Computer Chit Chat

Archive for the ‘Making money’ Category

As of yesterday DoubleClick Performics is officially no more. It’s now the Google Affiliate Network. Also as of yesterday, DoubleClick Performics’ Search is being sold to a third party and is now running as its own business unit. The Google press release promises “exciting changes” to the affiliate user interface. Also promised in the press release for the future are “new opportunities for monetization, expansion and innovation in Affiliate Marketing”. I just blogged the other day that I haven’t made any money at affiliate marketing. I also never made one cent from Adsense. I wonder what impact the Google Affiliate Network will have on policies and the other affiliate programs.

• Are you making money with affiliate programs?
• 10/10/07 News bytes
• Affiliate program question

I found myself wondering something about internet affiliate programs recently. I applied for the Disney Movie affiliate program, thinking I’d place it on my entertainment blog. My application was declined. Now here’s my question. If it’s free to join an affiliate program, and if both the advertiser and the publisher make money if someone clicks on an ad, why would they decline an ad? If nothing else it would be getting their brand noticed, even if noone did click on it. So does anyone know the logic behind this? I really would like to know.

• DoubleClick Performics now the Google Affiliate Network
• Are you making money with affiliate programs?
• How to update Firefox automatically.

Fuelmyblog and Tsheets.com want to know what people do in the first five minutes of their working day. One lucky person who answers this question on their blog will win an 80Gb iPod Classic or an 8Gb Nano.

You probably know Fuelmyblog as one of the most popular online blogger communities. TSheets is an affordable monthly service that offers a web-based timesheet system created to track hourly time from any computer or mobile device. The Tsheets website is well laid out and easy to understand. To use their language, it’s Triffic.

So, they want to know what I do in the first five minutes of my working day. I get up on a work day at 4am. I usually begin work at my day job at 6am. When I get to work the first thing I do is clock in. Then I go into the office and turn on my computer. Then I put the radio up on top of bookshelf on top of my desk (the only place I get reception) and turn it on. I open Outlook first and then the different apps and folders that I use all day. Then I go into the kitchen and make a pot of coffee. Then I go back to my desk and check my voicemail and email. By then almost ten minutes has gone by and I need that coffee. So, there you have it. That’s what I do in the first five minutes of my working day.

What do you do in the beginning of your work day?

• How Dragon Naturally Speaking increases earnings and pays for itself
• Journyx, free time and expense management software
• And the winner of the Computer Chit Chat Christmas Contest is…

If you have a blog and you sell ads of any type, you should check out OIO Publisher if you haven’t already. I wrote a review of this Wordpress plugin about a month ago. I recommend it highly, it’s an invaluable tool for managing ad sales directly right from within your Wordpress dashboard.

Recently the OIO Publisher plugin was upgraded to version 1.6.0 and added some great new features including the addition of an ad queue so people can buy ads in advance, an upgrade alert system, the ability to use html, integration with the ViralBlogAds network, and the capability to place ads on any website by using a javascript code.

This plugin is regularly $37 but for a limited time, I’ve been given two coupon codes to lower your price of the OIO Publisher plugin.

This coupon is HOT! Use code QWERTY-17 to get $17 off of the OIO Publisher regular price of $37, bringing the price down to $20. This coupon expires in the next two days (@ 05/05/08) so take advantage now. At $20 this plugin could pay for itself within one or two sales, so if you’ve even thought about buying it now’s the perfect time to do so.

If you can’t buy within the next day or so you can still save some money off of the regular price. Use code QWERTY-5 to get $5 off of the OIO Publisher regular price of $37, bringing the price down to $32. This coupon expireson 05/20/08.

If you’re serious about selling your own ads this plugin is a must have, so hurry and take advantage of the coupon codes before they expire.

• How to manage the ads on your blog
• Godaddy coupons
• How Dragon Naturally Speaking increases earnings and pays for itself

I have most of my domains registered with Godaddy. I’m very happy with their prices. I like their interface for domain registration and management. I log in, do what I need to do, and log out. I don’t have anything on auto-pay, I don’t like that. I get reminder emails when things are due and I take care of them. About four to six times a year I get a telephone call from Godaddy. I can always tell because when I get home and check the caller id it shows a call from the 480 area code, and I don’t know anyone else there. Sure enough, I check my voicemail and find a message from some happy, young sounding account rep (always a male, so far) that’s just checking in. Well Godaddy, here’s my answer to your voicemail. And I doubt I’m the only one that thinks this way. If you really want me to call you back, get a toll free number. If you really want to help me, don’t ask me to spend my hard earned money calling you. Because as long as you want me to pay to call you at that 480 number, I won’t be calling. So. Do any of you call Godaddy back?

