Robert Scoble seems to have the impression that P.R. people provide Mike Arrington with breaking news on a regular basis. When it comes to product reviews he may be right. The only reason for this? Mike doesn’t have aggressive competition. That’s the difference between new media and old media and under Scoble’s description TechCrunch is becoming old media.

Prior to new media, newspapers were simply handed “breaking stories” by P.R. representatives. That’s no longer the case. For example, say that you are friends with the CEO of a large company and you run your own media company. If you talk to that person on a regular basis, chances are they are going to give you the story before anybody else. Breaking news now comes from (and may have always come from) building strong relationships with your sources. Additionally, investigative reporting helps to provide breaking news as well.

If you want to win in the new media landscape you better be aggressive. Rather than fighting for access to the P.R. representatives, you should be fighting for access to other employees within the organization. It sounds like some of these new media people have become spoiled with “access” to higher quality press releases. They are still press releases though. The real juicy scoops don’t come from building relationships with the communications department, it comes from knowing other people in the company. The bottom line here is that building relationships with people is going to beat out any form of informal public relations. It’s as simple as that. A combination of intelligence and aggresion will put you on top.

If you want to know what differentiates successful entrepreneurs from the rest, I can sum it up in four words: they bust their ass. Thomas Edison said that genius is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration and boy was he right. I have been experiencing this in a big way with my other blog. As you already have noticed (and as I keep saying), my posting frequency has taken a hit since I’ve started AllFacebook.com. My total net output though has increased 5- to 10-fold. I am churning out at least 4 articles a day and often times 6 or 7. I also have a full time job which cuts in to my blogging time. The new post frequency is a significant change from this blog. I’ve read elsewhere and now can speak from experience when I say that there is a direct correlation between posting frequency and amount of traffic. At a certain point this correlation becomes weaker but it definitely exists. Anyone that can be a successful blogger, can be a successful entrepreneur. The sheer number of unpaid hours that you will spend in the first 6 months of building a successful blog can be daunting but a clear vision and the belief that there is a reward in the end is all you have to keep you going.

I have yet to receive a significant payout from my new blog but I have entertained a number of offers. This is the only thing that makes me think that my new blog has a chance at greater success. Will it become the next TechCrunch or Mashable? Who knows. Do I care? Not really. I will keep staying up until 1 or 2 AM just so my readers have something to fill their time with the next day. I believe that this dedication will somehow reap rewards through building relationships, increasing client referrals and building name recognition, but I don’t know how quickly all this will happen. All I know it that it will. I read in Napoleon Hill’s think and Grow Rich that one of the key components of becoming successful is having an unwavering faith that you will succeed. He was right. So for all of you that have an idea that you want to have materialize, start working on it. All you need is the willingness to learn how to get where you are going and unwavering faith. That’s it. I know you can get there and I know you will. You might not get there on the first go around but if you keep that vision close I know you will get there. Best of luck! I will see you at the finish line!

Last night I was pacing back and forth contemplating my plan for world domination. While I have yet to figure out how I’m going to do it, I will surely let you know when I figure it out. One thing that I figured out during my nightly pacing was how to expand my global media empire (that is said with a sarcastic tone). While as of now I am limited to two mediocre blogs, I am looking to expand into new forms of media. What’s next you ask? Video. I think it is time to start doing coverage of events, interviews and more. Although I haven’t planned my execution strategy, it is sure to come. Why do I have such renewed vigor for blogging and alternative media? One reason is this Forbes article from yesterday which describes the imploding media industry. Red Herring, Business 2.0 and PC Magazine are only a few of the magazines that are taking a beating.

The source of the pain for larger publications is citizen journalism. While some of these journalists may be more dedicated than others, they are truly a serious thorn in old media’s side. Sites like Techcrunch, PaidContent.org, Read/Write/Web and others are all major competition to large publications and are taking away readers. Not only are readers leaving but advertisers are running out the door as well. As the Forbes article highlights, Business 2.0 ad pages dropped 21.8% in March over the same period from a year ago and PC Magazine experienced a 38.8% drop in the same period. So just because Mike Arrington, Rafit Ali, Richard MacManus, Om Malik and others can do it, can someone else come along and do the same thing? Hell yes! That’s not to say that the majority of bloggers don’t experience a low volume of traffic, but if you pick the right niche you are sure to experience a boom in traffic. That’s when the fun starts. Late nights, non-stop networking, rinse and repeat. Becoming successful isn’t easy but who said starting your own business ever was. This is true guerrilla warfare at its best and there is still plenty of niche markets to capture.

