Mozilla Labs has released a new Firefox plugin, Personas, that allows you to add lightweight, custom themes. The collection of themes available right now isn’t great, but they have easy instructions on how to create your own. I created one with my nifty logo in the top right and a little lighter shading. I must say I’m enjoying the new look.

Update: Mozilla now has a decent sized collection of themes for you to choose from.

Firstborn Multimedia, one of the best interactive agencies in the world, redesigned its site. The new site is slick and fluid and provides easy access to the catalog of great work Firstborn has done since its inception in 1997. While some may not see this site as being that great, I’ve glossed over the code and this was no simple redesign. Firstborn devoted some serious time and talent to create this new site. It’s very organized and built in a smooth, professional manner. Well done.

At an ATDC brown bag recently, Josh Hallet quipped that “Google isn’t a search engine, it’s a reputation management tool.” More and more corporations are using the web, and in particular the search results in Google, to maintain their reputation. A recent WSJ article (subscription required) entitled “You’re a Nobody Unless Your Name Googles Well” made it clear the importance of Google search results for individuals as well.

For example, take Ted Stevens a republican senator from Alaska. During the net neutrality debate, Senator Stevens spoke of the Internet being a “series of tubes” and that one of his staff sent him “an internet” that didn’t arrive until days later. You can watch the video here. Stevens was ridiculed in the blogosphere and technology circles for his statements and lack of knowledge of the Internet.

Now, suppose you are an Alaska citizen who wants to learn about your senator. You do a Google search on “ted stevens.” This is what you get:

The third result is what many would expect to be the first, Stevens’ senate website. But, the first two are Wikipedia entries, one of which is dedicated to the “series of tubes” speech. This must be a thorn in the side of Stevens and his staff and it illustrates the power Google and other digital entities have in forming people’s opinions.

Beyond Google, think of the current, so-called transparent generation that are now graduating from college and searching for their first jobs. Employers now have Facebook, MySpace and other online diaries to search through to learn more about applicants. Did you blog about that one crazy night? Well, the company you just applied to knows all about it … and you’re not getting the job.

While creating this blog, I couldn’t help but wonder what impact this would have on my name presence in search engines. Currently, my site www.blakeperdue.com ranks 1st on Google, 7th on Yahoo and somewhere in the ether on MSN for the keywords “Blake Perdue.” My LinkedIn profile, which I created less than a year ago, outranks my site on both Yahoo and MSN despite my site having been around for 8 or 9 years.

Perhaps it’s because my site has been mostly Flash in the past. Still, I include search engine friendly pages and tags to make sure they can read my site and determine what it contains. I think this blog will help boost my ranking on Yahoo and MSN, and to help it along I’ve peppered this blog with the keywords “Blake Perdue” — hence, the alt text on the nav saying “Blake Perdue blog archive”, etc. This should do the trick, but only time will tell.