Blogging is another Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG)

When I first started blogging about 5 months ago, I thought blogging is like writing a diary. But after five months of blogging, I found out blogging is more similar to my other passion in life -- Massive MultiPlayer Online Role Playing Game. (MMORPG)

Here is the reasons why:

1. You build yourself up SLOWLY by performing many repetitive tasks
Whether you are playing World of Warcraft, EverQuest, or Ultima Online, you spend lots of time performing repetitive tasks to build up your strength, money and experience points. In blogging, you spend lots of times performing repetitive tasks like commenting, submitting sites to directory, answering emails, and writing posts to build up your blog over time. Other than a few popular blogs, most of us have to build up our readerships and backlinks SLOWLY over months of time.

2. You always wonder if those A-List players are cheating
When I am playing Runescape, a free online MMORPG, I always wonder how those people can get to level 99. How many hours did they spend playing? It is impossible! They must be using some kinds of illegal bots! They must be cheating!

At the same time, when I am surfing John Chow dot com and seeing people leaving 100+ comments in there, it just make me wonder, do those top commentators have nothing else better to do in their life?

3. There are lots of tips online, but most of the tips are coming from the same source
For any MMORPG, you can find lots of tips online, but most of the tips are coming from the same source. People just build a site and rewritting the tips using his own words and claim it as his own.

For blogging, I can find lots of blogging tips online, but most of them are rephrasing words from popular sites like Problogger's blogging tips. On one occasion, a blogger even has the guts to copy the entire "Seth Godin's 56 tips to get traffic for your blog" and asks me to link to his post.

By the way, Seth Godin's post is a good read, and I recommend it to any bloggers, whether you are a newbie or a A-list blogger.

4. You need to build online relationship to succeed
Whether you want to be a successful gamer or a successful blogger, you need to network with other players (bloggers). It is impossible to succeed in a virtual world or blogosphere alone. You cannot succeed offline without building links and you cannot succeed online without networking either.



Enjoy the World of Blogs!

How to leave comments like Paris Hilton without looking like an idiot

That's Hot!









All over the Internet today, you can find news about Paris Hilton checking herself early to jail. She is swapping her designer dress for a jumpsuit! The photo on the left is a fake, but I am sure you can see some real photo of her prison life leaking to the Internet very soon.

Seizing the opportunity, E! Online was showing "Paris most shocking moments" on last weekend. The show covers all the funny Paris Hilton's moment over the years. Having nothing better to do, I was watching the show over the weekend. There was one story that caught my attention.

It said that back in 2004, the media found Paris keeps repeating the term, "That's Hot!" over and over again to whatever questions journalists or paparazzi ask her. No one knows she was doing it intentionally until one day; the media found out she is trying to trademark the term, "That's Hot!"

Like most of Paris's stupid plans, this one fails. No one can trademark two simple English words. However, this leads me wondering, is it possible to create a lot of links with the same anchor text to my blog?

Of course, if you have John Chow's influences, or if you have a high page rank's blog, you can ask people to review your site for a free link on your blog, and make the reviewer use your selected anchor text to link to your site. Or if you are willing to join PayPerPost as an advertiser, you can pay bloggers to link to you using your anchor text too.

Most bloggers don't have a PR6+ blog, and most of us aren't going to invest a lot of money to build links. Are there any other alternatives?

One possibility is that you can leave comments on "Do-follow" blogs using your favorite anchor text to link to your site. Hence, if Paris Hilton is a blogger, she will use "That's Hot!" to link to her blog whenever possible. However, this strategy is not only rude, but the hosting blog may not publish your comment. A "Do-follow" blog does not mean the blog owner has to publish everything. It also makes you look stupid too (Just like Paris).

Another strategy is to change your name to your favorite anchor text for comment. For example, if I am targeting "Make money online", I will use "Make money online" as my name instead of "Johnny Cash" when I leave a comment. If "Make money online" is part of my blog title or subtitle, this will even make more sense. By applying this technique, not only you will get an inbound link for you comments, but you will also get a link to your blog using your favorite text.

I am looking at Review Batch 78 at John Chow dot com. One of the blog is listed as "Some Chick's blog". If you click the link, you will find out this is not the name of the blog, but I am sure it got lots of traffic because of the anchor text she chooses. This shows you the power of using the right anchor text.

PayPerPost Love

*** This is a sponsored post***

I have signed up for PayPerPost for only two weeks, and have done only one sponsored post, but I already love the service! PayPerPost is not the only company that let you get paid for putting ads on blogs. I like PayPerPost because of the following reasons:

1. Lots of choices
Most of the time whenever I check PayPerPost for qualified opportunities, there are usually at least 5 opportunities available. Yeah, I turn down a hundred dollars worth of opportunities every week, and you can brag about it in your blog if you signed up to PayPerPost.

2. Opportunities to all levels of bloggers
PayPerPost do not shut its door to smaller publishers. In fact, there are many opportunities available for blogs of low page rank. The rate is competitive to most other paid posting services that targeted for small publishers. At the same time, you can find advertisers who are willing to pay $300 a post in a page rank 6 blog in PayPerPost too. That means as your blog improves in page rank, you can find better and better assignments in PayPerPost.

3. Quality advertisers
Last week, I was very surprised to find out that one of the PayPerPost's advertiser is a major movie studio. Before I signed up for PayPerPost, I thought most of the customers would be some upstart new web sites who are trying to build traffic. This is entirely untrue. There are many decent sized companies who are using PayPerPost to find quality publishers.

I am a big Transformer fan, and I really wish Steven Spielberg's Dreamwork would use PayPerPost to find bloggers to advertise its film. If that happens, I can get paid to write something I love!

Week 3 Earning Report

This is my third earning report. This is what I have earned so far:

Google Adsense -- $19.60 (+$1.23)
Blogvertise -- $17.50
Auction Ads -- $ 5.00
MyLot -- $ 0.61 (+0.10)
Selling books on Amazon -- $23.76
CafePress Affiliate -- $6.57 (+$1.65)


PayPerPost -- $6.01 (+6.01)
--------------------------------

Total $ 79.05 (+$8.99)



Alexa's ranking: 275,500 (-17,261)

Technorati rank: 110,158 (-16,491)


I have put more focus on building links than paid posting, and this reflects on my earning report.
Both my Alexa and Technorati ranking has improved a lot.

I will do more PayPerPost this week.



Things to do this week:
1. Add more affiliate links to the blog. (Tasks in my last report)
2. Try Blogitive
3. Add my blog to more directories.

Relate Post: Week 2 Earning Report.

Make Money Online with Kontera

You probably have already noticed that there are some double underlined words in my blog, and when you mouseover the text, a cute little ad boxes will popup with a nice little advertisements inside it. Yes, my blog has been approved by Kontera.



Kontera is an in-text advertising solution that shows ad based on the keywords in your blog. According to Kontera, your blog needs at least 250,000 page impressions per month to qualify. However, Kontera seems to have relaxed this rule recently for smaller publishers who has rich contents on its blog.

Here is my first impression on Kontera:

• The ad box is really neat and cute. If I havn't heard about Kontera before, I may not realize they are ads.



• Kontera ad box does not take up any real estate on my blog.



• It is nice that you can have both adsense and Kontera together on the same page.



• Very easy to install, and it does not slow down the page loading speed.

