I’m a huge fan of Bad Boy entertainment. I own 80+ CDs released off of Bad Boy, including almost every album they have ever released (only missing the Mario Winans album and the latest Carl Thomas album). I own 55+ CDs not released on Bad Boy just because they featured Bad Boy artists (and I like the music, of course). I’m a big Diddy fan and a big Bad Boy fan. I own everything from the Easy Mo Mix of Flava In Ya Ear by Craig Mack and the Puffy Remix of Be Happy by Mary J. Blige featuring Keith Murray and Diddy (I doubt most people at Bad Boy have even heard this track, let alone heard of it) to the remix of Dem Boyz by Boyz N Da Hood featuring Game, T.I. and Diddy and the B5 album. I have the Black Rob album pre-ordered and I will be pre-ordering the Biggie album coming later this year. I don’t own a single piece of music illegally. I’ve bought EVERYTHING I have and I doubt there are many people out there who have a more complete collection. I’m a part of the Bad Boy i-Squads, helping to promote the label and it’s artists (and getting some cool and free stuff in return). I really like Sean John and I have approximately 20 pieces. So, suffice to say, I’m not just a big fan, but a big fan that spends money and has been spending money since I was like 12 or 13 and had very little. Back then, I’d take what I had (mostly from birthdays) and buy CDs, such as No Way Out, Harlem World, Life After Death and I even convinced my mother to take me to the mall to Foot Action simply to pick up the Nothin’ But the Hotness in ’98 compilation.

I’m also a business owner and a person who works online and cares a lot about details. Because of this, I have to say… Bad Boy’s online presence brings me to tears sometimes. The websites always feature nice designs and they are flashy, which is great. But, content is still king and they lack attention to detail and it’s not just a few things. I don’t care who you are, details matter. And when you’re a big, internationally successful record label like Bad Boy Entertainment, it’s really unbelievable and unacceptable. Let me give you some examples.

On the official label site:

The content section for each artist is poorly formatted. Check The Notorious B.I.G. section under the Artists menu. Look at the text. Ever hear of paragraphs? Seriously.

Look at the Black Rob section. “The Rob Report” “In Stores Spring 2005” It’s “The Black Rob Report” and it was delayed – it’s out today. The popup on the splash page says “Album Coming Soon”. Soon? Now! It’s out now.

In the “Next Up” box, it says Black Rob’s album is coming out in October. It says the album is called “Rob Report”. Once again, it’s “The Black Rob Report”. How about a day? Maybe… today? It also says The Notorious B.I.G.’s album is coming out November 22, 2005. It’s been delayed – it’s coming out December 6, 2005.

It says the Boyz N Da Hood album “Screw” is coming out September 21. Coming would mean that it has not yet happened. But, the calendar tells me that it is past September 21. So, it’s in stores now.

In the audio section… it continues to get worse. B5’s album is TBA and available Spring 2005. It came out July 19! Update the page. Same for Boyz N Da Hood’s album. Already out.

P. Diddy is now Diddy. Why is it still P. Diddy in the menu? It’s a formality, I know, but really. Speaking of the Diddy section, it says his website is P-Diddy.com. Well, that’s what it used to be, perhaps. It looks like they may have even let the domain name expire. Nonetheless, it is now diddyonline.com.

The news entries are a mess of text that is formatted in different ways with various inconsistencies. Alignments are off, messages are in all caps, etc.

From the official Diddy site:

Didy 2-Way Blog?! DIDY 2-WAY BLOG?! Are you kidding me? They spelt the man’s name wrong! And this is his official site and it’s on the front page! I actually e-mailed the e-mail in the Site Credits section and I got a quick reply, which was impressive. That was months ago. It hasn’t been changed.

Artist Roster on the Bad Boy Music page has Shanon Jones on the roster. It’s Shannon Jones. And where’s Ness? Consistent artist rosters would be great.

In the jukebox thing, the song’s have incorrect titles. It’s “P.E. 2000”, not “Public Enemy Number 1”. It’s “Diddy”, not “It’s Diddy”. It’s “I Need a Girl (Part One)”, not “I need A Girl”. Who typed these in, someone who has never looked at the back of a Bad Boy album?

From the Sean John site:

“SeanJohn” … it’s “Sean John.” The copyright says “SeanJohnShoes”. I’m not sure what that’s about.

From the Sean John Black Elite site:

The title of the page is “SeanJohnShoes”. It’s “Sean John”, again, with no space. It’s the Sean John Black Elite site and that should be the title.

The Walk in Diddy’s Shoes contest has been over for nearly 3 weeks.

From the Boyz N Da Hood site:

The rims contest has been over since July.

The appearances section is outdated. The last appearance was August 5. Old appearances need to be removed.

Group founder Block has said that Lil’ Wayne is now a part of BNDH with Young Jeezy exiting. Nothing on this at all.

I’m not even going to talk about old, outdated sites like the sites for Carl Thomas, Loon, Dream, 8ball and MJG, the 10th anniversary disc, the Bad Boys 2 soundtrack (they let the domain expire!), Da Band, Mase, etc. Some of which are no longer even at the label, which may have to do with them not being updated. Regardless, it still looks bad. Clear the older content or say that it is no longer being updated – something.

