A cyber-savvy Dostoevsky overtakes John Chow

There are John Chow, Joel Comms and others, but it seems that the story of Dmitry Davydov is totally unique. Having done just about anything but nothing to do with WWW, he launched his blogging experiment that finally paid off big time. Though his blog (davydov.blogspot.com) is in Russian, I read it with the aid of Google Translate, and reads like an optimistic, cyber-savvy Dostoevsky.

A treasure trove of WP templates makes me think of migrating

It has been months that this blog used a default theme, and had no logo. It has gotten to the point where I do double takes when seeing the blog on other computers, and I need to look closer at the blog title to understand that it is my own. I think may bloggers are in this situation. I have looked for a new theme allover the blogosphere for something picturesque while representative of the inventive and ingenious spirit that is the topic of my blog. I need a bright, orange-ish, tropical, neogeometry shape and sleek Euro design. I have looked all over the EC and the blogosphere in general, and found this theme it is fresh, and so inspiring with the chair that is so representative of furniture in patent (or law) offices' reception areas. On the same site I have found this theme that looks like a hint of my EC widget: Next thing I need to worry about is how to incorporate a theme like these into my blog. I have read that it is possible on Blogger through templates. The themes I found on a dedicated, wordpress templates site. If I were to move to WP I probably use them right away, since they have an on-the-site support service, easy-to-follow installation guide (there is always a glitch with my blog's global HTML settings), and the pertinent news, which all make the site feel up-to-date and live. Check it out if you are a Wordpress blogger.

Going viral: inside SocialSpark

My curiosity was peaked when I saw SocialSpark, a new social media marketing site, which had a real, portal-like, at-your-fingertips layout with status-and-data reports. What appeals to many in this site is the Spark, which I think is the last name of the site founder, and, furthermore, it serves to provide the spark of social activity that is ultimately translates into the traffic to one's blog.

Ina addition to the obvious menu choices like Browse Blogs, Browse Channels, there is a an interesting page that is underestimated, I think - the Marketplace. There are available opportunities for a Sponsored Post, a Sponsored Blog and Spark. The Spark is probably the most unique opportunity found in the blogosphere, since it does not involve any strict requirements for a post. All is needed is a clear post referring to the Spark originator, who often has the I Blog U Back button. This is a great opportunity for someone to generate backlinks and interaction.

Among what appears to be many sponsored content sites, SocialSpark is a livelier, more socially bubbly community, with blogging opportunities serving as the center for site activities.

A real help and an eye-candy is miniaturized member avatars used automatically instead of a dull list of one's friends, blog visitors, proppers (voters) and advertizers. I can easily check out new opportunities by scrolling the filmstrip-like horizontal list.


Thus I found that the procedure for joining has also been made easy through installing a short code into my blogs, and simply waiting for the blog to be verified and approved (rather speedily) by clicking a refresh button underneath each of my blogs' green checkmark bubbles. This is my blog list page, where I can also see my blogs' traffic and popular ratings, like Alexa, Real and PR. The burgundy button is the pathway to editing the blog description, keywords and categorization.

I found that the system of props, or votes, covers profiles as well as member's blogs. That means you can legitimately vote for a member and separately for the member's blog. That is what I call being analytical, or representative. On this Blog Profile visiting members can vote for the blog, see summaries of the posts, email, and view the traffic graphs as well as visitor demographics:

On my personal profile page a visitor can vote for me personally, see all my personal interests, keywords, and request to be my friend. All my friends, members who have me as a favorite, profile visitors, and my recent opportunity activities are all in one easy-to-see, clickable section.


To summarize, I have to say that the social sparking has worked, according to my blog traffic analysis, wherein all the profile- and blog-based viewing translated into curiosities that susbequently led to viral spikes of clicks and comments on my blogs.

I can proudly disclose this post as being sponsored and paid for by SocialSpark.

Web 3.0 - here?

On SocialSpark I found a blog that is beyond the social/blogosphere dimension. Sybil Amber has it all: the Entrecard avatars, radio/entertainment widgets, Google Desktop-like toolbar with loads of functions, and, in what people say is the essence of Web 3.0, an additional dimension to the content - a real, auto-peeling look into whatever else "behind" the landing page. That's a respectable and fitting place for PPP and Direct PPP - the $100 fee maybe justified.

Shvoong going PayPerPost!

I have been searching for ways of making money off blogs. I have tried ad networks. That experience turned into watching cents trickle in once every other day. I did invest time in promoting the blogs, especially this one, but, maybe having missed the blogging business boat several years ago, I could not achieve that elusive popularity going viral. It seems that any given (new) blog cannot stand on its own. It is not enough to propagate it through Web 2.0 social bookmarking sites. It must be exposed to a live, social media which is composed of other blogs.

And that’s how I stumbled upon PayPerPost.

I was having more fun with my blog than making money. I was actually reading Adsense ads on it, abiding by the rules of not clicking on them, I actually went directly to the URLs. One of the ads was from PayPerPost, and I was impressed what I found. Since then I took the ad network code off my blog, and hope to score more with PPP.

I found that PayPerPost has a huge blogger (postie) base, which should translate into what I like to call a viral potential. Graphics are a little bit to large and glaring, but still web-aesthetic, or neo-web. The Dashboard is a bit too busy, maybe justifiably so, since there are so many activities, site news and preferences to choose from. The back-end engineering works smoothly, as do cookies and HTML code. Things get accounted for and registered with pedantic precision. What I found attractive is the list of post writing opportunities that offer upfront payout. What an info management.

Another added benefit to PPP is its own forum, blogs and business features like direct blog-to-email function,( that for many might be a great answer to RSS), and all sorts of tools and codes. It looks like I have not fathomed all the possible services I can take advantage of on PPP. It is so inviting to use so many methods on PPP to socialize or watch PPP TV that instead I feel that I need to concentrate on my first posts. Blogosphere is huge, live and here to stay and, as they say, it's a shame not to monetize it.

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