July 2006 Posts

Survey: AskANinja.com T-Shirt

July 31, 2006 2 Comments

Take a look at this t-shirt. Click on the picture on that page for a big version. It says “I LOOK FORWARD TO KILLING YOU SOON” with pictures of the ninja from AskANinja.com and on the back, at the top in small letters, it says “AskANinja.com.”

I’m curious as to how people feel about this. What do you think of this shirt? Would you wear it? What would you think if you saw someone wearing it? Is there anything wrong with it? (Also, do you watch AskANinja.com?)

As I said, I’m curious, so please let me know in the comments section. :)

Let’s Keep MySpace.com in Perspective, Folks (PR People)

July 28, 2006 5 Comments

MySpace.com is a great promotional tool and it should be utilized. But, let’s not go and start releaseing press releases where the MySpace.com page URL is the only URL in the release. Let’s not forget to mention the actual official URLs for the artists, labels, etc. in question. The idea is to bring MySpace.com’s audience to you – not to bring your audience to MySpace.com.

Jordan McCoy Starts Blogging

July 23, 2006 5 Comments

Jordan McCoy, a Bad Boy Records recording artist, is blogging.

I developed/designed it (Chris helped me iron out a few errors, as well). I wouldn’t normally choose that degree of pink, but that was the favorite color and I think I made it work about as well as possible. So, I think it turned out pretty well.

I’ve been in contact with her manager for a while and they were impressed with the success that Cassie (another Bad Boy artist, currently with the 3rd spot on The Billboard Hot 100, album out August 8) has had with blogs, MySpace.com and all that stuff. So, she asked me some questions about how it all works and I explained the public, visible aspects of NextSelection’s online marketing campaign that I recognized (one can only guess on the behind the scenes stuff) and I offered to set up a blog for her to get her started and there you have it. Now, all she needs to do is start blogging regularly (and honestly) and she’ll receive the benefits of doing so.

iTunes Affiliate Program Update

July 21, 2006 1 Comment

I wrote about being rejected, so I wanted to update it. I received an e-mail this afternoon (July 21) in response to my follow up e-mail (sent July 4). They weren’t sure why I was rejected, but they have approved me now. So, there you go. Thanks.

Come To Me by Diddy featuring Nicole Scherzinger

July 16, 2006 No Comments

Really liking this song. You can get a listen at Bad Boy Blog. Looking forward to Diddy’s album.

“Scared money don’t make none.”

July 14, 2006 No Comments

I liked this quote, attributed to Diddy. I think there is… probably… a difference between being careful and being scared. I’m careful, not scared. :)

Interviewed at Wtricks.com

July 12, 2006 No Comments

I was interviewed over at Wtricks.com, a webmaster community run by my friend Ramona, a former KarateForums.com Sempai and current phpBBHacks.com TWAIN Team member.

I Won an iPod Nano!

July 7, 2006 1 Comment

See Bad Boy Blog for full info. :)

Ads on Ask a Ninja

July 6, 2006 No Comments

I guess there has been a lot of complaints about the small, little, nothing ads on Ask a Ninja:

There’s been a lot of guff about ‘selling out’ over the 13 second advertisement in this week’s episode.

13 seconds out of almost 5 minutes.

Or 4.5% of the total episode.

You’ve got to be kidding me. This sort of stuff makes me sick. The lack of respect that is being shown for the time that they put into the show. It’s crazy! I left them a comment:

Hey,

I’m a big fan of the show. I run a network of websites and most of our revenue comes from advertising. People don’t seem to understand that quality websites (or podcasts or video blogs or whatever) take time. It’s a full time job, it’s my life. My goal in life isn’t to live with my parents or to simply pay my bandwidth bill and nor should it be yours. I want to be wealthy. Who doesn’t? But, I want to do it in the right way. I don’t serve any popups (not that popups are bad, but they don’t fit on my network) and I work hard to maintain a balance between user experience and revenue generation. And you guys are doing the same. You’ve created a great thing here and I want to see you both be wealthy one day because of it (not necessarily Ask a Ninja directly, but your endeavors).

Another thing that not everyone understands is that when Ask a Ninja (and related ventures, etc.) are making you guys the money that you need to accomplish your goals in life, that means a better program because more time can be dedicated to it. So, when you don’t have to go to work at a “real job” or something like that (not sure if you do), you can focus completely on these ventures and they should, in turn, improve. Not that they need to – I love the show.

In any case, I have absolutely no problems with the ads you have. In fact, you could use more. What you have now is like nothing and I’d like to see you have more. I’ll keep watching. Anyone who doesn’t keep watching is really being unreasonable, I feel, and just doesn’t get it. I’m going to buy a t-shirt sometime, as well.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks,

Patrick

Bad Boy Blog Rejected by iTunes Affiliate Program

July 4, 2006 3 Comments

Wow, this is odd. I’m working on a Bad Boy releases section at Bad Boy Blog. It’s going to be neat. Album cover, title, artist, release date, executive producers, The Billboard 200 peak, songs on The Billboard Hot 100 and videos released from the album. I also was going to include a buy link at Amazon.com and iTunes.

Bad Boy Blog is an unofficial Bad Boy Entertainment fan blog. Bad Boy Entertainment is perhaps best known for Bad Boy Records. A while back, iTunes did some sort of deal that allowed them to release the entire Bad Boy catalogue. So, I’m thinking, hey – this is the perfect site to use the iTunes affiliate program on. It’s on topic, directly related to items they sell, etc. I mean, I may just make a few pennies, but that’s better than nothing. So, I applied yesterday. This morning, I heard back that I had been rejected. How in the world did this happen? From the e-mail I got, these are the reasons it could be rejected:

— The content is unrelated to iTunes
— Your site is temporarily down or under construction ¿-please make sure to apply again after 2 weeks.
— A wrong or misspelled URL given in the application. Please correct the problem and apply again.
— Your site is aesthetically unpleasing
— Your site promotes tobacco, alcoholic beverages or excessive drinking/drug use
— Your site contains extreme religious content
— Your site is international (with a majority of visitors based OUTSIDE the US. or written in a foreign language)

They don’t tell me why my site was rejected, specifically. These are just reasons it “may” be rejected. The content is related. It’s not under construction. The site wasn’t down because I saw the visit in my site statistics. They visited at 7:55:15 AM and 7:55:29 AM from this link. The URL was correct. I know opinions will vary and I know that I designed it, but I think Bad Boy Blog’s design is pretty nice! Certainly not “aesthetically unpleasing.” :) We don’t promote tobacco, alcoholic beverages or excessive drinking/drug use. We don’t have any religious content. Although Bad Boy/Diddy have fans internationally, my site can’t be considered “international.”

So, I’m kind of confused. But, it’s not a big deal. They say I can re-apply in 2 weeks. So, I may do that. Not sure, though, because the e-mail says that “if any of the above problematic criteria can be resolved, we look forward to your reapplication.” There isn’t anything to correct. Oh well.