Charles Lau

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?

Recently, I have been looking for  magazines which are relevant to my industry.  In the end, I found Web Designer magazine.  They are very pro towards WordPress, and they adapt to use WordPress in their official website.

I got to know this magazine in a magazine stall.  They have a good range of magazines that I don’t really get to see them in most of the bookstores in Singapore.  Most of the magazines that I have seen are either Photoshop, Cameras, PC, Cars, Women, Sports, Fashion, and so on.  Very seldom will I see any Internet or website related magazines out there.

When I see this magazine, I was so happy that I bought it even though it cost me $23.90.

Here’s a photo of myself with the magazines.  I will have lots of great time reading through this one magazine.  They talk about the web design firms doing their projects, tutorials, and others.

Then, I went ahead to go to their website to find out how to order a few backdated magazines.  Found Microblogging, and a digital archive of many past issues.  I got all of them and even subscribe for their 1 year issue.

When the magazines arrive at my house, I was really excited to see an overloading information coming to me once again!  Now, I have to clear them one by one.  Nothing can really replace the wealth of knowledge to be learnt from them!

Let me read through some of them and I see if I have the time to review one of them in my blog posts!

Here’s a video of myself when I first open up the magazine!

This is an affiliated product which I have bought myself, and would like to recommend to my readers to go for it!

My favorite author – Brian Tracy – is going to give a live teleseminar this coming Wednesday 27 May 2009, at 10AM Pacific.

What is this teleseminar about?

This teleseminar is called “How to Become a Published Author — Teleseminar“.  He’s going to teach you how you can get your book to best-seller status using his tools, tips and  techniques.  Previously, hundreds have tuned in to hear his seminar on “how to write a book”.  And I have bought that as well, and find it really useful for my upcoming book that I am still writing right now.

About Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy has published 70 books in 36 languages in 52 countries with more than 50 publishers.  He is going to spill his secrets in this teleseminar!

And I am proud to tell you that I have bought many of his books.  They are pretty easy to read, and I may sometimes reference them again and again just to make sure I am right on track.  He focuses his book writings a lot on sales, motivation and business.  It’s like an instant guide for me to check whenever I need to.

What and how you will learn?

This is an one hour teleseminar over the phone, where you will learn how to:

1. select a title that grabs attention
2. write a book that publishers want
3. find a literary agent to represent you
4. create a book proposal that elicits offers
5. get the highest advance payment possible
6. and much more!

How much does it cost?

Sorry to say that this is not free.  But you will get over $497 worth of programs:

• One-hour live call and Q&A with Brian Tracy – $99 Value
• Rick Frishman’s Author 101 University (14-CD set)  - $299 Value
• The Unbreakable Laws of Self-Confidence (DVD set) – $90 Value
• How to Write a Book (74 min MP3) – $19.95 Value
• How to Write a Book Notes (8 page PDF) – $19.95 Value
• Negotiate the Best Deal (73 min MP3) – $19.95 Value
• How to become a Published Author (MP3 and notes) – $40 Value

I have purchased this package myself too, and I think you should as well!  I may not be able to attend his teleseminar though because of the time difference.  To listen to his teleseminar, I have to stay late at 1am, just to listen  to it.  He does provide an MP3 version of it which I may just wait for it.

• You can either take up  the live call with the programs at $149. (Saving 70%).
• Or, you can just go for the phone-only teleseminar at $49 (Saving 51%).

Brian Tracy is always so confident that he is offering 100% money-back guarantee with no question asked.

Register now and Learn How to Get Your Book Published Today!

I have been an avid fan of Google Chrome.  They have saved me a lot of problems when my flash crashed on me because it is only contained within that browser, while retaining all the rest.  It may also show a “unhappy” face of all the affected flash while allowing me to continue surfing.  My computer has a certain problem with flash when it simply crashes on whichever browser I used.  No, I still can’t find the root of the problem and my last resort of re-installation doesn’t help either.

Getting the new Google Chrome version

When Google informed us of this new release of Google Chrome, I was really excited to have my Google Chrome updated.  I simply click on

Settings => About Google Chrome => Update

And for those of you who don’t have Google Chrome, you can download it at google.com/chrome.

