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Commenting on blogs is a huge factor to keep a blog alive. Of course some of you may think that it’s not as valuable as having content, but have you ever put into consideration that you may be wrong? If you guys have been reading blogs during November of 2007, you would notice that blogs were bringing up the topic of “Comments” on blogs and how it is the main essential to keeping things going. It wasn’t until Mr. Darren Rowse (ProBlogger.net) posted about the power of commenting on blogs that made people realize what it can do to a blog of any size. I also want to bring up that blog owners are starting to take out that stupid “rel=nofollow” crap from comments and replacing it with “dofollow“, which means that your comments do end up in the search engine systems and are considered a type of linkback or backlink. If you want to know more about this, Randa Clay was the one that started this fiasco and it is quite successful IMO. If you look at my right sidebar, you would notice that I’m for the movement. Anyways, going back on topic here, I want you guys to take another look at one of Darren’s post with 11 tips that will get your comments noticed. Why get your comments noticed do you ask? You’ll soon find out below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just with yesterday’s post about gambling, I discussed how money is hard to come by for most bloggers nowadays and saving it or spending it wisely is the way to go. Well, I realized that those type of posts telling people how to spend wisely does not work on some people. What I’m trying to say is that earning money is hard enough, but when shelling out hundreds of dollars for some publicity on a blog, one must think if this is a smart thing to do. Basically this goes back to “gambling” because shelling out money for publicity is a 50/50 chance thing and you don’t always get what you want in return.

Background - Winning The Web’s About Page

Gyutae Park is an Internet Entrepreneur that also works as an SEO for a top agency in New York City, the busiest marketing city in the world. Graduating from Northwestern University with a degree in Industrial Engineering and Management Science, Gyutae realized that he had more passion towards the Internet and that is when he started to grow his first money site, Drum Set Connect, a forum for drummers.

Gyutae now runs a few sites through his company, Teaguy Media, which is similar to those type of medias you see bloggers create (Shoemoney, b5media, etc). It wasn’t until this past October (2007) that he decided to open up Winning The Web to share his insights on a variety of issues such as making money online, blogging, affiliate marketing, SEO, guerilla marketing, and business motivation.

What does Winning The Web offer?

WTW is a blog that targets the viewers towards becoming a Internet Entrepreneur, who would like to making money on the web. Gyutae provides tips & tricks for the best Internet tools, advertise and affiliate programs, and methods to get the highest amount of exposure possible.

Some of the posts that Gyutae recommends are the following:

• Guerilla Marketing Tactics
• Winners’ Circle
• Winners of the Week
• Blog Audits
• Blog Hopping

A few I recommend is just below:

• Guerilla Marketing Tactic #3 - Holiday Emails to Readers
• 5 Killer Strategies to Get Your Online Avatar Noticed
• How to Create a Crazy Contest that Will Explode Your Site

Round 1 - FIGHT!

With all the talk about Gyutae Park shooting out money from his other end to pay for some publicity, he decided to shell more out to battle Mr. Tyler Cruz in a contest. The contest itself is pretty simple, but there’s a lot of money to shoot out! There will be 3 winners that will each receive $100 only if the correct person is chosen.

How to enter for a chance to win $100

1. Write a post on your blog about the contest and why you think either Winning the Web or Tyler should win. Whoever you pick will be your vote. You will only be eligible for a cash prize if you vote for the winning blog so pick wisely.
2. In your entry post, be sure to clearly state who you are voting for and why. Also, mention this contest for which you are voting for and link to both TylerCruz.com and WinningtheWeb.com.
3. After you have finished your entry post, leave a comment with the post’s URL on either this post or on Tyler’s depending on who you are voting for.

As a added bonus, the first 30 voters for Gyutae will receive a free Winning The Web T-shirt. There aren’t much votes yet, so you guys so get in on this free shirt.
I must say that this man is not scared to take up the challenge and I assure you he has his word for it. And BTW, I have my vote on Gyutae!

Why did Bloggin-Ads review WTW?

