أرشيف شهر يناير, 2008

More of Me Podcasting: TechCanuck Episode 16

يناير 31, 2008 في 10:28 م · Filed under Podcast

James Cogan and I got together for another episode. This one was a little delayed due to James being under the weather, but thankfully, he has mostly recovered and we were able to create another episode.

This week we talk about Automattic, and their continued business developments, the likely recession in the US, and the Apple MacBook Air.

a) Automattic has been awfully busy of late. Closing a $29.5M round of funding and now there’s news of Prologue – a Twitter-like publishing service. Let’s discuss this latest flurry of news, and of course – where is this ultimately going for Automattic?

b) Let’s talk about the ‘R’ word. It seems the United States is plunging fast and furious into a deep recession. What does this mean for online publishers, bloggers and advertising in general? Will the recession have a material impact on the pocketbooks of those who rely on internet advertising to pay their bills?

c) Macworld has come and gone and we’re left with the MacBook Air. Is it just Hot Air or is there substance behind the world’s thinnest laptop computer?

Check it out on Dailypixel.ca, and let me know what you think of episode 16.

4 تعليقاً

Domain Name Giveaway 2: Results

يناير 30, 2008 في 12:55 م · Filed under Contests

For those of you that entered the second domain name giveaway, you’ve probably noticed that it is time for me to proclaim the winners. For those of you that didn’t enter, subscribe to my blog to keep up to date on when I am running contests.

The winners for each domain are:
BloggingShift.com – knupNet
SomeFoo.net – My Life With IT
VRUnleashed.com – Blogging Cents
SmallReaction.com – Project Netcess

I will contact all of you shortly to deal with transferring the domain. Thanks again for all of you that entered and a huge congrats to the winners. I hope you use your new domains to help continue to build up your online profile.

5 تعليقاً

Guest Post on John Cow

يناير 29, 2008 في 7:54 ص · Filed under Blogging

So recently, John Cow decided to head off for a nice vacation, and opened up his blog for guest posts. I was really excited about the idea, since his blog has more traffic than my own.

I carefully constructed a post, that while outside his normal topic area, still would be of great interest to a wide variety of bloggers. I decided to talk about working for a blog network. This is something I know a little bit about having now worked for two relatively strong blog networks. Bloggy Network was smaller in personnel, but had some A-List sites in their stables. Splashpress Media is huge by comparison, both in number of sites and employees.

I assumed writing such a post would bring in a fair bit of traffic, and maybe some new subscribers, but what I quickly realized is that people read John Cow for its wit, and advice and I am a much more serious person. As such, his audience didn’t seem to latch on to the way I write, or the type of content I produce. The traffic increase wasn’t noticeable, nor was their any jump in my subscribers.

Does this mean I failed with my guest post? Well, not really. The post allowed me to increase my reach, my sphere of influence, and link back to this blog. All of which are great things for the long term development of this blog.

Would I do it again? Most likely, but not on John Cow’s blog. I would try to get a post on a blog that fit my own audience demographic a little better, which would hopefully create more of an interest in this blog and what I write here.

3 تعليقاً

Browser Limitations: Let Me In!

يناير 28, 2008 في 6:51 م · Filed under Tips

This is just a quick rant on something I noticed that is very frustrating to me, and I am sure, others: browser limitations.

You are browsing the web with your favourite browser, and come to a site that has a huge notice letting you know your browser isn’t compatible with the site you are trying to visit. It then lets you know that you should be using Internet Explorer.

My reaction is always the same, “are you serious!?”

I don’t understand why so many companies create such walls based around browsers. I can understand putting up a warning before showing the site. Let me know that my browser might not display things correctly, or certain features may not work, and then allow me to click a button to see your site, despite those facts.

Surely, it can’t be too difficult to create such a system where I, the user, has the choice to continue because I can tell you right now, I won’t be hopping onto Internet Explorer just to view your site. I will move on, and complain endlessly about your choice to not let me in.

