A Publisher Corral of Blogosphere Tips

You might already know that you can create some cool desktop applications with Yahoo! Widgets SDK. Well, the Yahoo! Flash Blog recently announced that these applications can now be built in Flash.

How many times have you published a blog article and then remembered you forgot something important to put into the entry? On her blog, Jennifer Slegg just published a helpful blogger’s pre- publishing checklist. Jen’s list includes practical and sometimes overlooked tips, such as spellchecking, making sure your links work, and sourcing your sources. I have a similar list before I leave the house, which I check exactly three times.

If you’re also a podcast publisher, Marketing Vox posted an article with ten tips for launching a solid podcast. Pointers include planning your podcast schedule, making it RSS-accessible and keeping it short.

So there you go, folks. Hope these blog posts help make your site more compelling.

— Roger Park, Marketing Communications Manager and blog corral captain

PayPal option available to publishers

It’s a weird concept, money. Money used to take the form of tokens of stored value, usually made of stuff that people prized: rare shells or stones, or metals like gold, silver, copper and even iron. Later, it became more convenient to carry a kind of value voucher—made of clay, papyrus, paper, what have you—that wasn’t as heavy as gold or shells.

Today’s currency is about as light as you can get. It’s little more than an idea of value represented by some data that can be shunted from one database to another in the blink of an eye.

So it is with PayPal, which, we wanted to remind you, is now a payment option for publishers in our network. There are a number of bennies to using PayPal:

• Payment requires a minimum balance of just $50, as opposed to $100 for checks
• Same-day payment—whereas check payments are made seven to ten days after we receive the request (payments will still be issued on pre-determined days)
• No-fee transfers to your PayPal account, so you don’t pay more for the convenience

To add PayPal to your account, go to the “Payment Options” page under the Account Information tab, check the PayPal radio button, and click “Submit.”

—The Team

Raising the colors on Yahoo! Publisher Network

“Color” is a word with considerable value. It’s shaded with meaning. Expressions like “the color of money,” “color me old-fashioned,” “colorful language,” “local color,” “technicolor yawn” and “colorful character” rarely raise a hue or cry because of their cultural saturation, but they are still useful in letting others know the tone of your feelings and how your worldview is tinted—they let you reveal your true colors.

Each color has its connotations: Gray is associated with elegance; blue with peace, as well as technology; red with anger, protest and revolution—stand up for color and make a change!—green with fertility; yellow with joy; purple with sensuality and pink with gratitude.

Do you come from a red state or a blue one? Are you a full-fledged red or are you just a pink? Maybe you’re a patriot called to the colors? Are you red with rage? Green with envy? Does your cloud have a silver lining? Ever tied a yellow ribbon ’round the old oak tree? Did you know that people who have the colorful condition known as synesthesia can hear, taste, smell and even feel color.

At Yahoo! Publisher Network we like colors. Lots of them. That’s why we built a palate of 216 websafe colors and hues into our ad serving platform. That’s more colors than you’ll find a box of crayons. Don’t believe me? Just Yahoo! “crayons” and see for yourself. Your typical box of crayons has just 64.

In addition, you can upload any color of your choice, as long as you know the code for it. The possibilities are hexadecimal. In theory at least, there should be 16⁸, or 4,294,967,296, possible color combinations to use at your whim. Of course, not every single HTML color string will translate into a distinct color. But still, there are a lot of colors to choose from; maybe not a tretrigintillion or even a duotrigintillion, but more than enough to start your own color guard.

You’re free to dabble in our hues, and experiment with all the colors of our rainbow. You may not verge on a Van Gogh, and maybe your aesthetics don’t match Mondrian’s. Maybe you want your ads to stand out from your page, or maybe you want them to blend in. We’ll never tell you what colors you can and can’t use, as long as your users know they’re looking at “Ads by Yahoo!”

We’re not like those persnickety rock stars who insist that their dressing rooms be stocked with only the green M&M’s. Consider us colorblind, but in a good way.
 

—Michael Mattis, Blog Editor

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

This expression has become common in our pop culture. It refers to something that you may not be into but, if others like it, that’s OK by you. It’s a “different strokes for different folks” kind of world.

We try to reflect that same sense of choice at the Yahoo! Publisher Network. We match our ads to your site’s content as best we can, but we don’t expect you to display ads that you think your users won’t want, or ads for businesses that compete with yours. Thus, we developed Ad Blocking, a feature that we recently updated.

As suggested by its name, Ad Blocking allows you to block ads from a given domain or multiple domains that you don’t want to appear on your site. To activate Ad Blocking, just click on the “Ad Setup” tab in the secure account interface and hit the “Ad Blocking” tab. You can block up to 200 domains.

