Cool to be a gamer

Gaming isn’t just for pimple-faced brats. It’s serious business. There are big bucks to be made for anyone who’s passionate enough, creative enough, and loves what he or she does. Everyone associated with the industry, from the lowest rung of indie developers to head honchos of entertainment companies, is bullish on India’s gaming potential in the next 20 years. That’s the message I heard at last month’s 2-day NASSCOM Game Developer Conference in Pune.

Just the energy and vibe I encountered there was something different from other conferences I attend. Representatives from Ubisoft, Zynga, Microsoft Windows Phone and local gaming giants like Indiagames and Ibibo were present, sharing their success stories and plans for the future. Everyone was really passionate and motivated, whether they were connecting with peers or musing on gaming as a career path. There was a general agreement in the masses that gaming in India is slowly but surely gathering momentum. But a lot needs to be done in a country where gaming simply isn’t considered as an entertainment outlet. And the buck stops at education and spreading the word.

Parents should understand and accept that there’s more to life than hoping their child turns into a doctor or engineer—isn’t that what several millions strive to do every year? If your kid wants to become a game designer or developer, appreciate and nurture that aspiration—don’t beat it out. A recent bollywood blockbuster featured the hero as a game developer, movie script writers are increasingly working with game studios, colleges with dedicated 4-year courses on all aspects of gaming are sprouting in the country. So what’s wrong in aspiring to become a game developer? It isn’t the mid-90s any more, times have changed and so should our mindsets.

I am reminded of Russell Brown, the man behind Adobe Photoshop, and his famous words, “Fall in love with what you love to do and someone will pay you to do it.” It’s an important motto for young gamers who dream to design and launch their own games later in their lives.

All of you who intend to take gaming seriously in your lives, I think you have nothing to be ashamed of. Sure, success isn’t guaranteed, you’ll have to work your socks off, but at least you’ll have fun while you’re at it. What’s wrong with that?

Can Internet Marketing Be a Long Term Business?

Here is the basic honest truth: most of the people get into Internet Marketing because they are convinced it is an easy way to earn quick money. Their approach is to make a fast website, put up some advertising and a few affiliate links and then sit back and watch while they earn real cash. There are a large amount of individuals who do this and also earn lots of money on the internet. But what if you want more than some extra or even quick cash (quick cash, naturally being a misnomer)? Can Internet Marketing really be leveraged to produce a worthwhile and long term career? 

The quick and dirty answer is that yes, you are able to make Internet Marketing your long term and sustainable career. You only need to take on the project properly. The procedures and programs you use to build something to earn fast money are not all that different than the methods and systems you will use to build long term profits. So what would you do if you need to develop a sustainable career on the internet? 

It is very important that the first thing you do, in order to earn long term money online, is accept the fact that you are going to have to do real work. You will have to do actual and real work on a daily basis and you will have days when you feel fantastic about what you do and days when you wish you could find something else to take on. This causes it to be just about like every other occupation that is out there. If you want to produce lasting cash flow by working lots right now and not at all later on then you are going to be in for a rude awakening in a little while. So be ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work. 

There are a few ventures that lend themselves much better to a long term career than others will. Affiliate marketing, to use one example, is a great task for someone who wants to earn money on a part time basis or to supplement your already existent income. Is it truly possible to earn a full time income in this manner? You could if you pick out only the right products and then work like crazy to promote them. A far better approach, nevertheless, is to create your own products or websites and then promote those. This gives you full control over the projects you take on and how you accomplish them. And you will end up more likely to stick with it in the long run. If you want to give a service on the web this works much the same way. Writers, for example, need to create websites for themselves and create portfolios that they can point to as examples of their work. 

Finally, perhaps the most significant thing that you need to recognize is that, when you want to build a long term and reliable income on the internet, you need to truly dedicate yourself to your task. You might have fun and feel rewarded by your efforts but first you should tell yourself "yes, I really want to do this." Making a half hearted effort is not about to get you anywhere.

