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After a very long travel (a ferry and two flights, one of them being 12.5 hours), I finally arrived in the Philippines. For the past few days I’ve been staying at my lola’s house (grandmother). In an hour we will be traveling up north to do some sightseeing and visit a beach or two.

I’ve had a lot of energy here. At home, I often nap a lot and can have bouts of lethargy, but here in the Philippines I seem to have a lot more energy. During the first 3.5 days of travel I only slept a total of 1 hour (and maybe 10-minutes here and there on the plane), and now I’m only sleeping an average of 4-5 hours a night. Even with not much sleep, I still feel great though.

I’ve been sweating 24/7 here, and so I decided to weigh myself. According to the scale, I lost 5 pounds after the first day! I couldn’t believe it, and am still skeptical, but I hope it’s true. Now, I was wearing shorts as opposed to my usual jeans, but I think that would only account for 0.5-1 pound difference. It will be interesting to see if I lose any more weight by the end of the trip, or if the scale here is just wrong.

Here is a video and some photos of the outside of my lola’s house that I took early in the morning since I had only slept 1 hour and woke up before anyone else.

One of the many gazebos/huts around the house.

Catholicism in the Philippines is by far the dominant religion.

One of several fountains decorating the outside.

Another fountain, this one with some fish.

Another little gazebo hut.

A sitting area.

Some crazy looking tree that I thought looked pretty funky.

This was at my uncles place. He treated us to fresh coconut milk. It’s amazing how much liquid they can retain. Mine probably had at least 1 litre. I had to pee really bad after finishing it, lol.

I’ll have more videos and photos coming soon…

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Disclaimer: The following is a “paid plug” and was not written by me, but by the advertiser themselves. If you’re interested in purchasing a paid plug, please visit my advertising page.

If you’ve been marketing online for a while, you’ll probably have heard the power of what Twitter can do for your enterprise or Internet venture. The simple fact is that having a large volume of followers is no different than having a targeted email list to market to, which is why just about every man and his dog have jumped on the bandwagon.

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The following is a paid review for TylerCruz.com written and reviewed by Michael Kwan. It is completely of Michael Kwan’s opinion and is not influenced by being paid. If you’re interested in having your site or product reviewed, please view my advertising page.

If you happen to be a fan of Tyler Cruz’s blog, then there is a good chance that you are interested in how to make money online. By extension, there is a good chance that you are reasonably familiar with the nature of affiliate marketing and affiliate networks. Have you ever considered working from the other side of the coin?

Rather than signing up for an affiliate network so that you can run offers on your site, have you ever thought about running your own affiliate network? It may sound like an incredibly daunting and potentially expensive endeavour, but the HasOffers platform provides "a robust tracking and management software solution with no barrier to entry." The best part? It’s free, so long as you stay under one million clicks.

Building Your Own Affiliate Network

Yes, you can create your own affiliate network. HasOffers, according to the official company website, is the "first white label affiliate network solution that gives you total control, with powerful technology, complete customization, and no startup costs or monthly fees." This is a white label solution, so your affiliate network can be branded however you would like it to be.

The signup process for HasOffers is very straightforward. After filling out the basic registration form, you will receive a confirmation email. It takes about ten to fifteen minutes for your new network to be activated, and then you’ll be able to log into your custom dashboard.

For the purposes of completing this review, I set up a "dummy" affiliate network located at tylercruz.hasoffers.com. This configuration is the default (having your network as a subdomain on hasoffers.com), but you can also have it run from your own custom domain instead.

The administration panel for a HasOffers-powered affiliate network looks almost like the dashboard you would see when you log into your affiliate account elsewhere. The "snapshot" offers an at-a-glance look at your network, getting quick links, updates, and stats. From there, you can navigate to the various other areas to customize your network as needed.

Setting Up the Fundamentals

Obviously, before you can start scouting for new affiliates to sign up with your network and before you can start populating your network with affiliate offers, you need to get the fundamentals in place.

Under the "Company" tab in the user dashboard is an option to "Customize Application." The first option on the resulting page is "Change Preferences" and it is here that you can establish the basic settings for your affiliate network.

