V7N Contextual Links -- No Disclosure Allowed

A couple of days I read about V7N Contextual Links (sorry, I can't remember where I read about them) and signed up to see what it was all about. Essentially, you submit your blogs, and advertisers pay you for links. The links don't have to be in posts about the site you're linking to, although there should be a broad connection. For example, if a car dealership was paying you for a link, you could put it in any post (even an old post) about cars, car sales, etc.



So today I got my first "Link Placement Request." Interestingly, they run the whole thing through the V7N Forum, so the "placement request" came in the form of an email notification that I'd received a private message at the forum. The message told me which blog the link was to be placed in, the URL for the link, and a few instructions. All I had to do was write the post (if I didn't have an old post that would do the trick), then reply to the PM with the URL of the post, and I'd have $10 in my Paypal account within 24 hours. Sweet!



Except for one problem. The last sentence in the instructions was "Publishers MAY NOT disclose the fact that the link is paid." No disclosure. It's not an option. In fact, it's forbidden. Which means I won't be doing it.



Apparently for a lot of people, this is old news. Darren at ProBlogger talked about V7N Contextual a couple of months ago. I must've missed it. Too bad, because if I'd read his review, I wouldn't have signed up for it in the first place. The no-disclosure thing makes it something I don't really want to get involved with.



And it got me thinking more about the "paid content" companies I am involved with, like PayPerPost, Blogitive and ReviewMe. With those posts, I always disclose that they're sponsored posts. And I try to make sure the sponsored posts fit reasonably well into the general themes and subjects of the blog I'm posting them on (although I'll admit that sometimes it's a bit of a streeeeeeeetch). And I don't accept offers where I'm not free to say what I want -- positive, negative, or neutral.



And I can see the "product placement" comparison. V7N doesn't require a review, or a testimonial or anything. No opinion or commentary required. Just a link. Then they pay you for the link, on the condition that you don't tell anybody you've been paid for including it.



It also got me thinking about the Amazon Context Links. I don't disclose that each of those links is an affiliate link. I don't even create the links myself. I let Amazon do it. So why does that feel OK, while the thing with V7N doesn't? I guess it's because I figure anybody seeing one of those links knows that it's an affiliate link. There's nothing sneaky about it (is there?), but with V7N, I feel like there is something sneaky going on. And sneaky doesn't really fit in with what this blog is all about -- making money online without having to get involved in a bunch of sneaky or shady stuff.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Posting With ScribeFire

You might've noticed the "Powered by ScribeFire" link in my last post. It's there because I just downloaded and installed the ScribeFire blog editing extension for Firefox.



Which means when I visit a page I want to blog about, I can right-click and select "Blog this page" from the Scribefire contextual menu, and the the browser window is split, so that I can type my blog post in the bottom half, and still see the page I'm blogging about in the top half. Very handy!



In addition to a blog post editor, there's also some pretty cool tools instantly available at the click of a button. "Page Tools" gives you Technorati-related info about the page you're blogging (like which other blogs have linked to the page, etc.), and "Bookmarks" lets you add del.icio.us tags. And clicking on "Publishing Options" lets you do a bunch of different things -- post as a draft, add Technorati tags, bookmark the post at del.icio.us using the same tags, and adding any TrackBack URLs you want to ping. Oh, and you don't even have to use it to create a blog post; you can also use it to take notes, which is great if you see something that you want to blog about later.



Setting it up to work with Blogger was no problem, and it says it also works with Wordpress, Drupal, MoveableType, TextPattern, Roller, LiveJournal, Windows Live Spaces, Performancing and Jeeran. Or it can be manually configured to work with other blog platforms.



They got a bit more work to do on it, but so far I'm liking it a lot.



If you want to try it, you can download it from Mozilla's Firefox Add-ons site.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Interview with PayPerPost's Dan Rua

After following a link from Slashdot, I just read ValueWiki's interview with Dan Rua, one of the venture capitalists backing PayPerPost.



I was intrigued by what he had to say about bloggers being paid for "positive tone" posts:

If you think of every other advertising medium, marketers are used to paying for the specific message they want, including sponsor-written copy. For example, Tiger Woods doesn’t get paid to discuss pros and cons of the new Buick. With that in mind, it still surprises me how many advertisers follow Ted’s advise to go open-tone or neutral - but most of them do.

I can definitely see where he's coming from. But at the same time, I'm still not comfortable with accepting PPP opps that require a positive tone.



I also like what he said about the potential of PayPerPost for people who are interested in making money online:

Just as eBay PowerSelling created an entirely new cottage industry, I see PPP changing people’s lives for the better.

I agree with that, and I think people who want to make a little extra cash should be selling stuff on eBay and blogging and/or building websites, and sponsored blogging programs like PayPerPost, ReviewMe, Blogitive, SponsoredReviews, etc. can be one way to bring in some of that cash.

Powered by ScribeFire.

5StarPromotions Closing Down

Bad news from the owner of 5StarPromotions and NoBannerZone:

As some of you may have read on your Member page, I have been on bed rest for the last four days. I went to the Doctor on Monday and again on Wednesday, and have been diagnosed with a chronic, debilitating disease that has no cure - the good news is it is not fatal. This is in addition to Stenosis, and Spondylitis that causes my dizziness and blackouts. This disease will involve days that I will not be able to do anything. Knowing how things get posted on a lot of forums I will not be going into any more details or naming this disease. I was told that I have to remove as much stress from my life as possible, and make some other life changes. One of those changes is to close 5 Star and NBZ.

