The proverbial snowball has been formed.  Now we just need to make sure it continues momentum until it gets large enough to roll on its own.
 
Today PlugIM hit the blogosphere in a big way.  Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion gave us a mention in one of his blog posts and we also made the Wired blog.  Michael Calore of the Monkey Bites blog gave us a great review with screen shots and the works.
 
On top of that, we also got props on Meneame today (essentially the Spanish equivalent of Digg).  We were credited for a story that made our front page which subsequently made the front page of Meneame with over 100 votes.
 
We were also contacted by Pulse 2.0 who wrote an indepth positive review of PlugIM earlier this week.
 
All this is perfectly timed to cap off an incredible month of October and sets us up to have an even better month in November.  Thank you to everyone who’s helping to spread the word.  Our traffic is tripling every month, oh and did I mention we made Wired?  Yes the geek in me just can’t get enough of that one…

You may have noticed some changes at PlugIM recently but I figured it would be a good idea to let you all know exactly what’s changed.
 
Anonymous Plugs: We’ve enabled anonymous “plugs” which means any visitor to the site can plug any stories they like without being logged into a PlugIM user account.  This is experimental and we’re not sure if we’ll leave it on or not.  The site logs votes based on IP address so the same visitor can’t plug the same story over and over again.  Of course there are loopholes to that and potential for abuse, so we’ll watch and see how it goes.  We wanted to allow even a casual passerby to feel like they could contribute and be a part of the community without committing by taking the time to create an account.
 
Anonymous Problem Reporting: We also enabled anonymous problem reporting so now any visitors can report spam, duplicate stories, lame stories etc.  The thinking here is if we allow all visitors to report bad links, there’s a higher chance the bad link will not only get reported but also get reported faster.  And the faster a bad link is reported, the faster we can remove it.
 
Add to Social Bookmarking Section: Another feature we added is the “add to” section under each story.  It was there before, but only had links to del.icio.us and “add to my bookmarks”.  We’ve added a bunch of links to different social bookmarking services that we feel are the most popular so you can bookmark your favorite PlugIM stories quicker and easier.  We do encourage you to take advantage of this feature because of course the more links there are to PlugIM stories, the more popular PlugIM will become which benefits all the members of the community.
 
User Points System: You may have noticed when viewing a user profile, there’s a section called “points” that had previously always been set to 10.00.  That was a placeholder for this new system that’s now in place.  Your point total is generated based on a formula that takes in account how many submissions you’ve made to PlugIM, how many of your submissions were promoted to the front page, how many plugs you’ve given to other stories, how many comments you’ve written and how long you’ve been a member of the site.  When you first create an account, you start at 10 points and go up or down from there ranging from 6 points up to 20 points.  Points are updated roughly once a day and don’t serve any real purpose yet other than bragging rights.  You’ll notice in the top users section you can sort the users by their point total now to find out who are the most active members of the community.  In the future we may tie user points into the Adsense revenue sharing program so user with higher point totals (more active members) are rewarded with higher percentages of their ads being displayed.
 
Reformatted Adsense Ads Layout: On that note, we’ve also reformatted our Adsense ads layout in an attempt to increase revenue not just for us but for those of you taking advantage of the revenue sharing program.  If you have any suggestions or feedback on the new layout, please let us know.

Digg is a beast.  About a week ago, PlugIM was mentioned in a comment to a story posted on Digg and as a result we just completed our most successful week ever.  For the week starting October 8th we had over 900 visitors who viewed over 3300 pages and our 3 month average traffic rank on Alexa has gone up to 75,801.  I know that may not seem astronomical, but for a site that launched just six weeks ago with no advertising budget to speak of, it’s by far surpassed my expectations.
 
The reason I’m throwing out these stats isn’t just to pat ourselves on the back.  It’s to give you (the potential PlugIM community member) the information you need to make an educated decision.  Joining a Web 2.0 site where users generate the content is a time investment.  Granted it only takes a few minutes to create an account and post your internet marketing material but in this day and age, every minute counts.  I want you to see that the time you spend here is well worth it.
 
