Phyllis Boulton   
WOW... can I relate to what you are saying!! I was encouraged to join by other business associates however now that I am here... I don't think I can get started or keep up with it even reasonably well. I just seem to have so much to learn and keep up with in other important areas of my marketing. How can I wrap my head around even more specific tools and business centers etc.?? I like to do a good and thorough job in everything I do and just cannot do justice to Apsense right now.

I love challenges but frankly I don't think I'm ready for this one as there is nothing "simple" about anything here. Sure like what I'm seeing and can understand the benefit of building the networks and relationships but I think I need to concentrate on setting up and maintaining my other business sites and networks before I branch out into more of the "fun" things.

Phyllis Boulton
Jul 29th 2007 00:59   

Kristian H.   GOT Team Cofounder
Hi...

The truth is our team has been meeting about this issue for the last 2 weeks. We already have plans to simplify things very soon. We had a list of features and functions what we wanted to add to apsense by the end of July and we are pretty much on schedule. So this coming month we will work in only making everything easier to understand.

Fact is we offer A LOT for anyone with a home based business... however because we offer so much, it is hard to make it easy to understand and learn. Our goal is to make things more simple and easier to use but at the same time keeping all of the great features/functions that we offer. I'm going to sound like a broken record but here it goes again... We are working on it, please give us time.
Jul 29th 2007 02:09   

Thea Westra   Adding Wings To Our Unique Life Journey!

I have written a brief blog for newbies that I send them to when they join with me. I won't place the link here so I don't get reported! :) lol

It's a simple 3 step explanation for where to begin.

Reminds me..must add the ABC as step 4, to the blog info.

Cheers, Thea
www.forwardsteps.com.au

Jul 29th 2007 02:28   

Thea Westra   Adding Wings To Our Unique Life Journey!

Kristian and team. You're doing an awesome job! Thank you.
Jul 29th 2007 02:30   

Selya Rollins   Creative Imagery
Yes, I agree the ApSense team is putting it out there, but the new people
are joining, and their ABC's are included in the traffic exchange the same day.
I thought you had to turn this feature on first.
Is it optional?

Selya
Jul 29th 2007 08:33   

Pete Balasch Jr.   Internet Marketer Pod caster
Kristian
Your Team is doing great
Very innovative stuff you are Implementing

Jul 29th 2007 08:39   

Bj aka Bill Brown   Hosting and Backup Service provider
Hi Val

I am confused as to how could you know what rating you were getting as it does not show until you get 5 votes?

I see you have a 6.8 with 5 votes. That is better than I had at 5 votes and my BC had content.


As a general comment for everyone If you have not set up your BC make sure it is not set to publish in the Business Exchange until you have got some content on it. That way it wont get low votes that you will need to overcome later.

I have seen a lot of BC's with absolutely no content in them and some are rating higher than sites with content so the voting system is being abused already.

Bj
Bill Brown aka Bjantiques.

Jul 29th 2007 10:04   

Valerie Hasara   Marketing, Web Designer, Owner
Bill

The account page shows you have votes without showing the score, you are right I didn’t see the score until it hit 5.

I just knew people were on a page that wasn’t done. It didn’t matter what the score was.

Valerie
Jul 29th 2007 10:55   

James Anderson   
I havea great audio but with the very small file we are allowed to use I can not add my audio file so it it basically a useless feature.
Jul 29th 2007 11:16   

Bj aka Bill Brown   Hosting and Backup Service provider
Hi Val

I had to ask as your post said your pages were being ranked low yet there was no way to see that as far as I was aware and I thought maybe you had found a way that I had missed.

Amy said in her post that All sites were set to No in the "Publish to the Bussiness Exchange" option, but it looks like either a few may have slipped through the net or people are activating them without adding content first not realising they will be making it harder for themselves later when they do have content.

Bj
Bill Brown aka Bjantiques.

Jul 29th 2007 11:22   

Karen Weir  Local Internet Advertising Consultant
Hi Phyllis! Cool to see you here. As Kristian is saying, there are ALOT of tools here at APSense - so I think it appears to be more complicated than it is.

I am going to put together some webinar training sessions for APSense. Things like building your ABC. I know that there are many who can benefit, but quite honestly, I am finding it difficult to get word out to see whether it would be worth while to organize (ie. registering). the APSense group would be the most sensible, but the spam rules for that group are over the top... my post got deleted immediately.

Not sure where to post an offer of assistance without getting into trouble. LOL

~ Karen ~
Jul 29th 2007 12:33   

Karen Weir  Local Internet Advertising Consultant
Bill,

I have noticed the same thing. Your BC should be at least a 8-10 average, if people were voting strictly on the content. This is my issue with these types of voting systems - it becomes a popularity contest, or worse...

With these systems in place, one has to be very careful about even offering help. If you give someone some advice or feedback on their ABC to help them out, they can come back and unfairly score you. I have offered friendly advice to people who have sent me blatent ads, and it is clear some people do not take kindly to friendly advice. ;)

I sincerely believe that this is another way of creating even more competition, and along with the Spam Reporting system, greater risks when as Valerie, points out, the power is put in the hands of those who do not understand.

