BobbyT Blogging To a T

Update May 23rd: I am back...

Written by BobbyT on Friday, May 23, 2008

Hi, been quite some days since the last post here. I was busy with a lot of things: buying some webhostings and domains, learning the ropes of self-hosting and WordPress and literally doing marketing with other web entrepreneurs.

Also I have been planning to change the Blogger template for quite some time now and finally you can see the template of my choice here. However the "upgrading" of the layout is not 100% done yet, there is still a lot of stuffs to clean up, re-arrange and modify and add. I hope to finish tying the loose ends with the layout soon.

In the last few days, I managed to grab 2 great hosting offers, 1 is a personal account while the other is a reseller hosting account and I got both of them at a killer price. I am not sure what to do with the reseller hosting yet, either give out some free accounts or sell some cheap hosting packages, or use it myself. Seriously I have got more hosting accounts than I can use right now, and recently I was informed that I have won 1 year hosting + domain from a contest I joined.

OK, this is an unofficial questionnaire. I have not decided to sell hosting packages on the reseller hosting but I may depending on the response to the questions I have here.

1. Would you like to have your own blog with your own dot com?
2. What price are you willing to pay per year for blog and domain hosting?
3. If you were going not planning to have your own blog, would my offer of USD3/year hosting and domain entice and perhaps change your mind?
   

Obviously, my hosting will be able to support forums, PHP, MySQL, etc. but I am thinking that most people will prefer having just a blog. My hosting has up to 400GB bandwidth, I will be selling at least 10 accounts if I decide to sell. Some simple calculations, if you were to buy a domain to be hosted with me, the total might only come up to $10USD per year. Interested?

Would like to know your opinions about this. Meanwhile I will keep a watch on the hosting server, to see how stable it is and I may post the report few days later. Also I have 3-4 good posts being lined up and at least 1 or 2 freebies for you guys soon, so don't forget to check this blog again tommorow or the day after tommorow!

Entrecard Review

Written by BobbyT on Friday, May 09, 2008

Hi BobbyT here. I have wanted to do a review about Entrecard for a long time now but I am afraid that I am not able to review it objectively because I have experienced the ups and downs journey together with Entrecard. However, I am pleased to present here a review done by Lewis Churty, a friend who has been able to introduce Entrecard in the best possible way in this post, especially for those who have not heard about it before. Please welcome Lewis.

Like many blog-specific traffic generation concepts (I nearly wrote fads there) Entrecard has had a pretty prolific beginning. In this post I explain exactly how the Entrecard system works and what you can do with it so that any blogger can have a start that is equally as prolific!

The Entrecard system is a bit involved for new users so it is necessary to break it down a little to explain it. Put simply, it lets you advertise for free. Did you breathe a sigh of relief? I hope so, because I certainly did when I found this out! Effective advertising for bloggers is costly these days with expensive PPC campaigns producing more and more dubious results and the price of reviews on the bigger blogs reaching hundreds of dollars; Entrecard is a way to slightly level the playing field.

So here's the process, step by step:

1. Sign-up to Entrecard for free (note that there is no referral system, this has resulted in plenty of very fair and even-handed reviews popping up around the blogosphere).
2. Create an advert – The format in which adverts are shared on Entrecard is as 125x125 .jpeg/.jpg or .png file which you will have to host somewhere on-line as opposed to uploading it from your computer. These images may be created in any program you may have on your computer such as Photoshop and there are many sites such as Imageshack that supply free hosting for your pictures.
3. Place the Entrecard widget code on your blog – simply create a new object in the sidebar of your blog and copy and paste the smell segment of html code provided on the Entrecard site. In this widget adverts of other bloggers will be displayed.
4. Earn some credits – Instead of spending money on advertising, users of the system trade in Entrecard Credits (ECs) as a substitute for cold, hard cash. This will be explained below.
5. Buy an advertising spot – To promote your blog you need to spend ECs to buy an advertising spot on another blog in the network (over 7,750 as of today). The cost of the advertising spot will depend on the size and quality of the blog and, once bought, will show your blog's advert for 24 hours.

So that's the system in a nutshell, its relatively easy once you get your head around it and is delivering very good results for a large number of bloggers. But the key question of course is how to earn those credits!

