Another EC 15% Experiment

Today I followed one of the suggestions for again checking the claimed rate of "no more than 15% of your widget impressions." (from EC blog post of Oct 6, 2009.)

You will see the results of some of my statistical experiments in previous posts. The suggestion has been made by two people that I should load 100 EC blogs while not logged in to Entrecard, and check the rate under those conditions.

Today I did just that. I used the following methods to load the blogs. I began by clicking on EC widgets in my own blogs where they led to other blogs. When the chain clicking options quickly bogged down due to running into EC ads I loaded other blogs either from bookmarked blogs that I like, or from Adgitize widgets which lead to blogs that are also in the EC system. It "killed" me to visit 100 sites without dropping a single card. I could have used the points! But I also think that this is important information to gather.

The results show that of 100 blogs loaded, 99 had EC widgets. That is much better than what I found using the EC toolbar. This is not surprising, since they were all loaded from active blogers that are purchasing EC and/or Adgitize ads.

Of the 100 blogs loaded, 20 ads were not purchased with EC credits. 14 were EC sponsored ads. There were 5 ads in the system at the time, one of which is an EC ad. Interestingly enough, only 2 of those 5 were shown to me in the 14 appearances. The remaining 6 were different ads which led to Entrecard itself.

It is a little bit difficult to assess this, and it also affects my previous conclusions somewhat, although the number of ads not purchased with EC credits is simply a fact. For one thing, if a blog has no ads in its queue, I think that an EC ad is still shown. My impression is that most of the 6 blogs with EC ads were known to me and should have had ads in their queue, it is possible they did not, and I did not double check that (by looking at the price for an ad with them). The reason this matters is that now that we have these sponsored (paid) ads, They should be the showing up at a rate of 15%- and in this set of 100, they do... 14/100 is within the margin of error. But if the EC ads which have a different graphic than the sponsored one are supposed to be part of the 15%, then the results are less in line with what EC has stated. That would be a 20% rate, which I would interpret as inconclusive and in need of more data gathering.

Have I Caught Entrecard Cheating?

web ad income Nov 28 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.20 Adgitize $.93 Project Wonderful $.02 Clixsense $.01 Neobux $.04 ______________________ Total: $1.20

Signed Up with You Cubez

I signed up with You-Cubez today. The site is a place to create a backlink to your web site or blog. The more your cube is worth, the higher it will be placed, and thus the more likely to be clicked. You can also earn cash. It is interesting, and even fun, but I am very disappointed in the quality of links on the site.

This is a British based site, so all the money values are in £s which are worth about $2, so you can estimate the US value by multiplying dollars by 2, or halving the pounds.



This is what their home page looks like, with the mouse rolled over one cube. You buy a cube for 1£, choose your colors and start working your way up. Actually you can join and then earn enough money to buy your cube. So if you are patient, you don't have to put and cash into the system.

Be careful! There are two kinds of cash. There is cash you can actually cash out and there is cash that goes toward the value of your cube. You earn towards these accounts by clicking regular cubes, and cash cubes. You can earn by playing games, or signing up for offers, and other means. I don't understand it all yet!



You earn actual cash by clicking Cash Cubes. The number you can click is limited by the level of your membership.

You-Cubez' unique twist is that you can build up the value of your cube and then sell it to someone else for an actual profit.

Pros of You-Cubez that I see immediately:
You can see what web site you are going to click on rather than being served random sites as in a traffic generator.
You can start without putting any cash into the system
If you buy a cube the link will last for a year even if you do nothing
Low payout- just 6£ for standard members
There are ways to win a cube- it can be a fun site.

Cons of You-Cubez that I see immediately:
Almost all of the site links are money-making junk. I thought it would be a place to promote a real content site. There are a few- about 4 per page of 100 cubes shown, but you have to hunt for them.
It could be a real time waster. You can earn 1£ for playing 40 games. I played 4 just now, so I haven't earned anything yet since they only show increments of whole pounds, but you don't have to play all 40 at once. The number is recorded, and I assume will convert to value when I reach 40 total. It also takes time if you want to hunt for content sites.

I received a nickel at Neobux for signing up, so I decided to try it out. As always, I'll keep you posted.

See You-Cubez

web ad income Nov 27 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.03 Adgitize $.87 Project Wonderful $.01 Clixsense $.04 Neobux $.05 ______________________ Total: $1.00

unɟ ɹoɟ ʇsnɾ - ʇı dılɟ

˙unɟ ǝʌɐɥ ¡uoıʇɐɔılddɐ ǝlʇʇıl ʎllıs ɐ s,ǝɹǝɥ

Flip Text

web ad income Nov 26 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.02 Adgitize $.82 Project Wonderful $.02 Chitika $.09 Clixsense $.06 Neobux $.06 ______________________ Total: $1.07

Have I Caught Entrecard Cheating?

I wrote at the beginning of November about the results of some experimental clicking to see if Entrecard was delivering only the 15% of ads for their system which they claimed. Using the methods that I chose at that time to load the blog pages, the ad rate did work out to 15%.

But some questions were raised about other methods of serving blogs, so I decided to so some further research today. It was quite enlightening.

First I opened 100 blogs in the Entrecard system by using the EC toolbar. My selections for the type of blogs to open were from several categories that interest me, and the list was further filtered by "Most Popular." I often click this way, knowing that those bloggers are likely to reciprocate and visit my blog. For 100 blogs, there were 16 EC ads. This is certainly within the margin of error, although it is interesting to note that all 15 were served by the time I had opened 80 pages. In the 100 pages opened, 2 of them had no widget, which I thought was pretty interesting for a blog that had made it into the top 20 in a category (I chose 20 from each of 5 categories). I did reload each of those 2, to be sure that the widget really wasn't there.