• How to transfer a domain from Yahoo to Godaddy
• Some Godaddy deals
• How to push a Godaddy domain

If you’ve seen a widget in the sidebar that says “Are you in my top spots?” then you’ve seen the Scratchback widget. I added Scratchback to this site recently. For those unfamiliar, Scratchback is a way of combining advertising and tipping. A person can leave a tip for a blogger accompanied by a no follow text link which can also include a mouse over message with it. In case you are one of those people who’s never sure what to tip that isn’t a factor because the blogger sets the amount of the tip. Computer Chit Chat’s currently set to receive $2 tips. After the tip has been left, the blogger logs in and approves the link and message. Bloggers can choose to auto approve but I’m not big on auto approving things because I like to check out what’s what. Ads can be configured to be auto bumped, which means newer ads bump older ads off of the list, or set to wipe itself clean and start a new list every 24 hours, 1 week or 30 days. In my opinion the ads are definitely worthwhile because they have great visibility. They’re also a nice way to thank someone for something like a useful tip or good story. Have you checked out Scratchback?

• Blogrush shut down
• Do you follow? I do follow.
• Add This - How to add social bookmarking options to your post

I have been getting numerous different offers lately to place text links on several of my blogs in the form of a post. The content of the proposed ads would not be completely mine. The advertiser would write the ads. In this instance I would have been allowed to change text in the ads but not the keywords or do follow links. I am not interested in having someone else’s words on my blog, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the money.

When I got the first offer I was excited. When I considered the offer I realized accepting it didn’t make sense financially . I turned that offer, and numerous others, down. I now have a blurb in my advertising that states I am not interested in permanent ads or anything anyone else has written. Are you wondering why? I’ll tell you.

Let’s use an offer of $70 for 8 links as my example. Immediately my mind divides and understands I am being offered $8.75 for each link. Then I look at the length of time the advertiser wants the ad to run. In this case it is not for a finite period of time but forever. If it were a year it would come out to $0.17 per week. For forever I’d be giving it away, which I have no interest in doing. I don’t need short term money that badly. I do free posts for myself already, I wouldn’t do them for someone I didn’t know.

It doesn’t make good business sense to accept offers to place these permanent text links in my opinion. Do you agree or disagree? I’d love to hear some constructive feedback and thoughts on this subject from other bloggers.

• How to let your readers subscribe to comments of a post
• Paid blogging - Blogsvertise
• Journyx, free time and expense management software

 I tried Adsense for almost two years and didn’t make anything. I have since taken it off of all of my sites but one. I’ve been trying to learn how to be a better affiliate so I’ve been doing a lot of reading and hitting a lot of websites. Today I came across a site called Affiliate Lounge
, a site that is specifically targeting readers who want to learn how to make money with affiliate programs. He’s got some very interesting articles on there, and seems to offer frequent contests. Right now he’s got a contest going on where two people will win any available .com domain for one year, and hosting with 1 TB of monthly bandwidth. Holy mackerel! Go check him out.

• Affiliate program question
• DoubleClick Performics now the Google Affiliate Network
• Want to win some money?

Ever wondered if there was a way to accept advertisers on your site without worrying about where to put their banners, or if their banner design will look awful with your site? If so, than this one’s for you.

This week I heard of a new type of advertising you can use on your website or blog. It’s called Pay Per Play. The advertising method being used? A five second sound byte that will play every time someone visits your page. How does it work? With a piece of javascript installed anywhere within the body section of a website. Who hears these ads? Everyone.

Did you catch that? Everyone hears the ads. Noone has to click anything or do anything, like visitors need to do with a certain sense-less ad product. I wanted to learn more, so I went to the Pay Per Play website. I found out that there is no action required on the part of the website visitor, all the visitor needs to do is go to your site. Different sites have different ads. See, the ads are determined by a crawl of your site and then relevant ads are played. Over 66,000 advertisers have committed to this. Want to learn more? Just click on the . You should find the answers to any questions you have on the Pay Per Play site and can even hear a sample ad. Let me know how you like it.

• How to apply for Adsense video ads
• You can win a wii if you live in a Charter area
• My thoughts on permanent text ads

Fifth in my series on paid blogging is Blogsvertise. I personally have not hear from them much, I don’t think there are many opportunities there.

Blogsvertise, at www.blogsvertise.com, accepts applications for blogs that are willing to write about websites, products and services. To be accepted applicants must have a blog older than thirty days that is updated regularly. It also can not have adult content. Disclosure is not required, nor is it mentioned anywhere on their site. Once approved bloggers are able to accept opportunities. Bloggers will receive an email each time a new assignment becomes available for them. The blogger needs to log in and accept or reject the assignment. If you accept an assignment you have five days to complete it and submit it for approval or it will expire. Submitted posts should contain 75 words or more and contain the three links provided by the advertiser. Blogsvertise requires that your posts be permanent. According to their website assignments may pay anywhere from $4 to $25, and that bloggers on probation may only receive $2 per assignment. Bloggers are paid by Paypal after the post has been up for thirty days.

• Paid blogging - Smorty
• Paid blogging - Pay Per Post, part I
• Paid blogging - PayU2Blog