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  • Gary Lee 12.23 pm on 05.04.2010 Permalink  

    Free iPad Dock: Thinking Outside the Box from Inside the Box 

    ipad-egg-carton-dockI just received my iPad at work today and have been testing it out like crazy. I’m going to spare you a full on review because, well, I’m tired of reading them myself!

    My main interest in the iPad is two fold – 1) I’m a Mac whore, so I’m required by my membership fees to have one of these in my possession 2) I was lucky enough to be asked by the Mouse to lead a team in building an app for the iPad called the “Craft Finder for iPad” after creating the “Craft Finder” for iPhone not so long ago for FamilyFun Magazine – crafts galore – Trust!  Feel free to download those two apps if you can, since they’re absolutely FREE and downloadable over the air :)

    But I digress . . .
    I have my iPad now and my hands are sore from holding it up. Yes, I’m 5’11″ and 220lbs and my hands got sore holding this 1.5lb device for 30-40 minutes. Good Luck Skinnies!

    So, what did I do? I made a dock for the iPad to show it off on my desk.

    If you can’t figure out how to make one yourself, then I’m sorry. Life’s just tough like that :) But since I’m feeling a little nice, check out this video you’ll need to see to figure how to get the connector to hold steady in your dock.

    Photos taken from my awesome iPhone 3G

    [nggallery id=2]

    Brought to you by: Bunkers Paradise | Camera Equipment Pros | Kicksologists | Lakers Nation

     
  • Gary Lee 1.57 pm on 04.03.2009 Permalink  

    Thoughts on Todays News 

    Top Yahoo News March 4, 2009

    • Great way to inspire the people and get consumer confidence going!
    • I still think people who overextended themselves and can’t afford a home, should be ousted from their home. I don’t want my tax money going to people who are sitting around their brand new granite kitchen counter tops, watching the news about unemployment rates on their brand new 42″ LCD.
    • Fugate doesn’t really have much to live up to. Just don’t F up a Katrina like disaster and you’ll probably get a raise.
    • Sorry to hear about the football players.
    • Don’t we already know that xrays are dangerous? Who’s paying for these reports? Anyone want to pay me to do a report about how breathing oxygen leads to more cases of cancer? I swear I can twist into something shocking if you want!
    • Is it me or should parents of those convicted of pretty heinous crimes be punished in some way? It’s society’s way of saying “you F’d up and we had to deal with your incompetency as a parent.” Nothing crazy like jail time, but how about some mandatory community service or something, right?
     
    • natron 7.52 am on 05.03.2009 Permalink

      Someone a little jaded by the news lately? Same here!

    • Gary Lee 10.10 am on 05.03.2009 Permalink

      jaded is a nice word . . . . just feel there’s more important events/news in the world than this stuff

    • Jeff 10.55 am on 06.03.2009 Permalink

      Gary so you are against the loser homeowners accepting help from the govt. but but not loser banks, loser car manufacturers and loser insurance companies who already accepted help?

    • Gary Lee 11.01 am on 06.03.2009 Permalink

      no . . i’m against them all . . banks who folded deserve it (i.e. Wamu), car companies begging for help should suffer just like any other small business (GM – how the hell did you think you could diversify that much?), insurance companies (don’t even get me started on AIG right now)

  • Gary Lee 11.09 pm on 01.02.2009 Permalink  

    Inside the Mind of Marketers 

    What are they thinking?

    What are they thinking?

    With the Super Bowl just passing, there wasn’t just a new NFL champion crowned, there was the best of the best in advertising out on full display. With ad rates as high as $3M per 30 seconds, advertisers made sure they were using their most effective ads. What I learned is that every time I watched a new commercial, I was given a chance to get a free marketing lesson from some of the top marketing firms in the world.

    Key Points to look out for:

    • Type of Message – i.e. Prey on Fear or Urgency (think Viagra Commercials)
    • Choice of Words - Too many vs. Too Little.
    • Images – Question why they chose that image vs. another.
    • Transitions – Are there any? Do they funnel you into any direction?
    • Choice of Music – Fast vs. Slow? Excitement? Commercials are mini-movies with their own soundtrack to evoke feelings as well!
    • Choice of Actors – Did they affect you with their presence? (i.e. I still don’t understand why Kenny Mayne does insurance commercials)

    The bottom line is that you should try your best to figure out what emotions the commercial just evoked from you. Determine what the advertiser succeeded and failed in doing. I would suggest keeping a pad and pencil on your coffee table or in your car for you to jot down your thoughts, so you can take advantage of all the free lessons of the day!

    Check out all the super bowl ads at hulu.com and let me know what you thought were the best or the worst and why.

     
  • Gary Lee 6.50 pm on 25.02.2008 Permalink  

    Jason Calacanis Starts off ASW by Embarassing Shoemoney 

    To be honest with you, I was still a little confused as to why I was here at Affiliate Summit West. One of the biggest reasons I signed up to come was because of how much fun I had a Blog World Expo and also because I received a free pass from ASW. I did a mini-tour of the booths last night with Morgan and D, but wasn’t really excited to see anything there. I wasn’t really looking forward to any booth touring today and yes, I realized I was in danger of getting into party-pooper mode . . . . until this morning when I arrived at the Keynote speech given by Jason Calacanis, the founder of Weblogs Inc and Mahalo.com.

    Admittedly, I arrived a little late and even more admittedly, I didn’t know who the hell was speaking as I entered the room. I just heard so smart mouthed, New York accent cussing and trying to get some cheap laughs. I finally figured out who Jason was and began to listen to his main messages

    1. To ask affiliates to stop polluting the net with garbage.
    2. Quality Content is King and will prevail for the long term.
    3. Be prepared to take 5-10 years to build a high-quality site.
    4. Reach for the stars. Go ahead and build for the long term.
    5. I’m a dork who struck it rich and wants to put down everyone else that didn’t do it my way.

    You’re probably guessing right that he didn’t really emphasize the last point in his powerpoint presentation. That message was translated all by yours truly. As I was listening to his keynote speech, I was having no problem with his elitist stance that the internet needs to be cleansed with the junk that affiliates are making to trick the unknowing. It was only until he got to pointing out bloggers like Shoemoney and Zac Johnson, who take pictures with their 6 figure checks. He includes both Shoe and Zac’s famous check pictures in his powerpoint presentation. Jason uses words like “pathetic, desparate, and uncouth” to publicly embarrass these bloggers. Jason tries to save some of their reputation by calling them “brilliant,” but through the rest of his presentation, he would use the “100K people” reference to represent the group of internet marketers that you shouldn’t strive to be like.

    So, don’t get me wrong and think that I’m on Shoe’s and Zac’s side because I’ve personally met them and think they’re really great people. The point at which I felt I should write something about today’s events came later in the presentations when Jason begins to point out how he was a struggling magazine writer when he first started and that his first job was working on HP laser printers. He talked about how no one in the “Valley” wanted him around because of what he wrote. Well, he finally started getting credit for his work and was quickly establishing himself as a major voice in the internet community. This is the part of the presentation where he pathetically waves his resume and tells us how he gets invited to “all the parties” because everyone wants him there.

    I know it’s not like showing off how much you make, but in a way, it really was. I can understand that he’s proud of the quality content he’s been able to prove. I can understand if he wants to rub it in people’s faces that his vision for quality would persevere all trends. I can understand if he wants the internet to be full of purists who strive for high quality content forever and ever.

    The only thing I can’t understand is the quality of Jason’s character in putting down other’s to make his ego feel that much better.

    More to come about the rest of my first day as I got to meet one of the people that inspired me to become the entrepreneur that I am today and notes from some of the presentations being given at Affiliate Summit West. 

     
    • Michael Kwan 7.03 pm on 25.02.2008 Permalink

      Nice post. Too bad you don’t have a video of it.

    • Darin Carter 8.54 pm on 25.02.2008 Permalink

      Wow, that was deep. Sounds like you are having fun … LOL

      Wish I was there.

      Darin

    • Derek 10.20 pm on 25.02.2008 Permalink

      Very interesting to hear. As Michael mentioned, video would have been outstanding! Hope you guys have a great time.

    • Stephen 10.38 pm on 25.02.2008 Permalink

      Ran into Jason Calacanis at the BlogHaus, and from what I observed of him, I can totally see him being the way you describe. He totally had this air of “SuperEGO” around him as he strolled around the “Haus”.

    • Anderson 6.21 am on 26.02.2008 Permalink

      Gary, can you fix the PDF link on this post, please?
      http://www.mrgarylee.com/becoming-a-blogging-hero/

      Best,
      Anderson

    • Joel Comm 9.02 am on 26.02.2008 Permalink

      Spot on, Gary. I Was very disappointed with Jason as well. Here’s my take.

    • ms danielle 4.40 pm on 26.02.2008 Permalink

      i think most people that were at the keynote understand his character a little bit better now. i’ve never seen him speak before either and i think it’s unfortunate for him to judge a handful of the most successful marketers — the ones that are HELPING OTHERS succeed — in order to justify his own business model. i applaud zac for addressing the issue in his session today, and defending his success and the industry as a whole directly to jason yesterday. kudos to shoe and zac!