But when I switched strategies, I really had an eye-opening result. I did two more sets of 100 blogs each, served by the EC widget. But for each of these sets I chose All and Random for the parameters of the search. This should have given me an unbiased sampling of whatever types of blogs are members of the EC network. Here's what I found:

First set:
A. Blogs served- 100
B. EC ads- 39 (39% or 44%- see conclusions)
C. no widget- 22 (one could reasonably expect that a small number of blogs would be so new to EC that they have been approved but not yet added a widget, but certainly not 22 of them. Of the 22, 2 were simply non-existent, 404 file not found errors.)

Second set:
A. Blogs served- 100
B. EC ads- 38 (38% or 43%- see conclusions)
C. no widget- 22 again (see comments above. One blog was by invitation only, one had a suspension notice. One other blog actually had a widget but I reported it for being over MY pornography threshold!)

Conclusion- if you say that I only viewed 88 (100-22) blogs in each set then the percent of EC ads is 39/88 = 44% or 38/88 = 43%! If I had discounted the 22 blogs that served no ads, for whatever reason, and continued to load blogs by this method to get 22 more valid views, even if all 22 had no EC ads, the ads would still have been 39% and 38%. Since it is more likely that there would have been some EC ads, the percentage would have gone even higher. For example, if in those 22 additional blogs, 5 had EC ads, then the percent would have been 44/100 = 44%.

For this level of ads, which is 2.5 times higher than they claim, there would need to be 500 blogs loaded with no EC ads at all to bring the percent back down to 15. Statistics is all about probabilities, and although this is possible, it is highly unlikely! Is there some little known way to load blogs whereby few or no ads are served? Perhaps I should try more sets with Favorites and Most Expensive?

To look at this another way, of the last 200 blogs I tried to open, only 156 of them had an EC widget on which to drop. Of the 156, only 79 actually had ads from other blogs in the system. That is 51%. If EC members are only shown ads from other blogs half the time (admittedly by this one method of blog delivery), no wonder they are upset.

And this is all on top of the fact that there are currently 10 paid ads in the system. I simply counted them as valid widgets that don't go to EC, but still reduce the amount of control that a blogger has over the ads which appear on his or her blog. One can choose to have up to 5 of those not display, but to remove them completely, you have to pay $48 a year and subscribe to Entrecard. This seems pretty far removed from the means of "free" blog promotion that Entrecard touts to potential members.

Checking up on the Entrecard 15% Ad Placement

web ad income Nov 24 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.05 Adgitize $.72 Project Wonderful $.02 Chitika $.03 Clixsense $.03 Microworkers $1.00 Swagbucks $10.00 Neobux $.065 ______________________ Total: $11.92

web ad income Nov 25 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.03 Adgitize $.72 Project Wonderful $.02 Clixsense $.05 Neobux $.07 ______________________ Total: $.89

Chitika Research Says 2% of Users Pay for Internet

Chitika is an online advertising broker which is based on searches performed by internet users. Publishers receive compensation when an advertisement is actually clicked on. They report 60,000 sites and 2 billion monthly impressions of their ads.

In a two-week study in October 2009, Chitika monitored the clicks on ads placed through the system. Without tracking any information about users, 86.6 million individuals were served ads through the system of 60,000 plus publishers. During the study, 1.8 million actual clicks were recorded. Simple division reveals a 2.15% click rate.

Although the use of Click-Thru Rate (CTR) as the sole indicator of success for web site advertising has been discounted in the United States since 2001, it can still be a useful metric. In March of this year, European CTR averages were 0.11% to 0.18%. Before the demise of the CTR in US reports, a 0.3% rate was considered good.

In light of these comparisons, one could reasonably conclude that the method Chitika has developed to deliver "predictive targeted" ads to internet surfers is highly successful.

Since I signed up with them in September, I have earned $3.71 with Chitika ads. Payout via PayPal is automatic when I reach $10. (It would be at $50 if I had requested to be paid by check.) Publishers are paid only for clicks, not impressions.

See Chitika Research Results
See The Latest Ad Click Count
See The Beginning of the End of CTR
Sign up with Chitika

web ad income Nov 23 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.04 Adgitize $.73 Project Wonderful $.03 My Survey $.75 Clixsense $.03 Neobux $.05 ______________________ Total: $1.63

Results of the Adgitize Click Style Poll

Here are the results of the poll which asked people to note how they tended to click on Adgitze Ads. It ran for two weeks, and there were 44 voters. The poll records "44 votes," but this is bad semantics by the poll designers, as there were 115 votes.

Assuming that anyone who writes a blog post, clicks for points and gets some ad and view points could make 250 points a day, and comparing that to the leaderboard, approximately 140 blogs average over 250 points a day. 44 respondents is 31% of that number, quite a good response. Here is what the people said who chose to participate.

Of all the choices the two outstanding responses were that people like to check out new ads, and they also attempt to avoid ads to sites that do not have an Adgitize widget. Therefore, the big messages seem to be:
     if you buy an ad, place an Adgitize widget somewhere on your site
     if you regularly advertise, change your banner every so often

Coming in with the lowest level, 4 people say that they don't click on any ads. Everyone has their own priorities, and a good case could be made for simply publishing ads and earning just a few pennies a day. In fact, if you don't advertise (and thus have an interest in recouping the cost of the ad), you can probably clear as much money in a month while doing nothing. While it is possible that some people checked both that the do not click at all, and that they don't try to make the 50 or 100 clicks, the choices were meant to be non-overlapping. If this is how it was read, then 6 people indicated that they click occasionally, probably when it is convenient.

Only 7 people click ads with no regard for the site that it leads to. Using the theory that the rest of the people who voted do make choices about what ads they click, then 37 people or 84% do make mental notes as to the sites they visit and use that information to guide future actions. I think a safe conclusion from this information is that 84% of those who click on Adgitize ads are paying some attention to the site visited, meaning that content is being assimilated.

