The new year has come, and among some bloggers' resolutions include being more environment-friendly. Sure, oil prices have plummeted, partly because of the worldwide economic crunch. But this doesn't mean you shouldn't start being more efficient in your energy use. TIME Magazine's latest feature tells us that there is a renewable-energy resource that is perfectly clean, remarkably cheap, surprisingly abundant and immediately available, and it is not some new-technology power plant or biofuel, or whatnot. It's simple: energy efficiency.

I've actually tried to start a blog about becoming more green, but the idea of becoming more eco-friendly seemed a bit trivial to someone like me who spends almost all day in front of the computer (and so the blog has not had much activity for some time now). But then it hit me--being environmentally friendly should start at home, or better yet for a blogger, right at your fingertips.

And so I've thought of a few ways to reduce one's carbon footprint, specifically from blogging. First and foremost, we define carbon footprint as the greenhouse gas emissions caused by your activities, whether directly or indirectly. So with blogging, this is mostly related to your use of energy or electricity.

You can either reduce consumption altogether. For instance, you can limit yourself to just a couple of hours of online activity every day. But that would only result in conservation and not efficiency. That's doing less with less. What we want is to be able to do more with the same amount of energy, or even less.

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Taking the cue from Dee's post at the EatonWeb blog I think this start of the new year is a good time to come up with goals and resolutions for 2009. I know new year's resolutions are usually difficult to keep, so I'm thinking of these as goals that I would like to work on rather than promises that might end up broken.

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Taking the cue from a post on Copyblogger a while back, I now wonder what we should name our RSS subscription link in our site redesign. On the Blog Herald, Lorelle reinforces the view that using the term "subscribe" might turn away people.

True--"subscriptions" usually cost money. And folks are attracted to free stuff. While we do have a premium subscription site, the Hive, the main Performancing.com site content continues to be free, whether you read on-site, via email or your RSS reader.

So saying "Subscribe to Performancing" might come across incorrectly as Perf being a pay site.

Lorelle suggests you use clever ways to name your subscription links. For instance, a blog about cats can say "Track this cat," and a blog about health or medicine can say "Get a daily dose ..." But generic ones will work, too.

For Performancing.com, we need a catchy line for our RSS subscription link. If you can give us good suggestions, we will give the top choice a free year's pro pMetrics subscription and a free six month membership to the Hive.

What do you think we should put up there on the RSS link?

The holidays are here, and most of us folks will most likely be taking some time off of blogging to spend a few precious moments with friends and family, whichever religion you belong to. For those of us who don't necessarily observe the holidays out of faith, but out of some secular reason, then you would most probably be vacationing, too. Not in the holiday mood yet? Oh don't be such a grinch. Go have some fun, or spend time with your loved ones.

But then what happens to your blogs during those times when you take a break?

You blog through the holidays. I'll be on break these next couple of days, but I will most probably still be publishing a few blog posts in my free time, or while on the road visiting relatives. That's the power of mobile computing, anyway. I can either use my mobile phone or my netbook (coupled with a 3G modem) to do this. Why? Because I can!

You have posts saved in advance, and to be published at pre-defined dates. A handful of people I know have the habit of future-posting, so they can take a few days off from their blogs without their readership missing them. Some would clearly tell readers that the posts were done in advance, in case some new developments in the online world override the information in that blog post. Some would not be as transparent.

Your blog takes a break, too. This might be frowned upon by folks who believe in consistent and regular updates. But for those of us who are very much concerned about quality and thoughtfulness of posts would rather not post at all, if these are to be done in a hurry while huddled over a miniaturized laptop with a slow, unreliable Internet connection, while waiting to board your plane/train/bus. Good blogging should be done with good timing, too, right?

Which of these three are you?

Folks who use the Performancing pMetrics plugin for WordPress might be experiencing glitches with WordPress 2.7, due to some incompatibilities. Because of this, we've upgraded the pMetrics Plugin to version 1.1.

Download the updated plugin here.

SplashPress Media has announced the release of BlogHoster version 2.8, a long-awaited update to our very own premium blog hosting software. This release features some reliability fixes, browser compatibility fixes, and six new themes by Design Disease.

As well as this new release, SplashPress has announced the takover of BlogHoster by new management, which includes web ninja Randy Nivales and this particular writer.

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Last Friday I dropped by the post office to pick up my review copy of Stephane Grenier's Blog Blazers: 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets. And I can tell you so far that it's a very interesting read, and I'm glad I didn't postpone my trip to the post until Monday.

What's great about Blog Blazers is that instead of outlining blogging success from a single source, the author decided to interview 40 successful bloggers using a fixed set of questions. That way, you have different perspectives on the questions at hand.

For instance, there's a question of how to measure success. For many, it would be from traffic or readership. Yet for some, it's about authority in a given niche. Then there's the question of monetization. Some bloggers gladly inform us that they do directly earn significantly well from their blogs. But others would consider the indirect benefits as a better measure of success from their blogs.

