Business
Pirillo Live Using Freely Available Technologies
Over at BUZZscreen, I made mention of Chris Pirillo’s new venture. Chris is now broadcasting via webcam all day long, answering people’s questions, etc. He is answering 4-5 questions per day and posting the recordings to various video sites like Youtube. In between recordings, you’re basically watching him work at his computer. I was curious how he managed to get all this set up.
First off, you will see the that the video feed is branded by Ustream.tv. I went and checked it out and was quite impressed. Essentially, for free, you can set up an account and broadcast to the internet anything from your webcam. What gives them the ability to do that is Flash. I believe you need to have at least Flash 8 to make it work (somebody correct me if I’m wrong…perhaps its v9). However, you basically set up an account, enter some details for your “show”, and hit the button to start broadcasting. On my PC, the input into Flash was picking up my TV tuner, so I had to change the input via the Flash settings. But, it picked up my webcam input quickly and, sure enough, you could see me online looking like a fool. Ustream then provides code to embed the viewer into other webpages, which is what Chris did to allow you to see him on his site.
I was then curious how Chris was able to alter his webcam feed to to insert sponsor logos and the feed from his accompanying IRC channel. In doing some research into this, I have found that Macs are simply better equipped (software-wise) to do it. There are just more options out there for the Mac, which is why I believe Pirillo is using a Mac to host his webcam and Windows on the machine that you’re watching him use.
I also saw on his site the widget from Eyejot. Eyejot is another service which uses the same capability from Flash and allows you to send video messages via email. They give you a free inbox on the Eyejot website and you go to down with it. I can see the power of this for web businesses who want to allow their customers to send in video messages (i.e. testimonials). And its great for Pirillo because then he has video of the people who are sending in questions actually asking the questions! Also on the multimedia front, you might want to check out MyChingo, a site which allows your users to leave audio messages easily on your site. Basically, its audio comments.
It amazes me the kinds of multimedia capabilities now out there on the web. This kind of content is no longer a one-way flow from big broadcast to us “mere listeners”. It is now literally a matter of hitting a button to broadcast anywhere on the world from your PC. Strategically, I can see Chris’s desire to get into this. I think he only just started it a matter of a weeks ago. I’ve always said that video is a powerful medium, and now Chris is doing it each and every day – live. As a web businessman, I think Chris is making a very innovative and smart move.
Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator
Oh, you gotta love this one. I came across the Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator this evening and its a riot. Check out their checklist, too. You can even generate your own Web 2.0 logo! And for a little taste of bullshit, Web 2.0 style, here are some samples:
- tag dynamic wikis
- incentivize dynamic wikis
- tag user-contributed life-hacks
- reinvent dynamic communities
- harness rss-capable synergies (hehehe)
- remix standards-compliant communities
I’m going to write my Web 2.0 business plan now…
UNIX Timestamp Calculator
Several months ago, I created a simple AJAX-based UNIX timestamp calculator. For the longest time, I simply ran the script here locally when I needed it. I decided that it could be helpful for others as well. It took a little work to figure out how to get it to play nice with Wordpress, however I have gotten it working and it is now available in the new Tools section of this website. Check out the UNIX Timestamp Calculator.
Obviously, this is going to be more useful and relevant to programmers. I found that I fairly often needed to find out what the timestamp of a particular day was. Or I would be debugging something and see a timestamp in the database and I would need to find out when it was. I don’t know about you, but I cannot calculate UNIX timestamps in my head and I doubt you can either. So, the calculator I developed is very simple. I can either copy/paste a timestamp in and convert it to a regular date format, or I could choose a particular date and calculate the timestamp. No longer do I need to do stupid one-liner scripts using date() or mktime() to figure this crap out.
Enjoy!
Tools
Below are a set of tools which I think will be helpful to webmasters.
UNIX Timestamp Calculator
Easily and quickly convert any date/time to a UNIX timestamp and/or back again.
Wordpress Plug-Ins
My repository for custom Wordpress plug-ins I have created
Lazy Linkage – Wordpress, Universal Search
A snippet of the content from this week’s newsletter, too. See, I told you it was lazy linkage!
Chris Garret makes a great point over at CopyBlogger. He talks about how fancy jargon can and will drive away your visitors. As a person who writes online and has also spent time studying the subject of study, I tell you to NEVER under-estimate the power of words. Both to inform and sell, but also to put people to sleep. Fast. Once a person hits a word they do not know the definition of, the process starts that will eventually lead them to leave the material. And on the internet, you’re already dealing with short attention spans, so that exodus is going to happen in a flash. So, make sure to use words that are easily understood. And if you cannot do so and still maintain the point, then DEFINE the words right on your website. Always test your website using a person not already integrated into your niche and see how they do with it.
