it. I’m done.

Gary 3:19
Wait like, with the podcast or with the answer?

Lizzi 3:22
With us. I mean, he’s done with us. We pushed him too far. Yes.

Gary 3:27
Okay. So you’re saying when nofollow was introduced, so that must be like 2005 2006?

Barry 3:34
Yes.

Gary 3:35
And do you still have that manual action, or it was revoked by then? But by now?

Barry 3:38
I never had it—it was a pre-manual action. I mean, there may have been a manual action, like in the back end somewhere. But there was no way to see manual actions.

Gary 3:44
Oh, right. That was way before the manual actions viewer was actually launched. Interesting. Very interesting.

Lizzi 3:51
How did we communicate that this was like something that we knew that you were doing? Or how did you know if there was no manual action? How did you know? Oh you knew. Okay, just like a vibe thing?

Barry 4:02
No more of like, your traffic just stopped.

Lizzi 4:05
So did that happen to you?

Gary 4:07
Kind of feel that you sort of deserved that.

Barry 4:10
I enjoy it. I enjoy the torture from both bots and people together. In general. I like torture. So getting penalized. I’ve been hit by lots of penalties over the years. Not all intentionally, not like the sponsor links. But like Panda hit me once or twice I believe. So I’ve been hit. And I actually enjoy it because I don’t really I don’t make money off the blogging for the most part. I just do it just to drive Gary and John and friends crazy. Wait…

Gary 4:36
So why did you have sponsored links if you were not making or if you’re not making money with a blog?

Barry 4:41
How much money can you make? I have Jewish tuition, private school. What does that pay for? Maybe a lunch every for one kid for one month?

Gary 4:49
Oh, I would have imagined that links on searchengineroundtable.com are actually quite expensive. What—if I wanted to buy a link from you, how much would it cost?

Barry 4:58
How many shares of Google stock do you own?

Lizzi 5:01
Oh, I didn’t realize this was like a bargaining situation. Do you need to bid like, do we, do I need to outbid Gary?

Gary 5:07
I will, I will pay for a burger when I’m in New York and invite you to watch me eat that burger.

Barry 5:15
I think I’ve seen that before. So I’m not sure how exciting that would be.

Gary 5:20
Yeah, that’s fair. Okay. Anyway, you seem to be always online. Like, as you said, like you’re following us around and looking at what we are saying. And it doesn’t matter when we are saying things, you are going to pick it up. And you are going to publish something about the things that we said. It happens every day. 24/7. How, how do you do that?

Barry 5:42
I have drones flying all over the place watching you guys. So if you look at your window right now, you probably see something flying outside your window.

Lizzi 5:50
And the drone is live tweeting like what we’re saying right now?

Barry 5:54
Right now. To be honest, it’s 24/6. I’m offline for the Jewish things. So that’s hard for me. I hate being offline. But I guess it’s good for me too. But I mean, it’s easy to track. I mean, Twitter is public. So you just see when you tweet, and then I get all these alerts popping up like lights flashing my room, Gary tweeted, Gary tweeted.

Lizzi 6:15
I mean, I also see that you’re posting, like, sometimes you put a disclaimer that this is like an auto scheduled post, like you’ll say, I’m on vacation, you’re communicating that you’re taking a break, and that the tweets are coming out anyway. So to not throw people off the trace, I guess?

Barry 6:31
The reason for that is because I’m technically not allowed to be online. So I want to make sure that anybody who’s seeing them posting, it’s not—they know it’s not live, meaning I’m offline. I’m not. If I post something online, and I’m, I’m observing Jews, if I do that I’ll get struck by lightning and die, I would die. But you know, I just wanted to make it clear that I’m not online and everything posted is scheduled and pre-written.

Gary 6:55
Yeah, that makes sense.

Lizzi 6:56
Do you have alerts setup? I guess like I mean, is there like a secret to monitoring all the updates that come out? Or is this like a secret sauce thing that if you share it, then everyone else will know and start tweeting at the same time as you. Or are you not worried about that?

