Written on June 16th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 03:06 pm by Darren Rowse
Digg CEO responds to Netscape challenge
Richard MacManus has posted a response to the launch of Netscape from Digg’s CEO, Jay Adelson. In it Jay questions the scalability of Netscape and the level that users will actually be involved in it (both as a result of the editing processes that are built into Netscape).
Read the full post at Digg CEO Jay Adelson responds to Netscape challenge
PS: I’ve now been able to sign up as a member of Netscape an in addition to my earlier first impressions I have to say that I’m not that impressed.
Sure it’s nicely designed and there are a few interesting features - but the internal links really bug me as do the ‘visit this site’ links which take you to the source of the news but with an annoying netscape frame on the side and still with a netscape URL. I’m not a fan of this type of strategy to keep users on a site and doubt I’ll be a regular at Netscape as a result.
Written on June 16th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 02:06 am by Darren Rowse
YPN adds RPC (Revenue Per Click) to reports
YPN has made a number of changes in their reports and control panel. One of the main ones that caught my eye was a new column in their reports:
Avg. RPC ($) which stands for ‘Average Revenue Per Click’ which they define as:
“This shows the average amount of revenue you earn each time someone clicks an ad on your site. Average RPC is equal to (Revenue)/(Clicks).”
This is something that AdSense publishers have been asking for for a long time (ever since I’ve been in the AdSense program at least) and I’ll be interested to see if AdSense give in as a result of YPN going this way.
In effect the RPC figure is something that publishers could work out for themselves but it is nice to see it, especially in a monthly report so that it can be compared from day to day.
Written on June 16th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:06 am by Aaron Brazell
The SiteMeter Frenzy: Is it Really Necessary?
This post was contributed by Aaron Brazell, a regular enternetusers contributor.
Last year, in the early days of my “problogging”, I was in New York City with a friend of mine who was attending Ad:Tech. He was attending, I was working on a book. Later in the evening, he was telling me about some of the encounters he had at the conference. One of the encounters struck me as odd.
The advertiser refused to deal with anyone who didn’t publically display their stats based on Sitemeter. He refused to think of any other stat tracking as accurate, even though javascript-based stat programs are simply inaccurate by default.
As time has gone on, I’ve noticed a frenzy among the self-named top echelon of bloggers to display Sitemeter stats in some publically accessible way. It’s almost a mantra in some circles. I’m not sure where this trend that says respectable blogs must use SiteMeter got started, but WebLogsInc made it popular - and where they lead, hordes of others follow.
But is it really necessary? My answer: No, not at all.
Jeremy Wright has this thought about SiteMeter:
There’s two sides to the SiteMeter coin. First, as a blogger, if you have no other stats it’s better than nothing. Personally, I wouldn’t display those stats, though, because I don’t believe SiteMeter has “integrity” in its statistics.
It’s nothing wrong with SiteMeter per se, it’s just the reality of using non-server based stats solutions: they simply will never be accurate. I know for most bloggers a server-based solution isn’t possible since they’re using Blogger’s and TypePad’s and they really just want more detail than those services provide. In which case, rock the SiteMeter (or Performancing Metrics)! Just don’t think it’s the be all and end all of statistics.
Stats are important. They are VERY important. Are they necessary for a blogger? Yes. Are they necessary for an advertiser? Absolutely. Are they necessary for the general public? Probably not.
Should choosing not to display public stats alter the net effect, net reach and net approach of the blog? Absolutely, positively not.
If I’m a reader, I read because of content. I don’t care what the blogger is making in terms of money, if any at all. I don’t care what kind of traffic the blog is getting. If I like what I read, I’ll read some more.
Tangent: At b5media, for instance, we don’t talk stats specifically. It’s our policy. it’s how we operate. We may talk generally, but we offer no specifics? Why? Because to you, the reader, it doesn’t make one bit of difference to your reading experience. Advertising deals are handled behind closed doors with the advertisers, mano y mano. There’s no need to air “the business” in a public forum.
So what is the best means to collect stats?
