Apple iPad 2 – Coming March 11, 2011

March 7, 2011February 16, 2016 · Brandon Hann

Apple is well known for its snazzy, sleek product designs that have fan-boys (and girls) lining up at retail stores world-wide on product launch days. However, the rest of the crowd (those who are not interested in the latest “iProduct”) generally sees Apple’s product designs as nothing more than an industry slight–one that does a phenomenal job of covering up outdated system hardware.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say Apple’s latest products aren’t up to par with other related tech products. I just think they really believe the road to success is the old KISS method…keep it simple stupid. When the first iPhone came out, as well as every model since, tech gurus and Apple-haters have been complaining about low-quality cameras, slow processor speed, lack of memory, crashing apps, overheating issues, antenna problems and everything else under the Sun. They relentlessly compared them to every other smart phone on the market and in almost every case, the iPhone favored negatively. Meanwhile, while this tech war was being waged, one indisputable reality was taking place…millions of people were still buying iPhones.

iPad 2

And now we’ve come to this–the iPad 2. This week, Apple will start selling the 2nd incarnation of its famed tablet PC that everyone loved to hate. Once again, we have an Apple product that has met with some very harsh criticisms and comparisons to competing products–and still, once again, Apple has prevailed. While consumers were trying to find uses for the iPad, competitors were trying to beat it and iPad 1 did all but destroy e-readers such as Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes and Noble’s Nook along with a host of other tablet PCs. Apple must be doing something right.

Quick Comparison:

	iPad	iPad 2

Base Price	$399 (originally $499)	$499

Colors	Black	Black or White

Dimensions	9.56 x 7.47 x 0.5 inches	9.5 x 7.31 x 0.34 inches
Weight	1.5-1.6 pounds	1.33-1.35 pounds

Storage	16GB/32GB/64GB	16GB/32GB/64GB

Connections	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional AT&T 3G	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional AT&T 3G or Verizon 3G

Screen	9.7-inch 1024×768	9.7-inch 1024×768

Processor	1GHz A4	1GHz dual-core A5

Battery	Up to 10 hours	Up to 10 hours

Cameras	None	720p rear, VGA front

Sensors	Accelerometer, Ambient light sensor	Accelerometer, Ambient light sensor, 3-axis gyro

Location	Wi-Fi, Compass, Optional GPS (3G version)	Wi-Fi, Compass, Optional GPS (3G versions)

As you can see, not much has changed. Of course “not much” is a subjective statement seeing as how someone might feel like the addition of two cameras is actually worth the upgrade. Personally, if I sold my current iPad and got the iPad 2, it would be for two reasons only: 1. I can get Verizon 3G service and 2. I can now get it in white.

The processor is likely the third biggest change for me. Although the first iPad was fast enough for what you would generally use it for, it’s nice to have an extra boost–all without degrading the battery life–or so we’ll see! About these cameras…I’m sure the front camera is the better one to have given the Skype® capabilities or maybe you’re hard up for updating your Facebook profile pic, but I don’t see much use for a rear camera. Chances are you’re already carrying a camera in your pocket anyway, so why would you want to hold a 9″ iPad up to your subject and snap a photo? Maybe for a quick eBay listing while you’re at the restaurant? Yeah, I can see that happening.

The Competition

The New York Times said today, “So Far Rivals Can’t Beat iPad’s Price”. When have you ever heard “rivals can’t beat […] price” when talking about Apple products?? Isn’t Apple supposed to be the most expensive ‘everything’ you can buy? On top of that, Apple outsiders will tell you that you’ve overpaid for a sub-par product: “If only you had bought (insert manufacturer name here), you could have saved money and had twice as much!” All I can say is, “Wow!”

At any rate, the Times went on to say that because of Apple’s deep pockets, they are able to save money by buying large amounts of parts up front for larger discounts as well as not having to pay licensing rights to chip makers due to Apple’s in-house chip manufacturing of the A4 and A5 processors. Plus, Apple has the App Store, which brings in more than a billion dollars each year–this alone can subsidize the cost of the iPad. All these factors can let Apple reduce their profit margin to say…25% instead of the usual 50% they pull in from iPhone.

Motorola Xoom
How does the Xoom stack up against the iPad 2?

	Xoom	iPad 2
Base Price	$799 (w/ 2-yr contract: $599)	$499

Colors	Black	Black or White

Dimensions	9.8 x 6.6 x 0.5 inches	9.5 x 7.31 x 0.34 inches
Weight	1.6 pounds	1.33-1.35 pounds

Storage	32GB internal (future support for 32GB SD cards)	16GB/32GB/64GB

Connections	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Verizon 3G (4G compatible)	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional AT&T 3G or Verizon 3G

Screen	10.1-inch 1280×800 (HD 720p)	9.7-inch 1024×768

Processor	1GHz dual-core	1GHz dual-core A5

Battery	Up to 10 hours	Up to 10 hours

Cameras	5mp rear + Dual LED flash, 2mp front	720p rear, VGA front

Sensors	Accelerometer	Accelerometer, Ambient light sensor, 3-axis gyro

Location	Wi-Fi, eCompass, aGPS (with Google maps)	Wi-Fi, Compass, Optional GPS (3G versions)