Barry 7:12
I’m super active on Twitter. So I have—I use TweetDeck, which is like a dashboard right over here on my right hand side. And I just track to see what people are saying, I have a Google list, I have a Bing list. I have a Ronald Reagan list, I don’t know, I list the things that I track to see, you know, insert any controversial person name in that area. And they track whatever they’re saying. And I also get our tons of RSS feeds, I’m still big into RSS, I don’t know if you remember what Google Reader was around. Google Reader told me I was their number one consumer of RSS feeds, in terms of on a daily basis consuming RSS feeds and anybody else. So they sent me on the swag. And now I use Feedly. I do have Google Alerts, which I hate. The algorithm stinks Gary, if you can work on that, or somebody at Google could work on that, that’d be useful. I track the SEO communities, mostly in the forums, and also different online forums to track what people are saying very, very closely.

Lizzi 8:07
I mean, it still seems like an intense amount of information, like a firehose of all these things all over the place. Do you have it aggregated? So you know, like, Hey, this is like a spiking thing? Or is it? Like by person, this person is more important. They said it so itoh, must be something.

Barry 8:22
Yeah, obviously. So if certain Google reps say something, and what they’re saying is interesting, and they haven’t said it before. If they’re reiterating something that I think is important, I will cover that for the most part. If they’re tweeting about, I don’t know, the sky being blue, which you guys tweet about a lot, which is very, very unusual. I’m not sure why you guys talk about that so much. But when you do, I kind of avoid this stuff that is kind of mundane. But this is important stuff I will try to cover within 24 hours, Monday through Friday. And then if I see the SEO communities spiking and chattering a lot, I call like SEO chatter, I will tell will take notice, I will see that there’s a lot of chatter about some type of update. And I’ll ask, I’ll ask Google, hey, was there an update? And they’ll be like, No, leave me alone. And they’re pissed off and I leave you guys alone.

Gary 9:04
Well, which is quite true. But anyway, do you have a preference for topics that you like to write about? Something that’s more fun or something that’s more entertaining?

Lizzi 9:17
Or dramatic? Are there certain types of posts that sort of you actually enjoy writing?

Barry 9:21
Yeah. What do I like to write about? That’s a good question. So I love covering the algorithm update stories, especially when you don’t announce them beforehand. I hate when I get embargoed stuff, hate it. But I’ll take it because it’s important. And I love to find new tests and pre launches before you actually launch them, both user interface wise and feature wise. I think those are fun. It actually got me on Brian Williams before Brian Williams of NBC was scandalous. I got onto NBC, Brian Williams, Dateline, whatever it was called. Because I spotted one of the big things it’s called the Universal Search when it first launched I spotted that like, a week or two beforehand and Brian Williams as just like, come down. It’s like I went to his Rockefeller Center ages ago. And I went to a room with public cameras, and I didn’t really speak to him. I just spoke to the camera. And he was there on the other side somewhere.

Gary 10:17
That’s amazing. That was also a really long time. 2007, 2006. How did you actually spot that?

Barry 10:24
Probably forums or before Twitter? I think it was early Twitter,

Gary 10:29
But someone posted about it, I guess.

Barry 10:31
Yeah. I don’t usually find things myself. Sometimes I see tests but they are rare—very rarely do I see the test because you guys put me on a blacklist to say don’t show Barry tests, but other people see tests and I follow what other people find.

Gary 10:41
Yeah. Is this new? Is this new, Berry? Is this new? Is this new? Oh, you have a hat?

Barry 10:47
People send me swag all the time. I’m supposed to show it off. So.

Gary 10:50
You have a hat that says is this new? That’s amazing. I want that hat. Oh, wait, no, I would need a hat that says no, I actually have that hat.

Lizzi 10:59
Oh, wait on the back it could say no. So the front end could say is this new? And in the back, No. Wait, is there anything on the back? No, no, you’re just checking? You might have missed it.