You would have already determined the network name during the registration process, but this can be altered from this screen. Also from the preferences screen, you can adjust the support email, the requirement for a W9 form, the approval process, referral program, minimum payments, and your custom domain.

As mentioned, if you are already familiar with affiliate networks from the perspective of an affiliate or publisher, then you will already be familiar with some of these details from the perspective of the network. The difference is that you are now in control.

Creating and Managing Offers

Realistically, the single greatest thing that will differentiate one affiliate network from another is the selection of affiliate offers. When you have the fundamentals in place, you will then want to populate your affiliate network with offers.

Since HasOffers is a white label solution, they are not necessarily there to help you shop for advertisers who want to use your newly formed network. That’s up to you to determine, just as it is up to staff your company (there is a section under "Company" to manage your employees).

From what I can gather, you cannot import a database of offers into your HasOffers-powered network. Instead, you must enter each offer manually. The Create Offer form provides fields for the offer name, description, preview URL, creative URL, payout type, lead caps, cookie lifespan, conversion tracking type, and more. You can also target specific countries and browsers.

Based on this Create Offer form, I do not see an area where you can upload and supply your affiliates with ad banners, email creatives, and other marketing materials.

Customizing Your Look and Feel

Let me preface this by saying that I am neither a web designer nor a web developer, but it seems that the design elements of HasOffers are lacking.

From what I can gather, you can customize things like the logo and color scheme, but there are no obvious ways to upload information pages for your affiliates. I see an area where you can insert CSS stylesheets, but as you can see from my dummy network, there are no information pages.

How can I discuss the strengths and benefits of my network? How can I "sell" potential publishers on why they should sign up with "TC Media" over some other affiliate network? Where is the branding aside from a simple logo and customized color scheme?

And All That Administrative Stuff

HasOffers seems to offer a fairly robust administration panel where affiliate network owners (like you) can adjust and tweak their networks as needed. You can manage your offers (including offer categories and suppression lists), generate a variety of reports (including those related to your referral program), manage your affiliates and employees, deal with billing and invoices, and configure the details related to advertisers.

All of the administrative back end appears to be in place, but the front end seems to need some serious work. As I’ve already said a couple of times in this review, HasOffers is a white label solution, so it’s up to you to brand your network. However, I would have liked to see greater integration into this backend that allows for easier customization of information pages and branding.

Free for Up to One Million Clicks

HasOffers comes in two different editions.

The Pro Edition is free for up to one million clicks. With the Pro Edition, you have full access to smart tracking, live statistics, offer management, unlimited advertisers, a free subdomain, referral reports, and email support.

For $799 a month, you can upgrade to the Enterprise Edition of HasOffers. This provides you with unlimited clicks, telephone support, dedicated service resources, and a custom tracking URL. This is quite the vast discrepancy in pricing, especially when the only "main" difference is number of clicks allowed.

Should you create your own affiliate network with HasOffers? The free Pro Edition is worth giving a try, but you have to realize that is not completely free. You still have to invest in your own domain, employees, branding, and all the other things that go along with running a successful affiliate network. HasOffers only provides the software platform.

This is akin to asking if you should buy a motherboard so that you can run your eBay business. The motherboard is only one part of the puzzle, just as HasOffers is only one part of your affiliate network endeavour.

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I’ve been pitching Tracking202 Pro ever since it launched 3 months ago. Tracking your keywords in PPC affiliate marketing is essential and I don’t know anyone who is doing big numbers who isn’t tracking their keywords.

Well, now you can get Tracking202 Pro for free.

The guys are Tracking202 are currently looking for moderators for their forum and are giving the following benefits to those who they accept:

• You get Tracking202 Pro for free so you don’t have to pay monthly fees or per click fees. You only need to cover API cost if you use Google
• You get the first chance to beta test new 202 software or tools before release
• All newly appointed moderators will get $100 in AdWords advertisement credits

To apply, e-mail Aaron at aaron@tracking202.com with your:

1. Name and email
2. Summary of who you are and your experience in affiliate marketing
3. Experience using Tracking202, Prosper202, and Tracking202 Pro
4. Experience moderating other forums (if any)
5. Statement how can you contribute to the 202 community
6. Explanation on why you want to be a 202 moderator

Now, obviously you’re going to have to have some affiliate marketing knowledge and/or moderating and administrating experience, but your chances of getting accepted as a moderator are pretty good if you do.

