Well, the move to the new self-hosted premises is now complete so The Wolf’s Howl here at WordPress.com will no longer be updated. All of the great content you find here has been moved to The New Wolfs Howl, the plush new premises. Why not come over for a visit?

Some addresses for your bookmarks / feed-reader:

The New Wolfs Howl
web: http://wolfshowl.com
feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/wolfshowl/netQ

The New Wolfs Howl Forum
web: http://wolfshowl.com/phpBB3

The Wolf’s Howl @ Blogspot
web: http://wolfiebhowl.blogspot.com
feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/SMrG

Sorry to all the visitors to The Wolf’s Howl here at WordPress.com; I’ve been so busy with The New Wolfs Howl (and it’s lovely new Forum) that I’ve been very remiss with updating this blog with news of the latest articles. So this post is sort of a round up of the latest stories.

As I’ve previously mentioned, The New Wolfs Howl is now the place to read new content and this blog will cease to be updated; I’ve now made the decision that from 15 February this blog will cease to be updated (I’ll leave all the content up, but nothing new will get published) so please make sure you’ve updated all your bookmarks and feedreaders with the new site.

So, on to those recent stories:

Formula 1 2008 : The season starts here: And let’s hope its a better one that last year. While the racing was at least slightly better than in 2006, especially with Brit interest at a height with the amazing debut season of Lewis Hamilton, the whole sport became mired in what can only be called farce with the “Spygate” scandal involving McLaren and Ferrari.

This year, hopefully, the FIA will allow all of that to be laid to rest (they’ll have to think up some other ruse to make sure Ferrari win) and we can get on with some proper racing. [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]

At it once again: Leading on from my recent posts about data security, both nationally with the UK Government and internationally with Facebook I’m now getting somewhat jaded about the whole subject; it seems that almost everyday there’s some new story about data being treated irresponsibly some Government department that’s supposed to be looking after it.

Today we’re treated to two cases; the first is a little less HMG’s fault as it involves the theft of a Royal Navy laptop with details of around 600,000 people. Chances are, though, that as it was left in a parked car the thief wasn’t after the data, he just wanted the laptop to sell for drug money. [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]

Advanced number theory: Just had to share this one with everyone:

A friend of mine has just moved his credit card from one provider to another. He’s paid off the balance on the one he’s moving from and wrote to them to ask them to close the account. They sent him a final bill - a few pounds worth of interest charges - which he paid, and they duly sent him a statement of account that showed his balance was £0.00.

What they didn’t send him was confirmation that the account was now closed, so he wrote to them again asking them to confirm in writing that the account was indeed closed (he’s a bit of a completist when it comes to things like this). This week he received a letter from them saying that while they had received his request to close the account, they couldn’t do so unless it had “a nil balance”. [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]

Blue Monday and Feelgood Tuesday: No, not the New Order classic. What I’m talking about here is Monday 21 January, which is apparently the most depressing day of the year.

A Cardiff University psychologist has developed a formula that “takes into account… weather, debt, time since Christmas, time since failing our New Year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and the feeling of a need to take action”. Luckily, though, us Brits have been found to be optimists and more than 85% of us “expect the future to be happier than it is now”. [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]

Open source software: Since buying my iMac, I’ve become a big fan of open source software - mainly because all of the software I’d want to buy is too damn expensive, so if there’s a cheaper alternative out there I’m in. I changed from MS Office to NeoOffice (an development of OpenOffice) and all the little bits and pieces that I use on a daily basis either came as part of the operating system (Mail) or I found on the Net (NetNewsWire, TextWrangler, Adium and the most useful of all - QuickSilver). [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]

Not so splendid isolation: Did you see Horizon on Tuesday night? If you didn’t catch it, check it out while you can on the BBC iPlayer; it’s the most interesting (and disturbing) programme I’ve seen for quite some time.

