I've decided it's time for another experiment. I've been using Project Wonderful for a while. If you're not familiar with Project Wonderful, it is a program that is free, and lets you sell your own ad spots, kind of like PerformancingAds, however Project Wonderful uses an auction based model.

Currently I have 4 125x125 ad blocks available on this site. The top one, has been set at $0.60 minimum bid per day. It gets picked up now and then, but is rarely taken day after day. This is disappointing. In the past five days, the average daily bid has been a lowly $0.22.

With that in mind, I've decided to drop the minimum bid to $0.00 for five days to see how that goes. So for the next five days, the minimum bid for the top spot on the right will be set at $0.00 per day. If you want to place a bid on the spot, visit the Project Wonderful bidding page here.

This post is really nothing more than a miscellaneous collection of stuff, so prepare yourself...

If you're one of the people, like me, that found Alien vs. Predator 2 a joyful romp in the ongoing Alien/Predator love story, then this little clip will give you another opportunity to geek out like there's no tomorrow.

It's in German, and there are no subtitles, so I have absolutely no idea what they are saying, but then, that's part of the appeal.

Continuing the sci-fi geek theme, for some reason, this picture always makes me giggle like a school girl.

Thanks to Lee, the Quit Your Day Job guru, for "interviewing" me. It's a world first.

I also finally got around to opening my guitar effects forum the other day. Only a couple of members so far, but hopefully it builds quickly so I don't talk to myself.

In other news I started watching the new J.J. Abrams show Fringe the other night. I've seen the first three episodes so far. I really enjoyed the first pilot, but the second two episodes didn't quite grab me as much as the first. It still has my interest, but I'm hoping it can get back to the standard that the pilot episode showed that it could reach.

I finished reading Bullseye: Greatest Hits last night and wrote a quick review/summary on the Comicologist.

Here's the heads up for anyone registered for Predictify, and if you're not registered, register here for free. Predicitify have gone into partnership with 'Rock the Vote' and are running a $100,000 election showdown.

How does it all work? I'll let Predictify explain, because I'm quite lazy.

What is the $100,000 Election Showdown?

The $100,000 Election Showdown is an opportunity to prove your foresight by predicting the winner of 14 key states in this year's presidential election, much like an NCAA tournament bracket. Here's how it works:

• Predict the winner in 14 historically-decisive states, plus the overall popular vote (15 questions in total)
• Tell your friends or post a link on your website or blog - the pot increases by $1 with every prediction up to $100,000
• Compare and discuss your picks with friends, or explore the results to see the wisdom of crowds in action
• On November 5th, we'll score your picks and reward the most accurate predictors with a share of the pot

So you want a share of $100,000? Get onto Predictify and start predicting!

Want to see my prediction? Here's what the system spat out:

Remember, you read it here first!

In my experience, any email you receive that begins with the words "Due to prevailing conditions..." is not going to end well.

If, like me, you've joined Freebies4Webmasters then the chances are that you'll have received an email that begins that way in the past 24-48 hours.

In case you don't check your inbox, here it is.

Dear Webmaster,

Due to prevailing conditions for our advertisers, it has been decided we can no longer accept new applications to Freebies4webmasters, and that some existing accounts will be closed.

Some or all of your domains accepted in your publisher account may be removed in the following days due to our advertiser requirements.

Please note that all removed domains that were due payment up to the 1st of October have already been paid.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you in your participation of Freebies4Webmasters and give our best wishes to the further success of your website. Publishers who will remain in our network will continue to be paid as normal.

Best Regards,
Freebies4Webmasters Team

Now the way I interpret that message is that due to the recent page rank update, Freebies4Webmasters will be reviewing publisher accounts, and removing those accounts that don't meet "advertiser requirements". I'd suggest that if your site has taken a page rank hit since the last update then you'll likely find that you no longer meet "advertiser requirements" and will receive a follow up email. How long the process takes is anyone's guess, but I'm wondering if they'll pay out pro-rata if you get booted from their system halfway through the month?

In short, good luck to anyone wanting to stick with them, I hope you don't get booted. For everyone else, I hope you cashed in while you had the chance.

I have now officially made over $1,000 USD with PayPerPost. It's been quite a while since I took an opportunity on this site, largely in an effort to avoid the Google turkey slapping (which seems to have happened anyway), but I've been using it a little on a blog that I've basically just "whore'd" out to pay the bills. The irony being my "whore'd" blog got through the last page rank update unscathed, while this one took a bit of a dive.

I realised a long time ago that page rank is largely irrelevant, besides the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you see your sites page rank go up, the only other thing it's good for is that it means people are willing to pay more for a post or a text link. The idea of Google attempting to control what I do bugs me. Lets not kid ourselves, by penalising people for selling links, posts and advertising on their sites, Google are effectively attempting to control what you can and can't do. Worried about PageRank? Do what I do, switch of the little green bar in your browser and forget about it. Then carry on doing what you'd like.

Ranting aside, I thought I'd share this screen shot from my PayPerPost dashboard.

If you're scared of losing your PageRank, but want to take some paid posts either with PayPerPost or someone else like LinkWorth, I'd suggest setting up a blog that you aren't all that fussed about. Buy a cheap URL, install WordPress, and just start posting. Make it as interesting as possible, then start whacking in a few paid opportunities. Yes, most people would most probably consider it a shameful pimping of self, but unless those people can offer you a sweet $1K for very little output, then tell em' to get stuffed. If you do it right, a blog you pimp out can end up being a nice little cash cow that can help you fund a whole range of other web adventures. You've got to start somewhere.

Click here to go and join PayPerPost.

Click here to go and join LinkWorth.

Since I installed the WP-Polls plugin I've run a grand total of eight polls on this site. Generally, they aren't all that popular with visitors, with only 3 of 8 getting into double figures.

My most popular poll so far has been on Battle of the Battlestar Galactica Cyclons Round Two with 53 voters so far.

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I just figured out (I think) how to list all the polls in the one post/page. So basically this whole post is nothing more than an excuse for me to see if it works.
» Read the rest of the entry..

When I registered with Predictify a while back, I was a little sceptical, I mean to say, their tag line was "Make Money By Predicting Future Events". Were they for real?

Well, as it turns out, they are for real, and they continue to pay out. Don't kid yourself, you're not going to make a fortune with Predictify, but you will make some additional coin, and more than enough to buy a domain name and start your online empire from scratch. What's more, Predictify is actually quite fun. It's like a social networking site with a twist. Get a few friends on board and you could run your own little sports tipping competition. See who can pick the most winners. Bragging rights and bucks.

Here's a screen shot of the payments I've received in the last couple of weeks.

Note the payouts for correctly predicting the outcome for a couple of NFL games. I made $5.37 for predicting the correct outcome in the Patriots vs. Jets game alone. What do I know about NFL? Sweet bugger all. I can name a handful of teams, with one of them being the Dallas Cowboys, and I only know them because of their cheerleaders, so that shows you don't have to actually be an expert in anything to win, you just need to make a few lucky guesses.

Predictify pay via PayPal at the end of every month.

Click here to learn more about Predictify.