May 31, 2007

Payperpost Direct





* Intro to Payperpost Direct (0:00 - 0:13)

* Reviewme vs Payperpost Direct explained (0:14 - 3:02)

* Tips on how to write for advertisers (3:03 - 3:36)

* Advantages for beginner & intermediate bloggers (3:37 - 4:11)

* Wrap up (4:12 - 4:36)



I've recently signed up blogging with Payperpost Direct and I will have to say that Payperpost really have done their own homework to attack their competitor Reviewme. Obviously whenever there's more competition into the world of companies fighting to get quality bloggers, we as bloggers get to rake it some good cash. A quick background explaination on Payperpost for those of you who are not familiar with them, Payperpost was originated initially with the slogan of get paid to blog. As one of the pioneers in that field, Payperpost is very well faimilar with bloggers and this will only enhance their visibility throughout the blogosphere.

If you have read my previous post on Reviewme, you would know that I'm a big fan of Reviewme but however, I do believe that Payperpost brings up a lot of negotiations onto the table and it'll be interesting to see how it pans out over time. You can read about my opinions about Payperpost Direct with my video blog above today.

Payperpost Direct's strongest point is pointing out that they charge some 35% to 85% cheaper to their advertisers versus Reviewme for potentially the same review thus it makes perfect sense to switch to Payperpost Direct. It then provides bloggers with the possibilities to generate more profit and charges advertisers less to get reviewed by a blogger of their choice. By expanding the pool of advertisers for bloggers always benefit bloggers. Those of us that had not receive reviews from Reviewme to do can now have a chance to get looked at by additional advertisers offered by Payperpost Direct. Will this trigger a new round of cost wars and beat down from Reviewme? I don't know, but one thing that's for sure is that us bloggers will benefit as a result and Payperpost Direct is definitely something I recommend looking into!



-Swapw

"Making money smart"












May 29, 2007

The power of criticism and how to deal with it

* Intro to critcism to your blog (0:00 - 0:53)

* My own struggles (0:54 - 1:57)

* The importance of criticism (1:58 - 3:04)

* The increase of readers brings different views (3:05 - 4:35)

* Wrap up (4:36 - 4:53)



Over the past few weeks, I have been experiencing some criticism from my viewers. I will have to say most of the time I was not a happy camper as a result from these criticisms. As I have learned slowly on the importance to embrace them rather then to put them aside, today through my video I will help explain to you the importance of handling these criticisms.

As a number one asset of any blog whether it is to make money or to speak on any specific topic, it is very important that each and every criticism is taken into heart. I have failed doing that many times but slowly, I have realize their importance to a success of a blog. Readers are a blogger's biggest asset and it is through critiques one can only improve and arise into a better expert in their particular topic as a result of it.

Another point that I would like to also point out is that whenever there's a debate or disagreement, that demonstrate the power of your blog or comment. As your reader base increases, there will always be a spike in disagreements and you will never fulfill everyone's wishes. Obviously my blog is about making money, it's important for myself to listen to what others are talking about money out there besides what I'm learning. To make money smart, without listening how would you know "how to" make money from all available assets out there? I have to say that it has been humbling but it's definitely a lesson worth learning and hopefully you will too!

-Swapw "Making money smart"





May 28, 2007

E-gold reviewed (part 2)


* Intro and e-gold review 2 (0:00 - 0:54)

* Debate and conversation background (0:55 - 1:20)

* Pros and cons with e-gold (1:21 - 3:56)

* e-gold recommendations and wrap up (3:57 - 4:47)



For those of you have read my original review on e-gold, you would have found that I am not a big advocate for e-gold as an investment; a popular online currency that is backed by gold. If you have missed my original review and are interested in reading about it, you can read it by clicking here.

I have considered my first review quite extensive, however after a recent debate with another user who is an advocate and uses e-gold under a day to day transaction I have decided to continue to dig into the topic of e-gold as I have learned new information about it. Some of the major topics which I felt are fundamentally flawed with e-gold can be found with the video today.

