We would expect this to be the case that as such a site advances in popularity.  Obviously, there are major challenges and opportunities for a site such as DIGG.  We have accumulated a number of ways to improve your hit rate and an article to explain how DIGG works in the newer more commercial internet.
Our part 2 will tell you more!  If you would like us to continue our story, please DIGG this article.

We’ve always been wary about Digg.com from the very beginning. The above is another article we found writing about how Digg works. You can find the original post at the site . WE don’t have a Digg account but please feel free to Digg this post to help the article get more readings it deserves!

Any blogger would agree that Technorati is the leading blog search engine and an authority in everything and anything to do with the blogosphere. Long before Google blog search, there was Technorati- exclusive search engine for blogs. Further, almost all bloggers avail of its services by claiming their blogs for monitoring, placing buttons and widgets and these bloggers (including us!) do take notice on what Technorati has to say.

Time Magazine has this to say about Technorati: “If Google is the Web’s reference library, Technorati is becoming its coffee house.”

While its launching is unknown, it has been publishing the condition of the blogosphere annually since 2004. They have recently released their State of the Blogsophere report for 2008. Based on its analysis, research and survey of over a thousand bloggers, it gives a 5 part presentation of the current state of the blogsphere.

The results are starking. It shows consistent growth boom from tracking 4 million blogs in 2004 to almost 80 million blogs in 2008. It also shows trends and shifts of who are blogging, why and how. It further establishes how blogs have indeed arrived. It’s no longer exclusive to regular people putting out personal diaries online; major recognized brands around the world have put out company and corporate blogs. Journalists, movie actors and singers have one. TV stars maintain blogs. Major newspapers and internet media outlets now have their reporters blogging. Even the US Presidential candidates own blogs.

There is now a crossover of blogs and mainstream media with blogs becoming more and more a major source of information for anything under the sun- politics, entertainment, fun, technology, travels, you name it. The distinction between the two are hazy and even unrecognizable, thanks to the professional looking blogs out there making a name and credibility for themselves. Type in a search for anything you want information and Google and other search engines would most likely give you search results after search results of links and websites directing you to a blog.

The future of blogging is very bright. Despite economic downturn the world is experiencing, more and more people go to the internet to look for information. If anything, the print media is in jeopardy and at risk in all of this happening. While newpapers and magazines maybe obsolete in say 10-20 years, the internet will continue to boom and blogging will be at the forefront.

To read the comprehensive analysis of the current state of the blogosphere, head over to Technorati for their full report.

This is the first time we are testing our site for such and we are very curious to know if we could perhaps sell our website and retire to Hawaii early! LOL.

We know better of course. We’re 3 months shy to our anniversary and we know how the age of a domain hugely affects value (the older the site is, the higher the value) regardless of PageRank and backlinks. Just for kicks we searched for websites available that shows us how much our site is worth.

According to Dane Carlson, the creator who first started it all by asking “How much is your blog worth?” Blogs That Follow site has a laughable $0.00. This is based on Technorati data “which computes and displays your blog’s worth using the same link to dollar ratio as the AOL-Weblogs Inc. deal,” says the site. That means all our efforts since we started 9 months ago are pretty much worthless if we are to believe what it revealed.

Interestingly, we got a better result from dnScoop that says we’re at least valued at $3,914.00 backed with these data:

Lets101 at first look, surprised us with their result. We thought it was just valued at $37.69 but it was actually $3,769. We weren’t really bothered with a ZERO value but somehow we are with $10 or $30!

SmartPagerank is TOO smart for us! They gave us a dismal: $352 value for our site! Their pageRank checker wasn’t working. Did it think we had PR 0 so it gave us a low value? We’ll try again later, maybe it will go up to $360 once they know we have a PR of 3!!

Next! Cubestat gave us the best value of all, $16,232.28!! Then again, they might be really “generous” to all sites so it will be the one that bloggers will flaunt and more people would use it!!

Okay, your turn! We know you’re dying to know too! Good luck with your results, maybe you’d fare better than us and you could move to Hawaii!!

Scour on the other hand, didn’t promise anything. As stated on their About page, its mission is simple: “to bridge the gap between searchers and relevant results… to provide users with the most relevant results available by providing a platform for searchers to vote on relevancy, share their feedback and connect with one another creating a true social search community.”

That’s more like it. Unimposing. They didn’t do much talking and allowed its users handle the raving. We waited before the initial launch publicity is over before jumping on the train. We registered as member today to test it and we are very impressed!

Scour’s makeup is very similar to Google. It shows the search bar with the option to choose web, images, or video results. It’s keyword typing also auto-suggests as you type. It’s results show Sponsored links at the top and on the sidebar and clearly noted as that, sponsored links.

The search functionality is superior and at par with the gods’ Google, Yahoo and MSN search. It’s results are highly reliable and relevant. It’s amazing how they were able to get the nods of the big 3 search engines as  Scour uses the very search results of these three.