My two cents

While the Xoom has the iPad 2 beat in a few ways, it’s hard to justify the price. Even though you can upgrade the internal memory using a 32GB SD card, adding the cost of everything might just exceed the cost of the 64GB iPad. Here’s what you should consider:

Xoom has a bigger and better screen
Xoom has better cameras
Xoom has expandable memory (in the future)
Xoom will support 4G
Xoom has the Android app store
iPad 2 has a larger app Store
iPad 2 is much cheaper
iPad 2 comes in a wi-fi only model
iPad 2 looks cooler

I threw that last one in there to see if you were paying attention! The fact of the matter is that Apple has another winner here and it all comes down to this: If you already own an iPad, keep it. There’s not much to upgrade to. If you can’t find a valid use for an iPad or another tablet pc, then don’t buy any of them. If you’re on the fence, buy the iPad 2. You can’t beat the size of the App Store and the price.

How To Hack The Facebook Image Bar

January 11, 2011 · Brandon Hann

Ok so you’re not really hacking anything, but I figured using that word would grab more attention! With that said, this trick is nothing more than an easy manipulation of a new feature in Facebook. First of all, you’ll need to upgrade your account to the new profile layout if you haven’t already done so. You can do this by going to: facebook.com/about/profile/. Login and you’ll see the option to switch.

Download sample Adobe Photoshop® template for modifying the Facebook image bar

The New Layout

Also on that page will be a complete description of what visual changes will be made to your profile, but the only one we’re interested in is the new “snapshot” feature. This is the very top section of your profile that tells people some basic information about yourself:

My Facebook Snapshot

Above, you can see the highlighted area. You can see what I call the Facebook image bar. It’s a collection of the last 5 photos that someone tagged you in. It puts them in order from left to right, meaning that all newly tagged photos will show up on the left side and move their way down the line.

Hacking (Manipulating) The Image Bar

As you can also see by the screenshot, I have hacked my image bar to show ledfrog.com whenever anyone clicks on my profile. Naturally, I wanted to draw their attention to my site and I was not surprised to find out that people see those images before anything else on my profile! From a marketing standpoint, this is great news.

The process is generally easy, but if you’re using some intricate design work or you’d like to integrate your default profile pic into the mix as well, it can get a bit complicated. For basic instructions, follow these steps:

Create an image that is 487 x 68px. (487px is counting the white spaces between each photo)
Cut out the five images from your main image. Each of the five need to be 91 x 68px in size.
Upload these five tiny images to your profile. It might be easier to create a separate photo album for them.
Tag yourself in the photos one at a time. If your image needs to line up in a specific order, like mine, you’ll want to tag the last photo first and the first photo last. This way, they’ll show up in the correct order.

That’s it! When you’re done, go back to your main profile page and you’ll see your handy work.

Advanced Manipulation

Obviously there’s some small space between the tagged images, so your photos won’t line up perfectly (like mine), but if you’re dead set on getting the images cut with the spaces in the proper places, you’ll want to cut out the white space on your original image and then take what’s left and turn them into 5 separate images. Make note that the white space is exactly 8px wide.

I created a layered Adobe Photoshop® template that you can use to see where the cutouts will fall if you plan on using a full image to create all the tiny ones. Please note that this template was designed and sized from my own Facebook page. Yours may differ slightly in size and alignment. Use this template as a guide rather than a standard.

Download sample Adobe Photoshop® template for modifying the Facebook image bar

It’s super easy to use:

Open the template in Adobe Photoshop®.
Take the image you’d like to slice and dice and place it on a layer behind the cutout layer.
Resize that image if necessary to fit into each of the 6 squares properly so it looks good.
Cutout each image and save them separately.
Upload all images to a new album (if preferred) on Facebook and make sure this album is visible to Everyone.
Tag yourself in each of the smaller photos, but remember to tag the last photo in the lineup first!
Take the 6th photo and make it your default picture and then you’re all set!

Here’s a sample of the template in use with a picture ready to be cutout:

Ledfrog.com Facebook Image Bar Template Sample

Issues

As you may have already guessed, the number one issue with doing this modification is that anyone who tags you in photos will be able to destroy your work of art! However, it’s not hard to fix. Just hover your mouse over the image(s) that you want to remove and a little ‘X’ will appear in the corner–click on that and the image will be removed from the top bar, but it will retain your tag.

You can also have a little fun with this too! You can tag your friends in your images and your hacked image will appear on their pages as well! Be careful though…if you start putting up derogatory things on your friend’s pages, you may not have any friends left. Worse case scenario, you could be hearing from the Facebook team if people start logging complaints about you.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you run a website, you are more than welcome to repost some of my steps above as well as the template download, however, I must ask that you retain credit to me by posting a link back to this article and leaving my website information inside the template. Also, please don’t hotlink the template file from my server! Upload it to your server instead.

MacBook Air (2010) vs iPad vs MacBook Pro

November 16, 2010February 16, 2016 · Brandon Hann

I know it’s been awhile since my last post, but I’ve been working heavily on my other site and just trying to maintain sanity throughout my life due to some unexpected changes not too long ago. At any rate, this post comes after my in-depth look at the new MacBook Air that came out less than a month ago. For all of you that feel Apple is just releasing the same old products in different packaging, understand this…you’re right.

