Wanna Buy Some Blogs?

September 7th, 2007

That’s right you read it correctly. I’m looking to sell a few of my blogs. I’ve had some people interested in buying several of the blogs in my blog network and I figure I could definitely use the money to fund other ventures that I’m currently working on.

Just some quick notes. The following blogs all make between $40 and $100 a month, I write nothing for any of them (aka all passive income). All have great domain names, have been around for over a year, are all PR4 and all need a good home. I just don’t have time to create content for them anymore.

I’ll write more about them later but here are the ones I’m thinking of parting with.

RumorPatrol.com
FinancingWealth.com
BlogSilver.com
SprintRants.com

Comment or contact me via email evossman at gmail .com

Multiple Adsense Between Paragraphs in Wordpress Blog Posts

September 5th, 2007

I’ve been a way for a while, trying to regain some focus in my life and thought I would return to this blog by providing some tips while using Wordpress. My most recent jump into playing with php and Wordpress is how to add Adsense code within blog posts in between paragraphs on every post.

I searched around and only found some plugins here and there that limit where the Adsense code can go. So I decided to build my own little php code. This should allow you to deal with the “” tag as well.

For this I’ve just dealt with the single.php file but you can put this wherever you’d like. Just remember the limits you have on the number of adsense blocks you can put in.

OK, so it’s really simple. Where you see <?php the_content(); ?>. Just replace that with:

<?php
$content = apply_filters(’the_content’, $post->post_content);
$save = explode(”</p>”, $content);
$count = 1;
foreach ($save as $a){
if ($count == 3){
echo’
<div style=”margin: 5px 0px 5px 0px; text-align: center;”>

YOUR ADSENSE CODE HERE

</div>’;
}
echo $a.”</p>”;
$count = $count + 1;
}
?>

It’s that simple! You can play around with the foreach and the if statements to insert your adsense between different paragraphs, multiple if statements allow for multiple inserts between multiple paragraphs. You can use if in_category to display ads a certain way if they’re in a certain wordpress category. The list is endless.

Now, for those of you who actually want to know how this works here goes:

The first line

$content = apply_filters(’the_content’, $post->post_content);

pulls your content into a string into the variable $content. This includes all code, html or otherwise. Don’t ask me why the apply_filters was needed. All I can tell you is that I wasn’t able to do it any other way.

Next we chop up the string into an array split up by </p> using the explode function.

$save = explode(”</p>”, $content);

As long as you are using paragraph tags in your posts (some people choose to take them out) then this will work. Each array value will be a separate paragraph.

Then we initialize a counter to keep track of how many paragraphs we echo (to come later),

$count = 1;

We then start our foreach loop to loop through each value in the array $save.

foreach ($save as $a){

Then we check to see what paragraph we’re on. Here is where you can play with it to echo your adsense code wherever you’d like. I have it displaying adsense after the third paragraph but you can display it wherever. Such as, if ( $count == 1 || $count == 3) would display before and after. You can use elseif to display different adsense layouts at different points in the post. Be creative. Notice that I’ve also decided to center my code using an inline style.


if ($count == 3){
echo’
<div style=”margin: 5px 0px 5px 0px; text-align: center;”>

YOUR ADSENSE CODE HERE

</div>’;
}

We then print our array value $a remembering to add a </p> at the end because php explode, explodes the array but removes the value we told php to explode from.

echo $a.”</p>”;

Finish that off with an increment of the $count variable and you’re done!

$count = $count + 1;
}
?>

This should give you the bare bones to insert adsense code into anywhere you’d like that you are displaying content. I use it only in single.php on my wordpress blog. You can see an example at my Hawaii Blog in this popular article about Dog the Bounty Hunter headed to Jail in Mexico.

Hope it helps some people out. Spread the word if you know anyone who can benefit from this.

Getting Back in the Matrix!

July 28th, 2007

It’s been almost two months since I was hanging out in “The Matrix.” I’ve gotten married, had a blast of a honeymoon in New Zealand, and enjoyed a little bit of the summer months out here in Hawaii. But now it’s time to get back at it.

Since I’ve been gone I’ve had continued writing on only one blog, Aloha Update. All my other blogs and internet business ventures have been stagnant. However, I’m pleased to report that earnings have stayed at the same levels as they were in May and acutally went up on some blogs. This is very encouraging news, it shows that the system of writing a lot, or having others write for your sites, can pay off while you do nothing!

But this news has also been pulling at me to get back in the world of internet business building. Having the last two months to sit back and take stock of what I’ve created has allowed me to really look at what works, what makes me money. I’ve been able to learn which approaches have the biggest return and thus those that I should spend more time creating.

It’s also allowed me to plan a path to refocus on those sites and operations I feel have the highest potential to build into a real business and provide a stream of money to fund other ventures. This is my main focus over the next few months is to work off a plan and build a business system that can fund the next planned operation and so on and so forth.

