Have you seen the Will It Blend? series of videos on YouTube?

Here's the story behind those amazingly successful viral videos that have been seen by millions of people…

If you're new here and like what you see, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or sign up for my free email updates. Thanks for visiting!

You have a cool new product that bloggers will love…. once they know about it. But your puny little list sucks. So what can you do? Contact bloggers with big, juicy lists and get their help!

If you do this right, you'll have a tremendous success and lots of money. If you do this wrong, you'll turn off potential partners, give yourself a bad reputation, and kiss your profits goodbye.

The Bad News: it's easier to do this wrong than to do it right.

The Good News: all you have to do to prevent a disaster is read and heed this amazing article by ProBlogger's Darren Rowse: How to Pitch to Bloggers - 21 Tips

Here's one of his 21 tips:

2. Personalize it

Nothing is a bigger turn off to most bloggers than an auto generated email (or one that lacks any personal touches). This is a turn off in most aspects of life - but blogging is a personal and relational medium so tailor your first point of contact to the blogger you’re writing to. Use their name, mention their blog, show that you’re not sending out an email to thousands of people but are talking directly to them.

Darren's advice is right on target. And you can use his tips for more than just pitching to bloggers. Link exchange requests. Joint ventures. Heck, you can use many of them even when asking for a favor from a friend or coworker!

Bookmark it. If you don't need those tips now, you will in the future. Darren's article is pure gold. Here's the link again: How to Pitch to Bloggers - 21 Tips

I love scary movies. Even when I was little, I looked forward to “Creature Feature” (though I sometimes watched from behind the couch).

With Halloween coming soon, I thought it’d be fun to imagine some of my favorite scary movies as scary blogs. I came up with 13:

1. Night of the Living Blog. Radiation from a fallen internet service satellite has caused dead bloggers to rise up and post about their hunger for human flesh. Once you get “trackbacked,” you become one of them. And the only way to kill one is to destroy their keyboard.

2. The Texas Chainsaw Blog. En route to visit their grandfather’s grave, five teenage bloggers drive past Google headquarters. They pick up a nerdy hitch-hiker, get freaked and drop him off (but not before he tampers with their GPS). They end up at an old farm house that looks nothing like the Internet café they were trying to find, go inside to ask for directions… and are plunged into a never-ending nightmare as they meet a family of cannibal bloggers who specialize in the power tool niche.

3. The Blogorcist. A young female blogger is possessed by the devil and starts posting, tagging and pinging filth all over the Internet. Two priests risk their sanity and their lives to perform a blogorcism as the girl’s head spins in circles and her PC levitates.

4. Blog on Elm Street. A mutilated monster blogger named Freddy spams teenagers during their dreams, snatching them through their monitor.

5. Blogcho. The deranged mama’s boy blogger of BatesMotel.com terrorizes a beautiful spammer as she tries to clean up her act during a visit to his chat room.

6. The Blogging. The off-season guest blogger of OverlookHotel.com becomes bored due to the lack of visitors, succumbs to the site’s evilness, and starts making very nasty posts about his wife and young son. Redrum!

7. Blogula. A mysterious blogger posts only at night and sucks the traffic from competing sites.

8. Blogien. In cyberspace, no one can hear you scream. An alien blogger invades the Internet, terrorizes IT teams, and implants alien viruses in web sites without secure firewalls.

9. Invasion of the Blog Snatchers. Extraterrestrials quietly start replacing interesting blogs with boring clones in San Francisco as the blog owners sleep.

10. Rosemary’s Blog. A pregnant blogger begins to suspect she’s being spammed by a Satanic cult intent on stealing her baby niche content.

11. When a Stranger Blogs. A beautiful young blogger begins getting scary comments and text messages on her laptop while babysitting. Extremely suspenseful blog that spawned legions of imitations.

12. The Silence of the Blogs. A novice FBI agent consults with a creepy blogger in order to catch a demented serial spammer. “I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner.”

13. Blogs. A great white blog attacks and consumes visitors to a popular vacation site. The local sheriff tries to convince the owner to shut down the site as he and a grizzled IT expert attempt to catch the monster. “We’re gonna need a bigger spam blocker!”

Take a break from blogging time and enjoy BUSINESS TIME:

According to Brian Clark of Copyblogger:

"If you want to make money with an online content business, you most certainly can. And despite all the advice that’s flowing from every direction related to blogging, AdSense, and affiliate marketing, the prevailing wisdom ends up as a waste of time for too many people."