About equally divided, and two sides of the same coin, many people said that they only click sites they like, and that they purposely avoid some sites that they don't like. Again, this means that advertisers pages are being read and understood at some level. Although Google has a bad attitude toward click and run, it is pretty amazing how much the human brain can absorb in a few seconds, and the value of that should not be discounted.

Next, I hoped to find out something about how people attempt to combine Adgitize clicking and Entrecard dropping. Slightly more responses were positive in their attempt to click on sites that carry both widgets, while a slightly lower number said that they actively avoid sites that don't also have the EC widget. I'm not sure that there is much new information there, but one might reasonably say that if you belong to both networks that you will gain more clicks if the two widgets are close together. Since EC no longer gives points when you are clicked on, this may not matter. But people who are looking for both may develop a preference for these blogs.

Finally, one person said that they sent me additional comments by email. I either deleted this accidentally, or it never came. I waded through 1500 messages about erectile dysfunction and free college degrees to check my junk filter, but I couldn't find it. So if this was you, and you had something you really wanted to say, please email me again!

This should be good news for advertisers. People ARE paying attention to your sites. Having a viable number of ads to choose from is good for everyone, since we don't all have the same tastes.

Thanks for participating. And if you haven't tried advertising with Adgitize yet, it's certainly worth giving it a try for a few days or a month. You WILL get increased traffic, and those people WILL notice what is on your site. Click below to join.

web ad income Nov 22 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.02 Adgitize $.71 Project Wonderful $.03 Clixsense $.05 Chitika $.09 Neobux $.04 ______________________ Total: $.94

Assessing My Income Opportunities

Well, I found out Friday that I am losing my best web site client. They want to go with a completely database driven site, and I don't have the software to do that. Sigh.

I need to look at possible ways to increase my income beyond just a few pennies a day. My best option is to continue to expand my online writing income. In general, here is what I currently do, with comments:

• Textbroker- some months there are enough good assignments to make over $100, some months the offerings are garbage
• Associated Content- I post only for Performance Views at the rate of $1.55 for 1000 views. The upfront payments process is so frustrating that I simply cannot deal with it. Here's a humorous look at that: My Wrong-Headed Journey Into AC Land. I earn about $3.50 a month there, but with effort I could earn a little more. I need to get enough articles posted that I move to a clout level 10. Then I would at least receive the highest PV rate.
• Shared Reviews- This is a site where real people review products that they own. I've blogged about it several times. They had a good beginning and then a rocky patch where they had to sink or swim on their own earnings. They are now fairly stable. It is an advantage if you joined early, but there are still good opportunities to make some cash there if you work hard. It should only get better as the site generates more income. This month $2000 is being split among the top performers (rules defining that change from month to month). My share of the pie last month was $47.81.
• Helium- You can write a ton of stuff for them without ever making a cent. I have sold one article there for $10, but can't cash out unless I have $20. Not a place I can talk myself into putting more effort into.
• Contests- I have entered several writing contests this month. Of course there is no money there unless I win. Pretty iffy, but at least it gave me a chance to be a little creative
• Undisclosed- by far, my biggest income generator is from a source I am not free to disclose at this time. Right now, I'm making about $300 a month there. But the articles are all repetitive, SEO heavy, pieces on topics of limited interest to me. I have a hard time making myself do them.

I would say that an average price (not calculated, just seat-of-the-pants estimate) per article is about $5. If I could make myself write four articles a day, I could cover my bills. Just FOUR articles. But I have to tell you, that yesterday I did three, and my brain was just about fried. They take varying amounts of research, but some take quite a bit. They have so many criteria to meet the client's SEO wishes that it can give me a headache! (Seriously... one article had 13 keywords it wanted included at least once, but not more than twice each- and two of those were primary concepts of the article with no good synonyms. They specified the number of paragraphs and subheadings. They wanted it in a natural writing style, and they wanted it all in 400 words. Took two hours, and only earned $5.50).

So... I think I'm off to write an article.

P.S. I'll report the results of the Adgitize click style poll tomorrow, with some analysis.

web ad income Nov 21 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.04 Adgitize $.74 Project Wonderful $.03 My Survey $.10 Clixsense $.07 Chitika $.03 Neobux $.055 ______________________ Total: $.97

Using Windows Picture and Fax Viewer

Windows Picture and Fax Viewer is a very handy application that I often forget about using. I thought if I reminded you about it, it would help me remember too!

Any computer with Windows XP or 2003 has it installed. In Windows Vista it has been replaced with the similar Windows Photo Gallery. It is not software for editing, but just an easy way to see the images in a folder, at a decent size, without opening editing software.



You can view the images in any folder which contains images. Acceptable formats include jpg, gif (including animated), bmp, png, wmf, emf, ico, and tiff. Open the desired folder. It doesn't matter what view is selected (eg. thumbnails, list, etc). Select any image and right click, then choose Open With/ Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. The viewer will open and you can scroll through the images that are in that folder.



There can be files in the folder that aren't images, and the viewer will ignore them. In the screen capture here you can see that I'm about to view any images that are lost on my too-busy desktop- an easy way to find an image.

Within Windows Picture and Fax Viewer you can view pictures with the best fit to the screen, make them full size, or zoom in and out. You can rotate images. You can print, save with the same or a different name, and delete images. Another choice is to close the viewer and open the image with your default image editing software.

Supposedly, in the My Pictures folder if you simply double-click on a photo file the viewer will automatically open. This may not be true. For me, a double-click just opens my photo editing program. But you can always do the right-click and Open With option.

See Microsoft Documentation for the Picture and Fax viewer.

web ad income Nov 20 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.01 Adgitize $.69 Project Wonderful $.04 Clixsense $.06 Neobux $.06 Microworkers $1.60 ______________________ Total: $2.46

How to Connect a Digital Projector to a Computer

I've borrowed a different digital projector a couple of times in the past few weeks, and struggled to get it working correctly with my computer. The problem is that computers have many different video cards, and getting the two electronic components to talk to each other may not be obvious. Nevertheless, there are four basic steps to follow (just for the video feed), and I'll list those here.



