MyThoughts

Waaa I Can’t Follow More Than 2,000 People

Earlier this morning, Twitter was buzzing due to the fact that it had been discovered that Twitter had limited accounts to only 2,000 followers. According to Mashable, Pownce has filed suit by also limiting accounts to only 2,000 followers.

While A-listers also known as early adopters could be held responsible for providing these new social tools some momentum, I don’t think they single handedly provided these services their success. Although Mark’s article goes into detail in regards to spam accounts on Twitter and their changing methodologies, what is the big deal in terms of being limited to 2,000 people? Can you honestly tell me that your human mind would be able to comprehend the conversations between all 2,000 people?

I hope you said no or else I’ll have to consider you to be something other than human. Now I know Robert Scoble and a select few like him can read 700 news items in Google Reader in a day but come on, he is the exception and not the rule. While I think Twitter should make exceptions to their evangelist users, I think everyone else needs to calm down.

For mere mortals, though, we have other stuff to do, and by and large we prefer to have a few dozen relationships we can truly engage in rather than 9,000+ that we once a month may shoot off a message to.

Well said Mark.

Waaa I Can't Follow More Than 2,000 People

Earlier this morning, Twitter was buzzing due to the fact that it had been discovered that Twitter had limited accounts to only 2,000 followers. According to Mashable, Pownce has filed suit by also limiting accounts to only 2,000 followers.

While A-listers also known as early adopters could be held responsible for providing these new social tools some momentum, I don’t think they single handedly provided these services their success. Although Mark’s article goes into detail in regards to spam accounts on Twitter and their changing methodologies, what is the big deal in terms of being limited to 2,000 people? Can you honestly tell me that your human mind would be able to comprehend the conversations between all 2,000 people?

I hope you said no or else I’ll have to consider you to be something other than human. Now I know Robert Scoble and a select few like him can read 700 news items in Google Reader in a day but come on, he is the exception and not the rule. While I think Twitter should make exceptions to their evangelist users, I think everyone else needs to calm down.

For mere mortals, though, we have other stuff to do, and by and large we prefer to have a few dozen relationships we can truly engage in rather than 9,000+ that we once a month may shoot off a message to.

Well said Mark.

I've Made The Move

Hello there. Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. Just wanted to pass a note along that yes, I am still alive and kicking. Working for Performancing has been an eye opening experience in more ways than one. Especially the business side of blogging. Working with the people involved with the site as well as participating in the community has shown a completely different side to blogging that I was once accustomed to when I blogged solely on Jeffro2pt0. Things such as monetization, social media marketing, and all that other jazz that goes along with it.

The great news is, a lot of the content I have published on Performancing.com has been submitted to StumbleUpon and other social media outlets without help from me. That has to be good for something, right?

I also wanted to say that I finally made the move. The move from being a full time employee at the grocery store to being part time (maximum of 32 hours per week). I have made the decision to try and improve my writing skills while also making headway with my job at Performancing. I enjoy blogging so much more than stocking shelves which is why I have made the move. Although I will lose my full time medical-dental benefits package, I feel like I am in a position to take a risk and see where this goes.

In the meantime, I am also trying to set my schedule up to give me more time to publish content on this blog. I miss the days of publishing 4-8 times a day and then coming home from work to see 5-10 comments. I’d like to get back in that groove and publish content that I want to write but just haven’t had the time or will power.

I was thinking the other day about how I discontinued the podcast at a bad time. WordPress 2.6 was released as was the theme repository shortly after the podcast died. This has got me stoked for Perfcast in September where David Peralty will most likely be my regular co-host which should be fun.

Other than that, I plan on cleaning this place up a bit, rearranging things and trying to get a posting schedule set for this blog. Now before I let you go, I’ve mentioned that I missed posting on the blog but what I am wondering is, do you miss me to?

I’ve Made The Move

Hello there. Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. Just wanted to pass a note along that yes, I am still alive and kicking. Working for Performancing has been an eye opening experience in more ways than one. Especially the business side of blogging. Working with the people involved with the site as well as participating in the community has shown a completely different side to blogging that I was once accustomed to when I blogged solely on Jeffro2pt0. Things such as monetization, social media marketing, and all that other jazz that goes along with it.

The great news is, a lot of the content I have published on Performancing.com has been submitted to StumbleUpon and other social media outlets without help from me. That has to be good for something, right?

