Have you ever thought about the future of blogging? What will blogging be like a year from now? As serious bloggers become more experienced, they create and manage more and more blogs. What will those blogs be like?

Blogging Takes Over

With more and more plugins, themes, and customizable options, blogs can really be anything. You can even make WordPress to NOT look like a blog if you want to. Deactivate comments, post titles, and other typical blogging features. In time, WordPress and Blogger will be used for more than just traditional blogs.

Multi-Author Blogs

Once a blog gets to a certain point, it becomes hard to maintain. 5-10 posts a week can be demanding. Thats why many bloggers are turning to guest posters as well as blog partners to help them keep up. Blog about your Blog, for example, has over 25 authors to contribute to the blog.

Now however the growing trend is to start a blog with more than one person. The potential for monetary gain increases, so if you decide to split it, you may be making as much as you would by yourself. As it gets bigger you can then have a team. I see this trend growing to make life easier for the average blogger.

What Do You See?

What do you think the future of blogging is? Does Google and Blogger go after WordPress, buy them for millions, and then screw the rest of the bloggers? Does the latest page rank scare everyone to stop blogging, except for John Chow? Speaking of John, does he find a way to make enough money in one month to buy all his competitors blogs?

Hey everyone, it’s Matt here from Contest Beat and this is the start of a new feature here at BAYB – The Weekly Contest Roundup. Each weekend I’ll be making a guest post that will feature some of the more interesting, valuable, and easy-to-enter contests that I’ve blogged about in the past week. So without further ado, here we go:

$100 Paypal

If you want to win $100 paid out via Paypal then head over here to 134U.com and check out the details of this contest. You can get in by making a 100 word post about the comp and also linking back to the blog homepage. And if you want another couple of entries then you can also subscribe to their feed.

A Goodfather T-Shirt

I like this contest because it’s a pretty cool prize and it’s also fairly easy to enter – all you need to do to get in is leave a comment on this post and you could win a Goodfather t-shirt. Think The Godfather, but about being a good Dad. I’m not a father myself but still wouldn’t mind one!

Some PC Modding Stuff

I only learned of this contest today and would probably enter if I didn’t have a laptop instead of a desktop. Up for grabs are two pieces of PC cooling equipment (good for any of you overclockers out there) and also a USB beverage cooler, which is probably worth entering for in itself. All you need to do is make a couple of forum posts and you’re in.

Win Another $100

Finally we have “The No Effort $100 Contest” being run by Online Presence. All you need to do is write a 50 word review of their blog on your blog and you’re in the draw! Check out the details right here.

So those are some contests that you should take a look at entering, but this week I also have a person whose contests you should avoid at all costs. Check out this post here for the details, but over the course of several months this person has managed to scam different “contest” winners out of a Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, iPhone, and a USB drive. Not cool.

Anyway, that’s all for this week, and sorry for ending on a slightly negative note, not all contests are like that I promise! Good luck to those of you who decide to get in on some of the contest action.

Happy friday! Thanksgiving is just a week away and all of my bills seem to be due at once. The money online just isn’t what I want it to be, so I’ve been trying to find other ways to make money. Nick and I are working on some niche sites, the first being about Hannah Montana. If it works right?

Each friday we usually give one lucky person a free blogroll spot for a week, last week Zybron had the honors. Want your free link? Get noticed, go above and beyond commenting.

Subscribing to RSS feeds through email has been huge, there are at least 3-4 contests I’ve seen in the past few days (including ours) where you are asked to subscribe via email.
Most bloggers read RSS feeds to keep up with their favorite blogs. Do you actually read feeds through email? Or do you just stick to bloglines or another feedreader?

One thing Sponsored Reviews was lacking was an affiliate program. Problem solved!

Blogger Referral

The blogger referral is kind of low. At only 5$ per blogger, the incentive isn’t very high to actively promote your affiliate link. Earning the 5$ plus a small percent of what the blogger makes each post would definitely be more enticing. Especially if you could manage to refer an active blogger.

When you refer a blogger you get paid once the blogger once they get a blog approved.

