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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?

Open letter to PayPerPost: Goodbye and thanks for all the fish!

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This is my letter to PayPerPost, resigning my blogs from their system.

Dear Payperpost,

I recently took three opps from PPP for advertisers, however, I received a letter of complaint from John who wrote:

Thanks for your post! Unfortunately, we cannot approve it at this time because it does not meet our <a href=http://www.payperpost.com/company/tos.html>Terms of Service</a> in regards to Inline Ads and Links.
According to our Terms, “There are to be no third party links, ads or other detractors located within the sponsored post.” Please remove all third party links and banners from in or around the post and re-submit the post to us. Also, According to our Terms, “PayPerPost bloggers must disclose to their readers that they receive compensation from PayPerPost advertisers. Disclosure may be in the form of a site wide disclosure link on all blog pages or on a per post basis. (Unless the advertiser requires otherwise) ” Visit <a href=http://disclosurepolicy.org/generator/generate_policy>Disclosure Policy.org</a> for further information. Thanks! John

The reality is that I am unwilling to remove the advertisers who are currently helping me pay the approx. $1000 per year hosting bills I face. The $50 dollars in opps that I have received from PPP barely pay for one month at best… So here is my problem:

Since PPP has only offered me these four opportunities in the past FIVE months, I have no choice but to defer to my own advertisers for this. I cannot remove the advertising from the post. If you check my blog, you will see what I mean.

As such, I have decided that I will remove all of my blogs from Payperpost for the time being. I had submitted a third blog on ESL teaching with a PR3 which would have been a VERY good blog as it is my specialty. It too has been rejected. Which is okay.

While I will retain my account, it’s unlikely until nofollow becomes a reality in Social Spark or PR is dropped from PPP or hell freezes over (whichever happens first) that I will be requesting for reinclusion. Sorry.

Please cancel the remaining posts as I believe they too are in breach of TOS as it stands, and since my posts will all be nofollow by the time you read this, they will also be in breach for that reason, too. I should simply NOT have taken them. That was my fault.

I’ve really enjoyed working for Payperpost over the past two years. I think it’s time to stop. Thanks for all the fish, I mean it. I wish nothing but the best for you all at Payperpost. Really.

Kenneth

It’s quite sad for me in some ways, as I’ve really learned a lot about blogging and I have to thank the PayPerPost Team.

Whose blog is it? Google’s? Payperpost’s? Whose…?

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Whose blog is it? Whose?

These days bloggers increasingly kowtow to the likes of Google and whoever else seems to have their sticky paws in the honeypot of blogging… Why? To make a little dough, dosh, cash, readies, … whatever you wish to call it.

FAD: Fading or not?

While blogging is pretty much the fad of the decade, online journals preceded blogging by quite some time. I know because I was trying to do this in early 2000, but didn’t find any really good software to help me maintain the entries. I wrote them on my PDA of the day, a Palm Pilot IIIX (I think) back when Pilots were revolutionary, and WORKED! Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any way to handle the HTML in an easy fashion, and no way to link the entire blog together properly. Of course, the blog hadn’t really been invented, though Blogger existed in late 1999 as did a few others!

I blogged on and off since about 2004 with the registration of my second or third domain here. Most of that blog is now located at Obblogatory, as this is InvestorBlogger II. As a writing teacher for more than five years, and having some ability with words (thanks to years of reading classical Greek translations written in the 19th Century) that developed over the years, the act of blogging has been something that has spurred me to write more and more online.

The Ups and Downs

And I enjoy blogging. I really do. I like the challenge of encapsulating thoughts, ideas and experiences into posts. I enjoy the thrill of getting comments from bloggers from all over the world. I feel that blogging has helped me to articulate ideas, develop my own writing skills, and stimulate my brain.

But recently I’ve been getting frustrated. Not with blogging, but with those largish conglomerates that are starting to populate the world of blogging, and which posture and huff’n’puff as if they really were something. Why does it piss me off? Because…

I’m Pissed Off

Because of stupid emails like the one I got below… despite having ads for months on my blogs.

Thanks for your post! Unfortunately, we cannot approve it at this time because it does not meet our <a href=http://www.payperpost.com/company/tos.html>Terms of Service</a> in regards to Inline Ads and Links.
According to our Terms, “There are to be no third party links, ads or other detractors located within the sponsored post.” Please remove all third party links and banners from in or around the post and re-submit the post to us. Also, According to our Terms, “PayPerPost bloggers must disclose to their readers that they receive compensation from PayPerPost advertisers. Disclosure may be in the form of a site wide disclosure link on all blog pages or on a per post basis. (Unless the advertiser requires otherwise) ” Visit <a href=http://disclosurepolicy.org/generator/generate_policy>Disclosure Policy.org</a> for further information. Thanks! John

Well, John. I don’t know how long you’ve been able to write or spell, but really… my blog has had a disclosure page (well, sorry you couldn’t find it!) for nearly 1.5 years now.

