I spoke about recapping my previous posts on my Blog which became necessary due to an "interruption" to my sequence of posts, in the form of my second son's earlier-than-anticipated arrival.
See how the "Recap" is done by going to my blog below:
This is a recap of things done in the style of the TV Series, "Lost". It's useful to remind the reader of what have been discussed so far in readiness for the next installment in the series.
It's also useful to introduce the new reader to those posts as if he's starting from scratch, he'll likely not know where to begin.
Of course, this "Recap" post is another Blog post on its own - and so the Blog gets new content all the time even when you can't think of what else to write about. By doing a "Recap", you'll be able to give another spin to your published posts, or present another angle to them, or springboard from them to other ideas for other posts you never would have thought of if you didn't do this.
I had fun writing the "Recap" - see if you can get an idea or two on how you can write yours:
Cheers! Sen Ze CEO SOLOBIS.com P.S. I've mentioned this before. The current series of posts is meant to introduce SOLOBIS's latest product called "AffiliateRising", which is the BEST Affiliate Program software available anywhere on earth. Check out my Blog to see why, in the next few days.
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The first advertising exercise finished over at The Advisory Panel, and as a result I discovered that some of the PPC basics I took for granted weren’t very clear to everyone. So I figured it was time for a post about them.
When you’re paying per click for your advertising, you have to make sure that you can show a profit after paying for the clicks. So there are some calculations you can do up front to give you a good idea how much you can pay per click. Let’s look first at a statistic that most merchants give you.
EPC is the average earnings per hundred clicks. This is the dollar amount you can expect to make when you send one hundred people to the merchant’s page. This is usually reported by the merchant as an average across all the traffic they’re sent. You may also get it reported for your specifically after you have enough traffic being sent.
Keep in mind that since the merchant’s EPC is an average over all their traffic, you might be able to do better than that if you’re sending well-targeted traffic to them. You might also do worse, if the traffic you send isn’t very targeted.
So, let’s say that we know the EPC for a particular product is $54.07 (this is the actual EPC for a particular product you can market through Commission Junction). So what do this number tell us? Well, nothing exactly, but we can use it to come to some first guesses about what we can afford to pay per click.
If we think we’ll make $54.07 per hundred visitors, that means our income per visitor is $0.54. Remember that each visitor is a click we had to pay for, so we have to pay less than $0.54 to make any profit.
Now, you cannot rely totally on merchant’s EPC figures. Those include a wide variety of traffic, and no doubt include some traffic sent by marketing superstars. But as a rough guess for planning out a PPC campaign, you can use EPC to come up with an initial keyword bid.
Given the numbers above, we could look at various targeted keywords and decide if they could be profitable, based on whether we could get our ad at position 3 or 4 for under $0.54. Ideally we’d be far enough under that we make a decent profit.
This is most definitely not the entire story! You also have to track your own results, and adjust based on what you’re actually earning once you start getting enough traffic. Traffic must be well targeted, or you’ll be wasting money.
But it gives you a rough idea of how to evaluate keywords to see if you might be able to earn from them.
This blog is supported through sales, not ads. If you like a product I've reviewed, buying it through my link helps keep the site alive and more reviews coming. If you found this post interesting or helpful, consider subscribing to our RSS feed. If you're already a subscriber, thank you!
Weeks before AffiliateSummit even started, Kris Jones said this would be one of the most talked about and anticipated sessions of the event. He was right, the Super Affiliate panel with John Chow, Amit Mehta, Kris Jones and myself ended up being a full session with plenty of attendees left standing, as all seats were taken. To start the session off, each of us went through a quick intro then we went into a Q&A format for the session.
Each of the speakers had a different area that they specialize in. John Chow is a master in the blog area, Amit is the King of ppc marketing, Kris Jones is a legendary marketers and I have a pretty solid base over most marketing areas and focus on content sites and services. Almost all of the questions during the session were targeted towards pay per click and search marketing… since Amit is the master in this field, he was asked most of the questions, and always had a valuable answer.
Amit Mehta, John Chow, Myself & Kris Jones
The session was packed and many were left to stand during the session.
Since the session mainly focused on ppc marketing and search questions, here is a recap of a few of the topics / answers covered by Amit Mehta:
- Find something that works. Replicate the process and keep scaling it for better profits and volume.- Focus on one keyword per adgroup. Recommends using EfficientPPC. (Adwords Editor as Best Tool)
- Amit also recommends WinnerAlert, which helps with your adwords testing.
- When creating a landing page, include links to content pages at bottom. Make sure to have a Privacy Page and About Us page. The addition of a blog or actual content related to your product or keyword.
- Target long tail keywords for long term traffic and growth.
- Google Ad Spots 3-5 are most Recommended
- Quality Score and ad position are relative. CTR% will also be measured different based on position.
In the end, the session went well and I thank Kris Jones for pulling such an excellent panel together. I know everyone on the panel enjoyed the session and event, and are looking forward to what Affiliate Summit East in Boston has to offer. If you missed the event, what type of questions would you have asked the super affiliate panel?
Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!
I just returned to NJ and probably slept a mere 20 hours over the past week while in Vegas… so I still have a lot of updating and catching up to do on Affiliate Summit posts. I spent the final night in Vegas on the casino floor and catching up with some friends… there’s no sleeping in Vegas! So let’s go back a couple days and recap on Affiliate Bash.
One of the highlights of AffiliateSummit was the killer party that was thrown at the Toa night club. This was such a great party, that it took multiple sponsors to host it. The platinum sponsor list included PepperJam Network, RocketProfit, Forge and Blue Man Group. This was also the premier party for the Blue Man Group’s Affiliate Program to go live. In honor of the release of their new affiliate program, the Blue Man Group gave a special 15 minute performance. Unlike their other shows in Vegas, this was in a much smaller room and we were all just a few feet from the stage. You can visit John’s post for a video of the full performance.
The Blue Man Group were right in the crowd at some points.
Everyone on the floor getting ready for the show.
In addition to the live show, the food was amazing, and so were the private access rooms offered by the platinum sponsors. This was the event to attend that night and almost everyone was in attendance.
Once you enter the Toa, you are greeted with a ton of statues with candles.
Joel Comm, Myself and Kris Jones in the Private PepperJam Network Room.
In the end, this was a great networking party and place to have fun. The music was also low enough so you could actually interact with others and hold a conversation. This was the first of many Affiliate Bash parties to come, I’m looking forward to seeing what they might throw together for Affiliate Summit in Boston later this year.
Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!
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France Cadet had showed us slides of the Hunting Trophies she was working on during the presentation she gave at De l'objet de laboratoire au sujet social (From Laboratory Object to Social Subject), a week of lectures, screenings and workshops she organized at the Ecole d'Art d'Aix en Provence (France.) That was last November and i've been looking forward to see the final result of the work ever since. That day has come, yeah!
Panthera Leo (Lion)
Hunting Trophies is a collection of 11 hunting trophies hung on the wall. They feature the most frequent species used in taxidermy for the realization of wall trophies, mainly deer and cat family. Instead of being real taxidermied animals they are chests of modified I-Cybie robots.
An infrared sensor allows the robots, each in its own way, to detect the presence but also the movements of visitors.
Wall of trophies
As you approach, the robots turn their heads in your direction, their eyes light up, come too close and the robot suddenly growls. The closer you get, the more aggressive its behaviour.
If you walk fast facing the wall of trophies, a chain reaction will emerge such as a wave of protestation following your walk and manifesting their anger at having been tracked, chased, killed, cut up and exhibited as decorative icons.
Phacochoerus Africanus (African Warthog)
After raising the side effects and dangers of cloning, eugenics, and other animal experiments in Dog[LAB]01 and Dog[LAB]02, France Cadet chose to focus on a problem which concerns each of us as, this time, we cannot pretend that scientists and directors of laboratories or factories are the sole responsible for it: the unequal consideration given to animals and humans and even between different animals species. Nobody would want to eat their pet, but most don't really care about the fact that some animals are bred for the sole purpose of making food or clothes, that others are hunt for sport, or are the subject of experiments to create unnecessary, yet safe products.
Just how far can we justify human power of life and death over animals?
Rhinoceros Unicornis (Asian Rhinoceros)
The idea of the Animal-Machine has long been overtaken by the idea of a pain-feeling animal. Peter Singer argues that because animals have the ability to experience pain and suffering, they should be granted the same moral considerations as any other sentient being.
Besides, these trophies raise new issues about the robots' quality, function and integration into society: Are they different robots species? Rare species facing extinction? Are they the testimony of a future world where androids would be facing extinction? Or where they would have supplanted real animals such as in Philip K.Dick's vision? Will we need a Susan Calvin, the robopsychologist of Asimov's novels?
After all, there are already an AIBO clinic and a AIBO hospital.
In his wonderful book, Les Machines apprivoisées (Tamed Machines), Frédéric Kaplan invites us to reflect upon the place that these creatures could have one day in our society. And beyond that, will we one day be able/allowed to kill robots? With more impunity than animals? Which ones have and will have more value? More respect? More rights?
I'm just going to give a summary of the course as i feel its spirit might be relevant to the interests of many readers. But i'll keep it short as i've decided a while ago not to cover anything i haven't had the opportunity to see nor experience myself. Rules are supposed to have exceptions, right?
Usable Witchery investigated how products could be less a result of technical thinking, and become more "humanized", natural and intuitive. As Yaniv told me recently: "I will trade many functional elements to magical and slightly more poetical element in any of my devices. I hope the student will apply it one day as they go and work for IDEO and Nintendo J."
He explains with further details this association between magic and interaction design in a list of reasons why advanced technology can be compared to magic. According to him, interfaces are actually doing the same to some extent. His text illustrates the point by giving examples of interaction procedures, viewed from this frame of reference: calculators displaying, without revealing how, the correct series of digits, mountains of information "leaping" invisibly in the air, "hold" switches, etc.
But still... Harry Pottering design students?
"Regarding the coin tricks, think about it as a mean of presentation, a critical presentation that can go only two ways, good and enjoyable or simply fail," explains Yaniv. "Once a successful magic been produced, the observer appreciate the illusion, sometimes even on the emotional level. While learning sleight of hand tricks and practicing the art on the physical level, one can theoretically apply this art into other fields, interaction/interface design is just one of them."
"Regarding the animatronics part, I feel it is dealing with humanization of machines in relation to Physical-Computing," he goes on. "We all saw the blinking LED - Blink; and how motors can move robotic limbs with the grace of "Marvin the paranoid android". We conducted experiments with ways to humanize these artifacts, making them closer to the way we, humans, interact and communicate with the world around us. And thus giving a small humanized illusion."
Brupass - No Borders [ Just N.E.W.S*] des écoles d'art de 22 pays européens. Au travers de divers médiums, tels que peinture, vidéo, photographie, sculpture, installation,… ces plasticiens proposent des oeuvres singulières, interpellantes, qui attestent de leur curiosité et de leur
Feb. 28, 1651: 'Father of Surgery' Explains the Head Wound Surgery, in Paré's time, was considered a low profession and very few physicians deigned to practice it. Barbers, oddly enough, were often called upon to do the actual cutting and Paré received his early training as a barber-surgeon. His subsequent succ
"Euros Accepted" signs pop up in New York City - Yahoo! News In the latest example that the U.S. dollar just ain't what it used to be, some shops in New York City have begun accepting euros and other foreign currency as payment for merchandise.
La Nueva Amsterdam bajo el Agua. » Plataforma Urbana Para solucionar la escasez de m2 los arquitectos de Zwarts y Jansma han planteado para Amsterdam un crecimiento ligado nuevamente a sus aguas, pero esta vez 30 metros bajo ellos.
News on Japan - Japanese Franken-Mouse with a camera in its brain Franken-Mouse with a camera in its brain to give better insight to the processes of creating memory to help with general cognitive science and specially with research into treatments for Parkinson's disease.
Elit Alice » Blog Archive » Nubrella - new concept of umbrella Since you don't need to use your hands to hold it, you can even use it on the bike. The other good news is that it isn't only a concept. You can order it for as little as 59.95 dollars.
Domusweb | FEATURES | Flavio Albanese. The insecure ways of security How are the social mechanisms of the "security demand" evolving in the 21st century? And more especially, how are architecture and town planning reacting, as disciplines for the organisation of space, to the efficiency of those mechanisms?
I was unpacking earlier and recorded a few thoughts. I could probably do bunches of these random thought types of posts but I'll get started with one, and maybe after a few days do another.
(I'm assuming they aren't super affiliates. Also, met bunches of cool bloggers too numerous to mention, so If i have to pick a few these get the awards)
James Ohmdahl always came through with some good videos.
Best Blogger
Triss Hussey - A b5 media blogger trainer. The b5media crew should give this guy a raise and other conferences should pay him to attend their conference. His photos and live blogging were top notch.
Friendliest Internet Celebrity
Gary Vaynerchuck has been on national tv so he's for sure at the "internet celebrity geek level" and was cool enough to do a photo and talk with me about video for a few minutes.
Goofiest Thing That Happened At Affiliate Summit Rio
Zac Johnson was carded trying to get into BOWLING and they sent him and his wife away for trying to pass off a fake ID. Maybe his name isn't really Zac Johnson? Maybe he is really someone else?
"Coolest" Thing That Happened At Affiliate Summit Rio
A tie between mystery - the pickup artist hanging out and the Rio giving Shawn Collins a segway for the day for free.
(side note, limos, Lamborghinis, and the parties didn't impress me much)
Most Frequently Mentioned PPC Tip
Look at the less popular search engines, directories to buy some clicks.
Random Affiliate Summit Staff Tip
Put a kiosk so people can register on the spot for the next summit as an attendee or buy a booth.
Put a giant map and schedule at a central location.
Most Recommended Other Conference
People really push the BlogWorldExpo pretty regularly. In addition the owner was a cool guy and talked to me for a bit.
Based on all the feedback there is a strong possibility I'll be at blogworld this year.
End of Brain Dump
Maybe I'll do another soon, maybe not ;) Please visit the links in this post, they are some great people, and also be sure to check youtube and other sites for more great affiliate summit info. You can find more links to the content here: Affiliate Summit West 2008 Live
About month ago I joined AdToll - I saw that more and more sites and blogs are using this service and wanted try it myself.
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There are various ads available - banners, text ads, video ads and the newest one - Peel Away ads (which becomes more and more popular now!). You can set more than 1 type of ads for one site. On this blog I have 125×125 banner spot set by AdToll (Top of the sidebar), you can see details by going to NiggyBuzz AdToll's Rate Card. For your own site or blog you can choose your own format and size.
