As part of the deal on which the ink is still wet but now very nearly dry I have decided to cut Upstart Blogger back into shape. Back to what many of you might refer to as the good old days.

All products and services that were sold at Upstart Blogger have now been discontinued permanently. The pages that used to promote or sell them have been replaced with copy that makes the new direction very clear. Everyone who is part way through the course will continue to receive it as normal.

It is my absolute belief that things were better at Upstart Blogger before I took things in a commercial direction 6 months ago.

I should have stuck to my original plan and just blogged. Nothing more, nothing less.

I eschewed third party advertising in favour of my own products which required me to cross the line from free blogger to financially motivated blogger.

The deal of which I have recently spoken so cryptically is pretty simple. Other authors, established bloggers, have been brought in to add content to Upstart Blogger and to make this, hopefully, their second online home. Any sales pages have been replaced with pages that make this new position clear.

Upstart Blogger is, was, and always will be about successful blogging. And success is not always measured in financial terms.

2009 was, in many corners of the blogosphere, the year of the eBook. Many people wrote their own material and attempted to sell it via their blogs, many using affiliate programs. And, whilst many of those ebooks were very good I cannot honestly think of 1 blog where every reader was happy with the authors decision to start the sales process.

This inevitably splits a blogs readership, polarizing it in a very powerful way. Add an affiliate program into the mix and the polarization becomes even more pronounced.

More than that, many people made a good living out of writing eBooks that told people how to launch eBooks in 2009.

One product that springs to mind is the creatively titled How to launch the shit out of your eBook.

What is the next logical step in that online evolutionary curve? How to launch the shit of your eBook that teaches people how to launch the shit of their eBooks? Sounds crazy but it’s only the next step in that particular thought process.

Some were successful, some weren’t. But I truly believe that the eBook ship has sailed.

Why? Because blogs are not sales rooms.

Blogs and social media should be about communication and connection, not sales. Of course, blogs can make money and I doubt anyone would take a stand against that, but the best and most proven way of doing that is via simply 3rd party advertising.

Indeed, the recent FTC rules seem to encourage that method. Carrying banners for 3rd party products seems to be perfectly acceptable since there is an implication of financial motive. When a banner appears on Upstart Blogger is is, hopefully, obvious that I am receiving either a percentage of the income from that banner or a monthly fee for its placement.

If 2009 was the year of the eBook, 2010 will be the year of the freeBook. More than that, 2010 will be the year that free finally takes its place at the head of the blogosphere.

2009 was also the year of the Twitter race for followers. I know that only too well.

2010 will be the year when Twitter comes home, when social media becomes personal again. Partly dues to a change of attitude but also due to a change of Twitter policy. Try some of the methods that worked to gain followers in 2009 today and you may be in for a surprise.

This will throw the process of reciprocal following into sharp focus and many respected social media experts may have to rethink their positions. After all, is it really possible for anyone, even a respected social media expert, to follow over 100,000 people?

With all that in mind I am going to delete certain blog posts that I feel are no longer relevant to the current and future direction of Upstart Blogger. Some posts were made that weren’t inline with the Upstart Blogger ethos before July 2009 and after December 2009. I’m not going to punch a 6 month hole in Upstart Blogger but some serious pruning is going to take place.

Whilst that may sound like SEO suicide I’m confident that the result is worth any temporary drop in traffic. And, given that that around 80% of Upstart Blogger’s traffic comes in to posts that have nothing to do with the material that will be removed, I don’t see any problem and I don’t think my 404 page is going to be particularly busy. I’m just jettisoning the stuff that isn’t needed any more. I might even take the design back a few versions to reflect the change in a more visual way.

From the moment I took over Upstart Blogger I have always maintained that to be a successful blogger you simply need to write good content and develop good relationships with other bloggers in your niche.

Sure, that’s a generalisation but it is the truth.

And it is true now more than ever before.

Meanwhile, take a look a this new management blog, TheMana.gr. The state of management in business is terrible now a days. With the theories and principles discussed at TheMana.gr you can get the essentials you need to develop as a leader and a manager.