Widget Bucks CPM Ads for International Traffic

It’s a very welcome news that WidgetBucks is somehow reconsidering their position regarding the non-US and Canada traffic. Just the other day, they announced in their official blog that they’ll start offering country-specific CPM ads. In that way, you’ll still be able to monetize your international traffic using WidgetBucks. This would also mean that you’ll no longer need to filter your traffic as discussed on my earlier post since WidgetBucks will do that automatically for you.

Here’s some quote from their blog.

At the time a user visits a page containing the widget, we will sense the geographic location of the visitor. If they are in the U.S. and/or Canada, the user will see the normal WidgetBucks widget. If the user is outside those two countries, then our system will determine a country- specific CPM ad to display. We are currently working with advertisers covering 100
countries and offering thousands of creatives to ensure that site visitors will be monetized for your benefit. All ads are restricted against adult or other suggestive themes.

Below is the complete post. Kudos to MPire for listening to the concern of their members. It’s definitely a plus point for them and I will again consider placing a widget on one of my sites.

And by the way, I only learned about it when a certain Dean Jutilla from Mpire(the company behind WidgetBucks) commented on my earlier post. I’m surprised and somewhat honored that somebody from Mpire has noticed my blog.

Avoiding Accidental Clicks in Adsense

Note: This is a contributed post in Taong Grasa Blog.

It’s a good thing that google changed the way their ads were clicked. Before, even the background of the ads are clickable and that leads to accidental clicks. I myself has fall into this and was afraid that my adsense account be suspended or terminated because of that. I think it happened thrice already.

With the new format, it is only the title and the url that’s clickable. The background, text and white spaces are no longer clickable. More than the user experience, it would benefit the advertisers more.

Finally, this change won’t just improve user experience on your site; it
benefits advertisers as well. We currently monitor clicks on Google ads for
accidental clicks, and the format change complements our monitoring system by
further ensuring advertisers only pay for meaningful clicks. By reducing
accidental clicks, we hope to increase advertiser campaign value and
satisfaction, encouraging additional spend and facilitating higher monetization
for all publishers.

For the complete adsense announcement about this, click the lick below.
http://adsense.blogspot.com/2007/11/accidental-clicks-fade-into-background.html

WidgetBucks Filters Traffic

A recent decision by WidgetBucks has affected most of its members. Clicks from traffic coming from outside United States and Canada are no longer counted. It’s a big blow to all of its members especially those whose traffic primarily comes from their own country (i.e, local social network, clubs, etc). However, I think it is a bitter pill for WidgetBucks to take since their advertisers are also complaining. Some other companies has done that before. The main reason is that most people from outside the two countries doesn’t really buy goods online.

A Filipino SEO expert has shared his knowledge to filter the traffic on your site, too. Here’s his tip on how to do that. By using his technique, widgetbucks widgets will only appear if the visitor is from US and Canada. For outside the those countries, you can show other ads. You can use adsense if you have one.

Well, if you are still banned from adsense, WidgetBucks is still a good alternative. For me, the change has significantly lowered its edge against adsense. I still have widgetbucks in an inner page of one of my sites. But that’s just it.

Spam on my Gmail

I have a gmail account that I’ve been using for quite some time already. I treated it like a business email and do not devulge it on online registrations that require email. I have another gmail account for that. So for more than a year, I’ve been using my email with no problems and most importantly, NO SPAM!

For important registrations that need real name, I use my ‘business email’. But that’s very rare, only for very important and serious registrations. Unfortunately, spam emails selling everything from viagra to flowers began to arrive early this year.  When I checked my latest transactions, I was surprised to see that my latest registration was with a very popular and leading online payment service that only made their service available here in the Philippines recently.

I can’t name it but I know most of you know that company. Basically and naturally, that would be my suspect. It’s a shame if indeed that company forwarded my email to spammers. Or maybe the spammers were able to snoop into the company’s database. That’s another scary scenario.

And oh, don’t ask about my 9-year-old email account. It receives over a hundred spam everyday. hahaha…

Changing Default Page Using htaccess

I’ve been searching for the best approach in making portal.php as the default page for MyBB, a free and powerful alternative to VBulletin. I don’t want to hack into the core program as that would be a disaster when there comes new releases. That’s exactly what happened with the modifications I’ve done for SMF before. At every new releases, I have to re-code my custom changes. But that’s another story. My requirement is simple, make portal.php as the default page without modifying index.php.

Luckily, I stumbled upon a post about common hthaccess tweak and viola! What I need. On the fourth item in the list, it says :

4.Changing Default Page - Sets the file that Apache will serve if a directory is requested. This directive tell apache to make home.html to be the default page.
DirectoryIndex home.html index.htm index.html index.php

That’s exactly what I wanted and it solved my little problem! By the way, it only work on a site hosted in a Unix/Linux server.

WidgetBucks : A Promising Ad Network

Over the last couple of months there’s been a lot written about new ad network - WidgetBucks. As with any new player in the ads market, there has a lot of varied opinions shared about them and a lot are skeptics. This new entrant promises a better conversion of your traffic.

Here’s some advantages:
1. You are paid for both CPM and PPC. And when they say CPM(Cost Per Thousand Impressions), they are claiming that they pay as much as $3-$6 CPM. That’s almost three times the traditional ad networks. PPC (Pay-Per-Click) is paid at a high of $0.45.
2. You get $25 sign-up bonus and that’s halfway to the $50 payout.
3. Rich Media ads. No boring texts.
4. Affiliate programs. You get 10% of your referred members for full 12 months!
5. Can run with adsense.
6. Easy Sign-Up, Easy Setup.
7. Pays thru PayPal.

