Note: This video is of Saddam Hussein being executed by hanging. Be advised before viewing, this video is very graphic.
Pay close attention to his eyes toward the end, after the floor drops out. Is he blinking?
This seems to be an extremely popular subject these days, as most people are interested in earning a decent income on the internet, albeit a difficult goal. It seems these days, Adsense is a staple to that path. This is why it’s important to know exactly how to utilize Google Adsense to your benefit.
I ran across this article by Amish at thenewadsense.com titled Making Money with Adsense Part 2. Check it out, as well as Part 1 of the set.
The basics covered are these:
Just be careful when gleaning information from sources like these in that you don’t get sucked into the trap of making a low-quality website for greedy purposes, as that will most likely end in failure. It’s always better to do something you have some sort of passion for and it will keep your interest up.
Often times, to get a site rolling, you must sort of throw code together that actually works for the time and you have to figure that later on, you’ll come up with a better solution if there is one. Well, such is the case on Blog Flare.
When I launched the site on the 6th of this month, I built a script that is executed hourly via cron to update all the ranks for the site. The script itself consists of a SELECT statement grabbing all the categories, an UPDATE LEFT JOIN on the table that holds all the blogs and the table that holds all the statistical data in order to provide a per-category rank, and finally an UPDATE LEFT JOIN on those tables for an overall ranking.
The result? Well, for the data of 79 blogs, the script execution time comes in just under a minute (well, an average of 47 seconds currently). To be fair, the table holding the hits/impressions is already over half a million lines deep, so this is a great indicator as to why it takes so long; however, I did build the script so it would do most of its execution on the server-side, thus minimizing the transfer of data between client and server.
Now, I realize that the obvious solution to this quandary is to build a nice Stored Procedure to take care of the job, but the server for BlogFlare is not currently running MySQL 5.0+ so that is currently not an option.
Not to fear! After dishing over a few possible solutions with a member of my wife’s family, he finally suggested I try a temporary table solution. I decided I’d code it up tonight and do a test-run on live data (that’s my style, homie). So I did just that and BAM- all the statistical data stored in the blogs table was wiped out due to the inferior method I had created, sans the data of the last category. I wasn’t worried, as I could still run the original script and repair all of this, so I did. What was hilarious about the newer method was that not only did it mess up the data, but it also took longer to run (clocking in at an average of 53 seconds).
You see, my worry (which is rational) is that when the site has, oh I don’t know .. 1,000 blogs, my script will then take about 10 minutes to update. That’s not actually a huge deal. I mean, it’s no picnic but it’s not the end of the world. The end of the world will come when I get up to 10,000 blogs and the script takes 100 minutes (or 2 hours) to execute! Yikes!!!
At any given time, the site has the capacity to display 999 blogs per category. So since the site has 34 actual categories, that comes out to a 33,966 blog capacity. At .59 seconds per blog to do an update, that comes out to a total time of 20,207 seconds or just over 14 hours total execution time for an update script that is run on an hourly basis.
Yeah, so now you see my problem. The upside is that I can always buy a dedicated server for BlogFlare.com, once it becomes popular, and I can give it its own memory and cpu cycles. That, and I will surely have MySQL 5.0 installed. This will drastically help me out, but until then, I am stuck trying to figure out a way to crunch the data hourly without taking too much time to do it (a few seconds preferably).
One approach I have not tried is taking the JOIN statements out of the equation and just doing the updates via PHP itself. Perhaps in trying to save myself transfer time, I have inadvertently created an unnecessary burden on mysql processing.
Just a quick update on the progress of my latest release, BlogFlare.com. Since we launched on the 6th of this month, we’ve pulled in over 2K in unique hits (an average of 101 per day to be exact).
In fact, we’ve almost made half the $9 it cost to buy the domain back. We’ve had a total of 10 clicks resulting in $4.18 thus far, but as the site isn’t intended to be saturated with ad content, I am not surprised.
What’s cool about this data is that, given the current eCPM, we should be raking in about $50/mo when the site starts getting over 20,000 uniques per month. Then, at 200,000, we’ll be getting $500+/mo! In reality, such a high volume of traffic typically results in more money as your uniques increase; that is to say, in my experience. 
Now if only I could get all the sites to pay our living expenses… 
The dream of making loads of money on the internet is not unique to me, nor hundreds of people, but more likely common to thousands of people. Of course, there are some who actually achieve this goal through various methods. I don’t know about you but people like the guy who started milliondollarhomepage.com, or people like Shoe Money come to mind for me when I think about online money making. They come to mind not because they’re making a little money, a good amount or even a decent amount; no, they are making a crap-load of money. That gives me a zing of inspiration in my heart every time I think about it. It also leaves me wondering “Why can’t I do that?”
