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You may have already seen a sneak peak of some of our upcoming activities through the Events Calendar, but if you haven't, we're going to be doing things a little differently for 5 days from this Thursday 18th September (we'll be back to normal next week).

Quick Spins

For selected categories, we'll be spinning the wheel once each day to allow more sites to get a taste of Publicity Wheel exposure. You may get lots of clicks or you may not, but we'll give you every chance by giving the quick spin winners 24 hours of full exposure. Winners will be selected the same way, but we won't take any points away from you, so you'll still be in for a real chance next week when we spin the wheel again for 5 days. Now is the time to update your 125x125 banner image, as you'll be sure to get a few more visitors that way.

Double Points

During the entire 5 day period, you'll get double the publicity points you normally would, so get the Publicity Wheel widget into a prominent location on your site to cash in. Given the number of points previous winners were holding at the time, it doesn't necessarily take a lot to win.

Good luck!

There are lots of great activities coming up on the wheel, and we want to make sure you know exactly what's happening and when. As a result, we've just launched our Events Calendar, a great reference that can be used to see all the Publicity Wheel events on one page.

The Events Calendar is powered by Google, so that means it can be integrated into your existing Google or other calendar. You can subscribe to the XML feed in your RSS reader or add the iCAL file into your existing calendar.

Take a quick look at the Events Calendar now to get a sneak peak of what's in the plans. You may notice a few interesting activities coming up, so make sure you keep up with the blog for more info to come!

We've successfully moved servers today without any major hiccups. Things should run much faster now. Please contact us if anything appears broken :)

Just a quick note to everyone that Publicity Wheel will be down temporarily this Thursday 4th September whilst we migrate to a new (and much quicker) server. It is expected that this process should take no longer than 24-48 hours. Your 125x125 pixel banner will display as normal and Publicity Points should continue to tick over.

If there are any issues that may arise unexpectedly, we'll most certainly extend the duration of the next spin to 6 or 7 days.

Our aim is to keep things as open as possible to allow everyone to see exactly what is and what will happen with the wheel. So along with your Exposure Level discussed earlier, we've also released the new Exposure Table, which lists all categories, their current state and number of ad views over the period of one spin (currently 5 days).

The Exposure Table is generated from live data, so you'll know it's always up-to-date. It's also useful to see which categories aren't active yet, so you can choose to wait it out and build up your points until they open, or move over to the "General" category temporarily. More categories will most probably be activated during the next spin on Tuesday.

It looks like the Internet category is the most popular, but that also means there's more competition within. Of course, as can be seen by this week's winners, you don't necessarily need a large number of points to win. In fact, this week was very interesting as the highest winning points were only 25. This means that you could simply invite 2 friends and you'll be well up there!

Things have been heating up on the Publicity Wheel, and we're ready to start spinning the wheel a little quicker to give more of you the opportunity to be featured. Starting Monday, we'll be spinning the wheel every 5 days. We feel it gives the winners a solid amount of exposure, but also provides everyone with a shorter wait between spins. Ultimately, it'll probably come down further to 3 or 4 days, but we're not quite there yet.

Speaking of all things hot, have you checked your exposure level against the 'General' category? Earlier this week, susans home won in this category with 35 points, so if you'd like a bit of a mix-up this week, why not jump on board?

We've also activated a number of new categories, so check out the winners page for more info. If you're being featured, we'd love your feedback. Even if you've won in the past and seen a change in your traffic or an increase in readership, please let us know. The 'Internet' category continues to top the click-rates, but others are experiencing some huge levels of exposure.

Good luck to all during Monday's spin!

One of the great things about the Publicity Wheel is the amount of exposure your site can experience when featured. Whilst clicks are great, consistent exposure of your brand can be just as important, which is what you'll receive for several days. That's why we've added a new field to your Dashboard known as "Exposure Level".

So what does this figure represent? Basically, when you add the Publicity Wheel banner to your site (featuring the winner within your category), we will gather statistics about your site's visitors, in particular the amount of times the ad has been viewed on your site. By comparing this to the amount of times visitors across all members' sites have viewed your ad, a percentage can be calculated that we call Exposure Level.

For example, an Exposure Level of 100% indicates that you're receiving exactly the same amount of exposure as you would if you hadn't been featured. 200% indicates that you're receiving twice as many "ad views" as you are giving out. Of course, you should always have a percentage greater than 100%, and many members achieve exposure levels of several thousand percent. You can certainly see the power of the exposure Publicity Wheel can generate.

But what about those who aren't featured? You'll see a field known as "Expected Exposure Level", which is calculated by assuming that approximately the same number of visitors will be viewing the Publicity Wheel banner when you do become featured.

Feel free to select another category to see what levels of exposure you could expect when featured. In particular, try the "General" category as outlined in the previous blog entry if your site doesn't fit neatly into any other category.