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CPM Rates Drop: Publishers Panic?

يناير 28, 2008 في 4:30 م · Filed under Advertising

With what appears to be a coming recession, no matter how small or short it might be, the first thing to be cut by companies is usually the advertising budgets. You can’t get rid of the guy making the “blue widget”, but you can cut advertising costs, especially those where you aren’t guaranteed any real return on investment.

CPM advertising is cost per mille. Mille is french for thousand, so CPM advertising is cost per thousand impressions.

Advertisers buy CPM advertisements because it can help increase their brand awareness, spread their messages, and hopefully increase their sales. This type of advertisement doesn’t guarantee any sales though. It doesn’t even guarantee any clicks to the advertisers website. All it provides is impressions.

The types of advertising that companies will want to switch to during any sort of belt tightening is both CPC and CPA. These stand for cost per click and cost per action. With cost per click, the advertiser only pays when someone clicks through to their site, and with cost per action, the advertiser only pays when the visitor has clicked through and completed the action that the advertiser wants. It could be as simple as filling out a survey, or as complex as purchasing a certain product.

These types of advertising reduce the apparent risk that advertisers have when spending money online, and will increasingly be the advertisement of choice.

As a publisher, you have to decide what will be of the best benefit to you and your readers. Do you accept the dropping CPM rates, or take what could be more or less lucrative with CPC or CPA advertisements?

It can be difficult to make the right choice, and as with everything related to publishing online, I recommend testing a variety of different methods going forward. Just be prepared for lower rates than my might have otherwise liked.

Source: GigaOM

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WordPress Plugin Security Issues

يناير 28, 2008 في 3:50 م · Filed under WordPress

Over on Weblog Tools Collection, Jeffro recently posted about Dean’s Permalink Migration Plugin which has a bug that can allow an attacker to force a user to perform an unsolicited action to allow the attacker to gain valid credentials, or basically, have access to your blog.

While someone stepped up to the plate and released a new, fixed version after the original author couldn’t be contacted, it still brings up the issue of continued WordPress plugin security.

As WordPress moves closer to the new 2.5 release, due out this spring, will plugin authors that develop the plugins we have come to depend on continue to support and develop their work s that the community can continue to benefit, or will new plugin authors have to step in to fill that role?

Who is responsible for the security of the plugins created? When will the WordPress community demand a group of standards to help improve the security of both WordPress plugins and themes?

I hope this issue is dealt with long before the next major version of WordPress. And while I hate to give Automattic more power and control over the WordPress open source project, I do think that they are the best suited to step up and hire someone to organize and check over WordPress plugins submitted to the plugin directory on WordPress.org.

I want to make this clear though, I don’t think the person from Automattic should become responsible for security issues related to plugins, but another set of eyes, focused on finding security issues, could help save many blogs from issues down the road.

3 تعليقاً

Disconnect to Increase Productivity

يناير 25, 2008 في 7:07 م · Filed under Productivity

So today, I decided to get away from home, and not go somewhere with Internet access. I didn’t want wi-fi. I didn’t want instant messaging. I opened all the reference material and wrote down a dozen ideas for articles before I left, and then went to the local mall and sat in the noisy, busy, uncomfortable food court.

I didn’t have access to the Internet, and I got more work done. Why is that?

Once I got to the food court, set up my laptop, and began writing, I realized. While it is noisy, there are no distractions. I don’t have a phone, no instant messages, no e-mail and no gaming consoles.

While it is uncomfortable, I know that the more work I get done, the sooner I can leave, and go back home to the comfort of my office.

While my battery ticks away, I know I am in a race against time, and so every bit of my attention, and energy is being poured into creating great content, organizing my thoughts, and ideas, and really getting some work done.

It feels great to disconnect, and just work without distraction. Highly recommended for a blogger having productivity issues.

