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Christmas present from WidgetBucks

I'm starting to take some time off work this week for Christmas. So while I was getting ready for my Christmas trip today I found a nice surprise in my mailbox from the WidgetBucks team. A Starbucks gift card and a nice Christmas card!







I used my gift card an hour after I got it, and I got a nice peppermint coffee for free to start my day off, it was fantastic. My gift card was worth $5, and while that might not seem like a lot it's perfect to get a free cup of coffee, and their have tons of publishers to take care of.

I'm not sure if they gave gift cards to all their publishers, but I really appreciate the card and the nice thoughts from their team. Last Christmas they sent me a a nice box of chocolates and a WidgetBucks t-shirt. These guys really know how to make their publishers feel wanted, and their customer support backs that statement up.

Google launches customized results

While searching Google tonight, I notice a couple icons next to every one of my search results. An green "up arrow", and a red "x". Google says "When possible, Google will customize your search results based on location and/or recent search activity. Additionally, when you're signed in to your Google Account, you may see even more relevant, useful results based on your web history".



So if you search for "Weed Pictures", and you scroll down and see the 5th result, ChronicFile.com, and you think that should be your first result, just hit the green up arrow.

If you hit the green up button, it will move that search results to the number one spot. Then when you search for "SEARCH" in the future, your search results should be the same. If you "delete" a search result, it will fall to the bottom of all the other search results. You can always un-delete any results you've deleted in the past.

Remember, these are personal customized results, and as far as we know your votes will not affect the search results of anybody else using Google. Although Google might use that information to tweak SERP int he future.

Bashing bloggers without a cause

I was going through my RSS feeds today and I found an interesting blog post from Shivanand Sharma as BinaryTurf.com. He went into a rant about how Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.net is basically scamming his visitors and putting out ... bad advice just to make money. He complained that there's no about page (lie), no vision for his website (lie) and no frontpage (lie). I mean it only took me 30 seconds to find these links so I'm not sure how Shivanand missed them.

He also said he was going to remove the bloggeries post within 24 hours "for obvious reasons", which I have a real problem with. If you're going to bash somebody like this, either have the balls to keep your opinion up, or shut up.

Right after I tried to leave a comment on his blog, the post was removed. Luckily there's this cool "cache" feature in most browsers that let me retrieve his post and share it with you. Click the picture below to see the full screenshot.



As far as his claim about taking advantage of unsuspecting visitors, how is this any different than any ad displayed on any other website? Bloggers are trying to make a living doing what they love, and Darren is no different. If a user happens to buy a camera through his website, why shouldn't he get a cut? If this truly was a spam website, people wouldn't keep coming back to visit his blog, but they do, and Darren isn't forcing them to come back.

Not every website on the internet has to be exactly the same. Give Darren credit for coming up with a unique design that keeps his readers interested.And if you're going to post something like this, don't get scared and remove the post. Have the balls to stand by what you said and what you believe.

Update: The post is back online.

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