Today, I got this e-mail from Review Me.

We are sorry but the website you have suggested http://www.fleeingthesocialscene.com has been declined at this time. The main reasons a website is declined are:

- The website is a suspected fake.
- The website does not have enough link popularity.
- The website does not have enough traffic.

*Please note that our algorithm that accepts or rejects inventory submissions can make mistakes and if you feel the above criteria does not accurately describe your website, please reply to this email asking for further review by our editorial staff.

My website is a suspected fake. Never mind the traffic and link popularity, but that line just cracks me up. What’s a fake website anyway? A site based solely on RSS feeds? A site where a blogger pretends to be something he’s not?

I’m not a fan of blogs that are based solely on other people’s rss feeds. It’s like taking a few chapters from different books and piling them altogether in one page with no compensation to the authors. I often wish rss feeds didn’t exist. It would take about a million pages of useless blogs off from Google and give us better results. It would give the original authors of the article a piece of mind and make it easier to spot the copycats.

But the blogging world is big on rss feeds. Feedburner has been acquired by Google, which means there’ll never be an end to them. People love spreading their web site’s content, for reasons I will never understand. It’s me against the world in this case.

Popularity: 42% [?]

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The picture I am about to show you will either really motivate you, or make you feel like a failure. Hopefully it’ll be the first. Here is the CJ earnings of fellow blogger Jeremy SchoeMaker, better known as ShoeMoney.

Earning from affiliate programs takes a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of testing. You can advertise on one website for a year and not make anything, and you can advertise on another website and have dollars in your account within a week. I tend to stay away from affiliate programs because I don’t like taking big risks. I don’t want to spend $100 in advertising just to be left with no earnings in my CJ account. But it does intrigue me that some people are so successful at it, so I do have the occasional banner or two on my websites.

My earnings from CJ have been nilch, so far. While I was browsing a book about affiliate marketing in a bookshop, I read that the same goes for about 99% of affiliates. The only ones making money from such programs are the super affiliates, and they are the ones who don’t use the standard banners supplied by vendors. They are the ones who find unique ways to advertise, such as sticking leaflets under car’s wipers while a big event is going on. Say, there is a surfing competition happenings at the beach.. these super affiliates hire some guys to place these leaflets on the parked cars, and they mention the surfing competition itself on the leaflets. That’s how they make the big bucks. And that’s something not a lot of people would do.

Now take a look at this screenshot of someone’s Adsense earnings.

They can’t be serious! I spent ONE whole year to make 0.01% of their earnings! To get a cheque like that, you need a high paying niche like insurance and a LOT of traffic.. not to mention a high CTR theme for your website. That, for me, is problematic. One, I HATE boring topics like insurance; two, I have trouble getting traffic to my websites because I don’t like spending money on advertising; and three, I think high CTR templates don’t leave a good impression on your visitors and I wouldn’t want to use one myself. *sigh*

Check out more cheques like this at s.eriously.com Make sure it’s not before your bedtime, or else you won’t get any sleep.

Popularity: 44% [?]

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You heard me. For all you out there who got a blog somewhere, why do you do it? I’ve seen this question asked a few times mainly within “blog-for-money” types of sites, and obviously the overwhelming answer is make some money with the blog. Eh, admitting that I think i’ve gotten over the initial idea of blogging for money, and realizing that traffic must come first, i’ve realized I blog hopefully because my readers enjoy what I write. (please stop here, and correct me if i’m wrong)

So I think I need to throw up a pole here. Why is it that you blog? What do you want to get out of it?

Popularity: 27% [?]

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Forums, Blogs, what else does everyone use? Myself, i’m experimenting with mass posting via timestamp on a few of my blogs. See if i can’t get a few of them to get some traction and grow a bit.

Also i’m thinking maybe Adsense will be a good fit for this project? Only time will tell.

Popularity: 27% [?]

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When and how do you make the jump. I’m not talking from no one blogger to big time blogger. I’m talking a bit more businessey than that. (yes i know it’s not really a word but run with me here…)

In a world of YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr, I’m willing to bet we’re better than halfway past web 2.0 and AJAX is going stale. Zuckerberg is probably hanging out with MySpace Tom, and they are both living comfortably off their “next biggest thing.” I’m not saying we’ve got a bunch of diamond in the rough entrepreneur-future-millionaires, i’m simply asking the questions that I think most people wonder:

What’s Next? What kid living out of his dorm room or in his parent’s basement is going to be the next Bill Gates? Is there a Web 3.0?

Or maybe I should calm this rant down a bit… What about let’s say realistically you’ve grabbed two maybe three decent domain names back in one of your purchase splurges, you haven’t developed it, and you’ve got a few ideas for a product. What now? For sake of argument the blogging for bucks trend has come and gone, and you need a product to make you money. How do ya do it?

Popularity: 11% [?]

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I’ve been a bit lazy, a bit busy, as of late. Basically my life has been hectic and I’ve neglected this blog. There I’ve said it. So today I’ve got a bit of free time so later in the day I’m planning a bit of cleaning up of lose ends. Hopefully I’ve got a bit of energy and can utilize the timestamp to breathe a bit of life back into this blog. I’m feelin’ optimistic.

Popularity: 11% [?]

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