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!

Now that all the April Fool’s silliness is past us, it’s back to normal AmBlogging! I am a fan of the Performancing Metrics package and am glad that Dave Reid has been successful in producing a plugin for WordPress bloggers

I joined the plugin’s mailing list and was invited to be a beta tester for the newest version to be released tomorrow. So I’m not sure if this qualifies as a scoop! Users of 0.2 can look forward to quite a few new features in 0.3. Let me review them!

• Bloggers can choose to not track visits by users over a specified user level
• The javascript code is now valid HTML/XHTML
• As with most WordPress 2.0 plugins, the plugin can let you know when a new version is available
• You can enable a PMetrics module to be used with the Wordpress widgets plugin
• For non widget users (like me), you can manually insert the sidebar code into your template with some limited customization. (I’ve done this on my sidebar here!)
• You can also make the sidebar module private, so that only you can see it when you visit the site.

This is a big improvement for people who don’t mind showing their statistics. Personally, I tend to be more reserved than transparent. I may turn off the sidebar to the public in the future, but for now I’ll let it show my paltry visit statistics.

I also want to commend Dave for his quick response. Being beta means exactly that! When I tried out the plugin, there was a debug feature that wasn’t turned off and all the plugin’s internal information, including my Performancing username and password were revealed for all to see! I quickly disabled the plugin and notified Dave. I also took the precaution to change my Performancing password. Dave was very quick to respond and fixed the critical issue. All’s well for now. I won’t link to the new version as yet, to let Dave perform the official launch. You should look forward to it too!

Now that I’m going PRO, I’m thinking of ways to make lots of money! Blogging is way too slow because you have to build up your content gateways, work on increasing readership, building your community and networking with Bloggers! With my skills, it’ll be 2024 before I gain any traction.

I could also do single page Adsense sites and the advantage here will be one-off efforts that do not require me to update! But what I’m really looking for is an explosion! Since bubble 2.0 is here, I had better not miss the Web 2.0 limbo line-up!

So, I announce my latest venture - Thingamajig, the newest Web 2.0 app that you’ve never heard of. I don’t know what it does yet, but it will be the best Web 2.0 app that nobody can live without! Once you sign up, you will renounce all the other W2 apps out there.

Why will it succeed? Because it’s got a catchy name! I’m already hearing people talk about it - “What’s this thingamajig?”. It resembles the advertising of “What is the matrix?” and we know how that fared out! Plus, Thingamajig will have all the Web 2.0 design goodies that will draw you in to spend lots of money! I can’t wait to swim in those dollar bills!

I mulled over my decision to quit blogging earlier today, but I read one final blog that changed my life - Scoble’s decision. I thought if a blogger like Robert Scoble can change his mind and switch from Microsoft to Google, there may be hope for bloggers yet! So I’m launching a comeback and going pro! I called my mom and told her that I know it’s early, but I have to put food on the table. She understood my decision and said that I should get an agent, some PR guy, and get hooked up with a team. Awesome, here we go!

P.S. Steve Rubel is also making some changes! And he’s analyzed today’s major Blogger trade deal!