It could very well replace any or all of your toolbars currently installed on your browser! We just did! There’s no need for a separate Google, Yahoo, or MSN search toolbar- Scour eliminates that because when you search Scour, it gives out the results from the big 3 easy.

If that’s not enough, Scour beyond being a search engine is a social community and its search results are human powered. It empowers members to discover searches through the feedback mechanism and their friends on the network. As a member you have a say on what’s a relevant search result and what’s not. When you type a keyword search, you get to vote thumbs up or thumbs down to each of the results plus you get to comment!! How nifty is that?!

In the end, the more a particular search is voted down by members, the lower it gets in the ranking and eventually will rid of it appearing on the search altogether. Similarly, the more a search result is voted up by members, its ranking will go up making it more searchable by others and ultimately make it more usable and relevant to users.

Our true test is searching one of the most widely spammed keyword in the internet: VIAGRA. yes, that “miracle” drug for Erectile Dysfunction. We thought, ok what could Scour find about Viagra? The results were quite good! No obvious spam sites on the first 10 results. Are those members working or what?!

Convinced yet? Here’s a real incentive for using Scour. It rewards you for what you already do! Sounds like cliche we know, and sounds like you’ve heard the pitch too many times but this is true for Scour and it just makes real sense especially for search addicts like us at Blogs that Follow.

Every time we’re on our computers, we make 10 to 15 searches in one sitting in all possible keyword combinations. We do the search via Google, find our results and click away. End of the story. With Scour, we will do our regular 10 to 15 searches, find the results and click away. But hey, we have a say on the results! We get to vote the result up or down in terms of relevancy and if we like or dislike the result, we can even leave a comment! On top of it, we EARN POINTS translating into cash later.

According to the Business wire press release: People can earn up to 4 points per search through a combination of actions:

• Search – 1 point
• Vote – 2 points
• Comment – 3 points
• Friend Referral – 25% of each friend’s points

We don’t understand why other users frown on the incentives just because it takes 6,500 to make $25.00. They complain, “that’s too high! That will take forever to accomplish.” Sometimes, most of the bloggers forget to look at the BIG picture. We’ve been searching for the longest time without incentives at all from Google, Yahoo or MSN. We just continue to use the search engines anyway. Here’s one company offering a better way to search and reward us on the side. Then people whine.

The incentives Scour is giving we think is just icing on the cake. The real gem is being able to finally get relevant and useful results with the help of a community changing the way we get our search results. No more PAID immaterial links appearing on the top results! (Well, except for the sponsored sites but that’s how the site survives and gives back a part of it to its users!)

Yomtobian, the genius behind Scour says, “We’re not trying to provide users with an alternative income, the Scour points program is a way for Scour to reward the user for helping build the community to refine search results beyond what the algorithms say.” Well said.

There are other issues like its platform being open for abuse or how members can manipulate results and such or how to get your rewards, limitations etc. Scour tries to answer them in their FAQs and blog. Visit the site for more information.

Don’t take our or Scour’s word for it. Try it and see if it suits your needs!

Caught one of those tributes from Google’s homepage again. July 29, 2008 marks the 50th Anniversary of the The National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA).

“It may well be argued that NASA has become the world’s premier agent for exploration, carrying on in “the new ocean” of outer space a long tradition of expanding the physical and mental boundaries of humanity. Fifty years ago, however the agency that pushed the frontiers of aeronautics, took us to the moon, flew the space shuttle, built the International Space Station and revealed the secrets of the cosmos, was in its birth throes, and fundamental decisions were being made that profoundly shaped all that was to come.”

- Quote from 29th in a series of essays on exploration by NASA’s Chief Historian, Steven J. Dick

Here’s to 50 years of exploration and discoveries into the unknown. Here’s to 50 times 50 times 50 more!!

When you click on it, it will lead you to install a Google (yes, yes another Google product!) application named “Gears.” Gears in a nutshell is a plugin like Flash or Quicktime that “extends your browser to create a richer platform for web applications,” says Google.

It is designed for use with google or non-google websites and if you’re using Google Reader and Google Docs, then you’re already using Gears.

The match between Wordpress and Gears should be a great welcome for serious bloggers because primarily it promises to turbo charge your and your reader’s browsing experience to your site! According to Matt of Wordpress, “it can create local database and file storage, and run JavaScript in the background to update them without slowing down the browser.”

This means that it is now possible “to store all images and other web page components from the admin area to the user’s PC, speeding up access and reducing unnecessary web traffic,” he further says.

This is definitely one of the best improvements in Wordpress since Version 2.1. Installing it was a total breeze, just follow all the steps. If you need more info and help they have it on the Wordpress site.

It seems all is well but it’s less than a week since we installed it. If we discover some glitches, we’ll let you know. If you’re using it, let us know how your experience is so far! We can compare notes! The best thing about this install is it is totally compatible with Firefox 2 and 3!

