Friday, January 25, 2013

The direction we are taking in the near future

About a month has past since the Mizozo Manifesto was published. While I spent a great deal of time making sure that the document gives a definitive view of Mizozo and its end game, it is hard to put such an idea in 500 words or less. I then began explaining more about Mizozo, giving a brief overview of how we began and where we are right now. It wasn't overly detailed, but may shed some light on how we got here.

I would now like to look ahead, try to give an idea of where it is Mizozo is going and how it plans on getting there. Even though I have been told to avoid using the term Socialism, it is hard to find a better term. For now, lets just say that Mizozo is attempting to achieve the perfect Socialist ideal from a business sense, and is planning on doing so systematically over the course of the next decade.

I am still relatively young, and like to think of myself as patient, so the plan is to try to build a small community of publishers with the goal to build a versatile business. Currently, Mizozo is in the business of selling advertising space on content management driven site. The site's content tends to be related to news and current events, but this isn't necessarily the case.

While the advertising business can be lucrative, this is only the case when you are selling ad space on sites that are Rated-G or Rated-PG. Anything Rated-PG13 is considered to risque for most advertisers, and Rated-R may as well be porn as far as most of them are concerned. Since our site falls heavily in the Rated-R zone, for the most part, we have been having a difficult time securing advertisers. However, we are young, and with plenty of time, so there is no real rush.

Our current model, and the model we plan on pursuing for the next year or so, is just this. We will continue to push out content and hope decent advertisers will find our site adequate. There are plenty of mediocre advertisers that like us, and a plethora of terrible advertisers that Love us, but since they pay us poorly we are always seeking out good advertisers, something that I will be spending a great deal more time with in the coming months.

Also throughout 2013, the goal will be to attract more publishers. Currently, all articles are either posted by me, my friends or SEO people. Thus far, not a single publisher is interested in contributing unique content to Mizozo for the sake of Mizozo. I am hoping that this will change this year if we start handing out monthly prizes, but time will tell. It looks like this first month is going to two of my friends, which is fine, but I would much prefer a new publisher to win. Maybe we will have more luck next month. Either way, I will be putting in a lot of effort this year to attract more writers.

As for next year, things may change. While I don't expect a great deal of change between 2013 and 2014, I do expect that soon we will be able to branch out our business model beyond the realm of selling ad space. There are countless other possibilities that we can explore, like affiliate marketing or sponsored posts, but these just scratch the surface.

The next post will try to look a bit more ahead, at future possibilities and prospects. Staying true to the Socialist ideal, Mizozo's goal isn't just to be a simple site where people make a little money here and there, the goal is to build a corporate monster that will revolutionize the world giving all its members their fair share and removing any owners/investors from the picture entirely.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Do you want a free Ploom Vaporizer?


If so, nows the time to signup for Mizozo! We just purchased our February prize and it is none other than the incredible Pax Vaporizer by Ploom. It should come as no surprise to many of you that I am a staunch advocate of Marijuana legalization and what better way to encourage it than to offer the incredible Pax Vaporizer as our February prize?

I just made the purchase yesterday, so it will probably arrive soon. At which point we will set the rules for next month's prize. One thing that was brought to my attention is the fact that I need to make sure that whoever wins the Ploom is in fact 18 years of age. While I haven't decided on how I'm going to do this yet, it is important to note that the winner will need to prove that they are in fact old enough, and a record will be kept for two years 'just in case' I am asked.

Now, back to the Pax. If you enjoy smoking, you should be aware of vaporizers so there is no need to go into detail there. But, if you have yet to see the Pax in action, check out their site. The ingenious design of this vaporizer makes it the ideal purchase, and the ideal prize. If you don't have $250 to throw down on something like this, why not register for Mizozo and win the prize in February?

The competition will likely be the same as for January, the article with the highest traffic wins. I am debating on whether or not to add a "Marijuana Element" to the prize, but it doesn't look likely. For those wanting to win the Pax Vaporizer, all you need to do is register with Mizozo and post an article that gets good traffic. Traffic is easy, especially if you have a wide social network. So, the sooner you start, the more likely you'll win.

So, do you want a free Pax Vaporizer? Better get started now!

