This is a sponsored post from ebuzzing

I've been pleasantly surprised by ebuzzing. They're part of the Wikio Group, who are focussed on getting bloggers to post about about brands that they like – and get paid for it.

Despite running a backwater blog on obscure mobile phone related nonsense, I often get emailed by companies wanting to promote themselves here. Sometimes they offer review goods to keep, sometimes cash, sometime they don't want anyone to know they're paying for the post.

As a blogger, I've no real way of assessing my market worth – nor how to deal with the tax implications of being sent free "stuff". I've got a pretty clear idea of the ethics – always reveal if you've been paid to blog – but I'm slightly unsure of the legals.

That's why I think ebuzzing is a great idea. A fixed payment for blog posts and a clear set of ethical guidelines.

Payments are either per post – this one is netting me £30 – or pay per view – usually around 2p-5p.

Posts have to be approved by moderators. This could be a bit tricky – do you want someone telling you what you can and can't write on your blog? I've found them to be very fair. Despite my less than fulsome praise for the Dell Duo the only changes ebuzzing wanted were to ensure that I'd correctly included the links to the client's content and that I'd spelt their name correctly. No heavy-handedness at all.

Posts have a minimum word-count and have to feature links to the client and any marketing collateral they want. Usually an embedded image or video.

I must confess that I've found some of the campaigns a little lacklustre. Sometimes they're little more than "embed this video and ask your readers to discuss why they like cheese." To me, that's an advertorial rather than a genuine discussion. Of course, if you don't run the cheese campaign, you don't have to.

My Perfect ebuzzing Campaign

This campaign is also an opportunity to imagine your perfect campaign: who are the brands you’d love to work with? What would be the best way, in your opinion, to create an original experience between your community and those brands? We’d love to hear your ideas!

I think any successful campaign has to focus on two things.

1. What the blogger can – or would – do with the product.
2. What the reader can get out of the promotion.

I'd love to see more exclusive content, more competitions, and more blog-focused promotions. Sending people off to join a Facebook group feels a little 2009 to me. Pick winners from the best blog comments – similar to the Ping Pong competition on Vikki Chowney's blog.

I could also imagine a phone manufacturer posting photos of landmarks taken with their hot new phone. Then get bloggers and their commenters to post photos of the same landmarks taken with their crappy old camera-phone.

Sign Up

If you're interested in signing your blog up, you can find out more on ebuzzing.co.uk. There are no joining fees and you're free to pick and choose what you'd like to blog about.

Sharing propelled by ebuzzing

This has been a really tough NaBloPoMo for me. Work has been frantic – meaning that my lunchtime blogging has been restricted to a quick bit of copy editing. I’ve also had some wonderful new toys to play with – which has distracted my attention.

But the biggest problem? My Android phone. Don’t get me wrong, I love Android – but for typing, it’s nowhere nearly as good as my BlackBerry was. I spend a lot of my time on trains, so I’m used to being able to bash out a fairly lengthy post or email. That’s just not possible on my Nexus One.

There are three major problems with the Android’s onscreen keyboard.

• It takes up so much room, you can only see two lines of text. Annoying if you’re writing a long document.
• The accuracy is very hit and miss. It’s no worse than other onscreen keyboards – but it’s just not as good as a physical keyboard.
• The auto-correct feature is pretty good – but I miss the BlackBerry’s integrated spell cheque.

The general consensus on Twitter seems to be that the HTC Desire Z is the best Android phone touting a real keyboard.

I’ve yet to try it – but the keys look similar to the awful N97 “dead flesh” keyboard.

The Motorola Milestone has a better looking keyboard and is a similar price.

I could type around 60WPM on a BlackBerry keyboard – so whichever phone I get needs to be at least as good as RIM’s offering.

With that in mind, I’m also considering going back to BlackBerry – the new Torch 9800 looks incredible.

I’ve been playing on the most recent BlackBerry emulator (something more companies should provide) and it really could be the phone for me. Touchscreen for quick use, keyboard for long messages, I know the email and calendaring options are better than Android. But will I find OS6 too restrictive after the freedom of Android?

There’s also Windows Phone 7 to consider. I really like what I’ve seen of WP7 – but there aren’t any phone with keyboards available in the UK. Both the Dell Venue Pro and the LG Optimus 7Q may make it over here – but there are no timelines.

Finally, there’s the BlueTooth keyboard accessory. Amazon have Mini Bluetooth Keyboards from £15 – although some of the high end ones go for ten times that.

