The Business of Blogging

Bit of a pipe dream really. Money can be made from Blogging, some make a lot of money. But most don’t.

On that day more than 500,000 people hit my site—by far the biggest day I’d ever had—and through Google’s AdSense program I earned about a hundred bucks.

That’s not very inspiring. I seriously figured more people clicked on ads. I don’t click on ads, in fact I’ve managed to stick them in my blind spot on most sites I visit, so I guess I can’t assume everyone else does.

It would be great to be able to make money directly from blogging, but realistically, the only main value that can come from a blog is to be able to sell yourself as a writer/designer/developer or someone competent in your professional field. When it boils down to it, this value should be worth more to you than ad revenue. Building relationship with your readers, and converting them into paying clients should be the goal of a professional blogger. In fact a personal (?) bloggers goal should be to build relationships too.

One month I made €4.36 in google ads, and I was stoked. Still haven’t reached the €100 mark after almost 5 years writing BahFlafBurb, so have yet to actually get money (Major party when that cheque comes!!). I guess I’ll just have to put up with the enjoyment of having an outlet and some reliable readers and commenters.

My tip? Like other networking platforms, focus on quality content that sells you as a person/professional.

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2 Videos came out and 1 made it out at the end of the week.

read more | digg story

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The "I’m lost while driving, and just need to turn around, but theres a car following too closely so I can’t just pull in" theory

I told this theory to Blackie last Friday night on the way to a party.

1. You’re driving along (usually) a thin rural road

2. You miss your turn into a housing estate or house or whatever.

3. You decide you need to do a really shitty turnabout that takes ages and would piss off anyone who driving behind you, in fact if you tried it they might think you’re just pulling in and try pass you out, but its too thin a road. So they’re frustrated sitting while you try and turn while waving and awkwardly smiling.

4. But you’re Irish, so you don’t want to piss them off, and just keep driving.

5. You take a random left. They’re still behind you.

6. You take a random right turn. They’re still behind you. Fuck sake!

7. Eventually you take a turn they THEY DON’T. Woot! But now…

8. You’ve taken so many random turns you can’t remember the way back, and you’re stuck in a world of random rights. FOREVER.

Number 8 is a tiny teeny bit not in any way real, but it scared the shit out of you didn’t it. Yeah, thought so. Dick.

Oh yeah, and after I told Blackie about it, we experienced it first hand, about 10 minutes later, because we didn’t really know where the party was. Hilarious!

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Software is not about code

Note: This post has been in draft since October 2006. But my views have changed very little, which is nice. My grammar has changed though, so I’ve made a few adjustments to reflect that.

There are many programmers/software developers out there who take a requirements spec, design what the spec says, and deliver the product which is what the client wants, right?

Software is for people, the people who use it. Not the people who wrote the spec. It is vital to understand the original business need rather than the software need. In most cases a non technical committee wrote this spec, and from that you can be sure that it is bloated, likely with after thoughts. It doesn’t take much time to ask for more, but it takes more time to create it and even more time than that to avoid it when using it.

Spend time with the user. Don’t ask them what they want, but observe and try to understand what they need. If you spend time with the customer/end user of the software, you will quickly realise that the core business need is much simpler than the spec your recieved.

I work as an software consultant in an IT Outsourcing company, based in Dublin. Software development is not one of the companies core markets, but we do have a need for small systems to help with our business processes.

When I recieve a spec, I read it once, then head to the person who needs the application. I spend time with them, watching their work, and what they do daily. I ask them their expectations for the system, and tell them my ideas. I know this is not ideal when a spec is from an external client, but if it can be built into the requirements building process, this can work to the advantage of all parties involved, ultimately to the end users satisfaction.

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Who is twitter for?

I have been using twitter. Who hasn’t. But I don’t think I’ve been using it as much as other people.

I’m asking who is twitter for, rather than what is it for. I know whats it’s for, but I’m finding it difficult to see where the value is. If I am looking for a Taxi and 1 taxi comes along, then I am satisfied. If 20 taxis come along, I was still only looking for 1 so, the other 19 are wasted on me.