~ Karen ~
Jul 29th 2007 12:47   

Bj aka Bill Brown   Hosting and Backup Service provider
Hi Karen,

Figure this out. Yester day I had a 7.8 with I think it was 10 votes Today I had a 7.4 with 12 votes now its a 7.2 with 13 votes if you do the simple math it tells you someone voted
2 voted an average of 5.5 each and one voted a 4.
Now I am not saying it is worth a 10 but its definitely worth more than a 4. So either it is someone deliberately voting me down or they have no idea what a reasonable site should look like.

I have put a good bit of work into it to make it presentable, not on copy and past item on there. For the things I am promoting I read the web sites and then rewrite what they said in my way, thus aiming for Unique content, which the Search engines like. There is still more to add but if I am going to be judged by people that are just out to pull me down or have absolutely no idea what they are doing I will withdraw it from the exchange, and do my own promotion of it, as I have been up to now.

Bj
Bill Brown aka Bjantiques.

Jul 29th 2007 13:18   

Valerie Hasara   Marketing, Web Designer, Owner
Bill you math is making me go cross-eyed.

Could it be possible that people think they are just surfing and they click the vote now without changing the default 5 in the number bar?

Valerie
Jul 29th 2007 13:38   

Bj aka Bill Brown   Hosting and Backup Service provider
Hi Val,

Sorry I am naturally mathematically minded and relate things very quickly that way.

What you suggest is exactly what I think is happening in the “majority” of cases and this is why sites with nothing on them are getting higher averages than sites with a little content that were correctly rated lower due to lack of content.

There is nothing wrong with giving a lower score for a site with only one short paragraph on one page.
This will give the person incentive to add more content to get a better rating. But to blindly click just to earn credits is totally out of order as far as I am concerned.


Bj
Bill Brown aka Bjantiques.




Jul 29th 2007 13:55   

Chuck Bartok   Veteran Entrepreneur now Sharing

Did I miss something????

Too many naps??

Where and what is the Trafic Exchange and where do find out Informatiom??

Thank you good friends
Jul 29th 2007 18:19   

Jenny Stewart   
I am afraid that i too am finding so many additions and changes to ApSEnse in such a short time BAFFLING! . just when i though I knew what i was doing - it has changed!!.

ApSense is a wonderful community and it is fantastic that it is being constantly improved for us to use. However I thinkit is time to consolidate what we have so that we can start to use the new features to their best advantage.

Then it will be possible for a webinar to be set up to teach us how to use it well.

The only thing that i do not think is poisitive to genuine networking is the constant stress on voting and points. I think they are often used by people who dont fully understand what they are doing wihen they rate something or someone - as the criteria for doing so are not written in stone. Itis a system that is open to abuse as well. But that is my only grumble.
Jul 29th 2007 20:21   

Coletha Browning   Runner Blogger
The point system and this spamming thing concerns me. I am a member of several social networks, but Apsense makes me work harder. I was on vacation a week, and had to recover the following week from my vacation and it was like I was punished for not signing in. I lost points. The point system and now the rating system? So if I am popular I get votes, but if not I don't. It took me months to build my website, but now I have to put that same kind of concentrated effort into my business center here in order to look good and get votes. It's kinda a form of duplication in a sense...just a little. I have my own business and website to promote it. I just started working on my own personal network and I have started to direct new ones to Apsense, plus I don't want to loose the social connections I have made here, but can we make this a little less like American Idol?....You know the most popular wins while us nerdy normal guys can't get a break. I think revisiting the points system would be nice, especially since the explanation of it is vague and it can appear bias because the information Apsense gives regarding how and when we earn points leaves a lot to the administrators because it isn’t totally clear. The system seems a little new or flawed, or really maybe I just don’t get it….because just when I think I have if figured out how I got the points I really find out later I don't have it figured out.
Jul 30th 2007 01:45   

James Anderson   
It does take alot of work here but I guess it all depends on how bad you want your biz to take off. Do nothing and receive nothing, just keeppushing forward for a better tomorrow.Stay positine and believe in yourself and no matter what, smile and have fun.
Jul 30th 2007 12:02   

Bob Laibach  
This business votes I am not too keen on. I am NOT running for office but now I have to act like a politician? This is something I do not like, politics in the work place needs to go. It has caused more problems than it has solved.

I have way more to offer than this site can possibly handle. However with the voting system, people WILL judge you on that score. I am not going to be able to please everyone. This is something I just cannot do. As for some of the features I can't use them anyway. Audio is the wave of the future but I am deaf! This is something that just will not work for me. So I will never be adding audio. I am sure this will hurt me. I can always move on if it comes to HAVING TO DO CERTAIN THINGS TO SURVIVE HERE!

Again I would be left out of some things but don't hold it against me. That would be discrimination at it's worst.

Sincerely
Bob Laibach

Jul 30th 2007 12:21