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Philippines, Technology News & Reviews



Archive for November, 2005

AdSense for Forums

Marc was discussing how to to rethink the strategy of AdSense implementation on forums, specifically for Atenesta.net. I originally posted a shorter comment on Marc’s blog but thought of blogging about it here as I have an additional tip to add which require some visuals.

Forums are one of the hardest web property to monetize in terms of AdSense conversion. CTRs are way below 1% (from experience, it’s 0.3%) and the usual strategies for blogs do not apply. In fact, they’re totally opposite — instead of blending the ads, you want them to be more conspicuous (attention-grabbing).

Another tip is that you can actually rotate the color combination of your ads to up to 4 color schemes. To do this, go to the AdSense for Content tab, Color Palettes section. While holding the Ctrl key, click on the color schemes you want to use. You can only use up to 4 schemes so pick the best and most contrasting ones.

It should look like this:

If you are fmailiar with the AdSense code itself, you can edit the color variables in an array like the one below:

google_color_border = ["FDFFCA","6699CC","003366","FF4500"];
google_color_bg = ["FDFFCA","003366","003366","FFEBCD"];
google_color_link = ["0000CC","FFFFFF","FF6600","DE7008"];
google_color_url = ["008000","AECCEB","99CCFF","E0AD12"];
google_color_text = ["000000","AECCEB","FFFFFF","8B4513"];

Once implemented, the color schemes will randomly rotate for every impression. That way, your forum members/visitors will more likely to notice the ads and hopefully click on the relevant ones.

Your $100 Blogging Moment

A very insterested and new reader of my blog texted me this afternoon asking how I got started with my blogging fame and Adsense. I have no clue about the fame part but we chatted over SMS while I was waiting in line at the bank to deposit my StudioTraffic and AdSense cheque.

Our conversation mostly revolved around blogging and how to find your own niche. Then, when he asked about the Adsense part which caught me thinking a little bit more than just saying I signed up and pasted the codes in all my web properties.

I was actually thinking of that “$100 Moment“. Yes, almost anyone can sign up for AdSense and all but not everyone will succeed in it. Hence, the term “one-hundred-dollar-moment”. It is that time when you yourself realized that AdSense is really something, not because you heard it from someone else but because you got your cheque for only a whole month’s earnings. That means breaking the $100-barrier on monthly AdSense revenues. I would look at it as a rite of passage into the AdSense world.

Why a $100-dollar blogging moment? From my conversations with Filipino bloggers who are monetizing their blogs with Adsense, I can only count with the fingers of my hands those who are getting them monthly cheques (just bloggers mind you, don’t include those with other web properties such as free online services like forums, galleries and portals). This brings us to the realization that there are types of blogs, however popular or sticky they are, that are still hard-pressed when it comes to monetization via AdSense. Is it just the implementation? Partly, yes. But that’s one of the many other factors to consider which we will discuss in my succeeding posts.

So, when did you had your “One-hundred-dollar Blogging Moment?”

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 is out!

Firefox 1.5 is officially out! Been waiting for the official page to come out early this morning despite Digg claiming they saw the release via the public FTP.

The new version sport new and improved features such as:

  • Faster browsing
  • Automatic updates
  • Improved pop-up blocking
  • Integrated Search
  • Stronger security
  • Live Bookmarks

I downloaded it a few hours ago but did not install it as speculations it was still the RC3. Anyhow, move along and check out Firefox 1.5.

Sure looks like Google knew about it ahead of the time. The Firefox referral program’s timing was impeccable. Just hope that all your extensions would still work.

Why all the blog-related ads?

More than half the time, Adsense ads on this blog are displaying mostly blog-related adverts, especially the Link Ad Units. I used to wonder about that and even used the section targetting feature with very little success.

Then I realized that becaus eof the contextual targetting nature of AdSense, you’d be hard-pressed to avoid those blog-related ads. The whole site is reaking with the word blog and blog-related keywords. So, I logged-in to my AdWords account and check for the usual suspects if they are being used for the campaign.

This gives us the hint that the density of these keywords will ultimately lead to a blog-related ad.

  • The URL of the site has the word blog in it. I notice that the words in URL is a great factor with how Google AdSense take the context of the page.
  • Each entry has the words “comment/s” and “posted/post/s”. These words are on the top of the keyword density list.
  • Your category lists will most probably have Blog News, Blog Rolls, Blogging, etc.
  • You’d most probably have mentioned the word blog in half your entries.
  • You most probably have the word WordPress or MovableType somewhere in your navigation bar or footer.

So, what to do to get rid of them blog-related ads? Or at least minimize their likelihood of showing up? Unfortunately, I don’t know else i would have already got rid of them here. :D

However, I believe that if you can minimize the incidence of these keywords ever showing up in your blog, then, you have a better chance.