    • Gary Lee 10.04 am on 27.02.2008 Permalink

      I think the shock of the presentation and where Calacanis was going with it stopped me from pulling out my camera

  • Gary Lee 6.48 pm on 13.02.2008 Permalink  

    My Most Asian Post EVER! 

    For those of you who get offended easily, don’t read this. That’s my disclaimer.

    For the rest of us normal fun people, this is going to be my most “asian” post I’ve ever posted, so hopefully get a smile out of it! Coming from California, I’ve met every one of these Asians, so it’s pretty hilarious how damn close each description is! I wonder where my friend Greg Morgan falls into this list!

    After your done, check out my YouTube Video at the bottom of this post – an asian dance crew called Kaba Modern (click for their Profile) from my alma mata – UC Irvine – competing ( and representing pretty well) in MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew! Zot! Zot!

    What Kind Of Asian Are You?

    Young Asians in America come in many forms. Below are the major categories. Most Asians fit into multiple groups. For example, Rice-boys can also be Fobs and many Tabs are Fobulous. The only groups that are never part of another group are the Twinkies and the Asian-Americans. Claim your Fobbiness! When you see your Asian friend, greet them with “Wassup Fob!” And if your Asian friend says something ridiculous, say “Fob please!” Of course, when a non-Asian calls you a Fob, that is grounds for a fight. Ahahaha… The categories below are to be taken lightheartedly. Read, recognize and laugh.

    Twinkie
    - Besides your nationality, there is little to distinguish you from white people
    - Your significant other is not Asian and never has been
    - You have few Asian friends, if any
    - You are embarrassed at family events because you cannot speak your language and everyone has to switch to English to communicate with you
    - You have no idea that the other types of Asians on this list even exist
    - You think Hello Kitty is dumb and do not know what Sanrio is
    - You are the only Asian on this list that does not know what Bubble Tea is
    - You drive a Ford or some other domestic car and if you drive a Honda, it is stock

    Asian-American
    - You claim yourself as Asian, but real Asians think you’re whitewashed and non-Asians see you as a foreigner. You fit in nowhere
    - You have heard of Bubble Tea but have never actually had any
    - You are confused about your cultural identity and express this frustration through spoken word performances at your college
    - You read A. magazine and think it’s great
    - You do not know who Edison, Jay Chou, Ayu, or G.O.D. are
    - You are only vaguely aware of the other Asians below

    Yap (Young Asian Professional)
    - You are in one of these professions:
    a) Medicine / Pharmaceutical
    b) Engineering
    c) Finance
    d) Investment Banking
    e) Accounting
    - Most of your wardrobe was purchased at Banana Republic
    - You go to “mixers” on Thursday nights to meet other Yaps and talk about the Dow Jones.
    - You did exactly what your parents wanted you to do and as a result, your life is hella boring
    - Your apartment/home is decorated almost exclusively with stuff from Pier 1
    - Your parents always talk to their friends about how much money you make. If they don’t, then you’re a dissapointment

    Fob (Fresh Off tha Boat)
    - You were not born in America
    - You know who Edison, Jay Chou, Ayu, or G.O.D. are. In fact, you have seen them at Atlantic City or Las Vegas recently
    - You speak your native language fluently and so do all your friends
    - You do not have any non-Asian friends
    - Your parents do not speak any English
    - When you speak English, you like to make everything plural
    - You get extremely good grades in school
    - You cannot dance
    - Your fashion sense comes from whatever country you’re from and you incorporate nothing from American fashion into your wardrobe

    SuperFob
    - Your command of the English language is minimal and you don’t care
    - You like dim sum chicken feet
    - You do not own a single CD, VCD, Video game, or DVD that isn’t bootlegged
    - Your only hangout is Chinatown
    - All the lights in your house are fluorescent
    - You dry your cloths outside your window
    - You need a haircut
    - You either smell like cigarettes or food

    Fobabee
    - You are an Asian-American or Twinkie who has recently “awoken”
    - You have a newly found fetish of Asian girls/boys
    - You have taken the Asian Studies course at college
    - You are trying to learn as much as possible about your culture to make up for your lifetime of trying to be white (Twinkie ; Banana) or Black (Chigger ; Tea egg)
    - If you are lucky, you will grow to become Fobulous

    Gangsta Fob (Fobsta)
    - You have shot another Asian
    - Your favorite hangout is a pool hall
    - When you talk, you sound like a cross between a Fob and an urban black kid
    - Your hair looks silly, but no one will tell you because you’ll shoot them
    - You have a serious gambling problem
    - You are a Rice-boy, but your mods are cheap and are never painted to match the rest of your car
    - No one tells you your rice ride looks cheap because you’ll shoot them
    - You want to have a Tab girlfriend, but can only get Hoochie Tabs

    Tab (Trendy Asian B*tch)
    - You shop at A/X, Bebe and Club Monaco
    - You only wear black and will occasionally wear white to “mix it up”
    - You do not weigh more than 105 lbs
    - You have never paid for dinner at a restaurant in your life
    - Platform heels are your favorite
    - You are a makeup expert, in fact, you appear completely flawless
    - You do not smile in public
    - You are the object of desire of all Asian men and you know it
    - You smoke
    - Your cell phone is completely customized
    - Somewhere in your purse is a Sanrio item
    - You only date Asian and will only date a boy with a nice car
    - You are often seen with Rice-boys
    - You never travel alone. You are either in the company of other Tabs or your Rice-boy boyfriend

    Hoochie Tab
    - You are an import car model
    - Your boobs are not real
    - There are naked pictures of you floating around on the internet somewhere
    - Clear heels are your favorite
    - Your role models are Tila Nguyen and Kaila Yu
    - Your boyfriend is a Gangsta Fob
    - You cheat on your boyfriend
    - Unlike most Asians, you do not do well in school

    Rice-Boy
    - You drive an Asian import. Usually a Honda or Acura
    - Your souped up car (known as a Rice-ride or Rice-rocket) is unrecognizable from it’s original stock form
    - Your exhaust pipe is big enough for your head to fit in
    - The spoiler on your car looks like it was made by Boeing
    - The interior of your car also looks like it was designed by Boeing
    - You always drive like you are racing someone
    - You are not afraid of dying in a crash, but you are afraid of speed bumps and parking lot on-ramps
    - The only other person besides yourself who can sit in your car is your 105 lbs Tab girlfriend. If anyone else sits in your car, the entire bottom of it will be touching the ground
    - Even though your car is a Honda, it goes faster and is worth more than a Lotus Esprit

    Fobulous
    - You speak perfect English and you are fluent in your native language
    - You have Asian friends as well as non-Asian friends
    - You listen to Asian pop as well as American music
    - You are equally aware of both popular American culture and Asian pop culture
    - You are a good dancer
    - You date Asian by choice even though you could rock the opposite sex of any other race
    - You are a good designer and have superior Html skills (for that fly MySpace / Xanga page)
    - For you, FOB stands for Fabulous Oriental Being
    - You have lots of Asian pride

    By the way – Happy Be-lated Chinese New Years!

     
    • Jeff Kee 10.59 pm on 13.02.2008 Permalink

      I guess I’m closest to Fobulous but vaguely.

      My background is interesting cause I grew up in North America/Asia back and forth so I know both cultures way too well and speak English better than Korean while still having near-perfect Korean..

      I date any race, however. P*ssy is P*ssy.

    • ms danielle 12.23 am on 14.02.2008 Permalink

      i guess i was twinkie until i was 17, then when all the white people realized they didn’t want to be my friend anymore bc i was actually asian, i landed in the SJ and gangster crowds. (SJ = Super Japanese for those of you who don’t know — you know, the j kids who play basketball, wear HIC, and hang out together at Obon.) ah, high school…..

    • BCMblog 2.40 am on 14.02.2008 Permalink

      So your proud to be asian huh? Great to hear

      Aren’t Asian’s Great?
      http://youtube.com/watch?v=K-5HhN0_75A

      Enjoy =)

    • Teaching Kimchi 1.19 am on 21.02.2008 Permalink

      I used to be a twinkie, but now that I’m in Korea I think I am FOBULOUS!

    • Domainholics 4.51 pm on 25.02.2008 Permalink

      which asian are you?

    • Entrepreneur 6.10 pm on 25.02.2008 Permalink

      I’ve heard better lines, but this is funny as well. The only thing with this list is it applies mainly to Chinese Asians as opposed to any other Asian, doncha think?

    • Gary Lee 6.58 pm on 25.02.2008 Permalink

      haha . that’s the one I selected for myself too!

    • Gary Lee 6.59 pm on 25.02.2008 Permalink

      eh . . i think it can apply to all asians . . . . but I can see where you’re coming from

    • Lanceuppercut 9.58 am on 21.08.2008 Permalink

      I liked how you bagged on every other Asian type except your own. Funny stuff :0P

    • Neil Duckett 2.29 am on 24.08.2008 Permalink

      Fobulous sounds like the group to be in.