So who are behind WidgetBucks? Here’s a quote from Darren of Problogger, here’s what Matt Hulett (CEO of WidgetBucks) has to say.

WidgetBucks was created by Mpire.com , the online meta-shopping service that brings together all the most popular online marketplaces such as eBay, Amazon, Shopping.com, Wal-Mart, Target, Gap, and thousands more — into one single site. We blend all that historical pricing information with our pricing analytics and other proprietary technologies to create what we like to call the “Kelly Blue Book” for online products. We are able to tell people what they can expect to pay for that product they are interested in — and then help them take the next step in buying it. Mpire has been around since 2005 — and after originally focusing on offering eBay selling tools, we turned buyer-focused just over a year ago. Today, Mpire.com is getting between 800,000 - 900,000 unique visitors a month. So WidgetBucks fits into our strategy of distributing our pricing analytics across the Web, almost like thousands of little mini-Mpire’s being hosted on publishers’ sites.

However, there are also a lot of people that says it is a scam. SEO.PH
has some threads
. There’s a lot more in DigitalPoint Forum. I think that’s normal for every new entrants. With all the things said and posted everywhere, they are all something that we’ll have to see later.

I signed-up for it the other week and started using it only yesterday. I’m using it now in at least two of the sites that I maintain. So far, adsense still provides me a better income but maybe that’s because my adsense placement is better than my widgets that are primarily placed on the sidebars.

Fire Drill at a 53 Story Building

Ever tried walking down the stairs 53 flights down? Well, I haven’t tried that yet but at 46 floors, I’m sure the experience will not be that far. That’s exactly what I just experienced the other day. And I would say it isn’t easy.

We were already pre-informed that there will be a fire-drill between 2pm and 5pm last Tuesday. A number of my officemates already went down at around 2:30pm. I also did but after almost 30minutes outside the office, I decided to come back. For some twist of luck, the emergency bell rang a couple of minutes after I sat on my chair. I should have already had the hint as I saw several managers walking out of the elevator but I just brushed it off. Definitely a bad move.

It was a slow walk 46 stories down especially from midway down to the ground. I didn’t have any workout for ages so you can imagine how hard it was for me. My lifestyle has not been active the past months. It wasn’t easy as it seems even if you say that we are going down. I can’t imagine if it was on the other direction.

And the drill finished without any incident. That’s the good news. As for me, my legs were aching even after a day. It’s a good forced work-out, though.

World Pool Championship : Django Falls to Peach

In the latest drama in the 2007 World Pool Championships in the Araneta Coliseum in the Philippines, the local favorite Francisco “Django” Bustamante lost to Peach in a match colored with controversy in the 20th rack with Bustamante leading 10-9. It was a painful exit for Django who thought he already won the match when he pocketed the Nine in the combination with ball 3. However, the referee had to resort to the replay of the shot as it appears that the Nine ball was first hit. It was a possible foul that would turn the tide in favor of the Englishman.  

After careful review of the video from different angles and a private meeting with the two players, it was decided that the shot was a foul. The Nine ball was re-placed in the center table and Peach had a ball in hand. With all the remaining balls evenly spread across the table, the englishman cleaned them up to force a tie at 10-10. Since WPC has a winner’s break format, Peach had the opportunity to break for the last rack. With his precision soft break, he was able to clean up table and clinch the win to the dismay of Filipino fans.

This leaves the Philippines with only two remaining players in the race-to-11 quarterfinals. As of posting, Philippines’ Roberto “Superman” Gomez is playing against Chinese-Taipei’s Kuo Pong Chang leading by 3-0. The other remaining Filipino player is Juven Bustamante.

This is the second time World Pool Championship is staged in the Philippines. Romy Alcano won the championship last year but he bowed out this time at the round of 32. Efren “The Magician” Reyes also lost to the Russian player on the same round.

Swearing Can Boost Morale @ Work

OK, I knew it! I’m a believer. But before we go further, take a look at the research by a professor in University of East Anglia. Click Here for Details

Several years ago, me and my former teammates jokingly swear at work. We do that regularly and it really feels better. Someone even called the team Samontenista taken from the surname of my officemate whose every sentence either starts with bad word or ends with it or worst, both.

Swearing somehow releases the stress and allows us to take more challenging roles. Of course you have to work harder and smarter. Swearing just helps to lighten the mood and we don’t really mean it. When the composition of the team changed, I scaled down on doing it. The environment changed, I suddenly found myself surrounded with younger teammates and more conservative types. But I do blurt out once in a while. I’m still thinking of returning back as full member of Samontenista! haha…

TIN Verification in BIR

Before you read my personal ramblings, here’s how to do it.

1. Go to BIR Portal and click on eTIN.  The link is on the left sidebar, you may need to scroll down a few pages. The direct link is https://ereg.bir.gov.ph/ereg/welcome.do.

2. On the taxpayer group, choose the second option which is PROFESSIONAL (Self-employed) and click on submit. Don’t bother other options, this is all you need even if this doesn’t apply to you.

3.  Key-in the required info : LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME, MIDDLE NAME and BIRTHDAY. Make sure you do it right.

4.  Your TIN will be displayed in the screen if a match is found.
 

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