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Is this the worst freakin’ economic nightmare you’ve ever seen?  Since a year ago, I have seen too many friends and relatives losing their jobs and homes and it sucks.  I have to confess that 2008 and 2009  wer my best years ever from a financial standpoint.  God, luck, some good timing all brought it together for me over the past 24 months and with the same good fortune, 2010 will be as good or better.  But having been on the upside of online efforts before only to see the bottom fall out so I take nothing for granted.

But one of the most frustrating things that has been happening lately is that so many people who I know, who are really struggling, keep saying things like, “I want you to show me how to make a living online”.

Of course the problem with that is that a lot of what I do online is at best, grayhat stuff that I would not divulge but more to the point, everyone seems to think that I can sit down with them this weekend and just show them the money.  Which I can’t.

So I’m kind of stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place:  How do I explain a 6 figure income when I’m working from home for about 4 hours a day?  At best.  I do have some standard, white hat sites and blogs and  ecommerce sites that I’ve run for over a decade but it’s getting harder and harder to bullshit people into believing that I make my living that way.

On top of that, when my wife (who is an executive at a large corp) tells me there’s a social function we are going to attend, I dread the one question that never stops coming: “So Buck, what do you do for a living?”

I’ve pretty much gotten to the point where I just say, “Internet Marketing and Consulting”, which usually leaves them open mouthed and frankly, not interested in hearing my definition of what that means.  But overall, trying to explain what I do online for a living is usually a drag.  I should probably just start saying, “I sell on Ebay”.

Recently, the great advance of technology has provided plenty of people with the unlimited possibilities to do everything easily. In this case, the presence of the Amazon Kindle will be great as your choice. It is a reading device which will enable you to store over 1500 titles.

Anyway, the Amazon Kindle has several generations, & the latest four offers more capacity, thus you can be happier with being able to store more titles & bring this gadget everywhere as you need. In this case, some people find it to be a affordable four, since they can get the great benefits from such a gadget by paying the same price as they would buy a Blackberry.

Further, the obvious reason why plenty of people select the Amazon Kindle is because of the portability reason. They do not need to bring plenty of books which will only add the extra weight to their luggage. Definitely, it is a great gadget you must have now.

What about the battery life? You can read on a single charge for up to 4 days with wireless on. Turn wireless off & read for up to four weeks. In this case, the battery life will vary based on wireless usage, such as shopping the Kindle Store & downloading content. Everyone will seldom deny the idea that it is the real great worthy investment you ought to think about buying soon.

It is the same as the other gadgets which need batteries in its operation. The slim size will make it convenient to hold it in your hand. Having the Amazon Kindle in your hand is a matter of reading thousands of books in four gadget.

With everything that’s happening in the economy today, it’s probably good to know what your credit score is BEFORE you find yourself in a situation where you’re stuck.  We’ve been using National Credit and give it a total thumbs up!

Holy shit you would have thought it was the end of the world a few weeks ago when Viacom asked for user information from Youtube in it’s lawsuit against them.  I had more than a few heated discussions with other members on a few internet marketing forums how in my opinion, it wouldn’t happen.

The most common retort was of course in reference to Napster and the RIAA lawsuits against the poor souls who had (illegally) downloaded copyrighted material from P2P networks.  I countered that the RIAA was and is, a dying business model and they were taking one last gasp at reversing the slide in the recording industy, that comparing that to the Viacom suit was like comparing apples and oranges.

Whether I’m right or wrong on that one can still be argued but the fact is that today, Viacom agreed  to allow Google/Youtube to withhold or at least mask IP addresses and other identifying objects of the users who downloaded copyrighted material.

Associated PRess Internet Writer ANICK JESDANUN reported this today: 

“Viacom and other copyright holders have agreed to let YouTube mask user IDs and Internet addresses when Google Inc.’s online video site hands over viewership records in a $1 billion lawsuit accusing YouTube of enabling copyright infringement……”

“Lawyers for Viacom and the other plaintiffs signed an agreement with YouTube on Monday saying they would accept measures to help YouTube preserve the anonymity of the records. Under the agreement, YouTube can swap the user logins and IP addresses with other, presumably anonymous signifiers; YouTube has a week to propose its method”

So for now at least, it seems we’re all safe after downloading video files from television shows and movies that are owned by Viacom who is suing Youtube for copyright infringement while at the same time is allowing their own shows to upload copies to Youtube.