As you may know, not all categories are active or large enough just yet, so whilst you accumulate publicity points, the resultant boost in traffic may not be quite as high as you expect when you do win. The way around this is to temporarily join another category that may be larger, but this probably isn't the best option if you don't expect a lot of users from that category to be interested in your site.

Another method is to join a new category that has recently been added - the "General" category. The aim of this category is to allow sites to jump in together and increase their publicity to a wider audience. It is expected that more sites will participate in this category, so winners will receive a much bigger boost in traffic and exposure. Of course, if you're already in a popular category (such as "Internet"), you'll probably want to stay there.

The "General" category will be activated either this spin or the next (depending on the numbers that join). Feel free to jump between categories at any time, it won't affect your publicity points.

To join, update your site profile through your dashboard and select the General category from the drop-down box. Then replace your existing HTML snippet with this one.

Along with the last weeks dashboard improvements, particularly the Status panel, you may have noticed that the next spin is scheduled for Monday (instead of Saturday). We feel this makes more sense for a number of reasons, but as a result this week's winners get an extra two days of publicity!

If you've been keeping a close eye on the ads, you may have noticed that on rare occasions a "Publicitywheel SPONSOR" tab replaces the usual "Publicitywheel WINNER" tab. These have been added to help keep Publicity Wheel running and cover the costs. They have only a very small chance of being displayed (a few percent), and the overwhelming majority of ads will be reserved for the winners of each spin. Even so, you'll earn points regardless of whether your users click on winner or sponsor ad. Right now, the only ads in these Sponsorship slots promote the Publicity Wheel itself, and it is expected to be a little while before you see anything else. If you wish to discuss sponsorship, please do not hesitate to contact us.

The Home and Garden category has been added to the wheel as the statistics indicate that the ads are now receiving enough views to boost the winner's traffic and publicity. Congratulations to Pink Lemonade for being the first winner in this category!

Many of you may have already noticed the new Dashboard, a page which provides you with an overview of information relevant to you. The aim is to keep all the information you need in one place through a simple interface. Here's an example of what mine looks like:

The Dashboard is divided into 4 panels:

Your profile panel provides you with your submitted website information, including your 125x125 pixel banner ad, site title, category and description. If your profile is within the moderation queue, this will also be displayed in this panel. Remember, if you don't have a profile displayed in this panel, there's no way you can be selected at the next spin. At this time, the 125x125 pixel banner ads and descriptions are optional, so it won't take long at all to create your profile.

As the Publicity Wheel works very differently to other services, it is important to provide everyone with an understanding of where we are and what we're doing at any given time. The Status panel shows you how long we've all been promoting the current winners, and when we'll be spinning the wheel again. We've been spinning the wheel every week, but in the future we may adjust this period, so you'll know well in advance.

Publicity Points are at the core of Publicity Wheel's service, and are used to select the winners each spin. Information provided to you within this panel include your total number of points, points earned in the last week, and a link to your point history (including a date and timestamp for every point earned). You're also provided with the embed code for your site to start earning points.

In addition to your Publicity Points, the Statistics panel provides you with additional information about the performance of the Ad banner you placed on your own site. Elements include the number of clicks from your site (which in turn contribute to your Publicity Points) and the number of Ad views from your site (useful to determine how many times your visitors view the page the Ad is on). Remember that (for the moment) figures are only shown since the last spin, so you're likely to see smaller numbers soon after each spin. When featured, you'll also be shown the number of visitors the Publicity Wheel community has sent to your site. Expect this number to grow quickly!

As always, comments or feedback will be greatly appreciated.

We've made a number of great changes to the layout of your profile and the HTML code snippet used on your website. These were introduced for several reasons, but particularly to help you earn additional publicity points and manage your profile more easily.

The most important change has been the introduction of the new HTML embed code that is used on your site to help you earn publicity points. The new code will generate both the winner's 125x125 banner ad, as well as an additional tab linking directly to the Publicity Wheel itself. Here's an example:

There are lots of great advantages to the new code:

• Clicks on the "Publicity Wheel Winner" tab underneath winner ads will also earn you points, allowing you to accumulate points from a different audience
• Images are now hosted on Amazon's lightning fast servers
• No image caching issues (e.g. showing previous winner ads when new winners have been selected)
• The "Publicity Wheel" frame after your uses click on ads is now gone, meaning your users will get straight to the winner's page

IMPORTANT: You will need to update your site to incorporate the new code. Simply replace the old code with the one found in the Earn Publicity Points page. The old code still works but will be phased out soon.

After logging in, check out your new profile page. This will provide you with a clean overview of your website profile and publicity points. You'll also be able to see some statistics (such as banner clicks on your site) very soon.

To update your profile, use the "Edit" button and make your changes. Profiles are now reviewed as they are created to allow everyone to be 100% sure of their eligibility for selection at the next spin, especially if they are unclear with where they stand on the Program Policies.

As usual, we'd love to hear any comments or feedback.