It would mean carrying yet another gadget – to go with the phone, solar charger, video glasses, Kindle and whatever else I have on my person – but could it bridge the gap? I find that I can’t type for very long on a laptop keyboard. The only device I’m comfortable typing on with all 10 fingers is a Microsoft 4000 Ergonomic (although I’d love to give a Maltron a try even if they are a bit pricey though). Would a BlueTooth keyboard be as easy to type on?

So, which phone would you go for if you needed to do extended bouts of typing or blogging?

After playing around for a bit, I discovered that it was easy to block The Times from reading a blog, but I couldn’t find an easy way to disable the paywall on receipt of payment.

So, I’ve set up a voluntary paywall.  It’s in the sidebar – and looks something like this…

This was partly a way for me to play with the Google Checkout API – which is surprisingly easy to integrate and works flawlessly on mobile. It’s also partly a way to earn some money.  I did consider flattr which – while cool – doesn’t seem to have much momentum behind it yet.  I know that PayPal has some great APIs, but I find them to be overkill for what I need.

How Is This Different From A “Donate” Button?

It is, granted, a question of semantics.  I run a business – I’m not asking for handouts or donations.  You are paying my business in return for reading this blog.

I’m pretty sure this is an original idea.  At the very least, I’ve conquered the SEO for “voluntary paywall.”

How? Why? What?

Ideally, I’d like people to name their own price for what they think this blog is worth.  Unfortunately, as Cory Doctorow and I found out – that’s not that easy to do yet.

Thanks to all who replied to my #GoogleCheckout request with suggestions for kludging variable price (esp @edent http://tinyurl.com/33j73rr)

22/10/2010 15:29 via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@doctorow

Cory Doctorow

I don’t claim this blog to be the best thing since sliced-bread.  At best, I reckon it’s slightly more coherent than the hideous cloaca that is Richard Littlejohn.

There’s also a good deal of technical content which, if my blog stats are anything to go by, is still interesting to the geeks of the world.

Occasionally I get linked to by some big names like Reddit, or Wired, or Boing Boing, or The Guardian, or any of the other fabulous blogs out there.  It’s a bit like getting name-checked by a celebrity; I know it shouldn’t mean much – but it does put a smile on my face.

Overall, as I reach the third anniversary of this blog, I’m pretty happy with it.  If you’re happy with it, chuck a few coppers in the box.  It won’t make me rich, it may not even pay for the hosting costs, but it will let me know you enjoy what I do.

As ever, I’m happy to answer questions on how this paywall works, how you can set one up yourself, what the fees are, etc.  Just leave a comment.

Bootnote

A big round of applause to Philip Oakley – who has just become my first paying customer.  I guess that means I can stick “Professional Blogger” on my CV now…

I’ve recently started using DynamicWP‘s Simple White Theme.  The theme is excellent, but generated around 60 validation errors.  Luckily these were caused by a scant half dozen errors in the source code.

Here is a quick summary of the errors, why they need to be fixed, and how to fix them.

footer.php – line 8
Why: Target isn’t a valid XHTML attribute
From: <p>Powered by <a href=”http://www.wordpress.org/” target=”_blank”>WordPress</a> | SimpleWhite by <a href=”http://www.dynamicwp.net/”>Dynamicwp</a></p>

To: <p>Powered by <a href=”http://www.wordpress.org/” >WordPress</a> | SimpleWhite by <a href=”http://www.dynamicwp.net/”>Dynamicwp</a></p>
index.php – line 63
Why: The & symbol should be escaped to &amp; when used in URLs. The element needs to be closed. The alt attribute needs to be included.
From: <img src=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_directory’); ?>/timthumb.php?src=<?php echo catch_that_image(); ?>&w=275&h=120&zc=1″>
To: <img src=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_directory’); ?>/timthumb.php?src=<?php echo catch_that_image(); ?>&amp;w=275&amp;h=120&amp;zc=1″ alt=”" />

line 69
Why: The element needs to be closed
From: <hr>
To: <hr />

sidebar.php – line 24
Why: The element needs to be closed
From: <img src=”<?php echo catch_that_image(); ?>”>
To: <img src=”<?php echo catch_that_image(); ?>” />

line 26
Why: The & symbol should be escaped to &amp; when used in URLs. The element needs to be closed. The alt attribute needs to be included.
From: <img src=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_directory’); ?>/timthumb.php?src=<?php echo catch_that_image(); ?>&w=40&h=40&zc=1″>
To: <img src=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_directory’); ?>/timthumb.php?src=<?php echo catch_that_image(); ?>&amp;w=40&amp;h=40&amp;zc=1″ alt=”" />

line 29
Why: The alt attribute needs to be included.
From: <img src=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_directory’); ?>/images/noimagesmall.jpg” />
To: <img src=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_directory’); ?>/images/noimagesmall.jpg” alt=”" />

line 42
Why: Error.  The <ul> should be </ul> to close the list.
From: <ul>
To: </ul>

