Swollen Pickles

As I sit watching paint dry, eagerly awaiting my seven day bidvertiser experiment to reach it's conclusion I've become reflective. In the past twelve months or so, I've joined a number of programs with the intention of making some cash from them. Some have been winners, some have been stinkers. But it's always nice to log into an affiliate program after a lengthy absence to find that you've made some 'surprise' money.

The first one, is Deal Dot Com. In it's start up stage there were a few high flyers that apparently did quite well with this program targeting the "Make Money Online" market. Unfortunately I wasn't one of them. To make decent money from Deal Dot Com, you need to be good at building referrals. The cool thing about Deal Dot Com is that you can have direct referrals (tier one) but also second level referrals (tier two).

"You get paid 35% of DealDotCom’s profit for every item that they buy. If someone you referred to DealDotCom refers someone else, you get paid 15% of DealDotCom’s profit every time they buy something for the rest of your life."

Unfortunately, I've never been good at building massive referral numbers, so I haven't made my Deal Dot Com fortune. Still, I was glad to see that my single digit referral brought me in $3.50 the other day! Thanks whoever you are, it paid for my coffee! The other beauty of Deal Dot Com was that it costs nothing to join, so there's nothing to lose. Easy.

Seriously though, if you've go a large network that's interested in making money online (and the associated products) you should give Deal Dot Com a look, they have a facebook plugin now as well, which makes it even easier for you.

The one that has really surprised me though is the phpBay Pro affiliate program. phpBay Pro is an awesome piece of programming, so I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending it to anyone looking to integrate eBay auction into their site. I use phpBay Pro three sites, and it's the best $49 I've spent. To give you an idea, in this month alone, I've passed the $170 mark (see requisite screen shot below). That's $170 from very little effort. I'm guessing that's why phpBay Pro is an easy sell, and explains why I've made $90 from affiliate sales in the last 6 weeks.

The phpBay Pro affiliate program is a good one because it pays $14.70 for every $49 sale. That's a pretty decent cut if you ask me! What's been my strategy? Buying phpBay Pro, using it, proving it works, and then telling people how good it is. I should write a book!

Not an affiliate program as such, but I made a nice buck from picking the 2008 NBA Champions over at Predictify. I gazed into the crystal ball and picked the Boston Celtics a month or two back, and they got over the line, and helped me buy another coffee. I'm glad I couldn't disagree with Boston fan boy Blankshooting.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I logged into Predictify this morning after neglecting my account for a few weeks and noticed they have redesigned their site a little. The basic functionality is the same, however they've tarted it up slightly with some 'web 2.0' gradients. Very nice, but the real news is a noticed there were more paid predictions available that the last time I visited. I also noticed I made $1.17 by predicting the opening weekend takings for Harold and Kumar 2. It's nice to be paid for foreseeing the future.

In other news, you may have been one of the people to have missed my outrageously professional review of the direct to DVD title, Day of the Dead, due to the over whelming popularity, not to mention animal magnetism, of Paris Hilton's camel toe.

Sexy PARIS HILTON 8 X 10 Autograph Photo Reprint! WoW!

US $5.99

20m

It's Tuesday, and I've got a case of the Monday's. What does that mean?

Popularity: 1% [?]

So I kept my promise to myself, and two weekends ago went to the book shop and bought, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, and it's sequel, Dearly Devoted Dexter. Darkly Dreaming Dexter is the first book of the series that follows serial killer, who only kills the bad guys that deserve it, as he deals with some of his own internal conflicts as a new, flashy, serial killer wanders into his neighbourhood. Dexter is torn between admiration for this new predator, do what he does best.

I'd have to say the show is rather 'loosely' based on the book. The book was an excellent read I have to say. I finished it off in a couple of nights, which is unusual for me. Darkly Dreaming Dexter formed the basis for season one of the TV show Dexter, although after both watching series one and reading the book. If you've watched the show, but have decided to give the books a miss because you think you know what is going to happen, then think again. There are a number of differences between the book and TV series.

* WARNING: WHAT FOLLOWS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR BOTH SEASON ONE OF DEXTER AND THE BOOK DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER *

Firstly, the TV series contains a large number of sub-plots that are not dealt with at all in the book. For example, the book deals almost exclusively with Dexter's investigation of the "Tamiami Butcher", or the "Ice Truck Killer" in the TV series. Very little is made of his relationship with Rita, there are no appearances by her ex-husband, Deb does not 'date' Rudy, Angel is another lab tech, and not a Detective.

Another major change in the book is that for a large part of the novel, the reader is led to believe that Dexter himself may be committing the “Tamiami Butcher” murders. The novel makes numerous references to Dexter having a 'Dark Passenger' within him, which is not even mentioned in Season One. Dexter describes the 'Dark Passenger' as often riding in the backseat of his consciousness until the urge to kill overwhelms him and he lets the 'Dark Passenger' take the steering wheel.

There are other far less subtle differences between the novel and the TV show, but if you want to know more you'll need to read the book!

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

US $4.28

1h 24m

Darkly Dreaming Dexter - Jeff Lindsay - NEW BOOK

US $16.18

23h 7m

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay (2006, Paperb...

0 Bid

US $7.00

1d 3h 11m

Popularity: 1% [?]

