I was browsing through my RSS feed when I came across a curious (to say the list) post from TechCrunch, when they mention they have been hacked.

I figured it could be Michael Arrington jumping the gun on April’s Fools again (and setting a new world record at the same time…), but after reading the comments it looks like the most popular tech blog on the web was indeed hacked.

Apparently for some time whoever tried to access TechCrunch.com was redirected to another site. You can get more details from the comments.

The site seems to be working normally now, but it will be interesting to read their follow up on the issue, mainly to understand what kind of vulnerability was exploited.

You probably already visited or heard about I Can Has Cheezburger? right? It is the blog that pioneered the concept of adding funny captions to pictures of cats (called lolcats). What you might not know is the business empire that such blog created.

The blog was launched early in 2007, and late that year it was already so popular that a group of investors, led by Ben Huh, acquired it for around $2 million. After that Ben acquired and launch a bunch of other blogs, all of them with the same humorous approach and style. How big is the network today? According to a TechCrunch article, all the sites combined receive 12 million monthly unique visitors. Just to give you a frame of reference, Digg.com gets around 48 million monthly unique visitors (according to Compete), which is only four times more.

Another interesting part from that article is the strategy used to develop new blog ideas. Here is a quote:

People frequently forget that Huh actually acquired I Can Has Cheezburger? and the FAIL Blog—he didn’t start them. (More on that purchase price below…) Since then he’s opened dozens of humor sites, about 50% of which fail, but some grow spectacularly fast, proving that LOLCats wasn’t a fluke and that Huh has an eye for what makes something funny in that specific viral sort of Internet way. Right now, he’s got a spreadsheet of 150 ideas that he’s moving around, honing and assigning to a team of writers who each curate about five blogs each.

Overall it is an interesting case study, and certainly evidence that blogging can be big business.

I have been running many polls lately on the blog, and I find them pretty interesting because they give us some data on relevant issues. You guys seem to like them as well, so let’s try to make them a regular column. I will release a new poll every other Monday (so twice a month). The only doubt that I have is whether or not I should follow up with a post on the following week highlighting the results. Let me know what you guys prefer.

Anyway today’s poll is about the number of blogs that each of us own. At one point in time I was running six blogs actively. This year I sold some of them, so right now I am running three blogs actively. Notice that you don’t need to write on the blog for it to be counted. As long as you own it, that is fine. Secondly, only count active blogs please (i.e. with at least a couple of posts per month).

Have your say in our poll, and feel free to leave a comment as well.

Today is Blog Action Day, and I want to talk about how bloggers can act to combat climate change.

But first things first, what is climate change? It is the change in the average weather around the world. In our specific case the weather is getting hotter (hence why people talk about global warming). This change is partially caused by natural factors (e.g., changes in Earth’s orbit), but the human factor also plays an important role, with the increasing concentration of greenhouses.

Agencies of the European Union estimate that if things don’t change the average temperature around the world might increase as much as 6°C by the end of this century. Why is this bad? Because the sea level will rise, and the frequency of extreme weather events like hurricanes and tsunamis will increase.

“OK,” you might be saying, “but what can I do to combat the climate change?” Here are some ideas:

1. Write About It

The first step to combat any problem is to recognize that we do have a problem. Many people still ignore (deliberately or not) the threats of climate change, and that is why it is important to get as many people as possible discussing about the issue.

The purpose of the Blog Action Day is exactly that: to get bloggers from around the world talking about the same issue on the same day. If we manage to generate enough buzz, the messages will propagate through mainstream media and beyond, reaching the general public.

Make sure to participate and write a post about climate change today.

2. Make Your Home Office Eco-Friendly

There are many hardware changes you can make to reduce your energy consumption. If you are still using a CTR monitor, for instance, you could purchase an LCD, which consumes much less energy.

Secondly, look for energy efficiency labels whenever buying an electronic device. This is particularly important when purchasing light bulbs, as efficient ones will save as much as 80% on energy consumption.

3. Make Your Habits Eco-Friendly

Apart from changing your hardware you can also save energy by changing your habits. Instead of driving everyday to the office, for instance, try to telecommute a couple of days a week.

Secondly, develop the habit of turning your computer and other electronics off whenever you can. Even if you use energy efficient products, they will still consume some power, and over the course of an year it adds up.

Over to the Readers

What about you, are you participating in Blog Action Day? Do you think that climate change poses a big threat to our society?

Unless you have been offline for the past couple of weeks, you probably heard about the changes in the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) regarding the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising.

Even if you have read about it in blogs and newspapers, I suggest that you download the original document, if not to read it at least to keep it as a reference. You can download it from the FTC site (on the right sidebar there is a link titled “Text of the Federal Register Notice”).

The main change that affects bloggers is the fact that any “material connection” with a company or advertiser must be disclosed now. This includes affiliate marketing deals, sponsored reviews and also situations where you received a freebie in exchange for a review.

Here is a quote from the FTC website:

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.

There is another important change for the Internet marketing industry in general, and that is the fact that companies won’t be able to use “atypical results” on their sales pitches while adding a disclaimer in the footer to get away with it. Companies that want to talk about results will need to make completely clear what the average results for people who bought the product are. In other words, this should be the end of “who else wants to make $1,000 per day while working only 20 minutes?”.

It is all inside the document though, so check it out.