Jude’s Eclectic Resources

If you don’t use it you lose it, we all know that old saying, right? In my case I am referring to programs that I use online. I bet you thought something else didn’t you? Don’t you just love those provocative titles that we use to try and grab someones attention? It usually works that’s why advertising agencies get the big bucks to create interest for a product or idea.

I installed Google Analytics on my blogs when I was testing for payperpost and I got hooked on checking my stats all the time. Did I really think it was going to dramatically change within a few minutes of checking it the last time? Of course I did. That wasn’t the only stat site I was checking either because Google always lagged behind some of the others.

Well, today I made a decision to stop using a program and remove it from my blog if I hadn’t used it in over a month. The first one to go of course is Google because believe it or not I haven’t had any interest to check the data from there in at least 2 months so why in the world should I keep it and bog my blog down and make it run slower? It is now gone.

Yesterday I started doing the same thing on my computer because I have so many junkie out of date programs that I never use and all they do is bog my pc down and make it run slower. At one point I thought I had to down load anything that was free out there in cyberland just because people told me how much I needed it and I could have it simply by giving them my e-mail.

I learned the hard way with all the junk I started receiving in my inbox for products I didn’t want. That became a total nightmare of course, but you live and learn. So just like in your home if you haven’t used something for a period of time lose it and don’t buy anything new until you get rid of something old unless it’s a collectible of course.

So today is, If You Don’t Use It Lose It Day for me.

I counted the social sites I can remember that I belong to and it was around 20 or so.
I really don’t see that I have benefited from MySpace, Bumpzee, Blog Catalog, Stumble or MyBlogLog, but then again perhaps I don’t use them correctly. I really don’t have the time to devote to all those social sites, so why in the world do I keep joining them? Why do you? Technorati has me stumped also at one point I had a lot of links, but they disappeared, go figure.

I know we expect to get traffic and if we are selling something maybe a purchase, but do we really expect to be friends with everyone that adds us and why do they add us? I always accept friendship request, but not sure what the purpose is and when people join your community what are you suppose to do with them. Is there some special thing I am suppose to be doing? Well, apparently I haven’t a clue.

I have been wondering if I am becoming anti social in my golden years or does the golden years start at 65? At any rate I consider the time I’ve been with Bill to be my golden years because they have been the best years of my life. I guess being social and active in communities helps you define how popular and successful you want to be with whatever you are trying to accomplish.

Many people say they blog for themselves and I’m not sure I understand that. Why put it online if you aren’t expecting to gain from it in some way, what’s the point, just keep a diary. I guess it could be therapeutic to post whatever you feel like and get things off your chest, but I tend to like the idea of making a couple dollars. It doesn’t have to be a fortune and since it is my blog I guess I can do as I please with in the law of course.

So I guess that means I can be sociable when I please and just enjoy the ride without feeling pressure to keep joining all these social sites because I think I might be missing something and it’s the thing to do to stay on top of current trends. Although I’m not sure why I would feel that way. I guess I just hate feeling left out and want to know what all the fuss is about and usually it turns out to be nothing.

I was surprised how much designer names mean to the younger crowd and if you don’t have certain things with the designer name on then you just aren’t happening. We can afford to buy certain things, but since we are older we have gotten a bit frugal and kind of forgot what it means to be young and fit in with everyone. We always buy name brands for our children and Grandkids though.

Estella started out as a small store of unique clothing for babies and children, but has grown into something more unique that celebrities and others are seeking out. They avoid trends that others push and create their own because they believe in being a leader instead of a follower and they see your children the same, so they like to create for the leaders of the future.

These are luxury toys and luxury baby gifts that most of us drool over and as many of you know I am going to be a Nana again both for Bill’s daughter and my first time for my biological son. He has tried so many times and been disappointed and now he’s 38 with a newborn coming in August hopefully on my birthday, but I wont hold my breath.

We have gotten use to buying for Bills’ children  because they put their requests in at certain stores and if you don’t buy something great then what kind of parent or Grandparent are you? I noticed that all Grandparents try to out do each other because they want to be the special ones and if they put in a request at Estella’s I’m sure we would spend our money there because we don’t want to be the cheap ones.