I also wanted to say that I finally made the move. The move from being a full time employee at the grocery store to being part time (maximum of 32 hours per week). I have made the decision to try and improve my writing skills while also making headway with my job at Performancing. I enjoy blogging so much more than stocking shelves which is why I have made the move. Although I will lose my full time medical-dental benefits package, I feel like I am in a position to take a risk and see where this goes.

In the meantime, I am also trying to set my schedule up to give me more time to publish content on this blog. I miss the days of publishing 4-8 times a day and then coming home from work to see 5-10 comments. I’d like to get back in that groove and publish content that I want to write but just haven’t had the time or will power.

I was thinking the other day about how I discontinued the podcast at a bad time. WordPress 2.6 was released as was the theme repository shortly after the podcast died. This has got me stoked for Perfcast in September where David Peralty will most likely be my regular co-host which should be fun.

Other than that, I plan on cleaning this place up a bit, rearranging things and trying to get a posting schedule set for this blog. Now before I let you go, I’ve mentioned that I missed posting on the blog but what I am wondering is, do you miss me to?

Is Content The Only Thing That Matters

My experience in blogging as part of a blogging network is very limited but based on what I have experienced thus far, there is a very strong focus on creating content because the content drives traffic which in turn, drives advertising revenue. The question I have is this, is content the only thing that matters?

I’ve noticed publishing systems which have seen better days, publishing systems which are way out of date sometimes by over 4 version releases, things that are broken and after notifying the guy up above about the problem, the broken thing is still there after 7 days, front end designs which could really be improved to not only highlight what is going on on the website as a whole, but increase accessibility of the backlog of content these blogs provide. Hell, some of these sites don’t even have a proper archive setup. Does none of this matter?

I realize that most technically savvy people browse sites now a days through their favorite RSS reader, but people still come to the site itself and I don’t understand why more emphasis is placed on the frontend and backend of a particular site along with the content that is published on it.

Are any of the things I mentioned above money makers or potential increases in revenue if the improvements were to be done? I would think with an archive page, it would make it easier for people who actually visit the site to find stuff in the backlog. With a focus on community through a recent comments block, you tell visitors that people hang out here and actually discuss things, with a related posts block as well as an area which highlights 5 or so random posts, you give visitors a chance to see something ELSE that might catch their eye, keeping them on the site longer and perhaps turning them into a subscriber if they weren’t already.

As a blogger, I could just as easily do things on my own. But my own blog doesn’t rake in any money and I have no experience or desire to mess with adwords, adsense, sponsored posts, text ads, direct advertising, and all of those other methods of monetization. So I write for others. As I have found out, it is tough to write for sites which in the back of your mind, know they could be so much more than what they are or have been in the past but because of ownership and the way things work, things just don’t work that way.

I guess the bottom line which I have had to cope with is this. The blogs I write for are not mine. I am hired on to write content for the blog, not much else. I can give suggestions, critique, comments, or whatever else, but I must not make demands and just because I say something, doesn’t mean it will happen. Writing for someone is not like Burger King where you can have things your way. It’s their way or the highway. I respect that, considering it’s not my site, but I wish it wouldn’t boggle my mind how making improvements to a brand or website and trying to take the site to it’s fullest potential would be pushed aside because none of those things make money. Sure, they don’t make money DIRECTLY, but I think I could make a strong argument for changes like what I described above to make money INDIRECTLY.

Has anyone else here ever written for someone else? Either an individual or for a blogging network? I wonder if you have gone through the same situations as I listed above. If so, how did you deal with those?

Is Jaiku Still Around?

Jaiku LogoRemember Jaiku? That service which was launched in 2007 which aimed to be a Twitter like service except that it was more of a content aggregator than anything else. Using Jaiku, users can type in 140 character messages as updates while also having conetent aggregated from other services they are apart of through parsing RSS feeds.

As it turns out, Jaiku is still around. In a blog post published on the official Jaiku blog on May 30th, Jyri reminded folks that Jaiku is still alive and well and that moving the service into the Google App Engine has taken much longer than anticipated. Jyri also mentioned that they do in fact have plans for future development. What that future development might be is anyone’s guess.

What I find interesting is that, this service called FriendFeed has ate Jaiku for lunch and then spit them out. FriendFeed works in a very similar fashion to Jaiku except there are no 140 character limits and the content aggregation looks much prettier on FriendFeed. Also, there appears to be much more conversation surrounding the aggerated content items on FriendFeed than there is on Jaiku.

