Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

Internet News

Put Your Blog on The Amazon Kindle

May 14, 2009 | Comments

Personally, I don’t own a Kindle. I might get one at some point. And I’m not sure what was just announced is going to do anything at all to make the device more attractive, but here it is.

You can now submit your blog to Amazon for inclusion on the Kindle.

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You’ll need to create a new account (your Amazon account won’t work). And you’ll need to have a U.S. based bank account. But, you’ll set up your account, your payment info, and then you’ll set up your blog RSS feed and other related options.

The idea is that you, as a blogger, can get paid by Amazon for subscriptions. Yes, Kindle users have to pay a small subscription fee to read your blog from the device (which seems rather dumb when you can get it for free online, but whatever). Amazon splits the money 70/30 – they get the 70%.

I guess it can help with increased visibility, but don’t expect it to make you much money. Personally, I would not pay money for a blog if it is available on my computer for free, but perhaps some will.

Sell Premium Tweets With TwitPub – Say What?

April 15, 2009 | Comments

Picture 3 Anybody that uses Twitter knows that it is like a big river of information. The flow of the river is pretty substantial and that can lead to a lot of fluff. One company has developed a potential solution to this. They are launching today. It is called TwitPub.

TwitPub is a marketplace for “premium tweets”. As they put it in their press release:

Now, readers of Twitter can enjoy higher quality and more focused tweets in topics of their choice. Another reason to look forward to Premium Tweets is that it eliminates the level of randomness and ramblings factor from tweets. We know how Twitter can sometimes be a bucket of noise and be very hard to follow on topics that are truly consistent. With Premium Tweets, one can subscribe to professional authors or specific topics of interest. Imagine how this could be useful for content publishers in providing premium updates such as horoscopes, jokes, gossip, breaking news, insider scoops, feng shui tips, stock tips, private agency news, business authors, etc.

I think the idea is that you, as a publisher of premium tweets, can set up a private Twitter account. In order for people to be allowed to see and follow the private account, they have to pay for it via TwitPub. TwitPub will pay out 80% of revenue. You will be listed in their marketplace as a provider of quality tweets.

Will this fly? I have no idea. It is interesting. As they say in their FAQ:

We are a separate company developing interesting Web 2.0 business models.

Yeah, I’ll say.

My gut says that this flies in the face of the spirit of Twitter. Besides, if you don’t like the noise, just unfollow people. You’re in control all the time. I’m not seeing why I would pay to filter it out. That said, I’ll admit that I could be short-sighted. For some, the idea of getting an information stream which you select sent to your cell phone via Twitter might be worth it. So, perhaps there is a business model here. It looks like the publisher can set his/her price, but if you go for a Iphone-style pricing model of cheap pricing (say $1.00 per month for a premium tweet stream) and you’re able to get 1,000 followers, you’d be pocketing $800 per month.

So, what do you think? Is there potential to this business model?

Blogger Survey for 2009

January 30, 2009 | Comments

I think the field of blogging and internet business is going to be HUGE in 2009 (as if it weren’t already). The mission of this blog is to help bloggers achieve their goals of traffic and income.

I can fulfill my mission better if I know exactly what is on the minds of bloggers out there. Click Here To Continue Reading »

Is Online Advertising About to Die? Should We Freak Out?

December 31, 2008 | Comments

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody that 2009 is going to be a challenging time for many. The economy is in a recession and that recession is likely going to continue into 2009.

The biggest danger with this kind of thing is the effect it has on people’s mindsets. If people THINK things are going to suck, THEY WILL SUCK. Herein lies why I like to tell people to not pay much attention to the news.

But, Techcrunch posted a story worth making note of. The story says that content sites are bracing for as much as a 50% drop in revenue. The cause will be online advertising budgets being slashed.

A majority of blogs out there that make any money do so via online advertising. So, this is going to most definitely affect them. It is customary to see ad revenue increase during the holiday months. It is also customary to see it fall off once January hits. The degree of that drop-off depends on the niche of the website, but there is no doubt that this 2009 recessionary mindset is going to amplify the usual end-of-year drop-off in ad revenue.

