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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.

New winners have been selected again this week, and once again another category (Computers) has been added. Congratulations and enjoy your week of traffic and publicity!

Remember, if you haven't added the code to your site yet, you won't be able to earn points and may have trouble winning next week.

More features are on the way, stay tuned!

We have new winners again this week, with one more category added. Congratulations to all involved!

For all existing users who have incorporated banners of sizes 200 x 200 and 468 x 60 pixels or text links on your site, it would be a good idea to switch to 125 x 125 now, as we will not be providing these options for new users from this point forward. Old banners will still display and function correctly, but they will not provide you with publicity points in the future.

There are a few reasons for this. The main advantages are that 125 x 125 is a clear standard that many advertising networks use, and maintaining one format will allow you to produce your banner image more quickly and easily.

To give you an idea of the size of a 125 x 125 image, here's an example:

If you have any thoughts or feedback, please contact us or leave a comment below.

Congratulations to this week's winners. A few additional categories are appearing now, and over time we should begin to see winners from every category each spin.

You may have noticed a new block to the left-hand side above the login/menu. This links to a form that can be used to invite friends to the Publicity Wheel, with each user registered earning you 20 publicity points.

Having new members sign up to the Publicity Wheel will help your site gain further exposure and traffic when featured. If you know anyone who has a website and would be interested in the Publicity Wheel, earn an extra 20 publicity points by inviting them today.

The wheel, for the first time, has been spun! Congratulations to the following winners:

In the Business category: Alternative Marketing 101 with 125 publicity points.
In the Entertainment category: Kez on Myspace with 5 publicity points.
In the Internet category: Pliggs with 100 publicity points.

These winners can always be found in the Past winners page, along with a link to their website and profile.

Why only 3 winners? As we're still quite young with many categories, not all of them have a good number of websites listed to warrant a winner at this stage. Of course, over time this will change, and it is expected that all categories will have a winner each spin soon. This means that the boost in traffic and exposure will be quite low right now, but this also means that the chances of winning each spin are much higher, so it's all proportional.

If you haven't yet added the publicity wheel code to your site to begin earning publicity points, why not get started now? If you don't have any banners, the standard "Publicity Wheel" banners will be used in it's place when you win, but still forward any clicks to your website.

The Publicity Wheel is only young, but we're now ready to spin the wheel for the first time next week. This means that you have a chance to have your website featured on all other websites within the same category. Your website will also appear in the Past winners list.

As the community is still quite small, not every category has enough websites listed to warrant a selection at this stage. However, as we grow, we'll begin spinning the wheel for all categories. Hopefully this shouldn't take too long.

Remember to copy the code to your website so that you can begin earning publicity points. You don't have to use banner images either, text links are also available.

Good luck!

Welcome to the Publicity Wheel, a fun and unique way to achieve a boost in traffic and exposure for your website at absolutely no cost.

Each spin of the wheel, a featured website is collaboratively promoted via banners by the Publicity Wheel community. You will earn publicity points each time somebody clicks on a banner on your site. At the next spin, a new website is selected based on publicity points and promoted once again.

Feel free to take a look around to find out more information or begin right now by signup up.

We also welcome your feedback, so you're encouraged to use the contact form for any suggestions or comments you may have.