He reveals:

"I will say that my blog is one of the most popular in the world, and yet the revenue it brings in from advertising is laughable compared to what I make with my other online projects."

Brian claims:

"What you need to realize is this: So far, the Internet has been a dismal failure compared to its true nature and real potential."

And finally:

"There’s never been a better time in history to be a person who can clearly communicate ideas.

"Bloggers and freelance writers can and should be thriving with their own paid online training programs. Instead, many bloggers who are trying to make money online are spinning their wheels, and freelance writers are selling themselves cheaply to make other people rich.

"The Internet will be the primary delivery medium for all distance knowledge and training efforts, and will play a part in most local teaching—in fact, it’s already working that way today at the corporate level. The big opportunity for you though, is in repurposing the vast amount of specialized text-based information into interactive, multimedia learning environments that result in recurring income and long-term customer relationships."

These revelations are excerpts from Brian's eye-opening new report, Teaching Sells.

It's 24 pages of fascinating and insightful information–information that can change your entire perspective on how to earn money online. It will make the proverbial lightbulb go off in your head.

I've read it twice already, and will read it several more times. It's one of the most compelling reports I've ever read (and believe me, since joining the online community in 2003, I've read a LOT of reports)!

And by the way, Brian's report is free.

Stop whatever you're doing and go get it now by clicking on this link: Teaching Sells

You can thank me later.

When I walked into the house after getting home from work last night, my husband kissed me and said "Let's go out to dinner."

I pushed away from him and headed toward my PC. "Can't," I said. "I gotta backup my blog and install the new version of WordPress. You go out without me."

Hah! Do you think I'm insane?!? Of course I am NOT being serious.

The first part is true. But my real response to my husband's suggestion was "Sounds great! Where do you wanna go?"

We went out to dinner. I had a glass of wine. And I did not even THINK about my blog all night. (Hey, one glass of wine is all it takes to put me in a "I'd rather be doing something other than blogging" kinda mood.)

I felt so guilty the next morning when I glanced into my home office as I walked past it toward the front door. There sat my PC, alone and neglected… spurned by me the night before.

"Sorry baby," I murmured as I turned and headed off to work. "I had a better offer last night."

My marriage takes priority over my bloggage.

Does that mean I don't have the "eye of the tiger" or the passion and commitment required to be a successful blogger?

I don't think so. It's true that I'm much more passionate about my husband than my blog. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy getting in a little blogging on the side… especially when hubby is off doing his own thing. Sneaking off to blog gives me quite a thrill! What hubby doesn't know won't hurt him, right?

OK, I'm being silly again. Perhaps there are lingering traces of wine in my bloodstream.

My husband is totally aware of and totally supports my blogging and other online business/Internet marketing activities. He's not into computers himself, but he knows I enjoy what I do in my spare time. Sometimes he even likes to watch!

Are you in a similar situation?

Here are 4 ways to keep your bloggage from interfering with your marriage:
Read more

Keyword Elite is the deal of the day–today only–at DealDotCom.

I bought this program quite a while ago (and paid the full price, dang it!). It's one of my favorite and most useful tools. After all, virtually everything I do online–whether it's blogging, affiliate marketing, creating new products or anything else–relies to some extent on keyword research to be successful.

The guy behind this program, Brad Callen, knows his stuff. But even more important for me, he provides superior customer service. That's why I was happy to provide a testimonial for his sales page. (Something I rarely do!)

Some of the "deals" at DealDotCom aren't all that great, in my opinion. And even with a $50 discount, I realize the price for this particular "deal" may be a stretch for many. But Keyword Elite is totally worth the price (even the non-discount price), and is definitely worth a look if you're serious about building your online business.

Check it out here, today only: Keyword Elite at DealDotCom.

Opinions: everybody's got 'em, right? Some are good, some are bad… and some will make you money!

One of my favorite bloggers, Maki at DoshDosh, has requested, assembled and posted 63 Constructive Opinions on the Best Way to Make Money Online.

This is not some silly list of tips like "put Adsense on your blog, dude!"

It's an awesome, detailed collection that's informative, useful and inspiring. If you take just a handful of those 63 opinions to heart, you'll dramatically improve your online business. Guaranteed.

Go check it out: 63 Opinions.

John Reese has announced Phase 2 of BlogRush at his Income.com blog.

He's using a carrot-and-stick approach to improve the quality of the BlogRush performance across the network.