Our main issue is, now that our browsing experience is turbo charged, how will it affect our own computer usage using our little notebooks. How heavy of a burden will it become size wise as our multiple blogs grow. How is the interaction between our computers and Gears at work? Will it hasten browsing experience BUT slow down our computers? Maybe it doesn’t have any effect. Maybe it has. We have yet to find.

On our previous post we reported an initial record of over 7 million downloads of the Firefox3 browser, the final tally shows an impressive 8,002,530 downloads in the 24 hour period.

If you haven’t yet discovered Firefox 3, it is still available for download. We installed the upgrade Firefox3 on June 17 and are “now enjoying a safer, smarter and better Web.” There really is a huge difference between this high-end browser and the lagging Internet Explorer. 180 million users in more than 230 countries are already on it, so why don’t you?!

In case you didn’t get the memo from the Google Adsense team, effective on the last week of August 2008 the Adsense Referrals program will cease to exist.

This is in line with their continuous efforts to find ways to “improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for (our) publishers,” according to its official statement in their blog.

It further recommends its publishers to consider the following alternatives in lieu of the referral spots:

* Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers
to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For further details, please visit: www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork.

* AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense for content (AFC) ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the referral ad units with standard AFC ads.

What to do?

If you are currently running an Adsense referrals spot on your site, you do two things: one is remove the code from the site. They’re not suggesting right away but hold off until about the end of August, just don’t forget about it because after August, you will only be seeing an empty white space on your page where the ads were and you’re not earning anything anymore. Second is to run and save all referrals reports on your desktop so you can go over and review your campaign information.

Google? In Affiliate Networking?

So Google took interest to Affiliate Networking and acquired the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate program in March 2008 and decided that it was better than their existing referrals program. Now they’re entirely scrapping Adsense referrals and going the other way.

This is a really interesting move for Google going to the path of Affiliate networking. They are only now following the ways of leading affiliate network companies like Commission Junction, Share A Sale and yes, even Project Wonderful. The latter is a recent company joining into the affiliate network business and actually has a slightly different concept where there is actual buying, selling and bidding going on for an ad space in almost real time.

Being a giant in the industry, Google will have no trouble leveling the playing field of Affiliate networking. However, the fear is that they may not level it but may ‘wipe out’ the competition! Being a giant makes one dominate the industry altogether and we hope they will not crush the other companies but will just be there side by side, co-existing in the industry. Still, it isn’t called a business for nothing. Business is business, it has no emotions and it will do whatever it takes to succeed regardless of how they reach the top.

We are 50-50 on this move to apply for Google’s Affiliate Network program. As it is, we are with two others and we are very satisfied with the programs and their offering. We’ll have to wait and see on this one for Google.

He pointed out five ways to optimize a website:

1. Spotlight your search term on the page.

2. Fill in your “tags.”

3. Get other sites to “link” back to you.

4. Create a blog and post often.

5. Register for free tools.

To read the explanation for each. Visit the site!

Did Mozilla make it to the Guiness? We have yet to find out! We, along with the people at Mozilla are still awaiting final reports in their attempt to enter the Book of Guiness World Records for most number of software download in 24 hours. While there is currently no record to beat for that area, Mozilla hopes to be the first.

As it is, they already beat their own record for most downloads on first day release of their software from 1.6 million downloads of Firefox 2 in October 2006 to over 7 million downloads of Firefox 3 in June 2008. In the United States alone, Firefox 3 was downloaded 2.6 million times, with our download and our friends’ included! Germany had over 600,000 and Japan had over 400, 000 downloads.

What was disappointing was the downtime the website had experienced some parts of the day. At noontime, we couldn’t connect at all! We thought we couldn’t download the product because the server was just offline. Mozilla promoted this event big time, we hoped they could have been more prepared for it and expect millions of traffic from all around the globe.

Now comes the software itself. Was it a huge upgrade difference from Firefox 2? We’re getting mixed reactions from friends. Some don’t like the huge back and forward buttons on the toolbar which we think is really user friendly- as you want it big and easy to find! We like the fact that it is already Google integrated but some of our add-ons and extra toolbar aren’t compatible with the new browser yet! We had to disable them for now because we like what we’re getting from the new Firefox 3 so far. As promised, it is faster and really just feels better and secure overall.

The other thing major that’s totally debatable depending on your preference is the address bar itself where you type in the web address. Mozilla calls it the “smart location bar” as it automatically completes addresses for you as you type, then dynamically ranks the results and acts as an inside-the-browser search tool to find previously visited pages. We think it’s really smart! However, others think it’s annoying as the toolbar automatically slide down and cover half the browser page at the same time you are typing and the tool suggests earlier visted sites. Perhaps Firefox already thought of the mix reception of the new toolbar so they have as an add-on the option to return to the Firefox 2 look and feel.

Some people likes change, some people don’t, and some really need time to adjust to changes. We haven’t encountered any bugs yet or crashes. We’re sticking to the toolbar and we’re really digging Firefox 3 overall.