I'm Just Sharing

June Statistics; The More Things Stay The Same

Posted by Mitch on Jul 3, 2009

Once again, time for the monthly statistics for the previous month. This month, depressing and odd; here we go:

Adsense - $86.10
Commission Junction - $.07
Google Affiliate Network - $1.00
Paid Advertising - $35.63
Total - $122.70

Last month my dollar total was $123.97, so I’m going in the wrong direction, even though Adsense went up. Not sure what happened to the little bit I was getting from some of the others, but some odd stuff has happened.

One, I think Widget Bucks dropped me. I’m not sure, but I went to sign in to check my dollars and it says it can’t recognize my email address. Hey, based on what I wasn’t making from them, it’s not all that bad, but still,… I wonder if I have forgotten an email somewhere.

Two, I dropped Link XL as one of my affiliate programs, and I’m thinking about dropping another one. I had someone contact me who had been an advertiser from LinkXL way back when, and every once in awhile I was earning something from those folks. Turns out they’d dropped advertising but forgot about it, and were having problems with their site for some reason, but knew it was coming from my site. The only way I could get the sucker to go away for good was to end my association with LinkXL. Once again, not like it was really generating anything except off these folks who were trying to get away from them.

The one I’m thinking about dropping is someone called the Gold Affiliate Program. It’s one of Shawn Casey’s things, and I’ve only gotten maybe 7 or 8 clicks in almost 4 years at this juncture. Of course, I only have the links in one place, so maybe I need to pop them on here for a couple of months to see if anyone is interested in them. They’re products about internet marketing; I’ve only purchased one of them and it wasn’t bad; pretty much all I have to say about that.

I’m also thinking about just dropping Joel Comm’s products also. Since he took the Adsense book and turned it into a freebie, trying to sell a course instead, it’s lost its overall appeal for people, and it’s doing nothing much for me.

And I’m possibly thinking about dropping TTZ Media, which are those products you see there to the right under the top talkers. According to their stats, I’ve only had two people click on them in the last six months. If that’s true or not, that’s not good at all, and I can probably use that real estate for something else, maybe the Shawn Casey things. Something new to think about.

The reason I’m thinking about dropping them is so I won’t have to check them anymore. Sure, I could just keep them around and hope to make something out of them, but their track record is horrible, and the potential income is fairly low even if someone decided they just had to start buying that stuff.

Oh, one last thing. Visits went up from May, but only by 36, though that’s from one less day than May. However, the early part of the month had more visitors when I was writing more, so I still think it depends on how much I can write. I did gain more subscribers, though, as today’s number is at 90, my highest ever. Shooting for that elusive 100; I hope it’s this month.

Anyway, another month has come and gone, and it’ll be interesting to see how things progress as I work my way through July.

Research | 1 Comment

How Goes A Webinar

Posted by Mitch on Jul 1, 2009

As you know, yesterday I gave my webinar, and I’m just glad there were some people who signed up for it, because it would have been lonely without them. Truthfully, though, I’d have gone through with it even if people hadn’t shown up, mainly because I will be putting it up for sale at some point, once it’s cleaned up and edited a bit.

Here’s what happened overall. I called in about 30 minutes beforehand. After the Monday run through, I realized that I had to do some early setup work to make sure everything went well. This was a mix of Powerpoint and web pages, which I think is pretty neat. However, on Monday’s test, of course one of the websites went down during the test, and I knew if that happened live that it would mess me up. This time, I took no chances.

Also, you know I overcame the audio piece of things, which worked out great. All we now had to do was hook up with each other. The organizer, Renee, did some things after we connected, and I mentally prepared for it. Now we were just waiting for the magic start time.

Even without anyone calling in yet, I went ahead and started at 11:01; I wanted to start right at 11AM, as I’m kind of a stickler for time, but I didn’t have that control. I figured people would call in when they got around to it, so I went ahead and started. I got to 3 1/2 minutes when Renee suddenly piped in, saying that our first person had joined, but was having problems with the audio. What could I do? I was stunned, because you’d never have done that for one person if you had multiple people on, but Renee was worried that no one else would be able to hear either. I didn’t like it, but I understood.