So if we want to stand out then we need to be unique and  and purchase something from Estella in New York.

I read other people in the forum that say they see no available opps to write about, but I see them all the time. Maybe it’s because of the categories I choose, but I don’t take a lot of them. I could possibly do three a blog, but that’s simply more posting than I choose to do, but I know many people that do because I have seen their blogs. I am simply not creative enough to come up with 6 post per day per blog.

I don’t do those 300 words for 5 dollar ones even though I usually run over the required amount of words and since I don’t know anything about mortgages I don’t do those, but if it was a hundred dollar opp I would probably learn pretty quick. I can’t endorse credit cards because to me they are a necessary evil that people get into trouble with and I had my share which I will never duplicate again.

It would be nice to do a few big dollar opps a week then the blogs wouldn’t look so spammy, but people sometimes take what they can get to help out at home and make ends meet. Even if you did three 5 dollar opps per blog, if you have 3 like I do that would be 45 dollars a day and at the end of the week you would have $315 coming. Some times you’re lucky and snag a really big one in between. If the opps are higher you can gross even more.

For me this is the easiest way to make money and if I still had pr the better paying opps would be more frequent. I once had a high paying opp and because of my stupidity I lost it because I didn’t have my glasses on and deleted the post from PPP. You can believe I kicked myself for a month solid, but I eventually got over my mistake.

I was writing a post for another blog today and when I checked to see if any opps were available there was one for 128 dollars about jewelry shopping which would have fit perfectly on my beauty blog and only 100 words, but alas it was gray and fully reserved because those type of opps don’t stand idle for long. I can’t stay clued to the PPP site and refresh all day on the off chance that I’ll get lucky, but when I do get lucky I’m elated.

Regardless of what any body says I highly recommend PayPerPost for any one working from home. Even though it takes 30 days from the time you submit your post till you’re paid if you do a couple every day then it’s great to have a steady payment to your PayPal account just by putting words together and creating buzz for a company, what could be easier?

In my opinion PayPerPost is great not evil because they supply a means for people to earn extra money unlike many opps on the Internet. They supply the means, but they don’t force bloggers to take as many opps as they do and they try to make sure their guidelines are followed because they don’t want the postie blogs to look spammy.

There are many quality writers that do postings for PPP so just because you run into a few that look like spam, why must the whole lot be clumped together and called tacky and evil? Those people that write the minimum words and interim posts and maximum posts per day may be in desperate need of that money and probably thank God every day for the unique opportunity that PayPerPost supplies for them and their family.

I haven’t yet decided what I think about Social Sparks. I’m sure it will be very appealing to many because they will be able to make money by writing paid posts and have the chance to use no follow and be able to get their page rank back so that will be a big plus.

Being able to contact an advertiser and request an opportunity because it fits in with their blog is also on the plus side. I haven’t worked out all the things I like yet, but I do know that I don’t like the dynamic pricing. Depending on when you take the post, if lots of others want it also then the price for doing it can drop. I don’t like that part.

I like a sure thing that I can count on.  If the queue for that opp is full then you can wait for a spot, which I did recently and by the time they created the opportunity for me it was below the price that I thought would stay the same. Well, I did learn from that so I’m really not holding out much hope on the pricing point.

I declined that opp by the way not that 8.50 is bad, but that wasn’t the amount I was willing to write that particular post for. I have a feeling that I am going to prefer Izea’s PayPerPost over Social Spark at least for the time being.

I am more use to the PPP format and I really don’t care that I lost my page rank, I still make money. However I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling my way around and trying to get the lay of the land. I haven’t sent out any friend request as yet, but I’ve accepted several. I know that is going to be a large part in this program since it is a social site after all.

If your not sociable I’m afraid the opps are going to be few and far between because the advertisers will be checking on how popular you are and the comments that are left for you and all the props. I don’t know if I can play high school again. My opinion and I could be wrong so I’ll wait and see.