Interesting because of the basic premise; six people volunteered to be shut away in solitary confinement and sensory deprivation for 48 hours just so that Horizon could monitor the effects. Disturbing because of what some of those effects were and what they might mean for the wider world. [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]

More on software: Since buying the iMac, I’ve been using a lot of different software packages to get various things done - lots of different newsreaders, office applicatons, image manipulators, browsers and so on - and so far have not had to buy a single piece of software; the concepts of open source, donationware and freeware are ones that I can whole heartedly get behind.

Most of the software that I’ve used has been excellent; designed to do a particular task, which it does well. If I’ve later replaced it with something else, that’s usually more down to the aesthetics than the functionality. As an example, I used Shrook as my newsreader of choice for many months but have recently changed to NetNewsWire - not because there’s anything wrong with Shrook, just because I prefer the layout of NetNewsWire. [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]

[Q: Why aren't you publishing the whole of the article here? A: As of 24 December, the Wolf's Howl has gone self-hosted at http://wolfshowl.com. All content is now published in its entirety at that site; this site will continue to have brief excerpts until 15 February 2008 and then will no longer be updated. Make sure you update your bookmarks and feed reader now to avoid missing any of the great stuff you're used to getting from the Wolf's Howl!]

If you haven’t already checked it out, why not head on over to The New Wolfs Howl Forum? It’s a start-up message board that’s only been going for a few days and so you’ve got the chance to get in on the ground floor, as they say, and help to shape its future direction.

Because it’s so new, there aren’t too many topics started yet so to encourage new members and get everyone talking about new things I’ve created “Task of the Week” and this week’s task is to a) start a new topic and b) contribute to at least two others. Easy really, so what’s stopping you?

Registration takes about two seconds - you just need a username, email address and password - and then you’re away. So come and join us and let’s have some fun!

From The New Wolfs Howl: A few days ago, I wrote this post about the amount of data that people give to Facebook, and asked whether those that do so had really thought about the implications of what they are doing. The post was prompted by the story about Robert Scoble being banned for scraping data from the site.

In the comments for that post, brightfeather asked:

(1) When you say “trimmed” I take that to mean that you removed some information. What did you remove?
(2) And what would you recommend as the bare minimum amount of information to post on Facebook?

I was going to reply in the comments for that post, but thought that this was worth a post by itself.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.

[Q: Why aren't you publishing the whole of the article here? A: As of 24 December, the Wolf's Howl has gone self-hosted at http://wolfshowl.com. All content is now published in its entirety at that site; this site will continue to have brief excerpts for a couple more weeks and then will no longer be updated. Make sure you update your bookmarks and feed reader now to avoid missing any of the great stuff you're used to getting from the Wolf's Howl!]

Thanks for visiting. For all the latest articles, check out our new home at http://wolfshowl.com.

From The New Wolfs Howl: The generic driver that I’ve been using seems like it may not be the problem. I’m running AVG and that may be having an effect when it tries to do an update, so I’ve disabled that for the moment. Also, the network (which is peer-to-peer not server / client) doesn’t seem to like it when any of the machines are turned off, so that may have also…

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.

[Q: Why aren't you publishing the whole of the article here? A: As of 24 December, the Wolf's Howl has gone self-hosted at http://wolfshowl.com. All content is now published in its entirety at that site; this site will continue to have brief excerpts for a couple more weeks and then will no longer be updated. Make sure you update your bookmarks and feed reader now to avoid missing any of the great stuff you're used to getting from the Wolf's Howl!]

From The New Wolfs Howl: My friend Skimmer has a blog entry about the current drive in the UK to get people switched over from analogue to digital television equipment, ready for when the analogue signal is switched off for good in 2012. He makes a good point that the UK public are being pressured into updating their equipment when they may not actually need to.

But what it got me thinking about is the state of television programming at the moment. I’ve just taken a look at tonight’s schedules for the four channels that I’m currently able to receive…

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.

[Q: Why aren't you publishing the whole of the article here? A: As of 24 December, the Wolf's Howl has gone self-hosted at http://wolfshowl.com. All content is now published in its entirety at that site; this site will continue to have brief excerpts for a couple more weeks and then will no longer be updated. Make sure you update your bookmarks and feed reader now to avoid missing any of the great stuff you're used to getting from the Wolf's Howl!]