This is a great way for those of you who want to use a premium PPC keyword/stat tracking service such as Tracking202 Pro but can’t afford it. It’s also a fantastic way to get $100 to help you get started.

Good luck!

While $500,000 in 2 months is certainly a lot, broken down that works out to an average of $8,000 a day so it’s certainly not unachievable. In fact, I know a number of people who could easily do that.

June was a really good month for PublisherChallenge, and site members have generated $129,754.16 so far. That puts the site on pace to hit and exceed the one million dollar mark ($1,000,000) next month in July! Once that milestone gets hit, my next one will be for $10,000,000.

We have 2 new competitions that start in a few days and the prizes are absolutely awesome.

The first is being run on PeerFly, which is their 4th competition on PublisherChallenge in a row, and the other is by CPARev, which is their 2nd in a row.

PeerFly’s Summer Challenge

PeerFly is back with their 4th competition in a row, proving that they’re here for the long run and that by signing up with then you can expect them to run future competitions as well. They have already given away over $13,000 in prizes to PublisherChallenge winners.

In my last PublisherChallenge update, a commenter named Sebastian told me that he was a larger affiliate who could push big numbers but that the VIP prizes weren’t quite big enough to really excite him to compete for them. After a couple exchanges back and forth, we came up with the idea to run the competition for a longer period of time so that we could give out better prizes.

I’m always open to constructive criticism, and so we’re running PeerFly’s Summer Competition for 2 months from July 1st, 2009 to August 31st, 2009, and are literally doubling up all the prizes.

You can find out more information about PeerFly’s Huge Giveaway here.

Here is a quick rundown of the prizes:

Main Prize Category

• 1st Place – Samsung 52-Inch 1080p 240Hz LCD HDTV
• 2nd Place – 2.53GHz 13-Inch MacBook Pro
• 3rd Place – 2.13GHz White 13-inch MacBook
• 4th Place – PlayStation 3 Rock Band 2 Package
• 5th Place – Canon Rebel XS 10.1MP Digital SLR Camera

New Signup Prize Category

• 1st Place – 16GB iPod Touch
• 2nd Place – $100 Cash

VIP Prizes

• $50,000.00 – $99,999.99 VIP Tier – 17-inch 2.8GHz Macbook Pro Package
• $100,000.00 – $99,999.99 VIP Tier – VIP Vegas Trip for Two for 4 Nights
• $200,000.00 – $299,999.99 VIP Tier – ZERO-G Weightless Experience
• $300,000.00 – $399,999.99 VIP Tier – Epic VIP Vegas Trip for Two for a Full Week
• $400,000.00 – $499,999.99 VIP Tier – 2009 Honda Accord Coupe
• $500,000.00+ VIP Tier – 2010 Honda Acura TSX

PeerFly has continued to offer the best VIP prizes. I really want somebody to win one of the bigger VIP tiers as it’d be awesome to send somebody to experience weightlessness or give them a true VIP Las Vegas trip.

It’s also the first time PublisherChallenge has ever offered cars as prizes. While a Porche is out of the budget, a 2010 Honda Acura TSX is nothing to scoff at.

PeerFly takes really tight margins on their offers so chances are they can meet or beat whatever payout you’re getting anywhere else.

CPARev’s July Challenge

CPARev has returned to PublisherChallenge with a bang by putting up an even larger prize pool than their first contest. There is now $4,000 worth of prizes for the Main Prize category, and as usual, there is no minimum prerequisite required.

While PeerFly may have the better VIP Prizes, CPARev has the better Main Category prizes.

You can find out more information about CPARev’s Affiliate Challenge here.

