ourwwworld

click4africa - a brewing idea.

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 13:15:00 +0000

The more time I spend in the click exchanges, the more I am understanding what I'd like to do with what I've learned.

I would like to create a traffic exchange that caters specifically to people who are interested in using their time online to promote causes in Africa that they care about. I would be a place where African organizations in need of votes to win competitions could go to promote their latest online campaigns.

It would be a place where Ceris from Wales could spend 1/2 hour per day viewing other campaigns to help Africa and actions he could take to help, while at the same time viewing campaigns that other like-minded people care about and promoting the Kampala Junior League's proposal for a Life in Africa grant that he's been helping his KJT friends in uganda to put together.

It's not the income earning models in the traffic exchange market that offer the biggest insight into useful ways forward for the social sector, but the ability to create communities of like-minded people who agree to consider what others in the community are promoting.

I would so love to build an exchange where people like our old friends from Onet, our friends from ned.com and our friends from Razoo and Facebook - some of whom know each other and are actively involved in promoting wonderful grassroots projects in and for Africa - could come to find a receptive group of people who are willing to take time out of their day to click in support of their actions and initiatives.

After 3 months in the clickexchanges, I think that's my biggest takeaway. I'm pretty sure of the direction I'd like to eventually take with the knowledge I've gained.

By the way, I have owned the domain click4africa.com since late 2001 or early 2002. I just got a reminder from WHOIS that I still own it, so it's an old concept that's been freshly brought out from the back of the shelves of my mind, and I'm looking at it again for the first time in quite a while. We'll see where it goes from here.

.

me2everyone.com: a new member- owned and governed global village online

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:31:00 +0000

Have you claimed your free shares in me2everyone yet?

I've been seeing some blogosphere buzz about me2everyone.com lately, and finally had a chance to check it out this weekend. WOW! This is one of the most intriguing and exciting online community concepts I've come across in a long time.

Imagine a MySpace/Facebook/Yuwie/SecondLife/eBay/GlobalGiving kind of space, that's enabled with integrated translation capacity. At me2everyone we can communicate online across language barriers in a space that's geared for social networking on steroids.

The whole thing is to be member-owned and member-governed. If you become a member, you become a shareholder, and you can earn more shares by participating at the site. It's 100% free to join, and if you are among the first 300,000 people to register during the pre-launch phase (happening now) you can get a bonus of 250 free shares - even more if others you tell about it decide to sign up too. There are no country restrictions.

The me2everyone business plan is based on a targeted advertising revenue model, and on becoming one of the most visited websites in the world by December 2012. Sometime around then, the plan is to make me2everyone a publicly traded company that's listed on global stock exchanges. Won't it be cool to watch our free shares grow in value!

But you have to hurry a bit! Since January 9 of this year, over 126,000 people have already signed up. I've been watching the member counter today in awe as 2,500+ people became members over the past 6 hours! Register to claim your free shares now, before the 300,000 member threshold is met, or the number of shares you receive for signing up will be lower.

One other thing to note about me2everyone is that they are currently recruiting a 300 member Global Executive committee to help shape inworld development. The details are quietly posted on the log-out page. The pdf documents linked from the logout page offer much more detail about the me2everyone plan (including financial projections) than the rest of the site currently does - well worth the read, and there is also an interesting part-time financial opportunity available to those selected for the Global Executive.

As I was reading I couldn't help think how perfect it would be to have some of my friends from ned.com and the old Omidyar.net on the me2everyone Global Executive committee. I'm thinking that I will probably apply.

Whether you apply to the Global Executive or not, be sure to register for your free shares SOON - the worst thing that can happen is you'll get some extra email. If you don't sign up and me2everyone does become the next big thing... well, I'll let you finish that thought for yourself!

The Bad Ethics of One Time Offers in Internet Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:09:00 +0000

The more I explore the Traffic Exchange marketplace, the more convinced I am that there's potential for the social sector to tap into the traffic and financial resources there.

At the same time I am becoming more and more disgusted with some of the predatory tactics that I'm seeing some people employ. I recently came upon an interesting example.

Internet Marketing Success Formula is advertised as a free ebook. The ebook is indeed free, and not only explains but also illustrates the trickery in using One Time Offers to make money on the free sign up process.

The author, Soren Jordansen is the owner of a couple of successful membeship sites. He's a known name in the marketplace and obviously his tactics work. He's probably even a fun guy. Quite frankly, however, it frightens me in the current economy that people would choose to prey on each other like Mr. Jordansen himself does and proposes that others should too.

The one time offer at IM Success Formula came after I'd signed up but before I actually had access to the ebook. In the OTO I was told I could rebrand the book and get my very own cash cranking One Time Offer page, including a bonus package of more rebrandable, resellable ebooks than anyone can possibly read in a year. All this promise of knowledge and a commission only job selling affiliate signups to the mystery programs listed inside could be mine for just $127, unless I would order right now and get it half off. Sixy something bucks.

