Today I am not feeling too great, but that’s okay. We are all settled from Vegas and everything. It was pretty fun and exhausting. I found out we are BINGO addicts. Going out to the casino again tomorrow to play (in San Diego). Come join me at Sycuan!

If this is your first Comment Friday we give one lucky person a free weekly blogroll spot as our “blog of the week“. Along with that we are also giving that winner 200 entrecard credits.

This week I was wondering if you have ever tried using Sitehoppin? What are your opinions on it? Would you try using the new toolbar?

What is the latest trend of online business? Online business try to earn money by offering web traffic which equals potential money and charging money in return for services or virtual credits which are usually worthless.

In the blogosphere itself, we have witnessed the success of Entrecard, the ineffective challenge from Spott to dislodge the king from its throne. Now SiteHoppin is posing a serious threat to Entrecard’s authority.

Can SiteHoppin pose a serious challenge to Entrecard?

SiteHoppin can be considered Entrecard on steroids. Theoretically speaking, SiteHoppin can bring as much traffic to sites as Entrecard but it also offers many other mind numbing features.

SiteHoppin’s credit is named Beer Credits and they are almost like Entrecard credits, they can be used to bring traffic to your own sites or be sold for money. There are several ways to earn Beer Credits such as commenting, site submission, click through to SiteHoppin from the widget on your blogs and visiting other blogs in Browser-within-Browser mode. You can also earn Beer Credits while you sleep - you just have to put your computer on auto surf Slide show Mode to let the Browser-within-Browser keep on loading member sites.

SiteHoppin’s internet domination plan does not stop there. It also includes StumbleUpon’s capabilities where users can discover and submit new sites, rate them, tag them and discuss them. This feature becomes more convenient in the recently released beta SiteHoppin FireFox Toolbar. The toolbar is highly similar to that of StumbleUpon’s and simplifies the task of hopping from one site to another. The toolbar is a real stroke of genius from ZedoMax.

As if SiteHoppin is not attractive enough with the above mentioned features, it also comes equipped with money making model from One Buck Wiki. SiteHoppin is powered by MediaWiki, and as such wiki pages for certain keywords like “make money online” can be bought on the site. Those paid Wiki pages are named Beer Stocks and people who purchase them can customize their Wiki pages and can expect to get a portion of SiteHoppin’s total traffic and also a two-tier Beer Stocks affiliate earnings. The value of Beer Stocks is not constant and will depend on factors like total SiteHoppin web traffics, amount of visits an individual Beer Stock page received and the age of the Beer Stock itself (much like valuation for a domain).

What to look out for in the near future?

Recently, there has been many unsatisfied Entrecard users because of the new advertisement pricing system and the new rule that allows user(s) from an IP address to drop maximum 600 entrecards per day.

As for SiteHoppin, I am pretty sure it will be much more popular once the Firefox Toolbar is ready for public release. Besides, with ZedoMax’s experience and influence in other projects such as Wagg It, One Buck Wiki and Five Buck Wiki, there seems to be unlimited growth opportunity for SiteHoppin.

It will be interesting to note how SiteHoppin will stand in comparison with Entrecard in 3 months or 6 months’ time.

Want to try out SiteHoppin Firefox toolbar? Visit Blogger Focus.

I come across a myriad of money making options everyday.  Many are the usual - PPC networks, mlm scams and a new banner network seems to pop up everyday.  But a few do interest me and here are a couple of alternative monetization tools I have found:

Ziddu - I don’t know if these guys were the first but I like em.  Basically Ziddu is a file sharing site similar to RapidShare, which gives you free file hosting.  But Ziddu actually pays you everytime someone downloads a file.  So if you’ve got a popular file, think about uploading it to Ziddu next time.

LinkBucks - Once again, these guys weren’t first in there field but…LinkBucks pays you everytime someone leaves your site.  Basically they chuck an intermission ad in between your site and the destination.  Yes it could be annoying but it could also work quite well on some sites.  I had lots of success chucking the ad code on a popular forum I own.

AdCamo - This one is yet to launch (or relaunch) yet the concept is great.  Basically they turn the background on your site into one big ad!  Sounds silly?  Yes, but CollegeHumor.com has been doing this very successfully for a while.  Stay tuned for this one.

Make sure you follow me on Twitter guys - its were I give away free GoDaddy.com Gift Cards and Domains!

I’ve been successful in getting a few refunds online as of late. The more that you shop and use services online the more you need to watch that everything is what you expect. There are several ways on how to get a refund online.

Tell Them What You Want

Writing an angry email and simply stating you didn’t like their service etc, won’t do much. However, tell them how they can make it right. A free coupon try use them again or something else. You may be surprised.

Be Persistent

You may have to constantly email or call to get what you want. Several times I emailed stating what I wanted and they said there was nothing they could do. A few emails more I ended up with what I wanted (a refund for shipping).

Talk to a Manager

Sometimes there is nothing the person you are talking to can do. They only have the authority to do so much and that often doesn’t include refunds. Of course they won’t offer to put you through to a manager, so you have to do so yourself.

Blog About It

There is blogging power, use it. Companies actually do google themselves and may take a look into your post. The post I wrote about Neverblueads ranks on page 1 for the term Neverblueads. It is negative and lists everything that I felt they owed me. They contacted me and it was resolved.

Lie A Little

You might have to lie a little to get what you want. They lied to you right? It’s sort of an eye for an eye, but it may work. I told DHL several things about my shipping and how I wouldn’t use them, or my company. However they guaranteed next day delivery and I didn’t get it.

