Recently, I went to Amazon to buy a couple of books.  And I got myself a John Chow book, and thought I should give a review about this man whom I have followed secretly without him knowing it since 2007 (this is when I learn about making money online via his blog).

First impression of the book

Reading this book is like a refresher for me today.  Previously, I learnt a lot from him when he released his free ebook of making money online, though I admitted that I have not followed through thoroughly myself.  This book is a very much more refined, and straight to the point of how he makes money online.  It’s like a summary of what he has been preaching in his blog.  But I would rather you buy this book to read it because I am still learning a lot from him.

And as usual, John Chow is always making things easy to understand in his book (just like his blog).  I seriously believe that this is the secret formula to success because he is able to communicate his make-money-online ideas well to his blog community.

How I thought of positioning myself as an Internet reviewer

My experience with reading this book is that it not only refreshes my mind and experience trying out my own blog back in 2007, I also remembered how I positioned myself as an Internet reviewer (all thanks to his idea of “reviewing websites” since then).  I applied quite a couple of things that he had done back then, and only when I read through again, I can truly understand his every marketing strategy taught in his blog.

It seems to be more relevant to the experienced bloggers

I think the weakness of this book is that it is so straightforward in telling you how to make money online, that I believe some of the beginners may never understand the whole process until they have gone through themselves.  Hence, it seems to me that it is more relevant to the bloggers who had been trying to make money online for at least a year… And as for the beginners, you better follow through and get the understanding along the way (though you might understand theoretically how it works).

Awakening Charles Lau dot Com

As you can see, the blog frequency is not very consistent over here.  Though I hate to tell you my excuses, I had actually prioritize my time on other things than my own blog.  In fact, I have been working on other websites except for this blog.

I am going to use this John Chow book as a guide for myself to revamp my blog, and to give my blog a ramp…

Where to get this book?

I got this book myself from Amazon.  This is an affiliated link which is highly recommended by me.  Check it out for yourself!

It sounds really confusing to the end-users because there IS A DIFFERENCE between “you like a page” and “you like a link”.

If you like a page, you are allowing the information to flow into your news feed and thus letting your friends know about a page that you like as and when the page is updated.  But if you like a friend’s link, it will not flow your friend’s information into your news feed.

While I may not even be interpreting the things correctly myself, I am probably be confused myself actually.  But for your benefits, please read this Facebook link to find out what “like” means.

I seriously think that Facebook needs to rethink about using the word “Like” because it only makes people confused.  There’s no real objective of changing it away from “Do you want to be a fan of this page?”  Don’t you think so?

There are many ways we can do to promote our products and services in the web community.  I purposely wrote it as “web community” instead of social media because I want to focus on the websites as a whole, instead of talking about social media particularly.

The whole idea of a website is really about building a community of your own, where people are interested in what you are talking about, and to participate wherever they can.  Whether you are the founder or a participant in the website, the whole idea is to get yourself engage with the community.

Owning your own website

Of course, you will own the community if that website belongs to you.  Or in another way, you can build a Facebook page so as to build your own community as well.  However, the whole process of building a web community is very tedious and unpredictable.  You won’t know if you are going to win the community’s heart or not.

Participating in a website

It is ok to be a participant, rather than the founder.  In fact, you can leverage on the community which is already working well.  Furthermore, there are many ways to participate in a community.  It is not necessary that you have to participate by being a participant.  You can also participate as a sponsor!  As a sponsor, the website will give you enough exposure to be associated with their website and to get yourself started almost immediately.

Participating while owning your own website

It is not true that when you are a participant or a sponsor, you will not be able to own your own website.  Please remember that there is a very big reason why it is called “web”… That’s because the sites are all inter-connected!

Because of the personal touch that a website can give over other types of offline media, there are many ways why the websites are much easier to get your audience engaged with cross-selling, up-selling, down-selling or side-selling contents.

Conclusion

So long as you get yourself connected on the websites, the community that you can bring along with you is really priceless… and they will always be with you because your name is going to be engraved in the Internet forever…

Photo credit: The Firm PR

It became dawn to me that someone is really looking into rejecting traffic from Google which is giving us most of the traffic (in general) today.  When I saw this piece of news about News Corp’s contents to be removed from Google, something just triggers me about the flip side of Google traffic.