How about changing the word comment/s to reply/replies or write website/site/blogsite rather than constantly repeat blog. Then, avoid domains or sub-domains with the word blog in them — something I should really take into consideration more often. Or how about use text-images instead of words? That way, you still retain the words but the Googlebots won’t be able to read them.

Google Firefox Referral

Yes, Google’s Firefox Referral Program has gone worldwide.

Go check out your Adsense account and go to the referral section. The Firefox tab can now be found there and you can copy and paste the referral code all over your blog.

The referral program allows publishers to refer new users of Firefox that also installs the Google Toolbar with it. That’s up to $1 per new Firefox user you refer.

Take note though that the referral commission only takes effect if the new use downloads Firefox and also install the Google Toolbar with it. You won’t get credits if it’s just Firefox or if the user already has Firefox and installs Google Toolbar.

Let’s just see how this goes.

Will podcasting pick up in the Philippines?

Somebody asked me that last week and I sort of said more on the negative side. Mostly, I’m optimistic when it comes to the area of blogging but with podcasts, I’m still a bit skeptical. I actually don’t know. Maybe in terms of podcast listeners, it would pick up fast, but not so much with the number of podcasters.

Here are some of the technical and not-so-technical reasons I had in mind:

  • As Leo Laporte once said in TWiT, podcasting is all about the “long tail”. Meaning, you get the precipitates in traffic. People could happen to visit your blog but not necessarily listen to your podcast.
  • Timeliness. Podcasts are not as fast as your regular blog. It takes time to record, edit and publish. Most of the time, it’s stale news or about last week’s issues.
  • Technical barriers. Not everybody has a mic or knows how to edit a recording and convert them to .H264 or MP3.
  • It just takes more effort. If a regular blogger can’t manage to post a single entry on a daily basis, much more for a podcast.
  • Podcasting is more than just the content, it’s about personality and delivery — and not every blogger has that. It’s basically an internet radio show.
  • ROI. Yes, there’s Fruitcast but that’s it. Even Diggnation and TWiT had a hard time coming up with revenues to offset their server costs. Imagine, the bandwidth for the TWiT RSS feed alone costs over $200 a month!

Well, these are inherent barriers actually and are not limited to the Philippines. However, if you add factors such as the number of people on dial-up which cannot easily download the podcast, the number of people accessing the net via internet cafes that have download restrictions, and the number of people accessing the net thru their work offices which do not have PC speakers or even sound cards for that matter — that just makes your potential audience a wee bit thinner.

Come to think of it, a lot of the long-standing Pinoy podcasts I’ve been listening to are not recorded in the Philippines. Despite that, I still hope I could add myself to the pinoy podcaster stats sometime soon.

[tags]free podcasts, ipod podcasts, video podcasts, vidcast[/tags]

When did you start with AdSense?

Google launched AdSense on March of 2003. Just over two years now and it has already made waves across the internet. never in the wildest dream that AdSense would become the bread-and-butter for a lot of bloggers (and publishers for that matter).

I only learned about it about January of 2004 and by February, I already signed up and got $16.14 for that month. Didn’t really believed in it that time, until I got my first cheque 3 months later.

The rest, they say, is history.

So, how did you learn about AdSense and when did you start using it?

How to deal with the surfing mob?

A little over four months ago, I posted something about how to respond to blog critics. That’s mostly how I approach situations such as heated discussions by commenters to other commenters and even to the blogger.

A couple of days ago, this entry on Smart WiFi at Pinoy.Tech.Blog got alittle hotter than usual. The commenters are mostly from another old entry here (and most commented) about the same topic.

More often than not, I leave them be on this blog (even to the extent that a lot of the comments are explitives) but with PTB, we try to shape the discussion on the more informative path. Still, some of the cavemen clickers, as Marc would refer to them, continue to harrass and demean the value of the blog.

This is one of those times when that Wordpress feature “Users must register/login in order to comment” will come in handy. Just add a dash of “Fair Use Policy” and email verification and you’re all set to moderate them trolls and flamers.

Microsoft launches Windows Live Custom Domains

Microsft has recently launched a neat service called Custom Domains or Bring Your Own Domain (BYOD). This service will host e-mail and IM for you in a domain you already own.

Here’s th elist of perks:

  • Create up to 20 e-mail accounts within your domain
  • Get a 250 MB inbox for each account*
  • Check your e-mail from any Web-enabled PC
  • Junk e-mail filter protection using Microsoft SmartScreen technology
  • Virus scanning and cleaning of e-mail
  • Seamless access with MSN Messenger, MSN Spaces, etc.
  • * 250MB inbox available only in the 50 United States, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Eligible Hotmail users will first receive 25MB at sign-up. Please allow at least 30 days for activation of your 250MB storage to verify your e-mail account and help prevent abuse. Microsoft Corporation reserves the right to provide 250MB inbox to free Hotmail accounts at its discretion.

