Image via WikipediaWork is picking up, and that might mean I might have to slow down the blogging a bit. But I don't want to. Blogging is working out for the mind, and it makes no sense for a knowledge worker to slow down on blogging.
But one post a day is the goal, and anything more is bonus. Or at least that is what I thought. I have been blogging several times a day for months now.
Some people have asked me, how do you make time for blogging? Implicit in that question is the suggestion that blogging is something you do on top of work. I don't see it that way. Blogging is part of my work. And, no, I don't mean AdSense peanuts. I mean blogging is like my online resume. My blog allows me to do a lot of work related socializing online. I have entered into credible conversations because I have an active blog.
Because I am an active blogger, I believe I am a more active reader of tech news.
If you don't have a Twitter handle, you are not in tech, period. You do not exist. You are a figment of my imagination. And a Twitter handle is so much easier to give out. And your Twitter page should allow for more in depth getting to know. Hashable knows all this.
Image by GRP Partners via CrunchBaseA week ago, while admiring his great three pieces at TechCrunch on social, I disagreed with Mark Suster's conclusion. He said the next decade belonged to Facebook. I said not, it belonged to fragmentation. Companies that might not even be one tenth the size of Facebook together might go on to dominate. 10 years, now that's a long time.
ComputerWorld: Google, Facebook battle for 'future of the Web': the biggest threat to Google's search standing yet. ..... Now when someone uses Microsoft'sBing search engine to look for a new car or a book, she can see which ones her Facebook friends liked. It will now be easier for searchers to get their friends' opinions before they make purchasing decisions..... the search giant handled 72.15% of all U.S. searches last month..... "Let's face it, Bing has been a big disappointment, but this could act as a differentiator," said Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group Research. "People prefer Google to Microsoft, but they prefer Facebook to Google. .... For major Facebook users, I believe 'social search' is attractive, and many are likely to switch to Bing for all searches... Not only does [Google] lose users, but they lose young users."
Microsoft did search. It was not a big deal. Then it revamped it and called it Bing, but it's not Google. There was a major marketing push. But I was not alarmed on behalf of Google. When Microsoft got Yahoo to hand over its search queries to Bing, I predicted that would only result in a net loss for Yahoo with no gain for Bing, and so actually a net gain for Google.
But Bing partnering with Facebook is different. I think this story is being reported wrong. This is not Bing teaming up with Facebook. It is the other way round. This is Facebook teaming up with Bing. This is not Bing finally having found that thing with which to compete with Google Search. This is Facebook coming into search territory. This is big.
This is not to suggest Google will now see a decline. Google will keep growing. And Facebook will grow like crazy. This is the internet going much more mainstream. People are spending time on Facebook without taking their eyes off the many Google products.
This is a significant development. This throws further light on Facebook's ambitions, if that was necessary. But this is not necessarily bad news for Google, not big, bad news. This is absolutely not the end of Google.
But I see no reason why Facebook will not offer the same to Google. I mean, if the idea is to become relevant to as many search queries as possible, Google is a bigger bet than Bing. No?
Facebook sees Google as competition, but it does not see Microsoft as competition. That might partly be it. Or maybe even fully.
This just might be the first serious competition Google Search ever faced. Google's best bet is to get Zuck to give them the same deal. That would be a win win for Facebook and Google.
In The News
The Skype Blog: Skype with Facebook integration and group video calling: We’ve integrated the Facebook News Feed and Phonebook into Skype ..... Video calling accounted for approximately 40% of all Skype-to-Skype minutes in the first half of this year
BBC: Google's profits lifted by higher advertising revenues: a 32% rise in profits. .... Our core business grew very well, and our newer businesses - particularly display and mobile - continued to show significant momentum.
Google: Google Announces Third Quarter 2010 Financial Results: Google-owned sites generated revenues of $4.83 billion, or 67% of total revenues ..... Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.20 billion, or 30% of total revenues ..... Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $3.77 billion, representing 52% of total revenues
Apple Insider: Google announces $1 billion in mobile revenue: Search queries from mobile devices have grown 5 times over the last couple of years, with most of the queries coming from Android phones ..... Carol Bartz believes iAd will "fall apart" as Apple's high level of control drives away advertisers. Adidas is rumored to have canceled a $10 million iAd contract because Apple had exerted too much control over the process.
Reuters: Google trumps Wall Street targets, shares soar: "This is the best performance they've had in three years. We're back to the old Google we know and love" ..... the $2.5 billion run rate in display advertising was a gross number, meaning that some of that revenue is paid to Google's partners. ..... On Wednesday, Facebook and Microsoft unveiled improvements to Microsoft's Bing search engine that incorporate personalized Facebook data, such as restaurant recommendations from a person's friends, into search results. ..... Google has been on an acquisition spree, buying more than 20 companies in 2010, including several companies that were developing social networking technology. ..... YouTube online video site was now "monetizing" over 2 billion views a week, a rise of 50 percent from a year earlier ..... Google's 9-percent rise in extended trading, to $590, would be the biggest single-day gain since November 2008.
Fast Company: Facebook Credits Get More Powerful, Hint at Facebook's Money-Minting Future: Facebook has designs on all sorts of Web-dominating strategies for the future..... Facebook gets a 30% skim off every transaction in Credits .... Credits could almost become a de facto world currency .... Facebook's potential expansions--from music downloads to premium photo sharing--all paid for with Facebook's own virtual currency.
