Others have had similar issues:

• Canny Granny has had the same graphic upload error message.
• Shelley Powers relates in Wordpress 2.5 releases that she too copped abuse for trying to raise some fairly basic web standards compliance issues.
• Les can’t justify the widget placement design decision, and neither can I.
• Alekz has experienced the same TinyMCE blank popup bug as I, and has documented four other cases of it apart from his and mine.

Speaking to friends at dinner last night (both highly experienced web technology users) there was a lot of surprise at the severity of the design and coding errors.

Sephyroth says WordPress 2.5 - Not coming here soon - he’s looked at the security model and will not upgrade.

So… there is some pain out there without a lot of acknowledgment. Ever on the lookout for new blog ideas, I browsed potential WordPress hate site names. Some of the good ones are taken:

But there are others available - most of them involve some variant of the F word, so I am not touching them But there does need to be a record somewhere that this once-great blogging platform has started to go down the tubes owing to zero acknowledgment of issues - stay tuned for more details.

In On Polyblogging I discussed the advantages of running multiple blogs (and the drawbacks).

My Flagship Blog Project entry for February 2008 is, accordingly, Polyblogging.com - Tips for Managing Multiple Blogs.
I’ve used the Mimbo theme - slightly modified in the same way as I did for On Blogging Australia.

There is not much there yet - it might take a while to start to be useful. I am going to add a few more posts before the end of the month prior to marketing the new blog.

Wish me luck

First step - the definitional adventure
The talk on the forum got me thinking about what the cool kids called someone who runs multiple blogs (apart from “nuts!”)

I thought initially that this might be called polyblogging (as opposed to blogging on a single blog, which might be called monoblogging to match). So I googled on “polyblogging” and got results that inferred the following alternative definitions - that polyblogging is:

• writing on multiple blogs,
• writing on multiple topics within the one blog, or
• blogging about polyamory.

Of these, I favour the first - and when I think about it, this is mainly because it fits my own preconceived ideas of what polyblogging might be. I don’t begrudge anyone any other use of the term. I just felt the need for a term that encompasses blogging on multiple blogs.

Let’s pretend for now that it means what I want it to mean
…and run with that one for now.

You may be wondering why anyone in their right mind would try to keep up with multiple blogs when most people hardly manage one. Good question. Let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of writing for multiple blogs.

Advantages of polyblogging
The advantages - to me at least - are:

• Multiple niche blogging: When I feel the need to write on information architecture, I can write for HumaneIA. When I come across a recipe that I like, I can put it on Faux Cuisine. If I want to write on metablogging (that is, blogging about blogging), then I can put it here on Facibus On Blogging or over at On Blogging Australia. Each of these blogs has a niche, and by keeping multiple blogs I can write content that will be posted amongst similarly appealing material - and this helps increase page views for first-time and serendipitous visitors.
• One person blog network: By writing for multiple blogs, I can reframe material from one and make it suitable for another. Events and news in one niche help to inform the others, with legitimate and frequent cross-linking. With the best of intentions in the world to share the link love, and making an effort to read widely, I’m still more likely to remember my own writing (and link to it). This is great for inbound links (but there is a potential downside listed below).

Disadvantages of polyblogging
There are also several downsides to writing for more than one blog. Again, speaking from personal experience they are:

• Split attention: There are only so many hours in the day, and with a heavy consulting workload, I find it hard to write more than a couple of posts a day. This has to be spread over the dozen-or-so possible blogs that they could go on (that is, blogs that I own that are even semi-regular recipients of fresh material).
• Organisational overhead: Organising posting schedules, regular research (such as email newsletters, RSS feeds and books) in multiple niches, contributing to multiple forums - all takes time and brainspace that may be in fairly short supply.
• System overhead: When Wordpress releases a new version, believe me, I know about it Keeping up with the latest plugins also takes time - there is a minimum necessary administrative overhead for any Wordpress blog - multiply that by several blogs and it soon adds up.
• Cost: Even though I’ve polyblogged on the cheap (having a hosting plan that allows multiple domains and buying them from myself via my Godaddy.com reseller account) it still adds up.
• Reduction in sharing that link love: I mentioned this as an advantage above, but it is also a disadvantage. I have to guard against being my own echo chamber, and linking to my own stuff at the exclusion of deserving others.

Monoblogging vs Polyblogging: is there a right answer?
No.

