Thor's Archive
This is a 13-post series of all of the 'Get a Mac' commercials that have been released by Apple. Two new commercials will be posted each day at 12 noon.
Accident
In this commercial, PC is going in for major surgery before he is upgraded to Vista.
Stuffed
In this commercial, PC is bloated by all of the 'Crapware' that comes preinstalled on his hard drive.
This is a 13-post series of all of the 'Get a Mac' commercials that have been released by Apple. Two new commercials will be posted each day at 12 noon.
Surgery
In this commercial, PC brings in a Mac imposter.
Angel / Devil
In this commercial, PC is tempted by the Devil.
Be sure to come back tomorrow to see the commercials 'Sabotage' and 'Angel / Devil'.
I have just found reports surfacing on the Internet (2 of them TOTAL to be precise) that a new variant of the SmitFraud class of infections is beginning to circulate.
This new infection is called ExpertAntivirus, and it attempts to convince you that your computer is filled with troublesome viruses, when in fact it is not. The program than attempts to convince the computer user that they need to buy the full version of ExpertAntivirus to remove the infections.
Users infected with this new variant will be annoyed by almost constant security pop-ups stating that the computer is infected until the ExpertAntivirus is either removed or purchased.
I recommend that you DO NOT spend any money to purchase the ExpertAntivirus program. This is an ongoing ploy that has been causing computer users trouble for years now.
Attempting to remove the ExpertAntivirus program through Add/Remove programs or by simply deleting the program will not be successful. a Remove ExpertAntivirus tutorial is available on the Schrock Innovations website that provides instructions on removing the infection at no cost.
This is a 13-post series of all of the 'Get a Mac' commercials that have been released by Apple. Two new commercials will be posted each day at 12 noon.
Better
In this commercial, Mac brags about all of the things he can do better than PC.
Tech Support
In this commercial, PC is excited to get a webcam upgrade until he learns that Mac already has one built in.
Be sure to come back tomorrow to see the commercials 'Surgery' and 'Security'.
While nothing has been officially confirmed or denied, Earth-moving equipment has been spotted building an earthen wall around a 180 acre location in Council Bluffs, IA that has attracted serious interest from Google in the past few months.
I tried to visit the site to see what was going on, but I was turned away by the 24-hour security guarding the area. The street approaching the site was even closed!
It is rumored that Google is in the process of selecting a location for a new data center that would employ roughly 150 employees with average salaries of $60,000 annually. Recently the Omaha Metro area was named the 6th best location in the United States for data center co-location.
In the past, Google has gravitated toward areas that have ample access to water, power, and data networks when it is selecting a location for a facility.
The 180-acre plot that the Council Bluffs City Council is hoping Google grabs is right off Lake Manawa, has power redundancy from two power grid networks, and benefits from an extensive fiber optic cable network that was put in place over the years to support Offutt AFB, as well as the business powerhouses like Union Pacific and ConAgra that are located in downtown Omaha.
To show just how serious Council Bluffs is, the City Council is offering Google $48 million in property tax rebates over the next 20 years. In addition, the Iowa Senate has approved a bill (that is clearly targeted toward Google) that would give tax incentives to "Web Search Portal Businesses" that invest 200 million or more in Iowa.
It is standard operating procedure for Google to keep city and state governments in the dark as to their plans, even as the land is being prepared for a structure.
My only question is IF a data center is being built in Omaha/Council Bluffs, does this mean that Schrock's websites will be indexed faster? ;-)
This is part two of my presentation at PMMOL dealing with how to market, promote, and monetize your blog. This segment deals with specific monetization tactics and their effects on readership.
This is a 13-post series of all of the 'Get a Mac' commercials that have been released by Apple. Two new commercials will be posted each day at 12 noon.
Box
In this commercial, PC and Mac compare their out-of-box experiences.
Better Results
In this commercial, PC and Mac compare their home movies to see whose is better.