But Be Fair…

This has to be the biggest rule in trying to get a refund. If you felt shorted on the shipping and want a refund, thats what you are going to get. You can’t ask for more than what you lost or didn’t get. Maybe something free or discounted for the next time, but after that it’s hard to get more value for whatever you are trying to get a refund for. If you lost 10$ on a transaction, don’t ask for $100. It’s just not going to happen.

I was very excited about my week of contests. I had originally planned for doing 7 separate days of contests. However, only the first day got enough entries to be worthwhile (22). The other two days ended with 0 and 2.

Why My Contests Didn’t Work

Well it was obvious that this format didn’t work. Doing 7 separate days is a little difficult unless the prizes are awesome (multiple) and the entry is easy.

As I mentioned the entry to the contest has to be easy. Enough people decided to subscribe to our RSS feed for the T-shirts, but no one wanted to join Copeac for $100. Even though the prize was $100, it didn’t draw enough people to decide to enter.

The last reason has to be the time. The contest time wasn’t long enough to get sufficient entries. I did promote it, a little late, but that shouldn’t of mattered.

Contests are becoming increasingly more difficult to successfully conduct, due to the large volume of bloggers holding contests. Why join yours, when there are 100’s of others going on?

Why Your Contest Didn’t Work

Your contest probably didn’t work for any of the reasons that I wrote which are:

• Bad contest format
• Not enough prizes
• Entry wasn’t easy enough
• Too short or too long
• No promotion

When used right contests can be a great promotional tool. We are planning a big writing project for next month with great prizes to follow. It’s blog themed so there is something for everyone.

We are a little late publishing our contest round-up, but no one was here to make it go live! BAYB’s contests are over, but there are many more interesting blog contests to join.

A 4GB iPod Nano

Let’s try to win a 4GB iPod nano with EveryCall.us. Every Call is a useful website that helps you find who is calling your phone. You only have to write a blog post mentioning EveryCall.us with a link to EveryCall.us and a minimum of 150+ words. Then send an email to contest [at] everycall.us with your full name and a link to your blog post. Two winners will be randomly selected.
Ends on May 30th.

$150 Cash

Great blog contest from Wagg with a nice cash giveaway. Rules are very simple: subscribe to their RSS feed, make a post about this contest on your blog (using anchor text “Wagg.it contest”) and then leave a comment on the contest post with your URL. Winner number 1 will get $150 plus 1 month ad spot on the site. There will be a total of 20 winners and other cool prizes including entrecard credits, blog reviews and free advertising.
Ends on May 19th.

$50 Cash

Win free cash from Bali Dream Home and Bonoriau. To celebrate their 1st year of blogging they are giving away 3 prizes: $25, $15 and $10. Write a blog post about this contest (200 words minimum) including the two provided banners and you are in. It’s open worldwide, but the post must be written in English.
Ends on June 30th.

If you’re looking for blog contests, if you want to promote your own competition, don’t forget to visit About Blog Contests!

We are heading to Las Vegas! What a long week it’s been. Our contests haven’t gotten the response I was hoping for. Make sure to enter for the $100 giftcard!

If this is your first Comment Friday we give one lucky person a free weekly blogroll spot as our “blog of the week“. Along with that we are also giving that winner 200 entrecard credits.

This week I was wondering about contests. Have you ever sponsored a contest? If so what was the end result? Good enough to do it again?

Ok, so your blog is coming along nicely. You have some good quality content, a fairly steady stream of visitors and you are even making a little dosh here and there. And now you’re looking to reach out to new readers and grow your audience. So you decide to purchase some advertising.

Trying to find the right advertising for your blog can be a minefield, but lucky for you I have pretty tried out the majority of common advertising concepts for you…and here they are.

Adwords - Google’s contextual advertising platform, Adwords is extremely popular and often a starting point for many new advertisers. It works great for selling stuff - but not so good for blogs. In my experience, it didn’t deliver quality click-throughs, and most of the visitors left as quickly as they came. If you are looking at this option definitely look at the site targeting feature.

Sponsored Posts - I have bought both sponsored posts directly from blog owners and with networks such as PayPerPost. Sponsored posts can often drive a lot of targeted visitors to your blog but only if you do your homework and find the right blogs. My tip, if you find a site through say PayPerPost, contact the blogger directly. They often will be happy to give you a discount if you don’t go through the network thus avoiding the large commissions PPP takes.

Text Links - Minimal traffic but could be good for SEO. But be a douche and spam the net with the same anchor text - ever wondered why John Chow doesn’t rank in Google? TextLinkAds always have discount coupons available and they shouldn’t be hard to find. Remember Text Links really isn’t all that good for traffic.

Banners - These can waste a lot of time and money! 90% of bloggers overcharge for banner advertising and from my experience (I have purchase banners on over 200 blogs), 90% aren’t worth it. My tip, try Project Wonderful, they have an automated system which is cheap! But if you have the cash, banners on the big blogs are often very well priced and deliver good click-throughs.

Traffic - no, no, no, no, no! You know the ones im talking about. The sites that sell “guaranteed” visitors, often in lots of 1000+. Even though they claim these are targeted visitors - there not! As soon as they come they go! Don’t be tempted to go the easy option. I tested it out in my early days and know just how much it can fail!

Have I missed anything? Chances are, if I have its probably obscure and not worth the time or money. What do you use?

Ok so it looks pretty bleak. All the advertising methods I have listed seem to have faults. I’m not saying they don’t work - I still spend lots on advertising, yet be careful and spend your dollars very wisely. My number referrer on my blogs is Google. I don’t use SEO tricks, I don’t place backlinks and I don’t submit my sites to directories - yet I rank in the top 10 for many popular keywords. My big tip - content!

Want more? Then follow me on Twitter and hit me up with your questions!