Christian Won an XShot!

Christian Won an Xshot!
Photo-A-Day #1470

Here is Christian from the Speed of Thought Playhouse. We had a great time tonight at Blogs, Brews and Belly Laughs II: Laughter for a Cause. Christian ended up winning an XShot in the raffle to raise money for the Avon Walk 4 Breast Cancer. A Full Recap Tomorrow. I’m Beat.

PayPerPost v4.0 Alpha – Be Excited!

PayPerPost has completely revamped their user interface to make their platform more inviting to both bloggers and advertisers. I am part of the team testing out PayPerPost v4.0 Alpha before it is open for more bloggers. So far I’ve taken one post about Sponsored Conversations from IZEA. Now I’ve gotten a second opportunity through PayPerPost v4.0 to tell you all about the new platform.

First, take a look at the user screen. This is such a nice clean look. You can click for a larger screenshot

PayPerPost v4.0

Here is the great thing about the new PayPerPost, you don’t have to fight for opportunities. Opportunities come directly to you and you can choose to accept them or not. You also do not have to wade through the opps to find ones for specific blogs. That took a very long time in the previous incarnation of PayPerPost. I found that the things that I wanted to blog about were only available to one of my blogs and those times when I found things available to the blog I wanted to post on others people had already taken them.

With PayPerPost v4.0 quality is going to rise to the top. There is more interaction between blogger and advertiser. Good blogs and good advertisers are going to succeed based on their Blog Scores and Advertiser Ratings. When you get an opportunity you have three days to complete the opp. That means that you can really take your time and craft your posts. No scrambling like crazy to finish one opportunity, write an interim post and then hop back on to get another opportunity. You work hard and do a good job then your blog score will go up and you will get more opps.

Here is something that bloggers are really going to like. This is from the FAQ

Will my blog be approved? How will I know it’s been approved?
Blogs do not go through an approval process, so there are no minimum eligibility requirements and you will not receive any notification that your blog has been approved. Your blog is eligible to receive offers as soon as it is submitted.

That means that the moment you sign on and enter your blogs you could be getting opportunities.

I’ve been working with this version of PayPerPost for the past few days, ever since it was announced on the IZEA Blog. I read the entire FAQ and Glossary. I’ve been working with IZEA’s development team with feedback on things I’ve found of issue (hardly anything actually). I am excited to work with this new platform as it develops.

Some people are not going to like this version because it means that they are going to have to step up their game. Ted Murphy announced that stepping up to the A game means:

* Get your own domain
* Create a true brand if you haven’t already
* Consistently create quality content
* Focus on spelling and grammar
* Drop the in-post display ads
* Drop any ads that talk about paid blogging (including our old ones)
* Drop widgets that don’t provide value

I think I have taken care of most of that and if I haven’t I’d love to hear what else I should do to step it up. Now, I said that some people are going to hate this version, that is basically because you have to be a better blogger to make it. The flip side to this is that other people are going to love it. People who have consistently worked hard to become better bloggers. People who saw many of the junk bloggers scooping up opportunities left and right. That won’t be happening with V4.0 of PayPerPost. Advertisers will have more control over approval of opportunities and bloggers will have more control over what opportunities they want to take.

The feature that I like the most about the new PayPerPost is that I can control the disclosure. I want to be able to put in post disclosure on all my posts. I avoided advertisers that wanted no disclosure at all. Site wide disclosure was a grey area, I’d much rather you know that I was being compensated. Letting you know that I was being paid for a post is important to me. So, only those advertisers that fit my qualifications will make the cut on BenSpark.com. I’ve worked hard to be a trusted blogger and do not want to lose that trust.

It is time to take off the training wheels folks. PayPerPost v4.0 is here!

I’ve started a thread on the IZEA Boards about PayPerPost V4.0 so we can discuss the Alpha. If you’d like an Alpha Key leave a comment on the IZEA Blog.

Disclosure: This post is about my experiences using the brand new PayPerPost. I am an IZEA Insider who works closely with IZEA. I am being paid by IZEA to start this conversation with my readers, the opinions are honest and they are all mine.