So, it was about a two minute pause as she helped this lady get sound; no one else popped on during that point. When it was resolved, I started from the beginning again. It wasn’t easy; my rhythm had been broken, almost like trying to stop in the middle of urinating (yeah, I went there). Still, I do presentations for a living, so after a minute or so I got back to my normal self, and the webinar went on. People did eventually pop in, and I got some interesting questions along the way when I took breaks. Oddly enough, no one wanted to speak live, but the software had a chat feature where people could write in their questions, and Renee would read them to me during each break, since only the organizer had access to what everyone was writing.

I knew I wanted to stay under 90 minutes, yet get close. It came in at 83 minutes; not bad, considering I didn’t have a lot of questions. It was 2 minutes shorter than the full test we did Monday afternoon, but that’s okay, since we were simulating things on Monday. The thing about doing a live presentation is that you always want to make sure you have enough material so that, if no one interrupts you or asks questions, you only have maybe 10 minutes of time left, and no one will ever care if you get that close; well, unless you’re asked to do 30 minutes or less. If you practice speaking, you learn how to go faster if you need, or how to stretch out when you’re drastically short. I was just fine.

Anyway, it was a pretty good experience. I had no glitches, except for that early stoppage, and I guarantee that won’t happen again. But I do see more webinars in my future.

Internet | 13 Comments

Gigaware USB Stereo Headset

Posted by Mitch on Jun 29, 2009

As you know, tomorrow at 11AM I will be doing my first webinar, entitled Social Media, SEO & Your Business in 90 Minutes. I’m excited by the prospect, and of course once it’s over I’ll get 50% rights to market the completed project; always nice to have another product under your belt.

Anyway, I have been rehearsing my information, trying to get it to at least 80 minutes, and, if there are questions, it may reach the 90 minute mark; it can’t go over 90 minutes. On Friday, I got to do my first live test, and we only did 25 minutes to test out the program to see how it all worked. Today we did the full run through, with my friend Renee Scherer of Presentations Plus, who still has her own webinar on Microsoft Word sitting out there to start on July 16th, threw some questions at me during the pauses. Only one little glitch in the process while we were going along, that being that one of the websites didn’t cooperate with what I wanted to do. One of the things I decided to do ahead of time was to have all the websites and software I wanted to talk about already set up in individual tabs so I could just go to them without having to wait for them to load, but this one site I hadn’t done it, which is why one does a run through in the first place.

Later on, I got to hear a little bit of what I did, both on Friday and this morning, and it wasn’t good at all. Not that I was bad, mind you, but the sound quality was bad. I need a new business phone, and will have to get one soon. However, I wasn’t ready to spend my money like that today, and I really didn’t have the time to shop around for a phone. I did have to buy a new headset for my computer, though. It seems that Vista doesn’t like headphones that you have to plug into the back of your computer; what a terrible operating system. So, scrap another piece of technology I had, because I had to go to the store, Radio Shack, to buy a new headset, one with a USB attachment.

I decided on the Gigaware Wrap-Around USB Stereo Headset, mainly because it wasn’t overly expensive, at $25.00 plus tax. The woman asked me if I was going to use it a lot, and I said no, although we’ll see how well this webinar goes before I decide whether to buy a better one down the road. I came home and opened the package, and it comes with a mini CD containing Skype on it; neat. I might load that bad boy one of these days. I hooked it to my computer, and, as it figures, it took Vista 3 minutes to figure out which driver to add to it.

But it worked eventually. I called Renee, we did a quick 10 minute test, and all is right with the world once more. So, I’m ready for tomorrow. The software is ready, my hardware is ready, my powerpoint is ready, and my voice is always ready. I’ll have to make sure to go to the bathroom just before; 90 minutes for me if I’ve been drinking a lot of liquid, which I sometimes do if I get a walk in, is sometimes a bit too long, if you know what I mean. Maybe I’ll wish for rain; nah!

