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Internet Babel vs The Germz, Head To Head 3

by Melvin · Aug 31, 2008

So this one came a little very late because of the season. The June part onwards seems to be the busiest part of the year as some people focus on their work, young ones like me go back to school and so. This round of head to head is a pretty interesting one. I really haven’t had much time picking a nice matchup. It’s pretty a little contrasting. Dave of the Internet Babel looks like a old older person than most of us while Germz cannot even watch rated x movies at cinemas! But well oh well, like other previous head to head this is a pretty interesting one. Check it out:

	Dave	Germz
Describe yourself in less than 5 words?	A handsome balding hunk.	Easily Bored Person.
What is your favorite breakfast?	Hmm – Crispy Bacon, scrambled egg and Toast.	Coffee, it’s the only thing I drink for breakfast. If there is no coffee I won’t eat breakfast.
How long have you been blogging?	Currently – 1 hour a day cos I have a lot of other work on. Hope to ramp it up a bit soon.	Usually an hour, I spent way more time researching new business ventures and freelancing.
Any story behind choosing that domain name?	I bought Internet Babel as a developed blog (but I liked the name).	My friends call me germz, and Germz.com was already taken.
How many uniques are you getting monthly?	July (my first month of owning the Blog) was about 2,000 UVs and 15,000 Page Views..	About 6000.
What is your average blog income?	hah 😉 Only 1 month in so very little to show at the moment. Ask me again in 12 months ;-).	About forty bucks per month, great thing that’s not my main source of income!
Do you read other blogs feeds? How many do you track?	– not a big consumer of feeds – prefer to visit the blogs i like and just Google around the web	I’m not a big fan of blog feeds, I don’t like having my email spammed with hundreds of emails per day with new articles. I hardly subscribe to any feeds unless I really like the content or I’m doing a favor for a friend. I currently only track about 3 or 4.
What are the other thing/projects that you are doing aside from blogging?	– Website development (got about 20 clients at the moment) – Helping develop some mining/data logging software – domain flipping/speculation – got a few websites of my own that bring in some Ad$en$e – Writing articles – drinking beer	Studying, and freelancing.
What keeps a blogger from making money from his blog?	a few things off the top of my head (in no particular order) – lack of time – lack of commitment – not enough belief in their own skills/ability – treating readers like idiots – no interaction with community – aiming for a saturated market/not finding a niche	I don’t use my blog to make money, I don’t think it’s easy to earn money from a blog unless your blog has a niche that’s easy to exploit. My only source of income for the blog comes from the advertisers. I only use the money to pay for hosting and aweber.
When does a blogger have to consider monetizing	Well, unless you’re doing it purely for the love of your subject and income is not a factor, then ideally you should be thinking about monetization before you start – it should be a part of the planning process. Money isn’t the key factor for a lot of Bloggers though so they shouldn’t get hung up about it.	As soon as possible, it’s best when you have some content otherwise no one will want to advertise from you.
What makes your blog unique from others?	Me. Hehe. Well, that’s the main reason – the blog is about my personal entrepreneur experiences and projects, which differ from other entrepreneurs, good and bad.	It’s written by me! 😀
What’s the biggest goal for this blog?	Apart from the things I mentioned above: – get the stats back up to where they used to be and then make them even better – increase the earnings (although that’s not my primary driver) – spread some useful knowledge – have some fun “	At the current moment I’m doing a very special project which I’m sure everyone will like.
Give me a blog you admire and why?	At the moment, I like reading the Net Fool – a lot of good info in there usually, and a nice ‘tone’ to it.	Thenetfool.com I visit his blog every time I get a chance, it’s very informative and I really like Jim’s point of view on most of his articles.

They Hacked This Blog And How My Determination Fixed it

by Melvin · Aug 29, 2008

Most of you probably know that this blog was hacked a couple of days ago. In fact, you can see in my archive page that there is a notice (until now) saying to just go directly to my posts instead of going to the homepage. Well, long story… (you may not want to read this because this is boring!)

The day started when I tried loggin in to my wordpress blog admin page. I was surprised to see that the my login wasn’t succesful so I retried it. But well still to no avail. I immediately pressed the forgot password and well my password was reset and I was able to login again. Being curious, I immedaitely visited my site and saw that I am hacked! Well, I was surprised at it that I wasn’t even able to take a screenshot of it (if everyone has, please give it to me 😉 ) I then panicked a bit mainly because obviously I know little with things like this and well its just that from my point of view I can do nothing by myself.