    Max has a short guide posted here on how to set it up with your hosting account. A great alternative to freeing up space from your blog hosting accounts.

    (from TechCrunch via Connected Internet.)

    A call for Jamail

    Muhammad Jamail Sultan is strong and happy baby, He has an easily smile for everyone, He acts like any baby should, He’s got a big bright eyes that seems to take in everything. We call him a “fighter”. So let us give him a fighting chance.

    He will soon die, unless He get a liver transplant .

    But unfortunately Liver transplant is not yet available locally it can be done in Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Kaohsiung Taiwan / Queen Mary Hospital in Hongkong and it will cost P3-4 Million pesos . An amount is beyond the means of Rosario and Jamail Sultan who has emabarked on a campaign to raise funds for their baby’s transplant. Please help them in any way you can.

    Any amount you can give will ensure for his survival.

    Please visit his site for more info. Related article from Inq7.

    What can we do to help?

    • Donation of any mount will be greatly help. See JM’s site for more info.
    • Write about Jamail on your blog and spread the word. Your blog readers might be able to hep as well.
    • Link to Jamail from your site or blog.

    By merely spreading the word about Jamail’s condition, your blog is already helping a lot. This is one of those occasions where you can put your blog to good use.

    (via Ederic’s email.)

    Is Paypal blocked in the Philippines?

    I only noticed this a couple of days ago when a good friend of mine was visiting me here. He was chatting with his mom who’s in Canada over YM. While talking about the possibility of opening a Paypal account for her from Canada, he fired up a browser and was going to guide his mom thru the sign-up process.

    Alas, the Paypal website does not load up. I did a ping and traceroute but got nothing still. Paypal is up, that I am sure of but it seems they’ve blocked access from IPs originating in the Philippines, or maybe those under the PLDT network at the very least.

    Could you try it from your end and leave me a feedback?

    AdSense: Advertise on this Blog

    While most of you may not have noticed it yet, the Adsense ads on this site has this new link at the bottom right part titled “Advertise on this site”.

    This is Google AdSense’s new feature:

    Empower advertisers to bid for your inventory directly from your pages.

    “Advertise on this site” links in your ad units let advertisers know they have the opportunity to place ads on your site, and enable them to act precisely at their moment of interest with the click of a mouse.

    When advertisers click on these links, they’ll be taken to a landing page from which they can quickly open an AdWords account and create an ad targeting your site. More advertisers competing for your inventory means more revenue for you.

    So if you want to try out and place ads on this blog, just click on the link.

    Reducing Firefox RAM Usage

    (via Digg)

    One Federico Mena Quintero showed a proof-of-concept on how to reduce memory consumption of Mozilla Firefox on your PC.

    When you run Mozilla or Firefox and load a web page with images, it stores the uncompressed images as pixmaps in the X server. In particular, it seems to maintain live pixmaps for all the images in all the tabs that you have open; even if a tab is not visible, the images will be in your X server’s memory.

    When you exit Firefox, the X server is smart enough to return this memory to the kernel.

    Web pages use compressed images, of course, to reduce download time. These images will likely take up a lot of space when uncompressed.

    Read more about his explanation here.

    On creating your own Blogware

    To those who are web developers by heart, there’s this great feeling of accomplishment if you are running and using a blog tool/cms that you personally created. I used to have one 3 years ago when I felt Blogger wasn’t enough for my needs (no commenting). I scrapped it in April this year and switched to WordPress. I still look back from time to time but this was the year that I felt blogging is more about writing content rather than creating your own blog tool or designing/tweaking your blog from top down.

    Yet, I still envy the likes of Fleeb who has made great progress with his own blogware+cms journal. I’ve also watched Albert as he enhanced his very own blog platform thru the years. I haven’t met Fleeb (Francis) face to face but I’ve known him personally. He’s our very first OJT over at plogHost and a great programmer (he did some tweaking in our internal CRM) so if anyone out there looking for some projects to outsource, I’d recommend him for the job. Ok, I digress.

    Anyway, Markku used to have one of his own blog app before but he felt it was better to switch to WordPress and use his time developing plugins and hacks for it.

    This post is just a salute to them for sticking it out with their own blogwares.

