Performancing Services

Brian Clark who operates Copyblogger.com released a report he calls The Outsourcing Conspiracy. While much has been said regarding Tim Ferris and his 4-hour work week, the other side of the story doesn’t seem to have had much attention. Too many people believe that you can do very little and just outsource the rest but thanks to this report, you get a down to earth reality check regarding the costs involved with outsourcing, legal ramifications, how to get FREE help, the myths involved with outsourcing, and finally, how people like Brian Clark and others got started without outsourcing.

The report is free and you don’t need to give them an email address to download it. Make sure you have a PDF viewer installed on your computer as the report is in PDF format.

It took us a couple of months to get things kicked off, but we’re pleased to tell everyone that we’re getting into high gear with the reboot. Perhaps it’s best I referred to Ahmed’s outline in doing the first Performancing reboot a couple of years back, and let me quote:

Part 1: Performancing.com – what’s the point?
Part 2: Content is NOT King.
Part 3: If it Ain’t Broke, Break It.
Part 4: How can Performancing Make Money?
Part 5: 3 Keys to Blog Promotion
Part 6: Wrapping up the Performancing Reboot

And, of course, I cite my more basic (or generic) premise of getting rid of the bad stuff and focusing on the good.

Design

We’ve actually started with part #3, which is breaking it. In a way, it is broken. The current Perf infrastructure has made it difficult to produce content, and to establish lively discussions. And so that’s one reason we decided to go for a change in software.

In terms of visuals, we’ve commissioned Randa Clay to do a major design overhaul, and this is in the final stages. We’re trying to improve the site not only in terms of visual appeal, but also in terms of the user interface. What good is content when it’s not accessible, right? (This brings us to part #2, partly.)

Focus

What’s important to discuss and disclose, though, is part #1: what’s the point? I know Performancing has launched with stellar content, with a stellar cast and crew (if you can call it that), and with an excellent community. Somewhere along the way, things have changed. The energy has changed and the people have changed. But our focus has still remained faithful to our helping bloggers succeed motto.

But then this has made me think. Could it be time for a drastic shift in our focus, as well? It’s sure great to talk about blogging, and getting to help fellow bloggers along the way. But to some extent, blogging about blogging has become more and more difficult over the years, partly because the metablogging scene has become crowded, and partly because blogging has evolved, along with other new media. I think there is room to grow, and Performancing should not only cater to bloggers and blogging.

At least in practice, we’ve been catering to the rest of the social media crowd. We have been involved in non-blogging activities for some time, and this includes our various services, the Perfcast, social media push, dabbling in lifestreaming, and the like. It’s no longer confined to blogging. But the challenge here is being flexible but still knowing our limits, so we don’t spread ourselves too thin in the myriad of topics and niches that social media encompasses.

Community

I guess focusing on content, sharing information and ideas and all that has resulted in community taking a backseat. From what Jeff and I have been discussing, we feel that it’s best to let the Perf community take a more active role, to the point of leading the way, with us editors just acting as guides and moderators.

The community is a rich resource of knowledge and connections. Take for instance the Hive–it was originally envisioned as a closed set of movers and shakers in the blogging scene, and the place to be when you wanted to get into the minds of these thinkers and doers. Performancing.com as a whole should be a bigger community much like the Hive. It’s a bigger ship to steer, but that should make it all the more interesting.

What’s my point?

Performancing is one of our stronger brands at Splashpress Media. In some ways, though, the strength of its brand has been attributed to the people that have been involved. And this can sometimes be a brand’s weak point, particularly if different people take turns at the helm, so to speak. What of continuity? What of focus? What of the contacts?

The purpose of this reboot is to reestablish Performancing as a place–the place–where people go to to talk about social media as an empowering tool, and actually get to practice what is being talked about.

Now on to the details and the actual execution! We will keep you posted.

This has been in the talks for some time now, and it’s now finally reaching fruition. We’re doing a blog reboot. On Performancing. Again!

Last year’s reboot resulted in a host of new good stuff being added on to the brand. But somehow there were still some things that needed to be addressed. Perhaps the concept of a blog reboot is best considered as a continuing activity rather than a one-time, big-time event. A blog should evolve. But sometimes it needs a catalyst to get things started, or at least going faster.

Similar to the previous reboot, we will try to make this one as public and transparent as possible. While ideas are still a bit vague and abstract at this point, there are a few general themes I would like to focus on in starting this reboot.

The reboot will focus on doing two things: (1) Getting rid of the bad, and (2) Adding good stuff.

I recently did a (semi) general cleaning at my home, and the first thing we did was throw out the clutter, the unnecessary things that weighed us down and took up valuable space. Forget sentimental value. Just do what needs to be done so we can move forward, and focus on what’s important.

Throwing out clutter leaves space for the important stuff. And in some cases it’s not even the important stuff you need space for. It’s just the space that’s important. Ever heard of the importance of white space?

The reboot will consolidate and build up the brand.

In many ways I feel that Performancing has been fragmented in terms of the different services that it offers. So the reboot will essentially take stock of what we have, and build a stronger brand by combining the efforts of those different people (and different services) to bring better value to the community.

Now I know these are still pretty vague. And that’s why, similar to the previous reboot, we’re counting on the community to contribute ideas. What I can tell you at this point is that a new design is being planned, and that most probably we will have to migrate to another platform. And I know these two things are major changes.

Please feel free to comment. In fact, we would really appreciate it if everyone pitched in with what you think could and should be done. Even the small things will count!