We’ll see how it goes, but I wantd to let ya’ll know, I’m back in the matrix!

Interesting Articles About Weblogs, Inc. Early Days

May 26th, 2007

I’ve been doing a bit of researching on business models and plans for building an online media and entertainment company and stumbled across a few interesting articles about Weblogs, Inc.’s early days when Jason Calacanis was a pie in the sky dreamer it seems like.

The article was found from this reporting and deals with the critique of Weblogs, Inc.’s business plan. The critique was done way back in 2003 by Nick Denton when Weblogs, Inc was first starting out and Jason had big plans for how he was going pay bloggers with revenue share. (Nick Denton is the publisher behind Gawker Media.)

The article sites an early wired news article about the beginnings of weblog empires and how Calacanis want[ed] to take the industry (which was just starting and what he knew little about) and turn it into a money making machine.)

The articles are filled with doubts and rightly so. It appears Calacanis knew little about the blog world. However, as I’ve said in many conversations outside of this blog, a blog is just a fancy name for a newspaper or magazine which is just a media reporting medium and entertainment delivery system. Jason had been around for a while, through the bubble of the late nineties, starting Silicon Alley Reporter, and involved with the media and entertainment businesses and bringing them online.

Very interesting reads about all the early talk of what blogs could someday become. Even Jeff Jarvis of the great buzz machine had in on the talks of a weblog network when he spoke of Calacanis, Bubble Boy, and a crazy idea.

Web Applications to Help You Visualize Ideas

May 21st, 2007

Some of you familiar with Microsoft Office Applications know of the flow chart and process mapping program called Microsoft Visio. It’s a great program that has a lot of standards, templates, and useability options that make it useful in a lot of situations.

I use it in my biotech position to map engineering processes and actual fluid flow. I’ve heard of others who use Visio in “mind mapping” and brainstorming processes to build ideas into projects and product development cycles.

The only problem is that Visio costs a bit of money. For those of you addicted to free web applications, forking over the money to buy a Microsoft product probably isn’t on your top priority. You need other solutions.

Well I did a little hunting around and found two free web applications for just those purposes, flow charts and brain storming.

The first one is called Gliffy and I really hope this application gets picked up by Google in the near future. It’d be a great addition to the Google Free Web Apps. (Although I really hope Google builds more connectivity into their apps and allows users to cut and paste their favorite portions from each app) Anyway, Gliffy is just like Visio and has a lot of built in capabilities to help you diagram flow processes. Try it out.

Gliffy Flow Chart Process Diagram

The next web app that I think you should try out is Bubbl.us. It’s a brainstorming web application, also free that gives users another interactive ability to create brainstorming on the fly, also would be a nice tool to add to Google and allow collaboration through Google Talk to have easy web conferences. Although I haven’t tried the sharing action in Bubbl.us I’m not sure it has real-time sharing like Google Documents does.

Bubbl.us example diagram

Either of these applications can be a big help to those of you who are visual planners and need to see the way things connect together to get a real sense for how they work. These two web applications should be in your toolbox if you’re making the switch to all online medium of communication.

Are You Really An Entrepreneur?

May 18th, 2007

It seems like everyone these days considers themselves an entrepreneur. Take me for example, am I an entrepreneur? I’d like to think I have the entrepreneur mindset. But most “businesses” I’ve built over the years I would consider small businesses, not entrepreneurial endeavors.

If I wasn’t there, they would cease to make money. That’s more a definition for a small business owner. Also, nothing I’ve done has been really innovative. Sure, I was the first in my elementary to buy a tub of candy from Sam’s Club and sell it on the bus. But that’s nothing more innovative than the local dime store. And if I wasn’t there, I sure wasn’t making money!

I’m not writing this to call anyone out. I merely trying to get people to see that they may not be entrepreneur’s in the traditional sense but rather small business owners trying to make a living working for themselves.

To become an entrepreneur, it’s my opinion that you have to utilize a business system or change the way a current system works, or create a completely new system, or, do all of the above.

In my opinion a true entrepreneur is creating money from other peoples work as well as thinking of something that is new an original. If you have a network of sites, that if you left for a year, would cease to run and make you no money, you might not be an entrepreneur.

Just some food for thought to keep you going towards financial freedom.

The New Google Analytics Rocks

May 17th, 2007

I’m definitely not the first to say that google analytics is new and improved. The word has been spreading about them taking urchin site tracker to the next level.

My Google Analytics account has just been switched over to the new look and feel and I have to say that it is Googlefied to the max. It gives you more information right at login that it ever did so you don’t have to go digging through all the crazy sidebar items. Speaking of which, the sidebar options have been majorly trimmed which is great!

