Freelance Twins

Why does Michael Arrington hate freedom and democracy?

Wednesday, January 14th 2009 at 4:32 pm

Michael Arrington is having a heated "discussion" in the comments of his blog post about how furious he is that Nanci Pelosi Rick Rolled him in this video.

I thought the video was okay, I'm not mad that it was made but cats? At least Rick Roll us with something good like an inauguration day Rick Roll. Anyway, Michael is freak out because not many people share his opinion about the video, or President Obama (and probably all Democrats).

Pete says "This is great, it makes me more secure knowing that at least one person in Congress has a sense of humor. And talk about viral - they got you to post about it."

Michael says "this is not great. this is f’d up. and the Speaker of the House isn’t supposed to be thinking about ways to create viral videos. She’s supposed to be running our country."

Quick note: Barack Obama will actually be running the country, not Nancy Pelosi.

Michael says "every single one of you should have your right to vote revoked."

Michael says "we [TechCrunch] don’t lead the free world, control trillions in spending and manage the largest military establishment in the history of mankind. we’re a blog."

It's just a video Michael!

WordPress and plugins for a new blog

Saturday, January 10th 2009 at 12:05 am

I've started a couple new blogs in the past few months, but I've always used my custom-build content management system on all my blogs. In the past week I've seen so many neat plugins for WordPress, I figured it was finally time to give it a shot.

I haven't spent very much time looking at themes, but right now I'm using VectorLover from Theme Lab. I'm going to do some editing or maybe look for a new theme soon. Let's move on to plugins.

I'm sure I'll find more great plugins, and I'll update this list each time I do. These are the ones that got most of the features I had on my own CMS, in WordPress.

Akismet. This comes with WordPress and you should activate it right away, nobody likes spam comments.

All in One SEO Pack by Michael Torbert. This lets you customize the way your titles are displayed, and optimized your whole website for SEO.

Contact Form 7 by Takayuki Miyoshi. A simple Ajax-based web contact form.

FireStats by Omry Yadan. I use Google Analytics too, but I love stats so I installed this one too.

Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachhold. Generates a valid sitemap that automatically updates everytime you add a new post.

RSS Footer by Joost de Valk. This lets you put copyright information and links back to your website, in your RSS feed. This is great to thwart content scrapers, or at least get a backlink in the worst case.

Tweet Stats by Improving The Web. Tracks all tweets with a link to your website and adds them as comments. You can also add widgets to your sidebar that shows your top tweeted content.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin by Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine. Scans your articles for related content and adds a related posts section to the bottom of your articles. You can also add related posts to your RSS feed.

These are the plugins that got WordPress blog up and running, while keeping look and feel of the pre-WordPress design. I must say I like WordPress a lot, the plugins and themes are very easy to install and configure, and you really have control over everything. I might convert some of my other sites to WordPress, but only time will tell.

Christmas present from WidgetBucks

Monday, December 22nd 2008 at 4:12 pm

I'm starting to take some time off work this week for Christmas. So while I was getting ready for my Christmas trip today I found a nice surprise in my mailbox from the WidgetBucks team. A Starbucks gift card and a nice Christmas card!

I used my gift card an hour after I got it, and I got a nice peppermint coffee for free to start my day off, it was fantastic. My gift card was worth $5, and while that might not seem like a lot it's perfect to get a free cup of coffee, and their have tons of publishers to take care of.

I'm not sure if they gave gift cards to all their publishers, but I really appreciate the card and the nice thoughts from their team. Last Christmas they sent me a a nice box of chocolates and a WidgetBucks t-shirt. These guys really know how to make their publishers feel wanted, and their customer support backs that statement up.

Google launches customized results

Thursday, November 20th 2008 at 10:12 pm

While searching Google tonight, I notice a couple icons next to every one of my search results. An green "up arrow", and a red "x". Google says "When possible, Google will customize your search results based on location and/or recent search activity. Additionally, when you're signed in to your Google Account, you may see even more relevant, useful results based on your web history".

So if you search for "Weed Pictures", and you scroll down and see the 5th result, ChronicFile.com, and you think that should be your first result, just hit the green up arrow.

