Blogging

Ideas for Blogging, including websites, information, and tips.

Payperpost and SocialSpark: Is it time to give up posting for pennies?

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In September 2006, I discovered a great little company called Payperpost that I thought was innovative and exciting. It offered a whole new model for paid blogging that was novel, exciting, connected, and free of the problems associated with Adsense.

My PayPerPost Track Record

Since then I wrote over 180 opps for Payperpost and earned something around $1650 or a little more. During the time I learned a tremendous amount writing for a blog, my blog’s various themes, the WordPress platform, marketing my blog, and much more… For that, I’ll always be grateful to the wonderful people at PayPerPost (and SocialSpark) but today I had another frustrating experience with the limitations of their blogging requirements.

Rejected Again?

I recently did my SocialSpark opportunity that was rejected. In the past, I simply would edit the post to satisfy the requirements, but this is my third rejection and I’m beginning to wonder if all the work that went into each of the posts was really worth it. So let’s look at the posting process…

How it works!

The typical opportunity offers the payout of about $8.50 (at least that is my long term average over the time I was involved with PayPerPost). For that payment, you are required to perform a number of steps.

1. Log into the Payperpost system;

2. Navigate to the opps – there could be dozens for you, there could be none;

3. Find an opp that is available to you and one that you find appropriate for your blog;

4. Once you’ve selected an opp, you have to read the opp in detail, then visit the website page that relates to the opp, click ‘take opp’, enter a captcha code, read the basic details;

5. You then write the post according to the requirements of the opportunity, making sure that you include the required links (at least one), the disclosure, the tracking image, any additional images. In addition, you have to make sure that your opp fulfills the word length, the tone, and the type of post;

6. Of course, your post must also be written in good English with good grammar, punctuation and style. It must also be relevant to the advertiser’s wishes;

7. You then submit this opp through the system; if approved, you will then allow the advertiser 30 days to advertise on your blog for either SEO or traffic reasons; if rejected, your advertiser will have had days of advertising for free; if rejected prior to payment, it’s all for nothing;

8. While you wait for payment, you are then required to post an intermediate post that is of sufficient quality and length BEFORE you can take another opportunity;

9. While you are waiting for payment for this post, a good blogger will seek ways to increase exposure, traffic, your PR, respond to comments about the post;

10. Even before you are paid, you have already granted accepted that:

Blogger grants PayPerPost and the specific Advertiser purchasing the content a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sub-licensable, unconditional, perpetual and transferable license to use, display, perform, reproduce, republish, and distribute the content or any portion thereof in all forms of media and through any media channels (now known or hereafter developed), including but not limited to television, radio, print, Internet site and other electronic communications.

11. Oo! It was rejected. You’re invited to resubmit it, sometimes this will be a quick edit, other times you will spend a lot more time finding out what’s wrong.

And that’s… how much?

In other words, you have done a heck of a lot of work for a post that you are paid for only once. Now how much did you get? $5? $8.50? $15? Oh, and by the way, the blogger is still …

… responsible for the payment of all federal, state and local taxes on compensation received from an Advertiser, (iii) responsible for any reporting requirements imposed by the federal, state or local government, and …

… you have to pay for your hosting each month if you take this even half way seriously… there are additional costs related to PC repair, ADSL connections, software purchasing (if you buy blogging software), etc.. that the payments do not cover…

In return, and much of the reason that I no longer enjoy doing posts, you are not free to write posts as you see fit; you cannot include any other links, videos, referenced materials, or other “distractors” to the Advertiser’s opp: “There are to be no third party links, ads or other detractors located within the sponsored post.” You are also not expected to remove the posts as they are part of the archive.

Is it time to give up posting for pennies?

While there are few restrictions on other sources of revenue that you can generate for your blog, such as private advertisers, Adsense, Text-Links, etc… there is a lot of potential for alternate streams of income. In reality, the way that the system works encourages bloggers to “post” for pay. In fact, some of the other revenue streams, I’ve been finding, offer a lot more rewards for a lot less messing about. And I get to write about what I like, how I like, when I like. I’m wondering: is it time to give up “posting for pennies”? Mmm.

WordPress 2.5: Five Things InvestorBlogger loves!

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There are a ton of posts about the new version of WordPress 2.5 , so I’m not going to do a post about that. There’s little point. Also, I’m not going to cover the same announcements. Other people do that just as well.

Here are some cool screenshots: these illustrate some of the surprises I found.

