RSS stands for “really simple syndication”, and as the name suggests, it is relatively easy to take advantage of RSS. I use RSS for all the blogs I visit, I even subscribe to my own blog so that I do not have to log in to get my comments.
You may have noticed the little button below every post on My Little Corner. This is my RSS feed for my site. If you would like to save time logging into your favourite websites I recommend getting Google reader and subscribing to all your favourites.
How could one profit from an RSS feed?
There are many ways you can profit from RSS data feeds. To begin with, since this is a new technology, most people are afraid to jump in and learn how to take advantage of it. This makes it a great opportunity for you because there is less competition.
In the same way you generate traffic, subscribers and money by writing and submitting articles to article directories, you can do the same thing with RSS feeds.
You simply create your RSS feed and then submit it to the various RSS feed directories.
The links within your feeds need to point back to your websites, affiliate links and opt-in list pages so that you can make money.
On the Internet content is king and webmasters are always on the lookout for free content. Especially nowadays, with the Google Adsense craze, a lot of Internet marketers are creating tons of websites constantly with page generators and free content.
This is why an RSS feed will be picked up and used on lots of different websites, and the smart marketers that use RSS feeds stand to profit wildly from this situation.
Since you will be submitting the RSS feed to directories, it is important to use an attractive title, including related keywords. This way, people looking for content will find it when doing a search in RSS feed directories.
Now that you have a fair understanding of what RSS is, here are some creative ways to put the power of RSS to work and bring in profits:
1. Syndicate your RSS feed in RSS directories to be picked up by webmasters looking for free content.
2. Insert relevant affiliate links in your RSS feed.
3. Insert links to your websites and opt-in list pages. This way you build up your link popularity and attract traffic to your websites.
4. Sell a product directly using RSS by including your sales letter in the feed.
5. Use RSS data feed content from other authors to create a content site using a page generator. Once the content site is done you can add Adsense and related affiliate links.
These are just a few ideas to get you started with profiting from RSS feeds. With application of this technology you will come up with various other ideas, and profit even more. The key is to take action and differentiate yourself from the majority of Internet marketers, many of whom are afraid to deal with technology at all.
For more information on how to create your own RSS feed or if you have any questions, leave a comment, I will answer it.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
Ok I missed posting last night. I was busy with it but the coolest thing distracted me. It started snowing
Ok, Ok, you guys are wondering why I am so excited. I guess that means that you don’t get it. There was snow in Johannesburg, South Africa. It doesn’t snow in Johannesburg, The last time we were blessed with the white stuff was around 1985.
Man what a pleasure to wake up with snow on the ground, take an extra 15 minutes to scrape the snow off the windscreen of my car with a spatula (We don’t have things like ice scrapers here in South Africa because, well it doesn’t snow ) .
What fun to be outside at midnight, enjoying the snow falling on your shoulders. I took some photos but haven’t downloaded them off the camera yet. I will upload them as soon as I do.
Well I am at work now so won’t spend too much more time, but for your viewing pleasure I found a video on You Tube that someone recorded of last night’s events.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
So you want to start an internet business, or get a website for your offline business, or even just get a personal blog or webpage? Well one of the most important things you need is hosting, and when you are looking for a professional web hosting service, you want to look for certain features and services. There are a few hosts who give more or less depending on the price you are willing to pay, but these small internet providers are more likly to be fly by nighters. So here are a few questions which might help you get your web business on the road.
1. Reliability and Speed
Look for a hosting service that owns their own equipment, with high-speed connections to multiple Internet backbones, backup power generators and backup systems in place. The hosting company will generally brag about their high-speed connections and will usually guarantee 99% or better availability of your web site.
Many hosting services are operated by resellers. This can be a good thing if they bring better and more knowledgeable support to their resold services. Unfortunately, many resellers do not really have the resources or knowledge to adequately support you.
Years in business are something you should take a look at. Three years or more is a pretty good yardstick of reliability.
If they offer a trial period, take advantage of it and actually try the service out.
2. Operating Systems
Do they use a standard operating system configuration that they keep updated on a routine basis? If they do not, you may have trouble getting newer scripts to work. On Linux servers, look for Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian, SuSE, Slackware and CentOS. You can visit www.kernel.org to find out what the latest stable version of Linux is. On Windows servers, look for recent Windows operating systems with all patches kept current. If they do not publish this information, email or phone them to find out.