What happen?

In that article, Rupert Murdoch maintains that the traffic that comes in from Google is generally consumer market who is looking for products to buy.  It is of no value to the news website who wishes to attract people who likes to read news articles.  It probably will not work for media industry as they are in the paid industry rather than free.  Moreover, Google is giving them really good traffic (it’s like 100k clicks per minute.

Call for decentralization of news

Looking at his perspective, I can understand his reasoning and I really respect him for being so far-sighted about the whole Internet game.  And to be really effective about this whole thing, every paid media industry must play along the same game so as to sustain their businesses online.  It will not be effective and may harm his business if he were to do it alone only.

Original idea of centralization of news

Then, I was thinking from Google’s point of view about this matter.  Google has built up a news platform where we can get news alert and to know the latest news from various sources.  It is probably the perfect platform for any journalist and avid reader who wants to keep up to date about the news in the world.

It seems to me that there has been a lot of struggle of the news to be shown on Google News.  That’s because some piece of news have to be paid, and yet a short clippings of the news are shown on the Google News.  It really frustrates me when I can’t read the whole piece of news when I click into the website because I have to subscribe before reading it! (whether it is free or paid)

Conclusion

I really like the idea of news centralization where I can save a lot of time reading the same topic at one time from different news sources.  It is such a pity that News Corp has such a decision which may or may not cause the rest to follow suit.  No matter what, it’s still a business decision to be made which is always for the good of the big picture.

Photo credit: drew

Here’s a quick post which you may be interested.

After tweeting for a while, I find that web design news are pretty sexy because there are a lot of very nice web designs to appreciate and to learn from.  If you have notice my tweets, a lot of them are related to web design too.  It brought me to my attention some of the best web designers in the world (in my opinion!) and to follow them on twitter!

Introducing WordTaps

I wish to highlight this particular website called WordTaps.com.  It is basically a place to gather all the information about a certain topic (in this case, it’s web design and web development).  Over here, it utilizes the twitter power to share with the world on the latest updates.

It is simply an ingenious idea that this person behind WordTaps has done.  I only know him/her through her twitter account @WordTaps.  As I was heavily retweeting a lot of interesting web design topics, @WordTaps was drawn to my attention as I sat aside to notice the website further.

Any similar competitors?

I can still remember the usual Digg.com where we can digg interesting news (but that’s too much information overload with other irrelevant topics), and Delicious.com where we can bookmark some of the interesting websites around.  So far as I know, WordTaps is the only site that provides similar infrastructure like Digg or Delicious (but they are using twitter and tweetmeme in this case).

Niche websites are always the way to go where they can leverage on what has already been popular on the website.  I am actually not very surprised for WordTaps to be born… But I am also appreciative for this website to be up so that I can leverage on it further!

Beneficial for my twitter followers

I believe WordTaps is a pretty new website, and it is already enjoying good visitorship around.  I was also attracted to it myself as it is also helping me to build even more web related information to my twitter followers.  When I click on “Retweet”, it basically triggers Tweetmeme to assist in the retweeting for WordTaps.

Ok, enough of my thoughts about WordTaps.  Take a look yourself at WordTaps and find out if it suits your taste.

Photo Credit: renmeleon

I don’t know if any of you are trying to find out where you can retweet your tweets on schedule.  I have been looking for such a tool desperately actually.  That’s because I have a lot of great tweets to retweet about.  For all of you who have been following me on twitter, you will see me massively flooding your inbox with my retweets.  They are useful tweets actually.  They should be helpful to you if you are interested in them.  If not, you should not follow me because I must have sent you unwanted tweets all along.

Recently, I was introduced by @tommytrc to this twitter program called TweetMiner (affiliate link).  I think it could be an interesting program to review about, hence I decided to write about it in my blog here since Twitter is one of my everyday tools that I use to communicate.

What is TweetMiner?

TweetMiner is not only a program which allows you to retweet on schedule, it also allows you to do much more.  But this retweet schedule is the one that caught my attention when I use it myself.

I am not really sure what this program really is until I give it a try myself.  Take a look at the screenshot below.  (By the way, don’t you think my tweeps are simply giving me too much great tweets to retweet?)

It basically has two types of interface for you to choose.

• You can either use it directly on the website
• Or you can download the Adobe Air application and run it off your operating system.