Top Ten FREE Traction Building Ideas for a New Web Site

The dot com era proved that just building it isn't enough. The chicken and the egg issue exists -you need customers to get customers... and attempting to launch a web site, is that issue on steroids. So, how to get traction? 

Here are Ten FREE Traction building Ideas we are trying:

1) Email Your Friends:
Find everyone you know that relates to your target market and introduce them to your website via email... as you know them, leverage every piece of emotional capital you have with them to encourage them to take a look at your new site and join.

2) Ask Your Friends to Refer Others:
If you send an email to people who are your target market, clearly articulate why it is valuable to 'THEM' (not just you) to join your site... and then ask and make it easy for them to refer people they know. Here's an example of an email I wrote that asks for a referral -

"Please forward to anyone that may be interested... entrepreneurs, advisors, people with Blogs, press contacts etc! Even forwarding to four or five contacts will make a big difference for us! 

Happy New Year and thanks!

++ 

I've just discovered a new web service bringing potential business advisors together with entrepreneurs and early stage businesses. For Advisors - It's a great way to discover new deal flow and get involved in a hot new company. For Entrepreneurs - a great way to take your business to the next level in 2007!

The site is called Advisor Garage - http://www.AdvisorGarage.com and was recently featured in Business Week!

Please sign up and forward this email to great advisors and entrepreneurs.
++

After three or four weeks of steps 1 & 2 we found that we had begun to get a few people onboard... So now what?

3) Write a Press Release and get it OUT there... 
I can almost hear a few folks swallowing and already considering looking for the next blog... it really isn't that tough and it isn't expensive. In fact, its FREE! Don't believe me? Consider signing up to PR Leap (http://www.prleap.com/learn_more). Not only do they have some good articles which explain for dummies (like me!) how to write a press release but they also offer a free submission service to multiple channels such as Google News, Google Search, Yahoo! Search, Topix.net, Technorati, MSN, Ask News, Moreover, NewsNow and others. According to their website - PR Leap is the best way to send your news release(s) to all major search engines, newswires, and websites. And basic accounts are free! 

So what happened with us? Well we signed up, created a one page press release (took about 30 minutes), submitted it and it was approved earlier today. It will appear tomorrow. If you are interested, the link to the press release is: http://www.prleap.com/pr/61185/ 

The basic plan (read... Free) comes with stats, so I'll let you know in a few days if the press release was actually read by anyone and if it was picked up by any sites, bloggers, press etc. Let's see how good PR Leap and our press release writing skills are!

4) A Personalized Toolbar:
A great startup called Conduit (http://www.Conduit.com) offers people the opportunity to create their own, personalized toolbar for FREE. Conduit has a wizard embedded within their website which takes you through the setup process step-by-step. It took about twenty minutes and once you're done, they create a link to your toolbar download site which you can then share through an email signature or through a click through download on your new networking site. There are a number of cool ways to tailor the toolbar... your branded search, create links to particular pages on your own site, add weather, a radio and so on to make sure its a value download for your customers.

5) Design Your Site with the Customer In Mind and Make Inviting Others Easy
If, like us, your marketing budget is measured by the quarters rattling around in your pocket, then do your site a favor and design it so the 'Invite Others' button is never far away. No matter what page the users happen to be on. Bold it, make it big, underline it if you have to but referrals from happy customers are always easier to get than attracting new customers. 

6) Friends & Contacts Revisisted:
Do any of your friends know anyone in the press or people who have blogs ? Well you won't know until you ask... ASK! 

7) Join Linked In (http://www.linkedin.com)
If you haven't already, consider joining linked in. Yes, its another networking site, and you could consider them the compeitition (In your dreams!)... but after joining you can search through the directory and find people that may either a) be interested in joining your site or b) encouraging others to do so. If you aren't a member already, take a look

8) Groups & Forums:
Are there Yahoo (http://groups.yahoo.com) or Google Groups (http://groups.google.com) or other online forums that include the types of people you want to attract to your new networking site? If so, join them but beware... most groups want members to contribute to the discussions and no groups appreciate spam. So find the best forums for your target customers, join and spend some time getting to know what subjects are being discussed. Give it a week or two then jump in and add some value... and make sure that your post includes your email and perhaps the web address. If it is valuable, then members may check out your new site... 