    • Hurdlechamp 7.48 am on 08.09.2008 Permalink

      Ummm.. what about Emo Asians? They’re pretty smart and misunderstood. Never at the family reunions and usually only hang out with other emo Asians as well. Fun post!

    • Gary Lee 9.19 am on 16.09.2008 Permalink

      what are you talking about . . . . I’m a ex-rice boy fobaYap . . you best recognize!

    • KemKem 10.51 am on 29.10.2008 Permalink

      What about hapas? I’m being told that I’m like a diet twinkie. I’m not sure . . I love Hello Kitty, have lots of Asian friends, and love all Asian food. Well, whatever I am, I absolutely love this post!

    • :P 5.41 pm on 13.12.2009 Permalink

      haha this is hilraious as! i think i kinda fit into the last category haha

  • Gary Lee 7.32 pm on 01.02.2008 Permalink  

    Thank You Jerry West! Good Riddance Kwa-Me Brown! 

    Today is a great day for the City of Los Angeles as my Lakers have added the final piece to the championship puzzle. If you haven’t heard yet, the Lakers have pulled off the steal of the year by trading one of the worst players in the league – Kwame Brown – for Pau Gasol – an underrated 7 Foot Power Forward who has lead Spain to the European Championships. When I heard the news, I was literally screaming in my car while driving down Wilshire Blvd in Santa Monica! People must have thought I was crazy, but I didn’t care! I was loving my Lakers!

    I know some of you are going remind me that I was asking for Kevin Garnett last summer, but now he is a mortal enemy as he wears the horse manure green of the Boston Celtics! I usually hate Stephen A. Smith, but the man’s speaking the truth in this video clip and I can’t wait to celebrate our next Championship down Figueroa!

     
    • jennifer 1.52 pm on 06.02.2008 Permalink

      whos the guy talking? is that jerry west? he is really funny ! “he has small hands!!”

      how was ur first few days @ the happiest place in the world?

    • Zac Johnson 11.44 am on 08.02.2008 Permalink

      Suns vs. Lakers in the playoffs would make for a nice Western Conf Finals! (Shaq vs. Kobe)

  • Gary Lee 1.11 am on 30.01.2008 Permalink  

    Email has become Snail Mail 

    Snail MailFor the past couple of weeks, I have been working on a multitude of projects which require a tremendous amount of correspondence via email. With all these different types of projects comes a variety of different types of email accounts – Multiple GMail Accounts, Hotmail, Yahoo and more than 5 different domain based email addresses. What I’ve found is that checking all these emails have really made this sort of communication the new snail mail of our generation!

    Why so many email addresses?

    Personal (GMail): I use this to communicate with friends and family and get my evites for fun non-internet related events.

    Business (GMail): I use this to register for all my main services like my hosting and and affiliate programs.

    Spam (Hotmail): For all those contests or promotions that require email to enter. I use it more to research how these contests are working so I can put my own twist to it.

    Domain based Emails (gary@example.com): I have a lot of sites where when I communicate on behalf of the site. My rule is that when communicating to vendors for a website, try and use the domain to show a level of authenticity so that the vendors will take you more seriously.

    How do I check and organize my emails? 

    Mail.app – This is the program that comes standard in Leopard and is a pretty decent mail system if I was only using one computer for all my jobs. The reality is that I move between at least 3 different computers throughout the day so my best solution should be a web based email program.

    GMail – I thought this would be my solution since GMail has a feature to check all your emails and to also send all your emails.  From what I’ve seen, the feature works like Google promotes, but the problem is that I don’t get my emails right away, so when someone is emailing me to my other accounts, I don’t receive it until 15-45 minutes later. In our fast paced life, this is definitely a problem.

    I haven’t found a solution yet for my email woes, but hopefully, I’ll figure something out. While writing this post, I found some stuff on .Mac’s iSync. I’ll go check that out and see if that’s something that can work better than GMail. For now, I’m just gonna have to deal with the sloth of the snail unless you have something you could suggest?

     
    • Jeff Kee 4.14 am on 31.01.2008 Permalink

      I only use POP3 emails straight through my servers. I don’t have a gmail acct, and I still have a hotmail acct only for personal stuff. ALL of my emails are in mail.app, with the option turned ON to leave copies on the server in case I need web-based access.

    • Derek 2.35 pm on 31.01.2008 Permalink

      One thing I had briefly experimented with was to use a portable version of Thunderbird on a thumb drive. I went back to my current web-based mail clients because I was having issues with Thunderbird being blocked by the firewall at work.

    • Julie, writer surefirewealth.com 7.20 pm on 03.02.2008 Permalink

      When I first read the title of your post, I thought you were looking at email from another angle. I thought that email had become too slow for your liking. A lot of us live in a faster-paced world now with things like twitter and all those other add-ons on blogs. About gmail, I didn’t realize that it processed mail slowly. the reason why I opened a gmail account is because someone told me that attachment was quick and that you get to send and receive messages on time. Anyway, I’m fairly new to gmail so I guess I’ll just have to wait and observe.

    • Bob Walton 7.41 pm on 05.02.2008 Permalink

      It indeed is a problem, especially with all the spam out there clogging up cyberspace. I tend to stick to just a couple of accounts and forward the rest to those accounts to help keep things manageable. That way I only log into secondary accounts when it is absolutely necessary.

    • Saman Sadeghi 12.43 pm on 24.02.2008 Permalink

      Guys,

      Check out IMAP. I have all of my email accounts (including GMail) set up as IMAP and not POP3. This way, regardless of my OS (Linux, Windows, Flash Drive) or client (Thunderbird, Mail, Evolution) I have the latest info.

      IMAP will reflect any changes on the server (and not just the clients). If you create a folder, move a message or even read/reply to a message, that change is made at the server level. That means that, if you check your mail at work (say, XP & Outlook) each account will be updated so when you get home (OSX & Mail) read messages will be marked as so!

      Best of all, use a flash drive (encrypt it with TrueCrypt) and set up portable Thunderbird so you can travel with your mail! If you’re at your mom’s house or the library, messages will still be updated!!!!

      Check it out, you will thank me!

  • Gary Lee 10.52 am on 15.01.2008 Permalink  

    Get 5% back from YSM and Increase Traffic 

    A few days ago, American Express struck a deal with Yahoo Search Marketing to help promote their Amex OPEN Savings Program. I personally have the American Express small business card and it has really saved me a lot of money with flights to Blog World Expo and hotel expenses when traveling around the country. Adding this new deal with YSM to help me save 5% on my total spend is a great bonus as I have already tied my accouts to my amex cards!

    It’s not only 5% that you’re saving, it’s the increase in Gross Margin that you’re gaining.

    With that said, you will be able to bid just a little bit higher on your campaigns over your competitors that aren’t using American Express. Remember my article on finding out your maximum CPC? Now you can use the number you found and apply the 5% discount to find your new maximum bid.

    Example:

    Formulas to Know

    Cost Per Click (CPC) = Total Cost of Campaign / Total Clicks from Campaign Landing Page
    Conversion Rate (CR) = Total Number of Leads / Total Number of Page Impressions
    Cost Per Action (CPA) = Cost Per Click / Landing Page Conversion Rate
    Lead Value = Value of Sale * Lead to Sale Conversion Rate
    Gross Margin = (Lead Value – Cost Per Action) / Lead Value

    Assumptions

    Landing Page Conversion Rate = 10%
    Lead to Sale Conversion Rate = 25%
    Value of Sale = $100 – Determined by Total Profits divided by number of Sale
    Lead Value = $25 – Determined by Total Profits divided by number Leads

    Goal

    Find Maximum Cost Per Click for a 20% Gross Margin

    Solution

    Maximum CPA = Lead Value – [Gross Margin (20%) * Lead Value ($25)] = $20
    Maximum CPC = CPA ($20) * Landing Page Conversion Rate (10%) = $2.00

    American Express Example

    Budget = $200
    Clicks = 100
    Leads = 10
    Sales = 2.5
    Total = $250

    Gross Margin = (Revenue – Cost)/Revenue = (250 – 200)/200 = 20%

    So you have figured out that you’re maximum CPC is $2.00, but now that you have got yourself an American Express small business card, you get a 5% discount, so what is your real maximum CPC before the discount?

    New Maximum CPC BEFORE 5% discount from YSM.
    $2.00 / 95% = $2.10

    When it comes to search engine marketing, $0.10 can be the difference between ranking 7th and getting no traffic and ranking 3rd, which is the optimal spot you want to rank for highly targeted, converting traffic.

