eXtra For Every Publisher

SarahInTampa is a highly enjoyable blog about technology, web applications and a myriad of other interesting tidbits, and I have been watching her blog for a long while now. She was even nice enough to link to this site in her sidebar, when it first got started. (Thanks again Sarah!)

Today, she had to post some interesting news though, after nearly four years with TypePad, she will most likely be leaving the hosted blog service.

From her recent blog post:

As you may know, I’m preparing on a site overhaul over the next few months. My designer recommended WordPress to me, but I’ve been happy with TypePad for years and didn’t want to change. However, I ran into a limitation today regarding multiple authors. In TypePad (the Pro plan), you can add authors but you cannot give them control to make any changes to the blog beyond just writing posts. Well, since a co-author and I will be writing for one of the new blogs, I wanted to give him control over the template, too. It seemed I could not do this, but I wanted to make sure. I created a support ticket to confirm. I let TypePad know how important this feature was and that it may be a make-or-break decision for me in my choice of weblog services going forward.

They want me to upgrade to Business Class for this one feature? Business Class starts at $89.95 per month! PER BLOG!!! (Who pays that?!)

It looks like I have no choice now but to leave TypePad.

What is even more shocking to me is that TypePad isn’t bending over backwards to help her solve this, especially since she has been quite vocal about her support of SixApart and their products. Shame on them and another great win for WordPress.

Companies shouldn’t treat bloggers this way. We spread news to a wide audience very fast.

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As some of you might have realized by now. I really enjoy 45n5.com, and the Top 100 list. I mention it as often as possible because I believe it is a great list of quality blogs, and you would think then that I would be one of the first to jump on his new widget idea which shows off your current rank on the Top 100 list, but as you can probably see, it doesn’t have a home here at Xfep.com.

Why No Widget?

Currently, I rank 118th out of nearly 200 blogs on the “top 100″ list. How embarrassing would it be to display a widget that says my rank is 118th out of 200? And I think the effect would be even worse when a reader clicked through and found out I am not even part of the top 100 sites in this niche.

If I came, saw the widget, and proceeded to click through, I would probably go on to some of the top twenty blogs, and subscribe to their content.

So why would I want to display it?

Widget Changes Make Me Happy

I propose a few changes that Mark could make in order to get me interested in displaying the widget. The first is to create more graphic options, including a larger variety of sizes and colours, so that it fits better with a larger variety of blogs, and in a wider array of open spaces.

I would add a very small graphic, like those little chicklet style ones that show my rank, as it would be rather small and unobtrusive.

The second idea I had would be to include how much movement there has been on the Top 100 board. I have been working very hard on eXtra for Every Publisher, and yet, I have been stuck at the same spot on his ranking list, and this is because there are new blogs being added. If the list was more like the top 40 charts for music, including an area showing if a blog has gone up, down, stayed the same, and marking new entrants as new, I would then be much happier as a visitor could see that I have been holding my own as new blogs are added to the ranking list.

The last idea I had was to move the blogs that are not in the Top 100 over to their own ranking list, so that the Top 100 remains prestigious. This would hurt this site, as I am not part of that Top 100 elite yet, but it would go a long way to continuing to make the list special, and interesting, rather than just allowing any site to be listed, and continuing to lengthen the list past the original 100 sites. Mark could put the sites currently ranked from 101 and down on their own area like Top 100 B, or Almost Top 100. Something where they can still be found, ranked and whatnot, but separate from what is supposed to be just a Top 100 list.

Strangely enough, I wouldn’t mind being 18th on the secondary list, and I would probably feel even more motivated to get to the main Top 100 list, as it is what most people link to and where a vast majority of traffic is passed around.

These are just some ideas, and they are free for people to use for their own ranking lists. Let me know what you think of my ideas in the comments. And if you have already added the widget to your blog, I would especially like to hear from you.

Hopefully, Mark will consider some of what I have posted here.

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Recently, I decided to take part in a project put forward by my friends at Performancing. They asked me to be part of their guest blogging extravaganza. I thought it would be fun, and so I selected three blogs from their list that I thought I could do well on, and began writing away.

Geeks are Sexy

The first guest post I worked on was for Geeks are Sexy. This post was about getting cheap wireless access to your Xbox 360, but it works well as a way to get wireless Internet access to other desktop computers in your house as well. Once they published my post, entitled “HOW TO: Cheap Wireless For Your Xbox 360“, both they and I began giving it a nudge on the promotional scene, and since going up, the post has brought in over 12,000 unique visitors to their blog.

It has been linked to by LifeHacker, and many other amazing blogs, and was featured on the Delicious Popular page, thus also being listed on PopURLs, one of my favorite sites.

