I support artists by giving away my photography.

Check out my portfolio, personal development articles, Tweet This, Thripp Photography 2010, and Composer’s Journey.

It’s been three weeks since I started my Thripp 2010 project. I’ve posted one photo weekday from before 2010 here, one photo per weekday from 2010 on Thripp Photography 2010, and one comic per weekday on I See a Fish. I have only posted seven compositions on Composer’s Journey because of the difficulty of composing music. My plan is to only post three compositions per week, so at the end of 2010 I should have 59 compositions.

Though this was not part of my plans originally, I have released the first updates to Tweet This since September 2009. This plugin for WordPress integrates Twitter with your blog, allowing your readers to tweet your articles with a click and allowing you to automatically tweet new and scheduled posts. Version 1.7.1 has support for OAuth, a new options menu design, and many fixes. The Tweet This page gets 50% more visitors than my blog home page, has more back-links, and has a Google PageRank of 6/10 compared to the Thripp Photography home page’s rank of 5/10, so this should help me meet my revenue and traffic goals. I am planning to release three more major versions of Tweet This this year (1.8, 1.9, and 2.0).

On Sunday, August 15, I set three objectives for these 20 weeks:
1. Get 50,000 absolute unique visitors in total for the three sites (track with Google Analytics).
2. Earn $2000 in Google AdSense revenues (including other sites such as Th8.us).
3. Increase the Alexa ranking of Thripp.com to 40,000.

The first one is a cinch. Google Analytics logged 8139 absolute unique visitors on richardxthripp.thripp.com alone from Aug. 16 through Aug. 31, or 508 per day. If this keeps up, I will end 2010 with 70,000 unique visitors.

The second objective is not going well. I made $172.87 in AdSense revenues from Aug. 16 through Aug. 31, or $10.80 per day. To meet my goal of $2000, I have to make $14.49 every day. To get back on track, I have to make $16.46 per day in September, or $493.67 for the whole month. My best month for AdSense so far was March 2010, when I made $452.40. Unless people start donating, I will have a hard time reaching my goal. I added an ad unit at the top of the each page below the header, but it hasn’t increased my revenues much. I tried AdBrite for a day. I received 2000 impressions and ZERO clicks, making 12 cents. Unbelievable. They might just be cheating me, not counting any clicks. I won’t use them again. I’ve even added a donation widget to my sidebar, but no luck. Perhaps I’m not providing enough value?

The third objective also looks hopeless. My Alexa rank has only increased 5K to 65K, and my rank for the past week is way down at 73K. If you look at my one-week graph, my rank spikes to 35K on Aug. 28, and then drops like a rock. It’s around 100K these past few days. I have no idea what happened.

I must redouble my efforts these next four months if I want to succeed. It’s not enough just to produce photos, music, comics, plugins, and writing. I have to promote myself. I’m going to start commenting on other blogs, networking on Twitter and Facebook, and sending out emails. September will be better.

Blue flowers planted in a parking lot for decoration. The colors of these flowers are far out of gamut so this photo will look bad in print.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/250, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2005-10-23T12:48:17-04, 2005-10-23_12h48m17

Download the high-res JPEG (1.55MB) or download the source image (1.25MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

A pink rose at Wal-Mart’s garden center, covered in water drops.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-10-23T07:52:43-04, 2005-10-23_07h52m43

Download the high-res JPEG (1.35MB) or download the source image (1.66MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

The ocean at night in October 2005. Since I had a crappy camera at the time, this was very under-exposed. I brightened it a lot but there is tons of grains and hot pixels. The photo looks good at low resolution, though.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/1, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO200, 2005-10-16T21:04:51-04, 2005-10-16_21h04m51

Download the high-res JPEG (1.25MB) or download the source image (1.45MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

Mushrooms are actually closer to animals than plants, because they decompose organic matter for energy just like we do. The difference is they do it outside their bodies. The real action happens underground; the actual mushroom is just for decoration.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-10-10T07:39:32-04, 2005-10-10_07h39m32

Download the high-res JPEG (1.41MB) or download the source image (1.68MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

Today I released Tweet This 1.7, the first update to my WordPress plugin in nearly a year. This version adds OAuth support, and it is an important upgrade because Twitter will be disabling basic authentication tomorrow, Aug. 31, 2010. I’ve also added support for the Bit.ly API and fixed many bugs, including problems with automatic tweeting.

Tweet This 1.7 is also available on the WordPress plugin repository and it has been downloaded 100 times since I released it an hour ago. Twitter requires each user of Tweet This to fill out a lengthy and complex application registration form and then copy and paste four API keys to the Tweet This settings, all of which long and confusing, like “5151540-ADGJeaa-dgaiojt-3ugeaei-ghq75gj-dwerty.” Even Alex King, creator of Twitter Tools, has complained about it. Unfortunately, it’s my only option, so I’ve included detailed instructions on the Tweet This options page.

Please leave me feedback and bug reports, as I will be actively developing Tweet This over the coming months.

A beautiful golden sunset near Walgreens. You can almost see the sign at the bottom in the shadows.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/145, F4.2, 12.6mm, ISO64, 2005-10-05T18:57:54-04, 2005-10-05_18h57m54

Download the high-res JPEG (1.4MB) or download the source image (1.72MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

The prequel to Raindrops, but not as good. This is from October of 2005 (eight months earlier), same location. I couldn’t get closer to the drops because the camera I was using would not focus closer than four centimeters.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/2000, F4.7, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2005-10-02T08:59:57-04, 2005-10-02_08h59m57

Download the high-res JPEG (719.61KB) or download the source image (1.36MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

A rainbow high among the clouds.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/333, F4.7, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2005-10-02T07:47:59-04, 2005-10-02_07h47m59

Download the high-res JPEG (1.59MB) or download the source image (1.98MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

Tomatoes at Publix from September of 2005. This picture had motion blur so I sharpened it a lot.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/22, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-09-15T09:47:04-04, 2005-09-15_09h47m04

Download the high-res JPEG (1.8MB) or download the source image (1.68MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.