1. Find the connection cord, probably a 15-pin connector, and hook it between the computer and the projector. There may be two such connections on the projector (use either one), but there is probably only one on the computer. If you want the audio to run through the projector you will need to also connect that cord, and again, it should only fit in the one jack.

2. Connect both the projector and computer to a power source and turn them on. The projector will probably have a basic on/off switch, and a power/standby button. You will need to turn them both on. These should boot up independently. The projector will probably display some sort of brand logo.



3. One of three things should happen, which will determine what you do next.
A. If you are extremely fortunate, the computer screen will appear on the wall screen and you are good to go. It's unlikely that this will happen.
B. You may get a blue screen on the wall and a message that the feed has been detected. This is a good start, but not helpful for your presentation.
C. You may see the message shown above, "no input detected."

4. Send the computer display to the projector. This is the tricky one. If 3A did not happen, try the following in order.
A. Find the Input button on the projector and press it to cycle through the choices. This may get you nothing, or it may progress you to 3B.
B. Open your computer's display panel. (through the start menu, or right click on the desktop), then choose Display, then Settings.


You should see two boxes, which may not be the same size. The box with a 1 is your computer screen. The box with a 2 represents the video display. You need to select the 2 and change its size with the slider bar to match that of your computer. If you want to use the mouse as a pointer, also check the box "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor," and drag the numbered box so that it matches the physical position of your computer relative to the projector. (If the projector is left of the computer, drag box 2 to the left). Click "Apply." You will probably be given a countdown timer to verify that you want to make the changes. If you aren't sure, just say yes, because you can always change them again.


C. This may now present the computer on the screen. It is more likely that this will get you a blue screen, but you should be able to move the mouse and see the cursor move off the edge of the computer monitor and appear on the wall screen. This is progress!
D. You will probably need to click on "Advanced." This will open another window, and one of the tabs should have the name of your video card.



There should be several choices of settings. On the left should be a list of options. Look for the one that is similar to this one "set up multiple displays." This will open a panel with choices similar to the ones seen below.



On this list, I selected "Clone." And you can see the projector name appears in the list under point 2. Click the Apply button, and the monitor display SHOULD now appear on the wall screen.

This is not a definitive troubleshooting list. But it should solve many ordinary types of computer/projector communication problems.

My best advice is to make sure that you have PLENTY of time to get set up if you are doing a presentation with an unfamiliar digital projector.

web ad income Nov 19 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.01 Adgitize $.68 Project Wonderful $.03 My Survey $.10 Clixsense $.05 Neobux $.05 ______________________ Total: $.92

Dreaming of Far Off Vacations

Over the past year I have written a number of articles on travel topics, several of which were about countries in the Balkan region. Consequently, I have to say that I’ve developed quite an interest in taking a Croatian holiday, to help satisfy my terminal wanderlust.

The eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea has become quite a tourist destination, but there are still any number of small towns where I could escape the crowds, and explore islands in a small boat. Croatia spills down the seacoast, and one can find villages, hiking trails, mountains, beaches, and nature parks, as well as the night life and cities that appeal to most tourists (not me!). Of course, it won’t ever happen on my budget, but hey, I can dream!

One always has to wonder if it is worth paying to have a travel agent help arrange a trip. Here’s a review of Thomson Holidays that I found which has a very positive attitude toward using an agent. I decided to look up Thomson Holidays to see what they offer. They do have packages which include Croatia holidays.

Who knows, maybe some day I’ll get to visit some of the fascinating places around the world.

Thomson Holidays offers packages to many destinations in Europe, Thailand, Africa, Australia and surrounding islands, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, Israel, South America, and the United States.

See Travel, for one of my favorite wanderlust poems.

web ad income Nov 17 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.23 Adgitize $.63 Project Wonderful $.04 Clixsense $.06 Chitika $.03 Neobux $.075 ______________________ Total: $1.07

web ad income Nov 18 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.03 Adgitize $.70 Project Wonderful $.03 Microworkers $1.35 Clixsense $.04 Neobux $.06 ______________________ Total: $2.21

My Smashed Penny Collection

Just for fun I thought that I would tell you about my smashed penny collection. Probably like every other kid I had a few of these collected on family vacations. I have no idea what happened to those first ones I owned.

For a long time they went out of fashion and you couldn't find anywhere to get them. As an adult, the first machine I saw was at the 1982 Knoxville World Expo, which was the last gasp of the phenomena that were the World's Fairs. I had to have one!

Since then, I've run into a few of the machines. You put in a penny, and 2 quarters to pay for the privilege of turning a crank that runs the penny through a die, which elongates it and imprints an design. Some machines will do multiple designs - for 51 cents each, of course! I try to get them all.

There are now 26 in my collection. I know, that's pretty lame for a collection, but it's fun! This one is the closest to where I live, and also the most unusual since it has a hole and bead chain attached. It is for the Big Sable Point Lighthouse at Ludington, Michigan.

Smashed pennies can be worth up to several dollars after a few years. Like any collectible, the value depends on the demand. The more unusual your penny, and the greater general interest, the more it is going to appreciate. You can even buy thin plastic booklets to store them in. However, I don't like how tightly the pennies fit in the pockets. I'd rather be able to pick them up and feel the designs.

It's really hard to choose a favorite, but I think it might be this one of Snoopy in a canoe, with two of his little bird friend campers!

I've included links to two sites about collecting smashed pennies.

See Penny Collector
See Smashed Pennies- America's Best Souvenirs

web ad income Nov 16 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.01 Adgitize $.62 Project Wonderful $.04 Clixsense $.09 Chitika $.03 Neobux $.07 ______________________ Total: $.86

Understanding Points at Adgitize

This week, Ken Brown, owner of Adgitize, posted some additional information about how the daily earnings are calculated. On your earnings report there are several columns of information. Here is a sample of mine from the beginning of this month.



