When I saw this motivational poster I couldn’t help but laugh.  I think it’s a case of too much coffee, too much going on and too much on my mind lately.

I’ve been spending more time working on creating my own products of sorts.  It’s going well, I really like what I’m doing and it’s fun for me.  I’m working on building up a client base and we’ll see where that goes.  I guess I’m moving away from affiliate marketing for the time being and focusing more of my energy (for the time being) on these products.

I think if we’re looking to diversify our incomes we should think about creating our own products and marketing them as well - maybe eventually create our own affiliate program and manage that and start bringing in more income without all the craziness of marketing the products ourselves.  We can have someone else do it.  It would be a nice situation to be in - letting someone else become a successful marketer by using your products.  Rather than the other way around.  Not to say selling products isn’t fun and a challenge… it’s just another angle at making a few dollars online.

I have quite a bit more to do with this project and as far as I can tell I’m going to be working on new products indefinitely until I either build up enough of them or I just get tired of them (hopefully that never happens… but there are alternatives to that should these products become successful and I start making sales).

I’ve also been pondering writing an ebook.  Pondering is as far as I’ve gotten - I’ve not even really decided on what I want to write about.  Meh… I’ll put that idea on the backburner.   But the thing is that I want to have products of my own.   While having that other avenue of marketing other peoples products.  Maybe even piggy-backing my products on something huge.  It’s been done before - like having a MySpace decorate your site deal and put that on the larger MySpace = piggybacking!  I’m not sure what product I might try but it is something I’ll be looking for in the future.

Right now I’m trying to get my todo list in order and get things done without driving myself crazy!  My ideas and thoughts are sometimes all over the place, but I’m thinking I’m enjoying myself at the moment doing what I’m doing and I’ll keep at it - and see where it takes me.

Popularity: 15% [?]

I have several sites that need a bit of updating on content - and the more sites I create, that means a big portion of time is taken up writing out content for them and I don’t necessarily mind - but I’m looking for a more time-effective method to get things done.

So after reading a little blurb over at John Chow’s site about creating a site and getting advertisers, etc and then working on getting RSS feeds to populate the site with content it got me thinking.

I could do that.

So I tried out a couple of RSS to HTML plugins for WordPress - found one that worked well and have been trying them out on a couple of sites.

This is awesome for me - I get content on my site.   All links for the info go back to the original authors, etc.    But it does leave me wondering if using content this way is a bit of a rip off for those who wrote the info in the first place.  I think we’ve all been victim of people scooping our RSS feeds to use on their sites.   But I can’t help but feel a bit shady using this method.

I do have original content on the site and use the RSS feeds as a suppliment to the content there.  I just can’t keep up with the continual content that they need.  I guess I could consider it as being a portal to other sites on the same topic.

I guess my question is this - how do you keep content fresh on your site?  I’m sure I’m not the only one who has a quite a few sites up and running and keeping things up to date is a bit of a struggle.  I’m trying to find automated ways to keep content coming to those sites that need it.  But at the same time I want to be as legitimate as I can and give credit where credit is due.  I want people to go to those other sites - this isn’t really so much different than what I was doing on my own… or even like the gossip sites use content that has been written before.

It’s a bit of a conundrum… I know because we have RSS feeds - we’re open to this sort of site creation.  I don’t want to be seen as an RSS squatter… of sorts - so I’m trying really hard at being as transparent as I can - as in where I get the info.

Right now I’m in no position to hire ghost writers for these sites, and honestly I don’t think ghost writing is what these sites need.  They need far more updating than the occasional cool article.

So, after all my rambling - how do you keep up with handling content on your sites?

Popularity: 18% [?]

I’ve just entered for a chance to win a ShowCase WordPress theme from WPDesigner… if you’re interested in getting a gallery script running on WordPress - and because these sorts of themes are pretty popular, stop by and all you have to do is comment on the site to enter.

>> Enter to win a ShowCase Theme from WPDesigner 

Popularity: 17% [?]

I’ve been using EntreCard for a few weeks now and it’s been an eye-opener.   I seriously didn’t think that because it was a free service, and that the site(s) I’ve got in there aren’t crazy and out to lunch I would get too many rejection notices.

Lately I’ve been getting a lot.

WTF?

I’m not exactly advertising my card on strange niches… I think people are becoming more competitive.  LOL.  I guess I’ll have to whip the boot out and start punting right back.  The strange thing is -  one such character advertises on my site - then I try to do the same on his.  He then goes on to REJECT my ad.  What an asshole.  But I guess I can’t get too bent out of shape - since it’s a free service and all… but damn.  Now people are starting to play this a little more.  One rejection punted my “business card” because I had requested too often - I did it twice.  Maybe it was two in a row.  Heaven help me.  But I got the boot from there too.

I’ve actually been approving everyone up to this point.   Maybe I need to get picky.  But currently I just don’t see the point.  It’s a free service.  If you have a site that isn’t complete shit then I’ll approve you.  What the hell.  Someone out there reading this site, might click and actually enjoy it.

Whatever.  Get over it.  I’m moving on

Popularity: 9% [?]