After careful consideration, we have decided to shutdown the BlogRush service. If you have the widget code on your blog you will need to remove it.

When BlogRush launched in late-2007 it spread like wildfire all over the Web. Thousands of bloggers were talking about it and the service exploded to become one of the fastest growing free services in the history of the Web. During the first year of the service it successfully served 3.4 Billion blog post headlines and the BlogRush widget could be found on blogs all over the world; even up until the moment we closed down the service.

BlogRush didn’t grow without its fair share of problems — from security issues to abusive users trying to ‘game’ the system to much lower click-rates than expected. We also had some problems with trying to fairly control the quality of the network, and in the process made many mistakes in deciding what blogs should stay or go. All of these issues, ultimately, limited the service’s full potential.

Our team worked very hard to try and build a service that would truly help bloggers of all sizes get free traffic to their blogs. This was our primary focus. Not once did we ever try to monetize the service with ads or anything else. BlogRush never made a single penny in revenue. We wanted to be able to help our users FIRST and then worry about monetizing the service later. Unfortunately, the service didn’t work out like we had hoped. (It happens.)

I want to say “Thank You” to all of the great bloggers that at least gave BlogRush a test to see if it would work for them. We sincerely appreciate you giving the service a try.

We have received several offers & inquiries about acquiring BlogRush, but we are choosing not to go that route. While many might think this is crazy, we truly feel it’s the ‘right’ thing to do for our users. Believe it or not, it’s not always about the money. In fact, BlogRush will have lost a small fortune when it’s all said and done, and it was by choice. There were many things we could have done to monetize the service but we wanted to make sure it was going to benefit our users first.

Last but not least I want to say that I hope the failure of this service doesn’t in any way discourage other entrepreneurs from coming up with crazy ideas at 4AM (like I did with this one) and from “going for it” to just try and see if something will work. Without trying there can be no success. And as we all know, ideas are worthless without action. The Web wouldn’t be what it is today without entrepreneurs trying all sorts of crazy ideas.

On behalf of the entire BlogRush team, we wish the best of luck to everyone with their own blogs, ideas, and crazy ventures.

Sincerely,

John Reese

As the saying goes, some good things never lasts.

Session 1 SEO Basics and Reporting (November 11 - 12, 2008) will tackle Search Tracking and Reporting:Basic Search Optimization, Webstats and Ranking Report Analysis, Tracking and Reporting, Pay-Per-Click Basics while the 2nd session In Depth and Optimization (November 19 - 21, 2008) will discuss In Depth Search Optimization: Link Building, Internal Link Structures, Pay-Per-Click, Advanced Optimization.

Fess will be P10,000.00 for the first sessions (November 11 - 12, 2008) and P15,000.00 for the November 19 to 21, 2008 sessions. Course instructors will be Hans A. Koch & Benj Ariola.

Training fees are inclusive of snacks, lunch, workshop materials, and certificate, attendees are required to bring with them Laptop, Google Account (Gmail), Google Analytics & a site to optimize.

For more details, you can call Fiera de Manila, Inc. at telephone numbers: +632-8960639,
8960637, fax: 8902101, 8960637, email: fiera@info.com.ph, visit web site: http://www.fmi.com.ph

The theme design contest grand winner will receive $2,000 and a 6 months develop license while the runner up will win $1,000 and 3 months develop license. The contest rules are as follows:

• The design must be created in Photoshop, Fireworks or Illustrator format.
• The website container must have a width of between 940 and 980 pixels, catering for the average 1024 X 768 user.
• The entries must be submitted to the WooThemes Flickr pool in jpeg or png format and tagged “Woocontest”.

Your submission on Flickr must include:

• Your name and any URL you would like linked to in case you win.
• Any stock or source images you have used including URLs. Be sure to only use stock images that have Extended Usage licenses that allow for distributing the theme design once coded, otherwise avoid use of stock images.

In addition to the contest rules, the Terms & Conditions governing the contest are as follows:

• The theme concept submitted must be entirely your own work. As mentioned above if stock imagery is used it must have an exttended usage license.
• By entering this competition you consent to your theme concept possibly being used by WooThemes and avaliable for purchase on our site. First and second prize will, as already stated, be awarded a cash prize for their work. If any other theme concepts are used by WooThemes the designer will be informed and awarded a set fee for the concept. Sales generated will be kept by the company.
• The winning theme concept and the runner up may be required to mock up an inner page before payment is made, determined by an inspection of the design source file. A clearly noted grid structure is highly recommended.

This a great opportunity for upcoming web designers and/or graphic artist to show their talents in creating a unique WordPress template.

As the importance of social media expands, so does the influence of WordPress, the blogging service that most serious bloggers turn to. And though blogging might seem well established, WordPress just keeps on growing. Open source software is part of the reason for WordPress’ success. When Mullenweg started blogging in 2001, he used open source software to develop his own Web tools, which became WordPress. Traffic to WordPress’ service more than doubled during the last year to 103 million global visitors, compared with main rival Typepad’s 20 million.