If you hit the green up button, it will move that search results to the number one spot. Then when you search for "SEARCH" in the future, your search results should be the same. If you "delete" a search result, it will fall to the bottom of all the other search results. You can always un-delete any results you've deleted in the past.

Remember, these are personal customized results, and as far as we know your votes will not affect the search results of anybody else using Google. Although Google might use that information to tweak SERP int he future.

Bashing bloggers without a cause

Saturday, October 11th 2008 at 1:50 pm

I was going through my RSS feeds today and I found an interesting blog post from Shivanand Sharma as BinaryTurf.com. He went into a rant about how Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.net is basically scamming his visitors and putting out ... bad advice just to make money. He complained that there's no about page (lie), no vision for his website (lie) and no frontpage (lie). I mean it only took me 30 seconds to find these links so I'm not sure how Shivanand missed them.

He also said he was going to remove the bloggeries post within 24 hours "for obvious reasons", which I have a real problem with. If you're going to bash somebody like this, either have the balls to keep your opinion up, or shut up.

Right after I tried to leave a comment on his blog, the post was removed. Luckily there's this cool "cache" feature in most browsers that let me retrieve his post and share it with you. Click the picture below to see the full screenshot.

As far as his claim about taking advantage of unsuspecting visitors, how is this any different than any ad displayed on any other website? Bloggers are trying to make a living doing what they love, and Darren is no different. If a user happens to buy a camera through his website, why shouldn't he get a cut? If this truly was a spam website, people wouldn't keep coming back to visit his blog, but they do, and Darren isn't forcing them to come back.

Not every website on the internet has to be exactly the same. Give Darren credit for coming up with a unique design that keeps his readers interested.And if you're going to post something like this, don't get scared and remove the post. Have the balls to stand by what you said and what you believe.

Update: The post is back online.

A one year review of WidgetBucks

Saturday, August 16th 2008 at 11:05 am

I was going through some of my old writing and I found a few stories I never posted, and this is one of them. A sort of "guest post" by the old me. I am expanding on it as well to include current and relevant information.

WidgetBucks is a new advertising company that was launched back in October of 2007. They've exploded onto the scene faster than any advertising company in recent memory, so much so that they exceeded their 6-month goals in less than one month. At a time when AdSense is reducing their clickable areas, webmasters are looking for new sources of income. The question is, will WidgetBucks live up to the hype?

Like most people, I was hesitant to replace AdSense and private ad sales for WidgetBucks positions. I didn't know if they would actually pay better, or if I would even get paid. I replaced one ad unit with WidgetBucks half-way through October, and a week later I had replaced two or three AdSense units with WidgetBucks units on a few different websites I run.

I heard a lot of people complaining in the first two months. They said things like "they pay too much per click, I bet nobody will get checks, it's a scam" and "They banned me for earning too much money and now they won't pay me, scam". Needless to say, this didn't make webmasters feel very secure in switching over to WidgetBucks. I had my doubts, but I was never worried about not getting paid. Two months after I joined, I got my first WidgetBucks check for over $1,000.

The reason people were complaining about WidgetBucks being a scam and being banned and such, is because they abused the service. AdSense would have banned them for using the same tactics. These webmasters probably knew that, but decided to go black-hat with a new advertising company. Then they complain and call it a scam when they get banned.

My personal results for October were a lot better than I expected. The clicks and the CPC were high, and usually very steady. And even though I started using WidgetBucks halfway through October, I still earned as much as I earned with AdSense the entire month of October. This means I now had the potential to (at least) double my income.

Unfortunately, as the months progressed, WidgetBucks made changes to their algorithm. Clicks that earned me 50 cents in October were only earning me 30 cents by January, and those same clicks continued to fall in value over time. Three months ago, I finally started replacing my WidgetBucks units with CPM advertising companies. I still have one WidgetBucks unit on every one of my websites, but I only earn about $100 from WidgetBucks today, down from over $1,000 just a year ago.

If you've never tried WidgetBucks before, there's absolutely no reason not to try it. The widgets tend to do better on certain websites, and you might just have one of those websites. When I signed up I thought I might make an extra $100 or so a month, but it started at over $1,000 a month. But even if it was only $100 a month, that's money you wouldn't have made with AdSense.

