Pownce tee provided by Startups Schwag.

As you already know, I’m a big fan of the 2.0 social nets. I was an early adopter of the big three 2.0s: Facebook, Twitter, and Pownce. (We shall not mention myspace. I like to pretend that it doesn’t exist). So far I’ve maintained active accounts in all three, but lately I find my ability to keep up witty repartee a la hotdogladies on all three almost impossible.

After a while, I find my tweets turning more into “What are you putting on your toast this morning?” than intelligent commentary of the technerdy things I’m doing. Plus, with the audience of these three nets differing so dramatically it’s not really appropriate to copy and paste or feed your status from one soc net to the others.

Twitter’s audience is uber geeky, from the tech, design, and blogging elite, to the politically active, to the dot com moguls. Anyone who is anyone on the www is on Twitter. Pownce seems to draw in a mixed bunch of users. For me, Pownce’s audience seems quite diverse, somewhere in between Twitter and Facebook with a huge teenage population who love youtube clips. Wowie! And the behemoth Facebook seems to attract everyone, including grandparents, ex-flings, your 9th grade English teacher, your arch nemisis, your 12 year-old Turkish penpal, and that annoying kid that ate Beefaroni out of old camping thermos everyday for lunch… Seriously, who isn’t on Facebook? I can only think of one person I know who isn’t on Facebook.

So if you are to keep the peace between your geeky Twitter iFriends and your tech-illiterate Facebook friends and your uber trendy Pownce friends you probably shouldn’t feed your daily WP plug-in tweets to your other nets. I find that it confuses people and then I have to explain things to people who think that Google is the internet and then I get annoyed and then bored and then I fall asleep in mid-sentence. And people seem to not like it when you fall asleep during dinner time discussions. Oops. Plus, with so many people on multiple nets, you don’t want to be double, or triple posting stuff to the same people.

What’s the solution then you lazy smart arse? Well, I think if you want to maximize your networking and community building opportunities you really need all three. I feel the same way with IM programs. You really need Adium, iChat, and Skype to communicate to all your iPeeps. But, in order to minimize the amount of time and effort you need pick one 2.0 net as your home base. This is where the majority of your updates and networking happens.

For me it’s Twitter. I have the most contacts on twitter and find it to be the best resource for tech updates, random geekiness, and general good times, including drunk tweets (:p) But, I must say there are a lot of fun times on Pownce. The ability to share photos, vids, and muxtapes is pretty awesome. I do think that Pownce is underrated, and I think in the next year it we will see it really catch on. But for some reason I don’t think that the Twitterati will ever abandon the little bird, no matter how many times they see him upside down or robotized or 404ed.

What’s your 2.0 home base? What do you find good or bad about this trifecta of 2.0? Do you use Twitter, Pownce, and Facebook? Opinions? Thoughts? Or comments on my drumming skills?

PS. Why am I sat in front of an uber kit? Kind of random isn’t it? More sweet photos and a special DIY photo blog from my latest shoot with uber Vancouver drummer, Jesse Godin this week!

Mostly Lisa Backend advertising only $100,000. Any takers?

One of the hot topics discussed at the first Vancouver Tazzu Wordpress Camp was blog monetization. Guest speaker, John Chow, talked a lot about how much money he makes from ads on his blog… a staggering $100,000 a month. Yep! His side bar ads go for $500-1000 a piece. That’s some serious monetization!

And anyone who is a serious blogger will know that good, original content does not just happen. It takes hours and hours of time and resources. Time and resources that you are probably taking out of your work and play time. I think every blogger gets to the point where they want some a wee bit of monetary compensation for their blogging time. But… any blogger who also places blog design, content, and their readers ahead of monetary gain will find it really hard to slap up a load of spammy, crappy, ugly ads all over their beautiful blog.

As you can see, I don’t use Google Adsense. Why? Cuz Googly Ads look crappy and they annoy me personally, and let’s be honest, I’m the person who spends the most time on this blog. Gah! So sick of my face. It’s huge. Also, Google Ads don’t make any money if people don’t click the ads, so you have to embed them right into your posts. For me, it’s just not worth it. I want my readers to come here and be entertained, not to be sold Viagra. We all get enough of that junk in our inboxes to last a life time.

So what are the options? Well, I’ve opted for sponsored sidebar ads. I only put up ads of sites I respect or feel are of an interest to my readers. I don’t feel that they are intrusive or take away from my blog so I’m happy. And so far my sponsors have received a of link love so they are happy.

Another option is OIO Publisher, a direct sales platform, which John Chow swears by. Basically the company finds the advertisers and you just choose the ads you want, customize the size and position of the ad and badabing you’ve earned some $$$. Unfortunately the plugin costs $37 dollars, but hopefully you will make that money back pronto. You can view a live demo of the OIOpublisher Direct Pro WP Plugin. I will take it for a test ride in the next week and let you know how it works out.

I’d love to hear what you think on this topic. Does monetization ruin a blog’s integrity? Are Google Ads the spawn of Satan? Or are you like, yeah money! If you are a blogger that has monetized your blog, it would be great to hear about your successes, failures, and experiences. I courage you write a blog post about it or leave a comment.

PS. Contact me re: $100,000 adspace asap. Kevin Rose has already offered $105,000 to Digg my butt.