I have read several blogs talking about its experience with Kontera. Most reviews are positive, and a few of them saying that it didn't make much money. You can check my Kontera's earning in the upcoming earning reports.

Update: Bloggerwave's Paypal problem seems to be fixed

I signed up to Bloggerwave about a week ago, and was approved within a day. Bloggerwave is another paid to blog program very similar to PayPerPost.

Recently, there is some talk circulating around the blogosphere that Paypal has reversed several payments from Bloggerwave. Someone has even submitted the story to Digg.com

Top 10 Tech Marketing tips has detailed how Paypal reversed its payment from Bloggerwave in this post.

However, on May 27, the owner of Top 10 Tech Marketing tips posts, "I had verified with PayPal’s resolution center that Bloggerwave’s account was now safely in good standing. Furthermore, PayPal no longer feels that Bloggerwave’s account was utilized in a fraudulent manner".

It seems like things are fine now. I am glad to have another alternative for paid posting.

Improve your blog in one minute!

Like many bloggers, I like to check my stat A LOT! Althought this took me only a minute, this will not help me to improve the quality of my blog.

There is a lot of things you can do in one minute to improve your blog:

• Leave a comment on a Do-Follow blog
• Submit your blog to a web directory
• Submit your blog to a blog directory
• Start a discussion in a forum where you can include a link to your blog
• Reply a comment
• Submit a post to a blog carnival
• Thanks someone for joinning your myBlogLog community
• Write down any idea that you want to blog
• Download a free template to try it on your blog
• Try out different colors on your template
• Visit a blog in your category

Don't waste your time. Every minute is important!

What is the hex code of Kumiko pink?

AdesBlog is a personal blog of Abdylas Tynyshov (Ades), who is said to be the first full time blogger in Krgyz Republic. The blog has a page rank of 7. It is currently offering a free PR7 link for a review of its color picker software, AdesClrPicker. A free PR7 link is difficult for me to resist. So, I decide to review AdeClrPicker.

To try out the software, I decide to use AdeClrPicker to find out the hex code of Komiko pink.

Yeah, I know, you can find it out easily by looking at the HTML code, but why waste your time when there is a software that can do the job?

For step 1, I install the software, you can download the trial version in here. It is pretty easy to install. The only warning I got is that Windows doesn't know the publisher of the software. I just ignore the warning, and continue with the install

For step 2, I run the program. A small icon is shown in the system tray, which indicates that the program is running. A small popup telling me that I should use ctrl-alt-a to activate the tool. I then go to Kumiko's cash quest, put the cursor over one of the pink region and hit ctrl-alt-a.

That's what I got.

The RGB code is 255,111,207 which translates to #FF6FCF.

There is no step 3, and I didn't even need to look at the user manual to use it.

Now, I will uninstall the software. I go to the Control Panel->Add or Remove Program. Select AdeClrPicker demo, and click remove. The program will then be uninstalled.

Simple and easy. Do you think so?

Sponsored Review: Pingo.com

*** This is a sponsored review***

What is Pingo? Pingo is a prepaid calling card provider. It is a virtual International rechargeable phone calling card service that saves you money on your long distance phone calls. It is a service of iBasis, which is a public company that is listed in Nasdaq (NASDAQ: IBAS) iBasis launches Pingo's service in 2004, and has provided customer with prepaid calling card service ever since.

Right now, Pingo is running several campaigns:

1. Free $25 online merchant shopping mall certificate for sign up

According to the company's site, if you sign up Pingo for a minimum of $20, you will receive $5 in free international calling card calls plus a $25 online merchant shopping mall certificate.

2. Father's day special

You get an additional $5 off with this special. For detail, please check this: http://www.pingo.com/en/fathersday.do

Pingo's site is avaliable in several language including Spanish, Chinese, French and Portugese.

For readers of this blog, if you are looking for ways to make money, Pingo has an affiliate program too. You can find it out from: http://www.pingo.com/en/affiliate.do

Week 2 Earning Report

This is my second earning report. This is what I have earned so far:

Google Adsense -- $18.37 (+$1.61)
Blogvertise -- $17.50 (+$7.5)
Auction Ads -- $ 5.00
MyLot -- $ 0.51 (+0.04)
Selling books on Amazon -- $23.76
CafePress Affiliate -- $4.92 (+$4.92)
--------------------------------

Total $ 70.06 (+$14.07)



Alexa's ranking: 292,761 (-4099)

Technorati rank: 126,649 (-1182)



A decent week. The pleasant surprise this week is CafePress, which hasn't brought me any income before.

I earn only $0.04 from myLot this week, but myLot has brought me some traffic, and some new readers.

A surprise hit this week is: Earn up to $100 by praticipate in Google User Experience Research.
This short post has brought me many new readers.

PayPerPost has just approved my account. You should see my first PayPerPost review soon.

Things to do this week:
1. Add more affiliate links to the blog. (e.g. TextLinkAds, PayPerPost)
2. Join Kontera
3. Add Google search and other Google affiliate links to the template

Relate Post:First weekly report

Update: Dormcheck is officially off my list

I try to log into my Dormcheck account today, and I've found out the entire forum layout has changed. Furthermore, my account has been removed. I search all of my old emails, and I have found no warning.

I havn't posted anything on Dormcheck. Hence, I didn't lose anything. I did a search on Google and found JCM of The 15000 dollar mission has some bad experience about Dormcheck.

From his post:

"The dormcheck scammers have redone their forum, and older members have lost their log ins and earnings. (I myself had earned $20 in referrals there) My advice, stay away from Dormcheck."

This is enough information for me to remove Dormcheck from Making Money on the web's list of money making programs.

Increase your Alexa's ranking by Alexa's redirect URL!

I think Maki Dosh is probably the first blogger who mention about the possibility of using Alexa's redirect URL to increase Alexa's ranking in 20 Quick Ways to increase your Alexa rank. Later, Matt Jones of Succesful Online Money Making expanded the idea and comed up with his Ultimate Alexa Redirect Experiment. In one part of Matt's experiment, he replaces his myBlogLog's community URL with the Alexa's redirect URL. This idea has been widely copied. Many myBlogLog's members, including myself, has replaced its community URL with Alexa's redirect URL.

Ever since then, many variations of the trick have been developed. One blog suggests bloggers to use Alexa's redirect URL for comments. This could increase your Alexa's ranking, but you should be awared of two issues. First, if you try to increase your page rank by commenting on "Do Follow" blogs, you will waste your effort. Second, some blogs award its frequent commentators with a top commentator's section. If you are using redirect URL, you will miss a chance to earn a valuable inbound link.

One blog suggests bloggers to use Alexa's redirect URL in directory sites, like DMOZ. DMOZ is a PR8 site. For me, giving up a valuable PR 8 link to increase Alexa's rank is simply not worth it.

Furthermore, if you have adsense on your blog, and 90% of your traffics are redirected from Alexa, will it raise a few eyebrows on Google? I don't know the answer, but it will be interested to know.

For people who are interested to use Alexa's redirect URL in myBlogLog. Here is the step:
1. Click "Edit Settings" in your myBlogLog's community.
2. Replace the Site URL with the redirect URL. For example:
my URL is: http://makemoneyonblog.blogspot.com
change it to
redirect URL: http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?http://makemoneyonblog.blogspot.com

By the way, in Matt's experiment, Geoffrey from Alexa leave a comment sayng that using Alexa's redirect URL will have no effect on your Alexa's ranking. But like everyone else, I still use Alexa's redirect URL in my myBlogLog's community.