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This post looking at conventional websites vs blogs is by Suzanne Falter-Barns from Get Known Now.
Have Blogs Killed Conventional Websites?
It's a question that's been bugging me profoundly since I got into blogging over a year ago. Blogs are cheap, easy, efficient, wildly easy to find on the Net, super marketing-friendly, and just plain fun. They work rings around websites. So are conventional websites no longer necessary? To find out, I interviewed Andy Wibbels, the original blogging evangelist and author of the excellent book, Blogwild!. Here's the short version of what I learned.
Websites are clunky and expensive; blogs are lean and cheap.
You have to wait for someone to make changes to your website; your blog can be changed easily by you.
You have to wait for someone else to set up your site; your blog can be set up by you in 15 minutes.
You can update your blog at an airport, while you're on the run. You have to call your webmaster … and wait … to update your site.
You can collect email addresses, and download free reports and bonuses off of a website. Same with a blog.
You can use a shopping cart to collect money for e-commerce of a website. Same with a blog.
You can set up a press room with all sorts of cool links and forms on a website. Same with a blog.
It takes three to six months for the big search engines to find you with a website. It takes two or three days with a blog.
You can easily track stats of who has visited your regular website. Same with a blog.
The media are more likely to find you on a blog.
You can learn more about your audience from a blog.
You market automatically with a blog. But not with a conventional website.
You can make a lot more friends with a blog.
The list appears to go on and on, but you get the picture. Blogs are, quite simply, the next wave. So if you're thinking about setting up a site, stop in your tracks and turn towards blogs instead!
Note from Darren:what would you add to the above list of comparisons between blogs and conventional websites?
The following post on press releases as a way to promote your blog is by Eric Reynolds of Subnixus PR Services.
In the past, savvy PR professionals used press releases to hopefully bring their clients a little media exposure. The process was long and drawn out, with the ultimate goal being, well, media coverage. However, the days of a press release being used solely for a newsworthy announcement are long gone. Why? The Web has changed what a press release can be…
Before I explain how a press release can benefit you as a blogger, let me give you a little background on myself. A few years ago I ran a small blog by the name of Subnixus (sold long ago) and decided to do a test. I had just recently learned about press releases and figured I would put one out on myself and post the results. I honestly didn’t expect much, but to my amazement a single press release resulted in dozens of television, newspaper, and radio interviews. Overnight my blog went from a few hundred readers, to a few thousand.
That single press release eventually led me to start my own PR firm and PR based blog.
While not all press releases are going get your face on the nightly news, they can serve another purpose.
How to Reach New Readers and Improve Your SEO at the Same Time
Thanks to the Internet, a press release can now be seen by the general public without ever even being touched by a journalist. Sites like Google News and Yahoo News are constantly updating their search results with fresh press releases from sites like PRWeb. So what does that mean to you, the new blogger just looking for a little attention?
Simply put it means you can reach thousands of (potentially) new readers, overnight. When you distribute your release via a place like PRWeb, hundreds of other sites re-publish your release via the PRWeb RSS feed. Not only does this mean more places for new readers to find your content, but it means more backlinks to your site (yes a press release can include links). And don’t forget, if you do it right your release will also appear in Google News, Yahoo News, Topix, etc… just to name a few.
Should You Hire a Professional or Do It Yourself?
This is a question I hear a lot and there’s no simple answer. While I could sit here and say you should hire a professional (like myself) to create your release and distribute it, the truth is anyone can do it, but like anything it takes a little work on your part. However, I do have some good news… unlike a traditional press release, a Web based release doesn’t have the same strict guidelines that must be followed. For the most part, you just need to remember a few basic rules.
1. Format it correctly.This page shows how a press release needs to be written.
2. It’s all about the headline. Just like a link submission to a site such as Digg.com, a press release needs to have a good headline and first paragraph if it’s going to create any buzz. Your press release could be the recipe for chicken soup, but if your headline is catchy, people will read it.
3. Keep it short. Remember, you want the people reading your press release to click on a link within the release to visit your site. Don’t put more information in the release than needed. It’s meant to peak their interest and leave them wanting more. Try to shoot for the 250-500 word range.
How Much Does it Cost?
Ahh… the big question. How much does a press release cost? Well there are plenty of free distributors out there. Places like PR.com and and PRLog.org will distribute them free of charge, but there are some drawbacks. PR.com doesn’t allow live links in their releases unless you pay a fee. And while PRLog allows links, they don’t have near the reach as other sites. Free sites may get you in Google News (and that’s about it), but in the long run it’s really not worth it. Furthermore, I’ve never seen a free release get more than a few backlinks.
So that leaves us with a paid distributor. My distributor of choice is obviously PRWeb, their reach in terms of RSS re-publishers and news sites just can’t be beat. The average PRWeb release will receive around 100-500 backlinks within a week and it will appear in every major news search site.
PRWeb charges $80 for their basic level and it goes up from there, but the basic level is good enough for any blogger just looking for a little boost. In fact, if you really know your stuff, you can get away with only paying $40 for distribution, as long as you get an editorial score of 4/5 from their editors.
Conclusion and Examples
So in conclusion I would urge everyone who’s serious about their blog to at least try a press release (free or paid). You might just be surprised at the results. For people looking for a few examples, here are a few I’ve done in the past few months.
p.s. - Some of you may recognize my name or site. Long time readers of ProBlogger might remember an article I wrote a long time ago calling blogs that focus on “making money online” infomercials. Well, after writing that article I did sell off my own blog (don’t be confused if you see it online, the person I sold it to never changed the “about me” section, so the site still looks like it’s ran by me, but it is not), but as you can see… I never stopped reading ProBlogger. Take that for what it’s worth.
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Born into wealth in the early 1800s, this author took jobs aboard merchant and whaling ships starting at the age of 16. He also spent several years in French Polynesia as a young man. These experiences became the inspiration for his best-known works.
This author grew up in pre-civil war Missouri, where he grew to despise any form of bigotry and injustice. His strong feelings about race and equality came through in his most famous work.
A working-class reporter, this author wrote about the things he knew best - the struggles of the poor during the Great Depression. He never gained critical acclaim, but his books were loved (and still are today) by readers at every level.
Can you name these authors? You probably can. They are Herman Melville, Mark Twain, and John Steinbeck. Chances are you read (or at least you were assigned to read) some of their works in high school. I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn three or four times when I was 13 or 14 years old.
So what can these dead American authors teach us about blogging? Several things actually.
Write What You Know
All three of these authors spent years of their lives having interesting and diverse experiences that inspired their classic books. Do you see how significant that is? Would Moby Dick have been so compelling if Melville had stayed on his uncle’s farm instead of going through the rigors of a sailor’s life? I don’t think so.
Would The Grapes of Wrath be such a staple of American literature if John Steinbeck hadn’t grown up in an agricultural town where he saw the hardships of farm life first hand? Doubtful. If you’re going to write something of impact, you need to be writing from experience (whether yours or someone else’s, but we’ll talk about that later).
Want to Write Interesting Stuff? Become an Interesting Person
Court Tuttle writes compelling material about internet marketing because he’s devoted years of his life to two things: first, he’s developed quite a few successful and profitable websites. Second, he’s coached literally hundreds of people one-on-one on how they can replicate his success.
Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki have hundreds of thousands of readers because they have been hugely successful as entrepreneurs and marketers. Their experience is what makes their perspective interesting.
Be Bold - It Could Make All the Difference
“The more experience we have, the more knowledge we have, the easier it is to come up with that big…idea.” - Joe Sugarman
Many of you will say “Listen, I’m no Seth Godin or Guy Kawasaki. All you’re doing is forcing me into the classic dilemma: Can’t get a job without experience; can’t get experience without a job. Where do I start?”
Well, I’m not Seth Godin either, but it’s not going to slow me down. In the absence of a proven track record, bold action can help you build a name for yourself and make you more interesting to your audience. What do I mean by bold action?
A Lesson in Becoming Interesting from the Early ’80s
Ever heard of Robert Allen? Say what you will about him, there’s one thing he has nailed down - bold action. In the early ’80s he took a challenge from an LA Times reporter and this was his marketing hook:
“Send me to any city in the United States. Take away my wallet. Give me $100 for living expenses. And in 72 hours I will buy an excellent piece of real estate using none of my own money.”
Robert Allen rode this one challenge to tens of millions of dollars in income, multiple best-selling books, and a successful seminar education company. All because he had the guts to take bold, massive action - and talk about it. But what if he had flopped?
Don’t Worry - Failure Is Interesting Too
Think about the potential consequences of trying something new, or taking on a bold challenge. One thing is sure - the decision to be aggressive and unconventional is guaranteed to make you more interesting. Ultimately it doesn’t matter whether you succeed or fail.
Here’s why:
If you fail at your big attempt, you end up with a great story to tell. You could call it: “How I failed massively at (insert big, risky challenge).” You can describe all the steps you took, where you went wrong, and the lessons learned.
Failure has an upside - it makes you more real and relatable to your audience. Only losers will call you a loser for having tried something great and failed. Most people will admire your courage and willingness to talk about your mistakes.
But what if your big challenge is a success? All the better. You’ll still have a great story to tell, and it will have a happier ending.
What’s the bottom line? Failure makes you more genuine and believable. Success makes you more attractive. Succeed or fail, you can’t lose! Or can you?
The Only Real Failure is to Do Nothing
Listen, Seinfeld is the only successful example of a show about nothing. I’m no Seinfeld, and most of you probably aren’t either.
It frustrates me when I find blogs about, well, nothing. Sure, they claim to be about making money online, or “my journey to becoming debt free”, or whatever it might be, but then their writing offers nothing original or insightful because they haven’t done (or tried) anything significant.
Those are not blogs I spend much time on. There’s no flavor, there’s no originality. I’m not criticizing - many of those blogs could have my attention on a daily basis, if they would say something in a different way or share an experience I can really get excited about. These authors just need to makes sure they are working every day to make both their personality and their writing more engaging.
Two Ways to Become an Interesting Writer
Here are two things I think you can do to become a more engaging person, with a more captivating perspective. They aren’t the whole answer, of course, but if you throw yourself into these two activities I guarantee the quality of your writing will improve:
Read - I’m talking fiction, non-fiction, business, politics, religion - anything! Read things that you normally wouldn’t. It will expand your perspective and give you new ideas about how to approach your subject matter. Tony Robbins started his career as a personal development expert by reading hundreds and hundreds of books on communication, influence, spirituality, behavior, psychology…I think you get the point.
Talk to people. LOTS of people - One thing I see in the blogging world is a lot of anonymity. It works for some people, but it keeps readers at a distance and limits social reach. The more people you talk to, the more perspectives you hear, the more interesting you become. It’s kind of an odd thing - when you talk to lots of interesting people you become interesting by association.
Think about Mike Wallace (of 60 Minutes). I would kill for the chance to talk to Mike Wallace. Why? Because he has spent significant time with thousands of political leaders, entrepreneurs,and philosophers. By virtue of his career in journalism, he has one of the most interesting stories you’ll ever hear.
It Will Be Worth the Time and Effort
I’m not trying to discourage anybody here. The fact is the world is always ready for new approaches and opinions on thousands of topics - including yours. You just have to be willing to do what it takes to make your voice heard in the crowd. Persistence pays off.
Court said something interesting to me the other day. “People get too caught up worrying about competing with bloggers like Darren Rowse and Brian Clark. They need to understand the world of blogging is growing exponentially. Three years from now problogger may have 200,000 subscribers, but if I’ve got 50,000, who cares? There is plenty to go around.”
Court couldn’t be more right, so stick with it! Work every day to improve yourself and your voice as a writer. You’ll get there, and the payoff will be bigger and better than you can imagine.
Being an online entrepreneur is definitely a journey and, rest assured, you will be in for quite a few traps, bad weather and bumpy roads, that’s simply how things work. Your reaction in such cases will, without a doubt, make or break you as an online entrepreneur.
It is extremely important that, before going on a certain journey, you know exactly what you’re getting into and understand that surprises (both pleasant and unpleasant) are inevitable since otherwise, you will not know how to deal with them and it’s easy to understand why you could end up quitting in such cases.
As with any journey, you always need to know where you are heading as an online entrepreneur. Being guided by solid goals is definitely a must, but that doesn’t mean that reaching them means reaching your destination. Actually, you shouldn’t think that there has to be a final destination in the first place. Sure, you will reach certain goals but you most definitely shouldn’t stop there. The fact that you’ve managed to reach them in the first place should make it clear that you are a person with great potential and, as such, aiming higher is always a must.
Before getting started, you should always make sure that you are adequately equipped as well. You have to be prepared in case things get rough and, as such, arming yourself with passion and commitment is always a must. There will be times when it may seem that you are lost and that a way out is nowhere to be seen, but giving up is not an option. In fact, eliminating the word ‘quitting’ from your vocabulary altogether would be the best approach.
While, at a certain point, it may seem that things are not working out for you at all, in most cases, you are simply a little off-track and a few minor adjustments which can bring you back on course will be enough. The Web is no place for people who quit as soon as things get rough, that is certain. You have to be willing to always give it your best since otherwise, you would most likely be better off not getting started in the first place.
Once you start to gain experience and once you are on the right track, everything will seem natural and you will develop a taste for adventure. People who assume that all making money is all there is to being an online entrepreneur have no idea what they are talking about. It’s much more than that, as any person who has been around the block for a while will agree.
Are you ready for your journey as an online entrepreneur? Do you know exactly what you are getting yourself into, are you willing to give it 110% and do you have the necessary tools? Then, my friend, you are already on the right track and might just be in for quite a profitable as well as exciting adventure.
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Okay, I finally got around to creating my first Hub over at Hub Pages.
For anyone who missed my first post on it, Hub Pages, Giving Squidoo A Run For Their Money?, Hub Pages is a Squidoo like site that allows you to easily create single web pages focused on a topic. Unlike Squidoo, which uses arcane profit sharing calculations, Hub Pages just uses your Adsense, Amazon, and Ebay ids when displaying a certain percentage of the ads. So you know exactly how many impressions and clicks you’re getting.
So what I finally did was make the hub more of a motivation and intro for what will eventually be a large number of more detailed hubs on various Internet Marketing topics (as if I need more places to create content!) Assuming, of course, that it looks like Hub Pages is a good place to continue to create content.
Oh, and I know that it would have been a nice idea to create a hub that was on the same topic as one of my Squidoo lenses, to compare the results from both, but I couldn’t quite make myself write a hub on a topic that I’d already covered. So that experiment will have to wait until I’m feeling in the mood to repeat myself.
I’ll report back in coming months on the earnings from this hub.
