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How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

blog.cubeofm.com

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Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#101

Post by thibaut_barrere »

aw3c2 wrote: post #89
thibaut_barrere wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those I know revolve around affiliation, alternate search engines, porn/erotic stuff, niche technological forums and such topics :) Not by him but in the same kind of idea, here's an example: http://fastpowertools.com/ A while back I know the owner of this site did a few hundreds $ per month. It was really an eye-opener to me :) Of course this requires SEO skills to earn more than a few bucks, that need to be learn o…

That site looks like a shady search engine spam site. I could never earn money like that and feel good about myself.

Well, it's a fun experiment per se - but for one it's hard to really get past the few bucks stage here.

I do understand what you say, that said. My overall feeling is that these kind of sites are not really "changing the world", if I dare.

So now I'm trying to solve real issues I have. It's more fun for me!

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#102

Post by awolf »

aw3c2 wrote: post #88
awolf wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that these are the types of projects that you don't support at all. I've got a few of these on my back-burner right now... $50-$100 /month, 0 effort.

care to tell us what kind of projects those are?

iPhone apps. 2 of 3 of them use the standard free+ads, paid+features model. The other, my most successful, is strictly paid at $1.99.

They were a lot of work up front and some have required minimal maintenance- but supporting them hasn't even taken up even 2% of my coding time in the past year.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#103

Post by maxklein »

jacquesm wrote: post #96
maxklein wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if you're going to try to get into adsense or adwords at this point in time you are really behind the curve. The game has moved on - offer something people want. Use your hobby or pick something you can research and offer good info. For example, I suddenly need to know a lot about tax because with my sudden increase in income I don't know what to do. I would easily pay $50 for a tax-for-dummies who make above $1…

There's a contradiction in there somewhere. The reason I said maintenance is important is because the game is 'moving on' all the time. So, whatever you make today that will make you your $1/day will not continue to do so for a long time. You'll be in a new ratrace, but one of your own making. The one where you will have to replace old stuff with new stuff fast enough to make up for the churn. The $50 tax-for-dummies…

The game is moving, but since your target is so low at $1, you can let your projects not be cutting edge, so long they are meeting their target.

You need to design your projects right and since you know you don't have time to waste, you need to design in an ever-green manner. Don't do things that will flame for a month and burn out - maintainance every 6 months should be the aim.

For asthmatics for example, we need to track lung capacity (there is something you get given that gives you this info when you blow in), and we need to keep track of the spray so it does not finish. Additionally, there are certain excercise one should do to improve lung capacity (like running). If I made such a simple tracker as a start (daily vs capacity), I could start selling this quickly.

I could then use the same tracker as a weight tracker. Or study tracker. Stuff like that. So the new projects are just offshoots of the original project.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#104

Post by jacquesm »

sabat wrote: post #43
maxklein wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to make $1 a day, go search for a keyword. Like Owls. Then find a bunch of videos of owls in YouTube, put them on the site and call the site OwlVideo.com. In a week you will be making $1 a day. Or if you prefer to program for the desktop - go wrap ffmpeg and make an AVI to MP4 converter. Def make $30 in sales in a month. Or if you prefer to program for the web, make something that parses Apples XML of new…

they don't really create value Maybe they do -- it depends on who's judging. To use Max's example, let's say I am casually interested in owls. Seriously, there are such people. I'm 60, I am on the internet but am somewhat uneasy with how to use it, and I like owls. Somehow, I find Max's owl video site. I like it! Maybe I even see an ad and click and buy. Maybe. But to me, finding the site and being entertained by his…

Classic long-tail fallacy in there though, 'build it and they will come' is a bad strategy on the high end, on the far end it's much harder still.

I do think there will be 300 youtube aggregated owl sites by tomorrow 9 am though.

Best to diversify and do one on whooping cranes instead.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#105

Post by bpick »

maxklein wrote: post #38
sabat wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Max is proposing that it isn't that difficult for a programmer to find a way to make $1/day. Max -- care to elucidate?