Earn up to $100 by participate in Google User Experience Research

According to Blogger Buzz, Google is looking for users to participate in usability research on Blogger. The FAQ says that Google "typically pay $75 for each hour that you spend with a Google researcher, either in person or on the phone". It also said that you don't have to live in the Bay Area to participate.

You can sign up from this link: https://services.google.com/inquiry/user_study

5 things you want to do before you publish your sponsored post

Disclaimer: This is not legal advice.

As blogs becomes an increasingly important media, there is more and more sites devoted to pay bloggers to review an advertiser's site for a fee. Before you publish your first sponsored posts, you may want to consider doing this five things first:

1. Clearly mark your post as sponsored post.

If you got paid for your post, you should always let your readers know. It is not only ethical to do so. According to Directory Aviva, the Federal Trade Commission has published a recommendation for this.

From "12 Laws every blogger should know" of Directory Aviva:

"The Federal Trade Commission published a recommendation that companies who promote their product through word-of-mouth marketing must disclose these relationships. The recommendation applies explicitly to blogging, meaning that bloggers must disclose the fact that they are being paid to promote or review a product whenever that is the case."

2. Get your disclosure policy

Any blogger can get his/her own disclosure policy from DisclosurePolicy.org. I am not a legal expert, and I don't know if having such a disclosure policy will help you in court. However, I think having a disclosure policy will at least show your readers that you are not intended to hide anything from them.

3. Carefully proofread your post

You should proofread any blog's post before publishing it. For sponsored post, you should be extra careful about the wording on your site. If you got the information from your sponsored site, you may want to state that you got it from their web site, such that the readers won't think
your information are based on your own experience.

4. Check the site you review

If you are writing a review for a site, you should always check your reviewed sited. Be alert on any unusal behavior in your browser because it may indicate that your reviewed site has some suspicious scripts. Clear your browser cache before entering the site. Check if you got any suspicious files in your browser cache after. This will give you some idea on what the site installs on your browser. If you have a good antivirus or spybot cleaning software, consider using the software before and after visiting your reviewed site.

5. Don't do evil

If the site you are paid to review is a clear scam, it is better for you to consider other offers.

Or you can do what John Chow did to Seven Days System for Making money online. I couldn't stop laughing after reading his review.

Disclosure Policy

This policy is valid from January 8, 2007.

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me.

This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation. The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post may not always be identified as paid or sponsored content.

The owner(s) of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers' own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org

Free $5 bonus at Auction Ads

Auction Ads is now offering $5 bonus for TextLinkAds users who sign up this week. TextLinkAds is part owner of AuctionAds .

AuctionAds is a cost per action (CPA) program that displays eBay ad on your site. That means you will get paid if your visitors click your ads and perform some actions on eBay. Currently, you will only get paid if the visitor win an auction, buy it now or registered as a new user.


I have just added AuctionAds to this blog.

For detail of this deal, you can check here.

First Weekly Report

Starting from this week, I will post my weekly earning report every Thursday.

This is what I have earned so far:

Google Adsense -- $16.76
Blogvertise -- $10.00
Auction Ads -- $ 5.00
MyLot -- $ 0.47
Selling books on Amazon -- $23.76
-----------
Total $ 55.99

Alexa's ranking: 296,860
Technorati rank: 127,831


Things to Do this week:
1. Add Adsense in the middle column
2. Improve loading speed of the page. The mid column seems to take a long time to load.
3. Add AuctionAds to this page.

MacPokerOnline

*** This is a sponsored review***

MacPokerOnline is a poker site that is dedicated for Mac users. The site contains list of online poker sites, and MacPokerOnline rates each site in the order that they believe it is safest and best fit for the user. There are literally thousands of online poker site on the web, but it is difficult for Mac user to find a site for them. MacPokerOnline is definitely a great resource for Mac user who likes to play poker online.

The site also contains tons of information about different types of poker, like Omha, Chicago, Texas Hold them or Five card stud. The site also taught you strategy to play the different types of poker. Even if you are not a Mac user, you may found some of its articles useful for learning to play poker.

If you like Poker, and you are a Mac user, MacPokerOnline is a site that worth your visit. This may be the best Mac Poker site for you unless Steve Job plans to creat "iPoker".

The post that starts the Digg revolt

I found this through Google cache which could be the post that start the Digg revolt today!

DMCA Complaint Notice from Google for Having the HD DVD Processing Key in Google Note Book

Digg Revolt

A Digg.com user claims that he got boot from Digg for posting the HD-DVD Processing key number.

The key is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

This has caused quite an outrage among Digg users community.

If you are looking for other digg style applications, you can find a list in here.

Update: Money 4 blogs site is down.

I havn't able to access the Money 4 blogs site since Saturday.

Since many blog sites got their page ranks during this week, is the site brought down by the sudden increase in traffic?

Related articles: Money 4 blogs

Google Page Rank: 3

I check my blog today, and found out my blog has a page rank of 3.

This is a mild disappointment, and I am seriously thinking about the future of this blog.

One of the mistake I made is that I didn't submit this site to enough blog directories. I start doing it in the recent month, but obviously my effort is too little and too late.

Result of My Evil Experiment

Last time, I come up with a evil scheme to direct Komiku's reader to my blog. The result is not impressive. I got about 10 new vistors who is searching for "Technorati top". They all click the Technorati favorite's button. I guess they thought I make it to the top 5,000 in Technorati.

I try to be the next John Chow, but end up becoming Dr. Evil -- the guy who has all the evil ideas but not able to finish it.

I learn this trick from King Gary's blog. On last Wedensday when Sanjaya got voted out, Gary was the first blogger in the entire blogosphere who blog about it. For a brief moment, Gary's post is on top of Google Blog Search for "American Idol Sanjaya". This brought his blog flood of traffic and also got dugged.

Gary is working at b5media. The company who is co-found by Darren Rowse.

OMG! I just cracked the top 5,000 Technorati

"People obsess over getting a high blog rank in Technorati. OMG I just cracked the top 5, 000! It’s like soooooooooooo, your point is? How much ass kissing did you actually have to do to crack the top 5,000? And how much more ass kissing is required to bust the top 1,000? And how extremely much more ass kissing does a person have to do to crack the top 100"

-- from "Just Crap"

Are you just finish reading Kumiko's post, Here's Why People Obsess Over Technorati, and is looking for the blog who post the original message?

This is to illustrate a common trick a lot of bloggers are using. Kumiko didn't have a link to the original post (for obvious reason). So, I bet a lot of her readers are searching for the original post in Google BlogSearch now. If you are one of them and you end up reading this post, you know the trick works :)

Kumiko's blog has a group of followers, but is not a top 1,000 blogs yet. If you can apply the same strategy to some of the high traffic blogs, your blog will get lots of traffic soon.

By the way, the "Johnny Boy" in the original post is John Chow, not me.... ha ha!

Is this link Baiting?

What American Idol has in common with Digg.com

Originally, I planned to wrote a new post on Wedensday, but I was distracted by the American Idol. When I found out Sanjaya was in the bottom three, I immediately got in front of my TV. When Ryan Seacrest announced that Sanjaya will be sending home, I was a bit shocked. Sanjaya is one of the weekest singer in the competition, but after watching him beating out other more talented contestants week after week, I thought he will stay for at least another week, but I was wrong.