There are a few common grounds, though. For one, most bloggers would advise against having crappy content. And most bloggers would advise having patience when building up your authority and your blog's readership. And most interviewed bloggers think that blogging success depends on what goals you have set in your blogging career, and whether you've reached them.

The book is enjoyable for folks who has a very short attention span like me. The "chapter" divisions are essentially devoted to one blogger apiece, arranged alphabetically. But you don't necessarily have to read the book from cover to cover. You can start with a chapter that perhaps covers a blogger you know, or you often read. You could read about Steve Rubel one minute, and Yaro Starak the next, and then Aaron Wall the next. You get short pieces of insights and revelations from one blogger at a time, and I think this can be good for reflection, especially in those times of blogger's block.

One striking realization I have made when reading Blog Blazers is that perhaps the most difficult thing for one in the blogging industry such as myself could do is unlearn. We do learn every day, from the most mundane of ideas to the most profound of insights. But it's difficult to just forget everything you've been told and keep an open mind, so you could start afresh. And this is exactly what I'm trying to do right now, especially with the Performancing Reboot at hand.

Blog Blazers is a book I'll keep handy when I need blogging inspiration, and I highly recommend it.

Blog Blazers is priced at a very reasonable $16.95 for the paperback version and $12.95 for the ebook version. You can get a copy directly from the Blog Blazers shop.

Many of the blogs I run, manage or write for contain a handy contact form for directly emailing the blog's owner straight from the browser. For those familiar with the difference, you would know that contact forms send email directly to the blog owner or author, while comment forms will leave a message viewable by the public. For instance, you can use this form to email me directly. Or you can leave a public comment at the comment box below.

But apparently, to some, it makes no difference whether you leave a comment or send an email as long as the message goes through. The mixup sometimes results in headaches and annoyances. For instance, a reader could be writing with the intent of replying to an existing comment. But if he uses the contact form, then the messages goes only to you. Are you obliged to re-post the message as a comment?

Or perhaps a reader wants to send you something in private, but instead publishes a comment. It's probably easy enough to just unpublish the comment and respond to the writer via email (WordPress conveniently sends you alerts when there are new comments). But what if that message contained something you'd rather not have everybody read? Even if you hit the "unpublish" link, you can't be sure that a comment would not leave traces (such as in comment RSS feeds).

There's a simple solution, and this involves properly identifying both your email forms and comment forms. On the email form, you can write something like:

We appreciate your feedback. Please use the form below to send a direct message to the author/owner of this blog. Messages are sent directly to the author's email inbox and will not be viewable by the public. If you wish to post a public reply, comment forms are available at the end of each article.

And then for comment forms:

Comments entered in this form are published for public viewing (once approved from moderation, if applicable). If you wish to send the author a private message, please use the contact form.

With luck, this should result in less confusion, and your readers will appreciate being told where their message will go.

At my neighborhood carwash, they hand out cards to first time customers, with boxes they mark with a stamp after every wash. After seven washes, clients get one free. Same with the nearby Thai massage place I go to once a week, when I need to de-stress from hours and hours of work in front of a computer screen. After ten one-hour sessions, you get a one-hour session free. Coca Cola also has a promo in my place--exchange seven bottle caps for a Christmas-themed Luninarc drinking glass.

Near the end of each year, Starbucks also has cards which you can fill up with stickers at every purchase. A few dozen coffees will get you a much-coveted leather-bound planner, which some Twitter contacts of mine collect as prized possessions.

Mobile phone providers usually give free phones to users at the end of their lock-in period, to encourage the user to renew the lock-in for another year or two.

These promotions encourage consumption, while giving the consumer a sense of excitement and anticipation for their next visit, which would eventually lead to freebies. But in effect, the actual value of the freebie would be about 10% to 20% of the total value or amount spent on the products or services.

Still, these kinds of promotions are one way by which you could encourage customer loyalty. This keeps 'em coming back for more.

How about blogs? What are your ways of encouraging loyalty among your readers?

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Our Ask Performancing feature for this week is about filing taxes. The question was posted on the Hive by none other than my fellow contributor Jeff Chandler.

During the year, I received payments through paypal for contractual work for one site while receiving more payments from another site for contractual work. However, I am beginning to wonder how I am going to pay taxes on the money I am making through writing.

...

My question is, how should I file taxes? Should I report the money that I have received through paypal from the various sites I have written for as income on my income tax filing or should I file a 1099 e on my own behalf? Or, should I not file anything and considering the payments through paypal as under the table? I've been told by others that I have asked that the money that goes from paypal to my account which is not taxes will eventually come back to haunt me if I don't report it.

The short answer here is that it's best that one consult with an accountant or the tax authorities in your country, state or locality. The problem with running a business that's not necessarily limited by geographic boundaries (like a blog network, and like writing for blogs) is that it might be difficult to determine tax jurisdiction or responsibility. And what applies to one person might not necessarily be applicable to the other.

