The Get Rich Project

Changing DSL providers in the UK is a bit of a drawn out process. Once you’ve selected your new provider, you have to inform your existing provider so you can obtain a migration code (usually involving side-stepping many lame attempts to keep your business), give this code to your new provider, then usually wait a few weeks for it all to go through the system.

This is meant to be the “easy and open” system the regulators ensured would be in place. Rarely have I heard of the process going smoothly. Thankfully, until recently, I had yet to go through the ordeal. On Tuesday I was supposed to be switched to my new provider, only it didn’t happen. Calling on the Wednesday, I was told there was no record of my order, even though I had email saying otherwise. After much to-ing and fro-ing, on Friday it was all sorted out. I would get my DSL on Saturday.

Losing orders is a big business no-no. Even I know that, and I don’t run a business!

What they forgot to tell me though was my username and password (for some reason, it’s different to my control panel login on their site), so I couldn’t configure my router. After much battling with customer services, again, all was resolved.

So the moral of the story is: if you’re in the UK, find one good DSL company and stick with them.

John Chow is one of the more successful “probloggers” around. How successful? In April 2007, he took home $12,000 from his various monetization strategies. Obviously he knows what he’s doing.

So how kind of him to share what he knows, in the form of a free eBook?

‘Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com’, is a compendium of previous articles from John’s blog, with a little updating to bring older information up-to-date. Tapping into his blog archives like this demonstrates the power of a good blog – the content for a book is already there, it just needs to be reformatted. if you’ve been reading johnchow.com for a while now, you may well know all of the contents of the book already. Even so, having John’s articles collated into one easily portable format is quite handy.

Anyway, the eBook itself; it doesn’t quite have the professional appearance of the usual internet marketeer fare, which is part of the point, I guess. The purpose of the eBook is purely to act as a traffic generator for johnchow.com, not to upsell another product. The first few pages actually deal with this, and it’s refreshing to read something which isn’t acting as a giant sales brochure. The Jerk, John is not.

Obviously the book does still have a monetization plan. The plan is affiliate sales. It’s the chapters relating to this which I found most useful. At the very start, we are given a list of recommended money makers. While there were some of the usual suspects, I’ve now learned of a few new schemes to try out on the Get Rich Project, and how best to optimize their use.

Much of the book deals with growing a blog. While it is all good advice, a lot of it has been written before (and not just on johnchow.com), so it can get a little repetitive. However there are still snippets of gold hidden away in there, so it’s worth at least skimming each section.

All in all, the eBook serves best in one of two roles:

1. a quick catch-up, if you’re new to making money online
2. a “pocket reference” style book – you already know the stuff, you just need a little reminder now and then.

For the first time in quite some time, I get to announce the launch of something I’ve built!

Shortnd is a free link shortening/obfusication tool. In a nutshell, it turns a really long URL (like http://www.example.com/this/is/a/really-really-really/long/url.htm?and=its&even=got&some=extra-parameters) into a much shorter URL like http://shortnd.com/123.

Uses of this tool (from an internet marketing perspective) could include:

• hiding your affiliate links
• emailing the link of a download to a customer

As well the usual “making a URL easier to remember” use these types of tools have.

Not all of the planned features of Shortnd are in place yet, as the aim was to get the main service rolled out quickly and with as little complication as possible. Over the next few months I plan to add a number of really helpful features to the service. As new features are rolled out I will announce them here.

To me, Shortnd was simply about scratching a particular itch I’ve had for a while – build something useful, quickly, and release it. In all, Shortned was built in less than 18 hours (spread over the evenings of 2 weeks, as time allowed).

Shortnd is the first of a small number of web-based tools I have lined up. As always, watch this space!

Imagine for a moment your problogging/internet marketeering/entrepreneurship has been a runaway success. You’ve got more money than sense, you’re a major computer geek, and you’re looking for your next gadget purchase.

So what do you buy? iPod? Old hat. iPhone? Closer, but not quite “over the top” enough. How about one of these then: Optimus Maximus keyboard.

Nothing says “rich, successful, internet geek” like a $1500 keyboard!

Do you have a product or service you want the world to hear about? Do you want to start generating a bit of buzz for your next big thing? Then step right up, you’ve come to the right place! I’m accepting requests for reviews again.

Reviews currently cost $40, and requests are handled by Review Me. You an see the Review Me Marketplace entry here, though it is a bit out of date.

Please note that if you want me to review a product or service, I need to actually try the product out first, or I won’t be able to review it! This is the main reason why I stopped doing reviews before – I was being asked to review a service I had not (and usually could not try). I will not lie to my readers by saying I used something I had not. So yeah, if you have, for example, an eBook you want me to review, you’ll have to give me a copy first.

I look forward to hearing from you!