Facebook and the 30 day challenge
July 30, 2007
I just finished watching Ed’s video on Facebook for the thirty day challenge. I was intending to send a friend invite just to the people in my team but before I knew what I was doing I sent an invite to all 400 contacts in my address book.
It’s not too bad in a way, as I then received quite a few messages from my friends. I didn’t realize how many people I knew had profiles. Facebook has some great features. I started chatting with a friend asking me where I am right now. I pasted a link from my travel blog and it put in a nice thumbnail into the message. How cool is that?
The thirty day challenge has given me renewed interest in my web sites and how I can promote them better. If you have the time I strongly suggest everyone to join the challenge. It is not too late to join, but you will need to set aside some time to go through watching the videos.
Please add me as a friend if you are using Facebook.
I have also started a Retire Young and Wealthy group.
Shoemoney sells Auctionads
July 29, 2007
Techcrunch reports that Auctionads have been sold to MediaWhiz. Plenty of people have already been blogging about the sale already. There is no doubting that they had a great product which was largely built by Shoemoney’s programmer, but I believe part of the success was due to Shoemoney’s huge following on his blog and his radio show on Webmasterradio. He also has good relationships with other top bloggers who also promoted it. I read somewhere of similar programs, but I had never heard of them before. I think if you did a poll on an Internet Marketing forum, I am confident that at least 95 per cent of people would at least have heard of Auction Ads.
Australia forum update
July 28, 2007
My Australia Forum website is going along nicely - nothing spectacular but I am getting a few signups. A guy on the forum who is posting like crazy even volunteered to be a moderator.
The competitions haven’t been to successful yet, but I think I will try to keep running them. I have bought a couple of links and I am already ranking for “Australia forum - not that it gets many searches.
I just bought and installed VBSeo and now have search engine friendly URLs. I have spent quite a bit of money now on the site, but I am thinking very longterm.
Thirty day challenge
July 27, 2007
I have signed up for the thirty day challenge and part of a team with people living in Thailand including Rob from Leave the Office.
I am watching some of the videos and while none of the stuff is ground breaking, Ed is an excellent presenter and teacher. There is nothing better than doing some kind of challenge to get motivated, network with like minded people and learn a thing or two. There is also a huge community of people participating. Nothing like a bit competition.
Anyone else taking the challenge?
The World is Flat
July 23, 2007
For the past month or so I haven’t read a single book. Traveling through Vietnam and Laos the pickings have been pretty slim, especially in the way on non-fiction.
I am in Bangkok now and I picked up a copy of “The World is Flat” after hearing it had some similar themes to the Four Hour Work Week. Most business books are usually slow going, but I have found that I can’t put this one down.
For people working in technology or internet related industries, a great deal of the information in the book is fairly common knowledge. Some of the stories however were picked up on the author’s travels to India, China and Japan. For anyone who thinks that India and China are taking away jobs in western countries, this book is a must read.
Since, I have worked in IT for several years, I was pretty much against the whole outsourcing debate, but since I have been working on the internet I have seen how outsourcing and globalization makes more and more sense.
He also writes how the internet is empowering individuals to be content producers, or “uploaders” as he calls them. Again, fairly common topics, but the author has some great examples of how this happening and he has a great way of explaining how this is going to effect how we will be doing business in the future.
107th noisiest blogger
July 20, 2007
I am now the 107th noisiest blogger in Australia. What a claim to fame! At least I am up from 165th position.
Biggest blog earners on the web
July 17, 2007
BusinessWeek has a great article on the top blog earners on the web and how they make their money. It is in a fairly annoying slideshow type format, so here is a quick summary. All figures are monthly revenue.
1. Boingboing
2. I CAN HAS CHEEZE BURGER
A funny cat site with captions - $5,600 using Blogads
3. ShoeMoney
Personal blog of Jeremy Schoemaker aka. Shoemoney - $12,000
4. Overheard in New York
User submission humor site - $8100 using Blogads
5. Kottke.org
Web design blog - $5,300 using Deck
6. talkingpointsmemo.com
Political news site - $45,000
7. Perez Hilton
Celebrity gossip - $111,000
8. Gothamist
New York news site - $250,000
9. TechCrunch
Internet industry news - $200,000
10. gofugyourself.typepad.com
Celebrity fashion - $6,240
11. mashable.com
Social network trends - $166,000
12. problogger.net
Professional blogging - $8,300
13. michellemalkin.com and hotair.com
Video blog -
A-ha moments
July 15, 2007
I think it is interesting to look back and try to find the moment when you discovered something like a new way of making money. You discover something you had never heard about before or haven’t given it any thought. It could be from reading a magazine or newspaper article or reading something on an internet forum.
I can remember the time I was reading a post on a Japan forum, by a guy who was boasting how he had just made $3000 selling a Japanese antique on ebay. Just that one post turned on a light for me and I got into buying and selling Japanese antiques. I had never given it a thought up until that day.
I remember just after I had started this blog, I did a search on “make money blog” and I found Probogger.net
I have lots of different ideas every day for new businesses and the last few days I have been thinking a lot about this one idea. I have had the idea for quite a while, but I came up with something related, while I was reading the 4 Hour Work Week. If I go through with the idea, I could say that was the A-Ha moment. The more I think about it, the more I can see the potential.
I have registered a couple of domains that I could use and have started doing more research.
I enjoy travelling, but it would be nice to settle down in one place for a while.
The battle over .la
July 12, 2007
I am currently in Laos at the moment. My homepage is set to Google.com and when I open my browser, I am redirected to Google.la. I noticed a few businesses using the .la extension, but most were opting for a .com
I had an idea to do something like hostels.jp for Laos so looked into the .la extension. The sad thing is that .la is being marketed to Los Angeles businesses!
The full story of what happened can be found here. It seems like the situation hasn’t changed since the article was written in 2002.
Creating your own user generated review site
July 11, 2007
Eretailers’ review and feedback sections have grown by nearly 25% since 2004. In fact, according to MarketingSherpa data, 58% of consumers prefer websites with peer-written product reviews.
A user generated review website is a great model to build a site on, either as a stand alone site or an addition to an established website. Once the basic framework has been set up - categories and fields, it is just a matter of adding a few items to each category. People visiting the site provide the content by writing reviews. You could even allow them to add new items to grow the site automatically.
You can then either display some ads on the site and/or include an affiliate link for each product to make money. To create a successful review site (like any site really) is to choose a suitable niche. If you choose hotels for example, it would probably be better to select a single country or region.
Some ideas for sites could include:
- digital cameras
- Japanese movies
- sporting goods
- hotels/hostels
- video games
Some people might be thinking that they would need a team of programmers to build a review site, but fortunately there are scripts available that make it possible for anyone to set up their own review site. I just set up Reviews for Joomla today on my Japan Hostels site. I have used it a couple of times before, and it really takes no time to set up.
The new jReviewsEverywhere component enables you to integrate reviews into several popular Joomla components. The hostel site is running HotProperty another component which I like, but hasn’t been updated in a long time.
Reviews for Joomla is only $79.99 and the Everywhere component is an additional $35. I believe that this is a bargain. The component is very powerful and if you compare it to what internet marketers charge for their crappy ebooks, it represents great value. The support forum is very active with the developer providing much of the responses.
By the way, this isn’t a paid review 
I was just impressed by this product that I thought I would share it with everyone. I only wish they had an affiliate program!