    So, what are you waiting for? Go get your American Express Card and your Yahoo Search Marketing Account today! Here’s some of the things they get discounts for:

    Travel and Dining

    – Delta(R): 3% off flights (plus 2% with co-branded Business Cards)

    – JetBlue(R): 3% off flights (plus 2% with co-branded Business Cards)

    – eSkyGuide: 20% off digital flight timetables

    – Hyatt Hotels & Resorts(R): 3% off hotel stays

    – Hertz(R): 5% off car rentals

    – Courtyard by Marriott(R): 5% off hotel stays

    – Fairfield Inn by Marriott(R): 5% off hotel stays

    – SpringHill Suites by Marriott(R): 5% off hotel stays

    – Wingate(R) by Wyndham: 5% off hotel stays

    – Ruby Tuesday(R): 5% off dining

    Supplies and Services

    – Yahoo! Search Marketing: 5% off internet marketing

    – Yahoo! Small Business: 5% off internet business tools

    – FedEx: 5% off express and ground shipping

    – FedEx Kinko’s Office and Print Centers(R): 5% off business services

    – 1-800-FLOWERS.COM(R): 5% off flowers and gifts

    American Express

    Incentive Services: 5% off prepaid cards

    – Symantec: 10% off security software

    Business Building Tools

    – BizFilings: 20% off incorporation services

    – Ceridian: 20% off payroll services

    – Constant Contact(R): 5% off e-mail marketing services

    – ExpensAble: 25% off expense management software

    – Logoworks by HP: 15% off logo and graphic design

     
    • The Kid 4.21 am on 17.01.2008 Permalink

      Nice post man, i love my credit cards they get me lots of points, but you don’t need to RSS the story 4times hahaha! You must really love your card

    • Gary Lee 9.12 am on 17.01.2008 Permalink

      damn WP made me think that I never published the original, so I did the whole multiple button tap . . . . sorry about that . . hahahaha

    • Rock (Become An Affiliate) 11.15 am on 24.01.2008 Permalink

      Unfortunately, AMEX caps you at $500 cash back. So if you are a big spender, then that $500 savings might not be worth it. But if you are still a little fish in the big pond then any cash back would be great when starting with PPC.

  • Gary Lee 11.30 pm on 06.01.2008 Permalink  

    American Gladiators are Back, but not LACE! 

    American-Gladiators.jpgAs soon as the American Gladiator theme song started playing, I remembered getting together in the family room with my cousin, sister and the rest of the family to watch the Gladiators mix it up! Cheering for Nitro, Diamond, Zap, Turbo and my all time favorite – Lace – was one of my favorite childhood memories and dreams of competing are still a dream! haha . . . oh, I can’t forget Malibu . . hahah! man . . and people wonder why I’ve turned out this way!

    So now, NBC has brought back American Gladiators and instead of the hokey hosts Larry Csonka, Mike Adamle, and Joe Theisman, we got hosting rookies Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali. I’m watching the premier episode as I type this blog, so don’t expect this post to be as eloquent as my other posts :) . The format seems to be pretty much the same, but to be honest with you, I thought NBC would make it into a reality show with the competitors in one house and the gladiators in another house! Speaking of the Gladiators, I was curious to see who would be the new Gladiator Hottie, replacing my all-time favorite Gladiator – Lace! Here’s a list of the new female Gladiators . . . which one are you gonna pick as the Gladiator Hottie?

    CRUSH Crush – Definitely a hottie. From what I’ve seen, not really big on personality, but I’m sure she’s just a little shy right now. Doesn’t she remind you of the start of Bionic Woman?
    Fury Fury – At least she’s keeping it old skool with the 80′s scrunchee and hair!
    Helga Helga – Is it me or shouldn’t she have a sweedish accent? She dresses the part, so she might as well play the part! I think she’s going to be a Pop Icon for 2008. Someone’s gotta replace Psycho Spears, right?
    Siren Siren – Probably comes in second for the Gladiator Hottie. I didn’t really get to see her much, but based on this picture. Nice!
    Venom Venom – OK, this might sound mean and if by some chance in hell she reads this blog and sees me on the streets in LA, I’m sorry. But she looks like a porn star.
    Stealth Stealth – She looks like what Jada Pinkett Smith would look like if she took steroids.

    Final Thoughts – These are not in order, just overall impressions after watching the show.

    • That Eliminator is whack. What happened to the arm bike thing? What’s this swimming under fire thing? And WHO THE HELL thought it was cool to put the rope on the Travelator to help them make it up?
    • I think it would be so cool to have Celebrity Gladiators. Imagine Brian Urlacher of the Chicago Bears or Terrell Owens and his personality or Shaquille O’Neal aka The Big Gladiator!
    • New York Fire Fighters should learn how to swim!
    • These Gladiators aren’t as nice as the 80′s version! You can tell how much trash talking and public humiliation has permeated into society, replacing good sportsmanship and friendly competition.
    • How is Assault not a every episode staple?
    • Someone is going to make their own version of American Gladiators on YouTube and get a lot of hits! Remember those backyard wrestling videos of kids jumping off roofs to powerslam their friends. This IS the next Phenomenon.
    • Again, the rope on the travelator is so pure cheating!

    I can’t wait to go watch a episode in person. The studio is just down the street, so I hope my friend can get us tickets!

    Anyone catch the first two episodes of American Gladiators? What are your thoughts?

     
    • Jon Lee 5.43 am on 07.01.2008 Permalink

      Yeah these new gladiators aren’t doing it for me… bring back Ice, Diamond and Storm! Even if they are 40-50 haha.

      Do they still have the tennis ball shooting gun, that one was probably my favorite event.

    • Gary Lee 9.36 am on 07.01.2008 Permalink

      they are old, but at least they would have personality . . . these new gladiators are a little shy i think

    • CC 11.23 am on 07.01.2008 Permalink

      I think that an episode with the old, post-roid gladiators competing with each other would be unbelievable.

      “And Lace running down the . . . OOOOOH! The medicine ball found her face!”

    • CC 11.24 am on 07.01.2008 Permalink

      And Wolf is ridiclously annoying.

    • The Kid 5.24 pm on 07.01.2008 Permalink

      DUDE i can’t wait for this, the other show that looks pretty good this year is the sarah conners chronicles!

      Nice post =)

    • Frank 6.18 pm on 09.01.2008 Permalink

      I really liked the show on monday. It reminded me good the old days. I will continue to watch it until I get bored… :)

    • Saman Sadeghi 10.31 am on 10.01.2008 Permalink

      I can’t tell you how excited I am for this show!!!!

      Where are the links to high res. images :?:

    • Gary Lee 11.53 am on 10.01.2008 Permalink

      YES . . bring back the old gladiators to compete as contestants! GENIUS!

    • Gary Lee 11.54 am on 10.01.2008 Permalink

      hahha . . . no clue, but if you find them . let me know . . or maybe when i hit the show up, i’ll take some for you!

    • Rock 1.02 pm on 10.01.2008 Permalink

      Not sure what you meant by “what happened to the arm bike thing?” because it was definitely a part of the eliminator. Did you mean something else?

    • Max 2.05 am on 24.01.2008 Permalink

      Show is awesome so far! They’re actually holding tryouts for season 2 in LA this weekend. Anyone wanna go with me? haha.

  • Gary Lee 9.54 pm on 03.01.2008 Permalink  

    Happy Belated New Year! 

    2008 – You best watch out! This is the year where everything is lined up to be ripe for the picking!

    CertifiedSo far, I’ve received my certifications for both the Google Adwords Program and the Yahoo Ambassador program. The Google Adwords Program test consisted of 117 questions, which 75% of them need to be answered correctly within 1.5 hours. Trust me when I say that you should really study for this test as I spent a lot of time at their lessons section reading every little detail of their adwords program to make sure I would pass the test. At a cost of $50 a test, you don’t want to take it too many times! On the other end of the spectrum, we have the Yahoo Search Marketing Ambassador program, which is similar to the GAP test, but is only 80 questions, which you have to answer 80% of them correctly to pass. Let’s just say the test is more of a proproganda campaign for Yahoo as there were questions that dealt directly about Yahoo’s search features (i.e. 6.2 Billion Searches in March 2006). If they were self-promoting themselves, the test was more like a joke, with such questions as this:

    How do you set the daily spend for your campaign?

        a) Use the Daily Budget Feature

        b) Set your Desktop Alarm

        c) Get a Junior Associate of your company to remind you

    and you think I’m kidding . . . . go take the test and find out yourself!  No matter though, the preparation for both tests gave me a thorough understanding of how bout the Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing programs work and I feel fully confident in putting up campaigns.

    So, why did I just drop $100 on these certifications? These certifications are necessary as I get ready for a new business venture with Ms. Danielle – an internet marketing consulting firm specializing in search engine optimization, search engine marketing and pay-per-click advertising. Nate Whitehill and his crew at Unique Blog Designs are currently putting the final touches on our site and both Danielle and I will be announcing the launch of the new site very soon.

    Other than that, I have been diving head first into a lot of affiliate marketing, which is something I really haven’t taken a look at because of my previous full time jobs. I don’t think there should be much of a problem as I’m already very familar with some the methods already used and have a great network of bloggers and entrepreneurs around me to keep me in line. I really look forward to diversifying my income sources and see the money fill up in my bank accounts.

    What do you have planned for this year? Are your goals financial or personal?

