Web X.0

Free ad space!

For a test we're running on some new ad formats, I'll donate a month's worth of free ads on this blog's RSS feed (~200 subscribers) to any of the following companies:

• TerraCycle
• SweetRiot
• Think Coffee or Joe's Coffee (IMHO the two best coffee shops in NY, btw)
• Kiva.org
• Etsy.com
• GreenDimes

If you're interested, shoot me an email to [yaron at galai dot com]. First company to respond gets the free ad space.

[UPDATE] - ...and - we have a winner! SweetRiot are not only great with chocolate, they also have their Google Alerts totally worked out... ;-)

Thanks to everyone who responded.

Listen to Webx0 podcasts

As you may have noticed, I'm testing a new widget from a company called Odiogo on this blog.

The Odiogo widget adds a small "Listen now" button right under the title of each post ---->

After clicking that button, a slider will open with a mini player so you can immediately listen to a podcast of that post. You also have an option to subscribe to the Webx0 podcast feed on your iTunes.

I'm really interested in your feedback on this widget (which I will share with the Odiogo guys). Do you find this service useful? How did it perform for you? What do you think about the implementation on the blog? 

Any feedback would be appreciated! Use the comments below or shoot me an email to yaron at galai dot com.

Favorite posts on WebX.0, take 2

A couple of weeks ago we released the v.1 of the outbrain API. This allows RSS feed aggregators (or publishers) to integrate full ratings capabilities into their services.

This week we're adding a neat little feature to the API, enabling partners to get the top rated posts for each blog, as rated by the outbrain community. I posted a few top-5 lists (for Seth Godin's, Guy Kawasaki's and Joel Spolsky's blogs) over at the outbrain blog.

And here are the current top-5 favorite posts of this blog, as rated by the outbrain community:

1. outbrain, funding, bubbles, etc - rated 4.83 out of 5
2. Movie Theatres 2.0 - rated 4.5
3. Idea: Cooking timer site - rated 4.5
4. Favorite posts on WebX.0 - rated 4.43
5. Supermarket 2.0 - rated 4.4

Cool!

Email subscriptions via FeedBlitz

This is waaaaay overdue...

All you folks who want to stay posted on my doodles here, but aren't on RSS yet - now you can subscribe to this blog via email. To do so, simply fill your email address in the small form on the left rail, and then type in the CAPTCHA and the activation link in your email. You will then receive anything I post in your email shortly after it's live on the site.

<-----------------------the subscription box is here (more or less... I'll leave it with a yellow background for a few days so you can easily find it)

Go ahead and signup!

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[1] The email subscriptions are powered by FeedBlitz, a highly recommended email management service which (full disclosure) we might be doing some interesting stuff with in the near future. 

 

Diggbait (or - outbrainbait?...)

Interesting tidbit -
A couple of weeks ago I posted a list of the top-5 rated WebX.0 posts. I just noticed that that post itself has since been rated at an average of 4.67, making it the #1 most favorite post on this blog! (The post titled "What business are you in?" was previously #1 but has recently slid to 2nd place with an average rating of 4.08).

I'd never expect that top-5 post to be rated so high... I guess the rumors on top-X lists being an audience favorite (aka Diggbait) were true...

The Very Worst of WebX.0

Following my recent post about the highest rated WebX.0 posts, I now want to present the very worst posts of this blog, the creme-de-la-crap, as rated by the outbrain community.

Here they are:

• "Israel's exports, part 4 (special war edition)" - Ranked very last, with an average rating of 2. Hmmm... I might reconsider this whole 'Israel exports' series...
  
• "Speaking at WebmasterWorld PubCon 2006" - Average rating of 2.25. Time-sensitive posts like this are bound to get low ratings after the event happens, so no surprises here.
  
• "Fodor's now uses AdSonar" - rated 2.56. This one falls in the category of shameless self promotions. OK - I hear you...
  
• "On profiling" rated 3, "On profiling, part 2" rated 3.15 and "On profiling, part 3" rated 3.05 are next. Hmmmm... I kinda liked these posts... Not sure what to make of this yet...

Some of this is pretty expected, but some is really surprising. Writing on a blog is in many senses like shooting in the dark with very little feedback (comments and trackbacks offer some feedback, but are quite rare on the majority of blogs). Getting rating data like this is a real eye-opener.

If you're interested in getting some insights like this on your blog, drop me a note: galai [at] outbrain [dot] com

Favorite posts on WebX.0

As a blogger, it often feels like I'm writing into a black hole without having a clue as to what my audience (ie - You) finds interesting or boring.

Over at outbrain (disclosure: I'm a founder of the company) our community members are constantly rating blog posts they find interesting. I thought it would be cool to look up our aggregate data, filter results for WebX.0, and find those posts that you, my audience, (or at least the subset of outbrain users... ;-) find most interesting.

As of today, these are your top-5 WebX.0 posts:

1. "What business are you in?" is the current winner! Average score: 4.75 out of 5
2. "Making money from fantasy sports" - Hmmm... interesting choice for #2... Average score: 4.5
3. "Google, Yahoo and stock prices"; Average score - 4.4
4. "Free idea - Affiliate links to RSS readers"; Average - 4.0
5. "The future of newspapers"; Average - 4.0

Cool! Next up I'll take a look at those posts you thought were worst... ;-)

Interested in getting some insights like this on your blog? Drop me a note: galai [at] outbrain [dot] com and we'll see what we can do.

Apologies...

I'm messing with some domain settings. Apologies for all the CSS and RSS mess today... bear with me for one more day until I sort this out.