Written on October 24th, surf zone.at 02:10 pm by David Shawver Stanton
Google to launch Custom Search Engine
Loren posts that Google will tomorrow launch a Custom Search Engine which will allow publishers to create their own specialized Google Search Indexes made up of specific sites.
This will include a revenue sharing model that is similar to what AdSense offers through it’s search box.
Loren quotes a Financial Times article that writes:
“Users of Google Custom Search Engine will be able to select the websites they want to be included in their searches, and add to this list in future by “tagging” websites they visit. Any searches will then return results just from that slice of the Google search index.
Google also said it had created an easy way for users to “paste” a search box for the personalised engine on to their own webpages, so that visitors can carry out searches using their preferred parameters.”
This will be an interesting one to watch in the next couple of days. I can see some applications for blog networks particularly.
update - Google Custom Search Engines have gone live.
In terms of how you make money from this - Google writes in their CSE FAQ:
‘To make money from your Custom Search Engine you can join Google’s AdSense for Search program, which places contextually relevant ads on your Custom Search Engine’s search results pages - and pays you a share of all the revenue that’s generated from those ads. For more information about how the AdSense for Search program and Custom Search Engine work together, visit the Make Money page in your search engine’s Control Panel.’
Written on October 24th, surf zone.at 09:10 am by David Shawver Stanton
Google News Slowly Integrates Blog Search
Steve Rubel has written a couple of posts in the last two days reporting on how Google is integrating their blog search more and more into their Google News service.
This gives bloggers even more incentive to use Google’s Blog Pinging Service (the main way that Google suggests you get into their Blog Search Index).
Written on October 24th, surf zone.at 09:10 am by David Shawver Stanton
Come have a Beer with Me in Toronto?
Thanks to those readers in Canada who expressed interest in meeting up when I’m over there in November.
There are a few who’ve said they’d like to catch up so we thought we’d do a ‘meet up’ as Duncan will be over there too. Rather than create our own even we decided to piggyback one that was happening already (and being partly organized by b5’s Mark Evans).
So those of you living in (or near) Toronto might be interested in coming along to a Web 2.0 meet up (it’s being put on by the mesh conference guys - by the way mesh is running again next May) that is happening on 15 November that Duncan and myself and some of the other local b5 crew will be attending. It’s at the Irish Embassy pub from 6pm. Full details are at the mesh blog and at Mark’s Blog (update - also at the blogs of Matthew, Stuart, Mike and Rob - this is going to be fun as these are some quality bloggers).
It’d be great to meet you there - if you make it come say G’day (and give me a hug because I think I’m going to be cold).
Written on October 24th, surf zone.at 02:10 am by David Shawver Stanton
19 Blog Jobs Currently Vacant at Job Boards
Bloggers - have you checked out enternetusers’s Job Boards lately? As it currently stands there are 19 unfilled blogger jobs there ranging from Boxing and Wrestling bloggers to Celebrity Bloggers, to Insurance Bloggers and New Media Communications Specialists. Keep an eye on the jobs as they are listed via the RSS feed.
Blog Owners - are you looking for a blogger to write on a blog? While there are quite a few unfilled jobs on the board there have been considerably more filled (some removed and some still there) over the past couple of months (some within hours of them being listed). Advertising a job still only costs $50 (we’ve extended the opening special) and at last count there were 500-600 bloggers tracking the RSS feed each day (and a couple of sites picking up the postings and republishing them on their own sites). Post a Job here today.
A few people have asked me whether I see the enternetusers job board as a success recently. While it’s not had as many jobs listed as some other job boards launched around the same time and it hasn’t made us rich - I’m really pleased with the fact that every few days I get an email from an advertiser asking me to mark a job ‘filled’ or a blogger letting me know that they’ve found a job through the boards.
We also started the boards not expecting a massive take up in the initial months but more as a longer term strategy as it is a growing market and one that there will be an increasing need for services in over the coming years.
In the mean time - people are finding bloggers and jobs and that leaves me feeling really satisfied.
Written on October 23rd, surf zone.at 11:10 pm by David Shawver Stanton
Chewing Pencils: Helping you make money from drawing cartoons!
enternetusers reader (and a mate of mine) Matt Glover is having a Group Drawing Project over at his blog Chewing Pencils. In it he’s inviting bloggers to draw Christmas Cartoons.
It’s a pretty similar format to my group writing projects - but Matt’s will actually have a winner - chosen by a special mystery judge…. me!
Please submit bribes via my contact form! :-)
Written on October 23rd, surf zone.at 12:10 am by David Shawver Stanton
Blogger Releases Second ‘Secret’ Book
I was just surfing over at Amazon tonight (I’m trying to spend a gift voucher - anyone got any recommendations for cool books/CDs on there?) and I came across a book being released this week - Frank Warren’s “My Secret: A PostSecret Book” (aff).
Its a book bouncing off the back of the massively popular Post Secret Blog - a blog that invited strangers to mail the bloggers anonymous postcards that made art from their inner most secrets.
This new book is actually the second one released by Frank - the previous one was The Secret Lives of Men and Women (aff) which was a best seller also.
I guess it’s an example of a blogger making an income from their blogging using an indirect method.
Correction: Looks like this is the third book rather than the second. Thanks to the numerous people who let me know.
Written on October 22nd, surf zone.at 09:10 pm by David Shawver Stanton
Changes in WordPress 2.0.5
Mark has an outline on the changes in soon to be released WordPress 2.0.5 (via David at Blogging Pro).