From free to $60+ seemed an extraordinary leap for me, and I really didn't want all those ebooks. So I passed on the OTO and..... got a second chance offer! Forget the gazillion ebooks and the One Time Offer page this time - now I would just get to be an affiliate and rebrand the book. All this could be mine now but but never again at the low low price of $37.

Of course, I still hadn't seen the book and had no idea what links are in the book that I would want to re-brand. I'm not interested in doing the work to market Mr. Jordansen's book with my links if it means signing up for 2 dozen new sites that are going to distract me from other things. I wanted to actually see the book before shelling out $37 in a commitment to selling this product.

So I left that page open and went to check my email. There was the link to log into the IMSF site. Wanting to keep that 2nd chance offer open just in case, I logged into the site in another browser to check on the inside price for rebranding the book.

Lo and behold, the price for members who did not take the One Time Offer of $60+ or the Second Chance Offer of $37 can be an affiliate and rebrand the ebook for only $27.

So the whole one time offer and second chance offer thing at IMSF is a LIE. The offer does not represent a discount at all, but a higher price than if you just sign up for free ebook and upgrade later. What's more, I have very little doubt that were I to remain on Mr. Jordansen's mailing list and read his messages, I would eventually receive a special offer to upgrade (today only!) for a price even lower than $27.

Not only is it terribly sad that Mr. Jordansen's book is teaching people to lie and prey on human fear to be successful online, but think about it - anyone who suggests you should make an uninformed and rash decision about investments in your business is absolutely NOT thinking about YOUR success.

Making uninformed and rash decisions based on fear is NOT the way to build a successful business - not in the online world and not in the offline world - ever. Anyone who suggests you should is not looking out for your best interest, but for their own.

If you're active in the Traffic Exchanges and you're reading this, please join me in fighting against this ugly practice.

Say no to One Time Offers at sign up.

You WILL receive more offers of discounts. There is no such thing as a one time offer, so decide right now that from today forward they will have no effect on you.

ALWAYS give yourself a chance to evaluate the free version of any product or service before you spend money upgrading. Once you're on the mailing list as a free member of any site, you will almost always continue to receive special offers to upgrade for a discounted price. If you decide to make an investment at that point, it will be based on a more informed and better thought-through decision about what you are actually paying for and why you want or need it.

If enough people stop responding to OTO's, then maybe they'll stop trashing up the Traffic Exchanges landscape so much. Sincerely speaking folks, there are ways to earn in the TE Marketplace that do not involve lying to your customers to get them to pay you more money. Money is too hard to come by these days for us to allow this kind of predatory tactic to be an acceptable norm. I know this model has been proven to work, but it simply can't be the only model that works... it's time for some kinder and gentler ways.

If you're at all active in the Traffic Exchanges, you should definitely read the Internet Marketing Success Formula. It's 41 pages and a real eye opener to the kinds of aggressive psycho-marketing techniques that I hate with a passion - and that you should learn about so that you can avoid falling prey to them.

It's certainly educational, and if you can possibly resist the One Time Offer(!) it's also FREE.

http://imsuccessformula.com/?rid=19621

I would LOVE to hear your views.

i4c Grand Opening Bonus details

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 06:20:00 +0000

If you become part of my paid downline before 25 March 2009 in any of the programs with *starred links* at my Internet4Change shop, then I will rotate your affiliate link for that program in the i4c shopfront for the remainder of the year (starting in April).

Once you've signed up for any of those free *starred link* programs and paid for an upgrade, then please send me your name, email address and affiliate link in a comment to this post.

I will crosscheck my downline information and let you know here and by email when your link has been put into rotation.

By the way, all comments to this blog are moderated, so your comment won't become public until I've had a chance to crosscheck your link. If you have any other questions, please submit them here.

i4c Questions

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:32:00 +0000

If you have questions about any product, tool, system or service at My Internet4Change Shop that you'd like to ask, I will do my best to help.

Comments to this blog are moderated, so you can post your question in a comment below with your email address and it won't be seen by anyone but me. If I know the answer to your question, I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.

If I don't know the answer, you may see your question becoming the subject of an article or review posted here. Be sure to subscribe!

Christina

ourwwworld revisited

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:28:00 +0000

For nearly a year now, the ourwwworld space has been my experimental scratchpad as I've explored ways to earn income for my cause through blogging. While I will continue to blog about blogging, the focus of this space will be changing again now, to reflect my newest ventures into using the Internet to promote social change.

I've started a new business in the Traffic Exchanges that I'm kind of excited about. The Traffic Exchanges are an interesting marketplace that I've always thought could really use a blast of meaningful content and purpose beyond all the hype about money. A recent trend in that market is personalized branding, so I'm taking that to another level by binding my personal brand to change.

I know I've still got some tweaking to do, and I would surely love any feedback that readers here might have to offer. I've tried to design these pages specifically with the Traffic Exchanges and how they work in mind.

