Hearty Surprise

How Easy is a name change ? Not easy to let go off your original name if you have already branded quite well.  But when there are too many products and areas that we diversify, then we have to look for a name to tie all of the produts under one roof.

That is why ‘Payperpost’  just took on a new corporate name called ‘IZEA’ .Payperpost is not ‘the’ service but it forms one of the flagship product of IZEA which also comprises of  other produc/services such as Blogger’s Choice Awards, RockStartup, Zookoda and BlogInSpace.

So how Easy is IZEA ?

Popularity: 67% [?]

 I love to travel , yeah everybody does. Since I am in the Asia Pacific Region it is easier to travel to the neighbouring countries  for short holidays. That is how I ended up with my family in Hongkong for a weekend. 

People go to Hongkong for great food and good shopping.  Since I am a pure vegetarian non of the so called excellent food centres impressed me. And I shop only when required not travel to a place just to shop. Since we have to mark the must see places we took the effort to visit  the amusement park called “Ocean Place” though it was not in our original list.

This park which is built on both sides of a mountain and provides a variety of entertainment items like in many other parks such as the rides , dolphin and animal shows,aquarium and education items for the kids.They are all spread across  the 870,000 sq m of lowlands located in the bottom of the mountain and the head land or the top of the mountain. 

But the hightligh of them all is the 1.5 km ride in the cable car from the lowland to the mountain top and down again.  The mountain with well decorated park on one side and the South China sea on the other side and he we go in the smooth cable car.  This one ride alone is sure to justify the entrance fee we pay.

I love rollercoaster rides and this one comes packed with the extra punch due to the natural advantage of its location(on top of the mountain with the sea below) . I bet you will love it. You can spend a good one day travelling up , down and around. Travelling to Hongkong  ?  Take a day off at Ocean Park.

Popularity: 68% [?]

One of the blog topic which is a definite crowd puller is about people who have made huge money or good name in any field. Since our focus is on internet entrepreneurs and online business , I  constantly write on people who made it big in the online world.  And every post has been hit by huge crowds even days after it was published.

Listed here is just 3 of the all time favorite posts

1. 300 Million Domain Name Kingdom
2. Minor Girl Earn $70,000 Per Month
3. One Fish Earns Millions With Plenty Of Fish

I guess it is because we all like to hear how others made name and money and learn a few ideas and tips from them. It is the zing factor. We all want to be superheroes but at the same time we would like to see that these people are also humans like us and went through ups and down. This gives us motivation to keep going.

Click the category Internet Entrepreneurs for a bigger list of the industry bigheads.

Try this tip for your blog. But before that subscribe to us.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Yes what you read is true. Over $54,000 worth of gifts will be pouring out of in the PROBLOGGER’s birthday bash this week.  Can you believe it ?  My jaws dropped when I saw the list at Darren’s blog. 

The prizes will be given out through various contest.  He is one man who knows how to make people dance. I bet he is going to take us on a  good site tour of his blog and he will make sure that people work well for the prize they get. 

 Head on to Problogger.net

Popularity: 78% [?]

One of the least expected field to catch the internet bandwagon is Online Tutoring. Though online training and selfhelp course material has been around for ages, they were geared towards the professionals and higher age who are in more control of themselves.

But tutoring for children and youngsters calls for different skills. The tutor should be able to engage and guide them so that they grasp the content in which they need additional help. After all that is the reason for engaging a tutor.

In internet tuition the tutor and the child sits in some place few hundred / thousand miles apart,  in front of the computer connected through broadband . The student and the teacher see and talk to each other through the web camera and the microphone fitted at each end. The greatest benefit of going online is the reach. You are not restricted by the geographical boundaries. If you are good at French and wish to teach a student in Japan there is nothing that stops you from taking the assignment other than the constraints of a good speed internet connection. 

This one of the best telecommuting jobs for individuals.Many popular online tutoring centers have a pool of tutors  based on subject, geographical location , expertise, availability etc and assign to children based on their requirements. It is a team effort and benefits both the tutors to refer children to each other and for the children to find relevant teachers.

Have you ever given a thought to this earning model ?  If you are one of those doing online teaching do share with us your experience.  Do you see any setbacks in this teaching method ? What technology advancement do you think will help you to carry your work easily.

