Yesterday I was knocking out some sweet HubPages stuff when all of a sudden Jay Reitz (one of HubPages founders) walked in and told us to get on upstairs so that we could surprise/embarrass our fearless leader here at HubPages, the one and only Mr. Paul Deeds, with a cake for his birthday. I’m always up for a little surprise and I’m definitely always up for embarrassins Paul, so I jumped up and ran upstairs so that I didn’t miss any of the upcoming festivities.

Well, we iced up the cake, set 34 candles on fire and surprised our unsuspecting leader. What do you think, does he look surprised at all? I think so. Check out the video below or over here on YouTube.

Yesterday marked the death of one of the most influential people in the history of music, Michael Jackson. At the young age of 50 the King of Pop died suddenly after being rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave I’m sure you’ve noticed the public response to this tragedy has been nothing short of amazing and although his life has also been full of some not-so-good scandals and legal issues, it’s good to see that upon his death everyone’s remembering him for the worldwide icon and voice of a generation that he was to many us (including myself).

All of this Internet activity also got me wondering how many new Michael Jackson related Hubs had been published since the news of his death had broke yesterday afternoon. After doing a little bit of research and after a few searches I estimate that there has been over 150 new Hubs published on the King of Pop. I guess that’s our HubPages way to saying goodbye to a guy who has impacted so many lives — good thing that all of his music will still live on forever.

p.s. The guy sure was a showman, eh? — wow.

Man, I love this job. Each day you never know what interesting person you’re going to meet and who you’re going to be able to connect with from who knows where. Thanks to the good ol’ Interwebs, the HubPages community is made up of awesome people from all over the world, which makes it even more interesting that I had a new Hubber actually stop by the HubPages HQ today so that she could get a quick lesson in all things Hubbing.

Her name is Annette and her HubPages profile is Falcon Flyer. Currently she doesn’t have anything set up on her profile yet and she doesn’t have any Hubs published, but now that she’s been given the HubPages 101 by yours truly, I’m sure you’ll be seeing her Hubs in no time. She’s planning on writing about topics that have to do with teaching (she taught for several years), subliminal information (she knows her stuff) and traveling (she’s been to Maui 5 times). Be sure to keep your eye on her, she’s bound to be a superstar Hubber before we know it.

Me, Frank and Annette pose for a great shot

As many of you Hubbers have probably noticed, I’ve been a little out of rhythm here lately when it comes to posting things on HubPages and chatting in the forums. This is due to a few reasons, such as the 30 Day HubChallenge (which I hope to continue somehow), my family vacation/wedding planning trip back home and the thing that has had the most impact on affecting my HubPages mojo — my shoulder injury/surgery that I have been dealing with for the past 3 months.

If you didn’t already know, I wrecked my bike heading home from work and ended up getting the worst type of what’s called an AC Joint separation in my shoulder. Basically I tore 3 ligaments that connect my clavicle (collar bone) to the rest of my shoulder. Yeah, it was pretty nasty. But, I’m feeling much better now and I can even sit and type at my laptop now for as long as I want without my shoulder starting to hurt like you-know-what. So, things are going good right now for me and my poor, injured shoulder and now that I’m able to be a little more productive than I’ve been, I thought that it would be good to put together a little video of what all went on during the day of my surgery. Check out the video below when you get a chance or watch it over here on YouTube.

Sometimes I’m amazed at what Hubbers can get out of writing on HubPages besides a little extra cash in their pocket. I’ve heard of celebrity encounters and other not-so-normal happenings because of a seemingly innocently published Hubs, but when I was reading a forum called Thank You Hub Hubpages I read about something that I’ve never heard of happening to a Hubber. For the first time (that I know of) HubPages had somehow connected a Hubber named fortunerep with her long, lost uncle. This happened after she published a Hub titled I Googled My Uncle Ross and somehow, miraculously, her uncle not only found her Hub she wrote about him, but he also commented on it so that they could connect up. Ah, behold the power of Googling yourself.

Also, I guess that it’s also worth mentioning that her uncle Ross isn’t just a normal uncle, he’s also a once world Karate and kickboxing champion. Check out the video below to see him in action and I’ll be sure to update you with any other awesome HubPages happenings that I hear about.

On Monday, for the first time, we surpassed 1 million hubs viewed in a single day.

According to Quantcast, HubPages is now #146 on the most visited US web sites.

In my view, this is really great recognition of the interesting topics that are daily being published on HubPages.  We are community-powered content.

So, all you Hubbers out there, great work! 

The Challenge
Yesterday as I was aimlessly wandering about on the web, I found an interesting blog post that was written up by a guy names Court over on a site called The Keyword Academy. It was titled New Make Money Experiment - 100 Hubs In 30 Days and it talked about how Court has suddenly realized that HubPages was a legit place to earn some money by writing (duh!) and how he was going to attempt to write 100 Hubs in the next 30 days so that he could see what the true potential was.