The Bing-Facebook Alliance: Six Things You (and Google) Should Know: the new Bing search features that Microsoft and Facebook unveiled today are going to upend the search business..... Launched a store that no one "Liked?" you’re not going to show up in the search results. .... once you introduce a social dimension to search results, you could actually start representing search results—visually—in new ways .... he said that, ultimately, the company would like to work with all players in search.
For Millennials, Brands May Be as Important as Religion, Ethnicity: Millennials--the generation born between 1980 and 1995--relate to brands in deep and complicated ways .... Edelman, the world's largest PR firm. .... Volunteering to try new products and review some of them online is a "core value," according to Edelman .... the majority of those surveyed had recommended products to friends and family via a social network
America's Newest Profession: Bloggers for HireMark Penn, Hillary 2008's top guy ... more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers ... blogging is an important social and cultural movement that people care passionately about, and the number of people doing it for at least some income is approaching 1% of American adults. ... a nation of over 20 million bloggers, with 1.7 million profiting from the work, and 452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income ... one percent of the nation, or three million people, can create new markets for a business, spark a social movement, or produce political change ... The Information Age has spawned many new professions, but blogging could well be the one with the most profound effect on our culture. ... Demographically, bloggers are extremely well educated ... It takes about 100,000 unique visitors a month to generate an income of $75,000 a year. ... Bloggers can get $75 to $200 for a good post, and some even serve as "spokesbloggers" -- paid by advertisers to blog about products. As a job with zero commuting, blogging could be one of the most environmentally friendly jobs around -- but it can also be quite profitable. ... Pros who work for companies are typically paid $45,000 to $90,000 a year for their blogging. One percent make over $200,000. ... Bloggers make money if their consumers click the ads on their sites. ... bloggers say they are overwhelmingly happy in their work, reporting high job satisfaction ... There are more questions than answers about America's Newest Profession. ... hard to think of another job category that has grown so quickly and become such a force in society without having any tests, degrees, or regulation of virtually any kind. ... a lot of interest now in Twittering and Facebooking -- but those venues don't offer the career opportunities of blogging. Not since eBay opened its doors have so many been able to sit at their computer screens and make some money, or even make a whole living. ...
This guy Dave Winer has an ugly looking blog, and he runs no ads, but he makes millions blogging. How?
To get excited about blogging is to "get" 2.0. And if you have been missing out on 2.0, it is not possible you are on the cutting edge.
(1) Value
The market rewards value. Are you meeting some kind of market need? Your blog adds to your value. It helps your marketing efforts. It is real intimate talk with your most important clients. Like A VC says, if you read his blog, and that of his five partners, it is like you sit with them in their office every day: that intimate.
(2) StartUp/Corporate
If you are a tech startup person, you breathe blogging. That rectangle on the screen is your office. And the blogosphere is a big chunk of it. Blogging becomes that fundamental, indispensable skill. It is like, can you type? Can you do that keyboard thing? If you can't, I think you are still beautiful, but how are you going to get any work done? Blogging is what typing was. Are you blogging literate? That is a fair question these days. (3) Lifelong Education
Blogging is to the brain what jogging is to your thighs. If you are an active blogger, chances are you keep up with the news in your chosen field. You think about the hot issues of the day. You are alert. You can still type as of today.
(4) Living Life To The Full Zappos says somewhere that because he tweets, he lives life more fully. Blogging makes you more alive as a person. You are more likely to squeeze that last drop out of each moment.
(5) Plenty Of Money
Write great content, regularly, jack up your traffic, and let the ads do their work.
I did a google search on "sites that pay you to blog" and these are the first 10 results that showed up. Before that I had visited result number one on my own. But it felt to me like it was hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. And I did not want to have to visit every suggested site and see for myself. How do you see for yourself? Do you register and participate and see if it works? So this is what I proceeded to do. I made a list of all the sites mentioned in these 10 blog posts/articles. The more often a site has been mentioned, the higher its ranking. Then I visited all the sites to weed out three dead links I found. These are in alphabetical order.
Mind you, I have not had the chance to cross check them. I took them at their word as to what they were offering. And I have shared. If a few of these are scams, don't blame me. If some of them do no better for you than if you ran AdSense ads on your own, don't blame me. If some of them work wonders for you, don't give me credit.
And this popularity contest is flawed. I visited only a few of those, but the best so far to my mind was:
It is very hard to get in, but I went ahead and applied. They take four to eight weeks to get back with you. Their top earners make over $100,000 a year. About.com is a New York Times company.
You blog, you post ads, and you go engage with other like-minded bloggers in their comments sections.
Don't get fooled. Blogging for a living is kind of like doing stand-up comedy for a living. It is very hard. Most people who try don't make it. Many people are happy just being able to do it on the side as part timers.
Think about it. All these sites are businesses. They are in it to make money. And you are going to help them make money. Most of them are out to act middle people between bloggers and advertisers.
Image via WikipediaWork is picking up, and that might mean I might have to slow down the blogging a bit. But I don't want to. Blogging is working out for the mind, and it makes no sense for a knowledge worker to slow down on blogging. 
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