Last week when I tried to submit my article to the Carnival of Personal Finance over at BlogCarnival.com, I found out that this carnival was “inactive.” At one point the carnival I manage, the Carnival of Debt Reduction, was in danger of becoming inactive over there because I hadn’t updated the hosting list in a while. That is, the carnival wasn’t really inactive — just that BlogCarnival.com hadn’t seen any activity from the maintainer, me.
Flexo, maintainer of the Carnival of Personal Finance, had been making some rumblings about getting away from BlogCarnival.com and using his own submission form, which is here. This form had been up for months, but I had been holding out and using the BlogCarnival.com form because it filled in more of the information for me and was a little faster. But this ease of use was the same reason why lots of irrelevant and spammy articles got through. This was the main reason, I think, that Flexo wanted people to stop using that form and start using his.
For the popular carnivals, spamming is likely becoming an issue, because popular carnivals are, well, popular, and therefore posts that make it in get quite a bit of traffic. So they’re targets for lots of free links by everyone and their brother.
Going “off the grid” like Flexo may have done might kill smaller carnivals. BlogCarnival.com does provide a lot of oxygen to newer carnivals because it is a sort of hub, and, spam or no spam, it’s a traffic source that’s hard to ignore. I guess removing this kind of dependency is a sign of growing up.
Powerful backlink tool, or spammer in a box? One of the sidebar ads within BlogCarnival.com showed a blog carnival submission tool called Xingla Pro 3. Honestly, I thought submitting articles to different blog carnivals was pretty easy, but this tool appears to make it ridiculously easy. Maybe almost too easy. I asked a question of a guy who......
An unfortunate reality of hosting a blog carnival The larger benefit goes to the people who submit to the carnivals rather than to the people who put forth all of the effort to host them. A number of bloggers I respect have figured this out already, and they're fairly reluctant to host a carnival anymore. They understand the......
Easy themes your blog carnival Adding a theme to your carnival doesn't have to be difficult. It can be as easy as looking around you and searching Wikipedia. Interspersing a few interesting facts about a timely topic, regardless of whether that topic is closely tied to the particular blog carnival, dresses it up substantially. It's......
Try scheduling hosts in advance This is a rule that I don't follow all the time, and it adds a lot of stress having to find a host from week to week. The Carnival of Personal Finance has come to ask for hosts quarterly. He asks for hosts about a month in advance, then decides......
Some carnival business Three points of business: 1)Â Last week's host, Simply Forties, caught right on to the new rules I had posted on BlogCarnival.com and on the submission form here: Posts submitted to this carnival shall not be submitted to any other blog carnival. A link back to the carnival is required......
My Dollar Plan has posted Carnival #124 Thanks to My Dollar Plan for hosting the "January 24th" edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction! A lot of articles this week, with facts about January 24th sprinkled throughout. Her are the host's picks: Me vs. Debt who is on track to meet some goals Debt Reduction Formula who......
Giveaways, Carnivals and Personal Finance Blogging. I don't know about you, but I've been reading personal finance blogs for a couple of years now, and it has really improved my life. Seriously. Personal finance blogs are a gateway to free information from average people and industry insiders alike. I got hooked early on by reading......
Personal Finance Week in Review - Waiting for More Hard Truth Congress Wavers While WaMu Craters Mr. ToughMoneyLove has credit crisis fatigue. Whether you call it a rescue or bailout, the future of the "plan" has been placed squarely in the lap of Congress. I think the plan treats the symptoms not the cause but at this point, all we can......
Carnival of Personal Finance cutting the BlogCarnival.com cord?
Commentary July 31st, 2007
Last week when I tried to submit my article to the Carnival of Personal Finance over at BlogCarnival.com, I found out that this carnival was “inactive.” At one point the carnival I manage, the Carnival of Debt Reduction, was in danger of becoming inactive over there because I hadn’t updated the hosting list in a while. That is, the carnival wasn’t really inactive — just that BlogCarnival.com hadn’t seen any activity from the maintainer, me.
Flexo, maintainer of the Carnival of Personal Finance, had been making some rumblings about getting away from BlogCarnival.com and using his own submission form, which is here. This form had been up for months, but I had been holding out and using the BlogCarnival.com form because it filled in more of the information for me and was a little faster. But this ease of use was the same reason why lots of irrelevant and spammy articles got through. This was the main reason, I think, that Flexo wanted people to stop using that form and start using his.
For the popular carnivals, spamming is likely becoming an issue, because popular carnivals are, well, popular, and therefore posts that make it in get quite a bit of traffic. So they’re targets for lots of free links by everyone and their brother.
Going “off the grid” like Flexo may have done might kill smaller carnivals. BlogCarnival.com does provide a lot of oxygen to newer carnivals because it is a sort of hub, and, spam or no spam, it’s a traffic source that’s hard to ignore. I guess removing this kind of dependency is a sign of growing up.