Bob Sakayama Makes Things

By Rev Sale

Editor's Note: TNG/Earthling's Bob Sakayama is one of the world's most sought after search professionals and has been building and ranking websites since before Google launched. He is responsible for the high ranks of this particular film related site along with many other websites across a broad range of successful businesses in his portfolio. His partner Rev Sale below provides some background and commentary that helps explain the high regard afforded both Bob and his SEO consultancy TNG/Earthling.

I have known Bob all my life, though sometimes it feels like it may have been longer. So I already know that he makes stuff but more importantly, I know what he makes and often how. Knowing what someone makes is a measure of one's closeness, and there are times we are so close that I cannot tell us apart. I'm telling you this in advance so if Bob starts contradicting my story you might believe him less than me.

One of the first things I thought of when considering what Bob makes is messes. Bob has made some very impressive messes while messing with technology. And I'm sure he will even agree... and probably brag about it. That's because he is often really proud of his messes. Like when he took down an entire server farm with one line of code. Now I admit that is impressive - if it was done intentionally. But if you make a mess by forgetting to properly test your code, it's just a mess, not a discovery. That is the reality of this particular mess (and many like it). And his claim that this mess resulted in an important finding is questionable at best. Still, we're hoping that Bob rejects any offers from the defense department to develop cyber weapons based on the code error he made - that could lead to an even bigger mess.

The second thing that Bob makes, quite frequently, is noise. For decades, TNG/Earthling owned and operated a NYC recording studio documenting a good part of the noise that was being made. Bob said the noise was music so we did not disagree. And he did make a really large amount - he recorded hours and hours of what he called music. Here's a cool recording of Bob's composition "Amsterdam" he made with his band Hard Water - Larry Sakayama, Walter Borys, Glenn Pomianek - in his studio. He made even more noise with 27 storytelling and music programs in multiple series, "The Growler Tapes", "Growler Radio" and "Baby Growlers" which are all available free on Growler.com and by subscription on the app Tales To Go. He was there to make the noise they call "soundtrack" for many films and tv shows. While unrelated to the next category (Bob making news), he was commissioned to make the music signatures used by daily news programs like Action News and The News At 10, as well as musical themes and logos used in programming and advertising for all the major networks. He really did make a lot of noise and there's a good chance you may have even heard some of it. As part of a daily ritual, he continues to make noise by playing piano and pinball every night - two things that cannot be done quietly.

Bob Sakayama makes business news. This happened often when TNG/Earthling became a market leader in Google penalty remediation because there were so many horror stories of businesses being devastated by loss of Google ranks. He's quoted in Forbes as a result of all the noise he made warning the public about the harm being done via Google penalties. Bob has actually made a very lot of noise about Google and his posts attracted way more attention than they wanted. Bob made it be known that there were services selling negative seo - they take down your competitors by using links against them, basically trying to trigger a Google penalty by creating the appearance of using prohibited techniques to push rank. And he exposed a whole lot of pretty dark secrets that Google cannot be proud of. While I created a separate what-Bob-makes category for making business news, it may be indistinguishable from making noise. Whatever it is, he makes a lot of it.

Another thing Bob makes is code. Whether in the form of software, automated tools, functionality, content management system, etc.  They make code that makes it easier to do complicated things. Like creating the website content you're reading right now. Or managing all aspects of the thousands of sites and hundreds of hosts he controls, and checking to see if any are in need of support. Or if the domains in the portfolio are properly indexed in Google. Or if the link profile of a client's website is at risk of triggering a penalty. One of his often stated goals is to make use of artificial intelligence to create humor - something that is very difficult even for humans. We're hoping that this effort does not lead to the making of a world ending catastrophe. But if it does, you know who to blame.

This one may be obvious. Bob Sakayama makes thing happen online using websites he also makes. He makes lots of them. And he makes the content management systems that make it easy for businesses to run smoothly online. And he makes it possible for websites to rank well in Google, which drives traffic to the site, which makes it possible for businesses to thrive. This is sounding too much like a marketing ploy so I'm going to cut it short and just say that Bob makes things possible by making information findable.

And finally, Bob Sakayama makes confusion, and makes it seem like a normal state, which he regularly enjoys. And it's no accident - he does this on purpose, sometimes with my help both because confusion IS normal and because it often is the road to something much better. And also because confusion can be fun if you're confused enough. He convinced me long ago that chaos precedes clarity and may in fact be the best pathway to it. Like the time that our bots got loose and had to be recaptured before they flooded the world with paper planes. That experience really made us smile, even though some people thought it was unprofessional and possibly even a dangerous kind of confusion. But this is the kind of confusion that is essentially just silly, which is somewhere in between almost silly and possibly too silly. Another example is the World Cup of Insult Haiku, where Bob makes educational material. Fifth grade teachers commented that this post inspired their students to learn how to write technically accurate haiku compliant with World Cup competitive standards. Learning how to deliver funny insults was a powerful motivation for these young students. So you can see that the nature of the confusion can be challenging as well as entertaining, and every once in a while, when the confusion aligns with the stars in just the right way, Bob makes a funny.

Bob Sakayama makes his mom proud.