So I then turned to the busiest forum in the world, the digital point. I have made a thread there saying my site was hacked and I immediately got great responses. Some were saying that I should check for some shells, others are saying this and that and those. I also went through the teenager internet marketing forum, blog premiere. Many people have responded as well, but in a longer span of time. Jason pointed out saying that I should get the db from my host which is gator. Oh, yeah! I forgot I should have a conversation with my web host which should be done first and foremost. I immediately called them and talked (they were polite) and they say they would get back to me asap. The incident reminds me of the hacking of Carl Ocab’s site. When his site was hacked, what he did was to change host and update the nameservers and it became fine. The process is a little lengthy though.

I was busy all throughout the day. I then called Rajaie who could probably help me with this. he responded immediately (thats what friends are all about:-) ). He asked for my wp account and I immediately made one for him and made him an administrator. One clear thing is that I dont have a clear path of what to do. While waiting for him, I emailed Scocco of DBT, I tweeted Shoemoney, and the number of replies from dp kept on growing. I then revoked the admin privileges to Alkorani because I feel I should on a more clear direction.

Turned the PC off and think more. I had to be more focused and DETERMINED for it. The blog, well aside from having sold out ad spots, hundreds of readers, the main thing is that it’s a part of me. That’s why my name has on it. After 2 hours, turned the PC again, got reply from Scocco saying I should reinstall wordpress and load the backup. Problem is that my last backup was made way back June, wtf! I told him if there;s other solution? and he said none! I am a click away from removing wordpress and reinstalling it and loading an outdated backup but I said No! Then the great light came in and it seemed that in a blink of an eye I know the end of the tunnel is very close.

I, have searched on C99 shells and have found some of them on my public_html folder, then I also found suspicious files which I fearlessly deleted. Then still not fine~ oh shit! Then an idea popped out and well I changed my template back to the old and ugly Kubrick theme. I loaded it and to my surprise it loaded succesfully… Aha! The problem was on my template. Obviously, the site’s main page is the only one not functioning. What I did is look at the index.php and bingo! I have found out the culprit! I immediately restored the code back and it was back again. The rest was history…

What did I learn? Many things; always back up, never lose composure, trust yourself, and believe in your friends that you can do it, they add positive things. To all, thank you for the help, digital point, blog premiere, the bloggers I have contacted and everyone. A very great experience to me!

The Sponsor’s Post

by Melvin · Aug 27, 2008

Well this is follow up of the “thank you sponsors” post that started last month. I thought I would make a version of this every month (every time I feel lazy about posting something). I also had a thought to make different and creative titles every month. This month is a great month. I am pretty sold out in terms of advertising and text link and you’re gonna see some advertisers up their up to decades. 😉

For this month here are the free plugs. Note: I have been a little picky on advertisers. I had three calls for a casino ad and I turned it down. But well, I do accept adult advertising! 🙂

– Site that provides great stuffs and offers from the internet. Looks like a BANS site but then its not

– Myspace Friend Adder is a blackhat great tool for adding unlimited number of friends on Myspace without any hassle. We all know how good myspace is as a marketing tool right?
– The NetFool is a blog that promotes the make money online niche. Well, he’s tackling stock market and probably I think he has the best blog in the whole 15-25 years old kids industry! I’m serious.
– Again this one looked to be book for a decade here. PWP is a site for internet marketing newbies.
– We all know how Carl Ocab managed to brand himself online. Make sure to receive exclusive offers from him.
– Michael Corao has been doing SEO and I think his service worths a look.

Text Links

Legitimate Work At Home Jobs– A site with an enormous list of work at home jobs. Great find by the owner
Live Domain Name Chat – A site that provides chatting service for domain names
Hong Kong Wong – A blog by a great friend about all his personal experiences, thoughts and ramblings on some things.