Personally, at Technosailor, I use 6 different stats packages. Each give me a different view. None of them are 100% accurate, however, server log based packages do tend to provide the most accurate information as they gather data that javascript-based programs simple cannot.
- AWStats - AWStats is my bread and butter. It provides the best overall analysis on my traffic but has the shortfall of only being updated once a day.
- Performancing Metrics - Pmet is one of my favorite tools for analyzing blog-specific qualities such as comments, post views, etc. It is geared for the blogger so it works well for what I do. However, it is javascript based and so it tends to be “low” on the analysis accuracy front.
- SiteMeter - I use this program the least, checking it maybe once a week. The stats are not public and never will be. This is also a javascript-based app and tends to be on the low-side.
- Feedburner - Feedburner stats are the only stats I publically display and I do it more as a motivating tool for me. I see the numbers and if they dip, I need to do better. Feedburner (the Pro package) gives great insight on where my feed is being used, and how well my RSS subscriber base is doing.
- Google Analytics - I don’t use this often, especially since I’ve removed most of my Adsense, but it does offer another perspective on performance.
- W3Counter - Very nice package that I have no idea if it is open for new members. I helped the developer by providing my Feedburner information for him to use in development. This package tracks both websites and feeds. Very slick, but a bit low as it too is javascript based.
Bottom line, no single stat package will give a completely accurate assessment. It’s usually best to try to use a handful of tools that each major in different areas to get an accurate assessment of what your traffic looks like, and none of that information is necessary for the public to enjoy your blog.
Written on June 15th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 06:06 pm by Darren Rowse
AOL Relaunch Netscape as Social Bookmarking Site
It looks like AOL’s relaunch of Netscape is underway. At this point it’s happening as a beta at http://www.beta.netscape.com/.
First impressions
- They are obviously looking to compete pretty directly with Digg but on a wider range of topics (or channels). Their ‘votes’ set up is very digg-ish.
- One thing I don’t like is that the main links on each story point to a Netscape page and not directly to the site that the story is from. They do have a ‘via’ link that links back to the source but it’s much smaller than the main story headline. It seems like they are trying to keep people on the site rather than sharing the link love like other social bookmarking sites.
- Lots of Advertising - I bet there will be some criticism of this
- They must be doing some serious traffic already as it’s all running quite slow for me and I’ve not had any success in registering yet.
Amusingly the top story there at the moment is one titled ‘AOL Copies Digg’ (it had to happen). Netscape is part user generated (and voted) and part edited content. It’ll be interesting to watch it develop and to see whether social bookmarking fans will embrace it or whether they’ll stick to the original versions of this type of site.
You can read more about the new Netscape at:
Written on June 15th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:06 pm by Darren Rowse
Marketing Blog Awards
Marketing Sherpa has opened nominations for their Marketing Blog and Podcast awards. Their categories are:
- B-to-B marketing
- Search marketing
- Affiliate marketing
- Email marketing
- PR
- Advertising
- Marketing to a specific consumer demographic (ie. women, kids)
- Blogging or podcasting as a marketing tactic
- Viral, word of mouth, buzz, social marketing
- Small business marketing
- Non-English language blogs on marketing
- General (multiple topic) marketing
- Other specific niche topic related to marketing
If you’re into marketing blogs you can put nominations in here.
Written on June 15th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 08:06 am by Darren Rowse
Why bloggers blog - The Age
Melbourne paper, The Age (Sydney Morning Herald had it too) features an article today titled Why bloggers blog which takes a walk through the blogosphere (with a distinct Aussie flavor) talking to bloggers about their motivation for blogging. It features some of my favorite bloggers including Claire Robertson from LoobyLu, Trevor Cook from Corporate Engagement and Manolo the Shoeblogger. It also has a quote or two from yours truly.
If you’re here after seeing the article - welcome. If this is your first time here let me give you a quick tour of my online home here at enternetusers.net. Grab a coffee and click the ‘more’ link below.
Firstly, enternetusers.net is a blog that is devoted to helping bloggers improve their blogging and explore ways to earn an income at the same time by writing about topics that they love - here’s a couple of links to give you a little information about me and about this blog.
