News

Amung.Us Crew Rolls Out Updates

Graphs.amung.us logo

The crew who brought you the free real-time concurrent user stats widget who’s.amung.us has unveiled a brand new service called graphs.amung.us.

For the graphs by year and by month we use averaged data from the hours and days to give you a better idea of how your site is doing. By day and by hour are the actual real time data points so you can see exactly what is happening. – graphs.amung.us team

This new graphing widget allows website owners to conveniently check how many concurrent people were on their site in the past, down to the hour. The graph features four different views: by year, by month, by day, and by hour This is an example of what the graph looks like while embedded into a web page.

Click to see full version by whos.amung.us

The graphs are also search able either via text or by clicking on the calendar icon and selecting a date. Here is an example of a graph containing data that you can search http://graphs.amung.us/graph/dzsg93pq/monthly/latest

Who's amung us widget colorwheelAside from the new graphing service, the amung.us team has published a brand new color wheel which finally allows web masters to change the color of the who’s.amung.us widget so that it can blend into your design. This was always a problem with the old widget as it was sometimes difficult to blend into a website design.

Last but not least, the amung.us website has been redesigned so that each widget’s individual webpage is linked to every other webpage. Excellent choice on their part as this allows browsers to seamlessly travel between one widget page to the other.

TalkShoe Changes Payout System

If you have yet to get on the podcasting bandwagon, this may be the time to get a ride. Talkshoe will be paying more to those with live audiences.

Here is a copy of the email I received today:

As you know, TalkShoe exists for the purpose of live interactive podcasting. And a live interactive podcast is more valuable when lots of people download it. So starting July 1, 2007, we’re planning to change our TalkShoe Cash system to reward live interactive Talkcasts as follows:

Talkcasts that draw at least 1% of their listeners live each month will earn our top payout rates. Across all of TalkShoe, we are currently seeing 2.1% live participation so this is not a hard-to-reach threshold.

Here’s how the calculations will work: Each live listener will qualify you for 100 downloads at the high payment rate. Downloads over and above 100 (per live listener) will receive a lower payment rate. For example, if you have 150 live listeners and 20,000 downloads during a month, your live listeners and 15,000 downloads will receive the high payout rate. 5,000 downloads will receive a lower payout rate.

It’s important to recognize that you can still upload non-TalkShoe-based (AKA “offline”) podcasts and episodes — there’s no scenario where uploading an offline episode will reduce your earnings on your other Talkcasts or downloads. More episodes and more downloads are always a plus, but much more of a plus with more live listeners. Even offline episodes will earn the top payout rate if your total of live listeners for the month at least 1% of your total downloads.

What should you do? Drive live participation! Encourage your listeners to join live, creating a fun, entertaining, and satisfying interactive experience — for them, for your time-shifted listeners, and for you the host.

What if the live, interactive format doesn’t work for your podcast? You’ll still be able to use TalkShoe for free hosting and earn cash at one of the best rates in the industry.

If you have been thinking about podcasting but have yet to cross the other side of the fence, now may be a good time to do so. If you have something passionate that you would like to share with others, you can use Talkshoe to do most of the heavy work for you and be paid a few bucks while doing it. Getting paid to podcast, sounds like a good deal to me.