From The New Wolfs Howl: At one time or another, a lot of us have been in bands. And we’d probably rather forget some of first musical foot-steps. Luckily, for most people that isn’t too difficult especially all you really did was just goof off in your mate’s garage.

Some of us, though, have documentary evidence that comes back to haunt us.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.

[Q: Why aren't you publishing the whole of the article here? A: As of 24 December, the Wolf's Howl has gone self-hosted at http://wolfshowl.com. All content is now published in its entirety at that site; this site will continue to have brief excerpts for a couple more weeks and then will no longer be updated. Make sure you update your bookmarks and feed reader now to avoid missing any of the great stuff you're used to getting from the Wolf's Howl!]

From The New Wolfs Howl: Well, not Windows 98 anyway. That’s the system we’re still using at work, for various reasons - one of the biggest of which is that our current processes won’t move easily to another version of the OS; we’ve been investigating the various alternatives available to us as replacements but so far none of them have really met our criteria. So, we are stuck with 98 at the moment.

Most of the time it’s OK. When you get used to the buggy way that it operates…

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.

[Q: Why aren't you publishing the whole of the article here? A: As of 24 December, the Wolf's Howl has gone self-hosted at http://wolfshowl.com. All content is now published in its entirety at that site; this site will continue to have brief excerpts for a couple more weeks and then will no longer be updated. Make sure you update your bookmarks and feed reader now to avoid missing any of the great stuff you're used to getting from the Wolf's Howl!]

From The New Wolfs Howl: So, I’ve signed up for this Blog365 idea. The challenge is to publish a blog post every day - not necessarily to write one everyday (you can write a whole bunch in one day and then eke them out) but to publish.

I only came across this today, so I’m a little late starting - really should have begun on 1 January - but I’m going to give it a go and see how long I can stick to it.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.

From The New Wolf’s Howl: Just had to give everyone a heads-up to this one; Reuters is reporting a case where an FBI wiretap was disconnected because they didn’t pay their phone bill! Apparently, the Feebies accounting system is “inadequate” and they’re working to improve it. Perhaps what they should also look at is their employees stealing $25,000 at a time - money which had been earmarked for telecoms services.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.

From The New Wolfs Howl: I know, I know: I haven’t been posting very regularly just lately. What can I say? I’m sorry. I don’t know if it’s the New Year or cosmic rays, or the value of the pound but nothing has really sparked me enough to make any comments (well, that’s not quite true, but I think everyone else has said everything I would say quite eloquently enough so I’ll stay away from the subject).

Which leaves us with the latest installment in the ever popular Brief Notes series; you know you love it!!

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.

From The New Wolfs Howl: Just came across this story at TUAW, reporting that an anti-trust lawsuit has been filed against Apple for monopolising the online music industry with their tie-in of iTunes to iPods.

Most of the commenters seem to be of the opinion that this is a frivolous lawsuit that has no merit, and that the law firm that took the case should be despised for taking a case that will obviously fail. The contention is that just because Apple have been successful at what they do, why should they be punished?

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.

Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Antitrust

From The New Wolfs Howl: You may have heard today that ‘noted’ blogger Robert Scoble has had his Facebook account suspended because he was - in their eyes - scraping data from the site. The fact that he was using a tool to take data that he already had on his profile and port it to other social network environments is beside the point, they say. He was violating the terms of service and his account is forfeit.

I could care less about whether Scoble gets to have his Facebook account back (I imagine he will, because Facebook can’t afford to lose any more credibility with their audience), but what all the various arguments back and forth have highlighted to me is the vast amount of data that is sitting on Facebook; Scoble may have only been harvesting data he already had access to, but what about the less scrupulous user? And if you voluntarily put all that information online, is it still yours?

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.

