What is the latest trend of online business? Online business try to earn money by offering web traffic which equals potential money and charging money in return for services or virtual credits which are usually worthless.

In the blogosphere itself, we have witnessed the success of Entrecard, the ineffective challenge from Spott to dislodge the king from its throne. Now SiteHoppin is posing a serious threat to Entrecard’s authority.

Can SiteHoppin pose a serious challenge to Entrecard?

SiteHoppin can be considered Entrecard on steroids. Theoretically speaking, SiteHoppin can bring as much traffic to sites as Entrecard but it also offers many other mind numbing features.

SiteHoppin’s credit is named Beer Credits and they are almost like Entrecard credits, they can be used to bring traffic to your own sites or be sold for money. There are several ways to earn Beer Credits such as commenting, site submission, click through to SiteHoppin from the widget on your blogs and visiting other blogs in Browser-within-Browser mode. You can also earn Beer Credits while you sleep - you just have to put your computer on auto surf Slide show Mode to let the Browser-within-Browser keep on loading member sites.

SiteHoppin’s internet domination plan does not stop there. It also includes StumbleUpon’s capabilities where users can discover and submit new sites, rate them, tag them and discuss them. This feature becomes more convenient in the recently released beta SiteHoppin FireFox Toolbar. The toolbar is highly similar to that of StumbleUpon’s and simplifies the task of hopping from one site to another. The toolbar is a real stroke of genius from ZedoMax.

As if SiteHoppin is not attractive enough with the above mentioned features, it also comes equipped with money making model from One Buck Wiki. SiteHoppin is powered by MediaWiki, and as such wiki pages for certain keywords like “make money online” can be bought on the site. Those paid Wiki pages are named Beer Stocks and people who purchase them can customize their Wiki pages and can expect to get a portion of SiteHoppin’s total traffic and also a two-tier Beer Stocks affiliate earnings. The value of Beer Stocks is not constant and will depend on factors like total SiteHoppin web traffics, amount of visits an individual Beer Stock page received and the age of the Beer Stock itself (much like valuation for a domain).

What to look out for in the near future?

Recently, there has been many unsatisfied Entrecard users because of the new advertisement pricing system and the new rule that allows user(s) from an IP address to drop maximum 600 entrecards per day.

As for SiteHoppin, I am pretty sure it will be much more popular once the Firefox Toolbar is ready for public release. Besides, with ZedoMax’s experience and influence in other projects such as Wagg It, One Buck Wiki and Five Buck Wiki, there seems to be unlimited growth opportunity for SiteHoppin.

It will be interesting to note how SiteHoppin will stand in comparison with Entrecard in 3 months or 6 months’ time.

Want to try out SiteHoppin Firefox toolbar? Visit Blogger Focus.

I find it pretty silly to make enemies or rivals on the internet. I can understand competition respectively, but arguing, fighting and sabotage online? Sounds pretty ridiculous to me.

I’ve Successfully Made Enemies

I found an interesting social media website not too long ago and posted about it. It was called Cybercreeps (it’s no longer in service). It was a place where you could post “creeps” that you found online. I decided to submit my own that left nasty hostile and rude comments on my articles etc.

Not really knowing that they’d actually find this, they began to further attack me. I ended up being the biggest creep on the website with 30+ votes.

Even though I don’t agree I could understand where they were coming from. I was the one labelled a spammer.

Do Bloggers Spam Social Media?

Step outside the box and think about it. By submitting your own content to sites like digg and stumbleupon, are you spamming? In the eyes of people who aren’t webmasters or bloggers, maybe.

I try to only submit content that I think is QUALITY as well as interesting. Articles that I’ve submitted myself have sometime done the best. However, that may not matter to them.

My “enemies” have, in a way, taught me something. Besides not to really try to fight, what I call spammers, just try to cope. Spammers in the eyes of bloggers are very well organized. They have “fought” me pretty good. They have really taught me to watch what you say, pick your words very carefully, and it’s okay to ignore certain comments. You don’t have to address everything. It’s okay to leave it alone.

Results From My Battle

Along with submitting these stumbleupon users to cybercreeps, I also gave them thumbs down. In turn they gave me thumbs down, as well as their ‘friends’ and associates. Now 4 of the latest reviews of me are all negative.

Along with that, my stumbles aren’t as powerful as they once were. With the negative votes that has to have something to do with it. Stumbling my own blog, blogaboutyourblog.com, gives 0 visitors. Not 1 or 2 or 3, a big fat 0.

Along with that several of the posts I’ve submitted to stumble have been moved to weird categories. One post has been moved to HIV.

Have you made any social media enemies?

