Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Yesterday was Mizozo's Highest Traffic Day

When I awoke yesterday morning to the fact that Mizozo was unresponsive, at first I was a bit concerned but after learning the reason for it I felt quite relieved. As already mentioned, an article was posted to Reddit which ended up being incredibly popular. The server couldn't handle the full force of the traffic, but still managed to set a record breaking day.

According to Google Analytics, our site received 284,394 unique visitors yesterday with the article in question (NOTE: its NSFW) receiving 300k page views. The server logs claim a much higher number, though. According to the logs, the article received over 550k page views. Either way, yesterday was the highest amount of traffic Mizozo has ever received in a single day.

Reddit is a monster site, and I am immensely grateful to anyone who posts one of Mizozo's stories to any Reddit sub. Yesterday was a great day, now its time to beat that record!

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

How much traffic does it take to bring Mizozo down?


It looks like taking down Mizozo isn't all that hard. I had hoped to test the limits of the server, and it now seems I have found that limit.

A Redditor posted a link from Mizozo to Today I Learned. The link itself is about Mexican Flight Attendants who went Nude in Playboy after being fired. An interesting story for sure, but who would have guessed that this story would hit the top of Today I Learned in only 9 hours?

The Reddit post is currently at rating of 1813, rising even though Mizozo is virtually inaccessible. In the span of just 9 hours Mizozo has already seen 170,000 clicks. Incredible, I know, and it seems that this is our upper limit.

My guess is that the website crashes at around 20k clicks per hour. I wish I could gauge it better, but it seems that 15k per hour is our reasonable upper limit. Of course, that particular story is image heavy, so this definitely plays a role, but seeing as how most of our stories are image heavy I'm sure that this statistic is a good one.

Anyway, thanks to XiZiX for posting the link to Reddit.

Friday, July 19, 2013

The Free ContourRoam Prize Package has Arrived




I am happy to announce that the free ContourRoam prize package has arrived. You can see all that you will win above. The prize package includes:


So, what are you waiting for? Register today!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Mizozo's August Prize Has Been Purchased - Free ContourRoam


I'm trying to be a bit more proactive this month due to vacations coming up around the corner. For August's prize we will be giving away a free waterproof ContourRoam 1080p camera. This will work great as a dash cam, or a helmet cam.

The prize package will include the following:


I thought of also picking up a car charger, but its a standard USB plug which most people have a dozen of these days.

If you want to win this free ContourRoam, all you have to do is register and post your articles. The article with the most clicks published in August will win. Very easy, if you ask me.

Also, our Free Beats by Dre prize is still in full effect and we are far from a clear winner. It is still anyone's game so register quickly and publish your articles.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

A Brief History of Mizozo and Where We're Heading

At its conception, Mizozo was meant as a means to revolutionize the media industry. Having our news controlled by a select few individuals pushing their agenda doesn't seem like the ideal way for the people to get important information on current events. If we could provide journalists a means to connect directly with the masses, circumventing any editors with their own agendas, we would provide the people with a valuable resource. An editorial process is useful, so long as agendas are removed, but we had a plan for that as well. Sure, there are plenty of citizen journalist sites out there, but we were going to be different, we were going to introduce the Mizozo.

The concept of a Mizozo was key. Our hope was to allow journalists to discuss topics among themselves with the sites visitors cheering them on. When a writer made a post about a heated subject other writers could dispute the facts by posting a response, or a Mizozo, to the original story starting a debate. Since there is rarely a single side to a story, it is important to encourage the use of Mizozos among the writers. The hope was that over time both writers and readers would embrace having both sides of a story present, fully revolutionizing the media industry.

The reality of the site turned out to be significantly different. Over the first few years it was difficult to encourage any real journalists to write. Worse, nobody visiting the site had any interest in the news stories, instead they would come to see pictures of half naked women or some funny comics. In the end, the site turned into an entertainment venue. The few writers that were willing to write for Mizozo quickly realized that they would get far more clicks by posting a celeb link than something about Aerospace technology, and so the shift was slowly made.

Thankfully, the socialist spin on the site never lost its luster. Once the site was in a state where it was making enough revenue to support itself and have a little left over for some petty cash, the announcement was made that all profits would be given back to the writers. So far, this hasn't proved an effective means to encourage many new writers, but over time I'm sure word will get out and slowly but surely writers from around the world will throw in their hats.

Today, Mizozo is a bastion for a socialist business model. It may not have the following that I had hoped it would, but thankfully its core following is growing. The site has come a long way since its inception, and still has a long way to go. With our writer base growing week after week, the content is becoming more appealing and far more people are visiting our homepage every day.

Over the next few years I hope to see Mizozo lead other businesses in a similar business model, taking a slice out of the media market and slowly return to its roots as a revolutionary Media Model. 

We will soon begin our next phase of development, moving towards a more robust engine content engine (WordPress), empowering our writers with far more publishing power. We plan to expand into other businesses in the near future, stimulating our revenue and returning even more to our user base. 

We call all journalists, bloggers and those who love to write to join Mizozo and help this revolution come to life. We fully plan to revisit our initial ideal of journalistic integrity, but first we must acquire a decent user base. 

Monday, July 1, 2013

Mizozo's June Numbers

Once more in an attempt to remain as transparent as possible, here are the number for June.

Visitors: 145,426
Page Views: 251,015
Pages per Visit: 1.73
Earnings: $396
For the second month running, Mizozo's earnings are on the rise. This is great news for the year 2013 because, as you may have noticed, we are giving away prizes each month whose investment is 90% of our running profit. With an operating expense of $140, this month's prize money is $230. Any suggestions?

Now, the increase in earnings is incredibly surprising this month because our visitor count has dropped so dramatically. With about a 20% drop in visitors, how our earnings rose that same 20% is beyond me, but who am I to complain? One thing that is certain, this month we have had a significant increase in direct hits, as well as Home Page views and Entertainment Category views. This likely has much to do with it.

To keep things consistent, here are our Top 5 lists for the month of June:

Top 5 Articles Published Ever:
#1 - Sila Sahin Nude Playboy Pictures (NSFW) [27,821]
#2 - Kelly Brook goes completely nude for Exhibition Magazine (NSFW) [19,624]
#3 - Tamara Ecclestone's Playboy Photos (NSFW) [8,344]
#4 - Kate Moss Wanders Around London with No Bra or Panties (NSFWish) [6,499]
#5 - Olivia Munn Leaked Photos (NSFW) [4,607]

Top 5 Articles Published in June:
#1 - Kate Moss Wanders Around London with No Bra or Panties (NSFWish) [6,499]
#2 - Insane Collection of Before and After Pictures [3,869]
#3 - Candid Photos of Kelly Brook as she goes Topless in Cancun (NSFW) [2,192]
#4 - A Look Back at Amber Heard by Don Flood for FHM UK [1,897]
#5 - Joanna Krupa Goes Topless with her Husband Romain Zago while Vacatioining in Miami (NSFW) [1,669]

And Mizozo's Camping Gear Prize Winner is ...



With June come and go, we have a new prize winner here at Mizozo. In June we were giving away a bunch of essential camping gear, and the winner of said gear is none other than our favorite celebrity photo blogger, celebuzz for his article Kate Moss Wanders Around London with No Bra or Panties (NSFWish). Congratulations celebuzz, you will be contacted in the next few minutes.

Of course, July's prize will be even more interesting ... a Free Pair of Beats by Dre Solo Headphones.