Is the mailbox obsolete?
The advent of the Internet and email has completely changed the way we communicate with other people. When before we would have pen pals and engage in stamp collecting (an offshoot of having pen-pals from abroad), today we send email and digital photos over the Internet. Which brings me to the question: Is the mailbox obsolete?
For some people it may be true. While occassional bills still find their way into my mail box they have web-based counterparts which I take care of directly from the online banking facility that my bank provides. For purposes of bills and bills payment, mailboxes may indeed be unncessesary in this day and age.
On the other hand, offices that still require hard copies both for their filing system and therefore from their clients or subscribers as well, the mail box is alive and well and still being stuffed. And I suppose, until the personal digital signature has been perfected to the point where identity theft is impossible, I think the mailbox will be around for the next few decades.
The Technorati Experiment
Good day to Sam, Daddynator, Raymond, Maiagirl, and Bugsybee, I would like to recruit you into an experiment that may provide an insight into how blog ranking works and how to work it. Thank you Panaderos, for the tag and the idea for a new post.
What is blog authority / blog rank?
Technorati Authority is the number of blogs linking to a website in the last six months. The higher the number, the more Technorati Authority the blog has.
It is important to note that we measure the number of blogs, rather than the number of links. So, if a blog links to your blog many times, it still only count as +1 toward your authority. Of course, new links mean the +1 will last another 180 days.
Technorati Rank is calculated based on how far you are from the top. The blog with the hightest Technorati Authority is the #1 ranked blog. The smaller your Technorati Rank, the closer you are to the top.
Since at the lower end of the scale many blogs will have the same Technorati Authority, they will share the same Technorati Rank.
—What is Authority? from Technorati.com
The Short Story
The tag rules mandate that you tag 5 other bloggers and to just keep adding to the list. No replacements, just additions.
Tag others and see your Technorati Authority explode. Please let me know if you wish to participate so I can email you the list in copy-paste-able html format, or web-savvy individuals can just view this page’s source and copy the code in the following paragraph. Thanks in advance to all of you.
And these are the people who already took part in this tag:
*Blognation, Pinoytek, Reyna, Bluep, Kotsengkuba, Buraot, Iris, KCee, Banco De Reyna, Mitch, Melai, Malen, Beng, Sasha, Divaness, Jojitah, Joanjoyce, Gzel, Panaderos, Bambit, (you!)
The Longer Story
When comparing Google’s PR and Technorati ranking, I’d certainly be in favor of Technorati. While Google’s PR has been proven to be manually manipulated by Google (search Google for the term “Google-slap”), Technorati’s ranking system is not only more reflective of your blog’s actual performance, but also encourages you to have constantly current content.
While this can work even if you don’t have a Technorati account, it always helps if you do. If you don’t have a Technorati account yet, go on over to their website and sign up for one. Once you’re on you’ll be guided on how you can “claim” your blog. I’d adivse the quick claim procedure as it’s, well, quicker. Once you’re up and running, get the Authority and Rank Widgets from the Technorati Widgets page and stick them on to your blog, so you can monitor your blog’s performance right on your homepage.
Disclosure update
A page on this blog expressly states that I am making a bit of money from writing here. It’s a late decision on my part, after having heard about other bloggers who have actually quit their jobs in favor of pro-blogging. What I do, in fact, cannot even be considered pro-blogging, as I do not have a specific niche, and can hardly even call myself a jack-of-all-lanterns. Definitely not a master of anything.
So while I am not in the league of those who have bought cars and expensive gadgets and the like solely out of their income from blogging, I would like to say that some of the links on this blog have allowed me to pay for another year’s registration and hosting (and a bit of bandwidth upgrade) for this domain and a few of our small clients’ sites as well. And I’ve only been in this since early February of this year.
What I’d like to say to anyone who’d like to try paid blogging is that some of the services that offer it do work, some do pay on time, and some do not require you to write reviews of products that are not available where you live or of places that you’ve never been to. Some services allow you to be as creative as possible, so you are actually able to blog AND earn a bit on the side.
To me this is actually better than the “tip me” schemes that I’ve read about recently. Tipping a blogger (usually via Paypal) for an article that the reader may consider helpful to himself arose as an alternative means of blog monetizing, in the aftermath of Google’s Page Rank slashing spree that penalized a lot of high PR blogs for having paid link ads. Better in the sense that I get paid for writing something that I do want to write about. If a reader found my post, read it and entered a comment (don’t forget the reCaptcha) that is more than enough thanks for me, no tipping is necessary.
Best Web Hosting Company
Sometime in 2007 I used a template for my WordPress.com blog from Kaushal Sheth. To me his name is one of the more familiar ones when it came to WordPress themes and blogging. Now when I visited his blog I saw his entry on web hosting, and how he had been in the market for a new host.
I remember the time when I made the move from my very first webhost to a new one. I was a domain registration hosting newbie and was not at all familiar with the ins and outs of registering a domain and buying hosting, so I left it all in the hands of my chosen webhost. I didn’t know what a whois could do or what a Domain Name Server was for. When I did find out about whois, I tried it on our domain kusangpalo.com. I was flabbergasted to find out that my domain, which I bought and paid for, had not been registered in my name, but that of the hosting company’s owner.
Newbie that I may have been, this was something that I thought was quite underhanded. When I lodged a complaint at the webhost’s forum they replied that they had registered it in the hosting company owner’s name so they can be reminded of the domain and site’s expiration, when the time came. I thought that was a lame excuse.
I scoured the internet and found this website http://www.webhostingpal.com/top10hosts.php. It enabled me to choose which hosting service was the best one on which to move my sites. And although I chose a provider who was not on the Top Web Hosting Sites, I think I found one of the best.
I packed my internet bags and jumped, into my current webhost Bayanhosting. This was in 2005, and I’m still with them. This domain, Sam’s and my blogs, our company website, a few of my clients at the office, I have all entrusted to Bayanhosting. I like them because they are always online on Yahoo Messenger if you need to shoot a quick question. One time I bungled the site settings and everything disappeared, but Bayanhosting had me up within 4 hours.
I haven’t even bothered to look at any other webhosting service, mainly because I haven’t had the need to do so. I’m happy where I am.
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