Money Talks - it’s not everything, but everything is money

According to John Chow, he first started monetizing his blog on 17th September 2006 via Google Adsense alone. By the end of that month i.e. 13 days later, he already made more than USD350, i.e. about USD27 per day. He relied mostly on digg.com and google search traffic in the early days.

2 months later (for the month of November 2006), he’s already pulling in more than RM7,000, mostly from Adsense and Vibrant IntelliTXT. That is off 217,876 unique visitors. In fact, for the month before (October 2006) he got even more unique visitors: 229,144.

A year later (November 2007), he’s on almost RM90,000. I think that’s more than what 99.999% of what Malaysians are earning!

And he’s not using Adsense at all.

Most of his income comes from Private Ad Sales (almost USD13,000), affiliate commissions (about USD6,500) and ReviewMe (paid posting) at USD4,400.

What’s most surprising perhaps is the fact that he had LESS unique visitors in November 2007 than in November 2006. In November 2007, he *only* had 185,386 unique visitors.

That means traffic went down, even when his blog is now more established / well known, yet income went up more than 12 times. In other words, he has a very high eCPM: USD84.19: his blog makes over USD80 every time 1,000 pages are viewed.

How did he do this? In his own words:

The high eCPM rate was achieved by maximizing as many revenue opportunities as possible while still preserving the user experience.This blog started with only Google AdSense. Since then, I have experimented with dozens of monetization methods. Some have worked really well while others were a complete flop. The key is to always be tweaking and not stand still. If you haven’t touch up your revenue mix in the past six months, it’s time to get your hands dirty.

His expenses for the month were very little: USD566.52 for Google Adwords advertising, and USD25 for a private ad. His hosting is sponsored.

Source

4maxdesign.com are four 12-year olds of Sekolah Kebangsaan Bandar Baru Darulaman (Bandar Baru Darulaman Primary School) in Jitra, Kedah, Malaysia.

They offer services like logo (RM10) and web design (RM30 per page), as well as animation (RM8) and posters (RM15).

They wrote that they want to be Malaysia’s youngest internet entrepreneurs, and even though they’re still at primary school, they will still stive for the highest levels of professionalism.

Going through their website and portfolio, not bad, but I think they have work cut out for them. The logos are not of the highest standards yet and there are many broken links in their website.

Source

That’s RM24,000 every 3 months as harvesting is done.

He started 2 years ago.

He learnt the necessary skills in the Peninsula.

He said he does not use pesticides.

Source: Daily Express, 15th November 2007, Page 6

Looks like Malaysia is going all out to celebrate her 50th anniversary of independence. Of course some would insist it’s the 44th, but that’s another story. After Manchester United, now this.

Pete Sampras vs Roger Federer. The sight of that would make any sports lover, and of course even more so tennis afficionados salivate. Even when the cheapest ticket costs RM83. The most expensive: RM443. The match is supposed to take place at Stadium Melawati, Shah Alam on 22nd November.

You can feel the incredible weight of the hype just by reading

“One of the greatest duels in the history of tennis will take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as part of the celebrations of Independence (Merdeka) and the 50th Anniversary of the Nation. Billed as the Clash of Times, current World No. 1 Roger Federer will take on his predecessor Pete Sampras in what promises to be an electrifying match-up. Two of the greatest tennis players ever will battle for pride and dominance over the past two decades in the sport’s history.”

What a genius idea:
- Everybody gets to watch a tennis match between the top player now and someone who used to be the top player
- The players get paid well and Federer gets some welcome pocket money: perhaps that explains the crazy ticket price. Federer might not get the 7 figures one normally gets from winning Wimbledon or any of the Slams, but hey, we get to introduce Malaysia to probably the greatest athlete who ever walked the earth. I read that even the great Tiger Woods is in awe of him.

But still, even if I could, I would not go see the match. Why? Because it won’t prove anything. What if Pistol Pete won? That he’s truly the greatest (say it like Muhammad Ali did) and that he should make a comeback like the Smiling Assassin Swiss Miss did before the cocaine thing retired her for good?

What if Federer won? That he’s the greatest ever because he just defeated the man who owns the most Slams, never mind that Pete has quit the highest level for some time already?

I doubt it that Federer would go all out just to win this match. He’s a professional, he’s got years to go, he won’t risk it. If it’s all about pride, any excuses could be given: not his day, carrying old injury, don’t want to aggravate injury sustained in last operation, weather too hot, food poisoning etc etc.

