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September 13th, 2007 by Spud Oregon
Exactly six months ago to the day, I started Nice4Rice.com after thinking up the name in the shower and laughing at the prospect of calling myself Spud Oregon. It came at a time when John Chow was pulling in thousands of dollars from his blog, and everybody wanted a piece of the pie.
I was already earning a respectable income on the net and thought I could add to that with the addition of a blog. Before starting though, I wanted something that would make it different from all the other blogs in its niche. Everyone was crying out for backlinks at that time but it was really hard to get them, so I decided on the “free backlink rice giving idea” and called the site Nice4Rice. Smart thinking, eh?
Unfortunately not. Barely one month later, the DoFollow Movement took off, and before long, everyone was giving away free links. So, I made a promise to myself that if I wasn’t earning at least a dollar a day by the end of three months, I’d pull the plug on it.
I’m reminded of Darin Carter’s interview with Jeremy Schoemaker. Darin asked him what he would do differently if he could start blogging all over again, and Shoemoney replied “I would not have started the blog. Its a total time sink for the return.”
In my case, that couldn’t be more true. I would only write something once or twice a week, but it would usually take me hours to make each post, and I’d be thinking about what to write for days. In fact, compared to niche websites, it’s so much harder to monetize a blog - at least in my experience.
With that said, I’m going to swallow my pride and wrap up Nice4Rice here and now. This will free up my time and thoughts to focus on something more profitable.
It’s been a great experience though. I had to learn PHP to make my own Wordpress theme and write the functions for “rice-giving”. I wrote a few plugins and even got to grips with MySQL. All good skills which will serve me well in the future. Best of all though is the people I’ve met, the blogs I’ve been introduced to, and the friendships I’ve made.
I hope you’ll understand (I have a family to feed now), so thank you to everyone who has supported Nice4Rice, and I’ll see you around on your own blogs.
P.S. I’ll probably leave the site up until the domain name expires, but I’ll turn off commenting and rice-giving much sooner to stop spam. Update: Voting and commenting have now been disabled.
Posted in Announcements |
Comments: 27
September 9th, 2007 by Spud Oregon
There’s a question on AskOxford.com which asks whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. The answer states…
The confusion about ‘fruit’ and ‘vegetable’ arises because of the differences in usage between scientists and cooks. Scientifically speaking, a tomato is definitely a fruit.
The tomato, though technically a fruit, is often used as a vegetable.
So a tomato is the fruit of the tomato plant, but can be used as a vegetable in cooking.
While the world still assumes Al Qaeda were responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the U.S, architects, engineers and scientists are arguing that it had to be an “inside job”. Here is a 2-hour presentation by architect Richard Gage at the University of Manitoba earlier in 2007. He represents the group Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. If you are unable to view this video, you can see it here.
Okay, so that’s a hugely convincing case against the official conspiracy theory fed to us by the mass media and the U.S. government, and if you agree with what you saw, then it is time to do something about it.
How bloggers can share the truth
1. Link to the Truth Movement
When I last checked, five out of the top 10 Google search results for the term “9/11″ were sites supporting the truth movement, i.e. not the Osama Bin Laden story. As bloggers, we know that it takes an awful lot of backlinks to get on the front page of Google, so it’s clear that these sites have tremendous support. When you consider the opinion polls show 49% of New Yorkers believe the government had a hand in the 9/11 events, it becomes less surprising that the search results are so mixed. You can show your support for the truth movement (people seeking a new investigation into the attacks) by linking to websites such as Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice.
2. Blog about 9/11
It really is a case of the mass media versus the people. We need to get our voices heard, and blogging provides a platform to do so. While some may still consider “911 conspiracy theorists” to be whacky, you can’t deny the sheer volume of people arguing that the official story itself is no more than a conspiracy theory. In other words, the more people that talk about it, the more credibility it gets.
3. Leave a comment
Search for “911 conspiracy” on Google News Search or Google Blog Search and you’ll get the latest articles mentioning those keywords. Many of these articles, including some news sites, allow comments. So you can either show your support if you agree with the author, or leave a comment to the contrary if you disagree.
