There have been a few interesting articles and debates surrounding the blogosphere.

45n5 put together the value of the top money making blogs. That list values BAYB at about $11,000. Don’t worry we don’t plan on selling anytime soon.

Ryan Shamus did his own thing doing a round-up of of the top 100 make money online blogs. Each blog has a little excerpt about them. You can find us at #34 there. There are plenty of interesting blogs to start reading.

Now For The Drama…

With the sale of OneMansGoal, bloggers are coming out of the woodwork in one way or another. I really don’t have a strong opinion whichever way. I have never read the blog, so why should I care how much it sells for?

Garry Conn has come out with a post about the scam in the make money online niche. However if these people aren’t going to research and get some real evidence it’s there own fault in my opinion. Garry Conn mentions several examples as well as Vic and John Cow.

In response, John Cow has come out with the Make Money Online Bubble Not Bursting. In this post he calls out Garry Conn about the drama.

Blogger Unleashed has of course chimmed in on this vlogging, not sure which one though. He rambles a lot, but they are interesting nonetheless.

Don’t get too far into the drama, you may never get back out! However it is entertaining, I’m glad it’s not us.

This week our Mixx article definitely took of which I was kind of surprised about. We are also just getting ready for Vegas for May. I am going to try to get a contest together and if anyone is in Vegas, please let me know. We are staying at the Gold Coast from May 9-11.

If this is your first Comment Friday we give one lucky person a free weekly blogroll spot as our “blog of the week“. Along with that we are also giving that winner 200 entrecard credits.

This week I would love to know about interviewing. If you had one person you could interview for your website or blog, who would it be?

Ever have writers block? Zero to Superhero did and made it disappear. Find out how hyponsis can break down your writers block.

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!

When I put together 23 Things I’ve Learned Blogging (with Carl‘s help) I received a lot of great comments. One of the comments was by George Manty of Can I Make Big Money Online. He stated that there were 5 of those blogging lessons that are most important.

1. What’s In It For Me?

For a blogger possibly the single most important part of running a successful blog is to set yourself apart. With millions of blogs on the internet, you HAVE to be different.

When I first started blogging and really learning (I’m still learning) how blogging worked I talked with my girlfriend about it a lot. How I could be better, reach more people, and in the end, make more money. She gave me golden advice to live by.

Why should someone read YOUR blog?

Since then I’ve done my best to set my blogs apart from the rest. This has involved promotions, giveaways, advice, information, advertising, guest posts, and probably even more.

2. Always Show Big Numbers

This is especially important when your main goal is to sell advertising or make money. In a niche like blogging or making money online, this also holds true. In this niche I wouldn’t show a RSS subscriber count under 100.

It may also be wise not to show how many visitors you get or how much money you make. I’ve followed some bloggers who have made a goal of it to make more money, which is okay. However, it’s almost embarrassing to display that you have made 14 cents on Google Adsense.

3. Act Now, There Is No Later

This is a perfect example of the John Cow blog that is now on the market for a buy now price of $45,000. I’m pretty sure they never thought such a silly idea would make them so much money.

Acting now could be anything from a new blog or design to learning about something that could benefit you. Since PayPerPost and Text-Link-Ads business going down the drain, I’ve had to learn about and join lots of affiliate programs to try to make up the difference. We’ve also explored ways to optimize for search engines.

4. Make A-List Blogging Friends

This is something I haven’t been able to do effectively, yet. You won’t see me in any pictures with John Chow or Shoemoney at a conference. Why? Because I have never been to one. A lot of the A listers that you know and read already have made money online, now they just put their face and content on a blog. I haven’t made my money, yet.

Even though you may not have A list friends either, there is no reason you can’t start getting in contact with them or any company for that matter. I have open communication with many different bloggers and company’s that have not only given me great opportunities, but a few awesome contests as well. All it takes is one message or email to get the ball rolling.