Running a Paid to site is not something you can do a couple times a week. Even while I was on bed rest I spent some time on the computer to make sure that there was no viruses or adult content on the hit exchange, and to see if there were any major problems that needed taking care of. Even though Angie was listed as the point of contact, people were still sending me support emails. The get well emails were very much appreciated.

I have closed the signup pages on 5Star and NBZ, and am closing both sites within the next week. I have already started making payments. Once a payment is made the account will be deleted. I am waiting for payments from a few affiliate payments, so all payments will not be made before the sites are closed. E-gold payments are going to take a while, due to the fact that I have to find and purchase some. I have recent upgrades and advertising purchases to refund to some Members. I can not give exact dates for the completion of payments as I have no control over the time frame for the income.

I feel like I am letting you down by closing the sites, but I don’t want to sell the sites and be another program owner that sold your information, and I can’t leave the sites up and randomly disappear for days. After I get all the payout information exported and the member data deleted, I am considering selling the scripts. I have set up a contact email for anyone that wants to contact me after the sites are closed, Contact xxx@.com. (Remove the blank spaces to send me an email)

It has been a pleasure working with you. Perhaps things will change, and I will be able to work with you again.

Lia

That's a real bummer. 5StarPromotions was one of the few Paid to Read programs where I'm still an active member. Lia has served as a shining example of how PTR owners should conduct their businesses. She was honest and extremely professional and never succumbed to the "follow the herd" or "plague of locusts" mentality that most PTR owners seem to suffer from.

It goes without saying that managing her health is FAR more important than anything else, but if at some point Lia decides she'd like to get involved in the PTR industry again, I hope she does. Maybe not as a PTR owner, but as a consultant or in some other capacity that wouldn't involve as much time and energy as running her programs required.

Take care, Lia. You will be missed.

Tags: Paid to Read, PTR

Amazon Associates Get Context Links

Amazon Associates can now have Context Links on their websites or blogs. Context Links are automatically created, as long as you've added the javascript code that activates them. So when the Context Links Megabrain sees a word or phrase in your content that matches something Amazon wants to sell, it automatically creates a link to that product. And if a visitor hovers over the link, a little mini-window opens up to show them the product. Like this:It's hard to see in that screenshot, but the link is double-underlined. Associates can also use regular underlined links or dashed underline links, and they can customize the colors of the mini-window to fit in with their color scheme. They can also limit the parts of the page where the links can appear. For example, I've only allowed links in the body of each post, not in the sidebar. And no, it won't change your regular links into Amazon links.

I've installed the code, and will wait and see what links the Amazon Contextual Megabrain decides to add to the blog. I haven't decided if I really like the idea or not, but I figure I'll give it a chance.

Tags: Amazon, affiliate marketing, advertising, contextual ads, Context Links, Amazon Associates

The Value of Precious Metals

Disclaimer: This is a Blogitive sponsored post.

I haven't accepted any offers for sponsored posts at Blogitive before, and almost skipped this one too. But then I read the "web release" associated with this site, and the story it told hooked me enough to want to click the link and find out more about it. So I thought I'd share:

Remember when gas was only 25-cents a gallon? You could take a dollar down to the gas station and buy four gallons for a buck! At that time our dollar was backed by REAL money, real silver. Guess what? That same amount of silver still buys four gallons of gas! That just shows that real money like gold and silver holds its value and it is the green paper money that is now worth a lot less. As a matter of fact, when you think about it, you realize that gas, food, and almost everything else has NOT gotten more expensive. It only seems that way because the value of the green paper money is worth less and less and so it takes more and more of it to buy the same goods and services. Most people think prices have gone up, but in reality: it is the value of the US dollar that has actually gone down.

Now personally, I'm not old enough to remember when gas was 25 cents a gallon, but I did a bit of research, and back that was the price back in the mid-1950's. Then I did a bit more research, and found out that if you bought that gas with a silver dollar coin, or a $1 silver certificate (redeemable for a silver dollar coin), those 4 gallons of gas would cost you 0.7734 troy ounces of silver (I'm talking about real silver dollars, not the ones from the 1970's with Pres. Eisenhower on them that were made of a copper-nickel alloy). And it turns out that today 0.7734 troy ounces of silver is worth about $10 -- enough to buy 4 gallons of gas and even get back a little change!

With the price of gold at record highs, I don't know that it's the ideal time to buy a bunch of coins or gold bars or something, and I can't afford to buy the kinds of quantities they sell at Monex, but the idea of investing some of my online earnings in precious metals (even if it's in the form of old silver coins) is definitely intriguing.

Tags: gold, gold standard, gold coins, silver coins

My New tumblr Blog

Dave Weinberger says tumblr is the new Twitter. I don't know if I agree with that, but I created my own FreeCashSpace tumblr tumblelog to see if I like it.

