2005 Revenue Roundup.
I was taking a look at my earnings from all sources, and revisiting the goals I had set. I most certainly broke the $500 goal by January 1, 2006. While I may not see the checks for all money earned in 2005 until February or even March of 2006, the total for all revenue sources, as far as I can tell, is hovering at $750 plus or minus a dollar or two. That uncertainty comes as a result of unknown auditing at Chitika. (Note that this includes 2004 AdSense earnings, about $7.)
After running Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) ads for a couple of weeks, I became a bit excited at the earnings, to say the least. I even said that making 5-digits in 2006 was “quite achievable.”
The next day, Dec. 6, 2005, when revisiting my goals, I said that if I earned $500 in January 2006, that I would be setting a new goal of $1000/month by May 2006. That $500 statement was on the assumption that my YPN earnings would continue at 4 times that of AdSense. They did not. As the advertisements became contextual in nature, as opposed to run of the mill, the earnings plummeted. And just as hastily as I had removed AdSense in favor of YPN, I yanked YPN and went back to AdSense. I do not anticipate earning anywhere near $500 in January.
I’d still like to aim at the lofty goal of $1000/month by May, but prior to the wonderful YPN earnings, I was aiming for $5/day in advertising. I don’t think I’ve indicated that here, but it was in the back of my mind as a short term goal. Now that things have calmed down (no crazy YPN earnings), I’m looking at the numbers and I think I’m still short of that $5/day goal.
Now, you may be asking why it appears I have goals that are measured by different time periods. I have the 4-figure 2006, 5-figure 2006, $1000/month by May 2006, $500 by January 1, 2006, $500 in January 2006, and now I’m telling you about $5/day. Why don’t I just make and measure my goals in the same way? Because it’s more fun to have lots of goals and make some of them more achievable than others.
A little secret that I’m just starting to reveal to people around me? $274. It’s no secret online, but most people don’t realize that earning $274/day for 365 days is $100,010. (The magic six-figure earnings number.) How can I earn $274/day in 2006? That’s what I’ll be trying to figure out all year long…
Earning money is a slow process that requires work. This is not a get-rich-quick blog. And maybe January 1, 2007, I’ll be saying I hit $274 in a day. Who knows what the future holds?
Getting Ready for 2006.
I’m not doing enough to get ready for 2006. And I recognize that I need to do more. But what I’d like you to take out of this, is that a date like New Year’s is arbitrary. It seems like a natural new beginning, but wouldn’t the most natural beginning be when you’re good and ready? Even if it’s February? Or on a day other than the 1st?
I will do more when I’m ready. Today is not the day to stress myself out with too many resolutions and projects. But I think I will do one thing today, and that is cut down my RSS feed reading. I have certainly gotten better in the past year in realizing that I don’t need to read every new post that pops up in the feeds I read. I have over 100 feeds, but review 88 daily right now. Reviewing them does not mean that I read all 88 each day. Some I let sit for days depending on the title, the excerpt, the topic, my mood, and a whole lot of factors.
There are times when I think I could read more, because I get through them and only a small portion post every day, but there are also times when I think 88 feeds is too many for me.
As an example, John Batelle’s Searchblog is one of the 88 feeds I review each day. He posted 84 times in the month of December. Now, I think it’s very difficult to gauge when you are posting too frequently or infrequently to your blog(s) for your audience. I suspect that Mr. Batelle’s rate is right. Besides, he’s promoting a book, which requires lots of marketing. Posting quality content about search somewhere around 84 times in a month certainly makes me think he has quality content in his book, “The Search”. At the very least, it shows he has his pulse on the field he’s writing about. So what’s the problem? Well, it’s not that his posts aren’t interesting. In fact, he doesn’t tend to post something that’s already been posted a million times (at least in the blogs I read), unless he’s adding something to the conversation. (Reblogging is something that really bothers me, as you can read here and here.) The problem is that the search field is interesting to me, but doesn’t change anything about my life or work. I can do basic SEO, and could be a consultant in that area to many people, so keeping my pulse on the field seems like a good idea. But, I am not an SEO consultant right now, and reading his site is just one of many things that takes minutes out of my day. Besides, would his site actually help me be a better SEO consultant? Not enough that I must review and/or read it each day. As a law student, I don’t read every single case that comes out on contracts, torts, property, IP, employment discrimination, medical malpractice, etc. Reading website feeds is keeping up on every single thing that comes out in a certain field. I’m going to read feeds more like an attorney should. I’m thinking that this probably entails keeping up with the field I’m in, and researching fields when an issue comes up. It’s a bit more complicated than that, obviously, but cut me some slack as this post is already becoming verbose.
The idea here, is that I don’t need to be reading about search all the time, even if it’s an interest of mine, because it’s taking away time from doing things that are of interest. On occasion, in downtime, I may go back and read what I’ve missed, but I just can’t have that feed looking at me every day, so it’s getting cut.
Other blogs getting cut? Blogpire, Weblog Empire, Webby Media, About Weblogs, Creative Weblogging, Weblogs, Inc., and b5media corporate/headquarter blogs. Why? I’m also reading Performancing, ProBlogger, Blog Herald, and Blog Network Watch, which generally cover anything newsworthy. If I was really smart, I’d cut all of those too, because they generally keep me reading and not writing. When was the last time I actually got something out of those sites that I printed out or made sure I wrote down or remembered? Not in a long while. I just need to write more at this point before I can take some of the advice at ProBlogger and Performancing, at the very least. Even after writing more, I suspect I’ve gotten all I can get out of those sites. We’re generally dealing with information that is based on opinion and experimentation, which I can do myself. And I’m generally smart enough to know and/or write the stuff that I am reading. (Arrogant statement? Perhaps. If this post wasn’t so long already, I’d give an example of what I mean.)
In 2006, I’m going to try and cut some of the clutter of feed reading so I can get to doing things faster.
Seeking the All-in-One Solution
An all-in-one gadget is a dangerous thing to have, isn’t it? If just one part of the gadget fails to work, does the entire gadget fail? Yet, carrying two, three, or even more gadgets that all do one indiividual thing perfectly seems like such a hassle. One of the reasons I don’t have a top digital camera is because I don’t think I’d carry it around or give it any use. I bought a used digital camera, and I don’t carry it around, though it’s one of the smallest cameras on the market, even at 4 years old. So it may come as a surprise that I carry one of the top mobile phones on the market and a 40 gig iPod (from before the video and color iPods came out). The gadget I want is a top notch cell phone, digital camera, television, DVR, pocket PC, and more. Does it exist? I believe so, I just don’t know how to find it, or if I did, if it would be even remotely affordable.
What is the point I’m getting at here? At the very least, I’m surprised that there isn’t more cooperation, and that there aren’t more mergers and acquisitions.
And this whole Web 2.0 “thing” is generating some very interesting web services. But where one does something perfectly for me, it falls short in another way. I hope that 2006 will bring some people, maybe entire businesses, to swallow their pride and consolidate their work into another’s web service. Oh, and if you can make something that works with a service I already use and doesn’t require a new signup/login process, that’s even better!
Examples:
I really like MeetWithApproval.com. It makes it simple to invite people to a meeting at a convenient time. But it’s missing the ability to suggest locations to meet, like MeetUp.com.
Sleek online calendarHipCal offers all of the calendar functions I need. But I can’t import/export or show my events with WordPress.
I have been using a customized start page with Netvibes, but when I add an RSS feed or bookmark, it doesn’t get added to Firefox.
And so much more…
Am I completely off-base to be complaining and wanting more out of Web 2.0 and my personal gadgets?
