Entertainment
Google’s New Scrolling Ad
Dec 21st
I noticed an interesting ad by Google on this blog. As many of you know, I use Google Adsense on this blog and lately I noticed a new ad show up on the blog once in a while. This ad is different from most because it has a scroll bar on it allowing you to scroll through the ads to pick one that interests you. I decided to blog about this because I haven’t seen any other blogs notice this so to start off here is a screenshot of the ad with the visible scroll buttons on the bottom.
What seems interesting is that how many people will actually be interested to scroll through an ad manually. I would have thought that an automatic scroll every 30 seconds or so may have been more interesting but that could get annoying if you are on a page for a longer period of time. The idea of the manual scrolling ad is a little confusing to me specially since most people will see a static ad and click on an ad if they are interested however, how many people actually are willing to browse through a scrollable ad to pick one they like. Anyway, it seems like something new that Google is going to try and lets see how it works out for publishers and Google. Have any of you seen an ad like this one elsewhere?
Weekend Update – November 4th
Nov 4th
Good morning guys, Well its November 4th and that means that I am officially 20 years old! It seems that time flies by really quick and quite honestly I am a little disappointed to hit 20 mainly because I’m not a teenager anymore! The only way I can console myself is to say that atleast its not 40 or something like that. Well, getting back to the topic. As you know time is of the essence and lately I haven’t had much time to blog but hopefully I will be able to make up for it soon. Lets talk about some blogging news.
PR Update
Obviously, as many of you know the PR updates have finally come around and even though some of us aren’t happy there isn’t much we can do about it. Its a little surprising that with all the stats this blog has pulled in 5 months, that it wasn’t given at least a PR 3. Its a little disappointing but I’ll take whatever I can get!
BloggingFingers Sold
BloggingFingers is a popular blog that recently fetched $6000 and its stats aren’t too far away from mine. They have a PR3, 200 RSS Subscribers, 16k Technorati and 50K Alexa. In Comparison, My blog is currently a PR2, 70 RSS Subscribers, 17k Technorati and 82k Alexa. Its food for thought and I think the selling price for that blog was quite good specially for being only 4 months old!
Nick Discusses McDonald’s Monopoly
No, this isn’t a discussion about how McDonald’s has created a monopoly in the fast food business but this discusses how McDonalds lures in fast food junkies with the idea that they can enter codes on an online website that they find on specially marked McDonalds containers such as a French fries box, a drink, etc. Its an interesting post and you should check it out.
King Kong’s Mug Contest
TheKingKongBlog is running a Mug Contest along with their Video Player Giveaway and I figured that I had a great monkey video around that everyone would enjoy, so hopefully you guys will LOVE this. Enjoy!
How Small Is Too Small?
Oct 30th
I would have a great post for today however I have a deadline to meet for a presentation tomorrow and so I want to pose this question to you, If you have a small car, how small is too small? Meaning, what size of car is considered small by your standards? Lets see if any of you imagine the car in this video as being the perfect size. Enjoy!
Is JohnChow the Walmart of Blogging?
Oct 25th
Ever wonder why the small businesses in some towns are being eaten away when a Walmart is the new attraction in town? Well, I thought about it and its true, Walmart provides killer deals, has better brand recognition and well has more resources. Recently I thought about this analogy of John Chow being the Walmart of blogging. Although some might argue that the “big dawgs” (being a big dawg is a good thing, trust me!) of blogging are Darren Rowse or Shoemoney or someone other than John Chow, I would say that when it comes to making money through a blog, nobody does it better than John Chow. Also, the fact that John Chow is very open about the income he makes from his blog also helps in making that statement. Now, what do I mean by John Chow is the Walmart of Blogging?
Well, lets take a look at this idea. How many money making blogs are there? You would probably say about a few million. Next question, how many make more than $1000 a month and then the answer would probably be, a few thousand. Im not trying to say that John Chow is eating the competition up alive but then you might argue, what about your blog title? Well, thats just an eye catcher for the most part. Now getting to what I am trying to say, is that the top 1% of money making blogs are dulling the shine of the newcomers in the business. In other words, the more popular you are in terms of familiarity with your readers and in making money online, the more business you consistently earn.
On the other hand of this spectrum are new bloggers who may have great content but aren’t able to stand out of the bunch because the bloggers who have been around a while are still holding their place. Then again, this is the situation in pretty much every industry – its called “first mover advantage.” The concept of the first mover advantage is that if you are the pioneer in a certain field, then it can be safely said that you will still remain in the Top 10 lineup if you maintain yourself. On the other hand, if you are a new entrant into this pre-established field of experts then you will have a harder time getting up there.
Alright, so lets stand back and take a look at this again. Its no joke making money online, its a tough business and there is definitely going to be competition but all it takes to withstand the forces of making money online is perseverance. My main theory is never give up and you have to try something before you throw it out the window. Once again, I’m not saying that John Chow is the newbie killer (he is the panda killer though!) but what I am saying is that it has become harder for new bloggers to achieve fame and fortune in the world of making money through blogging. Hopefully you enjoyed reading this post and I want to know what your thoughts are about the idea that it has become harder for newcomers to make as much money online. Thanks for reading guys!
[Update] – John Chow responded saying
Shouldn’t it be ChowMart?
Experimental Blog Auction
Oct 18th
Well, its that time in the blog’s life where I have decided to see the price this blog can fetch. I know what you’re thinking “Another Blog For Sale”, well technically its not for sale. Let me explain. Some of you know that time is sometimes not on my side and I know that starting next semester, in about 2 months, I will have pretty much no time at all. I know its sad to say because this blog has been a big part of my life over the past 5 months and I would really hate to let go of it just yet but I need to find a good owner to transfer it over to and I think its time to start searching for a new owner.
This doesn’t mean the blog will be transferred over or that I will no longer be hosting this blog but I just want to see who comes forward to make an offer on this blog. So to clear it up, this is an experimental blog auction, the blog isnt actually on sale and it doesn’t mean that I will be selling it, I just want to see how interesting this will get based on offers and such. Here are some statistics to base your bid on:
Technorati: 19,110 (used to be 15,000 but Technorati is playing games with me!)
Alexa: 82,620
Predicted PR: 5
Avg. Monthly Earnings: $128.77
Okay, so you’ve seen the statistics, now lets take a look at some of the auction rules:
1) Auction starts at $50, which is considerably low but lets see where this goes
2) It includes the custom theme, the blog ofcourse, all the posts, the domain, the hosting account, etc.
3) Bid increments are preferred to be in multiples of $5, so for example you can increase bids by $5, $10, $15 and so forth
4) Please bid as though it was a real auction, do not make up imaginary bids!
Once again, this is just to see who comes forward to try and get ownership of this blog. Obviously, the blog has seen a lot of success in 5 months and I’m just curious to see how that translates into numbers. As part of the blog auction process, I would like to invite Prija, Ms. Danielle, John Chow, John Cow, Problogger, RomanDock, BetShopBoy, Life Is Colorful, TheKingKongBlog and all my readers to this blog auction event. I don’t think an experimental blog auction has ever taken place in the blogosphere before and I want to see how this turns out. You can bid on the blog by making a comment! Thanks for reading guys and lets see where this goes!
