Month: September 2007

Is The BlogRush Over With?

My BlogRush Stats

When I initially became aware of BlogRush and it’s associated claims of rushing traffic to blogs, I became extremely interested. As a blogger myself, I’m always looking into new ways to generate traffic. As we now know, BlogRush has itself experienced a rush, a rush that I believe is bigger than any smalltime blogger currently using their widget, has experienced. Their system is simple and at face value looks like it would work for everyone, but after reviewing my stats, it looks like it won’t work for me.

My BlogRush Impressions

Out of 2,401 impressions or appearances on various sites, only 4 people have clicked a headline attributed to my site. If you ask me, that’s not exactly a rush of traffic. Now I know it could be possible that the headlines to my articles suck, but is that really the case? My blog is currently competing within the Computers and Internet category and I myself have clicked on a few of the links within the widget on and have found some really cool sites. However, till this day, I have yet to see any of my posts appearing on anyone else’s widget. I even spent half an hour, clicking on various posts from one widget to the next, and I never saw one post from my site.

It’s also worth mentioning that I have checked both my Entry pages, and my Exit pages for the widget url. As we’ve seen earlier, at least 4 people have used the article headline on the widget as an entrance page to my site. However, there are 25 hits for the widget url being used as an exit page. Although I don’t know how many of those exits are attributed to myself, I really feel as if I’m doing everyone else a favor, by having this widget published on my site versus helping myself out.

The only people that seem to be benefiting from this service are the big blogs who most likely have quite a few referrals. BlogRush has stated in their latest email that:

We’ll soon be adding a bonus credit system that gives certain bonuses only to our low traffic members since they need the help the most!

That may be enough to help us small timers out, but only time will tell. So far, I’m experiencing lack luster results with BlogRush and apparently, these people are too although I’m not sure why Darren is using Blogrush as his blog gets enough traffic as it is.

ProBlogger.Net

Nusuni

Sbadvertisment

Texty Rolls Out Anticipated Updates

Texty.com LogoThe easy content creation service known as Texty which I reviewed here, Simple Content Creation Using Texty, has rolled out some anticipated updates. One of those updates fixed the Google SEO problem so many users mentioned.

In each Texty edit object under “Advanced Secret Options” you can now input the URL where you plan to post your Texty. Texty claims their indexing techniques will ensure your content will be crawled by search engine spiders which was a missing feature that turned quite a few newcomers away from using the service. They have also added a privacy feature in case you wouldn’t want your content to be indexed. Before you publish your Texty Note, click the “Private” button.

New Texty Features

One of the other updates that were featured in this release is the ability to add a DIGG function to anyone of your Texty notes. This control can be found within the Advanced Options tab. I’m not sure if you’ll ever see a Texty reach the front page of DIGG but hey, it’s worth a shot.

Jeffro2pt0.com Wins First Blog Award

Reader Appreciation Project AwardThe gang over at the Reader Appreciation Project has handed out their first batch of Readers First awards. These awards go to those blog or site authors who display exceptional selflessness and devotion to their readers. Jeffro2pt0.com was one of the sites to receive this award.

First off, I want to thank the guys and gals who head the Readers Appreciation Project website. These guys are always creating thought provoking articles which really make the reader think. It’s nice to know that their is a website around that is discussing the issues of reader appreciation. All too often, blog authors are engulfed in their own ME ME ME bubble. These are the types of people that believe everything they say is the right answer, everything they do is correct, and they only do things that benefit themselves or their site. Frankly, that is a piss poor attitude to have.

I think what every blogger has to realize is that, without readers, you have no audience and without an audience, your blog is essentially a waste of space on the internet. Instead of ignoring those that contribute to your site whether it be in the form of comments, email feedback, or linking to an article, be sure to give thanks. In the type of world we live in today, where the words Thank You are rarely heard, these two words can really make a positive impact in someone’s life or within their thought process.

If someone links to me, I visit their site and leave a comment expressing thanks. Sometimes, I link to them on my own blog. Other times, I email the author and express a bit of gratitude for taking the time out of their day to read what I had to say. Whatever the case may be, I always ensure that someone is thanked. This attitude and the way of handling things has allowed me to build relationships with people I most likely wouldn’t of bothered with had I not put in the extra effort.

