BlogMunch

I’m Back…well, sort of…

Ahhhh… That’s a long break I have taken from BlogMunch. In fact, I think I have taken a long break from all things blogging. I think I am sort of burnt out, though I am not too sure.

For six months since I started blogging back in the days of Blogger, I have learnt a lot. Maybe too much.

I learn about blogging while reading Darren’s blog. (if you don’t know about Darren, you will soon know). Start a few blogs on Blogger. Tempered with all sorts of Blogger theme here and there. Found that Blogger is not enough for my OCD in customising. Learn about hosting my own blog. Recommended left and right about WordPress. BlogMunch is born.

Cramped myself with all sorts of knowledge on WordPress. Played with plugins and free themes. Add every ads I can think of top and bottom to the blog hoping to at least break even with the hosting charge. Entered contest at contestblogger. Never won. Dipped into social media websites like DIgg (dying), Facebook (have not check it for a long time), Stumbleupon (like the site discovery, not the social aspect), Twitter (see no point in it) and MySpace (ABSOLUTELY hate it!).

Oh dear, this sounded too much like a rant. Which I interpret as releasing of old baggage so that I can start anew. Want to know what jot me back to BlogMunch. Quote from one my comments:

Arbie | crn-web.com |

I do not feel obligated to blog at BlogMunch (and wont!)

Wow, that really bring me back here, writing…

Hi Arbie, Thank You…

Now that the “I’m Back” stuff is dealt with, now to tackle the “well, sort of” stuff.

Now that I am back, I am going to use BlogMunch as a personal blog. Or define as “I am going write anything I fancy, whenever I want (though frequently)” blog. This will go back to the basic definition of a blog where it will be a log of my internet presence.  There will not be any common theme like wordpress themes, making money online, breaking news (mostly old news by the time it reaches me) or internet marketing. Just plain old rambling, ranting and musing. (hmm, that reminds me I need to update my About page).

As you can see, I have switch to a new theme and will upload the logo I design (which I think is too non-simplistic) later. I might even design a new logo just to refresh my mind again.

I really thank those 30 odd RSS readers for their loyal support to the BlogMunch site during the time when I went MIA. Hope you will like my new direction and as always, stay tuned.

Thanks.

Bmunch

rambling All about Twitter

(credit: Art and vandalism)

I am now on twitter for a month now. I seriously don’t find it as good as how Marshall is describing it. For me, it’s the same as looking for good blog feeds to read. You have to FIND the good ones. There are definitely to much noise-to-information ratio within the twitter system. Anyway, here are some of my dislikes for twitter at the moment.

• Those that only tweets about the blog updates. (I am guilty of that too)
• Those that tweets so formally that I though I am following a newscast.
• The tiny urls (and all variations of it). How am I supposed to know if it is worthwhile to click through.
• The 20 tweets limit. You mean I if I went to bed, wake up and see I have 97 tweets, I can only see the current 20 tweets?
• No easy way to look for specific information on twitter. I am not even sure twittersearch is working or not. I can see a tweet right there on my twitter, but when I search for it, it doesn’t comes out at all.
• Too frequent updates. Okay, that my fault for following too many people.

That’s all I can think of at the moment. I will give twitter maybe another month to see how useful it can be to me. (note: I am sure most of my above dislikes can be attributed to my less than skillful use of Twitter. But if that’s that case, then Twitter is too technical for me.)

Some articles about twitter recently:

• Why I Stopped Using IM and Won’t Use Twitter
• Why I Stopped Using Twitter
• Why is Twitter Exploding? Because it’s A Conversation Ecosystem.
• Some Conversations have shifted to Twitter
• If you want to take your advanced degree in twitter, read this - The Big Juicy Twitter Guide

Follow my BlogMunch tweets or even better subscribe to the BlogMunch Feed.

Google bitch-slap all PayPerPosties - Is you pagerank now zero?

(credit: bitch slap)

Around the blogosphere, there are naysayers who predict Google will go after paid post (specifically PayPerPost) after its conquer of Text Link Ads. Well. it seems to turn out true. Today John Chow reports Google goes after PayPerPost by by reducing its network of bloggers’ pagerank to zero. Not a reduction of PR6 to PR4 or PR2 to PR1. EVERYONE goes back to basic. Nada, Nadir, Naught, Nil, Zilch, Zip, Zot.

I have thought PageRank was an mathematics algorithm that doesn’t biased against anyone. Input all the parameters in your blog/site and out spew your pagerank. But No, no, no. The overload in Google land on a whim decide “Hmm, let’s reset all blogs that have the words PPP, PayPerPost, ReviewMe, SponsoredReviews and Smorty. Let’s see if they still DARE to write sponsored post. Hahaha.”

Since I just got my pagerank 2 weeks ago (I was PR2), I don’t miss it too much. Its just that too many advertisers are still hook on to pagerank as a benchmark for the success of a blog. I think there are missed opportunities for both advertisers and bloggers. We’ll see how all these paid post sites take it from here.

Are you feeling the pain?

Subscribe to the Blogmunch Feed to for more news breaks.

Please buck up, BlogRush!

I would like to rant a bit about BlogRush, which there are common now in the blogosphere due to massive disappointment. This morning, I believe everyone who is still on BlogRush should received a email about having 42% increase in traffic. Let me quote some parts:

Any users that have low-performing widgets will be automatically notified that they need to improve the positioning for the widget on their blogs. Failure to improve their widget performance (which can be done by giving the widget higher placement) will remove that user from the network. THIS IS THE ONLY *FAIR* WAY TO DO IT.

So we are to blamed that your widget are low performing? We are to blamed that you have to work so hard to increase security to avoid gaming your system? We are to blamed you have to work so hard to “manually” review and remove over 10,000 “low quality” blogs? Isn’t these things done in the first place before you had your GRAND opening? Now that’s *UNFAIR*. (Please don’t shout in the email, it’s rude)

If you will be unable to give the widget good placement on your blog (similar to what is mentioned above) then please go ahead and remove the BlogRush widget from your blog, because I’m afraid you won’t be able to meet our new widget performance requirements. It’s just not fair for our other users to be giving YOUR BLOG POSTS great exposure on their blogs if you aren’t willing to do the same for theirs.

Now you are threatening me with take away my “beloved” BlogRush Widget if I don’t give you good placement on my blog.*Please don’t. I will be very lonely without it. Please…*

Let me give you my ultimatum. Improve the performance of your widget regardless of any placement on MY blog or go ahead and remove the BlogRush widget on my blog. Because I’m afraid you won’t be able to meet my new blog performance requirements. It’s just not *FAIR* I’m giving your widget great exposure on my blog if you aren’t willing to do the same.

That’s it. Your move. (It would be so interesting to see this post on BlogRush widget)

Blogger posting woes

I experienced my first heart pain when writing the post about Singapore. I am copying and pasting some links when I accidentally paste over half of my post.

Normally, this would not be a problem as I could cancel this post and revert to the previous saved post but good old Blogger Autosave feature save the draft before I have a chance to revert back.

Half the draft is gone and I have got to rewrite them. It is an extremely uncomfortable feeling, I almost don’t want to rewrite it. I feel most of the first time inspiration and personal touch is gone. Where is the UNDO function when one needs it.

Lesson learn:

1. write in a notepad (like notepad++), then transfer to Blogger; or
2. use a desktop blogging editor like, Wbloggar, Zoundry, Qumana, or Blogjet.

Anyone had used them before? I would be interested to hear your views on your blogging editor.