If you’re new to blogging you might find this ‘what is a blog?‘ article and my recent series on Blogging for Beginners helpful.
If you’re interested in blogging for money here’s one on how bloggers are making money from blogging. If you’d like to take a course in blogging for money I’ve developed one with a collegue at Six Figure Blogging.
If you like what you read here you can follow my future entries (I write several times per day most days) in two ways - firstly I send a free email newsletter every week which you can subscribe to and secondly if you read RSS feeds you can subscribe to mine here.
The article also mentions a network of blogs that I co-own. It’s called b5media.com and has over 125 blogs currently on a wide range of topics (you can see them listed in the side bar of the b5 blog).
Thanks for stopping by - I hope you enjoy your stay at enternetusers and b5media.
Written on June 15th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 08:06 am by Darren Rowse
How to Install WordPress Locally on a PC
Geeks are Sexy have a useful post on Installing WordPress Locally Under Windows XP for those of you who might like to do so (and those who have a PC). As Kiltak comments in the posts, having a local version can be ‘useful because it lets you fool around with themes and plugins to your heart’s desire without having to risk breaking your live blog.’
Written on June 15th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 03:06 am by Darren Rowse
Business Blogging 101
I’ve had an increasing amount of readers writing to me over the past few weeks asking questions on the topic of how to develop a business blog as opposed to a commercial or entrepreneurial blog.
Here’s one reader’s question to help flesh this out a little:
“Hi Darren, can I ask you a question that I can’t find an answer to anywhere?
I have just been hired by XXXXX (ed - a well known company) to develop a blog for them. I’ve had both a personal and a more commercial (advertising and affiliate programs) blog before but haven’t ever written on a business blog. The more I look into it the more I realize that many of the things I’ve learned about blogging previously are just not relevant to this new venture. Can you give me any tips?”
This question is typical of a number of emails that I’ve had over the past month. It seems that businesses are catching onto the power of blogs (or at least are perceiving them to be powerful) but both they and some of the bloggers they are hiring are unclear on how a business should use blogs.
Disclaimer - I’ve never written a ‘business blog’ and am not really sure I’m the person to be asking these questions as any expertise I might have is more in the type of blogging that earns income from ad or affiliate programs. As a result I’m looking forward to the opinions of readers who have more direct experience with business blogging - please feel free to share what you know in comments.
However having being asked the question numerous times - let me attempt to shed some light on the topic from my perspective….
Get Objectives Clear - the advice that I find myself giving to bloggers of all types is to think ahead of time about a blog’s goals and objectives. If I was being hired by a company to develop a blog I would work very hard at finding that company’s expectations for the blog out before starting it (actually - I’d find them out before accepting such a position).
My sense in many of the questions that I’m being asked by bloggers and by business people wanting to hire bloggers is that many business blogs are being started simply because they seem like a good idea and because everyone else has one.
While they can be a good idea and many people do have them, these are not good enough reasons to start one in my books. The most effective business bloggers that I’ve come across seem to know what their job is, know what the boundaries for their blogging are and stick within these boundaries.
What should a business blog’s goals be? (I can hear the questions already).
This is a difficult question to answer as a business blog’s goals will vary incredibly depending upon the business, it’s overall goals, the personality and style of the blogger etc.
Business Blog’s goals could include any of the following (or a combination of them):
- Driving Sales - directly promoting products and services - for example announcing new products.
- Public Relations - management of crisis situations, promoting company vision and developments etc
- Customer Relations - fostering customer loyalty, building relationships with clients and customers etc
- Research and Development - garnering feedback and suggestions from clients
- Information and Education - giving customers information on how to use products
- Internal Communications - password protected blogs for staff - for training, communications, work-shopping ideas etc
- Community Development - developing client community around a product.
The above goals are just the initial ones that come to mind. Many business blogs combine elements of the above together into single blogs, some companies have multiple blogs for different goals.
