Green Llama

What, exactly, is Thoof? Thoof is like Digg or Netscape, but with a bit of a twist. Over at Digg, the Digg Mob pretty much controls everything. If the Mob doesn’t like a story, it’ll get buried, and you may never see it. They claim democracy, but really there’s no such thing. At Thoof, the stories that are shown are based on your personal tastes - personalized news, if you will. There’s no angry Digg mob to be seen. Thoof remembers what stories you like, and shows you stories that go along with your tastes.

One of the differentiating features that Thoof has ( besides their name ) is the ThoofRank badge. Basically you drop a line of HTML into your post, and the ThoofRank badge will show how popular your post is with Thoof’s readers. The ThoofRank badge below is for another post, and as of the time of posting it’s just at 1% - I sure hope that goes up!

What’s with the name?

By now you’re no doubt wondering why in the world these guys choose Thoof as their name. It certainly doesn’t roll off the tongue like Digg does, that’s for sure. Apparently the name originally started off as “The Horse’s Hoof”, which I guess is supposed to be like “The cat’s meow”. Since that name was too long, it got shortened to “The Hoof”. Since the tech guy isn’t so much with the Engrish, it ended up as Thoof.com.

I’ve angered the Google again, it seems.  Green Llama dropped from PR4 to PR1 for no apparent reason that I can figure.  I haven’t seen a PR update on any other of my sites - just this one. How annoying.

Another month has come and gone, in spectacular fashion. So far this year, May has been my best month - an all time record for me , in fact. Fortunately I’m a fan of breaking records and setting new ones - like I did in July. Compared to June, net profit jumped 59% - not shabby at all. It was even up 25% from my previous record May. “Best Month so Far” isn’t a bad thing at all; in fact, it’s a great feeling. Let’s break it down:

Adsense

July marked my second best Adsense month to date - up 31% from June. Still didn’t match my May Adsense numbers, but I’m not complaining. Adsense revenue made up 34% of my total income for the month - right around a third. Still high, but I can live with it.

Text Link Ads

Text Link Ads held steady this month, with a 2% increase. That’s what I love about TLA - it’s relatively steady. TLA made up 13% of my total income for July.

Linkworth

Linkworth continues to be solid, increasing every month I’ve been a member so far. Linkworth income was up 24% for the month, and made up a total of 6% of my income. I expect these numbers to keep getting stronger as my inventory sells.

Kontera

Oh Kontera, how I love thee. Best month ever for Kontera - I love saying that. Kontera income was up 24% over June, and a few bucks over June, which was my previous best. It made up 24% of my total income for July.

Affiliate Programs

Since I shut down my PPC marketing efforts, I won’t see any more affiliate losses for awhile. Hence, I swung from a loss to a small affiliate profit. The small profit only accounted for 2% of my income, but profit is profit, and I’ll gladly take it over a loss, any day.

Sponsored Posts

I worked hard on the sponsored post front, and picked up a lot of great opportunities. Income from this stream went up 1600%, and accounted for an impressed 21% of my total income. I think there’s a simply amazing amount of potential for sponsored posts - they provide an incredible value to the advertiser at a very reasonable cost. The permanent links are worth much more than the advertiser pays for them. I will continue to ramp up sponsored post participation, provided that they are relevant, and don’t overshadow my regular posts.

July 2007 Overview and looking forward

July 2007 was fantastic in just about every facet. Every metric that I track was up, up, up, which leaves me little room to complain. I’ll continue to focus on getting better sponsored post opportunities, and moving income to “fixed” sources like TLA and Linkworth. August will be a fantastic month.

2007 Year to Date

I’m very happy about the direction that 2007 is taking. I’ve done a great job diversifying my income, and reducing my dependence on Adsense. Just imagine, if I was still only using Adsense ( like I once did ), then I would have made just a third of what I made this month. By putting my eggs in different baskets, I’ve tripled my income this month.

I’m learning what works and what doesn’t every month, slowly. I’m going to continue working hard on the profitable projects, and tossing the others to the side. On to August, and new records. After all, what fun is setting records if you don’t get to break them?

I found myself getting a little nostalgic today.  Or maybe I was looking for something that I couldn’t find, who knows.  It’s hard to say how I ever end up doing anything really.  In any case, I stumbled across this post - one of my earliest.  It’s short, simple, and to the point.  It’s not very eloquent either - I was a horrid writer back then ( Not like I’m Leonard Hemingway or some other fancy writer now, but I suck less ).  Anyway, it’s a good post.  The point hammers home, and it’s advice that you really need to take to heart.  The post is called Quitting.

Take a few minutes to go through some of your old comments, and click on the reader’s links.  I’d bet than half of the sites are abandoned, and will have no chance at every going  anywhere.  If you don’t want to end up like that, then take the advice. Quitting sucks.

Just a quick nod to Yahoo Search Marketing.  I had a small billing issue this week, and they resolved it ASAP.  Even called me on my cell phone ( which I never answer at work ), and dropped me an email to confirm.  Very quick, very professional resolution - kudos to YSM.