Here's a video update. I discuss how the meeting with the mortgage broker went and talk about mortgage financing and such.
Sorry for the delay on it - I had wanted to post it a few days ago but I've been having major problems with YouTube, then Blogger. So I tried converting to WordPress, but I don't have PHP compiled with CURL, which is needed to import from Blogger to Wordpress, so that will have to wait.
I had to re-edit the video and re-upload to YouTube, and finally it worked. Here it is.
Good news folks. I've had so many things to talk about lately, and some of the topics have taken up so much length such as today's post, that I've had to split them up into sections. So, expect a new blog update every couple days for a while :)
Kiyosaki Controversy I few days ago I woke up early from some noise outside and for some reason decided that it was a good time to start reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
I had been eagerly awaiting to start reading the book that everyone's been talking about. The only reason I didn't start sooner was that I had been too busy (lazy) with work (games).
I read the introduction by the co-author before taking a nap. The introduction was definitely interesting and I couldn't wait to continue on.
The next day I was up at 2 a.m. and couldn't sleep, so I went back to RDPD. I kept reading straight until 5:30 in the morning. I would have kept reading but I was pretty tired at that point and didn't want to read and then forget what I had learned. When I read, I read very slowly, partly because I have to - I need full attention and often have to re-read sentences multiple times before I fully understand it, and so I really engage whatever I read with full attention and an open mind and didn't want to lose any of the focus.
As I write this, I still haven't read since yesterday. I'm still only half-way done the book so I can't give a real review of the book yet. However, from what I've read so far I can say that I love it. Kiyosaki's ideas go against traditional thinking: studying hard, finding a good job, and working hard for a promotion is what the poor and middle class do according to the Hawaiian-born retiree.
His main idea of getting rich is to simply understand the real difference between an asset and a liability, and to only acquire assets. Sounds overly simplistic right? Well, that's exactly what he advocates and says it really is that simple and that the older educated generation has a hard time beliving it because they were educated under a much older and different schoolastic schema.
I won't go on summarizing his book, partly so you'll buy it and read it for yourselves, and partly because I need to get on with this story.
After reading half of the book, getting to the part where he explains how your home is actually a liability and not an asset, unlike most people (including accountants, bankers, etc.) state. And it makes sense. JohnChow explains this in his latest post. I think it's an asset only if you make money on it and sell it for a good profit (a profit which superceeds the interest you paid out). And you're not renting it out because that'd be a property and not the home you live in (unless you are renting out a suite).
Anyhow, I was pondering on that and just generally thinking about the ideas in the book. It's accompanied by a story of Kiyosaki as he grows up and learns from his "Rich Dad" which flows along with the lessons he teaches. I decided, last night, to do a Google on him and learn a bit more about him. I was just curious in seeing his website and finding out abit more personal stuff about him. Unfortunately, I came across a site which totally flames him.
The site is written by John T Reed who apparantly is a fairy big name in the real estate and investment world. He has also written a number of books. On his site he completely and relentlessly attacks Kiyosaki.
This made me very sad. I was really enjoying Kiyosaki and wanted to believe his teachings. I felt like I wasted my time reading his book. However, as I read an insanely long page that Reed wrote on Kiyosaki, Reed's criticism had less and less importance to me. He started making really lame claims and critiques; I could spot a bunch that he was incorrect on or nitpicking, and I'm by no means a scholar or literary master.
As the site goes on, he also gets less and less professional and more and starts to sound more like a whiney kid. Nevertheless, he does have a ton of information there and I hate to believe it but I wouldn't be surprised if some of it were true.
One of the main things Reed accuses Kiyosaki of is that the "Rich Dad" wasn't real at all, but used as a literary device to help sell the book. I hope he's wrong, but now I can't stop but wonder. He also claims Kiyosaki knows absolutely nothing and doesn't believe he has the 50-100 million dollar empire that Kiyosaki stated in an interview.
This sucks, because I was enjoying the book, and now I bet I'll read the other half with a bit of skepticim and not be as motivated.
However, I then did more investigating. This time, on John T Reed. I found another site, this time accusing John T Reed of being the fraud! Aptly named RipOff Report, the site goes on to accuse John Reed himself of being sued for libel and often writing untrue and unverified claims of others.
It mentions how Reed writes all of these (there are indeed a lot of them, I could count dozens) mainly as a marketing ploy to drive links and attention to his site ("great tactic" I'm sure Aaron Wall would say). I can believe that.
Although, I believe a lot of it is also for Reed simply being very biased when writing his analyses, if you could call them that... they're more like rants. I think he just lets his emotions get ahead of him and doesn't look for both sides of the story like a real reporter.
So, I kept investigating, and found Kiyosaki's reponse to Reed, which was a bit difficult to find. You can find at the bottom of this post. To be honest, I wasn't entirely satisfied with his response, but it did provide a bit of comfort.
Finally, I went to see what the Rich Dad fan base thought about Reed's commentary. I believe most felt two things:
1. The book isn't meant to be an all-inclusive step-by-step guide on how to become rich. It's targetted to the general public and is written simply.
2. Most seem not to really care if "Rich Dad" was indeed just a literary device. They believe the main point of the book is to get people to start to really think about money and finances, as well as being a major motivational and inpsirational tool.
I plan on reading the second half of the book soon. However, I will unfortunately return to it with a bit of skepticism. Which is good usually - to read such books with a grain of salt. However I really want to believe Kiyosaki... he is so motivational and really does make me think. So far, I still agree with his ideas. There will always be naysayers - especially the bigger you are. And I believe that since he has receive so much fame recently and thus covered by all the major media outlets (#1 bestseller on New York Times, on Oprah, PBS, and countless others) that if he really was a fraud, that there'd be more public outspeak on him. So far John T Reed seems to be the only one who hates him so much.
There are other reviews of him which aren't favourable, but the vast majority of people, including professional book reviewers, investors, and rich people, seem to love his book. So I think it's safe.
What are your comments? I would love to hear your thoughts on this, especially from those who have read the book. Instead of commenting on it here, I'd like a real discussion to take place on this, so please post on this thread on PublisherForums which will cover it. Relevant URL's: Kiyosaki's Wiki Bio John T Reed's Kiyosaki Attack RipOff Report's John T Reed Attack Kiyosaki's Response Rich Dad's Forum Discussion on the Matter
BannerAgora
The following is a paid plug, written by me, but paid to do so :) However, I'm earest in what I say here:
Since I've posted the last 20 banners out of the 40 I had commissioned, I've received numerous IM's and e-mails from people asking who made them. Well, his name is Robbie and his site is BannerAgora.com. His prices are cheap for what he gives you, around $20 a banner, and his turnaround times are decent (might have taken slightly longer for me since I ordered so many).
Anyhow, that's his URL. If you use him, please tell him you found him from this blog. It will help him know how his advertising here does. Mortgage Man, I could write 10-pages on this section. But I won't, in an effort not to plug the internet up with my crap.
As I stated in my previous blog post, I'm buying a place. I'm buying a place! Haha, it's so much fun. I know extremely little about real estate, the market, mortgages, and the process involved in purchasing a home, but I've learned a lot the past few days.
