Anyway, I decided I should give myself another chance and I have rehired me on a probation period of 3 months, to see if I am worth it.

So, to come back to the review: another blog I have read this year (the entire archive, as you might be used by now) is TylerCruz’s. I do not remember how I got there (I think from a sale mentioned on shoemoney’s blog), but the first thing I noticed when I got on his blog was his daily revenue on the right sidebar (no longer there now). It was something like 230$/day, which is not huge but not to be taken lightly, either. What was different to his revenue was that he had earned it all with direct advertising: no Adsense, no PPC, no affiliates (well, he had a very small revenue from affiliates at that point). BTW, Tyler, any reason why that your daily earnings are not there anymore?

This made me think. For the last 2 years, most of my online revenue was Adsense based, but this started to annoy me, especially since one of my sites produces something like 300 clicks/day and the ‘huge” sum of $8-10/day. And no, that site is not MFA or anything. It is a genuine site, with good traffic. And yes, on the amount of cash I could retire in 200 years.

Anyway, back to Tyler. Another thing I liked was that he was very transparent about his sites, earnings and what he does to increase his revenues. While there are no ground breaking methods he uses, just seeing them used and delivering makes you wanna start and use them.

On a personal level, I liked the guy because he used to play tournament level chess while he was younger, something I also did while I was a kid. More, we both play poker right now (he does it more than me at this point, though I would like to play more). What do you say Tyler, wanna play some chess?

I was looking around the site to remember which posts I liked best, but I realized I cannot name a certain post. One of the reasons is he writes a lot about several subject in a post and, what more, he used to write quite seldom. Anyway, I felt that his problems (like feeling he doesn’t work as much as he should and the likes) are the same problems I think about all the time. His 40 work hours/week series was one of the most funny I have read online, since I felt I was in his shoes so many times.

My advice? Read the entire blog: it is not such a big archive as it looks, and it will really make you feel what it means to be earning money from the internet to move away from your parents’ house (well, he did that and in style… he bought his own apartment in one and a half years).

Nice job, Tyler!

One more thing, for my Romanian readers and the participants at the Blogoree Workshop: we have talked about letting your readers know you want to advertise their services on your blog and I have told you about this Advertise page Tyler has it on his blog. You should use one of this on your blogs either, no matter the theme of blog. You never know who wants to buy some space on your site.

P.S.: As John Chow does on his blog, Tyler gives back links for those that review his site. While this is a good reason for a review, my review is not for that link. I really think he deserves to be read, especially by those that want to escape from the dreaded Google Adsense (aff).

Although direct advertising is the best way to earn from your website, it requires understanding and implementation of internet marketing techniques available at almost every seo website. To start with, adsense marketing can bring you considerable earnings with minimum effort. Another bundled advantage with adsense subscription is quick and free search engine submission in Google. Once everything gets settled, you’ll get many of direct advertising options to choose the best one.

John Chow dot Com started to barge into my life something like 6 months ago, from all the blogs I could read: my Romanian friends, bloggers around the world, Agloco pitches… everyone was talking about how much John Chow earns. That was when I started reading his blog. Of course, I took several weeks to read it from the first post.

And I liked what I read. Sometimes I think he uses a way too patronizing style of telling the story, but the information he writes really worths taking it for the time you read the posts.

How to make money on the Internet was not something new for John Chow since he already had a successful hardware technology site and, along with it, a successful advertising network, so the blog was something of a hobby to him.

Well, that is enough of a introduction. What is so interesting about a one and a half year old personal blog? Well, almost an year ago (September 2006), he started a case study to see if he can make money from it. And he started to show earnings that dazzled anybody reading: starting from $300-400 in the first month to a whooping $12000 in March.

So, what is so special about his blog? Well, I have found information on the subjects I was looking then: social news sites, especially Digg. How to get a story on the frontpage (the algorithm change in the meanwhile), how to survive a digg effect, what you earn in Adsense from Digg users and more. More, his success story on earning money from blogs was something I need to rediscover, since my online projects at that time were not targeted on blogging (they still aren’t, but it was nice to be able to keep in touch).

But the most important thing I learned from John Chow’s experiment was that I was underachieving: I only used Adsense and some other small monetization methods. Though I knew you can earn a lot from other sources, there is something about the numbers that surely make you want to try and test. So I did and right now I am earning money with methods starting from Adsense to affiliates and donation, but not only that.

Finally, what I like and dislike about John Chow dot Com?

I like: the information he writes, that comes from his own experience, as he finds it out

I don’t like: His patronizing tone and the fact that lately there are too many ReviewMe reviews.

My advice: read the entire archive. It is full of information not only on blogs, but on the life style of a Dot Com mogul, as he says, on the ways you should think about the internet and about life around the online business in general.

P.S.: here is the final link for the contest: hosting Canada. And, another thing, the guys at Bluefur (those hosting Canada ) have a contest of their own, where they ask you to vote for them at Bloggers Choice Awards. You can win another monitor there. Who knows, in a short while I might have a dual monitor setup for my laptop, either, aside from the one at my desktop at the office. So, what are YOU waiting for? Go take the monitors (and give me a beer if you win one of them ) and start to make money online.

Sometime ago I was browsing around Digg and happened to see this list of blogs with the most FeedBurner subscribers. I entered then, for the first time, on Self Made Minds. I looked at the list and left. Several weeks later, by following a link from another blog, I got there again. And I started to read more posts from the blog… Until I found myself reading the entire archive.

What is so special about Self Made Minds and what attracted me there? The success story: Al, one of the guys behind SMM, created a gadget blog and got away with it (they were successful ): it became a $100K/year blog.

So, for all of you outhere starting your own gadget blog (and I know some: devicepedia, digitpedia – a lot of pedia’s here – Camera Phones Plaza a.s.o.), start reading the Friday series Al and Scott named so cleverly “History of a $100K site“. They tell the story of their success month by month, with graphics and numbers, along with all the things they learned. In my opinion, it is the best tutorial you can read if you want to start a blog about technology. And, more, you can ask them how they did it: they answer your comments quickly and they seem more than happy to share their success.

Of course, the series I already mentioned isn’t all there is to read on Self Made Minds. The guys try their hands on a lot of stuff and share their experience: mini-sites, domains, forums, you will surely find something worth reading.

I could probably tell you more about the blog, but it would sound like I am trying to sell it or something (not that I would mind ). So, go there, read the blog and start earning some money online.

Posts on Self Made Minds I recommend:

One Big Site or Many Small Sites
Is it too late to start building a full time income online?
Don’t let Adsense get you down