I read twitter at most once a day, and I would like to see 1 page of updates from a people I find interesting on the web. Instead I get to see half of a conversation with someone I don’t know and 15 updates from 1 person about how they got on the bus, off the bus, in the door, kettle is on, that was a lovely cup of tea, etc.

I don’t even think I would be able to update as much as some if I tried, because I work for a living, and spend time doing things for people who pay me. Is twitter about networking or is it just another excuse to cry out for attention. It’s bad enough that your changing your Facebook profile photo twice a day, and hating on original youtube clips. Who are you people? Live an offline life please.

Quality, not quantity. Please.

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Blacknight Hosting

I signed up to Blacknight hosting last month. I’ve been moving my personal sites across from Register365 with the view of moving some client sites soon. It’s been a great experience so far.

I get replies from support, not just replies, but replies that seem to be from an intelligent person whos primary goal is to help me resolve the problem I contacted them about. Its a strange feeling, something I’m not completely used to yet.

The control panel is fantastic. Really well structured, easy to use, very responsive and the range of applications (wordpress, cms, commerce, etc) available to install on my sites is also handy, which have regular version updates and a specific area for pushing updates to existing applications.

I moved to Blacknight because I was frustrated with the support, quality of service and uptime (or lack there of). Luke has been counting the amounts of times all our sites were unavailable and the number is around 5 times since november 2008, each averaging 3 hours. Not acceptable.

I even was getting support from some of the guys in blacknight before moving who gave me a discount code through twitter after I hinted on moving to them from R365. Talk about finger on the pulse. They’re impressing me so far.

If you’re in the market (or not in my case), and you want to support a great Irish company, get on it.

Posted in hosting, luke, twitter | 1 Comment

Can I eat hambugers?

Brian: this pork sausage crisis is awful
Brian McCartan: Having a ‘mare
Tomas: yes. i think i might die.
Brian: but do you know what the wurst thing about it is?
Tomas: :)
maybe we’ll watch what we eat, and stop eating like pigs the whole time…
Brian: hahah
Tomas: the government have made a sHAMbles of it tho.
Sent at 2:58 PM on Monday
Brian: yesssssss :-D
Tomas: i see what you did there
Sent at 3:02 PM on Monday

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Need for a change of ‘tude

I am tired. Really tired. All the time.

For about 2 months, I’ve been up and down (it’s ups and downs). Work is going well, I’m learning a lot and doing a lot. I think that’s the problem. I’ve never produced as much stuff in work as I have in the last 4 months. A lot of it is good quality too.

But my personal life is taking a hit. I used to be able to go to work, and come home ready for whatever the evening brings. Now, I barely have the energy to change clothes, and get onto the couch.

Yes I went for pints last night, and they rocked (the pints) and it was a good night overall, but today my head is fucked, I can’t focus, but I can’t relax either.

Some advice would be nice…

(this post was a waste…pointless drivel, expect more like this)

Posted in advice, personal, work | 3 Comments

The new nano, and the future.


I like to know things about gadgets, although saying that, I very rarely dip into the communion money to get something shiny and noisy (ok, bar the €70 mouse I got last week). But I decided to get the iPod nano. I forgot to actually read up on anything it does before purchasing, because I trust apple at this stage.

After ordering, I watched the video on apple, and the thing looked freakin’ cool. You can shake it and it skips to a random song in your library. If you shake it like a polaroid picture, it will skip to a song by Outkast!

As I was saying I like to know things about Gadgets. Well, this “Genius” thing has really thrown me. Actually, it amazes me. This single invention is, in my opinion, the next step towards globally shared interests and “Cloud computing” (I guess…).

From what I can tell, apple takes a goo at your library and then compares it to everyone elses, giving you back your shared interests, so it can figure out what albums are alike and songs are usually owned by a number of people. It’s kind of like the amazon, “If you like this … you’ll probably like these because other people also bought …”, except it so much more sublte and actually has produced really good playlists for me over the last few days.

The best thing about “Genius”, is that it trasfers to my Nano, so I can create playlists on the fly. Just think, your in the car, you put on a song you like, hit Genius and boom (to quote mr. jobs) you’ve got 25 great songs you’re in the mood for.

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Mossy will be in croker on sunday.

Will you?

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