Luckily I used to work for a realtor as the web developer for their company for several years and thus have access to them as contacts. Thus I can get a lot of information and such from them without being worried about being ripped off or getting bad service.
I've set up a meeting with a mortgage broker tomorrow morning. Well, actually, in about 10 hours or so from now. I can't sleep because I'm too excited, which is why I'm writing this blog in an attempt to get sleepy. I talked to her briefly over the phone and she seems to think that they should be able to work out getting me approved for a mortgage.
I talked to my dad and he said he'd be fine with co-signing for me. Obviously I want to try to get the mortgage on my own, but it's good to know I'll have a backup if I can't. You see, the obvious problem of me getting a mortgage stems from a multitude of factors. For one, I'm 22 (23 in a few days, what are you guys getting me for my birthday?), and there is a bit of age discrimination there.
"What's this punk kid doing in my office?"
Then, to insult them more, I'm self-employed!
"Oh boy. Another loser kid with a lame home business."
I'll have to answer that by saying that I'm a "web entrepreneur" and basically build and develop sites and sell advertising on them.
"Get out of my office, punk."
Heh, and it gets worse. Mye mortgage broker told me to bring the last 2 years of my income tax reports (I'm bringing printouts of my current 2006 earnings and prospective future earnings as well). I'll tell you now that 2005 was very low and 2004 was even lower. These were extremely low years. This is for a few reasons. For one, I simply wasn't making nearly as much as I am now. But also because I had a LOT of stuff to write off, which I could write off for 100% thanks to having a good tax accountant. So the numbers are misleading.
However, I have three good things going for me:
1. Great credit. I have great credit. I've never been late on a payment in my life. Not anywhere near it.
2. My 2006 earnings and prospective earnings look favourable.
3. I'll be putting a decent downpayment down. $20,000 if I buy a place in a month or so. $25,000 if I wait 2+ months. And the more the longer I wait or search for a place.
So it'll be interested what they do.
I have a good idea of the costs insofar as property purchase taxes, strata fees, municipal property taxes, etc. yet I still have a lot of questions. I wrote them down and will bring them up tomorrow at the meeting.
Here's a recent post by John Chow explaining some real estate tips and engages in the topic of Renting vs Buying.
Anyhow, market values here are pretty decent. It may surprise you what you can get here for those of you who live in New York or the UK. There's been a recent influx of market appreciation in houses and property values over the past several years, but places are still affordable to get into now.
Below are some places that I've started to look at. Nothing serious yet, just quick browses online, but these are some that interest me so far and show you the type of style and place I'm looking for. Keep in mind that these are in CDN prices (USD would be about 90% lower):
$145,000 The following ones show you what you could get for just a little bit more...
$305,000 $324,900 This one may take me a few years to save up for, but I'll be blogging from it one day, dressed in my houserobe and smoking my pipe! $750,000 This one comes with your own private beach! $959,900 Ahem.. okay, I may be getting a little ahead of myself here, but it's crazy. There are so many young webmasters out there right now who could afford these!
Anyhow, I best not write and longer. Please wish me luck on my mortgage pre-approval meeting tomorrow! I'd love to be able to get a place over $145,000 as they start to get noticably better at around that range. WISH ME LUCK!
Good luck, and good earnings!
This was not a particularly fun morning...
PayPal Freezes Tyler's Account!
So my morning starts off like any other as I turn on my computer to do a quick check on my sites and things: do a quick scan of the 'morning e-mails' to find anything interesting such as new advertising payments, check a couple affiliate earning stats, and check up on PublisherForums.
When I was checking my e-mail (I get around 60-100 e-mails a day) I saw one e-mail with the subject Notification of Limited Account Access. Oh boy, I thought. Another one of those fake PayPal scam e-mails. I usually get 1-2 of those a day. However, I always do a quick check on them just to make sure they aren't legit.
It started with:
We appreciate the fact that you chose PayPal to send and receive payments for your transactions.
However, after a recent review of your account, it has been determined thatyou are currently in violation of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy. The Policy prohibits the use of PayPal to send or receive payments for any form of gambling activities, including but not limited to payment for wagers, gambling debts or gambling winnings, whether conducted online, in person or through any other means of communication.
"Uh-oh" I thought. Now I was beginning to think it was legit and real. I scanned further down the e-mail to see:
To appeal the limitation on your account, you will need to:
1. Remove PayPal as a payment option, as well as all references to PayPal,including the PayPal logo and/or shopping cart, from your website(s), http://www.pokerforums.org/advertise/;
Once I saw that URL I was quite sure it was real. I logged into PayPal through a new browser session (just to make sure it wasn't a false e-mail with a malicious forwarding URL) only to have my fears confirmed; my account was locked.
Uh-oh.
See, this isn't good. I'm guessing the average PayPal user has between $0 and $200 in their account at any time. If I were out $200, I wouldn't care. But you see, I keep a lot of money in PayPal... we're talking $xx,xxx here. I always have... mainly just to have quick access to money that I can use to buy things at a moment's notice, such as a domain or site for sale. I usually only withdrew portions to my real bank account when my bank account was getting low. So now you can see why I was a bit scared here.
Apparantly the problem was that I had violated PayPal's Accepted Use Policy by accepting payments related to gambling as I had set up PayPal payments for advertising on PokerForums.com.
View this for a moment. It is PayPal's gambling policy. As you can see, it is very loose:
Related Ventures, such as:
Gambling services, such as handicapping, or providing gambling tips or instructions. Intermediaries facilitating the process of placing bets or securing offshore gambling licenses. Organized forums that facilitate person-to-person betting.
Basically that means any site that has anything to do with gambling, even if you are simply providing strategies or tips and charge, say, a membership for that information, that uses PayPal, is violating PayPal's rules.
So, now what?
The next step was to go through PayPal's Resolution Center. Here they had two steps for me to undertake. First I had to remove all remnants of PayPal on www.pokerforums.org/advertise, and then I had to sign (digitally, thank God) an affidavit re-confirming my agreeance to PayPal's rules and policies.
It then said I had completed all the necessary steps and that they would review my account which usually took up to 3 business days. I didn't want to wait this long or perhaps longer, so I phoned them to see if I could expediate the process.
Their tech support guy, who was nice and down to earth, was sure that I had received a fake e-mail. He kept asking me all of these questions to make sure it wasn't fake - obviously they have a large problem with this. I can only imagine how many people fall for it and PayPal has to deal with and fix. Anyhow, after finally assuring him that it wasn't false, he responded that saying my account was functioning fine so that it must be.
Long story short, PayPal had already reviewed the issue during the time I had spent looking up their phone number and talked to them! So really, within minutes.
So, my account is back to normal status! My money is there and ready for me to do with as I please. WHEW!
I must admit, I am impressed with PayPal's process and response. Their resolution system is simple, clear to the point, and tells you step-by-step how to unfreeze your account. After completing that, within minutes my account was reviewed and cleared. Also, their phone support was great too. However, I've heard other stories from people who haven't had as good an experience.
