Honestly, I have no idea what to do with Twitter Lists as of this moment, but it’s nice to see that the option is made available for me to use once I figure it out. A post in Marketing Pilgrim suggested that it could be treated like a blogroll, i.e. collection of favourite Tweeters based on a theme. The trouble is, as pointed in another of their posts, having such lists will probably attract a bunch of whiners. For example, if you create a list of WordPress Experts and I don’t see my Twitter handle in that list, then doggone it I’m swearing you and your Twitter followers off to Twitter hell! It’s kind of in the same lines as people who whine that I’m not following you anymore coz you don’t follow me even though I’ve followed you and read your boring tweets for days and you still don’t care, nyeh nyeh boo hoo.

Yeah, whiners.

I created a list called Blogging Fu, just for the sake of it, although I have a feeling that I might be deleting that one soon. Since Twitter did say that I shouldn’t tweet about it yet, why bother having one?

I wonder if anyone of you reading this blog are seeing this option? Are you planning on using it, and how?

Have you ever looked back at your old blog posts and think, dang, I am good! Those were not the words I would use when I did exactly that these past couple of hours, but it’s close enough.

It’s now a little past 4 years since the inception of WebGrrrl.net in September 2006 (I bought the domain name a little later, though, around November 2006, I think). She’s grown up quite nicely since then. One thing I like about this blog is that the content is more focused. Still, I’m a little disappointed that I lessened my ranting that would have included anything non-WordPress, non-blogging, non-Internet, non-Web related. No regrets, though.

Except that there are a few posts that I wished I hadn’t posted. Namely ALL those posts concerning the Malaysian reality show sensation Akademi Fantasia. Blech.

The rest of my posts, I like. The few impressions I get when I read back on my blog posts were:

• I can be damn funny… some times.
• Wow, those sites/links/plugins/whachamacallits really are cool… I wonder how I found them in the first place?
• I can be SO good at monologue-ing.
• WebGrrrl.net has personality.
• WebGrrrl.net rocks!
• I am so full of myself.

I hope you love your blog as much as I do mine.

Update: So 2009-2006 = 3 years. So I didn’t exactly get an A in math. So sue me.

I’m not making this up. At least on my blogs (WebGrrrl.net and my other niche sites), this seems to be the trend.

Take a look at WebGrrrl.net’s Google Analytics one-year comparison for the month of September. My blogging activities were considerably more last year than this year, yet I’ve noticed a marked improvement on the bounce rate. In Google terms, “a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert.” Looking at the stats, this means that once a visitor reads one post from my blog, there is a 99% chance that the visitor will stay in my blog and go read the next post, instead of going to other sites.

I’m surprised that WebGrrrl.net was able to achieve a low bounce rate, due to the fact that the blog content isn’t well-focused. I take bounce rates seriously especially on my niche sites, because this means that my visitors are digging deep into my blog content, hence the chances of them clicking on my ads are higher.

One stats you don’t see in the screenshot above is my traffic sources. Visits from search engines to WebGrrrl.net have increased by almost 20%, and I’m seeing a similar improvement with my currently-idle niche sites. Everyone who’s into monetizing their web sites know that search engine visits are like hearing your shop’s doorbell ring every time a paying customer comes in.

I’ve yet to really sit down and study all these data I’m getting, but if it’s anything like the advice Grizzly gave, saying that you make more money by not updating, then there should be a big fat nose-inflating grin slapped squarely on my face.

Oh, wait. Yeah, there is

I’ve started a series on how to create a blog aggregator using WordPress at Blogging Fu (I finally got around to doing my first post, whoopee!). As the self-appointed administrator to the first Sabah blog aggregator Giuk.net (OK, not really self-appointed but I got the approval from its domain owner, mrBadak, to be one), one of my responsibilities is to verify each and every application that got through the registration form.

I verify the following manually before adding it to the blog aggregator:

1. A working blog feed: I don’t really care whether it’s a full or summary feed, as long as it’s a legible and well-formatted feed according to the popular standards such as ATOM and RSS.
2. A link back to Giuk.net using the exact HTML codes and keyword link.
3. Some form of content that could indicate to me that the blog owner is definitely a Sabahan.

Matter #3 above drives me crazy. I do a lot of blind-guessing on this one, because:

1. The blog owner may blatantly declare that (s)he is a Sabahan, which I can accept at face value, regardless of the fact that it may be a big, fat lie; or,
2. The blog contains posts with that certain Sabahan flair (e.g. dialect, Sabahan slangs, expressions of the word bah strewn about), which would also convince me, although that can be easily faked; or,
3. The blog owner is someone whom I’ve personally met or know, which rarely happens and is my safest bet in ensuring (s)he qualifies for the aggregator (and which, BTW, would be a good reason for you to turn up for the upcoming Sabah Bloggers Gathering this Hallow’s Eve).

Help me, peoples! What would be a good way to verify that the blog owner claims who (s)he claims (s)he is? Gimme your bright ideas, I beg of you!

I pwnd WebGrrrl yet again, this time in Facebook. Where it used to be a long unintelligeable URL is now just http://facebook.com/webgrrrl. Facebook officially rolled out this option around the middle of this month which enables you select a profile name (sort of a user ID if you will) that you can use to invite others.

If you have a Facebook account and very often go under a pseudonym, you need to heavily consider registering that nickname to avoid other people from misleading and disguising themselves as you.

No idea how to go about personalizing your Facebook profile address? Easy. Just go to http://facebook.com/username, get logged in, and type in the user ID you desire. Hopefully your chosen ID hasn’t been taken by anyone else.