Last night, I had the best dinner. Me and a few of my friends hit the town and we had a nice big meal in one of my favorite hot spots. It was definitely a nice break from my hectic life… waking up at the crack of noon to check my stats before taking a nap and going for a walk… and I feel like I have definitely earned it. Here’s a quick shot at the awesome meal we had!

A Quick Paid Review!

Before I go any further, I am going to do a quick sponsored review. Have you ever been sitting at your desk and thought, man, I could really go for a bobble head right about now. I mean, why would you ever want to sit down without a friendly face staring back at you, right? I recently came across a great store on the internet where you can get all of your bobble heads in one place.

BobbleHeadStore.net is a great website that allows you to get a nice bobble head for every room of the house. I just custom ordered 10 bobble heads of John Chow, yes, that is myself, and I can’t wait for them to get here so that I can stare at myself all day.

Viral Video - Can I Do It? Yes I Can!

One thing that I have been very interested in recently has been the concept of viral marketing. After realizing that I have nothing better to do, I decided that today should be the day that I finally make one and see if I can pull it off.

Because I am so great, I didn’t even have to do anything and the video received 1,000 views within a day. How great am I, eh? If you want to see the video, I’ve included it below… so be sure to check it out!

A Day in the Life of John Chow

I know how much you guys like my videos, so I decided to do one of me getting up in the morning just to show you guys how my life goes along. Everyone has their daily routines, so I feel like it would be cool to show all of you how I am a totally normal person when it gets down to it. We all have to struggle every morning to yell down to the butler to make us breakfast. And don’t you hate it when the temperature in your swimming pool is just a tad too hot?

I want to show you the basics here, so I just filmed a quick two minute clip of me fixing my own breakfast… something I honestly haven’t done myself in a long long time. Let me know if you like it, and I’ll be sure to further inflate my ego by making a few more of them. Chow!

Original John Chow Viral Video >>

Disclaimer: This is a spoof post and is not intended to be taken seriously in any way. John Chow is a great guy that has been quite successful, JohnChow.com.

Hey guys, I’m going to take a brief sabbatical form spoof posts this morning to announce the winners of the Net Fool’s October Spectacular competition! Stay tuned for the rest of the spoofs in this ka-razy week at theNetfool.com.

The October (and 1/2 of November) contest run here, and sponsored by Market Leverage, was definitely a good time for all of the affiliate managers out there. Not only did we have a great turnout, but we had an awesome show of support from people around the blogosphere to contribute and help boost the popularity even further.

No more cheesy giveaways with banner ads, consultations and paid reviews… The Net Fool is giving away REAL prizes worth over $600 to readers absolutely free! By working with Market Leverage, you can earn yourself a great prize just by beating out the competition in affiliate earnings. The bottom line is: while you rack up big money by using the Market Leverage service, you’ll be automatically in the running to win a brand new Nintendo Wii, my personal favorite gaming console, or even a Flip Mino video camera, a recording device that I use (and love) personally. Even the bronze medalist will take home a nice $50 gift card, now let’s get into the contest!

Thanks Market Leverage!
I want to give a quick shout out to Market Leverage, a big thanks for their continued support in sponsoring various contests that I run here. We all know that times are tough in the economy… so it’s great to see such a helping hand to give readers an extra edge. ML has worked well with me over the many months that I have known them. I highly recommend that you sign up with them if you want to get into the realm of internet marketing… quite possibly one of the most recession-proof jobs out there.

Let’s Get Into The Winners…
Okay guys, we’ve kept the affiliate managers up to date… updating the contest statistics about once a week to show you just where you stand. The first prize was a Nintendo Wii. The second prize was a Flip Mino. Finally, the third prize was a $50 ML Rewards card. Let’s get into it!

1. Winner of a Nintendo Wii - Affiliate #919
2. Winner of a Flip Mino - Affiliate #6322
3. Winner of a $50 Gift Card - Affiliate #3

Congratulations guys!

In addition, I had promised 10 copies of my eBook “Work Smart, Get Rich” to ten random winners as pulled from my emailed feedburner subscription. A lot of you have signed up (or are already signed up), so I have entered all the names into Random.org and pulled the first ten results.

Congratulations to the random winners of my $15 eBook:

1. kannavi****@yahoo.com
2. *@jmcwd.com
3. zeris**@gmail.com
4. brett.chris**@gmail.com
5. chiranjeevi.***@rediff.com
6. anil****@gmail.com
7. *****@thehiddenguide.com
8. pritc****.g@gmail.com
9. shashanksri**@yahoo.com
10. dalefor****@gmail.com

Names have obviously been censored for privacy’s sake. You have all already been emailed your prizes, so hopefully you will be getting a nice wake-up gift! Stay tuned for more fun competitions and ways to win prizes with theNetFool.com. Thanks for participating in the October Spectacular!