This blog is supported through sales, not ads. If you like a product I've reviewed, buying it through my link helps keep the site alive and more reviews coming. If you found this post interesting or helpful, consider subscribing to our RSS feed. If you're already a subscriber, thank you!
Recent comments on posts here have got me thinking about the psychology of monetization.
There are good reasons to monetize a site from the very start, and good reasons to delay monetization. Some of the reasons are appropriate for one niche and not another, so I wanted to go through some of the factors that I’d look at in deciding to monetize or not.
Perceptions of Sites with Ads
I tend to see sites that have a lot of ads but little content as spammy looking. When I write a site that is spammy, then I don’t have any trouble putting ads on it from the start. When I write a site that I want to be viewed as more of a quality site, then I like to delay ads until I have enough content that I think a few ads are warranted.
Value of Early Traffic
In the early days of a site, the amount of traffic coming in is low. Assuming a 20% click through rate on ads, if you’re getting 5 people a day to the site initially, that means you might get 1 click a day. If you’ve chosen your keywords well and written your content well, you might get $1 for that click (although often it’ll be less).
Early traffic just doesn’t add that much to the bottom line, so for quality sites I like to focus early on building the best site possible, and worry about monetization later.
What Are The Keywords Worth?
While site level keywords might be picked because they can get $1 or $2 per click, the chances are good that most pages on your site will monetize at a lower level if you’re using something like Adsense. If you use a site side widget to put ads on every single page in the site, then you might only get $0.20 per click on some pages.
Is it worth $0.20 for a visitor to leave your site by clicking an ad?
My preference is to monetize only on pages whose keywords are worth enough to make it profitable for the visitor to leave the site. I might lose them anyway, but the chance is also there that they’ll look around the site more if not every page has ads on it.
Focus on Monetization
When I start to monetize a site, I tend to focus on tweaking various monetization options in order to get the most out of the clicks I’m getting. And I usually slow down on content creation, because that isn’t my focus.
So for my personal nature, monetization a quality site early would work against me.
Plans for the Site
What are my plans for the site? Is it primarily a MFA (made for Adsense) type of site, where the goal is to get the ad click from search engine traffic? Or is it more of a quality site, where the goal is to build repeat traffic by offering valuable content?
Or something in between?
I monetize MFA type sites from the very start, because that’s their entire reason for being, to get visitors to click on ads or affiliate links.
Quality sites I delay monetization on, for the reasons talked about above, until traffic is at a decent enough level to warrant it.
No Right Answers
Those are some of the things I think about when deciding when to monetize. I’ve started a topic over at The Advisory Panel to discuss this topic, so if you’re a member come on over and jump in! And if you’re not a member, it’s free to join.
So when do you monetize, and why?
This blog is supported through sales, not ads. If you like a product I've reviewed, buying it through my link helps keep the site alive and more reviews coming. If you found this post interesting or helpful, consider subscribing to our RSS feed. If you're already a subscriber, thank you!
storm from the east: Ultraman Statue Erected at Airport Fukushima Airport, which lies near to the hometown of Ultraman creator Eiji Tsuburaya, erected the 3-metre tall statue to commemorate its 15th anniversary. The accompanying display also features assorted Ultraman memorabilia and other statues of memorable
Face Harness for Milady’s Beauty A NEW facial harness claims to improve milady's beauty. How the device is worn is illustrated in the photo at the left. Sagging chins are lifted and unbecoming wrinkles are smoothed out around the lips, cheeks and forehead, manufacturers claim. It is wo
AALOG.NET at edgargonzalez.com Este año es especial en la AA y es que uno de los programas estrella (el famoso DRL Design Research Laboratory) han diseñado el pabellon y ademas de estar ofreciendo una serie de seminarios y conferencias, editaran un libro conmemorando sus dos lustros
Beijing Capital International Airport's Terminal 3 | slideshow Beijing airport is preparing for the opening of Terminal 3, designed by Foster. It is the world's largest airport building designed to accommodate an estimated 50 million passengers a year by 2020. Take a closer look inside its dragon-like form...
strange bungalow: Insecure Spaces Sarah Ross' "Archisuit" consists of an edition of four leisure jogging suits made for specific architectural structures in Los Angeles. The suits include the negative space of the structures and allow a wearer to fit into, or onto, structures designed to
WorldChanging: Nanotechnology and the Near Future Mike Treder looks back over the first five years of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology's work, and draws some conclusions about where we are and where we're going in the field of nanotechnology:
coin-operated » InternetRadio @ Z33 Gallery in Belgium. Z33 Gallery in Hasselt, Belgium for the "PLACE@SPACE: (Re) Shaping Everyday Life" exhibition there from March 16th to May 25th. Should be a pretty cool show with a lot of interesting artists showing work there…
Rhizome - Interview with Nato Thompson Experimental Geography is a new exhibition that explores "the distinctions between geographical study and artistic experience of the earth, as well as the juncture where the two realms collide (and possibly make a new field altogether)." The traveling sho
Another post long long overdue. This one regards Generator.X - Beyond the Screen, a workshop and exhibition, which both highlight the creative potential of digital fabrication and generative systems.
Digital technologies like rapid prototyping, laser cutting and CNC milling enable digital artists, designers and architects to step out of the screen and produce atoms from bits, eliminating many of the limitations of industrial production processes. The technologies are becoming increasingly accessible, pointing to a future where mass customization and manufacturing-on-demand may finally offer alternatives to mass production.
The Generator.X workshop, led by Marius Watz, in the framework of Club Transmediale, took place in January but the project developed are on view until March 8 at the DAM Gallery in Berlin.
When i went to the opening of the show i was lucky enough to be able to ask the designers and artists a few questions in order to understand what was before my eyes. However, the pieces are beautiful enough to make the trip to Tucholskystrasse worth your time. Besides, people in the gallery will be happy to answer your questions.
Imho this is probably the best show in town right now. Demonstration in 3 steps:
A Week in the life is a 3D visualisation of telecommunications data made of cardboard. The data sculpture represents Andreas Nicolas Fischer's movement around his home city, Berlin, and the communications he made with his mobile phone in one week.
The aim of the project is to draw attention to the German telecommunications data retention act (Vorratsdatenspeicherung) and the breach of privacy it constitutes. The law requires the telecommunications providers to store the connection data of all customers for 6 months and to make it available to law enforcement agencies upon request.
What can be read from the sculpture is Andreas' position in the city through the cell sites he used. The density of the cell sites reflects the speed and frequency of his movement within the city. The more often he visited a place, the more cell sites were added to the map.
To get the information for the data set, the designer wrote a software for his mobile phone which recorded all the coordinates of the antennae, which he then converted to latitude and longitude. The data collected was parsed with a processing sketch and transformed into a 3d model.
"I then took the model in rhino and contoured it into horizontal and vertical 2d layers, explains Andreas. 'Then i set the intersections and cleaned the vectors in illustrator. After that i cut the individual parts with the lasercutter. The assembly took me about a day (even though having labeled each part individually beforehand). After that i added two coats of white model paint. "
Aperiodic Series
Based on the Aperiodic series, one of their earlier experimentations, Aperiodic_vertebrae , by Skylar Tibbits and Marc Fornes (theverymany), is a spectacular assembly of nearly 500 flat panels (11 types) all milled within 6 sheets of plastic and linked together using nearly 500 assembly details (more or less all unique!) all laser cut onto 7 sheets of transparent acrylic...
They were assembled by hand over what must have been a very long afternoon...
Foldable fractal, a work by David Dessens. I discovered more of his work during the talk he gave last month at a symposium organized by Marius Watz.
Dessens' experiments in generating shapes using complex mathematical functions (the SuperFormula!) are beyond impressive.
Images 1, 2, 3, 6, 9 and 12 courtesy of Andreas Nicolas Fischer. Image on the homepage: Leander Herzog: Physical Vertexbuffer (Radical Slices based on Perlinnoise).
The Generator X - Beyond the Screen event i mentioned earlier involved a series of talks by artists, architects and designers. I went to the second evening of public presentations, liked everything i saw and heard but i'll just focus on a few projects mentioned by Aram Bartholl (here's his website but it's his blog that gets my vote) because 1. i had missed all his other talks so far and 2. haha! i've lost the notes i took during the other talks.
Sascha posted a write-up of a talk Aram gave almost a year ago about the way his work looks for connections between the virtual world and the physical one so i'll just take the story from here and focus on the artist's latest projects.
Chat, presented at ars electronica, the 24th Chaos Communication Congress and more recently at Club Transmediale is a mobile performance that allows 2 participants to send each other text messages, like in World of Warcraft or Second Life. As soon as they've been entered, the texts appear in comic-strip-like balloons above the speaker's head.
In 3D worlds, chatting contrasts with chat "rooms" as the online form of conversation has been re-endowed with a spatial dimension: the typed-in message appears in a dialogue bubble above the avatar's head and follows their proxy on its way through the virtual world. Other players within a certain range can read these messages and, in turn, can type an answer on their own bubble. Chat translates this form of conversation into the physical, public sphere.
Aram reminded how much is about money in Second Life and how this might explain its success. In the vitual island, you can make money out of data thanks to the digital right managements embedded into the game.
For the Second City project that ars electronica commissioned him last Summer, Aram invited other artists and turned a part of a deserted shopping street into an exhibition space that was focusing on physical representations of the virtual world.
One of the projects developed in Marienstrassen allowed passersby to walk in a "shopping panel" and buy a Trabi or any other good for their avatar and get a laser cut plastic token in the shape of the object purchased as a receipt
Another project part of Second City was Export to World. Created by Linda Kostowski and Sascha Pohflepp, the workshop commented ironically on the design and production of merchandise in virtual worlds. Their shop offered custom-made or purchased virtual objects. Shoppers would enter and buy the object of their choice at a price determined daily by the current Linden dollar/euro exchange rate. Instead of seeing the good suddenly appearing in their inventory, purchasers would receive a 2D paper representation of it which they could manually cut and shape into a 3D model of that object. The final results are paper representations of digital representations of real objects, including all the flaws that copying entails.
The Bubbagum machine was particularly impressive as this real photography seemed to have been photoshop'd. It wasn't, that's the real effect of a paper virtual bubble gum machine. Not sure i'm expressing myself very clearly here...
Export to Life, Bubbagum machine
Anyway, Aram ended his presentation with this slide of a project he is working on: WoW weapons which he plans to carry around the city. Just the thought of such a performance taking place somewhere in Curry Wurst Paradise makes me say once again that this city is the best place on earth.
I just came back from a business networking session. Met up with a few interesting people and as I was on my way back I got an idea which would seriously will help you make money online.
I decided to compiled the past 2 years of interviews I have done with various experts on one simple page for you at
Trust me you do not want to miss this page as there are tons and tons of GREAT information in the interviews I have done... and some are of them do actually charge at least US$127 just for one interview... but.. it's not for FREE =P
Enjoy the interviews and if you are interested to be interviewed by me.. just drop me an email at getalvin@gmail.com with your bio and website.
Alvin Phang
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Hi moneyandmoney
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I have been blogging for close to 3 years just for the fun of it without realizing the amount of money you can make. One day while browsing the internet, I stumbled upon problogger.net and suddenly realized the opportunity out there. So I started to blog a bit more seriously and here are 9 tips that I should have implemented to have a successful blog.
1. Have a Consistent URL
The identity you create for your blog lies in the URL. Once you decide on a URL for your blog, do not ever change it. Every time you change it you need to popularize your blog all over again. Besides, the technical problem is that the search engines and articles that reference posts in your blog have links to the older URL and it can create a lot of confusion and hence lost readership. Choose your URL carefully and stick to it.
2. Choice of subject to blog about
Choose the subject of your blog with care and consideration. Your blog should mirror your passion and knowledge on the subject. Identify whether you will be able to consistently post on the subject. Some topics that are search engine friendly and that never really die out are technology blogs, product related blogs, city centric blogs and money making blogs. There is always news to give your readers and also there are a lot of points to discuss on. More challenging blogs to write are blogs on thoughts, ideas, short stories, poems. In these blogs you have to be able to provide self- driven original content whereas in the previous kind there are other websites from where you can draw inspiration and ideas.
3. High Quality Content can get hard to produce consistently
Posting quality content consistently keeps your readers engaged and makes them come back for more. In the initial days posting is easy since you will have a lot of ideas in your mind. However, delivering high quality content to your readers day after day gets tougher as time progresses and ideas dry up. You need to keep innovating and ideating constantly.
4. Marketing your blog is hard work
Once you have content in your blog, its time to tell the world. The challenge is – 'How do you tell prospective readers that your blog has what they are looking for?' Social networking sites like stumbleupon, orkut, twitter, facebook and a zillion other websites are breeding grounds for finding prospective readers. Building your network can be a time consuming, never ending task, but it doesn't end there, you need to make the effort to make your network aware of your blog. The benefits can only be exponential. Getting them to post comments is a completely different ball game.
5. Technical know how is required
Lack of technical know-how can hinder you from tweaking your blog and giving it the finesse and feel that you envisaged for your blog. Serious bloggers will have to dabble with HTML, JavaScript and so on. It is this technology that can give the blog the uniqueness, user-friendliness and functionality that makes it stand out. Be prepared to invest some time in learning web technologies. Being search engine savvy can go a long way in getting the traffic that you are looking for.
6. Research, Read, Reflect
Every post is a brand new post. Don't be surprised that you would have to regularly research on your topic, as there is always something new out there. Read what others have to say and reflect. It involves a lot of hard work, patience, persistence to read content, assimilate and formulate your own content. At times, you should be ready to dig deep within your self.
7. Expect to ride an emotional roller coaster
Do not expect an easy ride when you blog. You can put in a lot of hard work and then realize that nobody is commenting on your post and on the other hand you will write a one liner and you will have the whole world talking about it. You will have days when you will be banging your head against the wall wondering what to post about and then there will be days you have so many ideas in your head that you don't know where to start. So be ready to enjoy the ride.
8. Be prepared to sacrifice something in life
Since all this hard work is going to use up your time, you have to be prepared to give up something. For those that have a full time job – your personal life or work life is going to take a hit. Maybe some of your other hobbies or interests will get affected. So you need to decide carefully on the things in life that you are ready to forego in order to become successful as a blogger.
9. Writing a good post takes time and patience
There may be few gifted bloggers out there that can churn out interesting posts easily. Some have this skill from practice, and for some, it is a gift, but for the majority of us it is hard work right from coming up with the title to the way the post is structured to the content of the post. Be prepared to go through many iterations of it before you come up with the post that you would feel proud to publish.
Sudeep D’Souza in his blog sudeepdsouza.blogspot.com narrates his experiences in the software world and everyday life in Hyderabad, India.