If you want to make $1 a day, go search for a keyword. Like Owls. Then find a bunch of videos of owls in YouTube, put them on the site and call the site OwlVideo.com. In a week you will be making $1 a day. Or if you prefer to program for the desktop - go wrap ffmpeg and make an AVI to MP4 converter. Def make $30 in sales in a month. Or if you prefer to program for the web, make something that parses Apples XML of new…

Damn! Someone already owns Owlvideos.com - I thought it was my ticket to the big time :)

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#106

Post by jacquesm »

maxklein wrote: post #103
jacquesm wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a contradiction in there somewhere. The reason I said maintenance is important is because the game is 'moving on' all the time. So, whatever you make today that will make you your $1/day will not continue to do so for a long time. You'll be in a new ratrace, but one of your own making. The one where you will have to replace old stuff with new stuff fast enough to make up for the churn. The $50 tax-for-dummies…

The game is moving, but since your target is so low at $1, you can let your projects not be cutting edge, so long they are meeting their target. You need to design your projects right and since you know you don't have time to waste, you need to design in an ever-green manner. Don't do things that will flame for a month and burn out - maintainance every 6 months should be the aim. For asthmatics for example, we need t…

As they say, there's an app for that:

http://www.iphonefootprint.com/2008/09/health-information-tr...

I can't find a web version of it off hand, so let's say it doesn't exist yet and you are now going to build it to prove this method works ?

You'd have to keep track of your time to calculate your hourly wage, that would be an interesting experiment.

I'm really curious how that will work out.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#107

Post by mattmaroon »

This article is silly, and just wrong in every way. It totally discounts time spent doing these projects, and totally fails to understand expected value. For instance:

"I wrote a desktop software once, and priced it at $29.90. I sold one copy a month, which was terrible. That's $1 a day. It's really easy as a programmer to do something that makes $1 a day."

I suppose if that desktop software took an hour to make it would be worth it in a few months. More likely it took an amount of time that would better have been spent (from a purely financial perspective) working at Wal-Mart and then investing the funds in an ETF. To make $1 a day ($365/yr) takes only around $4k (what a good programmer earns in Also even if you assumed every project would net $1 per day, you'd still be better off thinking big. A hit Facebook app, for instance, might make $10,000 a day. (A megahit 10x that.) A good keyword to arbitrage via an affiliate account and AdSense could do the same.

You're far better off taking a 1% shot at $10k/day than a 100% shot at $1. (You're far better off taking a .1% shot.) You might say "well what about variance" but apparently you have the time to create 400 products.

Also, Twitter followers have done little of real value for anyone in terms of making a business profitable. On the list of ways to get customers to your web-based business, Twitter's still pretty far down the chain.

A far better plan would be to try to create one product that makes $1 per person you drive to it. This is doable. Then you can buy users for far less with ads, roll your profits into more ads, rinse, repeat. This is how people like me who rarely if ever use Twitter have made oodles from the web. (I've done this now multiple times, for reference.)

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#108

Post by nostrademons »

zaidf wrote: post #93
maxklein wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if you're going to try to get into adsense or adwords at this point in time you are really behind the curve. The game has moved on - offer something people want. Use your hobby or pick something you can research and offer good info. For example, I suddenly need to know a lot about tax because with my sudden increase in income I don't know what to do. I would easily pay $50 for a tax-for-dummies who make above $1…

So how are you monetizing if not via adsense?

I would imagine that he's selling information, i.e. they type in a credit card number or click a PayPal link on his website, and he sends them a PDF or .doc containing some information that is relevant to them.

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#109

Post by Psyonic »

acon wrote: post #67

This sort of reminds me of the old pottery story, where they had one group making which was graded on how many pots they made and another one which was only graded on their best pot. Of course the group which was graded on quantity made better pots in the end. I really think that by iterating really quickly you will become good faster than if you try to make the perfect thing right away. So don't be paralyzed by tryi…

Sounds like the proverb taught to GO beginners: "Lose Your First 100 Games As Quickly As Possible"

Re: How to become rich even if nobody is following you on Twitter

#110

Post by coryrc »

jfornear wrote: post #81
maxklein wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reasons I write now is to grow my popularity, so that one day I will have enough reach to be able to build something big and grand and people will actually notice.

Why do you have to have reach in order to build something big and grand? Your reach has no bearing on the quality of your product! The idea is to build something so great that others will talk favorably about it regardless of what you say.

Except for projects that require a large userbase before it is useful (auctions, dating sites, etc). Then, a large following can be the jumpstart you need.
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