(UPDATE: Launch trouble?): 5 Min Podcast: Testing SplashCast
UPDATE: Guess they’re having launch trouble as the damn thing doesnt want to seem to play now! If you cant see the controls, try the raw mp3 here..
UPDATE2: Removed, what a dissapointment
Go ahead, play it. it’s only 5 minutues…
Techcrunch announcement is here
Please remove Partners Code from your Blogs
As I beleive eveyone knows, our ad network closes today. Please remove the code from your blogs , but do watch this space. I dont/cant make promises, but i really believe we had something with the Partners program and that with a little tweaking, and the right kind of partnership, we could make this profitable for publishers and us, right out of the gate.
If you want to talk to me about that, email performancing@gmail.com
- Final Publisher payments and commissions have been made.
- Advertiser refunds are in progress.
- Please dont contact me about either for at 48hrs but if you do suspect an error, or need help, email performancing@gmail.com early next week. Thanks!
Im sorry it came to this guys, next time we do something, we’ll get it right 
Looking for a Hosting Sponsor for Performancing Community
Im looking for a hosting company that has great offerings for bloggers, one we’d be proud to recommend and could do so with conviction, as you’d be hosting our community on a well spec’d dedicated LAMP server.
Please email me if that fits you: performancing@gmail.com
thanks!
Ok so Im hooked on Google Reader
A couple of days ago I asked “why do you use Google Reader”, I’ve been hearing that it’s improved for a long time now, and we get many referals from it here. After getting some damn good reasons for using it in that thread, i turned off Liferea, my Ubuntu/Gnome reader of chioce and decided to climb the learning curve of GReader.
Im very, very glad I did. Thankyou to all who helped get me on track in that thread.
Google Reader is without doubt, the fastest, most useful hosted RSS reader for the professional blogger in existence. It makes Bloglines look rather kludgy and dated.
If you’ve not tried it recently, i highly recommend you do so!
3 Reasons Why Snap Preview is Ruining Your Blog, and Hurting Your Readership
Welcome Digg readers, you can grab this sites RSS Feed here.
Snap’s preview anywhere gizmo is ruining the reading experience for millions of people. Its intrusive, obstructive and unuseful in almost every respect and use case. The fact that so many big blogs are using it, big well respected blogs, does not mean that it’s useful, it just means that they, like most bloggers, have all the self restraint of a magpie in a sparkly things factory.
That’s not to say im any better, but it is true. As a group , most bloggers are only a small step away from the flashing, rotating logos of 1997 or the neon pink backgrounds and blaring teen pop auto play bollocks of your average 17yr old MySpace user — and I include myself, though i dont use SPA, im as guilty as the next blogger of “bling envy”.
Let me point out a few truths about Snap Preview Anywhere, in the vain hope that this misguided ‘helper application’ will die a quick death as we all start to see the sense of a usable website as opposed to a trinket magnet for the design challenged.
- Accidental triggers: When scrolling, or just moving from one element (maybe a link, maybe a photo etc) to another, the unintentional triggering of the SPA popup is distracting, at best. It draws the eye away from the task at hand, and causes annoyance, and loss of concentration — if you’re actually selling anything, pay close attention to this point!
- Click stalling: Quite often, when trying to click a link that features the Snap abomination, I have to click several times to get the damn thing to work. This is too much effort. If your site is that hard to use, you can bet I wont be back, and neither will others.
- I trust you: No, really I do! Im at your blog, despite like everyone else being really busy, im at your blog! I just want to follow the fucking link ok? Dont crowd me like some over-eager second hand car salesman trying to sell me a dodgy link, just let me see that its a link, read the anchor text and decide if I want to click it. I dont care what the bloody site looks like, if you’re linking to it, that’s good enough for me — really, get out of my face.
Wow, glad I got that off my chest. I’ve had this post in mind for a few weeks but Duncan reminded me, and finally pushed me in the comments of another post.
All joking aside, SPA is not helpful, it’s not cool, and it’s not winning you readers — It’s bling, a silly little shiney thing designed specifically to increase awareness of Snap.com — no bad thng, and certainly an shining example of how to use widgets to gain links and attention, but, come on ladies and gentleman, show a little self restraint, show a little consideration for your users.
Complaints, abuse and protestations of innocence, ignorance or terminal stupidity to my inbox or the comments below
Oh God No… More Blog Bling from Yahoo!
Barry points out that Yahoo! are dishing out link trinkets for those who just can’t keep the bling off their pages. You can see ours below:
Apparently, if you put this on your pages, wish really hard, and click your heels together three times, you'll be a popular blogger...
Heaven spare us.
MyBlogLog getting Spammed? No Shit Sherlock…
Why it surprises Yahoo’s Jeremy Zawodny that an exploit in newly acquired MyBlogLog is already being exploited by marketers and seo’s is beyond me. The fact that Andy Beal and quite a number of other folks are using MBL to spam blogging communities is just the inevitable consequence of the service going mainstream. Opportunities are exploited, fact of life.
Jeremy, hitting Andy’s reputation will sort him out for sure, but you can’t do it to everyone — time to start plugging holes in the MBL system wouldn’t you say?
Loren Nails It, And Why You Wont Hear me Say “Linkbait” Again
And that, is why you wont here me say “linkbait” on this blog anymore. A term invented way back in 2004 to describe really cool, linkable content has become synonymous with “dirty tactics” — bugger that, time to kill this term dead.
Well said Loren.
Amazing that Community Members Will Invent their own Badges!
With partners about to be turned off, it’s amazing that at least one Performancing member would want to show his support for the community regardless and modify our house ads to display a kind of “community badge” — See the right hand side near the top on the link above.
Thanks Kirk!
Why do you use Google Reader?
I’ve been reading a lot of comments in the last couple of months raving about how good Google Reader is, and how it just beats Bloglines hands down.
From a professional bloggers point of view, what’s all the fuss about?
