North x East North x East North x East is a blog about business and entrepreneurship, blogging, marketing and startups. 
Articles
Building a SuperBlog Pt 2
2007-06-10 07:28:00 From 2000-7000 Readers in Five Fast Weeks. After the rocketing success of those two first weeks, momentum continued our growth to just over 3000 readers in what was only our third week of existence. For a few moments it seemed that all we needed to do was sit back and watch the numbers roll over. But all good things come to an end and our statistics began to plateau. Before I continue, if you haven’t already, you may like to view the first title in this series: Building a SuperBlog Pt 1: From 0 - 2000 Readers in Two Short Weeks. The FreelanceSwitch Feedburner Graph And so after our first two weeks of excitement, I happened to come across an article about how spikes of traffic can sometimes lead to *temporarily* inflated subscriber numbers. Cyan - the site manager - and I called an emergency blog meeting at our local Starbucks. The two of us plot and plan most of FreelanceSwitch there over venti cups of piping hot tea and as usual, an hour or so later we had a new plan. Havi...
Thinking Outside the Blog
2007-06-04 10:21:00 Most internet users have a good idea of what a blog looks like. In fact most blogs look pretty similar when you get down to it. Sure they come in different packages - certainly WordPress themes abound - but strip away a little of the cosmetics and it is usually the same face underneath. Today NorthxEast is changing to a new look and new format and while it isn’t entirely revolutionary, it is a little different. In reinventing this site I got to thinking about how blogs are changing and lines blurring. And so it seems fitting that the first article should be about how we as professional bloggers can think outside the blog. A New Medium Game changing innovations are few and far between. They are usually simple concepts to describe but when they arrive it takes time to fully realize their importance and impact. Television was a game-changer, mobile phones were a game-changer, and blogging is also one. What sounds so simple - it is just chronological posting after all - has had a... More About: Blog , Thinking
Why Design Doesn?t Matter in Blogging
2007-05-17 11:38:00 I’m a designer, always have been, always will be. And despite the title of this post I do believe that design matters one heck of a lot when it comes to making an impression, being usable and creating an image. But today I visited Steve Pavlina’s blog and read that he receives ... More About: Design , Blogging , Matter , Sign , Blogg
How to Write a Popular Post
2007-05-15 11:11:00 One of the keys to success on FreelanceSwitch has been the popularity we’ve had with Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Reddit. In particular a post like Top Ten Signs You May Be Charging Too Little brought some 70,000 visitors in a single day - more than NorthxEast has received in three months! The reason I’m ... More About: Blogging , Post , Write , Popular , Pula
NxE v2 Coming Online in 2 weeks
2007-05-13 12:44:00 Ever since we launched FreelanceSwitch I’ve been thinking and thinking about what to do with NxE. I haven’t got the energy to write for two blogs with any huge output and on top of that we are about to open a whole blog family very shortly. But at last one day just before ... More About: General , Online , Line , Ming , Weeks
Using CSS Galleries to get visitors - a comparison of traffic over 1 month
2007-05-05 05:02:00 Creating a good looking site and listing it in a CSS gallery has become a reasonably well known strategy for getting traffic. Being a designer I have had the chance to try this technique quite a few times and I thought I would today write up the value it brings using two case studies. The ... More About: Marketing , Traffic , Galleries , Visitor , Over
If I Could Only Read 5 blogs
2007-05-05 04:27:00 ThePaperBull.com has started a little meme called “If I Could Only Read 5 Blogs ”, and since I love a good meme, here are the 5 blogs I would read: TechCrunch.com TechCrunch was the very first blog I ever read regularly and to this day I keep going back because its just so damn useful. As someone ... More About: General , Logs
Hear me being interviewed!
2007-05-02 09:36:00 Ever wonder just who I really am… Well yesterday Eric Mattson of Jenerous.com interviewed me about our company Eden and the success we’ve had with FreelanceSwitch.com Boy its weird hearing yourself! More About: General , Hear , View , Bein , Being
Poll: Did you have or use a Business Plan?
