Disconnected my Blog from FriendFeed

I can’t stand false reporting and fake analytics, so my personal blog was unhitched from my FriendFeed account because I didn’t like that all my Friendfeed contacts listed as RSS subscribers which made it look like this blog had over 1000 RSS subscribers when it has under 100.

The Google RSS subscriber button is misleading in this way if you have a large Friendfeed network and can give false impressions to advertisers who do want to see a large subscription base.  Also it really is false and would be as accurate as reporting Twitter followers as RSS subscribers which just isn’t the case.  Just because you auto share a post link on your social networks doesn’t make everyone following you a subscriber.

Odd things have happened with my personal blog becoming more inviting to advertisers as of late since it was ranked a PR3 and my traffic increasing from it’s former average of 2500 visits per month to nearly 10,000 per month.  I am seeing this personal blog starting to get more attention and ramp up revenue like DragonBlogger.com was about 2 years ago.

[easyazon-image-link asin=”B001TH7GUK” alt=”AmazonBasics USB 2.0 A-Male to Mini-B Cable (6 Feet / 1.8 Meters)” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/419ca-2c9tL._SL160_.jpg” align=”left” width=”159″ height=”160″]This bodes well because if I can increase the monetization of this site I would further increase my blogging related revenue and potentially be able to reach my goals which still remain at earning $1,000 per month consistently through blogging related efforts.

I met this goal for the first time last month and will just miss it this month but be close enough that I think it is achievable and I may be able to hit it consistently by the end of the year.

Though the hours I put into blogging make it feel like a 2nd (or 3rd) job, it really has helped ease some of the finances and allowed for some extra’s that I wouldn’t have been able to gotten.  It is completely with blog funds that I purchased a new $1300 computer system and it is blogging funds that I will finance a Legoland adventure with the kids and entire family in October which is putting my blog earnings to good use.

Blogging also has allowed me to start paying others, so even though it isn’t a lot I feel like I am helping people earn some money for themselves and in some cases bloggers writing for my site can earn more than they do writing for their own.

One thing I don’t ever do is try to misrepresent my statistics, numbers and earnings.  I am very open about full disclosure on how many followers, readers, subscribers and analytics around my sites.  I don’t believe in earning through deception.

-Justin Germino