The following are some notes I am taking whilst testing

http://blog.valuewiki.com/2007/03/14/my-blogging-lessons/

http://www.gischeleman.com/2007/06/04/popularity-hadnt-occured-to-me-until-today/
http://www.tweblog.com/2007/02/05/67-million-blogs-and-15-million-blog-posts-each-day/

Some notes about these links

• It is not just WordPress.com blogs, as Doug Haslam is using .org
• These are all old posts, the newest is over 9 months old
• There have certainly been many more related posts, such as on Mashable.
• I tested whether the links were indexed in Technorati – they weren’t, but then the WordPress.com blog doesn’t have a normal feed and might be banned from Technorati as it might skew things a little with 3,000,000 sitewide links pointing at it
• The links were also not shown in Google Blogsearch, but again… no feed

As an experiment, I pinged the page in Technorati anyway to see if things update.

Other pages such as this one (new dashboard) on the WordPress.com blog has more relevant fresh links, so it does sometimes work.

So we need to visit a bloger who is obviously still in Technorati such as… Lorelle, with her most recent blog challenge

Lets see where these links point

http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2007/08/17/weekly-digest-quarter-through-two-months-of-guest-blogging… ok I shortened this URL a little
http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/11/04/blogging-challenge-should-all-business-professionals-blog/
http://hollironquillo.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/how-to-get-started-as-a-freelance-blogger/
http://yrikendrick.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/write-a-successful-blog-hot-tips-on-how-you-can-start-writing-a-blog-successfully/
http://enkerli.wordpress.com/2006/11/04/blogging-ethnography/
http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/04/killer-stress-b.html

Notice 2 of those links are on her own blog, and they are highlighted in bold and listed first – that is useful if you don’t have an alternative using plugins such as Simple Tags.

I suppose from a reader point of view it also enhances the browsing experience… at least a little.

I checked all the URLs, and again Technorati wasn’t showing any links from Lorelle’s blog to those blogs listed as possibly related. So I gave them a ping as well, and we will see if there are long term results.

What Does Sphere Say?

The official Sphere announcement shows a little more information

A Sphere-powered module resides beneath posts on all WordPress.com index pages showing related articles from three sources: from the author of that article, from across the WordPress community, and from sources in our mainstream media index.

Sphere are owned by AOL

In Matt’s post there is talk of pushing this out to WordPress.org blogs, and probably that also includes WordPress MU as well.
If you decide to opt out, your links are no longer shown.

It Is No Longer Javascript

I had a little look at Sphere some time ago, and was accepted into their program for the widgets. I just got a little tied up around Christmas moving house so I did nothing with it. The acceptance email was actually still in my gmail inbox along with 9000 other emails (some of those are actually read and actioned, just not archived) – they didn’t send a followup reminder, and I had been waiting over a year to be included.

If I am included within the network by displaying the widget at the bottom of posts, I might then also be included within the WordPress.com possibly related blogs as being a “mainstream blog”

So I would be giving out a javascript link, which might send some traffic away, but in return I get a nice search engine followable link from all the WordPress.com blogs that decide to use this feature.

In addition to the original registration that was possible (and actually still seems to be available for a normal widget, there is also a WordPress Plugin listed in the tools section.

Cool

What is strange is that 2 of the above blogs originally mentioned are not running Sphere links or the widget.

Also significant is that the WordPress.com version which has the links in HTML doesn’t seem to include the links in feeds, which on many blogs is where the readers are. Maybe that is just oversight.

I certainly wouldn’t include a “live links” version of the code unless it appeared in the feed, and would probably prefer live links in feed, and Javascript on my blog.

The lack of links in the feed might also be a reason that Technorati isn’t picking up the links (though they could have code to filter already) and why Google Blogsearch isn’t picking up the links, as that works just with feeds.

Hmm It Is A Link

There are widgets and widgets – some widgets are pure javascript, and others are links that get rewriten by javascript.

<span style="margin-bottom:40px; border-bottom:none;"><a href="http://www.sphere.com/search?q=sphereit:http://andybeard.eu/2008/04/wordpresscom-subdomain-spam-with-tags.html"class="iconsphere" title="Sphere: Related Content" onclick="return Sphere.Widget.search('http://andybeard.eu/2008/04/wordpresscom-subdomain-spam-with-tags.html')" >Sphere: Related Content</a></span>

As far as I am concerned that is linking to a search query, thus it should have nofollow on the link, but it doesn’t.

That might need to be tweaked in the plugin.

So I now have a “Sphere It!” button, lets see if I start appearing across 3 Million WordPress.com blogs, and large news sites.

For those on WordPress.com who are worried about this feature, Lorelle now has a warning and no doubt WordPress Wank will be entertaining.

There are major issues among more controversial hate related blogging, and editorial control – I suppose the same problems exist having Digg headlines on your blog.
Also of note is that I forst spotted Lorelles new post when testing my Sphere widget after I posted. Not all the blogs listed are junk.

Many bloggers look on their activity on social networks, social news and microblogging sites as an extension of their blog. For instance I look on my Stumbleupon blog as an ideal way to publish asides, or as a legitimate way to share cool content without having to worry about copyright issues that might be associated with sharing RSS items using Google Reader.
I am not a big fan of posts that are just a big links roundup.