Ok so I’m an Apple fan boy and I love to see what’s next and yes, I’ve been known to drop more shiny pennies on their products than I do on more important things in life, but rather than try to explain myself, let me at least justify my purchases! Actually, I already did that when I went over the various reasons about why I own an iPhone, an MacBook and an iPad. Of course there are plenty of other devices out there that could have done almost exactly the same things (if not, more) for a LOT less, but Apple has me sucked in!

So I buy an iPad because I wanted to take the mobility of the iPhone to a new level and I must tell you, I succeeded. Everything was going fine until I saw the new MacBook Air. And so it begins–the never-ending quest to have the perfect combination of technology to ensure that no matter where you’re at, you’re always connected and functional.

MacBook Air (2010 model)

When the first MacBook Air came out, it was “revolutionary”, it was “sleek” but most importantly, it could fit in a standard size manilla envelope. The problem with it was that it cost way too much money! In fact, I think the only good thing that came out of it was that it set a new standard for future MacBook designs.

Today, we have a new pair of MacBook Airs that look better than ever, are more powerful than ever and…still cost way too much money. Here’s the break down:

From this comparison, you can see that there is really only two models: the 11-inch screen and the 13-inch screen. Within those two models you can choose the size of your hard drive, but that’s it.

Now I already own a 13-inch MacBook (2008 model–before they all went to MacBook Pros), so the only real excitement I got from these is the fact that one of them is 11-inches. The other attractive feature here is the solid-state flash memory. If you get a chance to check out one of these in the store, you’ll notice quite a difference between the boot up and running speed of a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro. The Air will beat the Pro almost every time and it can do so with almost half the processor speed!

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Small, portable and lightweight
Fast, flash memory
Full keyboard, full OSX
Built-in SD card reader
5+ hours of battery life

Cons:

No ROM drive
Small screens
Not upgradable
Onboard memory
No backlit keyboard
No built-in 3G service

iPad (1st Gen)

The iPad is great, but it’s only as great as the iPhone with a slightly better advantage of having a larger screen. The reason I bought one was to go more portable than my MacBook, but to have a larger screen than my iPhone and so far the results have been…ehhh. Granted, I love using the iPad and it comes in handy when you want to write something down, check your email while in the car or even just play some games when you’re bored.

The problem I keep running into is the fact that I want to use it like my MacBook, but because it doesn’t have an actual file system, I’m still stuck with the same limitations as the iPhone. So where before, I was looking for a mid-point between smartphone and laptop, it looks like now I’m looking for a mid-point between iPad and desktop computer. So far, all signs point to MacBook Air.

UPDATED: Now that the iPad 2 is coming out this month (March 11, 2011), take a look at the direct comparison and find out if you think you should upgrade! After reviewing its specs, I’ve decided that aside from a slightly faster processor and the addition of two new cameras, it’s practically the same as the first iPad.

MacBook Pro

As I mentioned, I don’t officially have a MacBook Pro because my model came out with there was still just MacBooks, but since my system specs are the same as the new Pros (albeit no SD card reader), I can speak on this. My original setup consisted of a desktop PC and an HP laptop. I sold the HP and got the MacBook for two reasons: new computer and to become more portable. That’s why I chose the 13-inch model.

As time went on, I noticed I was using the MacBook more and more and the desktop less and less. The problem with this was that the laptop became my desktop replacement, but now I was stuck with a 13-in screen!

Conclusion

While each of these devices serves different purposes and not everyone will find the same use in them, my opinion is that owning a MacBook Pro and an iPad or a MacBook Air and an iPad are great additions to the smartphone you probably already own. Each of them allows you to be portable in different ways and depending on the situation, you will find that they complement your life very well. Now, if you own all three, you just have nothing better to spend your money on!

As for me, I’m almost at the point where I want to change my tech setup once again. This is what I foresee:

Sell my current desktop PC
Sell my iPad
Sell my MacBook
Buy a Mac Mini to replace my desktop
Buy a MacBook Air (11-inch) to replace my MacBook and iPad
Keep my iPhone 4 as my extremely portable device

Now if only Apple would put some built-in 3G capabilities on the MacBook Air–or any MacBook for that matter, then we’d be sittin’ pretty!

Free iPad, iPod, iPhone, Macbook offers. Are they legit?

August 30, 2010 · Brandon Hann

You’ve seen them everywhere–Google, Facebook, MySpace, etc.!! They are those little annoying ads that show up telling you that you can get an iPad, an iPod, a Macbook or some other expensive gadget for FREE.

Naturally, you click through only to feel duped because now there’s all sorts of ‘offers’ you have to complete. In my opinion, you shouldn’t feel duped–you should probably feel a little naive for thinking that you were really going to get a $200-2000 item for doing nothing. After reading a blog post on Technologizer.com, I was amazed to see how many people think these offers are outright scams.

Are they scams?

Ok, so you clicked an ad and now you want to know if you’re about to be scammed, right? Perfect, I’m here to set the record straight for anyone who’s still cloudy on this topic.

