How many times have you shopped at a store or eaten at a restaurant and been invited to take a customer service survey. Usually these survey opportunities are presented by the clerk or waiter who points out a web site at the bottom of your receipt. I have never paid attention to these in the past and often find them to be a nuisance. Sure, Target claims to give away $5000 gift cards. But who... Continue Reading

Twitter can be a great branding tool. If you are not already using Twitter to get the word out about your business, you probably at least know that you should be. There are lots of benefits to using Twitter, and some things that you should definitely avoid. And in the end, everyone needs to decide for themselves what kind of role Twitter will play in their lives and businesses. It's perfectly fine for your Twitter... Continue Reading

The following email was sent to me by one of the creators of The Internet Marketing World Cup. I told them I would consider updating my previous blog entry based on what he shared with me. After further consideration, I thought I would just let IMWC's point-of-view speak for itself. With that said, here is the entire email sent to me. It is thoughtful and I admire the IMWC team for proactively contacting me and... Continue Reading

The Internet has made life so much easier in so many ways. Think of all the time you save now that you don't have to stand in line at the bank or the post office, or shop in real stores. So what do you do with all of that time that the Internet saves you? Chances are you spend it...on the Internet. Great as the Internet is, it can be quite a time sink. Here... Continue Reading

Joel. It's not a common name. In fact, it is the 280th most common first name. The Old Testament contains a book of Joel. He is referenced as one of twelve Minor Prophets. The word "minor" has to do with the length of the book, not implying that Joel was a small guy or that his prophecies were in any way less significant. I mean, let's face it... a Word from God is a Word... Continue Reading

(Written by guest contributor Tim Golen) It's no secret that technology changes faster than most people are comfortable with. In an adoption of Moore's Law, Gerry Butters (former head of Lucent's Optical Networking Group) claims that the amount of data coming out of an optic fiber is doubling every nine months. Since the Internet is held together with these fiber "tubes," it means that new people and resources are coming online at an alarming rate... Continue Reading

As a blogger, I frequently share my opinion on a number of topics. That sometimes includes current events or newsworthy items. However, I never put myself forth as a journalist. While I prefer to have my facts straight, I must confess that I don't always get it right. But I believe those who report news have a much bigger obligation to accurately report stories. Don't you agree? I can't tell you how many times I... Continue Reading

Whenever I teach people about making money with AdSense, I make sure to let them know how easy it is to get started. Once they understand that their original content can translate to a revenue stream, they usually want to know what to do. For someone who has never blogged before, I recommend they set up a Blogger account. Not only is it easy to use, but it is also free. And since Google owns... 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

The Internet has made life so much easier in so many ways. Think of all the time you save now that you don't have to stand in line at the bank or the post office, or shop in real stores. So what do you do with all of that time that the Internet saves you? Chances are you spend it...on the Internet. Great as the Internet is, it can be quite a time sink... Continue Reading

I've now been on Twitter since May 2007. When I wrote Twitter power, I had about 5000 followers. Fast forward to late 2009. I hit 83,000 followers, but that's nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands or millions of followers that some members have acquired. It's been an interesting ride, but a number of things have happened that have caused me to reevaluate my Twitter strategy. Continue Reading

Twitter looks so easy, doesn't it? You don't have to plan and research like you do when you're writing a blog post. You can write whatever's on your mind and hit the Update button. Random thoughts make for perfectly good tweets. You don't have to think about search engine optimization. Tweets do turn up on Google but links in tweets don't count towards page rank and there's no way - or reason -- to optimize... Continue Reading

Twitter divides people into two camps. To those who use it, it's a whole new Internet. There's the Web of pages and content, and there's the Twitter of people and connections. Both are valuable and both are enjoyable, but they do different things and they do them in different ways. To people who aren't on Twitter though, the service looks completely bizarre. It's a place where people go to tell strangers what they had for... 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