AddThis (a social bookmarking tool) has posted a trends page which shows which bookmarking services users of AddThis are using. It covers this year (2007), so only a few months. The top two web bookmarking services are Google and Del.icio.us. BTW, an interesting page worth bookmarking is the Del.icio.us popular tags page. It’s a tag cloud of the popular tags on Del.icio.us, which can help you track what is popular and what people are buzzing about.
Wordpress has released Wordpress 2.2. Yep, a new version. Make sure you check your plug-ins before upgrading so they will still work. Want to know what’s so great about 2.2? Check out Aaron Brazell’s article 10 Things you should know about Wordpress 2.2. Also on the blogging front, its been reported that MyBlogLog is going to be rebranding. Makes sense now that Yahoo has bought them (which Techcrunch confirmed back in January). Among the changes are a re-design, a new name of some kind, and a new widget setup. Since I am a user of MyBlogLog on WebbyOnline, I look forward to seeing what they come up with. I know some bloggers are annoyed by MyBlogLog as it is now. Lastly, Daniel posted a list of the Top 10 Underrated Wordpress Plug-ins. My fave on that list is the Clean Archives plug-in. I’m actually not sure if the one he links to is the same as the one I use, but here is SRG Clean Archives which is the one I like.
In the world of copywriting, I found a great post by Michel Fortin where he lists 5 Copywriting formulas. Of course, he uses the post to point attention at 5 other posts he has describing each of them (very smart). But, worth the read because each of these formulas can serve as general guidelines to those of us who try to write our own copy.
On the search engine front, Profy posted about the story I also found on Yahoo and that is “Google Announces Universal Search“. The basics of it is that Googe is planning on integrating all their various search engines (web, images, video, news, etc) into one unified search engine so that one search will find relevant results in the whole gamut of content types. Here is another post at News.com about it. This is another good idea by Google, and if they are as spot on with their interface design as they were with Analytics, I’m sure the engine will be a breeze. And it brings Google one step closer to making all the world’s information accessible. And them controlling it. 
And in a bit of humor, Andrew has posted about the Maxim Hot 100 list for 2007. And he’s got some not-so-flattering pics of some of the contenders. Of course, we all know these women has hotties, but they have to be thanking the folks at Adobe for Photoshop, because its that in combo with the makeup which make them look above average on the red carpet.
Archives
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Blog Monetization, PayPerPost and Ebook Affiliate Saturation
Here is my introductory diatribe from this week’s WebbyOnline newsletter. To get this in your inbox each week, just subscribe in the form at the top of this site.
Oh, busy times. Busy times. As I said last week, I am putting Miraserver development into hyperdrive. And I’m feeling it now since I stayed up last night until 2AM working on it. Some of my readers may be used to this, but I’m usually hitting the hay before midnight, and I usually stop working earlier than that so that I can spend time with my wife. However, I decided the only way to get this thing done is to put the pedal to the metal. So, when I can, I am going to just stay at the desk and work until I drop. I am bound and determined to release a much needed update to Miraserver version 2 in the very near future.
I am also getting the master prepared to send off to the printers for our second DVD release over on PC Mechanic. This one covers Getting Started with Ubuntu Linux. It will walk you, video style, through getting up and running with Ubuntu, and we geared it toward people who are used to Windows. I’m excited to see how this new product does. For Windows users, Ubuntu can take a little getting used to. However, its really pretty simple. And the draw of it is, of course, that you can completely stock your computer with software without paying a dime.
In case you needed more proof that blogs work, here is a post which lists the top 10 blogs on the internet – some of them (as he says) having more circulation that major offline newspapers. The same blogger also posted his Top 7 Blog Monetization Methods. His seven? (1) Recursive affiliate income, (2) Direct ad sales, (3) Text-Link-Ads.com, (4) One-Time Affiliate Income, (5) Paid Reviews, (6) Google Adsense, (7) Misc Programs. I think these seven pretty much comprise the major ways to make money with ANY content website, not just a blog. I would add to the list, for me, e-commerce selling info products and a subscription membership service. In my experience, too, Adsense can be a good money-earner, however it is peanuts compared to what you can make generating your own income by way of e-commerce and affiliate sales. It takes a LOT of traffic, typically, to make any significant revenue from Adsense.
