Running out of steam? Do you evolve or die?

Posted by stuart as blogging, blog

In another lifetime, I did some page layout and colour separation work for a friend of mine who owned a printing business. Long story short - he closed down the business, and I lost my main (only, actually) client.

I was presented with a choice. I could close the business down, and move on with my life, or adapt to an ever changing world, and move into a related but different business.

This was around 1995, and we were just starting to hear about this nerds toy called the internet. I choofed off and spent $59.95 on what has probably been the single best investment in my life. I bought “Sams Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML 3.2 in a Week”  (I actually still refer to this book from time to time!)

The book awoke something in me I couldn’t explain. I’d never done any programming (except for that little ripper in BASIC - you know the one):

10. PRINT “I ROCK!”

20. GOTO 10

I love the structure of HTML, you were either right and it worked, or you were wrong and it didn’t.

Long story short, I adapted my print pre-press business into a web development business. Remember, this was 1995 and people weren’t particuarly concerned with design, they were just rapt to see their logo “on the internet”, and if you REALLY wanted to impress someone, you showed them your code, nested tables, missed closing tags and all!
So what am I on about here?

I wonder what we do with blogs once we feel they might have run their course? It’s true to say that there’s little new in the AIS blog arena - ever! None of us ever have access to information that a thousand other bloggers don’t. The slew of posts which follow an announcement by Google, text link ads, blogsvertise, payperpost or any of a million others is testament to this. We’re all just writing the same crap, day after day, week after week, month after month……

Those bloggers who actually do have access to information which can increase their income certainly aren’t going to share it with you and I.

The only posts I find interesting these days are the recounting of personal experieces and emotions. Give me more of this….please! I don’t need you telling me that google are updating pagerank, I need you telling me how it’s affected you, how you feel about it, were you a winner? Did Google shaft you? How do you think it will affect your income?

So, when we find we have no more to write on a subject which isn’t being written by a million others, what do we do? We’re presented with two options: Evolve the blog, or stop writing alltogether.

With all the hard work we put into our blogs, abandoning them would be a tragedy, so I’m all for the evolution of a blog.

As the blog was originally intended to be an ongoing commentary of the experiences of the blogger, I believe we shoudn’t be afraid to show that evolution in our blogs. Gone back and found a post you’re embarassed of now? Post about it. Share a little more of your insecurities. I’ve had people comment to me that when they come to this blog, they want to read about me and my experiences. So I’m trying to do that now.

This blog has evolved dramatically in the year that it’s been active. From originally being all about making money online, I soon realised that I wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t being said in a million other places, but I did have one ace up my sleeve - Nobody has the experiences I’ve had. I can write to my hearts content safe in the knowlege that the stories haven’t been heard before.

So where do I see this blog evolving? Right now, I see myself as trying to provide a little light relief for all those hard working AIS’ers out there. I still know a little about this field (not as much as my readers, admittedly), so I can converse with some knowlege on the subject. But I want to offer something more to the readers than my money making experiences. I’m trying to (slowly) introduce a little more of “me” into the blog. You might like me, you’ll probably end up hating me and unsubbing from the feed, but hey!

So hang around (or not), as someone said a while ago, I really am all over the place with this blog thing!

What’s more important - site visitors or feed readers?

Posted by stuart as Feedvertiser, rss

I’ve been ponderig this one quite a lot of late. As I gradually get back into the swing of building my blogs again after the new kidney arrived, I’ve actually found myself getting more excited by feed reader count than actual traffic to this blog.

It’s an interesting quandary, especially when you take into account the technical proficiency of your readers. There’s little doubt that virtually every reader of this blog would be able to sniff out the RSS feed, and add it to their reader. But what if your blog or site was about Rose Gardening. I would imagine that the demographic a site such as this would attract would have little use for a feed reader, and would visit the site directly.

This provides a secondary challenge when trying to monetise a blog about  making money online. Everybody know that AIS’ers are unlikely to click your ads or buy through that affiliate link in your blog, but with the increasing use of feed readers, you’re going to be struggling to even get them to your site in the first place.

I’ve watched the number of feed readers slowly creep closer and closer to the actual number of unique visitors to the site itself here over the last few months. It now stands that the number of feed readers is about a quarter of the number of actual uniques to the site each day, but gaining ground fast.

I wonder at which point we stop producing a blog, and just produce and promote an RSS feed? There is plenty of software out right now which allows you to create just such a feed.

I would imagine that much more inventive ways of monetising feeds need to be found before this is an option. I just don’t think a line of text with a link at the bottom of each post will cut it. Maybe google needs to look at letting us place horizontal text links under the headline of each post?

Wohoo! I’m big in Denmark!

Posted by stuart as alexa

I’m trying to claw some alexa ranking back after a few months of limited posting here, so I keep a pretty close eye on the Alexa stats.

I know alexa is “a bit stupid” (as Mark put it), but there’s no denying advertisers use it when trying to decide where to throw their dollars, so it’s well worth investing some time into.

Alexa some time ago added some pretty nifty geographical data, which, whilst being useless in any real sense of the word, do provide some fun.

Apparently, with the exception of my home country Australia (alexa rank 5,826), this site is by some degree more popular in Denmark than any other country.

Now I could spend some time trying to work out why this is the case, but I’m generally lazy and can’t see any real benefit in doing this..

I did have one thought though. Alexa give you the opportunity to purchase t-shirts with your alexa rank on them along with some smartass comments. Here’s an opportunity for some business savvy (and non lazy) person to start selling t-shirts like the following:

Does your family know your dirty little secret?

Posted by stuart as blogging, blog

I was talking to a mate the other day. He has a passing interest in web development and technology, and asked me how my websites were going.I told him that they make me a few bucks, and I get some enjoyment out of them, so it’s all good. I also told him that my highest trafficked blog (this one) made me the least amout of money, but I enjoyed doing it, so I wasn’t really fussed.

Then he asked me for the address of the blog. I baulked. I’ve never told any of my family or friends the address of this blog, or, for that matter, any of my sites other than my development business site.

So why not? Most of my family and friends know I “do stuff online to make some money”, but if you pressed them, they’d really have no idea what it is I actually do. And you know what? I’d rather it stay that way.

I guess I expose myself a little more on this blog than I do to most of my F & F, they wouldn’t understand the amount of time spent for such little return. (My family, especially, are all professional people - solicitors, surgeons, professors and the like)
I’ve had an exceptionally good couple of weeks on the punt lately. I’ve doubled my money in a two week timeframe. I wish I could do this with my online (mis)adventures. I know that punting as a long term income strategy is a mugs game, but it’s really put in perspective how much time we spend online for such little return.

For those of you spending countless hours a month on your websites, for pocket change in AdSense clicks in the hope of one day owning an autopilot automated income generating empire, what makes you any different from the tens (or hundreds?) of thousands of other would be online entrepreneurs? Why will you succeed while millions of others will fail?

Can you proudly stand in front of family and friends and tell them that your sixty hours a month is netting you $100, but you’re sure that you will “make it one day”?

Not really sure where I’m going with this. I guess I’m saying that I’m more than a little embarassed at the amount of time I’ve spent in front of the computer to make around US$100 a month. It’s a liberating feeling to dump all those crappy AIS sites, watching the domain names expire almost daily.

As I wrote in a previous post. I now have the best of both worlds. I keep the blogs I love, and use them as a form of self-expression, I get a payment from adsense every couple of months, text-link-ads are nice enough to drop some cash in my paypal account once a month, and I get to take Mrs. PMPR out for dinner.

Everyone’s a winner!

Unfortuate Yahoo ad placement

Posted by stuart as yahoo