This post was what I thought to be common knowledge, and honestly, was even more cost effective about a year ago when I first did this to my Xbox 360. Now, many people are commenting about how you can buy a simple wireless bridge for around the same price, and without any of the fun changing of a routers firmware.

Just because you think something is common knowledge and not all that amazing, it doesn’t mean that everyone has heard about it. Sometimes the best posts are the ones that get what you think to be common knowledge out to the masses.

Freelance Writing Jobs

My second and third guest posts were more along the same lines as what I write on eXtra for Every Publisher.

Over on Freelance Writing Jobs, a blog I highly respect, Deborah, put up a post entitled “What Blog Networks Look For in a Writer?”

In this post, I thought I would shift the focus and talk about my experiences both hiring and firing writers, including some of what I think are great tidbits on how a potential problogger can entice blog networks, or even just blog owners, to hire them over someone else.

I kept the post simple, but informative, and so far, I have been getting nothing but a positive response from the post.

Sometimes it is best to take time, and search for a new point of view. It can really help your readers, and bring new life into a blog.

Net Business Blog

Over on Net Business Blog, another amazing blog, and one ranked a fair bit higher than me in this niche, I put up a post entitled “Marketing Your Blog in a Saturated Niche“.

This one was very easy for me to write, as eXtra for Every Publisher is in a very crowded niche, and even with all my recent work, I still rank below the 100 mark on 45n5’s Top 100 list.

I do believe that I have made some amazing headway though, thanks in part to my friends, my competition and social networking and bookmarking site.

My post at Net Business Blog is very common sense in many respects, but I think I brought some unique opinions to my points, having just gone through the process. Sometimes the best way to write about something is to personally go through it. I haven’t really owned and operated a blog in a highly competitive niche before. I have written on some, but I didn’t really have to promote them like I do this site.

So far, I haven’t heard much of what people thought of my post on Net Business Blog, but hopefully some people will enjoy it, and use it as a reminder of what they need to do. Reminding people of what they already know, isn’t always a bad thing, especially if you add your own unique personality to the details.

Conclusion

Not only can guest posting be exceptionally rewarding in a networking sense, but also it can allow you the freedom to write outside your blogs own normal niche, connect with larger audiences, and allow you to hone your writing skill and style. With someone else’s graphics around your words, your personality has to shine through more than ever.

Also, I wanted to thank Geeks are Sexy, Freelance Writing Jobs, and Net Business Blog for letting me guest post on their blogs. It was truly an honor.

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Loren Feldman has said a few times that he hates Facebook (warning: profanity) and all that it represents (warning: more profanity), and now, not only does he have a profile on the popular social networking service, but he has even made a group with his company name: 1938 Media.

Of course you have to be invited to the group to become a member, but Loren is a good guy, and so as long as you don’t cause any issues, he might let you in.

This is a closed group. Members must be invited or approved by an admin.

He has started posting pictures, little videos, and chatting with the folks in his group. He calls the people in the 1938 Media group Anti-Socialites, which I think suits a fair bit of them, and I don’t find it offensive either. I really enjoy his videos, and I hope Facebook will just make it that much easier for him to post snippets of content to his group members.

Good for him for eating his words and joining the Facebook world.

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I stay in touch with a number of really interesting people online, and Bob, the owner of JohnCow.com and the MillionEuroWiki, definitely ranks pretty highly on my “interesting meter”.

When he told me about his Million Euro Wiki, I wasn’t too impressed. I bought a page on the Million Dollar Wiki, and wasn’t about to spend another $100 USD on a page on a website, no matter how good it was, but then he and I talked about sweetening the deal, and his iPod Touch giveaway was created.

That’s right, he is giving away a 16GB iPod Touch randomly to one of each 25 page owners. So if you buy a page, you have a 1 in 25 chance of getting an iPod Touch from your purchase. How is that for a return in your investment? Not to mention if the site does really well, and you own a premium page you can resell it to someone else at any time.

Not only that, but I can give you a promotional code that will save you $10 on your purchase of a Million Euro Wiki page, and that’s something I can’t do with its Dollar based counterpart. If you enter xfep into the promotional code area, it should save you $10. Let me know if it doesn’t work, and I will yell at Bob.

Here is a bit about the Million Euro Wiki:

What is the Million Euro Wiki?

A brand new concept that allows users to participate in an exclusive micro-economy. If you purchase a word, you will become the page owner for a one time fee of €75 (or $100) and the page is yours for as long as you want. You have the right to sell your page for a profit at any time and we promise we will not ask you for any commission on it. Page owners are able to setup an online business on their page and benefit from being part of a community that works as a team to bring in traffic and revenue.

Check out the Million Euro Wiki today, and be part of this interesting trend.

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