3. Language and Database Support
They should support the key programming languages and databases that are used by newer scripts and should keep these up to date as well. On Linux you should look for PHP and Perl at the least. For a database, look for MySQL. You should be allowed at least one database. You should have your own CGI Bin. On Windows systems, look for MS Access at the least and MS SQL Server for power and speed. If you want to use the Microsoft .NET framework, your hosting will need to support that.
4. Support
Check their support. The minimum support is email support. The better hosting services provide 24/7 email, ticket system and live telephone support. Actually try their support and see if they respond quickly enough for your needs and if their support staff is helpful and knowledgeable.
5. FTP Access
Many inexpensive hosting services do not provide FTP access. You will need FTP access if you plan to add much material to your website or if you need to install scripts on your website. Also check that you can change permissions on your files via FTP or through SSH.
6. Email
How many email accounts do they provide? Are they POP email accounts? Can you add forwarders and email aliases? Look for web mail access as well. The better the service, the more options they will provide for email.
7. User Control Panel
Look for a comprehensive user control panel that allows you to manage your hosting account. The better control panels also provide automatic script installers like Fantastico or Elefante. Cpanel, Ensim and HSphere and Plesk are all well known and well supported. There are many more control panels than these and they are good too, but you should probably check them more thoroughly and take a look at their demo system if they have one.
You should be able to host at least one domain name. The better hosting companies will generally allow you five or more domain names. There should be no restrictions on sub-domains.
9. Statistics
Does your hosting service include a statistics program so you can monitor your website traffic?
10. Disk Space
The absolute minimum is 50 MB, but you should be paying very low prices for that little disk space.
11. Bandwidth
The main difference between the basic and expensive plans of any hosting service is the amount of bandwidth allowed per month.
To figure how much bandwidth you need, multiply your visits per day X page views per visit X average page size X 30 days.
Example: 100 visits per day, 5 page views per visit, with a page size of 45 kb: 100 X 5 X 45 KB X 30 = 675,000 KB = 675 MB.
Try to get as much bandwidth for your dollar as possible, but beware of web hosting services that offer unlimited bandwidth. Read the fine print and their terms of use carefully. There is usually some kind of restriction that you will need to be aware of.
Make sure you read up on how they charge you if you exceed your monthly bandwidth and what upgrades they have available.
12. eCommerce
If you plan to run a shopping cart or secure payments or data transfers on your website, you need to make sure that the hosting service supports SSL.
Some Closing Thoughts:
Typical prices for professional level hosting range between $6.99 and $45.00 per month for a reasonable level of disk space and bandwidth on shared hosting. Below that you are asking for trouble because they probably do not make enough money to adequately support their equipment, systems or you.
Windows servers are usually more expensive than Linux servers because the Windows operating systems are not open source. The hosting company has to pay for using them.
When you are comparing plans, keep in mind that you are getting a better deal at $25 per month for eight domain names than $10 per month for one.
When you are looking for hosting don’t be afraid to ask questions. Good hosting services have no problem directing you to helpful information or answering your questions in a way that you can understand.
Well today was a very interesting service at church today. Nothing really stood out of the norm (except maybe me throwing my drum sticks all over the place, I had horrible butter fingers today), but one thing that was interesting was that a friend of mine’s son (thats him reflecting above) wanted to sit on my lap during the sermon. Now as an introvert, that is a no-no. Kids are totally out of bounds for introverts, they worse than people, they little people. They have all sorts of ucky things like …. Well let me carry on before I gross some people out
As a recovering introvert though, I have become kind of attached to the little guy. He like me to hold him sometimes and does the cutest little dances when I play drums. So things were not so bad when the sermon started and he came and sat on my lap. Then I start remembering back to some presentation training I went through and remembered that children have an attantion span of like maybe 10 minutes. So I start to panic that this guy is gonna draw attention to me when he gets bored, but he was extremely good for like 40 minutes, and there is only so many times you can play with your shoelaces and try to pull your fingers off your hands (without it hurting of course). He finally cracked at that point and I had to walk through the church hall with a crying child so that his parents could take him to the toys.
Google Street View
I was reading an article the other day on a service from Google called Google street view, well actually not a service in itself but more of an add-on to Google Earth. Anyway it’s a pretty hot topic at the moment as people are saying that their privacy is being violated. One example is a lady who went to her house and could see her cat sitting in the window.
Well my personal opinion is that people can drive by her house and see the cat themselves without Google street view, so whats the bother. Now I know that there are many more people can view this online and in the privacy of their own homes. This maybe raises concerns about criminals using the service, but it’s just as easy for a criminal to drive by a house that is being targeted and take a few seconds of footage and drive away without being noticed. In fact as a criminal (not that I am a criminal mind you ) I would much rather get the footage myself as I can get all the angles I wanted and there would be no log of my IP address that I was looking at the pictures.
