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Blogging is a process.  One that does have a learning curve.  Most new bloggers start off by focusing on many of the wrong things and attempting every traffic generation and monetization strategy that one could find instead of focusing like a laser on building the identify of the blog and committing to a single strategy.  I know I made these mistakes during the early stages of my blog, 20smoney.com.

My Early Days

I focused on all the wrong areas during my first year of blogging.  I tried to find the coolest, most expensive theme (and I did).  I implemented every type of silly monetization strategy such as banner stripe ads and I even had a pop-up box designed to entice visitors to sign up for my email list.  The result?  A mediocre website at best with no real purpose.

Despite some level of growth, the blog did not grow nearly as much as I would have hoped.  The amount of work that i was putting in was not translating into sufficient growth.  I “hit the wall” like many new bloggers do.

A Renewed Focus

I contemplating a complete halt to my blogging activities just because I wasn’t seeing the return on my time.  Rather than quit, I decided to try out a drastic change.  The first thing to go was my theme.  I got rid of the magazine-like, fancy theme with moving featured posts and images, and went to a bare-bones theme.  The reason?  I wanted my readers to visit my site for the content; therefore, I needed to have the theme be about the content and nothing else.  The results were incredible.

As you can see from the below graphic, the immediate impact of the theme change was a huge drop in my bounce rate.  From averaging over 60% rate, I took the bounce rate down to the 4-5% range instantaneously.  This was step number 1 in taking my blog to the next level.  If people don’t last more than a single page view, it’s pretty tough to grow a website.

The next step was to understand my objective. Was I trying to create a real interactive community of readers who had a similar interest (in my case, finance)?  Or, was I simply trying to gain search traffic and get ad clicks?  If you haven’t answered this question yourself, you need to.  I decided that it was time to focus on quality and gaining a real readership versus short term search traffic and Adsense numbers.

I put an emphasis on quality content and became re-energized.  Why would someone want to visit my blog?  I ask myself this every day.  If I can’t come up with a good answer, then obviously, my blog will not go anywhere.  Similar to step one, the results have been excellent.  The traffic growth which I document each month with a monthly blogging update, has been encouraging.

The below graphic shows the steady increase in traffic i’ve been receiving mainly due to my renewed focus on quality content.

Please note that January’s traffic is through January 11, 2010. I’m on pace for my best month yet.

Conclusion

To sum up my advice, it would be to have a fantastic understanding of your objective as a blogger. What are you trying to accomplish? When you can answer that, you should be focused intensely on achieving that goal. Do not dabble in multiple strategies or try out a new approach every month. Determine your own approach for your blog and commit to it. If you do, you will see nice results.

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About 22 months ago, Google was sued over its Street View program by a couple named Aaron and Christine Boring.  The entire suit was dismissed a little while later.  Now, the Borings have made a small bit of headway with an appeal, but it doesn’t appear that Google has much to worry about.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is sticking by the dismissal of the Borings’ claims for invasion of privacy, unjust enrichment, injunctive relief, and punitive damages.  The only claim that will be allowed to go forward is one regarding trespassing.

  (Now-Deleted) Street View Shot Of The Borings’ House

The Borings, who originally sought $25,000 in damages, don’t seem likely to get much money due to this, either.  A court document stated, "[T]hey ‘bear the burden of proving that the trespass was the legal cause, i.e., a substantial factor in bringing about actual harm or damage’ . . . if they want more than a dollar."

This looks to be a significant win for Google.  Had things gone another way, the lawsuit could have encouraged all sorts of people to sue the company.  Taken to an extreme, Street View might have met its end as a result.

Yet as things stand, no one can count on getting more than a single dollar, and that’s only if Google’s Street View drivers prove unable to turn back at "Private Road" signs.

Related Articles:

> Street View Spreads To Denmark, Sweden

> Google Headed To Swiss Court Over Street View

> Google Street View Hits Hawaii, Mexico

The media sector performed well in 2009, recovering $200 billion of value, or 63 percent of what it lost in 2008, online content providers and distributors made up more than half of these gains, according to a new report by consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

The largest gains were in China, where the media sector market value increased by 200 percent. The report indicates that the trend toward online media cannibalizing traditional platforms could push the industry toward a "zero-sum game" and increase the pressure on existing companies to sharpen online strategies.

