Lijit Getting Spammed
April 15, 2008 | 1 Comment
Just saw this guy’s lijit widget filled with a certain domain. Makes sense that this would begin happening — basically, type your domain into any lijit widget a bunch of times, it’ll become most frequently searched for item on a blogger’s site, and then you’ll get free enlarged visibility of your domain on each of those blogs. To ensure extra sneakiness, do this from multiple IPs. [I’m sure lijit will work to remedy/prevent this; sucks that spammers have to be everywhere]
Idea #82 - FriendFeed the new Twitter? WTF.
March 26, 2008 | 10 Comments
OK, so I finally signed up for FriendFeed — and yes, it’s cool. I just feel like it’s been around. I mean, it has via different services already (MyBlogLog had this awhile back, but just never launched it; Plaxo has Pulse; SocialThing!; etc).
My question is — why haven’t any of you coders built this thing for Twitter? I should go to your website, input my usernames for these different services [flickr; youtube; etc] and then your service pulls/pings the RSS feeds for each, stores that info (even if temporarily), and then shoots it over to my Twitter account (because I give you my Twitter login/password).
The premise of Twitter is - “What are you doing now?”. If I just uploaded a photo to Flickr, then I’m doing that. If I add an item to my Amazon.com wishlist, then I’m doing that. When I favorite a song in Hype Machine, I’m listening to that song [and Hype Machine currently does send that to my Twitter account]. Etc…
Come on - someone knock this thing out in a night. I’ll play with it. The FriendFeed service doesn’t even need to exist; I feel it’s a redundancy on what Twitter should be.
Programmer Sought: In-Text Links Script like Kontera
March 19, 2008 | 2 Comments
I’m looking for an AJAX/PHP/MySQL programmer that can write a script similar to that of the following sites: Kontera, Miva InLine, OptSpots, or Yahoo Shortcuts.
The script would be javascript that would go on the webpage itself; then as the page loads, it calls the server, passes the content of the webpage to the server, the server parses it against a database of keyword phrases, then if any of those keyword phrases exist in the server they would have a corresponding URL, and then the client-side javascript would turn the keyword phrase in the content into a link [that links to the corresponding URL in the server/db that was passed]. Thus dynamic javascript links are created — not hard-coded into the HTML.
This is a contract position. Email me here. Potentially would pay a finders fee if you find me a programmer that is excellent and could do this (or has done this type of script before).
Gmail Spam Out of Control - 1kb zip attachments escape Spam filters
March 9, 2008 | 3 Comments
I think those spammers have found a bug to get spam through Gmail’s filters — attach a 1kb zip file and boom, they get through. And I can’t stand it. I think I might have to go back to SpamArrest soon.
The reason I think it’s pointless to start a new email address is that I think people’s email accounts get hacked into, then spammers scrape the emails to find out who those people sent to, then rebuild their lists continuously. It’s a losing battle.
Quote: Why Be An Entrepreneur?
March 6, 2008 | 2 Comments
love this quote…
If you don’t take advantage of yourself, someone else will.
-Jakob Lodwick
F YouTube, Viddler Is The Sh*t!
February 29, 2008 | 4 Comments
Seriously, the thing I think is the coolest ever is what Viddler has done with their videos — users can add comments throughout a video. It’s interesting to watch a video and see all the user comments pop-up as commentary throughout the video.
Here is one by the lovely iJustine. And then the video page itself has a list of all the comments with RSS of course. Just way totally cool. You can also put tags throughout and advertisers can place an ad where there are tags.
When Did You Get Your Big Break?
January 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment
One thing I find fascinating is finding out how people got their “big break” in their career — such as that big promotion, or career shift, or going independent. Everyone has a story. Kanye West tells his story in the outro of his song ‘Last Call’. It’s an inspiring listen — the guy went from being broke (evicted from his apartment) to the top of the charts.
So when did you get your big break?
Lyrics from the outro of “Last Call” from Kanye West’s debut album “College Dropout”:
[worth the $0.99 purchase the MP3 from Amazon.com — it’s about 8 minutes of him telling his story]
So this A&R over at Rocafella, named Hiphop
picked the Truth beat for Beanie. And I was in the session with him
I had my demo with me. You know, like I always do
I play the songs, he’s like “Who that spittin?”
I’m like “It’s me.” He’s like “Oh, well okay.”
Uhh, he started talkin to me on the phone
going back and forth, just askin me to send him beats
And I’m thinking he’s trying to get into managing producers
cause he had this other kid named Just Blaze he was messin with
And um, he was friends with my mentor, No ID
And No ID told him, “look man, you wanna mess with Kanye
you need to tell him that you like the way he rap”
[No ID:] “Yo, you wanna sign him, tell him you like how he rap”
I was all, I dunno if he was gassin’ me or not
but he’s like he wanna manage me as a rapper AND a producer
[Hiphop:] “I’ll sign you as a producer and a rapper”,
I’m like… Read more
Shoemoney to Uber: “S.eriously?!?”
January 31, 2008 | 2 Comments
Shoemoney doesn’t name names, but in his latest podcast w/Azoogle CEO Don Mathis, he basically calls out Uber’s new S.eriously.com website — as well as anyone else doing what Uber is doing on that site, which is showing photos of big money checks and screenshots of earnings reports, then linking these images to their 2nd-tier affiliate links (thus if a user signs-up for the affiliate network from that link, Uber starts collecting a percentage of what the new user earns).
Azoogle recently took a stand towards people trying to exploit 2nd tier referrals and reduced their commission structure on referrals so that 2nd tier referrals only last 6 months with a mere compensation of 2% (and your own account must earn at least $1,000 in revenues).
Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this. If you’re showing off a big money check or big earnings statement, it’s inspiration to others, gets them fired up, and they want to know how/where they can go to do that. If a user signs up through your link, then you exposed them to that affiliate network and should get a little perk (you’ll also more actively link/mention the affiliate network most likely).
Regarding S.eriously.com — Uber just happens to be capitalizing on things by assembling all those images together on one website. The real question for Uber is — does he have the permission from respective copyright owners to host all those images? Because he is using his referral links on their images.
My Guest Post on Shoemoney: Gaming Google AdWords
January 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I did a guest post over on Shoemoney’s blog yesterday — “Gaming Google AdWords with Google redirects“.
No Cell Phone Commissions on Amazon.com, Bleh
January 29, 2008 | 3 Comments
Looking through my Amazon Associates stats today, I noticed I sold a Sony Ericsson W580i with AT&T Nation 450 Rollover Minutes. The phone itself is only $0.01 with a 2-year contract (new or extension). The service is as follows:
AT&T Nation 450 Rollover Minutes
(Monthly service charge of $39.99 billed by Cingular)
AT&T 2-year Contract (One-time activation fees apply: first new line of service, $36; each new additional line, $26; contract extension, $18.)
(No Charge: Included with Cingular’s Monthly Rate Plan)
Regulatory Fee
(Monthly service charge of $1.25 billed by Cingular)
So while I earned commission on $0.01, the user will end up paying:
$0.01
+ $479.88 ($39.99 * 24)
+ $36 (assuming new contract)
+ $30 ($1.25 * 24)
—————
$545.89
At 4%, that should be a $21.84 commission. Instead, I earned $0.00. No wonder I don’t like working with Amazon.
Editor’s Note: This post guest written by Eric Nagel. Disclaimer: his Amazon affiliate link is used on that cell phone link above — not that he’ll make any money off it, but it should be fully disclosed 
