As many have seen during past few weeks. I have been cutting down advertisements on this blog. The reason is simple. The ads that I am cutting down do not work. I get little pay from them. For that reason I have removed them. The only one left to remove is infolinks. But I am going to remove them soon as I get there payment threshold. But that is $50. At current time I only lack around $5 until I reach that threshold. It should be in the next few days to weeks I hope.
Donations
I do not know at current time if I keep the donations open up longer. As I do not get so much donations at current time. I wold like to hear from people on that before I remove that options completely. But at any rate. I am planning on changing the money aspect of this blog. Since current trial and error approach is not something that I want to continue in the long term.
For those how have been donating directly via bank it is important that you update your information. As I have moved to a new bank in Denmark, called Sydbank from Nordea. The new IBAN and SWIFT code can be found here, on the donation web page.
If I stop accepting donations. I am going to remove all the links. For those how I have promised a ebook for a donation. Don’t worry. I still remember my promise in that regard.
Future direction
As I say here above. I am planning a change on this blog. Not on what I cover. I have already tested that, and failed. I am rather changing how this blog can help me make a slightly better living then I am currently having. But I not expect this blog to become super-popular any time soon. So I do not know how that is going to work out in the long term. But one thing is clear. I am going to keep covering volcanoes and earthquakes in Iceland for many years to come.
Hi Jon, I have been donating 10 euros a month for the past year and am perfectly happy to carry on doing so.
I think your blog is interesting and informative and is probably only a Katla-wobble away from being overrun with visitors.
Sue
Thanks for the support. If you plan on using regular donation option. Now you can choose the amount you want to donate and it is going to run on it’s own for 12 months. I did have it earlier at 6 months. But I did change it to 12 months few weeks ago.
And we thank you for that! And don’t worry: one day (soon) there will be another interesting eruption in Iceland and then your blog will be again busy as never before!
So hang in there!
Henk Weijerstrass
Holland
For me it works fine to pay directly and monthly on your bank account (next time with new codes). And I trust you, whatever you are doing with the money. I pay for your information on (icelandic) volcanoes. But even if the donations going up and down, why not keep the donation button? The income from this site is unfortunately not reliable, but it helps a little bit.
Thanks for your work here. Looking out for future developments!
Hi Jon,
I am a silent reader most of the time and I really appreciate the news and information. There’s not much activity in Iceland at the Moment (except some minor earthquakes in Katla caldera every now and then) so there’s not much to talk about. As the other’s already said, an eruption in Hekla or intense earthquakes in Katla will attract hundreds of People again.
I’ll also support your work with the same donation like last year.
Just one technical question: is there a possibility to exchange the CAPTCHA characters/graphics with a different set? I must honestly admit that I really have difficulties to read them sometimes (not only on this site).
Best,
Dirk
Thanks for the support.
If you want to get rid of CAPTCHA, you can do so by registering your username in the “Meta” group. It has login, registering.
I cannot control the format of the CAPTCHA. It is out of my control. As is there are plenty of spam bots how get past it.
would you like to do a post sometime on the usefulness of strainmeters in volcanology? I see Iceland and a few other places uses them a bit …
I have to contact Iceland Meteorological Office on the strain-meters. I do not know a lot about them my self.
I am writing a large blog post on Katla volcano. But I do not know when it is going to be ready. It is work in progress.
Not trying to be mean or anything but I think that you will have a hard time making any large amounts of money on this blog.
So if you’re in it for the money and don’t think its fun to do you should probably just stop doing it and find other ways to make money.
I do enjoy coming here once or twice to read but its not something I’d pay money for, its interesting but the current content is not worth my heard earned cash.
Just being honest.
All I keep seeing when activity happens around katla is “what this means I do not know”. Total loss of interest in this blog now.
It’s not only Jon who does not know what is happening.. Even the professionals at the Icelandic Meteorologic Office don’t know what is happening.
If you were able to tell what’s is happening in a volcano all the time than you would probably earn a lot of money..
So that you loose interest in the blog is possible but the reason that you says he does not know is not a good reason I think. He is honest and doesn’t tell things which are not true..
Sander
Since I climbed some volcanos last year and because of my connectione to iceland, I found your blog a few weeks/months ago. I agree with the writer above. If making money is the only reason to run this blog you should probably stop it. That’s not the meaning of writing blogs I think.
Review:
– This blog is in my opinion a bit confusing/overloaded. The ads don’t make it better, of course. The layout on this site don’t really ask me to stay and look around here. The display is faulty on my browser. (IE9)
– My english is by far not perfekt. But, I have to say, some articles/sentences are at first sight not easy to understand. Please, don’t take it personally – I couldn’t do it better, I think. But sometimes there are really simple errors. Maybe you should spend a little bit more time to read your articles a second time.
– I’m interested in current pictures, videos and so on. You could make a list of links about webcams, geological institutes, other interesting links. I think there are a lot of possibilities to make your blog more attractive. You have to be creative…
This is my short and honest feedback. Maybe it helps you four the reflection of your (blog)work.
@ Nicco & yih; I would not be writing about volcanoes and earthquakes in Iceland if I did not love to do it. I also love to write. But that does not change the fact everyone needs to make a living for them self. You know. To pay for the rent, the electricity and the water and so on.
I am not just writing this blog for the money. But I have been blogging in Icelandic since the year 2005. All of that time ad-free, since I did not think of it until later to make money out of it. I also did not believe that I would be able to make money just by blogging few years ago. But that has changed for me now.
@ yih; As for your layout problems. I recommend that you switch to a standard compliance web browser. That being either Google Chrome or Firefox.
There are often no pictures, videos to share. If I find them. I normally put them up. But that is almost always during an eruption, or after some major earthquake. But during the quiet times. There are no pictures. Besides some tremor plots or pictures of earthquakes that I have recorded on my own hardware.
I spend a great deal correcting my English. But there are may types of English out there. They don’t all sound the same. You can read more here on that, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Dialects_and_varieties
@ shauna; No one knows what is going on in the ground. Instruments give us clues on what is going on. But as any clues, they are bit confusing and hard to read at times. So that I do not know something is no surprise at all. Since most of the exports do not have a clue them self what is going on.
On the note of the blog post. I want to point to this article in the tech web site Ars Technia.
http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-devastating-to-the-sites-you-love/
It costs nothing to read this page, except to endure a few ads. And when asked to donate , everyone is free to give anything or not. I like this site in all its imperfection. Others make sites additionally to their job and yet there are lots of advertising.
I also like the way Jon this page leads: with all openness and changes, if something does not fit. Work in progress…
And by the way: what’s up at TFZ with some “green stars”?
There was an earthquake with the magnitude of ML3.7 in Kolbeinsey Island ridge at 11:11 UTC.
I am going to write about it. Along with the earthquake activity in Katla volcano. I just need to finish few things first.