So although Jaiku was one of the first services out of the gate to allow aggregation of your content into a central location allowing others to comment on those items, either their timing was wrong for the service or they had a few things wrong with their implementation. If that was the case, I don’t know what those wrong items might of been. The bottom line is, Jaiku was the first major player in this arena and once Google acquired them, they have fallen flat on their faces. Also, I find it funny that the people behind the FriendFeed service are ex Google employees. Isn’t that quite the coincidence?

The bottom line is, FriendFeed is the place to be in terms of content aggregation in a central location. The early adopters along with many of the big names within the blogosphere are climbing all over each other on the service which is usually a good sign that the service is worthy of your time. Jaiku on the other hand is still invite only which doesn’t appear to be doing them any good.

I don’t see Jaiku ever becoming a threat to FriendFeed. FriendFeed has picked up where Jaiku has left off, improved upon their offerings and apparently, they have done everything right. There is no looking back for FriendFeed and if I were the creators of Jaiku, I’d be thanking my lucky stars that I was acquired before the launch of FriendFeed.

One last thing before I go. I wanted to highlight the fact that it would seem as though being the first one out of the gate does not guarantee anything. I strongly believe that the Google acquisition has done nothing but set Jaiku back but hey, at least Jryi and company received a nice paycheck.

Happy Birthday Jeffro2pt0.com

Thats right folks. Today is this blog’s birthday and what better way to celebrate than to look back on the past 365 days this blog has been online.

Jeffro2pt0.com Birthday

For those of you that are wondering, the first post published on this site occurred on June 4th, 2007 New Fan Of Tumblr. Since then, I have provided a number of reviews on different sites and services, offered tips on blogging, covered various news items and a whole lot more.

Instead of rehashing the story, if you would like to know how this blog came to be, please read my About page which goes into detail as to how this blog came about.

For those of you familiar with the story, let’s take a trip down memory lane together to review some of the highlights of this past year of blogging. Continue reading →

Creating Opportunities Through Blogging

FoxBusiness Logo

Fox Business recently published an article highlighting some of the success stories of some of the big name bloggers out on the net right now such as Perez Hilton, Christian Lander of Stuffwhitepeoplelike fame, and Amit Chatwani to name a few. While reading the article, it was interesting to note the series of events which lead each individual to the spot where they now reside. This is one example:

Jessica Coen is one example of a modern-day, Lana Turner-style blogging success story. While living in Los Angeles after graduating from the University of Michigan, she started writing a personal blog that, through what she calls “the economy of linking,” got picked up by popular New York media blog Gawker.com.

After performing editing duties for Gawker, it landed her positions at Vanity Fair and then New York magazine. If she wouldn’t of started the blog, chances are, she would of never have been discovered and would of ended up on a different path in life.

This article reminded me of how I have achieved a little success. I started to blog seriously back on Jun 2007, where I published my first article on this domain. Because of the blog, I ended up getting a contributing writer position for WeblogToolsCollection.com, one of the largest websites dealing with WordPress. My blog ended up becoming my resume. The resume being updated each time I hit the publish button.

This brings me to my next series of points. There are so many bloggers out there who are reaching the point of wondering why they blog. Lorelle Van Fossen of The BlogHerald does a good job covering this particular problem her post, Why Am I Doing This Blogging Thing? There are so many B-List, C-List, hell, even Z-List bloggers out there writing great content. That content takes time to write, time that in most cases is not being paid for. It was David Peralty of Xfep.com who told me,

No matter what, Bloggers at some point in time are going to want to monetize their site or get paid for their time.

When that time comes, there are a myriad of ways to monetize your site. Let’s go over a few.

  1. Google Adsense/Adwords – For as long as I have been blogging, this has been the primary method to make money. The problem? First off, depending on your niche or subject matter, the ads might not perform well. For example, if your a tech blogger, your audience is probably tech savvy and more likely to have FireFox installed with Ad Block Plus which will disable the ads from being shown. Not exactly the recipe to an income. Secondly, the Payout from Google is 100$. This means you have to make 100$ in Google Adsense Income before they will write and send a check to you. Unless you are receiving a ton of traffic, your chances of getting a check are slim to none.
  2. Affiliate Programs – Affiliate programs allow you to partner with a company or service such as Amazon.com and sell wares through their site. You act as a referrer and for each product someone buys through you, you get a certain percentage of the sale. I’ve heard from other bloggers that affiliate programs have been somewhat successful. These days, it’s hard to find an affiliate program which has a decent payback percentage amount. Bloggers generally have to sign up to multiple affiliate programs to turn a decent profit. Asides from that, you will also need to advertise your affiliates wares to entice folks to purchase them through you. Wouldn’t you rather concentrate on producing great content and not coming up with advertising pitches for your affiliate programs?
  3. Direct Advertising – Pretty popular on WordPress blogs, direct advertising is a way of selling a 125X125 image advertisement on your blog. I’ve seen advertisements as big as 300X300 pixels. The advertising is usually performed by the advertiser paying for an ad image to be displayed for a static price amount per month. This price could be anywhere between 15$ up to 50$ per month. Prices vary depending on the popularity of the site or blog in question.