Twitter has become a big topic on the internet. I’ve found that I am not really good with change. Up until a few days ago, I thought twitter was a picture sharing website. I thought it was basically like a Myspace + Photobucket rolled into one. Boy was I wrong.

What is Twitter?

Well twitter is not a picture sharing website. It is more like a huge shoutbox for the entire internet. You can follow different peoples “shouts” and keep informed on what they are up to. People post updates about their new blogposts, daily activities, and what’s on their mind.

Building a large twitter profile can definitely help you promote whatever you want. I generally try to update my twitter with new blogposts and other things.

Within a few days of ‘twittering’ I’ve gotten 18 ‘followers’ while following 62.

Why Twitter?

Twitter is another social service that can become very useful for promoting your blogging, affiliates and websites.

It can also keep your more involved in your fellow bloggers whereabouts and happenings. Just today I discovered Israels Guest Post, RhysWynne’s plans for tonight, and Owens post about socialspark.

Twitter with Me

I know this is probably the millionth post about Twitter, but it’s new to me. Make sure to keep up with my updates and start following me.

Stumbleupon is by far the bloggers favorite social media website. At least it seems to be with the readers of BAYB. I personally love stumbleupon as well as reading and writing about it. I’ve compiled all of the posts here at BAYB about stumbleupon, as well as a few others.

Stumbleupon Now Using Captchas for Reviews

Send Stumble Requests to Your Friends

A Thumbs Down Kills Traffic

Making Your Stumble Profile Stand Out

Importance of Increasing Your Stumbleupon Network

How to Increase Your Stumbleupon Network

Be a Good Stumbler

Stumbleupon Friends are your Best Friends

Do you know a thing or two about stumbleupon? Share your article with us so we can add it to the list!

Mixx is another user-driven social networking site, one of the many that are mushrooming lately. However Mixx is certainly not your average hastily-assembled Pligg clone sites. Barely less than 6 months’ old, Mixx has achieved a pagerank 6 and Alexa rank of about 5000. This in itself is incredible, but there is more. Let’s see why Mixx is a little special.

Mixxin’ It Up

Mixx is touted as a serious challenger to the long established No. 1 social networking site Digg. With new features being introduced almost every week and a more friendly and positive crowd on Mixx, there are many former Digg users who have taken refuge in Mixx and are staying put. There has been numerous rumors around that there are
burying troops and negative users on Digg. Negative comments, plus failure of good submissions to become popular and preference over more popular sites are also noticeable on Digg. There is none of those in Mixx. If you were to submit something decent there, you will probably be surprised to find how popular it become.

Another reason why Mixx is popular among former Digg users: it does not restrict Digg bashing and there is special group and people who like to take a swipe at Digg every now and then.

One of the most noticeable features of Mixx, which is lacking on other social networking sites is its group feature. Members are allowed to create any groups that they wish and you may name the groups you create any way you want (be sensible though, don’t put an offensive name). Submissions can be shared across the whole of Mixx or just in your personal groups of yours. These created groups can be private or public and you can keep them completely secret too as long as you keep the members of the groups quiet. Oh yes, this also means that you fantasy football addicts can actually form a private group of yours and share relevant stories only in that group.

Mixx Vs Digg?

Comparing Mixx to Digg is almost inevitable. On the front page of both, popular stories from different categories are listed. Undeniably, there are more things on Digg’s front page but there is an advertisement there too. In comparison, Mixx’s front page is less cluttered and free of whatsoever forms of advertisement, those 2 factors are essential in attracting new social network users and converting existing ones. New social network users will prefer simplicity to functions and fame any time of the day, period!

Mixx maintains a unique karma reputation system, there’s not a famous service that uses a similar system to that of Mixx. In Mixx, submission is the order of the day, where members with most submissions (on Mixx as a whole, and also in any groups) are identified and given honor badges (there are also badges for group thought leader, most opinionated, hyperactive, etc.).

In the Mixx Lounge, you can easily see the authority or leader of Mixx, the top 10 users are usually active and you can even make friends with them. Anywhere else can this happen? The karma system will award points for submissions and comments made but it should be modified to also award points for good submissions or submissions made popular.

There are enough reasons as to why Mixx is special. However for Mixx to be truly considered a contender of Digg, a few improvements are needed. Firstly, it needs to attract more users, organize contests or lucky draws, and expand its influence. Technology wise and ease of use can be further improved by introducing Mixx toolbar, something like StumbleUpon’s and perhaps an automated Mixx vote count button.

You should be checking out Mixx by now. There is an unofficial Mixx forum . There you will see that the members are really passionate about Mixx, they even live, eat and celebrate Mixx!

