Just participated in the Liz Strauss’s Open Comment Night 2. Think of it as an Open Mike Night for blogs! My comment was on something I noticed about Toronto’s Mesh Conference. The conference ended today. Particularly I pointed to the fact that:

Someone noticed [on the Mesh blog] a visible audience limitation in cultural, ethnic, or socio-economical make up. Even in a culturaly diverse city such as Toronto. And it took a person named “Lee” to notice it. Guess what, nobody responded to that comment .

All right, ’nuff said. I’ve given you the topic, now discuss amongst yourselves because I don’t have the answer.

Don’t mind the short and sweet posts lately, but there is no reason to re-interpret what has been perfectly written. Here is a great perspective from 2 intelligent minds in the blogosphere!

.[..] The root of the word amateur is love, and someone who does something for love is an amateur. [...]

I wonder if anybody realizes why this site exists? Don’t give up on me yet! When I have something original to say, you’ll be the first to read about it! =D

Remember my previous prediction about the blogosphere? It has only been two months but here’s stage one in progress! I guess I’m better than Nostradamus?

Nick Wilson, at Performancing, gets it!

[...] It’s not about a small group of noisey people in palo alto that think they’re at the center of the universe. [...] It’s about people from all over the world striving to write about subjects they’re passionate about [...]

Well Said!

I have been dividing my attention on launching a few more projects but would like to report to you a unexpected experience gained from the last week. After reading CopyBlogger’s post about the two most important words in blogging, I took to heart the advice. It was decided that a goal for my project would be not to write “I” in the posts and include “you” as much as possible; throwing an occasional “because” in the mix.

Maybe there are other influencing factors, but this new blog has taken off in popularity very quickly. It has acquired a good readership number considering it hasn’t even been a week old yet. The blog is still in the google sandbox so it’s perplexing because there has been minimal promotion of the project thus far as the concentration has been on posting.

Using “I” liberally is often a trap / invitation for a blogger to ramble on their post - and that is not necessarily good. Blogs are about conversations, not monologues. Providing a value to your readers, and keeping them in mind (and in posts) will keep them coming back!

I’ve recently joined Linkworth to try out a new way for me to earn some advertising revenue. Amateur Bloggers certainly do not have to apologize if they want to generate some money for themselves, or for hosting costs etc.

Linkworth is a very simple program. You sign up and get your websites/blogs approved. You then set up some parameters about your websites such as if you would like to run ads on the homepage only, on every page, or to run banner ads. The compensation is a simple cost-per-month figure. This is quite different from the cost-per-click compensation that you are familiar with Adsense or Chitika or other advertising programs.

If you have a decent site with good traffic, there will probably be more advertisers willing to enjoy the impressions exposure, as well as repeat customers. I chose to ask for the minimum bid of $5 per month just to see if anybody would advertise on one of my blogs. To my surprise, AmBlogger was the first of my blogs to get a willing advertiser! I’ve approved the sponsor, so you can now check out who it is by looking at my sidebar on the right!

Why Am I Surprised?
As you may know, I run a few other blogs. I should do a comparison or report on how each of them are doing. So far, every blog of mine has its own success stories and things that I am looking to improve on. I was actually expecting advertisers to be interested about another blog because of its niche and traffic statistics.

So go visit my sponsor this month! For the advertiser, it’s a good way to maintain fixed costs and target/control which sites you run your campaigns. I wonder how other webmasters or bloggers are doing with Linkworth? Do you have a Linkworth story that you would like to share??

P.S. I have decided to get rid of the poll of the month for the time being. I may bring it back later, but I’m looking for better ideas to incorprate into the sidebar!

I’ve just realized that I forgot to summarize the results of last month’s poll. But I don’t have a new topic for April’s poll. I can certainly borrow from old polls from other bloggers but I’d like to steer away from copying people.

I’m not a huge fan of polls, and its partly why I’ve decided to host a monthly poll instead of more frequently. The other reason is the lack of traffic and participation for the polls. I’ll sleep on it and decide on the poll’s fate later. Though I have to say, I’ve always found the results insightful and was surprised that 5 people actually took the time to say advertising on blogs are tacky. (One of them was me!)

I’ve been a fan and always enjoyed reading Frank Barnako’s column and newsletters on CBS Marketwatch and he launched his own blog at Barnako.com Here are his CBS Marketwatch column announcement and his “new” blog! Is this another case of old media getting into the new media?

Far be it for me to try and sound like an expert. I’m not going to say whether Frank gets it or not. But I have two things to say:

1. Good luck on the new typepad blog, Frank!
2. In my opinion, you’ve been a blogger and blogging since 1998!