New Blog Launch: NonToxin.com

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Launched on 2nd April: NonToxin.com

20th November 2007: Maki at DoshDosh.com made an open challenge to his readers: start 1 flagship blog per month. 1 blog per month can become a logistical nightmare after 3-4 months. But I knew I wanted to open my own blog network.

So I spent the first quarter of 2008 putting systems in place so that I could create 1 blog per month without getting overwhelmed. I created systems and procedures on:

• Creating the blog and its design
• Having a consistent publishing strategy
• Automating marketing and reaching and touching the most number of people
• Monetizing the blogs

I’ll be posting parts of my procedures and systems in the coming weeks. But in this post, I would like to tell you that the first blog was launched exactly 7 days ago!
The name of the blog is: Non Toxin. The purpose of that blog is: to downgrade information and upgrade wisdom. And to never write about things that are hot today but won’t be remembered tomorrow. No Tech. No Gossip. No Politics. If the blog post doesn’t make you smarter, it shouldn’t be published!

Would you like an insiders look at how a blog does in its first week of launch?

1st week statistics for NonToxin.com:

• 2 Posts (1 of them just published 17 minutes back)
• 18 comments
• 839 unique visitors

All in all, its a good start. And I haven’t even started promoting the blog heavily. The only things I’ve done is:

• Announce the blog on 1 forum that I love
• Added a small link to a newsletter of mine

Besides that, one of my friends also submitted the first post to StumbleUpon.com that bought in about 106 visitors.

Whats the next plan of action?

• Cruise the waters till 5-6 posts are published on the blog
• Then jumpstart blog promotion

PS: I would appreciate it if you can hop on to the new blog and post a comment on the top most post if you like its content. As you know, having more comments on a new blog builds social proof and helps a lot in showing that its a busy blog and other people like it. Thanks!

BarCamp Mumbai

Sorry for the late notice.

I’ll be attending the BarCamp Mumbai tomorrow (29th March).A  BarCamp Mumbai will also have a BlogCamp Mumbai session for which I may give a brand new presentation.

If you’re in or around Mumbai, do plan to visit it.A  Its a free event. A  And these camps and conferences are usually a lot of fun.A  You’ll get to meet some great bloggers and entrepreneurs.

Steve Jobs Helps BlogClout Find Focus

Steve Jobs on Focus:

“Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we’ve got less than 30 major products. I don’t know if that’s ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.

“I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. The clearest example was when we were pressured for years to do a PDA, and I realized one day that 90% of the people who use a PDA only take information out of it on the road. They don’t put information into it. Pretty soon cellphones are going to do that, so the PDA market’s going to get reduced to a fraction of its current size, and it won’t really be sustainable. So we decided not to get into it. If we had gotten into it, we wouldn’t have had the resources to do the iPod. We probably wouldn’t have seen it coming.”

(This is a long post… but you deserve an explanation on what is up with BlogClout…)A 

Not posting consistently is the biggest mistake a blogger can make.A  Because when you don’t post consistently, most people don’t complain.A  They just leave.A  And to get these people, you have to work harder than before.

So then why am I not posting consistently over here at BlogClout?A  It has to do with Steve Jobs’s advice.A  Let me explain the whole situation to you:

1.

This blog was started to pre-launch a new blog application.A  I was working on an application similar to “BlogRush” where you could exchange links to blog posts by other bloggers.A  But internal tests showed that the click through rate for the application was dismal.

So I and my team started working on how to improve the click through rate.A  We were testing a feature where the links shown on your blog would be “relevant” - our logarithm would match the title of your page with blog post titles.A  And show only those blog posts that matched well with your page title.

We were also testing on making the post links integrate well with each and every blog.A  Instead of coming out with a widget, we intended to replace the “Related Posts” feature that many blogs have.

But while we were working on these features, John Reese went ahead and came out with BlogRush.A  (It was just one of those things… 2 people on 2 different ends of the world working on a similar idea… and he beat me to it.)