Gary 11:07
I don’t like it. So you write articles. But I happen to know that ‘s not the only work that you do. What else do you do?

Barry 11:18
What else do I do? So I have a main thing I do is Rusty Brick, it’s a software company. We build software applications, both online like web based as well as mobile based anything from I don’t know emergency room hospital software to party planning software to bus software, taxi cab software, you name it, we’ve pretty much built anything that’s custom.

Gary 11:38
That’s amazing. When did you start RustyBrick?

Barry 11:40
When I was 14 with my twin brother Ronnie. Nobody knows I have a twin brother. So this is off the record.

Gary 11:44
Yeah, that’s new information, and I will blog about it.

Lizzi 11:47
Oh, is this breaking news on on this podcast? You’ve never announced this before?

Barry 11:52
Yeah, well, it’s on the website. If you check out Rustybrick.com You’ll see us there.

Gary 11:55
Where do you get more traffic, on rustybrick.com or on searchengineroundtable.com? Oh,

Barry 12:00
There’s no, there’s no competition, search engine round table gets way more traffic.

Gary 12:03
That’s sad. You see there are all these important websites on the internet and they don’t get traffic.

Barry 12:10
This is kind of mean. I don’t write anything new onRustyBrick for the most part, I keep it pretty quiet.

Gary 12:13
But that doesn’t mean that it’s not an important website. Right?

Barry 12:16
Well it does because it doesn’t get much traffic from Google. And you define that by sending traffic to it.

Lizzi 12:21
You personally. Yes. You personally Yes.

Gary 12:25
I sit behind computers. And I just say rustybrick.com. One traffic per day. One traffic wow. That’s very English, one traffic per day. But wouldn’t that be

Barry 12:35
cool if you could drag people to the website? Just like this user gets that and this user gets that?

Gary 12:40
Oh, no. That’s what Lizzi does.

Lizzi 12:42
Oh, yes. I’m moving around the dials? Yeah, one by one. I can’t count very high. So just just one. That’s my limit. Yes.

Barry 12:50
Yeah, we also build. So we build, we do a lot of consulting work for companies, like we build software for third party companies. And we also build our own software, we build their own SAAS programs on mobile apps. So we do a lot of cool things around software. It’s all about how can we make the day to day life of a person or a company more efficient? Because I’m all…I’m crazy about efficiency, everything I do is to like, least amount of steps, least amount of actions to get the same thing done.

Lizzi 13:14
I want to know more about the emergency response app. How was that one? Is that one also with the goal of being more efficient? Or can you tell us about that app?

Barry 13:23
Yeah, so that was built for a company that actually manages about 30 different ER departments, emergency room departments, and the hospitals actually outsource the ER departments, the emergency room departments to this company, which fulfills the doctors, the scheduling, the patient billing. So you go into the hospital, it’s not really the hospital that’s managing the ER department. It’s a for-profit company, it was doing it in this area. So it’s about 30 in this area, meaning New York’s New York tri state area. And we built scheduling software, billing software, you name it, mobile apps, and so forth. They actually just got acquired, maybe not just, but years and years ago, maybe like five years ago, by a bigger company. So we built a lot of their software, which was used for probably 15 years to help doctors know where they have to show up. Hell is crazy stuff around, making sure doctors slept enough so they could go to see their patients. That’s pretty cool stuff.

Gary 14:15
Can you think of any other app that you like developing or that you thought that it will change the world?

Barry 14:21
Yeah, I mean, especially in the Jewish world, we built a lot of cool stuff that I think would make Jewish life more manageable, because Jewish religion is really a pain in the neck. I can say that because I’m a Jew. And we have all these rules. And when you can pray, what you can eat, where you can eat, stuff like that. So we built this, like a bunch of apps to help people find the closest synagogue to them, telling them when they can pray this service versus that service, showing them what actually they can pray. Because it’s very confusing. Every day is different. Every time is different. So kind of making Judaism easier for people and making it more accessible to people who maybe like technology, I guess. So that’s pretty awesome. I mean, there’s many examples of that.