American Idol is a singing competition where it let voters to select the best singer. Digg.com is a user driven social content website that let members to digg the articles they like. Although they have very differnt goals, I found out that there are a lot of similarities between them:

Similarity #1: Popularity contest
On the surface, American Idol is a singing contest, but in reality, it is a popularity contest. Sanjaya is not the first contestant who makes it to top 10 but widely regarded as one of the weakest singer.

Digg.com has a front page that shows the most digged news, but you will never confuse digg's front page with New York Times or Washington Posts. Usually, the article that get to digg's front page are unusal photos, odd news or news about popular gadgets. Digg's front page shows you the most popular articles, not necessary the articles with the best content.

Similarity #2: Vote Manipulation
Both American Idol and Digg.com has a voting sytem, and there are people who try to manipulate it.

There is a site called, votefortheworst.com that urge voters to vote for the weakest singer in the competition. Howard Stern also launches a campaign to ask its listener to vote for Sanjaya.

For digg, there is a site called, User/Submitter, that let users to pay people to digg your site.

Similarity #3: Taste preferences
American Idol accepts all music genres, but the show seems to prefer R&B singers. Other than Carrie Underwood, singers of other music genres seldom make it very far in the competition.

News that got to digg's front page have many common traits. Usually, they are related to technology, science or environment. Article that contains unusual photographs can also get to Digg's front page too. As a Christian myself, I also noticed that most articles on digg's front page are atheist. You never see any religious articles in digg's front page.

Similarity #4: The Teenagers influences
Sanjaya has many teenage fans. This is one of the reason why he is able to stay in the competition for such a long time.

To teenagers, Digg is a very cool way to get news. The teenagers has a very strong influence in digg.

Who will be the Sanjaya of the Blogosphere?

Top 10 Web 2.0 deals

With Google acquires DoubleClick for $3.2 billions on April 13, 2007, it looks like it is 1999 again! Before we speculate on what company will be brought next, let's review some of the biggest web 2.0 deals so far.

1.
Buyer: Google
Price: $3.2 billions
Acquisition date: April 13, 2007 (link)
Comment: Part of the reason for the high price is because Google has to outbid Microsoft..........

2.
Buyer: EBay
Price: $2.6 billions
Acquisition date: September 12, 2005 (link)
Comment: I love this deal. Ebay offers 1 full year of free service after the acquisition........

3.
Buyer: Google
Price: $1.65 billions
Acquisition date: October 9, 2006 (link)
Comment: The number 1 site for copyright violated material on the web

4.
Buyer: News Corp.
Price: $580 millions
Acquisition date: July 18, 2005 (link)
Comment: Man, the deal looks cheap now!

5.
Buyer: CNets
Price: $71 millions
Acquisition date: July 14, 2004 (link)
Comment: This is where I put my photos for my friend to share!

6.
Buyer: Sony
Price: $64 millions
Acquisition date: August 22, 2006 (link)
Comment: I have never heard of this company until I wrote this article!

7.
Buyer: Yahoo
Price: $30 - $35 millions (rumor)
Acquisition date: March 20, 2005 (link)
Comment: The favorite place where bloggers put their photos.

8.
Buyer: Yahoo
Price: $30 - $35 millions (rumor)
Acquisition date: December 9, 2005 (link)
Comment: Now you know why I put del.icio.us bookmark button at the bottom!

9.
Buyer: AOL
Price: $25 millions
Acquisition date: October 6, 2005 (link)
Comment: Ha Ha! Aren't you proud to be a blogger? Weblogs Inc is a blog company. Weblogs is owned by Jason Calacanis who is widely regarded as the first blogger to earn a million dollars from Adsense.

10.
Buyer: Yahoo
Price: $10 millions
Acquisition date: January 8, 2007 (link)
Comment: Launched in May, 2006 and being brought in January 8, 2007. Making $10 millions in six months......

Which company will be next? Do you think it will be digg? or Technorati? or FaceBook?



Source of this article: No Bubble 2.0 yet

New Mission Statement

If you are a frequent visitor to this blog, you will notice that the site's description has changed. The new description for this blog is, "A blog about Web 2.0, affiliate marketing, adsense, SEO, blogging tips and everything else related to making money online".

I changed the description of this blog does not mean that the main objective of this blog has shifted, but to more precisely describes the articles in this blog. Just like the new descriptions, most of the articles in this blog are about Web 2.0 (MyBlogLog, Ning.com), affiliate marketing (CafePress), adsense (adsense), blogging tips (Blogging tips, and Blogging tools), and everything else related to making money online (Money Makers).

Hope you like my new mission statement for this blog.

Guess AhBoon.net April's traffic

AhBoon.net is running a traffic guessing contest, and AhBoon is leaving a comment on my site to invite me to join. The winner for the contest will get $40, and $70 for the person who can get the exact number.

This blog is about making money on the web, and I will not let go any money making opportunity.

My guess is: 345,257 page views.

Money 4 blogs

Money 4 blogs is another site for bloggers to make money with their blogs. The concept is simple enough. Money 4 blogs will pay you to place a small link to one of its financial company in your blog, and Money 4 blogs will pay you via PayPal. The amount you got is determined by your page rank, popularity and age.

To apply, you simply go to their site and fill out an application form. They will notify you if you got accepted. From their homepage, it states that only sites of at least 3 months old, written in English, updated regularly with original content, and have no explicit content will be accepted. It didn't mention anything about page rank, but since you need to submit your page rank in the application, it is reasonable to assume that you need a decent page rank to get accepted.

There are lots of review on this site in the blogosphere. Among them, I have seen one review from Mike's Money Mission and one from The Million Dollars Experiment heads down under.




Check your page rank in here.

ReviewMe

As I promised earlier this week, I will review several sites where your paid rate is determined by your google page rank. Today, I will talk about ReviewMe.

ReviewMe is a marketplace for advertisers to pay bloggers to review their products. It is similar to Blogvertise, but Blogvertise charges a flate rate. ReviewMe lets bloggers to set its own price, but it has an internal ranking system that rank your blog based on Google page ranks, technorati and Alexa's ranking.

The highest paid review I have seen so far is ShoeMoney's review on HarpzOn.com, which ShoeMoney charges $2,500 for this review. However, according to Baron VC, ReviewMe has a cap rate of $750.

ReviewMe's main competitor is PayPerPost, but unlike PayPerPost, in ReviewMe, the blogger must disclose the post is a paid review, and there is no requirement to write a positive review. ReviewMe is backed by TextLinkAds. (Correction: PayPerPost requires Blogger to disclose that they are being paid for the posts too. Please follow this link to PayPerPost for "Requirments of Note").

I havn't signed up for ReviewMe because my site don't have a page rank yet. I will sign up for ReviewMe once I got a page rank.

Again, you can check your Google Page Rank in here.

TextLinkAds

As many bloggers are anxiously awaiting for Google to update its page rank, let me review several advertising sites that accepts only top quality publisher's site in this week.

TextLinkAds is a site that pays publishers on a flat monthly rate per each link sold, which is very different from contextual advertising options such as Google Adsense or Yahoo Publisher network. When you sign up as publisher for TextLinkAds, TextLinkAds will use its own algorithm to determine if you would be qualified. The algoritham is based on your site's
page rank, Alexa's ranking and number of pages being indexed by search engine.