Sitting around her in a semicircle, it was like Jackanory for adults. Despite never having read her work in public before, Zoe’s voice rang out loud and clear. She relished the innuendo and succeeded in making her audience dissolve into fits of giggles on several occasions.

This is the sequel to her extraordinary first book, Girl with a One-track Mind: Confessions of the Seductress Next Door

In with the smut, the London A-Z of where she’s shagged, and her thoughts on Rampant Rabbits, was unexpected heartbreak.

Anyone who has followed her blog knows the disgraceful way the Sunday Times treated Zoe. Their obnoxious pursuit of her and the lengths they went to for a “scoop”. I knew the story well. But hearing Zoe reading it aloud brought home just how terrifying it was for her.

The abuse – and there is no other word for it – is evidently still a raw subject. This new book is the product of emotional distance from a traumatic event – hence its delay in release.

It takes supreme courage to survive being exposed in front of your peers. Even more courage to take that experience, craft a book around it and then stand up in front of a group of strangers and ask them to listen to you.

Massive congratulations to Zoe for her outstanding blog and her brilliant second book.

The 25 Biggest Companies in Mobile. The inimitable Tommi Ahonen pores over the statistics and shows the size of companies according to the money they make in mobile – and only mobile. I may query the use of USD rather than € in the calculations, but the data are still highly interesting.  This is my post of the week!

Mob4Hire launches. There are thousands of handsets on hundreds of networks, how can you be sure your site or app will work on them? If you don’t want to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds building a library of devices and SIM cards, it’s worth looking at a service like this to get a wide range of test cases.

Mobile Wins Gold at Winter Olympics. With more people accessing the mobile web than ever before, MobiThinking takes a look at the explosion in mobile data use around the Olympics. Let’s hope that London’s networks are up to scratch for 2012!

What now for .mobi? With the slightly shocking news that .mobi has been sold to Affilias, what does this mean for the .mobi brand. I’ve a vested interest in this one, as I run a .mobi domain. Will mobile sites migrate to m. a la facebook and twitter? Can .mobi regain the initiative. Important questions.

Free White Paper on Mobile VoIP. This is a detailed look into the prospects of mobile VoIP in 2010. My thoughts? As we move the LTE – an all IP network – is there a long term future for alternate VoIP providers?

App Wars. Native apps vs Web apps vs Widgets vs JIL vs Device App Stores vs Operator App stores. It’s a bloodbath out there – but John Puterbaugh performs some excellent analysis on the main players and issues.

In a similar vein, Apps vs Browsers – Peggy Salz is looking for your opinion.  Will the mobile web splinter between touch devices, normal phones, apps?

Finally, bored with Google and Yahoo? Why not try Gune, a new meta-search engine for mobile.

You can find all my latest mobile focused blog posts at http://shkspr.mobi/blog/index.php/category/mobile/

Thanks for reading!

From the WordPress Blog:

I like to moderate comments when I’m waiting for something: a checkout clerk to help me, the dentist to call me back to the office, a soy chai to be made. I don’t lug my laptop everywhere I go,* so I love it that we have mobile apps that make this possible. I don’t know of any other blogging platform that has mobile apps for iPhone, Android and Blackberry. Do you? [emphasis added]

So if you are one of the 85% of people without one of these high end devices, you are out of luck. No managing your WordPress Blog for you.

This is – as PPK writes in The iPhone Obsession – a colossal mistake.  To ignore the majority of phone and focus significant developer resources on a minority of platforms just doesn’t make sense.

So, how do “ordinary” mobile users access their Blogs’ admin area?

Enter WordPress Mobile Pack

The WordPress Mobile Pack (which I help develop) doesn’t just make your blog viewable on all mobile browsers – it also makes your WordPress Dashboard options available.  Take a look at these screenshots.

Mobile Comment Moderation

This page is simple enough to work on any phone with an HTML browser.  Sure, you can argue that it’s not particularly attractive – but that’s the point of progressive enhancement.  Get it working, then add all the bell, whistles, JavaScript and CSS that you want for high end phones.

