Postcards from the Funny Farm

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So much can be said about the way our minds scientifically bend around electronic mail. Email is impersonal. It is interpreted largely by the receiver and is not determined by the intent of the writer. I know this from personal experience on both ends. I have written emails that people reacted defensively to and I have read emails that made me virtually paranoid! Most of this negative stuff is unnecessary and not intended, that’s why I try to email as little as possible. I prefer to call someone or visit them if I have something important to say. Words on the screen can be taken wrong … it happens every day. If you think people will “get” your email 100%, you are misled. You are better off talking about serious things in person. When you do email though, I recommend making it complimentary and terse. Even if you think you have the perfect novel to email someone, remember you are going to wait in limbo until you hear back … and that is often a lot longer than what is comfortable.

With no inflection of voice or hand gestures, emails fall short of face to face communication. If you have something to share with someone, bear in mind your point might be better made in a medium other than email. It has its place in human affairs but I think our world is only just beginning to understand it.

I’ve written about how online dating worked for my wife and I on here before. Today I want to expand on that and recommend an excellent resource for choosing an online dating service. That resource is a website called: PrimeDatingSites.com. It is not a dating service, but rather a collective of reviews on the top dating services out there. You can weigh the pros and cons of each and pick the one that works best for you in your search. Dating websites have become the latest fad these days and as a result, you can get ripped off quite easily if you’re not careful. This website does the awesome job of researching these top sites for you and letting you in on the “behind the scenes” knowledge that it might take the average dater months to figure out, not to mention, having to pay the fees only to find out it wasn’t a good “match” for you. Listen to what they say about their vision on the about page:

Our inspiration in creating this site was based on the adage, “life is what you make it.” This is not just a phrase in passing; it came from the recognition that all of life’s opportunities are out there waiting to be seized.

All the reviews are great and informative. Two that particularly stood out to me while reading were the reviews of Yahoo Personals (where Sarah and I met), and Matchmaker.com, due to it’s local nature. Like any service, you can pick the one that’s right for you.

As some of you know, I’ve begun writing sponsored posts in the past year. They are excellent for making a small bit of cash for writing a post. Ideally, every blog post could make one money but most people like to intersperse them and keep most their blogging unsponsored. If you decided to seek payment for your blogging, it is important to know good sources to get these money-making opportunities and I want to tell you about one today.

Mommy bloggers out there who may read my blog, this post is tailored to you! (but anyone who can write to a topic should try it) SocialSpark is the latest wing of IZEA (parent company to PayPerPost) and this new site can really help you earn some cash while blogging. I’m a schoolteacher and when I am at work I don’t always have the chance to sit down and write 50-300 words, which is the average required by most opps. Nonetheless, I try to schedule my home time with my kids, wife, etc. so I can put in at least an opp a day. In doing so, I am able to supplement my monthly online income of about $300. Now for rich folks, that may not sound like much but to people in my income bracket (60-100K) that is a healthy chunk of change that I can use to take my kids out for ice cream, buy toys, or take the wife on a date! Mommy bloggers, could you use 50-300 bucks a month? Some people out there in the “sphere” report making much more than that, but that is my figure: combined with some other sources I mention on my blog, that is a very realistic quote you could be making.

I went through all that to say that: I do not believe mommy bloggers have a lot of time on their hands BUT they do have access to a computer enough to blog. Hey … moms out there, seriously … could you blog a sponsored post a month? a week? a day? I think you could and SocialSpark wants you to know they are right around the corner.

One of my favorite songs is the Beatles: “Let it Be.”

When I find myself in times of trouble …
Speaking words of wisdom let it be.