What's a tumblelog? According to Wikipedia, it's a revival of the type of blogging that people used to back when they were called weblogs and they were more about sharing the cool stuff you found on the net. Tumblelog entries aren't supposed to be fully-developed articles, but just ideas, links, pictures, or whatever else you want to post quickly. No comments, trackbacks, or much of anything else. Just short, simple posts.

You can visit the FreeCashSpace tumblr tumblelog or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Tags: blogging, tumblr, tumblelog

FCS Blog, Now with Hot New Technorati Tags

Now that I've switched this blog to the new version of Blogger, I can include "labels", Blogger's version of categories, for each post. And I've also added a Greasemonkey script from A Consuming Experience that lets me add Technorati tags as well. Maybe a little redundant, but I'll give it a shot and see if I like it.

I've also just discovered that Blogger hasn't been pinging Technorati when I post, like it says it does. I checked my Blogger settings and they're ok, so I'm going to have to figure out what's going on, or maybe add some Technorati ping code into the blog myself.

Tags: blogtools, blogging

Paypal ATM Card

I was checking out the "virtual mall" at 5starpromotions.com, and I thought it was really smart that they let members know what payment methods the merchant accepts in the little blurb about each "store." Specifically, they let members know whether or not they can shop at that online store using Paypal. That's important for a lot of PTR members, because most of them are paid with Paypal.

But one thing to keep in mind, for US-based Paypal members anyway, is that if you get a Paypal ATM/Debit card, you can shop at any store, online or offline, that accepts Mastercard. To be eligible, you have to have a Paypal Premier or Business Account. Premier and Business accounts get charged a small fee for receiving money, so PTR members who get paid small amounts ($2.00 and under) might want to keep their Paypal personal account as well (the Paypal user agreement allows you to have one personal account and one Premier or Business account).

Since having a Paypal Premier account lets you accept credit card payments, I think everybody who sells anything online (at their own website, or through eBay or whatever) should have one. The ATM card is an added bonus, and gives you more options for buying things with Paypal.

I think having a "virtual mall" is a good idea for PTR programs, and I think it would probably be smart for the PTR owners to provide information to their members (the US members, at least) about that ATM card. It might increase their affiliate sales if they did.

Tags: PTR, Paypal

Easy Ways to Make Money Online -- Part 1

After realising that FreeCashSpace blog was about to turn 2 years old, I went back through all the posts and looked at all the different ways to make money online. I've blogged about quite a few, mainly focusing on ways to make small amounts of money as a casual online earner.

• Reward programs -- these are an easy way to earn cash back when you shop online. But they're set up to reward you for spending money, not to provide you with an extra income.
  
  
• Paid to Read Email Programs -- you can make small amounts of money from these types of sites, but again the idea is that you're being rewarded for viewing ads with the understanding that at some point you might actually buy something from an advertiser. If nobody buys anything, the advertisers go away.
  
  
• Paid Surveys -- this is a very easy way to make money online. Join a few good paid survey sites and you can probably earn a few hundred dollars a year.
  
  
• Writing Product Reviews at Epinions -- an excellent, easy and fun way to make money. And if you hurry and join and submit 10 reviews before the end of March, they'll pay you $10.
  
  
• eBay selling -- You don't have to be a professional eBay PowerSeller or anything. Just sell stuff you don't want or need and it's easy to make a few extra bucks.

Those are just a few of the ways to make money online that I've recommended over the last couple of years. I'll blog about more of them later.

Google Custom Search Engines

I was working on a new blog template the other day, and decided I wanted to add in a search box for searching the blog. I didn't want to use a Technorati search box like the one I've got on this template, so I started looking around. Turns out Google's got just the thing I was looking for. It's called Google Custom Search Engine, and so far it looks really cool.

With Custom Search Engine, you can do all sorts of things. I'm using it to search just the domain for the blog, but you can include as many different domains as you want. Or exclude certain domains. You can let other people contribute to your engine. You can choose to give extra weight to certain keywords and phrases in the results of your Custom Search Engine. You can pick "refinements" that help searchers narrow their searches. And I don't even know what else.

And there's one more really cool thing you can do with your Custom Search Engine. You can link it to your Adsense account so that you make money with it!

Oops! I Made a Mess in My Feed!

Holy crap! I apologize to everybody who reads this blog through a feedreader. I just checked the feed and saw that it's got a whole heap of old posts in it. That's because I thought I'd be a clever boy and go back and add Blogger labels to those old posts. But I didn't think about the fact that they go into the feed as if they were new posts.

Apparently the wonderkids at Blogger thought it would be cool if the feeds were based on updated status instead of published status. But they did provide a workaround, which is to use a different feed if you don't want updated feeds to show up at the front of the feed. The URL for that feed is here:

FreeCashSpace Feed Sorted by Date of Publication.

Again, sorry about the messy feed.

Thanks to Phydeaux3 for the very helpful info!

No-fee 0% APR Balance Transfer Credit Cards

Disclaimer: This a paid ReviewMe website review.

Because the credit card companies pay such excellent commissions for approved applications ($40 to $60 commissions are common), they are hugely popular with affiliate marketers. One of those affiliate marketers has created a site focusing on cards that offer no-fee 0% balance transfers. The site is called The 0% APR Credit Card Balance Transfer Website. Not particularly imaginative, but it covers all the important keywords. And it even uses the Cocos (Keeling) Islands domain extension -- .cc -- to stand for "credit card."