Nice looking dashboard

main dashboard

I love the new color scheme, I immediately adopted the standard colors, but I like the layout – it emphasizes why bloggers blog. I like the simplified format on the top command bar, though some things are counter-intuitive – why are the write buttons so far on the right? I do like the fact that users can change the RSS feeds in the dashboard (something I’ve longed to do for a while).

 

Simplified streamlined post management

manage posts

In the manage posts options, things are much clearer bar one feature. You can search the posts like before, but you need to click on the ‘status’ to view the post on the website. I also like how the comments are highlighted in the manage view. You can easily see how many comments a post has!

 

Neatly arranged blogging tools

blogging tools

In the post view, apart from the rearrangement that hides the complexity, the tools are nicely laid out and more beautifully presented. I didn’t see much difference in the arrangement except the headings on the far right are now visualized (nice touch!) and the media button which when clicked brings up the following media options in a new window.

 

Embedded Media Menu

insert media

And the fifth little treat came as rather a surprise.

 

Automated Plugin Updates

auto-update plugins

WP2.5 now allows you to update your plugins with one (or two) clicks: Just go to plugins, find any that need to be updated and press ‘update automatically’. And it was done. I was not looking forward to downloading any of the new plugins and manually updating them specially since several have almost daily updates (very annoying). That is neat.

 

This is a very refined tool now, and about as smooth as a fine red wine. Wonderful. Rather than writing a review about this, I’m just gushing! It’s a great improvement.

Upgrade if you can, want to or must!

So if you are starting a new blog, then you SHOULD just go to WordPress 2.5. It’s so much smoother in its operation, and you will find it easier to get started. If you are upgrading, I’d suggest updating provided that you don’t have any plugins that you absolutely need to use. If you do, you may wish to hold back until your favorite plugin is updated or patched or confirmed as working.

Tuesday’s News on InvestorBlogger: Wordpress 2.5, Social Spark, Hosting and more

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Before I ramble on today’s postings, here’s a quick recap from the previous few days.

In Recent News

This review of recent posts starts of with the results from the Presidential Election from Taiwan 2008 in which the incumbent party got its ass kicked sharply, and we now have a new president-elect. This should bode well for business, investing and finance as Taiwan opens up to China and the world more. Of course, it fit in well with the theme “When thing’s don’t work… shake things up!” and that is what I will be doing short.

I already kicked out PayPerPost because it wasn’t working and I’m moving this blog to a new host once I find a reliable one. Why? Because just as the 17th Carnival of Making REAL Money: March 22nd 2008 Edition and my blog was featured on the front of BlogCarnival, Dreamhost pulled the plug for 12 L-O-N-G hours as they upgraded their equipment. I was back by 3pm NYT but I lost most of the daytime traffic that resulted from that.

The other big news was leaving PayPerPost (for the time being!) in an Open letter to PayPerPost: Goodbye and thanks for all the fish! I had several posts rejected because of ‘intrusive’ advertising which was against their TOS. Well, in Whose blog is it anyway? I wrote about how I was forced to protect my current advertisers by PayPerPost who effectively made me choose between a lot of money (my advertisers) and a little money (PayPerPost’s) – Wow! That was a hard decision. And in my first selection, one of the reasons my Carnival has been selected twice, was how I handle blog carnivals which I wrote up in Five Steps to Managing a Carnival: Policy and Action. So that’s the past ten days in InvestorBlogger dot com.

And now on with today’s news stories…

SneakPeak WordPress 2.5

Flashing on my screen today when I logged in: this intriguing news about WordPress 2.5:

write-wide

A customizable dashboard, multi-file upload, built-in galleries, one-click plugin upgrades, tag management, built-in Gravatars, full text feeds, and faster load times sound interesting? Then WordPress 2.5 might be the release for you. It’s been in the oven for a while, and we’re finally ready to open the doors a bit to give you a taste.

Of course, I’m really eager to try the new software out but it’s unlikely I will be trying it on this blog any time soon. Why? Caution. There are likely to be bugs in the software that cause problems, and I don’t want to be the first to find them on InvestorBlogger. I WILL be trying it out on my new blog though, because the blog is basically a standard install without many frills. You can read more about upgrading WordPress.

