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1 year ago

in Apple Executives Use Product Launch Formula on Andy Beard - Internet Business Systems Discussion
I agree that startups need marketing. However I think it would be a poor investment to spend it on a product unseen with no contact info and a one page website based on hype.

By the same logic startups should spend their money on a Nigerien email scam just because it sounds good ;)

I just visited the site and it's gone already, and no contact info anywhere. Shady.
1 reply
Andy Beard I agree that it would have been good to have a phone number, but maybe the affiliate system doesn't support telephone orders. Lots of other formalities are in order.
I can't remember exactly what was included on the sales page and I didn't have time to save a copy (but I know a man that did)

I assure you that 100s, if not 1000s of people didn't have the same problems.

Now the fun thing, it turns out there was a mistake in my article that I didn't spot and the only links were through to Dr Mani's site, so I might not even earn any commissions.
It is hard work looking after a sick 1 year old and blogging...

Then again, if Dr Mani gained a benefit from it that is all good, a huge chunk of his online earnings help pay for operations for children with heart defects.

I notice you have posted about your dislike for long page sales letters - great, that is your personal choice, but as Jim has pointed out to you, they work, and that Jeff Walker is the real deal.

It is great to quote lots of internet startups not using long page sales letters, but that isn't the point.

Have you noticed any startups using scarcity in their launches?

Have you noticed them using a coordinated launch process from multiple news outlets that were embargoed?

Have you noticed them providing lots of free services which they leverage for a small percentage who want a little more?

Have you noticed founders making themselves widely available to media outlets at launch time?

As I mentioned in my last post some of this stuff is not new, that it has been used in the games and film industry for years, though you wouldn't see the games industry or film industry giving away the first episode of a film so that they can make money on the follow on. They will however run a series of Bond films on lots of TV channels in the run up to a DVD or cinema release.

1 year ago

in Apple Executives Use Product Launch Formula on Andy Beard - Internet Business Systems Discussion
only a fool would spend $2000 on something unseen from a long sales page

you really think it's wise or responsible to consult people and startups to take out their wallet and visa and drop $2000 on a program they know nothing about other than hype and a long sales page?
2 replies
Andy Beard Yes I do

This wasn't the first post I made mentioning the launch, people had an opportunity to access a fair amount of good free information over the last 2 weeks.

If a startup is funded, and even if it isn't, if people are investing a huge amount of time in development, some thought to marketing strategy is important.

Maybe it would be more cost effective for a VC or other investor to invest in the material, and then pass on information to their teams.

The sales process isn't hype, though it might seem that way - providing people with lots of free information and them making a concious decision that they want more is not a hard sell method.

Long pages sales letters work - they answer the questions people might ask before making a purchase decision.

The guarantees made by reputable marketers such as Jeff Walker are always honoured, quickly and in full.

I can remember you had quite a few videos from Joel Comm's Next Internet Millionaire on your blog, as do many people you respect.
All Joel was doing was applying Product Launch Formula tactics in a unique way - loads of videos showing useful content, though it could have been a little more in-depth.

Other people more associated with blogging own the product, use the tactics and also promoted it, including Brain Clark (Copyblogger) and Yaro Starak.
I had the chance to meet Jeff whilst I was over in Florida, and have been on his list for over 2 years as I mentioned in my last post.

When you have studied the number of product launches I have, you get a different perception on the value.

I am certainly not encouraging people to load up their credit cards to buy something they can't afford, in many ways I am encouraging a smaller segment of my readership to consider buying something that they can't afford not to purchase, because it would be false economics not to do so.
Franck Silvestre I don't know for fool, but I know I've made a lot of money with these launches.

I was looking at my numbers and all my best months were a results of product launches (not even my products).

I can guarantee that this stuff works like gangbusters.

1 year ago

in Nice Bloggers Finish Last on John Cow dot COM
"Nice Bloggers Finish Last"? Lol, you must not be paying attention.

there are plenty of nice people, in the very niche that this blog is in, that are doing well

http://performancing.com/
http://www.doshdosh.com/
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/
http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/
http://zacjohnson.com/
http://www.jimkukral.com/
http://problogger.net/
etc..................