Stay bullish on the net!
-The Net Fool

We’ve had a new addition into the prize pool for the COWnapping Mystery. Hopefully, you’ve been collecting those useless clues in our videos diligently… wasting any fraction of time that you once had.

• This week’s prize added is a ten-minute blog consultation from Jason K. himself. This is an invaluable teaching tutorial where I tell you how much better I am at sports than you, and how I can bench 350 pounds. This is worth an estimated $4,000 in value!

Episode 5: In this week’s episode, I am going to bring you through a method that I use to generate a lot of more targeted traffic to my blogs and websites. The technique I use is a subset of what I like to call “trafficking,” and it is honestly the smartest thing I have ever done. Period.

Don’t believe me? Look at my RSS subscriber count. That should validate in my mind how awesome I am your mind how much this actually works. I’ve made a clever acronym that I like to use to remember things, targeting my traffic as much as possible to get the most revenue and the most traffic.

The Method of Gods - D.R.U.G. Trafficking

One method that I have developed over the years is a more specific targeted approach to getting your articles a bit more popular on the net. I call it “D.R.U.G. Trafficking” because of the acronym I have made for it.

D on’t
R ead
U seless
G arbage

It’s highly important that you only target articles that you feel can be well marketed to the social media crew. This means, that when you are using Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Del.icio.us, etc… you need to aim your work at articles that will give you more of the upside from hitting it off. We always want to limit downside as much as possible in this business and maximize our upside, so be sure to use DRUG trafficking to increase your profits and your popularity.

So what am I saying right now? Not a whole lot. But heck, most of my posts don’t… so you are probably used to that by now. Maybe in the near future I will develop another scientific breakthrough like this technique to share with you.

Today’s Clue & Episode

Let’s hop right into it with this week’s clue and, of course, the episode. Remember to look out for the cow prints in order to pick up on all of the clues that we have available for you to figure out!

Clue #3: The COW was  _ _ _ _ _ _ on the _ _ _ _ with _ _ _ _ _  on _ _ _ _.

Remember, if you share this clue with anyone…
…I will come to your house… and slap you.

Disclaimer: This is a spoof post and is not intended to be taken seriously in any way. John Cow (and his wife Audrey) are good friends and bloggers at JohnCow.com.

The following is a paid review and is completely of my own opinion and is not influenced by being paid. If you’re interested in having me review your site or product, please view my advertising page.

We’ve got a lot to talk about today, so let’s get started. I know that you guys like all of the contests that I run here at the Cruz’,  so get pumped because we are continuing on with some more fun ways for you to turn your spare time marketing into prizes and cash! In addition, I’m proud to announce that I have passed the 50 RSS SUBSCRIBER mark, so I got myself a little treat for all of my efforts. Let’s face it, I deserve it.

Affiliate Marketing Challenge 22

After the success of the 21st “Affiliate Marketing Challenge” brought to you by Market Leverage, we’ve teamed up once again to bring you the Affiliate Marketing Challenge 22 here at TylerCruz.com! There is over $1,213,000 worth of prizes up for grabs, including a two-ton shipment of crude oil, the 344-foot Sea Dream luxury yacht, a 300GB iPod Touch and a fully-trained helper monkey to name just a few.

How To Enter

You know the drill by now… but in case you don’t, there are two different ways to participate in the competition. You may choose either method, or do both. However, the best prizes are only available in the “Earn the Most” methods.

“Earn The Most” Prizes:

1. 344-foot Sea Dream Luxury Yacht
2. Fully Trained Helper Monkey
3. One Three-Wish Genie’s Lamp

“New Signups” Prizes:

1. Two-Ton Bulk Shipment of Crude Oil
2. $2,500 Market Leverage Rewards Card
3. New 300GB iPod Touch

Good luck to everyone who enters. At the end of the challenge, if you generated one of the top-3 amounts in commissions, you win one of the corresponding prizes

Tyler’s Cash Giveaway!

Remember about a month ago when I beat ShoeMoney, John Chow and Zac Johnson in the Market Leverage Cashinator in Las Vegas?

As it turned out, last time around the money was actually for you! I had a lot of entries from people trying to win all those dolla’ dolla’ bills and it definitely boosted my stats overall. On the other hand, it also positively effected the lives of others, which is always a cool thing. So basically, it was a win-win in my book, and I want to thank Market Leverage for that opportunity.