Its my opinion that there is no place for a second BlogRush.A  And so the BlogClout application was scrapped.

2.

After the launch of a competing application, we scrapped the launch of our BlogClout application.A  But I kept this blog going on for some time (and the response was pretty good).A  The problem was… all the initial motivation was gone.

And better projects attracted my attention.

I needed to focus on those other projects (especially one other project that shows great potential and I think will help more people than I could ever help with BlogClout).A  And so I gave very little time to BlogClout.

3.

Good news: The project I’ve been working on since the past few months is about to be launched in the next couple of weeks time.

4.

So what will happen to BlogClout?

After the launch of the other project, I should have some more free time.A  And I plan to pick things up with BlogClout.A  And share some very new cool ideas that I’ve tested that I know no one else is talking about.

But this time, I plan to do things well.A  I plan to bring on another blogger to write for BlogClout.A  So that you’ll have a wider base of ideas.A  And you’ll never be left in a lurch if my attention goes to some other project in the future too.

Action Summary:

If you run a blog and always wanted to share your blogging successes and failures, contact me.A  I am looking for one or two co-bloggers for BlogClout.A  (Its a paid position.)

The Microsoft Strategy

Its been a long long time since I’ve posted here.A  (I’ll tell you what I’ve been upto very soon.)A  Because its been a long time, I wanted to start out with a super-duper stellar post.A  But thats just delaying things.A  So let me start out with a hypothetical brainstorming post that will likely not help you unless you are one of the top execs at Microsoft.

Microsoft recently made a bid for Yahoo.A  Their reasoning is: to beat Google’s 75% dominance in the search and online advertising market, they have to partner up with Yahoo or they’ll never become numero uno.

I think thats a disastrous move.A  Two stale companies can’t usually beat a nimble company.A  Just like you-and-me can’t team up on LeBron James and defeat him. We have to improve our skills first.

So how can Microsoft improve their skills?A 

To know the answer, you have to ask one more question: how did Google achieve the #1 position online?

1. Google created a search engine that gave out far better results without any clutter

2. Google then created or bought ad space or partnered with others so that their ads can be shown.A  (While you search / while you check emails / while you surf other websites.)

So lets evaluate each of Google’s dominant fields and see how to beat them.

Search Engine DominanceA 

I’m of the opinion that there can be no better system than listing search results on the basis of how many other websites link to yours.A  Links are the votes that determine online popularity.A  The only other option is to chase the idea of human voting to determine popularity.A  And for that, Microsoft will have to buy StumbleUpon.com from eBay or create something similar.

Advertising Dominance

Why is Microsoft lagging in their online ad sales?A  Because they don’t have as big a reach as Google.A  And so most merchants only use Google Adwords.A  What can Microsoft do?A  Use Google API to match up with Google.A  By using Google API, Microsoft can come up with a “one-click-import” feature where merchants and advertisers can import their Google Adwords campaigns to Microsoft instantly!

Microsoft can then work on their “reach” to one-up Google.

Email Dominance

How to beat Gmail?A  There are 2 ways to come up with a better email system.

i. keyword@username.MSN.com email addresses.A  By allowing people unlimited email aliases, they can have better control over spam.A  For eg: if I wanted to register at WSJ.com - I would give my email id to them as: wsj@ankesh.msn.com.

ii. Pay people to email.A  Share the ad revenue that Microsoft earns via email ads with the users.

Browser Dominance

Because FireFox uses Google as the default search engine, Google has bagged a big share of browser searches without their own browser.A A  Microsoft has to open up their browsers so that others can create extensions and add-ons for IE browser too.

And as long as Microsoft is doing that - they might as well allow people to create extensions for MSN messenger too.A  And maybe people can come up with extensions for the desktop too?

Ads on Other Websites

Two things Microsoft can do:

i. Buy WordPress.com to compete with Blogger.com

ii. Give a bigger share of revenue to publishers than what Google gives.A  And lower the minimum payment threshold from $100 to $20.A  And pay on a weekly basis.A  Improve the payment terms and lots of publishers that use Google Adsense will move to Microsoft.

