EDIT
Jim has apologized, so hats off to him for that. As for misrepresentation, I do not care – there are a lot of people out there that have not heard of this blog yet, and even a small opinion can help shape their opinions… if it was a correct one, fair enough, but as it was a completely unfounded one, I have no sympathy for the public bashing – an eye for an eye so they say. Even being mentioned as one of those blogs is not right – have you heard of the phrase ‘guilty by association’?
Nonetheless, I will not hold him too responsible, as the thoughts in that post appear to be misrepresented. This post still stands though.
Another thing that irritates me are the members of Digital Point; mentioned by my good friend Chenzen in the comments section below. Just because I possess an ability to write half decent eBooks, I’m compared to another member that could do as well… looks like the eBook market really wasn’t as saturated as I thought.
You can see the thread here; I thank all those who backed me up.
If I did not make myself clear, I not once have ever had a duplicate account on any forum, mainly because it would be a pain in the ass to maintain. ![]()
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I’ve been tipped off a few times about this during the last few days – being on holiday, I can’t do much. What I’m talking about is people thrashing TUK, talking absolute rubbish or misguided nonsense… stuff that will happen when you get up an opinionated website to anywhere near being half-popular.
One such example, and one that irritated me was this post at Bloggeries… now, I wasn’t a member there, and never would have found out about it if it wasn’t for someone tipping me off, but this post really irritated me… you’ll see why in a bit.
The post was about TUK, in a thread Sites claiming to earn alot, are they for real. First off, let me state that I have been as open as possible with this blog, and anyways – statistics are easily checked, especially when talking about Alexa, RSS subscribers and all that; as for earnings, there is a degree of trust involved, however I have never lied about how much I’ve made… if I’ve bombed at something (as has happened quite frequently
) I have let you guys know.
Overreaction on my part, perhaps? I’d say not… although that comment is a veiled one, it is in effect calling me a liar… something that seems to be done without a moment of thought, because if you take a look at that post, it claims that there is no way TUK earns so much – the problem is that I never said it does.
My earnings posted are overall earnings – not just for The University Kid. Obviously I’d love it if the blog pulled in $1-2k a month as then I could flip it for around $10/$20 grand as that would be great, but I’ve repeatedly stated – this blog earns nowhere near what it should do for the amount of work I put into it, and if my good ole buddy had taken a little bit of time to do some research, he would have realized that the majority of my earnings have been from flipping – eBook websites, and the proof is there at Digital Point and Site Point, in the length of the sale threads and the public end price for the website.
Now, that post alone would not have been too much of a worry – no one is going to really listen to someone with no credibility, and even if they do – who cares. The real irritation is the email I got from my forum poster friend, a while ago – I’ll post it below. I did not reply, as I have not replied to any emails except the most pressing ones due to me being on holiday, but you can have a look.
This email came from one and the same – now let me ask you an important question, in public. Why the hell would you want to exchange links with a blog that lies? Not to increase your own traffic at all, eh? For a pitiful, unrelated blog, with low traffic and Adsense everywhere (there’s a reason most of the bigger blogs don’t use it, you know), saying one thing in private, and then a totally different thing in public not just exposes you as a backstabbing tool, but a pretty ignorant one at that.
This is the only link I’ll give my buddy – here you go. Once he sees the backlink in his Wordpress dashboard, there is almost a guarantee he’ll read this post… let’s hope he has a credible reply – something I doubt in the extreme, but ah well; fool by name, foolish by nature I guess.
There we go, feel free to let me know what you think. Idiot-acknowledging posts have become a rarity at TUK, and you guys really, really missed them, didn’t you?
New advertising slot
I’ve been thinking of putting up a new advertising slot, mainly as I’m looking for more ways to monetize this blog – at the moment, they’re pretty unobtrusive (I hope, at least; if they aren’t, you can always let me know
) and until I start up to find some decent affiliate products, the best way to increase revenue is by adding an extra ad.
At the moment, the two I’m looking at are the bar at the top of the page (image courtesy of Can’t Get Rich) or a Peel Away Ad (which you can get free if you want by reading this post). At the moment, I’m leaning towards the Peel Away as it only opens if you well… peel away it (
) and is a lot better looking than that boring bar. What do you think?
Affiliate Marketing… begins!
