One of the biggest challenges of part time Internet Marketing is finding the time to do some actual internet marketing. Last month I reviewed Yanik Silver's book about how to get started making money on the internet. That book talks about five different internet monetization strategies that you can go after part-time. As I mentioned in my review, Yanik talks about blogging, eBay, affiliate marketing, information marketing, and standard online commerce as ways to make money on the Internet.
It turns out that each one of those business models has hundreds of sub niches. As a new internet marketer trying to figure out how to make money on the internet it can seem overwhelming at times. This enormous amount of information is amplified by the thousands of people trying to make money online teaching people how to make money online. It is simply amazing. Then if you throw in some sleazy dishonest slimeballs for good measure, it becomes almost impossible for a new internet marketer to figure out what to do first. it's also very distracting. Every time I check my e-mail inbox I have some new fantastic marketing offer from some heavy hitter like Mike Filsame or Yanik Silver. These slick video sales pages are hard to ignore and end up taking a lot of time.
The Information Diet — Focus on the Roadmap
So, I am currently on a strict information diet. If it's not on the MasonWorld roadmap, I'm ignoring it for now.
One of my main goals is to put honest effort into this blog and, after a long time, and up with an A-list quality product that people want to read. The big challenge is that most of my competition is blogging full-time. They are spending their days poring over twitter feeds reading hundreds of tweets about posts on obscure blogs from all over the world in every possible time zone. As soon as something exciting happens they're off to the races with their latest blog post. While all this is happening, I am happily toiling away at my day job (which I love dearly).
So, finding enough time to post a list content to my blog and do the research to support the post is one problem. But the bigger problem is that once I have the post in my mind, I have one heck of a time getting it into WordPress. You see, I am typing challenged. Yes, it's sad but true. I got my first personal computer in 1982. It was an Apple IIe, and I learned to program it using basic. At that time, I was proud to have a 300 baud at half duplex modem that I paid for by mowing lawns in my neighborhood. I've been using a computer almost every day since 1982, and I'm really not a very good typist. Go figure.
Technology to the Rescue
So today I went to my local electronics retailer and purchased a brand-new copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking version 9.5. I am making this blog post without touching the keyboard. How cool is that? I actually experimented with the software some years ago. At that time I remember thinking that there was not enough CPU power and computer memory to enable the application to work well. Boy has that changed. The software just simply works right out of the box. After training the software for only 10 minutes I was able to write this post in scribed fire with only minor edits. Of course once the text is entered, I have to go back and do things like add hyperlinks and special formatting. I think some of those advanced capabilities are available with the software, but I only installed it 20 minutes ago so I haven't figured that out yet.
I'm really hoping that Dragon Naturally Speaking will help with my post frequency. I'm also really excited about the potential to use this device for generating content for article marketing. I can imagine surfing the web, finding a web page with relevant content, and summarizing several pages verbally with my own twist. This would allow me to use Dragon Naturally Speaking as a way to create outstanding content for article marketing. For a guy who cannot type very well this is exciting news.
I'm also thinking that it might be possible to use the advanced version of Dragon Naturally Speaking to transcribe podcasts. I'm very interested in adding a podcast to MasonWorld.com, but to be successful it will need to be a very efficient endeavor.
So stay tuned to this channel.
Thanks and best regards, Mark
Wow! Mason – that is Brilliant! what a great, yet simple idea. All the best ideas are simple it seams to me – like that child’s merry-go-round attached to a water pump that provides clean drinking water to people in Africa (see http://www.playpumps.org/waterproblem)
I wonder how many bloggers use this as their “secret” ;P
thanks, Megan
@Megan — LOL. That is awesome. As an engineer, I really appreciate things like the water pump you reference.
I am not sure how widely voice recognition is used, but I am glad that you liked the post. Regarding secrets, I can only tell you what my girls tell me:
“Secrets, secrets are no fun, unless you are a part of one!”
Thanks!
Mark (the transparent friendly blogger) LOL
@Alex – Video posts are great if a person is comfortable with that but then there would be no text for google to index, no words for google adwords, no way to link to other posts like you can from within the textual content … maybe if there was the video plus a transcript it could work ~megan
@Alex – Hey – I was just checking out my other blogs that I read to see what was new and DailyBlogTips has a post on Video Comments on WordPress Blogs
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/video-comments-on-wordpress-blogs/
😀 Megan
Mark,
How about just making video posts?
This way you’ll be able to increase your productivity, and reach additional readers. And, it adds a new dimension to the blog.
Cheers,
Alex.
@Alex — interesting idea. Do people really watch those? Do you like blogs with a mix of video posts?
@Megan: Indeed, the biggest advice I have to give to vloggers is to make a transcript for the video. That should solve the problem you’re talking about.
Not saving the precious time Mark is talking about though…
@Mark: The simple answer is YES!. People watch those and love’em.
A few guidelines to remember though, such as the length, shouldn’t be more than ~10 minutes. Not too short though… The transcript thing, which is a good idea to add. And a few more (lighting, angle, other tech stuff) that you can find easily in the ‘sphere.
I was researching this for a while, but then got wound up in a few projects. But this has a big priority on my list. 😈
Btw: Check out this free screen capturing software: http://camstudio.org/
Cheers,
Alex
I applaud your ingenuity, Mark. I also like your roadmap idea. I’m not typing challenged, but I do have trouble getting what’s in my head onto a post. I think the key is to just let the words flow and stop thinking too much about it (that’s Garry would advise, I know).
Yep! Thats my motto… type it up and ask questions later. 🙂
You got to expel the material that is stuck in your brain as quickly as possible, from there you can go back and clean things up. LOL!!!!
Hey Mason – Check this out – Sherman Hu from http://www.shermanlive.com has a video posted where he explains exactly how he goes about syndicating his video content in different video formats, and also makes just the audio portion available and then also makes the content available as text – very cool process – I definitely saved this video to my harddrive:
Boost Results Publishing Text, Podcasts & Video On Your Blog
http://www.shermanlive.com/2008/02/13/publish-text-podcasts-video-on-blog/
cheers, Megan 🙂