WordPress 2.5 has been released. Before writing about the release, I thought it would be apt to first upgrade this blog to the latest version.

The new Admin Dashboard is very impressive. The interface has been given a significant overhaul. The upgrade itself was done using the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin, and it was a breeze. The Plugins page detected several plugins that needed upgrades, and all of them were upgraded using the new auto upgrade feature. Very impressive indeed!

If you haven’t yet had a look at WordPress 2.5, check out their screencast.

My first impression is a big THUMBS UP! for the release.

This is a follow-up to my post regarding changes introduced by AdBrite to make their ads more visible. I had mentioned that I would do a follow-up a week later to see if there is any changes that I see in the daily earnings.

I’m happy to mention that I do see a 30% increase in earnings over this 1-week period. Whether there is any link to the changes introduced by AdBrite, or its just the cyclic nature of earnings from CPC networks, I don’t know. The bottom-line does remain that I’ve seen a sizable increase in earnings.

Thanks AdBrite!

I’ve been missing from this blog for a while this month.  This has primarily been due to two reasons:

• YPOPs!, my open source Yahoo! POP3 server, needed some attention, and will continue to need it for the next few weeks.
• Secondly, my excited to announce that I’m about to launch a new project shortly. It will be a mix between popurls and alltop, with a host of new features. The initial “alpha” launch will be a no frills version which might look a lot similar, but over a period of time, a host of new features will be introduced. The domain has been purchased, and initial alpha code is already being tested out internally. I’ll provide more details as we move along with the project milestones.

WinningTheWeb has one of the Craziest Internet Marketing Contests You’ve Ever Seen.

The prize money is in excess of $12,000 and 100+ people will be lucky winners when the draw is done on March 31st. Participating in the contest is easy. There is no need to do fancy stuff. Simple things like subscribing to RSS feeds, mailing lists, or blogging about the contest. It’s that simple. Each action provides you with some points (entries) for the contest.

This post not only lets you know about the contest, but is my entry to it as well!

I made my first payment withdrawal request from Project Wonderful yesterday, and received the money into my PayPal account in less than 1 business day.

I’ve found their system easy to use and customize. The infinite bidding system is interesting and works quite well. For today, I’m glad to see some additional money coming into my PayPal account!

You can read my previous posts on Project Wonderful as well.

LinkXL enables web-based publishers and marketers to sell and purchase text link advertising within existing content using a fully automated system. In some sense, this is similar to what is offered by Kontera ContentLink, but with a difference. LinkXL links look completely similar to other links you’ve inserted on your own. There is absolutely no visual difference. In fact, there is no way for someone to figure out that there are paid links on the page when using LinkXL. It works completely behind the scenes. If you’re using a WordPress powered blog, all you need to do is to use their plugin, that’s it! Links will be inserted auto-magically!

LinkXL takes 40% as commission which is lower than what others typically take, which is basically an equal share of the earnings. I am not too sure right now, but I am assuming that you cannot use Kontera ContentLink alongwith LinkXL, as that might violate the Kontera Terms of Service.

Sign-up now for LinkXL.

AdBrite sent out a communication that they have made some minor changes to the way text ads are displayed by their system. Excerpts from their email:

We’ve recently made a change to our system which allows users to see the URL for text ads running in your standard zone sizes. It will improve click-through rates by showing users exactly where they’ll go when they click on an ad. That in turn will drive more revenue for your site.

With the visible URL, you’ll also notice an “Ads by AdBrite” tag appended to each zone with text ads. This is part of our drive to make AdBrite-powered advertising as transparent as possible.

Whether the click-thru rates improve or not, time will tell. I use AdBrite on some of my sites, so I will be in a position to let you know in a few weeks if this has indeed improved my earnings or not.