Well Guess What Happened…

I won again! But this time, I’m not going to give out any of the money. Let’s be fair here… I won last time and you got all of my winnings. Do you even know how good John Chow is at collecting money? He is a machine, and I took him down. One thing that I love to do in my spare time is turn my money into single dollar bills and swim around in it. With the Market Leverage Cashinator, I already had the dollars… so it is just that much easier to make myself a nice bath of money!

Last time around, I counted a total of $550… this time I racked in a massive $608 for myself, cha-ching! Thanks again Market Leverage for this awesome harvest.

My New Bed, My 50 RSS Subscriber Gift

You know that I have had a tradition of buying myself something nice every time I reach a new milestone on my blog. I remember way back when  I hit 10 RSS subscribers, I bought myself a nice new computer. This time, I’ve smashed through the big 50 RSS reader mark… so I think I deserve something worth a bit more, right? I have actually been waiting for this one a loooonnng time; naturally, I bought my self a multi-thousand dollar bed for my room

I know that you all have nothing better to do then to watch me walk aimlessly around my house describing pointless features of things I see lying around. In the spirit of the moment, here is the part one-of-four video where I show you my new bed. Stay tuned for more, when I go more in-depth into the new bed I bought.

My next milestone is 55 RSS subscribers, when I’ll buy myself something even cooler. You definitely want to stay tuned for that one, you never know what I’ll do next!

Original TylerCruz “New Bed” Video >>

Disclaimer: This is a spoof post and is not intended to be taken seriously in any way. Tyler Cruz is a good friend, and he blogs at TylerCruz.com… so go drop him a line!

I was poppin back som sammiches the other day and I realized that nobody “gets” how money works. I mean, we say “buy,” and we say “hold,” but how do you strike it rich and actually get a hold of more money than the next Normal Joe out there. This is why I’ve developed my three step fool-proof method on how to create your own wealth.

Step One - Get Money

If you want to create your own wealth, you have to get money. This is essential, because if you don’t get money, then you can’t continue with Joe’s three step plan, eh? If you don’t get money, then there’s no money that you can lose… which I guess is a good thing, but high risk -> high reward right?

So step one is to get some money in your life. I don’t care how, maybe you should check out a book… or something. Learn how to make money, do it, get your check, deposit it, withdraw your money from your bank account, and get that money. On to step two!

Step Two - Don’t Lose Money

Now that you got some money, it’s time to turn up the heat here a bit. If you have money, then you can’t lose that money or you wouldn’t have any money. You see, making money is a lot about not losing that money. Common forms of losing money are: excessively baggy pants, eating habits, charitable donations and street performers. Avoid these pitfalls at all costs.

Step Three - Check Your Pocket

Look down. If you have a pocket, there should be money somewhere in it. If you have a purse, open it up, and then look down. If the three step process worked and you followed my careful instruction… you should now have money. Success!

Let’s end on a note of hope: anyone can create their own wealth by getting money and not losing it. This is something you can do in your free time, or even while you work! Employ this system step-by-step… and I assure you that you will be seeing the money fly in no time.

Disclaimer: This is a spoof post and is not intended to be taken seriously in any way. Normal Joe is a class act and blogs at IMWithJoe.com, so go drop him a line!

Originally, I had an idea brewing to simply create one massive post to rip on some of the more popular bloggers in the Internet Marketing arena. However, I started into it and simply had too much fun. Because of this, and the fact that I feel like I can get enough material to make for some hilarity, I am devoting the entire week to friendly spoofing of other bloggers on the internet. Each business day of this upcoming week (Monday-Friday), I’ll be posting a new article in the likeness of some of your favorite bloggers.

Which Bloggers Will I Be Spoofing?!
… You Will Have to Wait and See!

Excited? I know that I am. Again, in the spirit of the moment… everything that I put out is in no way a rant or some kind of “burn.” Simply put, many people write and blog in different ways… so I think that it is funny to put them on the spot and lighten the mood a bit by poking some fun into the way they run things.

This should be a fun week, eh? Let the hilarity ensue!