Well, me being the overly ambitious guy that I am, commented on his blog and challenged him to see who could produce more earnings by writing 100 Hubs in 30 days, him or me. Since that comment Court and I have emailed a few time back and forth and now it’s turned out to an even bigger thing than we ever expected.

From the looks of it, tons of people that read his blog are joining in the challenge and after posting some information about the challenge here in the HubPages forums, it looks like some Hubbers are up for it, too (some at 30 in 30 days, some at 100 in 30 days).

If you’d like to join in on the Hub Challenge, head on over here for more details: HubPages.com/HubChallenge — and don’t worry, you can do it…I think?

How To Join
Also, if you do want to join up, here are 3 simple steps to follow along the 30 day journey:

1. If you Tweet info about your progress with the Hub Challenge could you please use the #HubChallenge hashtag after each of your tweets so that we can keep an eye on what everyone’s up to and how their challenge is going. Also, you can follow HubPages on Twitter here for overall challenge updates: Twitter.com/HubPagesDOTcom.

2. Once you start writing your Hubs, please add a ‘HubChallenge’ tag to any Hub that you’re writing for your 30 Day Hub Challenge so that we can do some cool reporting and analysis on the Hubs that we’re all writing during our 30 days.

3. Write a blog and let all of your friends know that you’re crazy enough to accept the challenge and be sure to use one of these images below whenever you post something.

With the latest update to HubPages, we have added the ability to reuse an existing hub layout for a new hub. in addition to providing two additional starting layouts.   Here’s a snapshot of the new layout selection:

The new feature gives you the ability to create a template hub.  By this, I mean a hub that is not necessarily published but which you can reuse for each new hub you create.   If you start your template title with an !, then you can be sure that it will be at the top of the drop down list.  This will make it very easy to select when you create a new hub and it will also separate your template from your regular hubs.  For example, you could title your template !My-hub-template.

Templates are nice because you can change them at any time and because  you can have a different template for each style of hub that you like you write.

So, what is the ideal layout?  Should hubs try to be as complicated as possible or should they purposely stay simple?  In my view, a hub should always be as simple as possible.  In my view and in my experience with well-written hubs (mostly, as reader), the content is key.  Content should drive the layout.

Let’s take a look at the different layout usage patterns on HubPages.  If we look at all hubs without regard to quality, here’s what we find:

• There are over 68,000 different layouts in use on HubPages (out of 310,000 published hubs)
• over 84,500 hubs use the default layout (Text -> Photo -> Comments)
• over 8,000 hubs use (Text/Photo -> Comments)
• over 5,900 hubs use (Text -> Comments)

If you only consider hubs that have a Hub Score of 80 or more, then you get some different values:

• There are about 7,500 hubs with a Hub Score of 80 or more (at the time of my test)
• There are over 5,800 different hub layouts used by these hubs
• Roughly 300 of these hubs are written with (Text -> Photo -> Comments)
• Roughly 170 of these hubs are written with (Text/Photo -> Comments)
• Roughly 50 of these hubs are written with (Text -> Comments)

I think that the lesson here is that the best hubs use a layout appropriate for the content rather than the starting layout.  Given the great number of different layouts, I think it is also interesting to see which capsules are being used and how many of them are found in each hub.

If we look at at the hubs created this year, we find that the average hub uses:

• 1.78 Text capsules
• 1.54 Photo capsules
• 0.96 Comment capsules
• 0.32 Amazon capsules
• 0.27 Link capsules
• 0.27 Video capsules
• 0.11 Ebay capsules
• 0.09 Rss capsules
• 0.07 News capsules
• 0.07 Poll capsules

Now, if we look at what types of capsules are being used by hubs with a Hub Score of 80 or more, we find that the average hub contains:

• 4.92 Text capsules
• 3.77 Photo capsules
• 0.99 Comment capsules
• 0.90 Amazon capsules
• 0.83 Link capsules
• 0.73 Video capsules
• 0.21 Ebay capsules
• 0.23 News capsules
• 0.15 Rss capsules
• 0.27 Poll capsules

I think that the lesson is clear.  The higher rated hubs have a more interesting selection of capsules.  Indeed, if you compare the two sets of numbers, the higher rated hubs have roughly double the number of each type of capsule.

