29
Congratulations to Rob from Ironblogger! He has won the 2nd flamingo review! Hopefully it will be published tomorrow, though I am going on a trip so it might be delayed.
Gotta scram!
-The Green Flamingo
28
I meant to write this earlier but oh well, read it now or never.
There have been many contests circulating since June, that is when I really noticed a kick in all the contests that were being started.
Since June I have seen a few well run contests, and a few typical ones that are always great but are having almost the same contest as 70 other blogs (don’t ask me why I picked 70). These contests can get annoying as well. Though I do love contests and prizes, there are SOOOO many out there that I don’t have time to join and participate in every one, for there is just no point.
Usually, I would not care that tons of blogs are having contests, but in a certain way I do. See I love to read blogs, be surfing them, comment and get to interact with the author and other readers. When a contest comes up, the calm is disrupted and people will go crazy for the prize. There are a lot of spam comments, a lot of questions, and a lot of worthless and foolish stuff circling the blog. I almost feel like I should participate, but know I don’t have the time or energy to be the top commentator with 80 comments, write 10 blog posts about it and link to all the prizes and all the sponsors. It would just drive me crazy!
Recently, a friend and fellow blogger Rajaie talked about how he hated that so many contests were being started, and I have to agree with him. Though contests are great, they can be a huge annoyance and sometimes you have to lay off the shit and get the gold.
Now we will move on the the real topic of this post, and that is what I qualify as a good contest vs. a bad or unworthy contest.
What makes a contest worth it
Some contests are really worth it to enter, let me share some of the reasons with you. I should tell you, I feel that our friend Ben Patton’s contest will really be worth it, he is giving away a laptop! And here are our 10 good reasons to enter.
I was not sure I would come up with 10, but I edited and got that many. I hope you agree with those, be sure to fill in your answer in the comments.
What makes a contest hit the fan (what makes it suck like hell)
There are a few reasons for you that make your contest terrible.
Now neither of these qualifications really fit anybody, most are average, a lot of recent contests leaning to the bad side, maybe because it is just too small or some other reason. Most contests manage to pull of a good show, not quite like Jon Stewart or Chris Brown but still something that’s ok to waste your time on and win a few prizes.
So I am not saying your little contest is bad, but I am saying that next time you should think before starting a contest, you really have to make it worth it and not pull it out of thin air with a few ad spots, text links, and some reviews. You have to make it more sophisticated and interesting and then bloggers and sheep will come flocking to you like crazy.
I also have another post that I add onto and that adds on to mine, they would work combined I guess, so I should let you stomp on over to Jay at Datmoney and then come back and tell me what you liked of his article telling you 5 reasons why he WON’T sponsor your contest.
I should also tell you again I am thinking of running a contest, have no fear I will have most of the pro reasons in mine. I am looking for sponsors, so if you have a great idea for a prize let me know.
-The Green Flamingo
27
Finally, here is my review that was supposed to be published Saturday, not Tuesday or Wednesday whichever it is now. Enjoy though!
I have known Ben for a long time, somewhere in April when I joined Blog Premiere forum, started reading The University Kid, Mooney Quest, Rob’s Blog (It was really called “make money online”, and now redirects to ironblogger.com which I read as well), and of course Big Ben Patton’s Place. This was the time when there weren’t as many “semi crappy” contests that had advertising, reviews, entrecredits, or other not so great prizes, but it was a time where great blogs were on the rise, big and small, and there was competition to dominate and get your foot in the hold so you will not fall out to join all the other bloggers in the graveyard. Well one of these blogs was Big Ben Patton’s Place.
The title may be “Big Ben Patton’s Place”, but the URL is BenjaminPatton .com. This site was started in a time when names were good as domains, and I guess he has a good domain choice but I would not call it the absolute best. The title is phenomenal though and it has become a great site to be around.
Big Ben Patton delivers great and helpful content, always something new and different, a tool that you can use to your advantage, or the extreme power of something like social networking. You will not be at loss when you look for great and helpful blogging content at Ben’s, what you are looking for it wedged in every post!
