Ted Murphy, owner of Payperpost, has just emailed advertising clients with an update on the changes that segmentation in PPP has brought. Apparently, advertisers were unhappy with the increase in costs that segmentation brought them. So InvestorBlogger asks the obvious question: Are things going well in PPP-Land? Anyway, for advertisers, PPP is now offering lower cost opportunities.

The introduction of segmentation in our system has been a huge success by all accounts. Last week we added Technorati rankings and our advertisers seem to be loving it. However, we also made some consolidation in the segmentation ranges which caused some lower range rankings to increase in price. Many of our advertisers contacted us requesting some pricing adjustments on the lower end of the spectrum and I am happy to say we listened. We believe the new lower price minimums are now more fair and reflective of the market for both advertisers and bloggers. We appreciate the feedback and hope this adjustment works better for you.

It seems a lot of higher value opportunities created by advertisers are just expiring because segmentation requirements are quite stiff. Also, most bloggers don’t have blogs that meet more than 1 or 2 of the requirements of those higher value opps, at the top end. While at the lower value opportunities, some advertisers are requiring 200 or (yes!) 300 words, Alexa rankings above 1,000,000, a good tack rating and PR for opportunities that run less than $7 for the blogger. I just looked at one right now.
PPP has the tremendously difficult job of matching expectations between the two constituencies it serves: bloggers and advertisers. Both are essential to the success of PPP, so PPP has to serve as mediator in setting its requirements for both. I guess sometimes the balance will come down on one side or the other.

Is PPP working well? What are your opinions, advertisers? Comment away!

I’ve been writing posts for Payperpost (PPP) and for some of the others. There are a number of problems with the service in my opinion, but what there is could be a gold mine for the people who know how to use PPP well. However, there are some issues that advertisers need to understand:

1. There are some terrible bloggers who just whack out a few words on each post, and between posts to bump up or fill the posts. I won’t claim that they are on blogspot or not, some of them are not. But they are easy to spot… By screening for them in your selection process, you can certainly lessen the ‘wasted’ resources, by choosing higher PR/Alexa/Technorati ratings. PPP does provide enough ways to do that now.

2. So other bloggers will whack out quite a decent post for you, if you provide enough space and information for them to deal with your advertisement. As a blogger, I do try to provide value for money on these postings that I choose for my blog, BUT I don’t really do posts for less than $10. I think many of the other bloggers are slowly coming around to this kind of number, too, as a kind of minimum.

3. Also, I do tend to think that the whole blogging for $ is based on some false assumptions about why people blog. Most people started blogging for free because it’s something that they were interested in doing, some of whom have been very successful either paid or in some other way of remuneration. But the remuneration came because of the passion.

But when advertisers offer money for blog postings, what was done for free and enthusiastically may become more difficult for many bloggers: more rules, more expectations, more trouble, more time…! It’s difficult for advertisers to ‘require’ anything from bloggers because of the lack of binding contracts, employee relations, or even face2face pressure. The tools for requiring certain standards are in fact quite blunt. It’s quite likely that some of the ‘advertisers’ would like to have more compunction behind the offers (as payu2blog tries) in quality, quantity and topic, but …

4. As it is, some of the new rules of PPP have in fact driven away quite a few bloggers, including regulars and newcomers. Many others are posting less frequently for a variety of reasons (though their blogs are still updated regularly). Still others are finding that the higher standards PPP are requiring now benefit their blog tremendously and that money comes from many sources, not just PPP.

The advertisers may come to companies like PPP and find that there are lots of bloggers who potentially would love to blog about their products, but because they don’t have adequate ways to judge bloggers’ skills, may find that they either get lots of crap posts or they don’t get enough offers. This is a real example of how things have improved.

A friend of mine recently advertised twice on PPP, the first time the posts he got were somewhat unsatisfactory. He didn’t invest a lot of cash, but I think there was some disappointment because of the poor quality. I think he felt they didn’t do anything good for his website! The second time he tested the waters after segmentation, he was more satisfied with the results, though I sense that he is still hesitant to use PPP on a broader scale, perhaps because of the nature of his website: it’s education-based.

So the success of a project like PPP rests solely on getting the balance right between bloggers and advertisers. Fall to far to one side, and the other group will begin to distance itself. On the other hand, if PPP tries to bind its bloggers more tightly (by rewarding them better) perhaps they will be more successful in the short term by becoming ‘sticky’. If they fail to become sticky by driving too many wedges between the bloggers and the service, bloggers will find other ways to cut out the middleman (for those ‘in the know’) or find other sources of income. With time, some of the revenue sources could be even more stable than PPP, without any of the extra effort that PPP requires.

So it’s important for PPP to get the right balance between itself, its bloggers and its advertisers. PPP is no Ebay, and could be gone in an internet minute.

Kenneth

Disclaimers: I do post for PPP from time to time for which I receive remuneration. Also, an unedited/unrevised version first appeared at Digital Point Forums. There are no affiliate links in this post.

Have you ever had a password compromised? About two weeks ago, for unexplained reasons, one of my colleagues started having problems with her MSN messenger chat ID. She’d log in and find that things had changed: her password, her picture, a bunch of stuff, messages were sent, etc.. Since this was accessed via a company account, we were pretty sure that the breach hadn’t occurred on our premises. No further breach occurred in any other pc or user machine. We did however take it seriously. She managed to regain control of her account easily enough, but it got me thinking about my own Blog security.

What if someone jacked your Wordpress Account? Naturally, prevention is the best solution, so I’m recommending several things to help make your online behavior a little more secure.

1. when you create your WP login ID, you’ll get a password that is generated randomly. In fact, you should login and create a separate identity for day to day management of your blog. This new ‘id’ should have a name and authority role that is not at the same level, perhaps ‘editor’ should be fine. You’ll have enough authority to post and edit most of the time. Also, if you are blogging at another machine that is public, this account (or even a lower level account) will allow you some measure of security.

2. don’t use the same password for your FTP account and your MYSQL Database User. That way, if someone breaks into your FTP account, they won’t be able to link to your other resources.

3. make sure your password includes numbers, and if it includes a word, make sure that the word is not the only part of the password. Dictionary attacks can easily crack word-based passwords.

4. always email yourself backups of the database, just in case the files are hacked. How frequently will depend on your blogging habit, but you need to do it. You can do backups via Manage > Backup (make sure your backup plugin is enabled).

5. if you think your password has been hacked, login to your WP, and your FTP accounts, and update the passwords as quickly as you can. Your database password will be more difficult to change, as you will also need to change the password in your wp-config.php file.

1. WP passwords are changed in the Users Section.
2. Your database password will need to be changed within the database management area of your hosting. Then you’ll need to FTP to your FTP folder and edit the file there. It can’t be done within WP.
3. To change your FTP user password, you’ll need to login to your hosting, find the User Management area and change the password there. If you have shell access, then this should work on Unix hosts.

To change your password, issue the command “passwd” at the UNIX command prompt. You will be prompted to enter your old password then enter your new password twice.

• shell [12] passwd
• Old Password:
• Enter the new password (minimum of 5 characters)
• Please use a combination of upper and lower case letters and numbers.
• New Password:
• Re-enter new password:

Keep your blog secure, practice safe blogging and back up your files regularly! Happy Blogging!