     
    • ms danielle 8.33 pm on 05.01.2008 Permalink

      lol “set your desktop alarm”! it’s gonna be a great year…so glad we started it off right!

  • Gary Lee 10.31 am on 26.12.2007 Permalink  

    Amazon Kicked Holiday Ass and they’re not done! 

    Amazon HolidaysRemember when Amazon.com was the internet darling everyone was drooling over? When actual profits mattered instead of projected profits and when there were experienced business people setting up these businesses instead of the 19 year olds setting up community sites.

    I’m sure you’ve heard about facebook’s valuation of multiple billions of dollars. I’m sure you’ve heard (probably from me) the overwhelming success that is going on at Apple.com. Well, Amazon.com has had one of their most successful years since the dot com bust with their shares almost tripling in value over the course of 2007.

    I just read the post over at TechCrunch and it’s amazing to hear the numbers Amazon just released:

    • Sold a Wii every 17 seconds when it was in stock
    • 35% increase from last year’s peak sales day ( aren’t we suppose to be in an economic slowdown?)
    • New Kwindle Book Reader coming in at No. 2 in Electronic Sales (I call BS, but that’s just me)

    And now, 2008 is coming up and they are rumored to have their online music store running pretty smoothly. If that happens and they can undercut Cupertino’s 99ct pricing structure, we got a pretty competitive marketing when you also include Walmart’s online music store. No matter though, competition breeds innovation and the people who truly benefit from all this is the consumers.

    Last time, I recommended you buy Apple at $163 and now it’s at $198 . . . can I go 2 for 2 and say . . Amazon’s at $93 right now . . . it might be time you include them in your 2008 portfolio.

     
    • ms danielle 11.13 pm on 26.12.2007 Permalink

      at least clickriver let us run until the end of the year. i couldn’t imagine what their numbers would be if they didn’t allow products advertisers on their site this year!

    • jen_chan, writer surefirewealth.com 11.37 pm on 28.12.2007 Permalink

      Well, if the rumors are indeed true, (I think there is a distinct possibility), the consumers are in for a real treat. I think it’s nice to see competitors outdoing each other because in the process, they give better service to the consumers.

    • The Monetizer 5.57 am on 02.01.2008 Permalink

      Good recommendation on Amazon..I had it when it was $40, and of course sold thinking they were in the dumps..May be time to pick some up again.

  • Gary Lee 12.00 am on 25.12.2007 Permalink  

    Happy Holidays 

    To remind us of how wonderful the holidays are, here is my favorite commercial featuring one of my favorite people in the world:

    Short, but sweet . . . and thank ebenezer’s 3 ghosts for the pause button!

    Happy Holidays everyone!

     
    • Ed Lau 5.00 pm on 29.12.2007 Permalink

      She’s not the hottest supermodel in the world anymore (still pretty hot, though) but Heidi Klum still easily seems like she’d be the most fun.

    • Gary Lee 1.12 pm on 31.12.2007 Permalink

      oh ya . . . definitely not the hottest . . . but her personality seems pretty cool from what I’ve seen . . . between the boring Giselle and they psychotic Tyra Banks

  • Gary Lee 11.28 am on 19.12.2007 Permalink  

    Finding the Max CPC for PPC Campaigns 

    I’ve been working on a project at work regarding our search engine marketing and the higher ups would like to know how the whole pay per click program works. To make it easy, I wrote a little summary of what are the key factors I look at when I start a campaign and didn’t want to waste all that work, so I’m going to post it and change the numbers around so I don’t get fired :) . So here is the basic knowledge you have to know to find the maximum bid your company can pay in your pay per click campaigns.

    Formulas to Know

    Cost Per Click (CPC) = Total Cost of Campaign / Total Clicks from Campaign Landing Page
    Conversion Rate (CR) = Total Number of Leads / Total Number of Page Impressions
    Cost Per Action (CPA) = Cost Per Click / Landing Page Conversion Rate
    Lead Value = Value of Sale * Lead to Sale Conversion Rate
    Gross Margin = (Lead Value – Cost Per Action) / Lead Value

    Assumptions

    • Landing Page Conversion Rate = 10%
    • Lead to Sale Conversion Rate = 25%
    • Value of Sale = $100 – Determined by Total Profits divided by number of Sale
    • Lead Value = $25 – Determined by Total Profits divided by number Leads

    Goal

    • Find Maximum Cost Per Click for a 20% Gross Margin

    Solution

    • Maximum CPA = Lead Value – [Gross Margin (20%) * Lead Value ($25)] = $20
    • Maximum CPC = CPA ($20) * Landing Page Conversion Rate (10%) = $2.00

    Example

    Budget = $200
    Clicks = 100
    Leads = 10
    Sales = 2.5
    Total = $250

    Gross Margin = (Revenue – Cost)/Revenue = (250 – 200)/200 = 20%

    Now go take a look at your site and see what kind of variables you already know. Once you figure out what they are, you can plug it into these formulas and start scaling up your ad campaigns.

     
    • The Kid 6.08 pm on 19.12.2007 Permalink

      Nice post dude! Now people have no excuse on saying how much do i bid!

      Well done!

    • website design 1.59 pm on 26.04.2008 Permalink

      Thanks for the post, will pass it round the office.

    • scott 1.15 am on 17.08.2009 Permalink

      Great post…helped a lot!

  • Gary Lee 3.23 pm on 14.12.2007 Permalink  

    A Great Scene from a Great Laker Fan 

     
  • Gary Lee 8.08 am on 12.12.2007 Permalink  

    Blogging Heroes are Out for the Holidays 

    For those of you who don’t know, I was asked earlier this year to be included in a book with some of the top bloggers in the world. I’m excited to see that the book is finally out on sale on Amazon.com:

    Blogging Heroes

    It was truly an honor to be listed with some of these bloggers and I just wanted to give them a shout out real quick and hopefully will be able to meet them one day to get each one of my chapters signed by them. Here’s a list of the Top 30 Bloggers and a little bio from their blogs:

    • Dave TaylorThe Intuitive Blog – Dave Taylor has been involved with the Internet since 1980 and is widely recognized as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. Dave maintains three weblogs, The Intuitive Life Business Blog, focused on business and industry analysis, the eponymous Ask Dave Taylor devoted to tech and business Q&A and The Attachment Parenting Blog, discussing topics of interest to parents. Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs.
    • Chris AndersonThe Long Tail – A very popular editor in chief for Wired Magazine who has set up a special page for people to get to know him just a little bit better. Click here to check it out – CA Bio
    • Gina Trapani - Lifehacker – A freelance web programmer and technology writer based in San Diego, California. Relocated from Brooklyn, New York, Gina is the founding editor of Lifehacker.com, a weblog on software and personal productivity and the author of Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day (Wiley, December 2006). A Sun-certified Java programmer, Gina builds Firefox extensions and web sites. Her writing has appeared in Popular Science, Wired, Women’s Health and Macworld magazines. The Wall Street Journal Online recently profiled her and her work has also been mentioned in Time Magazine, Newsweek, The New York Times, Wired and PC Magazine.
    • Ina SteinerAuctionBytes – Ina is Editor of AuctionBytes newsletters. Ina has appeared on television news segments and radio programs, including Public Radio’s Marketplace and Bloomberg Radio’s Tomorrow Tonight, and is a weekly guest on “Calling All Collectors” syndicated radio show. Read More.
    • Mary Jo Foley - All About Microsoft – Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 20 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet News, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning “At The Evil Empire” column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.
    • Dave Rothman - TeleRead – David is author of six nonfiction books published by Ballantine, St. Martin’s Press and others. David serves as site coordinator. While David originates many posts for the TeleRead Web Log, aka the TeleBlog, we welcome contributions from others.
    • Frank Warren - PostSecret – A blog that posts unique postcards donated by the readers. If you’re to click only one link here, go here. I love seeing the creativity that comes from a community.
    • Mike Masnick - Techdirt – Mike is the visionary behind Techdirt, building up the core idea into reality and recruiting the management team. In addition to providing the strategic direction for the company, Mike oversees all editorial aspects of the Techdirt’s public and customer sites. Mike’s insight into the realms of business and technology are the basis for his frequent posts to the award winning Techdirt blog. The widely followed, often quoted blog was launched in 1997. Prior to founding Techdirt Inc., Mike worked in business development and marketing at Release Software, an e-commerce startup, and in marketing at Intel. Mike has a bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Labor Relations and an MBA — both from Cornell University.
    • Mark Frauenfelder - BoingBoing.net – In his own words – “ - I’m a writer and illustrator living in Los Angeles. (Click on my picture for a bigger version.) I co-founded bOING bOING magazine and the Boing Boing Blog, and was an editor at Wired from 1993-1998. For three years, I wrote a monthly column for Playboy called “Living Online,” and was the co-editor of The Happy Mutant Handbook (Putnam-Berkley, 1995). I’m the design columnist for Mobile PC magazine and a contributing editor to TheFeature. I’m also a ukulele fanatic. From June to October 2003, my wife, two daughters and I lived around the South Pacific.
    • Robert Scoble - Scobleizer – is an American blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his popular blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technical evangelist at Microsoft. He is married to Maryam Ghaemmaghami Scoble. He has two sons, Patrick, from a previous marriage, and Milan. He and his wife currently work at PodTech.net,[1] a video-podcast startup. He is also the co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers with Shel Israel.
    • Peter Rojas - Engadget – Peter Rojas is the CEO and co-founder of RCRD LBL, an ad-supported free music download site, and the founder and editorial director of Engadget, a daily blog covering gadgets and personal technology with a monthly readership of over 9 million. He is also the co-founder of Joystiq, Gizmodo, and Hackaday, and served as an on-air contributor to HGTV’s I Want That – Tech Toys and as a guest host on G4’s Attack of the Show.
    • John Neff - Autoblog – John is a Editor in Chief of one of the biggest and best auto blogs on the net. Starting with only 4 writers and another editor, they saw a growth to nearly 3 million visitors within their first two years of existence.
    • Ken Fisher - Ars Technica – I’m currently a Ph.D. student in Religion at Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. I’m now working on my dissertation, and hope to be finished in a few years. I have worked in IT for most of my “career years,” performing senior administrative functions at two different universalities, as well as running my own consulting business on the side. I tend now to focus all of my energy on my studies, but I still consult from time to time to pay the bills. Read More.
    • Deborah Petersen - Life in the Fast Lane – Fast Lane Transport is a family owned company started by Layne Petersen in 2000. My name is Deborah Petersen, Layne’s wife, and I am the primary blogger for this site. You won’t find me discussing business topics only — as important as this is to our company’s success — rather, I will also share with you some of my other interests including yard art, garden art, and details about what is going on in my home city, Edmonton.
    • Joel Comm - JoelComm.com – Joel Comm is an Internet entrepreneur who has been online for over 20 years. In 1995, Joel launched WorldVillage.com, a family-friendly portal to the web which enjoys thousands of visitors each day. Joel is the co-creator of ClassicGames.com, which was acquired by Yahoo! in 1997, and now goes by the name Yahoo! Games. Since then, Joel’s company, InfoMedia, Inc., has launched dozens of web sites which offer online shopping, free stuff, website reviews and more. Joel is the author of many popular books, including the NY Times Best-Seller, The AdSense Code. He regularly makes appearances at Internet marketing conferences and seminars.
    • Brian Lam - Gizmodo – This is one of my favorite blogs that I actually go and read every day. Only problem is that Brian doesn’t really have a bio on Gizmodo, so just know that he’s a tech freak who started a blog which has grown into one of the most popular tech blogs in the world.
    • Kristin Darguzas - ParentDish – My life before Nolan was an adrenaline-fueled triage of extreme sports,international travelling, and corporate ladder climbing. My unexpected pregnancy changed my life in ways I could never have imagined, and, though it would have seemed impossible to Old Kristin, I wouldn’t change my new Universe for anything. I used to keep a personal blog until things got kind of weird (this is the Internet, you know) so now my primary outlet is ParentDish. I know. You’re so welcome. Read More.
    • Chris Grant - Joystiq – Motivated by either an unhealthy Messianic complex or a dearth of career opportunities (he never could decide which), Chris put his college education to good use as a carpenter before becoming editor-in-chief of the popular gaming blog, Joystiq. If he isn’t busy playing or writing about games, he’s doing other, no doubt less important, things (though he probably shouldn’t be). He hangs his hat in the cultural epicenter of the video game industry, Philadelphia.
    • Scott McNulty - The Unofficial Apple Weblog – Being the Apple whore that I am, I visit this site religiously. I think it’s a weblogs rule to not post bios, so just trust me in saying this is a great blog for an of you new apple owners.
    • Philipp Lenssen - Google Blogoscoped – In his own words: “I’m from Germany and I’m doing this blog and my other sites & related projects full-time (before that, I worked as web developer for several years). I like to do a bit of everything, from drawing to programming, writing to trying to play around with music, and I’m always interested in the intersections among those areas.” Read More.
    • Brad Hill - Weblogs, Inc. – In his own words: “I’m the Director of Weblogs, Inc., an AOL Company. I have been (and in spare time still am) an author, consultant, and occasional public speaker. I’ve written a ton of consumer nonfiction books and many pounds of articles and columns.” Read More.
    • Steve Rubel - Micro Persuasion – Steve Rubel is a senior marketing strategist with over 15 years experience. He currently serves as senior vice president in Edelman’s me2revolution practice. Edelman is the largest independent global PR firm. He is charged with helping Edelman identify, test, incubate and champion new forms of communication. He also explores this on his well-read Micro Persuasion weblog and in a bi-weekly column for AdAge Digital. Steve is often sought out as a speaker and appears frequently in the press. He has been named to several prestigious lists, including: Media Magazine’s Media 100, the AlwaysOn/Technorati Open Media 100 and the CNET News.com Blog 100. Prior to joining Edelman in 2006, Rubel spent five years at CooperKatz & Company.
    • Rebecca Lieb - ClickZRebecca Lieb is vice president and editor-in-chief of the ClickZ Network. She has held executive marketing and communications positions at strategic e-services consultancies, including Siegel & Gale. She worked in the same capacity for global entertainment and media companies including Universal Television & Networks Group (formerly USA Networks International) and Bertelsmann’s German network, RTL Television. As a journalist, Rebecca has written on media for numerous publications, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and spent five years as Variety’s Berlin-based German/Eastern European bureau chief. She’s also a member of the graduate faculty at New York University’s Center for Publishing, where she also serves on the Electronic Publishing Advisory Group.
    • Deidre Woollard - LuxistHere’s an interview I found with another member of the Weblogs, Inc network
    • Richard MacManus - Read/WriteWeb – Read/WriteWeb was founded and is edited by Richard MacManus, from Wellington New Zealand. Prior to R/WW Richard did research, analysis and product development work for companies in Silicon Valley and beyond. He has also worked for some of New Zealand’s top organizations as a Web Manager. Richard co-founded the Web 2.0 Workgrouphttp://i.ixnp.com/images/v3.6.3/theme/silver/palette.gif'); background-color: transparent; width: 14px; height: 12px; background-position: -944px 0pt; background-repeat: no-repeat; text-decoration: none; visibility: visible; vertical-align: top; display: inline" /> and from September 2005 – December 2006 he started and ran the Web 2.0 Explorer bloghttp://i.ixnp.com/images/v3.6.3/theme/silver/palette.gif'); background-color: transparent; width: 14px; height: 12px; background-position: -944px 0pt; background-repeat: no-repeat; text-decoration: none; visibility: visible; vertical-align: top; display: inline" /> at ZDNet. Richard also co-founded and was Executive Editor of Micro Media Corporation, a multi-channel leadership program in Web and Media 2.0 that operated under the brand name TransMissionhttp://i.ixnp.com/images/v3.6.3/theme/silver/palette.gif'); background-color: transparent; width: 14px; height: 12px; background-position: -944px 0pt; background-repeat: no-repeat; text-decoration: none; visibility: visible; vertical-align: top; display: inline" />.
    • Eric T. - Internet Duct Tape – My name is Eric and I am a Canadian engineer with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering. I’m a fan of automation and using computers to do the heavy lifting so I don’t have to. I have the typical engineer’s desire to put a square peg in a round hole just to see if it’s possible. Internet Duct Tape is about that Frankenstein-like philosophy of making things work together that were never meant to.
    • Victor AgredaDIY Life – One of my favorite blogs to just read and learn about different ways to do things myself :) . As you guessed, Victor doesn’t have a bio on the site either, but that shouldn’t stop you from checking out the blog!
    • Steve GarfieldSteve Garfield’s Video Blog – Steve Garfield is a video blogger based in Boston, Massachusetts. Garfield is one of the Internet’s first video bloggers having launched his own regular video blog on January 1, 2004. Garfield likes to capture and share fleeting moments and teach others how to do the same. This led to his becoming co-creator of the first vloggercon, and a co-organizer of the first PodCamp held in Boston. He currently runs the Boston Media Makers. Steve Garfield’s Video Blog features “The Carol & Steve Show” and “Vlog Soup.” On February 3, 2005, Garfield posted what is believed to be the first video blog from a United States elected politician, Boston City Councillor John Tobin. Garfield is currently a regular contributor to Rocketboom and a co-host of the New Mediacracy podcast.
    • Grant RobertsonDownload Squad – Grant has written professionally since early 2001, and as an amateur since 1997. For Weblogs, Inc. Grant previously served as Lead Editor of The Digital Music Weblog; Increasing web traffic by 150% during his 6 month
      tenure. Grant has also written for high-profile open-source community sites, Linux.com and Newsforge.com under the direction of former Slashdot editors Robin Miller and Emmett Plant. Grant’s earliest published articles appeared in privately published gray-hat “hacker” zines, under a variety of pseudonyms, beginning around 1998
     
    • Bathroom Hero 8.17 am on 14.12.2007 Permalink

      congrats on making the list!