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Current Status of Mizozo's January Contest

As has been made pretty clear, in the month of January Mizozo is giving out two prizes to the two best articles. Best is a bit of a stretch, a more accurate description would be the two most highly visited articles.

Initially I had plans to advertise this contest, but when looking into how many other sites had similar contests, I came to realize that advertising such a thing would more likely be a waste of money. I figured I would let it go one month to see how much interest there was without advertising so that I can have a baseline. The results were a bit surprising.

So you may be thinking, how much interest was there? Well, the answer can be summed up in a single word ... None! Sure, its only been about 2 or 3 weeks, but not a single inquiry, not a single note of recognition. It is more or less ignored. Traffic to our contest page has been anything but non existent (150 page views thus far), but with no interested parties.

So, just so there is no doubts as to our sincerity, the current two most popular articles are:

#1 - The 2013 Hot Shots Сalendar with 35 Behind the Scenes Photos (hammer) [2,227 views]
#2 - The Amazing Katrina Bowden is Smoking Hot in Maxim Magazine (celebuzz) [2,049 views]

The counts are incredibly small, to be honest, which doesn't make for a great first month of a promotion. Looking back, I see we regularly get articles with 10k or more hits, and usually they come in a day or two. There is still plenty of time to dethrone my two friends, who I would be happy to give these great Google Tablets, but I would much prefer to give them to someone I don't in fact know.

Friday, January 11, 2013

I think I need to explain a few things

It has been 4 years since Mizozo has gone live, and it has changed a great deal in that time. Initially, Mizozo was meant to be a news site. It was supposed to be a place where people could report on events and respond to other people's posts in the form of a Mizozo (or Response Article). While the concept of a Mizozo is still alive and well in the site, the News Site aspect has changed.

Mizozo is now a user generated content site where current events are prevalent but not necessarily the focal point. People are encouraged to register, submit their work, then try to get other people to read their work. We help in the propagation, but there is only so much we can do. The most successful stories are usually the ones that were given a good push by the publishers.

This year, we have started our revenue distribution. We have been calling it Socialism for some time now, but have been advised against that label. Its hard to put the idea into words, but we are working on it. For now, all profit coming into the site will be used to purchase prizes, and the prizes will be given back to the publishers for their hard work.

So, who are "We"?

For the most part, "We" is in fact "I". I am Zhann, one of the founders of Mizozo, and currently the only interested party. When Mizozo started, I had a partner who has since lost interest in the project. Since my interest is still present, I plan on keeping it going. My partner still has a 20% stake in the company, but I hope to buy him out when I have the means. In the meantime, however, I am the one running the show and the vast majority of decisions are made by me with the assistance of several of my friends.

My initial intent was to write this post shortly after the New Year. I had published the Mizozo Manifesto with little fan fare and thought this series of posts would help explain things. However, with the crisis that hit us last week, I have been kind of predisposed. Now that the crisis has been averted, I would like to write a series of posts which are, in a sense, my ideas behind the site, what I am trying to accomplish, and where I plan to go.

This being the first post, I am simply setting up the groundwork for what I plan to post over the next few weeks. Seeing as how I have a full time job, I have a personal life, I have to close the year for Mizozo (accounting, etc) and there is much going on in Mizozo itself, it is hard to promise a timeline for these posts, nor can I say with any certainty what these posts will entail.

I would like to make one request, please send me feedback on your thoughts. If you don't know me personally, simply leave a comment. If you would like to know me personally, I am not a difficult man to find.

I look forward to detailing my ideas, and hope to receive some feedback.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

The Web Hosting Crisis is Over

Last Friday, I received a rather disturbing email. It seems that our web hosting company decided to leave the dedicated server market and failed to notify us. To make matters more interesting, it seems that they failed to notify many and we all caught wind of this when a competitor of there's, CeraNet, contacted us offering us a deal if we switched now.

To be honest, I am completely shocked at how our previous hosting company, BlueMile, acted. They claim they sent us an email a month earlier stating that we needed to move and that we could have always found said email in our inbox within our admin area.

I have two problems with this. First, who shuts down a hosting business and only sends a single email to its clients letting them know? Yes, one email. Further, who ever checks their hosting's admin area for messages? What kind of logic is that?