Before I get into the specifics, let’s define a couple of related terms:

scam (noun) – a device (website, contract, etc) used to cheat or defraud
scam (verb) – to cheat or defraud
scammed (past tense) – having been defrauded or cheated
mislead – to lead astray, deceive or guide wrongly

Now that we know what the difference between a scam (or to be scammed) and something that’s misleading, we can continue.

The reason I put misleading in there is because once I prove to you that these offers are not scams, the next thing you’re going to say is that they are misleading and if that’s what you believe, then ok. I, on the other hand do not feel that these ads are scams or are misleading and here’s why.

To me, an ad that is misleading would be this:

Sign up today and get a FREE iPad! Simply enter your email address and we’ll ship your new gift directly to your house!!

An ad that is not misleading would be this:

Sign up today and get a FREE iPad! *Participation in promotional offers required. (The last part will likely be in fine print.)

How do these offers work?

Each company has a different approach to the same end result, but in general, the company has a sponsorship deal with the advertising company in which the advertiser pays the promoter an affiliate bonus for every customer they send them. This bonus is what the promoter uses to pay for your free gift. So how can they afford really expensive gifts and still make money? That’s where simple math comes into play.

I run a website and I have a few sponsored ads throughout my website, so I know how much can be made on deals like these, but for this example I’m going to use simple (yet realistic) numbers to illustrate how this is all possible.

Let’s take a standard “FREE iPad” offer. The promoter tells you to get your gift you have 180 days to complete a total of 13 offers from 3 tiers. There are three key facts in that one sentence. First, you have 6 months to complete the offers. Second, you have to do 13 offers and third is that the offers are broken into tiers.

Time limit: The promotion company is banking that you don’t have what it takes to comply with all these rules and this is where they make the real money. Imagine if 100 people completed 11 offers, but ran out of time before they could do two more. The promoter just made affiliate bonuses on 1100 offers and didn’t have to ship 1 iPad! If each offer earned them about $50, they just walked away with $55,000! Hopefully this clarifies how it’s possible to afford such expensive gifts.
13 Total Offers: That’s a lot of offers and it’s easy to get confused and lost in all the signups you’re about to get involved with. Again, the promoter hopes that you stay confused so you either a) don’t get all 13 or b) stay a subscribed member so they can continue making affiliate bonuses off you.
3 Tiers: One such offer site mentions you have to pick 2 offers from tier 1, 2 offers from tier 2 and 9 offers from tier 3. The reason they do this is because the offers range so dramatically from things like subscribing to a magazine for 3 months to applying for a car loan. It would be unfair to make you apply for 13 car loans, so they break them down into manageable groups.

As you can see if you apply some basic math, even if every single person did every single requirement and they shipped out an iPad for every person, they are still not losing money depending on which model they ship. Plus, $50 is an average amount. I’ve heard of affiliate payouts being much higher.

My two cents

To call this a scam, you would be implying that these companies are promising you one thing and backing out at the last minute thus robbing you of your free gift. Aside from these offers consuming loads of time and aside from you perhaps making a mistake of not completing one of the required terms, there is no way you will not get your free gift. It would also be a scam if these companies were asking for money and not following through on their promises.

So, for all those that still think these offers are scams, listen up. It’s natural to feel “scammed” after seeing an ad for an offer claiming you can get some really expensive gadget for free (iPad, laptops, big screen tvs, etc) only to discover that there’s a “catch”. But just because this upsets you, does that mean it’s really a scam? Of course not! That’s like saying you signed up for a credit card with a 0% intro rate and then 6 months later, you’re surprised to be hit with a 19% APR. You should only be surprised if you didn’t read the fine print and only be mad at yourself that you didn’t. Offers like these and others like home loans, car leases, hotel rentals or anything you sign a contract for should not be obtained without having read the fine print first! That’s just common sense.

Hopefully now we can all agree that they are not scamming anyone. Just read the details clearly if you’re interested and follow all the rules. It’s not that difficult if you’re paying attention and you will certainly get a free gift at the end. By the way, if you still think this process is a scam, you probably also believe that Quibids is a scam too.

A little history

So where did all these offers start?? As far back as I can remember, it all happend around the time when the 3rd gen iPod came out when a company called FreeiPods.com started offering free iPods to anyone who signed up for 1 offer, but then you had to get 5 friends to sign up under you and they each had to complete 1 offer themselves. After all this happened, you were sent a free 20GB iPod. I was able to score two during this time. The problem with this setup (if you haven’t noticed already) was that it was a pyramid scheme. What this meant was only the people who started first were getting the free iPod because at some point, there was nobody left to sign up (to get your five friends) because everyone was out trying to get 5 more people! Make sense?

That’s when the complaints started…people weren’t getting their iPods, so they felt cheated. Well, since they never paid any money up front, then what were they exactly cheated out of? Perhaps they were cheated out of the chance of getting a free iPod, but this hardly equals a monetary value.

Anyway, the business model was changed to allow people to bypass getting referrals and instead, just complete more offers. Eventually, the whole “referral getting” model was scrapped and now we have the current business model which is simply completing multiple offers. They even added a twist–you only have 6 months to complete everything! See, the ones offering the free gifts are hoping you can’t complete everything in 6 months.

