Just a note to let people know that Performancing is currently being moved to a new server. While the blog, themes and forum will quickly be back in action, it may take us a while to get the metrics back up- so we recommend that you take down Pmetrics from your sites for now to avoid 404s. We are working as hard as we can to sort everything out and are sincerely sorry for the inconvenience caused.

I love contests and competitions as a way of bringing in readers, links and in this case comments to brand new blogs 451 Press have a bunch of new blogs going out and Chrispian Burks was nice enough to ask me if it was ok to post that thread in the forums -- absolutey! More details on the 451 press site.

Over the last year of Performancing, we've built some cool tools, posted some killer tutorials and built a community of over 26,000 professional bloggers. Not bad for a company started from virtually nothing.

It's not been a year without lessons though, and of all the many lessons we've learned running a transparent community based company, the biggest is "get your business model sorted early". We're just starting to bring in money as a company, and this is good, but to survive, and mature as a startup we need to look at areas that are draining resources while not producing income.

Killing Metrics

The biggest pull on company resources is Metrics. Our pro-grade blog analytics service. It currently has around 16,000 registered blogs using it, and though it's cool, it's not producing.

There is no other blog analytics program out there that can scale as Metrics was built to. I remember MeasureMap showing signs of buckling under just a few hundred users but it takes a lot of bandwidth, and 3 very high grade servers to run the current system.

At this stage, and in the current climate of "free" everything, I'm neither prepared to put ads on it nor charge for it -- What'd I'd like to do, is to give Metrics to the community by making it Open Source, or sell Metrics to a company with more financial resources that could continue to develop it, and benefit from the usebase.

We'll decide for sure in the next week or so, but our current hosting agreement ends mid december and the decision has been taken to not move Metrics over to the new servers in it's current state.

I will let you know more about this when the details are finalized. If anyone has ideas of what to do with Metrics, then please post here, or contact me privately ast nick@performancing.com

Monetizing Archives

With two major feature releases that will see Partners, our up and coming blog advertising network become more useful to publishers without ads yet, and easier to use for advertisers, our focus is tuned to giving that service the time it needs to mature, and to grow -- We've no doubt it will become a great source of income for us as a company, and the bloggers who particpate in it, but it will take a little time.

Read the rest of this entry

A few weeks ago, I was sitting at my parents-in-law house and was drinking a beer. During this time I had done a lot of internet-work, writing blog entries and such stuff..

While I was looking at the badge of the beer and reading some information written on it I was wondering: "Where is a link to click on for more information?" A few seconds later I realized what I was thinking and I started to laugh so loud - I could'nt hold it for a minute..

I think this is a sign of "working to much within the internet".... *lol*

I have finally cooled off enough to give Performancing another try; something
that is totally out of character for me. But with the changes within the
blogosphere in particular, plus WWW-wide shakeups in progress...who can tell
any more what to do or where to go in the end?

I am currently tracking the new habit of web-based communities to attach
a mini-blogosphere to same, in competition to traditional blogger's portals.

In addition, the amount of blogging software that allows one to blog from one's
own domain is also experiencing an increase in unit development. I have tried
and found my favorite package already. I will need to look around the site here
and see what others think of Pivot. (As some say "don't quit your day job just
yet", I am not letting go of any of the traditional portals I am on just yet; I
still consider personal domain-based blogging (a discussion of which was the
original reason for my leaving Performancing alone for over a year), an iffy
situation.)

It is much too early for deep thought (About 9:14 AM GMT); I am going back to
bed...

Oh, BTW guys...your calendar is in error...it is showing 01-01-1970 on the preview!

This link is for Friday fun!

Got this YouTube Link from a friend.

Male Restroom Etiquette

Well, here is my first blog on Performancing.com. I already have two other blogs on Xanga and Windows Live Spaces, and the Windows Live One is the one that I update regularly. The Xanga blog was basically just so I could post comments on my one friend's blog.

Anyway, I don't know if I am going to be blogging here (probably not), but I'm going to try and get this Firefox addon to link to my Windows Live Space.

Is this a surprise or not? Well, I was reading a lot of rumors about YouTube being sold to Google - but all officials remained silent. But now the deal is officialy perfect: Google buys YouTube for 1.65 bln US$* - and all the employees at YouTube remain in the company.