Amazing.

I hadn’t been paying much attention to this lately but right around Christmas I was starting to notice that Google’s stock was in a bit of a slump.  Like the rest of the world who watches this type of thing, I think I was amazed at how the Goog’s stock seemed completely immune to anything around it.  And all the time I kept thinking how things were back in the late nineties when everyone said there was no tech bubble and then all of a sudden, the world (i.e. Silicon Valley) was flush with casualties.

It wasn’t like I was predicting anything (not that anyone would listen or that I even had a forum to blabber on at the time) but it just seemed that something had to give at some point.  Unless I’m mistaken, I seem to remember hearing that blowhard stock “guru” Jim Cramer saying something like Google will become the next Berkshire Hathaway.  Never split the stock and in years to come it will be worth thousands of dollars per share.

Well Jimbo may still be right but from the high of about $732 bucks per share in November I believe, Google’s stock has plunged.  Yes that is the word folks, PLUNGED, to a new low of about $432 on March 6.

A 40% decline in 5 months?  Holy Recession Batman!  Let’s get real here:  With the economy slumping (I’m not one to tout a recession), and business suffering doesn’t it make sense that people (i.e. business) will spend less on advertising?  And since Google’s entire business model is based on advertising……well, you figure it out.

I have always wondered how a company could base it’s sole income stream on ONE item which for the most part Google has done.  Their Adwords and Adsense models make them billions of dollars.  But that’s all they have.  Okay, okay, so you’re saying, “Yeah, well GM, Ford, Toyota et al only have one item as well, cars.”  Yeah, but they have a lot of cars.  When gas was cheap(er) and nobody gave a damn, SUV’s were huge moneymakers.  The profit margins were huge on these gas guzzlers.  When gas started rising, and the SUV sales took a dive, they ramped up the more fuel efficient smaller vehicles.

What does Goog have to prop it up?  I wonder.

Look, I think what they’ve done is amazing.  Hell, I use Adsense on every website I own so I’m not complaining.  But a couple questions come to mind:

1 – If Google’s stock continues this downward trend, will they still be able to recruit the best and brightest with stock option promises?

2 – How does this effect the mindset of someone working at G who right now has options that are worthless?

I have no doubt Google will remain strong and Microsoft/Yahoo notwithstanding, probably the leader in search for the foreseeable future.  But it is amazing to me how the recent past keeps getting forgotten time and time again.

Before I even get into this post, I wanted to make it very clear to anyone reading that a lot of the methods I post here at The Bucks Report are not original to me.  In fact, by the time I see them and try them they’ve often been so abused as to be of no use to newbies like myself.

But I want to post them anyway to share my experience and thoughts so that they might help you guys out.  Who knows, I might find something over at DP or BHW and give it a try only to fail (such as this method I’ll talk about) but you might be able to tweak it in a way to make a few bucks for yourself.

So this method was being kicked around at BHW and I’m sure numerous other forums and blogs.  I actually first saw it over at Cash Tactics.  A very cool blog that has some great tips.  What it involves is using Youtube to generate traffic to your ringtone affiliate offer. Basically here’s how this tactic works:  You find a handful of current videos from major music artists.  Let’s say Timbaland, Daughtry, Foo Fighters, Snoop..whomever you chose.

Your next step is to download these videos onto your own computer.  There are numerous ways to do this but I purchased a cool piece of software called Ultraget Video Downloader .   This allows you to download Youtube (or other) videos that you normally wouldn’t be able to.

Okay, so now you have your videos.  Your next step is to watermark them using something like Video Watermark Factory .  What you want to do is watermark the video of (for instance) Alicia Keyes with something along the lines of “Get This Ringtone at http://www.youraffiliatecodehere.com”

Of course, the url is actually to your ringtone offer landing page that you have.  I used a redirect so my CPA network would not know where my traffic was coming from.  Your final step is to upload your new, watermarked video to numerous video sites.  There are many to chose from.  Again, to make matters easy, I purchased Video Post Robot   which allows me to post any number of videos to a large number of video sites quickly.