As you can see, even though I earned the same number of points each day, and also was at .0089 percentage, my earnings were different for each day. This is due to two reasons. First of all the number of points in the system are different each day. The points depend on how many participants exist and how active they are. The other variable that is not so evident in the chart is the amount of revenue received each day. Ken wrote, "the amount to be paid to members is a function of revenue received x percentage of points earned." The key phrase there is "a function of." This means that there is some formula which Adgitize prefers to not make public. I have no problem with that; it simply explains why we can't look at the public statistics and calculate our earnings.

Ken also commented that he chooses to keep private the number of page views required to earn points at the various levels. However, he says that it is important to note several significant cut-off levels. If you earn fewer than 100 points a day, you will only make a couple of pennies. 100-199 points moves you to another tier of earnings, ditto with 200-299, and also at 300 or more points. Ken said, "not making a tier cut off point can result in a 25 cent difference in earnings for the day."

I have been trying hard to increase traffic to my sites, and trying to figure out at what level of traffic one moves to a new tier. It seems to me that at 500 page views a day one moves from 30 to 40 page view points. That assumes that this is a direct relationship, and not determined by a formula. I have not yet been able to make 50 page view points in a day, although my page views have been as high as 750 in a day.

I'm continuing to try to produce good content, and have persisted in avoiding traffic generators since September. I do have more traffic on the days when I do more Entrecard dropping. Many people do reciprocate drops.

If you haven't signed up with Adgitize, I suggest that it is a very good way to increase traffic on your blog. Most people "drop and run," but many times if someone sees something they like, they will read and return day after day.

See "Honest" Traffic

web ad income Nov 15 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.23 Adgitize $.66 Project Wonderful $.04 Clixsense $.01 Neobux $.04 ______________________ Total: $.98

Temporarily enlarging a page in FireFox

Would you sometimes like to make a web page just a little larger to see something better, but you don't want to change your settings, or do anything permanent? In Firefox, you can easily do this.

On the left is a section of one of my blogs at the setting where I normally keep it. On the right is a temporary enlargement. Both are 180x400 pixels, taken from a screen capture.

The way to do this is simply hold down Control and hit + to enlarge or - to shrink the page. This action will only affect the page in that one tab. The two shots I have shown are my normal view, and after hitting Control+ two times.

Mozilla- parent company of Firefox

web ad income Nov 14 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.01 Adgitize $.69 Project Wonderful $.05 Clixsense $.07 Chitika $.22 Neobux $.07 ______________________ Total: $1.11

More Comments from a Neobux Neophyte

I signed up with Neobux just 10 days ago, and have learned a couple of things already. I'm actually fairly happy with the way things are going there, which is somewhat different from the way I feel about a lot of the sites I have tried.

I am still at the very lowest level. By choice I am not putting any cash money into the system, but am holding out to be able to pay to increase my standing with money earned at the site. The next thing that I need to do there is rent some referrals. The smallest number I can rent is 3 for a period of one month, at a cost of $.75. I estimated that it would take me almost 20 days to reach that amount in my account at the $.04 a day I was earning by clicking. However, I already have $.60 in my account after just 10 days.

I have earned more than an average of $.04 a day because there are occasionally extra click offers that show up at various times in the day. So I just check in at Neobux a couple of times throughout the day, and have managed to make the additional $.20 by that method. Not bad!

I am looking forward to renting my first referrals. They only assign referrals who have actually clicked on ads in the past 10 days, so although this is not a guarantee, there is a good chance that those referrals would actually pay. You get half a cent for each referral click. That means that in my first month with 3 referrals I might earn an extra $.015 a day, which translates to $.45 a month. Granted this is not going to make me rich in a hurry. However, this is a MUCH better system than the ones which really give you no opportunity to grow your position unless you can convince people to sign up under you.

I just did some additional research, looking at postings from people who have successfully used Neobux. It seems that you can only move money in increments of $1.00, and you have to have some cash to "manage" the referrals. I need to find out more about what that means, other than the fact that I won't be renting referrals quite so soon unless I want to deposit cash from an external source.

I think the potential to move up to a level of earning enough to make it worth the time is real, due to the willingness of Neobux to rent referrals from people who sign up directly (not already under someone else). Neobux continues to place in the top 5 paid-to-click sites when ranked by real people who have tried multiple sites. Most PTC sites that promise an immediate high return also go belly-up quite quickly. Neobux seems to be quite stable.

Of course, if you would like to get started at Neobux, I'd be really pleased to have you click the link here, and sign up under me!

Neobux
See Signed Up with Neobux

web ad income Nov 13 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $..02 Adgitize $.63 Project Wonderful $.05 Clixsense $.04 Chitika $.03 Neobux $.05 Swagbucks $10.00 ______________________ Total: $10.82

Your Daily Surveys Doesn't Seem Worth the Time

I signed up a couple of days ago with Your Daily Surveys. There was a link on Neobux that said I could get a whole DIME, for completing just one survey. So I clicked over there and signed up. That part was easy.

I clicked to qualify for a survey and had to answer quite a few questions before being told that I don't qualify for that one. It took 7 tries before I qualified for a survey. It was supposed to take 15 minutes and earn me 50 cents. I completed the survey and then was presented with about 10 screens of optional offers to sign up for. I had to hunt for the button on each one to skip it. I finally got to an offer that I couldn't find a way to skip it, so I simply closed the browser tab.

I have not been credited for completing the survey. I have not received the 50 cents or the 10 cents. I went the next day and started in again with being told that I don't qualify for several surveys. Perhaps if you are in a different demographic than I am, you might be able to complete more surveys. As far as I'm concerned it's not worth the time.

Update 11/16- I did receive the credit, both on YDS and Neobux, However, I have not qualified for a single survey since that first one. It takes about 15 minutes to work through all the possibilities to see if you can take one, so that becomes quite expensive. Time is money!

