I don’t usually write about me directly on this blog, as I don’t believe that a ‘diary’ would be of any great interest to others. However, I have to share a little story.
Unlike the west, where you sign a job contract and it’s ongoing until on side or the other terminates it, most jobs in China are signed for a specific time, usually one year or two year contracts.
So it’s been the case with my jobs here. My two year contract with my employer is due to lapse in June. Last month they sent me an email and asked me if I would like to stay on for another couple of years.
Whilst this job, like most, has its ups and downs, I’ve generally enjoyed it here, so I sent an email back saying ‘yes’.
It came as a shock to me then when, just the other day, I was handed a letter formal letter saying they wouldn’t be signing me on again. I went to the office to, politely, as why this change of heart.
The HR manager said: ‘You said you would be leaving.’
I was confused, and said so. She showed me my email.
OMG, I’m an idiot. I had written:
“…I would like to resign.”
What I actually meant to write was re-sign.
For the sake of a hyphen, I managed to put myself out of a job!! I like to pride myself on my writing, but this time I really screwed up! I can’t believe I made such a stupid mistake.
Anyway, I’m re-negotiating. Hopefully I’ll be able to stay on.
At the moment I’m busy bashing my head against the wall.
Tags: Oops
It’s time. And a doubly happy Friday for me, as I will be on holiday for three weeks for the Chinese new year! Wooo!
I love pics of hot Japanese gi… Oh, wait.
Kid discipline #2. You’re not coming out of there until you learn to swim.
Tags: Lethargic Friday
I publish ads with Project Wonderful on here and some of my other sites, which usually brings in a few dollars a month (some of which I use to advertise on other sites myself).
On Feb 1st PW updated their system with a change that I am still uncertain about. They added regions to all advert boxes.
What this means is that you will see adverts depending upon where you are in the world. It’s split up into: US, Canada, Europe and Everywhere else.
So if you are viewing a site in the EU, you may well see a different advert as someone viewing the same site in the US.
What does this mean for advertisers and publishers?
Well for advertisers they can target their market more accurately, which I guess is a good thing. It may also be a bit cheaper (see below).
For publishers it may be a mixed blessing, depending upon the traffic to your site.
What it does mean is that for every ad box you have, you essentially now have four separate slots. Hence you have three new areas to bid on without doing anything, which in turn means you could have four different ads running in the same box. If you have a busy site, this might mean x4 revenue!
For smaller sites though, what it may mean is that bids that were once competing against each other, and thus driving up the price, are now split over different regions, and not competing. Thus you could end up with four bids of .01c rather than one bid of, say, 10c.
It also means the stats are a little harder to read, but possibly more informative. It also means a publisher can’t see the status of his/her ads without going to the PW site.
I’m still undecided if this change is good or bad for me. I’m not a site that attracts thousands of bids, so it may make me slightly worse off.
Time will tell.
Tags: advertising, Project Wonderful
A couple of ‘fake’ ‘Google’ sites have popped up in China recently. One is a kind of Google search engine ripoff, and the other is supposedly a YouTube VPN tunnel site, though it didn’t work when I tried it.
Goojje.com has a definite Google look, though it’s a bit more cluttered, and it also includes a BaiDu (Chinese search engine) logo as well. I tried it, and it seems to work well enough, though it’s all in Chinese. (The little colored dots underneath the box are what you see in the Chinese Google page).
YouTubeCn.com seems to be a kind of VPN site that reaches the real YouTube. As you may know, China has been blocking YT for months now (much to my annoyance), and this is a nice idea. However, though you can search for videos and see the thumbnails, the videos throw up an error message when you try to play them. I suspect Google has ‘fixed’ it!
Ah well, I’ll just have to continue using TuDou.com, which is the Chinese version.
January’s not been the best month for my blogging activities.
I’ve been busy at work and China’s increased blocking and Firewall policies have made it harder for me to visit other blogs. Dropping a hundred ECs and clicking the 50 Adgitize ads is frustratingly slow. If it keeps up I’ll either have to adjust my clicking/dropping habits or maybe invest in a paid VPN, which is an extra expense I’d rather not have to do.
Adgitize has been crazy as well, which definitely impacted my incoming traffic too, though it has made me think about alternatives, which isn’t a bad thing. I still managed to make my USD14 back though, even with the missed days. So that was a bit unexpected.
