Posted by Raul on May 31, 2011
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I was standing at the bus stop, waiting for my wife who was coming from I don’t remember where.
The old woman came to me. She was short and clearly overweight; wearing plenty of make-up and a short dress that attempted to make her look sexy, yet the intention wasn’t achieved.
“Do you want some action?” She said to me, and it took me a couple of seconds to realize what the proposal was.
“I’m waiting for my wife”
“But in the meantime…we can go there” She pointed to an old house around the corner. There were several women like her, some in a window, others standing in the street, waving hands to males passing by.
“She is pregnant; I have to be here to help her”
“How long is she pregnant?”
“Six months”
“So you have been without a woman for a while”
“I’ll wait for her” I tried to give her my best smile.
She looked at me for a moment without saying another word. There was strangeness in her eyes, and I believe some sadness in her face.
She looked at me for a while without saying another word, then, with sad eyes and a very low voice tone she said: “Don’t go there, they might rob you” pointing to the other women; and without another word she turned around and left, walking in a slow pace in the direction of the old house.
Sadness came to me at that moment, feeling for maybe loneliness in that old woman, working the days for some money. I have never been able to forget those sad eyes and the tired walk of a woman that seemed to find herself in the wrong place of life.
Raul
Posted by Raul on March 9, 2010
Reading several blogs I noticed the amount of publicity the blogger have in every page. It seems like a good way to make some money out of the time spent bloggin, but I wonder, is it really worth?
As you might have noticed I don’t have any publicity in my blog and the reason is simply I don’t have a clue about how it is done and, more important, if it really makes any money at all.
In a job I had several years ago there was a guy who needed more money so he had three full time and one part time jobs; needless to say he didn’t perform in any of those since he had to spend time sleeping in each one of them, and the rest of the time he was too tired to really do something. I thought if he needed more money he should have a job that pays more per hour than more jobs at the same pay rate.
With ads in blogs I heard you get paid cents every time someone clicks in one of the ads in your pages, so it seems that having a hundred thousand places where people click in ads, at cents the click, the money collected should be good (Google’s business), but for the one with one blog it’ll be no business at all (bloggers).
For the blogger it could be a good deal only if he/she has thousands of visitors a day so even a small percentage of them clicking those ads will still generate some money, but the amount of blogs out there, in relation to the amount of people reading them, considering the amount of time that people spend reading and clicking doesn’t seem to give a good number.
Seen in a different way; if there were only ten blogs in the net for all the people who read, comment and click ads it probably would be an amazing deal, but for the amount of blogs that really are…
Professional bloggers with a big number of followers probably makes good money with ads (I think) but that would be a small “elite” of people while the big majority would be just making Google’s business.
It is my opinion that if no real money is to be made with ads, then why annoy readers with them when they take the time to visit and read a blog, and as I mention before, since I don’t have ads in my blog, I don’t know how much money is generated (in reality, not what Google say)
So, for those of you who have ads in your blogs, let me ask you: Is it worth? How much money do you make in reality? Is it worth the time spent putting ads, having a specific theme that allows ads, etc? Let me know the truth.
Raul
Posted by Raul on February 15, 2010
Since this blog is fairly new (less than four months, from November 04, 2009) I visit the Pros to learn and find tips about the craft, so to learn about blogging, English, writing, etc.
One of the tips I read is about getting to be known, and for that matter a blogger was recommending to visit and leave comments (with a link) in at least 100 other blog posts everyday.
One hundred!
Then I read in another blog a complain about people leaving very insensitive comments that clearly show the commenter didn’t even read the post and showed no concern for the feelings of the blogger.
No wonder why!
I won’t deny that one of the many reasons I started this blog was about the possibility of some day making money out of it, but the main one is about communicating with other people. This blog is becoming the line that connects my mind to the outside world; I tell my thoughts with my fingers now (no, not that finger gesture! 
)
So what happens when some people, in the intention of blogging for profit, start commenting in other’s people’s blogs? No surprise there’s so much spam instead of genuine comments (so far my ratio of comments/spam is 46 to 277, or 6.02) and if it wasn’t for the spam filtering program I would be crazy by now (thank you akismet!)
At the other hand, one hundred comments? How they do that! I cannot make more that three comments per hour after reading the post a couple of times (sometimes), just to make sure I understood the concept explained (English is my second language with no formal training), then writing something that not only applies to the post, but also try to contribute to the general idea presented; then checking my spelling and grammar before clicking the “add comment” button (and I still make mistakes after that!)
So, if the idea is to be a honest commenter and blogger, then 100 comments seems a complicated number and if the idea is to make money out of the blog as soon as possible, then those 100 comments had to be insensitive (quantity over quality), but then, those 100 comments go to prison (akismet) and never see the daylight again, so what’s the point of spamming; no links left behind in other blogs anyway.
Many “comments” I receive are like: “gfstrjxvftdre tfdregysff gftrojgfs gdftr” so I believe those are not real comments, unless they are written in a language I don’t know about.
Obviously I prefer to receive comments that complement the idea presented and contribute to make it bigger, better, or give the reasons why I am wrong in my concepts, so I learn something new and have the chance to grow a little more.
Those are the principles under which I try to leave comments in other blogger’s posts; and that’s why it takes so much time, which in turn guide this blog into a personal expression and communication channel rather than a business venue.
But the problem remains with spam and the amount of people blogging for money, not for blogging.
Fortunately I’ve found many excellent blogs that I follow and comment when I have something worth to say. Reading them I’ve been learning many things about this “infecting” craft called blogging.
Now, since you are a more experienced blogger (sure you’ve been around more than four months, right?) let me ask you a couple of questions:
-What is your take in the whole comment idea?
-Do you get lots of spam? What’s your ratio comments/spam?
Raul