Firstly you earn one credit every time you 'drop' your card for another Entrecard member. This is analogous to sharing your business card. Your card shows an image of your 125x125 advert and is a great method of networking. You are limited to 300 drops a day however but the good news is that you also earn one credit every time you receive a card from another blogger.

The second method of earning credits is to accept them as advertising earnings. If you have installed the widget code on your blog (which you must do in order to use the site effectively) you will be able to display the adverts of other bloggers who wish to promote their blogs on your site. In order to do so they will have to purchase advertising with Entrecard credits and you will personally receive 25% of those credits. Entrecard states that this is in order to prevent inflation of advertising prices.

The third credit earning method is a little more obscure. The site has a marketplace where credits can be exchanged for products and services. This is a very innovative and exciting aspect of the system and should not be ignored by new users. Examples of things sold in the marketplace are; hosting for a Wordpress blog, article review services and one member even offered to write a Shakespearean sonnet about the purchaser's blog!

So there you have it, earn yourself some credits and spend it on some advertising. If you have an attractive advert and display it on carefully chosen blogs in your niche you can expect some traffic. Also you should expect to see plenty of traffic from Entrecard members checking out your blog to decide whether or not to advertise on it.

Entrecard is ideal for medium to smaller blogs, the ability to earn enough credits to purchase a 24 hour advert on an enormous blog, for the very cheap price of nothing, is incredible. The system is easy to get to grips with and will involve plenty of networking with other bloggers which is always useful. Like all systems however, it is open to some minor abuse. There are 'chain-droppers' out there who may hardly spend a second on your blog and also plenty of bloggers who are very popular in the Entrecard community and hence have high advertising costs but not so big outside of it. My advice is always to check how popular such blogs are outside of Entrecard before you spend ECs on advertising and, when you drop your card, make an effort to actually look at the blog. You may find several blogs that you really like and establish some great relationships this way.

So there's a brief introduction to Entrecard, an up and coming blog traffic generation that could well continue to grow for a long time, a great opportunity to promote your blog and yourself to the world, for the cheap price of absolutely nothing! Sign up today at www.entrecard.com

BadArticle reviewed

Written by BobbyT on Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Some of you might be aware that besides maintaining this blog, I also earn money online by providing article writing and rewriting services. Therefore I am especially alert when there is important news regarding this trade. Few days ago, I stumbled upon an online tool to help rewrite an article, to make it unique. The tool has a most curious name - BadArticle.

Unfortunately, this tool will only work with Internet Explorer 6+ onwards and requires prior installation of Microsoft Word 2003. I am lucky that I have both.

I wish to test out this article rewrite tool, to see how much of a threat it is to us, freelance writers who make partial income from rewriting jobs. Below is a sample text which I feed into BadArticle and the rewritten text. Note that BadArticle will only start to rewrite an article having a minimum size of 1000 (characters or space, I guess, each line break is worth 2 characters). My sample text is padded with some random sequence of alphabets so that I can use the tool.

This is a sample article written by BobbyT to test out the BadArticle rewriting tool.

Search Engine Optimization experts have mostly agreed that having unique contents will usually rank sites higher than others with duplicate contents. Therefore it is vital for webmasters and
bloggers to type out their own unique posts, or hire an article rewriter to do the job.

Well there is another alternative, there are automated article rewriters which will convert an article into a unique post. Who needs human to do the job when we have an obliging piece of computer laying around? Now you can feed whatever articles you want into BadArticle, it will produce (hopefully) unique articles out of them.

How to test whether BadArticle has done a good job or not? Use copyscape, feed it the article produced by BadArticle, if there is no duplicate found on the Google index, then that particular article is fairly unique.

Here is the rewritten text:

This is a model term written by BobbyT to analyze out the BadArticle rewriting tool.

Search Engine Optimization experts have typically approved that having rare filling will generally rank sites higher than others with duplicate inside. Therefore it is essential for webmasters and bloggers to print out their own single posts, or hire an condition rewriter to do the job.

