TenthOfMarch.com

Wow! I never thought that writing Review: Nuffnang Vs. Advertlets would bring in a few new readers to my blog. That post generated some great discussions between Nuffnang, Advertlets and myself. However, they say you cannot judge a book by its cover. Therefore, neither can you judge a website by its index finger page.

Finger pointing at Nuffnang’s banner on the right

So, I decided to register an account with them and make a review (and also one or two ringgit) from the inside. I’m going to start off with Nuffnang and continue with Advertlets after completely ransacking Nuffnang’s ‘insides’. This may seem a little unfair for Nuffnang because it gives Advertlets some extra time before ‘judgement day’. However, I have no choice because apparently, Advertlets do not do business with small-time blogger with less than 100 unique visitors per day like me. Grrrr!!

Due to the extra traffic generated from the previous posts, as of 10pm today, my blog has successfully surpassed the 100 unique visitors mark. I will work on it and hopefully will be able to stabilize or increase this number further. Alright, enough nonsense and lets get to business.

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Registering an account was a breeze. It took me under a minute to fill up the form and hit the ‘Sign Up Now!‘ button. Seconds later, I received the confirmation letter and clicked on the activation link. When I thought I could start setting up my banner, I was asked to fill up some survey first. What annoyed me was it took me longer to fill up the survey than it did with the account registration. And I can’t even skip the damn thing (I think). But I guess it’s ok — they help me scratch my back, I help them scratch their backside loh.

Immediately after starting the survey, I felt like throwing one of the Nuffnang guys down the Penang bridge already. I wonder which one of them made the survey. Surveys should be short and easy to answer. Nevermind the 10-over questions. I’m already stuck with the first one!

I try to make it a commitment to blog daily. However, my statistic shows I misses two or three posts a week. That means I blog ‘4 or 5 times a week‘. Where’s my option? If I answered ‘3 times‘ will my earnings be less? If I answered ‘Daily‘ will you call me a liar if I missed a post? First question also so challenging already. Grrr……WOOF WOOF!! Oppss….

TenthOfMarch recommends:
Provide option for “Daily”, “1-2 Times a Week”, “3-4 Times a Week”, “5-6 Times a Week”, etc.

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Some of the questions asked DO have multiple answers. However, you only provide ‘bullet options’ which allows only one answer. Take for example:

a) How would you categorise your blog?
b) Are you signed up on any other ad networks?

My blog is (or will be) about business, personal and technology. Currently, a workaround to this problem would be to select “Others” and write them in the textfield. However, I am lazy, so I just selected ‘Technology’. Luckily I only have AdSense running on my page, or else I’ll be scratching my head bald thinking which to choose again.

TenthOfMarch recommends:
Provide checkbox for questions that have multiple answers. That way, we get to select more than one answer.

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Then comes the second part of your survey. “Section 2: Now tell us about your readers“. I tell you, this part is the most ‘jia-lat‘. I was having a head-banging time answering questions about myself already. And now you want to know about my readers? All I know is that they have taste (they are reading my blog, aren’t they?). Ok seriously, I think (but I may be wrong) that most bloggers do not have a clear knowledge of their readers accurately.

Here is my reasoning. According to this article, only 1 out of 100 of your readers will leave a comment. Let’s say you are really good and manage to get 1 out of 10 of your readers to comment. After that, you make real good friends with them. Such a good friend you are, you are even able to know their future! However, you are still very much in the dark with the other 90-99% of your readers. True? Therefore, answering any of your questions regarding my (our) readers is based purely on my (our) own guessing. Is it still accurate then? So why bother having it? This part of the survey is just a big waste of time.

TenthOfMarch recommends:
Remove section 2 of your survey. If you really want the survey done, I suggest putting it up in your Nuffnangites’ blogs and allow their readers to answer them instead. How? What? I can only point you to one direction. You know where that is. Innovate. If not, just copy (at your own risks).

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So that was it. I finally finished registering an account. How did I feel right after that? To say the least — somewhat exhausted and tu-lan frustrated at the same time. Nonetheless, I’m excited to be able to continue my quest in drilling deeper into them. You cannot imagine what I found next. BUGS!!!! Yes, those creepy crawly ‘things’ that become every programmers nightmare.

This is only Part One. Catch Part Two of my review that will be coming out soon. I hope I don’t have to extend it to Part Three.

Sorry for the occasional sarcasm, no life joke, some not so friendly remarks and my honesty. You may bitch me, but don’t ditch me. See that “Leave a Reply” section down there? Go on, tell me what you think about my post, me or even my hand (if you want!). Oh by the way, hope you like the ‘handjob’! Cheers.

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