After some hesitation, I decided to install the Flock browser. Why Flock?

Ed Dale of the 30 Day Challenge has made Flock the official browser of the 30 Day Challenge. Last year the 30 DC used the Firefox browser. Last year because of the 30 DC I went from Internet Explorer to Firefox.

I grew to love Firefox, and if you have used Firefox you know it is much better than IE. So, moving from Firefox to Flock made me a little uneasy – but I have done it!

Flock is built on the same platform as Firefox so I was hoping all of my favorite Firefox features would be in Flock.

The Flock installation went well, and it tries to import all of your bookmarks, and history. It did that well, but I was hoping it would also import my Firefox customized toolbars and my Firefox extensions. It didn’t import my toolbars or Firefox extensions which was disappointing.

I had to go through and install my favorite extensions and toolbars into Flock. The good news is, it appears most of the Firefox extensions also work in Flock.

So what makes Flock different than Firefox? Flock calls itself the Social Web Browser, and it is! After watching the introductory videos, I was impressed with what you can easily do with Flock.

If you’re curious about Flock, you can watch the post install videos to get an idea of what Flock is all about.

http://www.flock.com/getting-started/1.2.1/en-US/

What I have found, so far, that is really great about Flock is how you can use it to monitor your Web 2.0 account. Flock integrates with some of the most popular Web 2.0 platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg and Del.icio.us.

Was your Web 2.0 service account is integrated with Flock, it allows you to easily check those accounts from you browser sidebar.

I am somewhat disappointed that Flock has not included FriendFeed, but hopefully they will add it soon.

One thing that really disappoints me about Flock, is that it doesn’t appear to have the Session Manager that Firefox had. The Firefox Session Manager was my favorite feature of Firefox.

After doing a Google search, there appears to be extensions for Flock that perform the same function as the Firefox session manager. It appears some have been having some problems with this extension, so I will wait on this and hope I can find a good session manager for Flock.

For the most part, I do like Flock. Firefox was starting to give me some problems. It seemed to periodically just start eating up memory and would go “out to lunch” sometimes. I would have to go into task manager and shut it down, or reboot to free up resources.

So far, Flock is using less memory and seems to function very well. For me, it seems to be more responsive than Firefox.

So Flock, give me a session manager and I will be the happiest of Flock users Until then, I will have to use both browsers.

I look forward to leaning more about what Flock can do in my Web 2.0 world. If you are interested in learning more about how Flock can help you, or learn more about the Web 2.0 world, I suggest you get signed up with the 30 Day Challenge.

If you are a beginning online marketer, you will love the 30 DC. If you already have a lot if IM experience, I guarantee you will learn some things you need to know. In any case the only thing it will cost you is time.

Plus, I want you to be part of my 30 DC team. I want to help you, or maybe you can help me

I don’t really care how much, or how little, internet marketing experience you have, since we all have unique gifts and talents we can bring into the team.

Just get signed up for the 30 DC here, and then let me know you want to be part of the team. So, here is what you need to do:

1. Sign Up for the 30 Day Challenge

2. Let me know you want to be part of the team by adding a comment to this post.

3. Get signed up with Twitter

4. Follow me on Twitter

5. Let me know if you need help by using my Helpdesk – be sure to choose the 30 Day Challenge department.

I look forward to working with you and getting to know you!

It’s almost time for the second year of the 30 Day Challenge

For those of you who haven’t experienced the phenomenon of the FREE 30 Day Challenge, let me give you a little history lesson.

A couple of Aussies, Ed Dale and Dan Raine, decided to put together a training course on how to make money from home using the internet. The idea was, they were going to give you training, ideas and tools to help you make a minimum of $10 in 30 days.

I don’t know how I ran into the 30 Day Challenge last year, but I decided to join. I had already had quite a bit of internet marketing experience prior the 30 DC, but their “challenge” was intriguing, so I joined.

The training was some of the best free training I have ever had online. Most of the training was done via podcasts and videos.