From The New Wolfs Howl: As I’ve mentioned, I started blogging nine months ago using the multi-user platform WordPress.com. It is a great introduction to the world of blogging, as it makes it really easy to get yourself set up and publishing - the only thing holding you back is whether you can think of something to write about.

But as you go on, you start to realise that, good as it is, WordPress.com is quite restrictive in what it allows you to do. You can’t have javascript in your sidebar widgets; you can’t alter your theme unless you buy the CSS upgrade - and even then you can only alter the way it looks, not the way it works; you can’t have anything commercial, like Adsense or services like PayPerPost; and a host of other things, which will be more or less important depending on what you want to achieve with your blogging.

Read the rest of the entry by clicking here.

Thanks for visiting. For all the latest articles, check out our new home at http://wolfshowl.com.

I do a lot of reading of blogs, forums, etc and I often come across abbreviations that seem to be common knowledge to most people but which, for one reason or another, I take a while to work out. I figured that I couldn’t be the only one that felt that way so I decided to inaugurate Wolfie’s BlogSpeak Dictionary.

I’m going to start with the first few that spring to mind for me, but what I want is for you to tell me the ones that you’ve come across that baffled you to start with (or still do) and we’ll see if we can come up with the definitive reference guide. To those of you who are more geekspeak-savvy, these may seem simple but bear with us.

So, in no particular order:

FWIW - For What It’s Worth.
Usually meaning that actually I think it’s worth quite a bit, but I’m trying not to seem overly strident about it. Or else, indicating that there’s nothing anyone can do to fix it, but FWIW, everyone agrees that it needs fixing.

FYI - For Your Information.
You’ve been a complete dick and I think you need to know these facts so that you don’t continue to be a complete dick.

HTH - Hope That (This) Helps.

IMHO - In My Humble (Honest) Opinion.
This is what I really think.

IMO - In My Opinion.
This is what I really think, but I don’t feel particularly humble today.

LOL - Laugh Out Loud / Lots Of Laughs.
Great big belly-laughs were caused by what you just wrote - could be sarcastic!

YMMV - Your Mileage May Vary.
This is what happened when I tried this, but it may not work as well for you.

TPTB - The Powers That Be.
Forum moderators, company CEO’s, Mac in the post-room: whoever’s responsible for making the decisions around here.

OMG - Oh. My. God!

BTW - By The Way

FAQ - Frequently Asked Question.
As in, “What does FAQ mean?”

IIRC - If I Remember (Recall) Correctly
Please tell me I’m not going insane; it did use to be like that, didn’t it?

AFAICS - As Far As I Can See
But there’s probably something very obvious I’m missing .

b0rked
Something somewhere has gone terrible wrong.

That’s just a few (with some possible indications of how and when they might be used ) but there must be lots more. Add your submissions in the comments and I’ll start including them in the entry.

All opinions in this blog are either my own or else they’re made up just to get a rise out of you and make you angry. Either way, they’re probably not very well thought out or expressed so do yourself a favour and don’t take the world so seriously.

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Subscribe by email : : Read more Howling at The Wolf’s Howl @ BlogSpot : : Copyright © 2007. All rights reserved. No reproduction without prior permission.

Tags: Humour, English

Thanks for visiting. For all the latest articles, check out our new home at http://wolfshowl.com.

Is it just me that finds that in this super-switched on age in which we live - where blogs, email and other electronic written forms are the tools of choice - that text is not actually a very good communicator anymore?

Perhaps it’s the “must do it now”, throwaway sort of culture that we live in, where we no longer spend time over anything. Got a quick email to write? Thirty seconds, click “Send”, off it goes.

And back comes an angry reply from the person you sent it to, asking just what in the hell you’re talking about! Because you didn’t take the time to read what you’d written and think about how it might be received by the person at the other end.

We’ve become very adept at participating in electronic conversations, but a lot of the time what we fail to remember is that in a traditional, face-to-face conversation the words themselves are quite a way down the list when it comes to actually communicating; so much of what we say to each other when we have a conversation is conveyed without words - the way you wave your arms, the way you stand, your facial expression, your tone of voice. But with electronic conversation we’re left only with the words.