Once you accomplish all of this, the goal is for someone to see your video that has your ringtone url and think to themselves, “Oh, hey, cool…I’ll go there and grab the Alicia Keys ringtone.”  They sign up and you get your cut.

My results?  Utterly pathetic.  A total failure.  Every single time I tried to upload the video to one of the sites using Video Post Robot, my watermarked video was deleted, almost immediately, due to copyright infringement.  I made a grand total of ZERO dollars.

So what lesson did I learn if any?  I imagine part of the problem was that I was using newly created accounts on all the video services.  I believe that since it was an account just created and my first upload was of this type, it was caught immediately.  Maybe if I’d used my old Youtube account that I’ve had for a couple of years I might have had the videos stay online for a longer period.

Second, I’m thinking I could have grabbed any number of videos of these same artists that were merely someone elses.  In other words, rather than use the official Daughtry video, I could have found a video that some Daughtry groupie/lover made for their friends and watermarked that one.  Who knows.

At any rate, it might be worth trying again but I have more than enough on my plate as it is with other…ahem….sneaky tactics in other areas that keep me more than busy and more than enough cash coming in.  But if any of this works for anyone else, then it’s all good.  Even if you don’t use it for this purpose, those three video links are great things to have.  None of them are using any kind of affiliate link on my part.

I was chatting the other day with an affiliate marketer who is much more experienced than I am at this game.  I mentioned that I was still waiting for my 1099 tax forms from a couple of my affiliate networks.  One of whom I made a substantial income from last year.

This guy told me that a few years back he made almost a million dollars over an 18 month period.  Now let me tell you, that in itself completely blew my mind.  I know that there are people out there doing this but that kind of money to me is beyond comprehension.  At least as an affiliate marketer.  I mean, I personally know folks in the corporate world who make upwards of a quarter million a year and you hear about corporate CEO’s who make tens of millions per year in compensation.  But to generate a 7 figure income from internet marketing???  That, to me, is remarkable.  Hell, my 5 figure a month income still completely blows me away.

At any rate, this IM went on to tell me that despite that astounding income, he never sent in his self-employment taxes and barely kept a quarter of his income for tax time!!!

WTF???  This guy made almost a million dollars and right now he is broke and is scheduled to go to tax court shortly.

Maybe it’s because I spent 9 years doing retail e-commerce and had to keep strict books and filed my quarterlies, or maybe due to my age, or maybe I’m just old school but when I get those checks from my affiliate networks or adsense, I take HALF of it and stash it in an online saving account that is specifically set up for this purpose.

As it is, I’m stressing that I didn’t hold enough back in 2007 but that’s me.  If I didn’t have something to worry about I probably wouldn’t be happy.

So, I’m hoping that everyone did the smart thing in 2007 and kept back enough money to pay the IRS come April 15th.  And if this is your first year in any type of internet marketing remember this rule:  If you make more then $600 during 2008 through anyone you market for online, you will receive a 1099 in 2009 where you must report that income because your affiliate network already has done so to protect THEIR ass!

Hmmm…I wonder if you could possibly get 100 or more affiliate networks and make $599 with each one and not report the income????

I was getting pretty upset that I hadn’t heard from Google in almost a week after emailing their adsense support team.  If you don’t remember, I posted last week how I  Lost $335  in a few hours using Adsense

I emailed them politely asking why my Amex got dinged for over $300 when I put a $20 cap on the campaign.  They’re usually pretty quick to respond but as of yesterday I still hadn’t  heard back so  I emailed again.

I got a reply this morning from a team member saying they were concerned and had escalated it and forwarded it to the tech team.  So we’ll see, at least they’re on it.

$10.00? $20.00? $200.00? How much money have you wasted on ebooks that are written by internet “gurus”?  Ebooks have become a big income generator for a lot of people who market online.  They can be about anything from making money selling on ebay to creating videos on youtube that will help you make money.

A lot of these sell for as little as $5.00 but some go for much more.  It’s not unusual to pay $50 for some ebook that will promise you the world.

Listen, I haven’t paid for many but I do have them and I can tell you this:  The vast majority of them are going to promote systems and methods that a beginner is not going to be able to follow due to the technical nature or because of additional set up costs involved.

