Ramblings

Blogosphere News And Some Announcements

by Melvin · Mar 14, 2009

As you may notice, most medium cap bloggers within our niche seemed to be lackadaisical on posting nowadays. I was looking from this blog’s archive and was surprised it’s actually the same thing with this blog. 🙂

It’s not surprising though because most bloggers are either college students, or someone having a full time job so it’s easy to figure out they are busy with more important stuffs. Anyway here are some few news I’ve heard/read this past week.

Shoemoney and SEO Expert Disa Johnson’s conflict seemed to be reaching new heights. What appeared to be a done deal when Shoe actually followed what Disa requested, isn’t done after all. Disa feels pissed with the fact that Shoemoney’s blog post appears on Google for her name. Apparently Disa cared so much about her reputation and has now been doing a massive twitter campaign against Shoe. They feel pissed off against each other, didn’t they? 🙂

Desmond from Desmond Blog had just flipped his blogflippingformula site for close to $2000. It’s good to hear it considering a lot of people (I think) are doubting on Desmond’s ability to flip blogs and whether he’s genuine or not.

Pure Digital Technologies, makers of the ever so popular Flip Video Camera were selling their company and Cisco is said to be the most appealed buyer and that the price is “north of $500 million.” Founder and CEO Jonathan Kaplan is said to be taking around $80 million off the table personally. This hasn’t been confirmed. My prediction is Cisco could have it before June.

News from this blog

So I know a lot of people are eagerly waiting for the prizes they have won from my previous contest. I couldn’t contact some of the sponsors and some have said they are going to give their prize in 5 days. The list of sponsors (and their reputation) is of a good quality and I believe I would never have a problem with them. So just give me another week for releasing your prize.

Advertising on Melvin Blog

The price rates on advertising on this blog have never increased for a while. So know I’m planning to increase it. The traffic of the blog has drastically increased as well as its readership for this year so starting wednesday night the new price rates would be in effect and here they are:

125X125 – From $10 – $15 – 2 spots available

468X60 – From $15 – $25 – 0 available

Text links – From $5 to $10 – 7 available

Paid Reviews – From $40 – $55

A lot of people are telling to increase my rates even early this year but I just decided I would do it this wednesday. So if you’re promoting something and feel my blog’s niche suits it, then advertise now, before it increases…

I Just Hate Affiliate Marketing Sometimes

by Melvin · Feb 26, 2009

I was taking the exams pretty much this whole week and had almost never had any look at internet-marketing related stuffs. All I have been doing is researching for something and finding tutorials so I can understand Math more. Anyways I forgot a facebook campaign I was running and I am surprised when I saw the cost increasing to (click for larger):

Anyway I was promoting an offer about IQ quizzes (my obsession these days) and have sent about $850+ worth of leads. Not bad considering I just test-drove that offer while practicing in Facebook.

How bout you, wht do you doin’ these days?

Valentines Is For Everyone

by Melvin · Feb 13, 2009

Hey everyone I just want to greet you a happy and nice valentine. Most people take this day off, turn their computers off, to spend this time of day with their own love ones. Some would like to spend it with their girlfriends/boyfriends, some with their friends and some with the relatives and family members.

Really Valentines day is for everyone. Before I used to think Valentines is just for lovers but its not the case. What is in my plan this Valentine? Well how I wish I can spend the night of that day with my “girl” in a nice restaurant with some retards playing romantic violin music. It’s not possible. 🙁 I will be in duty for the whole Valentines day itself so what I planned is just to give a present to her in the 13th. and tell her I love her! LOLZ… Then on the 15th (the day after the Valentine) I am going to spend some time with my family and hopefully go into dinner or something. 🙂

Anyway what is the best flower for Valentines? They say its Tulips, other Rose. A friend told me Carnation is cheap but it can last for a week. Also, what’s the sidedish for a flower? I had in mind, chocolate cake, chocolate, figurine, heart-shaped pillow..err… stuff toy and so. Any suggestions?

How to Make Money Outside Internet Marketing

by Melvin · Feb 8, 2009

Although the title looks like that one you have been seeing in email spams and “get-rich quick sales pages, it’s actually not. A lot of people jumping into internet marketing always have this question “How do I start? I dont know anything about internet marketing?” The answer is always read, try to learn, test, then learn again.

