Are you a full time blogger who’s having a hard time explaining to your spouse what your occupation – blogging is about and how it works? Or you’re having a hard time explaining why you need to spend a lot of your time in front of the computer or mobile device? A blogger friend of mine recently shared his related predicament which reminded me of an article I featured on my Weekend Roundup #59 entitled “5 Things Your Spouse Won’t Understand About Blogging“.

In case you missed it or if you haven’t come across this article yet, I’m sharing with you some points featured in this article.

1. Why you spend so much time blogging

It’s hard to explain why frequently updated content is important or why you need to keep your community apprised of the latest news and products in your niche. Not every spouse understands having to strike while the creative itch is happening or needing to get stuff written down while it’s fresh in your head. Try explaining to someone who doesn’t quite understand that you need to update every day even while on vacation because you don’t want to lose traffic and revenue, or cause your community to go elsewhere for their fix.

2. Blogging is more than typing some words and hitting “publish”

Spouses (spice?) don’t always understand how there’s more to blogging than just typing. We have to analyze traffic, keywords, and more. We have to research advertisers and keep on top of the latest news and trends in our niches. We have to visit other blogs and comment to share community. The truth is, blogging is a full time job even though most bloggers aren’t able to put in a full time effort.

3. Spending time on the social networks is part of blogging

Yes honey, I really AM working when I’m on FaceBook and Twitter. Though I began blogging long before Twitter, it’s been an immense help in growing my blog network. Social networks give me a chance to interact with members of my community, meet others, and find new clients and advertisers. Social networks also put me in touch with other like-minded people with whom I’m launching or discussing new projects.

To read the complete article, check out 5 Things Your Spouse Won’t Understand About Blogging.

Aside from the things pointed out in the article, I think its also important for blogger spouses to understand that “consistency” is a very important aspect of blogging. In order for a blogger to achieve that, he/she must be able to stick to a certain “posting” schedule which is one of the reasons why your spouse is frequently in front of the computer, blogging several times a week.

If your spouse is having a hard time understanding blogging and why you spend so much time on the computer/Internet, I think you should let him/her read this article. Or you can share it with your blogger friends who are in this kind of predicament. I know there some spouses who are very understanding with their bloggger husbands/wives, so this article doesn’t pertain or apply to you. And for those who are still single and not yet married, you can bookmark this for future reference. Hehe

How about you guys, is your spouse having a hard time understanding blogging? What are other aspects of blogging do you have a hard time explaining to your spouse? We’d love to hear your thoughts or experiences.

[image source: Blaugh.com]

Here’s how the old login page looks like:

Here’s how the new login page looks like:

The new login page looks much better and provides a simpler Adsense login page interface.

While reading my RSS feeds, I found out from ProBlogger that aside from the new login page, Google Adsense has also introduced a new type of ad called “expandable ads” and announced it on their blog.

We’re excited to introduce to you expandable ads, a new type of ad that can appear on your pages. Expandable ads are rich media ads that can expand beyond the original size of the ad unit, following a user-initiated action. This creates more real estate for the ad, allowing for more interaction from interested users. For instance, expandable ads may stream a movie trailer, show video game clips, or display various views of an item for sale.

Expandable ads will be served as third-party ads and will be created by Google-certified rich media vendors for the top display advertisers in our network. And like other Google ads, you’ll earn based on whether the expandable ads on your site are priced on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) basis. Keep in mind that you’ll generate earnings from CPC expandable ads when a user visits the advertiser’s landing page, and not when a user simply clicks to expand the ad.

As of the moment, expandable ads are only currently available to a select number of advertisers in the U.S. who can bid on specific sites where they want their ads to appear. However, all publishers can accept expandable ads regardless of their location. I still have to see an expandable ad in action and I expect to see it anytime soon in either my blog or one of the blogs I regularly visit.

What do you guys think of the new Google Adsense login page? Do you like it or do you prefer the previous one? How about the new expandable ads, what are your thoughts on it?

Om Malik, the founder of Giga Omni Media, Inc. and executive editor for the technology blog GigaOM published an article yesterday revealing to his readers that he recently had a heart attack.

I had a heart attack on Dec. 28. I was able to walk into the hospital for treatment that night and have been recovering here ever since. With the support of my family and my team, I am on the road to a full recovery. I am going to be OK.

It’s good to know that Om Malik is doing okay and is recovering well. The recent heart attack had something to do with his lifestyle and diet. Why? Because he admits to smoking, drinking coffee, alcohol and eating fatty foods. He could’ve avoided it if he was more careful with his diet but everything happens for a reason. Although he learned his lesson late, better late than never right? Who knows, if this didn’t happen maybe he wouldn’t have realized that his health was important and that he should be careful with what he eats and drinks.

We can learn something from his experience and this is a good a reminder for us bloggers that our health is important. This is especially true for those who have blogging as a profession, for probloggers like Darren Rowse, John Chow, my kababayans Abe Olandres and J. Angelo Racoma just to name a few. If they get sick, they can’t blog and if they can’t blog, there’d be no content in their blog. No content, nothing for the readers to read, no site traffic, no income. You don’t want that to happen, right guys? As the saying goes, “Health is wealth” and I say “Stay healthy, stay wealthy”. Hehe

To Om Malik, hope you have a speedy recovery and God bless!

Note:
If you want to send your get well messages to Om Malik, you can do that by leaving a comment in this post.

Are you cautious with your diet and lifestyle? What measures are you taking to keep yourself healthy? Please share your thoughts, experiences and comments. We’d love to hear them.

For Filipino owned blogs, among those that were penalized in the initial update were Yugatech, Retzwerx, Jozzua and Codamon just to mention a few. The reason? Most if not all, were brought about by paid or sponsored text link ads that didn’t use the nofollow attribute.

In the recent Google PageRank update, my blog JaypeeOnline dropped from a PR5 to a PR4. I thought that Google was done updating pageranks but apparently I was wrong because I received a comment yesterday from one of my regular readers, FruityOaty informing me that my blog just dropped to a PR3! I was surprised and disappointed but I couldn’t do anything. The only reason I can think of for my blog to get penalized was having sitewide TLA ads on my sidebar. The thing is I even removed the ads even before the initial update and I had all my featured links use the nofollow attribute. I guess it was too late. Anyways, I’ll try to file for a reinclusion at Google Webmaster Tools and hope they accept it.

I agree with the comment left by Markku on PinoyMoneyTalk’s post about the recent Google update.

The need for traditional traffic building is here again, emphasizing that content is still king.

Content is still king. This is a good reminder for established bloggers and a lesson for those who are starting. Fortunately for me, my blog traffic hasn’t been affected by the loss or drop in pagerank.

Btw, PinoyMoneyTalk has a list of several notable Filipino sites and blogs that were affected by the recent Google Pagerank update.

What do you think about the recent Google PageRank updates? Do you think Google will update PageRanks Did your blog lose or gained pagerank during the recent updates? Share your thoughts!

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• Shoemoney talks about why Google owns the world and the unofficial $200 Google PC.
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• Great tip on how to fix blurry icons in Ubuntu.
• Subscribe to Everything Eli’s rss feed and you could win $50.
• Help Area presents the easiest HTML guide for beginners.
• Comments + Luv = CommentsLuv. A good way of appreciating your readers and visitors who leave comments on your blog.
• How to install WordPress locally on your computer. A step by step guide by Techie Girl.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this weekly feature or if you want to suggest a certain link or post for next week’s roundup, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Enjoy your weekend everyone!