The following post on building links to your blogEvan Carmichael.
It’s no secret that building links to your website will help drive more referral traffic as well as increase your rankings in Google and the other major search engines. In previous ProBlogger posts Aaron Wall and Wendy Piersall have talked about it. Darren has also been known to create a post hereorthere on the topic.
Today I wanted to share with you how I built 22,938 links to my website and how you can do the same:
How To Check Your Links
Before getting started on the tips, it’s important to know how to check the number of links Google recognizes. Most people know about the link:www.YourDomainName.com command that you can type into Google. This function, however, will only return a sample number of links to your site and does not show the complete picture.
To find out how many links Google actually sees you need to create an account at Google’s Webmaster Tools. It’s free to sign up and the information you will receive is of vital importance if you are trying to improve your Google rankings.
If you already have an account, simply go to the Dashboard, click on your domain name, click on Links on the left side bar, and then select the pages with external links option to see how many websites are really linking to you.
7 Ways To Build Links To Your Website
1) Pick a Niche and Own It With Quality Content
Darrenhasbloggedatlength about the importance of having quality content if you want to stand out as a successful blogger. Quite simply, if you aren’t writing material that is new, different, and offers an interesting perspective, you won’t get readers or links to your blog. Just as important, I believe, when you’re getting started is to pick a niche and dominate it. If you’re not making money online yet, don’t write a blog about how to make money online! There is too much competition and you don’t have valuable content to add.
Find a topic that you are passionate about and that isn’t too competitive yet. As an example, I chose famous entrepreneur stories. I now have the largest collection of stories of famous entrepreneurs anywhere online and get linked to as a resource. I’ve since been able to expand beyond the famous entrepreneur stories but it’s important to first start with a niche and get known as an expert in your field.
2) Get Involved In The Community
Once you have picked your niche, get involved in the community surrounding it. No matter what topic you pick there are blogs and forums already discussing it. Join the conversation! When I first started my site I listed the top 10 blogs and forums where entrepreneurs hung out. I commented on the blogs, helped people in the forums, and answered questions as they came up. The bloggers appreciated my valuable insights and the forum members loved the help I gave them.
I always included my website in my signature and pretty soon I was generating traffic and links from the community sites. Because I was getting known as an expert I also had people link to me from their sites without me having to post a comment or forum entry on theirs! People link to Darren because he’s the best in the world at helping bloggers turn their blogs into businesses. What are you going to be the best at?
3) Get Press
Another strategy I used to create awareness and build links was to get media attention. I put keywords relating to my niche into a Google News Alert (a free tool that lets you know when a new story comes out around a particular keyword) , found news stories that dealt with the entrepreneurs I was profiling and contacted the reporters to congratulate them on a great article. I also offered them my insights and added them to a media list that I created in Excel. From then on I would send them a press release every two weeks that dealt with a new famous entrepreneur story on my website.
I also submitted the stories to free online PR directories and did some research as to how to write an effective press release and experimented with different headlines. This led to articles being written about my website in the New York Times, Globe and Mail (Canada’s most respected daily newspaper), the Dallas Morning News and countless other publications. It also led to television and radio appearances. Each time I gave them great stories as well as promoted my website. Always remember to ask for a link back from the media outlet. They are usually very highly ranked and the link can help drive your search engine rankings.
4) Social Networking Sites
Social networking is all the rage now but it’s more than just hype. An effective social networking campaign can help drive tremendous amounts of traffic as well as build links to your site. I haven’t personally gotten much from sites like Facebook and MySpace but the news and bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, and del.icio.us have been fantastic traffic and link generators for my website. The key I’ve found is to start off with quality content and then get the community to help you promote it.
For example, at the end of last year I compiled a list of the Top 50 SEO Posts of 2007 (Darren’s Secret Confessions of a Link-A-Holic made the list). It was a list that brought genuine value to people and saved readers a lot of time. Instead of having to dig into each blog themselves we did the work for them to find the best posts on SEO of the year. Once we finished the top 50 we let everyone on the list know about it. Many of them blogged about it and linked back to us, others submitted it to StumbleUpon and other social networking sites. In the first week of the list being out StumbleUpon alone sent me over 5,000 visitors to that one page!
6) Directories, Craigslist, Wikipedia
When I first started the site I submitted it to all the relevant directories that I could find. In all honesty I didn’t get many hits from them except from Business.com, but I viewed it as a link building exercise that would eventually pay off. If you run any kind of events, you need to also put them on Craigslist. We run a number of offline events for entrepreneurs and Craigslist helped send us a decent amount of traffic. Their pages also rank well and you can include a link back to your site from the postings you create.
Wikipedia is another excellent source worth checking out. Like every other webmaster, before Wikipedia put nofollows on their links I was trying to get all my pages listed as external links on the famous entrepreneur related pages. The result? The editors quickly removed my links and wrote an email to me warning me to stop. I did stop posting but was surprised to find out that I kept getting traffic from Wikipedia. It turns out that a number of my readers had used my articles as references for different famous entrepreneurs. As a result they included a link and it was driving traffic! It again all comes down to being the best at something and dominating your niche. If I didn’t have good content then I would not have received the links from Wikipedia.
7) Give People An Incentive To Link to You
As wonderful as it is to get bloggers and other website owners to link to you on the merit of your content alone, sometimes they need a push and an incentive to do so. As a result of building a popular website I began recruiting other experts to write for my site. Once you build up credibility in your niche you will have people who want to be associated with you. As an example, I wonder how many people are trying to guest blog for Darren while he’s gone?
For my own site, if the articles my guest authors submitted were relevant and valuable, I put them up. I then wrote to my authors and told them that if they linked back to my site from theirs I would give them even more exposure on my site and list them as Premium Partners. The incentive worked for many of them and I quickly built even more backlinks to my site from reputable experts. It sometimes takes thinking outside the box, but if you can find a way to help another webmaster in return for them linking to you, the extra incentive can make the difference between getting and not getting that all important link.
Additional Link Building Tips
Try to get links to your internal pages and not just your home page. The more you have to your internal pages, the better those pages will rank. For example, I have 22,938 Google-recognized links to my site but only 8,075 of them go to my homepage. The rest all go to internal pages on my website.
Get as high a Page Rank link as you can from the websites who profile you. A link on a Page Rank 1 internal page versus a Page Rank 5 homepage will make a big difference to your site. Just because two pages are on the same domain name, it doesn’t mean that they carry the same link value.
When getting a link, don’t tell people what anchor text to use (the blue text that is underlined). If all your links have the same anchor text you can get banned from Google for that keyword. I always ask my link partners to use anchor text that they feel best describes what my website is all about.
As soon as you get a link, tell Google about it through their Add URL page. It’s another free tool that Google offers and the sooner Google knows about the links to you, the sooner you will rise up in the rankings.
Don’t give up! Link building is an ongoing process and requires patience. It’s better to work for 1 hour a day for 24 days than to work for 24 hours straight and burn yourself out. If you keep working at it, the links will come!
Good luck and happy link building!
Evan Carmichael is the owner of www.EvanCarmichael.com, the Internet’s #1 resource for small business motivation and strategies.
Dylan Loh has come out with a great product known as the CB Profit Machine. He shows you how to target niches and make money from them.
He will also teach you to become one of ClickBank's super affiliates. An elite ClickBank super affiliate can drive tens of thousands of dollars in sales in just a day or two.
To become a highly coveted and sought after super affiliate you have to learn certain principles, Dylan Loh can help you learn these principles.
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Some guys find it difficult to write a good post and maintain a good blog. I define a good post as being interesting and something that you don't repeat from other people's voice.
A good blog means allowing friendly navigation around the blog and also not cluttering ads and having to many large pictures which cuts down the efficient loading of your blog page.
Here are 10 reasons why you should get a blog quick with your targeted niche idea you have in mind.
Blogging allows you to express yourself. Think about how you want put your feelings into words and craft a post expressing how you feel about the society or anything that you would like to highlight to the netizen who judge fairly base on your piece of work.
Blogging gives you freedom. While your job requires you to come in at 9am and leave at 5pm, there is no restriction on when you want to blog and what you want to do. Accomplish what you have to say as and when you like, one thing about blogging is there is no time limitation as to when to start and when to end.
Blogging gives you exposure. A lot of times, writing a resourceful post and even an article on the latest hard news you can find online would give you exposure from visitors all over the world. Do not saturate your topics purely within your country, demographic results varies if your niche is right.
Blogging allows you to talk about anything. You can write on anything under the sun, like i have said there is no limitation to what you would want to write in your blog. The only one that restricts you is yourself, posting on a constant frequency would enable your readers to know when they can expect an update soon.
Blogging increases your speed in typing. It works for me, since i was typing at only 89wpm, now after 1 year of blogging, i thought i had progress pretty well and made an improvement of 101wpm. The habit of using one finger typing on the write editor is completely gone, in order to be effective and efficient and create more time for myself, i trained myself daily to write a post with all 10 fingers working on the keyboard.
Blogging creates a name for you in the blogsphere. Some know me as Etienne and others call me ET. You need to build your profile from scratch and connect to others via social community and also leaving blogging comments and also on their contact form to inform them on what's interesting on your blog.
Blogging gives you knowledge. Over the year, i had a lot of fun understand and learning from bloggers on social media, blog monetization and more. If i had not started blogging, i guess i would not have known Internet is a place where you can make decent amount of money.
Blogging can earn you money. Nothing but the true, not MLM nor is there any gimmick behind this act which allows you to make a decent amount from blogging. The only catch around this would be working extra hard from the start to build a prolific portfolio to become successful in making money online.
Blogging allows you to substain a stable income. It could come as the toughest part in making that come true but once you attain the ability to maintain a stable income over the net, it means you need to improve yourself in order to make more and more.
Blogging can grow your business. Bloggers who make it rich out there have either something special in their hands or interesting facts which brings visitors to their blog. You can even grow your business if you blog about what benefits your business can give to your readers, will that be of any harm to your business?
Think of a topic which you have been interested all your life, tap into the niche and target on readers who are attracted to what you have to say, will it create continuous articles which you can write on without getting sick of the topics you are presenting? Brainstorm the ideas and write them down on a paper, zoom in and start posting your first blog post.
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Elastico.net: Una historia del arte y la tecnología en ARCO historia de la tecnología en la historia de la feria de arte Madrileña, y el por qué sigue resultando tan complicado -y a lo mejor, innecesario- abrir un hueco en el mercado para las artes digitales.
Brain Meter Tests Lawmaker’s Intellect 1934: Partial survey of the brain weights and body measurements of lawmakers as 1st step in an experiment expected to lead to a study of the mental and physical equipment of legislative bodies throughout the world.
TELICARTSEXCHANGE » Gravity art Gravity Art, curated by Rene Daalder, is an exhibition that brings together several generations of conceptual artists through the unlikely, but perfectly obvious conceit of gravity.
RealTime Arts - Magazine - issue 68 - Art from the heart The latest in Trish Adams' explorations of biotechnology, machine carnis continues to explore the "vital force" of biology, this time through an immersive experience bringing together audience participation and actual living cells.
Last month, i went to Florence to visit Emotional Systems, the inaugural exhibition of the brand new Strozzina.
You're going to hear about the Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina (CCCS) in the coming months i'm sure. The space was created as platform for the different approaches and practices that characterise the production of contemporary art and culture. That doesn't seem much but in a city like Florence which lives and breathes Renaissance there was very little space left for contemporary art so far. Its Project Director Franziska Nori is a curator of new media art (she co-produced and curated produced exhibitions such as I Love You exploring the worlds of hackers and viruses, adonnaM.mp3 devoted to p2p and file-sharing, Digital Origami about the demo scene.) CCCS is not a digital art center though but its mission is to highlight all forms of contemporary culture and this includes media art.
Just to wet your appetite, CCCS's next exhibition CINA CINA CINA !!! will present the work of 15 contemporary Chinese artists whose artistic practice searches for an independent cultural identity free of the restrictive rules of the global market. It opens on March 21 and closes on May 4.
The exhibition space is located in the recently restored spaces under the courtyard of Palazzo Strozzi, an impressive don't-mess-with-me palace in Florence. Its construction begun in 1489 by Benedetto da Maiano, for banker and statesman Filippo Strozzi the Elder, a rival of the Medici who wanted the most magnificent palace as a political statement of his own status. Filippo Strozzi died in 1491, long before the construction's completion in 1538. Duke Cosimo I de Medici confiscated it in the same year, not returning it to the Strozzi family until thirty years later.
The exhibition that launched the center was Emotional Systems - Contemporary Art between Emotion and Reason. Curated by Franziska Nori and phenomenologist Martin Steinhoff, the show invited the audience to reflect on the relationship between the contemporary artist, the artwork and the viewer, in the light of the latest discoveries in the neurological sciences about the human brain and its effects on the emotions.
Christian Nold, Emotional Mapping Greenwich, 2005
Each room of the Strozzina is devoted to one artist, each focusing on different aspect of emotion and empathy with the public. All of them are perfectly documented on the exhibition website, but here's a selection:
Teresa Margolles, Aire, 2003
Teresa Margolles' installation takes you by the guts. The strategy of Air/Aire is as minimalistic as it is powerful, it calls for the immediate reality of experience rather than the power of representation, the whole experience is paradoxicaly triggered not by an image but an absence.
You enter the installation room through a transparent plastic curtain, the kind that you'd expect to find in the workshop of a butcher. The room is completely white and apparently empty apart from a working air-conditioning unit. The air is slightly humidified.
That's it, so you either pass your way thinking that it is just an empty room or spot the exhibition label and start to read the elements used in making the installation: the conditioning system and vaporised water.
Image from an other work of the artist: Muerte sin fin
Margolles works also as a forensic technician in public mortuaries in Mexico City and that's where the water comes from. It was used to wash the corpses of as yet unidentified people prior to autopsy. Her works is a "memento mori" whose impact is not diminished by the complete absence of any representation of death. The visitor's awareness and their inevitable emotional response of repulsion becomes an essential part of the artistic process.
As a visceral motor reaction, disgust is included together with fear and pain among the primary emotions pinpointed by Italian neuroscientist Professor Giacomo Rizzolatti as underlying the so-called "mirror mechanism".
The active agents of this mechanism are the mirror neurons in the brain, a particular class of neurons characterized by the property of firing not only when the individual performs a particular action but also when he or she sees or simply hears someone else perform it. In short, when someone observes a work of art, this triggers a sort of re-creation in the sense that the viewer does not remain passive but projects his or her 'inner state' onto it.