Gary 14:58
You said that you started rustybrick.com when you were 14 and looking at you, you’re probably like 80s 90s years old. So you started with this internet business a long, long time ago.

Lizzi 15:15
Wait wait wait wait wait. Did you start with the app development, and then you created the website to promote the apps or the other way around?

Barry 15:21
So when I was 14, it was 1994. That was pre apps, apps didn’t really come out until Steve Jobs allowed it a year after the iPhone was out, which was like, what? 2006? 2007? Something like that? Yeah, something like that. So we first started with web software, web sites and stuff like that. And then we moved into—it was basically my brother just wanted to program. And he’s like, you get the business. So I went to client meetings. I’m like, What do I tell them? He’s like, tell them we can do anything. So they’re like, can you build this for us? I’m like, Yes. And then we had to build it. And we built it.

Lizzi 15:52
As a 14 year old, you were going to client meetings?

Barry 15:55
Yeah. But more so when I was at Kaiser when I was in New York College in New York City, I used to run from class to meeting, class to meeting, and do business that way. When I was 14,15 we didn’t really—we got like, look, first one was like, Chinese website, Chinese foods store, restaurant, a website for them, and a menu and stuff.

Gary 16:15
I’m flabbergasted. You started rusty brick when you were 14. When did you actually encounter a computer the first time when you were a baby or like one year old or two years old?

Barry 16:26
I don’t remember exactly, it was probably before I was 10. My father worked at Pitney Bowes, which is basically that big postage meter company that stamps postage on stuff. And he had a lot of cool technology there. He brought back some old computers, and he had the phone, you know you put the phone on that receiver, and it makes fax noises. So we had that, I remember that. And I remember like my brother trying, my older brother, not my twin brother who I work with, my older brother trying to like download games over like the BBS the bulletin board thing. And it would literally take forever. So you press it, you hit enter, and you just come back hours later for the download, after it downloaded. So that’s what I remember. But I don’t know what age it was, I’d have to be before I was 10.

Gary 17:03
So basically, you have a computer or access to a computer for four years. And then you started a website development business.

Barry 17:10
To be clear. My brother, he was a huge geek, in a cool way, was the one who just programmed and tinkered all day. I’m like, let’s make money off of this.

Gary 17:18
So you’re not cool.

Barry 17:21
I talked to talk, I don’t walk the walk.

Lizzi 17:23
Well, yeah, you were talking to talk. So did you acquire the first client. So that Chinese food delivery place? Did you? Is that something that happened? Because it was local, and you frequented this place of business? And then you pitch it to them? Or how did that come about?

Barry 17:38
I think my mother was like buying Chinese food for us. And I guess they talk and they’re like, my son does put out websites. Do you want one? And he’s like, Sure. So we probably build it for a few 100 bucks. I don’t remember. I don’t know it’s so long ago. And my memory’s not good. Since I’m 85 years old.

Gary 17:58
I was close. Do you remember what was the first search engine that you used and enjoyed using?

Barry 18:03
Enjoy using, I’m still looking for the one that I enjoy using. I don’t remember the first one per se, it might have been like Lycos or Excite. I remember like I was in high school. And my teacher wanted us to do some type of report. So I searched on some search engine, it might have been Excite or one of these search engines. And I printed something I found, it was like hundreds of pages of a PDF. And I handed it in. And I’m like I didn’t do this myself. I didn’t write this myself and he was like yeah, no, duh obviously you didn’t write this yourself. But he’s like, this is great. I’m going to use this, I’m going to use this for my materials, for some, I guess, program. And he’s like, You make the class here. Thank you, because nobody knew how to Google back then. Like this is interesting. And I remember like, you know how I am. So I was like, kind of like stalking some people in a really creepy way just to drive him crazy. And I was able to do searches, do searches on their families. One kid was like famous, from a famous family. I brought all this dirt up about the guy I’m like. Oh my god. I’m not gonna say his name. And I’m like, and I freaked people out I’m like, I know everything about you. Do you want me to know how much money you have in your bank account? Really? You can do that? And nobody knew anything about the Internet back then. And they thought I was going to hack into their life and ruin them forever.