5 تعليقاً

8 Bloggers to Network With

يناير 25, 2008 في 6:46 م · Filed under Appreciation, Blog Network Tips

I want to give a huge thanks to Steven Snell of Vandelay Design for including me in a recent post on Pure Blogging entitled “8 Bloggers That Won’t Bite”.

Networking is one of the things I tell everyone to focus on in this ever changing landscape of web publishing, and it is nice to know that people have noticed that I enjoy networking with others. When you work from home by yourself, any contact helps stop me from going crazy.

People listed on Pure Blogging include, Courtney Tuttle, Tay, Jon Phillips, David Culpepper, Adnan, Pearl, and Karen Zara.

A great list of people, some who I have talked to before, and others who I plan on networking with soon.

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Writing about Secondary Subjects

يناير 25, 2008 في 6:45 م · Filed under Blogging

With many well known bloggers, you might notice them going off on a tangent from time to time. John Chow writes about his meals at restaurants, and over on Shoemoney you might run into posts about fighting.

These off topic posts have created a decent amount of flack for both bloggers, but at the same time, they have touched on something very smart for them. These posts do many things for their blog, and most of them are positive.

I have recently started writing about my technology concerns when it comes to backing up my data. This isn’t really entirely on topic, but at the same time, it isn’t totally off-base from the audience I attract.

These posts allow me to bring in traffic for search engine searches that I otherwise wouldn’t have received. I am bringing in traffic for network attached storage searches, and even more interesting, they are going beyond that single post to see my blogging related articles.

While seeing posts about food or fighting might not be up your alley. Blogs were created to express oneself, and that is what we should all be doing. You never know when it will have secondary benefits.

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Joining Contests: Being Fooled for a Chance at Something?

يناير 23, 2008 في 7:09 م · Filed under Contests

One of the popular misconceptions about most contests on the web is that people are providing something small for a chance at something huge in return. After reading Tyler Cruz’s post entitled “Effects of the Tyler vs Gyutae Contest” [link], I feel a little sick to my stomach with regards to blog contests.

Here is a bit from the article:

I ended up losing the competition and had to pay out $300, but I received 115 backlinks from 115 different blogs within an 11-day period. That works out to only $2.60 per blog, which is an absolute bargain. If you wanted to do this through PayPerPost or ReviewMe, you’d have to pay at least $10 for each post, totalling around $1,150.

And remember, around 95% of the blogs that voted for us were from “make money online” blogs, which means better targeted traffic and more related backlinks. If you tried to target those blogs through PayPerPost or ReviewMe, I don’t think you could get that type of volume within 11-days – it would probably take a few months, if not longer, and be much more expensive.

Basically, they took advantage of a wide audience of their peers, including myself, in order to gain large boosts for their blog in RSS subscribers, Alexa ranking and technorati ranking.

For me, this all leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and reminds me of the things I don’t like about the blogosphere. These guys didn’t do anything new, but Tyler presented the information in a way that my mind could easily digest, and I don’t like what I realized.

In any niche, there are only so many blogs that people will constantly and consistently read, subscribe to, or follow. By linking to the blogs involved in the contest, I am creating a situation where I could lose out readership to another blog in my niche.

I helped contribute to the growth of their blogs, and in return received very little. I might get a t-shirt out of it, but otherwise, what did participating in the contest do for this blog or for my audience other than exposing them to bloggers that I don’t necessarily want to endorse.

It is an interesting problem with contests, and I hope you will all appreciate this rant for what it is: an awakening. I hope that those of you that read this blog, won’t be underhanded with regards to your contests. Foster a community, growth and a positive change. Don’t just do things for your own good.

For those that find it hypocritical that I am writing about this, as I am currently running a contest to get a free domain. My contest is more about rewarding my current readers by creating a contest with a low barrier for entry, where theirs was about search engine marketing, building their brand off the backs of others, and getting links and traffic to allow them to boost their eventual income.

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