So! What's to be learned from this? Well, obviously you should ready all the legalities and fine print before using any service. I actually usually do a good job of this - unlike the vast majority of people, I do briefly skim/read the terms of agreements on important things like this. However, the difference is that I just skim or read them quickly. I don't go over it with a magnifying glass. And with mega-corporations like PayPal/eBay, there is so much to read that it isn't really feasible for people to read everything their lawyers write up. Then there's the fact that they modify/append their rules many times over the course of a year and you're supposed to keep up.
Anyhow, as a result, I've obviously had to remove them as a payment option for PokerForums.org. This hurts a bit - PayPal was definitely my primary method of payment. However, I'm not all that worried. Almost all poker companies prefer to send payment via Neteller or bank wire, and usually do; I usually get PayPal for smaller transactions from smaller sites. And almost all poker webmasters/companies usually have Neteller for obvious reasons. However, I will probably lose a small amount of advertising business as a result, from those who can only pay through PayPal.
Again though, it's not a big worry, as I'm mostly concerned on advertising campaigns from the 'bigger boys', and they usually prefer bank wire or Neteller anyway.
PublisherForums Update
As always, you couldn't expect me to post a new blog post without shamelessly plugging PublisherForums, could you?
1000 Posts
PublisherForums has reached it's 1000 post milestone and over 100 members. It's Alexa ranking is also dropping fast (Today rank currently at: 29,195).
If you've been holding off registering and posting on PublisherForums because of size, now you don't have an excuse as it's growing fast :)
Advertising
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I'm looking to advertise on webmaster-related sites. Webmaster blogs too. MSN me at twcruz@hotmail.com if you're interested.
I've already bought about 8 slots, but am looking to buy a lot more. Tell your friends!
Advertise page up
PublisherForums's advertise page is up. It uses the site's template and SSI. I still have a few more things to add to the page, however.
CookingForums Logos
As I've stated in my last blog post, I commissioned 40 banners to be made. CookingForums.net's are done now. Below is a sample of a few:
You can view the full list here.
PublisherSpot Designer Hired
As you may know, PublisherSpot's programming is complete, and is only awaiting a design. I've finished writing up a template description and have found a designer. He only creates the PSD/mockup, and doesn't code it, but my programmer was going to splice and code it to HTML and CSS anyhow.
I've hired this designer many times in the past, but only for logos. I've seen his portfolio for web design and it looks pretty good. He said he'd have the first mockup done by around Saturday. Here's hoping I get something nice :)
Then, once the site is all completed, comes the painful task of actually populating it with content. I'm so amazingly busy already... I may hire some people to write reviews for me. We'll see.
ADRIANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!
Tyler Balboa?
Guess what? It's 6:15 am and I'm not still up from a late night. No. I woke up at 5:30 a.m (had something in my eye, ouch) and decided to try something new. So I quickly put on some clothes and went out for a brisk walk. I went out my apartment area and up about a block and back, just a 15-minute brisk walk, but it's now 7:15 am and I'm fairly wide awake, did my exercises (20 pushups, 23 crunches) and a walk, and am off to start work (and play) for the day with a glass of orange juice and cold water in front of me. Now, the question is, will I be able to do these early morning brisk walks/jogs every day? And more importantly, will they give me the much needed energy that I seek so badly? I have kept up with my daily routine of 20 pushups, 23 crunches, 3 glasses of water, and 2 fruits or vegetables a day though. Going on around 3 months I believe (I have the logs in my hallway). I haven't noticed any direct affect from them yet but hopefully if I keep at it and keep slowly adding to them I will.
I'll do anything to get me energy. Energy = focus and foocus = money. Money money money.
Like that Rocky-Tyler pic? Hehe. Not too bad for a 4-minute job in Photoshop, eh? :) Anyhow, I doubt that I'll be able to continue with the morning brisk walk thing, I was after all woken up by this strange eye thing I get on occassion in the middle of the night (it's still bothering me right now.. ugh, I hate it whatever it is) but we'll see what happens...
PublisherForums Updates PublisherForums is doing well. Here are some updates:
Growth
As of this moment, PublisherForums has 765 posts and 82 members, compared to 43 members and 232 posts nearly a month ago. I consider the growth very good considering I haven't held a contest or started to advertise it yet. It's spreading by word-of-mouth, me mentioning it here on my blog, signatures from my posts in various webmaster forums, and by a couple plugs by some collegues (Thanks Anthony and j0n, although you could put it back up on CWD.. :P).
The thing I like about not holding a contest is that people come to the site not to win a contest, but to really contribute meaningfully or to read and learn. Members like the site because of it's sharp, professional, yet pleasing design as well as the content which is very good. This was the plan.
I've already signed my first private advertiser. $10. I'm rich! Haha. Hey, it always starts at $10... oh, and don't worry about getting too many ads on there. It won't be anything like PFO. It will remain clean and crisp as it is now. All the ad slots you see now are most likely going to be the only ads slots ever on the site.
Banners
I hired a guy to make me 40 banners, 10 of which were for PublisherForums (the other 30 being 10 for CookingForums, 10 for MovieForums, and 10 for PublisherSpot). They are complete now, and with a bit of guidance from me as always, they turned out well. Here are a few:
You can view the full list here.
Advertising I'm looking to start advertising PublisherForums.com now. If you have a webmaster related site, I'm interested in buying some advertising on it.
I'm interested in any kind of site, with any traffic, as long as the site isn't brand new and you have no plans on selling it (at least anytime soon). I'm willing to pay for 6 or even 12 months up front.
Please note that while I'm looking to advertise on any site, that my offer will vary greatly depending on your site/exposure.
If you are interested, please MSN me at twcruz@hotmail.com. Please have ready your site traffic (preferably with screenshots) and a price you want. Also, just a warning but I may be cheap - so just be prepared for that. I'm also looking to advertise on blogs... anything webmaster related.
PublisherSpot Update
PublisherSpot's programming is 100% complete. Now all that's needed is a skin for the site, so I'll have to do some hunting for a good designer. I'm going to be hiring from a company this time or a freelancer with a nice site and portfolio and such. That means I'll have to write another descriptive project description, which typically takes me a couple of hours when focused, but it tells exactly what I want.
Then I'll have to hunt down somebody.. but the good news is that I'll only need a PSD mockup; Zeeshan will code the HTML and CSS for me, and I wouldn't trust anyone more than Zeeshan in being clean and valid :) Makes it easier on the designer too -- he can focus on the design and not worry about having to code it.
I hope to find somebody within a week.
So, in the future my videos should have sharper resolution and look a lot better (you won't actually notice a size difference as YouTube automatically enlarges the 160x120 to a larger size, however pixelization occurs of course; the 320x240 won't have as much pixelization).
Finally, now that I edit the videos, I've fixed the audio problem YouTube creates.
On a side note, I've been contemplating buying an actual digital video camera instead of my digital photo camera, but I can't see myself spending money on it just for this blog. Maybe I should open up donations... :) Anyhow, without further adieu:
This first video is just me showing how to open a bottle without a bottle opener by using another bottle, on-topic web stuff is in the second one below which is 6-minutes long.
