Written on January 12th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 02:01 pm by Darren Rowse
Chitika Developing Text Ads Again?
Digital Inspiration has the scoop on Chitika moving back into normal contextual text ads. These are ads that they originally launched Chitika with before developing eMiniMalls but which they put on hold (and many thought scrapped) when eMiniMalls took off. Looks like they are back (or at least it looks like they are beta testing them with some publishers).
Keep in mind before signing up for them (and I don’t think there is a way to publicly do it yet) that they are contextual ads and they look very similar to AdSense and YPN ads. As a result you’ll not be able to use them on the same page as AdSense or YPN ads (unlike eMiniMalls which are non contextual and have a unique look). But if for one reason or another YPN or AdSense don’t put your buttons you might want to give them a go when they go live again. You might also want to try them as alternate ads to the other programs or even rotate them into the mix of ads showing on your blog (as some publishers are doing with YPN and AdSense - ie showing different ad programs every second or third impression).
Written on January 12th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 10:01 am by Darren Rowse
Domain Competition - 105 minutes to go
My competition for submitting a domain name for my next blog ends in 105 minutes. To be in the running for the $100 (USD) PayPal transfer or Amazon voucher get your entries in according to the details at Help me choose a domain name.
104 minutes now….
Update: Times up friends. You can Stop sending entries.
Thank you for your participation. I’m quite overwhelmed by the numbers of those submitting ideas. While I’m not going to list all the domains submitted (some of those who submitted them said that they’d register them if I don’t) I will say that there were 81 email submissions (a few people sent more than one). Those 81 emails included over 260 URLs for me to consider.
As a result it’s going to take me a little while to sort through them all and make a decision. It’s especially tough as such a large number of them are really great suggestions. At a glance I could go with at least 20 or 30 of them.
Some people sent up to 15 or so suggestions and obviously put a significant amount of time into searching so I want to give this some due consideration and am going to take the list away with me this weekend (we’re doing a mini road trip to yet another wedding I’m conducting) to ponder. I’ll try to make an announcement sometime next week.
Written on January 12th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 08:01 am by Darren Rowse
Top 100 Blog for Sale
Jeremy Wright has just announced that he’s brokering the sale of a fairly significant blog in his MASSIVE Blog for Sale post. He doesn’t say what blog it is but gives a few hints that it’s a fairly sizable one:
‘This is one of the defining blogs in the industry. When I go to conferences and mention the blog, and the author, I get an “oh yeah!” kind of response. Everyone knows this blog. It’s no Engadget, but it is in the top 100 blogs in the world (in every measure but Technorati, which is inherently flawed since it counts all time links).’
Jeremy’s talking sale prices in excess of the $40,000 mark and will be starting an auction later in the week. Fascinating!
Written on January 12th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 05:01 am by Darren Rowse
Building Blog Traffic Podcast
If you’ve got a spare 38 minutes and 9.1 megabytes of space on your computer or iPod you might like to listen to me talking with Yaro on the topic of Building Blog Traffic. We recorded it a few weeks back - it’s pretty informal but might be helpful to some!
Written on January 12th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:01 am by Darren Rowse
9 Ways to Screw Up Your Professional Blog
Today I spent a few hours surfing through this blog’s archives as part of my annual review. One of the many things I noticed is that there are many articles on how to improve your blog and hardly any on how to totally screw it up.
I thought it was time to rectify this and so tonight am proud to present my top 9 ways to screw up your Professional Blogging Career:
1. Ignore Ad Network Rules
Every ad network and most affiliate programs have sort of list of rules, regulations or terms of service that are very helpful for screwing up any hope of making money with them. If I was hell bent on ending my career as a blogger I’d start by flouting these sorts of rules. It’s very difficult to earn a living from blogging if the people who hand out the money boot you out of their networks. Rules like clicking on your own ads, asking others to click on your ads, telling everyone in minute detail all the details of your earnings stats, breaking swearing rules, writing about gambling, explicit content, changing ad codes - all these things and more can quickly ensue your evacuation from ad programs like AdSense, Chitika and YPN. Do this and you’re well on the way to screwing up your ProBlogging Aspirations. PS: an especially good way to kill a few birds with one stone is to run YPN, AdSense and Chitika Contextual Ads all on the one page at once.
2. Make Big Claims that Won’t Follow Through on
Once you’ve pissed off the advertisers it’s time to start messing with the minds with your readers. One great way to get them offside and leaving your blogs in droves is to constantly make massive claims and promises that you never follow up on. Constant announcements about your grand visions and plans that never eventuate, biting off much more than you can chew and generally big noting yourself and your achievements as a blogger when you’ve got nothing more to brag about than the fact that you know how to make words bold or in italics - yep all these things are sure to make your readers not only leave - but do so angrily.
