.Asia TLD update
January 31, 2008
It is just 20 days to now until the start of the .asia landrush. I have pre-registered a few different domains and if I get any of them I think I could make some money from them down the track.
I was a little confused as to exactly how the process works because on the official .asia registry page, it looks like they are already having auctions for some names. On the same website, I couldn’t see any place to register an interest in an auction so I sent off an email to the registry.
Here is their reply:
As a brief explanation, the domain names that go to auction are ones that have received more than one application during Sunrise (and later Landrush). You must have submitted an application for the domain in the corresponding phases to participate in the auction. More specifically, there is no “premium list” of domains, but rather, the auctions are held to resolve contention for a domain during our startup process.
With regards to Landrush, you can apply for any domain name through one of our registrars. If there is only one application for your domain name, then no auction will be held. If during Landrush (Feb 20 - Mar 12, 2008) there were more than one application received for the same domain, an auction will be held only between the applicants for the domain.
The whole process seems a little weird to me and not so fair. Some people who are participating in this are going to make a lot of money if they can secure the domains they want. The site has a list of domains where the auction has been completed - camel.asia was sold for $5100.
Lists of the other domains going up for auction on February 4th don’t seem very appealing to me.
Auto video poster
January 29, 2008
I am totally against people who scrape RSS feeds and publish it on to their own blog, but I had an idea for a niche video blog and I couldn’t be bothered actually finding content and posting it. People have no trouble reposting your YouTube videos as it only increases their page views, so I had a feeling that there must be a script out there that does this.
I did some searching and found PhpTower which I bought for just $25. It works pretty much as detailed on the site. You can set up feeds based on keywords, which you can then manually update at the push of a button to update your blog, or you can set up a cron job to automate the whole process.
Domains in the Australian media
January 29, 2008
It is pretty rare to read about internet and affiliate marketing in the Australian media and even rarer to hear about domains. The Sydney Morning Herald has an article on legendary domainer, Rick Schwartz.
Yet Schwartz rakes in millions of dollars in annual income from his 6000-odd properties and recently sold one for $US750,000 after buying it in 1997 for about $US100.
It sounds too good to be true but Schwartz, the self-appointed “domain king” and full-time trader of internet real estate, says he is shocked more people haven’t tapped into the rivers of gold flowing through the domain name trading business.
“I have a great lifestyle because the dollars come in the same whether I work or not,” Schwartz said in an email interview after selling the domain iReport.com to CNN for $US750,000 this month.
The article carries a quote from Ozdomainer Ed Keay-Smith:
“If you do your research and buy good quality two- or three-word generic domains that are either unregistered or from the domain after market you could sell them later for more than you paid for it to a company that sells a product or service that is related to that name,” Keay-Smith said.
Ads in feeds with Bidvertiser
January 24, 2008
I recently signed up with BidVertiser and it has taken me a bit of time to get around to start implementing the code. There are just so many advertising options lately. They have various advertising options, including Google like ads.
They now also allow you to put ads in your RSS feed. They support Feedburner which makes life easy for most bloggers. I don’t expect I will make much from this new potential source of income, but as they say every little bit helps.
Mobile sites
January 22, 2008
I bought a couple of .mobi domains during the domain landrush period. The names aren’t too bad and after seeing this travel site for sale on sitepoint it has given me some motivation to do something with them.
I never liked using a mobile phone to browse the internet, but I know it can be useful particularly if you are out and looking for a bar/restaurant. I just checked my .mobi domains and it looks as though they are getting some traffic, which is always a good start.
Google has also released Adsense for mobile phones, so I think this could be something worth looking into, particularly as the market won’t be as competitive as the www.
Taking advantage of topical news
January 21, 2008
Creating a site that goes viral is not an easy task. One way is to piggy-back off a topical news story. I have seen this happen a few times recently with some success.
Some of you may have heard of Corey Delaney. He is a 16 year old Australian kid who held a party at his house that went out of control. For some reason, it became a big news story in Australia and around the world.