PublisherForums Skin Up!
While it took a while to get up, it actually got up sooner than I had expected.
It's not 100% done, there is still icon imagry to go, and a few things I'm not happy with yet, but those things should be done by tomorrow. I thought I'd post it up now, early, anyway. It'd say it's about 94% complete though. Tomorrow it should be 100% complete if everything goes on schedule. How do you like it?
How do I plan on marketing it now? Well, my next step, once it's finished being skinned is to get some banner creatives commissioned for it. I've had to wait for the skin to be completed so that the banner designer has a proper theme to go with.
I'll then probably look around and find relatively cheap webmaster-related sites to advertise on and just do a bit of advertising. Nothing major or anything, just to get the word out and to establish a bit of branding in the community.
I stated before that I didn't plan on holding a posting contest for this one, unlike Lee's EarnersForum and Jon's WickedFire. I have two reasons of rationale for this:
1. I'm aiming for a decent level of quality on PublisherForums. Ideally it'd have very high-quality discussion, but for it to be successful it's not realistic to have such high expectations; most people just don't post like that and it quickly becomes more of a burden to post long well-written posts than it does not to. By holding a posting contest, even if you stress awards would be given to the best posters and not necessarily posters with the highest post count, the very nature of it all will inevitably bring forth a lower quality of posts, even if you try to limit this.
2. I'm trying something a bit different. Lee and Jon aren't the first ones to come up with a forum contest; I did it before with DomainForums, and I'm sure many people did it long before me. Right now both Lee and Jon are holding large contests, and since I don't make nearly as much as them, I can't really compete against them.
I'm also trying to go on the hope that people will come to PublisherForums not just to win a contest, but to go for the quality content. There is quality content on both of those other forums, but there is also a lot of useless information as well. By not holding a contest, people that do decide to post on PublisherForums will not have an alterior incentive to post (ex. money).
Now, this isn't to say that I won't hold a contest later on. Lee's contest ends in a couple of days, and while I'm sure he'll launch another one, the competition in both Lee's and Jon's forums is tough since there are many members there already competing for a prize. And I've always believed in contests - they are great. I'm just not sure I want to hold one for PublisherForums.
$18,000 in 28 days
Just over a week ago I had mentioned how I made $11,000 in 20 days. Now I'm proud to report that I've made $18,000 in 28 days! That's an average of $642 a day!
Okay, well, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. Or am I? How would you guys do this in accounting?:
My recent big advertiser decided to renew for a month and paid me another $4500 today via bank wire. This payment is for a renewal of their current campaign which is set to expire August 10th, and set to renew until September 10th. So, I've been paid today, in July, but it's actually for a campaign which will run August-September. Would you put that in your accountings under July, when it was paid? Or in August, when the campaign starts? I have the same thing for another advertiser; they paid me two weeks ago but I'm awaiting on their creatives still.
If you count them for this month then I'll have made over $18,000 this month. If you don't, then it'd be closer to around $12,000. What do you guys think?
Anyhow, I apologize if this just sounds like one long annoying bragging post. I'm not trying to brag... I'm just happy and excited. That's a lot of money and it's always great to beat your best-month-ever record. And obviously this is just a really really good month. This is nowhere near my average of course, lol.
The money is definitely needed. It helps pay for the disaster Replayer.org site where my developer ran off with my money, and gives me seed money to help launch my other sites.
Hiring a Web Designer for 10 Sites
If you watched the video in my last blog update you'll know that I'm planning on trying out the PPC Arbitrage arena. I plan on jumping into 10 different niches simultaneously, and will therefore require 10 sites for each.
Thus, I'm in need for a web designer to design (and code) these 10 sites for me. Those that know me will know that I have very high expectations when it comes to design work and programming. Well, these projects are a bit different as quality isn't my main concern here. However, I'm still looking for a designer that can deliver a decent site with short turnaround time and low costs. Especially since I'll be paying for 10.
So, if you're a web designer, here are some of the things I'm looking for:
1. Online most of the time and available via MSN 2. Able to provide the PSD source 3. Proficient in CSS 4. Clean and oraganized code and commented. 5. Good integration of AdSense, to be inserted via SSI 6. Quality designer that can also have fast turnaround times
Now, that being said, I'm not looking for the next eBay or YouTube. I'm planning on having around 10 pages per site which would just work off the same template with minor modification of the front. Each site will need it's own unique and creative design.
Payment would be sent via PayPal after each project is completed (If you can't trust me to pay you, then I don't trust you.) Prices are definitely negotiable, but I'd expect some decent bulk discount since I'd be purchasing 10! I'm not looking to spend more than $300 tops for each design, so don't bother contacting me if it's above that. Also don't just quote me $300. For $300 I'd want something really nice, so quote me something realistic like $100.
The hired designer would need to promise to an honorary NDA as to not leak out what sites they are making. This means it could not appear in their portfolio either.
If you're interested, e-mail me at tylercruz @ gmail.com (so much spam lately). Do NOT IM or PM me please. Provide your MSN name, your quote, turnaround time, portfolio, and anything else you deem useful.
*I'm also looking for a good banner designer, capable of quality animated banners in various sizes such as 468x60, 88x31, 120x60, etc. Would want very fast turnaround on these. Interested parties can e-mail me at the e-mail above as well.
Lethargy Strikes Again Sigh....
How many times have I talked about this? Too many. Guys, I'm so lethargic and distracted. I have been for probably the past year. I'm not sure if it's from moving out and having a lot more things to do and get used to or what. I think it's a combination of the following:
1. Lack of exercise 2. Poor diet 3. Too many things to do (as in recreation; Computer Games, GF, XBox360, Movies, TV, Books, etc.) 4. No driving force (rent is easily paid for now; nothing to be scared about) It is extremely frustrating because I have a million ideas, enough sites to work on as it is (20, with 10 about to be added!) and lots of work I could and should be doing... I just have no energy or focus most of the time. I honestly feel that if I had a decent amount of energy and focus that I could get so much accomplished that it'd be scary.
I do so little work these days. I'll check my e-mail, hire a couple people to do a few things, update my blog, sign up advertisers, etc. but not really any real work. "Real" work I'll spent maybe an average of an hour a day doing if that, which is stupid. See, it's not about 'having' to work, it's about being able to. I'm not able to work when I want to, and when I am able to work, it isn't often or for long periods of time.
Now, I've done something about this. Well, I've been trying.
1. Lack of exercise and Poor Diet The past couple months, every day I've made sure to do 20 pushups, 22 crunches, drink 3 glasses of water a day, and eat 2 fruits or vegetables. These quotas started lower but throughout the weeks I've gradually increased them. I also started to do a bit of fast-walking on a trail that circumnagivigates a lake here which is 6.7 Km, although I haven't done that in a few weeks. Maybe I should again. I haven't noticed any energy changes. Physically I've noticed a few small things, but it's energy that I care about. A week or two ago I noticed I had a bit more energy and concentration and was able to get a bit more work done, but this week I've been sluggish as hell again. What's worse, even though I've been on this, not missing a day, consistently for around 7 weeks or so now, my little workout never seems to get easier.
