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eXtra For Every Publisher

Tips on Being a Better Blogger

WordCamp Toronto’s Hash Tag HilarityYesterday

Great story about WordCamp Toronto 2008. My cousin and I were sitting in our hotel room, and we couldn’t find any mention of what the WordCamp Toronto hash tag for the event was going to be, and so my cousin, Mark Wood, decided that it should be something like #wcto08. He put out a message on Twitter at 08:13 AM on October 4th, saying “WordCamp Toronto in an hour and a half. Hope to meet some cool people while I am there. #WCTO08″. I then, only a minute later, put out a quick Twitter saying, “WordCamp Toronto hash tag #WCTO08 Deal with it. :)”.

After our messages, people started using the same tag for their Twitters, and other things, until we got to the event, and the organizers let us know that the hash tag should be #wct08. Despite this set back, I continued to push out as many tweets as possible under the one my cousin had created, and when Joseph Thornley took the stage, it only got more complicated as he announced that the hash tag for the event should be #wpto08. We then had three event tags on Twitter, for a single event. It was safe to say that many people were confused, and slightly annoyed.

Questions started circulating if people should just add two or all three tags to their Twitters so that they are easy to find. No one wanted their tweets to be ignored for t

Missing Comments: Moving ServerYesterday

So over the weekend, while I was away, the site was moved from one server to another, and in doing so, it caused some posts and some comments to disappear, and thanks to some issues with WordPress, I haven’t been able to import them properly on the new host. I think that importing doesn’t work as well due to the post revisions saved in the database. Not sure if it is a known issue or not, but I hope to get it all sorted out soon. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t comment, please feel free to interact as normal, as the importing of comments and whatnot shouldn’t negatively effect any comments and whatnot from anyone else.

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WordCamp Toronto: Blogging Like a ProYesterday

Thanks to my cousin, Mark Wood, I have a decent video of my speech at WordCamp Toronto yesterday morning for you all to watch.

Let me know what you think of it. And thanks again to all of those that came out to the event, it was a really great time, and I will have a few posts about it over the coming days and weeks.

WordCamp Toronto 2008 - Running Your Blog Like a Pro with David Peralty from Mark Wood on Vimeo.

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Blog Network Pay Versus Writing Work CompletedOctober 3

One thing not being mentioned in the whole Blog Network pay structures is how much writing the bloggers are doing. I have to wonder at the amount of content bloggers are putting out at $25, $50, and $100 pay levels.

If they are doing one post per week at five hundred words, that would be around one thousand words a month, and at a $25 pay rate, they would be earning $0.025 per word, which isn’t a bad rate in my mind.

However, if they are producing two posts per week, at around five hundred words, and still making the same $25 pay rate, then they would be only earning $0.0125 per word, and that is pretty near slave labour.

Also, say those two posts per week took up an hour of your time, and so you spend four hours a month working for a blog network. Your hourly rate is $6.25 per hour, well below the current minimum wage here in Canada.

Again, doubling the equation will bring you to a saddening $3.13 per hour wage, which to me is closing in on slave wages once again.

How can business online survive and prosper when wages such as these are being handed out? I am not sure what kind of time and how many posts are being generated, but I have to believe that if people took a more rational look at what they are getting paid, that they would either come to the quick realization that opportunities elsewhere are more rewarding for their time, or only f

Full Time at b5media: How Much Traffic is Needed?October 3

So, TechCrunch broke the news on the new pay structure for b5media, and normally this wouldn’t be big news, but it gives us a clear picture of what the company will be like to blog for going forward.

For me it comes down to simple metrics. As a blogger, what is my potential “take home” pay when all is said and done?

Taking a quick look at the CPM offerings that b5media is looking to offer, how many page views would you need to generate to be able to make two thousand dollars a month?

You would need 500,000 page views per month to have b5media cut you a cheque for $2000.

While that doesn’t take into account bonuses or any other additions to pay that they come up with, I still think that is a very high level of traffic that very few blogs in their network will be able to get to.

The hardest part of growing a successful blog, and building it into your full time business is getting to the transition point. And the reason that it can be so hard is because your time is split, and blogging usually ends up at the end of the line. You work for a company, you take care of yourself and your family and then you blog for companies like b5media.

Even if you are skipping television, radio, reading and other distracting past-times, you are probably only able to put in around two or three hours of effort each night