According to the latest ready reckoner from the Business Opportunities website, this blog is worth almost $56,000. The amount is a fictitious one, unless I am mistaken, but it does at least give you a gauge that is enlightening, in a money-grabbing capitalist kind of way. Money talks. Or does it?

Slowly does it

Wouldn't you rather have a website with 56,000 daily visitors and no income? Yes, if it were a blog, I would! Because with that much traffic, I would have a sound base from which to monetize the site at any time in the future. The John Chow character currently with all the readers in the world waited till he had a ton of traffic before he started to add in ads and nonsense paying posts and all sorts of revenue generators. Viola, as the illiterate Frenchman said, he built up his income to $10 or $12k per month and still his readership grows. Opportunistic and successful with it, he invested in his high readership stats and made them pay.

You need to act fast sometimes

Another smart guy (sorry I can't find the post!) came up with an idea for a site, but he wasn't so lucky with the money-making angle. He put his single page of digital genius online and attracted 40,000 visitors in no time. He was frantically asking around for advice on how to monetize his site, but by the time he took the decision to place a single Adsense block above the sole piece of info on the web page, the novelty wore off, numbers plummeted and he lost out.

Digg is another example of how poor judgement at monetization time can lose you everything - unless you have the luck of the Rose. A few months ago, Digg were offered $100m to sell. The founders were like tongues hanging out saying Yes, yes, Yes. The board said No, they wanted $150m. Apart from the adrenalin rush coming to nothing, it seemed like no big issue at the time. Their pay day was assured at some time in the future.

However, when that fiasco blew up over a set of HD-DVD encoding numbers, Digg teetered on the brink of losing everything. What would the management have said had the legal eagles nailed their ass to a post and that pay day had been buried forever? Gulp! Open another beer, and let's vodcast, probably

On balance

As editor of the Pisstakers, I would rather have the traffic and then generate revenue as subtly and fairly as possible, ie ensure that the readers who built the site up, don't get hammered with a poorer blogging experience. And if the monthly numbers are sufficiently ritzy then I am sure some enterprising so-and-so will make me an offer in order to ride on the coat tails of my success.

Relax, I am definitely open to offers. A one-off payment would do me fine. Somewhere in the region of $2.2m, my desired sell out price and guaranteed to keep me blogging for a few years yet!!

Tags: business opportunities, John Chow, Digg

Mike, who is on a mission to make money online, knows a thing or three about business scams. As a former pen pal scheme schemer he must have learnt of a few tricks on the way. I emphasize OF because he wears a suit and tie and looks like the sort of guy who would rather give his grandma away for nothing than sell her for ill-gotten gains.

Don't tinker with Wealth Toolbox

Anyway, enough of the character assassination, Mike has a thing going against Wealth Toolbox, a business opportunity that he sees as a total scam.

Delving deep into the small print, Mike has made quite a case, and begrudgingly digs up the dirt on the company at every opportunity. Well, at least 5 times since he started blogging. For a better description than I could ever dream up with, read more of Mike's gems on how to spot and avoid Wealth Toolbox and Ponzi schemes

Agloco

This is another business opportunity that I have to tread carefully over, before stamping it into the dirt. Apologies for that emotional outburst, but I can't resist the urge. I am also about to further denigrate the Agloco wholesomeness, by questioning the potential for gain for entrepreneurs like Steve Yu and, to name but 2, Hfdzli, who told me in an exclusive interview on April 17.

I think agloco is not a scam ... I am 100% in support of them. I believe this program will be a success in just a matter of time.

...I know that the viewbar is still in progress. The Shanghai team are working 24/7 to make sure that the viewbar is working fine. And I believe that it will be released before end of this month.

The exuberance of youth is a wonderful thing, till it is quashed by on-line scams!

Paid to surf sounds nice and if you run the numbers, it is in theory a viable business model. So where is the scam, you ask? Well, where do I start?

A waste of human life

There has been an inordinate amount of pro-Agloco view bar promotion energy expended, and for months now it that has been hovering in limbo, awaiting the big release. This situation represents a scandalous waste of resources. Imagine if all that brain power and effort to enlist users had been put to good use, we could have all retired to Utopia by now.