I really love how the splash pages turned out
http://internet4change.com/splash/1.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/2.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/3.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/4.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/5.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/6.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/7.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/8.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/9.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/10.htm

And if you follow the links on those, you end up here
http://internet4change.com/shop/clicks/
which I'm pretty happy with

or here, which I think still needs some serious tweaking (actually, it probably suffers from over-tweaking at the moment)
http://internet4change.com/christina/giveaway.htm

You can also read a bit about my plans for the site for the rest of this year at
http://internet4change.com/plans.htm

There are some things that are typical in the click exchange market that I deliberately haven't done in this campaign (like hide information from people unless they provide an email address). I'd like to break out of the mold in a couple of ways that I hope - at the very least - will get some people in that market thinking about combining their business goals with more social good.

One of the things I really hate about the TE market is that so much of the real information you need be successful is exchanged behind closed doors. There are not many bloggers offering honest, publicly accessible reviews about the various market opportunities there - everyone seems to focused on selling. So that's something I plan to do a little differently.

From today forward in this space I'll be inviting questions from my Internet4Change shop customers about the products and services listed there, and posting reviews that can help them in developing their business plans. As the giveaway to causes develops, I'll also be posting updates about that here.

There will still be continued posts about earning online income for change through blogging, but that is no longer the sole focus of this blog. In addition to Traffic Exchanges and blogging, this space is likely to become a mish-mash of all kinds of ways that home-based online income generating activities can be combined with social content to increase awareness and foster group action for change. (BTW - If you decide to unsubscribe from this blog because the focus has changed, I promise I won't be offended.)

The name of this blog has changed slightly to reflect this broader perspective. Instead of ourwwworld: sustainable blogging, I'm now calling it ourwwworld: Adventures in clicking for impact.

Let me know your thoughts on the i4c shop campaign.

All the best,

C

the future of ourwwworld

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 07:27:00 +0000

I started this blog in conjunction with my personal blog in an effort to earn personal online income that I would share with Life in Africa, my favorite cause. I invited others who support Life in Africa to learn to blog with me here, so that they could also benefit from whatever I was discovering about blogging from Africa, and we could raise a bit more social capital for the cause. I believed (and still believe) that a team approach to promoting our blogs would make it easier to achieve visibility and earn meaningful amounts of sharable income - especially for my African friends I invited to participate - within a shorter time period than would otherwise be possible for most on African bandwidth.

Without ever really feeling like we've had a chance to get started on team promotion, I have re-designed this team experiment beyond recognition a couple of times now to try and please participants and potential participants from outside of Africa who have shared their points of view. I have also been asked to share my larger vision for this blog experiment in the context of Life in Africa's future, to which my purpose (stated above) apparently does not offer an adequate response. I am not sure if it's the global team approach, my desire to rally others to use blogging to raise funds for LiA, or my intent to share practical information about earning income through blogging that seems to disturb other Life in Africa stakeholders about this experiment.

The result is that I am currently in a state of confusion over whether or not to continue trying to help Life in Africa in this (voluntary) way. I think that the content created on some of the ourwwworld blogs I helped friends in Uganda to start is extraordinary, as I knew it would be. However, I do not wish to interfere with whatever other plans the Life in Africa team may have for integrating blogs into their activities.

With the holidays approaching, I think for now the best thing to do is to just keep this blog on hold for a while. I will spend some time reflecting on better ways to achieve my purpose without compromising Life in Africa and get back to y'all sometime in January.

If you have any thoughts at all on this subject, it would be really useful for me to hear them. Please post a comment below.

and Happy Holidays!

Why Quantity Matters

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:44:00 +0000

Blogging offers a way for you to build a website one page at a time. Anything goes in terms of the content you choose to publish and the purpose you want to achieve. Realistically speaking, however, if your blog doesn't have visitors, then even the most wonderful content you create won't achieve your purpose.

It's equally true - especially in the beginning - that if your blog doesn't have enough content, you won't find it easy to attract visitors. Even your early subscribers and other people you know well will stop visiting your blog if there is nothing new for them to see. (Wouldn't you?)

What's more, there are many promotional tools and income generating possibilities out there that only allow you to participate when your blog has a minimum number of "quality" posts that fit with the description of your blog.

Below are some concrete examples of early quantity benchmarks for new blogs that you might want to keep in mind.

With at least 5 posts you can:

get your blog listed in search engines
get your blog approved for listing at blogging communities like Entrecard, BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog

With 10-15 posts you can:

list your blog in most blog directories

With minimum 30 posts you can:

sell advertising on your blog through systems like ProjectWonderful (and others)
apply to earn money writing sponsored posts to your blog through sites like PayPerPost

PLEASE NOTE: I have been waiting for the ourwwworld team blogs to have a minimum of 5 quality posts each so that we can start some ourwwworld contests that could win you some bonus cash for Christmas. Any blog currently in the ourwwworld sidebar that does not have a minimum of 5 posts relevant to your stated topic by 15 November will not be able to participate, and your blog will be deleted from the sidebar until you've caught up with the rest of the team. For those of you who already have reached that 5 post target, congratulations - and sorry for the delay!

