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No Photoshop was used on this image... hahaha

I have tried many little projects of which few have made good returns monetarily.  But I have learned from each one of these failed projects and hopefully I have refined the formula.  This time around I'll stop trying so hard to do things that now I know don't work and focus on being myself.

The goals for this blog:
Share my thoughts on products, software, and other witty tech stuff.

I think this is a decent and easy enough "mission statement".  ;-)

The following has a compilation of my observations through a few years of blogging and chronic internet use.

Things I have learned through blogging/internet:

• Google is the new Gate Keeper
• They can make you, or eliminate you from existence.
• They are the king of text, images, and video.
• If you are an internet user you work for Google (you buy, sell, and consume advertisements).
• Whether you like it or not.
• What blogs are
• Websites that provide information about a single or multiple topics.
• Generally have advertisements and their purpose is to create enough money to continue the blog's life.
• Some famous sites repost content from someone else (like Gizmodo does).  It can be worth doing, but end up with tons of repeated "crap".
• Creating original content is much harder than re-posting, and isn't as "fast".  It may seem that a blog with that approach will take a lot more for it to "make it".
• We all like "compilation" sites like digg, reddit, popurls, engadget.  A pile of quick information that unless automated or ran by volunteers/paid dudes will create day to day suicide thinking (or at least very bad headaches).  A single person doing that would probably not last (I tried on several now failed projects)
• Problems are the key
• If there were no problems we would eliminate most things we "must" do.
• Find problems in forums, comments, or any place possible.
• The No. 1 thing found in tech company forums are people bitching about problems.
• Come up with solutions and make the post/article that solves it.  Usually companies want you to do this stuff for "free" at their forums, but that is pure charity that will never gain you anything in life other than a "thanks".
• Most of the time it's not about what we want, it's about what other people want.
• Don't ever fully solve a problem (evil tactic)
• If you were "fit" do you need the gym?  No.  If you owned a gym you should give people coupons for "healthy" food that now needs to get burned at the gym. 
• If the iPad is the perfect tablet then why is there an iPad 2?  Because the iPad 2 is "better".   The iPad 3 will be "the laptop destroyer and solution to all of humanities problems".
• By solving a problem completely you may end a revenue stream.  The key to continued income streams is to create dependency/constant need/slavery.  Basically a subscription based system where the user always has to give $ to get product.  (like Netflix, and medical prescriptions)
• Dramatic/strong impression stuff always gets inside people's brains.
• Is your favorite music, tv show, or book "plain" and boring?  probably not.
• Everyone knows "someone" that made a long lasting impression. (ie celebrities, and yes youtube ones count).  They own a piece of your brain from now on (think Rebecca Black's - Friday, or that Rick Astley guy with the Rick Roll'd pranks).  You should also own a piece of someone else's brain.
• Give and you will always get back.  Although sometimes that takes a lot of time.
• Dominate Engines With Your Content
• 1st place always has the advantage
• I was among the first to post about the iPod Nano 6G "for running" and therefore ranked high.  (google results).  Did I "deserve" it?  probably not.  But I took it.
• Great post titles will be better for SEO purposes.  If you don't take it someone will.
• Don't just do a text based review.  There are plenty of people around the world doing this.  Sometimes smart programmers can auto generate or copy reviews.  I would recommend going for a combination of text, images, and video.
• Video and images allow you to dominate less populated search engines (think bing images, and video search)
• Monopoly of information is easier than competing.
• If there are 1,000 reviews of system X how many chances are there that people will find your review?  Extremely low.
• If there's 1 video about system X what are the chances of people finding that video?  Very high. (example youtube)
• The more "exclusive" the content the more value it has.  This is why doing reviews for already popular devices is wasting time and effort.  the reason Engadget and Gizmodo do well is because of the amount of exclusivity for that initial amount of time.
• If you have something that no one else Google will find you, and when it does then everyone searching for this will come to your blog/site.