Once I see all the tweets I am interested to retweet, I can either set a certain date for my retweet to appear in my timeline, or I can even set it to the rolling schedule.  Rolling schedule simply means that I can set the retweets to appear every other minutes (e.g. every 30 minutes? 60 minutes? and so on..)

What’s the advantage of scheduling your retweets?

There are several advantages to this.  Let me do a quick explanation on the advantages.

1. It allows me to retweet all my favorite tweets as much as I can without flooding my followers’ inbox.
2. It also allows me to nurture my followers as I am giving them great information on a more consistent basis.
3. It also allows me to be lazy on the days when I am working on my other things.

If any of you are also using this TweetMiner, do let me know of your opinions too!

It has been a while since I have last blogged.  This recently, I have been talking to 3 groups of people about 3 respective Internet business startups.  I was amazed that they don’t know a lot of things which have been so obvious on the Internet today.  One is going to sell apparels online, another is thinking of bringing his insurance business online, and another is a webware which I am working out.  As I spoke to them about the three online businesses (on three different days), it is interesting to note that the kind of information which I have taken for granted, turned out to be valuable to the three of them.

Last two days ago, I have received an email from my good online pal – Dan Schawbel – that he is going to launch his next issue of Personal Branding Magazine.  Dan is someone who has been very consistent with his work as a personal branding expert.

In his latest issue (issue 10), he has interviewed my favorite singer MC Hammer when I was very young.  It is interesting to find out that MC Hammer has become a Web 2.0 enthusiast (after being a singer in the past) with millions of Twitter followers!  And he shared in this magazine his thoughts of how a person can use the social media to reinvent himself!

I have written for Dan’s magazine before when he first started this magazine.  And I must say that he has improved a lot in his magazine layout over the years.  It is very easy to read on my LCD monitor since it is distributed digitally.  It is very straightforward, and it gives me what I want to read to equip myself with my own personal branding.

I have no affiliation with Dan, except that I admire his enthusiasm to share with the world about the topic of Personal Branding.  But if you are looking for consistent articles to feed your brain how you can brand yourself especially in the social media, this magazine is definitely for you!  Go get it!  By the way, 50% of the proceeds will go to American Cancer Society.

Get yourself a copy of Personal Branding Magazine Today

This article is affiliated with Winners’ Circle, while Charles has purchased at $27 to be a member of this circle too.

Recently, I have reviewed a free ebook at Carl Ocab’s blog known as “The Ultimate Checklist of 500+ Proven Internet Marketing Strategies“.  After reading that book myself, I am totally convinced of the knowledge and experience that Gyutae Park has with him.  He has spent 9 years creating websites for himself and working for big companies such as Nokia, The Northern Trust Company, and the Bradford Group.  And he has done quite a lot of consulting job with several people for the website.

Today, he has already launched a new subscription website called The Winners’ Circle.  I have subscribed to his membership myself, and I got myself at the discounted rate of $27 per month for early birds.  After which, he will be keeping it at $47 per month.

I would think that spending $27 to find out more about how the experts think, and how the anaylsis works is really worth it.  Moreover, we get to have a free bonus of finding a niche for ourselves, plus access to his community to communicate with like-minded people.  The return-on-investment can be potentially high, but that’s only if you know how to monetize opportunity.

I don’t think I will re-write any of his sales pitch on my blog.  Just go to his website and find out about his offers yourself.

If you are really serious to make it big online, then it’s time you check out the Winners Circle.

This recommendation post has no affiliation with all the books I have just purchased myself.

This recently my favorite blogger, Problogger, (his actual name is Darren Rowse) has launched an interesting ebook which I think will be beneficial to all  of you who are starting out on your blog adventure.  This book is called “31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook“.  In fact, this ebook came along with some of the books I have just bought through SitePoint today!  If you are also interested to get the bundled price like I do, it’s at this link https://sitepoint.com/bookstore/go/159/423e21/

In fact, Darren has previously launched a published book called “Problogger Book” and it was my favorite reference to build a better blog.   But I have yet to implement a lot of his ideas because of my other dedications taking up most of my time.

Actually, just by the look of what Darren has done to his Problogger  blog, you will know he is no ordinary blogger who teaches us about blogging.   In fact, I have  subscribed to his other blog (it’s a photography blog) which provides really cool tips and tricks to keep me entertained.