Lizzi 19:16
Would you just like say this to them verbally? Or are you like printing out like letters and sending it to them? Like how are you like delivering this information? They’re like you’re clairvoyant.

Barry 19:25
No, I like to see their reaction. Ah, their face. I want to see the reaction. So I do it face to face. I like to see the awkwardness flowing.

Gary 19:34
Right. That’s the beautiful part of it. Yes.

Barry 19:37
Although. What’s that Squid Games? I bought a bunch of Squid Game cards. Yeah. And walking home from synagogue one week. I just dropped them in people’s mailboxes and I have no idea if they ever got them and what their reactions were. I kind of want to see the reaction, but I just like drop the Squid Game cards in their mailbox. And that’s a good idea. Yeah, I’m weird. I like to keep entertainment in a weird way.

Gary 20:00
Same. Back to the early internet, do you remember if you found anything annoying about the Internet back then, other than that it was slow?

Barry 20:08
Yeah there was this guy named methode, he was super annoying. Outside of that guy, whoever that guy was, the most annoying part what I remember those days you had to click on ads to get to get to download software? And you click on ads, go to another page, click on another ad and fill out an answer, like enter like the answer, then go to another page and click on another ad. That was the most annoying part of the internet, just to get free stuff. And then the slow slow internet, that was just—drove me insane.

Gary 20:33
Yeah, I can relate. I couldn’t hear the username of the person that you find very annoying, can you? Can you say it again please?

Barry 20:40
I think it’s methode. Am I pronouncing it correctly?

Gary 20:42
Never heard. Interesting. So you launched eventually,

Barry 20:46
I think you want me—you wanted me to get context? Right? When I mentioned people’s names? Should I give context?

Gary 20:50
In this case, it’s fine. I think I think in this case is perfectly fine. If we don’t give context because reasons.

Lizzi 20:57
But he can give us like bank account information, like all this stuff on this person. I think it will be very interesting to our listeners. Don’t you think, Gary?

Gary 21:04
No, no, no, no, I think we should—no. So you launch rustybrick.com because you are a child prodigy, and you do things when you are 14 that other 14 year olds, people don’t do? Do you remember anything about the launch of that website? Like what technologies you were using other than HTML? Because you probably used HTML for reasons.

Barry 21:30
So question. So I believe, obviously, it was HTML in the early days, we did some I remember like GIFs, we use a lot of GIFS because they were cool back then. And now they’re cool again.

Gary 21:39
No, it’s GIF. I’m just gonna leave.

Lizzi 21:44
No, it’s Jiff. It’s Jiff. I think it’s 2 out of 3 Gary.

Gary 21:48
Why would it be Jiff?

Lizzi 21:50
Because I said so. It’s a graphic. It’s Jiff. It just sounds, it’s sharp. You know, it sounds good, rolls off the tongue. Jiff.

Barry 21:58
Right. I think it was called Jiff in the early days, we just didn’t know how to pronounce it. And then the guy came out as it was not, and we all looked dumb.

Lizzi 22:07
Details. You can decide if you look dumb or not. It’s up to you.

Barry 22:11
Yeah. And I think early on, we did a lot of PHP. Like, I think it was like PHP 2.0 or something. And then before, I remember, like, Urchin came out. And I was super excited. No one had to print out the HD logs. And like highlight stuff and bring it to clients that you got to visit from this search engine or that place. And then Urchin sold out. Those Brett Crosby [expletive]. No I’m joking, I love those guys. And it made Google Analytics. So Brett Crosby’s, I was a huge fan of Urchin, or in the early days. And when he—when I heard he sold to Google, which he did, actually, on his wedding day, he actually signed paperwork on his wedding day. Yes, he actually signed and ran to his wedding and celebrated. So I was super excited when they sold. And now it’s Google Analytics. And then now they’re launching Google Analytics 4 which I’m really, really upset about. I cry every day, every single day I cry over it.