To make things even worse, when the company realized their mistake their only response was, "That's your problem." They could have easily left the servers running another week or two so people could breathe a bit, but they don't care about their clients any further than accepting their money.

Well, we decided to go with CeraNet, primarily over price. They made a decent offer and their rates are pretty low. They had also promised to help, but unfortunately what we needed was beyond their capabilities. The scariest part of CeraNet is the knowledge that they hired some of Bluemile's staff. Considering how terrible Bluemile treated us and many of their other customers, I am left to wonder if we are fated to suffer a repeated crisis. I am not confident that we will be staying with CeraNet very long.

The move to CeraNet proved incredibly difficult. In the beginning of 2012, we rebuilt the entire front end. We did not, however, change the back end. The back end was terribly written and wouldn't work on the latest version of PHP. When confronted with the choice of whether to install an old version of PHP or fix the site, I opted to fix the site. This was far more difficult than I had thought, and was only accomplished after hiring some help. None the less, the back end has now gone through a badly needed cleaning and is now fully functional.

After a ton of work and a great deal of testing, we have now finalized the move. In so doing, I have also managed to streamline the migration process so now I can move Mizozo in a matter of hours virtually anywhere. I am hoping that I will never be under the gun like this again, but at least now I'm ready.

This has been one of the toughest weeks in Mizozo's history. When contemplating the fact that Mizozo may go down for days because of some asshole hosting company, I was highly enraged while incredibly motivated. The fact that things came up with barely 24 hours to spare leaves me in a shudder. But, thankfully it is all over and we are back to Business As Usual!


tl;dr - Bluemile screwed us over. They're a horrible company who can't be trusted. CeraNet may not be much better because they hired Bluemile's staff. Mizozo has now moved to CeraNet regardless, but we now have a slightly better site and are in a position where we can move in a matter of hours.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Well, that's inconvenient ...

It looks like BlueMile, our host provider, has decided to step away from the dedicated server market. This means that Mizozo now has to find another host, set up the environment, move all the stuff across, test to make sure things are operating properly, and all the other fun stuff. This is definitely the most pain in the ass thing we can possibly do.

To make matters worse, they failed to let us know (and apparently we aren't alone in this), so we have about 1 week to move all our stuff across or we will suffer some serious outages. This is INCREDIBLY inconvenient.

So, it looks like my weekend is about to get very busy, and if I can't get things working quick enough Mizozo may go down. I am just giving you all a heads up in case something like this happens, even though I plan to do everything in my power to ensure that it doesn't.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

The December Numbers

The month of December has ended, and so our monthly reports have begun. This month I will combine the Summary and the Detailed Traffic Report.



Summary

Visitors: 202,867
Pageviews: 361,865
Pages per Visit: 1.78

Revenue: $333

Top 5 December
#1 - Inside Prague's Sex Machine Museum - Photos and Video (NSFW) [13,117]
#2 - Irina Sheik Looks Incredible in Agua Bendita's Latest Bikini Campaign [4,240]
#3 - Vogue UK Can't Quite Handle Doutzen Kroes [3,152]
#4 - Candice Swanepoel Is Smoking Hot In Victoria’s Secret Holiday Lingerie Photos [2,926]
#5 - Construction Photos of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi [1,862]


Top 5 All Time
#1 - Sila Sahin Nude Playboy Pictures (NSFW) [18,884]
#2 - Kelly Brook goes completely nude for Exhibition Magazine (NSFW) [16,779]
#3 - Inside Prague's Sex Machine Museum - Photos and Video (NSFW) [13,117]
#4 - Home [9,744]
#5 - Vogue Spain Collects the Hottest Models, then Shoots them Naked (NSFW) [8,200]




The detailed traffic report is also complete. Here's the link.

The financial report isn't ready yet, that will be coming soon. Likewise, we will be closing the year so a new round of posts will be made to summarize 2012.

One thing to note, given our revenue, calculating next month's prize amount is actually quite easy. We only have one real expense, $176 for the server. So, by subtracting that from our revenue you will get our profit, which is $157. We plan on keeping 10% in the pot, which is $16, so we have $140 to spend on prizes for next month.