45n5's last blog post..Random But Practical Affiliate Site Tips

1 year ago

in You’ve shared the link love, now give yourself some love! on There's a Blog in my Soup!
thanks for the mention. for some reason I always do a poor job of linking to myself so the reminder is always nice ;)

1 year ago

in Please Talk To Me on Sage Blogger
@vlad - i would but cj doesn't make that report available via the api so no go.

1 year ago

in Please Talk To Me on Sage Blogger
@vlad - "If I was warned, these situations could have been avoided."

what would be cool I think is, to prevent sending people to dead pages:

you know how cj.com will show you clicks from invalid links?

Imagine if that report had an rss feed or email alert. this way every time you got the first invalid click anywhere in your account you would get an email or feed update.

That would be cool. PPJ or CJ feel free to implement ;)

1 year ago

in What’s Your Passion? on Jim Kukral
I like the short and long ones.

do what you enjoy doing, we'll keep watching ;)

1 year ago

in Create Niche Sites about Things You Are Passionate About on John Cow dot COM
"If a niche is saturated in the search engines there’s not a lot of point pursuing it."

Why? as long as you love it and passionate about something people will find you, plus odds are your content will be much better than the other content.

@debbie, great post.

Doing a topic you love also helps you stay motivated as opposed to writing about air purifiers or mold cause some keyword tool told you to lol ;)

45n5's last blog post..The Blog Entrepreneur Interview Questions For Me

1 year ago

in Real Estate Blogs Top 100 on Go Beyond MLS
Jim, you are a downer and a persistent one.

Once again have the option to provide a better solution with a comment. the only thing you seem to provide is negativity here? What gives?

btw, Alexa provides a firefox toolbar, I have it installed now.

1 year ago

in Real Estate Blogs Top 100 on Go Beyond MLS
"PR is a measure of “weight” (as I wrote). I never stated that it was a measure of rank in the SERPs as you infer. For more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagerank"

Did you read the link you sent?

it's the "weight" of a page shown in Google Search Results:

Quote from wikipedia: "In Google's other search services (such as its primary Web search) PageRank is used to weight the relevance scores of pages shown in search results."

"Again, I enjoy this idea. I think it is neat. But it’s hardly objective, no matter how we spin it."

It takes the 3 most objective measures on the web to rank the websites. If you have a better solution for ranking sites then share it ;)

Until then, enjoy!

1 year ago

in Real Estate Blogs Top 100 on Go Beyond MLS
"Google PR is hailed as the element of measure for weight in the SE’s and can be considered somewhat objective"

That is very wrong. My most highly trafficked site has a gray bar, pr 0. Lower pr pages outrank higher pr pages all day long. do a search.

"So what I think I am getting at is, why have a list at all if it is going to be impossible to be objective?"

wow you sure are a real downer.

Why have pagerank or technorti or alexa or feedburner counts or anything in the first place if they aren't 100% accurate? Which none of them are.

You make the best of what you got ;)

Also, it could be argued that because the top100 real estate weights the three with a formula it is more accurate than any single one of the metrics above.

;)

1 year ago

in Real Estate Blogs Top 100 on Go Beyond MLS
There are no 3rd party objective measures of traffic, inbound links, etc that are accurate.

Technorati is broken. Yahoo site explorer misses tons of sites.

The list takes the best there is and tries to make the best of it.

As for alexa specifically, it is an objective third party and may not meet your liking for actual raw traffic count they still are a good for seeing trends with website traffic so it does provide value.

There are no objective third party data sources are there? Do you have a solution or just pointing out you don't like things?

Vlad's list is the "best there is" at the moment ;)

(disclaimer, I programmed the list)

1 year ago

in Put Ads On Your Blog with ShowYourAdHere.com on Jim Kukral
thanks for the interview jim, it was great meeting you and hopefully we can do it again sometime.

if anybody has any questions about showyouradhere or suggestions fire away at showyouradhere.net

thanks again jim,
mark

1 year ago

in What Was The Funniest Money You Have Ever Made Online? on Sage Blogger
yeah I have the script, however google is deindexing the typo pages quicker then I can make them (most of them anyway).

got to get more creative than a simple script anymore ;)

1 year ago

in What Was The Funniest Money You Have Ever Made Online? on Sage Blogger
well it wasn't my first typo, but the first typo that brought in tons of traffic.

not saying which word either.......