5. Make People Feel Important

I enjoy blogging and Blog about your Blog is by far my favorite blog, website, and/or idea. Our readers are great and I love every comment I get. 5,278 comments later (show BIG numbers right?) I still get excited reading each one. That’s why Comment Friday has to be my favorite.

I’ve gotten a little off-topic, but since I enjoy it so much, I want other people to as well. Often times simple questions from readers get turned into an entire post. Or comments get featured into a post, or mention. Anything really to show that my readers are important to me as well as what they have to say.

An interesting post that I put together was How They Started Blogging. I asked bloggers how they started blogging. They left comments, so I then took those comments and put them in a post. Interesting stories of how they started blogging.

If you had to share 5 blogging tips, what would they be?

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!

With the internet booming with bloggers and new websites everyday, more and more people are finding a way to make an income online. Some of course better than others. One person, Michael Dunlop, has seemingly made it his goal to show you how to retire at 21.

Young Retirement

“In the world of retirement, 21 is the new 60.”

The concept is a little fuzzy for me, I haven’t been able to tell if Michael Dunlop is actually “retired”. However, he writes about and interviews many of young entrepreneurs that are making tons of money online, at a very young age. He even offers a Free Ebook full of tips to make money online.

The Retire@21 web page is very well laid out to help you find what you are looking for. Diving into this website for the first time I can’t figure out which part is my favorite, so I will tell you about them all!

Interviews

Michael has put together an amazing list of interviews with young entrepreneurs. There are currently about three pages, with many more to come I’m sure, since we haven’t been interviewed yet (hint).

Most bloggers should recognize the names Nate Whitehill, Tyler Cruz, Jonathan Volk, Aaron Wall, and Yaro Starak. All have been interviewed by Michael at Retire@21. Each interview asks about 10-12 questions of internet related questions.

Two Great Toplists

I am a sucker for anything that ranks websites, I always want to be included. Michael has put together two great toplists to be apart of.

The first is the Top 21 Young Run Websites. This includes Facebook (age 23), Runescape (age 28) and WordPress (age 23). It even includes Entrecard, which is run by 21 year old Graham Langdon.

The second toplist is a version of the Top Making Money Online Blogs. Michael has purchased reviews from several different blogs. The list is compiled of which blogs were best for the money including how many clicks, words, and comments were received. Currently Tyler Cruz is at the top of the list, however Michael is still continuing his experiment.

Now Can You Retire?

Retire@21 is a resource website and blog with plenty of information. The layout is pretty simple, however there isn’t a search bar so I couldn’t find everything I wanted to. The website flow is very busy, but it’s pretty clean, the balance is very nice.

I can’t find really anything bad to say about this website, which is why I have subscribed to the RSS feed and you should too! Don’t forget to grab the Retire at 21’s FREE Secrets to Making Money Online Ebook.

Today something different from the contests world. Let’s try to win only by using your email, simple and easy as always.

Cash and a 4GB USB Drive

Wikigiz is a great community blog about gadgets and technology. Join his easy contest, you only have to subscribe to his RSS feeds by mail. Three winners and three prizes: $50 cash, a 4GB USB Drive and 1 Year 125×125 AD spot on the site. Take a look at the Gizmo-meter: when the meter reaches 100%, a winner notification box in RED will be spawned randomly and you have won! Current prize is a 2GB Mp3 Player!
Ends on June 30th.

$100 from Buy Established Websites

Buy Established Websites wants you to read his blog about buying and selling websites. To ensure they get a few extra readers, they are offering $100 to one lucky winer. Simply subscribe to his RSS feeds (by mail or reader).
Ends on April 30th.

3000 Entrecard Credits

Earn Blogger is offering 3000 Entrecard Credits plus free 125×125 AD space for one month. Just subscribe by mail to his blog to enter. You’ll get five more entries if you write a post about this giveaway, but it’s optional.
Ends on April 30th.

And don’t forget to visit About Blog Contests, your daily source for the latest, simplest and greatest blog contests around the net!