I've only been blogging for a few weeks, and thought I should find out what trackback are all about. Read a great little article by Dave Taylor (here) regarding tracksbacks, that got me on my way.

So when I came to test it by trackbacking (is that what it's called) between thumblounge and another of my blogs, I got a little pissed off that for the particular article I wanted to trackback, I was instructed to trackback to http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2356664/17270340. WTF? The blog uses it's own domain, why am I linking to TypePad?

My concern was that I'd lose all the SEO benefits of a direct link ot the article. Turns out that isn't the case. When the trackback link appeared on the other blog, it used the direct URL to the article. The TypePad trackback link is just their way of ensuring that any trackbacks to an article are automatically integrated in to the list of tracksbacks that appear under the article.

My first blog at www.doipod.com was always for money. I simply chose what I believed was a 'hot topic', signed up for TypePad account, placed Google Adsense code and a few affiliate links in to the template and started posting to the blog on my chosen hot topic.

The Pressure of Blogging for Gain.

This new blog (www.thumblounge.com) is purely for pleasure and it's totally different ball game. With a commercial blog such as www.doipod.com there's a constant pressure to make EVERY POST COUNT, a pressure to make each post provide value to the reader, while generating revenue, mostly generate revenue.

Of course this is a self imposed pressure we place on ourselves. If we sit back for just a moment and think it through, we'll remember a couple of the old school rules on web site content, that make just as much sense when writing a blog. Rules such as...

• Better to have great content than great ads.
• Content that a reader finds of value, will have the reader coming back for more.

Over another coffee, I sit here pondering a trade off, even a deal with the devil himself... If he assists me in writing a killer article every 3 days or so, I'll not put any adverts on the page featuring the article.

I simply cannot generate any revenue without readers. Doesn't matter how relevant the adverts are if no one is going to see them. It's worth mentioning at this point that 'no adverts' on a page is a huge step, possibly the biggest step, for a passive internet marketer like myself.

Back to Blogging For Pleasure.

So here I am, entirely liberated from the pressure of making every post count on www.thumblounge.com. Is it like this for every blogger that's not interested in making money from their posts? Just write what you want and not give a shit about what anyone stumbling across it thinks of it.

Think i'll stick around here for another hour or so. I could get used to this blogging for pleasure.