Counting

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
-Albert Einstein

Empowerment With Technology

"The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential."
Steve Ballmer

Office or No Office. No Question!

This is why I enjoy blogging...

A Cubicle Conundrum: The Downside of Working in a Cube
Author: The Idiot Aug 13, 2007

* Being told to "Think Outside the Box" when I'm in the darn box all day!

* Not being able to check E-mail attachments without first seeing who is behind me.

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* Fabric cubicle walls do not offer much protection from any kind of gun fire.

* That nagging feeling that if I just press the right button, I will get a piece of cheese.

* Lack of roof rafters for the noose.

* My walls are too close together for my hammock to work right.

* 23 power cords, 1 outlet.

* Prison cells are not only bigger, they have beds.

* When tours come through, I get lots of peanuts thrown at me.

* Can't slam the door when you quit and walk out.

* If you talk to yourself it causes all the surrounding cubicle inhabitants to pop their heads over the wall and say "What? I didn't hear you."

* If your boss calls you and asks you to come into his office for a minute the walk there is like a funeral march... people hand you tissues as you pass and refuse to make eye contact.

* You always have the feeling that someone is watching you, but by the time you turn to look they're gone.


For more humor click here

A Joke of a Sponsorship Site

I was looking around for sponsors and investigating that option for my blogs when I came across a site called bloggingsponsorships.com.

I thought it looked credible...even enticing, so I began the sign-up process. I entered one of my blog addresses after reading a large amount of terms and rules, and gave my personal information, including the number of visitors per month I get from my site based on Google Analytics and Feedburner.




Following that information, they asked for information about what my blog site could do for the sponsor. I gave a great deal of information about how I network and the number of visitors that come from networking, in addition to the consistency in writing on the particular blog site, as well as consistency in analysing my traffic.

After taking all of that time to fill out that information, I clicked to go to the next section and guess what I found...that you have to pay bloggingsponsorships.com to get your blog on their site to find the sponsors. It's a subscription! The next page asked for the number of months that I wished to pay for and my paypal information. I tried the paypal, just to see if they really had it (since they had an option to pay via credit card on their own site) and neither one of my paypal accounts showed up as "credible" paypal accounts, according to their system.

So, just an FYI. Watch out for these guys! They are in it to get a buck from you, not the other way around.

Holiday Break Ciaos

It's been a challenge to keep blogging while my kids have been home from school over this holiday break...when is school back in session? Just kidding. I really enjoy my kids being home all day, but the balance gets way off and by the time you find new balance they go back to school again. I guess it's one of the fun challenges and the enjoyment of being a parent.

A site called Social Media Trader.com has some great information regarding social, news, and bookmark sites, statistical analysis of Digg "top" lists, and other networking information that I found informative and helpful.

Here is the link.

Click Here



I like this site because they include a link to each of the networking sites, as well as $ value. They are listed in order and it can never hurt to check each of them out.

I have a blog set-up in www.newsvine.com to test the waters there and enjoy those networking contacts.

I also use www.digg.com religiously.

I check into www.technorati.com weekly and my "authority" there is rising steadily...I have no idea how or why...I think it is due to the "ping" factor.

I check into del.icio.us and www.stumbleupon.com weekly as I find that my efforts to do more than that don't pay off for traffic to my sites like it does with Digg.

Regarding the other networking sites, it can be all-consuming to network, however I think that I may try out a couple of other sites in the next couple of weeks to see if the formats they use are conducive to my content and interest.

Here is a page with some interesting statistics regarding the "Top Diggers" from July on seomoz.org.

Click Here

I learn something more about the networking sites all of the time.

One more item for this post...

I ran across a great article about the top women in blogging that I thought I'd share. It starts with "A little while back someone said to me that blogging is a “man’s game”...I then made it my mission to compile a list of some absolutely amazing women in blogging."

Because I feel it's important that blogging is a level playing field for all sexes, I love this article at eXtra For Every Publisher(xfep.com)and include the link here.

Click Here

Keep blogging, even when the balance gets off, and the consistency will eventually pay-off and you will reach your goal(s).

Happy blogging!

Google Analytics

I have decided that I enjoy the method that Google Analytics tracks my blog data better than FeedBurner, thus far.

Some of you may have varying opinions on the subject, so please comment.

Google Analytics

The things that I like about it are that you have a complete analytical dashboard.

This dashboard is interactive and complete with line graphs showing dates and visit numbers for your blog, the number of visitors, a map overlay of the locations of your visitors, a pie chart showing where your visitors are coming from, and a content overview section so that you can evaluate what content to continue writing about based on the number of visits.

