Quality Nonsense

Are Reddit’s editors asleep at the wheel or is this an inspired piece of linkbait?

Like free stuff? Like domain names? We need to talk.

We’re running a promotion with Go Daddy over at Who Is Hosting This.

We think our hosting reviews are the best out there – and we want more of them. So we’re giving away a $10 Go Daddy gift card if you write a review that we decide to publish.

As you’d expect, there are a few firm-but-fair T+Cs, but I hope you’ll agree it’s a pretty damn exciting offer.

Here’s where to submit your review…

There are dozens of books about the dot.com boom and bust in Silicon Valley. But I know only one about similar events in the UK: Bringing Nothing To The Party by Paul Carr.

The book tells tales of now-legendary internet entrepreneurs, like Alex Tew (of the MillionDollarHomepage.com) and Firebox.com founder Michael Smith, as well as the disasterous IPO of Carr’s own dot.com flameout, KudoCities.

If you enjoyed Boo Hoo et al, I highly recommended it.

‘Ubiquitous capture’ is one of the central ideas behind cult productivity book Getting Things Done.

David Allen disciples believe the first step to productivity is to first capture all ideas and tasks.

Sounds beyond obvious, no? Yet I – and I suspect many others – forget without regular reminders.

The challenge with ubiquitous capture is to find a a tool that works for you.

A quick audit of my jeans pockets presents a motley selection of newspaper cuttings, receipts, to do lists, reminders…. you get the idea.

As of this week, that changes c/o Evernote. The software is a year old, so I might well be the last geek in the world to hear about it. But in case it has also passed you by, here’s why you need it in your arsenal of productivity tools.

Evernote is a note-taking tool designed to capture, store and organise ‘to do’ items in one place: typed messages, scribbled notes, snapshots, photos, web pages, voice recordings.

You can file all these scraps of data and information you store day-to-day in one place, as you go, and Evernote files and sorts them in a logical, highly usable way.

For example, all images are scanned by OCR to make any text searchable in your archive. So if you take a snapshot of your shopping list, Evernote will read the text and archive it.

Evernote comes in web, desktop and iPhone flavours, so there’s no excuse for ubiquitous capture not being, er, ubiquitous. In short, it seems like the ultimate ubiquitous capture tool.

See Evernote in action below.

PS. Seasoned Evernote user? I’d love to hear any tips and tricks in the comments.

I was talking about my baby steps in affiliate marketing last week.

It were nowt but fields at Affiliates4u.com, you could get 10 AdWords clicks to the dollar and still have change left over to buy a hyphenated .info domain.

[Apologies to readers outside the UK for the laboured Brit-centric gag].

Joking aside – it was tough to know where to begin.

It’s not that I couldn’t find advice online. Quite the opposite – I found more forums, blogs, ebooks, PDFs and autoresponders than I could read in a lifetime.

Plus precisely zero quality control – and there was no shortage of shonky rich quick schemes.

Bottom line: it was next-to-impossible to know which sources could be trusted.

I was chatting to a new affiliate earlier this year, and it sounds like not much has changed.

That’s why I think Affiliate Window Academy – a training day for newbies – is a great idea:

February saw the first ever AW affiliate training day take place, we received some great feedback from participants and so, as planned, the course will now run every eight weeks. We are pleased to announce that the next event will take place on Monday 20th April, at our offices in Tower Hill.

The half-day training course has been specifically created for ‘novice’ affiliates; to be eligible to attend you must have generated a minimum of £25 in commission since joining the network. The course consists of five seminar sessions introducing techniques to help you increase your earning potential through Affiliate Window.

Contact hayley [dot] short [at] affiliatewindow [dot] com to put your name down.

PS. Nickycakes’ newbie guide to affiliate marketing looks like a good starting point for affiliates outside London/UK.

I buy websites. But I pass up dozens of quality websites for sale each month.

Most don’t fit my portfolio of sites. Maybe they have too little traffic, are too niche, not niche enough, out of my budget etc. You get the idea. I turn down high-quality sites for a million and one reasons.

But many webmasters ask if I’ll forward details of their websites for sale to other potential buyers. So I’ve started a mailing list for interested buyers: We Buy Websites.

You can read the full story or simply signup here:

Your personal details will not be sold, rented or other misused (see the privacy policy).

NB. This mailing list is separate from my blog mailing list. You’ll need to subscribe to each individually. Of course, you can unsubscribe at any time (there’s a link in the footer of each email).

WordPress theme guru JTK has given my blog a much-needed overhaul. Spot any browser glitches? Please let me know, then go hire him for your next WordPress project.

Speaking of WordPress themes, the DIY Themes affiliate program is offering a fantastic incentive until late June. Affiliates can earn a free pass to Affiliate Summit in New York for making a few sales.

Three sales gets a Gold Pass. Make 10 sales, and it’s upgraded to Platinum. I promote DIY Themes myself – making one sale/month is simple. Go sign up!

I hate blog memes, but it’s Monday and my motivation is AWOL.

Liam at OnlineSales.co.uk invited me, and my vanity has overtaken my usual reluctance to post about myself. Behold – seven things you don’t know about me:

1. Billy Ocean used to be my landlord.

2. Last year I flew a dogfight over Nevada c/o the fabulous Buyagift.

3. I once met Queen drummer Roger Taylor. Encouraged by gratis champagne, I exclaimed: “Yes, Roger, I have all your albums… Greatest Hits One *and* Two.”.

Tumbleweed blew.

4. I got run over by a rusty BMW age 18. Cue: three months on crutches (I couldn’t get on with the wheelchair).

5. I had dozens of low-rent jobs before starting my own business. The nadir: getting caught sleeping in the stationery cupboard at Camden Council.

Or suggesting during a job interview that the Big Issue rebrand as ‘The Small Issue’ if money was tight… (Blame super-strong coffee and a severe case of nerves).

6. I was briefly a TV extra and once doubled for the murderer in Silent Witness.

7. My ex-office was raided by police shortly after I moved out. I’m told the ‘beauty salon’ upstairs was really a front for a high-class knocking shop…

Next Up

• Rob Berrisford
• Stephen Pavlovich
• Ciaran Norris
• Rob Powell
• Kieren Donohue
• Marcus Tandler

The Rules

• Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged.

…but I do know a candidate for Private Eye’s Pseud’s Corner when I see one. Behold these gallery notes for Albert Oehlen’s Loa at the Tate Modern:

“Loa incorporates phrases and lyrics from the German techno band Scooter…”

WTF? For those unfamiliar with Scooter, think ‘2 Unlimited on a budget’.

“…which Oehlen appropriated in order to evoke atmosphere rather than to offer a specific message.”

Huh? But words have meaning! That’s what they do!

…a Spanish text referring to chinaware suggest advertising imagery and product design.

I fear we’re clutching at straws here.

You decide!

Dead trees are in trouble.

Budgets are being slashed and new projects canned in print media.

So several freelance writer friends are now accepting new clients for web work.

If you need top-quality web content – ie. not merely looking to fill empty space with random words – these people are perfect.

Between them, they have written for:

Dear reader, I’m sure I don’t need to spell it out: we’re talking the cream of the crop.

If you’d like to be introduced, please contact me.