Now, I hope if/when I increase those quotas to have my fruit/vegetables at 3 or even 4, that that will then show a difference, but for now, I'm not noticing anything.
3. Too many things to do There's not much I can do about this one. I've considered getting rid of my cable, but the problem there is that I do enjoy watching the news when something is going on, I watch a bit before I go to sleep as it helps put me to sleep, and it's useful for guests/visitors. I simply need to organize my time better. I've been going on the computer less and less, which does help me get a lot done.. maybe I should try doing that again. I'd still be on most of the time, don't worry (hehe), but taking long periods of time from the computer can help me get a lot done. 4. No driving force
When I was around 16/17, I got so much done compared to what I get done now it's scary. I could work 3-4 hours straight reading programming books and writing a fairly complex Perl application, and I could work for the majority of the day being focused. This was probably because this was all new to me back then and it was new, exciting, and I enjoyed the challenge. At 19-20 I worked very hard as well, however a large part of this was a driving force stemmed from the fact that I needed to make money to pay my parents rent, as I only had a couple of part time jobs (Internet Access Centre supervisor, Web Developer for a local real estate company, and I had a little local Photo Restoration business.) and working on building my sites to generate more revenue became more of a real-life importance. Now I'm making enough money without having to put any effort in that I have no driving force anymore. Am I motivated? HECK YA! I'm motivated as hell, which makes this all the more frustrated. I know that if I had more energy and concentration that I could be making mid 5-digit figures each month with a year or two, but I just can't put myself to work. But not having any 'threat' to push me seems to have made me too relaxed in a sense.
Anyhow, I believe that eating better and getting more exercise is probably the biggest key here. We'll see if I can work my way up to 3 fruits/veggies a day and if that does anything for me.
Wish me luck, and energy.
Well, that's it for now. I'm going on a little vacation (vacation Tyler? From what?!) with Lisa up island for a few days on Monday in case anyone tries to get in contact with me during that time and can't. I'll be bringing my laptop along though and probably making video entires related to my blog then anyways.
Good luck and good earnings!
PFO: $11,000+ in 20 Days
Last week I had posted how PFO had beat it's best-month record by climbing into the 5-digit field. So far, 20 days into July, the site has made $11,000. That's an average of $550 a day this month so far! There is even more money from advertisers that has been received, but I haven't received their creatives yet, so I haven't started their campaign nor run them through the "system". But I should be getting those soon, and July should end having made $12,000 - an average of $400 a day for the month.
But we all know we can't calculate real average earnings like that, don't we :) However, it will indeed help when I recalculate my average earnings on August 1st. Let's pray that I beat $167 a day! I have some more good news. Remember that advertiser that ordered a large aggressive campaign a couple weeks back? Well, it isn't confirmed yet but it looks like they are going to renew for next month! That's another $4,500! Hey, I'll take it.. I need it! Luckily my members took well to their campaigns and enjoy the site so it's a win-win situation, which always makes me feel good. Cross your fingers and hope they do indeed to go through.
My advertising waiting list for my 468x60's is a mile long, so I went and increased the prices again. The top and top middle 468x60 ads I've increased from $375 to $400 and the 125x125 I've increased from $275 to $300.
I won't say that the increase doesn't make me a bit apprehensive - a $25 increase is afterall 7% more, but I can justify I think by having more than a couple advertisers on the waiting list for them and not having any long periods of time without them being sold. Also, I'm trying to gradually do a bit more and more affiliating myself.
I'll finish off this section on PokerForums by addressing the statement than many people make about me: "Oh, he's making all his money off of his poker site". Well, that's true. The majority of my income is indeed from PFO. However, let's not forget that I've built or bought and sold a large number of sites in the past, and I have three other sites producing income right now. But my real rebuttle is that I'm spending the majority of my time working on PFO. It's not like I'm spending all of my time building new sites and trying desperately to monetize them - sure, I'm working on many other projects right now to diversify and provide a more stable economic ground underneath myself, but part of why I'm making money from PFO is because I spend a lot of time on it.
Charity Plug
I had somebody e-mail me asking:
Massive favour alert, so please ignore it's too big. I've just spent the last eight months developing a community website that is trying to raise $6 million for five international charities. The project is an attempt to make the largest artistic collaboration of all time, officially breaking a world record.
Crux is that we have to get 1 million people to join in, so I'm using every means that I possibly can to publicise it.
Ah well, I don't mind doing a bit of goodwill here and there ;) So here's a plug for his charity fundraising endeavour:
"Ever wanted to become a world record breaker? Well here's your chance!Join the One Million Masterpiece and take part in the World's largestever artistic collaboration. All you need to do is complete one sectionof a giant picture - drawing what ever you want directly online. The complete picture will be printed on an 80 meter canvas and unveiled onWorld Population Day 2007 as a symbol of global unity. The projecthopes to capture a unique visual snapshot of global society, and willraise over $6 million for global humanitarian and environmental causes."
http://www.theonemillionmasterpiece.com/
Apartment Photos and Videos
I spent between 2-4 hours everyday for the past 3 weeks cleaning my apartment in every nook and craney including the ceiling and behind the stove. So, this is what my place looks like having lived here for a year and 3 weeks now.