See Your Daily Survey

web ad income Nov 12 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.01 Adgitize $.59 Project Wonderful $.06 Clixsense $.09 Chitika $.53 Neobux $.04 ______________________ Total: $1.32

Swagbucks Cash Award Claimed Successfully!

On October 28, 16 days ago, I put in a claim for a Swagbucks prize. There was a disclaimer that it could take 12-15 days for the claim to actually be awarded.

The good news is that I have actually received this prize. It was cash paid to my PayPal account. If the award was a gift card that had to be physically mailed, I wonder if it would take even longer?

Nevertheless, I'm very happy to report that I have actually received something of value for using Swagbucks.

Sign up and get started earning with Swagbucks!

See Shopping for Swagbucks Rewards
Swagbucks Award Claim Going Smoothly

web ad income Nov 11 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.13 Adgitize $.59 Project Wonderful $.06 My Survey $.10 Clixsense $.11 Chitika $.11 Neobux $.04 Associated Content $3.95 ______________________ Total: $4.99

Sorting Pictures from Various Sources

Have you been given the task of sorting the digital pictures of an event from several cameras? Would you like to put them in chronological order? It's easy in Windows files, but you have to follow a few steps that may not be totally obvious.

When you open a file folder in Windows the default sort order is usually by name. With only one camera, the files will probably be chronological because the camera numbers them in sequence. But if the images came from multiple sources, they will probably appear in blocks by the camera used.



No matter what view you are in, you need to switch to Details- see first picture. Then right click anywhere on the bar where the words Name/ Size/ Type, etc and you will see the view shown below.



You need to find the choice "Date Picture Taken," which probably won't show in the list you see, so you'll need to select More from the bottom of the list. This will bring you to what you see below.



Note that I've scrolled down in the list to make "Date Picture Taken" visible as an option. Check it. (If you want to use the Move Up button to put it near the top of the list you can, but it's not necessary.) Click OK.

If you moved it up, say to the second spot you will now have the view shown below.



If you didn't move it up, simply widen the window till you can see it. If you want, you can left click on the header and drag that column over beside the name. Then click on the header until the little gray arrow points up. The file is now sorted from oldest to newest. You can see it the final image here that the files are sorted by date and time, not by the name (note the mixed names near the end of the list).

web ad income Nov 10 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.02 Adgitize $.57 Project Wonderful $.04 My Survey $.05 Clixsense $.11 Neobux $.04 ______________________ Total: $.83

Are You TItled?

Is your blog one that doesn't have a title showing in the tab bar? Most blogs create this automatically when you initially set it up. Maybe you started your blog before you thought up a name. Maybe you just have no idea why the name doesn't show. It's really easy to fix!

You do need to go to the page that allows you to edit your HTML code. In Blogger that is under Layout / Edit HTML. Click within the box where the code appears and search for the word "title." (without the quotes) That word may appear quite a few times, but you need to look for the one within the header-wrapper. In blogger that looks like this:

<div id='header-wrapper'>

<b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='1'>

<b:widget id='Header1' locked='true' title='Just Throw Money (Header)' type='Header'/>

</b:section>

</div>

I highlighted the title in red, only for emphasis. You should be sure that your looks like this (in blogger), only with your own blog name. In other platforms, just follow the code as presented, but add your own title.

Adding a Custom Icon to Blogspot Blogs

Due to having to build a new program about my hikes before last night, and the well-oiled workings of Murphy's laws, I got very little sleep and got behind on blogging. So here are three days of income reporting.

web ad income Nov 7 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.01 Adgitize $.62 Project Wonderful $.05 Clixsense $.05 Neobux $.05 Shared Reviews $15.37 ______________________ Total: $16.15

web ad income Nov 8 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.01 Adgitize $.60 Project Wonderful $.04 Clixsense $.06 Chitika $.08 Neobux $.075 ______________________ Total: $.87

web ad income Nov 9 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.02 Adgitize $.57 Project Wonderful $.03 Clixsense $.11 Chitika $.03 Neobux $.04 ______________________ Total: $.80

How Do You Adgitize Click?

I am adding a poll to this blog today which will run for two weeks. I have read several posts about how to use the Adgitize clicking to advantage to double up with Entrecard clicks, and I do that myself. I also have some other choices that I make when collecting my 50 daily clicks. 50 clicks earns me 100 points since I am also an advertiser. If you are not an advertiser you need to click 100 ads to earn 100 points.

When the poll is concluded I'll analyze the results and post them. Please note that you can choose more than one answer, and if you use some other strategy, just email me at jhy@t-one.net with your thoughts, or post them in a comment.

For anyone who hasn't given Adgitize a try, I highly recommend it. It does cost money to advertise, but the traffic generated is well worth the investment, and you can recover most or all of the costs. Over the 8 months that I have been a member of the Adgitize network, I've made a little more than the cost of the ads, and that includes two months when I was gone hiking for most of the month and was not able to click the 50 ads on most of those days.

Click on the link and give them a try!

Adgitize

web ad income Nov 6 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $..02 Adgitize $.57 Project Wonderful $.04 My Survey $.05 Clixsense $.07 Chitika $.07 Neobux $.065 ______________________ Total: $.89

Traffic From Entrecard

It has seemed to me that my blogs get fewer clicks from Entrecard widgets than they used to. I have no way to prove this since I haven't saved early data, but I was able to collect some statistics from the last 20 ads which I purchased on other sites for each of my blogs.

The 15% EC ad placement has really put an end to effective chain clicking. I used to do this myself. It was a quick way to get in a number of clicks and a good way to see some new blogs. Now, you get hung up very quickly. If you have the EC toolbar you can click to see a random blog, but I have found this frustrating because a rather high number of the blogs served don't have widgets.

