Written on November 4th, 2005 at 09:11 am by Darren Rowse
Chitika Forums
Digital Point has opened up a Chitika Forum for discussion around eMiniMalls. It looks like it will be a pretty Active forum and one I’ll be participating in. My id over there is Oziii if you were wondering.
By the way - just saw Jeremy posted about his eMiniMall earnings - $700 for the month of October is pretty good seeing as his blog isn’t a product related blog. Congratulations mate.
Written on November 4th, 2005 at 08:11 am by Darren Rowse
Entrepreneurial Interview
Solo Tees just published a 5 question interview with them - questioning me around the topic of Entrepreneurship and my blogging business. I hope you enjoy it.
Written on November 3rd, 2005 at 08:11 pm by Darren Rowse
Is the bubble back in online media?
It’s the wrong end of the day for me to be digesting much of this article but Is the bubble back in online media? looks like an interesting read over at Online Journalism Review. It’s got comments from a variety of ‘experts’ on some of the recent sales of new media enterprises and how they might relate to independent blogs. Here’s a quick grab before I hit the sack - will digest more of it tomorrow but am interested in your thoughts:
‘Perhaps the safest deals in online media are for the sites that offer tools and technology, rather than pure journalism and content. That’s the interest from VeriSign in buying Weblogs.com, an old ping service started by Dave Winer that lists recently updated blog posts, along with Moreover, one of the original online news aggregators that has moved into monitoring blogs. While a blog itself might be difficult to value, it’s less difficult to understand the value for a trusted blog infrastructure.’
Thanks to John for the tip off.
Written on November 3rd, 2005 at 08:11 pm by Darren Rowse
Essential Advertising Systems - Poll of the Week
I’ve just started this week’s ‘poll of the week’ in the side bar. It asks:
“If you could only use one Ad System which would it be?”
I’ve given you 9 of the more popular options that I see many bloggers experimenting with. I know there are others that I’ve not included - but I had to draw the line somewhere.
Note - I’m not including affiliate programs in the list - rather these are just advertising options. So which one is most essential to you???
If you want to tell us why you’ve chosen what you’ve chosen feel free to do so in comments below.
Written on November 3rd, 2005 at 10:11 am by Darren Rowse
enternetusers Comments Policy
I’d like to take a few minutes just to talk about leaving comments on enternetusers as the past week or so I’ve had a number of interactions with readers that have left me wondering if we’re all on the same page.
I’m beginning to see that there is a real spectrum of ways in which blog readers view and use the comments sections of blogs.
These range from ignoring them completely through to abusing them completely by automatically posting thousands of self serving and irrelevant comments with links to often pretty crude sites.
Along the spectrum between ignoring comments and spam are many many different approaches to comments by readers. Each blogger has their own standards of what is and isn’t acceptable on their blog - some allow virtually any comment - others have language standards, others don’t allow signature links etc.
I’m totally fine with the variety of approaches to comments - however I want to communicate to readers of this blog where I stand:
1. I love comments on this blog - they are as important as anything I write myself. They add to the knowledge and community that we have here. If you want to comment then you’re more than welcome - whether you feel you are a beginner or an expert - feel free to have you say.
2. I delete spam - I have spam filters in place which automatically catch the majority of automated spam comments. I don’t put up with it and if any slip through the filters I delete it immediately.
3. Relevant links in comments are Actively encouraged - if you’re leaving a comment on my blogs and want to point to a link on your own or someone else’s site that is relevant to the topic then please feel free to do so. This adds to the conversation and improves the blog.
4. Irrelevant links are not encouraged - if you leave a comment with a link in it that has no relevance to the post you’re commenting on it could be be deleted. This is a trend that I see happening increasingly on this blog. If you really want to annoy me then the way to do it is to do this on multiple posts. If you engage in this practice I would encourage you to think about the impact that such an approach has upon your reputation. Build your blog’s profile through genuine interactions and participation in the community here by all means - but spammy linking in comments could do more damage to your reputation than it is worth.
5. I allow signatures in comments - we had a debate over this a few months ago. My gut reaction to signatures in comments is that I don’t really see the need for them and see them as verging on the spammy end of comments. However after seeing the debate that came out of expressing this opinion I decided not to delete comments with signatures as long as the comments were relevant and added something to the conversation. ie if you write a comment that says ‘nice’ or ‘good post’ or ‘great blog’ or ‘try viagra’ and then leave a signature on your comment then it could well be deleted.
I don’t want to be a grump and come down on readers of this blog - but I also don’t want to be taken for a ride and have my blog (which I put hours of work into each day) used in ways that don’t add value to it or the community around it. There is a fine line in moderating comments - and I want to be transparent as to my stance. I wish I didn’t have to have a comments policy - but unfortunately it’s come to this.
My advice to those commenting on blogs (not just mine) is that in a sense you’re visiting someone else’s home when you leave a comment. Comments have the ability to build up our tear down your reputation. They are a permanent record of who you are and what you stand for - so take care - be gracious - make sure they add value (not only to the blog you’re visiting but also to your own online profile).
