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There are people managing profitable blogs. Many of us are joining this stream. But I received some negative opinions about moneytizing blogs. One of my friends said ISP is the real winner, search engines also make, others are just contributors to ISP's profit. This negative opinion put me in doubts. Does it really worth our efforts moneytizing our blogs?If you don't mind share your experience, please vote in the poll, and let us know how it works for you.

I've got no idea how this advertise stuff works. I heard some people earn a lot while enjoy blogging. So I think it's a good idea to put on advertisement. A friend of mine warned me that nobody else really gain except a few search engines, a few popular sites, and ISP. And ISP is the biggest winner. Others are just contributors to this industry.Really difficult to know the truth.

I think it's awesome to see a big company like that can still have fun on a level like that. It goes right along with their typical April fools jokes every year.Almost makes me want to switch from iPhone, knowing Apple would never do something like this. Keep your sense of humor and fun, Google.

That's the most obviouse strength of google-- they always knows where and how to get our hearts
I'm a big google fan, once parked all my stuffs within google. Unfortunately, some of google's service have been blocked in my region, so that I have to move away from google a lot. I'm waiting for the day when google come back in my space.

Google adsense pay by check. It's very inconvinient for me. Because I plan to use the earning from blog to support my spending on online activities. If receive check, a great part of the value will be lost when transfer the money back to online payments. I prefer paypal. So, I did some search on Adsense alternatives. To my suprise, there are a lot. Some of them have nice reputations. I list my findings below. I appreciate if you share your opinion and experience with them.

Clicksor

TargetPoint

Adbrite (by check)

BidClix

Chitika

AllFeeds

Adhearus

AffiliateSensor

Bidvertiser

Veoda

RevenuePilot

Kanoodle

Enhance Interactive

Quigo

Intellitxt

Nixxie

InfoGrabber

Yahoo YPN

Mirago

Miva

SearchFeed

Fastclick text ads

AdEngage

BannerBoxes

ContextWeb

CBProSense

ClicksAdsDirect

Adgenta

ExpoActive

I installed a humanity checking plugin, now the spammers can't get registered but never stop trying. Last month, they comsumed 3000mb bandwidth. That's a lot.I heard domains hosted by dnspark can get lots of spammers. So, I removed my domain from dnspark, changed to be hosted by the same host as my website. But this didn't improve the situation.Seems I will have to give up this domain?

For the twitter part- If I enable OpenID log in, then, that will be the same as one twitter per loggin in user. That'll solve the account problem. But, yes, the information are publicly accessable on twitter. That's a problem.

If you have wordpress multisite install, you can customize 2 blogs differently by using different themes. I wouldn't install 2 wordpress core if the only reason is for customizing.

You can use css to do this.

A:link {text-decoration: underline;} /*unvisited links*/A:visited {text-decoration: none;}/*visited links.*/A:active {text-decoration: none;} /*active links*/A:hover {text-decoration: underline; color: red;}/*hovered links*/

Please note, you can't change the order of these 4.

let the user download a client that will change the settings and the info can be feed free. ..The other way around this is a phone receiver attached to a limited access proxy server ...
There are third party services...

vhortex, could you give some example sites that providing the above service?

Can we consider Twitter as one of those services?

One of the sites I have created even allows you to change your geological zone by sending an SMS command with your current geolocation in ISO 2 digit format for countries/states and the daily feed for weather, currency rate and time adjustment will instantly update after a server confirmation replied to your mobile device. (for mobile devices that can send SMS messages)

Is this instant response service can be accessed by public(free or paid), or each site has to develop their own stuffs?
My guess is-- for the general informations, the mobile site can install some kind of script to connect with some service to get the information for the user. for sepecial informations, the mobile site build their own channel? I'm totally blind on this, would you explain more?

As my research goes on, more information suggest me- think twice, think carefully, plan ahead.

 

The tide is shifting, mobiles has a seat at the table. Will our business gain substantial benefit from the efforts we put on mobilizing?

 

While I am hearing the tide, I appreciate the practical suggestions you people provided in this thread-- depends on the nature of the site, count how many mobile users are visiting.

 

Interestingly, while most of us are thinking mobile web as a way to make our site accessable for mobile users, others have moved on to generate income from mobile advertizing. Here's a picture shows on going mobile advertising market:

According to the research, "Mobile advertising, including mobile message, display and search advertising,

is set for continued strong growth as mobile campaigns generate significantly higher click-

through rates than traditional media campaigns."