By choosing the Ads tab and then "turbocharge" I was able to look at the stats from the past month, not just the top 10 which are presented in the regular statistics tab. I looked at the past 20 blogs on which I bought ads, and how many clicks total I received.

name of blog	blogs advertised on	number of clicks
My Quality Day	20	56
Just Throw Money	20	27
Get Off The Couch News	20	55
North Country Trail News	20	15

Subjective Observations:
There were a lot of ads that received no clicks at all.
Most hits came from blogs where I had not run an ad before, or at least not for a long time.
To aid in any conclusions I should explain that I haven't been buying any ads that cost more than 64 ECs for this entire time. (OK, I might have bought a couple at 128.)

Subjective Conclusions:
EC is not a source of very many hits. It definitely gets your banner out for people to become familiar with. (This is similar to CMF ads, which also results in very few actual hits.)
I should place ads on more different, and unfamiliar blogs. I continue to be frustrated by the small number of nature and outdoor recreation blogs on EC. And as long as they refuse to add an appropriate category, they won't attract many. And quite a few of the ones they did have left as the result of one of the many rough spots.
I will continue to use Entrecard because as long as I don't invest very much time into trying to accumulate points by dropping it's still a good way to earn "brand recognition."

Entrecard 15% Ad Checking

web ad income Nov 5 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.00 Adgitize $.56 Project Wonderful $.04 Pine Cone Research $3.00 Chitika $.03 Neobux $.04 ______________________ Total: $3.67

LinkShowOff - Worth It?

I signed up at LinkShowOff. It's really straightforward, but unless you get quite a few advertisers in a given month the fee is pretty steep. On the other hand, you will receive $7 for doing almost nothing. Signup is free.

You can set the price for buying of a link on your web site at $1 or higher, and the number of available slots at 5, 10, 15 or 20. If you are an advertiser, you can buy one of these links on any web site that you think is worth the price. All are no-follow links. Links remain on the site until they are replaced by others. For example, if there are 5 slots available and they are full, and you buy a slot, the oldest existing link will be bumped off.

Advertisers can auto approve links, or choose to manually decide which ones to accept.

Payment is monthly whenever a $10 minimum payout is reached. LinkShowOff makes their income by charging a $3 transaction fee on any payout. So if you have $10 in your account you will receive payment, but it will only be for $7. However, if you made $100, you will receive $97.

There is a referral system which earns you $3 when someone who signs up under you earns their first $3.

The site has a navigation flaw. Once you log in it takes you to your personal account page, but if you leave there, you can't get back unless you use the browser back button or log out and back in.

Once again, there isn't a category that is remotely related to my outdoor-themed blogs. So I have put the widget on this blog, but I'm not sure I'll use it other places.

Having the widget sitting there with no links in it looks pretty bad. I think it might be good to have prearranged with someone you know to buy reciprocal links right away rather than have an empty widget. Anyone want to buy one?

LinkShowOff

web ad income Nov 4 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.03 Adgitize $.58 Project Wonderful $.04 Clixsense $.10 Chitika $.11 Neobux $.04 ______________________ Total: $.90

Signed Up with Neobux

Even though I am not sure that it's worth the time it takes on the pay to click sites, I signed up at Neobux yesterday. Here are my first impressions.

The signup was easy, and the site let you see sample ads and information about how it all works before joining. Basically, this is a site where Advertisers pay to post their ads, and you are paid to click them. Their ads promise $.02 a click, but this is with the highest membership level. You will start with $.01 a click. "Extended ads" pay $.015 each.

You must view the ads one at a time for 30 seconds each (extended view for 60 seconds). Their timer does not begin until the page is completely loaded, so it takes longer to work through the clicks (of course, one can multi-task at some other job). The extended view ads come up randomly- just luck if you get one. Most of the pages have those annoying boxes that ask if you are sure you want to leave this page.

To update to a Golden membership you have to stick around for a few days. The requirements are: 1. Have 50 clicks credited, 2. Have rented referrals two times, 3. Registered at least 15 days ago. I like this method better than paying $10 cash to upgrade on Clixsense.

Referral rental allows you to buy the name of someone who did not sign up under another person to be placed under you for one month. Prices for this vary by your membership level and the number purchased. Rate per referral for one month for a standard member who purchases fewer than 250 is $.25. You can see the entire chart by clicking "Help" at the bottom of the Neobux page. Referral rentals can be paid for from your Neobux account, by PayPal, AlertPay or Neteller.

At this point, let me say that all the info about how the site works is available, but it's not organized very well. You may have to do some clicking back and hunting.

So, what do I know after 2 days? I was given 4 ads to click each day (so I have $.08 in my account). The ads refresh at a specific time each day. The smallest number of referrals that can be rented is 3, so if I want do this without putting cash in it is likely to take me just under 20 days to accrue enough cash in my account.

With a standard membership you get an extra half cent when a referral clicks an ad, and as a Golden Member you get an extra cent.

Payouts can be made to PayPal, AlertPay or Neteller. The first cashout level is just $2.00. But then it increases by a dollar each time you request a payout until it reaches $10.00 and then remains at that level.

It seems to me that this program offers more opportunity to earn more than a few pennies a day, and thus could be more profitable than Clixsense. I'll keep you posted.

Neobux

web ad income Nov 3 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.28 Adgitize $.57 Project Wonderful $.04 My Survey $.10 Clixsense $.04 Chitika $.09 ______________________ Total: $1.02

Progress Evaluation

October was the eighth month that I have been trying to track my online earnings. During that time I've been reporting daily earnings, but I have to honestly say that I haven't always been consistent with that. It's hard to decide what to include and what not to include. Plus I haven't been tracking Swagbucks by the day and that's usually at least $.02, so it probably should be in this report (but it's not). I write at Shared Reviews, and reviewers are paid based on how well their reviews perform every month and also on how successfully they vote for top reviews. So that is online income, but doesn't seem the same as showing ads or clicking links. I write articles at Associated Content, but only post them for pay per view, not upfront payments. I also write articles at Textbroker, and for another source which I can't reveal. That income is really in a totally different category.