A good example of this emotional transfer is Bill Viola's video series The Passions in which everyday people perform scenes from the classic Christian iconography. The figures are extrapolated from religious symbology and re-contextualized in a timeless and universally poetic dimension as a metaphor of the essence of the human condition.
Bill Viola, Observance, 2002. Photo credit Kira Perov
Observance draws inspiration from Albrecht Dürer's The Four Apostles (1526), a pair of altar wings depicting the grief shared by the four apostles over the death of Christ. It has sometimes been said that the work can be taken partly as a response to September 11. Actors enter and exit the performance space with their eyes fixed on a set point that remains hidden but seem to be located in the spectator's space.
Although we are not permitted to see the cause of the performers grief, we can guess that death and loss are the reason for their emotion. It's hard not to think of 9/11. The entire action unfolds in silence and extreme slow motion.
The face of most visitors, when entering the room and seeing the video, becomes solemn and almost sad. In neuroscientific terms, Viola's work illustrate how empathy can emerge through visual impact and the triggering of mirror neurons, inducing what can correspond to an involuntary act of "mimesis".
The third work i'd like to highlight is Nomadic Time, an installation, devised by Andrea Ferrara, a.k.a. Ongakuaw, which involves the connecting of a performer to a machine that detects her brainwaves.
The device monitors four types of waves generated by the human brain:
alpha waves which come from the subconscious mind and are generated primarily by the region of the memory, upon which the subconscious is based; beta waves which are born in the conscious mind, and are related to all activities during the awake state when the person is concentrated on external stimuli; theta waves which constitute waves of psychical power together with delta waves; gamma waves which are those of the deep psychical powers, like those of a medium in a trance.
While the performer is closed in the cage like a laboratory animal. She is made to watch a video,while her emotional response in the form of waves emitted by the brain is recorded, codified and digitally sampled by computer.
The video sequence shows 257 still shots of a tree by the River Arno, photographed by the artist in the course of the year.
The number of these shots corresponds to the number of days that Ferrara was actually on the spot to photograph the tree. The days when he could not make it are symbolized by single black image that appears for a fraction of a second on the screen and have only a subliminal impact on the spectator. This absence is also represented by the absence of the performer in the moments when the performance is suspended, leaving just the objects in an empty cage.
The coding is used as a control for an algorithmic compositional strategy of acoustic data. A custom-built software translates the waves recorded into musical sounds broadcast in the exhibition space, and the sound thus generated represents a real-time mapping of the emotions felt by the performer.
I'd also like to recommend the catalog that accompanies the exhibition as a way to explore the subject. It's in fact a carefully selection of essays by neurologists, philosophers, anthropologists, art historian, and the curators who present with the peculiar perspective of their own discipline the rationality of emotions and, in David Freedberg's words, the "relations between the formal aspects of an image and the emotional responses" of the user.
I’ve been working on a mixtures of tasks the past week but mostly setting up some new PPC campaigns.
One of the areas I’ve been dabbling in on a small scale is Ringtones. I’ve been direct linking (at a profit loss) the past few days while working on designing my own landing pages. I’ve also ordered two additional ringtones landing pages from a designer. I’m far to slow designing my own.
I often read that the ringtones niche is way oversaturated. That’s probably true if you are targeting some of the most obvious keywords such as “ringtones,” “Verizon ringtones” etc… I also read a lot of failure stories by those that lose money in the ringtones niche and give up.
On the other hand, I’ve read stories of people just recently entered the ringtones market and are making profits of $1,000 to $4,000 a day! The fact is that most affiliates will probably fail in the ringtones market but it’s still an extremely profitable niche for those who have the patience to test and learn.
In any case, I’m about to find out how I can do in the ringtones niche!
I think I’ll find the most success working long-tail keywords and finding keywords that don’t even have “ringtones” in them. I’ll be starting with thousands of keywords and hopefully build it out into the hundreds of thousands of keywords. I’m going to start with Adwords and then later move into Yahoo Publisher Network. I’ll be working in both Adwords Search and their Content Network.
I think my main obstacle is going to be to try and keep a decent Google quality score for my keywords.
Will I lose money? Will I make a killing with ringtones?
To be honest I don’t know exactly what to expect! But I’ll let you know how much I spent and my profit or loss in an update post.
Writing an article doesn't just mean putting down thoughts into words then typing and writing it. You have to capture the interest of your readers and get them to keep on reading. To send your message across you have to get the attention of the reader and have a firm grasp of their interest and pique their curiosity.
The main ingredient in baking up an article is a large dose of creativity. While creativity may come natural to many people, some just gets into a block or something to that effect that can drive someone crazy. Many writers have literally torn their hair out when they get writers block and just can't seem to get their creative juices flowing.
Putting words into images in the readers mind is an art. A clear and crisp depiction requires a certain flair that only creativity can provide. Similes and metaphors help a lot, but the way an article gets entwined word for word, sentence by sentence then paragraph by paragraph into a whole article develops the essence of the article.
So just what do you have to do when nothing comes to mind? There is no surefire ways to get the perfect ideas but there are easy ways to get your creative juices flowing. No one can guarantee you of having the perfect mindset but many methods may aid you in achieving that state of mind. Here are five easy ways for that.
1) Keep a diary or a journal with you always. Ideas can be triggered by anything you may hear, see, or smell. Your senses are your radar in finding great ideas. Write all of them into a journal and keep it with you for future reference. You may also write down anything that you have read or heard, someone's ideas could be used to develop your own ideas and this is not stealing. Remember that ideas and creativity can come from anywhere; it's the development of the idea that makes it unique.
2) Relax and take time to sort things out. A jumbled mind cannot create any space for new ideas. Everyone must have a clear mind if one wishes to have their creativity in full speed. Get rid of all obstacles that can be a hindrance to your creativity. If you are bothered by something, you cannot force your mind to stay focused.
Try to relax every time that you can and think about your experiences and interactions with others. Your experiences are what shape your mindset and your opinions which could be reflected on your writings. Try to discover yourself, find out what triggers your emotions. Discover what inspires you and what ticks you off. You can use these emotions to help you in expressing yourself and your ideas, with this you can grow creatively.
3) Create a working place that can inspire your creativeness. Your working place can be quite a hindrance if it doesn't make you feel happy or relaxed. Creativity comes from being in a good state of mind and a messed up workplace that causes distraction won't be conducive in firing up your creative flow.
Surround your working place with objects that makes you happy and relaxed. You may put up pictures, or scents, objects that inspire, or anything that can get your creativeness cranking. A clean and well organized workplace also rids of distractions and unwanted hindrances. With a good working place, you can work in peace and never notice the time pass by.
4) Set the mood. Setting the mood requires you to just go with the moment or to induce your self to feeling what makes your mind works best. Finding out what makes you tick could help you find ways to get your creative juices flowing. Set the pace and tempo for your mood and everything else will follow.
There are many ways to set the mood. Some writers have been known to use alcohol, a little sip of wine to stir up the imagination. Some would like some mood music while others let the lighting of the environment create the mood.
5) Go on a getaway and just do something unlike crazy. Letting yourself go and have fun produces adrenaline that can make your imagination go wild. Take an adventure or a solemn hike. Whatever it is that is unusual from your daily routine can take the rut out of your schedule. In no time at all, your creativeness will make use of that experience and get your imagination to go on overdrive.
So I've been to affiliate summit not, and you are wondering, "should I attend an affiliate summit?"
My answer: Yes.
Also included is one of my lamest videos yet, which I'm posting as I'm headed to the airport at 3 am while running on empty energy and sleep wise.
Which of course invokes the question, should you post everyday or only when you are on your A game? Of course you know my answer, post everyday ;) Personal preference of course.
And the unanimous decision on ppc is keep trying and keep testing.
And you should go to affiliate summit at least once for 1094 reasons ;) I also had it recommended to go to blogworld also probably 2 dozen times (probably cause I'm a "blogger").
Popshops has been around awhile but it was just this week at affiliate summit I got a demo.
Popshops takes affiliate datafeed info from cj.com, linkshare, and more and helps you add the product info to your websites via click and drag.
Their two strong points why you might want to check out PopShops are:
1. Free and flat fee pricing structure. They don't charge a commission or every x amount of clicks throw in their affiliate link. Rather they have a free version ad a version with a small monthly fee.
2. Their product info they give you is indexable by google and other search engines.
If you want to get some product info you side to make the pages a bit more unique go give Popshops a look.
(note: most things at affiliate summit aren't new, like popshops, but take a new light when you see a demo or meet the owners)
Add your comments by visiting the original post: PopShops
The affiliate bash was last night where the blue man group kicked off their affiliate program. The program is managed by partnerfusion. Check out the video to watch.
In this article Mark Avey discusses the pros and cons of running a niche subject blog, from a point of view of making money.
A little History
I run a number of blogs. Most of them cover pretty niche subjects but one, in particular, is about as niche as you can get - flight simulation. Nothing more, nothing less. The site (flightsimx.co.uk) started life as a simple, fairly static web site. With the release of one particular item of flight simulation software, the increasing number of news items grew to such an extent that I needed an easier way to manage it. A blog format was the ideal choice for me. Whilst technically it is a blog, I guess you could argue that it’s really more of a news site, but a blog it is and a blog it is likely to stay.
It was around 14 months ago that the blog really started to attract visitors in reasonable numbers. It’s now getting around 2,500 uniques and 5,000+ page views a day, which I’m pretty happy with. In that time, I’ve learnt a lot about blogging. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and hopefully learnt from them. One of those things has been to be aware of the pros and cons of running a very limited subject blog from a financial viewpoint.
Why it’s bad to have a Niche Blog
Almost by definition, you’re aiming at a small audience. A small audience means a lower number of potential “customers” than you’re going to get for a Britney Spears fan club site (in this context, customers is referring to anyone following through with an ad on my site, be it an AdSense click, an affiliate sale, or any other method)
There are relatively few affiliate programs available for you to pick from. The low audience status of the blog also filters through to a low audience for things you might want to try and sell through such a program
Context sensitive ads are few on the ground. With something as specific as my flight simulator blog, there are a relatively low number of people willing to pay for advertising through programs such as AdSense. This can mean you start getting ads repeated quite often, which can easily lead to “ad blindness”
It can be much harder to get other sites to link to you (and hence bring you new customers). This is obvious really. The subject is so narrow that there aren’t (in my case) all that many sites out there on the same subject. Additionally, of those that are out there, most of them want to keep the visitors on their own sites and not send them away to mine via a link.
It can take a long time to start getting search traffic. This is simply because there aren’t all that many people searching for the subject matter of your site. (This really falls into the good and bad sections, so I’ll come back to this in a moment)
Why it’s good to have a Niche Blog
Strange as it may seem, a lot of the negative aspects can actually work for you after a while.
A niche site can bring you a lot of dedicated readers. Most of my traffic comes from search engines (around 75%). Most of the remainder are return visitors. I think a near 25% return rate is pretty good.
Expanding on point 1 a little, once you’ve been around a while (assuming you’ve got your SEO optimised), the search engines can start to like you. If the search engines are picking you up (my posts get indexed within about an hour now), people that are searching for your subject have a pretty good chance of finding your site.
Whilst there are fewer affiliate programs out there for you to choose from, you can get some reasonable deals if you go looking. The same rules of supply and demand work for anyone working in that niche, so people selling related items are looking for as many people as possible to sell their goods, which can put you in a good position.
Your name can get around. I get a lot of emails from people along the lines of “Are you the guy who runs the flight simulator site?”. As well as giving you a nice warm fuzzy feeling, it also means your name is being associated with that niche subject. If you do your job properly (blogging), this can turn you into an expert in your field, which is great news for your blog. This in itself can bring people to your site.
You can create a captive audience. Because there are so few sites dealing with the subject of my blog, people who are interested in the subject are more likely to return once they find me. If they’re coming back, they may click on an ad.
If you’re going to start from scratch with a blog, you’ve got more chance of finding a subject that few people have already covered. You’re going to find it hard to compete with a blog about movies, but you may have some success with political movies of the 1940’s for example.
Is it Worth it?
Overall, I’d have to say yes. I’ve been lucky. The subject of my blog is something I’m passionate about. Hopefully this comes across and will encourage other people with a similar passion to come back. And click on an ad.
This post on making your video posts accessible to the deaf community was written by Stephen Hopson from Adversity University.
According to Technorati’s report last year, the blogosphere continues to proliferate, doubling in size every six months. Technorati is now tracking over 70 million blogs. Over 120,000 of them are created every single day - that’s about 1.4 blogs per second. On top of that, you have 1.5 million posts a day, which translates to 17 per second.
Astronomical; even overwhelming, if you ask me! How does one manage to stand out in today’s fast evolving blogosphere?
Ever since I started Adversity University in the spring of 1996, I’ve read countless of articles on attracting and retaining quality subscribers, how to write authentic/inspiring articles as well as how to add visual images, to name a few. You’ve probably thought about jumping on the video bandwagon in an effort to stand out and connect with your readers. Perhaps you’ve already done so. Perhaps not.
The purpose of today’s article is to show you how easy it is to transform your videos into a visual symphony of sorts for thousands, perhaps millions of people who rely on the written word to “hear” your messages.
How?
By adding subtitles to your videos.
Would you believe that the art of subtitling is actually very easy?
And that it won’t cost you a cent?
Vast Untapped Market
According to the United States Census Bureau, there are an estimated 35 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the United States alone. You also have aging baby boomers who find themselves continually cranking up the volume of their TV sets, radios and telephones. And then you have those whose native language is not English - like most people learning a new language, they find it easier to read than speak or understand spoken English.
How about reaching out and knocking on the door of their hearts with your wisdom?
If you knew that the simple act of subtitling your videos could potentially double, triple or even quadruple the size of your blog’s community, would you want to know how to do it?
I think any serious blogger who truly wants to make a difference and reach across language barriers would at least want to consider the possibilities.
ProBlogger Plants a Powerful Seed
It is remarkable how a seemingly insignificant action or event can change entire lives. One day last year, Darren unknowingly deposited a giant seed in my mind when he launched his first video post. He was among the earliest bloggers to give this new media tool a whirl.
While I sat transfixed and watched his introductory video, I literally heard the wheels turning in my mind:
Gosh, how did he make that video?
Would it be possible to subtitle a video post without causing myself a lot of pain and frustration?
Although deaf since birth, I consider myself an expert lip-reader but there was simply no way in high heck I could harness every word Darren was saying, no matter how hard I tried. From the moment my eyes feasted upon his video, those two questions unfurled before me a compelling vision to make video blogging accessible for the masses. With razor sharp focus, I combed through the Internet like Sherlock Holmes, searching for clues.