Swollen Pickles is back online! For the past week or so I've been unable to post, or even log in to my WordPress administration panel. After much head scratching and pleading my host managed to fix the problem for me. Apparently it had something to do with the All In One SEO plugin I'd installed. The unexpected lock out has played havoc with my goal project this month.

If nothing else, this little drama has reminded me once again about the importance of scheduling a number of posts to display in advance!

Since I haven't posted anything useful, or even not useful, lately check out this link to some very very useful WordPress Theme Hacks. Just remember to back up everything before trying these.

Now, for the scientific minded, here's a picture of the primordial soup.

Now things are up and running again, I hope to resume normal programming shortly.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Over the past month or so I've received a few emails and private messages in forums from people asking if they can advertise one my site. Obviously I'd love to make this happen, but at the moment I don't have the know how, or the time, to sell ad space privately.

With that in mind, I've finally figured out a way to get Project Wonderful working on SwollenPickles.com. What does this mean? Well, now you can pick up a 125x125 pixel ad spot on Swollen Pickles for as low as $0.70 per day. Why 70 cents? Well I wanted to charge 75 cents, but Project Wonderful rounds to zero, so I set it to 70 cents rather than 80 cents.

Project Wonderful was a good option for me, as it means I don't have to deal with the ad management and exchange of money. That's all handled for me.

For would-be advertisers there are also benefits in having me use Project Wonderful. Firstly, it's managed by an independent third party, and is governed by Project Wonderful. Here's a summary of how the system works.

"Advertising on Swollen Pickles is offered through Project Wonderful. We bring a model of transparency and fairness to online advertising. Ads are sold through our innovative Infinite Auction model: you bid on an advertising slot, and for as long as you are the high bidder, your ad is displayed. You can bid whatever price you'd like for as long as you'd like: two days, a week, a year - it's your choice."

"All bids are in "cost per day" - you simply tell us how much you're willing to pay for a day's worth of advertising, and whenever you are the high bidder, your ad will be displayed! You're only charged for the time periods when your ad is shown. You can also set hard expense limits on your bids, so you'll never get charged more than you expect."

Secondly, Project Wonderful also allows advertisers to view certain statistics for the site they would like to advertise on.

The second advertising option on SwollenPickles.com is the ScratchBack "Tip Jar". I've moved it down the sidebar a little to give the Project Wonderful ads more prominence, and have therefore dropped the ScratchBack price accordingly, from $3.50 down to $1.50. The ScratchBack widget is set to "auto bump" meaning that your link will only stay up for as long as it takes for you to be bumped from the list. In other words the most recent 'tipper' takes the top spot, bumping everyone else down one spot, which would push the last person of the list entirely. With that being said, the 5 links that are on there right now, have been there for over a month now...

So in summary, until I'm able to figure out a simple, easy to manage, system I can use to sell ad space on my own, these are the two easiest methods to advertise your site on SwollenPickles.com.

Popularity: 1% [?]

It took me a couple of weeks but I have finally updated my goals for the 2008 calender year. You can view the 2008 goal page here, or just click on 'Goals' in the top navigation bar.

In a nutshell, here are the goals I have set for 2008:

1. Develop Swollen Pickles into a website that can generate $350 per month.
2. Develop Swollen Pickles to the point where it receives 30,000 unique visits per month.
3. Develop Digital Burn into a website that can generate $150 per month.
4. Develop Digital Burn to the point where it receives 15,000 unique visits per month.
5. Develop Motor Dude into a website that can generate $50 per month.
6. Develop Motor Dude to the point where it receives 7,500 unique visits per month.
7. Achieve my goal weight of 85kgs.

You'll noticed that I kept this years set of goals focused primarily on web stuff. I may have been a little optimistic in terms of the financial goals for a couple of these sites, but if I don't try, I'll never get there. If you're wondering how I arrived at the dollar figures, it was largely based on what I thought was achieveable given the growth in the past 12 months. Also if I averaged those figures over a year, then it would go close to paying my rent, and having a roof over your head is a good thing!

There's also a new, highly classified, uber top secret, project I'm working on at the moment, however I haven't included that in the list as yet. Perhaps I will once it launches.

In other news, I recently forked out the cash for the Pro version of the phpBay plugin. It cost me $49.95 US, but based on the performance of the Lite version, I'll have made my money back on it within a couple of weeks.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Happy Australia Day people! Hope you're having a good one, whether you're cooking a barbie with beer in hand, perched on an esky watching the cricket, or walking along the beach wondering why your thongs are making that squeeking noise.

A couple of aussie things to cross off my aussie 'to do' list today.

Firstly, I need to give a plug to the Aussie Bloggers Forum. Why? Cos it's aussie!

Secondly, I need to give a plug to the Aussie Bloggers Blog. Why? Cos it's aussie!

Thirdly, I need to give a plug to lamb. Why? Cos it's Aussie, and Sam Kekovich is doing his best to make sure lamb isn't forgotten on this most Aussiest of days.

Here's some of slammin' Sam's fine work in the promotion of lamb. This first one is Sam's 2007 address to the nation.

Here's Sam campaigned for the introduction of Australian Week to replace Australian Day. 

 

Popularity: 1% [?]