We were taken through the process of identifying and testing niches that might prove to be profitable. Their simple plan made the most sense of anything I had previously tried to identify niches. I still use their techniques almost a year later.

We were then taught how to create quality content (you must have quality content to succeed online), taught how to create free content sites, and taught how to get traffic to those sites for free.

Another highlight for me was learning more about social networking – web 2.0 stuff. Ed Dale of the 30 Day Challenge probably knows more about social networking that anyone else I know.

You may have heard of this web 2.0 tool called Twitter? If you haven’t heard of Twitter your internet marketing education is lacking, and you definitely need the 30 Day Challenge. Ed introduced us to Twitter almost a year ago, before it became the “talk of the town” that it is today.

The 30 Day Challenge exploded – I know Ed and Dan were blown away on how fast the 30 DC grew. In fact the explosive growth caused a few problems for 30 DC participants, like the Tumblr thing.

What’s even more amazing is that people are still joining the 30 DC, and going through the training program (It’s still online) almost a year later. And, I know Ed and Dale aren’t even promoting it.

The 30 Day Challenge became so popular because of the quality of training that was provided. No matter how much, or how little, internet experience people had going into the 30 DC, I’m sure most learned a great deal.

So, I’m getting ready for the next 30 Day Challenge. Pre-Season starts June 1st, and I want you to join us.

One thing that is really great about the 30 DC is you are encouraged to work in small teams. So, I want to put together a team, and help my team members as much as I can.

Ultimately, I would like to find a group of people who would like to form long term business relationships in the internet marketing arena.

I don’t really care how much, or how little, internet marketing experience you have, since we all have unique gifts and talents we can bring into the team.

Just get signed up for the 30 DC here, and then let me know you want to be part of the team. So, here is what you need to do:

1. Sign Up for the 30 Day Challenge

2. Let me know you want to be part of the team by adding a comment to this post.

3. Get signed up with Twitter

4. Follow me on Twitter

5. Let me know if you need help by using my Helpdesk – be sure to choose the 30 Day Challenge department.

I look forward to working with you and getting to know you!

Mike

Okay, okay I know – I quit updating this blog daily after day 14. I just got so focused on the writing articles, 30 day challenge type niche specific blogs that I have totally neglected this

But, I’m back and will update this blog more often – maybe not daily, but periodically.

Since it doesn’t make sense to try to catch up day by day, I am going to do a post 30 Day Challenge look back.

Overall the 30 DC was an incredible piece of internet marketing training, especially for free – thank you Ed and Dan.

Even though I have been involved with internet marketing for a while, I did learn some valuable lessons and the 30 DC concepts were solid.

Even though I didn’t make my $10, it was a very worth while experience.

The most important two things I learned were.
1. How to identify niches – Learn how to find niches, learn how to determine if there will be enough demand (traffic) for that niche and how to determine if there will be buyers within that niche.

2. Content is indeed king – I’m sure you’ve heard that before, and it is true. I have to admit that I’m still not writing as much content as I need to. Writing is not one of my favorite things to do, so I really struggle with writing daily. I need to push myself to write content daily.

Even though I was satisfied overall with the training, I was disappointed with a couple of things.
1. The Tu***** fiasco – I’m not going to name tu**** by name because they don’t deserve any traffic from me. That blog service worked very well in getting 30 DC pages high rankings in Google – I had a page that ranked 17 in Google after only 2 hours and 15 minutes. However, apparently there were some idiots who created terrible content sites, spamming links and getting us all kicked out of Tu****.

The people, whether they were 30 DCers or not, are the type of people that take a good thing and instead of using it responsibly, ruin it for everyone.

I also have to comment of the owner of the system – Marco. I have to believe that this guy is certainly no genius. I can understand him wanting to protect the integrity of his blog system, and deleting blogs that were clearly spam. But, he did a mass delete, deleting what could have been hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of blogs, alienating what could have been hundreds to thousands of new customers.

