So typically common and so typical of a compete lie.  Most business don’t give a crap about your business with them unless your in the to 20% of their biggest spending clients.  So why do we see these garbage lies tagged on almost every corporate site?

Because everybody else does it so that must mean I should do it too! WRONG!

The best business are leaders and innovators and what you won’t see them doing is copying what others do. Instead be creative and make yourself stand out from the crowd.

P.S. I’m on holidays… which is how I found time to write this blog post.. see you again soon.

I’ve only been blogging at SpinDigg for a couple of months and I’ve hit the Dip. Yes I’ll admit it, as much as I would like to blog more regularly, my appetite for working on multiple projects has affected my blogging here.  I’m a person who likes variety and working with different projects keeps it exciting and interesting.

One thing I would like to do is write software. How cool would it be to say you have your very own application that you created and hundreds or even millions of people use around the world. I’m a bit of an Apple advocate and really love some of the software developed for Apple. I think that is so great and get inspiration from software developers like Panic.  With that in mind I thought I’d start my own site that supports Apple software developers called Apple Mac Apps.

I decided to setup that Apple Mac Apps using Drupal as the CMS. I could have saved myself alot of headaches and stuck with a CMS I had already worked with but I love the challenge of learning something new. This way I can learn how to effectively use Drupal as a CMS, learn how to create Drupal themes and modules and learn about Apple software development.  The idea behind the site is to help Apple developers promote their apps for free and also to create a free resource for Mac users to find the best Apple software applications.

Want me to blog more often?  Leave a comment telling me what you have found interesting at SpinDigg and what you want to hear more about. Till next time…

So the reason I’m blogging about this is because most open source systems are pretty awesome regardless of which one you choose. I recently found the 2007 Open Source CMS Awards website and had a look at their results. The overall winner was Drupal which only had a small number of results on the Pro Blogger Poll.

2007 Overall Open Source Content Management System Award:
1. Drupal
2. Joomla!
3. CMS Made Simple

Most Promising Open Source Content Management System:
1. MODx
2. TYPOlight, dotCMS

Best PHP Open Source Content Management System:
1. Joomla!
2. Drupal
3. e107

Best Other Open Source Content Management System:
1. mojoPortal
2. Plone
3. Silva

Best Open Source Social Networking Content Management System:
1. WordPress
2. Drupal, Elgg

I always like to have a look at how other CMS platforms work so if I need to put a site together I can choose the best platform for my needs. So far I’ve used Wordpress and Textpattern but lately I’ve given Drupal a try. I haven’t done that much with Drupal yet other than a standard install and getting familiar with the interface but my initial thoughts are that it looks quite promising.

I have used Textpattern for a site I am currently working on for a client and I have found that Textpattern is really clean and I like the way you can easily write xhtml code directly in your blog posts or mix it up with Textile. You can also get plugins for Textpattern but there aren’t as many as you will find for Wordpress. With Textpattern you’ll also miss out on those need Wordpress widgets which are really neat. I’m currently working on a site using Drupal so I’ll post once I have had enough exposure to make post my thoughts.

Here is my activity for the last 30 days according to the blogrush dashboard which seems to be pretty accurate.

Traffic to my SpinDigg has increased in November up 200 unique visitors compared to October. The blog has earned $6.50 since I started which is almost embarrasing but I guess it couldn’t get much worse.

Blogging consistently isn’t easy, so you have to envy those who have made enough money to become a full time blogger.

You would think that any store would be jumping up and down to grab that money from you as quickly as they could, but some stores don’t care. At least two stores I went to, had sales people just look and walk past me even though I was holding a game in my hand, making sure I got eye contact and obviously wanted some help. When I am going to spend almost $1000 with a business then they better give me some customer service or I’ll take my money to someone who will, and that is exactly what I did. I went to a different store and handed over the money right away. It was an easy sell for them. I would rather spend money with someone who is willing to show they care even if they don’t.

So then I started thinking about this concept and how it relates to internet marketing. How much effort do I put into my online marketing? One area that I know I need to improve on is my attention to detail. This is because I try to do too many things at a time and end up rushing them. All this leads to a poor experience whether it is my blog or sites that I am building up for affiliate sales. Because I sometimes rush I end up making errors like typos or not effectively conveying my message.

People want to think you care about them. If they believe you care, then you do even if you don’t. Show them you care and they are likely to respond favorably. Create a poor user experience and you are going to lose that person just like the businesses  I walked out of with my cold hard cash.

Now I’m sure John has a good reason for telling the world Apple sucks but I have to disagree. I am writing this post proudly on my 24″ iMac which I think is the best computer I have owned and it is my second iMac.  John is right however that Apple ads are cool which is why Yahoo has had Steve Jobs talking to them about innovation and vision so they can  better challenge the goliath Google.

I don’t want to turn this into a Apple vs Microsoft vs Linux because that is just stupid. What I will say however is that for me, the Apple computer is better than any other computer I have owned hands down! I have been using computers for 20+ years including Apples and PC’s in desktops and laptops, running Windows, Tiger/Leopard and even different versions of Linux and Apples latest computers are as good or better than all of them.

I wanted to address a few of the points raised in the reader comments on Johns post about Apple sucks.

IMO mac is complete Rubbish, even when you compare software that suppose be so easy to use on mac its way behind, flash is one example. anyway windows is far from perfect but mac is waaaaay further

Have you ever owned a mac? This person says that Mac is way behind on software pointing out Flash as an example. That is total rubbish! I have Flash running on both PC and Mac and they both run the same for me. Maybe you should ask why Adobe used three macs at a recent developer conference I attended!