The biggest hole that I've found with e-gold through my conversation with the gentleman is that e-gold is aiming to become a legitimate digital currency. As e-gold is backed by gold, if its aim is for security and not investment then why would anyone secure themselves in e-gold? If it becomes a digital currency, then what will it backed by then? Besides e-gold, there are many digital currencies who also claims to be the most popular. How would you then distinguish the differences of the two beside the backing of gold for e-gold? What if e-gold ends up closing its doors to its investors and declares bankrupcy? What securities would the investor have instead of a piece of solid gold or a number according to e-gold? There are just seem to be many loop holes where e-gold has yet to explain and it's always smart to becareful then be sorry.

After our conversation, it has only affirmed my recoomendation to my viewers in e-gold to not invest. Unless you have already a huge vasted investment in e-gold or a deep understanding of gold I would recommend staying put and see what happens. That is the right way to make money smart!

-Swapw
"Making money smart"

Beneath is my conversation and debate with the gentleman, hopefully you find it informative and useful.

User (15 hours ago) marked as spam
You're not completely accurate on egold. Our company and affiliates and associates have been legally using e-gold since 1996. eGold is extremely popular in certain internet related arenas, not all illegal, contrary to the belief of many. It's a mistake to not point out that most ACTIVE egold users buy & sell using third party exchangers (eCurrencyExchangers -com) who convert it to other digital currencies or cash (check, bank wires, etc.).
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swapw (11 hours ago) marked as spam
Actually, this is a point that I did point out in my video. Many viewers would agree jumping into something that is "popular" may not be something that's profitable or even accurate.
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User (15 hours ago) marked as spam
Almost NO ONE BAILS OUT (redeems for gold), & they mostly enjoy the idea of their holdings being backed by value instead of just numbers on the screen. You point out that e-gold transactions are final. This is an important reason why quite a number of businesses (including some well establish web hosting companies) accept e-gold.
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swapw (11 hours ago) marked as spam
Your point is exactly why it's very dangerous. Since it is an institution without FDIC insurance, it can close down its' doors at anytime and users cannot be warranted in their securities. This type of story or scheme is just too common shown on TV everday.
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User (10 hours ago) marked as spam
No sir. Your point in misconstrued. E-gold is neither Bank, check cashing agency, or Money service business. e-gold is, by slang, a new breed "digital currency" and by function, a debit/credit accounting system whose value is based intrinsically on Gold. FDIC insurance is irrelevant. Banks are FDIC insured, but is the U.S. federal reserve? Research before reply. Over inflated, much indebted, fiat U.S. dollar used to be Gold back too. What happened?
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User (9 hours ago) marked as spam
New Comment (Pending Approval)The U.S. dollar is fiat - not backed. FDIC covers up to $100,000 usd for BANK failures. Not private business. Paypal, a money service business, holdings in U.S. Banks are backed to this amount. Nothing else. Paypal is not a DIGITAL CURRENCY. You need to understand the difference. I could lose 1 million invested in ebay with no recourse, at anytime. The only thing that makes ebay a bad investment is it's viability. egold is very viable.
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swapw (4 hours ago) marked as spam
I would like to follow-up by a point by point reasoning. Before we can pin point e-gold as a digital currency we have to first look into gold itself. Gold is only as valuable as any commodity that people perceive it to be, as newer generations abandoning the values of the old gold is not perceived as an equivalent value to anyone today.
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swapw (4 hours ago) marked as spam
If the viewer's value in gold means nothing, then e-gold would prove to be meaningless. A digital currency that is based on a fab trend of hype on gold is to be highly cautious.
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swapw (4 hours ago) marked as spam
That is not to mention there are other forms of digital currency that are available. It is open to debate whether e-gold would be proved supreme while a "defined" digital currency has yet to be determined. In the meanwhile, it still runs the risk as fraud if it decides to close its doors one day. If you are in the e-gold business, you would an expert at gold which is an asset. Like gold, to make money through it is not as flexible and you would be aiming for a long term solution.
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swapw (4 hours ago) marked as spam
Unless it is liquid it would fall under my video's comment as "unless you are deeply into gold as an investment, I would highly suggest not jumping into it."
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User (15 hours ago) marked as spam
and finally, many users have gotten paypal to reverse charges, thus cheating the hosting company out of payment/services. So there are pros and cons on BOTH ends, and in the end all parties should be doing their due diligence and not letting the payment service be the judge.
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swapw (11 hours ago) marked as spam
I'm not too sure if you are familiar with payment services of Paypal. If they examine only one side, I would then not recommend it. However, due to its reliability and its solution to situational examination from both sides it has proved to be a more popular security. Not to mention that it provides users interests as suppose to E-gold who doesn't.
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User (10 hours ago) marked as spam
No? Well let me assure you: a) Paypal was weaned from lies and deceit at it's user's expense, which their enormous initial debt. Perhaps they will tell you the truth. b) We experienced this 1st hand, and it had nothing to do with their honesty. BUt all is well, as this was business, and nothing personal to me. And again, paypal is a Money Transmittal service, not an electronic ecurrency - or threat to fiat (unbacked) hard currency.
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User (9 hours ago) marked as spam
We understand paypal well. EXPERIENCE. Fundamental difference is that egold is intended to be an digital currency. Paypal is a money service business. The US DOJ has valid concern , but not what you think. A different threat. egold has numerous times applied for licensing & been denied. egold can't touch the fraud of the credit card industry. Jackson created something the U.S. was originally based on, but is lost amongst the sleeping. Some are convinced that the USA is the new Old England.
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swapw (3 hours ago) marked as spam
I would like to close our debate as this. Before anything like E-gold should be looked at, each individual should seriously examine the value of gold.
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swapw (3 hours ago) marked as spam
If you believe gold would be the currency of tomorrow and that it will appreciate in value, invest by any means. However, if you think otherwise like I do then I would suggest a continuation of your current investments.
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swapw (3 hours ago) marked as spam
Remember, it's never too late to jump in later then to be sorry always. Good luck with all of your investments.-Swapw
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User (3 hours ago) marked as spam
I actually agree with you on both points, more on the 1st point. If treat your egold holdings as an investment then you SHOULD consider the underlying gold price. If you are doing quick purchasing transactions with merchants that give discounts for using egold or if you are a merchant entertaining all forms of payments (like us) then egold is what it is. Simply another form of payment. By the way, visa charges us 3% and we exchange egold for 1%.
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User (3 hours ago) marked as spam
And no. The 3% does protect us from visa doing a charge back when it is found that the card was stolen, and they never catch the thief...
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User (3 hours ago) marked as spam
I mean: The 3% does >NOT< color="#3333ff">(Reply) (Remove) (Block User) (Spam)


