That was surprisingly inspirational. I've watched a lot of TED talks and that one put itself in my top 20.

Say what you want about Matt Cutts. Matt Cutts was assigned the role to be the face of google whether intentional or unintentionally. Think about what kind of position that is. He is the face in one of the most recognized corporations in the world. In my opinion google could not have picked anyone better. As much as I sometimes question google and get fustrated, you simply can not say Matt Cutts is bad at what he does. He is a warm, likeable guy and he does interact with webmasters a whole lot more than you would think is possible. He is on twitter daily answering questions from webmasters. Sure he does not answer everybody but that is utterly impossible.

Matt Cutts is great at what he does. Say what you will about him, if I owned a company I would be very lucky to have someone like him to be the face of it. It is pretty much a thankless job. He is on twitter, he has a personal blog in which he actually replies to users comments. He used to be on forums helping out webmasters etc. Matt Cutts is not to blame for webmasters websites faltering. So long as the good websites outweigh the bad ones, he is doing his job and from an unbiased standpoint, I would say he is doing his job very well.

Do I care about his 30 day challenges? Heck no. Do I care about what video games he is playing? No I dont but he does often talk about what is going on at google and the webmaster videos are a great idea.

For 30 days he should try to FIX the issue of content theft on Google and stop punishing people that are victims of the thieves

@brinked

With respect, you live in a world of flowers and daisies. Holding hands with strangers and skipping with glee. It's just a wonderful world and Matt Cutts is a wonderful man. It's a beautiful image you paint.

If only the world was so wonderful. You have obviously never had any bumps in the road or been stuck with a penalty that seemingly can't resolve. I always say never judge a book by its cover. Never met the guy. To say he's a great guy? Give me a break. It's far too much responsibility for a few people to take on and control. To me? He's god. Not sure there is a god complex there, but when you can tweak what the world sees, you're essentially god. He may be the frontman and perhaps nothing more. I sure hope to god there is more than a couple people deciding what is or isn't quality content or what is considered useful content.

@brinked

Very nice words about Matt Cutts. I agree with most of what you wrote :-)

You have obviously never had any bumps in the road or been stuck with a penalty that seemingly can't resolve.... I sure hope to god there is more than a couple people deciding what is or isn't quality content or what is considered useful content.

1. A just god would not let google do to you what Ron Jeremy did to thousands. There is no god (that's a fact, not an opinion).

2. It isn't just a few people deciding. They used focus groups to help them determine what regular people considered quality and useful content.

3. Matt Cutts is not the algo, he is just a small piece of it (the anti-spam part of it). The rest of the algo is handled by different groups tackling other parts of it.

4. Your negative experience with the algo colors your opinion as much as the positive experience of others colors their opinions. Can either opinion be trusted?

Hey, that is an outstanding TED talk there. Good to see him talking something besides all google all the time. Nice work Matt. I think Matt does an incredible job at Google with work that is most often thankless and contentious with this crowd. He is the ultimate company man. Whatever he is making - it aint enough.

I remember the first time I met him at pubcon Boston in 2003. [pubcon.com...] At the pub after the conference, he was trying to get to the restroom and about a dozen people followed him out of the bar, down the stairs, and into the restroom. Matt was happily talking Google the whole way. [pubcon.com...]

I just wish Matt had the entrepreneurial bug - he's too good to give Google this many years of his life...

PR spin or not, Matt is an intelligent guy, and he has helped a lot of webmasters over the years, including myself. On top of that, he does his job with charm and even though it's not his official position, he has come to be the face of Google for many.

Matt's looking really healthy these days. I think that says a lot for the value of these 30 day challenges.

Sorry - whats a TED?

This is TED: Ideas worth spreading [ted.com] You can spend a lot of quality time with their content.

Well - thanks Ted!
:)