Smoke and mirrors are damaging to the health too. Agloco Delusional Syndrome is being diagnosed in huge numbers. Not to be confused with a different ailment! If you feel happy then sad then resigned to surfing for zero income, as before, then you have Agloco Deficiency Syndrome. Treat it now with a dose of resignation to reality.

Consequences of being late

If the view bar comes, it is going to be such a late starter that it will face unbearable competition. Like pirhanas at feeding time - minus the feed - any number of enterprising internet gurus will poach their signed-up Agloco users and transfer them to a paid-to-surf program of their own. Sorry to plant seeds of dissent and scamability in weak minds, but in this day and age, if you don't act fast, you get swallowed by predators. Ask Hugh Grant.

Will Agloco tool bar ever come?

Perhaps of more interest to readers is the answer to the question, what if it never does arrive, what damage can we cause to the Agloco team? I am sure Shanghai has a few dodgy alleys and a supply of Made in China baseball bats you can borrow.

And if Agloco does appear in a timely fashion?

I will eat crow before reveling in the irony that only the top of the pyramid will do anything financially, while the rest of them brag about their $5 a quarter pay checks. Did I say pyramid, sorry I meant MLM, I meant ------

But not us, we won't suffer humiliation. We can enjoy the judgment call based on no desire to pimp out my browser with horrible green logos.

There is a whole tirade against Agloco if you want more!!

And finally

Is this is a semi clever variation on the 419 Nigerian scam? Bottom line is, I will gladly accept money from them (or in this case their customers) and send the scammers the difference, but if they pay me and then I pay them back the total minus my commission, then no thanks.

Any takers should contact the gentleman below.

Dear sir/madam,

My names are LI CHEN,chief executive officer for Delixi Group of companies . We deal on Electrical appliances and export into the Canada/America,Austrailia New Zealand and Europe. We are in need of representatives/book keeper who will help us establish a medium of getting to our customers in the Canada/America New Zealand, Australia and Europe as well as making payments through you to us.

Please if you are interested in transacting business with us we will be glad. Please contact us for more information,Subject to your satisfaction you will be given the opportunity to negotiate your mode of which we will pay for your services as our representative in canada/America and Europe.

Please if you are interested, forward to us your phone number/fax and your full contact addresses to the email address below: ceo_delixi2a@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks in advance, Mr.Li Chen

Tags: business opportunities, 419 scam

So you want to know how much your website is worth? The good news for The Pisstakers, and presumably everyone else with a blog or website, lies over here!



For a more sobering / depressing / suicide-inducing / motivation-sapping slap in the face (or better idea of where you are standing) in the entrepreneurial pile, absorb the stats at dnscoop. Judging by the way their code renders in Firefox, and the importance attached to Alexa, I hope their $600 valuation is invalid in the real world.

Tags: business opportunities

Well, well, after getting a bit irate at Technorati and their rankings, it is time to clap them on the back and thank them for a really good laugh.

Tags: business opportunities

The following graphic could be your warm fuzzy feeling too, cheering you up as you bare your soul posting and tweaking and improving your blogging window on the world. A combination of Technorati ranking, smoke and mirrors, it is quite groovy, innit!



If we were to add in the escalating, hopeful valuation of our search swiki and we are scheduled to take delivery of a yacht and give up blogging in 13 years time. It certainly doesn't beat working, as it can be really hard going at times, but blogging may have a future yet. Hello YAHOO!!!!!!! we aren't for sale - yet.

Tags: business opportunities

If our feet weren't so firmly planted in the real world, this latest news would signal our last post before getting completely shedded, rat-assed, piss-faced, blotto and tanked over Christmas.

Yes indeedy, lordy lord, according to an algorithm used by AOL-Weblog, Technorati and the bloke who has this ready reckoner on his site? this is how far we have come in 4 months of writing and tweaking, reading and applying, living and loving... Not being greedy, but I hope they also accounted for the $750 attributed to our spiking Swiki too!

Tags: business opportunities