Using Yahoo! Answers to promote your blog

July 13, 2010 · Brandon Hann

I signed up for Yahoo! Answers a long time ago because I remember searching for some information and I was amazed at how much mis-information there was out there! It was then that I discovered that I could share some of my knowledge, help people out and be able to build a reputation all at the same time.

Enter the world of cross-promotion. I talk about this all over my site as a means to help pollinate your image/brand in as many places as you can (without being obtrusive). I say “obtrusive” because you don’t want to come off as spamming. If you have a general passion for your topic of interest, you’re going to love spreading the word about your knowledge. For me, I love helping people out with their computer problems or website questions.

What is Yahoo! Answers

So as not to override the point of this post, I’ll be quick. Yahoo! Answers allows anyone with a Yahoo! login to go to the site, submit a question they want answered and then other people viewing the site who might know the answer can post their opinions. As a member, you can also ask questions as well.

As an answerer, you earn points for every answer you submit and even more points if the asker selects your answer as the best choice. Other members can also vote your answer up to the best choice too. After certain levels of these points are acquired, you can do more things on the site like answer more questions, ask more questions, receive more ratings, etc. More about how Yahoo! Answers works.

Yahoo! Answers as a promotional tool

Just like any other member site, you can create a profile. In this profile you have your standard avatar, email address, website link, etc. All these are quite obvious as promotional tools, but Yahoo! Answers inherently goes a step further. Since you’re answering people’s questions about any topic imaginable, you get to answer freely. This means, you can reference external websites, cite sources, talk about how well you know a particular topic, etc.

So here’s what I do. We all know that I blog about marketing online and building websites and such. Every now and then, I toss in a few posts about computer repairs and fix-it utilities.

Naturally, I go over to Yahoo! Answers and look for questions related to my blog and begin answering them. In some cases, I have already written a detailed blog post that better illustrates my answer and I’m able to insert a link directly into it. This allows the asker (and everyone else reading) to access my link and see my blog post!

What not to do

As time goes on, your answers (with your links) are all floating around Yahoo! and other major search engines which will generate more traffic for your site. However, this can be abused just like every other traffic-technique so you want to make sure you not only follow Yahoo!’s guidelines, but also some search engine one’s as well.

Here are some things not to do:

Don’t submit just a link for your answer
Don’t add more than 2 links in one answer
Don’t give half-assed answers–put some thought into your responses
Don’t link to webpages that don’t contribute to your answer

My two cents

The main point of Yahoo! Answers is to help people answer their questions. Make sure that you are actually contributing to the cause. The more help you provide, the better your reputation will be. If people start viewing you as a credible source of information, then they are more likely to view your site and if they run sites of their own, they might link back to you. You can see how the dominoes fall from here.

10 Ways To Increase Traffic To Your Blog

May 16, 2010February 26, 2019 · Brandon Hann

All over the Internet, you’ll find lists like these and some are just basic, mindless collections of the same old ideas re-written to look new. While a lot of what you’d find on these lists are very obvious ways to increase traffic to your site, there are smaller details that you may not have thought about.

One such list I recently found was over at Espreson.com. I was reading through it and even though I was already employing about 9 of the ideas, I noticed that there were at least 15 new things I learned. How is that possible? For one, there were new angles on old games. So, what I’m doing here is I’m going to reiterate the same list, but add a few of the things I thought were missing. In effect, I’m updating it slightly since the original post was published back in 2007.

Top 10 Tips

10. Write some pillar articles. Your blog will mostly contain small to medium-sized posts about a variety of related topics, but pillar article is a big one. These articles should generally be larger content pages aimed at providing a wealth of information to your visitors. They are also not news-based articles as news posts have a short shelf life. Pillar articles will round out the content on your site and provide clearer focus to your overall agenda.

I recently became acquainted with a site called AssociatedContent.com that allows you become a freelance writer for their site. The biggest draw for me what getting my content in front of many readers all while pointing them back to my own site.

9. New content everyday. First off, let me say that you blog frequency should be decided up front and you should stick to it often. This doesn’t meant that you can’t start off at 3 posts per day and then drop to 1 per day and the change to 2 per day, but it does mean that you shouldn’t go 6 months at one post per day and then go 2 weeks without a post and then the next week is 2 posts per day and then nothing for a month and a half! Your posting frequency will never be perfect–I’m sure you have a real life!

The goal here is to allow your users to reasonably expect new content at various intervals. This is especially true if your blog contains of lot of project posts like you’re doing a 3 month test on Google AdWords and your posting your daily updates.

8. Get a domain name. There are countless blogs out there that a just sub-domains of Blogspot or WordPress and a lot of them are doing very well. However, getting people in the real world to see your site might be more of a chore than a pleasure. Having a great sounding domain name or at least one they can remember will ultimately increase the odds that it will be remembered. For example, I’ve noticed my domain kind of sticks with people because as soon as I say ‘ledfrog‘ to them, the first question is always “What does that mean?”. Once I tell them, they usually remember the definition and therefore the domain name. If all else fails, I have plenty of “backup” domains that I use as forwarders so depending on the person, I can give out the easiest to remember.