Whilst it is easily possible to create a mashup of multiple RSS resources and feeds, and then combine them in some kind of universal widget, often the results are disappointing.

Blogcatalog Make It Easy With “My News Feed”

Feeds have now also been added to Blogcatalog profile pages

You will also notice in the top right corner of the widget that you can easily subscribe to the social lifestream of your favorite bloggers as a single feed.

Privacy

You have full control over what is shared from within Blogcatalog Dashboard setting

Bugs?

There are a few

I had to do a little CSS hacking to get the widget to display correctly with my theme, but I am sure Daniel from Blogcatalog will get those sorted out quickly.

The RSS feed needs a little work. There are duplicate lines, and it would be good to include snippets where available. I am also not sure I am a big fan of the tracking links on the blog posts that appear in the RSS feeds, but that probably helps on Blogcatalog ratings.

Disclaimer: I do some consulting with Blogcatalog

By new, I mean this was pre-release, extremely exclusive private invite to be in “ahead of the curve”

It is CPC (cost per click) based rather than CPA (cost per action), thus you get paid based upon every click.

Another widget that is very much product based, I suppose going head to head with Chitika so it will be good on product related sites.

Notice I am not including a live widget? This is CPC, and and I am writing about the product, thus the naturally curious would be clicking on the adverts to give them a trial… and I can’t display a test advert which isn’t tied to my account or possibly someone else’s.

There Are 5 Big Questions Regarding WidgetBuckz

1. Where did they get the silly name?
2. Can keywords and products clicked be tracked? – Adsense is part of your product research for things you really should be promoting directly as an affiliate, or finding topics for content either free or paid. From the terms it seems like you are not allowed to use your own tracking.
3. Why did they include the display domain in the configuration of a widget? There are much better ways to authorize or claim a site. How would you use this widget on 7000 blogs?
4. This is the initial launch – they claim it is possible to achieve an effective CPM (cost per thousand impressions) of between $3 and $6 – is that before or after click fraud reductions?
5. The referral scheme – initially $5 was offered for every sign up who achieved a balance of $50 ($25 earnt + $25 free bonus), then that was updated within a few hours and it is now 10% over 12 months – that doesn’t seem to be in addition to the original $5 – where do you draw the line between being reactive to your customers and being a feather in the wind?

Positive Notes

The widgets will catch the attention of the audience, and might generate clicks. Payment is via Paypal or check

More Questions, or Questionable Things

This was interesting within the terms of service

Back-links placed by Mpire in the HTML code must not be removed.

Lets take a look at the code

<!-- START CUSTOM WIDGETBUCKS CODE --><script src="http://www.widgetbucks.com/script/widgetMagic.js" type="text/javascript"></script><div id="container_TiVAnRMsyRoS1hSy" class="wbtw300x250"><a href="http://www.widgetbucks.com" target="_blank">WidgetBucks - Trend Watch - WidgetBucks.com</a></div><script type="text/javascript">writeWBStyles("www.widgetbucks.com");setTimeout(function(){var day = "" + new Date().getMonth() + new Date().getDate() + new Date().getYear();var widget = new mpireWidget("http://www.widgetbucks.com/widgets/wbtw300x250.swf?uid=TiVAnRMsyRoS1hSy&apiURL=http://www.widgetbucks.com&day="+day,"TiVAnRMsyRoS1hSy");widget.write("container_TiVAnRMsyRoS1hSy");},Math.floor((Math.random() * 150) - (-(Math.random() * 150))) - (-200))</script><!-- END CUSTOM WIDGETBUCKS CODE -->

So they are currently giving themselves a sitewide paid link, potentially more than one per page, and you might eventually earn $50 from placing the adverts.
Bidvertiser do something similar, including a text link using “noscript”, but you can easily add nofollow to that link or remove it.

As Mpire, the company behind WidgetBucks don’t allow you to remove the link, I wonder if you are allowed to modify it by adding a nofollow – the terms suggest you are not allowed to modify the code in any way?

There also seems to be a restriction in discussing CTR data, so when/if you have a problem with clicks being discounted in the future, I would be careful what you say in public.

Conclusion

Who wants to earn lots of… Monopoly money and vapour bucks?

Go somewhere else for an affiliate link – I have no confidence in a site that changes their payment structure a few hours after launch, surely they asked for professional feedback before launch?
I also don’t like the sneaky links you can’t remove, and which most people won’t be aware of.

I don’t like the way geo-targeting wasn’t mentioned in any way.

Sure I am throwing money away or “leaving it on the table”, but then I turned down $1500 worth of paid reviews last month as well.

There are plenty of widgets available in multiple designs which work on a CPA (cost per action) basis, with lots of affiliate products.

CPC really starts to be a problem when you look at GEO Targeting and the country of origin of traffic – I didn’t see anything regarding different click prices depending on the source of traffic, and I just have a feeling this will be a major problem in the future.

I really don’t trust CPC based product widgets launched just before Christmas, such that all the problems only appear after the busiest time of the year, and the record Christmas earnings turn into a flop.

Sorry Jim, I don’t like vapour bucks