Here is a quick rundown of the prizes:

Main Prize Category

• 1st Place – Upgraded 13-Inch MacBook Pro
• 2nd Place – 2.13 GHz White 13-inch MacBook
• 3rd Place – Sony PlayStation 3 80 GB
• 4th Place – Canon Rebel XS 10.1MP Digital SLR Camera
• 5th Place – Amazon Kindle 2

New Signup Prize Category

• 1st Place – $125 Cash
• 2nd Place – $75 Cash

VIP Prizes

• $50,000.00 – $74,999.99 Tier – MacBook Air and Canon Office Printer
• $75,000.00 – $99,999.99 Tier – 2.8GHz 17-inch MacBook Pro
• $100,000.00 – $199,999.99 Tier – Sony Bravia 52-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
• $200,000.00 – $399,999.99 Tier – VIP Vegas Trip for Two for 4 nights
• $400,000.00+ VIP Tier – ZERO-G Weightless Experience

Your chances of winning a great prize are actually really good and I’m not just saying that. For example, in the current CPARev contest, and with only 4 days left, 4th place is currently only at $379.15 and 5th place at $144.00. If things fare the same in July, that means if you generate an average of $5 a day you could win an Amazon Kindle 2 ($359 value).

Good Luck!

Anyhow, check out these two competitions and I hope to see you on the leaderboards soon!

As some readers know, I’m actually half Filipino, and so I’m going to see a lot of my relatives that I’ve never met before including my aunt, grandma (who just turned 90), and about 4,023 cousins. I went to Korea by myself for a bit over a month when I was 19, but I’ve never been to the Philippines before.

My return flight is set for 13 days later, but I might extend the trip by a week depending on how backlogged I get in work, how easy it is to find fast Internet access, and how homesick I get. I think the penalty for changing the return flight is only around $300 or so… I’ve never cancelled or changed a flight before so if somebody knows roughly how much it’d cost to extend my stay, I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts.

Where I’m Going

I do not know the plan perfectly, but I’ll be in Baliuag for a couple days to start, as that is where my Lola (grandma) and relatives live. After that, my immediate family is travelling to the northern tip of the Philippines to Vigan.

Here are a couple random photos of the the Philippines I grabbed from a quick Google Image search:

As you can see, the Philippines is a real tropical country.

My Transportation & Bodyguard

As in most poor Asian countries, the Philippines has some crazy types of transportation. When I’m travelling with my family we will be in a SUV, but the majority of the time I will most likely either be in a weird type of small car or “tricycle” which is a common type of taxi there.

I’ll be in the sidecar, lol.

I’ll be hiring a 24/7 driver while I’m there, and possibly a full-time bodyguard as well. I’m thinking of giving him my cameras so that he can be my cameraman as well. I wonder if some locals might think I’m some type of celebrity with a cameraman following me everywhere, lol.

Here’s a video of the downtown area in Baliuag, Bulcan which is close to where I’ll be staying for the first 2-3 days:

Limited Internet Access

I’ve been told that there are a lot of Internet cafés in the Philippines, but I doubt it’s as widespread as in Korea. Hopefully though, I’ll be able to attend one regularly so that I can keep up with my work and take care of any important business that can’t wait until I return.

Depending on the Internet connection speed there (I think most places still don’t have high speed yet), I may not be able to upload any videos. In fact, I doubt I will, especially since I just got a brand new expensive HD video camera and my videos will probably 500 megs each, so I may just post some photos or else I’ll wait until I return to post my videos.

Web Entrepreneur Meetup

Depending on my schedule and how things pan out, I might be meeting up with 1-2 acquaintances I know in the Philippines. If you live near Baliuag, are making money online, and are interested in meeting up, let me know and maybe we can arrange something.

It’s Balut Time

For those pinoys out there, I’ll be trying Balut for the first time and will be filming the experience as well, so be sure to watch out for that, lol.

Originally, I was going to process the payroll all by myself, do all the calculations and paperwork, and remit the income taxes to the CRA (Canadian Revenue Agency) every paycheck.

I was very stressed about having to set it up and how much time it would take to process manually every 2 weeks, so I posed the following question to my readers: “Does anyone have any experience setting up a payroll through a corporation with the Canadian Revenue Agency?”.

Fortunately, a number of people responded with helpful comments. In particular, I’d like to thank Paul Piotrowski, Martin, and Brian for really pushing me to use a 3rd party payroll management service.

