Micropayments for bloggers
There has been a lot of discussion about newspapers charging for online content, but not much has been said about bloggers doing the same.
A company called Fraxion Payments has now made it possible for bloggers to charge as little as one cent per article.
“Creators of quality content can now charge for their work,” says Chris Wilkins, co-founder of Fraxion Payments.
“Those who create the content will get the lions’ share of the revenue. This is the way it should be.”
The company says bloggers will be paid up to 85 percent on a monthly basis for purchased articles, “which may well be a huge boost for citizen journalism”.
The payment is actually 60 percent for total royalties of less than US$100 per month. (more…)
Blog etiquette
Is blogging a lost art? Has it been superseded by social media such as Facebook and Twitter? Do we only communicate now in 140-character snatches?
I didn’t mean to start this post with such a complex series of questions.
I really wanted to comment on comments etiquette.
There are several blogs I read every few days and others I visit infrequently. I’m not an avid RSS feed user, but if I remember to open RSS Owl it sometimes prompts me to visit a particular site.
I don’t always agree with the opinions I read on my favorite blogs and I don’t expect readers here to always agree with me.
Although published to a public forum, blogs are a private thing. I’m not forcing you to read this and you are not compelled to comment. (more…)
Typepad microblog
Typepad is offering a free microblogging service. Sample at http://gorey.typepad.com.
Gifted Web Writers
I was invited earlier this month to join the Gifted Web Writers program.
An unsolicited email on November 13 said my site had been discovered during a search “for high quality blogs and gifted web writers”.
The writer referred to a specific post.
“Michael, you definitely have a unique and interesting writing style and an intriguing high quality blog. Since you and your blog meet our quality guidelines, we would like to offer you to join our unique and highly rewarding program,” the email said.
Flattery gets you everywhere.
The first email went on to say: (more…)
Weekly digest
This is a list of posts that I’ve made elsewhere in the past week, which may be of interest to some readers:
Blogger blog marked as spam
I received a stern email from The Blogger Team overnight saying my site for Border Watch Editorials has been marked as an evil spam blog.
The email urges me to request a review if I dispute the classification and goes on to say:
“Your blog will be deleted in 20 days if it isn’t reviewed, and your readers will see a warning page during this time. After we receive your request, we’ll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. Once we have reviewed and determined your blog is not spam, the blog will be unlocked and the message in your Blogger dashboard will no longer be displayed. If this blog doesn’t belong to you, you don’t have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won’t be affected.” (more…)
Better blogroll for WordPress
I installed the Better Blogroll plugin for WordPress tonight. You can see it working in the sidebar.
The plugin enables users to display a configurable number of random links.
I’ve never used the WordPress links feature much, but plan to change that now. I was concerned about creating long blogrolls that nobody would ever read, and which all visitors (including me) would find boring, a waste of space and difficult to use. (more…)