Keep an eye out on 15 November (internet willing!) for the contest details.

Promoting your feed

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:42:00 +0000

The pic above shows the latest subscriber statistics for our team at feedburner, which is the service that's installed on the ourwwworld blogs to let people subscribe to your feed.

Subscribers are people who have chosen to receive news that you've posted something new to your blog. Your feed is the technical term for the technology that will automatically alert them. Depending on how the subscribers themselves choose to subscribe to your feed, they are either sent an email when you have posted something new or alerted through an RSS reader that updates them on many blogs that they might be following.

Your feed's subscribers are your blog's most important asset. The more subscribers you have who've chosen to follow your blog's feed, the less work you have to do getting visitors. When combined with income generating mechanisms, a blog with 100 subscribers could be well on it's way to becoming sustainable (ie, it can probably pay for itself and earn a little something extra for the blogger). A blog with 1,000 subscribers or more could be worth several hundred dollars per month or more to the blogger.

Growing your subscriber base takes active effort, but it's not very difficult to start. Once a way to subscribe is installed on your blog, the most basic and obvious way to get people to subscribe is to ask them to.

In the beginning, before a lot of people you don't know start visiting your blog, the best place to start asking is among the people you do know, who you also know how to reach online. Here are some very simple ways to start promoting your feed today:

1. Send an email to your family, friends and supporters letting them know you've got a new blog that's ready for subscribers, and ask them to subscribe. Don't forget to include your blog's URL, with the http:// part so that it's clickable (example: http://ourwwworld.blogspot.com)

2. Ask the people closest to you to send an email to their friends and family, asking them to subscribe as well.

3. Use facebook, twitter, ned and/or other communities you participate in to let your online friends know you've got a new blog, and ask them to subscribe. At the very least, mention that they can subscribe so that you put the idea in their heads.

4. Write your blog address on some small pieces of paper or on the back of some business cards, and keep them in your wallet. When you run into a friend who you know spends time on the internet, give it to them and ask them to be sure to subscribe.

A word of caution - do not ever allow yourself to be disappointed or offended when everyone you know personally doesn't subscribe to your blog's feed. Some people will, some people won't. Some might respond to your email request months after you send it, and some might never respond at all. That doesn't mean they don't like you, and it doesn't mean they will never visit your blog. If they've subscribed in an RSS reader, you can't see who has subscribed anyway. So don't worry about how many people don't subcribe. Focus your emotional energies instead on the people who do subscribe, and do your best to make it worthwhile for them to stay subscribed!

Once you also start promoting your blog in blogging communities, directories and search engines, people who don't know you personally will start to visit. You'll have to work a bit harder to get them to subscribe. Some bloggers use contests and giveaways to get people they don't know to subscribe to their feed; others use sneakier tactics that I won't go into here. By far, the very best way to get subscribers from among folks you don't know is to regularly produce unique and worthwhile content, that makes visitors want to come back for more.

If you liked this post, please subscribe to the ourwwworld feed! You can choose how to subscribe in the sidebar, or click here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Ourwwworld. By the way, to find the address for your ourwwworld blog feed if you ever need it, right click on the link in your sidebar that looks like the one below and copy the link location:

One last thing I'd like to ask, especially of those of you with ourwwworld blogs: please visit the other ourwwworld team member blogs and show your support to each other by subscribing today!

.

Understanding Google Adsense

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:41:00 +0000

The last time we looked at our google adsense report was 1 month ago, at which time there were requests for more information about what it all meant. Now that October has ended, let me finally respond to that with a look at our 2 month results.

The Google Adsense program connects paying advertisers with webpage creators (like us!) by matching up words that advertisers bid on, with webpages that have those words in them. If you look at the "Ads by Google" boxes on the ourwwworld team blogs, you will notice that many of the ads relate to stuff we've been writing about. Every time you write about another subject, the ads on your page will change. The more content (blog posts) you produce, the more opportunity Google will have to match advertisers with your page content. When the ads become more relevant to the content that's on your pages, people will be more likely to click on them. That's the theory anyway. When the ads get clicked on, we get paid.

The report below specifically and only refers to the "ads by google" on the ourwwworld team blogs that look like the ones circled in red on the screenshots at the beginning of this post.

To help you understand what the report means, here's some definitions:

Channels: understanding that many Adsense account holders have multiple websites with different kinds of content, the Adsense program allows me to set up different channels that keep track of how the google ads I'm running in the various places I tell it to monitor are performing.

Page impressions: this number is equal to the number of times google ads have been viewed on that channel. It counts our own visits as well as the visits of anyone else who views our pages

Clicks: this number tells us the number of ads running on that channel that were clicked on. Always remember you are not allowed to click the ads on your own page. Google will know, and shut the account down - they own both Adsense and Blogger so they have the ability to know a lot about your activity.

Page CTR: this is the number of clicks divided by the number of page impressions to give us an indicative percentage of how many visitors have clicked on an ad. More than one ad is shown on each page, and a visitor might click on more than one ad when s/he visits, so this is only indicative. We are paid for each click that occurs, whether it was clicked by the same visitor or not.