 

This picture looks yummy, doesn't it?

Very well said indeed.I've spent lots of time on my blog recently. Every little adjustment takes me hours if not days. Day after day, my blogs is still not in shape and I start receiving complains from friends and family-- they think I am wasting time on useless stuffs instead of caring for beloved ones.$8000 sounds a lot at first glance, but if count the days I spend on my blog design, more or less 2 months. 2 months' salary should be more than $8000. So, $8000 for a nice design, it worth.But for personal blogs or blogs not generating decent income, that's really out of consideration.

It's about organizing the right strategy within limited resources, targeting the majority visitors.

How much does it cost to bring our site to meet our expectation. I've being browsing through a lot of website to see what is a crossing browser theme look like. Unfortunately, not much greate example. If you take a look at WordPress free theme section, 5 themes are all one colum, I don't think they can meet my expectation more than normal themes. I also find a website, looks charming, well designed, tasteful. 2 colum. The designer charge minimum $8000 for a site design. Sure I wouldn't spend $8000 before my site can make that amount. I went back to check the site several times, just by chance, yesterday I opened it in IE, a big mess! All buttons missing out, when narrow IE window, the site is cut off inproperly. Wow, I think, $8000 for this?-- unless for charity purpose.

I just recalled a nice article I read a while ago, widget tutorial
The author is Hybrid theme's developer. He has many nice tips around wordpress.

I see. I will check to see what I can get from css3, but I will probably study the cluttered method. That's a brilliant idea, I didn't imagine it, will try it out. Thanks!

You can find detailed guidings and tutorials on Wordpress Documents section. But that's not speeding up things. The best way to learn is to download a plugin to see how it works and how it is coded. If you open your theme's function.php, search for "dynamic sidebar", you can see how it create widget. You can create a widget by duplicating it and give it another name.For plugins, it can be complicated. For simple ones, you need to follow the requirements on WP Docs section, and find which action hook to use for hooking up with your function.Of course, compete to succeed, I agree. But compete in who's field? There is a reward/cost ratio. Balance it well, get the best out from your strength.

From my expeirence, if we don't want to create a theme of plug in from scratch, we don't need to learn php. I've found my shortcut, maybe this can help you too-- when you want to create or edit something, you can find an example in Wordpress default theme(twentyten) or any other free theme. Just download and read their php codes. Copy the section you need and edit it. There are also lost of tips on the net to study on. After several try, you'll get the basics to manage your stuffs.Your site looks nice. The speed is fast. That's a great start. I checked out all 5 google ads on the site too very professional sites, but you can't compare to them. Their sites are designed by professionals which cost a lot of money.

My site is about language and culture, but not limited to that. Once people started, they can do anything on my site , and of course, they can become social with each other. That makes me thinking to provide a mobile version

I don't. I don't like to talk on mobile phone either I guess I am the type that not nimble enought to be mobilized I even use laptop as a desktop. Last time I brought my laptop on a trip, planned to check email or do something if needed. But I didn't check email till I finished the trip and back home

I'm not a big mobile phone fan but I know many people relay on mobile to do lots of things. I'm thinking-- is it worth the efforts making my site usable on mobile phones?It does cost a lot of jobs. Onc stylesheet for each identical device, then, provide user a theme switcher. Or, one stylesheet for all but use javascript to swich style rules. Either way will take a lots of dedicate jobs. If nowaday's users really use mobile browsing web often, then, it worth trying. But, what if majority still prefer sit infront of desk and browing web in ease?What do you think?

Sometimes this "error connecting to database" can happen because of server down. But I guess this might not be the reason because we are not in "free-package" with ASTA.

Thanks for your insights! I am glad to know that I don't need to run things too complicated. Just take care of the 5 blocks with the content on top.

starscream, my fault- I just posted in another thread asking for a tutorial that coveres major aspects of SEO.

SEO is a puzzle for me. starscream, you are very knowledgeable on many aspects of building website. Would you provide some general guidings?Sometimes I read some articles talking about this, some articles talking about that. At the end, I don't know which block is more important, and which block I missed out. If I know a basical framework, I can work hard on it. For example, if I know, there are a, b, c, d, e , totally 5 blocks of concerns, then, I can just go through all of them step by step, and implement them on every blog. Currently, my situation is-- I grasp a tip here, make some change, then, some other day, I grasp some other tips, then, make some change. I think that's not good.