    • ms danielle 11.59 am on 15.12.2007 Permalink

      that’s a pretty incredible list… you truly are “the legendary”! :D

    • Deborah 1.41 pm on 16.12.2007 Permalink

      Congrats on being included in the list of such reputable bloggers Gary! I wasn’t informed at the time as to who was going to be featured in the book.

      Have you received your copy yet? Considering it’s already available at the retail level, I’m surprised I haven’t.

      There were a couple of things that I was misquoted for about getting links, and not leaving comments even after proofing and being told the changes were made. It made me cringe a bit to read the published copy didn’t have the changes.

      Reading your write-up of my site was a good reminder that I have to update my About page ;-) Thanks for including me in your review.

      I’m looking forward to reading what you and others had to say.

    • Gary Lee 9.55 am on 17.12.2007 Permalink

      Thanks for dropping by Deborah . . . . Shoemoney told me he had some problems with the publisher as well, which is why he requested to be removed from the book totally. I haven’t received my copy yet, but I will contact them soon to see what’s going on . . .

    • Ms. Q 7.54 am on 18.12.2007 Permalink

      Congratulations! I know, it’s been ages since I’ve visited and I’m glad to see the new look (for me at least!) and that you’re being featured in a book! Wow!

    • Zac Johnson 8.29 pm on 18.12.2007 Permalink

      awesome on making the list! looking forward to reading it!

    • Bruce from the Bookshop Blog 8.50 pm on 23.12.2007 Permalink

      Hi Gary,

      I’m reading the book right now and enjoying it quite a bit. If nothing else (and there in fact is quite a bit else) it will prompt bloggers to take what they do more seriously. I think after reading the book most will pay more attention to their own quality and read other blogs mush more frequently. Kudos to a book that should improve the blogosphere.

      Bruce
      The Bookshop Blog

    • Deborah 6.28 pm on 28.01.2008 Permalink

      Hey Gary,

      That certainly doesn’t sound comforting that Shoemoney pulled out of this book. A friend will be sending me a copy soon. I’ll keep you posted once I receive it.

    • Alice Teh 7.34 am on 01.09.2008 Permalink

      Hi Gary, congrats on making the list! I’ve just finished reading the book and did a book review.

      For now, my blog is for keeping in touch with what my friends are up to and vice versa. It’s pretty much like your initial blogging. :)

      I do agree with you that a quality article is something that plants a seed in the mind of the reader. In this case, the book is a great sum of articles!

  • Gary Lee 10.18 am on 10.12.2007 Permalink  

    Getting Taken for a Ride – Thanks Agloco! 

    missdaisy.png
    Guess which one is Agloco?

    I don’t think many people know this, but I got into blogging on wordpress because of Agloco. I wanted to create a quick and easy website where I could put up content and start ranking for certain keywords and WordPress was by far the best software I could find. The site was called Agloco101.com and I’m sure you’ll find some references of it in this blog. Once I learned about it from John Chow, I did all that I could to get the site some publicity and even wrote out a newsletter campaign to get people excited about the product. I ended up doing pretty well and then discovered the ease of using wordpress, so that is why I relaunched MrGaryLee.com to what it is today!So now . . . Agloco is Dead! I definitely feel like I was taken for a ride, but I will never say I regretted my decision to try it because that’s what an entrepreneur should do, try things. It was fun watching it grow and dreaming of all the money that would be coming in, but I knew in the back of my mind that there was more of a chance for it to fail than for it to succeed, so I can honestly say, I’m not too disappointed today. I’m just glad the day has finally come. Here’s a quick look at where I am with Agloco right now. I spent a few bucks on PPC advertising, but after that, it was the power of the network that grew it out.

    picture-3.png

     
    • Jez 12.32 pm on 10.12.2007 Permalink

      Sorry it didn’t work out for you… my glass was always half empty on agloco … seemed to me everyone wanted a network but nobody wanted the tool-bar …

    • 30 Day Man 6.24 pm on 10.12.2007 Permalink

      Hi Gary,

      Can you and your readers help me digg this post into orbit?

      (Its relating to the Chow vs Digg)

      http://www.aimsgraz.org/2007/12/8-breeds-of-digger-when-nerds-attack-on.html

      Appreciate it.

      Cheers,
      30 Day Man

    • nishu 1.08 am on 11.12.2007 Permalink

      Damn Itght i will give it a try later .. n now its gone ..

    • ms danielle 6.23 pm on 11.12.2007 Permalink

      i don’t get how they made money in 1999 (and tanked of course) and they go bust in 2007… sigh…

    • suicidalsam 6.32 pm on 11.12.2007 Permalink

      did u receive any money at all from agloco?
      I tried it for a couple of weeks and accumulated 5 hours then I was just too bored using it.

    • Gary Lee 12.50 am on 12.12.2007 Permalink

      i gotta admit . . i was all about the network and I hated installing the toolbar . . that should have been a sign, huh?

    • Gary Lee 12.53 am on 12.12.2007 Permalink

      that’s pretty spammish don’t you think?

    • Jez 3.12 am on 14.12.2007 Permalink

      Thats really poor….

    • Jez 3.21 am on 14.12.2007 Permalink

      1999 was the beginning of the dot con era… lots of scammers made money back then… and IMO Agloco was a scam… a classic pyramid scheme ….

    • Jay, writer MemberSpeed.com 5.48 pm on 16.12.2007 Permalink

      If you fail, try and try again. This is probably one of the oldest and yet most taken for granted saying I have ever known in my life. It’s one of the easiest rules to remember but hardly anybody sticks to it. While I am not too familiar with Agloco (and it seems like not a lot of people hold the same positive sentiment as you), I do think it is important the way you stressed that everything is an opportunity. That’s the way to success.

  • Gary Lee 11.37 am on 06.12.2007 Permalink  

    Teamwork starts with One Person – You! 

    Gung HoLooks like Sam Sethi is having a little trouble with BlogNation.com. Promising payments to bloggers for content and then not paying them can usually do that. This just makes me think of all the “blog networks” out there that have tried similar models and not succeeded. Usually, it starts with an “ideas guy” who is great at selling the idea to other bloggers, but then never contributes to the actual development of the site. This kind of “bait and switch” usually never works because the passion for the project is hard to transfer 100% from the “ideas guy” to the rest of the team.

    Personally, I think when it comes to forming a team with other bloggers from around the world, each member of the team must have earned their stripes first before trying to benefit from being part of the team. By earning stripes (and this is for bloggers only), I’m talking about stuff like:

    • - Going through the late nights of installing your wordpress software 5 or more times because you didn’t quite understand .htaccess
    • - Going through hundreds of pages of WordPress themes to finally find the one you like
    • - Spending hours pressing Control+Z or Apple+Z because that piece of code is being a pain in the ass
    • - Signing up for every social bookmarking tool out there and submitting your own articles
    • - Chatting for hours with people in norway and turkey to develop relationships and exchange ideas
    • - Paying it forward and helping out other new bloggers
    • - Proving your worth by writing great posts

    There are so many more things I could say, but I’m sure you know what I’m getting at. The biggest reason people need to earn their stripes is that it makes it easier to relate to others from around the world. Now that the world has gotten so much smaller, it seems to me that along with the language of science, there is the language of blogging. If you can laugh over some similar experiences, then you’re taking the first steps to earing your stripes!

    P.S. Anyone want to admit to watching “Gung Ho” featuring Michael Keaton? That movie was great . . . . it’s all about “GOOD TEAM!”

     
    • James Pegram 3.34 pm on 06.12.2007 Permalink

      Ok let’s see, the only ones I’ve not accomplished would be. I’ve never talked to anyone in Turkey or Norway (that I know of ) and proving my worth by writing great articles. I think I write some pretty good articles but I suppose I’m biased. As for “Gung Ho”, I ain’t admitting to nothing.. Good post Gary.

    • ronnie ferez 8.12 pm on 06.12.2007 Permalink

      The post title said it well.

      Teamwork is the key ingredient in a successful web or blog network. Without which, the network dies even before it started.

      IMO, sam failed to put his money where his mouth is. And failing to pay on time, worst not being paid at all, is a very serious setback, and I doubt if he could recover with that.

    • Jez 9.49 am on 08.12.2007 Permalink

      I buy content quite a lot, at a cash rate per article… when I have written stuff it has always been on the same basis.

      I have considered offering authors cuts of sites instead of imediate cash payment but decided against it… way too messy….

  • Gary Lee 7.54 pm on 24.11.2007 Permalink  

    A Long Weekend of Work 

    I’m probably different from most people as I have been looking forward to this long weekend because of the amount of time I would have to get a lot of work done. There were a lot of projects on the plate, but there were two projects that were very important to me.