2007-04-30 13:10:00 I suspect that many of you readers are or have been owners of some sort of web business. So I thought I would run a quick poll on the site to see how many people started their business with a business plan. I know for the company that I run - Eden Creative Communities - ... More About: Business , Business Plan , Poll , Have , Ness
Blogs falling by the wayside and why it pays to stick
2007-04-29 11:31:00 You know with only three months of blogging in my experience bank, I am still a bit of a blogging n00b. However with the way blogs come and go I am starting to feel like I have been around a while. When I started at the beginning of February I found a whole ... More About: General , Blogs , The Way , Side , Pays
Why you should not use WWW or use WWW and STICK to it!
2007-04-28 04:00:00 Well Hannes just let me know that the Google PR has updated today, my own PR bar doesn’t seem to have registered it, but you can check out a whole heap of Google servers from pageranktool.net which seems to be indicating that its just happening now. No doubt TLA is about to get inundated ... More About: Should , Stick , Tick
Success builds on Success
2007-04-25 03:09:00 Have you ever realised that you can look at your life as one long sequence of cause and effects? Something happens and it has an effect which has an effect which has an effect. So you might think to yourself “boy if I had never done so-and-so, then this other thing I’m doing now ... More About: General , Success , Build , Builds
Wondering when the next PageRank update will be?
2007-04-21 09:18:00 Wondering when the next PageRank update will be? According to the experts it should be … a week ago! Of course no-one except Google really knows when those PageRank bars will go up but SEOCompany.ca of Canada tracks the number of days between updates since all the way back in the year 2000 on their ... More About: Pagerank , Update , Next , Ring , Will
? All the *other* ways to make money with a blog
2007-04-21 03:33:00 While most of monetization through blogging focuses on advertising and affiliates there is, as they say, more than one way to skin a cat. Today I came across a post by fellow Australian Mitchell Harper writing about one way to do it, so I thought I would compile a list of that and some ... More About: Money , Make Money , Blogging , Blog , Make
How Rand Fishkin (inadvertently) saved NorthxEast
2007-04-19 02:10:00 So a few days ago I posted that I was slowing down my post schedule, then the next night as I was lying in bed I decided that I should take a leaf out of my own book and get some focus. Noone could have predicted the wild success of FreelanceSwitch which still hasn’t ... More About: General , East , North , Advert , Save
A bit of Linkage
2007-04-16 07:26:00 Time for a bit of linkage here at NxE, check out these interesting places to visit: FoundRead is yet another blog from the GigaOM network, this one is about entrepreneurship and promises to be a valuable addition to the team Making viral content to promote something? Remember the 7 Q’s of Viral Content - Worth reading if ... More About: Link , Linkage
A New, Slighlty Slower Posting Schedule
2007-04-15 11:05:00 When I started NxE two months ago I set myself a posting schedule of averaging 1 - 1.5 posts a day, a feat I am happy to have accomplished with just over 100 posts in that period. But today I made a decision (while in the bath ) to change my posting schedule ... More About: Post , Schedule , Sting , Lower , Slow
The Brokerage Model
2007-04-15 10:56:00 As you know all this month we are looking at how you do business online, or in other words at web business models. Ivan wrote a post earlier about the Donation Model and today I thought I would discuss my favourite web business model, the Broker age Model. What is the Brokerage Model of doing business? Businesses ... More About: Rage
How We Took a Blog From 0 to 500 Subscribers in just 7 Days
2007-04-13 13:25:00 Today I thought I would take a break from all the talk of business models and just share my recent experience with FreelanceSwitch and how we’ve attracted over 500 feed subscribers in just 7 days of being online - a figure that far surpasses that of this blog after almost 3 months! So first of all ... More About: Blog , Just , Subscribe , Days , Crib
The Web Puts Ordinary Business Models on Steroids
2007-04-12 05:00:00 Today I read an interesting article on Read/Write Web titled “Google - the Ultimate Money Making Machine” which details why Google has the ultimate business model, which in light of this month’s topic seemed rather appropriate for a linkup. If you haven’t seen the article I highly recommend it. One of the key points to ... More About: Business , Models , Model , The Web , Steroids
A lot of resources for freelancers?