The design of Big Ben Pattons’ Place flows well, not carrying you off to far, with a good composition of colors to catch your eye but not give you a headache. Much of the site was by Ben himself, but just check the footer and you will see for yourself.
Recently, Ben has had some new designs and additions to his site, new ads designed, a new header, all for his re-grand opening. These you can see in the picture, and I think the new additions by Forest are very well done and very well implemented, for they really bring out the quality of the site and give the great composition of colors that is not too strong but has some distinguishable tones.
Ben Patton is an aspiring blogger, good designer, and great hotel manager. I wish you luck Ben!
I think I have covered pretty much everything, not much else to say, because it would be similar to the same thing.
I have to warn you, most other reviews will be a little shorter, for some of you I do not know as well, and plus I owed him a little something for some designing work he did for me a few months ago on my old theme. 
I hope everyone liked this review, look out for more, and hope you are chosen! Remember to subscribe so you can be picked to win the free review!
-The Green Flamingo
22
Last night I had a post in mind for very early this morning, unfortunately that did not work out, because I forgot. I might remember later, I almost did, but not quite.
Even though it was an idea for a great post, I think I might have to shift the focus of this blog once more anyway. I am trying to provide quality articles that really help you out or show you something, but today Jason made me notice that I am not always unique in content, because 50 million other bloggers are giving the same information.
I could go with more of an opinion on things for my posts, but it still uses the same topic and that can be very boring. I am trying to find an actual “niche” for this blog, I may stick it onto young entrepreneur and Internet marketing while I blog about blogging, but not about “blogging tips.” I think I have some ideas, I will continue later.
I do not need to list all the upcoming things I might have yet, I am going to have a post encouraging suggestions, though I do highly encourage suggestions on this post as well.
I also want to announce the winner of the review, the first of many I hope, and this weeks winner is…Big Ben Patton of Big Ben Patton’s Place! Look for the review tomorrow!
Also, today I spent a lot of time working on my new site, loking for themes and tweaking them, helping the author to write articles, things like that. See you later!
-The Green Flamingo
21
I have written two top quality articles today besides this, but I did not feel like publishing or finishing the details of either. I decided to go on a post of reviews, though it might go ok.
What is a review?
In the webmaster world, the word review still means review as you know it, only refers to a review of a site/blog. It could be a review of a product, but that would be a product review. The most common thing you will get if you purchase a “review” is a 200-1000 word article describing and “reviewing”(we are getting smart huh?:)) your blog. And, you may have notice I said “purchase,” because of course nothing is free and there is some cost no matter what. You may not have to pay cash, you may not even have to win a contest or subscribe to a blog, maybe you just have to be the first, but if you look at it, that is still a cost.
Today, people will pay a lot for a review, I guess they think they are worth something. I have heard people say like Jason from the University Kid that reviews suck, but it is all an opinion.
Why pay for a review?
You may wonder why you should pay for a review, people figure it is because they have to do work and it is another way to earn money.
What is free to the blogger, may not always be free to you. Though the blogger may not receive money, they might actually ask you to subscribe. Or maybe they do not receive profit, you still might have to do something.
I am wondering why free reviews are not offered more, even if you have to subscribe or comment, I am still in shock that someone thinks they can be abused.
I love to review
I actually love to review things, not always blogs, because I run out of things to talk about, but I really love to critique. Critiquing interior design and architecture are some of my favorite things, and also why I say I love to review. Do you love to review?
I am starting a review “page,” where I might publish the reviews that are selected by email subscribers and win the weekly review.
Ok. Was this a good post or not? Let that swim in your head while you are waiting for the next one in a few hours. I have to a cram a lot in because I was gone and school is starting too. The ones I was writing today are going to be backups, not published very soon, so see you in a few hours!
-Note- yesterday I announced I am offering free reviews for my email subscribers, and the drawing is tomorrow. Let me remind you that you must subscribe today to be on the list tomorrow, so hurry and subscribe!-Note-
Rock on! Subscribe and get a chance to win a free review each week!
