Skip links

Performancing

Main navigation

nickw

LifeDev Describes Reddit Effect Using Metrics

by

I noticed some traffic coming in via an interesting post on the Reddit effect (a social bookmarking site akin to Digg), and noticed that they were using Performancing Metrics to analyze the traffic data.

I use Performancing Metrics to handle my blog analytics. It’s really robust and easy to set up, not to mention it’s free. I was able to break down my traffic statistics by the hour.

Its an interesting read, and Reddit though not as newsworthy (clearly not trendy enough for fickle digirati…), seems to be sending a lot of traffic to sites that make it’s homepage..

powered by performancing firefox

Are you a Blogger for Hire?

by

After having to find a good copywriter for a project I have no time to write for myself, it occured to me that maybe there were a few bloggers for hire in the Performancing audience.

Actually, im guessing there’s quite a few. The position was filled, satisfactorily, but I’d really like to know who’s out there for hire, and what your background/experiences being a blogger for hire are.

  • Do you get regular work?
  • How do you find new clients?
  • How do new clients find you?
  • What is the most difficult challenge you face in your work?

So, come on, if you’re for hire, let’s hear about it. No ads please, but do tell us about your experiences being a hired blogger…

powered by performancing firefox

Yahoo’s Lame Feeds

by

UPDATE: See here for the details, but the short version is it’s an old feed not being redirected: Newer feeds are full text.

Speaking of Yahoo, i was reading my feeds this morning, when not for the first time, I got terribly irritated with the Yahoo Search Blog. Irritated because to actually read the story I was interested in, i had to click through to the damn web page!

Sheeesh…. I have my Feed reader, deliver appropriate content to it. Include ads if you wish, i won’t mind — but man, Yahoo of all companies should be delivering full feeds shouldn’t they?

powered by performancing firefox

Find Out What Yahoo’s YPN Ads are Really Like

by

My friend Loren Baker over at SEJ has commited to a 7 day test of Yahoo’s YPN contextual ad system. That post, from his third day in the test, makes for pretty interesting reading if you’ve not tried YPN on your blogs.

Loren asserts that the contextual targeting improved from dismal on day one, to pretty damn good on day three. Talking about day one he says…

“If we had not made the commitment to stick with YPN for one week we would have probably switched back to Google AdSense”

Apparently the quick turnaround on targeting was due to some pretty spiffy customer service, but it makes you wonder how that’s going to scale when Y! finally open the doors and let the rest of the world play

Ms. Holland shot me back an email early that morning stating that the relevancy problem had been fixed and she would be monitoring Search Engine Journal throughout the day to enhance the contextual targeting. Now that my friends is excellent and swift customer service!

I can’t imagine that happening when they have hundreds of thousands of users in the system…

I’d be interested to hear the Performancng publishers points of view and experiences on YPN, so if you’ve tried them, or are currently using them, tell us about your experience.

powered by performancing firefox

Women Bloggers – BlogHER or BloggER?

by

Back in January, we had a great discussion about women in blogging, and try as I did, I still didn’t manage to get much female representation here on Performancing — a great shame, as I know we have some awesome bloggers (who happen to be women) in the Performancing membership.

Today, i see Kathy Sierra of “Creating Passionate Users” posting what I’m sure will become a much talked about piece called I am not a “woman blogger” — In it she makes some fine points:

I am “one who blogs” (among many other things). I happen to be a woman. But I am NOT a blogHer, and my male co-author is not a blogHim.

I write code. But I am NOT a programmHer.

I write tech books. But I am NOT a writeHer.

I ride horses. But I am NOT a rideHer. (sounds vaguely sexual… never mind)

I am NOT a skiHer or a skateboardHer or a runHer.

I work on ecological causes, but I am NOT an enviHERmental activist.

And I am NOT typing this on my computeHer (even if it is, I must say, a sexy-yet-adorable black MacBook)

These are my passions, but they reflect the part of me that is about horses, running, skiing, skating, the environment, writing, or creating. If I relabel them to reflect my gender, I believe both (my gender and the labeled thing) are diminished by the “Her” qualifier.

And in talking about the coverage of the recent BlogHer conferance, Kathy has this (among much else) to say, and its what clinched forgoing an early coffee to quickly get this post out the door — Im dead keen to hear what the women of Performancing have to say….

I’m tired of being told things about myself that sound as foreign to me as they might to a space alien. I am tired of others describing what it’s like to BE me. I’m tired of being told what others think of me. And I’m especially tired of being told how naive I am, and of having my accomplishments diminished by women who insist that to have visibility as a “Woman Blogger” I must have done something, um, special. And by “special”, I mean… sucking up, kissing up, or otherwise catering to the “male establishment that’s oh so determined to keep me “invisible.”

The professional and semi-pro blogging women I know of at Performancing tend to fly low under the radar here, but they’re just as industrious, just as savvy, as anyone else making a living from blogging — I like to think of the whole of the Performancing membership as containing members of the real blogosphere, those bloggers not all puffed up with their own self importance, busy bellowing their opinions into the echo chamber, but those bloggers quietly getting on with the business of blogging.

Men and Women alike.

Tell us what you think…

powered by performancing firefox

Psst… Wanna Test Drive the New PFF?

by

Im posting this from the latest version of Performancing Firefox, the #1 blog editor (which just happens to be free! aswell…), and though it’s a more subtle update than some others, it’s about to introduce a whole new level of power to users, designers and programmers…

http://performancing.com/files/performancing-1.3rc1.xpi

Grab the BETA version of 1.3, and let us know what you think, or if you find any last minute bugs — we’d really appreciate your help in spotting anything that needs fixing ahead of a general release!

Main New Features

  • Support for Addons — PFF can now be extended
  • Support for Themes — If some enterprising blog designer doesn’t spot the obvious opportunity here…
  • Localization – We have just the one language in so far, Arabic, complete with Right to Left support, but there’s much more to follow as we start contacting all the kind folks who’ve offerend to help — much more on the tremendous effort of our Arabic partners on general release.

Of course there are a number of bug fixes and stability enhancements, but i’ll let Jed talk you through the details when we release in full — there will also be a number of cool tutorials on how to extend and theme PFF 1.3

For now, enjoy, and please let us know what you think, or if you find any last minute bugs!

powered by performancing firefox

Discussion of the Day: Breaking Free of MySpace

by

This post could just as easily been titled “Great example of why not owning your own domain is dangerous”, as I’m refering to a great discussion in the forums about MySpace and how 52 of the uber popular social networks top bloggers are trying to break free of the site, and promote their new blog PointlessBanter.Net.

In the forum discussion you’ll find some great tips on how to wean readers away from a blog service you have no control over to a new domain, enjoy!

powered by performancing firefox

Great Google Videos on Optimization Basics

by

I’ve just watch the first of Matt Cutt’s series of videos (and more here…) on site optimization and general webmaster skills — If you’re new to this stuff, or even an old hand, you’re going to enjoy it — i’d highly recommend taking a little time out today to watch the vids..

The first one echos much of what i said recently in 3 ways to immediately increase search engine traffic

The videos are not aimed at bloggers specifically, so some of the information is a little redundant for most of the Performancing regulars, but in general it’s pretty neat, enjoy…

powered by performancing firefox