There are many, many more ways to monetize your blog. Kontera links, sponsored ads, sponsored links, text ads, paid reviews, and ad networks. The problem with all of these is that, you won’t make any decent amount of income unless your site is a powerhouse of traffic. Here are some things I recommend doing if you really want to monetize your site or get paid for your time.

  1. Write For Someone Else – It’s worked for me and it can work for you as well. Use your blog as a personal training grounds. After you have a backlog of posts, what I call references, shoot off a couple emails to blog owners who are managing the big blogs which cover your subject matter. Point them to your most successful posts on your own blog and apply for a contributing writer position on their site. I like this process of being paid the most because I can concentrate on getting the content written and published while knowing that I have a set rate that will be coming into my paypal account at least once a month. I’m not a fan of the paid per post model.
  2. Join A Blogging Network – If your site is concentrating on a particular niche and you are still not over the hump in terms of the next level, consider submitting your blog to a network which covers your subject matter. An excellent example is the Grand Effect blogging network. Grand Effect is a blogging network which has gathered a number of smaller, more concentrated tech bloggers who are writing excellent content yet, they are not busting at the seems with traffic and therefor, can not net those good advertising deals. Being part of a blog network gives you strength in numbers. It also allows the network owner to successfully obtain bigger advertising deals.

To summarize this post, I wanted to vouch for the claims that were presented within the Fox Business article. Although I’m not able to replace my full time job with blogging which I seriously hope to do some day, you can definitely make it through all the noise and make a name for yourself. I’ve also presented ways to make money blogging without necessarily having to dive into all sorts of ad campaigns. As far as I’m concerned, if you concentrate on writing awesome content on your personal site, visitors and the bigger opportunities will come to you. But if the content is not there, then what other reason do I or others have to stop by your site?

Now it’s time for you to sound off. Are you making money from your blog? If not, are you making money writing online at all? Share your tips, strategies, or experiences in the comments.

Salt Fork And The 20th Annual BigFoot Conference

Salt Fork State Park Entrance

First off, special thanks to Don Keating of the E.O.B.I.C. for putting on yet another memorable BigFoot conference. This was the 20th time Don has hosted the conference and this time, at least 415 people showed up for the event. In fact, many people ended up having to stand in the conference room with some members of the audience having to sit near the room entrance in order to encompass the speakers. The conference included speakers such as Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, M.K. Davis and Eric Altman. I thought the conference was really well done.

There were quite a few rumors that this conference may be the last one Don puts on, but until we hear otherwise, that is not the case. All indications that I witnessed during this years conference point to another one being put together for 2009. However, Don now has to deal with the fact that there may not be enough room at the conference room at Salt Fork State Park to do the conference. If he ends up hosting it somewhere else, the costs go up exponentially. How Don will treat this double edged sword is beyond me, but my girlfriend and I really look forward to attending the conference each year while also staying at the lodge as a mini vacation for a long weekend. If the event is hosted elsewhere, I’m not sure we’ll be able to afford staying at Salt Fork any longer.

So that’s my mini review of the conference. On Sunday, after Don Keating gave the group a guided tour of sightings that have taken place at Salt Fork over the past few years, my girlfriend and I decided to do a bit of hiking. We walked a trail known as Morgan’s Knob. This trail is a loop which provides walkers with an excellent opportunity to get a grip with the type of terrain that the park has to offer. Hills, plenty of trees, ravines, cliffs, mini waterfalls, you name it, it’s part of this trail. At some points, you feel like you’re hiking a trail in the Pacific North West. After hiking a trail such as Morgan’s Knob, you get the idea as to why it would be pretty easy for a creature such as Sasquatch to move around the park unnoticed.

The following photos as well as videos are from our hiking trip into the woods. These are only a few of the photos from the gallery, if you would like to see the entire photo set, click here. Here’s to hoping that there will be a 21st bigfoot conference/expo at Salt Fork State Park. Continue reading →