What am I talking about? Surf Ratios, Bonuses, Prizes, Sales, Credit Flow

Most new users to traffic exchanges think that credits are unlimited. I can just add them to your account right? Yes, but then I have to deliver. If I don’t deliver, those credits are worthless.

If you got a coupon for a free pizza, but when it came time to claim it you didn’t get a pizza for a few months, what good is it when you’re hungry now? Same concept here!

So how does credit delivery and inventory work? Well it’s OK to have some “inventory”. By inventory I mean credits in accounts. Inventory is NOT what you CAN give out, but what you HAVE to give out. It’s kind of opposite thinking. With physical goods inventory is what you have left, with this it’s what I owe.

The reason you want inventory is to have a variety of sites for viewing. If there was no inventory, there would be no sites to view, or just the same one over and over. Boring!

But too much inventory and everyone wonders why traffic isn’t being delivered, and then begin to think why bother surfing if it’ll never get delivered.

Then there is this whole expectation for a 1:1 ratio. I’m always told about how this exchange or that exchange gives 1 credit for every page viewed. Heads up, does 1 credit = 1 hit? If not, then you aren’t comparing properly to mine! Some exchanges 1 hit requires 10 or more credits!

So what happens when you are surfing a real 1:1 ratio, where you get 1 hit for every page viewed? Well it increases the inventory with every page view! What most members forget is that they get credits for their referrals surfing, and their referer gets credits for them surfing.

So you surf 100 pages, get 100 hits, and think it was just swapped right? Yeah, but your referer also got 10 hits out of that deal. Wait a minute 100 pages viewed is less than 110 hits, where’d that other 10 come from? Oh wait, no those are “IOU”s (I owe you). It’s increased inventory.

When everyone gets that same 1:1 ratio, then there is nobody to view those extra 10 pages. Then it builds, ever so slowly. So much that most people don’t notice it until it’s too late. Then the too much inventory problem comes up and it snowballs out of control.

The problem is increased every time a new exchange comes up with 0 inventory, they can afford to give out a ton of credits at the beginning because they have no sites in rotation. So then everyone expects those same bonuses at new exchanges (or more, they are bigger right so they should give out MORE!!)

Anyways - all this is to say, at StartXchange I can promise you I’ll give out as much traffic per click as possible but I’m not going to give out too much and have my exchange die a slow and fatal death. That’s how you last 8 years when others don’t ;-)

If you participated in the survey, please remember to check the email account you entered in! We have 3 more people elligable for the year upgrades but if we don’t hear back then..  =P

Anyways I bet you are curious as to what the results are. Well, I’ll do what they do on TV shows and change the subject right before the credits roll so you have to wait till next time to find out!

Introducing the 100 Credit Question.. LOL If you are following me on Twitter or Facebook you already know about this, but I have a question on my facebook page. A really easy question, and I’m going to pick a bunch of people who answer it right, and randomly give them 100 credits.

So if you haven’t yet already, follow me on Twitter and Fan me on Facebook. I’m taking the whole social networking stuff by storm!

Here’s how it works: Goto the survey below, answer *all* the questions, and enter your email at the end. Then in a few days I’ll randomly pick a couple of the respondants to win an upgrade at either StartXchange or ILoveHits. That simple. No purchase necessary and the odds of winning depend on how many reply =P

Go Survey Go!

http://twitter.com/timlinden

Just like my blog, I don’t use it to spam you. And even cooler is I’m going to try to tweet alot during the Air Show this weekend. My photography partner and I scored press passes, so we are going today for a press only showing. They mentioned getting on flights is unlikely if your following is small, BUT they didn’t say it wasn’t possible!

I do suppose though that the feedburner count being off by a LOT isn’t going to help my credability right? LOL Oh well. Anyways follow me and I’m going to try to remember to post some photos during the day from my phone. Will be fun!

PS. If you follow me, I’ll follow you automatically. If I’m not following you and you are following me, try unfollowing and then following again. Hey it might work right?

I decided to do this because most of my interviews in the past were from long term owners, so the insight you get is much different. Having someone fresh in the process of a launch brings in so much more.

This is actually a good thing though, because I didn’t really think about the questions. SO I’m opening them up for you! Post your questions for Dan below, and I’ll pick and choose the ones I want to use for my interview. Just keep them focused on the theme of launching Barbarian Hits. OH and make sure you join under me if you want me to use your question LOL =P

So there you go, Tim Linden in bright green. For those of you counting, it took a while to post it afterwards because I edited my Wordpress plugin to make inserting Youtube videos quick and easy. I just put the URL inbetween YOUTUBE tags and Wordpress does the rest.. Yeah!

Notice the about section. This guy says he’s in East Greenwich, RI. Wow! I know where that is, he lives pretty close to me so I can trust him right?

No! You see that’s a simple javascript and he’s trying to gain my trust. He probably realizes that I don’t live in East Greenwich RI, but he doesn’t care right? All he cares is that the location is close enough to me that I’ll recognize the name. And I did!

I almost fell for it too, I was about to email the guy and say hey neighbor, spam isn’t the way to go! But then I came to my senses and thought, hmm..  If he is mass spamming my blog, he’s probably not from that location. I viewed the source, and sure enough he faked it with a javascript.

So if he lied about where he lives, what about his name? Could that be a lie too? If that’s a lie, then that check from Google would be a lie too because it’s to Mike Smithson. But if he faked that, could he have faked the dollar amount on that check? You bet - it’s super easy to do..

The moral of the story is to use common sense, and if you don’t have it, ask someone who does. I know we all want to trust others, we want to believe that it’s our neighbor and we’re helping him provide for his wife and daughter. But it’s all made up, to get you to join and pay him money.

So if you keep falling for scams, or joining programs that seem to mysteriously fail all the time, maybe it’s time to ask someone else you know & trust to screen the programs before you join. It can sound silly, but some people are really good at spotting lies, and others aren’t.

Oh, by the way.. That wasn’t my house either..  It was a $500,000 house I found a listing for online. You can find photos of ANYTHING online. Someone posts photos of their family? Oh wait, you can goto Flickr and find countless photos of families. Take your pick!

If they do post photos, tell them it’s great and you’re happy for them. But don’t think for one second that boosts their credability. It should have no bearing on your decision whether they live close to you, or have a family, or look friendly. Look at their track record, look at what they are selling you, look at what matters!

Anyways, I’ll post more insight on this tomorrow. I know you all want content to do with business and what not, and this plays a key role in it all, but I’ll wait till tomorrow to show you how. What do you think?

Note: This post was all made up. Click here to see why.

Well, sadly it seems the majority of my spam is from people who’ve asked me for help in the past. It seems they think asking me for help, me helping them, then means they get to spam me for eternity. No unsubscribe link, not even a real list many using the TO: field which only increases spam.

This is just wrong guys. You don’t get to spam everyone you email. If you don’t have their permission, they can’t be on your list. I’ve got 15 emails from one person alone!

Needless to say these people are being put on the block list, and next time they ask for help they’ll never receive a reply. I’ll never even see their question. It’s sad, but I don’t have time to delete 15 emails from every person who asks me for help.

But hopefully soon it’ll all get fixed up right. So if you are wondering why I’m not doing XYZ it’s because of that right there. I’m having to turn down JV offers and all that fun stuff because I can’t keep track of where a pen is so I will forget about launch dates. And I do have the normal todo list somewhere in one of those boxes…

But hey, at least someone is enjoying the messy office!