User (3 hours ago) marked as spam
Perhaps you are speaking more to someone who seems to be your specific audience (mentioning your blog), but I've only commented that you did not paint the full picture of egold's use. You propose and perhaps get others to presume that e-gold is an Investment when if you examine the world of the common egold user, and the history of egold's founder and promoting itself, it is put forth mostly as a method of irrevocable and private transacting (in line with eff dot org's goal for privacy).
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May 26, 2007

John Chow, a real success through Blogging



Since this is the weekend, I thought I take a break and have some fun with the game from John Chow, the dot com Mogul. Being 3rd place in comparison with other scores I am pretty proud of it, but then that is after a hour of playing it...lol.

His site http://www.Johnchow.com is a web site which he tells his story of how he has made his fortune through his blog. I personally like his blog quite a bit because his blog brings a more raw tone to the table. Unlike other bloggers such as Pro Blogger or Shoemoney, the biggest difference is the realness in his blog on how he communicates with his readers. This is very key! Sometimes we tend to find ourselves trying very hard to polish our writings and miss out on what the "general public" really understands which may differ in our area of expertise. To really convey quality information to your readers, you must speak in the same language and that is to never assume any understandings about the subject. John Chow does a very good job on it and I find it very easy to follow and it has definitely helped enhance some of my knowledge.

