Yeah, yeah we have heard all the horror stories… cell phones cause brain tumors, and text messaging while driving is now illegal because it’s dangerous. Yet just when everyone is picking on texting we find our that texting can actually save your life! Sure it’s not wise to attempt to send or read text messages while you are driving your car but texting isn’t all bad. Check out this recent story from New Zealand:

Tourist’s texts to Greece save him in New Zealand

A tourist who got lost on a New Zealand mountain was rescued after sending text messages to his family in Greece, newspapers and websites reported on Monday.

Marios Symeonidis was visiting Mount Ruapehu, home to New Zealand’s largest skiing and snowboarding area, this weekend with a friend, but then lost his companion while taking photographs, website www.stuff.co.nz reported.

He was not equipped for an overnight stay and was only wearing light clothing.

Symeonidis sent text messages to his family in Greece, telling them he was lost. They then passed on the information to police in New Zealand via Greek emergency services.

Four teams were dispatched to rescue Symeonidis, who ended up spending the night on the mountain and was then picked up in the morning by another tourist, who drove him to the rescue teams.

Rescue pilot Henry de Waal said Symeonidis was well after his ordeal, and extremely hungry.

source

Have you heard of Google Goggles yet? Google Goggles is a visual based search engine. To search just use your camera on your cell phone. The technology is still new but offers some exciting new capabilities that might make using your cell phone even more productive. Google Goggles is available for Android based cell phones.

Twitter is all the rage, online marketers, affiliate niche site owners, media outlets, family, and friends are all tweeting up a storm. It seems like you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting somebody who is talking about or using Twitter. In 2010 it is estimated that 20 million people will sign up and use Twitter regularly, that’s 10 times less than the amount of people who use Facebook but it’s clear that Twitter is gaining fast. And while Twitter seems to be the next “big thing” not everyone is singing it’s praises.

5 Reasons why Twitter sucks:

#5. No advertisements. How am I supposed to get great bargains on Viagra or deals on car insurance when Twitter doesn’t serve me ads? I wants banner ads on top, on the side, as well as endless looping pop-up ads every time I try to leave Twitter.

#4. Registration is too simple. I prefer going through several pages of forms during the registration process and entering a captcha at least 6 times until I can get it right. Furthermore, no email account activation is necessary. I don’t know about you, but I look forward to the scant opportunities I get go snooping through the 1,273 items in my junk mail folder to find an email activation link. Twitter, you’ve let me down again.

#3. No endless Farmville, and Yoville status updates. When my second cousin buys a chicken for her Farmville farm I want to know about it ASAP!!

#2.The name is dumb. Who came up with the name Twitter anyway?

#1. I didn’t invent Twitter. The most pathetic thing about Twitter is that I didn’t think of it first. It should be me who is holding out for the first billion dollar bidder to fatten my wallet and send me laughing all the way to the bank. I mean come on people… I could have thought of Twitter… anyone could have thought of Twitter… but specifically, it should have been me. That makes me 0 for 3, I didn’t think of MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter… heck I didn’t even think of YouTube! So off I go thinking up the next big thing and trust me… it will be much better than Twitter.

Choosing the right domain name is vital

Choosing the right domain name for your website can be one of the most important things you can do to get good, free, organic traffic. If you are not a huge corporation with millions of dollars to spend on branding your website you will need to pick a domain name that is search engine friendly and adds to your overall SEO strategy. And that my friends is the focus of this article, i.e., picking the right domain name that doesn’t require massive marketing dollars for branding.

When you are ready to start your domain name search you can use the built-in tools that GoDaddy provides or you can use fun tools such as Domjax which makes searching for a domain name kinda fun.

The five most important things to consider when picking a domain name:

#5. Keep the domain name 5 words or less

Big companies who use traditional marketing will want to keep their domain names to no more than one or two words, but us little guys who are shooting for SEO traffic can pick domain names that are much longer. There is nothing wrong with a domain name that has 3, 4, or even 5 words in it. Remember, we aren’t going to be creating TV ads or print ads so we don’t really care (within reason) how long our domain name is. Longer domain names are of course much more likely to be available.

#4. Don’t use a trademarked brand names in your domain name

If you include ipod, iphone, zune, ebay, toyota, or any other brand name in your domain you will most likely be asked by a lawyer to cease and desist, and all the work you would have put into your site will be a complete waste of time. No matter how good the domain name sounds, and no matter how compelled you are to buy chevypartsforsalecheap.com DON’T DO IT!!! Trust me on this one. Find other names that get across the same idea that don’t infringe on copyrights.