If you’re thinking of making it as a semi-pro or pro blogger, you may want to consider getting “YourFullName.com” so that way people who meet you and remember your name will inherently remember your blog. For me, I own BrandonHann.com and also Brandon.me even though I have them pointed to my other site.

7. Comment on other blogs. I can’t tell you how important this step can be. You literally have to see for yourself. As an example from my own experience, I posted one comment on one article with a link attached to my site and from that, I get about 80 hits a month. Of course this isn’t a whole lot, but imagine if you got that same result from 100 comments? That would be an extra 8000 hits per month! I advise you to comment wherever you can, but don’t spam anybody. Leave genuine comments that provide actual conversation and where applicable, leave a trackback (see next step).

The reason why comments work is because other bloggers can read what you thought of a post and if they find value in it, they are more likely to click through to your blog to see what else you talk about. This may then lead to them linking directly to your blog which again, brings in more traffic!

6. Leave trackbacks and link to other blogs. I wrote this post explicitly in response to the top 10 list on Espreson.com and I left a trackback and a comment on the original blog for this very reason. A trackback tells the other blog that you wrote about them or linked to a post on their site and most of the time will create a comment-link post that mentions this. Once again, this helps you because it creates a link back to your site!

Just keep in mind that blogs are supposed to be connected. We’re all a community here and no one site can provide you with everything you need to know. Help others out and they will help you.

5. Submit your site to directories. Back in the day Dmoz.org was IT. If you were listed here, your site was golden. It’s amazing to see that Dmoz still holds a lot of clout and being listed here is still a great benefit, but there are more options. There are even options that are specific to blogs. Adding your site to these lists is usually free and will provide two things: new people reading your posts and more traffic to your site.

My favorites: ~~MyBlogLog.com~~ (no longer in service) and Technorati.com.

4. Guest blogging. Many blogs out there allow visitors to write blog posts on their website to help further community interaction. Adding your own blog posts will obviously bring more traffic to your site, but it also helps build your reputation. However, all this depends on the quality of your content. Remember when your guest blogging that you’re a guest so follow any posting rules that the webmaster has laid out.

3. Add your site to Blog Glue. This allows you to add your site to a service that reads your content and makes recommendations of other blogs related to yours right on your content pages. The ultimately drives focused traffic to your site. For example, if you wrote an article about how to get links to your blog, the Blog Glue plugin will search other Blog Glue blogs to add related articles under your content. See below this post for an example. (Update: Blog Glue is the new name for Arkayne)

2. Submit your site to blog search engines. There are plenty out there. Do a Google search for sites that specifically focus on sorting out blogs and you’ll come across names like BlogSearchEngine.com, BlogTopSites.com, BlogDigger.com and many more. Remember, some will be better than others, but in the end, you just want to build your reputation and get your site’s name in the public eye whenever you have a chance. Every 1 visitor to your site counts!

1. Content, content, content. This is more of a grouping of all the underlying techniques from above, but the point is you need to have content and lots of it! Generally, you want your content to be similar in subject, but if you have a blog that covers a lot of topics or it’s your personal blog, you’re bound to have many types of posts. If that’s the case, just make sure your site flows.

This not only helps users find your content, but it helps search engines catalog your site better. Remember that linking of all types count. Google PageRank is based on things like anchor text, keywords, topic relation and more. Typically, the more content you have, the higher you’ll rank in the search engines.

Earn Money and Build Your Reputation As A Freelance Writer

May 13, 2010January 30, 2016 · Brandon Hann

Building your blog takes time. In most cases it also takes actual writing skills and dedication to your craft to start pulling in traffic. In the meantime however, there are ways to get your content in front of viewers to use as a platform for promoting yourself and/or your website.

Think of it this way: imagine you had a website and you want to build your reputation rather fast. You come across a website that allows contributions from outside writers and you submit an article. This article is now accessible on an already existing website with a large traffic flow. When people read your article, they see your name (and profile). This information then leads to your own blog or website and instantly you become known in the blogosphere!

Ok, so maybe it’s not as easy as it sounds! But the point is, if you know your content is good and you want to get it in front of people relatively easy, this is one sure way to do it. Check out my Associated Content profile to see how people will view you.

AssociatedContent.com

AC is touted as “The people’s media company” and it is essentially a collection of over 2 million articles written on almost every topic you can think of. The best part is that these articles are written by people like you! That’s right. You are a contributor to a growing collection of content and at the same time, building a name for yourself.

To sign up, you simply need to head on over to the AssociatedContent signup page and fill out the required information. Afterward, you’ll be sent a verification email. Once verified, you’ll be taken into your account and you can start publishing content right away!

How does AssociatedContent work?

Once logged in, you’ll have access to your dashboard. It’ll look similar to this:

From here, you can do a number of different things like publish new content, check messages, edit your public profile and connect with other writers. Once you get going, this is generally how the site works:

Pick the format you want (Text, Video, Audio, Images).
Pick the topic that the content is about.
Answer some copyright questions about how you want your work distributed.
Choose a payment method.
Publish your content!