I’m a smart guy, sure. I have good ideas every once in a while. I even have a highly coveted skill– the ability to plan out a piece of online software (website) and create it from A to Z. What I lack is the right knowledge. Trust me, if I could see the light at the end of the tunnel that is success, I would run balls-out to reach it. The problem is that I’m very much in the dark when it comes to the secret of attracting people and keeping them interested.
Despite having created a successful community of bloggers with my own software called Sitdiary back in 2001 at the age of 18, I could not figure out what drove people to the site for the longest time. That was until recently when I suddenly had a very enlightening and yet, humbling moment. Much like any similar moment, it left me wondering “why didn’t I think of this sooner?”
The answer to the question is very simple. I created a piece of software that people could actually use and easily. My aim was toward a small community and that’s exactly what I had. It appealed to people because they weren’t interested in the big guys, like LiveJournal. My design was basic, if not antiquated, and therefore lacked a great number of features. But what it lacked in features, it made up for in usability. A user could go from visiting the site to having a “diary” and writing their first post in a matter of a few minutes. It was brilliant and yet, at that point, there were absolutely no ads on the entire site. I was running it for free (outside of a few donations every now and then.)
It stayed free until July 31st, 2004. That was the day a friend of mine (Marin) urged me to put advertising on my website and I added Google Adsense to the website. On that day, I made a decent $19.29 from 57,138 impressions. Unless you’ve been in a similar situation, you don’t know the grin that spread across my face. I thought I had figured out the secret and that I was going to be a millionaire within months. I can assure you that, over two years later, I am no millionaire; however, I have learned something extremely valuable: don’t build your websites for advertising, build your websites for people and then add in advertising later.
Sitdiary was churning out income not because I made a pretty product that everyone would love, but more so because I made something I love and therefore, other people fell in love with it too.
So there it is. The big fat secret was staring me in the face all along. Create something people love and out of that love, money will flow. (Yeah, it’s almost too cheesy for me too but it makes sense). Now, for the quest, I came up with a grand idea.
Suppose I were to come up with something I would love to use, something that works the way I would feel most comfortable and secure, yet costs nothing. Now suppose I centered this something around its community and kept the community involved with things like polls, newsletters and even allowed them to make money from the advertising. Just the idea has me salivating.
Ever since I found out about Adsense Sharing, it has been like a whole new lane has been opened in my mind’s freeway of thought. How can you not love the idea of allowing your users to make money for contributing to your website? Shawn Hogan over at Digitalpoint.com does this and people love it.
My mindset as of late has been what I imagine to be the mindset of many people trying to use the Internet as a source of income: build a decent site with ads, advertise it as much as possible, add better features later. In my experience, this is the wrong way to go. For my quest, I plan to create something with valuable features now, build a community and add value features as I go. IF, and only if, the website has an Adsense Sharing feature will I add ads at the beginning. Here’s the kicker: I will keep the community informed of my intent the entire time. If I plan to add advertising in later, they will know. If there are any updates they should know about, I won’t just create a “news” page; I will create a news letter that they can actually benefit from.
From this process, I plan to develop a method for building a quality product and properly marketing it. I realize I must be careful when throwing around terms like “quality product” and “marketing,” as they are overused and can lead to a misunderstanding of intent. People like to throw the terms around loosely, but I would like to use better words. I plan to build an excellent product and properly network its existence.
As I create this product, I will keep you informed of my progress. Hopefully, this will be a fantastic learning experience for myself and those with similar interests.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3304682858126153303
Honestly, I beta tested Windows Vista and Linux XGL kicks Vista’s ass, hands down.
View Contest Post on DigitalPoint.com
That’s right, starting on December 15th, 2006 at 11:59pm, I started a contest for BlogFlare.com! The object of the contest is to get the most unique hits to your website as tracked by the famous BlogFlare chicklet (gif icon).
Those who properly enter will also have the side benefit of being listed on BlogFlare’s excellent Best Blog Index!
On January 1st, 2007 at 12:01am, the contest is over and the winner will be paid promptly via PayPal using the e-mail that they signed up on BlogFlare with.
In order to qualify for the contest, blogs must meet all of the following criteria:
Before entering, make sure to read the How It Works and the FAQ sections of BlogFlare so you can get a feel for the way BlogFlare generates its rankings of each blog.
