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Making Money on the Internet

by: Trina L.C. Schiller

By Trina L.C. Schiller

I've got my computer hooked up to the Internet, now let the money pour in! What a silly sounding thought, but one that many people take a great deal of stock in these days. It would seem that many, many people have the idea that all they have to do to generate an income from home is to get online, join this, that, or the other thing and PRESTO! Cha-ching!

However, more often than not, these people shut down their computers at night, having spent much more than they have earned. Why...?

This, 'spend more, make none,' syndrome is so very prevelant because people expect something for nothing, and in cyberspace, as in the real world, 0 + 0 = 0. The Internet does not guarantee business success. All it does is provide individuals with the opportunity to start a business with a much lower overhead than in the real world. If you've got no head for a brick and mortar business, chances are that you aren't going to be any more successful building a business online. The reality is that you cannot just join a program, hang out a shingle and expect the money to roll in. And it doesn't matter what program you join, or how many programs you join. Building and maintaining a business is a skill that must be learned.

Most of the gurus of today have been successful off line, prior to experiencing online glory. What they have done is to take their skills from the real world and apply them to the realm of the Internet. Therefore, if you have no off line skills to bring to the Internet, you'd better get some. There's a lot more competition out here.

Another cause for shutting down broke each day is that a great many people spend their time online, joining every program that sounds good. They spend all their money on monthly memberships to every program under the sun, and have nothing left over to actually run the business with.
TIP: When someone calls you asking about your business, you should never have to answer with, "Which one?"

Aside from the scope of retailing informational products, it is best to choose a business, a single company, and work it! It is perfectly fine to have a business portfolio, including a few different interests, but to belong to and pay into everything you can get your hands on is ridiculous. How can you possibly learn everything you should know about each business, and what possible help are you going to be to your associates? There are just not enough hours in the day to make it work. (Unless you have created a clone, in which case, we need to talk.)

For Example:
My own business portfolio resembles this:

TLC Promotions - www.tlcpromotions.net The parent company of all my business interests. My personal brand. The place you can go to find out all about what I do. Established - 2000
The Trii-Zine Ezine - www.ezines1.com The official RSS feed for TLC Promotions. First published - 2001
Lifetimebusiness.com - www.sugarant.lifetimebusiness.com The Internet marketing team that I promote Melaleuca with. This is my main home based business operation, the one that pays the bills... Promoted by TLC Promotions and The Trii-Zine Ezine. Established - 2001
AdsOnQ - www.ads-on-q.com The Internet's first syndicated advertising agency, which I co-created with several other brilliant people. Established - 2004
Quikonnex.com - www.quikonnex.com/193 The backbone (RSS feed source) of both the Trii-Zine Ezine and AdsOnQ. My perferred communications system.
Each business interest in my portfolio compliments all of the others in some way. This allows me to maintain a handle on all of them in a fluid fashion. I am an expert in each, and can provide the best support in them all.

If you spread yourself too thin, you are of no assistance to anyone within your businesses, including yourself. All you're doing is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and the only thing you ever manage to get accomplished is making sure your monthly membership fees are paid on time, complaining that your free advertising isn't bringing you any cash flow.

HELLO!

If this sounds like you, don't beat yourself up about it. (Hey, I was there. I found myself answering, "Which one?" The t-shirt says: Dah!...) Just cut away the deadwood and focus on what you know, or can easily learn. Start cancelling paid memberships to things rather than adding to your debt load. Don't go hacking away with wild abandon though; carefully evaluate everything you've gotten yourself into, and create a protfolio that you can actually work with.

You can make money on the Internet, but you have to be smart about it. Use what you know, learn what you don't and spend your money wisely. Talk to people. Find out what others know, but don't start jumping on bandwagons. Spend the time to research opportunities. You don't have to shutdown broke every day.

Butter spread too thin yields no flavor, only grease.