I’m not going to repeat what the RAP guys had to say about me, but if you would like to view their reasons for rewarding me and this site the award, be sure to read Readers First Awards September 2007 To the folks over at RAP, keep up the good work. The information, conversations and ideas that can be found on their website are like BLOGGING GOLD.

If you are a blogger or a site owner, what are some of the ways you show appreciation to your audience?

Where The Hell Have I Been?

I’ll tell you where I’ve been, enjoying my vacation, that’s where. This was my final week of vacation this year from my normal 40 hour a week job and because the weather was as perfect as can be, I decided to spend a couple of days away from the computer to get some things cleaned, as well as to spend a day or two out in the wilderness.

If you combine a 40 hour work week, with the normalcies of life, then throw on a few hours each day of browsing through RSS feeds and blogging, sometimes you can get into a creative rut. It’s during those times when one has to take a step back, get away from the routine and reorganize. That’s what I did and now I have a ton of stuff to blog about. Before I begin writing my other posts, I wanted to share a couple of photos from my trip with you. Let me know what you think.

Click on any of the images to see a larger version.

100_1451 100_1447 100_1435

Meebo Celebrates Pirate Day

Meebo.com Logo

Considering Meebo was one of the first IM clients to feature a pirate emoticon (type the letter P followed by a right parenthesis “P), it’s only natural that they celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day Last year, Meebo enabled Pirate Speak, where if you type “pirateon” your IMs will be translated into pirate lingo. This year, Meebo has enabled users to select a special pirate buddy icon.

we’ve enabled you to show off your pirate pride by choosing a special pirate buddy icon! We’ve added three new buddy icons that are only available for a few days. If you sign in with a meebo account, you’ll be able to select one of these new pirate faces from the buddy icon chooser on the upper left area of your console.

Netscape Finalizes Changes

Propller.com Logo

Netscape is reporting that they have completed their planned changes to the Netscape.com website. According to Tom Drapeau, the Propeller social news experience will not be going away. Instead, within the next few weeks, Propeller content will be seen on both the Netscape.com portal and AOL News. Netscape also goes on to apologize about the recent performance issues, assuring users that they are hard at work trying to figure those out.

Tom did give us a little bit of insight into their new social news platform:

In the near future, we will be able to share information about our new social news platform, which we are extremely excited about. It will bring together the best of all worlds: a world class design team, an advanced website platform, and a host of new and interesting ways to enjoy social news

Keep an eye on Propeller.com It will be interesting to see if this site is successful or not.

Add Google Ajax To Your WP 404 Page

AskApache.com LogoI think I have finally found an easy solution for my WordPress 404 page. The plugin is called AskApache Google 404.

This plugin after being installed, will display an Ajax powered Google search box. This search box will automatically perform a search for Jeffro2pt0 or the text contained within the link that generated the error. The Google search bar contains tabs for finding blog posts, videos, images, and results from across the web.

Now, instead of generating a simple error message with no way of finding what it is the browser was looking for, this plugin gives me a chance to offer the search bar to visitors who can at least ATTEMPT to find what it was they were looking for. I’ve also heard that by using this Google search bar, Google would be more appreciative to my site in terms of SEO, but I have no definitive proof.

If your a WordPress user and you don’t have a helpful 404 page, give the Apache Google 404 Plugin a try. It’s very easy to install and in the end, your visitors will be appreciative that you provided a way for them to try and find what it was they were looking for.

Click Here To Test The Plugin

And by the way, Hello to all of you who have STUMBLED across this page. By all means, take your shoes off and make yourself at home. 

FireFox Has Its Own Sports Car

Check out this decked out sports car which is littered with all sorts of FireFox references. This thing has a very slick paint job. How many chicks do you think you’d be able to pick up with this baby?

Click on the image to see a larger version. Taken by nobihaya

FireFox Sports Car

On a side note, I was reading the comments on Digg and I finally read a comment which had me laughing my ass off.

by oneoverzero 4 hours ago The IE car must have crashed.