Google does not own the internet

I'll say that again a little louder:

"Google Does Not Own The Internet"

However, they do own and maintain the most popular search engine, and sometimes they appear to think that they own all of cyber-space - indexing pages as if they are space explorers planting their national flags on alien planets.
This is not a problem most of the time, but every so often they re-write their own rules and deem websites to be unworthy of their lofty standards. I have no doubt that this very blog will be once again plunged into the depths of zero Page Rank, but I keep going for the very reason I stated at the start of this article ie. Google do NOT own the internet, and if I want to go against their rules (their 'rules' are not any sort of law) I will go against them to my hearts content, even using their very own blogging platform to do so.

Don't get me wrong, I am not ranting against the mighty Google simply because they are big business like one may protest about MacDonalds simply because they are a successful business and therefore an easy target. My gripe with Google has always been that they sell advertising in their search results - fair enough, I have used both Google Adwords and Google Adsense to good effect. The problem is that whilst on the one hand they sell advertising, on the other they try to stamp out all other types of advertising and try to prevent people who use other (non-Google) types of advertising from appearing in their results. I believe this is a form of restrictive practice and I am sure that one day someone will be able to persuade a court that Google does not own the internet, and the consequences will be far-reaching.

Again, don't get me wrong, I admire what Google has done, they are a lesson to any business - they were in the right place at the right time and profited hugely, and any self-respecting free-market supporter has to see their achievements as being massively significant in the last few decades. Like any other concern they started small and their current scale of hugeness will probably work against them in the long run. I believe that Google is feeding on it's own hype and at some point, a smart Alec legal genius will have them bang to rights in a court of law. Litigation is common in the internet world and cases have already been answered without so far, any significant effect. I don't know what it will take to bring the giant down, but it is almost inevitable that it will happen. My task is to keep on blogging and keep on earning through whatever means are available and to see if I can be a minnow that outlasts the giant. I do not own the internet, and that's one thing that both I and Google have in common.

Paid posts or non-paid posts

That stalwart of paid posting programs PayPerPost has definite rules about the ratio of paid posts to non-paid posts that you are allowed on a blog. The reason for this is fairly obvious; you are not likely to have a great readership if your content is all advertising. Everyone knows that if you buy a magazine or get one of those free papers posted through your door, that there will be a certain amount of advertising - and there should also be a decent amount of content otherwise why would you bother reading it at all?
I have seen blogs that are pure monetisation and NO other content, and I spend less than two seconds working out that there is no value in re-visiting. Other sites have an identifiable amount of advertising, but enough content to keep you returning. In light of this, PayU2Blog have also requested that bloggers do not use their blogs entirley for paid posts offering no content of their own invention.
In my experience readers return to a blog for a number of reasons which include:

• they like the style of writing, the humor or prose used to get a message across
• they find valuable information about a topic in which they are interested
• they 'connect' with the writer

If you are not actively trying to at least one of these things then your blog has little value either as something people would want to visit, or as a platform for advertising revenue.
This is not to say that a blog cannot be 'used' as a service site purely for generating links, but if this is the case, the content should still form part of that strategy and only having paid posts will not satisfy that criteria. I have seen some blogs that are full of widgets such as the Creamaid and the dNeero ones, these can take ages to load and if there are more than two on the homepage, there is every chance that a reader will immediately browse away rather then wait for the widgets to load.
Please note that PayU2Blog have stopped short of imposing any rules on this, but they have indicated that these 100% paid posts blogs are likely to get very few opportunities in the future.

Person.com

Dating sites are not a new concept, so the new ones have to be better than what’s already available.. Check out 'Person.com' – a new concept where you can make a ‘live show’ with your webcam and have prospective dates to view online. Hundreds of webcams are online (nearly 400 when I viewed the site), and thousands of viewers are watching – the most popular ‘show’ had 125 viewers. You don’t need a webcam to take part, but it sounds like a lot of fun for people who want to get noticed! This site is feature-packed with interactive games like ‘hot or not’, ‘play and flirt’ and chat rooms (97 of them when I visited). Check it out to see why so many people are using this site.

Person.com - webcams, chat, personals