Please note that I'm not posting these in any attempt to 'show off'; I don't believe that this is anything to brag about - it's a small apartment! However, I still can't believe that all of this comfort is paid for through website income. My place is usually very cluttered with dishes, mail, and other crap, but since I've cleaned it I think I've been more productive! For one, I find that if I go and do a whole apartment cleaning everyday and put everything back to 'perfect', that cleaning isn't as time consuming since things are just simpler to clean when there's less to do. For example, cleaning one hour a day for a week is not equal to letting things pile up and then clearning for 7 hours at the end of the week; the latter takes longer because you are not as organized. Anyhow, I think I may give an earnest attempt to keep my place clean now. As I said, I've noticed myself being more productive. There's two things I've noticed. First, just taking a break from writing a blog entry or taking care of some e-mails by putting something in the oven or microwave really quick and getting a drink is much quicker than before. Before, I was lucky if I could find clean dishes. Then I'd have to weave my way through the jungle of dishes and clutter to find my microwave.. and even just walking through my apartment is easier, not having to jump over things, lol! Secondly, being in a clean environment seems to have a bit of an influence in how your brain is organized as well. It's as though being in a clean environment helps you be more oganized in your brain as well, and things are easier to deal with. Anyhow, here are some photos of my place:
MMAForums's First Advertiser
I've just signed up my first advertiser for my mixed martial arts forums, MMAForums.net. It's a 6-month 120x240 spot which will appear on the right side (I haven't put it up yet) at $30 a month. Yeah, it's only $30 a month, nothing to write home about, but it's actually awesome. That's $1 more a day... that's like a free burger a day! And of course, it's what it represents... hopefully in the not-too-distant future I can build on that and get a nice little group of private advertisers going. I bet I can get an average of $200 a month from from the site within a year from now. This may be one of my prospects which rises up through the canvass (Saturday, April 22, 2006 -- The rest of the projects are not forgotten, but try to think of my projects as a tropical canvass, with the tallest and biggest trees, or projects, stealing most of the sun and energy, with the smaller plants and prospects getting the remains and leftovers :)). Anyhow, you guy may not care about this, but I'm really happy about it. It always starts with one advertiser... :) First 5-digit Month for PFO Boom! PokerForums.org has just broken it's record month of March when it made $8,496.30 from private sales. With July not even half done, PokerForums.org has just hit the 5-digit mark, and set a new record! So far, private ad sales just barely cross over the $10,000 mark. It should be noted that income on PFO is comprised mostly of private ad sales, but I am starting to do more affilating myself, and so there is around another $1000 from other ad networks the site is receiving as well. As I always state, "this is obviously not a normal month; many advertisers renewed slots with the increased prices for 6 months or 12 months and so forth, so this is nowhere near the norm for me." And that can be examplified in the fact that May and June gave very poor results in private ad sales. Part of why July is doing so well is that it's WSOP season. WSOP is the World Series of Poker, which is like the Superbowl of poker. I actually have a few advertisers on waiting lists for good spots because they are all filled out! So some of this demand will probably spawn over to August which will help. Finally, I signed up a big advertiser which wanted a very aggressive campaign (I mentioned this two posts ago under the $4500 sub-header), there was a bit of a hold-up due to a miscommunication and the fact that their were a ton of ads to get sorted out. Luckily, I took the time to write out a very long and concise e-mail, and they responded greatly and as a result everything got resolved with both parties extremely happy. Fortunately, their campaign is a good one (they are giving out $35 free. No strings attached. Don't have to deposit money. Visit here if you're interested.) and response on PFO has been good, meaning people like the site and thus don't mind all the heavy advertising for it. So, if they get a good result, then they will renew with us, and I can probably expect another $4500 from them next month. This cash can definitely be used to help my sites (kickstarting Replayer.org again, for example). Anyhow, $10,000 so far from private ad sales in July! Everyone cheer! j0n's Supercomputer for Sale My web entrepreneur friend and collegue j0n is selling his famous 4-screen computer on eBay.It's quite new, and he's opting for a mac instead so decided to get rid of it. Anyhow, if you're up for something fancy with 4 LCD monitors, you can check his auction on eBay. But you'll have to be quick, as it ends tomorrow. This isn't a paid plug or anything, I just felt j0n deserved it as he's been an advertiser of this blog for a while now with the ChatWebDev.com banner up top.
PublisherForums
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
A couple days ago I went out and bought Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad. I did this to force myself to read it and not put it off. My latest revenue magazine came too, which will make for a good next week of reading, as I have two poker books to review as well.
One Year Anniversary
Today is July 1st, 2006. And that marks exactly 1 year since I moved out of my room in the basement of my parent's house and into my own place.
Looking back over the year, I'm actually quite surprised how much I've accompished in just 365 days. Apart from the personal leaps and bounds I've made, my work and income have also flourished significantly as well.
In a post from my famous (or infamous) I'm Doing it Guys thread on Sitepoint, I had stated:
"I'm currently making betwen $1500-$1700 (fairly conservative number) a month Canadian before taxes(average from past 3 months - was much less before then...). For additional income, or backup income, I can do some photo restoration, web development, and English tutoring, which could bring in another $300-$400 CDN or so a month."
Now, a year later, I'm making triple that! What's interesting is that the Canadian dollar has risen, which is great for most Canadians, but not for me, as I get paid in US dollars. So, a bit over a year ago, I would have been making 150% of what I'm making now, as the US-CDN dollar was 0.5-1. Now the Canadian dollar is almost at par with the American.
Anyhow, it is interesting though how much one can accomplish in just 12 months. A year from now, if I'm still plugging away at this blog, I'd be very happy to be making an average of $7,000 a month, or $233 a day. We'll see what happens in another 365 days.
PublisherForums
In my last post, I had prelaunched PublisherForums.com. Thank you to everyone that joined. After just a few days, we already have 32 members and 128 posts. If you haven't registered and posted yet, please do! If you've already registered, keep on posting!
I'm trying very hard to keep the site as helpful as possible. Already we have a number of very good threads and so far, members have been helpful and discussing interesting topics.
To help illustrate the quality of discussion on the forum, I'll paste a response I made to a member who made a thread on SEO asking for help. Oops, scratch that. Blogger is quite horrid when it comes to formatting, and it wouldn't let me keep the formatting I made in the original post (was all garbled and scrambled) so I'll just link you to the post directly.
$4500 and Back-Up
A couple days ago I received a bank wire for $4500 ($5000 CDN) into my bank account. It was paid by an advertiser for PFO. What's interesting here is that this payment is for one month's worth of ads, not 6 or 12 months! Better yet, if things go well for them (their campaigns convert well), they will be renewing and doing this on a monthly basis.
Also, I have another advertiser wanting to purchase a 468x60 for a couple of months, so I have him on the waiting list.
However, there are a couple downsides to this $4500 transaction.
1. I got paid a lot, but I'm also having to put a _lot_ of ads on my site for them. There's a fine line between monetizing your site effectively and not driving away your members because the site is too ad heavy. You also have to balance not taking away from other current advertisers. I won't argue that it will be ad heavy, but I don't think I exactly went overboard either. There's no pop-up's or anything extremely obtrusive.
2. There's a bit of a hold-up in receiving the ads and creatives. This is due to a number of things including us being in completely different timezones (They are based in the UK and I'm in Western Canada), somewhat slow response time on their part (well, to me; they are fine with time from a business perspective), and that some of our creatives are quite unique, such as 'Sticky Ads' and 'Featured Site', that their creatives manager will have to do a bit of work (as opposed to just sending me standard banners and links).
In fact, #2 is starting to frustrate me a little as I want to get this campaign going and done with. I can't really sign up any other advertisers until their campaign is over if they don't renew.
As for them renewing, I don't think the chances are good. However, it really depends on what site(s) they are advertising and what they are offering. We could convert very well for them depending on what it is.
Well, cross your fingers and pray for me, folks. Pray that I finally get the creatives and get them up and running, and pray that they renew :)
$4500! Yay!
Screwed?
Arghhhhhh....! So I tried phoning the developer I hired for Replayer, but got no answer. In fact, I phoned on three different days and didn't get an answer. I'm using the phone number that was attached to his account profile on the outsourcing site I used.
So I did some investigating and found out his address through a 411 reverse telephone search. It didn't display anything because he's using a cell phone. I then did a phone lookup based on his address. What came up was a different address than he listed. Upon more investigation, I found out that a company/store called "Tech Tile" which is apparantly a type of tile/flooring company, is situated where it states his address is.
So, at first I thought, oh.. okay... maybe he moved abruptly. But then that idea didn't exactly fly, as stores don't exactly move into houses or apartments. And to have it listed on 411 already? Hmm..
Maybe he just didn't update his profile information for a few years... or.. *gulp* maybe he put up made-up information in his profile.