Once you are accepted, you can decide on how many link spots you are offering. After that, TextLinkAds will do all the jobs for you. TextLinkAds will even decide how much you charge your advertisers based on its own internal algorithm. When an advertiser decides to buy your link, the ad will automatically show up in your designated spot.

Since TextLinkAds is not contextual advertising, they can be used with Google Adsense without violating Adsense policy.

The biggest drawback is that TextLinkAds will charge 50% of the amount you received.

TextLinkAds has several large publishers, including the Real Estate Jounal -- Wall Street's Journal guide to property.

If you are a new blogger and wonder why so many blogs are talking about "page rank" in the recent weeks, this is one of the reason why. There are many advertising sites, like TextLinkAds which uses Google page rank to determine how much your site can charge its advertisers. Google updates page rank periodically, and it should updates page rank in the next few weeks.

If you want to know your page rank, check here.

Extreme Makeover

If this is not the first time you visit this blog, you will notice that the entire layout of the blog has changed.

I have made the following changes today:

• Move the Google skyscraper ads to the middle, while moving the main post area to the left.
• Change the background color of the blog to "#ededed" and add a navigation bar to the top. I also add a photo to my header. This changes gives my blog a "John Chow" look.
• Enlarge the feeder logo to help promote my rss feed.
• Add a Popular Posts section for my past posts
• Change the digg logo in the footer

Additional Changes that I plan to add:

• Add a Recent Comments section
• Build a top commentators widget if possible
• Add more affiliate sites to my Make Money Program section
• Change the choice in the navigation bar
• Add Google Search to the header

Please feel free to comment about this new layout!

The World's first blogger!

Johnny's Weekly blogmarks (Week of March 26)

	Google's New PPA Program Opens up New Opportunities for Bloggers This is a post describes Google's new Pay Per action advertising program, and how it differs from the old CPA ads
	10 Lessons Frank Miller’s 300 can teach you about Successful Online Business Using the movie, 300, this post shows you how you can be successful in your online business.
	10 Things Your Blogger Won't Tell you This post tells you the truth about the blogs you read.

Six Tips for Beginning Bloggers

My blog is less than three months old, but I already feel like I have written it for a long time. There are many things that I wish I knew before I started writing this blog. I have summarized my experience into six tips:

1. Pick a personality for your blog

One of the mistake I made is that I didn't use a believable pen name and a real photo. Blogging is about sharing your personal viewpoint, and a popular blog has to associate with a person. You also need to develop a personality for your blog. All successful bloggers has its unique personal style.

Having said that, you don't need to use your real name. You only need a name that is "real" enough for your readers. For photo, you can use a photo that only show part of your face. The most important point is that your readers can associate your blog with a person with an interesting personality.

2. Pick a strategy and sticks with it

It is a lot more difficult than it sounds. When you become a blogger, you will start to read other people's blog. When you read other people's blog, you will be influenced by it, and you will not able to follow your initial plan.

Dosh Dosh is a good example where a blogger choose a strategy and sticks with it. Dosh Dosh reviews money making resources on the internet, and he keeps cranking out posts after posts of high quality reviews. Maki Dosh will not ask his readers to vote for Sanjaya in American Idol. Maki Dosh will only review online money making resources. A simple strategy, but yet very effective. Dosh Dosh has an Alexa's ranking of 34,585.

3. Use MyBlogLog

Although ShoeMoney has found lots of bugs in MyBlogLog, I still consider MyBlogLog as a great social networking sites for new bloggers. Most blogs have MyBlogLog's avantar. Hence, if you visit someone's blog, the owner of the blog will know and he/she may visit your blog. This is a great way to build up your readerships.


Many MyBlogLog's members use near nude female photos in its avantar. This strategy could bring some traffic to your site, but you better make sure that the photo looks good in 48x48 pixels.

I have seen a blog that starts in Feburary but already broke into the top 200,000 in Alexa. One of the secret of its success is using MyBlogLog. About a month ago, the owner of that blog asks almost every member in MyBlogLog to join his community. His community grows quickly, and his blog ranking rises. If you are a MyBlogLog member, you will know who I am talking about.

4. Quantity is more important than Quality

It is better to have a lot of interesting posts in your blog than a few high quality posts. Each post serves as an entry point to your readers, and with more posts, you have more channels to get new readers.

The blog that ranks in the top 200,000 in Alexa in less than a month has average more than two posts per day. His posts are interesting, but you can find similar content from some other blogs. However, since he has many posts on his blogs, he is able to attract many readers in a short time.

5. Comments

Leaving comments in other people's blog is a great way to make friends. I made lots of blogger friends through comments, and I have discovered lots of interesting blogs from other people's comment on my blog too.

If you leave comments in a popular blog, like John Chow dot com, it will bring some traffic to your blog. However, if you leave comments in some less popular blogs, the blog owner may notice you. It is important to leave comments in both popular and less popular blogs.

6. Be patience and be prepared for your opportunity

It takes time to build up readers. You need to be patience. At the same time, you have to be prepared for your moment to shine. There are times that your blog will get noticed. When it happens, you better write a lot of quality posts immediately because you will able to get lots of new readers for your blog.

I have followed Kumiko's blog for a while. Her breakthrough comes when her controversial post about AGOLOCO got noticed by Probloggers and ShoeMoney. She immediately able to follow up with another interesting post about how Britney Spears can teach you about Blogging. I have seen many people have become regular visitors to her blog since. No matter you like her or not, she is very good at seizing her opportuntiy.

**DiscountClick

*** This is a sponsored review***

Are you a webmaster? Do you have a web site that offers exceptional service, but unable to get enough visitors? You may need professional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) help!

DiscountClick is an affordable search engine optimization service. It charges its clients for as low as $50 a month for the service. DiscountClick offers professional help to help your site to improve your site's ranking in major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves, Netscape, AOL and AltaVista.

Although DiscountClick does not guarantee a top ranking overnight, it has a group of highly trained professional to analyze your site as well as your competitor's site to develop a strategy to improve your site's ranking. DiscountClick also offer service tools which allow you to track search engine traffic, ranking reports and ROI conversation tracking.

You have to spend money to make money. If you want more traffic to your site, you need to seek professional help. Consider using DiscountClick's service to improve your site's ranking.

The Quickest Complete money maker on the internet

I found this interesting search on my site statistics.

1. Go to Google.
2. Search "The Quickest Complete money maker on the internet"

Johnny's Weekly blogmarks (Week of March 19)

	John Chow: Clever Blogger… Dare I Say Internet Marketer? I have mentioned John Chow's blog many times. This is a slightly negative review on his site. It analyzes John Chow's clever (deceptive?) Internet marketing tatics.
	How to Create Web 2.0 site? A wonderful article that shows you how Web 2.0 sites are different from traditional web sites.
	Top 40 sites according to Feedburner stats? This is a list of the top 40 sites according to the number of RSS subscriptions. I am planning to write a post about how to increase RSS subscriptions. This list gives me a list of sites to research on.

Steve Jobs introduces iRack

This is a very clever social commentary on the Iraq War in Mad TV. At first, you will think it is a parody on Steve Jobs, but you will soon discover it is not what you think. It is originally aired on Fox on March 10, 2007.

Become a more efficient blogger

I have a really busy week at my nine to five job, and I am only able to complete one post for the entire week.

It is time to rethink about how I can continue blogging without putting too much stress on my daily life.