There may be a right answer for you at this stage of your blogging career - for me, I write for multiple blogs because I enjoy it, regardless of how sensible it is or otherwise.

Your mileage may vary, depending on the range of your interests and your available time (not to mention your ability to organisation and self-motivation).

How about you?
How many blogs do you write for? Are you a monoblogger or a polyblogger? Can you think of any advantages or disadvantages I’ve missed?

I can’t answer your exact questions because like you my blog does not have advertising, but since I work in online advertising I can give you a view of the industry.

Online advertising is really geared towards the advertiser, they are the big winners here. The publishers (ie you) really lose out in monetary terms. Most advertising for blogs and small publishers work on a pay per click or CPC basis. This is because whilst a large number of viewers will see the ad, a very small number will click on them - the industry standard is 0.05%. Therefore, for roughly 5 million impressions, there will be about 3,500 clicks. The advertiser still gets eyes on their ads, but don’t have to pay out as much as they would if they were paying per thousand impressions (CPM).

The industry is now moving towards paying per sale or CPA. This means you (the publisher) does not get paid unless someone who clicks on the ad shown on your site goes ahead and either makes a sale, signs up for a credit card or registers an expression of interest.

Back to my example, an ad which will register 5 million impressions and 3,500 clicks will only register about 50 acquisitions (sales, signups etc). The advertiser will only pay the publisher for those 50 sales.

It is a very poor way to make money especially for a blog that has a small readership. The big blogs do make some money from it because they are generating tens of thousands if not millions of views per day.

For those of us who are not A list bloggers, we might earn just enough to cover hosting costs and that’s about it.

Wow.

So , the question arises: is there money in advertising for we prebloggers (would-be probloggers who haven’t quite made it yet)? If you search technorati on advertising on blogs you’ll get more than 33,000 results - it is a popular topic. What follows is not a comprehensive guide to advertising for bloggers - but it does look at some of the alternatives.

Isn’t Google Adsense wonderful?
Possibly not. A lot of people dislike CPC (cost per click) advertising programs. While Google Adsense does do CPM (cost per thousand pageviews) advertising, their main claim to fame is virtually cornering the CPC market. But the public’s love affair with Google is slowly dying - they have screwed over non-US/Canadian/Japanese referrers and some people have left Google behind altogether.

The CPA (cost per sale) or affiliate advertising run by the likes of Commission Junction is worth trying for bloggers in some niches. I’ve looked at Commission Junction in the past and found it to be fairly US/UK centric - I do have some US/UK readers but the majority are Australian, and targeting ads to overseas suppliers is not ideal. There is a local variant - Commission Monster has an Australian program. I can’t recommend them personally - their application form doesn’t acknowledge the State/Territory I live in (ACT) and it took them 5 days to respond to an enquiry about the application process the first time. I put in my application a week and a half ago and I’m not confident of any response.

So, if Adsense and other centralised CPC/CPM/CPA advertising doesn’t really work for us, what does?
Leo Babauta from ZenHabits credits concentrating on advertising as one of the factors that allowed him to go pro. He manages his own ads directly and will sell you a 125×125 ad at the moment at $1 per CPM (thousand impressions) - see his ad page for details. Selling ads at a fixed rate per CPM is good value for Leo - he gets paid whether the advertiser gets a clickthrough or not, makes a sale or not. Applying Riayn’s hypothetical 5,000,000 pageviews a year to Leo’s blog at the stated rate would give him $20,000.00 from that source alone (multiplying 5,000,000 pageviews at $1.00 per thousand views by the four 125×125 ads on Leo’s blog) . This is definitely into small/home business territory.

Just on “advertise with us” pages - it is interesting to compare the advertise with us page at Problogger with Leo’s - Darren’s discusses the benefits of advertising with him (which look great, he has an astonishing readership) but no figures. There is also a thread devoted to advertise with us pages on the Aussie Bloggers Forum.

So what do we mere mortals with sub-four-figure-per-day readerships do?
Swollen Pickles recently discussed Scratchback Top Spots on the Aussie Bloggers Forum. Scratchback Top Spots is a do it yourself sidebar link ad widget - basically, people pay a small amount to be on the list, and as you get more money from other people the original ones move off. You can see it in action on Swollen Pickles’ blog.

Those of us who don’t believe that Google is Satan can pretend that we’re pros by having Adsense ads. While it doesn’t make much money, the ads are there. I can see where Darren Rowse and other big names are coming from when they bag Google (because it is costing them real money) - for me, a few cents here and there don’t mean a lot.