No need for an app or a widget. Bookmark your blog’s admin URL and you’re done.  You don’t need to worry about security updates, corporate policies which lock down your device, compatibility with the latest firmware, nothing.

You only need a web browser.

(The more astute among you will notice that this screenshot is from a BlackBerry – rest assured, this page works on all the phones I’ve tried it on.)

Wait! There’s More!

This is the front page of the Admin Panel. As you can see, just about everything you can do on the regular WordPress, you can do on mobile.  Create and edit posts, approve or trash comments, edit the settings.

Admin Panel

Almost every setting which is available to you in WordPress should also be available via mobile.

Settings

Prettifying It

As I’ve said, this isn’t the prettiest pig in the sty. On an Android device, the site takes on a more attractive style sheet.

Android CSS

So Why Use An App?

I think apps have tremendous potential – they’re at their best when they are taking advantage of a phone’s unique hardware / software.  3D graphics, geo-location, accessing the camera etc.

But why would you spent time and money writing an app for moderating WordPress comments? It just doesn’t make sense!  You don’t take advantage of the platform, you duplicate effort across multiple devices, and for what?

If you want broad reach across all of your users’ devices – write a website.  If you want to look cool, waste money and alienate the majority of your customer – build an app.

You can install WordPress Mobile Pack from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-pack/

“[Blog posts are] a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Today Ofcom published the responses it had for its consultation on plans for the BBC to encrypt its HD broadcasts.

The blogosphere went nuts! DRM? Not on our watch.  Boing Boing mobilised its army of commentators, the BBC published two blog posts which quickly filled up with comments, Facebook statuses were updated and all these links were retweeted until our fingers were worn to their nubs.

No doubt Ofcom has collapsed under the weight of public opinion. How can the BBC possibly hope to get away with their feindinsh plans with such a backlash?

90 People

Ninety.  Less than one hundred.  Smaller than the viewing figures for BBC Three.  That’s how many people could be arsed to type a few dozen words to Ofcom, spell check them, then hit send.

More people signed a petition asking for a Yorkshire sign to be erected on the M1 than responded to this consultation.  Now, maybe my finger is off the pulse, but I haven’t seen major blogs crying foul over Yorkshire’s lack of signage.

On The Plus Side

You can read my response on their site.  Like all the others I’ve read, it’s against the proposals.  I haven’t read every response, but the twenty or so that I downloaded were all against the plans.

I know that there’s typically low turn out to consultations of this kind.  Organisations know that for every person who bothered to complain, there’s more waiting in the wings quietly seething.

But only 90 people?  I realise that the power of retweeting helped free Iran from a stolen election, but sometimes you actually have to do something.  You don’t even need to get off your computer.  Find an email address, write a few sentences and let those in charge know how you feel.

This will help get you started.

• List of government consultation websites
• Public Consultations in your area
• Ofcom Consultaions

This is just a quick post to say what I did, what I liked and what I thought could go better,

First off, enormous thanks to Vero for single handedly organising the whole shebang. Her Whuffie must be through the roof by now. The venue was fantastic and – perhaps a first for a BarCamp – the food was freshly cooked and delicious.

There were around 150 participants – many of whom I’ll name check – all of them interesting in their own special way. It was great to meet technology writer (and fellow log-haired scruff) Bill Thompson.

Our rampant twittering pumped us to the top of the twitter trends for the day. You can find all sorts of digital footprints from searching for our tag #smclondon

So, on to the sessions I attended.

1) “I Have Nothing To Say”.
Someone -I have no idea who – put up a session called “I Have Nothing To Say”. I think they meant it as a joke – because no one turned up to say anything. So, being the extrovert that I am, I moderated a session on why people abandon their blogs (via an unsuccessful attempt at why women don’t speak out more in technology – see Suw’s posting on the subject).

We looked at what reasons people have for starting to blog and what prevents them from blogging. It’s often a time constraint but – more often – it’s the fear that nothing one says will be of interest.

We looked at a few semi-abandoned blogs that participants had started. Zoe from Girl With A one Track Mind, talked about her anonymity being blown and the effect that had on her blogging. Annie Mole talked about the pressure to write on Going Underground and how she sometimes feels constrained by her subject matter from venturing into other areas that interest her. ((I’ll try and put up the other blogs as I remember them!))