It’s not Apple computers that I hate but more Apple users. In general a bunch of stuck up, arrogant (wow my Apple is ace) toss pots in my opinion.

So I guess this person has met every single Apple user or this is just a gross generalization.  Sounds like you have some of those traits yourself.  I haven’t had the same experience with all Apple users!

Apple products look great but are geared towards newbies and those who prefer style over substance. How can you seriously function with just one mouse button…I don’t get it

Apple products are for newbies? Take another look at the Adobe conference photo above, I doubt they are newbies! You might also want to tell the thousands of Ruby on Rails developers around the world that they are complete newbies since most of them use the mac too!  You can get multi-button mouse from Apple but even I’ll admit the mouse scroll wheel isn’t that good.

I don’t like Mac. It gave me too much trouble long time ago and that was the reason I still don’t like apple products.

I think now is a good time to give them another go! Things have changed… alot!

Now don’t think I’m bashing all other computers because I’m not. I prefer Macs, friends of mine like Windows, and some prefer Linux. How different do you think the comments would have been if John said he loved Apple?

Pay Per Click is a good option to test the water because can quickly find out which keywords drive the most traffic and what keywords convert into paying customers. You can also use tools like Google website optimizer which allow you to do things like landing page split testing. Never overlook testing as it often overlooked and if you ask any successful internet marketer they’ll tell you that they never stop testing. PPC also gives you the ability to start building web site traffic almost immediately and has tools that can tell you what you need to do to reduce your cost per click, how to improve relevancy and how your landing pages stack up compared to the keywords you are targeting.

Natural search is a longer term process but if you get it right you can’t beat the free traffic. If you have an established site then you can get some reasonably fast results by with some work and optimizing of your landing pages to your target your selected keywords. Sites that aren’t thin affiliate sites will generate more natural traffic than they do from their PPC campaigns and provide a much better return on investment.

This week my friend and I finally landed page one rankings on Google for a franchise company for a number of targeted keywords. They are now getting between 100 - 150% increase in traffic to their franchise information pages and their online inquiries are way up. They also run a PPC campaign which doesn’t even come close to matching the amount of traffic and leads they are now generating from natural search.

I like to use PPC to test affiliate offers to see if it converts and makes money. If it does then I’ll think about creating a site to target natural traffic so I can make a bigger profit. A current affiliate offer that I promote using PPC is getting cheaper to promote as the months roll by and I’m making 100% profit but why pay for the traffic if you can get natural search traffic free and make more of the money and get higher volumes of sales.

The first strategy, is to choose a product that solves a problem. Products or services that you promote need to solve a problem otherwise the searcher is not likely to purchase. People search for answers to their problems so if you can provide a product that is their answer, they will buy it! Here are some points to think about when choosing a product to promote.

• Who would want this?
• Why would they buy this over similar products?
• How does this product solve their problem?
• Are people searching for this answer to their problem?

The second strategy, is to choose an affiliate product you have an interest or are knowledgeable about. If you choose products you know about, then you are more likely to be successful. The more you understand about why someone may want this product the better you will understand how to market it to them. My biggest successes have been with products I have a good knowledge about and would probably have similar ideas, needs and wants as other potential buyers looking for this product.

A friend of mine makes a significant amount of money promoting a product I know little about. I know the basics but not enough about the industry to understand what a buyer would want, what they are searching for, and what their buying signal would be. If you have a above average knowledge compared to other people about a product, then that is probably a good product to promote. To find ideas for products to promote, think about what you do online, in your spare time, with friends, and what you talk about. Another option is to choose products in an area that you have an interest in learning about.

When you are new to affiliate marketing, it’s easy to get caught up in the idea of making money. This approach will usually lead to failure! Get a basic strategy for choosing products and stick to it. Understand the product, who would want it, and how to best promote it. Set a goal before you start on what you expect to earn and stick with promoting it until you achieve it. Focus on the product and the buyer and the money will come. Then you can start all over again with a new product.

There is one thing that you are doing and may not be realising it… that’s following the gold vein. I’m not a miner and I know next to nothing about gold digging but I do remember someone telling me that once you find some gold you can find more by following the gold vein. Learning affiliate marketing is like being that gold digger searching for that nugget, and once you find it, your bound to find even more.

That’s where reading a lot of blogs is kind of like the gold vein. Each successful affiliate drops specs of gold for you but you need to pick them up. Pick up enough pieces, melt them all together and you’ll find your gold nugget.

John Chow did a review of the uber affiliate who happens to be a young guy making lots of money and willing to give away some of that golden information.

So start gold digging your over there and hopefully you can make some use of those baby nuggets that will lead you to your own gold vein.

Enter the pathetic Unwired wireless broadband here in Australia. My girlfriend is using their internet service and when I’m there it drives me crazy because it’s so damn slow. Now this is supposed to be broadband but it’s not much better than dialup and I think it’s absolutely pathetic is also useless unless all you do is get a couple of text emails.

Now here are the plans.

Now the plan my girlfriend is on is the highest available priced at $109.95 and called the Unleashed Plan. Maybe they should think about unleashing it sometime. Since it is so bad I thought I would test to see just how fast a connection we were getting so I jumped on to speedtest.net.

The results speak for themselves. That is absolutely pathetic for a $100+ internet plan. What happened to the 1024kbps? I wouldn’t expect to be peaking the service but anything under 50% is just not good enough.

Unwired… You get the SpinDigg big Thumbs Down and a lost customer. If you want unwired broadband in Australia then I wouldn’t recommend Unwired.