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Internet Marketing – What’s New?
Here is my introductory diatribe from this week’s WebbyOnline newsletter. To get this in your inbox each week, just subscribe in the form at the top of this site.
Well, it’s May already. Unbelievable. It seems like this year just started. Doing a quick status check on things in my own business, I really think I am putting my eggs in the right baskets right now. One of the big things I am working on is putting MUCH more focus on marketing. More focus than I ever have, actually. And its almost embarrassing to say that, up through 2006, I really have not paid any real attention to the marketing aspect of my business. What a GROSS oversight on my part, and one that I am determined to preach about on WebbyOnline so that others don’t ignore it in their own businesses. The internet has exploded since I first started in this industry. And things change so fast. If I (and you) don’t monitor what is happening, market constantly, produce QUALITY products and stand out, I (and you) will get surpassed. There is just SO much competition out there, and all of us have such a wide variety of information to feed off of in our drive for success. Well, one of the big things I am doing is ACTIVELY feeding on the information that is out there, reading about the successful actions of others, and REALLY looking at my own business in terms of what I can do to market it.
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Miraserver Gets Sponsored Placement in Hotscripts
Many moons ago, I put Miraserver onto the waiting list for a sponsored listing in the CMS directory over at Hotscripts.com. Hotscripts.com, if you don’t know, is probably THE leading source to go to when you’re looking for some software to use on your website. Its a very cool and comprehensive directory, and the CMS directory alone (under the PHP language) has 641 different CMSes listed as of this post. A sponsored placement puts you into the top 8 of your category on this site. It isn’t cheap, especially for the CMS directory. There are a LOT of CMS packages out there, and getting listed in the top 8 is pretty notable if you’re trying to get attention.
Well, Saturday morning I got an email saying my spot came up. They gave me about a day to seal the deal and purchase the sponsored placement or I would lose it and it would go to the next company on the list. If paid by the month, it costs $350 per month for this position. Not cheap. I can afford it, however Miraserver just isn’t returning that kind of money at this point in time. However, if I pass this up, who knows how long it would take to roll around again. So, I purchased one quarter. And, sure enough, Miraserver is now listed prominently on the first page of the CMS directory at Hotscripts.
So, what does this mean? On top of EVERYTHING I have going on, I now need to hussle to get Miraserver’s little kinks worked out and release this thing as a “final” version. Let me be clear: Miraserver 2.0 works just fine, but it does has some known kinks to it. It really won’t take too long to get it done (I don’t think). The problem is that any programmer I have ever tried to hire to work on this thing ends up being overwhelmed by it. Because the product is fairly comprehensive and was almost totally coded by me, its very hard to get another programmer to be able to produce meaningful work on it without constant babysitting by me. And, that is the only reason why past efforts to get work done on this haven’t produce a final product.
So, I’ll need to do it myself. And after it is released, I’ll need to go through and document the hell out of it so that other programmers can figure it out without ripping their hair out. Only then will this product be portable in terms of my personal schedule. That has been and continues to be the major roadblock to a solid development timeline. The sponsored listing on Hotscripts does provide a major draw to move this to the front burner and get this thing done in the fashion I originally envisioned for it.
Traffic Secrets Course
One of the things I am working on this year, as I have mentioned, is kicking business and revenue into high gear. One of the things I am doing to get this done is to broaden my horizons and learn from others. Now, I’ve already learned alot from others, but one thing I have never done is purchased a course to learn anything about the internet. The other day, however, I did. I picked up The Traffic Secrets course, by John Reese. The thing originally sold for almost $1000, something I doubt I would ever pay. But, now he’s clearing it out for $377. Still steep, but hey it doesn’t take much to pay that much off.
I’ll offer a review of the product once I’ve had a chance to evaluate it. I have a few informational products on PCMech, but I’ve never offered anything that costs that much. And, I have to admit, I was just a bit leery of the product. Not because I doubt it’s quality, but because I’ve seen so many of these one-page ad copy sites trying to sell somebody’s “system” for striking gold. And in most cases, the only one striking gold is the seller of the course. In this case, I got a great testimonial from the guys over at Internet Business Mastery who said they paid full price for this course and found it to be more than worth it. So, hey, like I said, I can fork over the $377 and make that back pretty quickly even if nothing changed with my business. So, what the hell.
I'm David Risley. I've been making my living as a blogger for over a decade. Blogging is my business and how I support my family. With this blog, I'm just gettin' REAL and telling you how this business works. 