My suggestion is to sign up with WidgetBucks and add one unit to your website. Test it for a month and see if the extra income is worth the extra ad. Don't let my lack of results discourage you. If you have a niche website related to WidgetBucks advertising categories, this could be a gold mine for you.

Sign up for WidgetBucks, just click here.

Weekend link love

Monday, August 11th 2008 at 7:29 pm

I know it's not really the weekend anymore, but I hope you'll forgive me. As you may have heard, I sold Best Pic Ever on Friday, and I've been working this weekend to get everything moved over and finish the deal. I also went to a killer Tech N9ne concert, so it's been an extremely busy weekend. Here are your links!

Adsense Myths and Cures goes over the biggest AdSense rumors, and tells you why they're not true.

Huge collection of Google Analytics tips.

SEO and server-related issues goes over important reasons to have a good server when you optimize for SEO and current event sniping.

Things to consider before buying a laptop.

How to get to the front page of Digg from ProBlogger.

Extremely effective link building method, so effective he can't believe it's not blackhat, but I can. It's a good read.

That's it for this week.

The nerve of some people

Wednesday, August 6th 2008 at 8:36 pm

As you might have noticed, I have a Sitepoint ticker in my sidebar showing bids for a website I'm currently selling. It's been there for three days, but today I started getting emails and messages asking why I'm selling the same website on Digital Point for 1/10th the price. I know I didn't post it for sale there, so I cruise over and do a quick search, and find this thread.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=8768604

Some tosser copied the auction from Sitepoint, word for word, and put it up "for sale" for $1,500. Hilarious considering the current bid is $6,000. I posted a message on the thread and reported the user. The Digital Point mods closed the thread already, I wish they would just delete it. But at least you get a chance to see it now.

I was pretty mad, but they closed it down pretty quickly, but how stupid do you have to be to do something like this. Let me know what you think about this, I'm done venting.

How we started working for ourselves

Monday, August 4th 2008 at 3:52 pm

I often wonder what it took for other freelancers and work-from-home bloggers to get started. It's not easy quitting your day job to work for yourself, but that big step makes for a great story. Apparently I'm not the only one who's curious about this either. Sharon started a group writing project themed "getting our blogging start". So here's our story.

Before I start, this story is the same for both me and Justin, we worked at the same place, quit at the same time and still work together. So when I say me, I mean we (except where I say we).

I was a server at a restaurant for about four years before I quit to work for myself. I always wanted to start my own business, but I was young and didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. After a few years of serving I couldn't take it anymore, and I had to find something else. I also have a problem with authority and I hate taking orders from other people.

In the first seven months of 2007, we started building websites and promoting them. Anything to get some sort of passive income going while we kept our day jobs for money. Things started very slowly, and I got discouraged a few times. "Maybe I can't make a living online after all". It just felt like I didn't have enough time to make websites, promote them enough to make money, and keep working my day job. That's probably why it took me seven months instead of say, three.

At the beginning of June, 2007, we were making about $100 a day doing freelance web design work, passive income on our blogs, and other random computer work. It might not sound like a lot, but working as much (or little) as I want, and getting paid on days I take off, I was satisfied enough to quit my day job! June 16, 2007, I gave my boss two weeks notice and didn't look back. In August 2007, we sold one of our more popular websites for $2,000 which gave us "that feeling". The one you get when you make a risky choice, and you know it's going to pay off.

We built our business on a few picture blogs that grew tremendously in the last year. The income we earned from those blogs gave us the freedom to start growing our real business. Twins of Tech web design and programming. We're still young as far as freelance "work for yourself at home"-ers are concerned, but we're doing well. The first year was so exciting, filled with tons of ups and downs. I can hardly wait to see what the next year brings.

Share your story about how you got your blogging start.

Weekend link love

Sunday, August 3rd 2008 at 8:47 pm

The weekend is winding down, and it's time for this week's link love. Here are my favorite articles from this week.

5 ways to make money without ads. This is a great read for anybody who runs a website.

Organizing all your email accounts with GMail. I personally have 10 different email addresses for my different websites, and it's great managing them all from one place.

Twitter vs Plurk. The debate of which is better.

110 websites that will make you money. A giant list of advertising and affiliate networks.