That title was my attempt at humor, but seriously- it took Hostgator a long time to get with the program and make Wordpress 2.5 available for Fantastico.

I must say, though -- it was worth the wait. There are a few new features I really like, but since I'm so behind the times, I won't bother mentioning them.

Instead, I'll give you an update on my life at current-

First, if you'd like to know what's been keeping me so busy, I've been working on a couple of Facebook applications. One of them is out (the first version anyway) and it's called Blobs (click to add this application).

This app is far less complex than the other but still makes me happy. The gist is that you get to upgrade your blob to battle other blobs in hopes that you can be the best amongst your friends. The affiliate marketing angle (duh, of course) is generally the same as other games. To get gold, you fill out offers. Easy enough.

Second, I started exercising more. I've been riding a bike to work and I'm pretty happy about that. The only down-side is that I'm riding a cruiser bike for now, until I do some research and find a decent road bike. The upside to riding a cruiser like any other bike is that I depend solely on my leg muscles and they burn more often. Needless to say, I highly recommend riding a bike instead of driving a car (if you're able); it saves money and keeps you fitter.

Anyway, so I'm devoting more time to those things. Meanwhile, I have my campaigns on a sort of auto-pilot for now. I use the term auto-pilot loosely, as I check them daily and make small adjustments here and there. But for the most part, they're running strong by themselves.

I'll be writing more posts soon, so stay tuned.

Man am I lazy lately. And rightfully so. Things are going well with the biz and things are highly busy at work, so I'm procrastinating a bit with blog posts.

It's not without pain though. My Alexa ranking just jumped up to 126,038. Ouch. That means a bunch of people stopped visiting that normally do. My bad.

Don't worry, I'll get my second wind soon.

In other news, my research with the offer I'm going to divulge to you is going well. I say 'research' like I'm out in the field with binoculars, but that's hardly what I'm doing. I'm just letting the ads run and tweaking them to see what works best.

I'll post on it soon.

Scott

So like I was saying, lately I've been testing the content network out on a few campaigns. And to my surprise, the profit margin isn't actually that bad. I mean, I'm not unhappy with any profit margin but so far, it's been around 25% for the ones I've been running.

What does that mean for you? Keep an eye out, because I'm going to be telling you what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. That's right, boys and girls. I've been conducting this experiment for you people.

Why? Because I like you and because there's plenty of love (money) to go around on this one. So keep an eye out in the next couple of weeks for my how-to post on content-based campaigns. It's going to rock your socks, my newbie friends.

Anyway,  I'm pretty happy about all this because I can afford to pump some decent money into these little offers before I hand them over to you fine people.

For now, I'll see how they scale.

Lately, my peeve has been people who are ruining the good image of internet marketers. Everyone knows we are a highly respected bunch. Hey, I kid, I kid.

But seriously -- as far as internet marketing goes, the people who want to "get rich quick" make the rest of us look even worse. So my advice to you is: put some effort into it.

I'd venture to guess that most of those who just throw up some crappy site in hopes of  wrangling in some extra bucks don't end up making the kind of money that people like my friends and I do. That's because they end up getting Google Slapped or some business like that or their site gets swiped because it's so simple.

And the worst part about it- in the past, it's caused Google to crack down on sites that are low in quality or even slightly low in quality. A good analogy would be to relate it to the real estate market. One site goes down and because that was closely related to another, the sites around it get penalized for having similar qualities, even if they are technically within guidelines.

My point is simple: create quality and you most likely won't get slapped. The side benefit is that your minimum bids will get lowered for more competitive terms and you'll be able to compete with the big boys.

To create quality, I recommend writing articles or having articles written for you on the topic you're marketing. Additionally, you should provide a contact page and ideally, a blog to house the aforementioned articles. (Note: You may want to turn comments off). This will get your site indexed a little more thoroughly. On top of that, it's good to have things like a terms of service document as well as a privacy notice (if you collect information). This will help in a few ways: Google likes sites with more pages, Users trust sites with more pages and it's just a better way of doing business.

Remember: it is an actual business, so things like this matter.

Hey boys and girls, the numbers are in for last month and they are looking delicious.

