BlogMunch

Witness the Truth - A review of Bloggerunleashed.com

The truth? The truth about what? The truth about making money online. Not the John Chow way. Not the ShoeMoney way. But the Vic Franqui way.

Vic is the creator of BloggingZoom, Bu.bulicio.us and most importantly BloggerUnleashed.com. He is a former SEO Blackhatter who comes over to the Brightside to enjoy more long term success. This is important because as someone who have been through both sides, he have got buckets load of information to unleash.

After I found out about BloggerUnleashed from Don of Making Sales, Making Money (Don’s site seems to be down at the moment) yesterday, I blitzed through his archive like a baby searching for milk. There is just some much good stuff with what he is writing. I am sure I will be a daily visitor back to his blog.

The best of the lot is How To Get Google Juice. Not only entertaining like hell to read, but shows a live example on how to get your new blog/site indexed within 6 mins without submitting to Google.

Want to know how to create a niche site? Then read Start A Blog About Ants. A walkthrough of the thought process of building a niche site with "Ants" as your keyword. If you read his other post, you will see more references to Ants. He really got a thing for it.

I would have introduce more post of his to you but I am sure once you read one of his post, you would blitzed through his Archive like I did.

Want to learn more? Head to the comments sections. I feel there are more information there than what was covered in his post. Sometimes he even post article-length comments in reply to someone with questions. There are also knowledgeable commenters like Grizzly and Frank C to add more juice into the comments. With this much juice in the comments, I would wish Vic could install the "subscribe to comments" wordpress plugin.

One of the best things I have learn is monitzing a site with keywords like "blogging" or "make money online" will give you peanuts. So I am gonna developed some of my parked domains for niche marketing.

Lastly, if you want to be mentored by Vic, he has a mentoring program going on at his blog. You can read all the details over here.

Go read BloggerUnleashed.com now. That’s the best thing you can read on the web today.

Want to know what I have learn from Vic? Subscribe to the BlogMunch Feed now.

Last blogger to get infected by EntreCard

I am Legend. 60 million bloggers on the blogosphere. I will be at BlogMunch every day at midday, where the sun is the highest in the sky. God didn’t do this; EntreCard did. I am the last blogger. I am the only hope. I got infected.

Wow, can’t wait to watch this show. Singapore will only premiere on the 25th December 2007. Damn.

Anyway, I think you would have noticed I jump on the EntreCard bandwagon today. I didn’t want to, even though it comes highly recommended by John Cow, John Chow and Shoemoney. I thought it will be like BlogRush; a Bust on the sidebar for decorative purposes.

In case you did not get infected by EntreCard, here’s how it works. First, you sign up at Entrecard.com for free. Design a nice, nice 125×125 for yourself. Add the code in your WordPress theme. Viola, now there will be a widget on your sidebar for your readers to drop their EntreCard.

Now you can go round your favourite blogs to drop your card. But dropping a card only tells the blogger of your existence. To have your card appear, you will need to pay credits to buy a spot. And credits are earned by dropping a card or getting others to advertise their card on your blog. Does it sounds complicated? Actually, it is not. I just set up the widget four hours ago and now there are quite a few cards waiting in queue for me to approve. So gratifying.

It is definitely more fun than BlogRush. Sort of like playing a RPG card game. I also get fascinated by all the design ideas that goes into a tiny 125×125 card. Some are simply brilliant.

One thing I would like to suggest is a way to approve a card in the inbox. There are some cards that are so beautiful that I want to showcase them even though they don’t want to spend credits on my blog. That would be nice.

So drop a card and let me see how you design your card. I am interested.

After you drop your card, how about subscribing to the BlogMunch Feed. Don’t need credits for that.

Repeat after me…Do not feel obligated to blog

I fired up my Google Reader and read this sobering post by Caroline Middlebrook. I am not going to discuss her personal problems as you can draw your conclusion while reading the post. That said, I want to wish her well and hope she finds new meaning soon.

What I want to highlight is amid all her personal problems, she still feels Obligated to review her stats and analyze her blog for November, promote the $300 Affiliate challenge, and even do a 7 min podcast!

I am not bashing her because she lied about her reasons. As House said: “Everybody lies.” Actually, I am not even bashing her. I am just highlighting a point. Lying in real life conversation is quite easy; you open your mouth and tell your lie. Sometimes its a self defense reflex. But in a blogging environment, you got to articulate your lie, organize your thoughts and write it down.

So why did she lied?

I think the problem with Caroline, as with all the young rising movie stars, is the super fast rise to the top. With that comes the huge expectations that you gonna deliver everyday. So when everything crashes around her, she still feels Obligated to deliver her goods. As she have written in her post, she lied about everything in order to “save face”. I feel that she shouldn’t have to do that. Her posts, especially her Twitter guide, is good enough to maintain her blog for a few months until she gets well enough to continue. Sure, her subscriber numbers will drop, but the loyal ones will stay.

What do all these got to do with me?

Although BlogMunch is live for about 5 months, I have learned that coming up with quality content and keeping to a regular blogging schedule is hard work. Not undoable, but hard work nevertheless. Especially when you still have a day time job. Even though, you should always write about something you are passionate about, the needs and expectations of your readers can sometimes dictate what you write. The two sometimes don’t coincide. So nowadays, I only write about things I find interesting. I do not yet have the knowledge and depth to chunk out quality and insightful post day in and day out.

What I have learned from reading Caroline sobering post is not to feel obligated to blog if I don’t feel like writing. There are more important things in life (like watching Haruhi on TV). To me, it is a semi-lucrative hobby; as long it pays for my hosting every month, I am happy. Get my priorities right and enjoy life.

That said, I think I shall go for a blog break in January to recharge myself and take a rest. I think I deserved it.

Enough of my rambling. Back to my regular schedule (whatever that is) tomorrow.

Find my ramblings interesting? Subscribe to the BlogMunch Feed for more.

A chaotic series of youtube surfing to what I am watching on TV now…

Last Wednesday morning, I went in search of "To Zanarkand" on youtube after hearing it on the Animal Crossing tragic story. This starts a series of youtube surfing. Just follow me…

To Zanarkand >>> To Zanarkand on Guitar >>> Final Fantasy VII Battle Theme on guitar (this video ROCKS) >>> Final Fantasy (Chocobo Theme) >>> Final Fantasy VII Boss Theme >>> Final Fantasy X >>> KURIKINTON FOX - A Cruel Angel’s Thesis (on of my favorite soundtrack) >>> KURIKINTON FOX - God knows… (I didn’t know anything about this song at this moment, but I like it) >>> Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekisou - God knows… >>> Google "Suzumiya Haruhi" >>> Haruhi Suzumiya >>> Finally God Knows… (Full Version) - HQ Audio

And now I am watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (anime) on my TV now. With such quirky characters (to say the least) and extremely likable lead (Haruhi), I wonder how I missed this series in the past.

Does these characters look familiar?

How about this?

If you frequently read DoshDosh, you will recognise these characters as the anime image Maki always use at the beginning of his post. I even confirm with Maki on MSN. And I can’t blamed him for being such a fan.

I am having such fun now watching the series, that I am not sure why am I here writing this post. I think I want to show that from these series of events, I was reintroduce to the power of the web medium.

Well, no more rambling, back to Haruhi Suzumiya…

Subscribe to the BlogMunch Feed now. You never know what you gonna get.

How did she get to $10,000 anyway?

Another super funny video for MrBrown.

Well, I don’t blame her. I don’t the answer too. But

“This might be a stupid question. I thought Europe IS a country.”

That kills me…