What are the new features?

Full Screen Mode: I just find it weird that the Google Chrome has no “Full Screen” mode as it has been natural that every browser should have such a feature.  This new feature has “Full Screen” mode finally!  However, I just find it still quite at an infant stage because I cannot switch between my tabs easily.  Luckily, I can still use shortcut keys “Ctrl-Tab” to switch between the tabs.  This tab switching isn’t a big issue because I can still perform it with shortcuts.  I can also use “Ctrl-T” to create new tabs to surf on.  However, I cannot use shortcut keys “Ctrl-L” to enter the URL address or “Ctrl-K” to do a search.

Form Autofill: I have always thought this is also another feature that every browser should have today.  Why is it that it only happens today.  However, thanks for having this feature! It’s definitely welcoming.

Bug fixes:  In their video (which you are going to see below), they have fixed 300 bugs.  Thanks for focusing on making the browser faster and faster!  Hopefully, this new version is very much matured to be crash-free and even better than ever!

This article is a review of the website InSing.com,

When I open up my mobile phone, I see my service provider – SingTel.  They have been a reliable service provider for my mobile phone as I am using their Broadband on Mobile plan, and some mobile phone plan for my calling usage.  I have with them for years.

Today, I get to see SingTel having a subsidiary to start a new website business called InSing.com.

My first impression

My first impression is  that it is a one-stop service for everybody, where we can do our shopping, looking for food and drinks, checking for news, looking for entertainment, and even to look for business.  Sorry if I got any of the value-added services wrong, because it simply tries to cramp everything together.  It looks like one of the dot com business plans found in 1997 during the Internet bubble burst.

Let’s have a quick look at their sitemap.  They are basically trying to cover anything and everything on earth!  From news in Singapore, to Asia and Europe, talking about sports, health, lifestyle, entertainment, business, and any others.  From food in restaurants, to streets and pubs.  From music to celebrity gossip and asian entertainment.  From shopping in fashion, home & hobbies to electronics and gadgets.  From events to performing arts, body & wellness and reading.  They even have business and service finder.

Looks like a magazine with many faces

Seriously speaking, this website is very likely trying to behave like a magazine of many themes.  Is this a lifestyle magazine?  Or it’s a food magazine? 

Taking a good look at their about us page, this website is aiming to educate the visitors to be in the know of everything that is happening in Singapore with them. It means that they will go out there to scout for all  sorts of information for you to know.  That means they have a lot of work to do to keep this online magazine busy.  I really wonder how many people they have in the team to work on this gigantic ambitious project… and whether their online banner ad spaces are going to help them to break even or not.

Having a website with many different types of information, you will not attract very highly targeted traffic.  Most likely not for people to come back again for more… And I have a strong feeling that the team behind is quite new to the web business industry.

The web interface

This reminds me of this picture below.

Every “unique” content is trying to catch the attention of the visitors by being in the red color!  However, it turns out that there is only one outstanding color here!

The contents on the main landing page is so crowded with unique contents that I really don’t know where to click to begin with!  Everybody is trying to be unique here!  My thought is that there should only have one outstanding content, as too many outstanding contents will end up like the above picture with too many red balls.  Especially when the contents are attracting very different markets.

There is simply an overflow of information on the main landing page.  (Another example, take a good look at www.google.com and www.yahoo.com.  I would prefer to see only 1 search bar, than to see so many other disturbing unique contents!)

Untargeted traffic for the web

I have a strong feeling that this website’s incoming traffic has to be sustained by the expensive offline advertisements which are highly untargeted and not-so-effective.  After a spike on the traffic with expensive offline advertisments, the next step that InSing should do is to work on the retention of the first-time visitors to come back for more.  But I have a strong feeling that they are  using the traditional method of giving discounts and promotions to sustain them, instead of focusing on their contents.

