Archive for December, 2009

Every time around this year people make fake promises to themselves about the upcoming new year – resolutions. I’m just kidding.. As you all know the New Year is just hours away and we look upon the past year and think about some things that we would do differently or we would have liked to do differently.

For many, this is a time to decide to quit smoking, work harder, lose weight, etc. But how many of these resolutions actually come true. I mean, honestly, how many people even remember their resolutions after the first week or two of January have passed by? Not many, I’d imagine.

Well, either way, I think it would be a great idea to actually write out a few good resolution ideas and maybe some of you guys can chime in and tell me what you feel. These are just random suggestions dealing with life, your career, etc, so dont take these personally – these are merely for fun and entertainment. Also, I am doing the first 4 as what we should do more vs. what we should do less and the last is something we should try and maintain.

1) Learn More – Being a student, this sounds like a funny first thought, but think about it. The economy is kind of suffering and the competition for new jobs and even existing jobs is high so if you learn more, you will become more qualified to either retain your job or you may be one of the lucky few who actually receives a promotion. If you’re in the job market, then it will show your employers how motivated you are to learn and this will eventually help you get that job you’ve always wanted.

2) Worry Less – Some of the most enjoyable moments in life can be ruined or forgotten because you worry too much and carry too much stress on your shoulders. I know its easier said than done but staying positive an

3) Earn More – I think this is probably the most important for us MMO bloggers but earning more money should not be more important than improving yourself through learning and enjoying the moments of life more by worrying less and thats why this is third on the list. You have to realize that money isn’t everything however, having more money in the future years will only be another way to prove to oneself that you can do what you dream and you can make things happen if you really want them. Trying to earn more isn’t only about the money but about the feeling of achieving success.

4) Waste Less – With poverty being so prevalent, it is our duty as human being who have the basic necessities in life to try and waste as little as possible – whether its food, money, or anything else. There are people who starve every day around the world and the less we waste, the more they will have. The less money we spend on food that we won’t eat or finish completely, that money could go to a better place. We have to realize that our actions have an effect on such people and we can help reduce that by reducing the impact our lifestyles have on people who are less fortunate than us.

5) Maintain health and happiness – When I say maintain, my assumption is that you are already healthy and happy or striving to achieve a little more of both. In this sense, it is important to keep our health in mind and always remember that our health is very important – no matter what the cost may be. Remaining healthy will result in a more prosperous future. In addition, its important to stay happy and look at the brighter side of things as it will always help in making any situation better.

I hope these resolutions are ones that you can relate with. These are just a few of my suggestions however it would be nice to see what you have in mind for the upcoming New Year!

Im sure many of you who read my blog have been blogging for a while and maybe haven’t seen results or the complete opposite. When you sit down one day and think about you, you wonder, whats the difference between me and the other guy who is actually doing quite well?

The answer is simple, if not pretty obvious – they attract more readers. Does that mean they write better or they’re more creative or their blog looks better? Who really knows – but when it all boils down, you have to know that you have to be creative. You have to try and use the resources you have in the best possible ways to achieve the results youre looking for.

Back in the day, I started wondering whether being creative in general was useful to being a good blogger and if so, how do we use our creativity to get more readers. The answer is simple and here are a few ways you can use your creativity.

1) Videos – get creative in the blogging business by using videos to enhance your posts. I’ve always said you can bring your blog posts to life by using videos instead of actual words. Staying away from fancy effects may be good but depends what youre doing. A lot of the fade in/fade out and transitions can affect you negatively but if you do some interesting video effects then it might actually help you but do remember that it would result in taking more time to put out videos.

2) Pictures – people love pictures and adding pictures to your post like I did to this one can really help attract and keep visitors on your page when they first visit the page. Pictures can also be used as graphs or to tell a story so you can use pictures to get creative. However, this does require you to sort of know how to use photo editing software such as Photoshop but hopefully you already know your way around that a little at least.

3) Humor – Humor is a big part of everything and some people are great at it and others arent. You have to see what youre good at and use it to your advantage so if humor is not your thing or your jokes just dont work then dont do it! Find something youre good at and try to use it to your advantange. I have done a few things with humor and they’ve turned out okay but nothing spectacular. ImWithJoe.com is a perfect example of using humor to attract readers. Do what you have to do, but humor is a good place to start – thats if youre good!

Theres a lot more creative tips but to keep from having long posts like I once did I’m going to stop here and try to pick up after the New Years post! Hope you all have a good week and a great New Years!

We are all adults in the blogosphere but I realize that its so easy to get away with deceiving others online. I thought about this recently when I was discussing a scam contest that I had taken part in about 3 years ago. I realized that since the contest was online, there was no way for me to get a hold of the owner of the website to collect my prize, neither was there a way for me to create a havoc. Here are a few scams that I have come across over the years:

1) Scam Contest – Since I started off with this, I wanted to talk about scam contests. Some blogs have done this in the past with a really high cash prize to help them build up a buzz and then they end up not offering a cash prize to the winner anyway. In some other situations, I have seen the prizes go to family members or friends, who obviously dont receive any prize.

2) Fake Bloggers – Sometimes you’ll see a blog with a beautiful female blogger or a model-like male blogger that actually doesn’t exist. Its not that people are not as pretty or are ugly but they feel the better image will attract more people to their blog which would help them build traffic.

3) No Payout from Advertisers – This doesn’t seem that likely lately but some advertising websites don’t actually make payouts. When I started talking about InfoLinks, I was asked to provide a proof of payment because it seemed to be a trend in the past that people advertise a service or product and do not receive any compensation or payment from the advertisers.

4) Dissolving MMO Schemes – Something else we’ve seen is certain websites pop up and rake in a lot of traffic or new ways to make money and as soon as they’ve reached their goal, they dissolve and do away with the blog. There are 3 blogs that I can think of where this has happened. The bloggers do this by coming up with a scheme that will help bring traffic to the people that pay in to this idea and when the scheme doesn’t do well, and the money has been received by the person that came up with the idea, the website and the blogger disappear into the dust.

5) Selling things that dont exist or never ship – This is probably the most common crime that is not only experienced in the blogosphere but also through other mediums such as eBay or other forums. People decide that they will sell items that are high value and never really exist and if they do exist, they never ship. This was seen more commonly with the iPhone and the Wii. Either way, this is a major scam on the internet that we see all the time and even some new businesses have done that. Sometimes, such new websites would even sell your credit card information after they dissolve.

I hope this post has been entertaining. My exams are finally letting up so I’ll have more posts soon. Hope everyone is doing good and let me know if youve been a part of such a scam or deceit before. Have a good rest of the week!