I write quite often on this blog and I also participate in various forums across the Net, I comment on other people’s blogs, I use Twitter and so on and time and again I’ve come across the same old thing; slanging matches that have erupted because one person reacted angrily to another person’s post or comment, who then reacted angrily back and so on. But it’s very easy to seem like you’re being dismissive or rude even when you’re not if all you’re using is words.

Even if it doesn’t descend into a flame war, there can still be a lot of misunderstanding on both sides. The first person doesn’t make their point clearly, or the second person doesn’t read the post properly and only picks up on certain things, and you end up with a conversation that just goes round in circles without any real resolution. In the real world, of course, a proper conversation would have sorted it out in about five seconds.

I’m as guilty as the next person on this score; I do tend to write and send, without always reading first. I’m getting better, though, and do try to put myself in the position of the person who’s about to receive my post, email, comment, whatever. For all I know, they might be in a really bad mood, so is my attempt at a humourous remark going to be received in the light that I sent it?

I’m also not necessarily the best at expressing my point of view; I write away and don’t always stick strictly to the point. This happened today, where a blogger had asked for an opinion on an issue so I gave what I thought was a relevant answer. He didn’t take it that way and thought that I was talking about a separate subject - all because I didn’t take enough time to re-read what I’d written before I’d submitted it.

What I’m really trying to say is that if society is moving towards a model that is based less and less on physical interaction - which it certainly seems to be - then we need to improve our written communication skills by about 1,000%. So the next time you send an email, write a comment on a blog, post to a forum or whatever - think about what you’ve written and how it might be received at the other end.

All opinions in this blog are either my own or else they’re made up just to get a rise out of you and make you angry. Either way, they’re probably not very well thought out or expressed so do yourself a favour and don’t take the world so seriously.

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Subscribe by email : : Read more Howling at The Wolf’s Howl @ BlogSpot : : Copyright © 2007. All rights reserved. No reproduction without prior permission.

Tags: Writing, Conversation

Thanks for visiting. For all the latest articles, check out our new home at http://wolfshowl.com.

OK, we all hate the way that Safari 3.0.x strips out line / paragraph breaks when we use the Visual Editor. As we all know, this is a limitation of WordPress / TinyMCE / Safari, which is (hopefully) under development for a fix.

In the meantime, there is a way round it - for Mac users anyway - that means you don’t have to change browsers just to post to WordPress. I’ve done some limited testing on this process and it seems to work, but I’ve not had a chance to use it extensively so don’t know yet if it breaks anything else. As always, if you’re going to try this, take precautions!

1. If it’s open, close down Safari.
2. Open Terminal
3. At the prompt, type this: defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
4. Start Safari.
5. If you’ve done it right, you’ll see that you have a new “Debug” menu item. Click this.
6. Select “user agent”
7. Select a browser that isn’t Safari. I chose “Firefox 2.0.0.2″

That’s it.

I’ve only tested this fix on Safari 3.0.x - but then Safari 2 never had the same problem - but it has allowed me to write and edit posts using the Visual Editor and without losing line breaks.

If someone out there can hack the Windows version in a similar way, then this problem might finally be solved.

Additional: I’ve also now tested this with my WordPress.org Visual Editor and it doesn’t seem to work so well with that. Testing continues…

And more: it looks like it can be problematical sometimes; I’ve been able to write and update posts without any problems, btu I’ve also had the old problems too. Testing continues…

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Subscribe by email : : Read more Howling at The Wolf’s Howl @ BlogSpot : : Copyright © 2007. All rights reserved. No reproduction without prior permission.

The Wolf’s Howl is on the move.

Since I started this blog about nine months ago, it’s always been hosted here on the multi-user platform WordPress.com. It’s an excellent service that is a great introduction to the world of blogging.