A huge trap that bloggers have fallen tends to be the failure to communicate to their users. Without direct connection between the readers and the quality information on the post, readers will most often lose site of the content because it is at heart a blog and not a book. It is similar to you going to a speech taught by a well known business CEO. Although the speeches are always great, you will almost always failed to connect to the heart of the topic directly. A bad tendency that I see even with very experienced bloggers, is whenever the blogger has a very strong group of loyal readers they would tend to focus on the group too closely that they fail to see and exploit its new traffic in connection. Whether it is due to the lack of knowledge from readers or understanding, bloggers should never fail to understand the purpose of blogs and the reason why people like reading them instead of a book.

His blog brings many of his experiences in a very transparent way. Although not extremely polished, I find it to be the advantage of John Chow for the readers to relate to his blog. As a Canadian, he's just like any other person like you and I. After starting a blog back in December of 2005 he is making thousands of dollars blogging. What this means to every reader or writer of blogs is that anyone can make money through blogging. It's a definite a good read and an encouragement to all bloggers. Do keep in mind though, that he has kept up the blog for more then 2 years, so no if you want to pull a fast one it ain't happening. He owns TTZ and other web sites, you can check him out here! Have a good weekend.

-Swapw
"Making money smart"






May 25, 2007

Blogitive Directory Network announced

* Intro to blogitive (0:00 - 0:21)

* Blogitive explored (0:22 - 0:40)

* Blogitive's new program (0:41 - 3:27)

* Wrap up (3:28 - 3:55)






Here's the direct tutorial from Blogitive, enjoy.

Http://my.blogitive.com/screencasts/directory_tutorial

Like many similar network that I've introduced in the past such as Payperpost, Blogsvertise, and Smorty; Blogitive is just another great way to make money by providing advertisers with a review in your blog. Blogitive however is taking some additional steps to shift away from its fierce competition, and that is by incorporating a newly announced Directory Network recently to provide bloggers an additional way to make money which I do talk in depth in my video blog today.

Although the Blogitive Directory Network does seem to be a promising solution for Wordpress users and web site owners but for the rest of us who uses free blogger sites this solution does not seem to geared toward our side of the market. However, we are still qualified to do the traditional reviews for advertisers through Blogitive.

For Wordpress users it is a very easy and free solution to monetize without doing much, yes literally without doing anything at all. The basic concept of Blogitive Directory Network revolves around the idea that advertisers would pay for links toward Wordpress bloggers on their web site in an annual basis. Bloggers would get to set their own price and adjust them as they wish once a year. It is suggested by Blogitive that links should be priced initially at around $10 per year since this program has just being launched however that is not to say that if your blog has a higher traffic of visitors that you should settle less. How the profit split is simple, 85% for the blogger and 15% for Blogitive. Since Blogitive has only launched this program officially by providing users with offers this week, it is still young so be sure to register yourself with Blogitive if you have a Wordpress blog so you can be the first ones to be reviewed by the advertisers. Competition with other bloggers would makes your blog harder to be seen as the time goes with the program so be sure to take advatange of it as soon as possible.

-Swapw
"Making money smart"






May 24, 2007

A Blog's Silent Killer



* Intro (0:00 - 0:23)

* Blog's silent killer (0:24 - 1:29)

* Visitor's trouble (1:30 - 2:52)

* Ways to check for problems (2:53 - 4:09)

* Wrap up (4:10 - 4:26)

Many of us blog everyday in hopes that our blog would be recognized or through it to make some money but did you know that there's one area a lot of us overlook which may potentially kill off all of our traffic? Traffic means money and today's topic is an area which I have been treaking around for some time and I do have to say before I continue to write that I was at one point failing to recognize the problem. It is something crucial and as a blogger I wish someone would have told me earlier.

The silent killer lies within the widget itself that we embedd into our blog itself. I do talk extensively in details through my video but it's important to understand the nature of each widgets or code that you add into your blog. Elimination of any pop-up is very key when selecting a widget to install to your blog and be sure to always check your privacy report to see what type of programs each widgets bring to your site. Failing to eliminate these unwanted pop-ups, it will kill your traffic not only from some of your local visitors but in a globally scaled standpoint. To make money smart, it's not running after the traffic necessarily but how to retain your target audiences!