So I have decided to enter the competitive landscape and will be releasing a few more media properties in the coming months. As you can tell from reading my blog I have ten thousand ideas but many of them I don’t have time to follow. New media though is probably the most exciting thing that I have been involved in and as such I’m going to dive in completely. There is some exciting new media ventures right around the corner. Also, I know I have been promising some exciting news. It is soon to come! How are you taking part of the new media revolution?

Back in February there was a lot of discussion as to whether or not blogging has peaked. Much of the discussion revolved around the daily posting volume in the blogosphere. At the beginning of April Steve Rubel was asking the same question. While there hasn’t been another “state of the blogosphere” report released recently, I am willing to bet that blogging has in no way slowed down. I am watching one friend after the other take up blogging and start posting on a daily basis. Even Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape, didn’t start blogging until 5 weeks ago. While the growth gained from the typical blogger will not mimic Marc Anreesen’s growth, I think the satisfaction gained from self-expression is powerful enough to keep one blogging. This is especially the case for younger people that are used to not having their voice taken as seriously in a professional environment. If you want to have a louder voice, start blogging. It’s as simple as that. Eventually people will be forced to listen to you as your influence grows. Conversely, in order for your influence to grow in your career, you need to discuss career oriented topics.

So why am I going off on this whole discussion about blogging? Well, I was inspired when I heard Marc Andreesen talking about the power of blogging. He gives a great overview of basic lessons that he has learned from blogging in the first five weeks. It was also great timing because I had planned on posting a complete tutorial on starting up your own blog. While many of my readers are already bloggers, many are not. I am hoping that by providing a little advice they can experience the same wonderful things that I have experienced as a result of blogging. I want to make that tutorial as complete as possible so look for it to come out in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, if you aren’t blogging, try it out! If you are blogging, keep at it!

Hugh MacLeod has declared the A-list dead based on Robert Scoble’s findings. Hugh argues that the A-list used to be the source for people looking for the cool social network to go sign up for. Is that true? Perhaps. If you want to find niche social networks you had to read sites like Techcrunch, but up until 7 months ago I learned about all social networks through word of mouth. Among bloggers I think there are still those that can determine who the “cool kids are” but since when did bloggers determine where the cool kids play? In my opinion, A-listers are people that have good ideas and are in the right place at the right time. They follow the same path as successful entrepreneurs. A-lister = Successful entrepreneur. The A-lister isn’t dead, but how long can you idolize someone? We are looking for the person who will be the next big hit, or trying to be the next big hit ourselves. In the meantime readership of the big bloggers will still remain relatively high with the occasional fluctuation. So are the A-listers dead? Nope. They just have bigger competitors to deal with (social networks, etc).

I once read a post by Seth Godin that was titled “How to Get Paid $100,000 a Year Blogging.” The answer? Get a job that pays $100,000 a year and blog from work! While this is the attitude of many avid bloggers, I have also met those that make a living from blogging. In New York this past weekend I met one blogger that had just bought his own house from his network of blogs that he manages. While he was good at making money through blogs, I can’t say that he was truly passionate about blogging given that he didn’t write any of his blogs. It was all other people that blogged for him.

A New York Times article this past weekend asked the same question. Is it possible to make a job out of blogging? The conclusion was that it is possible but very difficult, with the rare full-time blogger making in the range of $40,000 to $60,000 a year. The real money in blogging comes from the connections made. From my two blogs, The Webpreneur (this blog), and my recently launched All Facebook, I have managed to build numerous business contacts. Some of these contacts have even led to potential business partners and start-up funding.

So can you make a living blogging? Yes, but the real value comes from building relationships. When you start a blog you need to be passionate and dedicated because chances are you are not going to see any money coming in the door for months to come. While I have already received cash offers for advertising space on my recently launched Facebook blog, the offers are nowhere near enough for me to live off. So if you have a blog idea, all I can suggest is to get out there and start blogging. There is so much more to be gained from writing down your thoughts and sharing them with the world than just monetary gain. If you choose not to share your thoughts with the world you are missing out on a world of opportunity.

