Business As Usual

Anyone reading Mamarazzi from the Blogger site (as opposed to those who read from Buzz or Google Reader) will by now have noticed the swirligig things on the left side of the screen from Amazon.  Those are not random--I put them there.  I was on this blog the other day and saw that mr. lady's reading list (on the right side and down a bit) looked WAY cooler than my reading list so I clicked on it to figure out how I could do the same thing.  As it turns out, Amazon has a thing called Amazon Associates that provides a bunch of different widgets for you to recommend stuff to your readers.  So I deleted my old reading list and put those books into a a carousel widget.  PLUS, there was a widget for music so now I have a place to recommend kid songs I like, and THEN I created another carousel widget with various products that we use and like so if you are getting ready to have a baby (and a TON of my friends are) and you're wondering what baby body wash/shampoo you should use, I recommend the Jason brand because it smells great and doesn't have any weird crap in it.  So I put that along with our favorite sippy cup, my favorite nursing tanks, and a couple of other things we love into another carousel.    My main objective is to be able to share the stuff I like with those who might be interested, but an added perk to those carousels is that if anyone clicks on one of the things in the carousel and then buys it, I get a small percentage kickback (like 4% or something).  It's not much and I'm not really expecting to wield that much influence, but I figure what the heck!

That said, I am also contemplating allowing ads on my blog....I'm leaning toward it, but keep hesitating to actually do it because I don't want it to get in the way and make the blog look ugly.  Plus I don't know how much control I'd have over them, but I imagine not much. With the Amazon thing, I can recommend stuff I actually use and like so I don't feel like a sell out.

Okay, sorry for the boring non-cute non-baby post! Just wanted to explain....

ALSO, after years of coaxing from everyone, I finally decided to sign up for Facebook.  If I haven't found you yet, come find me!  My wall is not activated because I'm trying to EASE into this....But you can send messages!  I put a "badge" (an obnoxiously large one, but I can't figure out how to shrink it) beneath my profile on the left so it should be easy to find me.