    How to Survive a Blog Crash

    Jong’s blog went offline for several days only to go back online with most of his archives gone, vanished to oblivion. It could have been prevented. Here are several things you might keep in mind to prevent such tragedy to happen with your blog:

    • Backup. This is the single most important step. There are half a dozen ways to do this. Your cPanel has one, use it and download a full copy. If you know your way around phpMyAdmin, export all the databases into a zip file and keep a copy in your local PC. This is a good method if you have other scripts installed, like a photogallery or Wordpress hacks and plugins that use the database. Install a WordPress DB backup plugin (if you are running WP). This way you can download a backup everyday with little or no effort at all.
    • Maintain a list of emails from all your commenters. This way, they can be emailed about what happened to your blog if ever that dreaded day arrives. Your regular readers may want to know about it asap.
    • Talk to your host about their redundancy strategy. If they have several servers, you can request your backup be restored into another live server.
    • Find a backup host. This is important if your current provider is just a reseller or has only one server. If you have a local back-up with you, they should be able to restore your blog in no time. Our record time for restoring blogs is 15 mins.
    • Get a personal domain as you can take this from one provider to another. A subdomain accout may get you in trouble because the URL tied up with your provider.
    • Edit your blog theme locally and upload it to your host. That way you always have the latest revisions, mods and hacks in your PC and not in the server.

    WarCraft, Diablo & Doom, all in Flash

    Yup, yup, cool games you can play thru the web running Shockwave/Flash. Tried Mortal Kombat, though it’s in demo. There’s Doom Reloaded as well, Heretic, Warcraft 2 and Quake Reloaded.

    Loads of fun especially for the un-initiated.

    Found it via Franto.

    How to hack a Coke vending machine

    Haven’t tried this myself but here’s a lengthy explanation and tutorial on how to hack a Coca-cola vending machine.

    There’s a vendo machine across the street beside the police station. Might just try this myself to see if it really works. hehe

    Maybe harmless but just wait ’til those street kids learn how to do this. :D

    Is that bloggable?

    Max points out to a nice tip from Steve Outing in Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits about tagging emails if they are bloggable or not.

    Very neat tip for emails and I have been, on many occasions, wondering if an email exchange that I had would be safe for blog. Most of the time, I refrain from doing so. My rule-of-thumb here is “when in doubt, don’t”. I just couldn’t bring myself to asking if it’s fine to blog about our discussion.

    More than likely, if the other party is okay about me bringing our discussion into public domain, he’d more or less say it. Which makes the above mentioned tip a really neat one.

    Still, there are cases when you’re just chatting over IMs or maybe talking about it on a meet up or something. In that case, I’d tell them off-hand that I’ll blog about it. If they won’t say otherwise, then I’m off clicking the publish button.

    Digital Christmas Gift Ideas

    Christmas is fast approaching and I’ve been asking everyone for gifts! hahaha

    From my end though, I thought it would be nice to come up with a set of list for a possible digital Christmas gifts. Here’s what I had in mind:

    • A digital camera, preferably Canon Ixus series. Hand-me-downs will do if they’re a close relative.
    • A mid-range Nokia celphone. Can be had for Php500 to Php800 a month for 12 months on BPI sale. I like the N6020 personally; the white has that iPod feel to it.
    • Desktop speakers. Logitech has a lot of good ones between Php1.5 to Php3k.
    • Mouse. Ah yes, nothing like a brand new mouse — choose from Logitech MX510, MX 700 to the laser-rigged MX1000.
    • If they have an mp3 player, a brand new set of Sennheiser headphones.
    • A brand new blog (my signature gift) — with a catchy domain, hosting and AdSense to boot!
    • If the person has a PC, why not give her/him a TV tuner so she can watch “Ang Panday” and “Wowowee” while blogging?

    Will think of some more to add.

    MeasureMap Stats

    Since I started tracking my blog using MeasureMap last November 9, I’ve been able to see stat figures and information I never imagined I could gather (presented readily in a format that’s easily digestible) using any other tracking system before.

    Here are some data which I found interesting (data is from Nov. 9 – 22 only):

    • My top ten posts drew 8,835 unique visitors or 59% of my total traffic for that time frame.
    • Of the 331 posts in my blog, 327 posts have been visited at least once between 11/9 to 11/22. That means 98.8% of my posts are still getting hits even if they’re buried in the archives.
    • 13% of the total visitors are repeat visitors.
    • The highest number of comments in a day was 17 and the lowest is 4 with an average of 10.5 comments per day.
    • 26% of the visitors are using Firefox, 70% IE, 2% Safari and 2% for the rest.
    • 59% of visitors are form the Philippines, 22% from the US, 3% from Canada, 3% UK, 1% Australia. Traffic comes from 102 countries in total.
    • Highest average visit count in a day is 56 uniques at 4PM and lowest is 22 at 7AM. The average unique per day is 1,063
    • 1,213 new links in brought in 1,819 unique visitors while 827 new links out were followed by 2,562 visitors. So I’m giving away more non-SE referrals than I am getting them.

    (SE – search engine)

    I’ve been juggling about 4 analytics system actually – MapStats/LinkLog, Google Analytics, StatsCounter and MeasureMap. Each one have their own strengths and weaknesses, like Google Analytics being too huge/bulky and Statscounter being too small or limited. I don’t see dropping anyone of them anytime soon, though.

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