I started a basic form of affiliate marketing yesterday, once again using a friend’s Adword account… the first item I’m going to promote is a language course to learn Spanish. Why? Well, I was looking at the list of items in Clickbank and wanted to get started… the sales page looked interesting, so I thought I might as well give it a go
At the moment I’ve only received five clicks, out of around 13,000 impressions… those five clicks cost me less than a dollar. The payout for the offer is around $60~ so I will keep promoting until I’ve used up fifty dollars and then decide whether to continue or not depending on whether I’ve made a sale. If I do well with it, I will of course update; I’m also going to try using NeverBlue Ads a bit more, so we’ll see.
I do want to reach my goal of $100.00 in affiliate earnings so far, and I need a little bit more to push me over – you can help by signing up for TLA, Hostican or even Adtoll… it may help, who knows.
Before I run, speaking of Adtoll… wtf is with their rates for certain websites? Take a look
Compare the Alexa rating with the price. $200/month!
I need to move into the business category for blogging
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!






February 20th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
There is a reason for calling himself ‘The Net Fool’, you know. Hehehehe.
Gian Paolo’s last blog post..1000
[Reply]
February 20th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Great blog you have here. Thanks for the link as well. If you’d like to submit your blog for free go for it. We’re always looking for quality blogs to add and this is definitely one of them!
Cheers,
Rob
P.S Wouldn’t mind seeing you on the forum either!
[Reply]
February 20th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
this is the kind of posts that generate traffic.
how can he even consider asking link exchange to you? The traffic is no way comparable between you 2.
there are some bloggers that lie on earnings, and bloggers that make fake contests with big prizes to generate some buzz, but fortunately, they are few in number.
Hugo Santos’s last blog post..Pligg – A digg.com clone
[Reply]
February 20th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Don’t bother. Everyone here is at free will. If I don’t trust you I wouldn’t read your blog. So relax (like uncle Frankie said)
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February 20th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Maybe you should have no-followed the link to the net-fool
Oh btw, could you please give your RSS-feed a title?
[Reply]
February 20th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Hey TUK,
That was me that posted on bloggeries.com, and I want to apoligize if I offended you in any way. I am running a start up community just like yourself. I did not intend to infer that you were somehow cheating the system, I was merely referring to the startup-blog community as a whole. If you are legit, more power to you… I was just trying to make a point, and I did it the wrong way.
You must agree that many sites have in the past used “I make $100,000 a week” etc. to generate traffic. Again, all apologies to you.
Jim’s last blog post..Stock Market 2008: Information Technology (Part 2)
[Reply]
February 21st, 2008 at 2:34 am
wow those rates are sky rocketing 0.49 per click lol.
I advertised with adtoll there are SOME worth the money sites to advertise on.
I used for arcaders so I have no idea about other niches.
Usman’s last blog post..Sicks Days just suck
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February 21st, 2008 at 3:08 am
Don’t let the haters get to you, but I do believe there was a misrepresentation of what was attempted to be said.
I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, so I don’t even worry about what others say. Although some online drama would be fun!
Sammy Ashouri’s last blog post..Whistle Blower Website WikiLeaks.org Ordered To Be Shut Down
[Reply]
February 21st, 2008 at 5:33 am
Sammy, Jim “The Net Fool” posted above. He was referring to the startup blog community as a whole. You are right, there was a misrepresentation of what Jim said, or we misinterpreted it. Jim was against the “startup bloggers” who claimed they made “$xxxx a month”. He believed their income claims were illegitimate.
[Reply]
February 21st, 2008 at 7:24 am
Atleast Jim was man enough to apologize unlike some cretins at DP
who are slinging mud in a duplicate account thread especially when a
member is not there to defend himself.
[Reply]
February 21st, 2008 at 1:08 pm
The hostican Affiliate program looks very nice.But I don’t see your ref link Jason.
Please post it so I can join.
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February 21st, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Listen to the nay-sayers, but only as far as it gives you the ammunition to keep on doing the great job you’ve been doing.
You are multi-talented, clever, vocal and helpful. Negative energy from some people (misguided or otherwise) is a given.
Take it as a compliment, then move on.
[Reply]
February 21st, 2008 at 5:38 pm
People hate others who are more successful than them. The more you climb up the more people will try to drag you down. Something to look forward to, huh?
egk’s last blog post..Mercedes-Benz S Class :: WINDSHIELD WASHERS???
[Reply]
February 24th, 2008 at 7:46 am
Don’t fret the “haters.” I think the best way to handle the situation when it arises again is to ignore it (although posts like this DO attract attention…) as when you draw attention to the troublemakers, you’re just giving them what you want.
That said, you handled this beautifully. Kudos!
Erica DeWolf’s last blog post..Email Marketing Effectiveness: Link Love
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