I will set up a set of rules for myself to follow:

1. Spend no more than one hour a day on blogging.
2. Reply all of my comments and emails everyday.
3. Sent a thank you message to all the new members in my myBlogLog community
4. Keep a list of blogs to read. Visit the blogs on the list and comment on them everyday.
5. Keep an eye on interesting posts for Johnny's weekly blogmark
6. Keep a list of blog topic to research on.
7. Keep an outline of post that I prepare to write. When the outline is completed, make a new post on my blog.

Hope I can follow my new plan!

Feel the Link Love

Have you ever do the wave when you are in a stadium? My blog friend, Mike Scott, in the "Bit Bucket" has recently started a "Feel the Link Love" campaign. It is my turn to spread it out!

To Continue this Link Love list:
1. Copy and paste the list below into your blog post. Hopefully your blog editing software will be smart enough to copy the links over. If not, you can always look at the page source to get the HTML.
2. Add any blogs you want to the list, including the blog that listed you (this blog).

That's all there is to it, if the list continues, then everyone should get a bunch of links from other blogs, and everyone will be happy.

The List:
Making Money on the Web
Steve Wilson Marketing
The Thinking Blog
Affiliate Marketing Wave
Your Blogging Guide
The Bit Bucket

My addition:
If Ya want to Make Money
Successful Online Money Making
Kumiko Suzuki's Money Quest

Selling T shirts online

Are you bored with your job?

Do you think you are creative?

Do you think your artistic talent is underappreciated?

Do you want to start your own business?

Then, why don't you sell your own custom T shirt online!

Thousands of people are making good money by selling T shirts online. For example, CollegeHumor.com is a site that offer jokes and pictures from college campus. It makes roughly $200,000 a month.

Threadless is a community-centered online t-shirt store. It grosses over $20 million in revenue in the year 2006.

There are many ways that you could sell your own custom T shirt online. Indeed, you don't even need a printer to start!

CafePress is a site that this blog has mentioned before. Not only you can design an sell T-shirts, you can also sell Mouse Pads, Mugs, Prints, Magnets, Ornaments, Keepsakes, Hats, Aprons, Stickers, Buttons, Clocks, Cards, Books, CD's Calendars and more.

Zazzle offers a free gallery that you can make a 10% commission on plus a 7% referral for a total of 17% commission. It is also the first company to offer custom postage business.

DesignAShirt.com is another company that let you design t shirts and other custom merchandise for yourselves.

CafePress charges a vendor a base price of $8.99 for a T shirt with a customized logo on it. If you have access to a local apparel printer, you can get it for a cheaper price, and thus raise your profit margin.

John Chow's effect

How much traffic did you got from a link in John Chow dot com?

Here is my experience.

My review on John Chow dot com makes it to his review batch 23. I got 32 unique vistors, and 51 page views from his blog within the next 24 hours. On average, my blog has about 40-50 unique vistors per day.

My Technorati problem -- resolved

My prayer has finally be answered! Technorati finally able to find my site. Check this out:

My blog has 62 links from 54 blogs, and is ranked 74,150!

Thanks for the outpouring support from everyone. My post, "My Technorati woe", has 9 comments from 6 different persons. Many of you have given me a lot of suggestion on how I can get Technorati to ping me.

Based on this experience, it seems like the best way to resolve your Technorati's problem is to leave a message to their forum. I logged my complain in here: http://support.technorati.com/topic/144?replies=3#post-606 , and my problem is resolved about a week later.

Mike Scott's blog also got pinged by Technorati. (Click here)

Since Technorati has officially recognized my blog, hence if you got a link from me, it will increase your technorati link count. If you are interested in link exchange, please leave me a comment.

Johnny's Weekly blogmarks (Week of March 5)

Here comes Johnny's weekly blogmark:

Love Letter by a Web 2.0 Nerd

A really funny love letter.

10 Most Beautiful Blog Designs

I am thinking about changing my blog design. This gives me some inspirations.

Your Blog's Got No Friends???

Shirlene has several interesting posts recently, but I like this one the most.

Internet Mafia

ShoeMoney and a number of high profile bloggers have got extortion email from someone who threatens to knock down their Adsense account. While the email seems more like a pratical joke or prank, it is quite possible that we will see some real internet crimes against bloggers soon. There are some bloggers who have made good money from their blogs, and it is a matter of time when some criminals want to step in and claim their shares.

If you want to sell your T-shirts on a busy intersection, it is very likely that someone will ask you for "protection racket". I wish that we will never have to worry about organized crime when we are selling T-shirts in CafePress or eBay.

My Technorati woe

"Dear God, please have the Technorati spider visit my site tomorrow. Amen."

If you have read my "Top 10 signs of blog addiction", you should know that I pray to God everyday for my Technorati rank to rise. The reason is simple. My blog has never got pinged by Technorati. Never Ever.

You can see my technorati rank in this URL:

http://technorati.com/blogs/http://makemoneyonblog.blogspot.com

I first noticed the problem about a month ago, after my blog got reviewed by the Ruminator. Although my blog got a review by another blogger, my blog still had zero blog links according to Technorati. I immediately did what most people will do: Use the Technorati ping service to ping Technorati. I ping Technorati at least 10 times a day, but Technorati ignores me.

Then, I brought my problem to the wisest man on the Internet, Google! I found a web site called, "Ping-o-Matic" that let me ping Technorati. Some people in online forums even claim that Ping-o-Matic had made special deal with Technorati, and sites that are pinged by Ping-o-Matic will got updated quickly. I use Ping-o-Matic to ping Technorati multiple times everyday, while I am using Technorati ping at the same time. Technorati still ignores me.

I check my blogger's configuration, and I have "Add your Blog to our listing" set to public. This should be fine, but my blog still never got pinged. I submit a support ticket to Technorati. I did get an answer from them, but my blog still hasn't got pinged.

One day, I came across Mike Scott's blog, "The Bit Bucket". I found out that Mike has the same problem as me! Indeed, his blog hasn't been pinged for 626 days. I leave a comment on his blog. Mike immediately let other readers know about my problem. One of his readers suggested us to post to the Technorati forums, which I did. The Technorati administrator told me to submit a support ticket, but I had already did that.

My blog still hasn't got pinged!

WHY ME?

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And thou shalt know thy name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee"

The AGLOCO List

My neighbour Matt, in Successful Online Money Making, invites me to join his newly created AGLOCO list. After being rejected from 2,000 bloggers (because I am not using real photo), and miss out the Z-List (because I was on vacation during the first week of Feburary), I am not going to miss out the AGLOCO list this time!

Here is the list:

To continue The AGLOCO list:

1. Copy and paste the list of sites below into your blog post.
2. Add any AGLOCO blogs you want to the list, including the blog that listed you (this blog). Remember, the more you add the faster it will spread
3. That's it! Sit back and feel the networking love

AGLOCO Little Guy
The ClubFreedom Blog
BobBuskirk.com
Blog-Op
Blog About Money Online
Making money on the web
How to Earn Money Blogging
The Ultimate Make Money Onling Blog
ADESBLOG.com
My life! - boring but I love it
Dominate AGLOCO
Successful Online Money Making !