The first thing you see when you get to the Balance Transfer website is a bunch of credit cards. They're organised by provider -- Discover, Citibank, Chase, and American Express. Not an exhaustive choice of card issuers, but since each issuer has a number of different cards with different features (apart from the 0% balance transfer), there are plenty of cards to choose from.

Clicking on any of the cards takes you to the issuer's website, to a page that explains the features (and the terms and conditions) for that particular card, along with a link to the page with the application form. If you're not sure which card you want, there's a link under each group of cards that gives you the details for each offer. I think it would be more helpful if those links were a little more obvious, though.

There's also a blog with reviews of each credit card, which is handy. But I think it would be good if the owner changed the template from the slightly-modified Blogger template. In fact, I think the whole site could use a bit of a design overhaul. But I'm sure there will be plenty of time for that later.

The important thing is that the site is up, and provides a good mix of offers and information. The site even includes 7 important "caveats" to help educate visitors about the risks of participating in these kinds of balance transfers. They can be really great deals, if you read all the fine print, and if you use them the right way. But if you pick the wrong deal, or you aren't careful about how you pay off the balances you've transferred, you could end up in a real financial mess.

Overall, I wouldn't say it's the best credit-card related site I've ever seen, but for an affiliate site, it gets the job done. Hopefully the owner will continue to improve this and his other credit-card related sites, and not adopt the "set and forget" mentality too many affiliate marketers use.

A Great Price Comparison Shopping Site

Another cool bargain-hunting site I've come across recently is Mpire. It's a shopping search engine, a price-comparison site, and coupon/rebate/prmotion code site all rolled into one. Oh, and they even track price trends, so they can tell you the average sale price, and auction price, of the item your looking for, as well as whether or not the price has been going up or down. Sweet!

Their big partners include eBay, Amazon.com, Yahoo, Overstock.com, and Shopping.com and others. So how does it work?

First, you type in the product you're looking for. For my example, I'll use a couple of the books I recommended in an earlier post.

First I type in keywords for the first book, CSS: The Definitive Guide. That link (yes, it's an affiliate link) takes you to Amazon.com, where the book is selling for $28.34 (and from $23.99 + shipping in the Amazon Marketplace).

Mpire returns 7 stores selling that book, with Amazon's price getting beaten by 2 cents at Overstock.com. But it's still well below Mpire's average store price for the book -- $30.14. The average auction price is just $9.50, though, so I click on the auction tab to see what's available.

I get two eBay results -- one listed at US$7.00 with a Buy It Now price of US$9.00, and the other from eBay UK listed at £31.67 (over US$60). The UK price is way too steep for me, but the US$7.00 looks pretty reasonable, although it's for the older, first edition of the book. The seller says he'll send it to Australia via Airmail for US$9.00, and for that price I can get a second book shipped for free. At that price, I can get the CSS book and eBay Hacks for less than the cost of the CSS book at either Amazon or Overstock. Looks like a pretty good deal to me!

The other book I'll search for at Mpire is HTML, XHTML, and CSS by Elizabeth Castro. Amazon sells it for $19.79 (from $18.20 + shipping from sellers in the Amazon Marketplace), and according to Mpire, that's the best price going. I also saw that they also had results for the old 4th edition like mine, and it's selling for only $6.44 (incl. shipping) at Alibris.

The Mpire site looks great and is very easy to use, and definitely worth checking out if you're interested in finding bargains when you shop online.

eBay Dealfinder

On the off-chance that I'm not the last person on the planet to have discovered this, I thought I'd share. I just came across the eBay Dealfinder. Actually, I came across the Australian eBay Dealfinder, and then checked to make sure there was a US version before I blogged about it. Apparently this was announced back in November 2006, but I must've missed it.

So what is the eBay Dealfinder? It's a way to search or browse for items that meet the following requirements:

• less than 4 hours left to sell
• no bids
• no reserve price
• free or fixed rate shipping so you know the total cost

You browse the popular searches they feature on the page, or do your own search, including limiting the results by category and/or max price. And the results aren't like normal eBay search results, but like this:


The timer counts down until the item has ended, and all-in-all, I think the whole thing is awesome. You can select whether it shows you 16 or 32 items per page, and the only thing I don't like is that there's apparently no requirement that the item listing includes an image, which kinda screws up the whole visual results idea. But then again, you might find some really good bargains on items that don't have an image.

In any case, I think it's a cool new way to look for eBay bargains.

Best Books for Learning CSS and HTML

After reading Empress' post about learning more about CSS, I couldn't agree more. Anybody who's interested in building websites should learn "the basics" of Cascading Style Sheets. And if you want to go beyond the most basic website designs, you need to go beyond the basics and learn how to use style-sheets to maximum advantage.

The whole point of CSS is to separate the content and the design of your website. That means when you want to change the way the site looks, you just change the stylesheet, without having to touch the content of your site. To see what I'm talking about, pop over to the CSS Zen Garden and click on the links on the right-hand side, under "select a design." The changes are amazing, but all that's happening is that different stylesheets are being used to display the same content.

I'm a fairly low-skill CSS hacker myself. I can take an existing stylesheet and tweak it here and there to change some colors or fonts, or to make a column wider, but that's about as far as it goes. But like Empress, I'm keen to learn more.