I'm very upset about this. Replayer was another fanastic entrepreneurial idea by me, but I end up getting screwed for thousands of dollars with nothing to show for it. Fuck. I am really pissed. But I learned a lesson, albeit a small one. Don't always be so trusting when it comes to outsourcing to freelancers. Make sure they at least have adequate contact information, and have a short chat with them over the phone at least before you start a business relationship with them. This of course isn't an end-all preventative measure, but it certainly would help (for example, you'd know that was their phone number and that it was active).
I even managed to find his brother who I had PayPal'd (apparantly his PayPal was having issues or something) a couple times with payments, asking where he was. No answer.
What's extremely strange is that it really doesn't appear that he is a con-artist. Googling him, I found him to have done a number of projects in the past, freelancing on various sites, and he had good ratings. Strange.
Maybe he just died or something. Always a possibility. I've always thought it strange - what would you do if you hired somebody and they just died.. how'd you contact them or collect your money back?
Anyhow, I'm going to wait some more and just hope he comes back. If not, I'll probably hire somebody else to finish the job for me and then sell it to collect my money back I spent on it. Laptop!
For example, I can go to the library at the college and study/work when there's stuff I need concentration and attention on. For instance, right now I have three books here I need to read, two I have to review for a poker publishing company, and then Rich Dad Poor Dad. A laptop would be handy because then I could take down notes and write the reviews when finished.
I'm planning to do these excursions whenever I need to focus hard or get some work done that doesn't involve the Internet. It's a shame, because you'd think I could just do this at home.. but the truth is I'm too distracted here.. I have TV, movies, Xbox360, and the worst culprit, the Internet. I'm not ashamed to say I have no discipline in this matter, but at least I have the discipline to go somewhere else where I can focus.
I know that I can get a lot done when I go somewhere away from my house that is quiet and without distractions because I've done this in the past many times. I get so much done, that going out to the library for a day with my laptop, I can get as much done as about 3-weeks worth of work doing it here at home! However, I won't have the Internet so work I do focus on will have to be limited so certain things that don't require the Internet. There's a fair number of those things that pop up time-to-time though so all should be fine.
It ships here on Tuesday, here are the specs for those interested:
I also bought a bag, had to order that special too as there aren't a lot of bags that fit for a 17-inch monitor, and a wireless router.
I took home the wireless router yesterday and hooked it up. I was worried I'd be stuck for hours if not days trying to hook it up, but I managed to do it in 5-10 minutes. I of course enabled encryption (128 bit) as well. For those of you who have wireless and don't have it encrypted, you are fools. Enable encryption now and stop letting your usernames, passwords, and credit card information float in the air for anyone to grab.
My girlfriend came over to help me test if the wireless part was all up and working by bringing her laptop. We connected just fine, and it was awesome.. wireless is all new to me and so it was fun having her come here and then seeing 4 different networks to choose from and connect to. There at the top I saw "Merendi Networks". Ah, there we go :) Saw one unsecured 'default'. Tsk tsk tsk. Also saw one named something along the lines of "Pooky pooooky pookkkky!!" - interesting.
HelloGreen Auction
I'm brokering the sale of the site HelloGreen.com which is an established webmaster forum. The reserve is at $2,000 if anyone is interested. It's currently on auction on Sitepoint, and can be viewed by clicking on the image below:
That's all for now.
Good luck and good earnings!
I pop into ChatWebDev every 2-3 days to talk amongst my collegues and peers. People must have been more bored than usual (actually that's a false statement, members actually have a pretty good work ethic it seems) because somebody, Bhirst, out of the blue asked if anyone was up for Internet chess for $1 a game.
I took him up on the offer and we proceeded to play on Yahoo. It started out at $1 a game, but I felt bad for taking his money as it was quite an easy win, so I offered him a $1:$0.75 odds handicap (I pay him $1 if he beats me, and he pays me $0.75 if I beat him.)
We play two more games, and I win those as well. For pure bragging and egotistical purposes I'm keeping a running total of the wages and games won and lost in the chatroom. Another member, pixabit, challenges me to a game as well. I decide to play them both at the same time as I highly doubt their skill (in my experience, most people who simply know the rules of chess for some reason think that they are good at chess). I beat them both, in fact, I beat pixabit in 2 moves!
This morning pixabit challenged me to a few more games, but I gave him better odds this time ($1.25 to $6.00). I wanted a bit more than $1 a game as it was starting to be a waste of my time. Luckily he didn't pose any threat so I could work on my sites while playing him.
All in all, after playing some chess for fun with my webmaster friends I made $15.00 and won 15-0.
I wonder if I should have told them that I used to be really into chess when I was a lot younger and went to tournaments. Nah. Here's a link to one where I won first place at the Victoria Labour Day Open (I won in the U1800 category which means Under 1800 rating).
Anyhow, just thought I'd post this. Thought it was fun and interesting. I'm always looking to make a quick buck :)
Robert Kiyosaki
Watch out for this man. He's smart.
I was watching PBS yesterday (PBS rocks, it has great documentaries but also has Arthur) when I was flipping through channels and hit PBS which showed a man pointing to a chart which had words written on it in large writing such as: Investing, Assets, and Liabilities. Thinking this was another boring lecture on putting money away in RRSPs (or for you US residents 401k's) and mutual funds and so forth, I didn't plan on sticking around long. However, I quickly because absolutely glued to the program, and was watching it intently, trying to absorb everything this man was saying.
The man turned out to be Robert Kioysaki. Haven't heard of him? Ever read or hear about Rich Dad, Poor Dad? Yes, that's him, the author.
I haven't read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but I definitely heard great things about it many times in the past. In fact, I've only heard praise in biblical porportions about the book, and so once I realized that this was the man talking to me on PBS, I became even more engrossed.
Unfortunately I only managed to catch around 50 minutes of the program as I happened across it through the middle. Also, since it was a PBS program which was basically pitching special DVD's and books for viewers to purchase (oh, sorry, PLEDGE), it was more of a teaser and inspirational and motivational program than real specific information. Yet, the concepts and inspiration I did get out of it was awesome. So awesome, in fact, that immediately as the show ended, I got up and wrote on my grocery list to pick up Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I did this so that I'd force myself to buy it. I was meaning to buy it before I saw the program, but then got lazy and never did.
I don't know when I'll have time to read it, but I'll buy it so that I'll have to read it eventually. And even if I read it and end up procrastinating and never do a single of his pieces of advice, it's extremely valuable information anyhow, and is pretty much required reading if you want to get ahead in this world.
The following snippet is taken from Wikipedia and sums Kiyosaki up well:
A large part of Kiyosaki's teachings focus on generating passive income by means of investment in real estate and small businesses, with the ultimate goal of being able to support oneself by such investments alone. In tandem with this, Kiyosaki defines "assets" as things that generate money, such as rental properties or businesses, and "liabilities" as things that cost money, such as house payments, cars and so on. Kiyosaki also proclaims financial leverage to be critically important in becoming rich.
Kiyosaki endorses what he calls "financial education", which he claims is never taught to most people. He also advocates learning through experience and failure. Both of these are portrayed as more important than traditional education taught in most schools and universities, much of which he claims is increasingly irrelevent in the "post industrial age".