What are your thoughts regarding this issue. Leave a comment, lets get a discussion going.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
This weeks theme is Shiny. I couldn’t help but post a picture of my cymbals when they were still shiny and new. (That reminds me, I need to get a new bottle of cymbal cleaner to make them shiny again, until I play and put little dots all over them again )
Well yesterday I spoke about “Subject To” real estate deals. I have been doing a bit of research and can’t seem to find much about these types of deals in South Africa. The closest I can come is a “Subject To sale” agreement. Basically what that means is that the offer to purchase will be null and void if the purchaser cannot sell his or her current residence.
That is only a subset of what the “Subject To” deal is. Let’s go over a sample situation which would create an ideal environment for a “Subject To” agreement.
“Subject To” Case Study
Debbie and Joe Blume bought their house five years ago for a R100,000 (I will use South African Rands here because, well I am in South Africa ). After 5 years, they now owe about R95,000, while their house is appraised for R160,000. Both Debbie and Joe have accumulated a credit card debt of about R20,000 since that time, and of course, the interest on that debt is much larger than they really care to have.
Joe and Debbie take out a second mortgage to pay off their credit card debt, take a vacation and buy a new car. With their second mortgage, they do all those things and have about R10,000 leftover, after everything is done. After 7 short months, most of that R10,000 is gone also.
Shortly after this, Joe receives an offer within his company for a higher paying position, but in a different City. Joe and Debbie talk it over, and decide to take the offer and move closer to the job. Of course, deciding to do that, they must now sell their beautiful home.
Like so many of us, when we look to sell our house, we think logically and talk to a real estate agent. The agent informs them that there is little to no equity left in the house, and tells the Blume’s that they will have to pay the agent’s commissions out of pocket. Of course, Joe and Debbie can’t do that, because they ran out of money and are basically living paycheck to paycheck until the new job starts.
Joe starts to worry a bit, because he needs to get to his new job out of Town, within 14 days, and Joe and Debbie would like to spend a few days off together before going to his new job.
Joe starts to think and remembers a “We Buy Houses” sign down the street from their home and runs down and calls the number on his cell phone. After talking with the investor, Joe finds out that the investor isn’t willing to pay more than R120,000 for the house. Hearing that, Joe is mad and upset that such a person can come in with such a low and insulting offer. Besides Joe couldn’t do that deal anyway because the second mortgage they took out last year, places their debt just about what the house is worth.
Getting worried and running out of time, Joe places an ad in the local newspaper advertising the house as a “For Sale By Owner”.
A True Investor
Mostly everyone is trying to low ball him except for one guy who said “he will offer the asking price, so long as he can see the place first”. Feeling excited and curious at the same time, Joe invites the man over.
A couple of hours later, Brad comes over and tells Joe that he is the one who called about the house. Brad tells Joe to explain to him a little about the house and his situation.
Joe spills his guts and describes his dilemma to Brad. After Joe finishes his story about his situation, Brad tells Joe that he thinks he can still offer the asking price if Joe was still interested in selling?
But before they start agreeing any further, Brad says, that as an investor, that his primary motivation to make a profit on the house. Joe and Debbie understand that, so long as their asking price is met and the house is sold quickly.
Brad continues and tells both Joe and Debbie that because of his need to make a profit, he needs to offer an agreement which will satisfy both their needs. Brad continues and says “That offer is what’s called a Subject To” offer. Of course bewildered and confused, Debbie and Joe ask what kind of program is that. Brad simply states, that it’s a program that suspends both their money for the house and his profit on the house for 2 years, while Brad takes over the mortgage payments. Not fully understanding, Joe continues to listen to Brad’s offer.
Here’s what it entails:
Keep the current mortgage in place for 2 years, at which time the house will be sold, and Joe’s originally asking price will be met, plus 5% of whatever profit is made by Brad
An escrow account is setup and paid by Brad to ensure full integrity of his contractual agreement with Joe and Debbie
The property is claimed over to Brad which obligates Brad to continue making the existing payments to the escrow account. The deed will stay in the attorney’s presence until the deal is fully obligated by Brad in 2 years
Brad relieves Joe and Debbie of the monthly debt for the mortgage payment so they can move on with their life
Brad offers to pay closing cost and 2 months of mortgage payments to the escrow account to solidify his offer and his intentions to make good on the contract
After discussing the deal with each other and realizing that their options and time are running low, both Joe and Debbie agree with Brad over the details and sign over the deed to Brad via the attorney.