4. YouTube voting
There are literally tons of videos supporting the demolition theory on YouTube.com, and you have the power to rate them with 1-5 stars, leave a comment, and give a thumbs up or down to other comments. Don’t think for a second that this goes unnoticed. A BBC video of a reporter announcing the collapse of World Trade Center 7 twenty minutes before it actually fell (you could see the building standing in the live shot behind her) was eaten up by the YouTube crowd. The BBC felt it had to respond and released a blog post explaining that in the confusion of the day’s events, reporters may have made mistakes, but that can’t be verified because “We no longer have the original tapes of our 9/11 coverage (for reasons of cock-up, not conspiracy).”
Is 9/11 a fruit or a vegetable?
We are quickly coming to the conclusion that 9/11 was an “inside job” as more evidence comes to light, such as the scientific findings of physicist Steven Jones, and the testimonies from New York city firefighters. Still, with so many people in the “vegetable” camp, Wikipedia is at a loss to descibe the true events of that day…
Regardless of your position, however, the victims of 9/11 and their families will be very much in our thoughts this week.
Rice: 
Posted in Random Observations |
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Comments: 10
September 2nd, 2007 by Spud Oregon
Inspired by Hoobin.com’s Screen Resolution Analysis, I decided to fatten up Nice4Rice with a third column. The original theme was designed for an 800×600 screen resoultion, but seeing that less than 4% of my visitors use that resolution, and those that do didn’t stay very long, it was time to tailor the site for 1024×768 users.
The extra width isn’t the only change however. Did you notice Spud Oregon’s new face? How about the new Advertising page?
In an attempt to speed up page loading times, I removed Nifty Corners Cube, the javascript I previously used for rounded corners, and replaced it with images of rounded corners. Also, and probably a bigger culprit of the slow loading was MyAvatars, the plugin used to show MyBlogLog avatars by comments. I’ve turned it off to see if things speed up.
If you still have a “thin” blog, then check your stats. It might be time for you to build a bigger blog, too!
Posted in Announcements |
Comments: 21
August 29th, 2007 by Spud Oregon
If you haven’t already tried Google Image Labeler, don’t. Stay away! Run for your life!
It may not sound like a game, but Google Image Labeler is one of the most addictive games on the net. Basically, Google have decided to ask us, the general public, to label all their images to help improve the accuracy of Google Image Search. While labeling millions of images may not be eveyone’s cup of tea, the guys at the Big G are pitting us against each other to see who can get the most points for labeling their hard-to-make-out pictures.
Even without a Google account, you can play as a guest. When you click to start, you are matched with a mystery partner. You then have 90 seconds to type in words which spring to mind when presented with some tiny little images. If you both guess the same word then you get points (which unfortunatley can’t be exchanged for big prizes).
It’s all a bit frantic as you scratch yor head in confusion while your partner bangs out 10 guesses, but there’s a great sense of satisfaction when you both hit on the same word.
The problem with all this is that in your rush to guess the picture, you and your partner end up typing in the obvious. For example, if you see a picture of a female undregraduate studying economics in a lecture theater, you’re more likely to type “girl” than “female economics student”.
To counter this, Google have made some words off-limits, and also give more points for better detailed entries. The thing is, even if you are smart enough to type in something intelligent, you won’t get any points unless your partner does the same thing, so you both end up typing “girl” anyway.
The bottom line is, whether it really improves Google Image Search or not, the whole experience is so damn addictive that I urge you not to try Google Image Labeler. Okay? Don’t even think about clicking through to GOOGLE IMAGE LABELER! 
Rice:
Posted in Random Observations |
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Comments: 11
August 26th, 2007 by Spud Oregon
Wouldn’t it be great if bloggers all over the world, in one collective voice, with a combined readership of millions, were able to change the conversation for a day? Could we drown out the drivel that is force-fed to us through mass media?
I believe so, and that’s why Nice4Rice is participating in Blog Action Day,
On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.
There are already thousands of blogs registered and ready, including Problogger, Lifehacker, Dumb Little Man, Daily Blog Tips and eMoms at Home. This one’s going to be big, but if you still need convincing, here’s the promo video…
Register your blog at the official Blog Action Day website.
Rice:
Posted in Future |
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