SocialSpark: Alpha rolls out

As many of you know, SocialSpark will be a revolutionary change in advertising through blogs. It will also be a step (too late for my PayPerPost involvement) in the right direction as it recognizes that nofollow is now important (whether one agrees with it or not); Andy Beard has already a fairly detailed introduction to SocialSpark (probably about as much as anyone outside the inner circle knows!). Anyway, today, as an advertiser on PayPerPost, my wife received this interesting email announcing the next stage.

As I am sure you know, we are very close to releasing a public BETA of SocialSpark, our new Social Marketing Network. We would like to invite you to participate in a private ALPHA prior to that release. We are not accepting any hard dollars during the Alpha period, rather we are providing credits for current PayPerPost advertisers.

Now through the end of March, for every $1000 you spend in PayPerPost we will credit you with $100 in SocialSpark Alpha Bucks and a key to the Alpha. Maximum $5000 Alpha Bucks per advertiser. You can spend your credits on anything in the system during the month of April.

These credits have no cash value and can not be redeemed outside of SocialSpark. All credits must be utilized between April 1 and April 30th, 2008.

If you are interested in participating in this limited Alpha launch program please contact me or your sales representative for more information.

Regards,

Joe Vaughn
Director of Sales
IZEA – Innovations in Social Media

Since her budget isn’t that big, it’s unlikely she’ll qualify for the credit! (oh, well!) But anyway, the following screenshot shows some of the must-have features. A closer look at the center reveals that there will be quite a lot of information for advertisers on each page:including Page Rank, Alexa, Comments, Blogger Profiles, click tracking, etc…

socialspark screenshot

There are still a number of problems with Page Rank to be worked out, also with nofollow tags which are going to be common, and persuading advertisers that the new metrics will really help drive traffic. At the moment, most of the advertisers in the PayPerPost system are signing up to buy pagerank rather than traffic. In fact, in the most recent three campaigns that I ran (albeit small campaigns), the clickthroughs to my blog were in fact quite minimal – I ended up paying nearly $10.00 per click as tracked by Google Analytics. Although I got a $100 dollar freebie, at nearly $4 per click it was pretty expensive. Part of the fault may lie in the lack of actionable content, the fact that I got some really low quality posts on free domains (which I did not want), and some of the writing was lackluster to say the least.

Updating my Hosting

Having been with Dreamhost for over 3 years, I was comfortable with their service, enjoyed their generous space allotments, and have had quite a learning experience over the years. But one feature I have noted over the past few years: they’re just not so robust or reliable. In August, just as my traffic was picking up, there were outages that lasted on and off several days. Then again in September. In January 2008, there were serious billing issues. Then again on March 22nd we had an outage of 12 hours. I’ve also had persistent problems with old sub-domains that haven’t been ported properly.

While for many sites that are smaller with less visitors, the occasional outage isn’t a big deal, on several occasion just as traffic was building up, something happened to cap that traffic on InvestorBlogger Dot Com. I think that I’m getting the sign that it is time to move hosting to something more robust and stable, esp. some hosting service that will open up the doors to more traffic. I’m now considering two or three additional hosting companies: BlueHost, BlueFur, MediaTemple and A Small Orange are my candidates. BlueHost seems to offer a lot for a little (warning signs?), BlueFur (which hosts John Chow’s blog) had trouble getting their act together for new sales leads, MediaTemple seems okay and has a bit of oomph, and A Small Orange (seems expensive, but may be worth it). I also looked at Micfo (which hosts JohnCow’s blog), and one or two others.

I will likely divide my sites into three groups: static sites and very low demand sites will be hosted together on a small plan; my customer sites will be hosted on a more powerful host; and InvestorBlogger dot com will be hosted on the most powerful of the three hosting plans. In fact, using three separate hosting companies will allow me the flexibility to shift things around much more when the hosting plans go awry. I’m also considering shifting my domain registrations to another company, as I’ve heard that will allow more flexibility still.

Obstacles to Growth

Last year at our business, we were suffering something of a sharp downturn in business. In the end, we had to let go one member of our staff after she didn’t accept the changes to her job description. Since then, in our business we found that such a simple change opened the door to new growth as we cleared out the negativity that was part of our operation then.

Instead, we all buckled down and accepted the situation, then we got to work. It took us a year to rebuild that growth; and we all learned a lot during that time. But I was surprised how one person can prevent growth. I’m now beginning to wonder if InvestorBlogger dot com is now outgrowing Dreamhost (not the actual hosting resources) but the ‘quality’ of the service. Perhaps so.

So, change is coming (it always is); and it will bring new opportunities and new challenges. I’m ready. Are you?