You're going to want to subscribe to my RSS feed. It's the greatest thing since sliced bread - even better, in fact. You know you want to.

Their slogan: make mad cash from ads. You’re going to have a lot of angry money.

After a long day of pretending to work, the last thing anyone wants to do is spend hours looking through the twenty ad networks you use (in vain) to monetize your blog. The Rubicon Project feels your pain, and it wants to cure it.

WHAT IS THE RUBICON PROJECT?
The Rubicon Project takes ads from hundreds of different advertising programs (Adsense, YPN, Adbrite, all that good stuff) and automagically optimizes them to do well on your blog. It detects which ads do well and gives them more impressions while rooting out the crappy ads and sending them to time-out so that they can cry in the corner. Things that are factored in to determining how to place ads are location, gender, language spoken, and more. In short, it’s like having your own personal ad managing secretary robot that makes you money.

WHAT’S THE CATCH?
Currently, there is no catch. The system is in beta testing and thus all of this comes at absolutely no cost to you. They will most likely make money by taking a cut of your profit, but since most publishers report a 50% increase in revenue you’ll still feel like an ad tycoon.

OH, AND IT LOOKS GREAT TOO
It’s true. The Rubicon Project is so well made that it’s only compatible with FireFox. Guess all those fancy reports, graphs, and optimization just overwhelm IE. So, if you still live in the stone age… sucks for you! Uh. I mean. I love all my IE viewers too - it’s just that, well, it’s not you. It’s me. And it’s the Rubicon Project. Have a picture of what you’re missing:

Isn’t it beautiful? Just look at that blue map. And the bar things. And the circley thing with two shades of green. That, friends, is what ad programs are all about. That and the money.

So sign up for the Rubicon Project today and make some mad money blogging.

Posted by Max Miroff | 4 Comments »

A whirlwind of wonderful works of Wordpress art.

Does your blog theme suck just not match up to your competitors? When you tell me your blog theme can beat up their blog theme, do you really mean it? Unless you actually wasted spent your hard-earned money on a professionally designed Wordpress theme, then you probably need a new one.

THE THEME DILEMMA
Despite the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of Wordpress themes out there and it’s amazingly easy to find good theme resources, you might need another blog post on discovering a new theme that is right for you.

THE LIST OF GREAT WORDPRESS THEME RESOURCES
Don’t worry - these aren’t crappy theme sites I stole from another resource, no sir - these are awesomely amazing Blog Badly certified* theme resource sites!

• 100 Excellent Free Wordpress Themes - In my opinion, only about ten are good. But hey, I’m picky about my themes.

• 50 Top Free Wordpress Themes - half as good as the above resource ;).

• Free Wordpress Themes - Uh… free… themes?

• More Free Wordpress Themes -^^^^^^^^^^

• BG Themes - i.e. more free wordpress themes

• Skinpress - see above

• BlogsTheme - above…

• MyGreenCorner - need I say more?

• Pearsonified - by far the best-looking theme landing page yet.

• WPSnap - nice themes with lots of previews

• DesignDisease - a few nice themes. Extra points for the name.

• Brian Gardner’s free themes - He created the Revolution theme - one of the best magazine themes ever. He’s also got some free stuff for you.

*Blog Badly certification does not mean anything.

Posted by Max Miroff | 3 Comments »

Squidoo - more than just a one-eyed orange octopus.

Squidoo is kind of like a website that allows users to publish articles on anything and then make money off of those aforemention articles. In fact, Squidoo, is a website that allows users to publish articles on anything and then make money off of them. The pages you make on Squidoo can link back to your website, promote a product, or be about your favorite type of Ben and Jerry’s icecream. We’ll be focusing on the first two cases because, as good as icecream is, nothing beats blatant site advertising!

HOW TO SQUIDOO (IT RHYMES!)

1. Sign up, preferably under my inconspicious referral link.

2. Pick a topic for a lens (Squidoo’s fancy way of saying article).

3. Begin creating a lens. This involves a lot of clicking on buttons and refreshing pages. Oh, and writing.

Now, there are two ways you can go: creating a good lens or a bad lens.

Good Lens: Lots of quality content and informative links. A benefit to society as a whole. Takes forever to create - example.
Bad Lens: Blatant site promotion, lots of affiliate links, lots of useless money-making opportunities. The scourge of the internet.

Think about it - do you want visitors to your lens or backlinks to your website? The obvious choice, of course, is visitors due to the fact that they can still find your website and will still make you money backlinks because everyone loves backlinks!

OH, ONE MORE THING
Squidoo doesn’t just get you traffic - it gets you money. Add eBay, Amazon, and other ads to your lense and earn! You’ll probably only make five bucks, but that’s enough to buy half of a Starbucks coffee. Join now - the opportunities are limitless (kinda)!

Posted by Max Miroff | 5 Comments »

Isn’t perspective fun?

Going on vacation almost always means living in a hotel for a while. There are a few key exceptions: hiking, experiencing local culture by asking people if you can live in their homes, and sleeping on park benches. Still, these cases most likely do not apply to you (if they do, good luck) and thus you will be able to write about that horrendous, awful-smelling amazing place you’re staying at.

WHAT TO DO?
Here are some simple phrases detailing the exact aspects you should write about. Don’t worry - this applies to all hotel rooms.

• 
  What you booked.