• Affiliate Sales - $100.00
• Google AdSense - $49.98
• Private Ad Sales - $22.56
• Aweber Signups - $7.98
• Referrals - $6.42
• Adtoll - $2.59
• Amazon Book Commission - $0.08

For a grand total of $189.61!

Looks like I can quit my job and buy a mansion. No, but seriously .. this month has been a good one despite the recent sparsity of posts. One thing you'll notice is that we more than tripled last month's total -- AGAIN. That's right, baby.

This just goes to show -- if you stay dedicated and push through the low times, your work can start to pay off. Also, it shows that John Chow is right when he says you don't necessarily need a ton of traffic to increase revenue, you just need to monetize the traffic you already have.

And here's the graph you've grown to love-

FusionCharts Graph

Fantastic.

Scott

Well, I'm 25 now. Yesterday was my quarter-century mark and I am realizing how little time I've had for this blog in the past couple weeks and it's annoying the hell out of me, so I thought I'd post.

Lately, what's been on my mind has been the B.S. posts that people keep spewing out to keep people interested (you know who you are). Those posts aren't fooling anyone. They're trite and boring.

So let's cut straight to the chase with this one. What people ask most often .. the number one question .. the big cheese of questions is: how do I choose offers? Well, how about I choose for you? That's right, for those of you just getting started, I'm just going to pick an offer I'm trying right now or that I have tried and I will tell you all about it. Sure, it might get a bit more saturated as a result, you might have even tried it already, but remember- my intentions are to benefit you. My only catch is that I want you to report when you try it, if you do, and let us know how you're doing. It helps inspire people and plus, I get more comments that way which makes me happy inside.

Beach Bum Systems (2236 on Neverblue)
I've been running this for a long while now using email to promote it. I recommend you do the same. The conversion rate is above 1% and, as I always say, e-mail conversions are free after you've paid the first time. So take advantage. The best crowd this converts for (for me) is the make-money-online crowd but you might try another angle.

Anyway, let me know how it works out if you do try it or even if you have tried it.  Good luck.

Hey guys, I just wanted to let you know I'll be in Frisco for the weekend and won't be posting much.

If you watched 60 Minutes the other night, you probably saw the clip on sleep. The gist of it was that not getting enough sleep can lead to several known issues: overeating, decreased mental agility, decreased response time, decreased sexual appetite and more.

So it made me think of my current situation. Sure, I make a decent amount with internet marketing but we're never satisfied, are we?

I asked several friends how much sleep they get on average per night and here's what they said-

Wes Mahler: ~8 Hours
UberAffiliate: ~7 Hours
Jonathan Volk: ~7 Hours
Brandon Hopkins: ~7 Hours
Steven Truong: ~5 Hours
Me: ~6 Hours

You've seen these guys. They're doing pretty well for themselves and, as you can see, they get at least seven hours of sleep each night.

Then there's me. I get around 6 Hours per night and that's been pretty constant for the last few years. Coincidentally, for the last few years, I've put on some extra pounds. Seriously, I used to be around 170 and lean; now I'm 190 and rounder. As I said, yeah- I make decent money but think of how much more I could be making if I was firing on all pistons. The same goes for you. If you aren't getting enough sleep per night, you might want to reconsider.

If you do a search on this topic, you'll find some interesting stuff. If you want to read up, just do a search on 'sleep and weight gain.' Among the first results, you'll find this article by Colette Bouchez titled The Dream Diet: Losing Weight While You Sleep. Here's the interesting part:

...have you ever experienced a sleepless night followed by a day when no matter what you ate you never felt full or satisfied? If so, then you have experienced the workings of leptin and ghrelin.

How Hormones Affect Your Sleep

Leptin and ghrelin work in a kind of "checks and balances" system to control feelings of hunger and fullness, explains Michael Breus, PhD, a faculty member of the Atlanta School of Sleep Medicine and director of The Sleep Disorders Centers of Southeastern Lung Care in Atlanta. Ghrelin, which is produced in the gastrointestinal tract, stimulates appetite, while leptin, produced in fat cells, sends a signal to the brain when you are full.

So what's the connection to sleep? "When you don't get enough sleep, it drives leptin levels down, which means you don't feel as satisfied after you eat. Lack of sleep also causes ghrelin levels to rise, which means your appetite is stimulated, so you want more food," Breus tells WebMD.