1 year ago

in What Was The Funniest Money You Have Ever Made Online? on Sage Blogger
the first typo I made I thought was funny

I busted my butt writing good content for months.

and then I accidentally misspell something

and tons of traffic shows up

amusing to me at the time ;)

1 year ago

in How To Become A YouTube Partner? on Jim Kukral
coincidence or maybe you have an admirer on the youtube staff. Just got this email:

"Dear 45n5,

Thank you for your interest in the YouTube Partner Program. The information you provided in the online sign-up form has been reviewed and approved for the first stage of the application process. Please proceed to Step 2, creating and linking your Google AdSense account. All partners need an approved AdSense account in order to receive payment and be accepted in the program."

Thanks youtube ;) Waiting on phase 3 now.

1 year ago

in How To Become A YouTube Partner? on Jim Kukral
cool. my status is "Your application is currently being processed." they must be backlogged by a few million.

1 year ago

in How To Become A YouTube Partner? on Jim Kukral
I applied to the partner program about a month after it came out. Never got a response from them. Would be cool to be a partner.

1 year ago

in Advertising Offer on Sage Blogger
I'm headed to affiliate summit in less than 24 hours so I'm packing etc. but when I get back I will make the prices visible.

However, you will still need to log in to purchase the ad. Without logging in there is no way to track your ad purchases, give you feedback, etc.

Also, it's much MORE work to set up an ad through email than it is to just login, pay, and upload ;)

Cheers,
Mark

1 year ago

in Real Estate Blogs Top 100 on Go Beyond MLS
"But, hey, anything in the name of driving views and getting links, right?"

Well i wound't say "anything" but sure is fun trying ;)

"It’s how the blogs are seeded."

Oh, you mean like what blogs get on the list and what don't? Any RE blog that Vlad thinks aren't spam will get on. If you've got any ideas for good blogs shoot him an email, he will be glad to add them.

He did his best to find some blogs to get the list started and surely he missed a bunch of good ones.

"If your code were actually crawling Alexa and Technorati, the results might be very different, more complete"

It does actually crawl the sites. It uses their API's which are application programmers interface that returns the data straight from the source.

For instance, here is the details how to get your scripts using technorati:

http://technorati.com/developers/

however i only update once per week cause alexa charges to use their api and it takes some work to double check everything.

I'm out to dinner v-day dinner now. The list should be finished updating by the time I'm back.

1 year ago

in Real Estate Blogs Top 100 on Go Beyond MLS
About the N/A's, I am rerunning the scripts now. they usually take an hour because I don't want to ping the API's every second.

I manage over 500 blog rankings across multiple sites, there is no way I would take the time to hand calculate any ranking, it's all done based on a script that mixes up the pagerank, alexa rank, and technorati.

any other questions, fire away ;)

Remember, it's less about who ranks #65 or #55 and more about providing a central place to find real estate blogs and see their latest headlines.

Hopefully you find some like minded boggers from the list already ;)

From my experience with my own list, the number one benefit of a central place is it drives a bunch of traffic to the blogs that are on the list, regardless of where they are in rank.

1 year ago

in Real Estate Blogs Top 100 on Go Beyond MLS
"I’d recommend at least knowing how the algorithm is being generated."

It is generated from a mixture of alexa, page rank, and technorati rankings. Nothing is hand calculated.

Each factor has their own "weight' that changes often, however it is very public how each blog is ranked, according to their pr, technorati, and alexa. Both are 3 independent rankings that all blogs have.

"GeekRealtors Rank will quickly show you where on the internet to spend your advertising dollars."

That assumes the advertiser is looking for sites with the best independent stats like google pagerank, technorati, and alexa, which GeekRealtors does a better job than any existing site at aggregating all in one place.

Certainly an advertiser has other criteria, however GeekRealtors is a real good start.

1 year ago

in Real Estate Blogs Top 100 on Go Beyond MLS
"RE blogs that I know that didnt make the list revealed rankings in all three categories better than #65’s numbers"

it only ranks blogs relative to the other blogs in the database. Certainly there are blogs with better stats that would appear higher in the list that exist.

Just email vlad with the ones and he'll add them to the list ;)

As for the algorithm, it's based on google pagerank, technorati, and alexa rank. Nothing is hand calculated.

Each one is weighted differently, and that changes regularly, however there is no secret about what the factors in ranking are, they are google pr, technorati, and alexa.

1 year ago

in Nicefully Overhauled on Sage Blogger
lol @nicefully
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