Newsbites

Wednesday’s News on InvestorBlogger: Social Spark, Kiva and Dreamhost

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It’s been quite a while since I did a news type post, so today’s post is a News Type Post. I’ll be covering a number of issues, but first here’s a quick recap of the top posts since the last news posting.

Recent Posts

With these days of a heady credit crisis, I’ve focused a lot on financial issues of late from borrowing money in China via a ‘hui’ (a unique self-help scheme that CAN work), to learning more about why we always feel broke in Cash Low? Play CashFlow 101 and learn why, disclosing my own personal Credit Card habits in Mr Credit Card’s Survey: My Personal Answers… And yours?. Before taking any loan, you need to read the fine print before you sign. Shopping these days also provides its own headaches, and I’m not sure what was going on when I bought some CDs at Carrefour.

This month has not been without its challenges: Accident Prone: And it’s not April First, and April Fools: Technorati, Safari, SRG, and Analytics – all borked. Of course, I’ve been updating all my blogs to the latest version of WordPress 2.5 and I’m loving it – WordPress 2.5: Five Things InvestorBlogger loves!. But upgrading hasn’t been without its own tribulations: the blog that hosted the Carnival of Making Real Money: 18th Edition April 1st, 2008 has been experiencing trouble since I tried a manual upgrade, then an automatic upgrade. I had to revert to a previous version to get it working again. No idea why: the plugins are all the same as the other blogs.

And lastly, in my feature post, I looked at how success comes in different disguises in Making it on Main Street: Are you looking for the big kahuna?

In Today’s News

There are three stories that I would like to share in today’s news: Social Spark, Kiva Sponsorship, and Dreamhost (it ain’t so bad after all!)

Social Spark

Social Spark is now live and in Alpha. I was given a special code that meant that I could finally access it, if you’re lucky and you’re already a member of either PayPerPost or the Izea Boards, you may get a code by fnding a thread in which ‘keys’ are being given away. You may not get one, but it’s worth a try. I was surprised to get one! The whole system is very different to the current PayPerPost system, and offers new opportunities and new challenges. In fact, it’s a cross between elements of FaceBook, MyBlogLog and PayPerPost.

socialspark

There’s a lot more to do in your profile, as you can interact with other bloggers and advertisers, your profile is quite detailed, as are the stats on your traffic. You’ll also find some variations on the traditional opps that you can take: traditional type opps have bonuses for work well done, there are ‘sparks’ which can be done for free in return for some non-monetary compensation, and there is blog sponsorship which posts a large Ajax type advertisement on your blog the first time someone visits, and after it’s been dismissed, a bar at the bottom of your blog’s webpage.

bca-ss-sponsorship

This is a sample for the current sponsorship that is supposed to be on my blog, but isn’t… yet. There are a whole range of other features for the social aspect, but since this program is still an alpha preview, a lot of things don’t work properly or at all, some of the organisation seems chaotic and less than ideal for new users, but the potential is tremendous. I do also like the fact that PayPerPost has allowed bloggers to go ‘nofollow’ on in-post links, making it acceptable for bloggers who would rather not cross swords with the Big G.

Kiva: New Sponsorship

Having been a participant in Kiva for over a year, I recently doubled my ‘investment’ in the organisation and now have sponsored a new client as part of a syndicate. This is a very worthy cause, and a great way to give something back to the community. I received this email from Kiva today stating:

This is an update written by Lola Khusanova on: Nasim Nabijonov

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Nasim Nabijonov by International MicroLoan Fund (IMON) in Tajikistan. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 9 months, International MicroLoan Fund (IMON) will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Kiva very much appreciates your responses online. …

Take a look at his story at his bio and story.

nasim

Nasim has run his business of office supplies sales for more than 11 years in the central market. He competes effectively with big stores by offering prices that are lower and more attractive. This has helped him to succeed in his business. Nasim requests a loan of $1000.00 for the term of 9 months to expand the business and purchase more office supplies to sell.

This kind of entrepreneurship and vision is important if you want to succeed in your business.

Dreamhost: ups and downs.

In recent months, Dreamhost has added a lot of interesting features for its customers. Despite my complaints, I’ve generally found that for private and personal hosting, as well as small company hosting, Dreamhost is a great choice. If, like this blog, your website is attracting more traffic, perhaps it’s time to consider more serious choices… Things I’ve noticed:

1. Google Hosted Domains are now easy –

google hosted

2. Easy Mode for some hosted Apps

easymode

3. There’s a wide range of hosted software that can be installed automatically for you at Dreamhost, including Wordpress, Zenphoto, Gallery, PhpGedView, Pligg, dotProject, Moodle, Joomla, phpbb, MediaWiki, WebCalendar, and Advanced Poll. Some nice stuff there.

advancedmode

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll be looking at seven ways I’ve gotten additional traffic in recent months: what they are, why they work, and the kind of results you can or can’t expect.

Till then, happy blogging!

Traffic, PR, Technorati, and more… How is InvestorBlogger Dot Com doing?

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Traffic to the blog was anemic in February dropping to less than 1000 Uniques and 1210 PageViews but this recovered nicely in March when the PayPerPost advertising kicked in, and visitors from Google reached 33% of total traffic (thanks, Mr. G!). I’m wondering if this has to do with my PR being mysteriously returned. And, no, I didn’t apply for reinclusion… It’s not something I’m particularly interested in doing right now, though perhaps I’m being short-sighted.

March traffic is highlighted with February below.