Within your dashboard, you can also see a number of previously established assignments that you can choose to fulfill if you’d like. Don’t worry about writer’s block either! Associated Content will provide you with ideas if you’re stuck.

How much do I get paid?

The main payout option is Performance Payments. The rate is $1.50 per 1000 pageviews. This amount can be upped to $2.00 after certain requirements are met. This is the description of Performance Payments as outlined on the website:

Performance Payments are payments based on the traffic to your content and allow you to earn unlimited cash from your text, video, slideshow and audio submissions long after they have been published. You earn money for every one thousand page views your content generates (PPM™ rate). The baseline PPM™ rate is currently $1.50 – meaning if you generate 30,000 page views, you’re paid $45.00 in Performance Payments. As your library of content grows and your total page views accumulate, your Clout level increases. When you reach Clout 7 and beyond, your PPM™ rate will gradually increase up to a maximum of $2.00 per thousand page views. Check out the quick stats (under total payments) on your Account dashboard to see your current estimated earnings, and track your page view statistics per piece of content from the Content page. Click here to read more about the Clout system.

Another payout option is Upfront Payment. Your content is subjected to a review by the site editors and based on its originality and quality, you will receive an offer. At this point, you can choose to accept the offer or not. There are stricter rules for submitting this kind of content.

More Information

There is a LARGE amount of information you may want to peruse through before you get started, but if you’re interested in becoming a freelance writer and/or build your reputation along the way, you will love this site. For more information, please see AssociatedContent’s FAQ section.

To sign up now, go to AssociatedContent.com!

Breaking the myth about "turnkey" websites

May 4, 2010 · Brandon Hann

I was in the middle of writing a completely different article and I decided to check the status on one of my eBay items and for some reason I just decided to search for domain names for sale. I’m always curious to see what kind of junk is being sold out there for ridiculous prices.

It was right then that I noticed a “turnkey” website for sale and I must say, I was quite impressed with the ad. I mean, this thing went on and one describing every single element to the site and how it worked, etc., etc. It was laid out so nicely that I almost got sucked right in. Why not? The price was only $81 with 2 hours to spare and according to the ad, if I had 5000 visitors to my site and a 15% CTR, I’d be making about $54,000 per year!

Say what?!!

What is a turnkey website?

The concept of a turnkey…anything is simply that of a website, business or some other operation that’s all ready to go. You just jump right in and keep it going. You can equate this to opening a McDonalds–you have a large corporation that essentially sells itself and all you need to do is manage the day-to-day. Sounds easy enough, right?

Well, it is and it isn’t as anyone who runs a business will tell you! The problem with turnkey websites is that a website can looking phenomenal online, have tons of content, videos, links and blog posts, but not be exactly what it claims. This is more true than ever before thanks to software like WordPress, Drupal and other CMS packages.

With this software, you can build a great looking site in literally 7 minutes (the 5-min WordPress install, plus 2 minutes to upload a theme).

Misleading ads

Like I mentioned above, this guy’s ad covered everything:

Professional design
Fully automated and maintenance free
Valuable domain name included
Established website
The site store updates by the minute
Profitable income streams from AdSense, Amazon and ClickBank

That last one is the one I really want to draw attention to. Whenever you tell someone that the thing they’re buying has “profitable income streams…” and you ad posts projected numbers without so much as saying these results are not typical, you’re misleading your customer.

In my opinion, you’re feeding off desperate people. Maybe the bad economy has hit some people really hard, so they’re out there trying to make some extra money. They come along and see this and get the impression that this site is already making money and because it’s “turnkey”, all they have to do is promote it a little bit and off they go!

The truth

This particular ad is nothing new. I’ve seen these pre-made sites for sale for many years. But if you were to calculate exactly what you’re getting, you may think twice about bidding. Let’s break it down:

Professional design: Listen up folks…WordPress is FREE and there are THOUSANDS of free themes out there that can make your site look “professional”.
Fully automated: How can anything be fully automated? Even running an autoblogger takes time to manage and maintain! The best part is in the very same ad, this guy tells you all you have to do to make this site work is to promote and advertise. So much for fully automated.
Valuable domain: This of course falls within your own opinion. The domain in the ad I’m referring to is: CookingAndRecipeInformer.com. Valuable? Not in my opinion.
Established website: Doesn’t this imply that the website is already operational? Of course it’s online, but the way I take it is that it’s already doing what it claims to do: make money.
The store updates by the minute: This is an easy task given that the store is nothing more than an Amazon store imported into your WordPress theme. Anyone who’s an Amazon Associate knows that this task is much too easy.
Profitable income streams: This is a loaded statement because it doesn’t mean this site is actually profitable, but that it can be. But, this is so obvious it’s funny! Anything in theory can be profitable if promoted correctly. In fact, this portion of the turnkey site is by far, the hardest. If you run a website, you know how difficult it can be to get traffic.

Ok, so now that I got that all cleared up, lets total it up:

Domain name ($9.99) + WordPress software ($0) + Pro Theme ($0) + Amazon store ($0) = $9.99

This auction is worth about $10 and that’s even if you thought that domain name was worth the registration fee. Think about this before you get lured into purchasing a domain name with a turnkey website. Also, remember that you have to host the site somewhere, so you can figure about another $10 per month.