I main reason I reviewed Gyutae’s blog is because he used $1,600+ to purchase advertisements and host contests to receive visitors and to publicize his site. Not many of us is able to spend that much money in such little amount of time (2 weeks!). What he gained from all that money was over 250 subscribers and over 500+ unique visitors a day. This site of dramatic increase usually boost a blog’s rank up on all major ranking sites such as Alexa, Technorati, much more.

For more details just make sure you visit his Crazy Contest stats and not to mention his strategy.

Interview with Gyutae

I’ve also recently conducted an Interview with Gyutae and I do thank him for accepting it. Below you’ll find more detailed and personal background on the man behind Winning The Web, a blog to strive towards success.

*Why did you start blogging?*

I started blogging because Internet marketing is what I love to do. The market for Internet marketing blogs is extremely saturated right now, but I still wanted to be able to make a name for myself in the industry by sharing some of my ideas and strategies and by helping others to succeed. I’m not really in it for the money at this point. In fact, I probably won’t start seeing a substantial revenue from Winning the Web until it reaches at least 1,000 RSS subscribers. Right now I just want to grow the blog and have fun with it. Blogging is a lot of fun for me so it’s more of a hobby than anything else.

*What / Who is your inspiration?*

Like I said, blogging on Winning the Web is a lot of fun. I’m inspired by all of the comments and feedback that I get and am motivated to grow the blog into a top authority. I think that most Internet marketing blogs are fluff right now and I want to break into the space by sharing great ideas that may not have been thought of before. It’s an adventure and that in itself is very exciting and inspiring.

*What made you shell out that much money for advertising on John Chow and John Cow?*

To me, the money I spent advertising on John Chow and John Cow was an investment that will hopefully grow into something a lot bigger than the amount I originally paid. If you think about it, $1,600 is really nothing if you consider the doors that the contest has opened for me and the exposure that I received as a result. I’m already reaping a lot of the benefits and the blog is officially only 2 months old. Hey look, an interview with Mike Huang.

*Where are you getting all this money to use? Are you rich?*

I have a money tree in my backyard that grows $100 bills. It comes in quite handy for a lot of things. Haha, all kidding aside, I have other sites and online businesses that generate revenue for me on a monthly basis. I also work as a professional SEO at a top agency in New York City.

*Besides blogging, do you work elsewhere? or are you a full-time blogger?*

I’m definitely not a full-time blogger. Although I enjoy blogging very much, it’s takes a lot of effort and time to write posts and share insights. I think a lot of people fail to realize this and go into blogging thinking it will lead to easy cash and quick profits. Blogging takes skill, patience, and passion. Without those 3 important components, blogging for money probably isn’t for you. There are so many easier ways to make money online. If you don’t enjoy blogging and the topic you are covering, you should probably look into those other areas of online monetization.

Other than blogging at Winning the Web, I run Teaguy Media, an online publishing company hosting a network of sites on a variety of different topics. I have also co-founded an Internet company that offers college application essay editing services. It does very well come September. Full time, I work as a professional SEO at a top agency in New York City working with huge corporate clients worldwide.

*What is the future of Winning The Web?*

Winning the Web will continue to be what it is today. Hopefully, I will be able to keep the close-knit community even as it continues to grow and reach new levels. Ultimately, it’s all about providing helpful Internet marketing strategies, and I hope to be able to do that through my articles and through my own actions.

*How do you come up with such great content on your posts?*

Internet marketing is one of my passions and it’s just what I love to do. I constantly have new ideas running through my head and simply not enough time to implement all of them. Ideas come with experience - both from your own and through others. That’s why I think it’s important to be adventurous in your online projects and to not be afraid of experimentation. It’s also important to keep up to date on industry news and on what everyone else is doing. Once you do that, you’ll be a fountain of great ideas.

*Will we be seeing future implements or new projects?

Sure. Like I said, I have a ton of ideas both for Winning the Web and for my other online ventures. Stay tuned.