If we only want to look at the hubs that reached the coveted 90 hub score, here’s what you find:

• There are 525 different layouts (for roughly 590 hubs with a score of 90 or more)
• Of these, roughly 13 used Text/Photo -> Comments
• Only 11 used Text -> Photo -> Comments

Of these top-rated, the average hub used:

• 4.77 Text capsules
• 5 Photo capsules
• 0.97 Amazon capsules
• 1.00 Comment capsules
• 0.37 Link capsules
• 0.61 Video capsules
• 0.27 Ebay capsules
• 0.33 News capsules
• 0.11 Rss capsules
• 0.25 Poll capsules

Again, I think this proves the point.  If you want do well, find a layout that best promotes your content.

After over 120+ people placed their vote over here, the final HubNuggets were finally made official yesterday and sent out in the HubPages Weekly newsletter to all of the fine Hubbers out there (over 55,000 of them!).

Also, it’s worth mentioning that Kelsey Tallis has set an  all-new HubNuggets record for the highest percentage of votes with a dominating 40% (which she can thank her friends and fellow 30 Seconds to Mars fans over here for). Here are the 5 Hubs that made the cut:

HubNugget 1: Jared Leto and the So-Called Cult of 30 Seconds to Mars (40%) “The name Jared Leto may be familiar from movies like Requiem for a Dream, Fight Club, Panic Room, etc. He also stars in Jaco van Dormael’s new sci-fi fantasy Mr. Nobody (set for release in May). But a lot of people still don’t realize he is also the front man for the increasingly popular rock band 30 Seconds to Mars (30STM).” Read more » More Kelsey Tallis • Join Kelsey Tallis’s Fan Club

HubNugget 2: The Other Side of SubPrime Loans (14%) “The roots of subprime crises can be traced back to as early as 2001, when the terrorist attacks happened and US economy had started reeling under immense pressure and that was also the period when dotcom bubble had burst.” Read more » More jayb23 • jayb23’s Fan Club

HubNugget 3: FoodEco-Friendly and Frugal: Buy Less Packaging and Get More Food (14%) “Everyone wants to save money, right? When we are busy being hammered by an economic crisis that could rival the Great Depression, we’re always thinking economy. Right now, we need to have our precious dollars go further. But sometimes, we get fooled by packaging. While it might seem like processed and prepackaged foods save you time and money, it’s a carefully crafted illusion. Packaging is designed to entice you - and your kids. But it isn’t delivering any nutritional value.” Read more » More MoniqueAttinger • MoniqueAttinger’s Fan Club

HubNugget 4: 99 on Wednesday (11%) “A year short of a century. It’s beyond a number. It’s a lifetime. A life of love, laughter, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-greats and yes, even great-great-greats. A life of teaching and learning and crying and laughing and peace and wars and mostly, love. She’s loved more than anything else. More than she’s cried. More than she’s laughed. More than she’s been angry. She has loved ALOT. And she IS loved ALOT. She has influenced people, family and strangers alike. She is responsible for introducing hundreds, if not thousands of people to Christ. She is the reason I have the peace of knowing that no matter how bad it is or becomes here, I’ll eventually find myself in a place of perfection where there are no tears, no pain, no hurt, no anger, no stress, no frustration, no fear. I owe her more than I will ever be able to repay.” Read more » More Laughing Mom • Join Laughing Mom’s Fan Club

HubNugget 5: How to Quit Smoking: An Easy Method (6%) “Almost five months ago, I quit smoking after fifteen years as a smoker. I had tried and tried in the past to put the cigarettes down, but nothing worked. I hated the chiding that I received from family, and the unsupportive comments that my husband made about how it’s “easy” to quit. He was never a smoker. I had read books, browsed websites, signed up for programs and talked to counselors. Nothing had helped. I’d been pregnant three times as a smoker, but it was my last birth that really pushed me over the edge and forced me to make a decision. She was born at less than six pounds, two large knots tied in her umbilical cord. My labor was induced due to fetal distress. I knew then that something had to change.” Read more » More Everyday Miracles • Join Everyday Miracles’s Fan Club

With all the buzz going around social media and how websites are using Facebook connect and Twitter to help their users be more pro-active and social, we here at Hubpages HQ decided to jump on the bandwagon.

So we’re glad to announce a subset of Facebook connect and Twitter functionality integration into your Hubpages hubs (see screenshot below). Now authors can log into their Facebook account after having published a hub from within Hubpages and distribute it to their friends and family on Facebook. With a click of button, it’ll get posted to the Facebook feed. What this means for our authors is another medium for them to distribute their content through the social vine which in turn means more eye-balls for their hubs.

We’ve implemented a similar functionality for twitter. So now anybody can tweet a link to a Hub to their followers on twitter. All you do is click on the link, sign in as usual and post your tweet. We’ve taken care of URL shortening, so you don’t need to do anything other that going tweet crazy!

As always we’d love to hear from all you great hubbers - so feel free to let us know what you like or dislike about this new feature.