Be sure to come back tomorrow to see the commercials 'Better' and 'Tech Support'.
It is no secret that the Nebraska Democrat Party is light years ahead of Nebraska's Republican Party when it comes to cyber campaigning. That sad fact was highlighted again today in an email from the Nebraska GOP that stated the following:
I hope you’re sitting down for this one! The Nebraska Republican Party has just secured video evidence of Chris Beutler bragging about his votes to raise taxes on Nebraska taxpayers.
I was interested, so I clicked on the link to view the "video evidence." I included the video below so you can watch it as well.
I was disappointed to find that after watching a lengthy video - most of which was actually about Ken Svoboda, and not Chris Beutler - that the "evidence" was a 3 second clip of Beutler saying that his votes in the Unicameral were made for many reasons.
There was no audio of Beutler saying he wanted to raise taxes, nor anything that even really implied that he would do it. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think he would lose any sleep if property valuations went up on his watch, but this video was the worst online bait and switch I have seen in a long time!
Most of these cyber campaign videos are viral marketing, in that the goal is to get them to spread among supporters and create a buzz. I am sure that was the hope of the NE GOP with this video.
However, this production clearly missed its target, and is a textbook case in how NOT to execute a viral marketing cyber campaign video. For goodness sake, the verbiage of the email suggests that the video was "found" by the Nebraska GOP, when in fact there is a credit screen at the end stating that the Nebraska GOP made the video.
As a service to the mostly technologically backwards Nebraska GOP, I would politely suggest that you spend some time doing what the Democrats have done. Build a network of technically adept users and encourage them to produce things like this. Let them release the video and then you can "find" it.
The Internet is evolving beyond what one person, one party, or even one government can control. The best way to "play the system" is to become part of it and embrace the ebb and flow of it. The Internet as a whole is not friendly to Republicans, or conservatives for that matter. Emails and disappointing videos like this do not help that image at all.
Nice try guys, but no cigar on this one. I support Svoboda for Mayor because he is the better candidate. Unless you want a repeat of the last Mayoral disaster, spend less time with videos and more time on the phone bank to get out the vote.
This is a 13-post series of all of the 'Get a Mac' commercials that have been released by Apple. Two new commercials will be posted each day at 12 noon.
Cart
In this commercial, PC is headed for the IT department with a cart-load of errors.
Counselor
In this commercial, Mac and PC try to resolve their differences with counselong.
Be sure to come back tomorrow to see the commercials 'Box' and 'Better Results'.
I just got the video back from my presentation at the Nebraska chapter of People Making Money Online. I presented on tips and methods to market, promote, and monetize your blog. The entire presentation went for about an hour and 15 minutes, so I have broken it into two segments so I can post it here on the blog.
Part 1 is shown below, and talks about laying the groundwork for a successful blog. It includes must-have accounts and memberships, design and targeting tips, as well as a few little-known Technorati secrets that will get your rankings moving in the right direction.
Part two will be up tomorrow morning and it covers the actual monetization of you blog. In part 2 I cover the four prominent methods to monetize your blog and how they impact readership.
This is a 13-post series of all of the 'Get a Mac' commercials that have been released by Apple. Two new commercials will be posted each day at 12 noon.
Gift Exchange
In this commercial, PC and Mac exchange gifts in honor of the holiday season.
Flashback
In this commercial, we get an insight into PC and Mac's childhood rivalry.
Be sure to come back tomorrow to see the commercials 'Cart' and 'Counselor'.
There are only five seats left for my presentation tonight at the Nebraska Chapter of People Making Money Online. If you would like to attend, RSVP as soon as you can.
Tonight I will be presenting strategies on blog promotion and monetization. I will have a series of tips on gaining new readership, retaining readership, and eventually monetizing that readership.
Tonight's MeetUp will be held in Omaha, NE at the Turnpost Creative Group. A nice dinner of Lasagna, cheese bread, salad, and brownies will be served for $10 per person. I will also be distributing some free promotional gifts that are hot off the Infinity Promotions printing presses (Larry, get a website already!)
