Posted under reviews on April 24th, 2008 by gas money
Today i wanted to talk about a really great Hosting Company by the name of Concentric. I have been using them for smaller projects and my clients are really happy with the service they get. They are one of the few to use and perfect the Cluster hosting technology. I think the support they give is definitely one of the best on the web and recommend them to all my clients as well as my readers.
Feel free to browse their site for helpful information on how to get started. especially if your looking for good, quality , reliable hosting. Let them know gasmoney sent you when you apply.
Posted under reviews on February 12th, 2008 by gas money
Today I wanted to talk about a forum I have started to frequent lately called WebTalkforums.com . WTF (for short) is a great source of resources when it comes to the webmaster niche. You’ll get real help and support from the members at WTF with nothing expected in return. I’ve been a loyal member for about 3 months now and I find myself going back more often than the bigger webmaster forums.
They really value their members and listen to the things they have to say. Earlier this month i gave my 2 cents on a particular subject related to the management of the forum and how they handle things. And although we didn’t see eye to eye on few of the matters , They didn’t just tell me to blow off or that my input was unnecessary. Instead they listened to me and the whole staff chimed in on what they felt on the situation. prettycool!
That goes to show me they really don’t want to just rule you with an iron fist. Most forums really wont care what you have to say and just ignore you. So thats definitely a plus in my book on forum management.
So lets analyze WTF together shall we…
Design: They just so happen to have had a redesign for the forum in the last few days and I think they did a great job. The color scheme is almost the same as before but with a few little tweaks here and there . The forum flows very nicely and i don’t think theres a topic unsupported on WTF.
Structure: The structure is great, (although i feel the Web Talk Information should be at the bottom) it looks really good and goes with the regular structure of most webmaster forums.
Staff: The staff is really great at running WTF and my hats off to them. I See them to be the best part of the forum (as well as the members lol) and can assure you they will be a major resource for webmasters in the near future. Overall: a great forum to learn and meet new webmasters to build with. I recommend everyone register and become members as you’ll see what I’m talking about. Heres a link to join the forum and get started. Good luck
Posted under rambles, reviews on January 29th, 2008 by gas money
I have been a member of Digitalpoint for years now and I’m starting to notice there are a lot more scammers joining the forum. Now i don’t know what Shawn is doing with the forum but I’ve heard rumors that he’s not as interested in the forum as before.
Once an administrator of a large forum like Digital point doesn’t care what happens on his forum, it starts to die a slow death with corruption and scams. I’m not saying that’s whats happening but if your a member there I’m sure you’ve noticed it as well.
Another thing going on is mods going crazy with power. I have seen so many people banned for silly reasons. I mean a lot of these people make a living from sites like this and should really be reviewed when certain rules are broken. I know its hard to manage a big forum like DP but some sort of review system should be in place for members banned with 50+ reps on their account. OK well i guess my rant is over and I’d like to hear what you think on the subject.
I had a script coded a few months back for a site i owned named comments.nu . I was getting so many IMs and emails about the script that i decided to sell it to other entrepreneurs so they can have a myspace/hi5/facebook/yahoomash comment site just like it.
I recently had a second version created to mimic the famous MyhotComments.com . People kept asking for a similar version so i decided to make it for em. So heres the info for the script and its demos. If your interested just email me or post your questions here.
Is a fairly new script i had customized to fit the most popular myspace comment site out there …myhotcomments.com . So if you want to have a site similar to MHC then this is the script for you.
This script comes with -
• Friendly SEO urls for categories.
• Random Graphics on front page so it always looks like you have new content.
• Friendly Admin pannel for easy upload on 1 per or batch uploads.
• Template design so its easy to customize.
• Member upload page so anyone can share their favorite images. (approval option available).
• Random 4 images over each category for more exposure of pages.
• Comes with 300 images to give you a kick start.
• Prime advertising spaces to show several companies.
Is the older of the scripts. This package is normally $79.99 but for MSP members its only $65. This script was made to look like the late socomments.com • Friendly SEO urls for categories.
• Random Graphics on front page so it always looks like you have new content.
• Friendly Admin pannel for easy upload on 1 per or batch uploads.
• Template design so its easy to customize.
• Member upload page so anyone can share their favorite images. (approval option available).
• Random 4 images over each category for more exposure of pages.
• Comes with 300 images to give you a kick start.
• Prime advertising spaces to show several companies.
