Say Goodbye and Say Hello - Blog Cleanup Time - Short Review on Tested Widgets and Scripts

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I recently discovered why I started this blog. That may sound like a silly statement but the truth is I didn’t really know how iwebis was different from the thousands of other blogs writing about the same topics. What makes this blog different from others is that it is where I can test and learn about different products and services on the net.

What I now realize is that this blog is a testing platform. I can test widgets, plugins and other web apps and share what I have learned with my readers. I usually test things for about 30 days. Sometimes I will cut the testing period short because it’s obvious the application is not for this site. I have also been able to find things that are more useful for my other blogs by testing them here.

I’ve removed and added a few plugins, widgets and scripts and thought I would let you all in on why I have made these changes. So I am offering a short review of what I’ve learned during the testing period. I have also decided to test a few new apps so I will be introducing you to those as well.

Say goodbye to..

FrontpageBids - The idea behind FrontpageBids is that you can sell ads space on the posts that hit it big through Digg and other social news sites. You are required to include a script that will allow advertisers to purchase ads space once your story hits it big. The script that is place at the top of the post has a small banner ad already “holding” this spot. By default the banner for Thembid is holding the Frontpage Bids ad spot.

The problem I found with this ad network is that for those of us that have never had a story hit it big on a social news site, I was just giving away free advertising. I had decided to test FrontpageBids out despite my doubt that any ads would be sold. I do think that this type of advertising could be useful and rewarding for the blogs that are popular on social news sites.

FrontpageBids is still in private beta so if you are interested in trying it out then you can email me and I will send you an invit.

Scratchback Widget - I am not sure how everyone else is doing with the Scratchback widget but the novelty of it seems to have worn off here. I really liked using the widget but if no one is going to buy links then theres is no reason to keep the widget on this site. I would imagine the widget is doing a lot better on high traffic sites.

Swicki Search - I’ve removed the Swicki Search widget that I had placed at the top of the site because it was just ugly. I was trying to see if it would increase discovery of other blog posts but I don’t think it did anything. I still have the Swicki Search with in the blog post pages but I will probably remove those eventually.

Feed Subscriber Count Button - I seem to be indecisive when it comes to include the feed count on this blog. When I first started the popularity of this blog would continue to grow resulting in more feed readers. Well, when it go to about 75 feed reader it stayed that way for months.  I decided to remove the feed button until the feed count reached 100 subscribers. It did reach 100 subscribers so I decided to put it back on the site.

One thing that has always bothered me about the Feedburner feed count button is that it’s never consistent. One day it will read 105 and the next day it will be below 100. I read somewhere that the reason for this is not because you have lost readers but because Feedburner can’t always detect the feed readers. Even though I know 10 or more readers didn’t just disappear in one day I have become very irritated with this inconsistency.

So, even though iwebis has over 100 feed readers I decided to remove the count button. Maybe one day when I have thousands of readers I won’t care about dropping numbers. For now, I will be keep my feed count to myself.

Say hello to…

The MaxBlogPress Strip Ad Plugin (Located at the top of the site)- I decided to add this plugin to offer additional advertising spots. I also thought it would be a good place to promote some of my latest projects as well.

SproutBuilder Widget(Located in Sidebar #1, underneath “monawea’s Projects) - I was able to get a private beta invitation to join SproutBuilder. I really had a lot of fun testing this new widget but am not really happy with the quality of the graphics. My hope is that this low quality is because it’s still in beta and will improve with time. I do think this widget service has a lot of potential and will likely be a big hit once it’s has fully launched.

MyBlogLog New Widget Design (Located in sidebar #1 under the iwebis Readers heading) - I didn’t hate the other widget nor do I love the new one but I do like how you can view more information about visitors and can add them as friends.

Math Comment Spam Plugin - iwebis has been getting a lot of comment spam lately and I finally activated a plugin that could possibly eliminate spam . I hate to make commentators do math but I just could see any other way around it. If this plugin can just reduce the amount of spam this site gets I will be very pleased.

So there you have it. This blog was in need of some early spring cleaning. I am also excited about the apps (scripts, plugins, widgets) that are currently in test mode. In about a month I should be able to offer more information about what turned out to be useful and what did not.