Page eCPM: this is another indicative measure that Google provides us to be able to compare and evaluate the performance of our ads. It refers to what that channel is earning per 1,000 page impressions. Since many of our blogs have not yet reached 1,000 page impressions, for most of us it's only a projection.

earnings: that number is the most significant, because it is real (not just for evaluation purposes). It's the actual amount that the advertisers whose ads were clicked on are paying us (through Google) for the clicks we've received. Some ads pay more, some pay less, and some also occasionally pay just for being shown on our page. The amount paid per click or view depends on the words that actually appear in our pages and how much advertisers are willing to pay for having their ads shown wherever those words appear online.

Interesting to note is that LifeInAfrica.com is currently performing better than all of our blogs combined, even though Ads by Google ONLY appear on the home page right now. Here are those figures from the same 2 month period for comparison:

Channel: lifeinafrica. com
impressions: 1,760
clicks: 65
CTR: 3.69%
eCPM: $11.34
earnings: $19.96

I don't claim to understand exactly why the Adsense earnings at LifeInAfrica.com are so much better than the rest of the channels we're running Adsense on, but I am working on putting the Adsense boxes on more pages there so that we can earn a bit more for the organization on a monthly basis.

Please ask questions if there's anything about this you don't understand!

Import your blog to Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 06:09:00 +0000

I find it easier to write when I have an idea in my head of who I am writing to. If you already have an audience of friends and colleagues who are gathered at Facebook, that's a perfect starting audience for you to write to as you let your creative juices begin to flow on your new blog.

You can configure Facebook to show a new note on your profile every time you post to your blog. Keep in mind that importing your blog to facebook does not increase visitors to your actual blog pages, but it does offer your friends on facebook a convenient way to interact with you on what you've posted.

To import your blog to facebook, go to your facebook profile and complete the following steps:

1. Near the top, under the tabs, click on "Write Note"

2. A form will open on the page; look below the form and click on "Settings"

3. Find the sentence that says You can automatically import activity from YouTube, Flickr and other services to your profile. Click on the words I've put in in bold.

4. You now get another box with some icons in it. Look for the feed icon and click on it.

5. Paste your feed address where it says "public URL"

The steps above should import your most recent blog post and every future post. If you also want to import up to 25 previous posts, then click "update now" under the feed address.

As a new blogger, your blog needs content. If you're in the habit of posting notes on Facebook, consider posting them to your imported blog instead of at facebook directly so that you kill two birds with one stone. That way, the interesting thoughts, links and other media you post in your facebook notes will also be available to a wider audience that includes folks that are not connected to you there.

2 essential tools for monitoring the growth of your blog

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 07:15:00 +0000

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, then did it really make any noise? How do you know? Similarly, if you write your heart out on your blog but nobody reads your words, have you really used your voice? We've already said you'll need to spend time building an audience by letting people know what you've written is there to read. But how will you know if anyone is reading?

Naturally, the internet makes it simple.

In fact, you absolutely cannot build a sustainable blog that grows in value to you unless you are monitoring your visitor flow. Over time, you will learn and implement many techniques for letting people on the web know that your content is out there and encouraging them to visit. Monitoring your site visitors helps you see whether those efforts are working or not.

This post covers two essential tools for monitoring your blog's traffic growth that we're using on the ourwwworld team blogs: Sitemeter (which you need to install yourself) for monitoring daily visitor traffic, and Feedburner (which I'm planning to install for you) for monitoring the number of those visitors who choose to become your blog's regular followers.

1. Sitemeter

Sitemeter is a free and easy statistics tracking service that I've used for years. Since I personally want to track how much traffic we're getting as a team, I've already installed an ourwwworld team sitemeter on this blog and all of the team blogs at the bottom of your sidebar.

If you click on where it says "xx visitors since October 27, 2008" in the sidebar of your blog, you'll come to the summary page for all of our traffic together. From there if you look on the left for "page ranking" and click on entry pages, you can get a quick idea of how many visitors (out of the last 100) entered the ourwwworld team pages at your site. Referrals is another link I use often, since it allows me to see where on the web our traffic is coming from. If I share a link to a post on one of our blogs at facebook, for example, I can see at sitemeter whether anyone has clicked on it.

Since I'm also interested in seeing information about traffic to my own blog in finer detail, I've installed a second sitemeter at the bottom of my sidebar that's only monitoring my own pages. I would highly recommend that you also install a second sitemeter that monitors only YOUR blog, and the earlier the better. It will take you about 5 minutes to sign up for a free sitemeter account, get the html code for blogger and install it on your blog.

Installing gadgets on your blog is something you need to get used to doing. This one is easy practice (and chances are by the time you read this, sitemeter and blogger will have conspired to make it even easier). When you've signed up at sitemeter, you'll need to find the link in the manager panel to get your html code and copy it. Be sure to get the code that's for blogger. To install the code on your blog, follow the steps below:

log into blogger and view your blog
click customize at the top right of your screen
click on add a gadget in your sidebar
a window will open. In that window, choose "html/javascript"
paste in the html code from your sitemeter account into the box that appears
add a title similar to "christinaswwworld stats" if you want
click save.