My addition:
Make Money On The Net
How to Make a Million Dollars

Text version:

<a href="http://aglocolittleguy.blogspot.com/">AGLOCO Little Guy</a>
<a href="http://club-freedom.blogspot.com/">The ClubFreedom Blog</a>
<a href="http://www.bobbuskirk.com">BobBuskirk.com</a>
<a href="http://blog-op.com/">Blog-Op</a>
<a href="http://blogaboutmoneyonline.blogspot.com">Blog About Money Online</a>
<a href="http://makemoneyonblog.blogspot.com/">Making money on the web</a>
<a href="http://how2make.blogspot.com">How to Earn Money Blogging</a>
<a href="http://the-ultimate-make-money-online-blog.blogspot.com">The Ultimate Make Money Onling Blog</a>
<a href="http://www.adesblog.com/">ADESBLOG.com</a>
<a href="http://ladylike4.com/">My life! - boring but I love it</a>
<a href="http://www.dominateagloco.com/">Dominate AGLOCO</a>
<a href="http://matt608.blogspot.com">Successful Online Money Making !</a>
<a href="http://making-money-on-thenet.blogspot.com/">Make Money On The Net</a>
<a href="http://howtomakeamilliondollars.blogspot.com/">How to Make a Million Dollars</a>

For rule and more information, please visit Matt's original post

Johnny's Weekly blogmarks (Week of Feburary 26)

Here comes the second edition of Johnny's weekly blogmarks

1. 10 Totally Stupid Online Business Ideas That made someone Rich
   See how people make money by selling pixels on the web, send out emails as Santa, or creates googles for dog!
   
   
2. Bloggers Faces-off: Darren Rowse vs Jeremy Shoemoney
   Bloggers Faces-off is a new section on Daily blog tips. The author asks the same set of questions to two famous bloggers and post their responses side by side. The first edition features Darren Rowse and Jeremy Shoemoney
   
   
3. 34 Reasons why Readers Unsubscribe from your blog
   A post from the problogger discussing the reason why readers will unsubscribe from your blog feed.
   
   

Review of John Chow dot com

John Chow dot com -- The Miscellaneous Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul is one of the most popular blog in the web, and is ranked 3,881 in Alexa. He got interviewed by the Vancouver Sun in early Feburary and his blog has generated $7011.05 in Feburary alone. Many of my blogger friends are his fans and has commented on his blog frequently.

John Chow is a Chinese Canadian who lives in Vancouver. He is the founder of TheTechZone. Five years ago, it was reported that John Chow has turned down an offer of $1.3 million for TheTechZone. It is interesting to see how much the site is worth right now!

I have followed his blog for a while, and I summarize his success for the following reasons:

1. Reputation :- As the owner of TheTechZone, he is well known by internet marketers before his blog started.
   


2. Prolific:- He consistently posts four to five posts per day, and he has at least one full page length post daily.
   


3. Effective use of Advertising:- John Chow knows which internet advertising channel to use, and he knows how to use it effectively. Recently, he has a "Make Darren Rowse Money" ad on Google Adsense. Since most bloggers start blogging by reading the Problogger blogging tips, this ad caught the attention of thousands of bloggers almost immediately.
   


4. Effective Marketing Campaign:- John Chow loves to award prizes to his readers. When he joins MyBlogLog, he awards a 1GB Lego Flash Drive to one of his MyBlogLog members. Recently, he has a Guess My Feburary Blog Income contest, and Matt608 from Successful Online Money Making has won. He knows how to create buzz among the blogger's community. If you want to get a link from his blog, all you have to do is write a 200 words honest review to his blog, and place two links on your posts: one to his homepage, and one to review my blog. He will add your site to his "Review My Blog" section.
   


5. Breadth and depth:- His blog covers a wide range of topics that ranges from investing to fine dinning, but at the same time, he gives in depth analysis on topic like, "how to make money from a blog".
   


6. Good Blog Layout:- Some reviewers of his blog said that he has too many ads on his blog. While this may be true, it doesn't slow down the loading speed. His blog has a very effective layout.
   

Dorm Check -- Another paid to post forum

Dorm Check is another paid to post forum. At first glance, the site is very similar to MyLot, but has a lot less posts. This site seems to be targeted toward college students.

It paid about 1 cent per post, and you will get your payment when you reach $10. It used to be paid monthly, but according to some other blogs, it will pay you whenever you hit the $10 limit now. At present, it has less than 15,000 posts, thus, I don't think anyone has received a check yet.

Payments are made through either PayPal or e-Gold.

DormCheck's UI looks more professional than MyLot, but is not as easy to navigate. I still can't find my referral URL in their site. I prefer MyLot's UI over DormCheck because it is more opened.

For bloggers, you can use DormCheck in a similar way as you use MyLot. You can use DormCheck to promote your blog and get paid during the process. You can also use DormCheck to get referrals.

Update: DormCheck has deleted my account. Several bloggers has suffered similar fates. For detail, please check my new post.

Update on Blogvertise

My account did got approved, and I got assigned tasks. Unfortunately, I don't realized that there is a five days time limit. Thus, I am not able to finished my assigned tasks on time.

So, if you join Blogvertise, please remember you have to finish your assigned tasks within five days.

DotMySpot.com has several articles on Blogverise.

Ning.com takes two!

About a month ago, I have a post on Ning.com. On Feburary 27, 2007, Ning.com has launched its second version.

This version is an obvious attempt to address the biggest issue in the previous version: Unless you clone Ning's pre-built sites, you need to be a good php programmer to build your own social network. But if you are already a good php programmar, you won't even need Ning's service to build your own site, there are many open source php codes that are freely availiable on the web! Thus, Ning is never as popuplar as its creator envisions. On January 20, 2006 TechCrunch even called it a dead application.

This new reincarnation of Ning has a WYSIWYG user interface that let developers to create its own social network through drag and drop. This is the key piece that is missing in its earlier version. This gives non-programmar a chance to build its own social networking site.

What does Ning.com has to do with making money on the web?

If someone asks you what is the number one way to make money on the web, the answer is clear and simple: Launch your own website! Just check John Chow's post on the Internet's biggest Google whore. All of them own some form of web sites (maybe except ShoeMoney),
and please don't forget YouTube got brought by Google for 1.2 billion dollars!

I think if you are interested in making money on the web through building your own web sites. You can use Ning as your testing ground. If your ning site is a success, you can upgrade to its premium service and launches your own site. The biggest drawback is that you have to pay $20 per month to put your Google Adsense ad on your ning site.

As of today, Ning has nearly 30,000 user built applications. You can find TechCrunch newest review on Ning in here.

Johnny's Weekly blogmark (Week of Feburary 19)

Starting from this week, I will post a number of links that I found on the web.

Here are some interesting posts that I come across during the week of Feburary 19:

1. 6 Lessons Britney Spears Can Teach You About Blogging
   
Not only it made the ProBlogger's speed linking on Feburary 21. It has been mentioned by several entertainment blogs too! This article not only make you smile, but can also remind you some very good blogging principals.


2. Increase traffic by Sending your traffic to Other blogs
   
I come up with the idea of creating my weekly blogmark after reading this post.


3. Are you burning blog bridges?
   
This post is from the week before, but I didn't found it until last week. It not only make me think about how I manager my online relationships, but also make me rethink about how I handle my business relationships as well.

DClick ads

DClick Ads is a new advertising service that connect advertisers and web site publishers together. The site offers three types of services:

• Buy and sell traditional banner ads and text link ads, and you can embedded the links directly.
• Direct Link Technology for advertisers. Ads placed on publisher websites are directly linked to your website for maxium traffic and click thru performance.
• SmartCache Ad Serving Technology for publishers utilizing xml ad serving distribution. Maximum uptime and lowest system resources.