Beware of the Propaganda Trap - one of the dangers that I see some business blogs falling into is using blogs simply to spin a PR message that is quite one dimensional and quite obviously propaganda.
The blogging space (and I’d say the wider community) is increasingly cynical of company ’spin’ and businesses that blog in this way run the risk of having their weaknesses exposed (possibly with significant consequences) if they don’t blog in a transparent way that is willing to not only acknowledge and highlight a business’s strengths and achievements but also it’s failings and areas that it needs to improve upon.
This is of course a fine line to walk (no one said business blogging is easy) but is something to be clear about in the early days of defining the goals of a blog.
Blogs as InterActive Spaces - blogging is an interActive medium. Whereas traditional business websites tend only to get interActive to the point of having a ‘feedback’ or ‘contact’ form - the blogging space is a much more interActive space - whether you want it to be or not.
The most obvious interaction on most blogs is in the comments section where readers are given freedom to have their say on what the blogger/business has written.
This is something that freaks a lot of businesses out. The idea of giving their customers a voice is quite threatening to many companies and I’m sure is one reason why many avoid having a blog at all.
Of course one option to soften the impact of comments is comment moderation or even not having comments at all - however this does not always solve the problem as the interaction that blogging brings goes beyond comments sections. Bloggers regularly comment on one another’s blogs on their own blogs and while this can open up some amazing opportunities for publicity it of course can be the downfall of some companies also if they are not willing to hear both the positive and negative opinions of their customers.
I don’t have an easy answer for businesses thinking through the interactivity of blogging except to say that as user generated content becomes more and more prevalent that people will use the medium to talk about your company more and more whether you have a blog or not. My opinion is that rather than ignoring it, having a presence in the space at least shows your willingness to interact.
Blogging Takes Time - another of my pieces of advice for bloggers of all kinds is to make sure that they are putting aside enough time to do their blog justice. I suspect many businesses just think that they’ll start a blog, post something to it once a week and that it will solve all their problems - but unfortunately this is just not the case. Writing posts is just one element of a blog and as it becomes more established and grows a bigger readership the time needed to run it at a professional level can become quite significant.
Time will be needed to interact with those leaving comments, monitoring what other bloggers are saying about your company (and responding), reading and interacting with other bloggers in a niche, learning about blogging etiquette, tracking trends within the blogosphere etc
Good businesses seek to bring professionalism to all aspects of their business and a blog should be no different.
Advertising on Business Blogs - a common question that I’m often asked by businesses starting up blogs is whether they should run advertising on their blogs.
To be quite honest the question always surprises me a little. In most business blogs that I’ve come across the primary objective is to build their own business up in some way or another. Advertising can obviously benefit a business by the revenue it brings in - but generally it promotes other people’s businesses also and sends your readers away from your site to someone else’s.
Before running ads on a business blog I’d suggest thinking long and hard about why you’d want to do that. Again this will come back to the blog’s goals but my recommendation in most cases would be to avoid running ads on a blog and if you want to use your blog to make money to do it by driving traffic into those aspects of your business that generate an income rather than those aspects of other people’s businesses that make them money.
Advertising on blogs is by no means a bad thing (in my humble opinion) but if you’re going to do it make that your primary goal and develop a commercial blog that is less about your business and more about a topic or niche.
I’ve seen some business blogs try to both run ads and promote their business but in most cases that I’ve had anything to do with they generally don’t work to achieve both goals.
Basic Blogging Principles Apply - While business blogs might differ in some ways to other types of blogs there are many general blogging principles and skills that still apply ranging from SEO skills, to being able to write useful content, to being able to overcome blogging apathy, to being able to build a readership (the list could go on). Read more on the basics of blogging that will apply to most styles of blogging at my blogging for beginners series.
As I say - I’m definately no business blogging expert and I’d now like to hand this post over to those of you who have a little more experience in it than I do.
What advice would you give new business bloggers and businesses wanting to get into blogging? What is unique to business blogs that is different to other forms of blogs? What should business bloggers avoid? What are blogs most useful for when it comes to business? And lastly - give us a few examples of business blogs that you think are doing a good job.
