This robot (by Robotex) is a series of smaller pieces connected by powerful magnets. When the pieces are broken apart, they sense each other, seek out the other pieces and reassemble automatically. This is very cool and very scary, kind of like the big dog robot I wrote about a couple weeks ago. It is amazing how far we have come with robotics. This stuff is very interesting to me, so much so that I am adding a new category to my blog, “robotics.”
Lately, I have been writing about things that were a little off topic for this blog. My original plan was to have a blog that displayed all the ways I have learned to make money on the Internet, and to help other people discover ways to make money.
That being said, I wanted to give an update as to what was making me money lately. I do not want to give exact figures (you can email me if you really want to know), but I will give an idea as to what is really working and what is not.
Right now, the eBay affiliate program through CJ.com is still making me the most money. This accounts for about 90% of my Internet income (not including my day job at an Internet company). eBay has recently decided to drop CJ.com and go with their own in-house affiliate program, and I have not had much luck with it yet. If this does not change soon, I will need to look for other methods to monetize my traffic. Next in line is Adsense, Kontera, and other direct deals I have made. These are usually insignificant amounts, or one-offs. Also, I have been doing consulting, but again these are usually one-offs and not a steady source of income.
My goal for 2008 is to double my earnings per month from the Internet. Right now, this source accounts for about 15-20% of my yearly income (including my day job). One thing that I have learned is that you cannot give up. I have hit a plateau with my earnings and traffic for about 3 months now, and I have wanted to give up many times. I just need to keep plugging away and hope for the best. My ultimate goal is to be able to work full time on my web sites and money making ideas, like many of my friends already do. Hopefully, this happens sooner than later. Wish me luck!
I wrote a post comparing Vibrant to Kontera (in-text ads) about a year ago, and decided Vibrant was the clear winner at that time. Since then, Vibrant has been making me less and less money each month. They recently lost their Microsoft advertiser account, which could be the reason for the drop.
Right when I was getting fed up with my income from Vibrant, a Kontera account manager emailed me asking about the post I wrote 1 year ago. She said much has changed since then, and asked if I would be willing to try Kontera again. Since I was ready to switch from Vibrant when she contacted me, she did not have much trouble convincing me to switch back and try Kontera once again.
I have already installed the new code and made decent money on the first day of advertising. I got about 35 cents per click on day 1, but reporting has not updated since then. It has been about 5 days since the last day of revenue was posted. One of the major factors I look at when deciding between ad networks is their reporting. Some of the questions I ask are:
How detailed is the reporting? (Can I see exactly click for click how much I made?)
How frequently is data updated? (I want my revenue updated every hour, or daily at the very least)
Does it give optimization suggestions? (I want suggestions on how to improve my campaign)
Kontera has already shown poor update frequency, but I will email my contact to see if this is normal or a fluke. Hopefully I will be making more money than I was with Vibrant, but only time will tell. I will post a follow up post in a few weeks showing either the success or failure of Kontera the second time around.
Cloud Computing Basics
Google’s newest service it is offering is access to its “cloud.” Cloud is short for cloud computing, or distributed computing. Basically, how the cloud works, is by making lots of everyday home computers act like one giant supercomputer through the use of software, also called virtualization. This software, named MapReduce, is one of the main reasons why Google is so far ahead of its competitors. Instead of having to buy and maintain an expensive server that can support millions of users, cloud computing allows for lots of low cost machines to accomplish the same task. Whenever a machine breaks, it can be replaced without disturbing the cloud.
Cloud as a Service
Now that Google is offering its cloud as a service, everyone will be able to tap into the same machines that power such products as Gmail, Google Search, and Google Docs. There are both positives and negatives associated with this. Firstly, we will be giving Google even more information about ourselves and our websites. Like they need any more competitive data. Second, there will be limits on the amount of processing power each developer can use. To being, Google will offer 500mb and up to 5 million pageviews as part of its web app engine. Another negative is that there will most likely be little customization possibility.
On the positive side, developers will have the peace of mind to know their apps and websites are running on the most stable servers in the world. There will be virtually zero down time, and speed will be off the charts.
What Does This Mean?
Google is far from the first company to have this type of offering. Amazon already has a very similar and successful cloud service called EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud). From a business aspect however, this is still a very smart move by CEO Eric Schmidt. Google already has the “biggest” cloud on earth, and a transition from the desktop windows system to a fully online computer network is imminent. The money will be in which computer network all the information sits on. If I am Google, and I am hosting all of your information and applications, I can charge you to use it. Although Google says its purpose is to index, sort, and make easy to find all the information in the world, they want to be the gatekeepers and charge for access. Whether the charge is direct, or through the viewing of ads, Google still profits.
I was just adding a couple entries into Google Calender and found something that I believe is an April Fool’s joke. There is now a button when adding an event that says “I’m Feeling Lucky.” This is just like the button on the Google.com homepage.
I don’t remember ever seeing this button there before, so immediately I thought “April Fools” and clicked the button. Clicking “I’m Feeling Lucky” entered an event into my calender. Here are some examples of the “lucky” events added:
All of the events were dates with famous people. Not Google’s best prank, but funny none-the-less.
UPDATE: These ARE the Ford Mustangs from the new Transformers 2 movie. It’s clear by the Decepticon logo on the side:p. It is now obvious that Michael Bay has begun filming of Transformers 2, the sequel to the mega hit Transformers.
I was just driving around Culver City today and spotted three Ford Mustang Saleens sitting on a flat bed truck. Usually, I would have not gone through so much trouble to snap a couple pictures, but in this case they were police car editions. I’m sure the people behind me enjoyed my swerving back and forth while I tried to snap a focused picture with my iPhone:).
I couldn’t get close enough to tell if they were for a movie or actual oinker-mobiles, but if they were I wouldn’t want to be chased by those. Regardless, these were amazing vehicles so check them out:
This is definitely one of the coolest/weirdest things I’ve ever seen. Does anyone remember that video of the dog-like robot running in circles attached to a crane? It jumped and did flips and looked incredible in the process. Now the people who brought you that robot (Boston Dynamics) have released it into the wild. In this video, the next generation of the “Big Dog” robot is demonstrated and the advancements are unbelievable.
Check out the video at 0:35 for an insight into the future of robotics. The “dog” was able to instantly respond to someone who tried to kick it over and recovered flawlessly. Later in the video (1:20), the robot slips on ice and its life-like reaction put chills in me. The sound this machine makes is pretty annoying though. Check it out:
Just like Facebook, Myspace, and many other websites, YouTube has officially released a platform API. The new YouTube API allows for deep customization into websites. This strategic move takes one of Google’s most expensive acquisitions a step closer towards being the source for all Internet video. Here are some features of the API:
Create a web front end to let people view videos about specific topics.
Create a desktop application or plugin that plays videos in a customized environment.
Add related, dynamic video content to your website or application.
Customise the Flash player to fit the look and feel of your site, device or application.
Add feeds of videos from each of YouTube’s 18 international domains.
I’m split between two features for my favorite. The fact that you can sign in and upload videos to YouTube from any site is amazing. This was a brilliant move on their part. The other cool feature is full customization of YouTube’s player. We no longer have to look at the ugly chrome control panel.
There are still many things I have wanted to see from YouTube, specifically its player. The player itself is missing many key features that various other sites have implemented with no where near the resources of a Google company. Some of these features include: in-video tagging, higher quality video, and hover-over controls. These problems are minor and I am excited to see the creative apps that people make with the YouTube API.
