Take More Risks

I installed Google Desktop again last night on a whim after seeing a preview of the analogue clock widget. To my surprise it’s been quite useful so far what with the “To Do” and “Scratch Pad” extensions

What’s more impressive is that you can develop your own tools with the Google Web Toolkit. Wahey – I now have a reason to learn Java!

The Google Sidebar could add a whole new dimension to viral marketing. Digg and Myspace already have widgets developed to provide better user interaction. Surely the average viral marketer would be able to provide a widget which adds value to a users experience whilst building awareness of their brand? It’s something worth thinking about.

With Myspace I think it would be cool if you could bind the widget to your account it then reads in all of your interests and then automatically shows your the profiles of people with similar interests. Instead of displaying “Cool New People” on the website it could display the profiles of a number of users who like your favourite band.

Now to go off on a bit of a tangent – the major problem with communities like Myspace (besides the fact it’s crap, heh) is that it is difficult to make friends. It’s ackward having to ask someone to be your friend – especially when you have none on your list to start with.

What I really liked about My Blog Log is it’s openess. For instance when people visit your profile, a link is back to theirs on the main page, making it easier to get in touch with others.

It’s a pity that the friends system in Digg seems to be so alienated from the rest of the site. I can’t really see any means for interaction bar replying to each others comments on Dugg stories. I guess this keeps focus on where the creators want it – on the news.

I think I’ve deviated ever so slightly here…….as always.

You might have noticed that the “Digg This” graphic, generated by Aviran’s Digg This Wordpress Plugin has started appearing in some of my posts. It’s quite a handy tool as it automatically detects when a story appears on the Digg website by tracking the referrer URL and then displays the button if it notices it’s from digg.

I’ve been reading a few stories throughout the week namely the It’s the Content, not the Icons story over in 37 signals which argues against using social bookmarking icons in general. It’s certainly provided food for thought….

Obviously buttons and icons can only go so far in helping something win more votes. I suppose they’d work well with if you already have a large readership and something of a Digg culture on your blog. It undeniably provides a shortcut for loyal subscribers to Digg your post. However if it’s the first thing a person sees in your post, they’ll immediately question your motives for placing it there.

I think it might be better to place Digg text link requests that appear organically within paragraphs from now on. When I’ve applied this before in other markets – conversation rates have soared.

Besides the Digg This button appears to be incompatible with Internet Explorer 7. This isn’t as much of an issue as it would normally be in non-techie circles since a large proportion of my audience use Firefox. It’s still a worry though. I think I’ll keep it for the time being but remove it from the start of posts. After all if people want to digg a story, they’ll do it on the site once they’ve finished reading it the post.

Have you ever wondered how some lucky souls manage to make a living off selling domains on the web?

I have. And I still do in fact but that’s because I’m a incredibly lazy sod, and I’d rather spend hours on end scratching my own behind than actually working towards earning more from the domain industry.

Imagine my surprise when I received an email back in October 2006 notifying me of a bid on one of my domains for $850 – having only registered the domain a week previously.

I thought someone was pulling my leg. It was if I had just discovered a button on my keyboard with “PrtMoney” written on it.

Awful jokes aside, what follows is a fairly comprehensive guide to registering and selling valuable domains rapidly. Who knows, you might just be the person who registers the domain that knocks the $14,000,000 Sex.com off the Most Expensive domain top spot!
(continue reading…)

I have a proven track record for choosing seriously awful domain names. I mean look at the address bar for a start! Horrendous.

Completely sold out. 

Thanks to everyone who bidded and commiserations to those who didn’t receive a domain this time around. I hope to hold something similar in the future only with a better system and better names.

• Largetesticles.net – sold
• Meatisdinner.com – sold
• Jerkingoff.info – sold
• Freecsscode.com – sold
• Stopcrashing.com – sold
• Traindogs.info – sold
• Overclocked.info – sold
• Ajaxlibraries.com – sold
• Csstext.com – sold

During the middle of December I submitted 4 seperate stories from this blog to Digg, Del.icio.us and Reddit. I expected to receive the majority of my traffic from Digg but this wasn’t to be as you can see from the stats below.

Reddit provided the bulk of the traffic thanks to the Single Worst Piece of Hardware Post which was largely ignored on both Digg and Del.icio.us. Odd eh? I guess it’s to do with the audience. On Reddit users seem to be more open to general interest stories in comparison to Digg. It’s weird though how the popularity of the article varied so greatly across the sites.

If you are going to release a story to the social bookmarking websites, I suggest that you submit to as many as you possibly can at the same time. This isn’t a new idea but one that I’ve just recently realised the importance of. The one thing I noticed with Reddit was that even though the worst hardware story received over 1000 views over the course of a day – very few of the visitors (I think 2 in all) Dugg the story – even with the Digg this button there.

I’d imagine it would have had a greater effect if the post had been serious news.