-Swapw
"Making money smart"

Now, due to a risen popularity of link exchanges and Technorati favorite exchanges I thought I provide an offer out to those that are interested in these exchanges. Leave me a comment and I love to exchange if your blog is in some relations to the topics that I cover.






May 23, 2007

Maximizing Bank Interests






If you are keeping in track with stocks, you may already realize that we have already pass the all time high in the Dow for over 13600 points. Recently it has been hovering around that point and now that it's going a little bit downward to a little bit above 13500 many investors are getting really cautious about the whole stock market. On top of that, the fact that Greenspan has came out mentioning the possible effect of oil driving toward the economy downward has definitely shaken the market

What happens when the stock is not a safe spot to invest? Well, we have to look into the banks to secure our money. Common bank interest rates are really low, most of us are probably getting close to nothing with Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Washington Mutual. Regular accounts such as a money market account, checking account, or savings account is probably making us close to nothing in interests alone. Through today's video I will discuss what type of banks to really place your money on to maximize your interest earnings from banks. Beneath, I will place the links to these banks it'll make it easier for you guys if you are interested in them! :)

Washington Mutual (5.00%) - http://spe.atdmt.com/lp/wamu/bundled1.html

Citibank (5.00%) with $50 added to your account when you pay 3 consecutive payments - Here's the link!

Emigran Direct (5.05%) - Here's the link!

HSBC (5.05%) - http://www.hsbcdirect.com/1/2/1/offer?code=PPGD390000&WT.srch=1

I don't know about you guys, but I am a strong believer in diversifying my money throughout various avenues. So I would also suggest looking into Prosper.com a web site which I've talked about in the past on loaning to diversify your profolio. For beginners, your best bet is to follow the so called "group leaders". They are people who started these lending groups and most of the time, they are usually more experienced lenders. If the person is seeking a loan and a major portion of his loan is bidded by the "group leader", chances are that it is more likely that it's a safer lend then suppose to a group leader not taking any action toward the requested loan. Obviously, you should always do your own research before jumping into anything. You can read my previous post about Prosper.com here.

-Swapw
"Making money smart"

* Intro and savings account (0:00 - 0:32)

* Savings account explained (0:33 - 1:31)

* Maximizing savings account (1:32 - 2:49)

* Fear and solution of using online savings account (2:50 - 4:09)

* Diversify and wrap up (4:10 - 5:14)





May 22, 2007

Payperpost a way to both publicize and make money!




After talking about many companies which pays bloggers to blog, here's another company that does exactly that but even bigger and that is Payperpost. Through my blog, I will explain to you why Payperpost is a good company to bank on and what you can do to take advantage of it.

As you compose blog reviews on certain companies through Payperpost, it provides you new information about the web and new services so it's also a great way to always stay on top of web news or new services out in the market. Besides earning through posting on your blog on reviews, I would say generally speaking Payperpost runs in a similar fashion to Blogsvertise or Smorty; companies which I have introduced in the past. Payperpost is pretty open to show all the opportunities that you can take and did I mention that the higher PR, the higher they pay you to review? Well, yes they do and if your blog has a PR6 some of the opportunities even pay you up to $150!

There is however one area that I do want to mention that I find Payperpost unique and that is different from Blogsvertise or Smorty which I believe can provide significant impact and that is the option for publishers to spread the word out to the blogsphere. If you are a new blogger or a blogger that wants to quickly be recognized in the blogworld, Payperpost offers you or "publishers" in their team to publicize. The steps are somewhat similar to an advertiser application and it requires you to pay bloggers to post, however I have already heard several well aqainted web masters in spilling out their success in publicizing through Payperpost.

I have actually found it to be a rather unique feature that many people leave out when they talk about Payperpost. Besides these info, as long as your blog is 3 months old you will meet their qualification and go and get yourself applied and make that money smart! -


-Swapw
"Making money smart"


* Intro to Payperpost (0:00 - 0:28)

* Requirements of Payperpost (0:29 - 1:33)

* The Payperpost difference (1:34 - 2:33)

* The publisher option (2:34 - 4:09)

* Wrap up (4:10 - 4:30)