There are some great websites that can help you learn about CSS, but if you're serious about getting good info, I suggest buying a book or two. That's a lesson I first learned with HTML. I've been building websites since 1995 (you'd think I would've gotten better at it by now) and I've always kept a few HTML reference sites in my bookmarks. Never gave a thought to buying a book about HTML. Then I had to buy one as a textbook. That was five years ago, and I can't count the number of times that book has come in handy when I was stuck.

Sure, I could've loaded an HTML reference site in another browser window, but sometimes it's easier to do it the old-fashioned way and pull a book off the shelf and find the information you're looking for.

For all you'll ever need to know about cascading stylesheets, the books I recommend are CSS: The Definitive Guide or The Zen of CSS Design.

And if you don't have an HTML reference book sitting on your bookshelf, I'd recommend either HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition (this is the newest edition of the one I bought as a textbook) or HTML: the Definitive Guide.

More Thoughts on Making Money With Domains

Jon at Super Affiliate Marketing Blog has a post about making money by buying a bunch of domains and throwing up a Wordpress blog and some Adsense code on each of them. It's called Why Investing in Cheap Domain Names & Blogs is Better Than the Stock Market.

I don't agree with the idea of putting up a bunch of useless or mostly useless blogs just to make money from the Adsense clicks. And on the scale he's talking about (over 2000 domains), I'm guessing that's about all that's going to happen. He's estimating that he'll make around $75,000 in Adsense revenue over the course of a year, which works out at a bit less than $40 per blog. With domain registration and hosting fees, profit ought to be around $20-25 per blog per year.

What I'm wondering is, what multiple of that "per-blog" earning could be achieved by putting in a bit more effort and making them into blogs that are actually worth reading? Obviously that won't work with thousands of blogs, but what about a more manageable number, like 10 or 12? If Jon's single-post blogs are set to make $40 a year in Adsense revenue, can real blog make 5 or 10 times that amount just from Adsense? And can it make even more with other advertising included?

With GoDaddy currently selling .info domains for $0.99 apiece, I have to admit I'm tempted to find out. $10 for the domains, and another $10 or $20 for some cheap hosting for a year, and I'm ready to go.

It looks like Sapphire at Affiliate Marketing Journal is planning something similar. After realising that she has a bunch of zero-maintenance sites that bring in $21-68 per month, she's decided to create at least 10 more of them. If her Project2160 works out, she'll be making an extra $200-700 per month from those sites.

Tools for Dealing With Scammers, Spammers, and Squatters

While I was reading up on this whole typo-squatting thing, I came across links to a couple of tools that could be very handy for webmasters. I've downloaded and installed Microsoft's Strider URL Tracer with Typo-Patrol. I've played around with it a little bit, and it's got two cool features.

The URL Tracer part creates a list of all the sites that are contacted when you visit a website. And it also lets you know if any of them have given you a cookie. For example, if you visit the FreeCashSpace blog, the list of sites that you're interacting with in some way include:

• Amazon.com
• Blogger.com
• BlogMad.net
• BlogWise.com
• Feedburner.com
• FreeCashSpace.com
• HaloScan.com
• ImageShack.us
• PayPerPost.com
• Technorati.com
• TinyUrl.com
• VxBox.com

In most cases, they're just serving images, but Feedburner is giving you a cookie (I didn't they were doing that) and Technorati is running a javascript (I did know that).

The Typo-Patrol lets you type in a domain name, and it will generate a list of possible typos (it came up with 198 typo domains for freecashspace.com). Then it will try to visit the website associated with each of those typo domains to see if any of them are active. It started a typo scan, but when I realised that it would probably take an hour or two to check all of them, I stopped it. But I can see where this tool could come in handy for companies who want to see if they're the victims of typo-squatting.

And the other program was called Fiddler. Fiddler serves as a proxy and shows you all the incoming and outgoing data between your computer and the net. It shows you HTTP headers, source code, and all sorts of other things. It's meant to be used by developers, and I wouldn't have a clue how to use it to its full potential, but I can see how it could be a very handy little tool for tracing comment spammers, click frauds "search engines", and people hiding things in 0-sized iframes. The Microsoft Strider Search Ranger project has some instructions to help people report comment spammers using Fiddler and WHOIS domain registration info. And if you don't think sending a few emails or making a few phone calls will do any good against the comment spammers, Chris O'Hara has a success story for you.

Mircosfot Going After Typo-squatters

After blogging about how to make money with domains earlier this week, I thought I'd better blog about Microsoft's announcement that it's going after cybersquatters. And they're encouraging other businesses to do the same.

According to their press release, Microsoft believes an average of 2,000 domains containing one of their trademarks are registered every day. And that somewhere between 75-90% of those are registered by professional domain holding operations.

It turns out that registering domains containing trademark terms is against US federal law (the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act), if there's a bad faith intention to profit from them. It doesn't outlaw legitimate uses of others' trademarks, including comparative advertising, comment, criticism, parody, news reporting, fair use, etc. (or so says the Wikipedia). But it does cover parked domains with a bunch of ads, selling domains at extortionate prices, etc. A few things you might want to keep in mind if you're thinking about getting into the domaining scene.