One last thing, if there aren't any good groups with your target customers... consider creating your own... and make it it feeds your new networking site. Here's one I started and yes... I know it only has a few members... but its more links in the internet for your website which appears in your google or Alexa results: http://groups.google.com/group/Harvard_Entrepreneurs_Startups?lnk=oa&hl=en 

9) Write to your Existing Members:
Do you have a few members? If so, email them occassionally (Not every day!) and remind them of the value of your site... perhaps highlight a particularly useful tool or feature of your website. Maybe reach out to some of the individual members and ask them if you can write about them joining the site, a person feature if you will. At the bottom of each of these emails... give them a few sentences (above for example) to send on to others they know. Stress how much you would appreciate their help and how important they are to you and your young business.

10) Drum roll... .badda badda badda... .Create a Blog!
Here's hoping that a blog is the tenth and most valuable means of getting the message out there about a new networking site. (Wordpress.com is FREE) 

Good Luck!

Making Money online : Banner Advertisements

Making Money online : Banner Advertisements When you are trying to make money off of the articles on your website, it is important to effectively promote your site so that you will attract customers and they can see just what a good, quality site you have. There are several ways so market and promote your website, one of them being though banner advertisements. What Banner Ads Can Do For You Banner ads can help bring visitors from others sites to your own. Although monthly fees can be expensive to advertise on high traffic sites, in the end it may be cheaper and/or a faster way to start seeing significant revenue from your website efforts, rather than waiting for SEO techniques to bring your own site to the top of search engine results. Aside from paying to advertise on someone else’s site, there are also free banner exchanges to choose from. We will look at the pros and cons of each banner advertising method below. Free Banner Exchanges Free banner exchanges are when you and other sites exchange each others banners. Their banner will go on your site and your banner will go one their site. Although this option is free, there are two main problems with it. First, if you want your banner on a significant number of sites, it will mean cluttering your own site up with these banners. This could even shot you in the foot if you run an affiliate website because, instead of clicking on your affiliate links, your visitors may be clicking on your banner exchange links. Secondly, you have to be really careful about the types of sites that you exchange banners with. Some sites like to gather a lot of banners so that they can be a directory or portal site and not have to have any real content. These “banner farms” or “link farms” will do nothing positive for your site and, in the meantime, you will be bringing them potential traffic. Paid Banner Ads As we saw above, paid banner ads cost money, but they will eventually pay off if you choose the right ones. You need to ensure that the site produces the amount of traffic that they say and that they have your ad placed in a way that invites visitors to click without being too pushy. You also want to choose a site that does not house too many other banners on the same page as yours or that there are no competitor links on the same page. All in all, banner ads can end up being profitable for you site if you go about it the right way. If you do decide to check out banner advertisement as a marketing avenue, be sure to keep the above tips in mind.

Biggest Affiliate Marketing Mistakes!