This new ebook launched by Problogger is a day-by-day demonstration of what you should do to improve your blog.

I have not started reading this book yet but just by a glance at the ebook, I can see how much things I will be absorbing from my Problogger in the days to come.  Darren can write really good contents and with SitePoint’s expertise to arrange the book, it makes the whole ebook reading really easy!  I can simply go Full Screen with this PDF f ile and it is showing me in the landscape format instead of the usual portrait format.

Hope you guys like this ebook, and do let me know if you have purchased it yourself too.

By the way, I am really excited with the two SitePoint books I have bought as well…  The first book is the recently launched “Online Marketing Inside Out” which talks about PR, page views, SEO, Social Media, Email marketing and Affiliate Marketing.  And the second book is something technical which I have been wanting to lay my hands on.   It’s “Ruby on Rails” which I heard rumors that Twitter is built with this language.  Something really excites me to try it out other than just PHP.

So here are the two links you may like:

Problogger’s 30 Day workbook at $19.95

Online Marketing Inside Out book as well as Problogger’s workbook at $29.95

Sometimes, the most difficult social websites in the world seem to be easy to understand. It takes a little while for us to understand how Facebook work.  It takes us a little while to understand how WordPress works.  So are Digg, Delicious, Friendster, and even Gmail, Hotmail, and so on.

Twitter is something that is so simple, that the normal people will not even understand why a person want to tweet.  And why they want to tweet.  Long time ago, there are friends who ask why there is a need to blog… Why would you want to tell the world what you are doing… And in the end, some of the greatest websites out there are using blog!

So what is twitter?

Twitter is a small little blog for you to post 140 characters.  You can’t really write a lot of things at one shot.  Only a short sentence telling people what you are doing.

Does Twitter really matter?

For those who don’t use Twitter, they will think it is a waste of time.  Why would you want to tell the world what you are doing with your dog?  While there are a lot of people out there who really tweet a lot of messages which seem to be wasting time, they must think again why people are using it…

It’s really not easy to understand until you use it for quite a while yourself.

So what are you doing?

This phrase “What are you doing” doesn’t have to mean what you are doing literally.  We get to see different places adopting the same kind of “What are you doing” such as Facebook and Tumblr.

“What are you doing” can be about any of the following:

• twittering (broadcasting) promotional messages to your followers.
• twittering (logging) the status of your health, your plant, your grades, your height, your weight, your sleeping habits and so on.
• twittering (announcing) your new blog post to your followers.
• twittering (reporting) the happenings that everybody is concern about.
• twittering (socialbookmarking) the great URLs out there who catches it.
• twittering (greeting) to the whole world a very good morning instantly!
• twittering (rumbling) about who should be the latest American Idol.
• twittering (chatting) with your followers about what you have been doing and asking them too.
• twittering (interviewing) with a celebrity online where everybody can sit and listen to the interview, while giving their comments and questions which may or may not be answered.
• twittering (question) the world why is it like that? How is it like that? When is it like that?  It’s like an instant search engine with a personalized answer!
• twittering (telling) the world what you are really doing right now (which is kind of boring to listen to as your followers)

What’s next after telling the world?  Search it!

You will want to hear the valuable information that the world has to tell you about.  You can instantly do a search of the twitter messages to find out what the world is talking about with your selected keywords.

Search is a very powerful tool on twitter.  It may even be taking the place of Google search engine because Twitter messages contain both human voices as well as website links which are relevant to your search.  The web results that come up is determined by human beings, and it is searching based on the latest trends.

Extendable Twitter!

And with so many 3rd party websites out there making use of Twitter API (stands for “Application Programming Interface”), you stand to gain a lot as a twitter user.  Have a good look at what twitter apps are out there.

With the extended applications, you will be able to turn those twitter messages around the world into a goldmine.  A place where you can do a lot of research and finding out for your industry.

What else do you want from Twitter?

Twitter is really just a simple application where it logs our messages at 140 characters.  Though this cap may limit the way how Twitter can expand, it also helps to keep Twitter simple to use and understand the messages.  There have already been too much information out there, all we want is really a short and sweet message to read about.

So to all newbie out there, do you still understand what Twitter is?