Written on 7/27/2006 at 12:01 am by

If I had to Start My Blog Again – Reader Submissions Part 2

Filed Under: Pro Blogging News

200607181510It’s day two of our ‘if I had to start my blog again group writing project’ and here’s the submissions from the last day which will also be added to the central submissions page.

I’ll be taking submissions for this project until the end of Thursday (as long as it’s Thursday where you are it’s not too late) so get your post in soon!

Written on 7/26/2006 at 8:01 pm by

Apple Bluetooth Wireless Mighty Mouse

Filed Under: Blogging Tools and Services

Ooh – looks like Apple have just announced a new Bluetooth Wireless Mighty Mouse.

Mighty-Mouse

I’ve been waiting for this one for a while to add to my blogging head quarters.

Written on 7/26/2006 at 11:26 am by

Tax Time

Filed Under: ProBlogger Site News

I hate tax time (in Australia we operate on a July to June financial year) – not just because I have to give my government almost half of what I earn (I see this as a responsibility to give something back to the land I live in) but because of the paperwork and because it exposes my lack of bookkeeping skills.

As a result – I’ll be scarce today.

Off to see the accountant.

Note to self - learn how to file! :-)

Written on 7/26/2006 at 2:07 am by

How I’d Optimize PerezHilton for Advertising – Case Study

Filed Under: Case Studies

Perez1A few days back the Blogging Times reported that celebrity blog PerezHilton reached 1 million readers in a day this month.

That’s some serious traffic and would be a pretty amazing blog to monetize.

Mario Lavandeira is the blogger behind PerezHilton and by the looks of things his income streams seem to be:

  • AdSense – PerezHilton has AdSense running in multiple positions including in the banner position on most pages, between posts on the front page, between posts and comments on individual pages, under comments on individual pages and in the sidebar (although this one rarely shows). He also has an Adlink unit in the footer of the page. There’s also one AdSense unit and Adlink unit in the ‘Boardroom’ discussion forum.
  • Fastclick – rotating in one of the banner positions.
  • BlogAds – there are a number of positions you can buy BlogAds in including the Reserve A Premium position (top right hand spot) which costs $5000 per week, a second level position ($2500 per week) and a lower position ($202 per week). These seem to be converting reasonably well. Over the last few days there were ads in all positions (up to 15 in the lower ones).
  • Sponsorship – on some impressions I’m seeing a skyscraper in the left hand column for tbs.com

I’m sure PerezHilton is doing reasonably well with their ads – BlogAds seem to be doing particularly well. There are however a few suggestions I’d make if I were consulting with Mario and his team. Some of these would include:

How I’d improve PerezHilton’s Advertising Performance:

[Read more...]

Written on 7/26/2006 at 12:01 am by

If I had to Start My Blog Again – Reader Submissions Part 1

Filed Under: Pro Blogging News

200607181510There’s been a great initial response from readers in the new Group Writing Project on the topic of ‘if I had to start my blog again’. I’ll be accepting submissions until Thursday so follow the process outlined here and be included in the list central list of submissions.

Here are the first 25 submissions (I’ll post a new list each day until Thursday):

There are some great posts in that lot – surf through the list and start linking up to those you resonate with the most.

Written on 7/25/2006 at 4:03 pm by

Did I mention I’m Back?

Filed Under: ProBlogger Site News

X1For those of you who didn’t realize – I’m back from my paternity leave.

I’ve been slowly getting back up to speed over the last three or four days and am getting to the point of catching up on a couple of weeks of unread emails and RSS feeds.

A big thanks to Aaron (who has a great new blog design) and Brian for their posts while I was away (I think Brian might have one more to finish his mini-series) and also to those bloggers who agreed to be featured in the One Question Interview series which I’ve had some great feedback on.

Sorry to those who I’ve not answered emails of in the last couple of weeks. I’m doing my best to get through them all but it is an uphill battle at the moment. If I’ve forgotten to get back to you it might be best if you try resending your email to get it back on my radar.

Thanks to everyone for your emails and comments of well wishes and congratulations after Xavier’s birth. Both he and V are doing really well. We’re finding a rhythm to our day (the nights are a little harder) and are doing really well. It’s probably going to take me a few weeks to get back into the swing of things with work as I find ways to deal with the challenges of sharing my work space with a mother and child (nice distractions – but at times not that conducive to work). For those who have been asking for another picture of Xavier (pronounced like ‘Zavier’ for those unfamiliar with it – more people than we thought) – I’ve posted one above. I’m not going to get in the habit of posting too many pictures of him but seeing is this is my ‘I’m back’ post I thought I should show you what I’ve been doing.

In terms of ProBlogger and where it’s headed next – I’ve got a long list of tips and posts that I want to write over the coming weeks and as always am dreaming up ways to take this blog to the next level in terms of how helpful it is to readers.

There will be more group writing projects (don’t forget the current one), lots of tips on how to improve your blog and make money along the way and perhaps even a rant of two (I know – it’s been a while but fatherhood has mellowed me).

Written on 7/25/2006 at 1:45 pm by

AdSense Updates Forums Help Pages

Filed Under: Adsense

AdSense have updated their advice for publishers using their ads on Forums in their Help Center.

Their update is pretty small – the changes in the heat maps from last time to this time are negligable (see below – the old version is on the left and the new one on the right).

Forum Heat Map-761099Forum Sm En

Their main advice really isn’t anything particularly new but is a good reminder if you’re into forums. Here’s what they have to say:

[Read more...]

Written on 7/25/2006 at 10:50 am by

What do you think of Technorati’s Upgrade?

Filed Under: Pro Blogging News

What do you think of Technorati’s upgrade?

My first impressions were not that great but it’s growing on me. Their challenge is that they are now tracking a lot of information and a lot of blogs and to present it all in a useful and uncluttered way is always going to be difficult – particularly because I suspect that different Technorati users use it differently to each other (ie some use it to find stories, some to track blogs, some to observe trends etc).

Their signed out and signed in versions of the home page are useful if you use Technorati to track blogs but will take us a little while to get used to.

Read Dave’s post on the upgrade here and see a video of the upgrades here and let the rest of us know what you think of is in comments.

PS: Don’t forget to mark ProBlogger as a favorite!

Written on 7/25/2006 at 12:05 am by

If I had to Start My Blog Again – Group Writing Project

Filed Under: ProBlogger Site News

200607181510Over the past two weeks I’ve asked 14 of my favorite bloggers what they’d do differently if they were starting their blog again today. Their responses were varied and left us with plenty of food for thought (see their responses here).

As I’ve been posting their responses I’ve noticed quite a few ProBlogger readers have been tackling the question themselves – a couple have even sent me emails with their thoughts.

As a result I thought it’d make a great Group Writing Project.

So – let me turn the question over to you my friends. If you’d like to participate and be included in the results of this week’s project simply follow this process:

[Read more...]