Anyway, I hope some of you decide to find some time in your busy schedule and sign up for my webinar. And, if you can’t make it, it will be available for purchase later on, but it’s going to be big; the test seminar came in at 122 MBs. That’s what video will do for you.

Maybe next time, I’ll buy one of those below:

Product | 10 Comments

Michael Jackson - The Follow Up

Posted by Mitch on Jun 26, 2009

Now that I’ve had some time to process things, I’m ready to write about them.

There I was yesterday, having just ran a test for my webinar next week titled Social Media, SEO And Your Business in 90 Minutes, when I saw an email come in saying Michael Jackson was being rushed to the hospital. Stunned, I immediately turned on the TV to see what was going on. Almost immediately, before I’d ever gotten to a channel, another email came through saying he’d passed away.

More stunned, I get to CNN to see the news, with CNN deciding that they would run a disclaimer because they hadn’t been able to corroborate the story. I went to Twitter, because I had a feeling there would be someone talking about it there. Man, I wasn’t even close; everyone was talking about it, and only it. It was amazing because just hours earlier the conversation had been about Farrah Fawcett, and not with quite the same volume that hearing about Michael Jackson had taken.

It was such a big story that Twitter actually crashed here and there. And, it seems, most other sites that had anything to say about Michael Jackson crashed for at least some period of time. There are already stories out saying this one man caused more disruption than any other single event on the internet since the 9/11 tragedy. That’s saying something; he literally shut down the internet.

I’m not going to write about what I consider as my special relationship with Michael Jackson here; I already wrote about it on my business blog. I will say this, though. As it relates to being online, it shows just how much the rest of us can make an impact on the internet just by our presence. Imagine what we could do if we could learn how to channel even a little piece of that for our blogs, and, eventually, our online success.

Wow. R.I.P, MJ; I’m really going to miss you.

Internet | 26 Comments

Michael Jackson

Posted by Mitch on Jun 25, 2009

Michael Jackson; I have nothing else to say right now, other than he’s been my favorite performer for over 40 years. Video; actually, only three. All the other videos have had the embed disabled; heck. Anyway, that’s all I have for the day.

Personal | 7 Comments

Go To Webinar

Posted by Mitch on Jun 23, 2009

As you know, I’m promoting this webinar I’m giving next Tuesday on Social Media, SEO and your Business in 90 Minutes. Today I got a look at the technology for doing it; I’d like to tell you a little bit about it.

My friend Renee, who owns the software, came over with her laptop so we could do a run through. I really had no idea how it was supposed to go, as I haven’t participated in lots of live webinars. I have been on a couple, and I know that things haven’t always gone great. Still, this was a first, using Go To Webinar, which I guess is based off Citrix software.

She signed on and downloaded the software to her laptop. It brought up the page, she signed in with her username and password, and she was good to go. She gave me what I needed to sign in, and I came to my computer and did that. I also tried using the headset that came with my Dragon software, which wouldn’t work on this Vista computer, and thus the headset wouldn’t work either; heck. Instead, I had to call in through the phone just to be able to communicate.

Once I was on the webinar, there was this window that opened, and I was seeing what was on her computer. Then what she did was make me the presenter, and she was the organizer, which she was always going to be. How odd; I was suddenly in control of things. The problem I had was this window that was open via the program wasn’t doing anything for me; it was in my way. However, she reported that she was seeing everything that was on my computer; how interesting that was.

What did I do? I lowered the window so I could see my own computer. I couldn’t close the window, otherwise it would kick me out of the program. However, once out of my way, though, things were great. I could hide my taskbar from her, but I would still see it on my computer. I could work on my Firefox instead of needing to use IE. This is going to make everything easier than trying to put it together as a powerpoint file, and I can show all the things I want to show live, which will work great. That is, unless my computer freezes up; no, that won’t happen.