Online tutoring  is a different ball game all together. When the tutors are physically present children tend to have higher concentration but with the virtual teacher, sitting few hundred or thousand miles away

Popularity: 71% [?]

Unbelievable? Interested to know what business she is upto ? A clue: This 17 year old minor who runs whateverlife.com that provides free myspace layout.  Did you guess who? Be introduced to Ashley Qualls who is the president of whateverlife.com who boldly quit school to run a million dollar business. Her initial investment is $8 for the domain name.

Ashley started the company in 2004 and by 2005 offered the do it yourself myspace layout for people to use. In less than 2 years time her layouts has become the rage of the teenagers.  It is reported that her site receives 7 millions visitors and 60 million page views per month. 

Her earnings is about $70,000/ pm and the best thing is  that the revenue is only through advertisement and nothing through the sale of her product, because her layouts are free. Imagine if she had offered her layout which are grabbed like hot cakes for a small prize. Now please hold on to your jaws. They are dropping.    Not many corporates who deal with her initially know that they are talking to a 17 year old who is not yet eligible to do business as per law.

Just take a look at recently done and todo list as of 20th Sep on her blog:

“… You may have seen me on CH 4 or CH 7 in the past few days if you live in the Detroit area! So that was fun! I just did a photoshoot for StrutMag.com (Women’s publication in Detroit) (got done about 20 minutes ago) Tonight I have the Detroit FreePress, so look out for that! ….  I’m leaving Monday evening for NYC and returning next Sunday! ..  On Tueday morning I’ll be taping for The VIEW! YES! I’ll be on with Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Sheppard! … It’s going to be a 6-7 minute interview and it will air Friday, Sept 28th! …  I’ll be doing some big ad sales in NYC while I’m there- and I’m sponsoring the Ypulse Tween Mashup!  … “

With no guidance, no godfathers/ godmothers in the family with business knowledge , with no academic degree and from a relatively average family backgroud, this little girl had come a long way. But she is strong minded to reject a cool 1.5 million offer for her company. That proves the power which drives Ashley.

This is the amazing power of the internet. Internet Entrepreneurs come  from all walks of life and rise to a level and scale never ever imagined . It is sheer hard smart work and correct timing that matters most.

Good Luck young lady.

Courtesy :  Fast Company

Popularity: 87% [?]

Time and again our brain is clean washed and we sit thinking hard about the next topic for our blog. Today is one such occasion and while I wandered the net desperately trying to get some leads , I came across this list of 100 topics to blog about from ‘Chris Brogan’. This person is having a hyperactive brain I admit.

He is so happy and interested to share his list with others. And it is no surprise that so many people stopped by to thank him. What does that indicate ? Yes , many are in the same boat. 

Look at some of the topics,  “Could I quit my day job” , “How I use my website”, “The internet application I haven’t seen”  these are some thoughts which flashes in our mind while we do our chores. But do we take note of them , sometimes yes and mostly not. Apart from the topics that are releavant to the theme of our blog , we could have used these as fillers when our brain went for a sound sleep.

So if you are my copassenger head on to the 100 blog topics I hope you write - Chrisbrogan.  Chris, this is my way of saying thanks to you. Good work mate.

Popularity: 80% [?]

What you are going to read now is another opportunity to make money online. We all know that affiliate commision is one of the biggest money getters . That is why this post is on dealdotcom .

Did you hear the recent buzz in the blogosphere.  Not that I am hard on hearing, but just that I was waiting to see how loud the buzz is.  And since the who is who is blogging community brags about this dealdotcom guys to be the next revolutionary in affiliate commission and in selling IM products at a never heard/seen price , these guys have atleast succeeded in shouting out loud.

 In case you have been deep in the forest or sun-bathing in a remote island , read this information  from the out of proportion blown up guys at dealdotcom: 

… When you refer others to DealDotCom and they get their free account, they are marked in our system as having been referred by you. Anything that they ever buy from us nets you a 35% commission. Notice the word “ever” in the previous sentence… as in FOREVER. It doesn’t matter if they buy something tomorrow, next week, or fifty years from now - you’re going to get paid. What’s more, anyone that they refer to DealDotCom goes on your second tier. Anything people on your second tier buy nets you a 15% commission. Again, FOREVER….