For me, there’s a clear divide between writing in order to attract an audience and writing to satisfy a creative itch. I think my blog falls into the latter camp. I’m hugely gratified when people read and comment – but it exists primarily as a way to get my thoughts out of my head. That some of those thoughts might has a positive affect on others and perhaps change the world is, to me, a fringe benefit.

It has inspired me to keep this blog going. I’ll try an put more of my thoughts down in long form rather than just 140 Character brain dumps on Twitter.

I’d like to thank whoever placed the topic up there. It really helped me warm up for my presentation and I think all the participants found it a useful discussion. I want to reiterate it wasn’t my idea or session!

2) “Social Media Activism”
This session focused on Miro and its role in activism. An interesting session which showed off some of the reasons behind the software and how it is being used. While interesting, I would have appreciated a bit more focus on how and why.

It will be interesting to see if “counter culture” ever breaks in to the mainstream. We’re now seeing User Generated Content popping up in the news – but it’s only in terms of footage from an event. I hope it’s not too long before commentary can become part of the discussion.

3) “How To Present To Big Scary Companies* *And Look Like You Know What You’re Doing”
My presentation! I was lovely to see so many people turn up. Some kind soul has done a write up of my presentation. I’ll write a full blog post in the next few days expanding on some of the themes.

Critically, I over-ran and didn’t cover some of the points that I wanted to make. I’m also worried that I didn’t create enough discussion in the room. Some of the best sessions I attended were discussions lead rather than presenter focused.

I’ll let the other attendants have their say about me – and I’ll link to them from here if I find any!

However, it was great to teach a new group of people my favourite tongue-twister “Peggy Babcock”

4) “Alternate Reality Games”
Hosted by Miss Geeky – AKA Melinda Seckington this was a fascinating look in to the ARG phenomenon. I’d seen things like the Heroes ARG but I’d never really been bothered to play. I thought they’d take up too much time and would be to US focused. This presentation really opened my eyes to how much fun they can be.

I’m a little worried that most of them are – at heart – marketing campaigns. I get a fun game to play in return for being marketed to and becoming a marketeer for the product. It’s a reasonable trade-off, I suppose. Not much different from getting a free TV show in return for watching adverts.

5) “Managing Your Online Reputation”
Vero’s presentation was well attended. It started with the rather brazen assertation that “Your CV Sucks!” It’s true. Your CV only shows a fraction of your life. If future employers (or friends) want to know you better – they’re heading off to Google, Linkedin, twitter and facebook.

As with all good sessions, this rapidly became a heated discussion. Should we teach children digital literacy – or will they teach us? Does seeing a picture on facebook of a potential employee drunk, taking drugs, misbehaving at university colour your judgement? If you post about your sexuality – or any other subject – can it land you in hot water?

Again, I have so many things to say about this, it might become another blog entry!

6) “Social Media – How Not To Get Fucked”
Zoe from Girl With A One Track Mind gave a brief presentation about what it was like to lose her anonymity. While I generally like presentations that turn in to discussions – I really would have liked to have heard more from Zoe about how she coped with – as she put it – getting fucked.

That said, it was fascinating to see how people perceive their digital identities as – contrasted with Vero’s talk – how they compartmentalise them. The ramifications when those compartments break down was also a subject of interest. As some bright spark put it, the reasons weddings are so traumatic is that you have your friends, your family and you colleagues all in one place. Those compartments totally break down and – in extreme cases – can become toxic.

7) “6 Degrees of Separation – Now 3″
Ben gave a high level overview of FOAF, it’s implications in the semantic web and social media. It was great to see a “techie” talk. Well put together and with an excellent interpretation of Dunbar’s Number.

8) “Social Media Bingo”
A little bit of fun for the end
of the day. Slightly chaotic and disorganised – but that may have been part of the charm. The highlight was the projector screen showing the tweets of participants.

Overall, the day was fantastic. The only criticisms I’d make is that the venue wasn’t wonderfully accessible for those with mobility issue (or, in my case, the plain lazy). It might have been nice to stick a copy of the day plan in each room, just so people didn’t over-run their slots and participants knew where to go without crowding round the main board.

Also, I should have won the year’s free Sky HD. ;-p

Too knackered to write anything else. The day was a roaring success. It’s great to meet new friends.

After seeing it on SMSTextNews I’m implanting Disqus comments. Let’s see if we can get them validating against the W3c.

That is, of course, a load of nonsense. This site exists because I wanted a test bed for all my mobile content. I figured that abusing Shakespeare was the best way to start.