Drupal can do it, so I hear. Dating Site.

Seeing the incredible success of plenty of fish, I would love to build my own free dating/social networking website. Heck, I guess the ship has sailed on that one, but at least I want to learn how to build one, and have it out there to see what happens. I was excited to read that Drupal, in theory has the ability to build such a site. I will give it a go and see how far I get.

Finally, I will try wordpress.org

I finally decided to try out Wordpress.org. Wordpress.com is the less flexible, online version. With Wordpress.org, you need to download it and pay for hosting.
Why did I try wordpress, well.....I would like to try something more robust than blogger, so I will give it a try. My knowledge is still very limited, but so far, I like what I see. I hope that blogger grows too. I would like to see it become more powerful and flexible. The future looks bright for bloggers but the competition is getting stiff....for both bloggers and software developers.

Law of average.

I am going to talk about something really obvious, but I think it may be valid to share my philosophy with all my readers. Whenever I decide on a product or service based on information I read on the internet, I always read at least 10 candid opinions on different blogs and forums. I don't consider the best or worst reviews, because they might be biased, but I always consider the average review. Of course I rule out any products with mostly bad reviews because it is probably true if everyone thinks so. The more you read from different sources, the better. It is so obvious, but never ever base your opinion on just one source. Remember that when reading opinions on the web.

http://100webspace.com/ free hosting

I tried out free hosting by http://100webspace.com/ but with most free hosting, it is pretty poor. Yesterday I built my drupal and wordpress test sites, but all day today I couldn't access them. Alas, it seems like paid hosting is the only way to go. Also, I wanted to choose a hosting company that is located in the USA. I don't think http://100webspace.com/ is. I stayed away from Yahoo and Godaddy for hosting because I have had bad experiences with them. But I also heard some good reviews, so who knows. Anyway, in the end, I went with bluehost.com. Only time will tell what kind of success I will have with them. Stay tuned.

One little victory. Google ads on my phpbb forum.

I am challenging myself to make some money with a website that uses "user generated content", so I have decided to focus on building phpbb forums with google adsense. Alas, after reading some forums on the net, I found the code to insert the ads. Yay, one little victory. Now I have to customize the look of my forum, and the most important task, build readership. Of course I will have to fill it with tons of my own fake post to make it look popular, and then hopefully over time, the readers will come. Build it and they will come, lol. I wish it was that easy.

Exploring Drupal

I have spent the last three days exploring Drupal. I was sent an e-mail from a guy on craigslist in response to one of my ads, and he gave me the impression that drupal or Joomla were the only ways to go when building your own website. It has been a long uphill battle, but slowly I am learning the program. I first went with free hosting, but that didn't work out well, so I decided to go with bluehost.com for hosting. From the reviews I read on the net, they seemed solid. Now, however I am having numerous problems redirecting my godaddy domain names. But hopefully, by the end of the week I will make some solid headway. Building a robust website is no easy task, but to make money on the web, it is a valuable skill indeed. I will keep you all posted. Cheers.

hockeyhick.com
maybe....
moogified.com
maybe ok.
MICROMOOG.COM
better still.
PANTONCHAIR.COM
nice!
isterio.com

http://www.piload.com/

This could be a juicy business. This website is on sale at ebay.com. They are the only one I discovered with a good alexa ranking. There must be some catch, but I am not sure. Anyway, I will monitor their success in the future. Someday, I may think of purchasing a successful website.

.mobi and .biz

.modi or dotmobi I heard is the newest and fastest grown web address. It was designed for cellular telephones and other devices with small screens. A lot of cyber squatters have moved in fast to buy up the best names. I wonder if it is too late for me to get into the game? Another interesting thing I learned is that .biz addresses are only for businesses so cyber squatters are not allowed. Trademarks will also apply. I will have to be sure to remember this. I wouldn't want to get in any trouble.

Now the waiting game. Trying to sell my domains.

I today I finally took the plunge. I went ahead and bought two domain names from godaddy.com. One is nissangtrblog.com. I am linking this one to my Nissan Skyline blog to see if it gets me more traffic. The other one is ssbbw4u.com and I am trying to sell this one on ebay. I figured I would put a starting price of $20.00. I also parked the site at sedo.com. Now, it's just a waiting game to see what kind of results I get. It would be stupid to run off and purchase a whole bunch of other domain names before I see what kind of success I can get with these two. Now I just need a little patience, like Axl Rose said. Dum di dum di dum di dum.