Despite my enthusiasm, I did not immediately apply what I discovered along the way because I allowed my technical-phobias stop me from taking action. Eventually, I became a little chagrined at having boxed myself into a quandary and woke up one morning, slammed my foot on the bedroom floor and said to no one in particular:
JUST DO IT.
By golly, we have Nike to thank for inspiring us with that one!
As a result, I posted an introductory 2 minute video with subtitles at my blog last week (if you are an RSS or email subscriber, please click the title of today’s post to see it):
As you can see, there’s no need to make your first “perfect” video. Just be honest with your readers and let them know you’re still learning the ropes. They’ll forgive you. You saw how my video ended rather ungracefully. That’s because I still haven’t learned the fine art of editing - it’s on my to-do list. What had happened was that I ran out of battery power but by that point I had done about 10 retakes and knew that if I didn’t end it right then and there, I’d never go through with it. All that mattered was that I (and Darren with his) took the first step, right?
For those of you who have technical phobia, don’t worry. As much as you might want to turn and run away from this challenge, let me reassure you that I present myself as someone who has blatant disregard for user manuals simply because I have a terrible time grasping technical concepts. I don’t even have a Blackberry, never owned a pager and my VCR continues to blink 12:00. For goodness sake, you can’t get any worst than that!
In other words, don’t stress about it because if I can do it, you can too.
10 Steps to Making a Video and Then Adding Subtitles
1. You do not need to buy an exorbitantly expensive digital camcorder. What I used was a compact SONY MPEG4 Net Sharing Cam. When it first came out a year ago, it was selling for $200 but now you can get one for only $149. It comes with a CD-ROM, USB cable, AC Adapter, A/V Connecting Cable and a wrist strap. The best thing about it is that it has a rotatable viewfinder so I could see myself talking. At this point, I’m still experimenting with it. With the exception of some minor inconveniences like the trouble I first had in starting and stopping the recording process, I like it so far (I had to click the start/stop button several times to get it to do what I wanted it to do).
2. Along with the camcorder, I bought a tripod that was small enough to sit on my desk; yet capable of expanding to a larger size for when I want to stand in front of the camcorder. Compact tripods are everywhere - what you want is the one that has a removable plate to screw the SONY camcorder onto the tripod. The tripod was $20.
3. Since the internal memory of the camcorder was only 8 MB, a memory card with at least 1GB was necessary so that I could store my videos and photos. Toward that end, I purchased the Sandisk Memory Stick PRO Duo for about $28.
4. Ten retakes later (looking at the camera took getting used to), all I had to do was to connect the USB cable to the computer and download the video to a Movie Browser program that was previously installed onto my hard drive via the supplied CD-ROM.
5. I then signed up for YouTube (a breeze) and clicked the upload button. (You are asked to browse for and then select the location of your video).
6. Next, I visited Overstream, a do-it-yourself subtitling website, opened a free account and downloaded the YouTube video by filling in its URL. (Note: It also works with Google Videos if you prefer that).
7. With the help of Overstream’s very user-friendly tutorial, I was able to subtitle the video on my very first attempt. Granted, it took me 2 hours to get it just right it but it was a lot easier and more fun than I imagined it would be. Put yourself in my shoes - in order for me to do this, I had to watch the video very closely and read my own lips. Assuming that you have the ability to hear yourself speak, imagine how much easier subtitling would be for you.
8. After I was finally satisfied with the timing of the subtitles, the video was saved on Overstream’s server. You can drive yourself a little crazy here, especially if you are one of those perfectionists - at some point, you just have to stop and say, “Enough, this is the best I can do.” A pop-up box appeared, giving me a link to the embed code and a choice between small, medium and large video sizes - I went for medium.
9. For those of you who use Wordpress, you probably already know how taxing it is to embed a video in a post because in order for it to work, you have to remember to first deselect the visual editor option before pasting the video code. To deselect the visual editor, click the “Users” tab within the WP Administrator Panel and then choose the “Your Profile” sub-tab. You’ll find the visual editor box on the upper portion of the page, under Personal Options.
10. Once I deselected the visual editor, I went back to the post and simply embedded the newly subtitled video.
That was it!
Now that I have shown how easy it is to create and subtitle a video, will you join me in a massive worldwide movement to make video blogging more accessible? I’d be humbled and grateful for it and so will countless of other people who rely on the written word to “hear” your video messages.
Until the next time we meet, let me wish you continued success with your blogging endeavors in 2008!
About the Author of this Post: Help and support Stephen by subscribing to his blog at Adversity University to receive inspiring articles about the power of achieving the impossible, overcoming and dealing with adversity in addition to some of the most revealing, in-depth “Stephen Hopson Interviews” of authentic bloggers. He is a former award-winning Wall Street stockbroker turned motivational speaker, author and the first deaf pilot in the world to earn an instrument rating in 2006. Read more about Stephen here.
The autocash system is live and this is something not many have ever heard about....
It has the power to automated your wealth and create cash streams for you at a moments notice and if your serious about making money online you'll want to check this one out.
Automation is key for making money in any industry and saves you time so you can do other things such as travel or enjoy your family.
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Well it was a few weeks ago now but i’m still feeling bitter.
how i got hacked
I’m not to sure how i got hocked but it was more than likely because i hadn’t updated my version of wordpress to the latest version so someone probably got in via an Wordpress hole.
What did the little bastard do?
I first noticed something was up when my incoming traffic was looking really strange. People were coming in to the site via porn/spammy keywords in Google, this was really wierd as i have no inbound links from porn sites that i know of.
I viewed the source of the home page and there it was. A div tag had been put on the footer of each page, the contents of the div was links to porn websites and placed to the far right of the site off the page so people couldn’t see the links, just engines.
Obviously i removed the div tag but i’ve lost all traffic and ranks i had on Google, great thaks alot you little toss pot who did this. But dont worry i will bounce back, i’ve been working on some other website projects but ill get back to writing regular content once i get the status of my sites sorted.
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We've been trying to tell you about the new program and the MASSIVE amounts of people jumping in this thing. We need to know. Michelle, do you want these new customers under YOU.
If you do, GREAT, we'll start placing business under YOU, as soon as you take your F*R*E*E position in the program.
Maybe we have the wrong person. We thought you wanted more money, and more time for yourself. If this is no longer true, we apologize. Just let us know, so we can start building someone else a monthly income.
It only takes a minute, really. Then you can watch from your very own website as we start to build a TEAM, under YOU. Every time someone makes a purchase, you EARN MONEY.
Three months ago I wrote a post about how I was able to get Google to refund part of the -2 penalty that they had imposed on the PageRank of Court’s Internet Marketing School. If you missed that post, you can find it here: Why Google Refunded My PageRank Slap. At the time I suspected that Google only refunded one of the two points that they had originally taken, and it turns out that this is probably the case.
About two weeks ago I was sitting at PageRank 4 and still very suspicious that I still had a -1 PageRank penalty. I was hesitant to request reconsideration with Google, because I had already done a request about this issue a short three months ago. I decided to do it anyway, and using Google Webmaster Tools I went ahead and did the request.
Late last night I figured out that my PageRank had been increased to PR5. I’m sure that some of you are still showing PR4 and that it will take a few days to spread across the world. Since it doesn’t seem that Google is doing a global toolbar update right now, this probably means that they got to my request for reconsideration and decided to undo the PR slap they hit me with.
John Chow Slapped Harder
In related news, I noticed early this morning that JohnChow.com is showing up as a PR3 in many data centers, down another point from the PR4 he was earlier this month. To give you some perspective, JohnChow.com was a PR6 site about five months ago. This shouldn’t surprise anyone because John continues to sell advertising that passes PageRank. John doesn’t care anymore because his blog is already very popular. I would highly recommend not following his example if you care about the future of your online business.
How To Request Reconsideration With Google
In order to reconsider any penalties they have imposed on your site, Google wants to know three things:
What you did wrong. In my case, I was selling links that passed PageRank. I explained to Google that I was doing this at one time and that I know that it was a mistake.
That you have corrected the errors. For me, that meant taking down all of the links I had sold that passed PageRank. I created a brand new advertising program for my site that only included links that didn’t pass PageRank. That means basically that all the links you can buy from me have nofollows on them and are intended for advertising only. I had to explain this to Google.
That you won’t make the mistake again. Google wants to hear you say that you aren’t going to make the mistake again. That means if you got penalized for doing PayPerPost, you will have to say you won’t write any more sponsored posts. If you got penalized for selling Text-Link-Ads, you need to say you won’t sell them again. I have no intention of ever selling links that pass PageRank, and I explained this to Google.
Once you have properly done the request for reconsideration, Google will take at least a few weeks to get to it. A search engineer will probably then check your site to see if you have corrected the errors that got you the penalty in the first place. As long as you have corrected everything they’re penalizing you for, it’s likely that they will undo the penalty.
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Once again, Brian has thrown together a party for the record books. This time around Brian Littleton held his Affiliate Summit West party at the Palms Casino. Everyone is is anyone in the industry was at the event. This party was so excellent, that Reena and I managed to stay there for nearly 5 hours. Here are just a few of the contacts I met at “the party” of Affiliate Summit West 2008.
A group picture with Reena, David Stack and Rosemary Zalewski.
With My Affiliate Summit Ticket Winner, Israel of FatManUnleashed!
The Affiliate Summit Veterans Gang!
The picture below was taken on the Palm’s suite balcony, which had an inground pool which extended outside of the hotel over over the side of the building. The Palms 2 story suite was simply amazing and you could see the complete strip and all of Vegas as you went through all of it’s luxorious rooms.
Every year I lok forward to what Brian has in store for the Affiliate Summit Party, I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next year. It will be hard to top this one!
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I’ve known JP & Steven Suave for many years now. We’ve always been good friends and have both done very well for ourselves over the past several years. It’s really great to talk with internet and Affiliate Summit veterans, as you can compare and appreciate each other’s success over the years. This AffiliateSummit, MaxBounty treated their invited affiliates to a special Wine Cellar party. The atmosphere was amazing and very relaxing!
The Wine Cellar was as fancy and sophisticated as you can get!
I also got to meet up with my Affiliate Manager Jessica Dagg.
It was great to talk with JP and Steven on how they built up their network over the years and finally grew from a two person company to an 8 person company today. I highly recommend joining the MaxBounty network, not only do they have some great offers and competitive rates, but they are also very selective as to whom they let in their network. MaxBounty has been around for many years now, and they have what it takes to thrive for many more.
Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!
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Animals have senses beyond human experience, they instinctively feel approaching tsunamis through low frequencies, communicate through pheromones or can navigate through magnetic fields.
Students of Design InteractionsChris Woebken and Kenichi Okada, in collaboration with MBA students from the Oxford Said Business-school, have been developing a series of sensory enhancements toys for children to experience "animal superpowers." Each prototype allows the kid to change perspective or feel empathy with animals.
At the work in progress show of the Royal College of Art in London a few weeks ago there were showing 3 of their prototypes:
The ground as seen through the "Ant" apparatus
Ant - feeling like an ant magnifying your vision 50x through microscope antennas on your hands Bird - gaining a sense for magnetic fields Giraffe - a child to adult converter changing your voice & perspective
They are also developing Elephant shoes that pick up transmitting vibrations from fellows and a head mounted Theremin (!) to provide children with an enhanced spatial vision similar to the one of an electric Eel.
I played with the ant and giraffe devices while visiting the RCA show and found out that the objects do exactly what their description says: i felt humbled by the ant devices (i could not see anything of what was around me but could perceive all the tiny cracks and details on the surface of of the table i was exploring) and while doning the giraffe helmet i could only perceive the head of the tallest people in the room. Anyway, time for a few questions to Kenichi and Chris:
How does the Bird device work?
K&C: Birds find direction through sensing geomagnetic fields to find their way migrating from their summer territory to where they are spending the winter months.
Rather than translating the sense of geomagnetic fields literally, we designed a device that can be set to basic children's needs sensing the direction of home, icecream-shops or your friends.
Tiny motors in the device create a haptic sensation on the skin when you tune into the direction and create a new relationship to your environment. It not just creates a haptic sensation for yourself but as part of the superheros it also displays the direction and visualizes it to your friends.
Which technique did you use to change the voice in the giraffe helmet?
K&C: We are using a telephone voice changer to make a kids voice sound like an adult.
Has working on this project taught you something you were not expecting about body perception and possible future body extensions?
K&C: All the devices in this series are working experiential prototypes so we could test the devices with kids. We were quite surprised how extreme the ant device changes the children's behaviors. Even a hyperactive kid moves very slow because the new 50x scale makes you feel sick if you would move at normal speed.
We are interested in perception and sensory enhancements for the body and we are also considering a series of toys that uses bio-sensors and can tune into biochemical animal communication.
C: The animal project inspired me to explore new ways of interacting with our instinctual animal-self, taking it from the toy level to an adult training tool. Our senses evolved to operate in a networked information age and the sense of smell for example is currently degenerated because we have fire-alarms. Evolutionary our emotions are still controlled with the reptile part of our brain. I am exploring how networked technology and human augmentation training tools can create a new awareness, augment instincts and train new reflexes and for today's survival.
Gallery: The Hard Science Behind Videogame Technologies Hard science behind the atest videogame technologies. Wired.com scoured the showroom floor at the Game Developers Conference to find the scientific back story to the machinery of fun.
U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft The Reynard project will begin by profiling online gaming behavior, then potentially move on to its ultimate goal of "automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world."
Arizona 'virtual fence' gets final OK - Boston.com A 28-mile "virtual fence" that will use radars and surveillance cameras to try to catch people entering the country illegally has gotten final government approval.
Holographic Water Monster - Billboardom The hologram illusion uses a water screen created by a exact light projected on a carefully sprayed water jet to create a giant pseudo-3-D Loch Ness "Water Horse" monster in Tokyo Bay."
AT ART COLOGNE / e-flux OPEN SPACE at the 42nd ART COLOGNE will present a selection of strong art scenes from global cities with a joint presentation of international galleries, artists and projects of contemporary art.
ARCO ‘08 _ all about what we liked at edgargonzalez.com Reseña de ARCO '08: En la última edición de ARCO encontramos más pintura, mucha fotografía, menos video, pocas instalaciones y un equilibrio entre grandes firmas y nuevos nombres. Y primero de todo, destacar el nuevo diseño espacial de la exposici
Subtopia: MOUT Urbanism - (Military Operation on Urban Terrain) MOUT training facilities where entire pseudo landscapes and quasi architectures are designed solely for being conquered and reconquered, and help prepare army for counter-insurgency warfare in cities abroad--life inside a simulative architectural loop; la
border camping Attracted by proximity to cheap pharmacies, clothing and dental service the full time Rvers flock to the Arizona desert where they can live without the burdern of a fixed site or property taxes. These full time Rvers have redefined the ideas of communitie
Paw Protection: German Police Dogs Issued With Boots police dogs in the German city of Düsseldorf: They are getting US-made boots with thick rubber soles so that they don't cut their paws while chasing criminals around the city.