But it does have its restrictions; one of the things I wanted to do was be able to use services like PayPerPost to earn a little money from what I was writing. This is against the WordPress.com Terms of Service, so about six months ago I started The Wolf’s Howl @ Blogspot. In large part a mirror for the WordPress version, this also enabled me to display adverts and sponsored posts if I wanted to. Unfortunately, BlogSpot is not as good a blogging platform as WordPress.

Now, The Wolf’s Howl is branching out once more - to be self-hosted. This will give the best of both worlds - the superior quality of the WordPress software, but in an environment that has no restrictions on content or how you can tailor the look of your blog. The new home will be at http://wolfshowl.com.

For now, the WordPress.com incarnation of The Wolf’s Howl will stay live and will be updated with new content but all new content will appear first on wolfshowl.com, and eventually WordPress.com will not be updated. So, take the opportunity now to update your bookmarks, feed readers, etc and come and join me in my new home; I’ve unpacked all the boxes, but I’m still in the process of decorating so you might need to cut me some slack to begin with!

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Subscribe by email : : Read more Howling at The Wolf’s Howl @ BlogSpot : : Copyright © 2007. All rights reserved. No reproduction without prior permission.

I used to write to Santa around this time of year, but I think I’m a little old for that now. Plus, some little kid told me the other day that Santa isn’t real - I don’t think that can be true, but I admit it shook me more than a little. So, I decided that as I couldn’t write to Santa anymore, each year I’d write to someone from my life - whether that be someone that I know, or someone that works for a company I deal with, a Government that has dominion over me, and so on. This is the first year and I thought that I’d send a missive to the Murphman.

Ted, I’m a fairly new Postie - I’ve been regularly submitting posts for just over a month now - but I was interested in PPP for quite some time before that. The idea of “getting paid to blog about the things you love” appealed to me, on top of which I was rooting for your success because one of my friends works for you. You always want your friends to be successful, right?

I’ve read much of what people like Arrington and Calacanis (and many others who’s names I can’t remember) have written about PPP, and the personal attacks they’ve made against you and other members of your team. They do like to bandy the “e” word about, don’t they? Even my personal blogging inspiration, Wil Wheaton, jumped on that bandwagon and boy, did he go down in my estimation because of it. I’ve written posts and comments defending PPP and criticising the critics for their double-standards and lack of perspective.

What I’m trying to say, is that I am a PayPerPost fan and I’m glad to see that you’re having the success that you are - 100,000+ bloggers and 12,500+ advertisers, after what? 18 months? All power to you.

But I have to temper my admiration with some disappointment, and it’s this which is the focus of this letter (sorry to be on a downer at this festive time of year). I’d just like to share with you some of the issues that have made themselves apparent while I’ve been using PPP over the last month or so.

The first issue is purely technical, and I suspect many Posties will have the same gripe; the site is really slow. I mean, snail-pace. It can take about a minute for my dashboard to load when I sign in. That’s on a 1mb broadband line with a less than 6 months old iMac. It’s slow enough that I’ve lost Opportunities because of it. I know that Pete and the guys are working on it, and that it’s probably a result of your success where your hardware hasn’t kept pace with your users, but that’s something that should have been foreseen perhaps?

The next issue is one that I know has been a bugbear for PPP since the beginning and you’ve taken a lot of flak for it - disclosure. It’s good that PPP requires disclosure now, but some of your advertisers don’t seem so keen on the idea. I’ve seen Opps that specifically state that in-post disclosure is not acceptable. Personally, I don’t think this is the right way to allow advertisers to go. On The Wolf’s Howl @ BlogSpot, I’ve made a promise to all my readers that EVERY sponsored post will be identified in-post, in addition to my site-wide disclosure notice. When I see an Opp that objects to this, that’s an Opp that I can’t take.

My reason for imposing this restriction on myself is that a lot of people read blogs in a feed reader. If you’ve only got a site-wide disclosure, and not in-post, then those reading your blog in a feed-reader will not see anything to indicate that the post they are reading has been paid for. While it may be obvious from the content, I feel that it is beholden on me to be 100% transparent with my readers when it comes to what I’ve been paid for and what I haven’t. I know that not all bloggers hold the same opinion I do and that’s fair enough. I just don’t think advertisers should be able to dictate disclosure policy.