Still I think it’s quite promising all in all, although my traffic is back to normal. Well actually it’s kinda below normal since it’s the holiday season and all but meh!

Uploading an extracted archive through FTP is a real pain in the ass, especially if you’re rushed for time. One of my regular readers (who we’ll refer to as Mother as this point) showed me this rather cool shortcut which is built into Cpanel’s File Manager facility.

Firstly – upload your file and then click on it. At the top of the right pane you should notice the “Extract File Contents” option.

Simply click on it and the archive will be automatically extracted on the server! God knows how long it would have taken if I’d uploaded the entire Mediawiki archive manually.

Hope this helps someone out there!

• There isn’t anything special about New Year’s Day. Expecting life to change when the clock strikes twelve is simply setting yourself for disappointment. Why should New Year’s Day be the only time in the year you reflect on the course of your life?
• Your resolutions reflect who you were when you made them. In 5 months time your life may have changed dramatically for better or for worse and your plans may no longer apply. In cases like this – resolutions are destined to fail.
• I’ll be the first to admit that resolutions are often for show and mean very little to me. Why swear to stop photocopying your ass in the office when you know deep inside that you have every intention to smear your ass all over that glass plate the moment you return from your holidays? If you must make resolutions – keep them to yourself! Relying on public pressure as a means of avoiding failure is dangerous.
• Treat every moment in life as “New Year’s”. Remember you can change your life at any moment and our tiime is running out! Why limit yourself to 70-75 stabs at altering the direction of your life?
• And finally – aim to create short term goals rather than longer ones – that way the feedback loop is shorter. It’s better to find out that your plans are doomed to failure in 5 days rather than 5 weeks.

And on the topic of goals……….Tag Your It! I’ve been tagged by Nomar to list my business goals for the coming year. Hell! Why not?

• Concentrate on creating friendships rather than “business relationships” over the Internet. Delete my Myspace account once and for all. Learn to treat the blogging community as a “social networking site” instead.
• Be grateful of the relationships I’ve already made here!
• This one’s important – I must take both praise and criticism with a pinch of salt! Too often, I see criticism as personal attack when really it can be quite useful. I need to distance myself from my work a little and learn that there will always be cynics – especially in this field.
• Setup some sort of Wiki on this domain where I can devise a personal plan?
• Set aside a seperate kitty which I can use exclusively for my endeavours on the Internet.
• Continue to be an overly-serious Wikipedia-reading whore.
• Continue to make a drunken fool of myself at bars/buffets/public receptions.
• I tag Lithman. I’ve no-one else left to tag now mwahahah!

And by the way, these don’t count as New Year resolutions. They take effect from now and I reserve the right to change them whenever I see fit!

Over the past year this – by far has to be one of the worst mistakes I’ve made and thankfully it’s one I’ve yet to make with this blog.

I see it this way the more ads you place on a website the more you are curbing it’s ability to be linked to in it’s crucial formative months which can be the difference between a site succeeding or failing. Whilst I’d agree that you might be able to get away with a limited number of well blended advertisements – the amount of return probably wouldn’t be worth it for at least 3 months.

Establishing your site and reputation should be your biggest priority within this period. Whilst it might be a bit disheartening to see no immediate rewards for all of your work – rest assured that you are investing in your sites future. Potential income can grow experientially with a few links from authority sites.

If you are wanting to monetize your blog from the offset, be aware of this risk. Remember – one powerful link could pull you out of the Google Trustbox and into some serious earnings.

John Chow – the self proclaimed net mogul – has ran a personal blog over on Johnchow.com since December 2005. Whilst the site has existed for little over a year it has been phenomenally successful working it’s way into the Top 2000 websites in Technorati.

Below is a Clint Eastwoodesque review of the website which was written in response to his (rather clever) linkback offer.

The Good

• Regularly updated providing coverage of the latest affiliate programs that matter. See Agloco

• Boasts a large readership who aren’t afraid to provide their 2 cents.

• John’s manipulation of social bookmarking websites such as Digg is inspiring.

• Honest (sometimes to a fault) about his earnings and tactics.

• Consistently strong writing helps showcase his personality and sense of humor effectively (something which is missing all too often in this current era of the ghost writer).

• The Top Posts section is handy for finding his best work.

• Numerous pictures of mouthwatering food posted regularly. Now that can never be a bad thing, can it?

The Bad

• The site’s template – whilst functional and attractive – lacks a little bit of personality.
• Perhaps his personal and business posts could be separated more effectively?

The Ugly

• I would not want to push in front of him in the bar queue for obvious reasons…….

Hello you. Whoever you are. We can get in contact a number of ways.

Email

matt@takemorerisks.com

MSN

i@mthebest.com

Now don’t be shy! Unless you are one of those serial stalker types who feeds their cat Rice Krispies. I could do without your sort for a while.