I wonder how many blogs he deleted that weren’t 30 DCers, losing more customers because of how short sighted he was. He could have handled this so much better. He could have deleted all the suspected blogs, and then let us contact him, asking him to review our blog to see if it could be turned back on. Yes, this would have taken some of his time, but in the long run he could have had some faithful long term customers.

Wow, what I would give to have hundreds to thousands of people coming to my web services, this is every internet marketers dream. Marco had a chance to work with us and probably make a lot of money in the long run. Instead, he shot himself in the foot due to his short sighted-ness.

2. We never learned what the “secret sauce” was – I don’t blame Ed and Dan for not sharing the special sauce with us, after all look what happened after they told us about Tu****. The 30 DC became too popular causing problems I’m sure Ed and Dan never envisioned. Revealing the secret sauce would be risky. The responsible marketers would have used it with caution and the greedy, short term thinking idiots would have over-used it and ruined it for everyone.

My Favorite 30 DC Services
One great bonus to the 30 DC was learning about free Web 2.0 related services. Here are my favorites:

1. Facebook – A great social networking service. Even though Myspace is THE social network, I was never interested in joining Myspace. I see Facebook as a community that is much more professional. It has a ton of great Add-ons for just about anything you could think of.

2. Twitter – A cool little tool that allows you to share interesting sites that you find with your followers, live. There are Twitter plugins for WordPress, Facebook, Joomla and a Twitter plugin that will work on any website.
Follow Me on Twitter!

3. Wordtracker GTrends Tool – Great for helping you find keywords, and determining if those keywords will generate enough traffic for your time.

4. Stumbleupon – A great Web 2.0 page/content ranking tool. Please use this service responsibly. Go ahead and use it to Stumble your own pages, with restraint, but be sure to Stumble other pages you like. Go ahead and add me as a Stumble friend.

In summary, I learned some new concepts, had some concepts re-enforced, and learned about some new tools that can be you be successful, when you use them responsibly.

Mike

30 Day Challenge – Day 14

Create another 3 mini articles per phrase.

Find some affiliate products to test the market. We’re going to send traffic from our articles to affiliate programs to see if people will buy. The point is not to make a lot of money, but the point is to see if people will buy a product in your market.

Eventually, you should have your own product.

Look for affiliate products at:
Clickbank Marketplace
Amazon – You should be able to find anything here but they pay very little.

30 Day Challenge Day 14

http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/members/day14

Got to go write,

Mike

30 Day Challenge – Day 13

Create 3 mini articles per phrase.

Start at Bloglines and look for interesting tidbits.

Make notes, or copy interesting info to Google Notes, or your favorite word processor.

Write the 3 articles in your own words. They don’t have to be perfect, or long. Write according to your own personality and try to have fun with it.

Get into the habit of doing this each day – this is really the “heavy lifting” of internet marketing. Later when you are making money, you can outsource it!

30 Day Challenge Day 13

http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/members/day13/

I’m off to getting caught up!

Mike

30 Day Challenge – Day 12

The Golden Nugget Method

Type phrase into Google – take top 10-20 sites and then make notes.
Anything that makes you go wow, or hum – that’s interesting – take note of it.

Join any mail lists on those sites.

You are filling your mind with knowledge about your phrase. As you do this your brain will start to subconsciously filter it and sort it. After taking a break, you will be able to come back and just flow in words.

Make active notes with Google notebook – read actively – make notes so your mind grabs it.

Read the Boron letter on http://thegaryhalbertletter.com

30 Day Challenge Day 12

http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/members/day12/

Okay, I’m off to do some reading,
Mike

30 Day Challenge – Day 10

Get your phrase decided upon. You may want to take two keyword phrases on different topics.

If you can only find keyword phrases that are 30-40 hits a day, you may need to go these keyword phrases, but you may need to work 4-5 times as hard to get to 200 visits a day.

Go to Google, input your keyword phrase and look for web 2.0 properties – like Squidoo, ezine articles, go articles. If there are Web 2.0 sites listed, you can still use the topic, but it may be more difficult.

Learn about your topic.

Go go Google and search on your keyword phrase with quotes, click on news. You may not find any documents. May need to be more general.