So, for this report, I choose to not count Shared Reviews, Textbroker, or the unnamed writing source. How have I done? Have I managed to increase my income since March? And income here is defined as money showing in my account at these places, not necessarily money paid to me. I'll try to clarify it in in a table.

MONTHLY TOTALS BY SOURCE
	Adsense	Adgitize (net= minus ad cost)	Project Wonderful	Chitika	Clixsense	Microworkers	My Survey	Associated Content
March	1.48	6.12	1.29	0	0	0	1.40	4.90
April	7.82	10.96	1.02	0	0	0	3.50	2.85
May	1.58	-3.08	1.36	0	0	1.24	1.30	2.35
June	8.10	4.01	1.82	0	0	0	1.40	2.09
July	7.63	2.17	1.41	0	-3.48	3.00	.60	2.94
Aug	1.84	-7.06	.99	0	0	0	.30	2.98
Sept	4.19	15.93	.91	.96	1.52	.20	12.25	2.58
Oct	3.35	1.36	.97	1.54	.81	.99	11.10	2.89

The width of the column prevented me from putting the daily averages in the same table, but here they are:

DAILY AVERAGES
March	.49
April	.87
May	.16
June	.55
July	.48
Aug	1.02
Sept	2.33
Oct	1.28

Well, the total income is so small that it's difficult to say anything definitive. September looks really good, but it's totally because of a couple of high-paying surveys. May was bad because I was gone hiking most of it and couldn't do much clicking on Adgitize. Any way you cut it, it's not very much income for a whole lot of work.

Shared Reviews
Associated Content

web ad income Nov 2 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.03 Adgitize $.60 Project Wonderful $.05 Chitika $.04 ______________________ Total: $.72

Adding a Custom Icon to Blogspot Blogs

I've known how to do this for quite a while, but finally got around to adding a custom icon to my blogs. You will now notice a little shark in the tab of all my blogs, and also at the end of the search bar.

It's good to have a custom icon in several sizes. Any program that looks for them will automatically choose the correct size. If you have an icon, it is easy to add the code to Blogspot blogs. Your icon can be a .gif or .ico file. Here's how. (Remember that it's always a good idea to save a copy of the template that is working properly before you go making changes!)

Go to Dashboard / Layout / Edit HTML

Look for the tag </head> (it's almost at the bottom, oddly enough, for most templates)

Insert the following line of code in front of the </head> tag.

<link href="http://the_URL_of_your_icon_here.gif" rel="shortcut icon" type="image/vnd.microsoft.icon"></link>
   of course, be sure to substitute the address for your icon in the line

Hit Preview at the bottom of the screen before you save your template to be sure it is working properly.

Save the template.

That's all there is to it! If you need a custom icon, I can build you one for $10 one size. Add $5 for additional sizes. The ideal is to have 16x16, 24x24 and 32x32 icons. Follow the link below to find examples of custom icons I have built for myself and others.

Shark Enterprises

web ad income Nov 1 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.01 Adgitize $.64 Project Wonderful $.04 My Survey $.10 Clixsense $.05 ______________________ Total: $.84

Second Day of Entrecard 15% Ad Checking

I did another check of 100 Entrecard pages, but without any of the pages being clicked on from an Entrecard source. Let me explain.

I wondered if the rate of display of Entrecard ads (supposed to be 15%) might be weighted so that it was higher if viewers came from somewhere other than clicking on an EC ad box, or from the EC widget, or other internal source such as in a user's dashboard.

So today, I clicked Adgitize ads, but only counted the pages that opened if they also had an EC drop box. Not all do, but with 212 ads in the Adgitize system today, it was fairly easy to find 100.

Of those 100, exactly 15 had Entrecard ads. Pretty good margin of error, I'd say.

I've probably satisfied myself that no matter what it may seem like some times - when it feels like you've just seen 5 EC ads in a row - they really are only delivering them at a rate of 15% of the time.

Checking Up on the Entrecard 15% Ad Placement

web ad income Oct 31 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.01 Adgitize $.60 Project Wonderful $.04 Clixsense $.03 Chitika $.07 ______________________ Total: $1.05

 
 

web income Oct actually cashed out (4 blogs, 2 web sites, other writing): Adgitize (income - ad cost) $1.36 Textbroker $65.69 Shared Reviews $15.37 Associated Content $2.89 ______________________ Total: $85.31

Checking Up on the Entrecard 15% Ad Placement

Entrecard seems to have stabilized pretty much again. I'm fairly glad that I've ignored most of the waves of change and anger, and just kept using it, dropping when I could and simply out-waited the roller coaster.

Today I decided to do a little experiment to check on their claim that 15% of the blog ads will be replaced with Entrecard Ads (since Sept 28). This will need to be repeated a few times to get a really accurate check. In fact, for statistical calculations 30 samples is considered a necessary number. I doubt that I'll repeat this 30 times, just because it's a pain to do the counting, but then again, the left side of my brain might make me do it!

So, I opened 100 blogs that claim to be signed up on Entrecard. This was done with a combination of first opening 15 blogs from the "Campaign" page of my interface, then I chain clicked until all those threads ran out, and finally I had the toolbar choose random selections from all blogs one at a time until I had opened 100. (I am specifying this because, perhaps by chance, I got different levels of EC ads from the methods).

None of the first 50 opened had an EC ad! In fact of the first 60 blogs, only 2 had EC ads. Seven blogs had no EC widget (suggesting that admin is not checking up on that very well)

However, by the time I got to 100 blogs, 18 of them had EC ads. So for today the EC ads appeard 18% of the time. That is certainly close to the expected 15%, and not far enough off to raise any red flags or make me obsessive about getting those 30 samples.

However, I do want to explore whether it was simple chance, or if the percentages are set differently for different click sources.

What is Entrecard Up To Now?

web ad income Oct 30 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.02 Adgitize $.53 Project Wonderful $.04 Chitika $.25 ______________________ Total: $.84