I have read several reviews on this site, and most of them complain about its UI design, but this is the last thing I will worry about if I am the publisher or advertiser.

To join DClick Ads, you have to register first. You need to provide your name, addresses and telephone numbers. An email with the verification code will be sent to you. Then, you visit the site again and enter your verification code and this will bring you to the login page.

Once you logged in for the first time, it will ask you whether you are an advertiser or a webmaster (publisher). To sell Ads, you have to follow a three steps process: First, you have to add your web sites, then you have to install and verify the Ad Replacement Software Packages. You then set up your AdZone prices and placement and wait for advertiser to purchase your service.

DClick Ads pays its users every month via US mail. I havn't set up my account yet, but I will try the service to see what it likes.

Top 10 signs of blog addiction

My sister recently got a new job . I immediately left a comment on her blog to congratulate her. Then she calls me on the phone and ask, "Why don't you just call me ?"

This rings a bell on my head. I may become a blog addict!

Here are the top 10 signs that you maybe a blog addict:

1. You find the cure for cancer, and you immediately write a blog about it.

2. You check your blog status every 15 minutes.

3. You forgot to pay your credit card bill, but you know how much you have in your Adsense account.

4. When CNN asks you who is the greatest American President, you reply, "Darren Rowse".

5. You pray to God that your Technorati rank will rise next week.

6. You ask your friends to join the Z-list, when they don't even have a blog.

7. You develop your own blog ranking algorithm based on Technorati, Alexa and Google Page rank.

8. All of your bookmarks are blogs, and you can remember at least 10 blog URLs by heart.

9. You think giving back to your community means replying your messages in your MyBlogLog community.

10. You understand all the jargons in this list, and you immediately create your own list and post it in your blog!

Google BlogSearch

Google BlogSearch has been out for more than a year, and according to Hitwise, it has surpassed Technorati in terms of number of vistis since December 23, 2006.

For me, Google BlogSearch is not only a search engine, but also a very useful blogging tool. Whenever I want to write about a topic, I first go to Google BlogSearch to see if it has already been written. If my topic has already been written, I will either choose a different topic or choose a different angle to write on the same topic.

I like Google BlogSearch because it usually gives me more up to date information than Google itself. It could be because blog post is easier to index than web page. For example, if you go to Google BlogSearch to search for "Britney Spears blogging", you can see Kumiko Suzuki's post on Britney Spears already. You probably can't find her blog post in Google until next week.

I don't know if Google BlogSearch will ever replace Technorati. However, if you want to search for something new, you should use Google BlogSearch before you use Google.

Blogvertise

As mentioned in my last article, "My new Renter", I am looking for other advertising source other than Google Adsense. In less than a day, I found Blogsvertise.

Blogvertise is a site that let bloggers to blog about an advertiser's products, and get paid for it. Before you can work on any assigned jobs, you need to get approved by the site administrator first. After your blog got approved, you can set your minimum payout for each blog request, and Blogvertise will assign jobs to you accordingly. You will get paid about $1 - $5 for each blog post.

To get approval, you need to write a 50 -100 words article on Blogsvertise, and Blogsvertise will notice you once you got approved. I am still waiting for approval from Blogsvertise.

My new renter

If you look at the right side of my blog, you can see a little section that marked as, "New York Nitty-Gritty". This is the new renter of this blog. I sign up for the "Rent My Blog" program in BlogExplosion, and this photoblog owner decides to rent my blog space.

BlogExplosion is one of the many traffic exchange program in the web. The basic concept is simple. You surf other member's blog to get credit such that you can give credit for other members to surf your blog.

I used to be very keen on BlogExplosion when I first start blogging. However, I soon found out that the traffic I got from it are not very useful. Vistors from BlogExplosion usually stay for a very short time, and they will not click any ad! Furthermore, many people on the web claims that traffic exchange program violates the Google Adsense terms of agreement. Thus, I seldom use the traffic exchange program from BlogExplosion any more.

However, I found some of the services provided by BlogExplosion, like "Rent My Blog", has a lot of potential. At the time of writing, BlogExplosion only let members to rent blog space for credit, but in the future, BlogExplosion can let members to rent out blog space for cash. This could be a new revenue source for bloggers. Google Adsense is by far the most popular advertising avenue for bloggers, but since it is paid by click, the income generated by Adsense is not consistent. A "Rent My Blog" type of service can give blogger a consistent stream of income.

More thoughts on BlogExplosion:

• There aren't many bloggers using the "Rent My Blog" service. I consider this as the biggest drawback.
• There are some web sites that let bloggers to sell text link, but they usually requires a high Google page rank.
• If I start a "Blog rental" service, would anyone be interested?

Just another article about SlashMySearch

If you go to Google Blog Search and type "SlashMySearch", you will find 30 articles on this topic today. SlashMySearch is a paid to search web site that pay users to search the internet.

I have read 5 of the 30 articles, all of them only tell you that "SlashMySearch" is about "paid to search". If you think SlashMySearch invents the idea of "paid to search", think again! In 2005, there is a company called, "Netbux", that pays members to search on the Internet. Netbux does not have a sustainable business model, and it is out of business in a short time. The site no longer exists. If you type http://www.netbux.org on your browser, it will show you an online lottery site.

SlashMySearch is a search engine that "not only offers an improved searching experience for the web with thumbnails and advanced security features, it offers an eBay Typo search that automatically generates common misspellings helping buyers find "hidden treasures" or listings on eBay saving them a lot of money". The web site is created by Michael Gabrill and Tri Do from the Orange County.

Saving money on eBay by finding misspelled items is a proven strategy. You can even find books on this topic. SlashMySearch is trying to sell this service using mulitple level marketing. MLM will help build up traffic in a short time, but if SlashMySearch wants to be successful, it has to increase its revenue sources. This may not be what SlashMySearch's founders have in mind though, they may be more interested to be a takeover target.

For people who wants to make a few bucks on the web, SlashMySearch is not a bad choice, especially since it is paying people after earning $50, not $100.

AGLOCO

A famous blogger, John Chow, has recently joined MyBlogLog. His community has instantly become a hot community in MyBlogLog. I have followed John Chow's blog in the past, and has read that he has more than 4,000 members in his AGLOCO network. This makes me want to write about AGLOCO, even though I have not used the service yet.

AGLOCO stands for A GLOobal COmmunity that prides itself as being “owned by its Members”. As a member, you run a Viewbar on your computer, which will show you ads while you browse. You will earn a certain amount of money through browsing, but the quickest way to make money using AGLOCO is through referral.

If you think you have heard this before, you are right. During the dot-com bubble era, there was a company called, "AllAdvantage" that paid users for surfing the net. AllAdvantage was forced to closed its door in 2001, due to sharp decreased in advertising revenue after the dot-com bubble bursts. It had paid out over $120 million during its short life.

I was an AllAdvantage member before, but I havn't tried AGLOCO yet. I never make enough money in AllAdvantage to get a paycheck, because I was lazy. The business environment is different now. Google and Yahoo has proved that an internet company can thrive with advertising money alone, and AGLOCO is definitely not as free spending as AllAdvantage. It will be interesting to see where AGLOCO is a year from now.

Please feel free to share your experience with AGLOCO with me in the comment section.