*Will you continue this blog as long as possible? or will you decide to sell it as the value goes up?*

I consider Winning the Web to be a results of my own blood, sweat, and hard work so it’d be difficult to let go of something I invested so much in. However, I do know that everything can be bought at a price. I just won’t be looking to sell any time soon.

*Apart from your blogging life, how is your personal life?*

Apart from blogging, I do try to keep a personal life as much as possible. I’m a Christian, work as an SEO, manage a long-distance relationship with my girlfriend, and know how to have fun as well. I love eating, watching movies, playing sports, and catching up with old friends.

*Do you focus completely on blogging or do you have a normal life just like any other entrepreneur?*

Define “normal”. I’d like to think that everyone is unique and has their own characteristics that make them special. My focus is not completely on blogging. Rather, I consider blogging as a means to an end. To help others, have fun, and of course make a few bucks if it really comes down to that.

Remember to subscribe to Guytae’s RSS feed and join the many hundreds that have already done so. You will receive great tips from this guy and I can assure you of that!

Interested in submitting your own review for your blog or someone else’s? Submit A Post and if your review is chosen, it will be featured here on Bloggin-Ads.com.

  Winning The Web Interview (44 KB, 0 hits)

These online paid Wiki pages are totally rocking the net. I’m not even sure where to start because I had my doubts when Million Dollar Wiki launched, but now there are $1 Wiki pages to changing the currency to Euro. Whatever it is, you guys DO know that paid Wikis are the new hype of the soon to be “Web 2.0“.

About 2 weeks ago, I conducted a review on Million Euro Wiki (previously owned by John Cow) and I was able to Interview one of the owners, Paul Hartrick. Before we get into the interview, I’m going to introduce my fellow readers to what Million Euro Wiki really is. I also must add that I found out Neil Duckett has 50% ownership of MEW too. Most of you probably got familiar with him after my review of his blog.

Of course I’m sure most of you know what these Wiki sites already because of all the huge controversies revolving paid pages for a life of 15 years or more. Well, most of these wiki pages have been basing themselves in USD currency. By forking out €75, you are able to purchase a page for yourself. The page may be used for anything, but it is mostly used for advertising and posting information/tips.

Aside from the new hype of Wikis, Million Euro Wiki does what no other paid Wiki site does. For every 25 pages purchased, a page owner (latest 25 pages) is chosen at random to win one of those new tech items. What is the tech item you ask? You will have the chance of winning a iPod Touch, which is basically a iPhone without the “phone” features. Make sure you go check them out now because this would be such a wonderful Christmas gift.

Interview with Paul Hartrick

Why Million Euro Wiki?

As you are aware, we took over MEW from John Cow as we wanted to see
the site continue to operate. Both Neil and Myself own several pages
on Million Euro Wiki and MDW and wanted to ensure the Million Euro
Wiki went to good hands and continued to operate without a purely
money making focus.

Why aren’t there any new updates to MEW?

On the contrary, there have been updates. i.e. Navigation Panel,
Categories, Entre Card. We need to ensure customers embrace the simple
rules for making a “Framed Web” environment search robot friendly,
otherwise any major updates will result in only a single page update,
any future updates need to be developed with the customers in mind..

Will there be future additions to MEW?

Yes, we have several Ideas but we need the current pages to have good
content, i.e. the navigation Panel and Categories otherwise the
efforts will be wasted. The Million Euro Wiki is a partnership between
the owners and the customers and we both have to play an active role
in the success of the site.

What if MEW just stops here?

In my opinion the concept of Million Euro Wiki can’t just stop. Neil
and I are not relying on Million Euro Wiki revenue to live day to day,
so having no pages sales for extended periods of time will not affect
our ability to run the Million Euro Wiki. Just for the record Neil and
I are gainfully employed software engineers working in Japan

What difference do you give MEW compared to Million Dollar Wiki?

Automated sales process, i.e. No waiting for us to approve. The
Million Euro Wiki has the highest paying Wiki affiliate program. i.e.
$30 per coupon sale. No commission Payable for on selling your own
pages. Search Engine Robots are able to traverse our page structure.
Check Million Euro Wiki and MDW with a search robot simulator for an
idea how the search bots can traverse our structure…
i.e. http://dlperry.com/what_search_engine_spiders_see.html

When will MEW launch off again?