Missing Web 2.0 tools

I can only see 5-star rating tool.  Where have the rest gone to?  Things such as digg, delicious, stumbleupon, facebook, twitter, blog and RSS are really important in retaining visitors.  They will help a lot in the attraction of new visitors from around the world, and will also allow enthusiasts to subscribe to the RSS feeds for consistent information without having to ask them back.

Our website today is not about asking them to come back or not.  The focus should be to build a list of targeted community whom we can always market to them with contents, products and services!

Conclusion

Not that this website will fail or not, it really needs a little fine-tuning on the web contents and its traffic generation strategy.  On the web, content is king.  Content is the one that is going to convert the visitors into returning visitors.  On the web,  all of us have been bombarded with overloading information.   How many of us will really bother to go back for more information except when we need them?  The focus of streetdirectory.com is more of a demand basis, which is essential for our personal and work purpose.  The focus of facebook.com is more of an entertainment, a soon-to-replace-email-usage-between-friends place that we will just go back to look for new messages every time we are online.

One suggestion is to categorise them into different sub-domains to focus on different niches.  A good example will be HowStuffWorks where they attempt to teach how stuff works in almost anything and everything!

Good luck! I will be really interested to find out how this project will evolve…

Photo credit: dvgphoto

I have started several kinds of website projects.  I tried working on my first website back in 1997 with a good childhood friend of mine.  All I needed to do is to sign up with Geocities and get my website up and running.  Later in 1998, we realize that domain names are so easily accessible.  All I did was to ask my sister to use her credit card to purchase my first domain!  That was when I had my first web hosting plan which is hosted by a company in United States.

I do realized that website has its potential to tell the world who you are, and it was really cool to have our very own homepage about ourselves.  Every website that I have created, whether it is a collaborative effort or not, seems to have its own personality which starts to surface through its design and copywriting.

Below are two examples of what I mean

When you create a website which contains all your products, the focus of this site will be more on your company rather than its products.  But when you pick one of your products and create a website out of it, the focus will be about your product more than your company.  The focus about your company will not be as strong, and I think that is very good for new product launches.

Another example will be the rising sales letters that we see out there.  It has been true and tested that sales letters have created many millionaires out there.  When a person chanced upon a sales letter, the only function that the sales letter does is to convince the visitor to buy.  It sure does turn off some of the visitors who don’t like hard selling.  But with a little pre-selling information out there about this product, the pre-sold visitors will then buy their products almost immediately because they know that they are going to benefit from it.

Don’t create too many focuses on a single website

I don’t believe a website can achieve so many things at one go.  If there is, there must have been a lot of planning and testing till it really works.  One-stop website sounds easy to create, but it is actually very much harder to maintain and to keep the visitors remember what you have to offer unless you have absolute exclusive on it.  And I personally believe that only companies who have deep pockets will be able to create a website with so many focuses because they will have so many sections to work on which requires a lot of manpower behind!

Conclusion

So, whatever website that you do, do remember what you want to achieve out of it.  That’s because your visitor will be equally as confused of what you want them to do when you have too many things on your website that you wish to tell them about!

Oh by the way, Geocities is closing this year.

Photo credit: Kashif Khawaja

I have been facing information overload for many years.   It’s frustrating to find out that I have valuable information which are deeply buried inside my folders in my hard disk.  3 years ago, I have purchased a portable 300GB hard disk just to store a lot of my information which I believe I have only utilize 20% of what I have.

I don’t know if you have faced the same problem as myself.   I just find it frustrating when I want to get certain information and it is not there for me.  And when I forgot about this piece of information, I really hope it will surface when I need such information.  You know?  Sometimes, we really don’t know what we don’t know…

In search of the best way of organizing my information and files

I tried all sorts of ways.

• I made the usual way of organizing my folders (just like what most of you do).  
• I also tried to use the PostIt notes to organize my information.  In the end, both are just getting more and more messy with my information and files.
• I tried having one Microsoft Word file, and index all my information properly.  In the end, I don’t open that file.
• I tried putting in all  my to-do list in TXT file.  In the end, it is also not opened.
• I tried to use iGoogle desktop to organize my information.  But it is just not as robust as I needed it to be.