And while it isn’t about the money, there is always Entrecard. Entrecard has given amateur blog promoters like myself a hobby - and if nothing else, it has widened my readership over at On Blogging Australia.

The Answer
I’m not sure that there is a definitive answer to this one even for me alone. I run ads because it amuses me rather than any great income earning potential. There have been times when I could have used the money in recent months. If I was getting thousands of pageviews a day I would take a more active interest in which was the best deal for my particular circumstances (niche/target audience location/my location/my readership size).  Until then, I will continue to play.

But January is well and truly upon us, so I’ve been working on the next blog in the series - and it relates back to the Get A Real Blog series I wrote here. At the time, I grabbed the getarealblog.com domain name - what better way to distribute an ebook on blogging than through a blog?

So, ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce the birth of the Get A Real Blog ebook and the accompanying blog.

The blog is going to be about the ebook project as it progresses, so it will likely be fairly low-traffic and not in need of a content strategy as such. I admit that this is a bit slack  The time this saves will allow me to work on some more pillar content for Intrapreneur Blog.

As a goal for this whole 12-month project, I would like to have eight of the twelve project blogs in the Australian Top 100 Blogs Index. I may not make it, but this is a worthy thing to aim for.

You may find that social voting sites like The Blog Link and Bloggerati can help to expand your blog readership.How will sites like The Blog Link help my blog?
There are a couple of ways that sites like The Blog Link can help your blog:

• providing one more place to leave a posting URL: inbound links make the blogging world go round - and quality links to specific postings are worth more than those from blogroll-type indexes.
• exposing you to new postings and thence new ideas: serendipitous discovery is important

I wanted The Blog Link to be a Digg by bloggers for bloggers - the categories are blog-specific - because I am sick of trying to decide if metablogging should be categorised as business or computers and internet (and let me know if you want more categories added, please).

How do I use The Blog Link?
You can browse through stories/blog postings on The Blog Link without registering - but if you want to add a story or vote on others, you have to register.

Once registered, you can:

• add stories (blog postings) to the list for other BlogLinkers to vote on (it takes two votes to make it to the front page - this helps prevent spammers using The Blog Link). Feel free to add your own stories - I will check them out and vote them up or down (and others will do the same).
• vote on other people’s stories - this is an important part of what makes sites like The Blog Link tick - you decide what you think is worth reading and vote for it. You can also vote down a story by clicking on bury if you really don’t like it.

Adding stories is easy - just click on the Submit a new story link, add the URL of the posting you want to submit, and fill in the details on the second screen:

There is a third screen that asks you to confirm all the details, and you’re done.

Once submitted, stories show up in the Upcoming news page until they have a second vote - this pushes them to the main page.
Can I set something up like The Blog Link myself?
Sure There are a lot of voting sites out there - some are shown at PliggSites.com. I used Pligg because it seemed the easiest option and I’ve seen it work well for Laurel at Bloggerati.

Anyhow, to set this in motion, you’ll need a hosting plan that supports php and mysql. Then just:

1. download the Pligg platform,
2. unzip it,
3. upload it to your hosting provider,
4. install it, and
5. configure.

It is not rocket science, but if you get stuck, leave me a comment and I’ll try and help you get through it.

If I use my own name for the new site, do I need to keep my other identity completely separate from that in order to maintain a professional appearance, or do I need to be open about what I do in order to show my commitment to blogging?

While this partially comes back to the different personas for different blogs thing, there is a deeper issue: how much of ourselves should we disclose in order to show commitment to our readers?

A few questions
First up, I have a few questions that will lead to the larger answer:

• Is showing commitment necessary to be a successful blogger?
• Does disclosure show commitment?
• Are there any other factors that influence the desirability of disclosure in blogging?

Is showing commitment necessary to be a successful blogger?
I think that the commitment type and level depends on your blog. Discussing musers vs reporters, Glen Stansberry wrote:

Musers- Musers like to take information and extrapolate. Or abstract ideas. Or nothing related at all. But that’s ok… their readers know and expect this whimsical style from the writer. (Think Kottke, SvN, Seth Godin.)

Reporters- Information junkies that think structurally. Information is currency, and these bloggers are stinking rich. (With information, that is.) Reporters typically don’t deviate too much from the facts, and like to be the first to spread the word. And boy are they regular. They’re like prune juice of the blogosphere. (Think Techcrunch, Micropersuasion, GigaOM.)

