Entry level positions at The Inquisitr

admin —  July 10, 2009 — 6 Comments

I should have known that when I wrote this post about The Inquisitr that the word comfortable in it was a mistake. I’ve never done comfortable well. There’s a thrill in blogging about where the next hit comes from (not unlike drugs), the next biggest high, the next level and hence we’re rolling the dice today.

We’re offering five blogging positions in a range of roles. Details on Darren Rowse’s Problogger here.

They’re hard to describe, and using the term entry level in the title for this post might be slightly disingenous, but likewise it’s something close to that. They’re something like an internship/ entry level position, and they share some qualities such as experience, exposure etc. But likewise we’re paying for them, be it not at the top of the market, but given dozens of networks including some of the big players hire “interns” like there is no tomorrow and pay them zilch, the positions offer some money. Compared to what I’m hearing from bloggers writing for content sites offering rev shares at the moment the rate is actually fairly high as well given what they are getting.

As we drive forward to 3 million page views a month (we did 1 million at 2pm on the 8th this month, our best week and a bit on record) we’re looking for ways to grow even more, so I see these positions offering benefits for us and each blogger. We obviously get more content, different views and hopefully interesting posts, and in return each successful candidate gets experience at the top end (while these aren’t I’ll hold your hand jobs, I’ll certainly be taking an active role in guidance), some extra money, and either a top level job with us one day (may not happen, but it’s an option depending on performance and our finances as a result) or a stepping stone onto something better.

We treat all our bloggers equally irrespective of their pay rate, seniority, experience or what not, and these positions will be no different, although they do come with lower posting requirements.

If we fill these spots our regular posting compliment rises to 10, and add another 3 on top for occasional guest/ CPM spots.

In Uncategorized
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Internode speed test

admin —  July 9, 2009 — 3 Comments

The interwebs were connected last night (Wednesday) exactly two days after I finally managed to place an order with Internode to get it connected over a Telstra landline (no Naked ADSL for me 🙁 ). They said 5-10 days, so I’m doubly impressed, although it helps a lot that the connection is a Telstra resale connection, because we know Telstra is always quick with their own product.

I’m on a 40gb plan at $109.95 a month, not cheap, (the Telstra resale plans are more expensive) although notably Internode doesn’t count uploads….which is mighty fine. The speed isn’t half bad on the ADSL2+ connection either.

In domestic life
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Quest to 100

admin —  July 3, 2009 — 5 Comments

June 22 was a blip, but Technorati has sorted it out ever since, at least we’ve been steady for over a week. Quest to 100.

The Inquisitr: Blog Reactions on Technorati

In Web 2.0
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Wanted: one Amstrad CPC6128

admin —  July 3, 2009 — 22 Comments

amstrad

Because I’m getting old….well, at least I think that explains my obsession with the 1980’s (I mostly listen now to 80’s online radio), I’ve been trying to rebuy things from my youth.

About 2 years ago I bought a beautiful original wood grained 1977 model Atari 2600… but ignore the fact that the Atari I had as a kid was the 1981 version with black plastic because it wasn’t nearly as pretty. It’s been in a box ever since we moved to Melbourne, but now I’ll be working from a cave I’m going to break it out.

But next on the list is my very first computer. When all my friends had the Commodore 64, my mother smartly decided that the Amstrad series offered far better graphics (the CPC 6128 had 64 colors, and 128k of Ram.) Of course the sad thing was that at least in Australia, the Amstrad CPC series never really took off. I could go as a kid to Grace Bros (now Myer) and they had a single section (sort of straight up row) dedicated to Amstrad product, but they had 3 for the Commodore.

My mother very sadly gave away that computer, along with all the software I’d programmed for it…and sold. Yes, at the age of 13 I sold about $500 AUD worth of Amstrad software because I’d taught myself Basic to the point that I’d come up with a program that printed fonts…. don’t laugh, fonts were rare back then.

So now I’m trying to find one to buy to add to by collection (I’ll probably buy a C64 afterwards just because I’ve never had one) but I can’t find one to buy. I’ve been monitoring eBay for 3 months, both in Australia and overseas….nothing.

In that time I could have bought a BBC Micro (very rare), a Microbee (even rarer) and the original Sega computer. But no 6128.

If you know someone who has one in the garage, or someone who wants to sell one, pls let me know. The last time I saw one was about a year ago, it went for about $200 with a monitor, I’d be willing to pay a bit more than that to own it.