But what really bugs me is that I’m busy paying for the hosting for my blog out of my own pocket (which I don’t mind), and here comes a company that is acting as a middle-man (sorry for the sexist term) and tries to tell me how to maintain my blog. Eh, excuse me, but where was that check for my hosting bills, my electricity bills, my computer repair bills? Wasn’t it in the post? Oh, no…

Dear John,

Thank you for your reply.

Unfortunately, due to contractual reasons, I cannot remove the
advertising from that slot. The code is entered above the post. Also,
FYI, my blog has displayed a disclosure for over 18 months, I’m sorry
that you can’t find it… but if you looked you would know.

In common with many people, we have avoided using set terms and
phrases in our blogs to prevent Google from automatically deranking
our blogs. Again, if you have been working with bloggers for a while,
you should know this.

I’m removing the post, because I expect PPP to support us as we are
providing the means by which PPP advertisers reach out, esp. as Google
is making life difficult for us. While you may cite your TOS, it takes
more than just contracts to retain good relationships with your
bloggers.

Yours
Kenneth

Well in the five months since I did my last post for PayperPost (and the Google SmackDown!), I guess I’ve been paying for my blog and so have really appreciated advertisers coming on board and helping me defer the costs of blogging: currently running at about $1,000 per year all-told.

PayPerPost: Best of the Bunch?

But it seems to me that I’m mostly favorably inclined to PayPerPost. Not so some of the other intermediaries that try to get between the bloggers and the readers. Why? The fact is quite simple: without blogs, Payperpost could not/would not exist even though advertisers did. Blogs are to Payperpost what drivers are to cars. No drivers ergo no cars. No bloggers ergo no Payperpost.

And that goes for a number of other companies that are self-serving in a far more egregious way than Payperpost.

Top Leeches in the Blogging World

Here’s my hit list of such companies:

1. Google Search – for not running their Search Engine efficiently enough to tell what is a popular blog and what is a splog; for requiring bloggers and all websites to use rel=”nofollow” despite not being consistent in their own policies on their own websites or on their primary advertisers;

2. Google Adwords/Adsense- for getting greedy as it tried to make last quarter’s targets: cutting out referral bonuses (like they don’t need more advertisers or publishers – hello, China! Taiwan! Brazil! – I can hear 5 Billion People Out There! Why can’t you?), cutting payouts, providing free advertising on your Adsense, allowing bloggers to be paid the vast sum of 1c per click; for not being transparent enough in its Adsense payouts despite asking for transparency from its users;

3. Google Adsense – for creating additional requirements for websites and advertisers who want to participate in their program, despite the decreasing payouts, decreasing click throughs, etc.. I know it’s your program, and you’re entitled to set your own policies; but you need to remember – the bloggers who use Adsense are ALSO your customers. No bloggers ergo no Adsense. Wonder how that would increase your earnings…;

4. PayPost – for increasingly adopting policies as a tool for managing their bloggers. I know that there are over 100,000 bloggers on their network, and that many of their bloggers are really ‘below par’ in terms of quality. I’ll be detailing why shortly. So policies are a requisite: but my advertisers are currently helping to pay the bills for this blog, and PayPerPost is not. And its stupidly recalcitrant policies for zoning posties, insisting on PR as a factor in its system (even while publicly disavowing it! Good one!) are not helping. SocialSpark is anything but social. There are increasingly strict policies that are detailed in a number of places: TOS, Code of Ethics, FAQ, and BEST Practices! Wow! Blogging for $5 requires a lot of work these days.

5. Blogrush – for allowing itself to portray itself as great plugin with huge benefits for bloggers when in reality it simply sucks up bandwidth, and creates an unbalanced opportunity for bloggers. You advertise the widget with their company on your blog. On the widget are some stories that take readers away from your blog as well as advertising in the hope that on another site, you might (MIGHT!) just get some readers from them. In reality, it is just another blackhole for bloggers that sucks traffic, and returns very little. Even EntreCard is better than that.

Et al.

There are a number of other companies seeking to sponge off the work of bloggers, too: SponsoredReviews (what’s with their bidding? and for failing to take into account ‘nofollow’), Technorati (for adding an extra page between your post and their website – what a leech?), Adsense (oh, wait I already mentioned them), … I’m sure you can add your own…

And I’m mad as hell today.

So, yes, I’m mad today. Why? Because bloggers like myself work hard at our writing, trying to come up with original content (unlike the hundreds of make money blogs out there that simply copy each other!), yet we are being made to jump through all sorts of hoops for benefits that are hugely weighted in favor of the middle-man. Perhaps without such exploitation, these services would largely not exist. Am I right? So, bloggers, if you are trying to make money online, it’s time that you stop letting yourself be exploited by these guys. Stand up for your rights, stand up for your blogs.