If you can not attend because you do not live in the technological hotbed of Nebraska, don't shed too many tears. We will have the event video taped and I will post it on my blog as soon as I can for you as well.
I am looking forward to seeing you all there!
This is a 13-post series of all of the 'Get a Mac' commercials that have been released by Apple. Two new commercials will be posted each day at 12 noon.
iLife
In this commercial, PC is jamming out on an iPod and Mac suggests he try all of the other applications that come with a Mac.
Goodwill
In this commercial, PC *almost* sets aside his differences with Mac in honor of the holiday season.
Be sure to come back tomorrow to see the commercials 'Gift Exchange' and 'Flashback'.
Some blogs should not be monetized at all. Think about an official company blog for example. How off would it be to see an affiliate link or a contextual advertisement on the Technorati blog?
There is a direct relationship in the blogosphere between the number of advertisements and the authority of a blog. Unless you are an establish top tier blogger, haviong too many advertisements on your blog can hurt your credibility with new readers.
Remember way back in the beginning of the series where I said you need to target your readers? If the goal of your blog is to be a sticky blog, then is does you no good at all to make a few cents sending your readers away.
Corporate blogs that are designed to further the goals of the corporation rarely benefit from monetization. In fact, monetizing sticky blogs makes them less effective.
Advertisers are willing to pay you when you send them traffic through contextual ad, affiliate ads, and website reviews because they understand that website traffic is worth money. Don't forget that the same rule applies to you!
If you spend the time creating quality content and building a loyal readership, take the time to write reviews your own websites as well. This is a great way to monetize your blog traffic.
Link off to your own website from the review on your blog. Then place ads on the reviewed websites rather than directly on your blog. This way you retain control of how the link opens when your readers click the link on your blog. You can set the new site to open in a new Tab or in a new window, and therefore preserve your readership while enjoying income from the monetized website you directed your reader to.
Once your readership is on your monetized website, you can use any variety of mechanisms including contextual ads, affiliate ads, subscriptions, or any other method imaginable to monetize your own traffic. A great example of this is where I post about a new tutorial that is available on the Schrock Innovations Website.
If your Technorati rankings and Alexa statistics are not representative of your REAL readership (which is often the case) you can still make a little dough while working on increasing your lagging indicators.
There are a bunch of Affiliate advertising companies out there that can provide you with money-making advertisements for your website or blog. Affiliate companies do the hard work of approaching advertisers, setting up campaigns, and tracking their results. All you have to do is copy and paste the code on to your website to start making money.
While affiliate advertisements have the same sucking sound problem that contextual advertisements do, they work slightly differently to make you money.
With contextual advertising, all you have to worry about is getting a click. If you get the visitor to click on the ad, you have made money. With an affiliate advertisement the click means nothing and the conversion means everything. You only get paid if the visitor you send to the affiliate website takes certain actions like installing a trial or filling out a form.
A great example of an affiliate blog post is one that I wrote about How Much I Like Netflix. Blogs are perfect for targeting advertisements to interested readers. I had one reader sign up for Netflix from the advertisement on my blog, earning me $8.00. While I am not running to the bank with fists full of case, the aggregate effect over time is pretty powerful; especially considering how many clicks you would have to generate to make $8.00!
I recommend AzoogleAds for affiliate advertising. They have never given me a reason to distrust them and they always have a wide variety of advertisements to choose from. Apply for an Azoogle affiliate account now, so when you want to start using it, the system will be ready for you!
A more subtle way to monetize your blog is to get paid by other website owners to write up a high-quality review of their site and present it to your readers.
In the past this has been difficult because bloggers would have to track down advertisers and strike their own deals. This was time consuming, as it soaked up valuable content creation time. But the process is getting easier thanks to some nifty third part websites out there.