Written on November 3rd, 2005 at 09:11 am by Darren Rowse
Blogs n Dogs
Blogs n Dogs not only wins the award for one of the quirkiest conference titles but also looks like it could be one well worth attending - with some interesting topics being covered:
* Managing your public life online
* Blogging and the arts: Web 2.0 independent music publishing, photographers and artists
* Personal blogs and portals
* Blog writing style
* How to make money with your blog
* Building your community and traffic, connecting with your tribe in the blogosphere
* Traditional PR, marketing and the “blogosphere”
* Social networking tools, blogging tools, aggregation and technology: RSS, XML, podcasting and video blogging
Wish I had the time to be a full time conference goer - this one looks worthwhile. It’s happening December 4 - 8 in Alberta Canada.
Written on November 2nd, 2005 at 09:11 pm by Darren Rowse
Which Traffic Source Converts Best with Adsense?
Jeremy Zawodny has and interesting post where he analyses where his traffic is coming from (ie search engines, bloglines, rss etc). He then goes on to analyze which reader sources convert best for him in terms of his Adsense earnings. It turns out that while Google readers earn him most (after all that’s where most of his traffic comes from) but that MSN and AOL referred readers have higher CTR.
He’s obviously got some interesting script to track his Adsense clicks. It’d be interesting to see this type of information from a wider variety of blogs.
His figures resonate with my own experience - anecdotal information points to Search engine traffic converting better than RSS traffic for most of my blogs also
Written on November 2nd, 2005 at 11:11 am by Darren Rowse
Blogging as a Business - Business Structures are Key
I’m feeling quite grown up today - I’ve recently hired an accountant and today we’re getting together to talk company structures, bookkeeping, tax and the like.
One of the stressful parts of starting a blogging business has been getting the administrative side of things up and running. I’m not at all wired in this way (I’m more of a dreamer, networker, marketer, creator) and so things have been quite messy. This has largely been because to a large extent I never planned for blogging to become a way of earning an income at all.
When I first started putting ads on my blogs just over 2 years ago it was with the goal of paying my ISP and perhaps even some hosting costs. A cheque (check for you North Americans) would come every few months (if that) and there was very little to account for.
I’ve been very fortunate and instead of a bimonthly $100 cheque the way things are going 2007 could well be a 7 figure year now that Chitika’s tripled (and some) daily income.
To say things have become more complicated is an understatement.
As I look over all of the receipts, cheque stubs, invoices etc that I’ve collected for the accountant today I’ve realized that I now have ten or so regular income streams (in a variety of overseas currencies) - some of which arrive in the form of cheques, others via PayPal and others via direct deposits. Some arrive monthly, others quarterly, some require me to send invoices and others come automatically. Things will continue to grow more complicated in the months ahead with some of the deals I’m working on which could involve stock options, royalties and a variety of other income streams.
While there are not many overheads to a business like this - there are an increasing number of expenses which are tax deductible and provide their own bookkeeping challenges.
Speaking of tax - readers often ask me about it - more specifically they ask whether I pay it or have some way to dodge the system. I’m quite up front about the fact that I do declare my income and pay the taxes I am legally required to pay. In fact until now I’ve probably been a bit stupid and have paid more than I should have due to my poor accounting skills and a lack of understanding of Aussie GST law. I will continue to declare my income - although will be a bit smarter about it with the system my accountant is setting up.
To keep a long and complicated story short - what we’re doing is transitioning from a hobby business with me as a sole trader we’re moving to a company structure.
I guess all that I’m reflecting upon is that things have changed for my business and up until this month the financial and record keeping side of my business has not changed with it. I’m a big believer in the idea that a business is only as strong as it’s weakest link - and I suspect that many enternetuserss out there will be like me in this and need to get their administrative side of business up to scratch also.
Written on November 2nd, 2005 at 01:11 am by Darren Rowse
Value Added Blogging
Steve Rubel writes about the ’secret sauce‘ for getting corporate blogs noticed in the midst of the millions of other blogs and corporate sites out there. His advice is:
‘The short answer is, your blog won’t get noticed unless you nurture it. This means - in an ideal situation - weekly or even daily someone is pumping the weblog with fresh compelling content. But any old content won’t do. Corporations interested in blogging need to add value to people’s lives. That’s the biggest key to a successful corporate blog that keeps people coming back.’
I think his advice could be applied to all types of blogs.
Add value to people’s lives and your blog has a significantly better chance of succeeding. Add no value and why would anyone bother reading it?
So here’s the question to be asking - ‘what value does your blog add to your reader’s life?’
It’s a worthwhile question that is worth pondering for each blog you we run.
Written on November 1st, 2005 at 08:11 pm by Darren Rowse
Adsense Halloween Theme Ads
Being away all weekend I missed the Halloween themed Adsense ad units that were apparently going around.
Luckily Jen was on the case and spotted a number of different types of them including this one.
It looks like Adsense are experimenting with some ways of drawing readers eyes to their text ads. It will be interesting to see if they do it again in the lead up to Christmas - I guess that depends upon how well these ads perform.
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