In Canada at least, there are basically two sources for outsourcing your payroll management needs: Ceridian and ADP. Both are absolutely massive companies and have favourable reputations behind them, but I ended up going with Ceridian (the company Paul recommended to me) because it’s Canada’s largest payroll management company and is also tied in a partnership with TD Canada Trust, which is where my corporate bank account resides.

Getting set up with Ceridian wasn’t too difficult. After speaking with a representative over the phone who answered all my questions politely, I was sent a bunch of forms via PDF which I signed, scanned, and e-mailed back.

I also had to provide important information such as documentation and proof of my company’s incorporation, a signed statement from my bank, etc. It did take a little while getting everything in order, but Ceridian employees are very tech-savvy and respond to your e-mails pretty fast so I believe my setting up process was actually finished by the next day.

The next step was to get acquainted with the Powerpay system – Ceridian’s online payroll control panel where I can manage every aspect of payroll. It came with a 100+ page PDF instruction manual which I quickly read a couple times, but for the most part it is fairly self-explanatory.

I spoke to another representative who walked me through how to submit my first payroll, and it’s really just a few steps.

Here is a screenshot of one of the screens within the Powerpay system:

Basically, I just have to log in once a month and submit my payroll. This only takes a minute, and can actually be automated if you want the same amount each month. I chose to do it by hand so I can become familiar with how it works.

I should mention that the Powerpay system is only one method of managing your payroll. You can also do it over the phone, for example.

I have my payroll set up to run once a month, and it takes the amount from my corporate bank account on the 28th and, since I set up direct deposit with my personal bank account, deposits there on the 1st. These dates may change slightly depending on whether or not they fall on a weekend or holiday.

I currently have my payroll set up to pay me $4,500 each pay period (once a month). This is the gross amount before taxes. I only need to pay myself enough to live on – the rest will stay in the corporation to take advantage of the lower tax bracket.

In Canada, in addition to the basic income tax, we also have to pay into the CPP – Canadian Pension Plan. This is forced and mandatory. The sad part is, my generation will most likely never see a dime of the CPP… our government pension plan is is not much better shape than America’s.

To make matters worse, since I am both the employer and employee, I have to pay the CPP twice! CPP is nearly 5%, so that’s 10% from the gross amount that is going down the drain.

Below is a screenshot of my first payroll summary:

As you can see, of my initial $4,500 payment, $799.91 goes as general income tax, $208.31 goes to the employee CPP, and another $208.31 goes to the employer CPP. That works out to $1,216.53 that is immediately taken off and sent to the government.

What’s left is $3,491.78.

My first payroll was sent out without any problems and withdrawn as scheduled from my corporate bank account on the 28th, as seen in the screenshot below:

The reason why it shows a debit of $5,156.18 instead of $4,500 is because there were some initial set-up fees with Ceridian. For those wondering, the actual service cost to use Ceridian is only around $25 a month once you’re set up. The set-up fee will vary as well, but I paid around $600 since I opted for a paperless feature.

On the 1st of the following month, I checked my personal bank account to see that my very first payroll payment was deposited flawlessly with the correct amount of $3,491.78.

Awesome. What I really like is that I’m free to move around money as I want. For example, if I wanted an ‘advance’ of $30,000 to buy a new car, I could process that immediately. I’m not limited to being locked into a fixed $4,500 per month.

I’m very happy I went with a 3rd party payroll management company such as Ceridian instead of doing it by myself. I have no doubt that the decision saved me countless hours of accounting work each month, and all for only around $25 a month.

So, if you’re looking to set up payroll for your company, definitely outsource it. It’s really easy once you’re set up.

I’ll spare any build-up to my final result and tell you right now that I was able to lose that last pound and make my goal weight of 195. The night before I was actually up late watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and decided to eat a second full Vietnamese meal. That late night meal actually made me gain 3 pounds overnight and so in the morning I was faced with having to lose 4 pounds! More on that in a bit.