Gary 23:05
That’s literally why we launch new things.

Lizzi 23:07
Yes, we think to ourselves, will this make Barry cry? And then we launch it. That is a launch criteria.

Gary 23:13
I mean, we launched it if it will make Barry cry. Correct. It’s not like…

Lizzi 23:16
Yeah, yeah, we’re not checking beforehand. We heard that he likes to be surprised as well. So we prefer not to tell you, if it will surprise him and make him cry. Win-win.

Gary 23:25
That’s good. Yes…

Barry 23:26
I need, I need more emotions, because people tell me I’m emotionless.

Barry 23:29
Do you know why? It’s like…it’s like, you’re my brother.

Barry 23:35
You know, why am I emotionless?

Gary 23:37
And I feel this is a trick question.

Bary 23:38
But I mean, you should know.

Gary 23:39
I should?

Barry 23:40
I’m not gonna blame you directly. But I mean, the internet as a whole is often a very trolly place. And you could say nice things to me. You can say horrible things. To me, it means that I have no reaction at all. I’m like a blank stare. Nothing matters.

Gary 23:51
Wait. You said you’re not blaming me personally?

Barry 23:52
Well, you’re part of the issue.

23:53
Oh, okay. Usually, I’m the issue.

Barry 24:01
Generally, but I don’t want you to cry. So…

Gary 24:02
Oh, I don’t do that. I—my tear ducts are just not there

Barry 24:07
Are people gonna enjoy this Off the Record podcasts?

Lizzi 24:09
I have no idea. Like, we haven’t even talked about search or bridge the gap between rusty—rusty brick, and search and how you got involved in SEO. And we are already at the edge.

Gary 24:23
Should we just end it now?

Lizzi 24:24
Yes. Leave them hanging and not talk about search on Search Off the Record, because search is off the record.

Gary 24:28
I don’t think that we have to talk about search though. It kind of feels like like Barry’s an interesting person. Sometimes. Sometimes he’s annoying. And we should just highlight that human who’s called Rusty brick now who’s called Barry Schwartz and just talk about him. Like for example. I’m very interested in his opinion about how one can become the new Barry Schwartz. Like if we wanted to replace Barry Schwartz with with someone new, how would we train that person? What would that person need to pay attention to?

Barry 25:01
That’s a good question.

Lizzi 25:02
Are you planning something?

Gary 25:04
I don’t want to answer that.

Barry 25:06
Do you want me to answer that? On the search side? It’s just follow. Main thing is be consistent. I think John Mueller says this a lot. It’s consistency is very, very important. And so as long as you’re consistent about when you do things, and you could get it done, it seems like a lot but the search stuff I do is really generally between the hours of 6am to or early 7am, to about 9am, or 6am, to 8am in the morning. It’s usually like a two hour window. And I always consistently go through all my feeds, Twitter, Tweet Deck, all types of stuff, forums, consistently into those times that I write between those times. So I do about, I don’t know, 30 minutes of research every day. And maybe I write for about an hour or so. Maybe less. Each blog post takes me about four to eight minutes.

Lizzi 25:53
Wow. Wow, do you do warm up tasks before you start blogging? Or did you used to in the early days?

Barry 26:01
What’s a warm up task?

Lizzi 26:02
I don’t know like to just get ready to write. Sometimes I do other things. Like we have our user feedback. I always start with that. I don’t know. I read through that queue just to sort of like get things moving. And I can’t just like sit down and start writing. But maybe you have other secrets for productivity.

Barry 26:19
No, I just write. My blog posts are generally short: person said X, is person X right or wrong? What do you think, done?

Lizzi 26:27
It’s a little bit more formulaic?

Gary 26:29
We could apply this template on our docs. Dots? Docs. D-

Lizzi 26:32
O-C-S. Oh, right. Right, right.