Yesterday I was reading in Focus (a german economics magazine) about YouTube and the estimated costs for the monthly data-transfer-volume. The article said, that they are in the +10.000.000 Euro. Nobody knows about the revenue on some marketing YouTube did. I guess that most of the purchase price will be used to repay some bankdebts (but that's only a personal guess).

*Corrected after the first comment

My spiritual journey took off vibrantly in September 2005 after reading a book by Chris J. Witting, JR.

Looking back the path that I traversed, I felt gratified to Wayne Dyer, Joseph Murphy, Joe Vitale, David Hawkins, Eckhart Tolle and Gary Renard. They have contributed immensely for my spiritual awakening, shook me hard and straight from my intellectual trance and comfort zone.

The main point I learned from them is the word focus and how to practically apply it in day to day life in order to realize my desires.

The guidance from my higher self helped me to focus on my intention and proved beyond doubt what I can achieve by just concentrating on my goal.

Since May, as a pro blogger I have been enjoying the support of my spiritual masters and they have only made me discover performancing.com

I am happy to be here and I know I have found another place in cyber space where I can learn something new.

I came across my several rss feeds and found one in Deep Astronomy. The article says, that there is a 1:48.000 chance that Earth will be struck by the Asteroid Apophis on April 13th, 2036 (a Friday).

Nobody can deny that Friday 13th is a terribal day that day...

Unbelivable. Not such a long time ago, BenQ purchased the mobile phone business from Siemens. Now they go for Chapter 11 since the big deal for the xmas business is missing.

See the news at Heise (german).

Blogging means writing a lot and hammering on the keyboard all the time. Take the time and check your computer interfaces from time to time. Beside your perfect geek glasses this means to check your mouse, your monitor and your keyboard. My little story about my new keyboard:

The whole last year I was typing along on one of those standard Cherry keyboards. Nothing really wrong with it, it works. Today I installed an IBM/Lenovo keyboard which I got as a present for setting up a friends ThinkPad. Beside being green with envy because of that great piece of Hardware, a T 60 to be precise; when entering the IBM store to nail down the specifications I tried that keyboard and spontaneously asked my friend to ask for that keyboard as a rebate. Now I own it and I am overwhelmed.

That new keyboard is the difference between hell and paradise. My Cherry keyboard makes metallic noises (it's loud) and sometimes single keys get stuck. The IBM keyboard typing sound is like typing on rubber and the keys are all absolutely precise and give a nice robust and rigid feedback when hammering along. It's a keyboard in silent mode and you won't know what hat means until you try it yourself.

Long story made short: Next time you visit a computer store take your keyboard with you and make the test. Don't go for the extra keys or other fancy features, go for the sound and the quality of the keys. If you find a better keyboard buy it!

The keyboard is one of your most important productivity tools!

Did you ever exchange a working keyboard against another one because of the sound?

Technorati Tags: productivity, blogging, keyboard

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Just recently I slowly became used to listen to music when working. Today I discovered the great podcast Beatpod which presents really fine high quality independent music about every two weeks since the end of June 2006.

The latest hot tunes and hidden musical gems direct from the heart Beathut.com: The digital download site for independent music – featuring an ever-increasing roster of over 50 of the finest cutting-edge independent music labels worldwide. Presented by Catskills Records top cats Sonorous Star.

The show is called Beatpod (RSS) and comes from Brighton in the United Kingdom. Six great shows have been published. Recommended music podcast!

Bonus: Many will know Magnatune.com but I have discovered their RSS feed page only today. Check out All Podcasts at Magnatune. They have some great topic titles like Hammered Dulcimer and Space Music.

I have also used the chance to check out the publishing feature of BlogBridge and created two public OPML reading lists Music-Markus-Merz and Textpattern-Markus-Merz. That publishing option is definitely a very nice BlogBridge feature to share and promote RSS feeds with a 'personal touch'.

Which music podcasts are your favorites?

Technorati Tags: mp3, podcast, beatpod, music, audio

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This is the first blog after listening to "True nature of reality", which has inspired me to pursue the path to finding Perfection.

I have just opened my personal Gmail account (better late than never :-)

I have no idea what I can do with this thing except sending and receiving mail. I am sure that many of you will have great tips, tricks, software or hacks for Gmail.

Would you be so kind to share your best Gmail resources?

Technorati Tags: Google Mail, Gmail, tips, tricks

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