Those are the advertisers for this period. You can just see the value that the advertisers get from me. Not only they get cheap rates, they do also get a lot of exposures. For the next month, my prices will drastically increase and I have stats to back it up. 🙂

The PepperJam Bloggers Incentive Program

by Melvin · Aug 25, 2008

Last July you probably have read that PepperJam Network is really one of my favorite affiliate network around the web. Last month I made $152 from it w/o using PPC and some risky advertising. All I did was to exert efforts on doing things that I can do myself. This month I though was pretty cool, the first 5 days of August netted me $52 and looking where things are heading, I became ecstatic.

pepperjam

So, what is this PJN Bloggers Incentive Program? It is simply a program wherein a blogger is get paid for writing a post about pepperjam for certain topics (like this one). Of course, you can’t just make a junk post and everything that you’ll write about them will be carefully reviewed. Then they’ll pay you a bonus $10 for doing it. And wait, you can do five a month, which means a residual $50 for you. Why they are doing this? Simple, bloggers are the lifeline of affiliate networks and well I can just imagine how much they are making from them. For me, it isn’t hard to endorse PJN because on my experience it has been a great money maker for me month and month and months. I have seen some of my friends make more than me and I haven’t heard some complaints about them.

Remember the July partnership that I had with PepperJam Network? Yes, actually they are paying accepted affiliates $10 just for signing up. If you didn’t know it has just been extended until August. Yes, August! A lot of people are always asking me, “can I get the $10 immediately?” of course not! I believe you have to wait for a month before you can take it. But why just wait if you can multiply it? Well, let’s see. I talked with their CEO about having some contest sponsored by them and they want to know more about it. Also I am doing an ebook about it.

Join Pepperjam Network today!

Can Blogs Help You Make Money?

by Melvin · Aug 23, 2008

Well this is a great question by one of my childhood friend. He was very curious about how blogs can help people make money. In all honesty, blogs CAN’T make you money, and although they can help, it’s just not as easy as people think. Why? Well blogs first and foremost is a place bloggers where stuck their own notes and what they are putting their is all based on their OWN experience and opinion. You see guys put “Making money with PPC” or maybe with Website Flipping or so but the truth is it’s based on their own experience (most of the time). They have done it well so they can recommend it and in this way they can help you learn and gain some knowledge about it. But their’s no way they’re helping you make money, or maybe they do but it’s still up to you.

I don’t really have problems with this but it’s just that what worked for others doesn’t mean will work with you (or doesn’t mean it won’t work for you). Yeah, they are plenty of blogs there that provide useful and superb resources. You can always read a good article about Pay Per Click and still suck at doing it. You can print a ebook about making money with articles but still fail. Bottom line is people do things differently and have different expertise. Or Maybe making money online is just not for you

The Importance of StartUp Income

by Melvin · Aug 17, 2008

I always like to go back to the old days wherein I used to struggle and almost “cry” trying hard ti make money online. Well, I still struggle today but never cry anymore. 😉 So I can say one thing that has really made me up on internet marketing is the startup income. During those hard times, I have the money to cover up all failing projects and dumb purchases. It’s also evident to see that when you’re carving up something online or even offline, you need to have some startup cash to cover your expenses. Jason always points it out in some of his post saying you have to work for some small income first to get you online for bigger things. I agree on that. Before I was doing some freelancing to cover up some PPC cost and advertising expenses. Of course its risky because you will 85% sure fail. But well I was more of yearning about learning that time.

Well, if you’re thinking how you can build some initial income here’s what I can suggest to you:

Forum Posting – This one is easy but you have to have hardwork. Forumsfirst pays $0.20 for each 40 word comment. They pay via paypal and the minimum is $10. If you type very fast (like me) and have a great WPM accuracy then a $10 can be easily made by an hour. Cool!
GPT – A while a back ago I asked Jim of the Netfool why he is promoting GPT sites. He responded saying because everyone can make money from it so easy. All you have to do is complete free offers. Check out The Net Fools GPT sites.
Freelancing – Before I used to embark a lot of time in this one. Before I used to have a good grammar before blogging made my grammar look atrocious! If you’re up on writing articles, coding and so then this one is for you.
Digital Point – Last month I made a post about how you can make a living on DP forum. Again DP has an enormous opportunity on making money. You can join contests, do some data entry jobs and boast yyour portfolio there. After all there is no middle man so you get a fair share of everything.

Of course there are tons of it but at least these are what I can say have worked for me well. At the end it is all about determination and hardwork. I guess it always pays off at the end.