I recently was told that I am the #1 IntenseDebate commenter on planet earth.

Cool. And yes, I had actually asked if I was, as you can see from the screeny.

I’m the first person to break the 100 point barrier.

w00t.

But what’s the big deal? Nothing really. But it does gives me a good excuse to expound a little more on my commenting strategy and how I use my comments as a branding mechanism for success.

So here’s how it all goes down: Back when I re-branded myself to “human3rror” last year I sat down at my drawing board and mapped out how I was going to “do” this.

I considered a number of things:

• Originality
• Ease of typing
• Is it Memorable?
• Character length
• Is it “Me?”
• Is it “searchable?”
• How highly trafficked is the handle?
• Sustainable?

I did surveys, did a few SEO testing, asked people that mattered what they thought and then moved forward. I wanted my handle to be strong, memorable, and extremely “useful” to me in commenting.

Why I Sign My Comments “John (Human3rror)”

You may have noticed that I sign my comments like this: “John (Human3rror)”. There exists, like much of what I do, a strategy for even this.

You see, using my name, “John,” is not very smart when it comes to brand. Even using my full name isn’t necessarily smart. Why? Because there are sooooooooooooooooooooooooo many “Johns” out there. That doesn’t help bring Google back to my front porch on Human3rror.com.

But when I sign it with my handle (and I add “John” to make it “personal” so they don’t think I’m just some random “handle” only) I provide Google with my brand.

And trust me, Google has been eating it up. I get “alerts” every time I comment somewhere. That means that it’s working.

*smile*

And everywhere I comment I begin to build the online equity that surround “Human3rror.” And it all leads back to my blog.

So there you have it. There’s a bit more “to it” than what I’ve shared, but that’s for another day…!

I’ve been building web applications and leading teams that build web apps for a long time now, mostly for the Fortune 50 and marketplace.

I’ve had much more failures than success (and the fact that I’m writing this right now is proof of that… because if I was a “success,” as typically understood, I’d be a billionaire sitting on some nice beach chair in the middle of the Mediterranean).

Jumping into the “ministry” and “church” world has been “interesting.”

I’ll leave it at that.

But the conversations that I’ve had in the past few months with a host of people has brought me to very similar conclusions about why web applications and initiatives fail.

Here’s my Top 10 Reasons why Web Ministry Applications and Initiatives Fail:

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