Here's the carrot:

A cool new Dashboard that shows per-post statistics and adds a nifty “Buzz Meter.” As John says:

"Now you’ll be able to see how many times each of your posts is syndicated across the network and how many people clicked to read that individual post.

"Next to the statistics for each post you’ll see a “Buzz Meter.” This new meter will tell you if that post is HOT, COLD, or somewhere in between. The meter ‘temperature’ is calculated based on the average click-rates per headline for your blog’s category.

"This data, if used properly, can be extremely valuable for your blog — you’ll be able to know what types of posts are getting the most attention in your blog’s niche."

Here's the stick: widget performance monitoring:

"One of the biggest contributors to some of our low, average click-through rates (i.e. less traffic for our members) is due to some of our members giving the widget POOR PLACEMENT on their blogs. Some of our members have placed the BlogRush widget at the very bottom of their blog templates, or very low where most of their visitors don’t even see it.

"THIS IS ABOUT TO COME TO AN END.

"The BlogRush system is based on TWO things: QUALITY and FAIRNESS… If a member’s natural widget performance (the rate at which visitors click headlines and other factors we aren’t making public) falls far below the average activity of other members in their category…

"THIS MEMBER WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE BLOGRUSH NETWORK."

I've moved my widget up above the fold. He's not saying this is necessary (read his entire post), but I kinda like the look of it where I put it.

Hopefully it'll do its job and drive more traffic to my blog.

I'm looking forward to munching on my carrot.

The 20/20 Challenge is kicking my butt.

I knew it wouldn't be easy (there is that clue, the word "challenge," right there in the title). But it's driving me crazy!

Friday afternoon I was ready to quit. I thought about all the steps involved in the 20-day plan, and was very blunt with myself:

"You're too damn lazy to do all that and you know it!"

Then I was equally blunt with my response:
Read more

Business 2.0 is my favorite magazine. I was shocked to see the following notice on the issue that arrived this week:

"This is your last issue of Business 2.0 magazine. We're writing to inform you that Business 2.0 magazine will no longer be published…"

Crap!

The letter from the editor inside says, in part:

"I'm sad to say that Time Inc., our parent company, has decided to close the magazine. This is its last issue. Had I known five yars ago when I took this job that it would end here, I'd do it again in a heartbeat… That said, we, like our readers, knew that failure is the most likely fate to befall any new enterprise. Yet the challenge of working on something new–of trying to find a path to success–is its own reward. Even, it turns out, when you fail."

I'm glad I've saved my past issues. There's a weath of information and tips that I intend to take advantage of.

Here are a couple of tips from the current, last issue:
Read more

A few days ago I received an email with this subject: "Earn $20,000 in 20 Days, Guaranteed!"

I was within a nanosecond of deleting it as spam (and growling about the ineffectiveness of my spam filter to block it), when I noticed the name in the FROM field. Well, no wonder it hadn't been blocked… it was from my friend Lynn Terry, a long-time Internet Marketer whom I admire and respect.

Seeing her name made me look at the email subject in a whole new light–I was now intrigued instead of annoyed.

"Earn $20,000 in 20 Days, Guaranteed!" That last word is what really got my attention. I know virtually all Internet Marketing products come with a money-back guarantee, but I don't think I've ever seen one that guaranteed a specific income within such a short period of time.

So I checked it out, even though I was still skeptical (I've seen way too many product promotions). I delved deeper out of curiosity.

It's called the 20/20 Challenge.

Besides the fact that Lynn was recommending it, five things made me a bit less skeptical:
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My friend Dan Reinhold is conducting a one-week fund-raising effort for Autism research.

For a donation of only $25, you'll get $250 worth of resources:

* Jeremy Palmer's High Performance Affiliate Marketing
* Kelly McCausey's The Power of A Focused Business
* Bonnie Lowe's Networkaholics Revealed
* Harvey Segal's Clickbank Affiliate Super Tips
* Diana Ennen's & Patty Gale's Home Office Recovery Plan
* Rebecca Hagel's IMer's Guide To Happiness

If you bump your donation up to $50, you'll ALSO get:

* Perry Marshall's Definitive Guide To Google Adwords
* Entered into a drawing for an XSitePro software package

Get all the details here: WAHumor Giveaway for Autism Research

Get some great resources to help your online business while helping a very worthy cause!

REMEMBER: This is available for ONE WEEK ONLY!