Comments on: Startup Goals for 2009

By: How long will side effects last on prozac.

How long will side effects last on prozac. — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:04:08 +0000

Prozac by mail….

Generic prozac. Prozac dosages. Prozac nation….

By: Alvaro

Alvaro — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:03:49 +0000

Thanks for the answer, Paul. As someone else said, I am amazed because your blog has nearly no advertising. The 3+ years of (good) content is a fact that can’t be discussed (I’ve benn reading you for almos t a year, but have hardly comment).

Congratulations for everything: your blog, being a start-up entrepeneur and those trully deserved revenues.

By: Thomas England

Thomas England — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:50:30 +0000

Ahh! Interesting.

Good luck! It appears to be a very useful tool for bloggers.

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 07:34:16 +0000

“Does it only interface with wordpress?” – Skribit works on any website. It’s essentially just a widget embed code for integration.

By: Aaron Eiche

Aaron Eiche — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:25:14 +0000

I think that visitors to blogs are interested in the content, but also the style of writing and the approach that the author makes. Skribit provides a method of structured interaction between blogger and audience. As you said, Paul’s audience likes what he writes about, but Skribit allows him to take narrow his focus. He may look at the suggestions provided and find that his readers really like unix stuff, DIY computers, or web programming commentary. Now he knows that his planned series about game playing on a Vista equipped Dell box may not go over as well.

When I look at Skribit, I don’t see it as a tool for people who don’t know what to write about, I see it as a tool for people who don’t know what to write about *next*.

By: Thomas England

Thomas England — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:10:39 +0000

Amazing blog!

Hopefully things will start looking up for you.

However, I don’t understand the purpose of Skribit.

In order to get suggestions, people need to visit your blog. If people visit your blog it’s for a reason, they’re interested in what you write. If they’re interested in what you write, why would you have “writers bloc” when you have frequent visitors. I don’t think anyone here visits your blog because “Oh it’s paul stamatiou!” they visit the blog because they like what you write about (technology).

I dunno, it’s one of the better ideas I’ve heard. Does it only interface with wordpress?

Good luck!
Tom

By: Charles Ravndal

Charles Ravndal — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 07:52:02 +0000

Thank you very very much!!!

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:38:32 +0000

Hi Charles – the tab isn’t a live Skribit offering just yet but I’ve just emailed you your embed code. It should be live on skribit along with some other tweaks in a week.

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:34:09 +0000

I have similar thoughts of Plinky – same space, very different solution. Plinky is not targeted. It issues the same prompt for all bloggers, regardless of their typical blog subject matter or readership backgrounds. I’m not quite sure a blog that only talks about ruby programming for example would benefit from the vague prompts Plinky has.

Skribit on the other hand is more targeted and suggestions come from actual blog readers so there is real value. I could go on..

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:01:19 +0000

dont you thin the business model deserves some earlier focus?

By: Charles Ravndal

Charles Ravndal — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 10:16:34 +0000

Hello and good day. It’s my first time in your blog and I got here while searching some stuff about Skribit. I recently signed up there but have been wondering how to implement the Suggestion button on my blog that opens a lightbox window same as you have here. Hope you can help me and thanks in advance.

By: Jonathan Solichin

Jonathan Solichin — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 00:29:25 +0000

I agree, I am drooling at the success of your blog.I’m sure you’ll be able to get skribit to great height. Good luck with everything!

By: Aaron Eiche

Aaron Eiche — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:19:39 +0000

I do web development, splitting my full time income into support me and my wife, and my freelance stuff into paying for fun. I’ve got a handful of scattered projects that I want to work on, but it’s a game of balancing my time.

My primary goal with my freelance work is to produce a product that generates residual income, so I can stop spending free time freelancing, and start spending more of it having the fun that I’m trying to pay for :)

Eventually, I want to be able to fund other projects. Events I want to put on, Shows I’d like to do, Products I’d like to create. Things that are outside the normal realm of programming.

As it goes, I don’t have any plans to create a company to accomplish this, though there are some advantages.

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:19:27 +0000

:-P

By: Joost Schuur

Joost Schuur — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:10:05 +0000

Slightly off topic Paul, what are your thoughts on Plinky? They definitely seem to be in the space of ‘helping bloggers cure writer’s block’, but their route is more via centralized recommendations vs. blog specific user contributions ones like Skribit does.

By: Mikhail P

Mikhail P — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:50:59 +0000

I’m pretty impressed that you have enough revenue from the blog to be able to work on a project full time.

One correction: the end of your list needs to be ammended to follow proper forum instruction posting rules:

6) ???
7) Profit!

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:12:19 +0000

Ah sorry about that. I should be better at that. I write about Skribit so much that I kind of forget about those things. I also have it linked in my “about” text in the top right corner.

By: dutchmarbel

dutchmarbel — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:10:49 +0000

My small suggestion would be to start with links to skribit if you write about them. I had to search for a link (found it in the about section of your webpage).

By: V4us

V4us — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:24:36 +0000

Hm. May you tell us more about this company? Your website doesn’t seems overadded and ….

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:59:10 +0000

That revenue amount is awesome, and you definitely deserve it. This is a great blog full of quality and substance. Definitely one of my favs on my feed list.

By: Andrew Hyde

Andrew Hyde — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:59:09 +0000

Great post.

The extra hefty earnings from your blog can keep you afloat and then account for some traveling after your business picks up.

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:05:18 +0000

I hired a large firm that works with publishers and fortune 500 advertisers to sell ad spots, and they’ve done a wonderful job with it on my blog. It took about 7 months for the revenue to reach this monthly level, (in addition to 3+ years of writing content on this blog).

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:04:14 +0000

Congrats Paul. That much income from your blog is huge.

By: Rarst

Rarst — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:43:30 +0000

I think after this post quite a few bloggers drooled to death. :)

Getting traction and be more widely recognized is indeed very important for Skribit. I took a lot of effort at my blog to get some suggestions coming.

By: Alvaro

Alvaro — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:16:54 +0000

How on Earth can you earn $1600 a month???