I remember the first time I encountered an "easy button" at Staples. Push the big red button with the word "easy" printed on it and the family "That was easy" voice was played. I loved it and had to have one. A couple years ago I came up with an idea for another button which I thought would have great appeal to business people around the world. A green button with a dollar sign on... Continue Reading

"Nazis. I hate these guys." - Indiana Jones And who doesn't? That's what made #21 on my list of Top 25 Games that Rocked my World such a blast to play. The year was 1992. The computer was a Tandy 1000 with little more than a floppy drive. Shareware was the term for software that you could download for free and pay a small donation if you liked the program. It took id Software and... Continue Reading

(Written by guest contributor Dan Nickerson) In preparation for writing this article I thought I would look for a great quote about learning from your mistakes. You know what...that was a mistake, because honestly there are a ton of them online. They all boil down to one basic principle: You can learn far more from your mistakes than from your successes. Continue Reading

If you have been following this blog for any time, you probably know that it is not like other blogs. I don't have a template or formula for this blog. It is mine and I use it however I want. When I started blogging in 2003, my first entries were about my dog, my family and my travels. I blogged about my political views, current events and films I had recently seen. Then it happened... Continue Reading

It's been terribly dry in Northern Colorado. I can't remember the last time we had a substantial rain. Last week, the big news was the fire in Boulder County that claimed over 600 acres of land and at least 92 homes (nine of them belonging to firefighters.) Fortunately, no one was injured. As we were leaving church Sunday morning, it was impossible to miss smoke rising due west of our town, Loveland. It did not... Continue Reading

Yesterday, I introduced you to Help a Reporter, a site/newsletter that offers a wealth of opportunities to find publicity. HARO has well over 100,000 subscribers watching for opportunities to get interviewed. That means while the opportunities are ripe, there is a lot of competition to get noticed. Today's site is far less popular, but still offers quality leads for experts wanting recognition. Continue Reading

In my latest Fiverr.com project, I hired a provider to draw my dog, Socrates, as a cartoon. I sent my five dollars and uploaded a photo of Soc to the site. Continue Reading

(Written by guest contributor Chris Harper) Unless you're some super creative genius who's trying to keep your work pure of outside influence (aka a liar), then you're always on the lookout for some new inspiration. Inspiration is a funny thing. It seems to hide itself in different places, waiting for someone to stumble upon it at just the right time. Oftentimes, it's not even where you'd expect to find it. And other times, it seems... Continue Reading

I've been blogging since 2003. I started JoelComm.com as a personal site where I could write articles about whatever I wanted. I wrote about my family, my travels, my dog, movie reviews, computer games and whatever else crossed my mind. But as I began taking my blog more seriously, I began creating more original content that brought value to others. My expertise in online business, site monetization, iPhone applications and other areas proved valuable for... Continue Reading

It surprises me how many people are afraid to create an info product. The social proof that info products are profitable is everywhere. The biggest proof is ClickBank. ClickBank, which is essentially a portal for digital info products, has paid out over $1.3 billion to product creators in the last 10 years. That's $130 million every year, and the average person has never heard of them, which is just crazy. But this article is not... Continue Reading

Christmas. Seems like we measure a good part of our year by the celebration of Christ's birth. I know. For many people Christmas is very much a secular holiday. A time for family and friends. A time for decorating and hanging pretty lights. A time for the wonder of Santa Claus and flying reindeer. And a time for gift-giving. And regardless of whether or not Target has the cajones to allow the nice Salvation Army... Continue Reading

In the beginning there were blogs. And yea, God saw that they were good. After all, what a fantastic way for anyone to become an online publisher. Sure, the word "blog" doesn't roll off the tongue. It sounds more like you are about to upchuck yesterday's hot dog. But being short for "web log", it does work in a "oh well I guess it will do" kind of way. Continue Reading

Apart from Twitter's own terms of service which prohibit obvious things like harassment, transmitting viruses and spamming other members, there really aren't many rules to the site. You can essentially use Twitter however you like. However, for people and businesses who want to use Twitter successfully (eg: build a following and grow their circle of influence), there are a number of best practices that can be observed. I cover many of these in my book... Continue Reading

With Twitter becoming such a powerful force on the social media scene, there are those who get it and those who don't get it. There's a certain number of the "don't get it" crowd who will invariably take an outright aggressive posture and make a statement like this... "Twitter is a waste of time. Who cares what you had for breakfast?" Many on Twitter will hem and haw about the content of the question, almost... Continue Reading