What happens when you’ve finished writing a blog post and hit the publish button? Well, for one, your blogging software will publish your article for all the world to see. But there’s something that’s not as obvious. The moment you hit publish, you now own the copyright to that particular post, unless you explicitly state otherwise.

Most bloggers are unaware of this. Or most of us simply don’t care. Until some other site automatically republishes our post in full, that is. It’s called scraping, one of the ugly cousins of splogging. Worse, they probably have AdSense, text links and other affiliate links slapped on their sites. Where’s the link back to your blog, you ask? In all likelihood, it’s not there. Or if there’s a link, it probably just adds to the insult.

You become a victim of copyright infringement.

The bad thing here is that search engines penalize for duplicate content. And to their eyes, it doesn’t matter who does own the copyright, and who does publish first. If it’s a dupe, both sites will be hit.

Tracking down which sites duplicate your content does take time, energy and a lot of patience. Acting on these takes even more time, energy and patience. Most scrapers won’t even bother responding to your emails. Some hosting providers do, but sometimes not without a little push.

And to help our fellow writers combat this scourge of the blogosphere, we’re launching our very own Copyright Management service through Performancing Services.

Content scraping is one of the biggest headaches a blogger faces. Once you hit that publish button, your articles are prone to automatic copying and republishing by not-so-trustworthy websites who do not link back. Some of these scrapers even earn from your hard work by slapping on some advertisements, text links or affiliate links on their own sites, as if it were their own.

What exactly happens when you avail these services?

First, our copyright experts will track down websites, blogs, forums and other online services that copy your content in full or in partial without proper attribution. We will then send you a report of these, with a suggested course of action.

If you wish not to act on these copyright violations yourself, we will initiate takedown notices with the erring publishers and their hosting providers. The package includes action on three (3) sites, but we can act on an unlimited number of violators.

Head over to Performancing Services if you think someone’s copying your work and passing it off as their own.

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.

We are pleased to announce that we are improving our efforts in developing Blog Hoster, and the service is now under the management of J. Angelo Racoma and Randy Nivales from our team. Angelo and Randy have worked extensively on planning, developing, and marketing hosted blogging solutions prior to Splashpress. And therefore we are confident that they have what it takes to bring Blog Hoster to its true potential.

We have reactivated the support forums, and we are now ensuring a faster turnaround time in responding to email inquiries. For resolution of technical issues, we have also started the Blog Hoster bug tracker.

A lot of new features are being planned and developed for the next release of BlogHoster, and at this point, I think our strength lies on the ease of managing a community site that features blogs and a social network for its users. Let me quote from our Hotscripts entry.

Create your own weblog hosting service! With BlogHoster, your users can create and maintain their own weblogs with basic or custom templates, comments, user profiles, friend lists, avatars, various privacy settings, and more. Your users will be able to write entries with a web-based rich text editor and manage entries with an easy to use control panel. BlogHoster is very easy to integrate into your existing website. BlogHoster only requires that you have PHP and MySQL on your server – there is no flatfile data. BlogHoster also gives you, the admin, the capability to place ads on your users’ weblogs. This product is perfect for web hosting companies or community-focused websites.

BlogHoster is priced at $250, and this includes free installation (and some tweaks, where needed), and access to the knowledge base and support areas for licensees. Performancing users get a 30% discount by keying in the promo code PERF319 on the order form.

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.

Ahmed says:

Best way is to setup a ltd company and work through that. Second best option is to skip taxes, but obviously that’s not a serious recommendation.

While Ahmed’s “second best option” isn’t exactly a serious recommendation, I would say that most bloggers earning money on the side (as a hobby, or just to pay the utility and hosting bills) probably take this option.

HART, who is also an accountant from Canada says:

… I’m almost sure that you would NEVER file your own 1099 form – Employers send these out to subconctractors (never employees) and is just a record of what they pay.

If you get one – it’s easier, but I don’t think they do that for bloggers/writers. Here in Canada only certain industries are included in the types of subcontractors who receive our own version of this form (gravel companies, trucking industry, etc).

Just collect all your data from Paypal .. gross revenues received less paypal fees, maybe payouts for subscriptions, promotion (donations no official receipts), software purchases, etc etc. And do the same for your offline.

If you live with your parents, you probably don’t have any business use of residence – but if you have your own home, you would keep track of all 100% home type of expenses (heat, water, electricity, property taxes, mortgage interest, maintenance affecting whole house e..g. furnace repairs, etc) and can take a pro-rata share of your office in your home to your total home space.

If you bought a computer during the year, I would ‘capitalize that’ and I think there are some us tax benefits on new purchases (but not sure). If you already had a computer at the beginning of year, estimate its fair market value and set up something.

For other expenses – look at schedule C and your IRS site forms related self-employment.

And, contact a CPA if you are preparing your taxes yourself or, have some cash discounting site prepare your taxes (like an HR Block etc) at least once or for a consultation.

Based on what’s been discussed so far, the solutions here involve either setting up a corporation (because LLCs usually have more allowed deductibles than individual taxpayers, and shield the invidivual from liability), or file as a freelancer. But then there might be nuances to this. What type of LLC can you set up? What kind of freelance activity should you declare? What would best minimize your tax burden, while still paying what is fair?

Aside from sending your receipts and figures to your accountant for computing your tax dues, there are also companies that specialize in handling these burdensome matters for freelancers and contractors. In the UK, for instance, umbrella services can act as your “employer” and your work would essentially be as a “contractor.”

Who said problogging was easy? Writing and marketing is hard enough. But thinking of tax matters would surely cause a bigger headache. If you have a good, detailed solution, I’d love to hear about it.

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.