The website ReviewME is a marketplace where advertisers can browse a catalogue of blogs and purchase paid reviews on those blogs at a fixes price. The fixed price is originally determined by ReviewME, and is based on your Technorati ranking as well as your Alexa traffic data. (See! I told you to install that toolbar!) A review on my blog for example, will cost you $40. Some bloggers (like Shoemoney) get upwards of $2500 per review - and companies BUY them!
You can also adjust the price of your reviews when needed. The $40 price on my blog was established earl;y this month, and since then my traffic, readership and Technorati rankings have all increased dramatically. I could probably ask more for a review, but I would rather get a few under my belt first.
So pay attention to your rankings and do whatever you can to raise them, as this is the ONLY easy way to make money doing reviews.
Finally we get to monetizing your blog! One of the easiest ways to monetize a blog is to include contextual advertising such as Google AdSense or Yahoo Publishers Network ads on your blog.
These ads are easy because the search engines so all of the matching work for you. All you have to do is copy the ad code and paste it onto your blog page. There are different formats and sizes to select from, and nifty color options help you blend the ads into the carefully researched look and feel of your website.
On the down side, all contextual ads open in the same window. This means that when a reader clicks on an ad on your blog they are instantly taken away from your blog and show an advertised product. The result is a giant sucking sound in your readership numbers.
To help counter this effect on my blog, I have chosen not to place contextual advertisements on my blog's main index page. However, if a reader clicks on a post title to read more, they will then see the ads. The logic is then I get at least a couple page views and I know that my readers have consumed at least a little of my content before moving on. If I have done my job right, they will be back for more later.
The last bit of advice on contextual advertising is that unless you have a top 100 blog, you will not get rich off of it. (But if you had a top 100 blog there are so many better ways to use ad space anyway). I look at contextual advertising as a great way to pay my hosting bill while at the same time covering the cost of *some* of the diet coke I drank while writing the posts :-)
Don't get so caught up in the standard blog marketing methods that you forget to look outside the box. Anytime you have an interaction with your target readers is an opportunity for you to market your blog to them.
For example, every day I change my email signature to reflect my latest blog post. As I send the hundreds of emails I do each day, there is a chance that some of those people will add to the traffic of my blog as well.
In addition, most blog packages collect email information about people who visit your blog. You can use this information to pump a certain post that you want to catapult to the attention of the blogosphere. As you gain more readers over time, a single, interesting broadcast email can generate traffic that would normally take days to build.
One of the best ways to draw traffic to your blog is to post a contest or giveaway that keeps people coming back for more. Today Garry Conn posted a review of the Joost television software on his blog.
Joost is service that provides free TV on your computer. to join Joost you must have an invite from an existing user. Garry Conn made a post stating that he was setting up an exchange where Joost users can get and give invitations. The resulting comments and traffic were awesome, and he retained new readership for the next few days from Joost wannabes.
Contests can be anything that you can imagine, as long as people don't have to pay money to enter.
An ongoing debate in the blogging community is whether readers appreciate long posts versus short posts. While this debate will rage on no matter what is said here, i can give you some hints from my experience.
Long posts are better for dealing with highly technical concepts that require explanation to be understood. These posts are typically micro-targeted to a very specific audience, or used over a period of time as a reference.
For example, Schrock Innovations' customers ask me why a Modular CP is better than a store bought "canned" PC. I have answered that question so many times that I decided to write a 4,000 word blog post explaining EXACTLY why a Modular PC is better. Then I had the Schrock webmaster link from the Schrock home page to my blog post so everyone could read the answer if they wanted.
On the other hand, short posts are more likely to be read, and after all, brevity is the soul of wit :-)
As your blog readership grows, it becomes more an more important that you protect your credibility. Like any journalist working for a major news outlet, one misreported story can harm your reputation for accurate and informative information (just ask the NY Times).