We tested things for about 15 minutes, then shut it down to move on to other things. The plan is to allow everyone to download the outline so they can see where we’re going with things as I progress. The outline is almost complete. The next part will be practicing and rehearsing; that’s what I do as a professional speaker, and that’s what I’m going to do with this presentation. Many people don’t know what it takes to be a real professional speaker; maybe one day I’ll write about that, but not now. What I will say, though, is that I will be prepared, and I will do my best, and that’s all I can ask of myself.

And, just to toss this in there, I’ve been interviewed once again, and it’s been posted on Clickkt Dot Com, written by a young man named Toan Nguyen Minh; thanks Toan!

I’m putting through my request again, as I’m really pumping this thing up; help me get the word out to those people who have small businesses, or people who just might want to know more about how they can use certain social media options to help their businesses and websites.

Internet | 12 Comments

Anonymity Of Blogging

Posted by Mitch on Jun 22, 2009

There was a news story that someone on Twitter pointed out coming out of the U.K. The story is titled Ruling on NightJack author Richard Horton kills blogger anonymity, and it talks about this police officer who’d actually won an award for his blog, but wanted to keep his anonymity because he was a police officer, and, it turns out, many of the things he was writing about he had inside knowledge on.

The judge decided that people who write blogs don’t have the right for any expectation of anonymity, The Times outed him, and now not only is he in trouble, but his blog is gone, and that’s that from the NightJack.

I’m of mixed thoughts on this topic, as I’m betting many of you are. On every one of my blogs, I’m Mitch. On my business websites I’m Mitch. I do have a couple of websites where I don’t mention my name, but it wouldn’t take a heck of a lot for anyone to figure out who I was, especially if they read the disclaimers.

But there are a lot of you out there who are hiding your identities for whatever reason. Though this ruling was in the U.K., you can be pretty safe in figuring that the same rule would apply here. The basic premise is that blogging gives you a public platform, and thus, even being hosted on your own site, the expectation of privacy isn’t valid and won’t be honored. At some point, if you irritated someone else, or someone decided to dig a little bit, you will be found out.

The question is whether you’re exhibiting behavior that makes you need to worry about it or not. For instance, many commenters here don’t use their real names. Y’all know I kind of like to have a real name of some kind to respond to, even if it’s only a nickname. Some of the rest of you believe that you’re protecting yourselves by using the fake name, whereas others of you believe you’re helping to enhance your SEO by using those names; both are false premises. I probably know who most of you are because you’ve forgotten some basics of how to hide yourself, or at least how to try to hide yourself. So, I do know some of y’alls names, but I’m not going to out you because, well, you haven’t irritated me.

Still, this issue of anonymity needs to be explored further. If you had someone on the inside of a corrupt company who was telling the rest of us what was going on, and we wanted to keep getting that information, wouldn’t we be happy with that person having anonymity? Sure, the company wouldn’t be, and they could get an injunction of some sort to get that information, but how secure would we be with that?

We could go to what I’ll call a vanity or community blog site, create an account there of some type, and start writing, making it somewhat harder to track us down if we used some kind of account from a place like Yahoo or Excite as our email address. But those types of sites don’t usually get a lot of attention, so your complaints would be lost in the crowd noise.

And, for most of us, if someone was saying a lot of negative things about us, we might want to know who was saying it, and would be frustrated by someone hiding behind a wall of anonymity, making accusations that we’re not sure how to respond to because sometimes fighting makes you look as guilty as not doing anything.

There is another side, though, which goes with what I’ve always said; sometimes, there are consequences for your actions, and if you feel you’re in the right and can put up with it all, then by all means do what you do, whether you’re the outer or the outee (I know it’s not a word, but it fits here anyway).

I think it prompts an interesting discussion and something to think about. Basically I have nothing much to hide, but I know some of you do. So, what are your thoughts on some of this?