The two combined, he says, can set the stage for overeating, which in turn may lead to weight gain.

This alone kind of shocked me. I mean, it makes sense but it explained a lot about my current state.

Like many other Americans, I was fooling myself into thinking longer days would lead to more work. In reality, I probably got less done and with decreased quality than if I were bright-eyed and bushy tailed from a good night's sleep.

Now I'm not blaming a bad diet or bad work ethic on not getting enough sleep. But I am saying it can contribute to these limiting factors. And when it comes to your business, you should do everything you can to make it work more efficiently and profit more. If that means getting your 7-8 hours/night, then so be it. And who doesn't want to sleep more? Sleep is amazing.

Personally, I jumped on the sleep train last night at around 10PM just to get a jump start on this experiment. The experiment being: whether an increased amount of sleep will lead to an increase in productivity and money in general. I must admit, I do feel much better today than I normally do but that could be placebo. I'll have to see how it goes over the next few weeks.

If I didn't mention you in the post, please feel free to comment on how many hours you get per night. I'm sure it would be interesting to know.

Another thing I get asked all the time is why I haven't quit my regular job yet.  The answer to that one is simple: I don't need to.

Sure, your logic might tell you that the reason you're doing all this is to get away from your day job. It might even be your number one immediate goal, but consider this:

1. With a job, you have insurance. Insurance is a lot more expensive when you're self employed.
2. Unless you are very disciplined, it's hard for most people to separate work and home when they're actually at home. Time restraints (doing business after work) push us to do more with less time.
3. You'll have stable income. Affiliate marketing can take you to much higher places but don't be fooled into thinking it's steady income, especially when you're just getting started.
4. It's more income. Sure, you might be able to make more with affiliate marketing in a day than you do all month at your day job, and perhaps at that point you're ready to quit, but until then -- more money helps cover those advertising expenses.
5. Connections. It's difficult not to meet useful people at work and since my philosophy is that you should always keep your eyes open for what you can learn from anyone you meet, I think work is a great place to do this. Use your connections to your advantage.
6. Benefits. You might laugh but it's always good to have a fall-back in case you completely fail at affiliate marketing. Not that you would, but...
7. It gives you expertise that might help you at work. Who knows?

In the end, it's really up to you when you quit. In fact, "when to quit" is such an interesting question that I asked it a while back with What's Your Quit Number? If you noticed, my 'quit number' is high due to everything I've mentioned in this post. For me, the value of having a job is much higher than my monthly pay check. Another thing you probably noticed is that other peoples' quit numbers are low -- most near $5000/month. I don't blame them but for all you with such a low quit number, I urge you to consider the points made here.

If nothing else, the old adage holds up -- don't put all your eggs in one basket.

If by love, you mean money.

With the recent release of the iPhone SDK, developers are jumping all over the chance at launching iPhone-friendly applications that users can purchase directly from their iPhones. Wow, I just realized there's no other way to say iPhone without confusing people, so .. prepare for repetition.

The real question is - what does this mean for us?

If you watched the presentation on the subject, you know that Apple is only taking 30% to handle hosting and sales of apps. That means you get a nice 70% of each sale (assuming you don't set your price at free). Oh also, you can set your own price!

So that means we can develop apps and make a decent profit off of them. But the smart people are the ones who think outside the box -- the ones who wonder: "How can I attach the affiliate marketing business method to this subject?"

I'll put it another way. There's going to be a lot of money circulating through the hands of Apple -- why wouldn't you take some of it? Now, of course, Apple could foresee this fact and put some sort of legal statement in their terms that bars it. But so far, they haven't. And until then, it's fair game.

If you still have no idea what I'm talking about, just think of an application you might put on the iPhone: game, contact manager, favorite game manager, some kind of social networking tool, etc. Then think of how you could create the next iPhone Myspace or iPhone Facebook. That means you'll have room for advertising.

On the flip side, think of an application that uses incentivized offers to get people points or something of that nature. The possibilities go on and on. I've already got some ideas, but what about you?

This could be the next big thing, so if you've got the programming skills, put on your thinking cap. Or if you can't program on your own, hire someone.

In any case, you should always be on the look out for new technology to exploit in terms of sales. This is just one more example.