On our recent vacation to San Diego I brought both our digital camera (a 1.3 megapixel Olympus D-460) and my 35 mm film camera (a Minolta STsi Maxxum). While our digital camera is hardly top of the line, it does a decent job and is starting to make me wonder about even using a film camera. This is my attempt at convincing myself to go all digital.
Category Archives: Technology
Comment Issues
If anyone has had problems posting comments, I apologize. I added the url “mail.com” to my Blacklist, which inadvertently blocks anybody with “mail.com” in their e-mail address or url or whatever. So anybody using a gmail account may have been blocked. Sorry for the inconvenience. We’re less stupid now.
The Future of Thoughts
So there I go, thinking about blogging again. First I admit my schizophrenia, then I cut back, then I admit to being a blogaholic and talk about doing more, then I actually start doing more. Sheesh. Just when I think I have this habit under control, I go and read about six-figure bloggers. I’m hopeless.
But actually, it’s filled me with a lot of hope. I’m just not sure what to do. [this is going to be one of those long rants, so most of you may want to bail now]
More Big Money Blogs
Darren Rowse, the six-figure blogger I linked to the other day, links to a post about other profitable bloggers:
- Instapundit earns $8,000-10,000 per month.
- Andrew Sullivan raised $80,000 in one week (though that was an isolated incident)
- Markos Moulitsas Zuniga made more than $100,000 on his site in 2004.
And there are others, but those are the impressive ones. This is becoming an obsession for me. It’s just so hard to ignore folks making big money from blogging. I want to make big money from blogging. Heck, I’d settle for a little money. Just something to chip away at the college loans.
I think it’s also just encouraging to see that blogging doesn’t have to be the waste of time some people think it is. I know it’s not a waste of time, but for some people it requires a montary value to be worth any time at all. I think the big money bloggers are pretty rare at this point, but what’s not rare are the folks like me who have made a few connections through blogging, which have possibly led to a job or two. That’s justification right there, assuming my countless hours of joy and satisfaction aren’t enough for you.
But I still wouldn’t mind raking in $10,000 per month.
Bring on the Webby Awards
The Webby Award nominees were announced today. Holy cow, there are so many categories. It’s like the Grammy’s.
I’m disappointed to see that the “Youth” category still pretty much covers sites for anyone under 18, from ChannelOne to Noggin (“It’s like preschool on TV”). I’m especially annoyed at the un-usability of some of these sites. Noggin has no volume control (it won’t shut up!) and the Scholastic site has one of those annoying Flash navigation systems where you just have to roll over everything to see what’s there.
I’m also disappointed to see that the People’s Voice awards no longer take write-in votes. I remember a few years ago trying to wage a write-in campaign for passageway.org. I think we ultimately lost to Penny Arcade or someone like that. Sure, write-in votes pretty much mean whoever has the most traffic will win, but at least you can see some other sites get mentioned.
Oh well. It’s a nice place to look for new and (usually) well done sites.
The Six-Figure Blogger
Pro-blogger Darren Rowse expects to earn a six-figure income this year from blogging. Yikes. He writes for 17 different blogs (and you thought I was an addict) on a variety of different topics. (link via Jordon Cooper)
Blog on Nonprofits
On Philanthropy encourage nonprofits to jump on the blog bandwagon. I think it’s a brilliant idea, provided a nonprofit finds the right voice and is willing to give a blogger enough freedom. Sadly, most nonprofits are too tight-fisted with their information to see the potential benefits of blogging. (link via Blogger Buzz)
Interrupting Sex For a Cell Phone Call
14% of the world’s cell phone users admit to stopping in the middle of sex to answer their cell phone. (Ad Age, free registration required)
Wow. Can you say ‘too much information’? Still proud to say I don’t have a cell phone.
Kottke’s Micro Patronage
Full-time blogger Jason Kottke finally gives an update on his fund-raising efforts to secure his year as a full-time blogger. The verdict? Contributions didn’t quite make it to Kottke’s goal of one-third to one-half his previous salary, but it’s close enough. All in all, he’s not feeling particularly positive about his future outlooks. He assumes year-on-year giving will drop, making this venture harder and harder to finance without some other source. He recommends advertising if you can live with the trade-offs. So far he can’t.
Christian Search Engine For Sale
Wanna buy a Christian search engine? The bidding starts at $8,500 for Faithfound.com, a religious search engine with more than 90,000 categorized web sites. The site received 3,600 unique visitors in February.