Jonathan Volk was in a similar situation and had around 4 more pounds to lose as well, and he also just managed to just barely make the final weigh-in. While I was a bit surprised, it wasn’t too shocking. I had always thought that both he and I would make this challenge from the beginning. Internet entrepreneurs, or entrepreneurs in general tend to be very goal-oriented and will often do whatever it takes to reach their goals.

The Final 24 Hours

I had been planning for the past couple weeks that I would do my longest stretch at Westwood Lake on the final day as it always seems to cut a lot of weight.

So, in the afternoon I went out and did a full 14KM (8.7 miles) going as fast I could for the first 6 and comfortably walking the final 8. Fortunately, it wasn’t as hot as it had been recently which made things easier.

When I got home, I immediately weighed to discover that I had lost 4 pounds! That put me at 195 pounds, my goal. However, just to be safe, I didn’t eat or drink anything for several hours and did my official weigh-in then. I know that this isn’t healthy or even too safe, and wouldn’t recommend it, but I really didn’t want to screw up on my final weigh-in.

Westwood Lake Time

Date	Time	Distance	Comments
My 2007 Best Time	1:00:34	6 KM	My previous record…
April 8, 2009	1:06:00	6 KM	Feet and calves absolutely painful
April 12, 2009	1:05:33	6 KM	Feet, shins, and calves still absolutely painful
April 15, 2009	59:45	6 KM	Jogged a couple extra stretches
April 20, 2009	1:00:45	6 KM	Off my record by a minute Shins killed me
April 22, 2009	1:02:30	6 KM	Shins and calves still very painful
April 24, 2009	1:01:45	6 KM	Came close to record but couldn’t push near the end
April 26, 2009	1:03:30	6 KM	Had a very bad first 2-3 KM
April 29, 2009	59:35	6 KM	Had a fantastic first 2KM
May 4, 2009	59:07	6 KM	Had great first 3KM with lots of jogging
May 7, 2009	1:01:27	6 KM	Lots of pain in the feet and shins, very bad first half
May 9, 2009	1:01:38	6 KM	Tried hard as usual but just couldn’t set record
May 12, 2009	1:03:15	8 KM	Had severe ankle pain. Extremely frustrating
May 17, 2009	58:57	8 KM	First time trying new shoes
May 20, 2009	58:48	6 KM	Did several sprint stretches near end
May 21, 2009	59:34	10 KM	First time doing 10 KM
May 24, 2009	59:15	10 KM	Sprinted hard the final stretch but no new record
May 29, 2009	58:23	12 KM	Sprinted hard the final stretch
June 1, 2009	1:00:51	12 KM	Was so hot out. Sapped my energy all out
June 7, 2009	58:09	12 KM	Pushed myself hard final stretch
June 12, 2009	57:55	13 KM	New Record! Jogged much more in the middle area
June 18, 2009	58:50	14 KM	I was rather sleepy during my run which slowed me

(Note: Times are for first 6KM only)

Weight Loss Status

In my official final weigh-in video below you’ll notice that I’m not wearing socks. I had forgotten that I wore socks in my original weigh-in video which is why you don’t see them here. For any people concerned that my socks could add more weight, please note that my actual beginning weight was 206, not 205 (you can check the video) which should more than make up for the sockless feet. I just said 205 to make the number easier.

Before and After Photos

As with any weight loss challenge, here are my before and after photos. I wore the same shirt and pants (but forgot about the socks again).

I look pretty much identical between them, but I didn’t expect to see any visual change with a loss of only 10 pounds (4.8% of my starting weight).

Before…

After…

Although… if you compare my side portrait photos, you might be able to notice a very slight change; my shirt seems to fall a bit more naturally in the after photo whereas it clings and molds around my belly a bit more in the first photo.

I think if I lost another 10 pounds that there’d be quite a noticeable change.

I’d like to thank Jonathan Volk for participating with me in this challenge – the friendly rivalry definitely helped motivate me. I’d also like to thank MarketLeverage for sponsoring my shoes, and thank those readers who were kind enough to send me encouraging comments.

Now that this challenge is over, I actually have another challenge in the works (money related) that I plan to start around the middle of July, once I get back from my vacation, so be on the lookout for that as it should be awesome.