The Green Flamingo
07
As I have said a few times I love to review, and a while back I offered some free reviews, nobody took me up on the offer, Usually I do a review of some sort of product, technology, site, and it is all based on my opinion, and is not paid. Today’s review is not “paid” either, but it was won as a top commentator prize. I congratulate Rajaie, for being the top commentator on Green Flamingo in July and winning this review. I have gotten to know Rajaie well through Blog Premiere, his site, and his works.
Rajaie is a 14 year old entrepreneur, not much older than myself, owning a unique blog and by age is set apart from other bloggers. Though most sites belong to 16-20 year olds, Rajaie displays his skills and professionalism through his blog Rajaie Talks, where he gives great blogging tips and very effective methods for improving your blog.
Rajaie Talks combines blogging tips with daily ramblings, having some fun experiments once in a while or a rant or two. I think it continually provides great blogging content that will really boost your blogging, something that is common in the blogosphere but very important.
The stats of Rajaie Talks can be amazing, I have not looked deeply into them but I know he has 10,XXX inbound links according to Yahoo!. I am surprised how well Rajaie has raised his blog, he really seems to know a lot about blogging!
I think Rajaie Talks is a great site, is brings out the best of himself and the way of blogging. Rajaie’s blog is fun to hang around, maybe it does not have the most upbringing design but it has a very strong and supportive community, and I’m sure you will be able to find help there if you need it.
The site itself is clean cut, gentle, and has a cloudy but refreshing feel. When I first visited I was interested, because I have not seen a design quite like this one before.
When you first step in to talk to Rajaie and his friends, you are greeted by a nice logo, some flashy banner ads, subtle blue background, and best of all: useful and effective content. I like the content part, because to me there is not much special about the design, but with his writing you can really learn something.
I think Rajaie Talks is a site well worth visiting to learn and enjoy. Have fun!
I guess I am done with the review, I don’t know what else to add. If you have any tips for future reviews, let me know, when I do paid reviews I will consult with the client to see what they want in it.
See you tomorrow and good luck!
As you may know, I love to review. I love to share my opinions, and I love to see people benefit from ideas and advice I give them. If you would like a review, just contact me (if there are too many, I may have to deny them. They are completely free, maybe in a while I will start charging $$ for them). So, I am introducing you to something I happened to find today: Free Rice.
I think Free Rice is a good program for many reasons, which I will reveal.
How it works – How Free Rice works is that you play a vocabulary game to donate rice. You may wonder how that happens, so we take a look behind the scenes.
There are sponsors, rice companies, food companies, grain companies or whatever that actually give the rice. But to make them do that then you have to get a word synonym correct to donate the rice, and this makes them deliver it (after a certain number of grains have been donated).
How the game works - the game is simple, but difficult. I will give you an example instead of trying to explain.
Indigenous means:
type of tree
native
carriage
wise
You would click on ‘native’ of course, and at the top after finished loading it would say ,”Correct! Indigenous = native.” At the right the little bowl would have little grains of rice in it and on the side it would tell you how much you donate. As you travel through the words the words get harder as your vocab improves. You also are assigned a vocab level, and every few times you get word right the level increases and every time you get a word wrong your level decreases. I have donated over 3,000 grains of rice and reached a level of about 30.
Why I like it – Free rice is helping to raise rice for those who have barely any. This makes me very happy, for I saw pictures of what some families owned all together, some only a few bags or bowls of grain, a table, a shelter, some blankets, and that was pretty much it – for a family of about six. I also like Free Rice because it will improve your vocabulary, which can be a very useful thing. I also like that you do not have to create an account to do this! It will remember you though, if you set it to remember certain things in the options. It is also free!
What I don’t Like – what I don’t like about the program itself is that sometimes the game cheats you. Sometimes there are two words that mean the same thing and only one is right. Some of the words are very confusing, and I hate it when I get a word wrong.