Within these areas you can get really detailed reports.

We'll just take one example of the detail reports that I happen to enjoy..."Visitors".

I click on visitors for any of my blogs and it give another dashboard with stats for the site.

I can click on "Visitor Trending" and see anything from "Pageviews" to "Time On Site".

Clicking on "Visitor Loyalty", I can find out how many are return visitors versus how many are new.

If you want to know something about your readers it is on Google Analytics.

Don't forget to use the Ping locations that I mentioned in my December 10th article. Unless you network and ping your site, the traffic is not just going to come knocking automatically.

New Stuff, New Tweaks

As you can see, I've decided to change to a different template.

I hope that it is agreeable with my readers.

The reasoning behind the change is my disappointment with the inability of the previous template's flexibility with regards to widget size and placement. Additionally, the previous template caused my blog archive list to stretch extremely far down the sidebar, as well as any other text that I added to that area of the template.

I'm not sure that I love this template because there is not as clear a division between posts, however, I do feel it is an improvement from the past template.

I may change my template at Issues On Call as well, as I am not extremely pleased with its appearance. However, I have been working with the colors and layout over the past week, as well as the ad layout.

I feel that learning, based on the option of these templates, gives me a greater understanding of the details I will desire to develop on my own web domain, when the time comes.

I hope that viewing my learning process helps others in their blogging journey and that it doesn't annoy those who subscribe to my blog.

Thank you for your patience.

With regard to Feedburner...I have been able to integrate AdSense with Feedburner and that allows for additional ads to appear at the end of each "newest" post. This location is supposedly a prime location for readers to view and curiously click, however, my results have still been minimal, which is frustrating.

If you look at my Issues On Call site, at the end of each post, Feedburner has placed the ads there as well, however, with the FeedFlare option (where the ad option was first located), there is an option to include things such as, technorati, sphere, digg, etc. This shows up on my Issues On Call site but somehow doesn't show up on my Max Your Ping site. So, this will be something that I'll need to troubleshoot...Ahhh the frustration of inconsistency...probably something I did or didn't do correctly.

Additionally, my Headline Animator from Feedburner continues to circulate the titles and dates of my posts, which in turn interests my viewers in clicking on the widget. From clicking on the widget the viewer can subscribe to my post...an additional subscription option. Within the Headline Animator section, you can choose to advertise your site through Headline Animator, however, the budgets begin at $25 per month...something most bloggers are not in the blogging business for. Certainly, right now, I'd love to see my $25.00 in a check to me...lol

I have added my name to another location as well...Newsvine.com. I'm just getting the hang of it, but it seems to be a pretty serious site...not one made for match-making, but for serious article writing...right up my alley (not that you can tell from the tidbits I write here).

Here is my link so that you can see what it begins to look like
Click Here

I am still getting to know the ropes. They are pretty strict. I'm trying to find out if I can actually add any ads to my articles through Google Analytics or Feedburner, as Newsvine uses different rules which include the longevity of the user and the amount and quality of your articles and interaction.

It is an interesting site. I suggest reading up on it as another option in networking, however...let me tell you that these are serious WORK, serious ARTICLE, serious EVERYTHING networking groups and it isn't like Digg. You really have to work hard to get people into your networking group.

My StumbleUpon Tool Bar doesn't seem to work half the time, so I have a hard time integrating with that site. Plus, it seems that it is not quite the serious networking site that I'd like to be involved with, however, from time to time I still visit it and check on my friends there and network a bit. It is somewhat between Digg and MySpace. You can have some people that want you to see their work and others that want you to SEE their work...if you know what I mean. So...just an FYI.

The Yahoo networking site is one that I have not figured out AT ALL yet. It is still in Beta and I think it has a long way to go. However, I have to say that I have given the others a better try so I will cut it some slack...for now.

Digg seems to be good sometimes, and then sometimes it seems to be too much work. I get Digg burn out. I feel that there is a lot of junk that gets "shouts" to my login, mixed in with some selectively "real" news, tech, interest, etc. type stuff. However, the catch is that if you don't respond to most of the people sending you shouts in some way, you may not get the response that you want when you want something publicized. Kind of crazy. I guess it is representative of the globe, however, and I take the interesting ideas that come over as, just that...interesting.

I had one day following the writing of an article Issues On Call - Article
where I suddenly earned $13.00 on adsense from a bunch of clicks and have no idea how they came about, since I have been doing the same procedure of sending out my pings and promoting my articles this whole time. That is the most I have earned.