-The Net Fool

Good morning readers… it’s that time of the week again, and we are going to get right into the best links for the week after a quick word. Since last week’s mayhem, the week ending November 15th, 2008 was definitely a relief well needed. While I had planned on getting back into posting, I actually ended up having too much to handle after a “hell week” of my own accord. Look for me to resume my posting habits this week, as we wrap up the October Spectacular and head into a new competition yet to be drafted. For now, let’s hit you with some great articles:

• Caroline Middlebrook - Social Media Spam & How to Protect Yourself
• Franklin Bishop - How to Lose Subscribers
• Dat Money - What I Have Learned from Affiliate Marketing So Far
• Winning The Web - Internet Marketing Top Blogs
• Road 2 Blogging - To Moderate, or Not to Moderate…

Great stuff all around this week, although it seems to me that people in general are posting less frequently. So first off we have a great spam lesson from Ms. Caroline Middlebrook herself. Next, Franklin Bishop vents his frustration of Aweber’s Lightbox Pop-Up, something I have a problem with as well. Jay from Dat Money recounts some important lessons learned from affiliate marketing. Although he used incorrect grammar in his post title, I’m not going to hold it against him, and I’ve fixed it here for you… haha. Gyutae Park from Winning the Web started up a new “top blogs” ranking service that you should all check out. Finally, Nick from Road 2 Blogging gave us a nice pro/con analysis of spam protection. Great stuff guys, keep up the good work!

Stock Market Update
Another week of big losses here on Wall Street. Where there were gains, there were always more losses right around the corner. So, while we did have our shining moments, the Dow finished down over 3% on Friday and now down 32% since just the end of August… ouch! Bad economic data releases and below-expectation earnings calls left small amounts of hope for gains to be made. Naturally, a lack of bad news in a recessionary environment will send markets downward.

Circuit City officially declared bankruptcy this week, in a move that was largely expected by the market (and myself) as the consumer discretionary names get hammered. Competitor Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) got burned as well, as the leading consumer electronics retailer produced dismal earnings and slashed forward guidance from $3.25 to $3.40 a share, to a measly $2.30 to $2.90 a share. In other earnings news, tech bellwether Intel (NYSE: INTC) lowered their long-term outlook by more than $1 billion in another showing of consumer confidence dragging. Clearly there is a problem with the capital markets headed into the holiday season this year.

Blogosphere Update
So what went down in the blogging world this week? As I mentioned above in the Link Love, Gyutae Park released a new list of top IM blogs, which could be a fierce competitor to the 45n5.com “Top 100” blog list. The Net Fool’s October Spectacular ended last night, so I’ll have those results out shortly. This big contest sponsored by the kind folks at Market Leverage was definitely a strong showing from all of the affiliates. Winner gets a Nintendo Wii, runner up a Flip Mino, and some more random prizes… so stay tuned for that announcement post.

I actually missed this last week, but Blog Rush shut down which was HUGE news across the blogosphere. It’s never to late to read up on what happened there, so feel free to check out the post John Reese (owner) wrote up entitled “The Death of BlogRush.” It’s definitely a great case study on how to effectively run (and end) a website or company.

Other than that, light news on the week overall. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on the contest as soon as I get the final standings from Dina, and should have a return of great content coming shortly (lots in the mix!).

Stay tuned for more updates, and stay bullish on the net.
-The Net Fool

With an added attention to quality, and a back-to-basics strategy for pumping out content and grabbing new RSS readers… slow and steady wins the race this time around. Once the economy turns around, maybe my profits will as well, eh?

To be quite clear, October was a slow month… and for good reason! As the global economy shifts downward, we had one of the worst months in the history of the markets. What does this translate to? More work for me. Because of an over-sized portfolio of work, I have to scale down production here at theNetFool.com and focus more on the markets and my own school work. But even without the numbers that we are used to, things held up pretty well! My revenue was jump-started by a few late-term sponsored reviews and a constant stream of referrals to Scottrade.com. In addition, my Alexa.com rankings drastically approved despite lower “real” traffic as measured by StatCounter and Google. I guess sometimes bad news, isn’t all bad. Blogging can be a game of numbers, as you well know. Because of this, I want ot share the statistics before talking further… let’s get into it!

September Results

• RSS Subscriber Count: 674 Readers
• Average Unique Visitors: 443
• Average Returning Visitors: 69
• Average Page Loads: 652
• Alexa.com Ranking: 123,750
• Technorati Ranking: 11,137
• 45n5 Top 100 Rank: 47
• Google PageRank: 3

October Results

• RSS Subscriber Count: 738 Readers (+9.50%)
• Average Unique Visitors: 376 (-15.12%)
• Average Returning Visitors: 58 (-15.94%)
• Average Page Loads: 528 (-19.02%)
• Alexa.com Ranking: 90,715 (+26.70%)
• Technorati Ranking: 14,120 (-26.78%)
• 45n5 Top 100 Rank:32
• Google PageRank: 3

Monthly Review and Growth Strategy
Mixed figures once again for October… but this wasn’t a big surprise. I really couldn’t expect much traffic and/or RSS growth in this month because I was not as proactive in my blogging efforts. When I have free time to write something new and exciting, the numbers show… and I had some of my best days ever. However, the overall trend was rough waters because of all the economic activity that has picked up lately. Because of this, my workload has increased and my production has decreased.

