The Article Writer

This morning I was playing around with the Aquarium theme that had been displayed on this site for most of the past year and when I made some key coding changes, the theme did not “behave” in a manner to show my changes.

Specifically, I entered the coding to separate regular comments from trackbacks/pingbacks and, instead of separating them into two neat categories, nothing showed up. I double-checked my work and confirmed that the steps I followed were correct. Clearly, there was something within the Aquarium theme that was blocking the coding changes from taking place.

Instead of looking for the problem, I decided to swap out themes. This was the last thing I wanted to do with a week and a month coming to a close on the same day. So, I pulled up the trusty (if not bland) WordPress 1.6 theme, made some color changes, and what you are seeing is what I’ve decided to go with for now.

I had planned to make a theme change after the first of the year anyway, as a refreshing of a blog’s appearance is nice to do from time to time. I have noticed that I am not the only one who changes themes on a regular basis, but I was wondering how often other bloggers make a change and the reasons behind these changes.

My questions for you today are:

How often do you change your blog’s theme? Why?

By the way, if you want to separate comments from trackbacks/pingbacks you can snag that code from several different blogs. I visited Michael Martin’s Pro Blog Design to find the information I needed to make what I believe is an important layout change for my readers.

I visit a lot of sites during the course of the day, including blogs managed by other freelance writers. I don’t find too many guy bloggers out there who are also freelance writers, but I do have some favorite bloggers who all happen to be, well, girls!

Please note: women don’t like to be called girls between the ages of 18 and 30, but I have learned that it is “okay” for us boys to call them girls again once they reach a certain age.

>>I think I’ll move this conversation in another direction right about now.<<

Anyway, I had a fun laugh earlier today when I came across Laura Spencer’s Writing Thoughts blog when I read her WAHM (Work At Home Mom) Wednesday posting titled, “Is Your Shopping All Done?” Translation: is your Christmas shopping done, presents wrapped, and your tree decorated and lit?

I was about to leave a typical doofus guy reply, but I thought the better of it. Instead, I said to myself: isn’t it still only November?! There is so much time between now and Christmas — what’s the rush?

Of course, I didn’t show Laura’s article to my wife who finished her shopping before Thanksgiving, has wrapped most of the presents, and put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving — lights, decorations, and all. Maybe I should have “gotten it” when she began making Christmas plans for us back in September and presented her personal Christmas list to me in October, but I guess I don’t get it.

On the other hand, I’m currently micro-managing my business and trying to figure out the upcoming college football bowl schedule. The leaves need to be raked (again) and the gutters cleaned out. Christmas is coming, but I won’t be starting my shopping until I make my first click on some favorite websites. I can walk to our mall, but I’d rather shop online.

Hey, it must be a boy thing!

For the record: this isn’t a paid advertisement although you will find this article under the Paid Advert category. I don’t want to incur the wrath of the Google gods for doing something that violates their TOU.

What this article is about is PayPerPost and ReviewMe, two paid blogging models that are popular with some bloggers. I’ve participated in both programs previously, but discontinued paid blogging about the same time that Google announced that penalties were forthcoming. Penalties or not, I was no longer interested in monetizing my blogs through paid posting.

Matthew Mullenweg, who is one of the architects behind WordPress, recently discussed on his Photo Matt blog TechCrunch’s decision not to accept PayPerPost/IZEA advertising after surveying their readership. Mullenweg added, “Their readers made the right decision and voted that it would be disingenuous to accept advertising from a company that, in Michael’s words, pollutes the blogosphere.”

I realize that the words uttered were from Michael Arrington who has a “history” of airing his overwhelmingly negative opinions about PayPerPost, founder Ted Murphy, and the PPP model. Oddly, TechCrunch works closely with TextLinkAds, the company who started ReviewMe. I’m not sure why one business model would be different enough to justify then the other one or whether what PPP does pollutes the internet, while ReviewMe is deemed acceptable.

I’m not taking a position in this debate, but I would hate to be in Ted Murphy’s shoes as the entire PPP model is under attack (talk about job insecurity!) Google has penalized bloggers who use PayPerPost and Murphy is finding himself responding to these attacks by leaving comments (diplomatic ones, at that) on blogs discussing PPP.

Google has changed the way that many blogs do business, leaving some bloggers scrambling to make up for lost revenue. It’ll be interesting to see whether the paid posting model can survive or whether it will be abandoned by bloggers, advertisers, and by the companies providing this service themselves.