The prize is $50 USD and, as aforementioned, will be paid promptly to the winner upon victory!
Click here to visit www.blogflare.com!
Good luck!
If you’re looking for a great way to get those coveted search engines to quickly find your website, while at the same time increasing your Google pagerank, Directory You is an excellent way of doing exactly that!
Not only that, but you can search through the index of websites for any topic you’d like. Browse through the category tree if you want.
If you’d like the spotlight on you, you have the option to add your link as a featured site in the category of your choice for a small fee.
Want the search engines to pick you up faster? Add a reciprocal link to the index and you’ll get picked up in the blink of an eye!
Don’t want to add a reciprocal link? That’s fine! You have the option to merely add your link to the index, but this may take the search engines longer to find you.
If you don’t see a category you’d like to see, feel free to submit category ideas as well. Although, I believe you’ll have a difficult time as there are over 200 categories to choose from!
Once your website gets approved and added into the index, your link will also show up in the “New Sites” area for a free added bonus of search engine deliciousness.
So head over to Directory You and add your website now!
Let me know what you think!
Earlier tonight, my wife and I went on a drive after dinner to look at Christmas lights. It was actually really relaxing to look at all the crazy designs that people come up with. We even got a flier from a house that’s for sale; however, it was too pricey but that’s neither here nor there.
My method for looking at Christmas lights while driving is to focus on the lights to my right, so that when I turn around and come back I don’t have to keep switching my head back and forth to take it all in.
As we drove along, I was about to turn the car around and so that we could look at the other side of the street when Sar and I noticed what looked like a play going on at a house. There were a bunch of people gathered outside and I noticed some lady walking towards our car with a tray in her hands.
We rolled down the window to see what she wanted and she offered us both cookies. Sarah and I were both delighted at the thought that someone would just do that without wanting some kind of money in return, so Sar asked the lady if she wanted money but the woman simply replied “nope. Merry Christmas.”, smiled and offered us a pamphlet on the story of the nativity.
Now, if you’re cynical, you’re automatically going to think “they’re trying to lure you into their religion.” Be that as it may, it was an exceptionally warm method of doing so. Instead of shoving their message down our throats, they offered us delicious treats and then offered us a pamphlet instead of shoving their thoughts down our throats. It was honestly very refreshing.
The moral I learned from this lady’s act of kindness was that you can attract more people with acts of kindness than you can with just preaching/advertising what you believe. In fact, the more I thought about this, the more I thought about how you could apply it to most anything you’d want to advertise.
Although, I must say it did remind me of that t-shirt: “Come to the dark side. We have cookies.”
For those of you who aren’t aware, AllAdvantage was a company that fell during the dot-com boom because it overpaid its customers due to a bad business model. It worked out great for its surfers though because apparently, they’re the only ones who got paid.
What the company is doing differently is profit sharing, rather than paying members more than you make. Simple enough idea, right? You give each member a percentage in the company and that’s how much money they get. Apparently, AGLOCO keeps a standard 10% and the rest is divided among its user base.
All that aside, with a new business model comes a new name and a chance to start fresh. AGLOCO (A GLObal COmmunity) is the new name, and they’re back with a vengeance.
The idea behind the company is that you get paid to surf and additionally, you get paid to refer other people. I mean, it’s cool enough that you get paid just to do what you normally do all day but if you get paid for others to surf, it becomes significantly more fantastic.
Here is the surf bar that will be installed on your computer. Normally, this type of crap is spyware but the webpage states that it is the opposite; your information is kept private.
Now, here is an example of your earnings potential with AGLOCO (which is always exciting to look at, I don’t care who you are) through referrals. (Click image to enlarge).
So basically, you refer 10 people and if those people refer an AVERAGE of 5 people that surf an AVERAGE of 5 hours, the company says you will make around $10K/month. But take special notice that it says “For illustrative purposes only.” Their rates will change, because as stated earlier, they are profit sharing.
For around $10k/month, I think I could find 10 people to refer. What about you?
Anyway, these multi-level marketing always give me a weird feeling but this company actually has a reputation for paying out so I figure — what the hell? Might as well give it a shot. The cool thing about this profit-sharing schedule is that you can directly affect how much of the company you own. Oh, that’s right, I forgot to mention. You participate in the program, you own part of the company; so you can be paid in either cash or stock. True story.
Once you’ve signed up, you get a referral URL to give out to people that looks like this:
http://www.agloco.com/r/BBBH2125
Simple enough, right? You just e-mail that, blog that, whatever you want.