3. Start and Give up On Blog Projects As Quickly As Possible
Lurking around Pro Blogging circles there is a special bread of blogger that we all come across from time to time who is very difficult to track down simply because they don’t stay in any one blog long enough. I’m not sure whether it’s a lack of patience, itchy feet or a fear of sitting still - but this species of blogger cannot help themselves and is capable of starting large numbers of blogs in a short period of time - none of which last more than 6 weeks (and they are the good ones). I’ve watched a number of these bloggers over the past three years and am constantly simultaneously amused and depressed by their blogging strategies (often accompanied with plenty of big claims of what each blog will do and achieve (see point 2). They leave a long trail of blogs projects behind them that are here one day and either gone or lying dormant the next.
4. Game Google
This is brilliant strategy if you think about it. Shut down one of the best sources of potential traffic to your blog by trying to cheat. They’ve made it easy for you to do by creating a page especially for web-masters. All you need to do is do the complete opposite of everything they say you should do and within weeks you should be pretty much banned from Google and you can begin the process again with Yahoo!, MSN and any other search engine that sends you traffic. Another great source of inspiration for how to put Google offside is the blog of one of their engineers Matt Cutts who has a whole category on his blog dedicated to the topic of getting caught cheating by Google. Duplicate content, invisible text, link farms, keyword stuffing - the possibilities are endless!
5. Become Obsessed with One element of Blogging and Ignore the Rest
This is a much more sophisticated way of screwing up your blogging career but quite effective if you ignore point 3 and persist with it. There are plenty of targets of obsession to choose from really. For example develop a blog design tweaking disorder. This is a favorite of many downward spiraling bloggers because there is a never ending array of things you can do to improve the look of your blog. Many who go this route do so by cluttering there blog a myriad of buttons - others become obsessed with swapping between templates or playing with their CSS for hour after hour (usually skipping meals and always forgetting to write content - unless it’s about the latest changes to their design). Another popular obsessive blog disorder is that of perfecting the implementation of different Ad networks like AdSense. These bloggers ignore the fact that they are yet to add content and have no readers in the quest of finding the perfect placement and design for their Ads. Obsession can be taken in any direction with blogs, SEO, building profile, blog tools etc - all can become brilliant distractions from a balanced and holistic approach to blogging.
6. Hide Agendas and Conflicts of Interests from your Readership
We’re back to playing with the minds and patience of readership here by being as two faced and manipulative as possible. Don’t disclose relationships that you have with Advertisers, be totally inconsistent with your arguments, Claim to have read the books you recommend (with affiliate links that you don’t mention wherever possible) etc. If you really want to speed this process up try blogging anonymously, perhaps with as a fictional character while pretending that it’s all legitimate. Play your cards close to your chest and keep your readers on edge and guessing what your motivations are at all times.
7. Quit Your Job and Go Pro Now!
Throw all caution to the wind and just do it. I heard a preacher talk about this once, his catch cry was ‘name it and claim it’. Brilliant advice if you want to crash and burn in blogging. Don’t worry that you won’t have an income for a year or two while you get established. Don’t stress about eating up any savings you might have and risking your family’s well-being - safety nets are for weaklings. Announce to the world that despite the fact that you only have one MySpace blog with 17 posts about your pet cat that you’re going Pro!
8. Plagiarize, Steal and Give as Little Credit to Others as Possible
Once again this is something of a twin pronged attack on killing off your blogging prospects as you will not only piss off other bloggers, but you also could end up being banned by search engines if classified as a Splog and might even end up defending yourself in court in an expensive civil case. What better ways to bring your blogs down! Simply copy complete posts from other people’s blogs, newspapers, magazines etc and paste it into your own blog. Remember to be most effective with this strategy never to give credit with a link or even a name to the original source of the content. If you really want to excel at this you should invest in at least one automated tool to create your Splogs. In fact don’t limit it to one tool - get a few, it’ll screw your finances up even faster! While you’re at it by some comment spamming scripts as well to speed up your downfall.
9. Blend In With the Crowd
Keep in mind that stats show that there is one blog being created every second and as a result there are tens (if not hundreds) of millions of blogs out there. One strategy to ensure your blog remains unsuccessful is to work hard to blend in and be inconspicuous. One great way to do this is to pick a blog template that everyone else uses but you can enhance this by surfing around and choosing the most popular topics to write on and trying not to say anything original.
Of course each of the above tips taken by themselves might not quite get you over the line in killing your blogging prospects (in fact I can think of a few very successful bloggers who break a few of them) but putting them together exponentially increases your chances of doom! I highly recommend that if you are wanting to completely ensure you screw up your blogging that you throw into the mix at least three of the following bonus tips.