I'll end this section by linking you to his merchandise store. He has some very interesting products for learning tools here.
This one looks especially interesting. If it wasn't so expensive I'd probably buy it.
PublisherForums PreLaunch! I am hereby officially prelaunching PublisherForums.com.
My original intention of PublisherForums was to focus on the publishing aspect of web development in the sense of monetizing your site as well as online business and entrepreneurial discussion. However, as I created the various forums, I felt that other sections would be just as welcome.
What's the difference between a prelaunch and an official launch? Well, I'm prelaunching it because the forums are up and running and I want to start attracting members and discussion. I've finished creating all the forums, descriptions, edited everything such as user titles, options, hacks, and template changes.
I've commissioned Terrorist #2 to do the skin, and I'm hiring my logo guy to do the logo, so the forum will have a very sexy yet professional look to it. I will officially launch the forum once the skin is done, and I will be advertising and promoting the site on various webmaster sites and blogs. In fact, I've already chagned my Sitepoint signature and removed everything including the famous "Earning $167 a day and growing :)" part and replaced it with a large link to PublisherForums.
Lately, largely due to my controversial Space Rangers post, this blog has been receiving a lot of discussion with 18 comments last post and 33 before that. PublisherForums will now be a great platform to discuss topics such as the whole Space Ranger issue.
I have a lot of faith and hope in PublisherForums, and hope that you go register and post :) Tell your friends, too. Thanks. Hope to see you there.
Good luck, and good earnings!
Sorry guys, it's been a week since my last post. I've been very preoccupied with many things, and I've also been busy procrastinating :) Today's topics are:
My Response
My last post garnered a response of 33 comments, a couple e-mails, and a few IMs! Most of the comments were negatively directed at me, and so I will respond to them here.
First off, this is a blog. This is my blog. This is a blog where I keep an ongoing journal on what I'm working on day-to-day, occasionally provide some personal entries, and give my comments and thoughts on things. I'm not a journalist, an editor, nor a politician. Therefore, I could CARE LESS on what you think of me or what I write about. So don't expect a lot of replies on such matters from me.
Secondly, if you don't like what I write about: LEAVE. Nobody is forcing you to come here and read my blog. That's all you. If you don't agree with what I have to say or easily cry, I'm not going to apologize and give you a hug.
Thirdly, pretty much all of the comments were either hyperbolic statements or attacks from SpaceRangers who were obviously upset. I'm not going to respond to any of that crap, it's not worth my time.
It's strange. So many SpaceRangers got upset. Why? Why so insecure? Perhaps they are afraid I'm right, and feel threatened and unconfident? I mean, if you don't agree with me, a simple "I don't agree" would suffice or else ignore it altogether and don't reply at all. There's no reason to be a crybaby about it and start launching personal attacks on me. This is my blog, I thought I'd be able to state my opinions without having to hold everybody's hand.
Replayer Roadbumps
Sigh. Things with Replayer have again been.... crappy. It's really been an up and down ride with Replayer, but I've been going downhill for a while now. It's not me, it's him. My programmer for this is just absolutely horrid in terms of communication and deadlines. The whole site was supposed to be finished about two-and-a-half months ago or so, and it's sitting at around 65% right now.
I've gone through many 5-7 day periods before where I wouldn't hear from him, but now it's been over 2 weeks since last hearing from him and I'm beginning to get really scared. Has he finally ran away with my time and money? Is what's done so far for me safe? Or will he illegally sell the code and such to others?
This is the dark side of hiring freelancers from outsourcing companies. In fact, it may be the last time I do so. I may have to hire from actual company sites in the future... which is a pain, as they are difficult to find, and usually expensive. But at least I won't have problems like this in the future.. hopefully.
In fact, I'd say that 9/10 people I hire are always very late in getting work done. But hell, this is worse.. I'm terrified he's going to run away. I've thrown thousands into this...
It's a shame too because the site has such enormous potential and what's done so far is quite good, it's just all these problems I'm having with him. I mean hell, you've seen the screenshots, and it's working. When I say it has potential, I don't just mean it may do decently and make a few bucks; I have a whole viral-esque marketing plan and I'm confident that once/if the site is done and get past it's early development stages, that it could be adding thousands a month to my income. I don't say this about many of my sites.
Well, I'm getting desperate now and so I hunted down his phone number. I'm not sure whether he's still on this number or not, but we will see tomorrow. If he is, I'm going to be sure to let him know that I need this done... beware the phone call.
Wish me luck on this guys, I really need Replayer to be finished...
MrScribe.com I've received another paid plug advert, this time for the site MrScribe.com: "MrScribe.com is a quaility content writing service, in which content is written soley by our writers. Bear in mind, an emphasis is on quality, thus you won't find any $5 -10 articles here. Only custom written content charged per page. We have SAMPLES, you may view all of our writers samples and choose the one whom you prefer and have him/her write your specific article. Stop by and check us out, and get the content you need for your site."
PublisherForums
I'm going to be getting to work on PublisherForums fairly soon. Unfortunately, bad timing has struck and it seems as though Terrorist #2 is away on vacation until around July 3rd or so, and Terrorist #1 won't be able to help me for about another week. So, I'm wondering whether I want to wait for these two, or go an alternate route and hire a guy I found. He's cheap and his work is half decent, which is fairly good by my standards. However, I'm not sure whether I want to have PublisherForums only 'half decent'.
PublisherForums is my webmaster forums. It's going to focus on web publishers and monetizing sites, buying and selling, and entrepreneur discussion. It will have a professional yet friendly tone, and will use Sitepoint as a role model. It will differ from Sitepoint in that it will have more of a focus on the entrepreneurial side and monetizing sites, although I plan to still have room for other areas such as design discussion and hosting.
I have big plans for PublisherForums, and plan on advertising it here, telling my network of webmaster friends about it, doing a bit of paid advertising, and doing a bit of a joint coadvertising with Mook Jon (each plugging each other's webmaster forums, as his is a lot more casual and shoot-the-breeze while mine is more professional).
On a side note, it seems that three new webmaster forums will be opening within a week or two of each other. Mine, Lee Dodd's, and Mook Jon's. If we were smart we'd all come together and make one big one, but we're not smart :D
I'm not sure yet but I may start PublisherForums by populating it with forums, allowing people to register and post before we have a logo and skin, simply because I can't wait :) I've already installed the vBulletin on the site.
ProjectAA Revealed! ...Kinda
Remember ProjectAA? I haven't said a whole lot about it, but since initial development on it is almost complete, I'll give away some details :)
Unfortunately, I'm not going to actually tell you what the site is about yet... sorry :) I'll release that once the site is near-ready for launch. However, I will release what the domain is. It's PublisherSpot.com - I plan on making it a type of sister site with PublisherForums.com, although it's obviously not another forum :)
My long-time programmer is the one I hired for this, and he should be back from a little trip he made anytime now, and development should get back on track. I've hired him countless times and so I know for certain that the site will be 100% programmed as I want it. Deadlines... well, that's another story.. :)
Anyhow, that's all for now folks. Good luck and good earnings!