Or worse, the author of the ebook has been using this system for so long that it is just not generating the income it once did.  So what does he do?  A method that he probably guarded with his life and kept from the world is now being sold to the masses.

I’m not saying all ebooks are garbage but just think of all the money you’ve spent on them and how much you’ve gotten in return.  What has your ROI been?

Okay, I’ve been off this method for some time but here’s a way I used to use Myspace to make some spare change from adult dating sites. I’m not going to post my referral links or anything so you’ll just have to sign up for one if you’re not already with them.

There are hundreds, hell, maybe thousands of adult dating sites that have affiliate programs. With this method, you’ll want to sign up for one that has an affiliate program that gives you money everytime someone signs up with a free account.

Obviously, the big money is when you get people to pay for a full account but this is a great way to get your feet wet. If you get enough free signups, some sites will pay as much as $1.00 per sign up. You might not think it’s much but if you can get 3 or 4 of those a day, it’s an easy $100 bucks a month.

So, here’s how I used to play this: The number one tool you will need is a Myspace friend adder. There used to be dozens of them but most of them stopped updating as Myspace got more aggressive towards people marketing on their site. The one I still use is Friendblaster Pro. I highly suggest you grab the demo or purchase it from the company who designed it. You can check them out at Addnewfriends.com. When you purchase the software you’ll be given the option of 1 account or unlimited. I strongly suggest you pay for the unlimited as Myspace marketing requires numerous Myspace accounts!

Okay, so the key is to create some accounts on Myspace. The most success I had was creating accounts of hot soccer mom types. Nothing too racy but definitely with some sexiness. Create your first account. Do some searching online and grab a picture of a cute, early 30’s mom type woman. This is where you can get in trouble. Obviously you take a risk of someone seeing someone they know as your “sexy mom”. I won’t give away too many secrets here but use your imagination on where to get pics from. Now, start working on your profile and get creative! Put some work into the page and the profile. Make the profile sound like she’s really a happily married woman but would not be opposed to…..ahem….”fun”.

Now, you have to use your Friendblaster to start adding new friends. Remember, you need to target who you request as a friend. Since the theme of this all revolves around adult dating (sex), you’re going to want to go at young men. Typically 18-25. And you want to try and target new users. Don’t worry, once your profile gets views, the older guys will start asking you for requests as well.

I’ll skip forward a bit here but we’ll assume that you’re starting to get a decent number of friends. Now, again using Friendblaster, you start posting comments and bulletins. Here’s where the tactic comes in that I used to great success although to be honest, it’s probably a bit worn by now. That’s why you want to target new users when you do your friend requests.

When you comment your friends, you do so with a graphic. This will be a fairly sexy or erotic picture of “you”. But what you want to do is have the graphic look like it’s a youtube video clip. At the very bottom of this post are a couple images that show what I’m talking about.

You can grab any type of image like this from any video site by doing a search for “girls kissing”, “sexy moms”, anything you can think of. These actually did not come from youtube but you get the idea.

The point of course is to have the viewer, (your new friends) incentivized to hit that arrow thinking of course that he’ll see more video. But the graphic is merely a link to your dating site.

The hardest part of course is getting someone to the signup page at your dating site. This method above worked very well for me at the time. You do this by commenting your friends with the graphic and maybe a text also that says something along the lines of, “Hope you like my pic, it’s from my account at (whatever dating site you’re promoting)”

The guy clicks, is at the signup page and if he has the option for the free signup, there’s a good chance he’ll go for it. Boom, you just made your money.

Some things to keep in mind:

1. Myspace has made it tougher. Capchas are all over and it gets boring to keep entering them.
2. Many Myspace users know all the tricks. It is possible your account(s) will be deleted. That is why you need as many as possible. There are are still some Myspace account creators that work but I just used to buy premade accounts so you’ll have to do some searching.
3. This technique works with bulletins also but nowhere near as well as commenting.
4. I never had success with this using mail in Myspace. You might though.

So there you go. Like I said, the technique is a bit dated but what do you have to lose? I rarely use Myspace for anything anymore. To be honest, I got in late and while I made a few bucks, I never had the patience to really target my friends to a specific niche and then it just got harder and harder so I found other venues to make cash.