It has already launched, I think continued awareness of the benefits
of what the Wiki sites can bring will see a steady and continued
increase in activity.

Lastly, I would like to thank Paul for going along with my interview because he’s not gaining anything from this, but a extensive review by Bloggin-Ads. Make sure you go check them out if you haven’t and you may even win a free iPod Touch ($399 value).

Interested in submitting your own review for your blog or someone else’s? Submit A Post and if your review is chosen, it will be featured here on Bloggin-Ads.com.

  Million Euro Wiki Interview (31.5 KB, 0 hits)

One Buck Wiki, is it the new million dollar idea? Well, whether if it’s a million dollar idea or not, the people behind this work of art is making it big. Could it possibly end up being better than Graham Langdon’s Million Dollar Wiki? Keep reading and you’ll come up with your own answer to that question.

I’m sure most of you have already heard of One Buck Wiki after a ReviewMe was purchased on the evil John Chow’s page for $400 smackers. Not all reviews done by John give huge amount of traffic to the reviewed site, but to my amazement, the review for OBW got the site over 500 in pages sold. That might not be more income than what MDW brought in, but I can tell you that OBW is receiving a lot more attention than them.

Going off-topic for a bit:

Million Dollar Wiki seems to be going down in sales and I don’t know if there have been sales lately, but the last sold page was on 10/27. I love his new Entrecard idea, but he really needs to get MDW going again. I also need to add that after the interview/review I did for him on my blog, he never replied to me with a thank you. He did finally reply to a message, but it was a message that I left on his blog about entrecard.

Interview with Max (member of the OBW team):

Why did you open OneBuckWiki even after MillionDollarWiki launched?

Well, honestly, I was driving across the Bay Bridge after losing my job.
On top of that, my girlfriend had just gotten pregnant. With barely 3
months of rent saved up and $30K in debt, I had to think of an idea. Well,
as I cross the Bay Bridge, I somehow thought of the Million Dollar Wiki I
read about on John Chow’s blog. Then as I got to my destination, I saw a
Dollar Store that me and my girlfriend used to go a lot. It hit me then,
that you could sell the pages for one dollar and sell million pages.

Did you initially think OBW would be successful?

Well, I wouldn’t say One Buck Wiki is anywhere near successful yet but I
didn’t expect to sell over 1000 pages in just 2 weeks.

OBW is currently beating all the competitors, which include MDW itself. What do you think of that?

Well, as far as number of pages, One Buck Wiki is out-selling the other
paid wikis but MDW still leads in dollars. I don’t consider any of the
paid wikis as competition but as partners, especially Graham Langdon from
Million Dollar Wiki. We’ve been working together on random projects here
and there. He’s a nice guy and I even wrote a MediaWiki extension for his
new EntreCard. We also made Pligg.com, which is short for, “Paid Wiki
Digg”. It’s just a experimental site for any paid wiki sites but we are
not really pushing it to bring more traffic but use it as a SEO tool for
all paid wiki page-owners.

As days pass, it seems like the sales for OBW is slowing down. How will you cope with this?

Well, OBW will be opening up sales for a page at one dollar again just to
increase the speed of sales. We should have pages for one dollar again
within the next 2 weeks or so. We expect to sell out 2000 pages very
quickly once the price drops back down to one dollar. If you want to get
BANG for your dollar, like our motto, you should really keep an eye on the
price drop during the next couple weeks. We don’t know how fast we will
sell additional 500 pages but price hike has definitely a proportional
effect on the number of pages sold per day. Heck, we might even let it go
for a dollar until we hit 3000 pages so we have more content and user
activity.

How will you bring more sales?

As in the last question, bringing the price down back to a dollar will
increase sales. We are also going to have “Best Wiki Page of the Week”
contests where page owners can win prizes sponsored by advertisers.