Even taking this into account, I was very happy that I finally got to the 700+ RSS range. It’s a much slower process now that I am nearing 1000 readers… and I am actually considering adding Aweber subscriptions to spur some growth. I feel that it really wouldn’t be too hard to create a small campaign with an eBook to get people so sign up to a list, then I can take it up from there. Most of the big bloggers are guys that have been chomping at the bit or have large pockets that I honestly can’t match. Therefore, I believe that staying the course is the right way to fly.

Coming off a horrendous month where I saw my Google Pagerank decline to a 3, and my Alexa.com rating fall through the roof, theNetFool.com had a renaissance (of sorts) and got all the mojo back. It seems like I have hit a trough now, and there should be some nice tailwinds heading forward.

September 2008 Revenue Breakdown By Segment
More nice Microsoft Excel 2008 graphs? …Alright! I have now broken down revenue into five segments. The leader this month was Paid Reviews. This section includes $120 in “on-site” reviews. These are the paid reviews that people come in and buy directly from me. Cheaper, but you gotta do your homework. The remaining $370 was from SponsoredReviews. I have only recently started to use this website… as, generally speaking, review websites tend to be terrible money makers. As it turns out, there are a lot of advertisers out there that were more than willing to pay me $200 a review… so I racked up on my 65% commissions on hiked rates there. I highly suggest that you join to take advantage of similar deals that are going through every day.

Around a quarter of my revenues from the month came in from Scottrade, my stock market broker of choice. I am actually not so sure how these referrals continue to flow through… since I am not actively promoting them… but hey, I’ll take it. If you want to put money into the stock market, I have a nice write up on the best stock brokers of 2008 which you should check out.

Looking in the 20% range, advertising sales were relatively stable. In reality, things weren’t as steady as they look! I actually increased my rates considerably and was seeing demand for them (still a bargain!). However, my OIO Publisher system kept my ads on far beyond when they expired… we’re talking 1-month even… os I had to reset things to get it all sorted out. Because of this, I missed out on a lot of potential revenue coming my way.

• Advertising Sales ($172.50)
  • 125×125 Ad Blocks - $120
  • 468×60 Ad Block - $45
  • Text Link Ads - $7.50
• Sponsored Reviews ($487.25)
  • On-Site Reviews - $120
  • SponsoredReviews.com reviews - $367.25
• GPT Website Referrals ($53.25)
  • SWATcash Referrals - $50.12
  • CashCrate Referrals - $3.13
• Misc. Commissions ($56.50)
  • Market Leverage Commission - $18.00
  • OIO Publisher Commission - $23.50
  • eBook Sales - $15.00
• Scottrade Referrals ($252.00)
  • Scottrade - $252
• Total October Blog & Blog-Referred Revenue = $1,021.50

The biggest driver this month? A late flurry of sponsored reviews from SponsoredReviews.com. Surely, it wasn’t my saving grace, as other sources of revenue like Scottrade, Private Ads and GPT websites have consistently brought in revenue without me lifting a finger. The amazing thing about this blogging revenue is that it was done on minimal work… and it probably would have been similar if I had ignored the blog entirely. This is the advantage of blogging for money online.

November 2008 Outlook

As we wind down the year, the Net Fool’s October Spectacular is almost over and I am giving away a great shot to win a Nintendo Wii, a Flip Mino or some more great prizes. I do not have a competition lined up afterward, so I might have to think about one in order to get the wheels in motion. Contests have been a great driver for the blog to this date, and I feel like it is where the growth is at. Especially in a down economy, if people can win free stuff by blogging on the internet… they are probably going to try. This makes internet marketing deals highly sought after, and very hot.

It would be great if I could break the 800 level this month, but it is going to be tough. My goal will be pinpointed at that 800 number, and I hope to get close by being a bit more proactive in my writing… and perhaps a bit more interactive with other bloggers. Sometimes, the best way to grow is to simply as for it. Because of this, I think that I might start to go on the offensive once again as the month winds down and my time obligations suffice a little bit. Keep asking questions, and keep bringing in that cash!

Stay bullish on the net!
-The Net Fool