What? Yes, it’s a well known fact that if you display a lot of adverts without them leading to conversions, Google reduces the value of the adverts. What Steve’s proposing is that search engine visitors are more likely to convert via AdSense ads. Therefore, if you find a way to ONLY serve to AdSense traffic, you’ll get better conversions and better revenue.

Because the income I make from Adsense ad clicks is directly related to the conversion rate of the people seeing the ads, it is to my benefit to only show these ads to interested parties. If too many ad impressions are shown but do not lead to conversions, Google will reduce the payout per click for my entire site. This phenomenon is know as “smart pricing”. In this case of MyWifeQuitHerJob.com, the best way for me to maximize conversions is to show Google Adsense ads only to search engine visitors and this is exactly what I do.

Maximise Adsense by only showing ads to search engine visitors at MyWifeQuitHerJob.

Gentlemen, start your engines! WordPress 2.9 is just around the corner. Unlike WordPress 2.8, which Mark Jaquith describes as the Snow Leopard of WordPress since most of the basis of the WordPress 2.8 upgrade was complete rewrites and optimization of the infrastructure that ran WordPress instead of providing lots of new features in the same way Apple’s new OS X release is a focus on improved performance instead of features, WordPress 2.9 brings major new “bling” to the table.

via 10 Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.9.

Themeing hooks for image thumbnails, automatic database repair and optimisation and so much more. Well done, WordPress – get the latest version from WordPress.org.

I first saw this in effect when Jason Santa Maria redesigned his blog a while back. It’s an amazing concept, and visually stunning. The problem for 99% of web users, bloggers and whatnots is that they just don’t have the design skills to make something like this happen. Plus, for the majority of people, having to think so hard about the design of an article would be a disincentive to write at all!

For those designers who have the time, creativity and ability to make the blogzine format work, there may be a new niche in it for them to own.

Who would you recommend?

I’ve lamented the state of the Northern Irish blogosphere a while back, and now that I’m starting to get back into the flow of things I’d like to update my reading list. Damien Mulley pulled out a good list of Irish political blogs late last year.

I’d like to see something similar for Northern Ireland specifically. Roll up your sleeves, and help me out with your suggestions in the comments below!

My political blogging has run out of steam to a degree – when all you’re shooting for (pun not intended) is people to settle down and live in a civilized Northern Ireland, you don’t have history on your side! You certainly don’t have a guerilla movement and hundreds thousands of dead bodies to lend legitimacy to your argument!

Unlike my compadres in the Unionist/Nationalist blogging communities, I can’t abide repeating myself ad nauseum, even though I think my argument makes more sense.

Frankly, in Northern Ireland the same issues still exist: one part of the population wants to be Irish, the other British. Will Nationalists be happy to argue for a United Ireland in a perpetual talking shop, or will their politicians let it slide, happy with their slice of the power-sharing cake?

I don’t know. And to be honest, right now I don’t care.

I’ll continue to post political pieces, but I’m not as motivated by it as before, mostly because there’s nothing I can change. Most idiots are only too happy to swallow up the garbage their politicians sell to them. They’re not listening to me or attempting to broaden their perspective. Are they?

Ah, who cares? I’ve still got jobs to hunt and a family to worry about. I’m still reading most of the main blogs, although I’m lamenting the loss of others (not JoBlog for some reason).

I’ll be having a wee think about my life as Levee and maybe try to do something different with the site to make it a bit more fun. Remember when blogging was fun?

That was a long sentence! What I mean is, can blogs like Slugger encourage a wider variety of debate than what we’re exposed to when it’s just one-way propaganda from the party press office?

I specifically mention Slugger O’Toole, because Mick Fealty and the team have done a fantastic job of creating an open forum for debate. In fact, a few people (who don’t know about my double life as Levee) have recommended Slugger to me. They’re always enthusiastic. Many can see from the comments how regressive the ‘old’ attitudes are, and biggoted commentary exposes the futility of the traditional stances (my opinion).

There are other sites which impress me due to their seeming desire to explore new avenues. For instance, Big Ulsterman regularly challenges traditional ideologies by putting forward an alternative viewpoint and trying to reconcile ‘his’ culture and background with Nationalism and (to a lesser degree) Catholicism. He too, appears tired of politics here running around in circles with nothing ever being resolved and rarely ends a post without suggesting something Big that his subject might undertake.

Can Northern Irish Bloggers Make A Difference?

Over to you. Can those of us who blog on politics here make a difference? Is our audience wide enough to make a dent in the old school? What was your motivation for starting a blog in the first place (assuming you have one)?

Update: Slugger has recently run a more detailed commentary on this subject. Worth a read.

Of course I have since discovered that it was obviously an April Fools joke and I am the biggest fool ever.

No flies on me eh?

Joining the Levee Breaks team on this esteemed list are the guys at El Blogador, the Balrog crew, Ireland Free, JoBlog and United Irelander.

One of the most rewarding things about running a blog is being able to see who’s linking back to you. Having said that, I had no idea that my opinions and those of my part-time collaborators were so well regarded in the academic community! Congratulations to everybody else who’s listed on there too!

Question to other bloggers: What’s the strangest site to link back to you?

I go a little bit further. Rather than checking other blogs daily, I subscribe to RSS feeds. RSS feeds are little files your blog supplies which get updated each time you publish a new post. Little RSS reader programs check your RSS feed for updates and notify you automatically when there’s new posts to read. It’s actually a little bit like email.

Another useful blogging tool (and the point of this post) is Technorati. Technorati is primarily a blog search engine, but can do a load of other things for you. It can tell you how many blogs are linking back to you, how popular you are in the blogosphere and it allows you to tag your posts to make it easier for people to find your posts.

Anyway, they’ve just launched Technorati Favorites, a service that allows you to bundle all your favourite blogs together in one place.

For instance, you could line up Slugger, El Blogador, Desolate Row, Big Ulsterman, etc all in one place. It’s great for a bird’s eye view of what’s happening in the blogosphere and the best bit is, you can share it out. Here’s my list of favourite blogs as an example.