Aquisitions

Instead of Yahoo, there are other better properties to buy.

i. WordPress.com

ii. ebay.A  By buying eBay instead of Yahoo - Microsoft would also get StumbleUpon.com (the only other technology that hold the promise to make their search engines better than Googles), Skype.com (a far better instant messenger) and PayPal.com (an obvious match with their ad program)!

iii. Facebook.A  To extend their advertisers reach.

The Pause Before the Run

Hello guys!

Just a short note to thank you for your patience.

There hasn’t been a whole lot of new content on BlogClout. A  And I’m going out of town and will be back only by 17th of January.A  So there may not be any more content till then either.A  But you’ll be reading some awsome posts after that.

• I’m starting a new blog and will chronicle its progress over here
• You’ll also be reading a few more interviews of some prolific and famous bloggers

So stay tuned.

My November Report

I finished writing my November report.A  But its not blogging related.A  So won’t be promoting it on BlogClout.A  If you’re interested in it, please follow this link:
Making Money With Domain Names

Blog Readability Checklist

Heatmap shows how we tend to read in “F” fashion

Did you know that there are two kinds of online readers?

1. Methodical Readers: They read the posts from top to bottom without a lot of scanning.

2. Scanners: They scan headlines and pictures and other display elements without reading all the text.

And research shows that both these groups’ numbers are pretty much even. About 50% of all online readers are scanners and the other 50% are methodical readers.

Are you catering to both these type of readers?

7 Tips to Improve Your Blog Readability

1. Make sure your paragraphs aren’t too wide. 500 to 600 pixels is a perfect paragraph / column width.

2. Use a lot of headlines and subheadlines.

3. Use language that is easily understandable. (But don’t try to talk down to your readers.)

4. Pictures with captions are an excellent idea.

5. Use bullet points. Bullet points are widely read by both: methodical readers as well as scanners!

6. Add a Summary at the end of your extremely long posts to improve peoples understanding of your posts.

7. Use alternative story formats to increase readability. Questions and Answers work brilliantly online. So do blocks of quotes.

Credit: Photo by Travellin’ Librarian

Product Development Strategy for Blogs - FAQ

Strategy: Pump your first product profits to buy ads and generate more traffic for your blogA 

I’ve had some fascinating discussions with a few bloggers via email and skype these past few days after the Create a Quick Info Product post.A  Most of them have been quite fruitful and we shall see at least a couple of top bloggers come up with their own info products soon.

But there were a few hesitant people.A  This post is for them.

1. I don’t have the time to create an info product

Even the slowest of writers can write one page in one hour.A  10-12 pages is all that is required for a report / hotsheet that can be sold for less than $10.A  Are you telling me that you can’t work one weekend to raise your blog one notch ahead?

2. I’m not ready yet

Its December 2003.A  I’ve just started promoting BizTactics.com.A  I may have as many as 3 subscribers!A  But thats the time my mentor Sean D’Souza forced me to write a report for the website.A  What do you have to get ready for to write a quick report?

My suggestion: you should create an info product even before you start blogging.

That way - you can start buying ads to promote your blog from Day 1.A  And buying ads will make you popular quicker than not buying ads.

What are you waiting for?A  Can’t you dedicate one weekend this November to write a quick info product?

No Posts on BlogClout?

A short note: I’m a bit busy.A  Have sold 2 of my projects this past week.A  And am in the process of wrapping another project of mine.A  Hence, the shortage of posts over here.A  Give me a couple more days before the posting resumes.A  Thanks for your patience - Ankesh.

What Makes a Website Credible?

I just saw this comprehensive slide show by Stanford’s Persuasion Research Lab. Its based in 2002 research. But its still worth a view.

Especially slides 14 to 25. They give 10 guidelines for increasing web credibility.

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via: GrokDotCom