Advertiser Referral

As usual, the money is in referring advertisers. Sponsored Reviews claim you can earn up to 175$ per advertiser. The payouts are based on money spent by the advertiser.

The average advertiser spends “several hundred dollars” so you “should” get at least 25$ per each advertiser you refer. Of course, theres that strong chance that you get nothing.

Your referral payouts will be made once per month. The cookies set for your affiliate link is 180 days so that’s a great plus to the system.

Are you already a Sponsored Reviews member? If so, are you going to use their affiliate program? If you aren’t a member, are you going to join now?

I have been pretty unsuccessful trying to sell blogroll, banner space, and rss feed links for this blog. I think the prices are fair, just haven’t had the interest I was hoping.

I was thinking, why not GIVE it away? As usual I would love to reward our loyal readers and also expand our base.

I noticed our email subscribers list was one of the lowest stats for feedburner and I’d love to increase that amount.

The Rules

Simply subscribe to BAYB via email and you are entered. Your email must be VERIFIED in order for you to be eligible to win. That means that you must confirm the subscription.

The contest will last until Nov 30th Midnight PST

Prizes

The three prizes given away will be

• 1 month 125×125 banner spot
• 1 month blogroll link
• 1month rss feed advertisement.

The first email drawn will have the choice of which they want. Second will have second choice, and third will get what’s left.

There are currently only 14 email subscribers so you have a great shot in winning the contest.

TNX.Net is the next wave of ways to promote your website or blog through links. This can be beneficial for both publishers and advertisers. TNX tries to close the gap between advertisers and publishers offering fair rates to both.

For Publishers

What I like about TNX for publishers is that whether your page has a pagerank or not you can still display links on it for money. The price is lower because it is calculated based on pagerank, however you can ultimately sell a link on each page of your site.

TNX also splits the revenue 12.5 / 87.5 instead of 50/50 like other services. You receive payouts every month via paypal or check.

The service isn’t that smooth however, instead of the links automatically appearing with just one code, you have to manually add it. That slows the whole process down.

For Advertisers

Your links are placed on relevant pages of websites, however I did find the process to be a little complicated. I also don’t think you can pick which websites or pages you can display your links on.

The links are reasonably priced for advertisers, TNX writes that
“For as low as 11$ a month you may get up to 10,000 static links to your website.”

I’ve ordered several links for sites, however some of the websites still aren’t displaying these links, but I am apparently being charged for them. There doesn’t appear to be an easy way to let the TNX team know this and it seems like a huge hassle in my opinion. I really don’t have the time to manually monitor this.

Affiliate Program and Free Points

TNX has an affiliate program where you get points based on what your affiliate referrals do:

“When you refer webmasters to TNX.net, you get 13.3% (as long as your account is active) of all TNX-points that are generated by their websites. In addition, you will receive 5% of all payments, made by referred advertiser (this option will work after paypal payments will be automated).”

You can also get free TNX points to buy links at the Digital Point Forum. This way you don’t have to take my word for it, but you can test the system out yourself.

Text Link Brokers Now Hiring

TextLinkBrokers.com has an opening for an experienced link builder. They claim to be one of the largest and fastest growing link building /SEO companies in the world, so whoever gets accepted to this job will have their work cut out for them. Text Link Brokers (TLB) provide their services to thousands of companies worldwide. You will definitely need some experience to be considered for the job. The position they are looking to fill is Director of Strategic Link Building. Of course they are looking for the right person, so there are several requirements an applicant would need to fill.

Requirements

• Minimum of 4 years hands-on experience building links
• Knowledge of the industry
• Ability to create custom strategies of the resources TLB provides
• Creativity to build the campaigns to be successful
• Capacity to organize, manage and work with the a team
• Be able to research and budget
• Advanced knowledge of SEO

Those are just a few requirements, but that’s just like any job interview. For more Click Here for Job Details

The Salary

The person who is hired for this job will earn a 6 figure compensation package. Relocation expenses will be provided.

Incentive for You

If you don’t qualify for this job, like me, you can still get in on the money $. There is a $5,000 referral bonus for anyone who refers the winning candidate. I’m crossing my fingers for my 5 thousand! Start applying and make sure to tell them Blog about your Blog sent you!