The nice thing about the streamlined version is that it’s not really streamlined at all. I still see all the information it used to have just now it’s much easier to find and know it’s there (I even found stuff that I didn’t know analytics tracked.)

Here’s a pic of the new look. What do you all think of the new look?

New Look to Google Analytics

Volumetrics in the News

May 17th, 2007

I have recently been writing about volumetrics as a legit dieting plan and the different low energy density foods that you can enjoy while on the diet. Writing about it and really trying to stick with it has made me google happy for the term “volumetrics”.

From there I found out that Consumer reports has named volumetrics it’s top diet plan for this year.

“Recent clinical trials show the best overall weight loss of any diet evaluated. Based on research at Penn State, the diet aims to maximize the amount of food available per calories, mainly by use of reduced-fat products, liberal addition of vegetables and low-fat cooking techniques.”

For those of you who don’t know, the idea is really simple. Eat foods that weigh a lot and have a lot of volume with relatively low calories. This way you feel full while still eating less calories. It doesn’t take a nutritional degree to know that if you eat less calories than you burn throughout the day you’ll loose weight over time. The only problem, which volumetrics claims to solve, is you don’t feel full.

I for one hate being hungry so going from eating whenever, whatever, to trying to “diet” for the first time in my life has been difficult. Eating apples, salads, tomatoes, and other low energy density foods gives me the right balance of foods, and allows me to eat a lot, while lowering my calories.

I now find myself reading labels to do quick calculations based on weight and calories per serving. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep this up for the next 20 days until the wedding. Lord knows I could stand to loose a little tire that has inflated around my belly.

Do You Have An Outlook For Your Business?

May 16th, 2007

A lot of people, and I’m guilty as well, are jumping into the internet without a business plan in mind. They go in and even though they may claim to be an entrepreneur for sake of building clout with others like them (guilty again) they aren’t really building towards anything. They’re cloaking a hobby with words like entrepreneur, business person, start-up, mogul. Most phizzle off because they don’t have a good outlook for their business.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in trying to become an Entrepreneur is to have an outlook for the business you are trying to create. You may not have a set plan, and for those of you who can’t even plan what’s for dinner the next night those words will be like music to your ears.

But you need to a plan for the next month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, and then a long term outlook. Of course these can change as you go along. There’s nothing wrong with having a fluid business outlook. You just need to keep to what you write. You need to stick to your plan as best you can.

As an example I’ll apply it to Blogtown Press:

1 month: Work on On-Site Search Engine Optimization and continue to get as many inbound links from directories as possible. (Or as time will allow). Build the internal workings of each page and have a sound backbone for search engines to find the information they’re looking for.

3 month: Continue to build the archives on all the blogs, and launch several new blogs. Within 3 months I see the Blogtown Press Blog Network consisting of at least 20 blogs. As they grow I will continue to try out new writers and possibly have several more writers working of Blogtown Press.

6 month: Although this depends on Google, work on all the factors that increase PageRank and try to achieve a page rank of 5 on at least 8 blogs. Having Page Rank will allow me to have more authority within the blogging community and especially look better for advertisers and increase my traffic. By slowly establishing Blogtown Press, at 6 months from now, I will become more of an authority on the subjects our blogs focus on.

1 year: Have a network of sites focused on Blogtown Press that brings in $5000 a month earnings. This is a bit lofty but you have to shoot for the stars. I say a network of sites because I am thinking about launching a forum shortly. I see Blogtown Press and it’s partners bringing in several network sponsors where I don’t have to go through intermediaries like Google and TLA (although I still love you guys). I would also like to be providing several writers with full-time gigs making several $100 a month.

From this business outlook I can now list at least 10 things I need to do to get me to each of those milestones.

Now you do a business outlook.

How to Not Make Money From Domain Names

May 15th, 2007

Aside from the obvious way of not redirecting them to a site that has some sort of advertising where you get a piece of the action there’s also another way to make sure you don’t make money from domain names.

It’s called “Forgetting to renew your domain names!”

That’s right, I had a domain name that was pulling in $5-$10 a month, clearly paying for it’s renewal fee and more importantly paying off the money that I had initially invested in the domain name when I bought it from a third party. And I had put off those emails from GoDaddy reminding me that I needed to directly renew this domain because it wasn’t able to be auto renewed.

Then I went to check on the domain after noticing the expiration date had passed and it wasn’t there. At first I could have swore I tried to renew the domain name, but I guess there was no such luck and I somehow let it slip through the cracks. I only ended up making back about 50% of what I had initially invested. Not a very good business move.

I’ll keep checking to see if I can blame it on GoDaddy but I don’t think I’ll be able to.

If you want to learn how to make money buying and selling domain names check out my 5 part series on domain located at: How to make money buying and selling domain names.