There are two levels of Ad Blocking:

Domain-Level Blocking: Entering, say, “mycompetitor.com” will block ads pointing to the entire mycompetitor.com domain. This is the broadest form of blocking. Note that in order to do this, you must enter the domain URL without the “www” domain prefix.

 

Sub-Domain Level Blocking: Entering “products.mycompetitor.com” will block ads pointing to only the products.mycompetitor.com sub-domain. Ads pointing to www.mycompetitor.com (with the “www” prefix) or a different sub-domain, such as “people.mycompetitor.com,” will not be blocked.

For more info on Ad Blocking, see our FAQ’s.

—The Team

It’s vital you provide up-to-date tax info

That famous quote by founding father, Benjamin Franklin, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes,” is by now an old saw.

Leaving the anti-aging efforts of modern science aside, however, old Ben’s observation still rings true. And it applies equally to Yahoo! and everyone in the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta. While Uncle Sam can be a generous old fellow at times, he’s also a pretty strict guy when it comes to the rules, especially the ones about taxes.

We’ve all got to play by Uncle Sam’s rules. In fact, if we don’t have your correct tax information, we can’t pay you, even if you have accrued more than $100 or more in your available account balance.

When you signed up for the beta, you were asked to provide your Tax Identification (Tax ID) number. If you are an individual U.S. resident (i.e., you signed up as a sole proprietor or other unregistered form of business), then, in most cases, this will be the same as your social security number. Corporations and other formal business entities should use their Employer Identification Number, which serves as their Tax ID. If you’re not sure which you should use, consult Form W-9*.

Long story short: it’s vital that the information you provide is correct and up-to-date, or your dream of attaining wealth and prestige via Yahoo! Publisher Network will likely be a non-starter.

You can always go back and double check—and update—your tax information by going to the Tax Information page under the Account Information tab. Be advised, however, that changing your tax information multiple times may invalidate it. You should only change your tax information if you are sure that it is in error.

While you’re there, it would be a good idea to double-check your account information, such as your contact information and payment options, just in case.

—Margaret Holland, Senior Account Manager

* Yahoo! does not provide tax advice. For more information, please contact your tax professional, or visit the IRS web site at: http://www.irs.gov/.

Because you need it; that’s Y!

It never ceases to amaze me just how a big a place Yahoo! is, physically and virtually. Even after more than six months, I’m still discovering new stars in the distant constellations of the Yahoo! universe.

That’s why I was so excited by my meeting with several members of our design team here in Burbank last week to discuss a series of blog pieces about good user interface (UI) design. Not only did team members volunteer their time to write about design, but they also turned me on to a great Yahoo! UI resource that’s available to everyone, including publishers in and out of our network.

It’s the Yahoo! User Interface blog and it’s quite honestly one of the best design, development and publishing resources out there. The Yahoo! User Interface blog is a companion for two Yahoo! resource libraries, both of which are open to the public: the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library, which offers the Yahoo! take on common interface design issue, and the Yahoo! User Interface Library, a collection of “industrial-grade JavaScript utilities and widgets” that can help you get the most out of today’s browsers.

Here’s a partial list of some of my favorite Yahoo! User Interface blog posts:

• 10 Cool Things About the New Yahoo! Photos—As the name implies, these are some tips on ways that developers and publishers can get the most out of Yahoo! Photos.
• Full Service: The Yahoo Developer Network and the Yahoo User Interface Library—This downloadable article by longtime Brit blogger and Yahoo! front-end developer Chris Heilmann is actually an excerpt from his book, Beginning JavaScript with Dom Scripting and Ajax, From Novice to Professional. It provides a wealth of info about the YUI Library from an implementer’s perspective.
• Global Domination—In which we find that “global variables are evil.”
• Video: Joe Hewitt Talks About FireBug—Joe Hewitt, a longtime Mozilla/Firefox engineer, visited the Sunnyvale campus in May to chat about debugging and other features of his FireBug tool. He offered a great how-to session, which he graciously allowed us to videotape for your edification.

Most of this is pretty advanced stuff geared toward highly tech-adept publishers, developers, interface designers and those daring neophytes willing to jump in with both feet. Whatever your skill level though, we think that you’ll find this a beneficial resource.

Coming up: articles on best practices for user interface design by some of Yahoo’s star designers and user interface experts.

—Michael Mattis, Blog Editor
 

Don’t forget the “dub-dub-dub” when entering URLs to target

Ad Targeters, take note: When entering URLs into the Ad Targeting tool, it’s important to always include the domain prefix—“www”, “www2”, etc.—on all entries, even sub-domains, individual pages, RSS feeds and RSS posts. Note the examples provided on the Ad Targeting page:

Ad Targeting is designed to function this way, so be sure to dub-dub-dub your domains.