Putting people first » The future of reputation A new book was published (and is available free online) on what might be happening to our out privacy and ultimately reputation in an age of ubiquitous personal information.
Get-paid-to-vote site Subvert And Profit has changed their payment system from PayPal to Google Checkout. In doing so, Subvert And Profit has effectively screwed over non US members who used to get paid via PayPal. While Google Checkout accepts buyers from many countries, only US sellers can get paid by Google Checkout.
Google Checkout works by having the seller send an invoice to the buyer. Since non-US sellers are not accepted, there is no way for non US members to do so.
There is no official announcement on the Subvert And Profit site. Members received an email notifying of the change without any warning and the PayPal request payment option on member dashboards has been removed.
What Subvert And Profit has done is unprofessional. They should have warned members of the impending change to allow members request for their payment or included instructions on how non US members can retrieve their outstanding balance.
Will Subvert And Profit do the right thing and honour its due payments to non US members or will they quietly pocket members’ money.
Learn How to write a business plan for your blog in this post by Shawn Williamson of DoYouLiveOrSimplyExist.com.
Successful businesses create a business plan. It is a road map to establish how the business will operate, its goals, and to be a showpiece for investors when seeking funding. Probloggers can use the same technique to build a successful blog.
A blog plan, like a business plan, is important to give your blog a path to follow, rather than randomly blogging day to day and hoping for success. It will help you plan what your blog will look like and where it is going one year, two years, even five years from now.
Get out a piece of paper, or open a new document. Start with these…
Basic Questions
Why does your blog exist? Is it purely for ego or self-expression? To generate income? To expose yourself and your writing to the world as a method of promoting other ventures? Work out why you are blogging. This will help to determine your goals for the future.
Who are you and why are you uniquely qualified to write this blog? Remember that successful blogs are personal. Blogs that reveal the lives of their writers tend to have more subscribers than blogs that reveal nothing of their writers. The statement you write here will serve to guide you in the coming months. It may help you find your blogging voice. As you grow as a blogger, you may find yourself reflecting back on who you used to be when you started and who you have become.
What are the topic areas this blog will discuss? Be just broad enough to have plenty to write about, but narrow enough to stay within your niche. It’s important to have regular topics rather than complete randomness. Readers who want to read particular topics will come back to your blog again and again. Random posting won’t build a targeted readership.
When will you post? Every day? Twice a week? Determine your posting frequency. Look here and here for inspiration.
Where are you? Do you blog from a certain country or city? Do you travel as you blog? While not specifically required for a good plan, it can help readership identify with you as a “local” or a respected foreign authority.
How will you deliver your messages? Is this a one-person blog, or a multi-blogger magazine-type blog? Will you use a custom theme or modified stock theme? RSS delivery should be a must.
Will you plan your weekly topics, or just shoot from the hip? Consider an editorial calendar to plan your posting schedule, not only through the week, but through the year as well. Having a calendar of upcoming events and holidays makes sure you aren’t scrambling at the last minute for that special St. Patrick’s day entry. :)
If you want to invite guest posts, I suggest having a basic editorial calendar available so a guest blogger can see if you will be covering a subject which they may be interested in writing.
With the basic questions out of the way, now it time to address specifics of how you will succeed.
Monetization
If you hope to generate income from your blog, you will need to address how you will monetize. Some methods are expected, but don’t forget to brainstorm for other ideas.
The Endgame
Many business start with the end in mind. What does the endgame of your blog look like? Do you plan to blog until you are in your 90’s? Or until blogs become unpopular? Or maybe you plan to sell your blog when it reaches the pinnacle of it’s popularity?
Having the end in mind will guide how you will build your blog. For example, if you end goal is to sell, how will you extricate yourself from your blog after the sale? Will it be a sudden shift of writers or will you stay onboard for a while? If you know you want to sell and need to extricate yourself easily, maybe you would build the blog using many guest writers, or even write under a pseudonym which another writer can take over.
Building the roadmap
Once you have laid the foundation for your blog business, the day to day operations, topics and goals should be much easier.
Shawn Williamson is a Salt Lake City writer who found that he has squandered most of his days by living on autopilot. He documents his journey of escaping the rat race at DoYouLiveOrSimplyExist.com. His writing has attracted an astounding 8 subscribers. Visitors are always welcome.
In this post Daniel Scocco answers to another question from the Problogger Question Box. Vivienne asks:
Can poor writing skills overshadow good content?
Considering that I am not a native English speaker, I wish that the answer to this question was "no." Unfortunately the opposite seems to be true; poor writing skills do can affect your otherwise witty and useful content.
Grammatical mistakes, misspelled words, incorrect punctuation and poorly structured sentences can make your content confusing, if not utterly unreadable. If you then consider the fact that we have hundreds of blogs on every niche these days, you can see that the writing quality could be the difference between a loyal and a lost reader.
Now one could say: "well, but I know a blogger that has thousands of readers and makes thousands of dollars monthly, yet he does not have superb writing skills and his content is often crippled with grammatical mistakes."
Similar cases do exist, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. Additionally, if you pay attention to these bloggers, you will notice that their blogs do not represent their main business, and that they are seen as experts on their niches. The authority factor over-weights poor writing skills.
Suppose you have an online marketing guru that is able to generate thousands of dollars in revenues from his activities. People would be interested in his ideas and tips, regardless of how they are presented.
If you are a superstar on your niche, therefore, perhaps you could get away with frequent grammatical mistakes and poor writing skills (and even in that situation improving the writing quality would only benefit you). If you are in the middle of the pack like most of us, however, you probably should pay attention to your words and sentences more closely.
Don’t get me wrong here; I am not arguing that one should be able to write Shakespearean novels to be a successful blogger. But at the very minimum you want to respect the basic grammatical rules and avoid misspelled words.
How does one improve his writing skills, though? Below you will find 3 points that can help you with this task.
1. Avoid the common mistakes
The Pareto principle states that for many events 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This principle holds true to writing as well. I would say that 80% of what people write incorrectly come from 20% of all the possible mistakes. That is, we are talking about a small number of common mistakes that people repeat over and over again.
What are these common mistakes? Its for it’s, alot for a lot, your for you’re, their for they’re, affect for effect and so on. Copyblogger is a wonderful resource for this topic, and the three links below should get you started.
I would say that over-emphasizing the importance of proofreading would be a very difficult task. I try to proofread twice all my articles and text pieces, and still once in a while a typo appears.
Sure, proofreading is not what one would call a pleasant activity, but it is necessary. Additionally, if you make it a habit and adopt some clever strategies, you will see that it will consume less time and it will become less of a pain.
On the links below you will find several strategies and tips that you can use to make your proofreading and editing sessions more effective.
3. Expand your vocabulary and master the grammar basics
Regardless of your profession, the ability to write and communicate in a clear and concise fashion is essential. In order to do so, however, you need to have a vast vocabulary and a solid understanding of the basic grammar rules.
There are several resources and books that you can use for that purpose. On the links below you will find a newsletter that delivers one word every day to your inbox, the BBC resource website dedicated to people that want to learn the English language and the Wikipedia page for English grammar.
I'm sending you a quick email right now, because I have something very important to tell you about.
In fact, right before sending this email, I just called round most of my own family telling them about this website.
You see I was surfing the Internet the other day researching trading stocks and I came across an interesting website.
It's about two "geeks" (or geniuses) whom have created some kind of stock trading robot.
This bot sits on the computer like any other program, and just analyses stocks all day.
Anyhow I don't want to tell you too much about this bot, because it costs $28,000 for a single license!
But I did a little further research, and after finding some interesting forum discussions, someone pointed me to another website.
A website, where the owner (also intrigued by the bot) has written a snappy article about it...
But more importantly this owner gives details on how anyone can join a newsletter.
This newsletter is sent out weekly via email (usually on a Sunday evening) and it includes a stock the robot has picked for this week.
Now...
These stocks often rise over 100% within a matter of days.
In fact after being a newsletter member for 3 weeks, I invested on the 4th stock pick... and made $1876.00 (pure profit).
Which is precisely why I just rang round all of my family telling them about this website.
Oh but there's one more thing before I give you the address, there is a limit to the number of the newsletter placements.
As I write this email there are 27 places left, (they started at around 400) so if you can bare it, follow the below link... and scroll to the bottom, in big letters is the number of places left.
If that is above 0, you're in luck and I'd advise you to scroll to the top and start reading, fast:
P.S : I also feel I need to warn you that this email is being sent to many thousands of people on my own newsletter!
The Real Income po box 125 Plattsburgh New York 12901 United States -- To unsubscribe or to change your contact details, visit: http://getresponse.com/r/1c6c+,/n9Wsiz36n
You used a blogger platform with free hosting to run your blog and after it 4 months, you realise you need a better domain name in order to attract more traffic and for visitors to easily remember your blog but you do not want to put to waste the post you had made over the months, your next decision is to purchase a domain and redirect your current blogspot sub-domain to your new domain name.
Welcome to PayLessDomain, Australia's favourite domain registration site for buying cheap Australian domain names. PayLessDomain offers a wide range of domains which you can choose on their website.
Registering a domain on their website is so easy, even if you have a rough idea of what your next domain name would be, type it in their search box, they will give you a random list of domain still available. This easily help you figure out which domain would still look comfortable in the eyes of you and your visitors.
PayLessDomain Aftersales Guaranteed Purchasing even just one domain with guarantee you with an aftersale that you will not forget. The exhaustive list as shown below:
24/7 Customer Support
FREE Email Hosting
FREE URL Forwarding
FREE Management Tools
FREE Domain Name Parking
FREE Member Account
FREE Renewal Reminders
FAST Domain Approval
Discount That is not Worth a Glance I happen to read the portion which tells me if i were to register a domain for two years or more, i would be entitle with a special discount. I was very excited when i hear this and attempt to click on it's "discount list". Giving me a Normal Price and your volumes discounts tells me another story, i pay $31.48 for a normal price and if i buy 10-20 domains in a 3 years deal, my discount is just $0.35, that amount comes up to $31.03? Please do enlighten me if you can see this post.
I truly believe you should try Paylessdomain service because it was recommended by one of my Australian friend. While it offers Domains for registration, Paylessdomain also offers web hosting, Ecommerce services and they come in affordable package.
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Rick Katz of the Big Dog Heavy Hitters report has created another free report, called Smoking Hot List.
The Smoking Hot List report talks about the importance of capturing your visitor’s contact information, rather than simply directing them to a program’s affiliate page. Who buys into a program on their first visit? You’ll have questions you want answered, you may go to some other review sites, etc. If you just send traffic to a program’s sign up page, then you’ve lost any opportunity to be the person who answers their questions and helps them succeed. The commission will go to whoever does those things.
So the report recommends capturing their information into an autoresponder list, and following up with them via email. Don’t even say what program you’re promoting on the sign up page, just say what it can do for them. That way you have a lot more time to follow up with them and figure out what is keeping them from succeeding.
There’s a lot more in the report, and true to form, you have to opt in to a list to get the report.
On the back end, Rick offers the use of the Smoking Host List report to build your own list. You join Rick’s co-op club, and get access to not only the Smoking Hot List report, but can also participate in the co-op itself (if you remember my review of the co-op, it’s the only program I’ve seen online that actually lives up to what it says it’ll do, namely put you into profit quickly). And for everyone who joins the co-op through your Smoking Hot List page, you get a direct commission.
So you’re building a list and getting paid to do it.
This program is ideal if you don’t have a website and want to build a list, or have had trouble building lists before. Rick’s co-op club has worked out very well, so I don’t doubt that the Smoking Hot List pages will work out well, too.
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Today was the first real big networking event for Affiliate Summit West. The Meet Market is made up of several different companies, each with their own tables. The Meet Market is a smaller version of the Exhibit Hall. This gives the opportunity for every one to meet after registration and for any companies who could not utilize the full exhibit hall area. Two years ago when the Meet Market was first introduced, I remember there were just a few tables, now the event is a big thing. There are currently around 2,700 registered attendees for Affiliate Summit West 2008… this should be exciting!
Since the Meet Market is located right outside the registration area, it’s a great opportunity to meet up with everyone attending the event. Here are a few pictures from who I’ve run into so far.
Lastly, here is what a table looks like at the Affiliate Summit Meet Market. I’m pictured here with Dale from Things From Another World (tfaw.com). As you probably already know, I love anything relating to comics and marvel.TFAW’s booths are always loaded up with cool stuff and Dale always hooks me up with some goodies. They are always one of my favorite booths to visit! You can earn up to 14% of each sale, when you join the TFAW.com Affiliate Program.
Tonight I will be attending the MaxBounty Wine Cellar Party at the Rio, then heading over to the Shareasale Party at the Rio. Stay tuned for more pics and updates!
Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!
Yesterday Reena and I arrived in Las Vegas for the start of Affiliate Summit West 2008. Once arriving at the Rio, we wee anxious to get to our room. I was hoping to get an upgrade, so they put me in a 1,600 ft suite! We went up to the room and it was like a flashback to the 80s! The size of the room was awesomely huge (but unnecessary), and it scaled the whole corner of the building. Unfortunately the bed and furniture were less than comfortable. We went back downstairs to to get another room, they then set us up with the same suite, but this time on the 38th floor. Quite frustrated, we just went to the VIP check-in and told them situation. We were finally issued a smaller renovated suite in their new tower… and everything is awesome now!
Now that we were all settled in, we were anxiously awaiting the Affiliate Dinner later that night. The guest of honor was “Brian Littleton” from Shareasale… so he was in for a roasting. In addition to taking several hits for his obsession with sweater vests, many of his close friends took time to celebrate and toast Brian, including a collection of funny videos from his staff and Shawn Collins and Missy Ward. The event was put together and hosted by Brook and Forest Schaaf. If was the first networking session for Affiliate Summit, so it was great to finally meet up with a few friends.
Brook awards Brian with “Affiliate Dinner Guest of Honor” Award
While at the Affiliate Dinner I was also able to meet up with Ian Fernando, Andrew Wee, the girls from NeverBlueAds and many more.
Myself, Ian Fernando and Andrew Wee
Next on the list is registering for Affiliate Summit, the Meet Market, then the awesome Shareasale party at the palms.