I've been tossing the idea around for the last few days, and I still haven't made up my mind. I'm definitely not interested in any sort of trademark infringement, and I don't really want to buy up a bunch of domains just to make money by parking them. Filling up the web with more useless garbage isn't really what I'm into, and it was interesting to read some of the comments in the SlashDot post about Microsoft's announcement.

I wonder how many people see domainers as being just as bad as spammers? If you've got some thoughts or opinions, please leave a comment.

Free Content Management System for Your Websites

Sapphire at Affiliate Webmaster Journal has a post about CMSimple that might be just what I've been looking for.

CMSimple is a CMS (content management system) that makes it extremely easy to create small (they recommend no more than 1000 pages), simple websites. You create the content with an online WYSIWYG editor, and the design is based on special templates created for CMSimple sites.

Even better, the whole thing -- CMSimple and hundreds of templates, are all free!

Free Website Stats

Pat McCarthy at ConversionRater.com has written the Complete Guide to Web Analytics 2007, and if you're interested in adding web stats to your blog or website, you really ought to go read it. His list is extensive, and his comments about each package are very helpful.

At this point, I'm not looking to pay for stats, so the ones I'm most interested in include:

• Clicky
• Google Analytics
• PHPMyVisites
• TraceWatch
• FeedBurner
• MyBlogLog

I already use Feedburner to get stats on my feed, but otherwise I rely on the Webalyzer stats provided by my host.

T-Post: Mail Order T-Shirt Club

I came across a link to this site and after having a quick look, I think that not only are their T-shirts are cool, but I just think the whole idea of their site is brilliant.

How does T-Post work? They describe it as being like a magazine subscription, only it's for T-shirts. You buy a subsciption, and about every six weeks, you get a t-shirt in the mail. $36 is pretty steep for a t-shirt, but these aren't picked up in the Wal*Mart bargain bin and mailed out to subscribers.

The design on each t-shirt is inspired by some recent current event. And they even print a explanation on the inside of the shirt! You can check out their gallery to see some of their past creations.

T-Post has over 1700 subscribers in 38 countries. That means they're pulling in over $60,000 for each "issue". That's not bad for a single product. That's clever.

Firefox Morning Coffee, Opera Saved Sessions and Speed Dial

I installed a new Firefox extension last week that's really helped me get things done. It's called Morning Coffee and what it does is add a button to your toolbar that lets you load a bunch of websites in different tabs all at once. The idea is if you have 5 sites that you want to read every day, you add them to Morning Coffee and load them all up with a single click. You can even have different sites for different days. Or different sites on weekdays and weekends. And the developer says he's working on adding times of the day, so that you can have one group of sites for mornings, another group for afternoons, and another for evenings, or whatever. Sounds great.

Users of the Opera browser have had a similar feature for a long time now -- saved sessions -- but now they've got a new feature as well. It's called Speed Dial. You can read more about it at the Opera Desktop Team's blog. It's not customizable by day like Morning Coffee, but it creates a page with thumbnails of up to 9 of your favourite sites, which is pretty cool.

I've been an Opera user for years, although it's no longer my main browser any more. It has a lot of great features --

• tabbed browsing - Opera had them first!
• built-in content and pop-up blockers - including the option of blocking on a site-by-site basis
• mouse gestures - like keyboard shortcuts, but they work just by moving your mouse in certain ways
• notes (- highlight and save text, and Opera automatically remembers the URL where you got it -- very handy
• and the trash can - if you accidentally close a tab, you can get it back by taking it out of the trash!

Whether you use Firefox, Opera, or some other browser, most of them have lots of advanced features, either built right in or available as plug-ins, extensions, widgets, or whatever, that can really help you work better. Morning Coffee does that for me. It helps me remember to visit websites that I might otherwise forget. If you've got sites that you want or need to visit regularly, give MC a try and see if it helps you.

eBay Sellers Targeted by Australian Taxation Office

According to an article in The Australian, the Australian Tax Office has issued eBay with a legal notice requiring them to provide the ATO with information on all Australian eBay sellers with more than $50,000 in annual sales.

A thread in the eBay Forums confirms that eBay has complied, and notified the sellers that their info has been given to the ATO.

It doesn't affect me because I don't sell anywhere near that much, so I don't have to worry about GST (good and services tax). But I agree with the sellers who say if the ATO starts enforcing GST compliance should help make a more level playing field. Sellers who are adding 10% GST to their invoices are obviously at a disadvantage when other sellers don't do it. But it still won't help deal with non-Australian sellers who do business on eBay Australia, since they aren't required to charge GST.

According to the article, eBay Australia has over 5 million members now. I doubt all of those are active accounts, but it's still a pretty big number in a country of 20 million people. And of those, over 1000 were sent these notices, which means they've got eBay sales of over $50,000 a year. Impressive. I can tell ya, I sure wouldn't mind joining them.

Missed Opportunity at ReviewMe

Ouch! After working my way through over 600 emails in my inbox, I found one from ReviewMe letting me know that I'd had an order for a review. But because I didn't respond within 72 hours, the order had been cancelled. Bummer. That's $20 that I didn't earn, all because I didn't check my email over the weekend. That'll teach me.