Ad whating? 

Not familiar with Ad Targeting? It’s a feature of our network that allows you to choose ad categories that best appeal to your users, in addition to contextual matching. There are many ad categories and subcategories to choose from. For more on Ad Targeting, see our April 20, 2006 blog post and our Ad Targeting FAQs.

—The Team
 

That you can transfer funds from your Yahoo! Publisher Network account into your Yahoo! Search Marketing account?

If you have a Yahoo! Search Marketing account as well as a Yahoo! Publisher Network account, you can use the same user name and password for both accounts and transfer funds from the available balance of your Yahoo! Publisher Network account into your Yahoo! Search Marketing account. This allows you to finance or partially finance your Search Marketing budget with proceeds from your Yahoo! Publisher Network account.

To transfer funds, go to the Payment Options page under the Account Information tab.

Use the pull-down menus and dialogue boxes to transfer any amount available.

Please note, however, that while you may transfer funds from your Yahoo! Publisher Network account to your Yahoo! Search Marketing account, you may not transfer funds in the opposite direction, from your Search Marketing account to your Network account.

Not familiar with Yahoo! Search Marketing?

It’s a Yahoo! service that can help you connect with users searching for what your site has to offer. For more information, check out the Yahoo! Search Marketing homepage.

For more information, please review our FAQs.

— The Team

That you only need one Yahoo! Publisher Network account to serve ads to multiple Web sites? 

One account is all you need to manage ads on multiple Web sites. Just cut and paste the ad code we provide to the sites you want to display ads on —there’s no need to update your account information. You can also add each of your domains on the Reporting URLs page under the Reports Tab, so that you can track your performance by Web site.

What’s more, you can use Ad Targeting for multiple web sites. Just go the Ad Targeting page under the Ad Setup Tab, add a new URL in the Targeted URL box, and select your categories. Each time you save a URL, it will appear in the Manage Ad Categories table below. From here you’ll be able to manage your categories for each of your Targeted URLs.

For more information, review our FAQs.

— The Team

Ads in RSS can help you reach more users through your RSS feeds 

In case you missed it or you’re new to the network, we launched the beta of our Yahoo! Ads in RSS product back in November, 2005.Yahoo! Ads in RSS allows you to place Content Match ads directly into your outgoing RSS feeds, so that your end users will see them in their RSS readers and have the opportunity to click on them, earning revenue for you.

Typical Yahoo! Ads in RSS look like this:

I use a Bloglines.com reader, but the ads will appear in most readers as long as they’re not blocked by the end user (a few readers have that capability).

If you’re new to RSS, or are not sure how to use it and want to learn more, check out our open-access Publisher’s Guide to RSS.

The nickel tour goes like this: “RSS” is an abbreviation that stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and it’s an XML-based technology that allows webmasters to syndicate (distribute) their content to users to it subscribe using an RSS reader, such as the Web-based Bloglines.com reader pictured here. Other popular RSS readers include:

NewsGator
FireFox Live Bookmarks
SafariRSS
SharpReader
While most readers are Web-based, a few, like SharpReader, are downloadable client apps, most are free. Also, FeedBurner offers services that can help you track and understand your RSS traffic.

Your My Yahoo! page has a built-in RSS reader, and the new Yahoo! Mail beta also acts as an RSS reader.  You can add an RSS feed from any website displaying the Add to My Yahoo! button, which looks like this:

While your ads will not show up in your users’ My Yahoo! pages, they will see them in the Yahoo! Mail beta RSS reader. The reason for this is that at present My Yahoo! is considered more of a traffic driver; people who subscribe to your feeds will be able to see your ads once they have clicked over to your site from their My Yahoo! pages. 

You can also put an Add to My Yahoo! button on your site to syndicate your content out to My Yahoo! users. It’s free and only takes a few minutes to set up.

If you frequently add content to your site, you should definitely look into creating an RSS feed, and using Yahoo! Ads in RSS to earn extra revenue. If you’re in our network, you have access to Ads in RSS tools, when logged into your account, under the Ad Setup tab. 

Getting started with RSS is pretty straightforward, although it is a wee bit trickier than setting up our Web-based Content Match product. As with the Content Match ads on your website, Yahoo! Ads in RSS are compatible with both Moveable Type and WordPress publishing platforms. Also, like Content Match ads, you install Ads in RSS by cutting and pasting code we provide into your website.

For instructions, consult our handy RSS Setup Guide. (Sorry, but only current publishers registered with Yahoo! Publisher Network can view the RSS Setup Guide.)

— Michael Mattis, Blog Editor