PM me if you have any questions regarding the script. I will be doing the full install for new customers at no charge as long as you say you found it on MSP. Product page
Posted under reviews on January 23rd, 2008 by gas money
I’m sorry i haven’t blogged in a while but I’ve been going through a lot in the last few days so i haven’t had time to get online and do some work. So i barely started getting back into everything today. I need to do some research tonight so i can start where i left off. I was reading Doshdosh.com and wanted to share with you guys one of the posts that caught my eye. These come directly from Maki’s Blog aka DoshDosh
“The main reason why people subscribe to blog feeds can be explained in one sentence: Readers subscribe to blogs when they provide an informational or entertainment value so great that it would be a loss to not subscribe to it.
People are self-serving most of the time. They monitor content to be informed, educated and entertained. We are all consumers.
Visitors may also subscribe in order to be updated on your content, in order to use it as a networking tool or a source of inspiration for their own articles
In any case, people subscribe to a blog when the author or his/her opinions add and not subtract from the reader: The attention given to your site must be reciprocated or returned in the form of short and long term benefits derived from your content.
There’s a lot to do and not to do when it comes to increasing feed subscriptions. Without proper statistical testing, it’s difficult to measure the real ROI from feed link placements and incentive-based schemes. These factors are usually circumstantial as well because they depend on factors like design, niche and voice.
My advice for increasing feed subscribers: Minimize noise. Maximize signal. Always create content relevant to your audience’s interests. Cut down on me-too or meaningless news posts. Create more unique, thought provoking content with original analysis. Don’t be afraid to share your honest opinions.
One more thing: learn how to market your blog. This is incredibly important. A true readership develops when you create low-noise, high value content and promote it to the right people with enough influence to not only send over targeted traffic but improve the reputation of your site. And that’s all there is to it.
Dosh Dosh Has 10,000 Feed Subscribers: Thanks Everyone!
When I started Dosh Dosh a year ago, I decided to conduct a sociological experiment. I wanted to know one thing: How many people will actually subscribe to my blog if I don’t display my feed count or provide incentives for subscription?
Apparently over 10,000 people. The subscription level for Dosh Dosh has increased steadily over the course of a year. Instead of talking about what I did, let’s take a look at some the things I didn’t do or have:
No Feedcount. I did not display my feed count on Dosh Dosh for its entire lifespan and yesterday afternoon was the first time I put up my feed numbers. My feed count was also deactivated until I reached 8000 subscribers, which means no one could discover how many subscribers I had until that point.
No Guest Posting. I have not written any guest posts for any site with the purpose of driving traffic back to my blog. I only wrote for Dosh Dosh.
No Contests/Projects. Never held any contests, group writing projects, blog carnivals or competitions at all on this blog.
No Advertising. Not a single cent was spent on buying ads to promote Dosh Dosh. Every single visitor that comes to this blog is organic.
No Incentives. Apart from the content itself, I have never offered any incentives to encourage subscriptions. This means no ebooks, free reviews or gifts of any sort.
No Guest bloggers. No one else has ever written any articles on this blog.
No Digg frontpages. A long time ago, an article reached the Digg frontpage and was buried in a few minutes. After that, all content from Dosh Dosh has been automatically buried by Digg’s internal system (a plausibletheory).
No Frequent Posting. For the later part of Dosh Dosh’s lifespan, I wrote infrequently, sometimes only publishing one or two articles in an entire week.
Most of the points above are practiced by most bloggers concerned with their feed subscriber numbers. At the very least, bloggers will display their feed count as a form of social proof to encourage other subscribers to sign up.
I deliberately refrained from displaying the feed count in order to determine how many people will subscribe even though there is a lack of input from other readers. I didn’t guest post, advertise or provide incentives because I wanted to get a rough numerical estimation on the size of my ‘real’ feed audience.
What does this prove, if anything? That it’s very possible to get a decent readership even if you don’t overtly go after subscribers by purchasing ads or providing incentives. Creating excellent content and getting exposure for it through the right influencers and platforms is very important, in my opinion.
I’ve seen some bloggers guest blogging actively while getting on the Digg frontpage and offering ebook incentives for subscription. Some of them used to have more subscribers than me but not any more. I and others outgrew them.
Incentives and other gimmicks aren’t going to get you very far if you don’t know how to consistently put out content that differentiates your site. They certainly aren’t useless but you don’t need them to grow either. Once again, thanks everyone!