What’s the future of OBW?

I think once we start selling more pages again, One Buck Wiki will really
exponentially grow. Besides, we are already working on the Quarter Wiki.
(It might be launched by the time this interview is posted.)

We are also working on to offer paid-wiki setup services for anyone who
wants to create such a site. But we only try to work with people who have
a new “scheme”, a niche, or a new idea. Just selling pages for money is
great but Entrepreneur niche-focused sites like our new
http://EntreWiki.com might be the future of paid wiki sites.

Just remember when blogs took off like crazy. Everybody started talking
about how you can make money with blogs and what celebrity was on which
blog. The blog market is so saturated right now, it’s hard to make a
living unless you are John Chow. I personally ran about 20 blogs before
jumping into the paid wiki market and almost as much money within 2 weeks
with a paid wiki than with all of the blogs together over period of a year.
Maybe I am not the best blog marketer like John Chow, but I think paid-
wikis are the untapped Web 2.0 market that still not enough people know
about.

You go to the Barnes and Noble nowdays, you can find about 30 books about
blogging and 1 or 2 books about Wikis in general. I remember going to the
bookstore last year where I’d find 100 books about making money with eBay
and 1 or 2 books about blogs. Well, I could be wrong, but if I am right,
we might as well start the Web 2.5 revolution with spam-free paid wikis.
Blogs will never die, but there’s always a lot of room for exponential
growth with Wiki sites.

Why did One Buck Wiki receive a review when they’re not a blog? Max visited my Bloggin-Ads when we weren’t even opened yet, so he deserves a review. I gotta say that the people behind the Zedomax network has a lot of potential on making it big. They simply do not leave anything behind and make sure there is much customer satisfaction. Max was nice enough to create a coupon code for my viewers, so make sure you enter it if you’re buying a page at One Buck Wiki ( Code: Mike ) Make sure you check them out, including their new QuarterWiki. Remember to also look forward to the decrease in price for OBW back down to $1 !!

Interested in submitting your own review for your blog or someone else’s? Submit A Post and if your review is chosen, it will be featured here on Bloggin-Ads.com.

Bloggin-Ads.com is now running CommentLuv. If you want to receive maximum exposure from your comments, just leave a comment and the plugin will automatically add your latest blog post.

Update: Seems like after this post was published, Mr. Langdon over at Million Dollar Wiki made two posts saying that MDW is still going “strong“. He also FINALLY updated his main page with all the sales in November and it merely totaled up to 29. It seems like he now knows there is competition and he’s trying to sell MDW to cover new costs. Unlike One Buck Wiki, MDW needs to stay organized and keep things straight.

  One Buck Wiki Interview (42.5 KB, 0 hits)

Graham Langdon created such a success and a part of internet history with Million Dollar Wiki, with over $100,000 USD income within the first 3-4 months of opening. With so much success, MDW seems to be finally slowing down with the pages sold. What is Graham doing with MDW behind our backs?

Bloggin-Ads.com barely started, but Graham agreed to do an interview that answers all of our questions and controversies and is bothering most of us. Before I discussing the interview, lets first get a quick review of Million Dollar Wiki.

Getting finished and detailed reviews is easy since the evil Mr. Chow has already done it for all of us. Can You Make a Million Dollars With a Wiki?

Background

Graham Langdon, a 21 year old senior from the University of Connecticut, created Million Dollar Wiki to pay off his schooling debt. Well a least we know that Graham is an well educated person that has a goal. Having a goal does not mean Graham doesn’t have a dream. As soon as he is debt free, his dream is to open up the world’s greatest bar in Boston.

Million Dollar Wiki

If you guys have heard of Wikipedia, you can just think of Million Dollar Wiki being the same except with a twist. The twist is that MDW sells each page for $100 instead of having it public for all to edit. Every page consists of a unique word or phrase that is controlled by the owner, which could also be sold.

Here’s what all of you have been waiting for, the answers from the man behind Million Dollar Wiki (the interview was copied over to this post, so there may be some grammar errors):

How did you come to the idea of having MDW?