My two cents

If you think your winning bid is worth having all this set up for you, then by all means, purchase it, but don’t think you’re getting some established business. Always read the fine print and do some Google searching first. Look for keywords in the ad that might pinpoint how theses sites are created and see if you can create something yourself without having to spend a lot of money.

Lastly, if you’re really interested in purchasing an established website, you’ll want to check out Flippa.com. They offer legitimate businesses for sale and they can prove their worth by showing you traffic results and income reports. Good luck in your business ventures!

Should I buy Apple stock over product?

April 27, 2010 · Brandon Hann

I read an article over on John Chow’s blog that lead me to an interesting bit of information from Kyle Conroy’s blog about buying Apple stock over buying Apple product. At first, I expected it to be a rant about how great the stock market is and how we should all invest in our favorite corporations, but after looking at it, it proved to be much more of a “why didn’t I think of that” type of story.

Although I loved the article, I now hate myself for not being “smarter” in my younger years. I guess I can chalk it up to just not being sure about the future, but then again when it comes to Apple, did anybody really think this company would fail? Google maybe, but Apple? Likely not.

The Breakdown

Essentially what Kyle did was compare the selling prices of almost all of Apple’s products to the stock price on the day these products came out and then again to today’s stock price. Here are the products I own for example:

Original iPhone – Price paid on January 9th, 2010: $499 – If I had bought Apple stock on the same day instead of the iPhone, I would now have $1,460 in my portfolio.
iPhone 3GS – Price paid on June 8th, 2009: $199 – I would now have $375 in my portfolio.
2.4G MacBook (13″ unibody, late-2008) – Price paid on October 14th, 2008: $1599 – I would now have $4,161 in my portfolio.

That would have given me a grand total of $5,996 in my portfolio today! Instead, I have negative $2597. Granted, the products have served me well and I don’t regret owning (or buying) them, but the point is still made.

Could I have forgone these items to have a few extra thousand in a volatile environment such is the stock market? Probably no more than any of us could forgo our new cars and expensive clothes. However, one item that took the cake on this list is one that I could have forgone if only I had that much money at the time.

Apple PowerBook G3 250 (Original/Kanga/3500) – Price on November 10th, 1997: $5700 – If you used that money to buy stock on the same day, you’d now have $330,563 in your portfolio! On the other hand, maybe you used that PowerBook to start your business and now you make more than $300,000 a year being your own boss! You never know how the tides may turn.

Go check out the rest of the list here and see what your Apple products could have amounted to.

Make money with Kontera

April 26, 2010 · Brandon Hann

You may have noticed the double-underlined links on various phrases on my site. These are link ads that are dynamically generated through a service called Kontera. You may already know about Google AdSense and how it works by generating ads based on your page’s content, but if not, check it out now. Anyway, Kontera works very similar to AdSense, but I’m very excited to say that it’s much better!

Kontera doesn’t place ads in a single, static location. This is an important fact because there’s such a thing known as “banner blindness”. The term actually references a phenomenon where people will sub-conscientiously block out banner ads on a website. You probably noticed this by going to some website that has a banner ad on it and you skipped right over it to get to the content you were looking for. Well, unfortunately, the same thing happens to AdSense ad blocks and banners.

How does Kontera work?

Page content – Kontera uses its patented software to analyze your webpage through the use of a small snippet of Javascript.
Keywords – Every time a page is loaded, the script kicks in and dynamically creates ad links on certain keywords found within your page. These keywords are based on what advertisers are purchasing.
Dynamic ads – Even though your pages have static content (things that don’t change), the Kontera ads are all dynamic (things that do change), which means that a page loaded by one user will have different keyword ads than the same page loaded by another user.
Fresh ads – Because the ads and the links are generated dynamically, your users always see fresh ads no matter how many times they come back to the same page!
Non-intrusive – The ads don’t show up right when a page loads; only the links do. This means that your webpage can appear to be completely ad-free! When a user sees a link they think they might be interested in, they hover over it and out pops a Kontera window. The user can then decided to click through or not. If not, the mouse is moved and the ad goes away.

Kontera vs AdSense

Placement – Adsense uses static ad placement which means your AdSense ads are always located in the same areas of your website and will stay there unless you move them. Kontera changes ad link placement every time a page is loaded.
Visibility – Adsense ads are always visible and can be ignored by simply not looking at that area of a site. Kontera embeds ads directly into keywords on the site and a user is more likely to click on a targeted keyword ad. Since the ad links appear on page load, they can show up just about anywhere each time.
Site restrictions – Adsense can be placed on just about any website you can think of–including spam and duplicate content sites. This reduces effectiveness. Kontera restricts websites based on strict guidelines and even page length. This increases effectiveness and welcomes higher quality advertisers.

My two cents

I’m not out to destroy Google AdSense and as you can see to the right, I still use it! However, I am already starting to see major improvements and response with Kontera over Google and I’ve only started with Kontera a few days ago.

My suggestion is to get and use both services for your website. Optimize your site with Kontera In-Text advertising now!