Written on June 15th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:06 am by Darren Rowse
eBay AdContext Ads - First Impressions
I’ve had quite a few people asking me for my opinion on eBay announcing it’s intention to enter the contextual text link market.
here are the basics of it as reported this week by Reuters…
“The world’s largest e-commerce site said it plans to provide hundreds of thousands of eBay auctioneers with simple snippets of code they can embed on other Web sites that showcase items that are for sale on eBay’s site.
A test of the program, dubbed eBay AdContext, is set to be introduced early next week, Swaaij said. What goods appear in any particular advertisement will be determined by the keywords on that Web page, a technique known as contextual advertising.
EBay’s system scans the text of a Web site for keywords and returns links to relevant eBay sales listings to the Web page. A Web site about sports could automatically feature links to sporting gear or memorabilia available on eBay, for example.”
I’ve held off giving my opinion because I’m yet to see it in action but as I’m being asked about it so much thought I’d give a few initial comments from what I’ve read about it.
The ads are apparently going to run as text, image and flash ads (publishers choose which they want to run).
My initial reaction when I heard about eBay’s AdContext was two fold:
- On the one hand I was quite happy and intrigued. My feeling is that having more options for publishers to run ads is a good thing as each site is very different the more types of ads to experiment with the higher the chances of finding one that will suit a particular blog or site.
- 2. On the other hand I was dubious as to the success of yet another contextual ad network. The problem that will face eBay with their ads is that most publishers looking to run ads on a site will already have contextual advertising on their sites (AdSense or YPN mainly) and that both of these programs do not allow any other contextual advertising to be shown on the same pages.
I’m confused about the reports that eBay doesn’t see their AdContext ads as competing with AdSense or YPN - some reports are saying that they see them as complimentary and that they’ll run on the same sites together - but as I read the rules of AdSense I don’t see how they could be allowed.
Other contextual ad systems have launched in the last 12 months but in most cases they have either failed to catch on or have changed their ads to be non contextual (for example Chitika’s eMiniMalls switched their default mode to be non contextual).
So eBay will, in my opinion, have an uphill battle to covert publishers to AdContext because to do so will probably mean they need to give up their current advertising.
One incentive to get publishers to switch would of course be if AdContext coverts very well - but once again I’m unsure how well they will convert.
The article I linked to above says - ‘Web site affiliates receive a cut of 35 percent to 60 percent of sales, depending on volumes.’
When I first heard this I was quite interested - up to 60% of the ’sale’ in an auction sounds quite good if the auction goes for a high price but then I started to do the maths. The thing about auctions is that there is only ever one winner or one sale. The amount of bidders on an item might be reasonably high but the likelihood of an ad click producing the one and only sale in an auction can’t be particularly high can it?
Of course publishers don’t get 35-60% of the sale price (what person holding an auction would be willing to pay that much!) - instead its’ a percentage of eBay’s revenue from the auction. eBay earns 6.5% of the auction value - which means as an affiliate you earn between 2.27% and 3.9% of the auction sale price - if the person you refer actually wins an auction (up to 7 days after you refer them if the conditions are the same as their regular affiliate program).
I’m not saying that it’d be impossible to do well out of these ads - but I wonder whether the average blogger will do better out of them or other forms of contextual advertising. I can definitely see eBay AdContext ads working well on site’s that follow auctions but wonder how many bloggers are going to make much off them.
Of course it’s too early to make judgments on an ad system that is yet to launch - but I’m pretty skeptical at this early stage and while I welcome new ad systems into the space wonder whether eBay might need to adapt it’s ad system to get the attention of publishers.
Written on June 14th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 04:06 pm by Darren Rowse
TechCrunch Advertising for an Intern
If you’re looking for experience working for an amazing blog researching Web 2.0 companies and products then you might like to head over to TechCrunch’s behind the scenes blogs CrunchNotes where they are advertising for a Research Analyst/Intern Position. This would be an amazing opportunity to learn from an experienced blogger who has grown a blog from nothing to be one of the biggest blogs going around in just a year.
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