Together with Matt, the other 24 most influential on the web are The Seeker: Steve Ballmer of microsoft.com, The Marshall: Mitchell Baker of mozilla.org, The Innovator: Jeff Bezos of amazon.com, The Searchers: Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt of google.com, The Investor: Jeff Clavier of softtechvc.com, The Papa Bear: Paul Graham of ycombinator.com, The Muckracker: Arianna Huffington of huffingtonpost.com, The Adviser: Joi Ito of joi.ito.com, The Mastermind: Steve Jobs of apple.com, The Filmer: Jonathan Kaplan of theflip.com, The Communicator: Loic Le Meur of Leweb3.com and seesmic.com, The Trader: Jack Ma of alibaba.com, The Mogul: Rupert Murdoch of myspace.com, The Community Organizer: Craig Newmark of craigslist.com, The Traffic Driver: Gabe Rivera of techmeme.com, The Poster Boy: Kevin Rose of digg.com, The Adult: Sheryl Sandberg of facebook.com, The Edutainer: Jon Stewart of thedailyshow.com, The Money Man: Peter Thiel of clariumcapital.com and thefoundersfund.com, The Crafter: Maria Thomas of etsy.com, The Advocate: Anssi Vanjoki of nokia.com, The Crowd Sourcer: Jimmy Wales of wikia-inc.com/wiki/wikia, The Blogger: Evan Williams of twitter.com, and The Fighter: Jerry Yang of yahoo.com.

Like what I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I’m now considering opening this directory to all Filipino websites. Meanwhile, here are the twenty nine blogs that signed-up this month:

1. I Am A Golden God on Personal
2. gene + experiments on Personal
3. my world of perpetual mediocrity on Personal
4. TIRADOR NG KATOL on Personal
5. Excuse My French on Personal
6. Just Another Pixel on Personal
7. The Real Me… on Personal
8. whatever makes me happy! on Personal
9. Do you take the nonbeliever? on Personal
10. amazing photos on Personal
11. Reign Loleng is Crispy on Personal
12. Hiboohi:Filipino Blogs on Personal, Blog Resources and Money Making Blog
13. Everyday Light on Religion & Culture
philppine concerts and everything on Showbiz & Entertainment
14. BGKFANATICS on Sports
15. Do You Mind? on Arts & Literature
16. Philippine Business News Abstracts on News & Media
17. Happy Thoughts, Happy Tot on Home & Family
18. Basta… on Humor
19. Hamono Akira’s Blog on Humor
20. Etc Atbp on Blog Resources
21. Web Designer Pinoy on Computers & Internet
22. Four Seasons on Pinoy Overseas
23. The Sandbox on Pinoy Overseas
24. I Got Post on Pinoy Overseas
25. Blogs and Blogging on Money Making Blog
26. Online Bits and Pieces on Money Making Blog
27. Da Pinoy Employee’s Guide to Survival in the Workplace on Career & Employment
28. After Call Work on Career & Employment

For any comments, suggestions or reaction, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment here.

This blog is not the only one affected by July’s page rank update, my personal blog dropped from PR3 to PR0 while my wedding photography blog from PR4 to PR2. From what I’ve read, Google has changed its algorithm and has affected a lot of site’s nominal page ranks.

A clue of a new page rank update came from Matt Cutts himself, it looks like September will be it, good luck to my page rank.

There are currently 20 themes available to choose from, it’s not customizable but it’s widget ready, in addition, plugins can be uploaded (don’t ask me how, I have yet to explore it) to further enhance the blogs capability.

If you are using the previous Friendster blog version, you can migrate by visiting this link. And if you haven’t activated your friendster blog, then it’s time to do so and enjoy it.

For more info and inquiries, call *888 from your SMART mobile, 888-1111 on your landline or you may visit any SMART Wireless Center.

I’m now contemplating on offering it not exclusively for Pinoy Blogs but also for Pinoy Websites, with its current page rank (PR 3), I know a lot of website will be interest in listing. Well then again, it’s still the planning stage, whatever will be my decision, I’ll just post it here.

• New 21.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor with improved EOS Integrated Cleaning System (E.I.C.S.)
• New Full HD 1080 resolution movie recording
• 3.9 frames per second continuous shooting
• 3.0” VGA (920k dots) Clear View LCD
• ISO 100-6400 (expansion from 50 up to 25,600)
• 9 AF points + 6 Assist AF points

The 21.1 MP is impressive, but the 3.9 fps is not, that’s not much improvement from the 3fps of the old 5D. It has improved the video feature that was introduced by Nikon on it’s D90 model, although the full HD video on a DSLR is so overwhelming, I still don’t think it really belong there.

The Canon 5D Mark II will sell at $2,699.