Don’t forget to visit www.ZacJohnson.com and comment on new posts! Top Commenters are rewarded with fun prizes every month!
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Can't believe how late i am in publishing these notes about the Transmediale exhibition. I used to be a young, dynamic and super fast blogger, but that was a long time ago.
Although i always chose to focus on the good side of exhibitions and other events, i rarely have the opportunity to be so genuinely and totally enthusiastic about a festival. This was the media art festival i was dreaming of: a strong concept, an exhibition that does not confuse new media art with circus of interactivity and electro-gadgets for grown-ups, a conference that calls in so many inspiring artists, activists and researchers.
The theme? Conspire. How could you resist that one? While doing some research on conspiracy theories i passed from the expected to the utterly ridiculous (with a few nuggets in the middle). Conspiracy theories spread faster than ever with a little help of the internet and other communication technologies, but more importantly there is no doubt that we are definitely living an era where suspicion (or should i say paranoia?) reigns supreme.
Matt O'Dell, New Worship, image courtesy galerie Schleicher+Lange, Paris
"Conspiracy is the 'condition' of our times," told me Stephen Kovats, the Director of the festival. "When we consider information and network culture, when we look at the questions arising from the relationships between politics and culture particularly online ... the loss of authorship - or perhaps authority or belief in universal truths ... the weaving of narrative together with speculation and expanding the results at light speed, where anybody anyplace can become an expert or authority on any issue ... that's where the stuff of conspiracy is born. With transmediale, we were interested in exploring what this 'condition' in the era of digital mobility as a strategy, emotion, aesthetic, cultural state of being or landscape is.
Learning to harness the mechanisms of conspiracy, or those of the conspiratorial act also empower us as creative individuals to better understand the irrational culture of fear and security being imposed on us."
One of the best moment of the festival for me was PN (Power Noise), a electrifying performance by Elpueblodechina and Zosen who turned the data grabbed from Bureau d'Etudes' Bohemian Map into noise.
The Bohemian Map maps the connections and sphere of influence of some 2000 members of the Bohemian Grove, the high-profile annual Sonoma retreat of the Bohemian Club, a group that counts some of the most powerful men in the world. The club has counted every Republican president since Herbert Hoover as a member. Based in Paris, the Bureau d'Etudes group is engaged in the mapping of contemporary power relations at the institutional and international level.
Breakfast at Owls Nest Camp, Bohemian Grove, July 23, 1967 (image)
Bureau d'Etudes (whose work i've been admiring for years even if i've never written about them so far, shame on me!) was participating to the Transmediale exhibition with one of their latest projects, the Laboratory Planet. While so far they were producing gorgeous large-scale posters that visualize structures of power and ownership which usually remains invisible, this project uses google maps to reveal the laboratory for experimentation that our planet has become. After the end of WW2, the Earth, along with all its living inhabitants, have become a huge site for all kinds of experimentations.
The development of convergent technologies (bio-, nano-, cogno-, info-, robo-, sociotech) is the magic circle in which biological and mechanical species emerge from the laboratory and from new periodic tables. Much of this research is today carried out in secret. That is why an understanding of the present itself remains determined by the limited insight that we can have concerning information which is itself filtered or orchestrated. How can we speak of the present ? How can we know where we are or understand the situation we find ourselves in ?
Laboratory Planet aims to be a data base which would give us both a broad vision of the phenomenon, but also a local one as you can check the map and see what is happening in your neighbourhood. It's also an instrument that calls for the collaboration of the public to enrich its content.
The exhibition, guest-curated by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, requests some effort from the visitor. Nothing is right here right now, nothing comes to you easily, and even if you visit it equipped with the leaflet that describes each work, there are still a number of questions that you'll have to investigate by yourself if you want an answer. This way of experiencing the projects fits perfectly the mysterious streak of the exhibition theme.
The show is organized around several "thematic constructs", each of them explores a different facet of notions such as conspiratorial truths, bio-organic systems and twisted realities.
The Chemtrail conspiracy theory claims that some trails left behind jet aircraft are different in appearance and quality from those of normal contrails, may be composed of harmful chemicals, and are being deliberately produced, and covered up by the government. These unusual trails are referred to as "chemtrails". Some researchers believe that a chemical and/ or biological agent of some sort is being released. The term "chemtrail" does not refer to common forms of aerial dumping - it specifically refers to systematic, high-altitude dumping of unknown substances for undisclosed purposes, resulting in the appearance of these unusual contrails.
Photo: Jonathan Gröger
Keller's work includes a video and a collection of photos taken by amateurs. Chemtrails uses the mysterious phenomenon to reflect on superstition and paranoia in the USA.
Wonder Beirut #1, Greetings from Beirut, 1998-2007
The first part of Wonder Beirut, by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, tells the story of a pyromaniac Lebanese photographer named Abdallah Farah.
Wonder Beirut #21, Beaches in Beirut, 1998-2007
In 1968 and 1969 Farah took photos of the capital for the Beirut tourist authority intended to promote the city. The resulting postcards depicted an idealized Lebanon in the 1960s. The postcards are still on sale nowadays , although most of the places they represent were destroyed during the Lebanese civil war.
Latent Images, 1998-2007
In the autumn of 1975, Farah started damaging the negatives of his postcards, burning them according to the destruction of the buildings he saw disappearing because of bombings and street battles.
The "Wonder Beirut" project shows the results of Farahs photographical and pyromaniacal work. Part of the project are also the notes of Farah documenting the photographs which he never developed because of the lack of fixative and photographic paper during the war years. By publishing and distributing these images, the artists try to fight the trend which puts the Lebanese civil war between brackets and includes the Lebanese conflict only marginally in the contemporary history. But is this postcard story a fact or a fiction? (more images.)
The story of Be Prepared! Tiger!, a project by Knowbotic Research in collaboration with Peter Sandbichler, starts with the discovery on the internet of a propaganda video by the Tamil liberation army which shows the glorification of a speedboat that was supposedly financed by North Korea. The boat is deliberately likened to the American F 117 stealth bomber, a myth of invisibility and invincibility. The artists gathered information inside different networks and through private contacts in order to re-engineer and rebuild the boat.
The boat is mysterious in its background, form and tests have shown that it remains invisible for radar systems. Yet, the boat can be seen with the naked eye, it is functional, and it is even a marketable good (the artists put it for sale on various websites.)
With their project, the artists play on the dialectics of visibility and invisibility present in many of our modern technologies, it stands for the ruses and tactics used to escape from the geo positioning and surveillance technologies of the 21st century.
To amuse the crowd on their way to the restaurant, the absorbing Standard Time by Datenstrudel. A 24h clock/video showing 70 workers building somewhere in Berlin and "in real time" a wooden 4 x 12 m "digital" time display: a work that involves 1611 changes within 24 hour period.
Photo Jonathan Gröger
The spectator looking at Standard Time does not only see the time, but also people tirelessly constructing it. Video.
And on the way from the restaurant to the bar...
5VOLTCORE's knife.hand.chop.bot uses a knife to s(t)imulate the test of courage - a kind of game known as "Five Finger Fillet". The User puts his/her hand into the Machine and pushes the button. The knife starts to hit the space between the fingers, first slowly then continually getting faster. A sensor guides the Machine so it "knows" where to hit.
Electric contacts are activated as soon as the first "nervous sweat" is detected on the hand, the sweat turns the skin into a conductor. Disturbed by the electric current that is now transmitted via the skin, the computer changes behaviour: sounds are generated by the closure of the contacts (circuit bending) that can either be interpreted as warning or act as an additional source of stress. On the other hand, they can have an effect on the position of the knife which is controlled by the computer and thereby hurt the potential perpetrator of the disturbance.
Mi-5 Persecution is the subject line of a series of Usenet posts, originated by Mike Corley, an IT specialist living in London.
His messages usually detail how British intelligence has bugged his home and is sending people to follow him around and harass him. He has also claimed in his posts and on the pages of his own website that television personalities are mocking him or talking about him in code and are part of the MI5 conspiracy. According to him, MI5 with the assistance of the US has started in August 2005 to use a mindcontrol technology which not only reads his mind but can also send voices and thoughts on his mind. This has led to claims that he has mental health issues. Corley has been banned from posting through Google for his abuse of Usenet bulletin boards and has been similarly bounced from most ISPs in England. His story has even been turned into an opera last year.
In the past, his posts were relatively easy to filter out, due to his similar subject lines and email address. However, at the start of 2008, he began a series of posts that avoided filters through sporgery and slightly varying his subject line of "MI-5 Persecution". The regular expression Subject: {M[',-`. ]I[',-`. ]5[',-`. ]P} will filter this.
Corley Radio, by Design Interactions students Tomasso Lanza and Ross Cairns, is a combination of printer and a radio. It prints out specific words picked up while continuously scanning public and commercial radio stations. Any keywords can be programmed, but in this case they relate to the ongoing Mike Corley story about the MI5 (the UK's counter-intelligence and security agency) trying to ridicule him through radio and television broadcasts.
The designers imagined that Mike Corley would use the radio to keep track of who is talking to or about him, to help him find all possible conspiracies against him, that he by himself could never possibly detect.
3 questions to Ross & Tommaso:
Is it a working prototype or a concept?
Mechanically it works, however we couldn't get access to suitable voice recognition software, so for the purpose of the exhibition we faked the print outs based on details from the MI5 Persecution Reports. These are written reports from Mike which he spams to the internet daily at a truly astonishing rate (we've set up a crude tracking system recording the number of his posts found on the internet - we know many companies who would love to have this sort of ranking on Google).
Why choose Mike Corley?
Sometime ago we stumbled across these reports from Mike on Usenet and we started to get obsessively curious as to what they were about. The radio concept alone could be used by anyone. Here in London we could imagine Amy Winehouse or her family using it. A day never seems to go by without some form of unintended tabloid focus on them. However, during this project the story around Mike Corley became increasingly interesting.
I had never heard of that man before so i looked for information about him online and felt very sad for him. Have you tried to get in touch with him?
We know what you mean, it is a strange space we are operating in. This is about a person who is very real and an active part of the 'uk.misc' Usenet community. Many of the active community's members have met him. We have not contacted him (yet). He is constantly receiving nasty replies to his posting from webmasters or forums users. Should we be part of this or passive? Mike is manipulating technology to make his message public and we are feeding off this, highlighting it and using it; but as designers we are very clear about our role. We are not passing judgment on Mike but leaving the project open for interpretation.
Art In General Open Calls invites artists in the New York City area to propose projects in any medium or form. This call is for artists with studio or post-studio practice. It has no thematic or spatial parameters. Artists can choose to present a project proposal based on long-sta
To make money online with a home-based affiliate business you will need to know the many types of business models you have to choose from. You basically can get paid making sales as an affiliate for merchants or by recruiting affiliates who make sales. In this article we will talk about different ways that you [...]
Establishing your own E-commerce site is not like what it used to be. There are thousands of competition that is all too willing to get a bigger share of the pie. Every scheme and method you can find to augment your sales would be very beneficial.
We have got to admit to ourselves. Most of us are into it for the money. We are not going to waste our time and effort just for the fun of it. Many sites would not wait until hell freezes over just to see their profits. While there are some who takes things lightly there are always those who would rather see profit any given day.
It is common knowledge that without traffic we have no business. Like any business, without any customers you don't get sales. Traffic represents all the people that gets a chance to see what you have to offer. The more people who see your products the more people there would be to buy them.
Nobody puts up an E-commerce site that doesn't expect profit. We have a startup capital that needs to be regained. With a consistent traffic, we at least have a fighting chance to achieve that probability. Monetizing your traffic would optimize your chances of making the best out of it.
Making Money out of your Traffic
The best and most proven method of making a profit out of your traffic is using advertising. The internet generates hundreds of thousands upon hundred of thousands of traffic everyday. Most of them are searching for something. While some are just looking for information there is also a good percentage that is looking for something that they need.
The internet has proven to be a very reliable source in finding what was deemed to be a very unsearchable product. The internet has made the world a smaller place; you can advertise a product from the depths of Istanbul and still find a buyer from the center of Philadelphia.
Generating traffic is not an easy task. You have to contend with a great number of sites to generate a good number of traffic flow. But if done successfully this could open up a Pandora's Box of possibilities. One of the benefits is monetizing your traffic flow.
So, to get to the core of it the more traffic you generate the more likely you are considered as a desirable, desirable, in a sense that a good traffic flowing site is easily convertible to profit. Basically traffic equals profit. Advertising is the name of the game; with the good advertising scheme you can use your traffic flow to your advantage.
When you have good traffic you have a good number of potential customers, customers that are willing to pour money into your coffers. Other than that these are also traffic that can be redirected to sponsored links that are willing to pay you for a sizeable portion of the traffic that you have generated.
This scheme is called "pay-per-click". With every click a visitor of your site makes on an advertised link you will be paid. The more traffic you generate and the more clicks that happens would spell to more profits.
Affiliate Programs
Another method of monetizing your traffic are affiliate programs. You can link up with other tried and tested sites and online companies and monetize your traffic by having a percentage of sales generated by traffic coming from your site.
The basic idea is, traffic generated from your site will go to another site that can offer a product that you do not carry. Many programs can keep track and make records of transactions that was made possible because of site linkage.
When purchases are made by customers that was led by your site to their site you get a percentage of that sale. Affiliate programs would give you the benefit of monetizing your traffic without the actual need of carrying or promoting a certain product.
There are so many ways and methods to monetize your traffic. All it takes is a bit of hard work and the desire to successfully launch a profit-earning site. The internet is a veritable source of information, many tips and guides are offered everywhere in how to monetize your traffic and make your site a good profit earner.
Just got back from the shareasale under the stars party. I've found people are much more willing to share when you talk to them in person. Unfortunately it's usually pretty loud where I keep having these conversations and I'm beginning to lose my voice. Here are the latest pics:
In the past, savvy PR professionals used press releases to hopefully bring their clients a little media exposure. The process was long and drawn out, with the ultimate goal being, well, media coverage. However, the days of a press release being used solely for a newsworthy announcement are long gone. Why? The Web has changed what a press release can be…
This post was written by 
Before getting started on the tips, it’s important to know how to check the number of links Google recognizes. Most people know about the link:www.YourDomainName.com command that you can type into Google. This function, however, will only return a sample number of links to your site and does not show the complete picture.
Some guys find it difficult to write a good post and maintain a good blog. I define a good post as being interesting and something that you don't repeat from other people's voice.
I'm not the only one shooting photos from affiliate summit, 
Successful businesses create a business plan. It is a road map to establish how the business will operate, its goals, and to be a showpiece for investors when seeking funding. Probloggers can use the same technique to build a successful blog.