Expect to see a few changes to PlugIM soon.  Last week, Pligg (the script we use to run PlugIM) released beta version 8.  We’re currently running on a heavily modified version of beta 7 which is why we can’t just instantly upgrade.  We have to carefully merge our modified code with the changes in beta 8 but expect those changes to be rolled out shortly.  There are some great new features as well as enhanced security and all around stability of the code.

PlugIM.com runs on Pligg CMS which just released beta version 8 and the story made the front page of Digg. If you check out the Digg link you’ll notice PlugIM made the list of “most popular/best looking Pligg sites” in the first comment under the story. As a result, we’re currently getting tons of traffic. From the story on Digg:

“Pligg, the widely used open source “Digg-like” CMS, released its long anticipated Beta 8 today. Pligg’s dynamic structure allows users to quickly and effortlessly install and customize their sites. Pligg acts as a framework for many successful sites such as VH1’s Best Week Ever and VideoSift. The community currently consists of over 2,151 members.”

read more | digg story

Obviously you can use PlugIM to promote your internet marketing projects which brings more visitors to your site and potentially more sales.  But did you know you can also earn money online directly just by actively participating in the PlugIM community?  In fact there are two ways to use PlugIM to make some extra money.
 
Google Adsense Revenue Sharing: This is a hot feature being added to forums and sites across the internet.  Basically whenever content you’ve added to PlugIM is viewed by a visitor, there’s a chance your Google ads will be displayed.  If they’re clicked, the revenue goes into your Google Adsense pay check.  Google has given their stamp of approval on such systems as long as there’s only one publisher ID on any given page. 

What you need:

1. Google Adsense account.  If you don’t already have one, click here.
2. PlugIM user account.  Click here to register for free.

How to activate:

1. Go to your PlugIM profile page and click ‘modify’.  There you’ll see two new fields: Google Adsense ID and Google Adsense Channel. 
2. In the Google Adsense ID field enter your full Google Adsense publisher ID number.
3. (Optional) You can create a custom channel in your Adsense account to track how many impressions your PlugIM ads are getting.  If you choose to do so, enter the channel code in the Google Adsense Channel field.

How it works:

1. Whenever anyone views a story that you posted to PlugIM, there is a 50% chance your Google Adsense ID will be used.  If the ads are clicked, you receive the revenue.
2. As a preventative measure, as long as you are logged in to your PlugIM account, you will never see your own ads.  This feature prevents you from clicking on your own Google ads accidentally (which will get your Adsense account deactivated).
3. If your ID is used, it’s used for all the Adsense blocks on that page to comply with Google’s guidelines.

The fine print:
PlugIM can not be held responsible for any disputes between Google and the Adsense publisher.

Editorial Tips through PayPal: Any time you write and submit an editorial to PlugIM, a PayPal donation link is displayed under the article.  PlugIM readers who greatly appreciate the information you’ve provided can click the link and send you a tip!  An editorial is any submission to PlugIM without a link.  Just skip step 1 of the submission processes.

What you need:

1. PayPal account.  If you don’t already have one, click here.
2. PlugIM user account. Click here to register for free.

How to activate:

1. Go to your PlugIM profile page and click ‘modify’.  There you’ll see a new field: PayPal email.
2. Enter your PayPal email address.

How it works:

1. Write an editorial by clicking Submit Story and skip step 1 by clicking continue without entering a URL.  Type up your editorial in the description field and submit it.  An editorial is your own original article on anything relating to internet marketing.
2. Anyone who reads your editorial will see a PayPal donation link at the end of the article asking the reader to consider providing a tip to the author if they found the editorial useful.

There you have it, two ways to make money just by being an active member of the PlugIM community.  If you activate both features on your account and write a few editorials, visitors who read them will see your Google ads (half the time) and your PayPal donation link on the same page.  I hope you take advantage of these features because they were implemented for the PlugIM members as a way of saying thank you for participating.  If you have any questions, please post a comment.