For instance, a blog network may be a registered corporation in country A. But most of its staffers and writers reside in countries B, C and D. And most of the advertisers or sponsors come from country X. That's a lot of money floating around in cyberspace, and who knows which taxman you should be paying money to.

I'm an economist, but taxation wasn't exactly my best subject back in college and grad school. But here are a few suggestions from our fellow Hive members.

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Having handled publisher support for Performancing Ads for quite a while now, I could say that much of the inquiries revolve around affiliate payouts. Frankly, the way the affiliate system was originally setup, we were worreid about fraud, and we've had to implement measures to mitigate this. This came at the cost of having our users wonder what the heck was happening with their referrals, though. Raw referrals did not guarantee the $10 affiliate fee, but rather those who have installed their ad code for 30 of days were considered eligible referrals, and were credited to the referring account.

But this was still open to fraud, and legitimate users were still inconvenienced by not knowing how and when exactly they could get their money earned. So Performancing Ads is now implementing a new, easier-to-understand affiliate scheme. As Chris Garrett explains:

So the new system is much easier to understand and has fraud prevention built-in.

Rather than a flat $10 you will get 5% of whatever your referrals buy or sell, ongoing while they remain a member.

So if you refer someone who sells an ad worth $100 you get $5. If you refer someone who buys a $100 ad you get $5. And you keep getting those commissions for each ad they renew or continue to sell.

In short, there will no longer be that per-referral commission of $10, because this was inherently unsustainable both on our part and on the users'. If fraud were prevalent, then we'd be liable for paying out commissions for non-performing accounts. This would later on force us to go under and eventually shut down. That way, nobody wins. But our motto is Everybody Wins! So we would want everybody--that is, legitimate and productive members of the system--to benefit.

What's great here is that if you get to refer a really active publisher or advertiser, then you would earn really well, in terms of commissions, instead of only earning a flat one-time fee for a single referral.

And so, we're hoping our users and patrons would like this new scheme.

We would, of course, still pay out all eligible referrals left over from the old system (or have we already done so via our automatic end-of-month payments?). Starting this month, we're hoping our users would then net more from new referrals.

Back when writing was my sole blogging-related job, I often spent countless hours in front of my laptop writing feature-length posts. Sometimes I spent this time at cafes waiting for my daughter to finish her preschool class (about three hours). Sometimes even more--when I'm just not satisfied with an article, I save it as draft for later editing and publishing. This lets me have more time to

On a recent Blog Herald article, Thord Hedengren wonders why some folks from traditional media often relate blogging to rapid-fire writing akin to being a shoot now, aim later approach. And so when a blogger takes time to write, edit and publish a post, it's called slow blogging.

Sure, blogging does have the benefit of skipping a few editorial steps, and so bloggers often get to post news earlier than most mainstream media outfits. You can catch wind of some news or nasty rumor and post about it in the next two minutes. That can be good blogging, if it's your intent to spread the news as fast as possible. But then good blogging also entails research, painstaking editing, and even thinking twice or thrice whether to publish an article or not.

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Blogging has seen the rise from the obscure to the mainstream and popular probably because of one thing--the ability of just about anyone to get published online without the need for expensive and restrictive mediums. And we've also seen some evolution here. What used to be a popular platform for online diaries has now become a tool for marketing, a means of idea exchange, a social medium.

While a number of blogs today deal with matters that may be considered not too personal (business, marketing, money and the like), much of the blogging world still involves writings on personal matters. After all, this is what makes blogging click. Content is not some web copy that the PR agency wrote for your company. Even if a blog were about business or other such matters, there's always that personal voice. Seasoned blog readers would know what's real and what's not.

But in this sense, there are also lines that can be crossed--more particularly privacy lines, whether one's own or others'. My question here is this: how far do you go, in terms of crossing that privacy line?

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For our first Ask Performancing feature, we have a few opinions on the Personal vs. Authoritative voice issue, which has been discussed over at the Hive.

The question is whether to use a personal voice or an authoritative voice, and in this particular case, the site in question is a community resource site that caters to higher education: College Crunch.

And so, the following were compared:

I have tried to come up with a wide range of career options that nearly anyone with any interest can take a look at.

vs.

We have selected a wide range of career options that nearly anyone with any interest can take a look at.

and:

What are your thoughts on how the economic shift will effect higher learning? Let me know in the comments below, especially if you’ve seen other reports regarding this issue.

vs.

What are your thoughts on how the economic shift will effect higher learning? Let us know in the comments below, especially if you’ve seen other reports regarding this issue.

You may notice that the first statements come across as more conversational and informal, particularly with the use of "I" and "me," which pertains to the author of the statement. The latter ones are more of collective, by using "We" and "us."

While the authoritative voice does not necessarily only entail using "we" instead of "I" this is perhaps the easiest difference to spot--that is, talking as if directly conversing with your reader. This is definitely the best approach when emailing a relative, friend or colleague. When emailing on behalf of your business or company, then perhaps it's better to write with a more formal tone, as may be required.

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