• Your content doesn't have to be "the best".
• There's no such thing as best or perfection.  You can make things seem that way through the right techniques (for some reason models from Maxim magazine come to mind ).
• If you are first then you only need to be "good enough".
• If you are entering a cluttered market then you really have to deliver higher quality, which consumes more time and effort from you.
• The business of Youtube is won by volume count.
• Emotional videos are the most effective in creating repeated views.  Most emotional videos may be stupid, and therefore of low "real" value.  However, money in adsense does not discriminate things that benefit the mind from those that burn brain cells.
• Your DNA
• You are who you are and it's better that way.
• You should still try to learn and become better, don't be lazy.
• Speak what truly is in your mind because it saves you from having to remember a fake story.
• What you like is not what someone else might like.  It's good to be honest right from the start to avoid conflict.  People will like you or hate you, but we can always appreciate knowing exactly what's in someone's mind.
• You always suck at first.  The quicker you fail and learn the faster you will become "good".
• Improving/real changes is usually a long process.
• There's always another day tomorrow.
• If today sucked, always be positive about tomorrow.
• Finding your "passion" can be tough as hell, it's better to find things that you "enjoy" and work on that.  (sorry Gary Vaynerchuk)
• Take breaks
• Everyone gets tired of doing something that requires day to day repetition.
• For your sanity it's good to unplug and recharge your motivation batteries.
• Selling stuff
• If you are trying to sell stuff you are better off making a dedicated website for it and calling yourself a salesman.  It is extremely hard to be honest and sell a bad product, so make sure you sell good stuff!
• If you get stuff for "free" it's hard to point the bad things about a product/thing in fear of saying something that guarantees that company X won't send you more products.
• Yes I have Amazon affiliate and Google adsense advertisements on this website.  I feel that if the blog has something of value and someone wants to return the favor they can buy things through the links and give me a commission.  The electronics on the site aren't usually free so I spend money to get things, test them, and share my thoughts.
• Embarrassing You
• Everyone has something that causes us to feel embarrassed.
• Doing things we are not "proud of" or that society thinks is not "correct behavior" creates the feeling of being embarrassed.
• Getting over your insecurities frees you from your "self given slavery" and allows your true potential to come out.  (Similar to how Neo gets super powers in The Matrix, hahaha)
• It's easy to critique others.
• Once you critique you can also be critiqued.  Be smart about it, your future job employer might be reading what you have said about them.
• Creating "stuff" is hard, talking about other people's "stuff" is easy.  What's easy usually has very little value.
• Feedback
• Ignore haters
• Haters hate and they never listen.  Don't waste your time replying (ie don't add gasoline to a wild fire).
• Do take comments that can improve you.
• Always take suggestions.
• We all have shortcomings, critics are one way of improving your shortfalls.
• It's always about what others want, be the one that provides the info.
• They can give you ideas on what to do next.
• Give credit
• If you grab someone's idea please don't steal it all.  Someone will do the same with you. They will grab your content and repost it somewhere else.  Don't be paranoid about it, that's just life.
• Answer back to every comment and email.
• It sucks to be ignored and you wouldn't want that for yourself either.
• Think about the hot girl that never gave you clear answers.  At least you can appreciate a yes/no answer and be done with it.
• Caring is something that is great virtue.
• Everyone loves to feel important and acknowledged.
• Ignoring someone gives you the same results back, you will now be the ignored.
• Everyone has problems and at times life just sucks.  But there's always someone out there that cares, be that person.
• Heaven points = winning!

I'm not a millionaire blogger, and I don't care about that. Don't get me wrong on this one, I would love to have all the richness of the world (who wouldn't?).  While I'm always on a limited budget I share and help on what I can.

There are a few billion people in this world, everyone has something to offer, I'm just doing it through the internet.  Hopefully you can find something of value within the contents of the blog; a tiny world created by me.

If you are looking for a "quick get rich method" check my post titled "Automatic 'free' Internet Money - 'Social' Apps and Websites"  Enjoy!