My guess is that readers of reporting blogs want accuracy and currency - that is, they want what they want when they want it. Commitment is shown by the reporter/blogger by providing timely accurate information.

Musers - people who interpret and reframe the world around them - are more likely to have an ongoing two-way conversation with their readers. If this holds, Muser commitment is shown by entering into and maintaining this conversational relationship. Given that most people seek relationships to fulfil a need to belong, I believe that showing commitment is important to Muser-bloggers also.

Does disclosure show commitment?
My guess is that reporter blog readers are only vaguely curious about the reporter’s personal life - that is, anything that might get in the way of the transfer of that timely and accurate information.

Musers, on the other hand, interpret the world through their own unique lens - and a little disclosure goes a long way toward appearing more human.

Are there any other factors that influence the desirability of disclosure in blogging?
I can think of a few:

• where disclosure is out-of-niche - for example, if you’re running a bargain reporting blog, then an ode to your well loved but now sadly departed pet cat may surprise your readers.
• where disclosure leads to social ostracism - for example, if you are going to come out of the closet as a latex fetishist, it may get in the way of your professional life if you work in an area where alternative lifestyles are not the norm. I’m of the opinion that whatever goes on between two or more consenting adults should never be a factor in working life, but others are not so broad-minded.
• where any kind of exposure is undesirable - for example, if you are in the scam-baiting business or any other field of human endevour where people may wish to harm you, giving clues to where you live could be hazardous to your health.

My vertict is…
…that if you’re a Muser, then at least some disclosure is a good thing, so long as you keep in mind the consequences of your writing. My advice is that whatever you do chose to disclose, keep it consistent throughout the life of your blog, because people have a long memory for touching personal details (so you don’t want to disappoint your longterm readers) and once something is disclosed, it is hard to cover it up again.

I keep running into a problem recently. I go to join some social networking platform or advertising/linksharing network and they ask me for a category for my blog or blog post. It is getting beyond a joke. In the last week I’ve run into this problem with Commission Monster and Entrecard, and previously with BlogRush and Digg.

Categorisation is not rocket science - it is something that I do fairly often in my own consulting work day - and there are some fairly well established principles for creating a categorisation scheme that works for just about everybody.

Technorati records 1,323 uses of the term “metablogging” and Google records approximately 139,000. It isn’t going away.

So this is my plea, to owners of ad programs and social networking platforms everywhere - get someone who knows what they are doing to create a categorisation scheme that suits your audience.

Any link is acceptable to the reader provided it is relevant in context and adds clear value.

OK, so I didn’t invent this - other folks have been saying similar things for years about web links in general - but the title sounds cool

“Relevant in context” means that it makes sense - the linked material is directly related to the whole post in general, and the particular point suggested by the linked text. There are no unmet expectations or surprises. “adds clear value” means that the link is not there for the sake of the link but actually adds value to the reading experience. This applies equally to blogrolls, links within posts, and links within social linksharing applications.

What do you think?

So what is the Aussie Bloggers Forum about? Here is what the front page says:

Aussies, and bloggers, can be really nice people Put the two together and you have the potential for a wonderful community.

At Aussie Bloggers, we are passionate about blogging and helping other Aussies do the same. But you don’t have to be an Aussie to join the forums, all nationalities are welcome here. If you are interested in blogging at all then join us in the forums today.

Unlike other forums out there on the web, questions are welcome and you will find lots of friendly Aussies willing to help. Helping out mates is part of the Aussie way, after all.

One aim we have for this forum is to gather a range of Aussie bloggers who have skills over different blogging platforms and social media sites to help provide information and advice to other Aussies who are not as experienced.

Let’s face it, the blogosphere is a really big place! We’ve enjoyed connecting with other Aussie bloggers and the friendships we’ve formed. We hope these forums will make meeting other Aussie bloggers much easier.

We want this to be a happy, helpful place where advice and networking occurs in an non threatening and collaborative environment. Nastiness won’t be tolerated.

If you are a ridgy didge, fair dinkum, true blue, dinky die Aussie who is already blogging, or thinking about it - then you’ve found the right place.

I encourage you to register today - it is free, fun, and a great way of sharing what you know about blogging and life in general.

If you need more convincing, watch the slideshow.