We let the members pick, and they voted he jump in a lake. Considering we’re in Canada, that’s literally a cool proposition. Here’s the video of his leap:

Thanks to everyone for participating!

Let’s prove this point with a small, real life case study.

At the start of November I launched a contest to promote our new buzz section. We gave away a bunch of prizes, including an early bird draw for Twitter users only. This is where things get sticky.

Being a fairly web-savvy individual, I tweeted out this message on Oct 26th:

@WhyDoWork sponsoring Prize Giveaway: iPod Touch and $250 in Amazon gift certificates! RT to win early-bird prize! http://bit.ly/1WdeR5

By the time the contest rolled around (Nov 1st) , we had over 500 entries. Since the twitter contest was an early bird prize, that was drawn and announced on October 31st. While the tweet didn’t specifically note the deadline (lack of space), the link at the time (and for about a week after) did.

Since the contest ended, we have had over 5,000 new entries.

People have been keeping the message going for the past 16 days.

It kind of reminds me of the wave going around at a stadium. Clever when it starts and even better once everyone is on board. Eventually though, an event in the game distracts the crowd and the wave dies.

The sheer amount of noise on twitter is preventing this little wave from dying out.  No one is being distracted by anything of value to draw them away and there is way too much going on to know that the contest has even ended.

Twitter works for it’s users because it’s easy to fire off 140 character messages at a road-runners pace without concern for the value, let alone correctness of the message. Users are just one person, throwing their hands up in the wave. Everyone is seeing the text “win an iPod”, but no one actually takes the time to visit the link to see if it’s even relevant.

Two lessons:

1. If you’re one of the 5,000 tweeting about this contest that’s been over for 16 days, it’s time to figure out how much you’re really getting from twitter. (hint: can’t be that much)
2. If you’re a marketer, think about running a contest on twitter. Thousands of people will promote your contest for you even after it’s over.

The winners of the prizes were:

Since both Matthew (me) and cho (Joe) are admins at the site, we couldn’t win, so the prize distributions went like this:

• 8GB Apple iPod touch: Trent Brownrigg +25 (total:+42)
• $100 gift certificate at Amazon.com: WayneW +16 (total:+39)
• $75 gift certificate at Amazon.com: photomom04 +10 (total:+48)
• $50 gift certificate at Amazon.com: Zacman +8 (total:+23)
• $25 gift certificate at Amazon.com: LA Grouch +6 (total:+10)

Congrats goes out to all the winners. As admins, we did set up a little contest with the loser having to take a swim (on video of course) in Lake Ontario next weekend. Luckily I came out on top beating Joe by just +1, so I’ll be holding the camera while Joe takes the plunge. Current water temperatures in Toronto are hovering around 50F, so hopefully it keeps cooling down this week!

Letting this system run for a while, we implemented a graphing feature to track member reputation. Here’s a graph of the top users in the last week:

• 8GB Apple iPod touch
• $100 gift certificate at Amazon.com
• $75 gift certificate at Amazon.com
• $50 gift certificate at Amazon.com
• $25 gift certifcate at Amazon.com

Get started on making some quality posts now for your chance to win!

Yesterday, WhyDoWork.com was taken down by a group of hackers.  We were the next target on their list after crashing a large children’s website where the main page was replaced with some choice profanities. This particular group seeks out programming flaws and exploit websites, their only reward being a few insignificant praises from their community and knowing that the websites hacked will likely take a closer look at security.

Hackers are almost always your stereo typical computer tough guy.  Unless you can rationalize vandalism then you aren’t going to be able to rationalize their behavior, so don’t bother.  Anyone who has been a victim of any type of crime knows the frustration and anger that accompanies it.  In the real world your first reaction is to inform the police, but this is the Internet.  So what do you do?