So, here is what you need to be thinking about and doing as we head into 2009:

  1. Lean the mixture and don’t spend money like its going out of style.
  2. If your revenue is primarily advertising based, you need to quickly maneuver to set up some in-house revenue streams. Information products, membership sites, etc. Set up revenue streams that you have control over.

Realize that money will continue to flow in a recession. People will always spend money on things they want. But, if you’re positioned to depend on big companies and their ad departments to get by, you need to start taking out this middle man and start generating your revenue in-house. This puts you in the driver seat. Then the ad revenue is gravy.

So, to answer my question: No, you shouldn’t freak out. Just be smart and starting treating your blog like a business.

Reading List 12/22/08: Posts Worth Sharing

December 22, 2008 | Comments

Here are some of the posts from other great blogs that I’ve been reading:

My Weekend Reading List – 12/08/2008

December 8, 2008 | Comments

I’m a day late in posting this. Nonetheless, these are some of my favorite posts on other blogs I’ve been checking out this weekend.

My Weekend Reading List – 11/30/2008

November 30, 2008 | Comments

These are some of my favorite posts on other blogs I’ve been checking out this weekend.

Microsoft Underwhelms Again

September 9, 2008 | Comments

OK, when I heard Microsoft was hiring Jerry Seinfeld for its marketing campaign, the hopeful part of me thought perhaps that Microsoft was suddenly growing a clue on how to market. But, alas, I thought wrong.

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I am not alone in the sentiment that this commercial was not funny. It was also a waste of airtime since it did not even allude to Windows until the very end, and only then by logo only.

This series, hopefully, will go somewhere. But, right now, I am left wondering what Microsoft is thinking here. They are clearly trying to out-Apple Apple, and so far they’re off to a bad start.

Lively.com? What the F**k Is Google Thinking?

July 8, 2008 | Comments

Remember Orkut? The social network might be popular in Brazil, but it is a tiny fish when compared to Myspace or Facebook.

Now we have Lively, a new virtual reality site which, as Andy Beal puts it, will be the the Orkut to Second Life.

My question? WHY?

As Google posts in their blog,

A while ago, I looked around the social web and wished that it could be less static. Sure, you can leave a comment on a blog or write a text blurb on your social networking profile. But what if you want to express yourself in a more fun way, with 3D graphics and real-time avatar interactions?

This is a 20% time project.

My opinion is that virtual reality is destined for a small niche of the Internet. It is rather 2006, actually. And even if I am wrong on that point, one overriding point remains: Isn’t Google supposed to be a search company?

There are so many other truly useful things Google could be working on and releasing. I need a to-do list application, not a cartoon character.

Iran to Kill Bloggers?

July 5, 2008 | Comments

When you see stories like this one, it makes you step aside and really think. As you know, yesterday was July 4th – Independence Day – here in the United States. I am actually able to make a living by blogging. We don’t have any governmental agency trying to regulate us (yet). But, over in Iran, any blogger who is "harming mental security in society" is very likely going to be subject to execution.

It is in debate in the Parliament in Iran. We’ll see what happens. I still find it unbelievable that it is even brought up. The Committee To Protect Bloggers brought light to the story. That site has a whole category dedicated to Iran and their ongoing battle with bloggers and the Internet. The government has also blocked access to sites like Facebook, Yahoo and Flickr.

As that site clearly has on the header, article #19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

I really do think everybody should be aware of their human rights and not take it for granted. It is easy to forget when you live here in the U.S., but stories like this one put things into perspective.

If you’re a blogger, and regardless of what you blog about, you are part of a movement of self-expression. And it is something that needs to be defended.

That’s just the way I feel.

As RWW so clearly says on their post, cultural relativism has its place, but this isn’t it. And, yes, I would agree with RWW that any help that can be provided to the people of Iran short of a U.S. invasion should be pursued.