Online video viewing minutes increased in 2009 by 50% in the U.S. and 30% in Spain, with TV shows and movies accounting for around half of these minutes. "These averages, however, mask the full extent of the change among the subset of the population that watches long-form content online," said Robert C. Fox, a Partner in Oliver Wyman’s Communications, Media, and Technology practice.

"In the U.S., for example, among those who watch long-form video online, 15% of their total long-form viewing is online and their linear TV and DVD viewing decreased in 2009. Similarly among all 18-34 year-olds, a key advertising demographic, all forms of viewing other than online and mobile dropped in 2009."

"The pace of growth in online-video viewing is striking," said Mr. Fox. "However, while the platform is still in its infancy, the behavior of today’s online population suggests that much of this growth will come at the expense of traditional platforms. Video could be headed for a zero-sum game," he added.
 

Related Articles:

> Google To Get More Interactive With Mobile Video Ads

> IAB Releases Ad Unit Guidelines Updates

> YouTube Videos In Adsense Could Drive Clicks

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this month, Intel had a lot of things going on. For one, they introduced a whole new family of Intel Core Processors. They also had a cool proof-of-concept device on display. This was something they call the Intel Infoscape.

Infoscape is a giant display featuring cubes of information, and users can walk up to it and access all kinds of different content – Google News, Tweets, blogs, Flickr images, etc. While on display at CES, the content dealt with CES-related info.

Being a proof-of-concept device, Infoscape is designed to look at different ways of presenting content down the road. The giant cube is powered by Intel’s Core I7 processor, and pulls from about 20,000 different content sources.

The Infoscape displays its content on a double HD screen at 1920×1920 resolution, running at over 100 frames per second. For the event, it was organized into content areas like healthcare, habitat, the environment, communications, transportation, etc.

According to Intel, the device is aimed at exploring how people might access and organize their content in the future. What do you think?

Related Articles:

> Looking at Polaroid’s Photo Sharing Service

> A Close Up with Sony’s New Personal Internet Viewer

> The World’s Smallest USB Drive and Portable Hard Drive

Well, that’s a question I keep asking myself from time to time. A lot of people start blogging mainly because they were introduced to and inspired by certain blogging idols or super successful bloggers. Some others do blog because they think it’s cool and the rest do it for other benefits such as online income.

However, too many bloggers ditch blogging half way through even before giving it a whole-hearted attempt. This is mainly because they did not originally have the ingredients to be successful in online writing. So what does it take to be a successful blogger who takes blogging as a serious hobby or even as a profession?

#1 Writing skills

Blogging is first about writing! Unless you possess decent writing skills – even when writing about technical topics for that matter – blogging is not meant for you. Having writing skills alone won’t be sufficient if you do not enjoy writing.

#2 Creativity

So you are good at writing! But people will soon get bored of glorified rubbish unless you are creative and innovative with your ideas. Most successful bloggers already know the next few topics they are going to write about. Many times those who do a lot of research and online/offline reading always have enough innovative things to write about.

#3 Originality

When was the last time you wrote or read something very original on a blog? Many upcoming bloggers perish because they depend on other feeder blogs for ideas. The most successful bloggers are those who have the most original ideas to write about. It is acceptable if you promote inspired or stale ideas once in a while but more often you should ignite your own new ideas in order to become successful in blogging.

#4 Networking Skills

The main difference between online and offline writing is that you get your readers’ feedback instantly in the case of online writing. This is mainly because of the collaborative nature of blogging as well as the capabilities of its supporting paraphernalia (social media, social networking, subscription etc). Hence those who network better, open to feedback and work on their shortcomings will become successful sooner or later. The online networking skills enables a blogger to build a community around his topics and ideas not only to get accepted at the first level but also to become the evangelists of the same over the web.

#5 Sustainability

Finally, to persist with any hobby, passion or profession you need to have a lot of drive within you. You should be very good at time management and engage yourself – on a continuous basis – with all aspects concerning blogging. This includes understanding the trends and adapting accordingly, have self-defined goals (in the positive direction) and work relentlessly towards achieving them with focus. It is the persistence that makes a blogger a real super blogger!

Conclusion

There may be ten or fifteen other things that one can define as the qualities of a serious blogger but I believe that the above five are the major points. Now let me ask you bloggers :

(1) Are you putting serious efforts to become the next big name in the blogosphere?
(2) What are those two or three things that you do with respect to your blogging to sustain for long term?

Happy Blogging!

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