I promise this post isn’t some kind of hillbilly, Social Security check scam, but rather a great contest, (why the heck don’t MY contests work?), from Court over at CourtneyTuttle.com. All you have to do is guess the earnings, within $1, of his blog for the month of May and he will give you his paycheck. Hello. He’s giving away his hard-earned blogging money. This is what you do:

1. Make a guess! Link to his homepage with the text ‘make money online $1.00?, replacing the $1.00 with the amount of your guess. My guess is: make money online $347.60.
2. Leave this link to the rules page intact.
3. Use his contact page to confirm your entry by letting him know (make sure to include the URL of your post)!

Also, a special rule until midnight tonight, May 20th MDT, you will be allowed to make 2 guesses, after this date only 1 guess is allowed. So, let’s see, my second guess is… hmmm… I am so horrible at contests because I never win, but how about, make money online $324.10. I could really use the money, but to whomever wins, congratulations.

I wasn’t even aware this site existed until I opened an email from the owner, telling me a post I had written, Dirty Dancing, 20 Years Later had won an award. The premise of this blog, The Rising Blogger, is to award blog posts, rather than entire blogs- meaning, yes they really do read your blog. How do I know? Because they had to go back 5 pages in order to reach the post that won. I like the idea of individual posts being awarded, simply because it’s the posts which make up a blog, right? Someone can have a crappy blog and win an award based on the name of the blog or blog owner alone. But to win for a post, (or several posts, you can win more than one award from this site), now that means more than anything.

I have been mulling this over for several months now, mostly due to the fact so many advertisers, (if you write reviews and paid posts), either require, or prefer those with their own domains. My personal opinion is- it shouldn’t matter where your blog is hosted, as long as you have good, consistent content and reader interaction- then it’s worth an advertiser’s time and money. However, I also believe everyone who blogs deserves a fair shot and should not be excluded, hence the reasoning behind the contest. I have a lot of space available, both bandwith and disk usage through DreamHost, not to mention the fact I can have unlimited domains, MySql databases etc., the only thing I would be paying for is the registration of the domain name chosen. A value of $9.95 for an entire year. Plus, I would set up a WordPress blog, help you get used to the new blogging platform, install any necessary plugins, (you can find lists everywhere, and I’d add those that I use), and help the winner import their posts into the database. If I were to charge someone for all of the work it would total $50+. In order to enter the contest I request one thing: Submit a short, 50-100 word paragraph telling me why you deserve the free hosting/domain registration. If it’s for paid posts/reviews, because you otherwise couldn’t afford it.. anything. I will then set up a page on this blog and allow other readers read the posts, which will be numbered and add a poll widget to the sidebar. Your name nor your blog will be known to anyone but me- this way the voting is a little more fair and people aren’t just voting for their friends. The statement with the most votes wins and I will announce the winner in a post, along with a link to your current blog, as well as a link to your new blog once everything is set. The submission deadline will be one week from tonight at 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time. Once I have all of them added to a page then I will announce the time limit for voting. To submit your paragraph, simply click on the “Contact Me” button at the top of my site, choose “Contest Submission” as the subject and it will be sent to me. Remember- no one but myself will know who sent what and I will not be voting. I want to keep this as fair as possible. So, start thinking on why you deserve everything above and may the best blogger win!

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask- you can do this through my contact form as well.

There is not a single blogger in the grand blogosphere who does not want to increase readership. They do all the right things, provide good, consistent content, engage with readers, join social networking sites and comment on other blogs-but for some reason their reader base stays the same. With so many blogs forming every day, it can be difficult to let readers know, “Hey, I just updated, come read!” What about offering readers a choice to receive a blog email when your site is updated? I have tried such services in the past with mixed results. In fact, when I first tested one service over a year ago, it took two full days before my so-called “updated” email to be sent. There is a new service on the block promising to overtake the competition by offering personalized, spam-compliant, reader opt-in, (double opt-in to be exact, just to make sure the person really wants to receive email updates), email updates for your blog.

The service, Zookoda is simple. You sign up for an account, place a small piece of HTML code on your blog, allowing readers to sign up in order to receive email updates and well, that’s it. The service is free and full of customizable features. A summary of new posts will be sent in the email- the information is pulled from your blogs feed, (Zookoda supports RSS v0.91, 0.92, 1.0 and 2.0, Atom 1.0, 2.0 and OPML and rdf file formats), and then sent to those who have signed up to receive the notifications. As the blog and subscription owner, you have full control over when updates are sent, how the emails are formatted, (templates are available, you can even customize the look yourself) and what information your subscribers receive.

For me, since I try to interact with my readers on a more personal level, the ability to customize everything down to how the email is formatted is a huge plus. I think as a reader, I would like to know the person behind the blog has taken the time to make sure the readers enjoy the experience and not see the email as something else to pass over or delete and the fact if a subscriber no longer wants to receive updates, his or her email address can be removed from the list. I have yet to try the service, although I do see the potential in building and maintaining a strong readership. What do you think?