Add this feed to bloglines to be kept up to date on phrase news. Do the same for Google Blogs.

We are now in the “learn about your topic” stage.

30 Day Challenge Day 10

http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/members/day10/

We haven’t had any new lessons this weekend, and have been given time to get caught up.

I’m looking forward to day 11.

Until then,
Mike

30 Day Challenge – Day 9

The 30 Day Challenge Day 9 was a slower paced day. I think Dan wanted to give people a day to find new niche ideas and keyword phrases after many reported to the forum that none of their keyword phrases appeared to be any good.

Dale did have a warning about throwing away some of those ideas. Even though the ideas may not get a huge number of daily hits, some of those keywords may be productive enough to start with, and remember our goal – $10.

Dan spoke about numbers today, and stressed he likes to use worst case numbers.

The magic number is 200 – worst case numbers assuming a low conversion of 1 in 200.

Say we get 50 visits per day, and make a sale every 4 days. Assuming you’re selling an affiliate program that makes you over $10 per sale, you’ve met the challenge.

I may need to go back and look at a few of those phrases that I threw away.

Ed also gave some good tips on how and where to come up with new ideas.

30 Day Challenge Day 8

http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/members/day9/

Again, I’m a day behind on my blogging. I hope to be caught up by later today

Until next time,

Mike

This post should have been done yesterday, but yesterday’s information was so eye opening that I spent my time using this new information instead of updating this blog .

Yesterday we learned something very, very cool.

We started using Google Trends to determine how much actual traffic our ideas would be getting.

http://google.com/trends

Google Trends is nice, but there are no numbers on the graphs so you really don’t know for sure how much traffic your idea keyword would get.

Through the 30 Day Challenge we learned of a way to compare our keywords to a base keyword that has a consistent amount of searches each day. With knowing the base keyword daily traffic, we were able to compare our ideas to the base keyword on the graph. This gave us a much better idea of how much traffic our ideas would generate. This is great!

The only bad thing, is after putting all of my keywords through the tool I discovered that none of my idea keywords were any good! Even though Wordtracker showed at least 80 searches per day on each one of the them, the Google reality is that none of them would actually get more than 20-30 searches a day from Google.

So, I had to look for more ideas and keywords.

Many others in the 30 Day Challenge had to do the same. The forum was alive with people stating none of their keywords looked good. Some were discouraged. Not me!

I would like to know that my keywords will not work out before I put a lot of work into them. And, once I have find a winning keyword phrase, I know I can be confident that it will get enough traffic to be worth while.

I think I found a pretty good keyword phrase.

30 Day Challenge Day 8

An eye opening day for sure! Stay tuned for day 9.

It’s still not too late to get started on the Thirty Day Challenge, but hurry.

Mike

30 Day Challenge – Day 7

Moving from idea notice stage to idea judgement stage.

First, I have a quick video comment about this whole 30 day challenge.

Start with the one you feel in your gut is the right one.

This the competition stage.

Enter your idea words into WordTracker
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com

Note the number of searches. You want to further investigate words with daily searches at 80 or more.

Enter the plus 80 search phrases in broad match into Google. Look at the number of results.

Then try the exact match with quotes. Notice the number of total results.

Cool Trick:
Go to Google.com and click on the Preferences link next to the search bar.
Now scroll down to the Number of Results. Set this at 100.

Now do exact match searches (with quotes) from Google.
Now scroll down to bottom of page and click on the last number under the Goooogle at the bottom of the page. At the bottom of the page you will see something similar to this:

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 524 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

This number, in this case, 524 tells you how many websites have the same exact phrase you are searching for. The lower the number the better for you.

You are looking for keyword phrases of less than 25-35K Google exact matches with a fair amount of traffic, 80-100 searches on keywordtracker.

This is really good stuff, if you are not involved with the 30 Day Challenge yet, you need to get involved now. If you wait too much longer you will fall too far behind. Remember it’s FREE!!

Day 7 Training

Okay, I’m off to keyword/phrase/idea research.

Mike