My experince buying domain names so far.

Reading a lot of stuff on the web, I decided to go with sedo.com. It seems they are the only one that lets you start by parking just one domain name. I want to start small, and see what kind of success I can get with just one good domain name. The first one I trued to buy, stupidcelebrity.com for $60 failed. They wrote me back and said they wanted $100,000 for the name?!? They also said they were using it to develop a website. I guess the price they quoted me was their way of saying "get lost", but if you are an idiot, you can buy the name. Today, I just bid on another name, peopleblog.com. I am eager to hear back about that. I really want to get some quality domains fast! I will keep reading and trying. Never say die!

The death of domain parking?!?

Here is a must read article. Try to read a number of the comments at the end. THey go on and on and on. But reading them raises a lot of questions, and gets you thinking about both sides of the argument. Enjoy!
http://www.dailydomainer.com/200733-200733-death-of-domain-parking.html

cafepress.com

cafepress.com
I keep on forgeting about this one. A great idea I mush try. You supply the design, and they do all the production, marketing and shipping. I will give it a go.

Some doamin names I would like to buy.

Here are a couple of domain names I would love to buy.

onemanstrash.com
freebay.com
I have a great concept that goes along with these sites.
nissanskyline.com
bbwblog.com
bbw.com
japanblog.com
nissangtr.com
These would just be for my other blogs.

Call me ambitious, but I will go out and try to find out how much I can get one of these for. I will try and go through the website owners directly.

Buying selling and parking domain names.

Domain names are the real estate of the internet. If you want a basic service, look at godaddy.com, but if you want that killer website name look at Snapnames.com, Enom.com, or pool.com. I learned all this form this article.
http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2005/03/how-to-snatch-an-expiring-domain

Plenty of Fish.

Wow, the Canadian website plentyoffish.com has a traffic rank of 780 on Alexa!! Wow. I also heard they pull in $10,000 per day. Can this be true?!? Hear the podcast at
http://2webcrew.thepodcastnetwork.com/2006/05/03/2web-crew-8-markus-frind-of-plentyoffishcom/
Actually it is run by one guy. I found it interesting in the podcast that they said he usually works only one hour a day, but reads for about six. Now I feel like I am not wasting my time so much. I read, read and read. Sometimes even eight straight hours a day. It is the most important thing you can do if you haven't found that killer idea yet.

http://moneymakerinfo.blogspot.com/

Here is a nicely set up blog from blogger. It has a traffic rank of 80,000. Not too bad.
http://moneymakerinfo.blogspot.com/

Make money with youtube

Check this out. Here is an interesting way to potentially make money with youtube. I say potentially because I haven't tried it yet. But I will give it a shot today. Here is a link to the article.
http://desinotes.com/how-to-make-money-from-youtube/

Blogwatch

http://www.theimpulsivebuy.com/
A traffic rank of 214,000

Goddy's websitetonight way too slow.

Ahhh, I am feed up with slow building websites.

Talking about the Youtube adsense video player.

Idea,

Halo Bar. Video gamed theme bars may have a lot of potential.

Here is an example of what the Youtube adsense video player looks like. I typed in the words "adsense video player" in the automated content section so I hope something comes up that describes what the youtube adsense video player is all about.

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Finally, an Adsense video player for Youtube.

Finally, what I have been waiting for. About a month ago, the adsense video player has come out for youtube. As I am very interested to ad tons of video to my blog, this is a blessing. I could use the extra revenue. However....I was deeply discouraged by the fact that you can't pick the exact video you want to play. I heard something about "selected partners", so I guess they are being cautious about the type of content that shows up on the players. I guess it makes sense. But I think it will just be a matter of time before you can pick individual videos yourself. I eagerly wait for that day!

Adsense

Here I talk about my earnings on Adsense.

Your author.

Boingboing.net Vs

The market seems to be getting increasingly competitive. Boingboing.net appears to be on the downswing, while user generated sites like stumbleupon appears to be booming. I also looked at John Chow site, and he appears to be very consistent.

John Chow's free ebook

Very clever. John Chow is now offering his free ebook if you subscribe to his free newsletter. One day, when I amass enough web savey, I will release my own ebook. In the mean time, feel free to subscribe to my free newsletter by filling out your name and email in the space provided.