I started a word-association wiki, associary.com. Each page has a unique keyword, like MDW, but instead of owning a page, people just write the first thing that comes to mind. It’s still one of my favorite projects. One of my hobbies is writing short stories and novels (well, working on a novel at least), and I started associary to help me think up similes and metaphors. Brain exercise really. I had $5 in my bank account and thought, “Hey, these keywords are valuable. If I can successfully send a lot of traffic to a site, with a new viral idea, like selling keywords in a wiki for $100, I might be on to something. Because it’s a virtual inventory, like Million Dollar Homepage, I gave it the name Million Dollar Wiki.

What is the future of MDW?

Million Dollar Wiki will be online until 2022, but I plan on keeping it online as long as it is still attracting traffic. I am going to continue to think up of ways to bring more traffic to the site, and my goal is to sell 10,000 pages. It’s pretty clear that strategic initiatives are going to need to be put in place to get there. One domain I own, Keywordia.com, may come into play here, to benefit MDW page owners who make good content. Can’t say too much about that though. It’s something that’s in the works.

You made $100k from MDW, but how much is taxes going to take off?

My accountant tells me between state and federal taxes, and self employment tax, I’m looking at 30%.

You mentioned that you paid off about $30k for your tuition, but was that your first thought?

Yes, I started the website to pay off my college tuition. That was my first goal from the beggining.

Upon receiving so much money, did you want to spend it on other stuff that you want? (a car, computer, electronics, etc)

Nope. To this day I still do not own a car, and I use the same old laptop I’ve had for the past year. I also still live with my parents. The fastest way to lose money is to spend it on crap like that. Let’s be honest, at the end of the day I am not taking home that much money from this project.

You wanted to hire a publicist for MDW, but what made you want to shell out so much money?

I did hire a publicist. I’m in a legally binding contract with Zable-Fisher public relations. John Chow supposedly reaches 10,000 readers and I made $10,000 when he posted about me. Shoemoney supposedly reached 20k and I made $40,000 when he posted on me. If it costs me $10,000 to get into Wired and Entrepreneur magazine, in front of millions and millions of people, simple math says that it will be well worth it for me just as much as it will be worth it to the page owners, with massive a ton of traffic coming their way.

With so much money earned through MDW, why didn’t you use the money to alter the scripting of the site? More automation of the script and less manual work.

Because I have friends and family to do the manual work, and I don’t mind supporting friends and family with the money I make. In fact, I get a great deal of satisfaction knowing that I’m sending some money their way. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. Right?

With your new project, “Business Card 2.0,” would you be able to give us bloggers some heads up?

You will hear about it very soon. I promise :). Look for the widget on MDW soon.

Besides the full interview, Graham sent me proof of him hiring a publicist for Million Dollar Wiki, which can be viewed at Zable Fisher Public Relations.

There you go, Bloggin-Ads.com is the first to bring the Million Dollar Wiki interview for all to see. Most of us probably think that Graham is just using MDW to earn money to purchase what he couldn’t before. With over $100,000 USD, he can basically purchase stuff he dreams about, but no I was wrong to think that about him. I’m sure i’m not the only one that thinks Graham uses the money for his own personal matters and that is why I conducted this interview with him, which will answer our questions. Upon asking Graham the questions, he felt offended and I’m sure any one of us would if we were doing nothing others are accusing us of.

Million Dollar Wiki is going to stay for a least 15 years as promised by Graham, but he also mentions that he is going to work on MDW no matter if the growth slows down or not. He is working countless days getting a new strategy up for MDW, which would allow more sales towards the 10,000th page goal.

Graham’s site might be slowing down, but it does not mean he is going to give up. Give MDW a chance by purchasing a page because it is a true investment that even John Chow or Darren Rowse realized.

Update: As most of you have probably noticed already, Graham just launched his Business Card 2.0 idea. You should take a look what he has to say in his blog.

Want to download the original e-mails sent between Graham and I? Download it below:

  MDW Interview (251.5 KB, 1 hits)