While we’re on the subject of advertisers, you’ve been making much of the fact that you have in excess of 12,500 on board now. Congratulations on getting so many, but I’d be interested in knowing how many are active, as the number of available Opps doesn’t seem to be increasing. Indeed, the number today is quite low and, if taken as a percentage of that 12,500, is really not anything to write home about. I know you’ve got an uphill struggle because of people like TechCrunch, with a mountain of bad press to overcome and I imagine it’s hard to convince new advertisers to come on board, but you need to maximise the Opps available from the ones you’ve got or you’re going to start losing bloggers, which you really can’t afford.

And so that leads me to bloggers. Again, the numbers are impressive - over 100,000 now. But how many are actively writing posts for PPP? With the limited number of Opps, I guess it can’t be too many. And I know that a lot are quite upset that their Google PageRank has been annihilated because of their association with PPP. Even with the introduction of RealRank, you run the risk of losing quite a number of accounts.

I think it’s the limited number of Opps that are your biggest enemy. Before I started writing for PPP, I read a blog post that was attacking your business model, and I made a comment along the lines that PPP encourages bloggers to only take posts that they have experience of or interest in and to write about what they know. The blogger suggested that I needed to wake up and smell the coffee but that if I was happy to prostitute my integrity and shill for Ted Murphy, then I could go ahead with his blessing. But having written for PPP for a while now, I can see how bloggers would be prepared to let their standards slip, because they need to earn some money and the only Opps available are ones they don’t have any experience of, but they can fake it. That perpetuates the unsavoury image of PPP that has been propogated and does you no favours at all.

Something else that does you no favours is RockStartUp. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. I really enjoy seeing you guys getting up to all your stunts, Postie Patrols, Cake Plows, etc. But you’re not presenting an image of a serious-minded company to the world at large. What you look like is a company that likes to spend money and party. I remember the first episode I ever saw dealt with your move to bigger offices, and at one point you were berating a painter for standing on a $700 chair. I’m sorry, Ted, but a start-up shouldn’t be spending its investor’s money on $700 chairs; it’s a waste and I know that others have pulled you up on this. They’ve also pulled you up on all the larking about that you do. I know, and so do most Posties I’m sure, that you’re just showing the bits where you guys let off steam and that most of the time you’re all very much nose to the grindstone making PPP work - but there’s been a lot of episodes about that, and not so many about the work that you’re doing. It’s the wrong balance for a start-up and doesn’t help the public perception of the company.

Neither does the name change. We’ll forget for the minute that Izea sounds either like Scandinavian furniture or really horrible toilet paper, but what we can’t forget is that it makes you look like you’re trying to distance yourselves from PayPerPost. It makes it look like you think all the detractors are right and PPP is something akin to prostitution that should only happen in dark alleyways. I can see your point about having an “umbrella” name to cover all the other things you do, but that just leads me on to my next point.

Fragmentation. Or, if I’m being kind, differentiation. You’re expanding into other areas - URL brief, Zookoda, RealRank, etc - which is understandable; every company wants to expand. But I think you’re taking your eye off the ball. What’s made you (in)famous is PPP, but it doesn’t seem to be receiving any of your attention at the moment. You’re branching out into other areas and it’s not clear where you’re trying to go.

Social Spark is apparently your next big thing. I don’t know too much about it, but it sounds like social networking for advertisers and bloggers. An interesting idea, but - on the face of it - not really a big advance on PPP Direct. And another name change. Does this now replace PPP entirely or does it run alongside? If it runs alongside, whither the future for PPP? From what I’ve seen about Social Spark, I think you’d have been much better adding the functionality to PPP, carrying on calling it PPP and really getting out there and selling it to advertisers. Oh, and Social Spark? If people abbreviate it like they do PayPerPost, that comes out to SS. Perhaps not the best thought-out name you could have come up with?