Make Money With Contextual Advertising -- and I Don't Mean Adsense!

Another great post at DoshDosh about contextual ad systems that are an alternative to Google Adsense. I've seen most of these on various sites, but I hadn't really put them all together in my head as alternatives (or additions) to Adsense.

Maki links to an article by Michael Pick at Master New Media that offers brief summaries of over a dozen ad companies:

• Yahoo Publisher Network
• Feedburner Ad Network
• Quigo AdSonar
• ValueClick
• Kontera
• IntelliTXT
• Clicksor
• Miva

and a whole bunch more. Head over to that article to read up on all of them.

I've never used any of them, but since Google has asked me not to run Adsense on this blog because of the nature of the content, maybe I'll give one or two of them a try.

Get Paid to Review My Blog Post

You might've noticed a new graphic in the footer of each of my posts. The one that says "Get Paid to Review My Post -- PayPerPost. Wondering what it's all about?

Basically, it's a cool way for people to make money from PayPerPost. The way it works is, you click that little graphic, sign up to PayPerPost, and then write a review of my post. Once your review is approved, PayPerPost will pay you $7.50. And they pay me $7.50, too!

I think this is a pretty smart move on the part of PPP. It gets more bloggers to sign up and start making money through sponsored posts, and it not only rewards existing members for their referrals, but it also helps them get more links to their blogs. It's a win-win (uh, make that a win-win-win) situation.

All you need to get started is a blog. Written in English. And it has to be at least 90 days old, with at least 20 posts within those 90 days. In other words, you can't start up a new blog and start filling it up with sponsored posts. If you've got a blog that meets those requirements, click the little PayPerPost graphic, sign up, review my site, and start making money. If you don't have a blog that meets those requirements, why not start one and start blogging. Then don't forget to join PayPerPost in three months or so and start getting paid to blog.

Once you join, you can ever get paid for writing posts like this, talking about PayPerPost. That's right, this is a sponsored post. PPP is going to pay me $10 for it. This whole blog marketing thing is pretty cool, huh?

Get Paid to Park Domains

Matt Coddington has an excellent introduction to "domaining" (making money buying and selling domain names) called Domaining 101.

Matt goes through the process step-by-step, from deciding which domain extensions are better (.net is good, but .com is king) and how to use SEO tools to help you select the best domain names, to links to the tools and sites that you can use to make money from those domains.

One thing to keep in mind is that Domaining 101 mostly focuses on making money by parking the domains, and is a little short on detail for those interested in selling the domains directly. I found the whole thing very interesting, even though I've never really given much though to getting into the domain hoarding business.

Thanks to Maki at DoshDosh for pointing me to Matt's posts, along with several other good ones about getting started in the domain game. If you're interested in getting into domaining, read Maki's post for links to good places to start learning.

NIA Helps You Say No to Tracking Cookies

The Network Advertising Initiative has created an Opt-Out service for people who don't want advertising networks putting tracking cookies on their computers.

Cookies are small text files sent from an internet server and stored on your computer. Advertising companies that have ads on a large number of websites can identify and "track" you as you visit those different sites, and can use that information to serve specific ads for you to view on those sites. Not necessarily a bad thing, but if you have privacy concerns, then it's cool that you can easily opt out and stop them from sending you those cookies.

When I visited the NIA Opt-Out page, it checked the cookies stored on my computer and told me that I had cookies from 5 of their 9 member ad networks. I had cookies from:

• Atlas Solutions
• DoubleClick
• 24/7 RealMedia
• Revenue Science
• Advertising.com

In the report, there was a check-box next to each of their member networks, giving me the option to opt out from receiving cookies from that network in the future. That's cool, even though I did think it was kinda funny that the way they do it is by giving you a new cookie.

KFTC Says Adsense Contract Unfair

The Korean Free Trade Commission has found that Google's Adsense contract is unfair, since it allows Google to cancel an Adsense account for any reasons it wants. Presumably, this is the part of the Google Adsense Terms and Conditions that they don't like:

Google may investigate any activity that may violate this Agreement. Google may at any time, in its sole discretion, terminate all or part of the Program, terminate this Agreement, or suspend or terminate the participation of any Site in all or part of the Program for any reason.

And I have to admit that despite being a big fan of Google, and a happy Adsense publisher and Adwords advertiser, that I don't like that part of the T&C, either.

I understand that they need to be able to get rid of people who break their rules. But they also need to make sure they aren't terminating people who've done nothing wrong. Or who've unintentionally broken their Terms. Or whatever. Having had my Adsense account terminated, I can say that it only took a reasonably quick exchange of emails with the Adsense Policy Enforcement Team to sort it all out and get my account reinstated. But I know it doesn't work out that well for everybody, and it will be A Good Thing if Google improves the terms of Adsense agreement for everybody, not just their members in Korea.


via The Register

Popular Bargain Hunting Sites

Yan has posted his newest list of popular bargain hunting sites (based on Alexa ratings and Google PageRank) over at his ProBargainHunter blog. Click on over there if you want to see the whole list of 46 sites for serious online bargain hunters, but here are the top five:

1. slickdeals.net
2. fatwallet.com
3. anandtech.com
4. dealnews.com
5. techbargains.com

I visit all these sites on a fairly regular basis, and they are all great for finding online bargains.