Every now and then I get negative comments on this blog or the social media articles that were submitted. Some users go a little too far. That’s why I put together Dealing with Negative Criticism of Your Blog. Now there is another way to deal with the criticism, to add to the list.

Cyber Creeps

This is an interesting idea where you can sort of “fight back” against Cyber Creeps. CyberCreeps is basically a social media voting site for those who have abused you on social media websites. When you find a “cyber creep” is include write about the incident and include their profile.

I can understand getting negative reviews or thumbs down, but some users go way too far.

CyberCreeps isn’t as active as I would like, but I decided to put up my “creeps” anyways.

My Submissions

I got two thumbs down for yesterdays article, Bloggers Guide to SEO. I wrote this for bloggers for all kinds and many have already found it useful.

Arleas wrote a comment stating, “Quit disguising blogs as marketing BS and then posting it under the heading of blogs. FU and your SEO BS.” Of course I cleaned up the language a bit.

Vote for him at CyberCreeps.

The other thumb down was by someone named Joe. His response to my SEO article was that it was a steaming pile of dog —-.

Vote for him at CyberCreeps.

Finally, the most disturbed of them all, ThungurKnifer. He left a crazy review of me and just about every other blogger on his profile. I can’t write here what was said about me, but you can see it at CyberCreeps.

Vote for him at CyberCreeps.

Who are your Cyber Creeps? 

I stress to any new blogger and any blogger in general, that social media and networking is important. If your post can be popular on certain social media websites it can be very beneficial. We’ve just giving you the basic rules for social media and three new social media sites for bloggers. Now, to publicize!

What is a FeedFlare?

Along with using social media I believe it is important to burn your feed through Feedburner. This allows you to track and monitor your rss feed subscribers. One of the best features of Feedburner is adding FeedFlares to your blog and it’s feed.

A FeedFlare gives your subscribers easy ways to email, tag, share, and act on the content you publish by including social media sites. FeedFlares place a simple footer at the bottom of each article that helps you distribute, inform and create a community around your content.

This basically allows your blog posts to be easily submitted to different social media sites. We use our feed flares for stumbleupon, sphinn, and delicious.

Choose Your FeedFlares

Under the optimize tab in your Feedburner feed account you can select and add different social media sites as your FeedFlares.

I would of course recommend Stumbleupon, Sphinn, Digg, Delicious, and Mixx. However, you can add whichever sites that appeal to you and your blog.

How To Add FeedFlares

After you choose which FeedFlares to use, its easy after that. Simply select which place you want your FeedFlare to appear. If you select feed, Feedburner will automatically put it at the footer of your feed for you.

If you select “site” then you must install a code on your blog for your FeedFlares to be shown. The code is easy to install, we’ve chosen to put it at the end of every post.

Do you use FeedFlares? If so, which ones? If you don’t use them, why not?

Some social media websites, like Digg, are becoming increasingly difficult for bloggers to have their articles go popular. I have been using alternatives which have worked fine for us. Now that you know the basic rules for social media sites you can be successful on any social media website. Here are three that you may not know about, that are perfect for bloggers.

Post On Fire

Post on Fire is a new one that I have started using. At first it’s always difficult to start using new sites like this, because essentially you need people to vote for you. The plus however is that you don’t need an account to vote, so you can have your visitors vote for you. It only takes 5 votes for your story to go popular.They have the basic categories, business, blogging, health and technology. There is something for everyone.

Blog Engage

Blog Engage is a social media website that I found on the bloggeries forum. However, this one needs a little work. The owner is pretty hands on with the website, but it needs some adjustments. The last post to go popular was 4 days ago. It takes 7 votes to go popular and obviously not many are getting that many votes.However this social media site is a little more complete. It has a blog as well as a forum. With some small adjustments this website can be a great place to promote your blog posts.

Blogging Zoom

Blogging Zoom is the most popular of the three. I’ve actually already written about Blogging Zoom: BloggingZoom Burning Bloggers. Yes, it was a bit negative. A while after this post, Vic actually apologized, unbanned us, reinstated my account, and asked me to come back. So everyone deserves a second chance, right? I’ve actually just installed the Blogging Zoom Wordpress Plugin that adds a Blogging Zoom button to your post (that you can get here).

Blogging Zoom is a little harder to have your post go popular. It looks like it takes 15 zooms to go popular. It’s a little confusing as there are posts from 30 days ago on the front page. However, it’s a plus that you don’t need an account to vote on the post.

Have you used any of these social media websites? If so, how was your experience?

Don’t forget to vote for this article at PostonFire, Blog Engage, and Blogging Zoom!