Mark Evans asks the question… “How will wordpress make money?” I think the better question is…

“How will a million+ Wordpress.com bloggers make money?”

Bloggers may tell you that they don’t want to earn a few bucks, or more, from their blogging efforts, but deep down, they wish they could. It makes no sense to us that Wordpress.com doesn’t give them some type of system to help them earn.

I can see many bloggers not wanting to stick with them if they don’t assist them down the road into at least some type of monetization effort.

Of course, we believe that ScratchBack.com is that solution for them. So much so that we’ve been talking for months with a top executive over at WP.com. But so far, we’ve gotten no real forward progress. Probably because as Matt states, they aren’t in any hurry to monetize.

ScratchBack just makes sense for them though, doesn’t it? We think so. So, Matt Mullenweg, ready to hear us out? info at scratchback dot com.

Congratulations to widget design #7. The user is DayDreamOz from Sitepoint. They got the most votes from all the entries.

Hundreds and hundreds of votes were cast, and #7 took in a whopping 62% of them. A close second was #26. This widget will be live and ready to use in the ScratchBack system in a few days.

Note: We’re also upgrading all the widget designs (no, not in size yet) with some updated looks coming soon too! Thank you to everyone who put in a design and who voted, great contest!

The contest ends tonight. Get your votes in now. Hundreds have weighed in already.

http://www.scratchback.com/design_contest.php

The entries are in, and we’re ready to accept votes for the new ScratchBack widget design. Here’s the page with all the designs entered into the contest for the $200 prize. Start voting!

http://www.scratchback.com/design_contest.php

The contest is over. 32 new widget designs were entered of all different styles and colors.

Now it’s going to be up to you to vote to see which one gets implemented and which one earns the $200 prize. Voting details coming in the next few days, so get ready to vote!

Check out Blogaboutyourblog.com for a really great deal. They’re using the ScratchBack widget and you can tip them for only $5. That’ll get you exposure to over 500 readers!

Are you using the ScratchBack widget? Feel free to send us your blog and tell us why you think other SB users would want to tip you.

Over at JimKukral.com, my main blog, I’ve just released my new web show called the Daily Flip. It’s a show about marketing and being an online entrepreneur and stuff like that.

I’m using ScratchBack to help monetize it, check it out here on this video. See the arrow pointing to the ScratchBack widget on the right of the video?

We believe that using ScratchBack in this manner is a viable way to make money with your video or audio podcast content. The widget on JimKukral.com is only set to $10 for a week, as a starting point. A podcaster could adjust that to anything they wanted, based upon the “value” they put on their show.

For example, if you’re getting 2,000 video views a day on your blog, you may set your widget to be a month link, and make each link be $100 or more. That’s money that you didn’t have before, and more importantly, you don’t have to embed an ad in your video.

Give it a try? Visit ScratchBack.com today to get your own widget, for free!

Neat incentive for tipping using the SB widget here. We’re loving how people are being so creative with the widgets. Awesome!

You notice that on the sidebar there is a list of “Scratchbackers” - a way of “Tipping” bloggers. I thought I’d give it a go to push the badges. You will get both designs of the badge for $5. I know it’s a little expensive, but it’s to cover postage and packing costs (as well as letting scratchback and paypal take their cut).

When that’s done, make sure you email me your postal address to send you the badges. I promise I won’t stalk you!

On top of that, you also get a link in my Topspots, now - to appease google, the links are nofollow, so how do you get a dofollow link?

Post On Your Blog Wearing The Badges
Yes! If you post a picture of yourself wearing the badges, on your blog, you’ll get a mention in my “end of the month” post as a way to say thanks, whatever you want your link text to be, just make sure I know about it :).

You may get two links, if you’re attractive ;).

We’ve move the widget design content here. If you’d like to enter, please do so at Sitepoint. Thanks!

Were having a design contest for a new TopSpot widget design.

We’ll refrain from making any comments on entries as they come in, but you can feel free to leave your comments below if you wish. Remember, all entries will be collected and presented together after the deadline has passed, and you will be able to vote for the winner at that time.

Sent in by http://bethei.blogspot.com/.