At SlickDeals, I like the "Hot Deals" forum, and the SlickFillers (cheap items you can add to your order at Amazon to qualify for free shipping).

At FatWallet, I love browsing through the forums because there are just sooooo many bargains. I also like the fact that they offer cash-back on your purchases.

Anandtech is great if you're looking for bargains on computer bits -- RAM, video cards, etc.

I often check DealNews if I'm looking for bargains at a particular online store. For example, when I get an Amazon or other online gift certificate.

I don't visit TechBargains as often as some of the others, but have found some good tech-related bargains there from time to time.

Some of the other sites on the list that I like are AbleShoppers and Judy's Book, and I don't like is DealofDay (too much Adsense, especially the deceptive Adsense links in the sidebar.

Shipping Tips for eBay Sellers

I came across an article on the MSNBC website about the "hidden costs of shipping" for eBay sellers written by Marsha Collier. I read her book, Starting an eBay Business for Dummies, as well as Michael Miller's Absolute Beginner's Guide to Launching an eBay Business when we first started thinking about starting up our little eBay business. I thought her tips about eBay shipping were a good reminder about an aspect of the business many of us don't spend much time thinking about.

Most of her tips were about keeping a good supply of shipping materials (envelopes, boxes, labels, tape, bubble wrap, etc.), and to try to buy them in bulk quantities whenever possible.

I think these are all excellent tips, although I admit that we don't buy our boxes and envelopes in bulk yet. We plan to, because the cost savings are signicant, but at this point, our business hasn't grown to the point where we can justify the initial expense. We just don't ship enough items to buy our boxes and envelopes in 100-piece bulk packs. At least not yet!

She also reminds us that eBay sellers in the US can get co-branded flat-rate Priority Mail boxes and envelopes from the US Postal Service free of charge. I sure wish Australia Post had a deal like that for Aussie sellers!

Some other good eBay shipping tips (many are for US-based sellers only -- damn!) include:

• Purchasing and printing shipping labels through your Paypal account. The buyer's address will automatically be filled in, plus you and the buyer can then track the package while it's in transit.


• Including USPS Media Mail as a postage option when selling books, CDs, DVDs, videotapes, etc. I can be slower than First-Class or Priority Mail, but it's a lot cheaper.


• Use the eBay Shipping Calculator in your listings so that your potential buyers can find out the postage costs of a particular item without having to ask you.

Almost every eBay "guru" I've ever read or talked to has said that being organised will help you consistently get your items shipped to you buyers as quickly and as hassle-free as possible. Lately I've been making one, and sometimes two, trips to the post office most days, and I can see why it's important to be organised. And I can attest to the fact that our customers love it when we get their packages to them as fast as we possibly can.

Payments for February 2007

This month, my online earnings were:

eBay: $137.44
PureProfile: $27.15
PayPerPost: $6.00
Total: $165.19

Year-to-date: $259.40

The eBay profits would've been higher, but we've had customers waiting since November for items on back-order, so we shipped their items free. We also had an item arrive damaged, so we sent a free replacement. All these things cut into profits in the short-term, but pays off nicely in the long-term, when happy buyers become repeat buyers.

The PureProfile payment took about a year to accumulate. I've been a member since 2002, and I've made over $100 from them. And I like the fact that they pay directly to my bank account, instead of mailing a check or paying via Paypal.

The PayPerPost payment was for a post about online coupons, sponsored by CouponChief.com. That's a total of $40 from PPP since I joined back in July 2006. They've expanded a lot since then, with an affiliate program (pays $15 when somebody signs up using your affiliate link, and then gets a post accepted), and the new "Review My Post" feature, where people can earn $7.50 from PayPerPost for writing a review of one of my blog posts. And even better, I get paid $7.50 as well!

Paid by PayPerPost

I recently got another payment from PayPerPost, which brings my total payments from them to $40, with another $5.50 pending. Not a lot, but not a bad way to get paid to blog.

And another thing that I like about PayPerPost (besides, you know, the "get paid to blog" thing) is that since a lot of the "opportunities" involve blogging about a new product, or a new website, it's another way for me to find cool new things on the web, and then blog about them. And get paid for blogging about them.

So what am I going to do with the money? At this point, my plan is to save up for an iPod shuffle. My wife's got one that she wears at the gym and she loves it. I borrowed it the other day and I can see why she does. Now I want one too!

It might take a while to do enough sponsored blog posts to get the money, but I'm in no rush. If I were, I'd have to get a bit more serious about this paid blogging stuff. I had no idea, but apparently the top PayPerPost bloggers have earned from $4,000 to $7,000. Thousands! They must be doing a couple of sponsored posts a day to pull in that kind of money.

I have to admit, the thought is tempting, but I don't want to fill up FreeCashSpace blog with a bunch of sponsored posts that don't really have anything to do with the main topics of the blog. Maybe what I need to do is submit a few more blogs to PayPerPost, so that I can put sponsored posts on different blogs. I think I'll have to give that some serious consideration.

In any case, I've already got $40 in the bank (well, actually in my Paypal account), and more on the way. In fact, I'll get paid for this post because PayPerPost reward members for letting everybody know that this "blog marketing" thing is real, and that you really can make money by includ