Bravenet vs godaddy

Bravenet and godaddy are very similar sites. The both provide a similar service. As I look at the alexa ranking, I can see that they are both loosing ground. I can only guess that the number of free blog hosting services must be cutting into their paying customers. As well as a more competetive market for these type of companys.

scratchback.com

This guy is ambitious. He created a tip system so small time bloggers can earn a little extra cash. He says it could potentially earn more than google adsense. Has anybody had success with this system?

So bravenet doesn't like Atheists?

I guess so according to this guy. Who ever knew atheism was a radical point of view. However, this guy does seem a bit unstable.

Add webtools with bravenet.com

Bravenet.com will let you add an number of different webtools to your blog or website. One thing I really wanted to add was a email list. I am not sure how to make money now with a e-mail list, but down the road, if I develop a new product, or something I want to promote, the e-mail list will be as good as gold. Try bravenet for yourself to see how you can spice up your site.

Search yourself in Technorati

A brilliant idea. Watch this video to learn more. I think I will go off now and look myself up in Technorati.
Hey, I just checked it out, and I was able to turn up a couple of videos about Oscillator Photography, cool!

Blogrush a waste of time?

Spring Widgets.

Another interesting new website I learned about from g4 tech TV is called spring widgets. Basically, you can create your own custom widgets. Only time will tell how I can benefit from this. To see what a spring widget looks like, take a look at the one about this blog on the right side. Not too shabby, eh. Visit
http://www.springwidgets.com
for more.

Wikipedia will pay artists.

I heard on the CBC radio that Wikipedia will pay $40 for every decent illustration uploaded. I looked on the web, but I was not able to find any information about this. Has anybody heard anything about this?

aide RSS-Read what matters.

I first heard about this site on G4 tech tv. The site is a useful tool that can analyze how many posts and well received stories there are on each blog. Basically, they designed the side so you can save time, and just read what matters as the above illustration displays. The address is http://www.aiderss.com/

Feedburner.com A must!

I highly suggest using feedburner.com. Create an account and you can instantly start adding your blogs to the feeds. There is even a monetize feature that allows feedburner to access your adsense ads so you can earn a little extra money. The stats section is very detailed as well, but it will take a little time before your stats start to show up. We all know how addictive stats can be. Remeber their logo as it is the one with the fire burning. You can see it to the upper right hand courner on my blog. The one that says "I love feedburner".

Claim your blog on Technorati

A must for any blogger is to claim your blog on Technorati (A very popular blog promotional site). Simply make an account, log in, go to my accounts and then click on the blog tab. Then fill in the information. This will greatly help to increase the visibility of your blog. Hey, it can't hurt.

Digging Digg.

I have started using Digg a lot because the name keeps coming up when I surf the net. I also heard John Chow (the famous blogger) talk about it on the tech channel. I have also learned that he has been banned form posting stories on Digg. I guess others were jealous because he was getting so many of his stories Dug. Anyway, Digg appears to be a very powerful tool to get traffic, and I will have to continue using it into the future. I added it to some of my celebrity stores, and on Google analytics, it has become my second highest source of traffic.



PS, They also have a cool little logo and a simple interface. It is easy to grap code and add it to your blog.

Blog Not Approved For Network? Blogrush.com

The mystery of the disappearing blogrush widgets. I started of having great success with the blogrush widgets, but now many of them have disappeared from my blogs. When I log into blogrush, it just says, "Blog Not Approved For Network" for many of my blogs. I guess my traffic must be too low, or maybe they have no use for the topic I am writing about. Well, at least three of my blogs have been approved.
Anyway, I like the dashboard part of blogrush when you are logged in. It says I have earned 73 credits. Also, it shows me with a buzz meter, what topics in my blogs are hot, and what is not.
I will continue using blogrush to see what kind of success I can have.
PS, I love the clean design of the widget. When I make all my blogs a success one day, I hope to see this widget on all my blogs.

Snazzy new Banner.

I have created a snazzy new banner for my blog. If anybody is looking for a custom banner, or logo design, get in touch with me and I will create one for you. Just be sure to write me up in your blog so I can benefit from the press. Any news is good news.

Start a contest!

One great way to make money from your blog is have a give away contest. Give one product (maybe one you have reviewed) to a random person who posts on your blog. This will entice more people to post, and therefore, increase traffic. Some top bloggers even get products for free, so giving them away is a win win situation. Wouldn't that be nice.