Copyright © 2005
The Trii-Zine Ezine
www.ezines1.com

About the author:
Trina L.C. Schiller is a professional network marketer, the publisher of the Internet marketing ezine, "Trii-Zine" and owner of TLC Promotions, as well as a founding publisher at Quikonnex.com, and President of AdsOnQ.com, the Internet's first syndicated advertising agency.
She has also authored the following ebooks:

"Your Beginner's Guide To Syndication"

RSS, Blogs and Syndication... The Facts vs The guruese"

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Tracking and Measuring RSS Feeds
by: S. Housley

Measuring and tracking RSS while a fairly simple concept, is really anything but. Unlike websites, RSS have the added caveat of potential syndication, making accurate tracking a challenge to anyone but the extremely tech savvy.

It is not unrealistic for marketers to want to know how many subscribers they have, which items in their feeds attract the most interest, or how many click-throughs are generated as a result of an RSS feed.

There are a number of 3rd party providers who focus on tracking the consumption of RSS feeds. Some solutions are rudimentary but likely sufficient for a small business testing the waters with RSS. Other RSS tracking solutions are more complex and while they can come close to being accurate, with syndication there is no solution that tracks with 100% accuracy.

Techniques Used to track RSS Consumption

Small businesses can view web logs to provide information on how many times a specific file (RSS feed) is requested. The logs and information is rudimentary but will give a basic sense of a feeds success. Many 3rd party tracking options have additional tracking information available.

Hosting

The most common method to track the number of feed accesses or individuals accessing a feed is to use a 3rd party feed host. Companies like FeedBurner essentially track feeds based on accesses. The downside to using a 3rd party like Feedburner, is that the url is a FeedBurner url and any PageRank or popularity associated with the url will benefit the feed host rather than the feed creator. Additionally, no distinction is made between unique views or syndicate feeds.

FeedBurner provides a free no frills service to host RSS feeds and they have been proactive in circumventing user concerns. Recently implementing a service that eases users concerns about migrating from FeedBurner. There is a 3 step process for users interested in migrating from FeedBurner's free service, implementing a permanent redirect, and url forwarding.

Details can be found at: http://www.burningdoorc.om/feedburner/archives/001251.html

Some publishers, who were concerned about lock-in or wanted to retain control of the domain and feed urls often resist a hosting service. The new program FeedBurner Partner Pro is not free, but allows for users to point to their own domain, retaining complete control of their feeds without sacrificing statistical tracking.

The downside to using a service like FeedBurner is that some filtering applications used on corporate proxy servers block feeds residing on FeedBurner or other free hosts.

Redirects

Companies like SyndicateIQ have more complex tracking solutions that generate unique urls for each subscriber. The tracking benefits to such a customized solution is obvious. Individual user habits can be monitored and any users abusing their access and inappropriately syndicating a feeds content can have their feed turned off. The downside of course is that the success of RSS is in a large part due to the anonymity. Users don't want their personal habits tracked.

Considering the venture capital interest in these 3rd party hosting services. It is important to note that their value is in the data that they collect. As with any 3rd party service, it goes without saying that publishers should read the privacy policy carefully, be aware of who owns the rights to the collected information, and how that information might be used. It goes without saying that the value in many of the free services currently available lies in their aggregate data.

Uniquely Named Transparent Images

Uniquely named transparent 1x1 graphics can be added to the description field of an RSS feed. Users can use standard web logs to see the number of times the image is viewed and determine the number of times the feed was accessed.

Companies Specializing in Tracking and RSS Metrics

Pheedo - Pheedo creates tools that enable individuals, organizations and corporations to promote, analyze, and optimize their weblogs and content.

http://www.pheedo.com

SyndicateIQ - SyndicateIQ's position in the content distribution chain provides clients a set of analytics.

http://www.syndicateiq.com/

FeedBurner - FeedBurner offers a full range of services to help you build awareness, track circulation, and implement revenue-generating programs in your feed(s).

http://www.feedburner.com

Each individual using RSS needs to make a decision of the extent and importance of the analytics they require. Realizing that any system they employ is not going to be perfect.

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