I need a better way!

Wiki is the way to go!

I believe there are still many of you who don’t know the meaning of Wiki.  I’ll just put in a video of leelefever’s Explanations in Plain English to explain Wiki to you here.

Ok, I don’t need anybody to edit my information.  All I need is just a place for me to edit my own things.

Ok here are the things that I need for my information organization:

1. One-stop place to access my information and files.
2. Easy to use.
3. They are stored in my portable hard disk so that I can start using  it with any computer.
4. I don’t need to store them on the Internet because of security issue, and the files can be really big when I need them.
5. It allows versioning of my files and information so that I can revert to my old version whenever I need to.
6. And when I delete them, it allows me to “undelete” instantly!

The Wiki Solution

Ok here’s the exact solution I have used.

1. I installed Mowes on my portable hard disk.
2. I installed MediaWiki (The exact software used by Wikipedia).
3. I did some configurations such as configuring the file size upload, the allowable file extension, file grabbing through URL, and many others).
4. I’m done!

Next, this is what I do with it at the very initial stage:

1. I plug in my portable hard drive via the USB port.
2. I run the Mowes software.
3. I open up my Internet browser, and go to “http://localhost/wiki”
4. Immediately, I have my Wiki up and running!
5. I put in all my information that I need.
6. I upload my files and organize them in a meaningful way.

Usage

1. Now, I will update my Wiki whenever I need to.
2. I can access all my files and information more efficiently.
3. I will click the link in my wiki to open a certain Powerpoint file, and edit it.  When I am done, I will upload a new version of it.  So, I have kept different versions of my work!
4. I used Wiki to help me download certain files that I need in the background, while working.

Conclusion

Ok, I think this blog post is getting really lengthy.  I am going to stop here now.  Basically,  I have a portable Wiki in my hard disk that I can use.  In fact, I also installed WordPress in it as well just for the fun of it.

I personally find that Wiki is the best way to organize my information and all my files. 

What’s the weakness?  Definitely there is… So far as I know, Mowes is basically suitable for Windows only.  Hence, Mac and Linux users may not be able to enjoy them.  And there is also difficulty in accessing the files directly if you need to because they are in the Wiki’s own way of indexing the files.

A good website structure is able to cater as many different groups of people as possible.  There are different parts of the website which are only visible to the visitors only if they are looking out for them.

1) Social Bookmarking tools

Every little part of the website means something to someone out there.  When we browse a website, those of you who are frequent users of social bookmarking tools such as Digg, Delicious or StumbleUpon, will tend to identify those logos easily on the web.  And somehow, these logos will be a blindspot for the rest of us.

2) Advertisements

It goes the same to the ad banners on the website.  Those who simply don’t click on the ads, will not be able to see the ads even if it is placed in front of him or her!  And those who appreciate ads, will tend to see what that advertiser has to offer.  I can still r

3) RSS Feeds

Those who like to subscribe to feeds,  will tend to look for the feed logos and click on them.  This is because they want to read more about it in a single place such as Google Reader.

4) Breadcrumbs

If you are familiar with the little arrows in navigation path that you have been surfing (such as below),

Websites > Web Designs > HTML/CSS

you will usually appreciate to see them so that you know where you are currently surfing just in case you wish to surf other areas of the website.

5) Teasers

Teaser campaigns may come in as and when.  It usually happens to websites which are very much more active online.  They may sometimes come with prizes.  They may come with surprises.  It could be tied up with a new product launch.  Or probably just want to keep you entertained so as to come back for more.

6) Home Page Logo linked back to main landing page

Though simple to create,  this logo is usually linked to the homepage.  It is good for SEO purpose when every single page are  ”casting their votes” by  linking to their main landing page.  Hence, this main landing page is the single most important page.  It should have the most number of clicks on the website.

7) Login Textbox/Sign Off button

Web 2.0 has settled down on the Internet.  Some may even say there is such thing as Web 3.0.  Basically, it means the website is getting more interactive to the user and encourages user responses.  And logging into the system is one of the common ways that the website wants the visitor to do before they can interact with the website.