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Written on 2/8/2005 at 12:20 am by

Should Google be the Blogosphere’s Ad Agency?

Filed Under: Adsense, Advertising

Jeff Jarvis has an interesting post titled Should Google be the citizens’ ad agency? where he questions whether Google is the best ‘ad agency’ for citizens media and writes:

‘But it makes me wonder whether we’re foolish letting Google be our ad sales agent. For Google undersells the value of citizens’ media: Google sells the coincidence of a word on a page when the real value of citizens’ media is in its conversation, its relationships, its influence.

Mind you, we should bless Google for taking the cooties off of citizens’ media and showing that, indeed, real people have a message and audience worth attention.

But now I think it’s necessary for citizens’ media to find its own path, its own sales agent who can sell its own value.’

Jeff makes some valid points which are worth taking on board – as usual he sees both side of the story. My opinion? It is getting late so let me attempt a few points:

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Written on 2/7/2005 at 10:05 pm by

Are Google paying out less to Adsense Publishers?

Filed Under: Adsense

Om Malik has an interesting post looking at the record earnings that Google have been reporting (largely due to their earnings from Adwords) but the apparent decreases in payments that they are making to publishers.

‘Intrigued, I looked up some of the SEC filings and discovered that for past four quarters Google has been paying more money every quarter to the affiliates. However, TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues generated by network sites is declining. For instance in quarter ending June 30, 2004, the company had paid out 80% of the revenues generated by its network. In quarter ending Sept 30, 2004, it was down to 79% and now in the December 2004 quarter, that number was down to 77%….’

It is something I have no real opinion about as my statistics over the past 12 months have been so up and down that it is impossible to make any assumptions from it – however if there is truth in them skimming a little more off the top I’d be pretty disappointed in Google.

Read more at Om Malik: Google making more, but dishing out less

Written on 2/7/2005 at 10:21 am by

ProBlogger Changes

Filed Under: ProBlogger Site News

Thank you to all the well wishers who have stopped by in the past 24 hours to check out the new home of ProBlogger.

Many thanks to those of you who have already changed your links to our new URL and RSS feed. I was expecting to loose a certain amount of readership in the short term after the move – however have logged on this morning to find more than normal activity on the site over night. Considering its the weekend still for most of you that is a positive sign.

I’m also taking on board the feedback on the design of the site. A number of people are having trouble with the orange/yellow links and the contrast between them. Let me know your thoughts on that please if you have a moment.

More changes coming: In addition to a new URL and design I’m hoping to make a few more changes to ProBlogger in the next few weeks. The first one will start late today with the publishing of our first interview. I have been talking about doing interviews with ProBloggers for some time now and have three ready to go and a number of others on the way.

Come back later today with the first one – an interview with Joel Johnson – editor of Gizmodo.

If there is a ProBlogger that you’d like to see an interview with please let me know – also you can continue to suggest questions for on ProBlogging – I’ll answer as many as I can but also include some of them in the interviews.

Written on 2/7/2005 at 9:17 am by

Questions for ProBloggers

Filed Under: ProBlogger Site News, Reader Questions

Are you starting, or thinking of starting, a commercial blog? Do you have a question that you’ve been trying to figure out around some of the topics of ProBlogging? Feel free to submit your question for ProBloggers in comments below and I’ll try to get back to you with an answer – or at least point you to a previously written article on the topic. Questions might also feature in future interviews with ProBloggers.

Your questions can focus on anything from using Adsense on your blog, to which Blog tools are best, to Affiliate programs, to Search Engine Optimization, to writing content through to business blogs. No question is too stupid to ask. If I don’t know the answer I’ll open it for general discussion and see if our collective knowledge as probloggers can work it out.

Written on 2/6/2005 at 6:56 pm by

Ask Jeeves Buys Bloglines

Filed Under: Pro Blogging News

Napsterization breaks the big news that Ask Jeeves is buying Bloglines! The news will be announced on Monday according to the report. This is pretty big news and is just another example of how blogging and RSS technology is making it to the mainstream.

The interest will now be in how Ask Jeeves uses, adapts and monetizes Bloglines.

Found via Micro Persuasion

Written on 2/6/2005 at 6:34 pm by

WordPress 1.5 Gamma – Review

Filed Under: Blogging Tools and Services

Weblog Tools Collection has a good review of the soon to be released (I hope) WordPress version 1.5. The review is glowing and leaves me hanging to see what it is like for myself. I’ve recently moved a number of my blogs (including this one) to WordPress (1.2) and found it to be a highly effective tool and am hoping version 1.5 launches soon.

You can also read an interview with the guys behind Word Press at The Inside Scoop.

Written on 2/6/2005 at 1:10 pm by

Welcome to a New Look ProBlogger

Filed Under: ProBlogger Site News

Congratulations – you’ve found your way to a new look ProBlogger in its new home at ProBlogger.net.

I started ProBlogger last September as a place to keep a record of the lessons that I learnt from blogging both for myself and for those I knew who were trying to make a living from their blogging. The blog design was primitive and I just tacked it onto the livingroom domain that I used for other blogs.

ProBlogger quickly turned into something bigger than I had anticipated and I soon realised that I would need to consider moving my 500 or so posts to a new permanent home with a more professional design. Rachel over at Cre8d Design was kind enough to take the project on and has put together what you see before you today. I love her designs and would recommend her services as a professional blog designer.

The new design is still new and we are making some final touches. I’m certain there are a few things we’ve overlooked so as you look around and make yourself at home please don’t hesitate to let me know of any problems that you might find. Also give you feedback on the design itself – how does it look in your browser? Any suggestions or critiques (constructive ones preferred) are welcome.

Don’t forget to vote for ProBlogger at the Business Blog awards here.

Lastly – if you have a link to ProBlogger in your blog roll I’d really appreciate you making an adjustment to it with our new domain at problogger.net – also don’t forget to change your RSS feed for this site to this new one.

Written on 2/6/2005 at 12:09 am by

RSS ads in Boing Boing

Filed Under: RSS

Bbhead10Xb

One of the biggest blogs going around, Boing Boing, has decided to experiment with RSS ads in their feeds. They publish their full content in RSS and have placed ads on every third ad using the contextual ad service being tested by Feedburner and Overture (not available to the public yet). Feedburner currently only allow most bloggers to display amazon ads using their service but contextual RSS feed advertising is sure to follow on a wider scale in the months ahead.

Written on 2/5/2005 at 11:44 pm by

Does Frequent Posting Boost Traffic?

Filed Under: Blog Promotion

Susannah is tracking if her blog’s traffic levels correlate with her levels of posting and writes:

‘Generally speaking, it looks like the theory of more posts = more traffic holds true, but of course what the logs don’t tell you is that on the days I was posting a lot I was at a blogging conference and the blog URL was up on the projector between every session. Nor does looking at this graph reflect the posts that were controversial. That first spike is accompanied by a barely significant increase in post numbers, but was on a topic that caught a lot of interest.’

This is something I’ve done a little research into on my own blogs also. What I’ve found (although I don’t have as nice a graph as Susannah) is that my overall traffic does tend to increase on days that I post more – however there are a couple of further observations that are worth making.

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