But as always there are a ton of ways on how you can make money online if you’re dumb and poor about internet marketing. We all know it takes time before you can completely grasp the whole concept of it, but whats the need on learning it if you can make some cash without it? 🙂 Today I have compiled ways on how you can actually make money online without any knowledge about IM. The only thing you need is the basic read and write knowledge as well as some persistence on your part. I believe all of them costs nothing (although if you have the money, the better) Here they are:

Forum Posting – Forum Posting is basically posting in a forum and getting paid. It’s not really that big but if you can work quick, then you can definitely have your earnings up. ForumsFirst.com is one that pays for it. They are probably the most reliable and better forum posting company. You can also look at some forums like dp and v7n, as normally there are people that look for forum fillers.

SECRET TIP: With this type people often whine “I don’t type fast” While typing fast is a huge factor in this one, it’s not totally the only thing that can give you success with it. Why not use a dicatation software? In my previous stints with doing it, I use Dragon Naturally Speaking. If you’re a Mac user you can use Mac Dictate. What is a dictation software? Basically its a software that converts your voice to text. COol? Definitely! You can make $50 a day easily with forum posting with this type of software. $50 a day? Yeah, something most affiliate marketers cant even reach!

Get Paid To Sites – GPT sites are sites that pay people to complete an offer. Maybe a short survey, or signup to a free site, or maybe something that requires a credit card. Believe me there’s no shortage of this sites. Why? Because some affiliate marketers are incentivizing some offers, thats why they come to these sites, pay them and earn. Win-Win situation for all! Jim of TNF has a list which he personally recommends
Freelancing – Contrary to what most people are saying, freelancing is really a lucrative thing. A lot of people are looking to outsource (including me). They look for designers, article writers, coders, data entry personnels, and many more. I mean Im sure at least you know how to do one of it right? Freelancers are the one whom I often called as “partners in business”. Elance.com is one company which probably is the biggest.
Starting A Contest Blog – I hate doing stuffs like this but basically lets face it, you can actually make some cash/gadgets with contests nowadays. 85% of contests require blogging and doing it costs you nothing. What are you waiting for? Create a free blogger blog, fill it with some content, then start hunting for contests. I know a lot of people making good use of contest blogs and taking advantage of contests.

SECRET TIP: How do you know a contest is live? Easy, just look at other contest blogs and you will know it. Contest bloggers try to find contest as much as they can so they are actually doing the work for you. Search Google for terms “contest blogs” “blog contests” or so and you’ll find a ton.

Selling Photos – Selling photos is something that I have never done and will never do in my entire life. But after countless hours of doing research about it I found out it can really be a good business. If you have a camera, then go into a peaceful place (cemetery?) and take shots. Then sell it to sites like iStockPhoto and StockExpert.

Now with this list, I dont really see any reason why people cannot make any money online. Although it doesn’t make you that big, I believe seeing your first dollars would make you more inspired. And inspirations do a lot. Anyway if you can add anything valuable to this list then don’t be shy to put it in the comments. Or if you have some questions, then ask them. My goal is to get more to add in this list and hopefully share it in some of the local forums here in my country. 🙂 What say you?

Upcoming Contest And Some Announcements

by Melvin · Jan 4, 2009

edit: My contact form is not functioning well, henceforth send an email to melvin@melvinblog.com if youre intrested in sponsoring

Hello everyone and hope you just had a nice holiday altogether.

Last week I mentioned that I have a pretty nice plan for my blog for its first full year at helm. So today I’m letting you know that there will be contest brewing up here soon. And by saying contest, I just don’t mean “contest” like most people would say “oh another fuck up contest” or “just another contest”. I am really preparing well for this contest which happened to be very first contest of the Melvin Blog. In contest, what I really had in mind is you, readers more than any traction that I can get for this one. I wanted to give you the best you can for reading and still making this blog a profitable special one. So here I am really working so hard to make this contest an unforgettable one to everyone!

So did I just say this is a special contest? What makes it special in the first place? Although I don’t want to disclose as much details here, maybe giving you a sneak peak wouldn’t hurt right? 😉 Basically some premium sponsors for this contest are affiliate networks like Pepperjam Network and Copeac giving away hardcore prizes. And who’s sitting on the backseat side of the premium sponsors? Oh I am very elated to say Dean Hunt, Caroline Middlebrook and Zac Johnson have all shown interest with sponsoring this contest. Now what are they sponsoring? That’s the secret you have to watch for! 🙂 So if you don’t want to miss this one maybe you should now subscribe to my feed.