Yesterday Techcrunch verified a rumor that was started by an ex-Techcrunch writer. Terrific! According to Mike Arrington, “The information we have is that the deal is now under a binding term sheet and will close in 2-3 weeks, and there is nothing that can really derail it at this point.” So now we have to wait 2-3 weeks to determine whether or not this rumor is true and in the meantime the stock market can figure out what they want to do with this info. While $100 million is practically a drop in the bucket for Google it is still significant. Bloggers are now carrying a lot more weight in the media domain and need to be much more careful with verifying sources, as recognized in last week’s Engadget iPhone slip up. While today’s rumor probably won’t have any significant sway on Google’s stock it still helps bring to light the issue of bloggers and their increasing need to maintain journalistic integrity. In this case I’m sure Mike Arrington verified his sources prior to publishing the article given the recency of the Engadget article.

I’m going to keep this post short as I have a feeling there is going to be a fair amount to write about Facebook once they make their press release today.

Trying to figure out why some blogs do better than others even though both blogs provide intriguing content? The reason can be summarized in one word: marketing. If you blog on a regular basis and have high quality content then you have just as much potential for success as all the other blogs. While there are a few other factors contributing to the success of a blog (a valuable niche for example), marketing is the key differentiator. Luckily for you, I stumbled across a great ebook today that helps novice and intermediate bloggers get introduced to blog marketing in a web 2.0 environment. The ebook is called “2007 Authority Black Book: The Best Web 2.0 Resources for Generating Traffic and Winning Customers”. Not exactly the shortest of titles but it will do for being a free ebook.

The Black Book highlights a few key factors critical to the success of a blog. A few of these include:

• Blogging Platform - In order to have a successful blog, it helps to have a powerful platform to blog from. While many choose blogger or livejournal as a starting point, the author highly recommends using Wordpress. I use wordpress to publish this blog and wouldn’t switch to any other platform.
• RSS Marketing - While the author doesn’t make many suggestions on how to build your RSS subscriber base besides installing the “What would Seth Godin do” plugin. I haven’t installed this plugin because I think it would probably be annoying to visitors, but hey maybe I’ll give it a try at some point.
• Social Bookmarking - Jack Humphry (the author) suggests submitting each of your posts to every social bookmarking site. While I’m not too sure about the value of this, it may be worth a shot for getting the buzz going about your site.
• Video Marketing - This is one of the last marketing methods covered in the ebook. By creating videos and publishing them on sites such as YouTube or Blip.tv you can direct viewers directly to your blog. The only problem I have with this one is that it takes a significant amount of time to create a catch video whereas it takes significantly less time bookmarking and pinging content syndication sites.

Overall the ebook is definitely worth a read, especially since it is free. The bottom line is that blogging takes a significant amount of time with or without marketing. Marketing is necessary though to get your site over the initial hurdles. Once you have reached the “tipping point” for your blog, you are well on your way to success. Good luck!

As I wrote in yesterday’s post on “The Losing Business of CPC Arbitrage”, I am beginning a monetization experiment on this blog. My hope is that this does not turn away any of my existing readers. I am going to be as least invasive as possible with the arrangement of my advertising. If you have any feedback on this please feel free to comment. I am trying to see if it is possible to create a balance between advertising and valuable content. I will continue to provide insight on social media, entrepreneurship, and technology but will additionally document my experience in monetizing this blog. Hopefully this can be a learning experience for both of us.

Now to the core matter. What was the first step in monetizing this blog? Applying to various internet advertising programs. The ones that I have selected to participate in so far are:

• Text-Link-Ads - I will be using Text-Link-Ads to provide ads in my RSS feed as well as testing their site based ads. At the end of each post there will be a single text ad that is a sentence long. Text-Link-Ads provides a variety monetization methods. This includes site based text ads, post level ads, and feedvertising.
• ReviewMe - ReviewMe gives advertisers the flexibility to create review offers for their blogger marketplace and/or order reviews direct from specific top blogs. I plan on occasionally posting reviewme posts, but not too frequently as I want to maintain a high level of informative postings.
• Google AdSense - If you don’t know what Google AdSense is then you’ve probably been hiding under a rock for the past couple years. Google AdSense is one of their primary sources of revenue. Google places targeted ads on your page based on the subject you are discussing. If approved for this program, I will be placing the ads on the sidebar.

My only concern in the whole process is maintaining my integrity. As a reader, do you think that I lose integrity by accepting ads on this blog? I’d love to hear your feedback. So let me know!

With all these “How to make money on the internet sites” around you would guess that it is a pretty easy thing to do. While it is still possible to monetize a site effectively, the old game of CPC (cost-per-click) arbitrage is coming to an end. While reading the article “Turning Dimes Into Dollars: The Basics of Low-Bid PPC” I began to wonder about some of the practices discussed. Todd Mintz describes Jeremy Schoemaker’s method of making money on the internet.