2007-04-11 05:58:00 Just a quick plug for Free lanceSwitch, Cyan and I have just finished up a list of 101 essential resources for freelancers, took forever to compile, but I think it is a very worthwhile list. In any case, head on over and if you are into such things as Digg and Reddit, give it a ... More About: Resources , Source , Freelance , Lancer
Don?t Pigeonhole Yourself when Naming
2007-04-10 08:54:00 As some of you may know recently Microsoft has been introducing a new “Flash-killer” technology called WPF/e. Of course whether or not it lives up to expectations remains to be seen. Since I run a business called FlashDen for selling stock Adobe Flash components, I immediately thought two things: - If it gets successful, ... More About: Yourself , Self , Your , Pigeon , When
The Ultimate Guide to Monetizing your site through Donations?
2007-04-09 04:15:00 (This article has been written by Ivan Brezak Brkan, a new media journalist and interface designer whose passion for all things online is only superseded by his interest in how people behave both online and offline - yes, he is a sociologist.) Go beyond the dreaded classic donation button and harness the power of e-philantropy, find ... More About: Site , Nations , Your , Nation , Donation
5 Reasons I Blog
2007-04-09 00:45:00 There is nothing like participating in a meme, to make you feel like a true blog-iffic blogger, so since Adnan from Blog trepreneur has tagged me with this one, here goes… For me blogging is all about my thoughts… I get to think lots each day under the pretense of work I love thinking, I mostly do it ... More About: Reason , Reasons , Sons
A Classification of Web Business Models
2007-04-08 08:13:00 I’ve mentioned “Business Model s ” a few times now, I even have a category of posts under the name, but what is a Business Model? A model is something you use to depict or understand something much bigger. So remember in Return of the Jedi, when they are planning their attack on the Death Star, they ... More About: Cat , Class
How Much Money is This Business Going to Make? - 4 Key Pitfalls to Avoid
2007-04-05 14:59:00 So, you have a winning idea and a great plan to monetize this idea and start a powerhouse internet business. Inevitably when you craft your business model you will start working out some figures for this new venture. So you sit down and start throwing around imaginary numbers. A certain number of ... More About: Business , Money , This , Make , Much
Business Models and a Competition Winner!
2007-04-05 01:08:00 First of all thanks to everyone who entered, we had some great suggestions and a ton that I hadn’t ever thought of. I’m now compiling an uber list of every possible permutation of internet business models which I’m going to publish next weekend. There are a lot more than I realised. In ... More About: Business , Models , Competition , Comp , Model
FreelanceSwitch - A Community and Resource for Freelancers
2007-04-04 11:51:00 A few weeks ago I wrote a very popular article about Free lancing that has attracted lots of visitors, an interview and a guest blogging gig at a design site. Not being one to miss an opportunity, I decided that evidently there is an audience for information about freelancing. And so, I am happy ... More About: Community , Muni , Source , Freelance
Think before you register a domain!
2007-04-03 07:22:00 The best way to explain why you should think long and hard about your domain name before you register it is best summed up in an example… I’d like to tell you about Pen Island where “Your Pen is Our Business”… You can visit the site at www.PenisLand.net - My Pen is my own business thank ... More About: Domain , Main , Doma , Think , Register
Its Nice to be Blissfully Ignorant
More articles from this author:2007-04-03 02:28:00 My father is a veteran of business and having managed more people than I have met, is a good source for advice and opinion. This is perhaps why I am so fond of quoting him in this blog. In any case some time ago I was laying out parts of our business plan ... More About: Rant , Full , Nora , Nice , Ice T 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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