Estoy regalando unos libros y unos componentes de hardware al primero que pase por mi casa a recogerlo (no el primero que llame, ni el primero que conteste por correo, etc…). Las únicas condiciones son las siguientes:

1. Si quieres un libro, te tienes que llevar todos
2. Si quieres un componente de hardware, te tienes que llevar todos Y me tienes que sacar el disco duro del ordenador (te dejaré el disco original, que está averiado)
3. No puedes ser alguien con quien ya tengo una relación pero SÍ tienes que tener una relación con alguien que tiene relación conmigo (sí, quiero ampliar mi red de contactos)

• La lista de libros
• Componentes de hardware incluyen:
  • iBook G4 (800 Mhz, white, incluye todos los discos de instalación etc., pero que no arranca ya)
  • FireWire CD Burner
  • Wireless mouse (but not bluetooth)
  • M-Audio GrooveLap Transit headset (digital headphones and microphone)

Estimo que estoy regalando $1.600,00 en mercancia… Por favor, pasen la palabra!

A new version of the PHP BBEdit Clipping Set is available for download (for free) immediately:

http://tedmasterweb.com/php-bbedit-clipping-set/

HIGHLIGHT: The new set contains more than 9,200 clippings (that’s about 3,000 more than the previous version).

Changes in this version

• all clippings (optionally) conform as closely as possible to the Zend/PEAR style guides

• removed hundreds of duplicate clippings (mostly constants)

• removed “cruft” (primarily from Snippets and Control Structures)

• reorganized clippings into more logical folder structures

• based this set on a very recent version of the manual

• the set now includes more than 9,200 functions, constants, methods, properties, snippets, control structures and more

• added additional “interactive” functionality to some date functions (I could never remember exactly which switches to use when formatting dates)

• the set now includes class methods and properties

• renamed the clipping set to just “PHP.php” (except for the “Loose” version, see page for details)

+++

I hope you enjoy and be sure to let me know if you find any bugs or have any requests for improvement!

Sincerely,

Ted Stresen-Reuter http://tedmasterweb.com

I’ve heard many stories about people making lots of money via Google’s AdWords and AdSense programs. Most people make this income via AdSense Arbitrage: buying AdWords for less than the income generated by the AdSense ads appearing on your site. You pocket the difference.

I don’t believe 1% of what I hear so I decided to research these claims. While researching I stumbled on Spyfu which offers a list of the most expensive keywords being used in AdWords. The astute reader familiar with Google’s AdWords and AdSense programs will immediately recognize the arbitrage opportunity.

Living in a vacation paradise, having a large selection of potential “stock” photos, knowing something about SEO, and having just received a gift certificate for 50€ in AdWords, I decided to try a little experiment. According to Spyfu.com, “hotels”, “travel”, “flights”, “rental”, “vacations”, “holidays” are among the higher paying keywords that one would associate with my collection of stock photos.

The goal is/was to spend (invest) the 50€ on AdWords at rates lower than what other advertisers are paying to have their ads appear on my site, and then hope that users either buy a license for my photographs or click on an advertisement. This is classic “arbitrage” but avoids breaking Google’s AdSense guidelines because the primary goal is to sell licenses and give users some pretty pictures to look at.

I set up a “stock photography” subsite on tedmasterweb.com with lots of pictures of landscapes here in the islands, in other parts of Europe and one of my dad’s farm outside Chicago. Nothing complicated, but fine tuned for SEO, ease of use, and directed at potential stock photo buyers or anyone who likes to look at pretty pictures of places they are going to visit.

At first the ads appearing on the site were all for financial-related things (like masters degrees and stock trading systems). I changed the subdirectory from “stock” to “stock-photography” and the ads, thankfully, changed to reflect more travel and graphic arts related offers. I also added a AdSense placement on the landing page (rather than just on the enlargement pages). These two changes improved my “conversions”. In just a couple of days I had 3 clicks on ads (whereas prior to the 50€ I went months without a single click!). This great article on another AdSense Arbitrage Experiment corroborates my findings (money can be made, but you’re likely going to lose at first).

In the end, as you might have guessed if you have any experience at all in this field, the experiment proved what any reasonable person would assume: My ROI on this so far is a loss of 48€ (plus the several hours I put in to setting everything up, which I could have billed at 70€/hour for any of my clients).

The next step, of course, will be to improve the quality of the textual content on each page so that it targets holiday travelers more directly and gets them to link to these pictures (and ultimately click on the ads too) and to target my keywords better (so that only very interested people click on my site). I’ll post an update at some point so stay tuned!

But before I go…

I also signed up for Google’s AdSense for domains since I had several domains I’d purchased as part of this same experiment (but a more developed version of it). We’ll see if this provides any additional income. Here are the domains in case you’re curious:

1. Stock holiday pictures (without hyphens)
2. Stock holiday photographs
3. Stock photography royalty free
4. Stock vacation pictures (without hyphens)
5. Stock vacation photographs

We’ll see how all this turns out, but the next time someone tells you they’re bringing in 4,000€/month in AdSense income, tell them you want to see their AdSense account before you’ll believe it.