Prevent

1. Have Your Server on Guard – Make sure your hosting provider has some type of firewall software running.  If you are very large you may even want load balancers and other hardware to handle DOS attacks.
2. Know How to Code – Make sure your programmers are preventing against SQL injection, the most common type of attack.  Any time external data is used in a query it needs to be cleaned up and special characters removed.
3. Stay Up To Date – If your site is powered by a piece of software it needs to be upgraded as new releases are published.  Once a flaw is found it becomes publicly known.  You want to ensure you stay on top of all security fixes.

Plan

1. Backups – Ensure both your site and database are backed up on your server and remotely.  You need to be equipped to grab those backups and have them restored quickly.  Note: Most hosting providers do not automatically provide a backup service, this is something you should look into.  If you are unable to restore the site yourself you should ensure you have access to a support team to handle the task 24/7.
2. Passwords – Make sure the password you use is different everywhere.  This is very important so don’t get lazy here.  You will want your db, server and user accounts to have different passwords.  The first thing a hacker will do once they find one password is test whether it works everywhere (including your personal email).
3. Encryption – Ensure your user’s passwords or any highly sensitive information be encrypted in the database.  This way, even if your database is exposed the hackers cannot exploit your users.

React

1. Reach out to the Hackers – Hackers take pride in their work, keep that in mind while you deal with them.  Don’t try and fight with them, its a losing battle  If you try and cooperate they may tell you how your site was exposed.
2. Restore – Obviously the first thing you want to do is kick off a site restoration procedure.  Even if only your database seemed to be exposed you may want to restore an old code base to ensure nothing was secretly modified.
3. Fix the Problem – You need to find the security hole and plug it.  Count on the hackers installing back door access to your site.  Find that and remove it as well.
4. Change Your Passwords – This one should be obvious but you want to change all passwords to your site, as well as potentially your personal email and other accounts if they were the same.
5. Assure Your Members – Be honest about the attack.  If private data was exposed the important thing to do would be to inform your members so they can protect themselves.  If there is nothing to be concerned about, let them know that.  They will be wondering what happened and whether the site can still be trusted.

Report

1. Report to the FBI – Here is a link to the Internet Crime Complaint Center: http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx
2. Email their hosting provider - Try running a report on http://network-tools.com/ for the domain where the attack came from.  Often you will see an email address from their hosting provider where malicious behaviour can be reported (ie: abuse@hostingprovider.com).  With some luck these guys will shut the site down at least temporarily.

If you have any other tips please share!

This graph should be a real eye opener:
Working at home is a viable option, and for most they are running a zero-employee business (what some might call a side or part time project).

When people ask me if they should quit their full time jobs to pursue an online business dream I usually say no. Why? In most cases it’s not totally necessary. Working full time, and starting your project on the side can let you test the waters, figure out how viable your business is, and give you a steady stream of income from your full time job while you test the waters of working on your dream.

If you do a search for data entry jobs on WhyDoWork.com, you’ll find hundreds of legit positions. Many of our listings are powered by the popular freelance site oDesk.com. If you’ve never seen oDesk Trends (my favorite tool on their site) you can easily figure out what skills are in demand, what jobs are on the rise, and where you might fit in.

Check out their volume of data entry postings coming into last month:

Data entry work is out there gang, you just need to know the tools available!

Sometimes I am astounded at how far the Internet has come in a such a short time. Back when I was growing up in the old days of the late 80s, we had a bound publication called an “atlas” that gave a high level details of the earth as a whole.
Credit to Lando Tanaki for finding and submitting the image above

On that line of thought, maybe the paid review industry has come and gone? The more I browsed the site more funky links and out of date information I found. Paid links are a tremendous problem for search engines. Paid reviews, (which often include paid links) are an even bigger problem. I know Google et al. have been doing their best to try and squash these kinds of networks, maybe it’s finally working?

I put together a collection on the site today of the add-ons I recommend, and the add-ons I personally use and install on all the computers I own. From monitoring competitors traffic, to improving the search experience, to diagnosing slow page load times, it’s all here in one easy to grab package. This collection absolutely improves my effectiveness online and makes my days more productive.

If you’d like to get it (all free), you can download it here:
Entrepreneurs Toolbox