ShoeMoney is best known in the SEM community for his ability to hyper-monetize websites through large volume affiliate sales funded by PPC minimum bids.

In other words, target a given niche using CPC advertising and then try to sell them a product since you probably have a good guess about what types of products they would be interested in. While this is a good model, it is only good as long as other people stay away from your market. As more advertisers come in, the margin on each affiliate sale decreases rapidly. Mintz goes on to further explain his experience with advertising on his blog:

I turned off my North American Google, Yahoo & MSN ads since I got little traffic from minimum bids and when I increased the bids high enough to draw traffic, my ROI was only a fraction of what I earned in Europe. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to sell my products into Asia. Asian affiliate programs seem to be the least developed… however, I think it’s just a matter of time before that changes.

At first glance it seems like Todd is already experiencing what would be a rational result in this type of revenue generating model. The hands-off approach of generating revenue only exists under two circumstances:

1. The market has not yet been flooded and there are still opportunities to milk a given niche for cash flow
2. Create your own product and sell it to customers

The second approach is obviously much more secure because you own the actual product that you are selling. Many other bloggers are still using the first approach. While I don’t think that the market for CPC arbitrage has been eliminated (there are always be arbitrage opportunities in any market), there is now fierce competition and blog monetizers have to begin looking elsewhere. The only really effective way of monetizing a blog over the long haul is building a solid readership base that regularly reads your blog. As you build your base you can begin to use advertising tools more effectively to generate revenue. As an experiment, I will try to monetize this blog over the course of the next 6-months while explaining it every step of the way. Let’s see what happens!

Jason Calacanis has posted an article about how to linkbait him. This is my interpretation:

1. Let everyone know that I am great by telling them my exceptional bio
2. Follow up my bio with words such as “The King”, “Almighty”, or “The Blogging Jesus”
3. Once you are done giving me all the praise that I deserve along with a picture of you worshiping me, I request that you display a history of posts that you enjoyed. I assume that you have read all of my posts on my blog, right?
4. Go TP the houses of anyone that has ever talked crap about me. Also put them on your blacklist, and never read their blogs. Additionally, post a list on your blog naming each of them individually under the sub-heading “Devil Worshippers”
5. Since you already have my best quotes ever engraved in plaques all over your bedroom, pick a few of them and add those to your post. Nothing makes me feel better than hearing my own gospel.
6. Post a picture of me that makes me look beautiful. I know that I’m beautiful as it is, but let’s be honest, we all have a few bad pictures of ourselves. Since you already have beautiful pictures of me hanging on your shrine, why not take out your digital camera, snap a shot of one of them and add it to the post. I like seeing my beautiful face.
7. Talk about the days when we hung out (even if we didn’t). I like to know that I have tons of real friends that I’ve built true relationships with, just like you ….. RIGHT???
8. If you are going to flame me … you better do it politely. Try something such as “I believe that Mr. Calacanis was wrong when he said … but I still think he is the most incredible person in the world anyways. Wow! I can’t believe I’m saying this but I am in love with Jason Calacanis.” Something along those lines.
9. Since you are already stalking me … why not link to the various locations that you are stalking me from. I have a flickr, digg, and del.icio.us account that all need some link love. I have a picture of this concrete that I think is exceptionally artistic. I call it “The One Tone Masterpiece”. Try linking to that or something. Damn, I’m a genius.
10. Finally, send me a gift on my birthday. Actually, while you are at it, send me a gift every other weekend. Sometimes I have a really hard week and I really appreciate your support.
11. Did I say finally? Whatever. You should also fly out to visit me at some point during the next 6 months and worship the ground that I’m standing on. Not just at that moment, but for a full 8-hour work day.

If you follow the simple steps outlined above, I’ll post a link on my blog for you.

According to a report released yesterday by ScanSafe, 80 percent of blogs contain “offensive” content. While this is a fairly subjective analysis, it does paint an image of blogs having much less journalistic integrity for the most part. I’m not quite sure that this really is a revelation, and additionally who care about cursing on blogs? While there are plenty of blogs that overuse curse words, a strategically placed F-bomb might be exactly what’s needed sometimes. It creates controversy for the reader and unless your readers are made up of a bunch of elementary school kids it probably isn’t a word that has gone unheard by your readers. So keep your cursing to a minimum, but once in a while feel free to let loose. We all do sometimes.