Newsbites

LinkyLove for your readers!

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Ok. It’s time for a little LinkyLove… Read the Instructions…

#Start copy here#
The idea is simple: You want readers and you want link backs too because that’s all us bloggers want, it’s more precious than milk for some :twisted:

So how does it work?

Simple! You just copy the list down below on your blog, hence creating link backs for your blogging friends and then click the RSS feed link to subscribe to all of them. Then you add yourself and up to 5 other bloggers and their feeds to the end of the list before you publish it on your own blog. Show your friends some link love :)

Just imagine if just 10 people would do this and then 10 more after them. That would get your blog 100 extra link backs and 100 extra feed subscribers!

The Original List:

The Extended List:

My Additions

    You participated but your not listed yet? Drop us an email so we can add you!

    #End copy here#

Now, don’t forget to add these to your feed, so you can read some great blogs every day!

Layout, iThemes, and Myths: It’s all in Unison – Thanks StumbleUpon.com

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I was just using Stumble and discovered some wonderful links, so I’m going to post those of interest to bloggers.

Blog Layout and Design: What do people prefer?

blog design

There is a fun survey to do that helps to clarify your choices for blog design. Fill out the survey, then review the results…. There are some surprises.

Duplicates, Copies and Frustration

unison

If you are like me, you have copies of your files EVERYWHERE… In our network office, we’d like to back up data to one reserve: The problem is that we often forget and stupidly use the data in the reserve location… We think we need a tool like Unison. I predict we’ll be trying it out soon, as copy and paste are quite limited when it comes to file management.

An Apple Theme for your WordPress

appletheme

I found an Apple Style theme for Wordpress… if you really want your blog to look an Apple Desktop, it’s even got a dock bar at the bottom! Neat. But potentially very samey… You’d definitely need to prettify it.

10 Big Myths about copyright explained

This article clarifies some common misconceptions about copyright… it was written for a different Internet time (1994), but the general principles still hold true in the age of myspace, youtube and wordpress.

There’s a bunch more wacky stuff out there… if you discovered something via StumbleUpon, add it here with the usual HTML in the comments! I’ll be happy to visit it!

Thanksgiving, Themes, and Thoughts: Friday Round Up

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Hah! Back for Thanksgiving Friday! Sorry to say I didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving… In Taiwan, it’s not a holiday, and in the UK Thanksgiving is much earlier!

Google BUYS Content – hardly!

Google comes under the microscope in an article in BusinessWeek. Unfortunately, the writer doesn’t seem to understand the difference between AdWords and AdSense. Anyway, here’s my comment on the story, just in case BW doesn’t publish it.

It seems your author doesn’t understand that Adsense and Adwords are two sides of the SAME coin… Adwords are purchased by advertisers on (amongst other avenues) publishers’ websites (who use Adsense). Unfortunately, with ctr rates dropping with recent changes, and increasing dissatisfaction over being NOT paid for impressions, etc.. Many smaller publishers and blog owners are removing Adsense altogether. It’s likely to be a trend that continues, too. Esp. as Google is now behaving more like a Gorilla towards those smaller publishers and bloggers who try to find alternative ways to finance their bloggings. heck, most bloggers would starve if they had to rely on Adsense earnings….

Does your blog have a TOS?

Many blogs just don’t. Mine doesn’t. But I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that I should… I think the TOS should include Privacy issues, IP issues, Commenting Policy, Copyright Issues, … and what else? What else would you include? Comment some ideas for me. I do have a Disclosure Policy, but that may no longer be enough… Here’s WordPress.com’s TOS.

Advertising: Where can you see InvestorBlogger dot Com?

InvestorBlogger’s advertising budget hasn’t been particularly great. In fact, in the last three months, I’ve spent the grand total of $85.00 on advertising on Michael Kwan’s site, on CashQuests, and now on JohnCow’s site.

These sites are all excellent for different reasons: Michael Kwan’s review was really pointed and detailed, and helped my simplify the design (I admit the current theme looks ugly!), but I’m still looking for a theme that I can make UNIQUE; CashQuests has generated 50 visits for my site from the link there, that’s 30c per view, though the bounce rate has been quite high; and now, I’m trying out John Cow’s website by having a link there (it’s more expensive than CashQuests, but we’ll see…).

I am reluctant to try for AdWords with this site, simply because there’s already quite a lot of competition. I think my money would be better spent on other advertising routes.

A New Theme…

After the theme emergency last month, when MistyLook simply stopped working, and upgrade didn’t work either, I had to hastily adopt this rather plain looking theme. I’ve been looking at Magazine/Newspaper type themes recently, as this is how my blog seems to be going… Over the weekend, I’ll be trying a theme a day… Let me know in the comments if you like the theme or not. Here are a couple of interest from JustinTadlock who is teaching in Korea at the moment…

Happy Holiday, and remember to give thanks for all the good things you have, and once you start to list them, you’ll find that there is a lot!