    Hopefully by now, you can you see that MrGaryLee.com has been updated and upgraded with the latest design from Unique Blog Designs. I was thinking about creating a logo similar to BCMBlog.com, but after some discussion with some friends, I thought the eyes were one of my recognizable images, so I decided to keep it for now. If you want to know what the inspiration for the new design, you can just look back at the Blog World Expo posts and you probably can tell why I wanted to step up my game and get serious about blogging, starting with my design.

    Pink DealsPinkDeals v2.0 – Next, Danielle and I finally launched the new PinkDeals.net after receiving the newly designed template from Nate Whitehill and his crew at Unique Blog Designs last weekend. I came back from my Thanksgiving Dinner and once I saw the amount of traffic the original PinkDeals was receiving, I wanted to get the new PinkDeals up and running as soon as possible, so I stayed up til 3am working on transferring the appropriate files to the PinkDeals server to get it up and running for Black Friday. Once it was launched, we saw some great improvements in some key metrics of the site – i.e. Percentage of Direct Traffic, Bounce Rate, and Page Views per Visitor! Black Friday turned into one of the highest traffic days Pink Deals has ever experienced. It goes to show how much design can influence the amount of total traffic your site can receive. Thanks again to the crew at UBD for putting up a great product and also providing us with the  help necessary to get all our plugins working correctly. We’re looking forward to the upcoming holiday season and if you could do us a favor, just spread the word to your lady friends out there and just let them know about the new Women’s Deals Site called Pink Deals dot net!

    So, what do you think of the new designs? I know there are going to be some tweaking that I will have to do, but let’s hear what you have to say!

    By the way, if you’re serious about blogging, what are you waiting for? Contact the crew that designed blogs for Shoemoney, John Chow, Darin Carter and Greg Morgan (just to name a few) -  Unique Blog Designs!

     
    • ジェイソン (Jason) 9.15 pm on 24.11.2007 Permalink

      I like the new design. It’s clean and easy to read. Congrats to the people at Unique Blog Designs for putting together another winning theme.

      It might just be time to invest in a redesign myself … :P

    • 30 Day Man 12.15 am on 25.11.2007 Permalink

      Nice theme Gary.

      The Unique Blog Design guys are doing some great work, just wish they supported other platforms other than WordPress – ie; Blogger.com

      Cheers,
      Adam

    • Fare soldi online 6.34 am on 25.11.2007 Permalink

      Great design, kudos Gary.

      I visited also the Pink deals blog, man it looks an awesome idea.

      I wonder how do you get the deals.

      I have an Italian blog and I would like to start a new blog like Pink deals in Italian but I do not know where to get the deals from :) !

      Let me know, email me if you want!

      Thanks
      Francesco

    • Dave Davis 8.07 am on 25.11.2007 Permalink

      Looks amazing Gary! The lads at UBD did a fantastic job.

    • Gary Lee 10.33 am on 25.11.2007 Permalink

      Jason . . you hit the nail on the head . . . “invest” is the perfect word to describe what you’ll be doing . . .

    • Gary Lee 10.33 am on 25.11.2007 Permalink

      actually . . . i talked to Nate and he said they are going to be opening up their themes for other platforms, so you should definitely go ahead and ask them to help you out. Let me know how it goes . .

    • The Kid 10.57 am on 25.11.2007 Permalink

      Looking good boss, i better see you online tomo, sorry your football games and deals on electronics have distracted me, i am weak, oh so weak!

    • Gary Lee 11.01 am on 25.11.2007 Permalink

      yes . . our games and deals can do that to you . . . just imagine what our women can do!

    • Gary Lee 11.02 am on 25.11.2007 Permalink

      Thanks Dave . . . i really can’t take that much credit since it was Nate’s design and their new coder Chris who did all the work . . . i was thinking about modeling my site after your blog too . . . .

    • FreeCrunch 2.40 pm on 25.11.2007 Permalink

      The site looks fantastic! Good job indeed!

    • Nate Whitehill 3.17 pm on 25.11.2007 Permalink

      Sweet theme dude!

    • Jeff Kee 8.33 pm on 25.11.2007 Permalink

      Looks good!

    • Gary Lee 12.35 am on 26.11.2007 Permalink

      I get these deals from affiliate sites like commission junction and linkshare . . . feel free to contact me if you need help setting it up . .

  • Gary Lee 11.59 pm on 12.11.2007 Permalink  

    John Chow uses a Mac 

    John Chow using a Mac

    I’m pretty sure he was using Greg Morgan‘s BlackBook to do some posting or email or maybe he’s still looking for that dreaded backspace button. Hurry! Someone better check down under to see if the ice is nice and smooth!

     
    • ms danielle 11.49 am on 13.11.2007 Permalink

      the best quotes from him, “where the backspace button?!” “we can delete forward and backward!”

    • Bob Buskirk 10.18 pm on 14.11.2007 Permalink

      Just like E3 he couldn’t get his expensive Dell XPS laptop to connect to wifi!

    • Gary Lee 10.35 pm on 14.11.2007 Permalink

      he was meandering around the table hoping to find a pc, but he was out of luck . . it was all apple at our table!

    • Darin Carter 2.10 pm on 30.11.2007 Permalink

      that was too funny …

      Watching John Use a Mac – Worth $100

      Taking a Picture of John Using a Mac – Worth $500

      Being there to actually witness it – Worth $Priceless!

      LOL

      Darin

  • Gary Lee 8.08 am on 12.11.2007 Permalink
    Tags: Bloggers, Networking, Pictures   

    Blog World Expo Nights 

    As much fun as throwing foam toys at John Chow was on the expo floor, it was really at night when the real vegas fun began. On our very first night, the guys at Unique Blog Design, Darin, Danielle and I hit up a lounge at the Hilton to meet for the first time. Started off with a couple of easy drinks and then when I found out how hard Nate’s been working, going 4 months without a drink . . . I decided that we should all get a nice patron shot to start off the night right. It was a great way to start getting a feel of everyone’s personality! After a few more drinks, we headed out the Palms and then ended the night at Hard Rock Cafe to get our dance on. I know there are some pictures of us dancing, I just hope Darin doesn’t post them =)

    First Night

    Photo Courtesy of Ms. Danielle

    Thursday was pretty tame for Danielle and I as the day’s expo was really killer. I had slight kidney stone problems, so I just called it a night early after dinner and some money wasted at the tables. Let’s just say the No. 12 is now my least favorite number ever!

    Friday night was great! After dinner with John, we all hopped into a stretch H2 and headed over to Treasure Island where one of Prija’s friends, DJ Dust, was spinnin! Getting in was no problem as Dust hooked up no-line, free entry with a table and a 2 for 1 bottle service fee. We all were just recapping the week’s events and then I realized that the one common theme amongst everyone was that we all couldn’t wait to leave vegas so that we could get back home to get to work! Just one more stop at Body English at the Hard Rock Cafe and we all called it a night . . . this is just a taste of what happened! I’m sure you’ll be seeing other pictures from all the other bloggers who went to the event!

    The Girls

    Ms. Danielle and the UBD Girls

    Tangerine

    Getting our Drink On!

    DJ Dust

    DJ Dust doing her thing!

    Taking Pictures

    Good Times taking Pictures

    The Photographers

    The Photographers

    Group Shot

    Me, Josh, Vinay, Prija, Danielle, Matt & Neil

    Me and Dust . Prija and Dust

    We’re with the DJ

    Shoe and D

    One of my favorite pics – Shoe and D

     
    • Chris Burdick 11.23 am on 12.11.2007 Permalink

      Wish I could have made it to Tangerine (thanks Prija :) ) – looks like you guys had a good time. It was good finally meeting you in person, you should send me your pics, I didn’t take as many as I wanted to.

    • Jeff Kee 1.43 pm on 12.11.2007 Permalink

      AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

    • Hannes Johnson 4.18 pm on 12.11.2007 Permalink

      Cool pictures. Looks like a fun time :) I might go to one of these conventions/expos one day… probably a great way to network and build relationships.

    • Gyutae Park 4.22 pm on 12.11.2007 Permalink

      Sweet pics. I never thought I’d ever associate Internet and party, but here it is. Looks like a good time.

    • ms danielle 4.56 pm on 12.11.2007 Permalink

      lol
      dude, jeff, fix your avatar! it’s bugging me!!!
      when we meeting up in vegas?!

    • Jeff Kee 10.07 pm on 12.11.2007 Permalink

      I fixed it – ont eh sidebars it shows up fine but on the posts they still don’t. I’m uber confused, but too busy to even bother right now.

      I’ve been working on a small site design job for Gary today..

    • Jerrific 8.31 pm on 13.11.2007 Permalink

      Note to self, next time hang out with Gary and the cool kids. *sigh* I want to be popular.

      GL-awesome meeting you! Will I see you at webmaster world?

    • Gary Lee 8.44 pm on 13.11.2007 Permalink

      When is webmaster world? I might be able to make it . . . it was great meeting you too and finding out about your blog . . . don’t be a stranger, ya hear? ;)

    • Gary Lee 8.47 pm on 13.11.2007 Permalink

      that’s how we roll! hahahaha . . . these kind of events are to network, so partying is a sure thing

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