Blogger Party

Blogger Party is a great website for blogging and reading other peoples blogs. I used to use LiveJournal, but very much appreciate that Blogger Party shows that it respects the contact producers (thats you and me) by sharing some of the revenue. Kinda makes you wonder why sites like MySpace don't do the same thing. After all, MySpace became a household name not because they were so great, but because everyone was there.

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Okay, if you're actually blogging for fame, you're likely to be disappointed. But sometimes it can find you all the same. A few weeks back I wrote a two-part series on "Carnival Midway Game Secrets" based on my past work as a carny. One result was that I just concluded a 30 minute telephone call with Kevin Cowherd, a columnist for the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

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I first started working GPT programs back in 2000. I spent about a year as a hardcore GPT user, doing it all: Paid To Surf, Paid To Read, Paid To Click, Manual Surf, AutoSurf, Traffic Exchanges even bubbles and HYIP. The few "profits" I made were basically dumped back in to advertising and membership upgrades. Profits needs to be in quotes because I was spending 70-80% of my online time working these programs. And that time wasn't exactly trivial. Then, as now, I was online an average of 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. I learned a quite a few lessons in that year. Unfortunately, I never learned how to actually make any money.

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Eliot Van Buskirk has published what he calls "A Modest Proposal" for webcasting royalties at Wired.com. He's got some excellent ideas, but spends the bulk of the article ignoring one of opening premises: "Label representative SoundExchange appears to hold all of the cards." The problem here is not that SoundExchange and the webcasters can't come to an agreement, it's that SoundExchange knows that it can use the force of government to get essentially whatever agreement it wants. As a multi-billion dollar company, SoundExchange has far more ability to lobby, and thus influence, governmental and bureaucratic bodies then some guy streaming music from his home computer.

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Apparently I struck a nerve over at Digg.com with my post a few days back about military personnel donating heavily to Dr. Ron Paul's presidential campaign. I went to bed Thursday night pleased that I had written something that almost 50 people had enjoyed enough to digg. I awoke Friday morning to discover another 750 had joined them! As of this writing it's been Dugg 1302 times and buried a good 50 or so if the comments at Digg are to be believed. I very briefly hit the Digg home page and spent a solid 24 hours flipping between the first and second page of their World & Business section. That's by far the most 'instant traffic' this blog has received, so I was a bit concerned about the Digg effect (formerly known as the Slashdot effect). For those who aren't familiar with the term, I've posted a couple of graphs to show you exactly what happens when a story hits on Digg at Philaahzophy.

As you can see, Digg provided a HUGE spike of traffic, quadrupling the number of page views and providing more than eight times the number of unique visitors. Luckily I chose wisely when I chose 1and1.com as my hosting provider. Despite my hosting several other sites, most with much higher traffic than Philaahzophy, on the same shared account, 1and1 didn't bat an eye at handling this sudden surge. 24 hours later I haven't received a single report of any noticeable slowdowns on any of my sites and the error logs actually show less activity than they normally do.

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Men spend countless dollars every summer in (usually) vain attempts to prove their manhood by winning a prize for their girlfriend, wife or child(ren) at the local amusement park, county fair or traveling carnival. Balls are thrown, guns are shot, and rings are tossed all in an attempt to be 'the hero'. Well, as a former carny who spent years on the road with the Butler Brothers, I'm here to give you a few tips, save you a little cash, and maybe even help you look like the 'man' you want your loved ones to believe you are.

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Perhaps my google-fu is just weak, but I can't seem to find anyone really talking about Tuesday's Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq. Several people have posted the order in its entirety, but few seem to actually interpret or discuss what it means. If you've come across such a post, please leave a comment with a link, as I'd really like to read what the more educated have to say about it.

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Last week I shared the story of David Burch of White Cloud, MI in Grow Grass or Go To Jail. While not directly related, today we bring you the story of Betty Perry, 70, of Orem Utah. From the Salt Lake Tribune-

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Almost 30 years ago I started smoking. Why? Cause I was a dumb kid who succumbed to peer-pressure. Of course, the PSAa they were running then said that smoking wouldn't make me cool. They were lying. Smoking did make me cool. Even my friends who didn't smoke thought it was cool that I did.

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WOOD-TV - Grand Rapids, MI
WHITE CLOUD, MI -- A Newaygo County man could spend another weekend behind bars if he doesn't take care of his yard.

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I've been 'dipping my toe' in the affiliate marketing pool on and off for a few years now. Sure, I've made a little cash: $100, $200, or even, occasionally, $500 in a single month. However, most months I'm lucky to break into the double digits, never mind the "thousands of dollars a day" that so many ebook authors promise. I tried eBay, ClickBank, Commission Junction, viral text ads, banner exchanges, 'paid to surf' companies. I searched everywhere for my "big break", but just couldn't find it.

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I went into this film knowing only the name, which is always makes for an interesting viewing experience. No preconceptions whatsoever. It turns out to be particularly fitting in this case as the tale details the exploits of a small group of people who awaken suddenly in padded cells having no idea who they are or how they got there. My first thought was that they were in some early version of the cube, from Cube, which is one of my favorite films. But soon the eponymous monster arrives and it quickly becomes clear that is not the case.

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