 
What you got

• The view is okay, I guess.
• Why are there 2 English channels on the TV and 13 Spanish ones playing the same sitcom over and over and over again?
• The bed feels like a slightly flexible, soft plank of wood.
• You mean this “fun-size” Snickers from the minibar costs $6.99!?!?
• Where’s my iPod? Did the maid steal it? Did it fall out of the window?
• I left my cell phone/iPod/laptop charger at home!

Surprised that all of this applies to you? Don’t be - hotels are simply a predictable part of life. Just remember this: always be negative about your hotel. Your readers will sigh, think of a past experience with a bad hotel, and nod knowingly while sipping coffee in their cozy home.

Posted by Max Miroff | No Comments »

Quite a monochrome airport

Going on vacation normally involves flying somewhere, unless your vacation involves leaving your house and viewing the sunlight for the first time in months. This, consequently, means you’re going to be waiting at an airport for a while. And finally, in turn, this leads to the fact that you must blog about your surely interesting experience.

WHAT TO TALK ABOUT
Airports are places bustling with many kinds of people:

• People whose only goals are to reach their flight before it departs without them.
• Businessmen who set up workstations in airport terminals and hog all the electrical sockets.
• Disorganized families who complain about everything.
• Tour groups from foreign countries which often do funny things
• That crazy homeless dude who lives in gate C12

And many places:

• Starbucks. There are at least twenty per airport.
• McDonalds. They are generally ten feet apart from other McDonalds so that when you exit one and decide you’re still hungry, you don’t have to walk all the way back.
• Good restaurants that serve tasty food. There are about four per airport.
• Book stores. Because riding a plane is boring and impulse buying is fun!
• iPod vending machines. No, seriously, I saw one.

Still don’t have any inspiration? Here are some sample post titles you can use:

• I feel like this guy is watching me…
• It took me an hour to find a power socket for my laptop!
• Why isn’t airport wireless internet free?
• Mmm, this bagel is delicious.
• Some guy just bumped into me!
• Day 3, hour 6 - my flight is still delayed. We are running out of food, Mikey’s gone insane. HELP.

Just remember: always blog at least once from an airport (if you have a connector flight, you can blog in your second airport as well though this is optional). This is absolutely essential if you want to respectably blog from vacation

Posted by Max Miroff | 5 Comments »

He surfs the waves and the web - at the same time! Woah!

It is very important that readers of your blog know exactly when, where, why, how, and what you’re doing at all times - this also applies to vacation. Don’t even say that that’s what Twitter is for - Twitter is something birds do.

WRITE A BLOG POST DESCRIBING WHAT YOU’RE DOING
Considering I myself am on vacation at the moment, I’d like to tell my readers that I’m going to Lake Tahoe to ski. I offer my condolences to you if I do not accurately respond to your e-mails or requests due to the fact that my hotel may be prehistoric and not have internet. Blah blah blah it’s going to be fun blah blah blah be back in a while etc. etc. more of the same.

WHAT SHOULD YOUR POST INCLUDE?

• Always be sad at the fact that your hotel might not have internet access and ask for forgiveness.
• Apologize to your readers numerous times about random things, even though they probably don’t care.
• Describe where you’re going even if it has nothing to do with your blog whatsoever.
• Give a ballpark estimate to when you’ll post again. By then, all but your most faithful readers will have left, but you want to make sure that any stragglers can still know when you’re content is coming up.

WHEN SHOULD THIS BE POSTED?
The day before you leave on vacation at the very last moment. It is essential that you do not think about your first post and you should make it as dull and boring spontaneous and interesting as possible.

Posted by Max Miroff | 4 Comments »

Wordpress.org > Blogger.com > Wordpress.com

Nothing more, nothing less.

Posted by Max Miroff | 3 Comments »

Niche marketing supports knifing innocent boxes.

WHAT IS NICHE MARKETING?
Niche marketing is the practice of creating sites to appeal to one specific and narrow topic. Whether it’s people looking for silver and gold-encrusted razorblades or stale beef jerky, there are sure to be niche sites for it. Sounds like a great idea for blogs, right?

WRONG.

Niche marketing is the bane of all evil for blog sites. Imagine having to write about a specific topic over and over and over and over and ov-

YOUR READERS WILL GET BORED WITH YOUR NICHE
Spontaneous stuff is funny! Think about all of those videos of people getting hit by random things. Those are pretty popular, right? Yeah…

And think about John Chow! He writes about blogging, eating food, and other random crap. He makes thousands of dollars, and so will you - guaranteed* - if you don’t focus on a specific topic.

BUT THERE MUST BE A POSITIVE SIDE, RIGHT? HM?
Well, there are a few very minor benefits of blogging in a niche.

• You’ll become an authority on the subject. In my books, this is bad due to the fact that you can’t spell authoritarian without authority.
• You’ll probably earn a lot more money. But come on, who needs that? Living in a cardboard box in the alley isn’t that bad!
• You’ll get more RSS subscribers. Uh… this is bad for many reasons which I am not at liberty to list due to the fact that there are none it is confidential information.

*not a real guarantee.

Posted by Max Miroff | 3 Comments »

A current view of the StumbleUpon website. Beautiful, isn’t it?

It looks like something went wrong at StumbleUpon. The website is all there, but the formatting is messed up. The toolbar seems to work fine and other than the appearance everything is good.

OR IS IT?

Yeah, it probably is. Another screenshot of this surely-to-be historic fail moment:

Whoops. Turns out it’s scheduled maintenence. You scared me there, StumbleUpon!

It’s been like this for at least 12 hours. Whats going on, SU?

Posted by Max Miroff | 3 Comments »

Posted by Max Miroff | 5 Comments »