Are We Talking About Lifetime Affiliate Commision  ?

If that jolted you back to real world, it means that you read the word ‘Commision’ and ‘Forever’ correctly in the quot above.  These guys promise a 2-tier commision for life . Now don’t ask me whose life. Try to outlive them and drill out the commission from these chaps.

One Deal One Day

The other stuff that will be of interest is the product on offer everyday. These guys atleast are clear in their approach to get the crowd to knock on their doors everyday. So to know what is the offer for that day we have to to their website.

But either being a shopper or an affiliate there is a nice chance to get a raw deal. That is what people are dealdotcom are trying to say.  There is less than 24 hours before their doors are open on Sep 15 2007 . So be the early bird and start counting your commission.

Popularity: 75% [?]

The internet entrepreneur profiled for this week is “Craig Alaxander Newmark”, the person who turned a hobby into an institution.

First, for the benefit of those who did not get the chance to know about craiglist, it is a classifieds site carrying ads on many topics under the sun.It also has a large forum for people to discuss. It is largely non commercial, that is you don’t see irritating popups and screaming banners there. The revenue is generated through fees for the ads posted and that too only on certain categories like jobs, home brokering and only in certain cities.

Flashback

The story begins in 1995 when Craig maintained a list of email address to announce people who were interested to know the events happening around San Francisco. This list gradually grew in size and people were not only interested in knowing about events but selling, renting, services , jobs etc etc until it was no more a small list to manage.

While working at Charles Schwab he started craigslist (the name suggested by his friends, else it would have been called SF Events ) in 1995 to distribute events list more effectively. But today it distributes a lot more not only to SF Bay area but to people in 5 continents across 50 countries who contribute to more than 25 million hits per month. One of the secret to its success is that the company is still run with less than 25 employees.  Big is out. Small is good.

Connection With Ebay

About 25% of craigslist is owned by ebay after its shares was sold by a former employee in 1994.  While both ebay and craigslist are geared towards for the people and  by the people , there is a commercial difference in their business model.  While ebay is commercial , craiglist still retains its essence of giving back to the community.

Thus the craigslist.org which was born out of the genuine interest in reaching out to people remains so till date. That is why it has a devout user base running millions.

 Tidbits

Craig was born in 1952 and is now a multi millionaire. He is also very actively involved in charity work. He is responsible for the customer service at craigslist and personally responds to the mails. How many big shots still do that ?

craigslist , Internet Entrepreneur

Popularity: 77% [?]

Today we will get an introduction on one of the important tool to perform online business - Credit Card Transactions. Amex, Visa, Mastercard, Discover are some of the popular cards used by millions of customers on the net.

Credit card transactions are common in most business today.  Customers need flexible options to make payment and by providing them with one of the popular mode, you attract more customers and grow your business. 

Benefits of credit card transactions

1. Credit Card transactions helps to transfer funds to our account faster(say in less than 2 weeks) rather than follow the customer periodically to pay outstanding amount.

2. Many clients would like to receive a consolidated statement of their outstandings rather than individual invoices.  Providing them one would help to build more business opportunities.

Merchant Account and where to get it ?

To accept credit card transactions you need a merchant account.  Bank, Third party processors, Financial Service Provider , Trade business associations are some of the places that can help us to do credit card transactions. Ms.Merchant Account  is one such company that offers merchant solutions for both Low Risk (Hotels, Bars, Stores  etc) and High Risk(online high volume stores, travel ticketing, adult entertainment etc) merchants. They track the market so as to give the best discount rate for the benefit of customers.

Points to consider when evaluating the merchant service

1.  Credibility of the Company: Unless you open an merchant account with a bank or a reputed firm , your first task to check if the company is genuine, how long they have been in business and their track record.

2. Fees : Most obvious is the discount or the fee charged per transaction  by the merchant. Then there is fees for the transaction statements. Apart from this each merchant has numerous add ons like annual fee, processing fee , etc ..  Get to know all the fine prints.

3.Customer Service : There is nothing worse than being left to help ourselves when things are go wrong and the support people are having a long break. Time wasted is is money and business lost forever. Find more about the companies customer service and read testimonials.

It may do you good to contact Ms Merchant Account to know more about credit card transactions and analyse if their services will be of benefit to you.

Popularity: 70% [?]