The best way to defend yourself when reporting information that you have not researched yourself is to credit your source. This way if the information is wrong, you can write a whole new blog entry about how the blogger you sourced had his facts messed up.
In addition, whenever you use the work of another blogger you should ALWAYS give credit with a link back to the post that contains the original information. This encourages the original blogger to keep up the great work, introduces your readers to more solid information and provides you with a valuable blogging relationship.
I have been talking a lot about your ranking with Technorati, but there is a second ranking service you should know about as well. Alexa measures traffic to websites all across the Internet, and a high Technorati ranking can be tempered a bit if Alexa says you don't really have any traffic.
Unfortunately, Alexa measures traffic by asking users to install the free Alexa toolbar. This toolbar is pretty pathetic when compared to the Google Toolbar, and because it is designed to track where you go on the Internet, users of Norton Antivirus have to disable the "Trackware" feature to get it to even install.
Nevertheless, by installing the toolbar on your own PC you will at least be getting credit for all of the page views you are generating while maintaining your blog. So ask your friends to install it and then hide it if they don't want to look at it in the browser all the time (View -> Toolbars -> uncheck Alexa). It will still work for measuring traffic and helping your Alexa ranking sets the stage for money later on down the line!
One of the best plugins available for any CMS is the Top Commentator plugin. Blogs that use this plugin give a free link to readers who comment frequently on their blogs.
While you do not want to comment spam someones blog, you DEFINATELY want to post substantive, thoughtful comments as often as possible to get on this list - Especially if the blog with the Top commentator plugin is a highly ranked blog.
If you manage to get on the Top Commentator list, every time the blog owner posts, Technorati is sent a ping telling it that the blogger is linking to you. A single placement on one of these lists can catapult your ranking thousands of places in mere hours, so it is definitely worth the work.
For example, if you are in my top commentator list you would have received 24 pings in the past 24 hours! So what are you waiting for? Make some comments right here on the 20,300th blog on the Internet and begin to raise your rank now!
This is a 13-post series of all of the 'Get a Mac' commercials that have been released by Apple. Two new commercials will be posted each day at 12 noon.
Networking
In this commercial, PC is frustrated because he can not communicate with the new digital camera as Mac strikes up a conversation in a foreign language with ease.
Meant for Work
In this commercial, PC is frustrated because the children that are using him are all play and no work.
Be sure to come back tomorrow to see the commercials 'iLife' and 'Goodwill'.
Another great way you can increase your Technorati ranking is by cross-linking any other blogs you might own with your primary blog.
For example, I have had a MSN Messenger account for ages. Unbeknown to me, MSN gave all of their messenger customers a free blog. I simply posted a message on my MSN blog that asked anyone who might go there to please visit my real blog at http://thorschrock.com. Then I copied the URL of the MSN page and pasted it into the ping box at http://technorati.com/ping and pinged the MSN blog.
Next I posted a similar comment in my MySpace blog as well as a post about my MSN blog. The MySpace link to my MSN blog raised the MSN blog's ranking and then that increase was passed on to my real blog. By cross linking your blogs they all benefit from increased rankings, and can have a pyramid effect on your primary blog.
I encourage you to do this with any blogs or profile pages you have with other websites. However I will also caution you against creating multiple "splogs" or blogs whose sole purpose is to inflate your Technorati ranking. Splogging doesn't work for very long, and eventually they will detect and ban you. Don't go black-hat here.
The single greatest way to increase your readership is to start communicating with other bloggers in your niche. Imagine if a blogger visited your blog and left a comment. You might just click on their link to see what their website is all about. In fact, you might read a couple things yourself and leave a comment.
The golden rule definitely applies to blogging - Do unto others and your blog will prosper when the do unto you. Technorati is a great tool that allows you to search for blogs on specific subjects and sort them by authority. By reading them in order of authority, you are almost certain to learn something new as you read, and you might even wind up being inspired by one of their posts (be sure to give credit!).
