OK, I get pretty bored of my site design really quick and it negatively affects my blogging.  (Truthfully, I’ve been focusing more on my new blog http://www.protwit.com, but moreover, I’m just a lazy blogger)  

I got the inspiration to use the wootheme template after reading a friend’s blog http://www.incomediary.com/ which also uses a cusomtized version of the same theme.  Obviously Micheal’s has a much slicker look with the custom designs

I might also play around with a new logo, but I need to get this one to blend nicer.

(Hopefully the new design will help motivate me to blog a little more.)

Well what do you think of the design?

Twitter appears to have secretly edited their policies without any public announcements, and it appears that they change the terms frequently to suit new needs.  That is a the problem with a totally free service, they can boot whoever they like for whatever reason,  whenever.

Some of the notable updates:

• Accounts that are inactive for more than 6 months may be removed without further notice
• If there is a clear intent to mislead people into believing this account is affiliated with the company/business in question, the account will be permanently suspended.
• News feed accounts will more clearly designate that they are aggregating news about a company to resolve confusion.
• Name squatting and “user name for sale” accounts will be permanently suspended.

Some of these are new, some are old and some have been reworded:

• If you have followed a large amount of users in a short amount of time;
• If you have followed and unfollowed people, particularly by automated means (aggressive follower churn);
• If you repeatedly follow and unfollow people, whether to build followers or to garner more attention for your profile;
• If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;
• If you post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #, trending or popular topic

http://help.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries/18311  (The original post is dated Jan 14th, but appear to be changed regularly, I’m awaiting comment from twitter on this and will update the post if they respond)

The trending topic changes I agree with, but “Not personal updates.” WTF?   I almost exclusively tweet links to posts or articles that I feel are useful or worth reading. Why should twitter dictate that I need to tweet about what I had for lunch!

What are you thoughts?

GetResponse just announced that ONE of their affiliates has just made $1 million in our affiliate commissions!

Yes, you read it correctly. One person.  So I’m wondering how much they have paid in overall commissions if just one person made a million?  They claim to have over 100,000 affiliates promoting their stuff, go I’m guessing they are making mad cash.

The best part of this affiliate program is the monthly recurring fees.  Unlike most one time commissions, with these guys you keep getting paid each month.

Sign up and get your piece of the pie! GetResponse.

The Internet guru and make money online expert behind Blog Mastermind is at it again, this time with a membership site training course.  With the runaway success of Brian Clark’s own Teaching Sells, Yaro himself is replicating the same program.  I did sign up for the Teaching Sells course myself when it re-launched back in Feb.  The course were solidly written true to Brain’s copy writing expertise and very motivating to do your own training course.   I’m not sure if Yaro himself took Brian’s course and was inspired or he just saw the success and decided to replicate it?  His pitch page is a little over hyped with promises of gold and riches, but sound ideas, if you put your mind to it. Either way, with Yaro’s great writing and audience pull, I’m sure this course will also be a tremendous success. 

Sign up now to get a free report.

So since I’m officially addicted to twitter and I love finding new ways to make money online, I thought I’d combine the 2 and explore something that is sure to be a hot button and  a sensitive subject for a lot of twitter users… “How to make money on Twitter”

Check out my new blog now!

http://www.Protwit.com

Follow Protwit on twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/protwit

 

Google To Acquire Twitter for $635 million in Stock

Combination Will Create New Micro-blogging opportunities for Users Everywhere
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 1st*, 2009 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has agreed to acquire Twitter, the consumer media company for people to share original 140 character micro experience, for $635 million in a stock-for-tweet transaction.  Following the acquisition, Twitter will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate, albeit, board line neurotic community.

The acquisition combines one of the largest and fastest growing addictions with Google’s expertise in organizing information and creating new models for advertising on the Internet. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience for users interested in tweeting, sharing daily drivel, spamming links and will offer a new opportunities for micro bloggers to distribute their boring lives to reach a vast new audience.

“The Twitter team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” said Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google.  “Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling information service to users and advertisers.”

“Our community has played a vital role in changing the way that people interact in real time, creating a new instant information culture. By joining forces with Google, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive instant experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners,” said Evan Williams, Co-Founder of Twitter.  “I’m confident that with this partnership we’ll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for sharing information worldwide, hopefully with less fail whales.”

When the acquisition is complete, Twitter will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google’s own fast-growing business.  Twitter will continue to be based in San Francisco, CA, and all Twitter employees will remain with the company. With Google’s technology, advertiser relationships and global reach, Twitter will continue to build on its success as one of the world’s most popular services for micro communication. 

The number of Google shares to be issued in the transaction will be determined based on the 30-day average closing price two trading days prior to the completion of the acquisition. Both companies have not approved the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2009.  DISCLOSURE *This is not real and only an April Fool’s Joke*

UPDATE - This joke may become a reality - Story at Techcrunch

Bloggers & Power Twitterers are the new ‘Super Influencers’ and companies are dying to get their products pitched by them.

They send out free products, sometimes blindly just hoping that the blogger who received the free gift, will use it, like it, and if they are lucky blog favourably about the product.   And marketers are even paying the bloggers to write raving reviews.

Some bloggers are torn with the idea of getting paid to write a positive review of a product, and some readers frown upon it or think the writer is selling out.  I too used to also think that way.  But think about this…

What about all those super rich celebrities that get paid to endorse products?   Sometimes even products that they personally would never use?  Olympic Gold medal winner Donovan Bailey pitching Maple leaf hot dogs?  Do think his coach would even allow him to eat a hot dog?   What about Tiger woods who gets paid millions to pitch American Express or worse, his multi-million dollar contract with Accenture?  What would Tiger need with an Global outsourcing Technology company?

It is already proven that your peers are the biggest influencer on purchasing decision.   If you best friend recommends a good movie, you are much more likely to watch it, than if a celebrity recommended it.  And you are also more likely to buy a book that your sister or mother recommended.  And the new peer network is moving to your virtural friends and online social  networks .  

These new super influencers are ‘power social users’ spending as much as 50+ hours online, blogging, using facebook and now twitter where they can instantly reach out to thousands of other peers in under 140 characters…