The earning is becoming a great deal of frustration, as I am sure it is for many bloggers. I ask myself what I am doing wrong, what I am doing right, if my articles are good enough, if my articles are the right topic, if my production is sufficient, etc.

What else can I do? If someone who is reading this has suggestions and has seen my other sites, please let me know. I am in this for the long-haul and would love some tidbits of advice on earning.

I did receive some emails tonight from affiliate groups who I sent applications to showing that I am approved, however, it may take me a couple of days to go through all of their information to make sure they are legit. I will update you and let you know the sources once I find out the results.

I find myself staying up until all hours of the night (actually into the morning) working on this investment into mine and my family's future and so, since it is now close to 1am I must sign off, hoping that this is good feedback, based on my recent experiences and frustrations.

Let me tell you something about the frustrations...they only drive me more, knowing that I can succeed because I have the drive, ambition, and best of all the TECHNOLOGY :-)

Happy Blogging!

Networking Sites, Ping Sites, What is a "Ping"?

Things learned...

I added the StumbleUpon toolbar today, which makes it easy for me to submit articles and add to my profile (to keep articles on-file) that I have interest in. I found that to be a cool feature. However, word-to-the-wise when you're adding the toolbar...be sure that you don't have any tabs up that you are in need of keeping track of because you'll lose those as your internet will "reboot" (not your complete computer system...just the internet, i.e., Internet Explorer).

Additionally, I've added del.icio.us to my networking group. Their site seems, thus far, to be fairly easy to use. I've not yet had much interaction with my del.icio.us network, as that seems to be the hardest part. However, I have just begun using them and I discover new things as I go and will continue to update you. Posting items on their site is fairly easy. Adding people to your network is fairly easy.

My message regarding these sites is that networking is a necessity in marketing your blog, increasing its traffic and attractiveness to advertisers. Additionally, just because one networking site doesn't work for my blogs does not mean it will not work for your blogs.

A sight for adding "Pings" to your blog is called Weblogs.com. I signed up there to start adding "Pings" each time I add changes/articles to my sight, hoping it will drive traffic in my direction. Here is what they say about their sight...

"Weblogs.com, a VeriSign service, is a ping server that automatically notifies subscribers when new content is posted to a website or blog.

Weblogs.com is the original ping service and receives millions of pings every day from blogs that configure their publishing software to notify Weblogs.com the moment content is published.

The VeriSign-operated Weblogs.com ping server will continue to operate as an openly available service. This benefits the entire blogosphere because:
...Blog publishers can immediately notify the community when new posts are available
...Anyone can openly monitor the updated posts, enabling a wide range of intelligent blog monitoring tools and applications. "

That is the "dish" from them. I'll let you know how this experiment goes.

What is the definition of "Ping (Blogging)"? This comes from Wikipedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping_blog

"Many blog authoring tools automatically ping one or more servers each time the blogger creates a new post (or updates an old one.) That is, the tool sends an XML-RPC signal to one or more "ping servers," which can then generate a list of blogs that have new material.
Open ping servers, like VeriSign's Weblogs.com and Yahoo!'s blo.gs, let other web-services subscribe to a list of blogs that have recently pinged them.

Blog search engines can provide fresh results very quickly by polling only the newly-updated blogs. Similarly, aggregators use results from ping servers to tell subscribers which items on their subscription lists have fresh material. A few of the blog aggregators that can be pinged directly include: BulkFeeds, FeedBurner, Google Blog Search, IceRocket, Technorati, and Yahoo

In addition to open ping servers, there are an increasing number of proprietary ping servers that gather information only for their own applications. Most of the major blog search engines operate such ping servers.

There is a conflict of interest here between the blogger--who wants his new post to get the widest possible publicity as fast as possible--and the web-service owner--who wants his search engine or aggregator to have new blog posts long before anyone else. As a result, bloggers have turned to services such as Ping-o-matic, which pings multiple proprietary ping servers. As the blogosphere has grown, other ping "services" have cropped up, such as Pingoat and BlogFlux Pinger."

Thus far, networking is the best tool for bringing traffic to my blog sites. I additionally tried Ping-o-matic this evening. Since I've only recently started utilizing tools for "Pinging" my blogs, I'll update you on the increase of traffice flow once I have accumulated enough data.

I continue to experiment with the different tools available to build and sustain great blogs and I will continue to give you the feedback from my experiences during these experiments, hoping that they help you have great success.

Happy Blogging!