We all make mistakes, it's a fact of life. It's no big deal in the whole scheme of things as long as we learn from our mistakes and move forward. The same goes with affiliate marketing since everyone will probably make mistakes at first, but as long as you fix them, it's no big deal. However, some mistakes are much more costly than others and we are not just talking monetary costs. These mistakes are the ones we only discover years down the road after we have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and more importantly, wasted valuable time doing something that was totally the wrong way to do things. Recently, one of my biggest mistakes in affiliate marketing hit me front and center. Although I make a very comfortable living as a full-time affiliate marketer, this mistake has cost me significantly over the years. Perhaps a brief rundown of the common mistakes many affiliate marketers make would prove helpful. Some of these mistakes are: - you forget to build a list - you fail to track your affiliate links/traffic - you don't develop your own unique selling position - you link directly to your affiliate link instead of going thru an interior keyworded page - you ignore MSN and Yahoo - you forget to diversify your affiliate products/networks Plus, the one major mistake many beginning affiliate marketers make: they try to sell products directly to potential customers. This is not the way to proceed on the Internet. You must try to solve a problem first and then sell later. Most people using the web want to solve a problem, anything from how to lose 50 pounds to finding the right student laptop for a son or daughter. They want help solving a problem first and foremost. Your goal as an effective affiliate marketer is to solve their problem for them... selling should always come second or as a by-product of this whole interaction. Help first - sell later. By giving advice and help, you establish your credibility and trust-worthiness with your potential prospect. It is a win-win situation, they get valuable helpful information to solve their problem and you end up with a sale or a friend. This whole idea of pre-selling is a very effective method for affiliate marketing but is a common mistake many beginners make or rather fail to do. So if you're just starting affiliate marketing make sure it is not a mistake you're making. My Biggest Affiliate Mistake This was my biggest mistake: not going after long-term residual affiliate income. Like most affiliate marketers, I concentrated all my marketing on getting that one-time sale. I eventually realized my mistake and approached the companies involved, a few even gave me private deals with "residual income" for the life of the client. Now, which companies do you think I will be concentrating most of my marketing efforts on in the future? But why stop there? I could further leverage my affiliate income even more by offering a "white label" or a co-branded service thru my own website. It would greatly increase my share of the sale and give me long-term revenue. I believe, this is where many affiliate marketers drop the ball, they don't fully explore "white label", "co-branded products", "full resell rights", "back-end profits" and "residual income" when they think of affiliate marketing. Now some may argue this is more of a "hands-on" arrangement and may involve more work on your part but the rewards will be well worth it; for instead of getting a one time sale you could be building long-term residual income for years to come. Likewise, you should try to "leverage your returns" when picking affiliate products or programs to promote; if possible, always go for those with residual income. Don't make the mistake of settling for less, always check out the maximum return you can get on your affiliate marketing. Investigate special private deals or arrangements with your affiliate partners and bargain for a bigger share of the pie. Like me, you may be pleasantly surprised at the results. DevilD

Selling Or Buying Domain Names For Revenue

If you are looking to make money online, you are possibly aware that it seems that everyday new ways are being presented on how you can achieve this. Flipping domains, on the other hand, is a proven opportunity to make money and sometimes quickly, although not everyone is aware of the market for this. In a similar manner as owning a website means you have an asset, this is also the case when you purchase a domain. How domains can be sold for a nice return is something we will now explore.

There are countless domains that made people prosperous who were in this market at the start and there are many of these who still trade domains as a genuine business today. The dot com extension is actually the most valuable and the one word kind of domains are long gone in terms of availability as they are for the majority of the others such as dot net and dot org. If you can instruct yourself about this market, you can still make healthy profits once you realize where the demand is.

Short domain names have the potential to make you some money and those with the least characters are most likely to be priced at the uppermost level. One of the underlying factors these can be attractive to prospective buyers is they may be seen as brandable particularly in these days of web 2.0 sites that have short quirky names. Clearly, some will be more marketable than others and so you need to get a feel for what looks right. You should learn to get an instinct for what is right here and by looking into what actually sells and for what price, your understanding of what creates interest will increase.

If you look into niches as part of your internet marketing, you will recognize the next sort of domain that is dependent on specific keyword phrases. Google's keyword tool is used by many people for investigation in internet marketing and, in domaining, the exact match options are often used. The more occasions an exact keyword is searched for, the more valuable the domain could be to buy if you still can get it. The dot net and dot org extensions can be lucrative if you find that the more sought after dot com has already been registered. As you become more competent, you will get an idea as to what markets are the most profitable as this will have an effect on the price paid for domains.

A further area of escalating interest for domainers are extensions associated with particular international locations such as the UK and Germany. It is conceivable to unearth domains that you might not obtain for the main domain extensions and this could end up being profitable. If you keep an eye on the market, you will see that you are much more aware of where the value is. Sedo is one of the largest sites online for marketing domains so you need to see what goes on there and sign up for a forum like NamePros or DNForum.

Domain flipping can make you money online as long as you invest some hours gaining the wisdom you need to trade successfully.
DevilD