PureBlogging

I’ve been at this Internet thing for a long time and have seen some pretty unbelievable things in my time here but this whole situation just makes me sick.

Technology blogger Kathy Sierra has received death threats such that she no longer feels safe leaving her home, let alone keeping up with her professional schedule. She wrote a rather disturbing account of the threats left on her blog Creating Passionate Users.

As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I’m not. I’m at home, with the doors locked, terrified. For the last four weeks, I’ve been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that’s not what pushed me over the edge. What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs… blogs authored and/or owned by a group that includes prominent bloggers.

It appears that Kathy has been targeted because she is a woman that has found some level of success in the male-dominated technology world.

If you want to do something about it, do not tolerate the kind of abuse that includes threats or even suggestions of violence (especially sexual violence). Do not put these people on a pedestal. Do not let them get away with calling this “social commentary”, “protected speech”, or simply “criticism.”

I agree wholeheartedly… this kind of activity should not be tolerated.

Popularity: 12% [?]

This simple tip for your WordPress blog comes from Everton over at Connected Internet. This small change has helped him go from 5 to 200+ subscribers to his comment feed! In fact he says that the number of subscribers jumped to 80 overnight!

What he did was add the comments feed to the list of feeds that are displayed when a user clicks on the RSS link in their browser.

And it is a simple change to make. All you have to do to is find the following line in your header.php file:

<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”<?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?> RSS Feed” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘rss2_url’); ?>” />

Then add the following code below it:

<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”<?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?> RSS Comments Feed” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘comments_rss2_url’); ?>” />

That’s it! Your comments feed will now be listed with your main feed making it easy for your visitors to subscribe.

I just made the change here at PureBlogging.com and look forward to seeing if there is an increase in the numbers of subscribers. Why don’t you try it on your blog and let me know if it works for you.

Popularity: 13% [?]

I am saddened to hear that Cathy Seipp has past away. I was an infrequent visitor to Cathy’s World but each time I found myself there I learned something important.

Cathy’s writings touched many people and whether you always agreed with her or not she was a important voice in our little world of blogging. This is a sad day indeed… she will missed.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all of Cathy’s family, friends and fans.

If you are not familiar with Cathy and would like learn to more, check out a few of the links below:

Cathy Seipp 1957-2007 [Kate Coe, FishbowlLA]
Remembering Special Friend, Conservative Columnist Cathy Seipp [Susan Estrich, Fox News]
Catherine Seipp, 49; critic took on Times [LA Times]
Profile: Catherine Seipp [Luke Ford]
Cathy Seipp, RIP [Infotainment Rules]

Popularity: 12% [?]

Serving Pay-Per-Action (PPA) ads through Adsense is not exactly the same as being an Affiliate Network but is Google now a threat to the Affiliate Networks. According to Andy Beal:

“…after years of hinting, Google is finally ready to let us test their platform on a CPA (cost per action) model. (If this sounds familiar, reports surfaced back in June, that Google was offering a limited test of CPA) ”

“…this is a significant expansion of the CPC (cost per click) model, with advertisers being given the option of paying when a customer buys a product, signs up for a newsletter, or completes any other actionable task on the advertiser’s web site.”

“….it sounds like a clear threat to the likes of Commission Junction or LinkShare – or any other affiliate marketing network. Google, for all intents and purposes, has just entered the affiliate marketing arena, with the battle cry that they can do affiliate marketing better than the affiliate networks can. “

Basically, advertisers will only pay when someone buys something, fills out a form, or takes some other action and not for every click, as they do now. But don’t expect PPA ads to completely replace Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads.

This is just the next step in the evolution of online advertising.

Popularity: 18% [?]

WordPress has just released the public WordPress Plugin Directory where you can browse, download, rate, and comment on all the plugins that have been submitted. Plugins will also now have a permanent download link, because the new directory always takes the latest version and links straight to the download file.

Benefits for users:

• There is now a central place to find and download WordPress plugins.
• You can get a much better idea about plugin quality and compatibility from the site.
• In the future you’ll be able to get notification inside of WordPress about plugins you use that have updates.

Benefits for developers:

• Exposure to the millions of people who visit WordPress.org every month.
• Free SVN hosting for GPL plugin development at wp-plugins.org. (Like always.)
• Automatic download packages and free hosting of those.
• Statistics about how many people are using and downloading your plugins.
• Prominent links to your homepage, and the ability to specify a Paypal donation link from your plugin page.

This is a fantastic development! Check it out today…

Popularity: 17% [?]

Need some SEO advice? SEO Clinic is a free SEO review service where Search Engine Journal editors, as well as, guest SEO experts provide website owners with tips on link building, site navigation, usability, copywriting, social media optimization and other techniques designed to improve search engine rankings.

Be sure to check out the SEO Clinic review of TechSmith to get an idea of how the process works and the quality of the information provided.

If you would like to participate, submit your info and maybe they will choose your site.

Popularity: 12% [?]