Basically I think it’s going to be like the Brazil vs Malaysia match before World Cup 2002. Brazil won 4-0 playing at half speed. Federer would do the same. There is no way The Pistol could match him anyway. This is a friendly match. It’s played for money. There could be a lot of on-court banter and joking. This is not a Grand Slam. The intensity is just not there. I don’t buy that. Pro wrestling is different.

Of course you can treat it as a pop concert. Just enjoy the spectacle. But music and sports performances are different.

Malaysia has been upstaged yet again. We missed being the first Asian, and now the first South East Asian country to have one of our players in the English Premier League.

Or perhaps we don’t have any soccer-mad Malaysian billionaires, unlike Thaksin Shinawatra who paid more than half a billion ringgit for Manchester City?

Suree Sukha, 25, an attacking fullback might not be the only one. Sven-Goran Eriksson is said to be interested in 2 other Thai players, Kiatprawut Saiwaeo and Teerasil Dangda.

Suree currently earns about USD300 a week (that’s less than RM5,000 per month) in the Thai league.

Once the signing is done, he would immediately be sent out on loan.

Rajawang.com made more than RM3,100 in October 2007, just 4 months after starting to “milk the internet.”

That is via 5 blogs, including rajawang.com.

Majority of income is from Adsense (USD658+) and Widgetbucks (USD195+), although he didnt put Adsense on rajawang.com.

He does not reveal the other 4 blog URLs.

Progression of income:

July 2007: about RM1,200 (mostly from Adsense @ USD267+)
August 2007: about RM1,300 (mostly from Adsense @ USD348+)
September 2007: about RM2,200 (mostly from Adsense @ USD612+)

How did he do it? In his own words: “through hard work and discipline.”

He started blogging in 2005.

He’s targeting USD1,000 per month by the end of the year. Obviously he’s right on track.

Currently he’s working full time as a VB programmer at a private company in Sabah, with an objective of going fulltime living off the internet by the end of 2008.

All the best!

Ameriplan shows how it is done.

AmeriPlan Corporation is a US-based Discount Medical Plan Organization and have been in existence since 1992. They claim to have saved its members many millions of dollars in dental and medical costs, and that for its type of service, they are the largest in the US.

It should be noted that their programs are not medical insurance, but rather discounts by participating health providers.

How does MLM feature in all this? Well, Ameriplan members sell membership. Apparently, the trend now is a biggest demand for supplemental healthcare in living memory, and that 70% of Americans are under-insured or worse.

* Sponsored.

Life insurance comes in many guises. One of them is called term insurance.

It is valid for a set length of time, called the policy term. Typically, this is in multiples of tens of years.

Hence, if one buys a 30 year term and dies within that period, his/her beneficiaries will get the policy’s face amount. If instead he/she lives beyond the 30 years, he will not get anything, not even the premiums paid all those years.

The main attraction of term life insurance is its cost: among all life insurance types, the rates for term life is the cheapest.

* Sponsored.

Used car battery lead is the new gold, and is the new target for dumpster divers and thieves alike.

Most of us throw away our used car batteries or simply leave them at the mechanics’ or battery dealers’ premises.

In May 2006 I bought my batteries for RM140. Earlier this month, buying from the same shop, it cost me RM210. The guy said if I came in a little later and the new stock comes in, I would have to cough up RM250.

There has been an increase in the prices of lead on the international market, and used car batteries have lead inside them.

According to The Star’s newsreport:

A senior officer of a car battery factory said the price of lead on the London Metal Exchange had shot up from US$1,600 (RM5,325.82) a metric tonne early this year to US$3,600 (RM11,983) this month.

He said one could sell a used battery from a car at between RM30 and RM40 while the price for a used lorry battery was between RM150 and RM200.

Source

USD5,628 which includes:

- Nuffnang: RM2,000+
- TextLinkAds: USD694 + USD125.
- ReviewMe - USD456
- Kontera - USD103

Daily average: USD187

And she did it even after not doing anything for 1 week - she went on holiday and changed servers in that month.

Majority of income are from paid posts.

What’s even more amazing is that she makes a lot of passive income from Kontera, Adsense (amount not revealed), TextLinkAds and LinkAds (of Linkworth), meaning income generated every month without having to do anything.

Even if she’s not writing any paid posts, which is her main source of income, she can easily make about RM6,000 per month: without working on anything!

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