We live in the most “multi-tasking” and multi-demanding society in history. The human mind wasn’t created and hasn’t evolved to handle all the stress and demands in a given day. Give yourself that reminder when you miss a deadline or forget to do something. That feeling when you ears feel hot from your sudden blood pressure rising, just remember that is a normal reaction to an overly complicated and fast paced world. Remember the stuff you did accomplish, chances are those outnumber the failures. The wealthy man goes out and buys a condo hotel, the moderately wealthy rents one, and the poor try to reach peace some other way. In the final analysis however, all walks of man can cope with stress the same way: by setting priorities in direction of goals. Here’s how:

If something in front of you is causing you stress, put it over to the “sidebar.” How many people actually read sidebars when they visit blogs? All those widgets in mine could represent the stuff I don’t find as the most pressing needs. The worries in your life can sit over in your “life sidebar” until you have to address them. I am not talking about procrastination, while they are there you can think about them, even takes steps toward dealing with them. ou should not, however, let them stress you out when you have plenty of stuff you need to address on the front page of your life. Pretty soon, the main page will be archives … the sidebar won’t go anywhere and neither will those far off pressing worries of your life! Question for you: When the heat is on and you are stressing, are you able to put it all aside?

Quick announcement folks: I’ve started a weekly newsletter where you’ll get all the posts of a week delivered to your email and you set the options. I think this is a great read once a week, see what you think!

-Damien

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It was a fairly slow month but I learned a lot. I think February will be a lot better. Just the same, I am being realistic with my goals.Postcards from the Funny Farm
Weblog Analytics January 2008

1,877 Visits: Goal achieved.
61 Visits/Day: avg. Goal missed by 19 :(

Feb Goals:

2,000 Visits
70 Visits/Day avg.

Top Referring Sites (Thank you!)

Social Networks:
1. bumpzee.com
2. stumbleupon.com
3. Wordpress.org
4. blogcatalog.com
5. 9rules.com

Peer/Other:
1. liveslessordinary.wordpress.com
2. lorelle.wordpress.com
3. livetardy.com

Web Publishing:
1. blogcritics.org

Monetization Stats for January 2008

Ads:
Adsense $1.64
Other $0

Pay to Blog:
PayPerPost $50
LoudLaunch $20

Total earnings for January: $71.64

Monetization Goals for February 2008:

Ads:
Adsense $5
Other $5

Pay to Blog:
PayPerPost $30
LoudLaunch $20
Smorty $ 5

Total Feb earnings goal: $65

How are you making money on your blog?

It’s my daughter’s 3rd birthday today. We’re heading out the door for Chuck-e-Cheese then my parents are taking s out tonight. My camera is changed and will be quite busy today. Stay tuned for the online diary photoblog to come this everning. Hoep everyone is well, sorry I didn’t post much I figured out how to make Sandbox skins and I went to another place, it was so exciting.  I made my 2nd theme this month, a Sandbox skin, “Messy-Matthew”yesterday and I am really jazzed on it.  Eventually I will will clean up the code and make it public.

Google Vilifies PayPerPost and PayPerPost Fights Back

By now you may have heard about what Google did in attempt to destroy a small startup company, PayPerPost. The story goes like this:

Google invented PageRank. They set the secret criteria websites are assigned a rank from that called “Page Rank.”

When PayPerPost came on the scene, they paid bloggers to write posts on given topics. As with any open platform on the web, some abused it and wrote short meaningless posts that met the criteria of the job but were basiclly just filler posts with no new content. Having said that, there is still the large potenial for PayPerPost posts to be even more effective sources of info on the web (which I THINK Google would see as a good thing.) That’s why I was was shocked to find out that Google becaise a couple months ago stripping every blog with PayPerPosts on it to a zero page rank.

Now the big irony: To get the decent paying jobs on PayPerPost, you mch have a high Page Rank. Google not only sent all blog with PayPerPost to the bottom of the snake-pool but they alsocut off the life dollars of “posties,” as they are called who were once making $500/month writing quality articles.

Google is protecting its interests just like Microsoft tried to do by making Netscape incompatible with its software. Google is going to find that spam sites and services are much more prevalent that PayPerPost writers. Many I have spoken to are fed up with worry what Adolf-Google will find immoral so they are doing PayPerPost when it sounds interesting. I’m in this camp. If I get a great idea from PPP idea, I am going to write and link it . If Google think that make my writing spam, they can sit on their thumb and spin. I predict: Google will change or start falling in the next 5 years. They will not be the best company with tactics like these.