Important to remember is that on blogger, any new gadget you install will always appear at the TOP of your sidebar. On the customize page, you can drag the elements in your sidebar up or down to reorder them. Once you've moved your new sitemeter code down to the bottom, click save again. Then view your blog to make sure it looks like you want it to, and you're almost done.

If you are usually on the same computer when you work on your blog, it's a good idea to exclude your own visits from being counted. If you are working from webcafes or always changing computers, then this isn't possible. But if you're regularly using the same computer then click "ignore visits" in the sitemeter manager panel. There, you can and should set your account to ignore visits from your browser, visits from your IP address, or both. Now, whenever anyone (including you) visits your blog and clicks on the sitemeter icon you just installed, they'll be able to monitor and analyze the growth of your blog's traffic from people other than you.

(btw - from 15 September until yesterday, I was monitoring all of us through the christinaswwworld sitemeter, where you can still see our history from the past 30 days. As of yesterday, though, that account is now only monitoring traffic to my christinaswwworld blog.)

2. Feedburner

While Sitemeter can tell us a lot about who has visited your blog, feedburner can tell you how many of your visitors are choosing to follow your blog and be alerted whenever you post something new. Feedburner also helps you deliver your content to those people in a number of ways, including by email (which blogger doesn't automatically do), and tries to help you consolidate statistics on people who are following your blog feed through all kinds of websites and services that it can be accessed through.

In the blogging world, the number of people following your feed is a key measure of your blog's financial value. If your blog has many followers, it becomes easier to generate a response to fundraising or income generating activities through your blog. You can even sell your blog if you're ever tired of it someday and earn thousands of dollars if your feed has a healthy list of followers. Of course, your number of followers will grow much more slowly than your traffic, so it's never too soon to offer your visitors as many ways as possible to start following you. In fact, one of my pet peeves is finding a blog that I want to follow, and not finding a way to easily do that. Offering your feed to your visitors is critically important.

Setting up feedburner to work for your blog is a bit technical (which is another way of saying I don't know how to explain it to you well.) The first time I used it, someone else set it up for me. Now that I've learned how to do it myself, I'll be installing it for you on the ourwwworld team blogs this week.

Once it's installed, it will be important for you to know where to find your feed address. It's often asked for when you are signing up for the various blog widgets, communities and directories that you'll come across while building a sustainable blog. Look in the sidebar of this blog, and scroll down until you see a link that looks like this:

I'll be installing a very similar looking link on your blog.

In the future, whenever you are asked to provide your blog's feed address anywhere on the web, simply right click on that link to copy the link location, and paste it wherever you need it. Your feed link will undoubtedly look something similar to this: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Ourwwworld.

I'm going to play for a while with ways that feedburner can help us to promote your content on other websites like LifeInAfrica.com, and at the end of our experiment (more on that in an upcoming post) I'll be transferring the feed's ownership to you for continued monitoring of your subscriber growth. In the meantime, I'll try to post regular screenshots of how all of our feeds are doing that can help you get an idea of how we're all doing on subscriber growth.

Please post any questions, challenges, or comments on any of the above in the comments section below. I'm happy to help further if I can.

Here's to your blog's sustainable growth!

.

Go Grace, Go! to Entrecard

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:46:00 +0000

Oh my goodness, I've just been reading Grace Ayaa's blog "Awakening." She's posted today about a visit to our friend Fred Kayiwa's project and it's just written beautifully. I want more!

Now that Grace has 5+ quality posts up would be a great time for her to think about joining the Entrecard community. They've recently disabled the income generating aspects of entrecard, and the forums are not that great, but getting my feet wet there has been extremely worthwhile nonetheless.

The number one reason why I like entrecard and wholeheartedly recommend it for any new blogger is because it's the only community for bloggers I've found so far where I am forced to go look at other blogs. The educational value of my journeys around the community "dropping my card" and occasionally commenting at blogs of all shapes and sizes for the past couple of weeks has been worth it's weight in gold.

The traffic back to pArtY @ christinaswwworld has also been good, and there's a few from the EC community who have started to follow my posts and comment. There are also quite a few blogs I've found that I'm now following, and I look eagerly for new posts whenever I log in.

I've made badges for all of the ourwwworld team blogs that you can use as your card that you upload to entrecard. They are all in the sidebar of your blog. You can right click to get the url of your image when entrecard asks for it at sign-up.

Grace, I really think the folks at Entrecard will love what you are doing. Hope to see you (and other ourwwworld team members once you've got 5 quality posts) at entrecard soon. Keep up the great work!

100 EC CREDIT BONUS - I've been building up credits at entrecard so I can share them with the ourwwworld team. If you're a team member, then once you've signed up at entrecard, drop your card at my blog and I'll send you 100 Entrecard credits. That will let you get started advertising on EC member blogs right away.

