Out of all the marketplaces that I am a member of, I find PPP the toughest to comply with because of all the confusing misinformation. I mentioned before that I was publicly humiliated because a group of members took it upon themselves to punish me for having a PPP opportunity right after a sponsored post from another marketplace. Well, that was a non-issue when I first started with PPP.

The TOS was subsequently changed and we were not informed in a circular. I find it funny that we are expected to read up the entire growing-in-length-day-by-day Terms of Service before we even dare to start work for PPP for the day.

Just yesterday, we were told that we now MUST have an original post between all sponsored posts that we take up from all marketplaces. How ridiculous can that be? While I may be up to writing original content before and after every sponsored post, I hate to be feeling that I am walking on glass every time I publish a post, sponsored or non-sponsored.

You may wonder why I am even doubtful of posting original content. Am I crazy? Yes, sometimes I do feel like I am because I would then have to check if I, god forbid, have placed a LINK somewhere in my post! I am tired, I really am not up to fighting with reviewers to proof that it is not a paid link. It happened before with the LINK THE PLANET project. It was entirely free but just because a bunch of us joined the forum and placed our blog on the directory in exchange for a post and link, some people thought that the link must have been paid for.

Seriously, I do not relish the thought of going through this process every f@rking time.

While I was very happy to find an opportunity at PPP last year, logging in to PPP is like going to school now. You know, sometimes you don’t want to get up from bed in the morning for school because the teachers (PPP staff) berate you, the students (Posties) bully you.

Being an international student, you are forced to stay at the corner while the rest of the American students play (geo-targeting and geographical segmentation). This is an American school, so students do not wear uniforms to school. Students who are unable to afford branded clothes are ostracized (command of English, or the lack of). The whole school is so regimented that the students are told how to queue up and which route to take every single day (order of posts).

It is amazing how many rules there are that we have to remember to follow through whenever we take up a PPP opportunity AND NOW WITH THE NEW TOS WE HAVE TO REMEMBER IT EVERY TIME WE PUBLISH A POST! Amazing because PPP is American and if I liken it to an American school, then rules are lax. Heck, American students take guns to school!

You do your assignments in fear of being poorly rated (tacks and bans) and worse, with Argus coming, reference was made about being peer rated. With all the jealousy that is going on, they can’t be serious? Do away with the leaderboard and the private forum. I have felt the sting myself how members CAN band together to try to oust me just because I am one of the biggest foreign fish in the ocean. No, I hope they are not serious. We all know how badly international members are not welcomed in the community, DESPITE Worldwide Wednesday.

Going to PPP Kindergarten, you are always dangled with all sorts of candy but get slapped for even daring to reach out for one (were we not encouraged to monetize our blogs?). I find it rather sad, really, because PPP, the company, has been kind to me.

The other day, I saw an advertiser seeking a finance/money blogger to write a review of his website and he is paying $7.50 only but expecting a minimum of 500 words. No kidding! It was taken up but I wonder if it will be completed. Yes, it is possible to write 500 words but not for $7.50, not especially when it is on a niche blog.

There have been numerous times when I have written double the word count than expected by the advertisers but then I write if I like to, and not because I was trying to meet the minimum requirements set by the advertisers. When it comes to giving out jobs to bloggers, most people will tell you that they prefer to write a 50 word piece at a cheaper payout than a 300 word piece with a slightly higher payout. But that doe not mean that bloggers will turn in a 51 word piece because most of us can write at least 150 – 200 words way exceeding the 50 word minimum.

But if there is a minimum of 300 words, that would surely turn off lots of people.

Recently, it looks like a blogger is only a true blogger if he/she holds some kind of contest. I have been thinking of hosting one as well, for a start but don’t have an idea how to make an easy yet interesting contest that everybody wants to join.

What are the prizes that would make people want to give it a shot? I personally prefer cash prize, but then how much is enough? I have 101 questions that I don’t have answers to.

I read of a case where this guy held a contest and according to him, the winner won because she was the only entrant! Can you believe that? Oh dear, that is uber pathetic!

I hope that if I were to run a contest, so that I will be a real blogger, there would be at least TWO entrants! hah!

Seriously, I am open to suggestions on the kind of contests you would like to participate in. I understand that the easier it is, the more you like to play but do let me know, ok?

Just now I was telling my friend that I was bored with blogs that I have been reading all these while and wanted something fresh. I could not even come up with FIVE totally new blogs to participate in recent Blog Day, so you can imagine how small my circle of blog hopping has become.

My friend recommended Just A Thought to me, a blog by Singaporean David Woon at http://www.davidwoon.com/blog/. I have not heard of this blogger before but I have enjoyed the blogs of a few Singaporeans so I was game to explore a little.

Although Just a Thought is supposed to be a blog on the personal thoughts, observations and inspirations of David Woon, I find that his posts do make me stop and think for a moment about my life, my own thoughts on life matters and about life in general. Reading the blog, I was also introduced to many interesting websites that I have not read before.

What make the blog hard to read are the Christmas multi-colors all over the post(s) and blog that distracts my attention from the real content. Also, I wish that David would update the blog more regularly. As an example, there were only a total of seven posts for 2007. I definitely would enjoy more of David’s deep thoughts if only he would share more of them!

I’ve got a secret for you – it’s now easier than ever to get paid for blogging. This company, Blogging Ads, is offering money if you’ll join their network of bloggers and help them post tiny blog ads onto your personal blog with links to other sites. It’s easy, simple, and a quick way to make some money. I can’t think of any reason not to go and sign up right now.

If you’re a company looking to give your website an extra boost in the search engine rankings then you’ll certainly appreciate how easy it is to advertise on blogs. All you have to do is come up with an ad and Blogging Ads will let their network of bloggers spread the word about your company. Go ahead and check them out to find out what all the buzz is about and you can make some money or promote your company with the click of a mouse.

If you noticed, Blogger has this new feature where we could upload videos now. Whether it works or not, I have yet to try it because I do not have any original video on hand unless it’s porn that my friend sent to me *ahem* Don’t ask me why. Oh yea, I do have a video of my pet but it is so low quality, who wants to watch, anyway?

I wonder if this feature will throw an error when we switch from HTML and WYSIWYG windows like it sometimes does. If you are using it, do let me know.

There are quite a few features that I would like to see on websites that I use frequently, but then I have this fear that changing or adding of codes could actually pull a site down for hours, maybe. Come to think of it, Blogger was down for some time the other day just before this video uploader appeared. Maybe this was the reason?

31st August, 2007, Malaysia’s national day, marks the third annual Blog Day. Blog Day was initiated in 2005 to allow bloggers one day to discover blogs that they have not read before. Being a blogger with multiple blogs, it leaves me no time at all to read blogs apart from those that are on my blogroll. So I guess, I am one of those bloggers who would appreciate setting aside a day to discover blogs besides the heavy weights, and hopefully, I will be able to visit these lesser known blogs more often.

It would be great if I could make new friends, expand my network and most of all, help each other with improving our content, traffic, Alexa score, Technorati rating and most important of all, Google Page Rank.

Having multiple blogs, I certainly appreciate the hard work in building the popularity of each blog. While I prefer having separate blogs to address different niche topics and catering to different groups of readers, getting noticed is not easy especially when attention is divided between all the blogs.

I guess participating in Blog Day would help. What we are required to do is search five blogs that we have never read before and nominate them for Blog Day. Is it wishful thinking to hope that my blog(s) would be nominated for Blog Day, 2007?