Gary 26:36
But at least the the end like we should we should have at the end something like what do you think? And then go to Twitter, if you if you if you want to comment about or leave feedback or something like that, like..

Barry 26:46
I do send people to Twitter, I used to just send people to the forums. This way if you don’t like what they’re saying, delete it.

Lizzi 26:51
What do you mean, we can’t delete things on the forum? Well, that’s not cool.

Gary 26:57
Come on. And also Twitter is great, because then I don’t see it.

Barry 27:00
You got to get back on Twitter.

Gary 27:01
No.

Barry 27:02
We miss you.

Gary 27:02
No.

Lizzi 27:03
Well keep trying, try different angles. Yes, you can ask him, you can try emotional, heartstring. What other kinds of methods, threats? How can we—that could probably work. Do you think a threat?

Gary 27:16
Well, it depends on the threat.

Barry 27:17
I’m gonna transfer all your Bitcoin to some offshore accounts. If you don’t go back on Twitter.

Gary 27:22
Go ahead. Wait, you haven’t even touched anything.

Lizzi 27:25
It’s the drones. He’s like controlling them with his mind, I think, I don’t know.

Gary 27:29
Alright, so do I have my Google Glass here, where’s my Google Glass. It’s next to the pod.

Barry 27:35
I know we’re out of time. And nobody can see this. But I have Google Glass. Yep. Have you ever had Google Glass?

Gary 27:39
For our listeners, Barry went to the to the other end of the room. And he’s now looking for a Google Glass. And he actually found it.

Lizzi 27:48
And now we’re looking at the Google Glass. Is it working? Like it’s still in working order?

Barry 27:52
I haven’t turned it on in years. I have snapchat glasses. I have Facebook glasses. I buy stuff and I never use it. I have an issue.

Gary 28:00
That makes perfect sense. It’s interesting that you’re like insanely efficient, otherwise, and very rational. And then you just buy stuff that you never use. It’s great. I think that’s your weakness. That’s fair. You mentioned Twitter. If people wanted to find you on Twitter, where would they go?

Barry 28:22
My handle is rusty brick.

Gary 28:22
All right, on your website, they can call you, or I imagine send faxes??

Barry 28:24
We do have a fax number, I pay I think like $9 a month for it. So I could send one or two faxes per year to the IRS. Rustybrick.com.

Lizzi 28:32
Could we send you a fax?
Gary 28:33
We should send Barry a fax.

Barry 28:35
You can send me a fax. Yes, send me a fax. Call the website. I actually have this guy, if you call into our PBX and you’re a spammer, I can transfer you to a guy named Lenny. And Lenny is like this old man. He’s like this AI for old man that will keep you on the phone for ten several, like probably like 15, 20, 30 minutes. And if a spammer calls me, I will transfer them to Lenny and it’s like he goes through his whole life story, his children, he has ducks in the background. So if you ever want me to transfer you to Lenny, just give me a call and I’ll transfer you over to Lenny.

Gary 29:06
That’s actually amazing. Alright, enough with shenanigans. Oh, I could pronounce shenanigans. Wow. That surprised me. Barry, it was a genuine pleasure to have you here. I really, really enjoyed our conversation. I really hope that we are going to meet soon, probably in New York because you don’t travel and because you hate to travel. And, again, thank you so much for joining us. And I hope that our listeners like what you had to say.

Barry 29:34
I appreciate you having me. I’m sorry if this really ruins the podcast going forward. That was my goal is to really just destroy this podcast. So if I accomplished that, I’m happy.

Gary 29:43
I think you accomplished that. Yes. Thank you very much. This will show up in our OKRs and we are going to get fired most likely. That was a lie. Next time on Search Off the Record, we are going to explore how removals really work. We’ve been having fun with these podcast episodes. I hope you, the listener, have found them both entertaining and insightful too. Feel free to drop us a note on Twitter at GoogleSearchC, or chat with us at one of the next events we go to if you have any thoughts, and of course don’t forget to like and subscribe. Thank you and goodbye.