A web design company had a bright idea by putting up this website: Slap Corey. It is a simple, clever idea that is pretty funny (better with the sound on). The site was mentioned in several newspaper articles. While, I doubt they will make any money from it, the inbound links and traffic could be a good way to promote another site or business.
Your probably don’t want to have any advertising on the site to begin with, but once you get some good inbound links it shouldn’t be too much of a problem by putting some ringtone type advertisements on the site.
Pepperjam launches affiliate market network
January 17, 2008
Sponsored review:
One of the problems with working with affiliate networks is that you sometimes get the feeling that the people you are dealing with don’t actually have experience running a website. Affiliate marketers will be happy to hear that Pepperjam an internet marketing agency has launched a “next generation affiliate market network.”
Since Pepperjam started out as an affiliate they should have a good understanding of what affiliate marketers are looking for in an affiliate network.
I have heard Kris Jones CEO of Pepperjam interviewed a number of times by Shoemoney and he has always been very informative. Shoemoney always has great things to say about the company.
I have signed up as an affiliate and added some ads which you can see on the left hand side of my blog. The ads have a Google feel to them. The interface for signing up to programs and getting the code is straight forward and fairly intuitive. I am a member of a number of other affiliate networks and if you aren’t use to their interface, it can sometimes take some time to find what you are looking for.
Since I run mostly travel stuff, I took a look at what travel merchants they have and unfortunately they don’t have any yet. Not surprisingly, it will take some time to build up a range of merchants using the platform.
In conclusion, I will be looking forward to seeing how the Pepperjam network program develops. I get the feeling they have spent some time into creating a user-friendly interface and creating tools and reporting that affiliate marketers want.
You can join the Pepperjam Network here as an affiliate or merchant.
The power of Facebook
January 15, 2008
Last year I wrote about the “page” feature in Facebook. I hadn’t looked at the page since and I now have 92 so called “fans”. I haven’t done anything to promote the page. Perhaps now I might look into it more.
The Olympics is 6 months away so it would be nice to get at least 100 people a month to sign up.
The nice thing is that you can then mail all of the people who are your fans. It is kind of like a Web 2.0 mailing list. My referrals from Facebook are starting to increase so if there are any Facebook non-believers out there, you might want to start looking into some Facebook marketing.
Taking time off work for the Beijing Olympics
January 12, 2008
This article in caterersearch.com says that employers should support their employees if they want to take time off for the Olympic games so they can become a volunteer in Beijing.
Caterersearch is a UK based website so the view is not surprising with the London games in 2012.
“It isn’t just the international chains,” he says. “Of course, losing a person for four weeks has an impact for a small business. But if you want to retain people, allowing them to go sends a great psychological message and you’ll benefit from them being rejuvenated and refreshed by their experiences.
“I’m optimistic. I think organisations in the hospitality sector will look favourably on staff who find volunteer options at the Olympics. And looking forward to 2012, it will be a spur for hoteliers and restaurateurs to focus on the benefits, particularly if their business is likely to be affected by the London games.”
My affiliate strategy
January 12, 2008
I don’t read webmaster forums as much as I use to, but I occasionally go back and take a peak at what people are talking about. I had a look at the affiliate marketing section of Webmasterworld the other day and not surprisingly people were bagging CJ.
I have never had much luck with Commission Junction. Linkshare and Shareasale are a little better. What I much prefer to do is to find an e-commerce site with an affiliate program in my niche. I give them a try and if I can make some sales and get paid I starting thinking of new ways I could use to promote their products.
I also try to make contact with their affiliate manager. I don’t bother them much, but if you have a question or a problem it is much better to be able email a particular person rather than a generic support email address.
Smaller e-commerce sites probably don’t have as much to spend on big advertising campaigns so they are more reliant on getting affiliates to promote their products. Having to go through a big third party who represents another big company just doesn’t work well.
I also don’t do any PPC campaigns so I am not competing with the original company in this area.
It does take some time to find products that convert well on your site, but once you find a couple of things that work, it is an easy way to build your passive income.
