I get emailed press releases every single day asking me to write about some new geeky gadget or tool. I turn down 99% of those offers, mostly for a lack of time. (I’m also afraid of taking a free review version of a product, finding it stinks, and having someone freak when I post a negative review…ha!) The folks at a new site called Gadget Advisor have no fear though! Instead of blogging about every new tool that crosses their desk, they only blog about the best of the best, handpicking from whatever floats their collective boat that day....

I’m sitting in my second day of sessions at IzeaFest, listening to Merlin Mann speak. I hadn’t heard of him prior to coming to the conference, but…wow. He’s amazing. Not only has he completely captivated the audience, but he’s got great advice, including: Have an obsession. Share it daily with one person. Don’t be a dick. Don’t sweat SEO, traffic, or ads. (I think he’s channeling Jim Rome – “Have a take, and don’t suck.”) Merlin also won my heart when he used the word “testicles”...

I’m sitting in a room with Jeremy Shoemaker (”Shoemoney”) and John Chow right now. Thank you, IzeaFest, for giving us the opportunity to learn from bloggers of this money making caliber! I’m happy to report that John doesn’t come across as pompous and full of himself as he does online. Jeremy has shorts on, which is a bit weird since I expect a business casual dress in a conference like this. Stephanie Agresta is sitting next to him and she has the most amazing shoes on – I want them.

I’ve been contemplating a design change on my main blog. I usually hire that type of work out, not being able to make pretty images on my own (none I’m pleased with, anyway!) but I know I’m not ready to hire someone just yet. At any stage of the game, I’m a designers worst nightmare, nit picking over layouts and colors, but I don’t even know what *I* want yet. A three column Wordpress theme with soft muted colors, or something in a snazzy two column with colors that pop off your screen? Until I decide where I’m going,...

A while back, I posted about the new system to gauge blog rank available from Izea. I’ve got all of my blogs registered there, and in the past months, have seen quite a few advertisers willing to forgo pagerank in order to experiment with RealRank. Several of my blogs are at the top of the rankings, meaning that they rate highly as far as links and traffic, which translates to more opps for me. This blogs real rank is at 850 for today, which is another feature I like – ranks are updated daily, not every 3 months (or more) like pagerank. To...

Link baiting works. I just had to go about it the hard way, by purchasing pre-worn pants at Old Navy, and then blogging about it the mess I found in the crotch of said pants. From there, the story was picked up by The Consumerist, and now it’s linked on the front page of Fark.com: The incredible traffic I’m seeing as a result on my main blog almost makes the whole experience worth it! Too bad I can’t come up with link bait like this on a regular basis!

I’ve had the code for IZEARanks.com installed on my blogs since the beginning, and I’ve been eagerly tracking the ebb and flow of the rankings for my various blogs. There are still kinks to be worked out, and improvements to be made, but overall, I think this “real rank” is much better than Google’s pagerank, which Google arbitrarily giveth and taketh away. Here’s what I like about Real Rank: It’s a real number, based on real stats. Your traffic counts for 70% of your rank, and your inbound links account for 20%....

Tim never fails to start interesting discussions on the GeekySpeaky message boards, and this one is no exception. It centers on exchanging stumble and digg requests, and asks, are we marketing, or gaming a system? My answer is on the thread linked above, but I’d like to add to it – only stumble the best of what you write or blog. You shouldn’t be stumbling every post. You shouldn’t be stumbling every other post. Once a week, at most! How do you know when you’re stumbling the right kinds of articles? When you see traffic...

A new ad service is launching in just a few weeks, and just like sponsored blogging shook up the blogosphere in 2006, this new service is bound to shake things up again. Pay-Per-Play will officially open on February 1st, 2008, but the site is accepting new user registrations right now. This new form of blog advertising adds a 5 second audio message to your blog – it’s a relatively unobtrusive form of blog advertising, and the pitch is over quickly, so you shouldn’t see a decline in visitors. The advertisers include national brands like...

The wonkiness I reported earlier with Izea Ranks seems to have leveled out a bit, and I’m not just saying that because my main blog is currently ranked #28 in the system. I’ve seen all of my blogs have their visitor counts adjusted to a number that more closely matches my stats. The Izea team has been quick to address concerns with stats and reporting, and is even working on a way to count RSS subscribers who may read your blog through a feed reader.