Written on October 22nd, surf zone.at 12:10 am by David Shawver Stanton
What is Your ‘Day Job’?
Over at b5media’s internal blogging forums there’s an interesting thread going on where the question was asked (by Jason) - ‘what do you do for a living?’
So far the answers show a real diversity of occupations - from business consultants to stay at home moms, to pro bloggers, to artists….
I thought it’d be an interesting question to pose here also.
What do you do for a living? What’s your ‘Day Job’?
And if you’re a ‘blogger’ for a living - what did you do before that?
Here’s my answer over on the forums:
- Currently a Blogger….
- Previously a Minister….
- Previously a Kitchen Hand….
- Previously a Minister…..
- Previously a Rock Band Manager….
- Previously a Youth Worker….
- Previously a Stationary Salesman…..
Of course through most of that I’ve been a student (part time studying Marketing in the earlier years and part time studying Theology in the later ones).
Written on October 21st, surf zone.at 04:10 pm by David Shawver Stanton
Christmas in October at the Rowse House
Today my laptop (a 15″ G4 Apple Powerbook) died. It’s survived being dropped (not by me) , it’s had coffee spilt on it (not by me), it’s been around Australia and overseas on numerous trips, it’s been used for tens of thousands of blog posts (it must be close to 15 - 20k) and it’s done it all well. While it has slowed a little in the past few months (and I’ve used it less and less and my desktop more and more) today it gasped its last breath - kind of sad really.
So with a couple of trips approaching and numerous presentations to give in the upcoming weeks I ran out today for a little retail therapy (no period of mourning for the Powerbook I’m afraid) and have returned home with a 15″ 2.16Ghz Mac Book Pro (Matt screen with 2 Gig of RAM and just the 100 gig HD).
I’m still in the process of transferring files but so far it’s a nice piece of gear and is performing very nicely (although apart from being faster than the old powerbook it feels very very similar so far).
All this to say - I’ve got a new toy blogging tool and I haven’t posted much today as a result.
BTW - did I mention I won an iPod? It arrived today also (80 gig video version - white). Looks like Christmas came early at our place!
Written on October 21st, surf zone.at 12:10 am by David Shawver Stanton
RSS Advertising Options
It has been around 18 months since I first saw an advertising network begin to offer RSS advertising (it was AdSense launching their beta testing program to a limited number of advertisers - which incidentally still in beta).
When this program was announced it caused quite a large buzz around web publishers and many people talked RSS advertising up as the next big thing. However since that time the buzz has largely subsided and many publishers have expressed disappointment in the conversion of AdSense for RSS and well as what other networks have on offer.
The problems were many with RSS advertising but the main one that I’ve heard publishers complaining about is simply ‘lack of earnings’.
Over the past 18 months a number of other networks have announced - many of which I’ve experimented with. Here are a few of them with a few comments on each:
- Feedburner Ad Network - if you have Feedburner run your feeds for you and you get a reasonable level of traffic you can apply to be a part of Feedburner’s Ad Network (FAN). It’s a service I’ve used on a number of my blogs for 6+ months now and I’ve done quite well out of it. You can read my review of it here but along with Feedvertising it’s my RSS ad network of choice. I like that you can accept or reject ads before they appear and that it’s a channels based system which helps make ads more relevant to your topic.
- Feedvertising (aff) - the most recent arrival on the RSS advertising front - this system is from Text Link Ads and is what you see operating in the enternetusers feeds at present. I’ve introduced it here in more detail but it is currently only available for WordPress users and is a plugin based system that allows you to rotate your own ads into circulation or for you to sell advertising to advertisers through the TLA system (or both). I’ve found it to be quite easy to use and from what I know it is one of the few systems that will accept any RSS - big or small. It doesn’t have a lot of advertisers buying up ads (I’ve had a couple so far) so might not keep your ads as fresh as AdSense or YPN but it’s been quite good for me in terms of earnings so far.
- AdSense - currently still being beta tested and only available for some publishers. This is contextual RSS advertising and operates similarly to other AdSense offerings in that they give you code to plug into your RSS feed. It’s pretty simple - you simply plug it in and forget about it. I used it for a while but found that the returns were so low that I swapped over to Feedburner and TLA’s Feedvertising. They don’t let you design the ads like other AdSense ads.
- YPN - if you’re lucky enough to be a YPN beta tester you’ll have access to running their RSS ads in your feeds. I’ve not tested the service but am told it’s very similar to what AdSense offers. They have code ready to implement in WordPress or Movable Type which you insert into your feed with your publisher ID. The ad is served as an image (not as actual text) which is the way AdSense and pheedo work also. The whole image links back to the advertiser
- Pheedo - offers 2 RSS advertising solutions - Pheedo Ads for Feeds (easy to implement - just cut and paste some code and you’re up and running) and Feedo Ads for Feeds+ (a full level service with analytics and customization of ads and campaigns). Pheedo keeps 35% of revenue generated - publishers get 65%.
- Feedster - I can’t see much on their site at the moment about RSS advertising but they did announce a partnership with Adbrite a while back (although the links to the partnership site now forward on back to Feedster. Not sure if their ad network is _active or they are just hiding it!
My experience is limited to the first three options. My results with AdSense were poor (although to give them credit I haven’t used them for a year now. Feedvertising and Feedburner’s options worked better for me - however particularly on my blogs with higher numbers of RSS subscribers (as with all forms of traffic is essential to make money from advertising).
Feel free to suggest other ad networks providing RSS advertising and share you experiences with them (or the above 6 networks).
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