Just as I said I wanted this contest to be special I am still looking for more sponsors so we could definitely add up the prize pool and make it more fun. You could use the contact form to give me your offers. With regards to sponsoring prizes, I would definitely love to see something more creative rather than just the usual ad spots for some months, or a text link or such stuffs like that. Maybe a cup of coffee or a book? It’s all up to you guys.

The Melvin Blog Incentives

So another announcement is that the newest portion of the blog is now alive and its what I call the incentives part of Melvin Blog. Basically the site is like “get paid to” type of site but more direct in approach. The site pays people to complete offers and basically some offers have cash pots wherein participants can win bigger cash for participating. Unfortunately, the launch of it went flat and only one has eventually completed an offer and of course ended up winning the cash pot of $5. Obviously it’s a loss but eventually there’s a room for so much improvement. I would also like to hear some suggestions to you on how I could possibly improve it. 😉

Year 2008 – Looking Back On Today

by Melvin · Dec 28, 2008

Around the blogosphere now I see a lot of people doing this, revisiting if they have accomplished their goals this year and do a list of goals for the next year. Actually I am really interested into reading this kind of stuffs and its nice to see how people actually fare with the current year. Anyway now I would want to share with you guys the year 2008 for me and how it has made impact on my life. Unlike most post, I wouldn’t want to talk much about the internet business and how I do some moolah online and so. Instead I like to share things that are far from that.

Ok, January up to March is a pretty fare and challenging month to me. Actually that is the third trimester for school and its just harder than what I thought. Initially we had subjects like Computer Systems Org which talks Assembly language which sucks. I also have like Object-Oriented Programming during that time. As I’ve said its hard, I barely passed those two subjects and kinda hang on as one of the students in our group that hasn’t fail any subjects since first year (or since kindergarten). Then here comes summer and oh boy its really hot during summer. This is where I struggled as the eldest brother in my family. Why? It’s because I care so much about things. I tend to have short patience with things and occassionally its hard to control myself with what I say. It’s been a struggle for me to be a nice image for my younger brothers w/o hurting them w/my sharp retorts. Oh well…

Then before the classes started I built this blog. Actually a day after purchasing the domain, getting a host and putting my first post, I was confined in a hospital for 4 days for being stressed too much, low blood, and dengue fever. Hospital sucks and everyone agrees I know. June then is the start of the class again and Im in the third year college. As always school is nice. I felt I was bright enough to get high grades and split time well with affiliate marketing, blogging and studies. Studying has always been fun and I know most students don’t say but they definitely have something on them that agrees with it. Funny jokes during lunch times, mocking people’s miseries and so on so fort. Seeing your crush, seeing ugly people, professors and poor security guards. Then of course the trimester ended before Christmas.

During November and December, I also kinda have the worst months on my online business in that year. What a time to come! Basically I felt I need to grow my business and we started out increasing our budgets with campaigns, started out hiring this one and that and pay hosting, domain and etc. That pretty mcuh hurted us financially (particularly me) as we lost over a thousand dollars. How? Its a long story and maybe I could talk about it for quite some time. I felt sad and thought Christmas would be sad for me because I’m poor (literally poor). But well god is great and I was still able to celebrate Christmas nicely. I was still able to buy gifts for my love ones and gifts for myself. Honestly as I write my ending thoughts about this last paragraph, I still couldn’t think of what I learned this year (seriously). Maybe its deep on me that I have to dig(g) it or have someone dig it for me so I could remember it. But well so far, I believe thats it. Im still young and these experiences make people grow.

What’s The “Better” Gift This Christmas

by Melvin · Dec 16, 2008

Again, I am on the rush of buying a Christmas gift for some people here and some for my love ones. I have a hard time of thinking of better gift ideas for different people. Yesterday I went to the mall to buy candies and sweets worth $10 and have them give to my friends. Of course I spent about an hour to wrap that thing and hopefully make it look presentable.

So, Anyways I still have a whole plethora of persons to give gifts at. My questions are:

What’s the best “generic” gift for teenagers? This is like what’s the best bulk gifts for another set of friends of mine. I know figurines and some other might make sense but I want to know your opinion.
What’s the most romantic affordable Christmas gift could you ever think of for a girl? I have been thinking for 3 days now about this and its damn hard! I want something unique.

Anyways, advance merry christmas to everyone. I may not be at the front of my computer for Christmas up until New year so here I am greeting in advance. 🙂