Bonus Tips to Take Things Up a Notch
• Always Write When either Angry or Drunk
• Totally ignore any spelling or grammatical skills you might have picked up over the years
• Write about Your Personal Life whenever possible - including intimate details of relationships and family members
• Always use free and untested blogging tools
• Write about anything and everything - the less focus or consistency in your topics the better
• Post 400 times one day and then not for a few months
• Never Backup your Blog
• Work 18 hour days in your Blogging
• Ignore your Readers - never respond to their emails or comments
• Make your blog password your name or something else easy to guess
Written on January 11th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 02:01 pm by Darren Rowse
How to Get Traffic to Your Blog - Interview with Yvonne Divita
There’s a useful recording over at Andy’s blog if you’re wanting to build traffic on your blog. It’s an interview with Yvonne Divita from Lipsticking blog on the topic of How to Get Traffic to Your Blog. It’s pretty basic information but it’s good and it’s free. I’m listening to it now and found Yvonne’s thoughts on editorial calendars useful. I probably wouldn’t use it here at enternetusers as strictly as she does - but it would be a useful way to start out and keep variety on a blog.
Written on January 11th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 09:01 am by Darren Rowse
enternetusers Motivational Posters
I’ve just been having a bit of fun with the Flickr Motivator Toy.
Maybe I should get into the motivational poster business :-) (there’s a second one below the fold).
Written on January 11th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 09:01 am by Darren Rowse
AdSense Advanced Referrals Reports - Coming Soon
One of the common complaints I’ve seen from AdSense publishers is a lack of detail in their referrals stats. Inside AdSense gives a hint that this will change with their post - A referrals refresher:
‘We’ll soon be making ‘Advanced Reports’ available for referrals. This will allow you to see referral stats over any specific time frame you desire.’
Written on January 11th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 08:01 am by Darren Rowse
Apple Lust
Apple Mac lovers everywhere are like kids in candy stores today - nervously checking their credit card limits to see what new toys they can afford.
There are a few new things that interest me:
Updated Keynote - ok this won’t be number 1 on most people’s list - but I love Keynote. I do a lot of public speaking and it’s a tool (like Powerpoint for those of you who are not Apple people) that I find is one of the best ads for Macs as people always come up to me after a presentation to ask about it. I also use it to create graphs and diagrams here at enternetusers (again every time I do people ask about it as it produces beautiful graphics). Anyway it’s been updated. I’ll definitely be getting a new copy.
iWeb - As mentioned a few days ago here in my linkdump - Apple have included a new application in their latest iLife collection (which I’ll have to get now they’ve updated iPhoto and iMovie) called iWeb. I’m yet to fully investigate but they are promoting it like this:
The Internet is calling. Answer. Use iWeb to create websites, blogs, and podcasts — complete with photos, movies, and music — and get them online, fast. Just drag, drop, and design using your choice of web templates, then publish live to your.Mac account.
Sounds interesting - While I suspect it will be basic, Apple are definitely moving into a new media kind of space.
MacBook Pro - Ok I can’t justify this having got a new PowerMac - but a boy can dream. It’s 4x faster than the old Powerbook and is Apple’s first dual core intel inside laptop. It’s also slimmer, has a brighter screen and runs quick. Nice!
Of course there are new Intel iMacs but I’m not really an iMac guy and a new iPod Radio Remote - but it’s the above new products that got my attention this morning.
PS: apparently Tiger is updated today too which will be good (although I’m not seeing it as an option to update on my software updater yet).
Written on January 11th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 04:01 am by Darren Rowse
b5media Reflections - 4 Months In
If you’ve got some bookkeeping skills you might like to head over to b5media where we’ve just advertised that we need someone like you.
In other b5media news - with the last few blogs that we just launched (3 more from the merger) we now have 63 blogs (and over 40 bloggers) in the stable. We’ve stopped taking applications for new blogs but have a few more still to launch from the last round and from internal bloggers starting new ones.
It’s hard to believe that we only launched the network under 4 months ago. The growth has been quite staggering. 63 blogs and 9 channels (we just launched video games and a science/health channels which have been popular) so far. It seems we’ve expanded very quickly but one of the things that I realized today is that for every blog that we’ve started there is at least another 5 that we’ve passed on. The numbers of applications were above our capacity to act on (and at times there were too many to even process).
Phase Two - We’ve got many things to work on still but I’m looking forward to the next phase where we slow down expansion and turn up the heat on getting our current blogs to the next level. As with any new business it’s easy to loose track of the little things in the rush to get established and we’re more than aware of a number of areas we can improve in.
Social Blogging - One of the things I’ve been amazed about with the new network is the large numbers of bloggers who have a desire to belong to something bigger than their own blog.
In speaking to many of our bloggers and asking why they wanted to join b5, the topic of making money was almost always lower on the list than I’d expected. While b5media is a commercial venture it is also emerging to be a social and relational one.
I’m not saying that we’ve arrived on the relational level - but for many of our bloggers the major benefits have been the relationships that they’ve formed with other bloggers and the networks that have opened up.
update: no sooner had this post gone live that we launched two more blogs. I guess we’re up to 65 now…. although I could have miscounted :-)
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enternetusers Sponsors
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Blogs from b5media management and staff members.-
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Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video
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