Alright it’s upgrade time.

WordPress v2.8.1 has been rolled out with the below changes:

WordPress 2.8.1 fixes many bugs and tightens security for plugin administration pages. Core Security Technologies notified us that admin pages added by certain plugins could be viewed by unprivileged users, resulting in information being leaked. Not all plugins are vulnerable to this problem, but we advise upgrading to 2.8.1 to be safe.

• Certain themes were calling get_categories() in such a way that it would fail in 2.8. 2.8.1 works around this so these themes won’t have to change.
• Dashboard memory usage is reduced. Some people were running out of memory when loading the dashboard, resulting in an incomplete page.
• The automatic upgrade no longer accidentally deletes files when cleaning up from a failed upgrade.
• A problem where the rich text editor wasn’t being loaded due to compression issues has been worked around.
• Extra security has been put in place to better protect you from plugins that do not do explicit permission checks.
• Translation of role names fixed.
• wp_page_menu() defaults to sorting by the user specified menu order rather than the page title.
• Upload error messages are now correctly reported.
• Autosave error experienced by some IE users is fixed.
• Styling glitch in the plugin editor fixed.
• SSH2 filesystem requirements updated.
• Switched back to curl as the default transport.
• Updated the translation library to avoid a problem with mbstring.func_overload.
• Stricter inline style sanitization.
• Stricter menu security.
• Disabled code highlighting due to browser incompatibilities.
• RTL layout fixes.

Post from: Sha Money Maker

WordPress v2.8.1

The figure will be more than four times of that in 2014, peaking at $3.1 billion.

This result was from a five year study by Forrester Research.

Basically that means it’s good news for us publishers and bad news for offline advertiser, as we’re seeing a shift of advertising money to the web.

But the figure is still dwarf to search $31.6 billon or display $16.9 billon advertising spending.

Still social media marketing is set to overtake both email and mobile channel.

If you want to know more, click on the provided link above to read a more in-depth analysis of the study.

Overall positive news in my opinion, if you’re in the marketing niche, stay in the game for the long-haul, you’ll reap rewards as time goes by. Don’t quit!

Post from: Sha Money Maker

Social media marketing to rise 3.1 billion in 2014

Watch out license forum scripts, bbPress might just give you a run for your money.

Yup such a bold statement from me, but bbPress which is the forum version of the popular WordPress CMS, is gaining grounds in popularity in usage.

I myself was about to buy a licensed vBulletin forum script which will cost me $180 smackaroos, but I’ll try this free forum by bbPress first.

bbPress has just released their latest v1.0, features which includes:

• Fast and light
• Simple interface similar to WP
• Customizable templates
• Highly extensible plugins
• Spam protection
• RSS Feeds
• Easy integration with your blog

Post from: Sha Money Maker

bbPress

Want to buy my blog?

Check out this cool online tool to estimate your blog’s worth.

http://www.webvaluer.org

Well I checked mine, and it came out as $38,526!

Not bad … so I decided to compare with other Asian top bloggers.

As you can see my blog value dwarfs in comparison with these A+ bloggers below.

1. hongkiat.com $1.10 Million
2. paultan.org $654,283
3. xiaxue.blogspot.com $382,383
4. kennysia.com $276,058
5. ping.sg $275,590
6. adesblog.com $154,453
7. whoisandrewwee.com $135,040
8. sabahan.com $84,535
9. sabrina.sg $65,710
10. 5xmom.com $57,259
11. kuanhoong.com $52,726
12. dawnyang.com $39,737
13. fadzuli.com $4,344

I think such tool will always be in demand as it feeds our own ego eh.

It’s a great linkbaiting tool. Put on some generated code to link-back to your site, and you got instant backlinks in the thousands!

An oh ya, anyone wants to buy my blog, hehe …

Post from: Sha Money Maker

My blog is worth $38,000 dollar

Search Engine Optimization process implemented by USA Web Solutions to achieve page 1 rankings for clients.

I myself am using the techniques above, and have successfully achieved number one page for my targeted keyword.

So I know what I’m talking about, so basically …

1. Keyword Tool

3. Backlinks

So have you optimized your blog?

Post from: Sha Money Maker

Optimize your blog

The 4-Hour Workweek famous author recently presented at WordCamp, this 50 minute video is insightful.

You should watch this if you’ve the time, but it’s recommended :)

Post from: Sha Money Maker

Tim Ferriss’s “How to Build a High Traffic Blog without Killing Yourself”

Google Mobile Search

Google is already dominating in every field there is online, and the mobile search market is one of them.

To make it even better, the Google team has made improvement to their mobile search.

It is reported accessing the search engine is much easier and faster now for mobile users.

Handsets in 60 countries and 38 languages in particular iPhones and Android-powered devices will get to see the tweaked search results pages.

They have spent recent months looking to expand this format to people with other handsets in different parts of the world.

Google was quoted, “Whether you have a smartphone or a feature phone, if you have mobile Internet access you can get the new mobile-optimized Google Search results pages on your phone just about anywhere in the world. Just go to Google.com in your browser and do a search.”.

Mobile search market is a promising niche as the mobile advertising is set to climb from last year’s $20 million, to $1.3 billion advertising pie-money in less then 4 years time.

So publishers, are your blog mobile-ad ready?

Post from: Sha Money Maker

Google Mobile Search gets a makeover

Matt Cutts and Wysz pull back the curtain and take you behind the scenes of creating a video for Webmaster Central.

Keep up the good stuff dudes!

Post from: Sha Money Maker

Behind the scenes of Google’s Webmaster Central

Top 100 'Make money online' blogs

Well it took awhile but I finally broke into the Top 100 once again of Digital Product Reporter’s Make Money Online blog rankings.

Previously I was ranked higher based on my high Alexa and PageRank rankings.

But since Alexa changed its algorithm and PageRank doing their rounds of penalising blogs, I got demoted down the slippery roads of the rankings.

I didn’t falter and give up of course, so I focused on getting more backlinks. Not directly, but just generating content consistently, and hoping other sites will pick it up and link back to me.

It worked, and for my current ranking, my Technorati is pretty alright in that position.

Also I reckon I’m the Top 3 or 4 Singapore blogger in the ‘make money online’ niche in the rankings, so I’m quite content with that.

Well as they say, after being in the dumps, the only way is up.

Post from: Sha Money Maker

Finally broke Top 100 “Make Money Online” blogs

Google says STOP with the misuse of their Local Directory

Google Local Directory is being exploited and misused, so Google is getting tough against abusers and implement more control and policy over the service.

First there was the tightening of its quality requirements for listings on the Google Maps, (Google’s Local Business Listing Center).

But people then started to use stealth techniques to feature keywords in their listings.

So Google implemented more stringent guidelines in filling out individual text fields on their applications.

Whereby, listings not compliant with these new guidelines are automatically removed from the local listings.

The above measures are to prevent people using tricks to get high rankings on their local business listings.

And now for Google Maps users, Google requires that all new gmail accounts, not coming from a non-gmail email account, must be verified by SMS sent to a mobile phone.

Well all I can say to bad for those without handsets.

I myself tried to do some listings at Google Local Directory as an experiment, and to my findings, my listings was flagged at every attempt.

It wasn’t this hard as it was previously. So I reckon it’s all good. Only legit businesses and entity will be listed appropriately eh.

Post from: Sha Money Maker

Google implements tougher policy on Google Local Directory