Google Analytics Data

1,870 Visits

Previous: 1,210 (+54.55%)

1,520 Absolute Unique Visitors

Previous: 780 (+94.87%)

3,013 Pageviews

Previous: 2,230 (+35.11%)

1.61 Average Pageviews

Previous: 1.84 (-12.57%)

00:02:07 Time on Site

Previous: 00:03:08 (-32.45%)

RealRank

This month my RealRank data from November was lost entirely when my blog was unceremoniously removed from PayPerPost. Woops! Still, I have recovered and seen my rank rise to the 800’s. This is still way off my earlier rankings, but that’s likely because of the sheer number of sites in the RealRank system now.
realranktoday
I must confess that I’m having REAL doubts about the accuracy of the rest of the data especially when compared to analytics esp. over the last few days. RealRank suggest I had less than a dozen visitors in three days, where Analytics has over more than ten times that number. I’m beginning to think that REALRanks is still very Alpha. Use with caution. There are other niggles with this website software, too.

Technorati

My Technorati ranking has been on a tear of late… We’ve soared through 30K and 200 Authority is just upon me.
technoratirankings
This has been helped by a number of tools, including BlogCarnival, linking from blogs, Payperpost campaigns, and much more… I’ve still a long way to go though before reaching 10K, about 250 more links, I think.

Alexa

And finally, Alexa… What the heck’s going on here? My traffic is rising nicely, but so is my Alexa. It should be falling.

alexa reach

Well a mixed bag pretty much. Overall, there are signs of significant growth over last February~March, but with each metric being somewhat problematic, figuring out my blog’s current status is akin to a jigsaw puzzle.
What other metrics do you use to estimate your traffic? Let me know how you are doing.

InvestorBlogger’s March 2008 Income Report

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It’s been a bit delayed, but this post is detailing March’s Income Report. Like many bloggers, I have a number of online income sources that support this blog, but I also try to keep a number of offline sources as a way to spread the risk. January 2008 was a stellar month, February settled back somewhat, but March has been much more subdued than even February was. So don’t expect any surprises, especially as the money tends to arrive in clumps. In fact, a quarterly report might be more insightful as far as the trends go.

I’ve been plugging my free download as a way to attract visitors to download the top twenty subscriptions. Still waiting for that to work. I guess most people already seem to have their own ideas about who they want to download and listen to or read. I’ll leave it up anyway.

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For more interesting articles on running a business, making money, operating your blog, , and so on…, subscribe to the RSS feed or email newsletter. There’s a lot more in the Random Walk to Wealth on InvestorBlogger dot com.
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So let’s deal with the money fiirst this month. We’re edging ever slightly closer to the $10,000 mark. I had hoped that we’d pass it this month, but it wasn’t to be. Several sources of income proved unreliable this month as consulting work dried and I decided (temporarily) to quit PayPerPost. This really emphasizes why it is important to retain a number of income sources to prevent over-reliance on one. PayPerPost used to provide a majority of the income that this blog generated, but this past month I was forced out of the program because I had to choose between my own advertisers and PayPerPost – like that was a hard one!

* Bank Interest: $26.48
* Dividend Income: $75.52
* Affiliate Income: $3.04
* TLA – $81.43
* LinkWorth – $63.50 (for three sites)
* TopSpots – $1.78
blogging – $60.00
* hosting = $114.75
* Total = $426.50*
*there are a few other residual sources but they generally don’t generate much, like Voxant, NetAudioAds, etc. that generate only a few cents a month. In addition, some sources that generate a lot one month, but nothing the next are not included.

The odd factor about this income is that most of the money generated actually didn’t require me to do very much in terms of time, ie. it was mostly fairly passive income. If I had watched TV, written a book, slept for the entire month, or gone on a world tour, most of this money would have still been there. How nice! Of course, I wouldn’t desert my readers!

According to my plan, developing a part-time income from work is important. I have had several contacts for part-time work in Taipei, but it isn’t something I’m able to do just now. I’d love to switch my teaching load from full-time to part-time, but I can’t find anyone that would commit to working with us on a longer term basis. Renting is still an option that we’ve not explored fully yet, but my wife and I are talking about doing this in the longer term. We enjoy where we live right now, and we’re just not quite ready to move out.

Total Income Generated

Naturally, this means my total generated by blogging now jumps to $9446.87. With $10,000 just a little bit nearer, it surprises me that I could earn so much extra income just by focusing on what’s around me. Now I’m always looking for ideas to create additional income streams, and there are loads. But you can’t see them with your eyes: you have to use your head to see them.

Expenses

The blog currently only has a few expenses such as hosting through Dreamhost’s VPS system and it works well. Of course, Domains and I own about ten or so all need to be paid for annually and Paypal Fees. I currently don’t advertise, though I may do so soon again.

* hosting – $49.40 (est.)
* Fees – $0.00 (Paypal, Commissions, etc.)
* Content, Development, and Advertising – $94.20
* Total = $93.62*

*These figures are estimates as final figures haven’t been received for some, and other commissions are invisible having been deducted at source.

One other obvious factor that is now affecting earnings: the US$ vs NT$ is now approximately $1: NT$30.5 +/- 0.5 which is boosting some earnings superficially. Since I don’t do actual exchanges, the value is a notional amount, but it is worth mentioning that a few months ago the rate was over NT$32.5 so the NTD has strengthened quickly. We’d been expecting this for some time, but it was a surprise just how fast it jumped. It’s likely that we’ll see rates approaching NT$29.5 later this year, though it should stabilize in the short term. The USD is likely to remain weak for quite some time; and the GBP is looking like the next victim as the currency weakens in a slowing economy and property market. I’m not forecasting rates for that, but GBP:NTD is already 10% down from historical highs.

I keep getting cut off from my ADSL, so I guess this is a signal to finish this part of the post as quickly as possible. I’ve already written most of the traffic report, which I’ll publish tomorrow.