Becoming sustainable bloggers

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:04:00 +0000

There are lots of folks out there who will tell you that they are earning thousands of dollars per month blogging. Many will sell you their secrets, but almost all of the people who are worth listening to will tell you that it didn't happen for them and it's not going to happen to you without work.

Blogging CAN earn some very ingenious people a lot of money within a very short time. For the vast majority of people like me and you who are struggling to keep up with the information overload, however, blogging is not going to earn significant amounts of money without an investment in learning time and energy in doing the groundwork it takes to put the components of a sustainable blog in place.

The good news is, if you're willing to learn how to do the work that sustainable bloggers do, your blog most certainly can develop into a rewarding hobby that not only pays for itself, but also pays you a salary for nurturing it that can increase over time.

There are four basic categories of blog-related work that any blogger concerned with sustainability must be prepared to get done in equal measures:

1. Produce content

2. Let audiences know your content is available

3. Identify, implement, test & manage revenue streams

4. Learn constantly about 1, 2, and 3 by interacting with other bloggers

As I delve into the blogosphere of late in search of knowledge about how it all works, my quest is to find ways that the ourwwworld team can collaborate effectively as a team, to help each other get the 4 main parts of the work involved in sustainable blogging done, and maximize the value of the scarce time we each have to spend online. Ever present in my mind are the language, time and cost constraints that our non-US team members face.

In future posts here, my plan is to offer knowledge, time-saving tips and collaborative ideas for each of the 4 categories of stuff that needs to be done to create blogs that increase in value over time. Though I will certainly share whatever I think I'm learning I honestly don't have all the answers for us by a longshot. I'm thinking about interviewing some guest bloggers who I believe will have some useful experience to share in helping us understand the work involved in all of these areas, and tips for getting it done efficiently. I'll also be pointing you in the direction of bloggers I am learning from in a number of different spheres.

Please let's use the comment space here at the ourwwworld blog to discuss (with each other and other bloggers who will hopefully pass by) the different strategy options available to us as we explore the path to sustainable blogging as a team.

Blog Action Day 2008: ourwwworld roundup

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:28:00 +0000

Awakening, by Grace Ayaa (East Africa)
"...When I look at Africa, most of its land is fertile and very good for any kind of agriculture , but there are the people who are going hungry and have to live on handouts. It puzzles me a lot. So I feel that the agricultural sector should be the most looked at area. lots and lots of food should be grown by a family to feed themselves and then the surplus sold ." full post

Darkness2Light, by Norbert Okec (East Africa)
"If a child in a poor nation gets infected with some disease but the parents, friends and neighbours are all convinced that the child is sick because he/she climbed a mango tree belonging to the local traditional healer/spirit medium.... and the poor child dies do we say that the child died because of the disease or because of lack of correct information?..." full post

In Search of Mindfulness, by Linda Nowakowski (S.E. Asia)
"...There is enough food in the world to feed every person. That is a distribution problem. If you look at the wealth in the world, I suspect that there is enough wealth in the world to eliminate poverty as well. It's a distribution problem." full post

Kireka Concerns, by Peter Ndelo (East Africa)
Remember I mentioned we're all learning to blog? Well, Peter posted his thoughts at the Blog Action Day website instead of on his blog :-) "poverty is lack of knowledge, ability, cooperation and spirit of helping each other to come out from this problem. No body wants to be poor but how can one come out of this?" You can see the full comment here, and as soon as Peter gets it moved to his blog I'll edit this bit and put a link here.

Shawnstudio, by Shawn Kelly (North America)
"...bottom-up strategies seem to me the only way to create real change, as it has now been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that top-down economics leads only to disaster. The battle is exponentially more difficult in Africa, where government corruption is the norm and enriching oneself at the expense of the citizens has been the prevailing leadership strategy for decades." full post

pArtY @ christinaswwworld, by Christina Jordan
"Please join me in welcoming the ourwwworld team officially to the blogosphere!" full post

Welcoming new global voices to the blogosphere

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:56:00 +0000

from http://christinaswwworld.com: It's Blog Action Day today - bloggers around the world are asked to post about poverty. I tend to write about poverty quite a bit anyway, so instead of trying to synthesize all of my thoughts on the subject into one post, I've been working on something a bit different today.... I've pulled some new voices from my world into the dialogue.

read more | digg story

Sustainable blogging, from and for Africa

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:17:00 +0000

Just in time for Blog Action Day 2008, we've redesigned the ourwwworld team blogs to have our say about poverty, and to start using our blogs to raise money for a poverty-related cause.

The ourwwworld team is a small global group of people who are learning to blog together. More than half of our team is blogging from East Africa, where poverty is rampant and the costs of blogging are very high. The ourwwworld team blogs are monetized with the double intention of raising money for Life in Africa - the cause that binds our team together - and sharing revenues with the bloggers to offset their costs. Ideally, we'll develop a way that can make it financially feasible for more people who are affected by poverty to participate actively in the online world, and possibly even some extra income.