Brad then quickly rents out the house to cover the mortgage payments and manages the house as a rental.
Two years later, Brad sells the house for R210,000 and pays R160,000 dollars to Joe and Debbie’s mortgage company, plus sends Joe and Debbie a check for %5 of the R50,000 profits, which is R2,500.
Everybody wins!
So that is the kind of “Subject To” deal that I am thinking of. If you have any comments about this type of deal then please comment on this post so that we can discuss it.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
I will even make it easy for her to ship it to me by giving her my US shipping address. Come on Ms. Danielle, that means I will pay my own shipping to South Africa.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
I was reading about something recently which I wanted to get some comment on. This is “Subject To” real estate deals.
“Subject To” real estate financing is fairly new on the real estate investing scene, mainly because many investors don’t know what it is.
“Subject To” financing actually can be a win-win situation for both the seller and the buyer/investor if both parties understand their obligations to one another. The seller usually gets to sell his/her property at the asking price which was originally sought, and the buyer/investor usually gets the property with very little money down, if any, while not having to qualify for any bank loans.
We know, that traditional real estate investing is mainly about buying low and selling high, and making a profit from that difference, usually over time. There’s absolutely no secret to that. While doing it this way, of course, you would incur all the paperwork and everything else that goes along with buying and selling a home like paying all the transaction fees that are involved like commissions, closing costs, title, recording fees and of course your time. On an average, the whole process usually takes a month and a half up to six months depending on the situation.
Creative financing, or “other than” traditional and/or conventional real estate investing, is basically working out an agreement that is fair both the seller and the buyer, without using banks or mortgage brokers. By incorporating this type of financing, the sellers can sell their property for the price they want, and in a timely fashion. The buyer/investor can create an environment for him/her to profit in some manner over a period of time.
By leaving out the usual suspects like title companies, real estate agents and loan officers, both parties stand to make the transaction more profitable for the buyer/investor and more cost effective for the sellers. Specifically this can be real profitable for the real estate investor because in any type of investing, and especially in real estate, it’s about leverage. The leverage is what makes creative financing a powerful, profit-making tool for those looking to start a real estate investing business. The leverage is usually represented by how much money you put into a certain investment, and how much you make from that amount over time. “Subject To” deals make your leverage extremely high, since most of the time you place a small amount of cash, for usually a much lager return.
Stay tuned for Part 2, with an example and questions about the legality of these types of deals in South Africa.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
Well it happened, I got into a situation where I don’t have anything to write about. Then I remembered thaat I had marked a couple of posts for comment in Google Reader.
So today I am going to talk about one of the sites I frequently read called The Bespeckled SEO
One of the latest posts actually requested a review and the owner would give $2. However I decided to do a quick review without requesting the $2 (although I would certainly not say no to it if you still have any spots open David )
Basically the posts coming through the above blog talk about various topics but spend alot of time talking Search Engine optimisation. I recommend reading a few posts and see if you like it. The site shows some really interesting topics and I really think it’s great.
I recommend signing up at Google Reader so that you can subscribe to any blogs you like and get notified immedialtly when new posts are available.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
If you want to develop a rapport with your customers, make regular postings about your business and gain interest from other media outlets or potential customers you would certainly benefit from starting a blog.
Because blogs by nature are considered a source of information rather than a commercial advertisement it makes perfect sense for a business to use blogs as a means of establishing a reputation in their market.
Posting information about their industry or field will create a sense of community involvement that potential customers will appreciate. Using links to your business page will create traffic from search engines and blog readers. You can even add a subscription form to your blog so that interested readers can immediately be emailed when you make a post.
How do I start a blog?
You can create a blog for free. (See the videos in a previous post) There are many free blog hosting sites you can locate by searching for ‘blog’ in the search engine. Blogger.com is a popular one.
Blogs are one of the simplest forms of creating an online presence. You do not need any experience in website design as most blog hosts will provide you with pre-made templates. They also provide easy to understand instructions for creating your posts along with options such as allowing comments from readers or uploading photos.
Whether you want to post your personal thoughts on a world crisis, share your poems with appreciative readers or start an online business, your blog could be set up and people could be hearing what you have to say – today.
If you have an idea of a blog, let me know and I will open up a blog for you on JMRPub.com where all you need to worry about is getting great content and no technical detail.
) I would much rather get the footage myself as I can get all the angles I wanted and there would be no log of my IP address that I was looking at the pictures.
Well yesterday I spoke about “Subject To” 
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