In General
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Changes at The Inquisitr

admin —  July 3, 2009 — 12 Comments

The good news before we start is that hopefully the worst of the US recession is over for us ad wise on the site. We’re still not doing anywhere near the fill or CPM rates we were getting in the last quarter of last year, but through a combination of improved traffic, improvements from our main ad provider, and a strong secondary set of ad providers we’ve leveled out a bit. Still no Caribbean holiday for me, but likewise I’m not having a heart attack at the end of each month (no, that comes when I try to pull money out and find the AUD has gone from 60c to 80c USD 🙂 )

We’ve floated in the 2-3m page view range now since earlier in the year, and although we were down slightly in June (2.55m from 2.7 May) we’re comfortable now…which means it’s time to push to the next level.

New writer

We’ve expanded our writing team to 4 (5 if you include me) with the addition of Paul Montgomery as our first dedicated sports writer.

Australian readers will know Monty through his previous startup Tinfinger and his leading Australian Rules Football site FanFooty. Paul is a journalist by trade, but I ignored that when I offered him the spot 🙂

Paul will be covering the full gauntlet of international sport with a touch of Australian sport (cricket specifically.)

Sport feed/ category

With Paul on board we’ve broken out sport into its own stand alone category + feed. If you’re subscribed to the News + Sport feed you’ll no longer see sport stories. The Media feed is still available if you’re subscribed, but media has been rolled into news.

Sport page here.
Sport feed here.

Celebrity Syndication

We’ve signed a deal with London based celebrity content provider BANG showbiz. Under the deal, we’ll be running up to 10 of their items a day (usually less, but that’s our cap). This will primarily come on top of our existing coverage. The initial deal is for three months with a review at the end. Sort of AP for celeb stories if you like. We’ve never tried syndicated content before, but you never know if you don’t try…or something like that. Because the content comes out of London, you’ll see most of it late night/ early morning US time, or occasionally late afternoon (ie, my morning.)

Picture provider

We’ve also signed up with GumGum, an ad support licensed celebrity picture service. GumGum provides images to b5media and a range of leading celebrity sites so we thought we’d give them a go. I can’t see us using them on every post, but certainly the next time we cover a big opening or similar we’ll have a ready supply of pictures to include in each post, where as today we are mostly limited to single pictures due to copyright law.

In General
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Here’s The Punch on numbers

admin —  July 1, 2009 — 8 Comments

News Ltd CEO John Hartigan gave a speech today. Inquisitr coverage here.

Interestingly he gave some data on The Punch

The Punch has taken off like a rocket since it was launched in May ?±‚ǹ‚ÄĂș our target was to achieve traffic of 80,000 users in the first month. It?±‚ǹ‚ѱs actually achieved almost 200,000.

Now let me say upfront that I actually like the idea (even if after today I don’t like Hartigan) and I’ve already said I hope the site does well.

But here’s the thing: even with the force of the News Ltd sites backing it (they regularly link in posts as well as other promos) they’ve managed 200,000 something… I say something, because users could mean anything, such as page views, uniques etc… indeed, that Hartigan quotes such a figure shows how detached he is to the online world.

Hartigan is right though, takes a while to establish a site, but likewise when you’ve got the cross-promotional power of News Ltd, 200,000 is surprisingly low.

Mumbrella did a story earlier in the week comparing The Punch to Crikey, but let me stretch that out a bit.

punchthis

oh wait, I’m just a lowly blogger with no qualifications to run a site (apparently a Commerce Degree in Marketing and ECommerce doesn’t count.)

For the record, I’ve actually held conversations on adding to our content with official wire-like content in the last few weeks. Nothing to announce yet, but we may be expanding our celebrity coverage, and our use of images… more soon 🙂

In Web 2.0
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How to get a new home connected to ADSL 2 in Australia without a 1 month+ wait

admin —  June 29, 2009 — 7 Comments

See previous post for context.

So I finally conceded that the only way I’d jump to the first position was to get a phone line connected. We take possession on the 2nd (July, it’s the 29th June as I type this) and it turns out that Telstra can connect a physical line on the 3rd.

So once you’ve got an actual line (with days notice) getting ADSL2+ is easy, although getting ADSL2+ Naked is still hard. Spoke to Internode, who resell Telstra ports for ADSL2+. 5-10 days, guaranteed, because Telstra does it. If it was their own Naked ADSL…limited to no ports, 20+ days (like iiNet and more).

The key to get ADSL2+ connected at a new place is to connect the phone line with Telstra, and then connect the ADSL2+ with a Telstra reseller. You can switch to others later, but you can’t match 5-10 days 🙂

Mind you, this is all sorts of wrong, but to some degree it’s always been the case. Telstra connections have always had priority in an exchange over non-Telstra connections. I might be connecting with Internode, but it’s a Telstra wholesale connection.