Well there is another alternative, there are automated clause rewriters which will convert an critique into a rare advertise. Who wishes creature to do the job when we have an obliging example of notebook laying around? Now you can nourish anything articles you want into BadArticle, it will construct (hopefully) exclusive articles out of them.

How to examine whether BadArticle has done a good job or not? Use copyscape, nourish it the thing produced by BadArticle, if there is no duplicate found on the Google symbol, then that particular section is justly sole.

From my analysis, there is a total of 153 words in the text and BadArticle replaces 31 words from the original text with alternative words. 31 words out of 153 total words is a change of about 20%. The rewritten version is not really intelligible but I am partly at fault here. BadArticle provides for users to change the suggested alternative words on the fly before it outputs a final rewrite, which I did not mainly because I want to demonstrate the true capability of this tool without human intervention. Another reason why the rewritten version is not that good is because of my uncalled for preferences for out-of-context verb such as feed and adjective like fairly which could carry many meanings.

If any of you intend to use this tool for unique articles, I would advise that you proofread and revise the rewritten text before publishing it, your readers would probably misunderstand your meanings if you just blindly use the rewritten text without revision. Based on the performance of this tool, I shall conclude that article rewriters would not be out of job for a long time to come, yet. However, BadArticle is a new tool and is probably being improved even at this moment when you are reading this review. Besides, what more could you ask for from a free tool and service?

Test BadArticle yourselves, don't just listen to my unqualified assessments! Get unique now!

Free Article Spinner
Free Article Rewrite

To organize contests, or not?

Written by BobbyT on Monday, April 21, 2008

How long have you been reading blogs? Do you follow blogs that blog about blogging and related topics? If you have been reading blogs that blog about blogging for quite some time, you should have realized one common thing about all those blogs. Most, if not all, organize contests in their bid to attract more visitors and followers and improve their site rankings.

There are many blogs that blog about blogging, so there is no shortage of information available. Besides, if every other blogs are running contests, and one blog doesn't, it will certainly lose out in comparison with the others.

This is in contrast with the situation in the yesteryears, where blogs about every niche are pretty scarce and they are more valued by their own groups of readers. Although the number of blog readers at that time were small, those who follow blogs do so with pure interest and sincerity. They do not follow blogs just because there are weekly lucky draws or monthly contests with great prizes to win.

So, does this mean that a blog with good content won't be followed if it doesn't run contests? No, definitely not! The blog readers still have a tendency to follow the blogs with good content, but between 2 equally great blogs, it is more likely that they will participate in the one with more activities and great prizes to be won.

Am I for or against contests?
This is not a simple question. When everyone is organizing contests, they will be a tendency by some people to concentrate purely on organizing bigger and better contests, to the point of neglecting the original direction of their blogs. As a result, there will be more posts with no useful information (or so called spam posts) online while production of beneficial or resourceful posts are halted or delayed. However, the running of contests is still under control so far, there are no excessive contest posts yet (among millions of pages in the internet!), and there are certain bloggers out there who still refuse to buckle to peer pressure and continue producing useful posts, ignoring fancy gimmicks of the competitors. Considering this, I am in favor of contests at this moment, they attract attentions, convert blog readers to loyal followers and when there are more followings, there will be improvements, among the blogs that blog about blogging as well as in blogosphere in general.


I guess you guys will forgive me for talking too much about contests on this blog after I dedicated this whole post to explain why I am in favor of contests. Anyway, do check out the above contests if you haven't heard about it, I am one of the sponsors ... Try to spot the prizes that I offer :)

What is your opinion about contests? Do you favor contests or are you against them? Why? Share your views with us please, we will like to know.

Silence is not golden in Blogosphere

Written by BobbyT on Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Hello people, how have you all been? Wondering when I am going to update this blog? I am glad to announce that the wait is finally over (that is, if there is anyone waiting at all...), and I will try to update more often from today onwards, no promise though...

Today I am going to talk about the value of silence in Blogosphere. No doubt, many of you have heard of idioms about the virtue of silence, for example, "Silence as virtue" and "Silence is golden". However, those idioms don't hold absolute truth in the Blogosphere. True, there are times in the Blogosphere, when things are better left unsaid, but most of the time, it is better to voice out one's opinions or just say something, anything at all.