Oddly enough, the B5 site seems like it is fairly well taken care of (although the contest has been over since August, at least their performances are up to date and they have all of their videos available, etc.). The domain is owned by Jamm Entertainment, so maybe that tells me why… Bad Boy doesn’t really have a hand in it. Not more than providing logos, rights, some directives, etc., I mean. That’d be my guess.

It’s even started creeping into the offline stuff. Taking a look at a few recent Bad Boy albums:

B5: The album insert actually says “Robb Report”. The Executive Producer is “Sean “P Diddy” Combs”. This was before he dropped the P, but did the period after the P get lost somewhere? I mean, it may seem small, but this is on the backcover of the album. Nothing should off on the back cover. Not a letter, not a period, not a space – nothing.

Bad Boy’s R&B Hits: On the back cover, for the DVD, they list “What You Want” as “Tell Me What You Want.” The song was not called “Tell Me What You Want.” This is underscored by the fact that the song is on the music CD as well and it’s title is What You Want! How do you get a song title wrong? How do you call the same song by 2 different names on the same back cover? Speaking of song titles, is it Hold Your Head or Hold Ya Head from the new Biggie album? On AOL’s first listen, they said Ya. But, on the Bad Boy official site, it’s Your. Let’s get it right so people requesting it can get it right.

Everywhere else (did a quick scan), they say Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. But, on the back cover, they say Sean P. Diddy Combs. Again, did the quotation marks get lost somewhere? They are on the back cover on the other 4 recent Bad Boy albums (as well as pretty much every album ever released, whether it be Sean “Puffy” COmbs or Sean “P. Diddy” Combs), but not this one…

The album insert actually says “Sean “P. Diddy” Combs invite you to visit Sean John Fifth Avenue”. Invite you to visit? INVITES you to visit.

These are just examples, as well. The online world of Bad Boy is very outdated and LITTERED with them. Totally littered. Everything from small inconsistencies, like capitalization and periods, right up to bigger things like misspelling artist names. I came up with these examples just from quickly scanning pages. The more I look, the worse it gets. We’re all human. One thing here, one thing there – fine. But this far, far too much. The thing about it is that Diddy strikes me as a person who is about details. And from a corporation this large, this successful with this many employees (I imagine), these sort of things are not really acceptable.

So, what’s the answer? Well, I’m no expert, but it would seem to me that it would take just 1 guy. Just 1. Call him Director of Information Quality, I don’t care. His job? He reads everything that goes out of the Bad Boy camp. From press releases to website copy to the text that goes on album covers, in album inserts and on the back of the album. He reads it, checking it for details. He would need to be a bit of a Bad Boy historian or at least someone who knows about the company and it’s artists, so that he can catch incorrect song names, etc. Give him access. Access to people who can answer questions and he can get info from. Give him access to the website’s so that he can post content and keep them updated. These sites need to stay updated. The Bad Boy online presence is not that large. My network is quite a bit larger (speaking of actual content – I know they smoke me in traffic) and I get along very well. And I don’t mean to hire an intern. This is not an unimportant task… it is not something that doesn’t matter. Details are important and people notice. You need someone with an eye for them. I’m available, heh. But, seriously, I have noticed this steady decline and it disappoints me.

After a long relationship, I have completely cut Power Phlogger off of my sites. My sites on a majority of my sites have been way off (too low) for a month now and my inability to solve the issue (and the lack of response at the support forums), have made me look toward other options. I went with StatCounter. So far, so good. My sites seem faster, as well. Could the various slowness issues I’ve had been attributable to Power Phlogger? Chris made a comment about him finding it (Power Phlogger) to be slow, so maybe it’s my head playing with me. Still, it’s nice…

Edit: Having all of my sites stats (and the various divisions of those stats) on one screen makes me so happy that I am worried about my well being. Ah, well. Wheeeeeeeeeee…

Over at Inside Adsense (the official AdSense blog), they’ve posted some tips for optimizing your AdSense ads on your communities. Nothing too new to any of us who have been doing it for very long, but still, it’s nice to see them write something focused to forums. Lately, I have been pondering the side bar ad. Anyone tried it? How did it do? DId it look alright? I tried placing ads below the first posts and performance hasn’t been good – simply not worth having ads there. I’m trying Chitika there now on my two largest sites. Nothing too great to report just yet.

When I get some time, I plan to move some things around. Maybe place Chitika ads below AdSense ads on pages where it looks good (mainly where I have 468×60 banners as skyscrapers would just take up too much space in that). Also, I’m planning to move link units around as I got some code over at phpBBHacks.com (see the Chitika ads there?) that allows me to make it so that ads will only be displayed on certain pages and I can put them in overall header. Previously, I couldn’t do that because it would display them on all pages, including pages that Google doesn’t want them on (sign up pages, etc.). So, I’m hoping that’ll result in improved performance.

Via Darren Rowse.