Review – I like the site, the project or program, and the site design. It incorporates green into the design and up close of rice. The site is laid neatly, and not hard to navigate around. The project was craftily created, having people have fun and learn something while donating rice to those who have none. It is not one of those things where you pay some money to “help feed this family type of thing.”
How you can help – you can join in this for a little competition, see how many grains of rice you can donate or what level you can get up to. This will help feed someone who barely eats in a week what you eat in three bites.
This is not something I was paid to do, I just felt like sharing this program with you.
24
It is time for a little interior designing again for I am so lazy I have not been working much on my coming site, green flamingo designs. Maybe that is because I am busy keeping this website’s ass alive, or maybe another reason. I apologize that I was not writing over those days, well I did write, but not that much. Now I am trying to stay constant (AGAIN) but something always seems to block my path. So anyway, I thought I would introduce you to Eurway.com!
Basic over view – the basic overview, probably when I link to them on the other site, this will be the little description. If you are looking for some semi expensive, and you have that money to spend, head on over to eurway.com and check out what they have!
Why I like it – Well, why is Eurway.com so good? How did it catch my eye? I will first tell you how I came across it. In the mail, there was this FAB magazine or whatever, Eurway’s magazine. I saw what I like in there. There were specific themes maybe for a certain page, and everything was not just abstract furniture. Things fit together nicely. After I looked at the price of some of these though, it was a little different, but their furniture is still just as good.
Lucky for you – If you check out the site and like it, there is a sale until May 27th! You can get things on sale (Really on sale! A $500 thing in the $300 range)! So why don’t you go take a look at the sale section. I would!
Furniture is great. Site? – The furniture is fine for me, but the site gets on my nerves. No matter where I go I will be picky about how a website looks, and how easy it is to navigate one. I became apparent to me that in the sidebar some of that print is barely readable! Now the problem I have with eurway.com is the navigation. It is hard to get around. Things aren’t organized well in my opinion. Once you go into a category, you have to click other things in that same category, then once you click there a some furniture or accessories shown, but the only way to get back is to either go into that first category, then into the sub category again, o press back. I hate pressing the back button, I don’t know why, but it is annoying. I am also annoyed that eurway, with a professional website doesn’t take the time to link back to that other page.
So, I still recommend you to Eurway, but if you want something expensive on a hard to navigate site.
For your information – this is NOT a paid review, I just decided to review this because it seemed worth it. I am not advertising either, I am just showing you one of the resources I will use to find furniture, and relaying that on to you with information I found. I would be happy to review your site, most likely for free, so if you are interested just leave a comment.
30
Wordpress 2.5 was supposedly released 1 day ago, or yesterday, and the chances of me looking to see what new things were added were very low. But I did. When I attempted to download it, and when it was done, I didn’t notice much change. The new version of wp has been worked on for six months and even has full screen editing. Click here for the original post by Matt.
Some new features of Word-press 2.5:
The dashboard is said to have been cleared some, the things that were thought most important were the only ones kept. The dashboard also carries handy widgets.
You can now upload a whole load of something, instead of doing it the painful way of waiting and never knowing how long it will take, and the worst part, having to do it one at a time. With wordpress 2.5 you can do more than one upload at a time and watch the progress of each one.
Then of course there are the basic upgrades, really great I’d say. Better searching, tag management, a password strength meter, all those are nice features.
For multi-user blogs, wp automatically locks the autosave when someone else is writing so that they don’t overwrite each other and you lose hours of work.
Now some of the upgrades you have to take a while to download and install will automatically download and install themselves, though if you don’t want something then you can stop it from doing that.
For the photo thing, you can now have people comment on individual pictures.
After this it is mostly developer features, such as salted passwords and secure cookies. Things to keep it safe.
I think that this is a great wordpress update. I think it will prosper especially since the version 2.3 has already had 1.92 million downloads. Wordpress 2.5 is claimed to be a major milestone. And actually I do know how to get it working. You may want to read these upgrade instructions. I hope you enjoy!