I know that your venture capitalists have been vocal in their support for you, but I would expect no less. I also know that some commenters were concerned that in your second round, you didn’t pull in any new investors. As a Postie, I’m concerned that you seem to be spending a lot of money, but I’m not convinced you’re bringing in all that much. At some point, your VC’s are going to want a return on their investment.

I’m sorry to sound so negative. I’m not trying to shoot you full of holes; I’m just highlighting some issues that have occurred to me as a fairly new Postie. I want PPP - or Social Spark, or Izea, or whatever the future branding of the company may turn out to be - to be a big success. I know that you guys have all worked hard to make it what it is today; I guess what I’m really saying is that the early vision seems to have become clouded - you’re no longer as focused as you were. I want PPP to become a force for good in the blogging world, bringing advertisers and bloggers together. After all, it means more money for me too. But I think you’re at a crossroads and you need to read the signs carefully before deciding which way to turn.

I wish you every success in 2008 and hope that Izea will achieve the vision that you have for it. I hope that you will take this letter in the constructive manner that it is meant, and if I’ve made any errors, or if there’s anything you want to respond to, I hope you’ll use the comments to do so.

Merry Christmas, and thanks for your time.

Wolfie.

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I would like to make it clear that sponsored posts do not appear on The Wolf’s Howl @ WordPress.

All opinions in this blog are either my own or else they’re made up just to get a rise out of you and make you angry. Either way, they’re probably not very well thought out or expressed so do yourself a favour and don’t take the world so seriously.

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Subscribe by email : : Read more Howling at The Wolf’s Howl @ BlogSpot : : Copyright © 2007. All rights reserved. No reproduction without prior permission.

Tags: PayPerPost, Ted Murphy, Izea

I’ve been blogging for about nine months now; long enough to feel like I know what I’m doing, and to have developed a certain way of writing, and even to have built up a bit of an audience (thank you) but in certain other ways I’m still very much a newbie.

One of the things that I’m still unsure about, and which I’d like your input on if you feel moved to give it, is the issue of censorship. Not so much traditional censorship of bad language, or “adult content” but more internal censorship of what you write. Do you have that barrier that sometimes descends as you start to write, which goes “You know, maybe it would be better if you didn’t write that.”

You may have noticed that, while I have mentioned the company I work for and the products we sell, I don’t write about my experiences at work. The main reason for this is that nothing really happens that is worth writing about, but another reason is that I know that one of my friends from work occasionally reads The Wolf’s Howl; the situation might arise where I write something about the job that he doesn’t agree with, which might cause problems in our working relationship. Unlikely, but it could happen.

Another area that I don’t write about is my personal relationships. I’ve been toying with the idea of writing about a couple of incidents from the past, which every now and again re-surface for a few weeks just to torment me. The thought of writing them down often occurs at these times, to try and exorcise the demons as it were. But, apart from not really being able to find the words, I haven’t written them because that internal barrier comes down.

It’s strange; I think the thing that bothers me about it is that these are things I haven’t told to the people that I’m closest to - yet I’m thinking of writing a blog post that has the potential to be read by millions of complete strangers. I wouldn’t care about them reading the posts, but if someone I knew read them I’d be… embarrassed is probably the best word.

So maybe it’s not censorship. Maybe it’s this conflicted feeling that stops me writing about things; the stupid git at work who can’t even put a damn label on the right way round, the night I was 17 and made a choice that I wouldn’t make now or the night I was 19 and made a choice I really wish I hadn’t made.

But maybe it’s just that I can’t find the right words to really get across what I mean.

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All opinions in this blog are either my own or else they’re made up just to get a rise out of you and make you angry. Either way, they’re probably not very well thought out or expressed so do yourself a favour and don’t take the world so seriously.

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Subscribe by email : : Read more Howling at The Wolf’s Howl @ BlogSpot : : Copyright © 2007. All rights reserved. No reproduction without prior permission.

Tags: Censorship