As we begin on this blogging journey, the ourwwworld team revenue sharing plan is as follows:

Team revenues will be earned through adsense, the sale of electronic books related to sustainable living, and other jointly promoted income generating mechanisms to be introduced at a later date. All team funds raised though the end of December 2008 will be subject to the following split:

20% to the blogger who raised the funds
20% for the bloggers' monthly cash prize fund
20% for ourwwworld site administration & promotion
20% to Life in Africa USA for overhead and admin support
20% to Life in Africa USA for disbursal to community projects in Africa

(Donations made directly to Life in Africa and/or craft sales made through ourwwworld team blogs shall not be subject to the split above.)

In order to make this revenue sharing model meaningful, the ourwwworld team blogs will need broad exposure to audiences that will read, click, purchase and resonate with the social message that each of the blogs has to offer. This blog will explore promotional and cross-promotional techniques that others in the blogosphere are using to develop their audience, and post regular round-ups of content created by the team. Cash prize contests designed to encourage team members to cross-promote each other will be announced at the ourwwworld blog monthly. The first round of ourwwworld team promotion contests will be announced on 1 November 2008.

Until then, the focus is on content! Ourwwworld bloggers must make at least 4 new posts between 16 and 31 October in order to participate in the November contests.

Blog building communities: MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, Entrecard

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:23:00 +0000

Ourwwworld players, we'll be altering our game soon. Over the past week I've been exploring a number of communities for bloggers. I'm excited about what I see and would love for you to take a look

read more | digg story

COMMON THREAD: acai berry, arginmax, burundanga

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:15:00 +0000

Digg 1: Talk2Me: paul newman cancer update
Digg 2: State of California Warning: DO NOT Flush Pharmaceuticals

I see an interesting common thread in the number of natural nutritional supplements people are looking up today. At least people are looking for natural remedies, but the reasons we're seeking these remedies are disturbing. It's amazing to me how people today look for quick external fixes in every aspect of their lives.

First, there is the acai berry diet. The acai berry is known as an elixir that provides an antioxident and gives energy. A friend of my grandfathers swears by the virtues of monavie, which is a drink made from the acai berry. People who drink acai juice and eat the acai fruit extoll it's benefit to the joints. But now some folks are claiming, in what's very likely a scam, that acai in pill form can make you lose weight too. Can't we just be happy with what the acai berry does do, instead of trying to overclaim it's benefits?

And then there's arginmax, whose manufacturers claim that it helps improve sexual performance in both men and women. I wonder if people take this because their intimate lives are really ailing, or because they are - like so much of society - addicted to the idea of attaining "more." Either reason makes me sad.

By far the most disturbing natural "remedy" that's on people's fingertips today is burundanga, a drug made from the plant called either cacao sabanero or borrachero. In some parts of the world it is used to drug foreigners in order to rob them. In other parts of the world, recent reports of date-rapes, thefts, kidnapping and other crimes have been attributed to it. Frightening!

Ididn't know: laura bush killing a man in texas,

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:13:00 +0000

ayaaswwworld (east africa): I didn't know that almost everyone attached to the White House has to have some kind of background, if you look at laura bush killing a man in texas, this is not very far from the would be new president MCain's background

read more | digg story

I WONDER :xbox live update september 29,

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:02:00 +0000

ayaaswwworld (east africa): I WONDER if the 29th day has some kind of bad omen or is attached to some misfortune, look at what is taking place xbox live update september 29, stock market crash 1929, and this bailout rejected . As for the stock market issue, looks like the great depression is where we are heading to again. This is sending really very bad signal to the world.

read more | digg story

My Own Way: halloween costumes, master of disguise, goonies cast

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:04:00 +0000

grandmaswwworld: Halloween is coming and I intend to celebrate and enjoy it My Own Way. I remember when it was such a fun night. Trick or Treaters coming to the door in all kinds of costumes, passing out candy treats, and watching the clock for 10pm when I could turn off the lights and relax again.

read more | digg story

I Wonder: presidential polls after debate, face the nation

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:04:00 +0000

grandmaswwworld: I Wonder sometimes what our news media is thinking. We have a presidential election coming up, the economy is at an all time low, people are losing their homes and we are losing our soldiers on a daily basis in a war that we should not be in. And yet, I click on the news and the top stories are heather locklear arrested

read more | digg story

TALK2ME: roll call bailout vote, 1929 stock market crash

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:03:00 +0000

kellyswwworld: today, of course, everyone is talking about the economy, so TALK2ME: What happened this morning in the United States House of Representatives? How did my congressman vote in the roll call bailout vote, and why? Will we experience another 1929 stock market crash-type event?

read more | digg story

Talk2Me: paul newman cancer update

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:03:00 +0000

Talk2Me about why we who of a certain age (I refuse to say old) start becoming obsessed with illnesses and death when we should be enjoying living life instead. I checked the online news this morning and was greeted with the headline about the paul newman cancer update.

read more | digg story