After reading and commenting for a while, drop a line to some of the bloggers you truly admire - those who have great content that captures your interests. Ask them for a blogroll link exchange or maybe even a reciprocal blog review. Either of these items will boost your Technorati rank and give you even more "link juice" to approach other bloggers!
No, this is not a Brokeback Mountain reference. After Tip #10, I thought this might be a good time to introduce the terms white-hat, black-hat and the ever-popular and profitable grey area to those who are not aware of them.
Last month I attended a presentation by the Technorati top 100 blogger Shoemoney in Lincoln, NE. Shoemoney said there are bad people doing bad things in the black-hat area, and just about everyone else falls under the white-hat area. But somewhere in the middle there are a lot of people making a lot of money. This area is known as the grey area.
I would strongly recommend you stay away from the black-hat techniques you can find on the web to promote your blog. 99% of them will get you in a situation you do not want to be in and should be avoided. But the grey area is a different story.
People who operate in the grey area are doing things that are new and relatively undocumented in "the law." For example, pinging your blog from Technorati's mirror sites is clearly a manipulation of their system, and will probably be corrected some day. But until the tactic is expressly prohibited, or they fix their statistics bug, why not exploit it?
Grey area tactics can be used to give your blog a temporary edge over other blogs on the web in the form of a slightly higher Technorati ranking. This ranking can be used to leverage blogroll link exchanges with other highly ranked bloggers and create a situation where both your blog and the other blogs you link to benefit. Eventually you will be able to cast off your gray area crutches, but until you are ready to walk, grey area tactics can be just what the doctor ordered.
Technorati is a blog search engine that ranks blogs in relation to other blogs on the Internet. While a high Technorati ranking in its self does nothing but bolster a blogger's ego, it can be used later on as a tool in the monetization process. because Technorati is seen as an independent third party blog ranker, achieving a high rank is every blogger's secret desire.
Rank in Technorati is determined by how many webpages (and a blog is considered a web page) link back to your blog. So what is the Technorati "Free Space"? Just like in BINGO, there are a few free links that you can get from Technorati itself (unless they plug these loopholes after reading about it here). Technorati counts links from different domains as unique links, and for the purposes of ranking, sub domains are considered unique domains.
To claim your Technorati "Free Space" (and get your blog out of the rankings basement) first visit Technorati and claim your blog by creating an account. Once your blog is claimed, scroll down to the bottom of the Technorati page. You will notice that they have two mirror services - one in Japanese and one for mobile browsers. It turns out that each of these are on their own sub domain, and considered to be unique websites for ranking purposes.
Visit their Japanese mirror and do a search for the name of your blog. Click on your result in the search results and you might notice that the page you are on has a link back to your blog. Copy the URL of that page from your browser and then open a new tab and visit http://technorati.com/ping. Past the URL you copied into the ping box and click ping. Within an hour or so, you should see your Technorati rankings start climbing as they report their own mirror site links to you! Repeat the same process for their mobile site.
I know there are some of you out there with some evil ideas about what other search functions you might also be able to exploit in this way. To save you some work, Google, MSN, and Yahoo search results pages will not work. However, lesser search engines like http://ask.com and http://searchsight.com will work :-)
So a lot of you are probably wondering when I will start talking about making money off your blog. I have not said anything about it yet because it is the LAST thing you want to do AFTER you have created a blog, gained a high level of readership, and are comfortable in your niche.
There are two types of blogs. "Sticky" blogs are designed to attract and retain readers while "non-sticky" blogs are designed to attract readers and then send them elsewhere in exchange for money. The two types of blogs are directly in conflict with each other.
No blog will make any money with advertising if it does not have a readership. In the early days of your blog if you send all of your readers away for a pittance, you will never attract the bigger advertising dollars that are available later on once you have a stable full of dedicated, loyal readers.
So be patient for a few more hours and focus on your writing now. Trust me, making money from your blog is the easy part - getting readers to visit and look at your advertisements is the challenge!