Project Wonderful has also been slower this month, though that could be as a result of the less traffic coming in, which makes my site less attractive to advertisers. It’s a vicious circle!
Anyway, my top 10 droppers for this month, according to Entrecards statistics are below. Man Over Board pointed out recently that these sometimes don’t seem to reflect drops with 100% accuracy, so I can only apologize to any one who has dropped on me diligently and yet fails to appear here.
Man Over Board 31
Buy-Tees.net T-Shirts 31
Art Shout 31
Art By Paul Baines 31 Sorry Paul, China’s blocked you!
Business Sphere 31
Frelia’s Random Thoughts 31 China blocked you too Frelia, but today you seem to be reachable again. Go figure.
Laane Loves 31
Just One Touch 31
The Way I See It 31
Make Money Online 31
Some other blogs that seem to be newly blocked (that I’ve noticed) are:
NYSilly, Creative Cafe (re-blocked after it was unblocked for a while!) and Slightly Sarcastic. Various other blogs seem to be blocked randomly for a day. :s
Tomorrow a post on my Revu Blog, so see you back here in a couple of days.
Tags: roundup
Just lately CMFAds have been adding new services and improving their product range. ‘Fighting back’ if you will.
Frankly I think this is nice to see. Previously I considered CMF ads a reasonable product, although without a real USP. However, with the addition of their Spikes (mentioned in a previous post), and now their USD10 network campaigns, I feel they’re coming into their own. No doubt they can only have benefited from the carnage that Adgitize has been experiencing too.
I know that Cornyman and Eli from Business Sphere have already mentioned CMFs new network campaigns, so they’ve both beaten me to the punch. However, that’s not going to stop me jumping on the bandwagon! lol.
First, the product. CMFAd’s network ad is simply your ad appearing all over the CMF network (assuming the blog owners accept it). Previously you had to choose blogs to advertise on, which is fine but a bit cumbersome. Now you submit an ad and off it goes! Wooo!
It also benefits publishers too. I’ve seen my incoming ad numbers increase on all my blogs with CMF ad spots on.
To try it out, I’m running this blog on a Network ad as well. After about 4 days running, the stats for my ad (taken from the CMF dashboard) are:
Chinaren’s Blog Pageviews: 49,302; CPM: $0.20 Clicks: 77; CPC: $0.13
…so whilst it’s not as many clicks as, say, Adgitize (when it’s working!) there’s a reasonable rate of clicks. I’ve certainly seen my ad on quite a few sites as I’ve been doing my blog rounds.
I’ll keep you updated.
As an aside, Adgitize has been up and down the last week. As I write this it’s down again. 
As another aside, my apologies if I’ve not dropped on you recently. The last few weeks dropping/clicking as become a real chore as China’s new ‘Great Firewall’ policies hit your browser if you click on anything they don’t like. It makes life extremely difficult, to say the least, and I’ve had to rely on a VPN more and more.
Tags: CMFads
Once again, Friday rolls around.
Sometimes you have to go to extremes to get a signal…
Don’t touch that wire! It will cost money! Oh, and you’ll die.
Tags: Lethargic Friday
When I lived in the south there was a supermarket in our apartment blog, which was darned convenient. It wasn’t huge, but it had most of the basics, so we often popped down there for supplies.
One thing that I disliked about the place though was the service, or lack of. If you picked something up that had some issue, like the wrong sticker, or no sticker, then you may as well just forget it. The staff had no clue what to do.
It wasn’t their fault though, they were not trained.
My friend knew the owner, and had the inside scoop on this. Apparently the supermarket just hired young women from the country, who were super cheap. They never gave them any more than the most rudimentary training because, in the words of the manager, “staff turnover was too high”.
Really? Imagine that.
This is something you see a lot of in the country. The staff turnover is a symptom, not the cause. If they hired people who were vaguely competent, paid them a reasonable wage, and gave them decent training, maybe the staff turnover would be lower!
Apparently this deep and complex logic was beyond them.
Of course, this ‘thinking’ isn’t restricted to China. I’ve seen more than a little in the west too.
Tags: training
I’ve been so busy today I’ve not had time to think of a suitable post! Adgitize is at least back up, though there are problems registering clicks and so on.
If you’re clicking on Adgitize to get points today, make sure they’re registering and you’re not wasting your time!
A more comprehensive post tomorrow. (Not a guarantee!)
Tags: Adgitze
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