2007 was a pretty cool year in terms of blogging and moneymaking for The Monetizer. I discovered a plethora of great new blogs this past year which have helped me along the way. There were also several very useful innovations introduced to bloggers, and they seem to get bigger and better than ever. Not only that, several of these innovations were free of charge.
2 Successes in 2007
First up we had BloggingZoom, an amazing Digg-like service for Bloggers. Rather than trying to get "Dugg", bloggers could now get Zoomed to top rankings. Not only that, but the Zooms were coming from fellow bloggers and not spiteful Digg artists. Many a blogger has noted how tough it is to reach the front page of Digg, while stating its traffic benefits are great. However, getting Zoomed is even better because b It also provided new feedback for articles and networking opportunities, as bloggers worked to help each other out. BloggingZoom should stay strong and continue to be a great service into the next year.
Second up, we had Graham Langdon's Entrecard system. The online business card for bloggers allows a blog owner to get new exposure, traffic and free advertising. The catch phrase "Drop Yours" is now something many bloggers are aware of. According to Graham they recently reached 1000 blogs owning business cards at Entrecard. An amazing feat and the number will continue to grow in 2008. The make money category started around 30 when I first joined, and is now reaching 200 or so. It shows the saturation of this topic, but also how fast the service is growing. Nonetheless, newer and smaller blogs have a way to get discovered and advertise their blogs on bigger sites. Kudos to the developers of this 125x125 means of free advertising for all bloggers. Entrecard will continue unrolling new developments and features next year, so it will only get better for bloggers.
2 Failures in 2007
While there were those 2 successes, Monetizer saw what he also considers 2 failures in 2007. The first we all would agree is Agloco. Agloco can be equated to a make money con artists site, and many of us took the bait early on. It gave false hope and promises. For months many a blogger and site owner were pitching Agloco to others, in the hopes they could amass a huge network of referrals. The more people they had, the greater the chance for "riches" from the site. There was a quirky viewbar involved, or several versions of one. However, now that Agloco can't deliver on these promises, there's no way to get a refund for time and effort spent trying to promote their concept to others.
The second failure in my opinion is BlogRush. Some may disagree as many site owners believe it's great to run that widget on their site. In the beginning there was nothing but stalling as the site kept promising "soon we will have stats", "soon you will see how great this product is". But soon after a few months of trying it out, the Monetizer realizes that BlogRush works best on blogs already receiving steady traffic. Or it requires you to get a lot of people to sign up and hope they are getting traffic. Entrecard is much easier to employ and brings traffic and new subscribers. BlogRush requires luck, traffic, a catchy headline and referrals. I think I'll stick to Entrecard in 08'.
Wikis, Cows & What's to Come
Wiki Wiki Wiki Wiki... 2007 also saw an abundance of Wiki sites popping up. The jury is still out on whether they are a success or failure. Wikipedia is the current champ, but it spawned MillionDollarWiki, MillionEuroWiki, Ten and Five dollar wikis and even the new QuarterWiki. How will these do in 2008? Time will tell on these, but they still can offer benefits in terms of a new place to advertise and set up shop.My favorite new blog I discovered in 2007 was easily John Cow. I discovered it because of John Chow, and Monetizer finds it very creative and entertaining to read. Even though Cow seemed to reject my Entrecard there's no hard feelings. He ran a Monetizer ad in his RSS feed for quite a while, which helped out here. So I wish the Cow the best of luck as he continues in 2008!
So what will be the next big blogging or money making development of 2008? There's a ton of blogs being born on the web daily. Some will fade away, and some will survive. There's also plenty of creativity and brainpower floating around the blogosphere, so it won't be long before we see "the next big thing".