In Web 2.0
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Yeah, so we need the NBN at any cost. I was wrong.

admin —  June 29, 2009 — 11 Comments

I discovered today that in 2009 it’s as hard, if not harder to transfer an internet connection than it was in 2004 (the last time I tried to move an ADSL connection was ironically with iiNet as well)…and in 2004 I lived in country WA where choice wasn’t exactly thick on the ground.

First I tried to transfer my Naked ADSL2+ with iiNet to the new place. I’m told that the cost is $450 ($300 supposedly because the place is new) and that they can’t tell me whether there’s room at the exchange anyway. If I did apply, I’d find out in 10-20 days (presumably working days) if there was space for me (there’s limited or no space according to a couple of online services). I move next week. Even better: I can’t keep my iiNet VOIP number or my user name….that’s BS, given the number isn’t based on the exchange.

I’m pissed about the $300/ $450, but I’ll cop to it if it means that I’ll definitely have a connection…which they can’t tell me.

So then I start the hunt. Internode, a company that is probably the most loved ISP in Australia at least admitted that if I read online that there are no or limited availability in the exchange (iiNet wouldn’t admit to this…despite me looking at it on the screen) that this means there’s really no ports. They said I could try, but were honest and upfront about the chances. As soon as I get the opportunity in the future, they have my business.

Next stop Netspace. Limited of No availability listed. Didn’t bother ringing.

TPG and Primus: availability, but they won’t connect a Naked plan unless there’s a pre-existing phone connection…which sort of defeats the purpose of not getting a phone connection on a naked ADSL plan.

So now I’m back to square one. It seems that the only safe route at this stage is to get the phone connected with Telstra, get a standard ADSL2+ with someone (god knows who) then eventually churn to a Naked ADSL2+ plan. So much for living a life online without a landline phone.

It proves to me, as Chris Were pointed out on Twitter, that we need an NBN. Fuck the cost, we need it any which way but blue.

It’s complete bullshit that in 2009 I cant get a high speed internet connection put on in less than 2 weeks, or even as the case is so far, in 4 weeks, if it all. And it’s not as though we’re moving to the country, the exchange is Box Hill in Melbourne. Middle Urban Melbourne (although we live a little closer in, just at the end of Zone 1 on transport).

The NBN can’t come fast enough.

In Web 2.0
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Wanted: Opposition leader, apply to the Liberal Party

admin —  June 29, 2009 — 6 Comments

News.com.au: Malcolm Turnbull’s political career has been smashed in just one week, and senior Liberals believe there could be moves within the party to remove him as Opposition Leader within days or weeks.

It takes an awful lot of specialness to completely fuck up Utegate, and yet Malcolm Turnbull has. Instead of Rudd and Co being on the ropes, it looks like Turnbull is history now. The alternatives to Turnbull aren’t clear, but Hockey looks like he’s the short price favorite.

Welcome to the thousand year Rudd Reich.

It’s actually a little sad to see Turnbull go. His complete cock-up of Utegate aside, here’s a man who could have made a great Prime Minister. I was never a fan in the past (particularly when he headed ARM) but there’s no doubt that he understands money and unlike the current mob may have been able to balance the national books.

Hockey on the other hand…. well, I guess the positive there in a political sense is that he’s a lot like Rudd so he’ll be a small target, but that’s not enough to win elections.

I might have voted for Turnbull at the next election, but I won’t be voting for Hockey, but I can also remember him well from his younger days, and he’s representative of what was, and still is wrong with the Liberal Party.

With no effective opposition going into the next election, how the hell do we stop internet censorship now?

In General
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Our short URL experiment

admin —  June 26, 2009 — 4 Comments

Ben Grubb called us out tonight on Twitter for using Short URL’s for links within posts. I’m surprised it took so long to some degree, but likewise I should explain.

We’ve been trialling on and off short url’s on links in posts for the better part of the last 6 weeks. The primary purpose was to track outgoing clicks, and in that regard the trial has gone very well.

But likewise the intent has never been to steal link juice to those we are linking to, and I’d be the last person to do that. I only need to note at this point the evidence: our own internal links in posts get the same treatment. We input the actual URL in the post, and it gets a short URL on publication, we don’t manually do it.

My experience so far is that Google has zero problem in following the short URL to the end page. I obviously don’t know for external sites, but I know following internal linking that those links react as they always have, that is, as if there was no short URL on the page.

We’ll continue on, with a note that we mean no harm to external sites and that we hope, and believe, that when we link out that although you may not see the raw link, the link is there, and counted, in Google and others.

Oddly we also have the option of framing links. I won’t say that we never will, but I’ll need a far stearner set of balls to do so 🙂

In Web 2.0
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