#3. Don’t listen to those that say avoid hyphens

Many SEO experts will tell you to avoid hyphens in your domain name such as electric-socks.com, and if we were branding our website through traditional means such as television commercials or print advertising I would agree with those experts. But our goal as the “little guy” is to get organic traffic via the search engines and therefore hyphens are not such a bad thing. I have created several websites that do great in the search engines and they have hyphens in their domain name. That being said, if I have the option to pick an unhyphenated domain name I would pick that over the hyphenated name. Said in short… unhyphenated domain names are the best but hyphenated domain names are not a “deal killer”.

#2. Pick a “dot com” domain name

Avoid the .info’s, .tv’s, .us’s, .me’s, and all the other wacky types of domain names. Yes it’s true you might be able to grab that perfect .bz domain name but typically these types of domain names do not perform very good from an SEO perspective. The only possible exception is .net which isn’t a deal killer but I would still stick with the .com’s if at all possible.

#1. Use your targeted keyword phrase in your domain name

This of course is the most important factor of them all to consider. If you are shooting for the keyword phrase “electric socks” make sure that the words “electric socks” are in your domain name. If electricsocks.com is available buy it! If not, buy electric-socks.com or electricsocksforsale.com. Plural domain names are a good choice because you cover two keyword phrases with one shot, for instance electricsocks.com covers the search electric sock as well as the search phrase electric socks, whereas the domain electricsock.com might not be as effective for both searches. If your domain name does not contain your targeted keyword phrase it will be much more difficult to get a page one listing in Google.

Other helpful things to consider when picking a domain name

I recommend buying your domain name for at least 5 years. My research indicates that Google rewards domain names that will be around for awhile. From Google’s perspective they probably figure that domain names that are only purchased for a year might be less valuable because the owner is just “testing the waters”. The longer your domain name has been registered to you the better it will do in search results, so it only stands to reason that if you buy it for a longer term contract from the “get go” the search engines may reward you with better results sooner.

Be very careful when buying existing domain names from other people. You have NO IDEA what that domain name has been through prior to you acquiring it. I have had colleagues get kicked out of affiliate programs or been blackballed by search engines because of the shenanigans that the former domain name owner was involved in. If you don’t know for certain that the domain name is squeaky clean avoid it! Even though mature domain names perform better it’s much safer to buy a new domain name.

Picking the right domain name for your website is the cornerstone to your overall SEO strategy. Don’t rush it, take your time, do your research, and pick a domain name that will help you acquire the organic traffic that in turn will help you make money online!

Please add your own comments below about what you think are helpful tips when buying domain names.

Starting a internet business can be frustrating

Starting a business on the internet can be a daunting task, especially if you are not a developer and have never created a website. Some folks often get frustrated when trying to start a business online because most of the instructions , guides, and demonstrations, are geared towards people who already have a grasp on creating websites and therefore beginners cry out…

“hey wait… I don’t get it, your talking about terms and practices that I am not familiar with. FTP what? HTML who? Publish, permalink, keyword, niche, huh?? HELP!!”

So where do you start? How can you get the experience you need and get your feet wet on the internet? It’s a catch 22, you want to get started on the internet but you need to have internet skills to get started! You could always take a course at the local community college or buy a few books to read but if you are like me you don’t want to wait. You want to start right now! Well, this article is for folks who want to get started right now, today, tonight, as soon as you are done with this article! (heck, you don’t even need to finish the article if you don’t want to).

The best way to start an internet business is to start a blog. The word blog is short for web-log (this website is an example of a blog). A blog can be about anything: news, special interests, satire, politics, opinion, or merely personal experience (like a diary). Picking your topic is very important and I will talk more about that later. The reason why starting a blog is such a great way to get started on the internet is there are several free tools that are extremely easy to use, the best two are WordPress and Blogger. With tools like WordPress and Blogger you can create a free account and be bogging within minutes!

For those of you who are still reading this article and haven’t left to start their own blog, there is still some important information you need to know.

Starting a blog is a great way to learn about creating and maintaining websites

Creating a blog helps you to learn about picking a good niche (a niche is another way of saying… subject). Any successful website fills a gap on the internet that folks might be looking for. Therefore it’s important to pick a overall subject for your blog that is limited to one area of interest. The smaller and more narrow the subject/niche the more likely the blog will be able to get organic traffic to your website. (organic traffic is traffic that comes from people searching for topics in Google, Yahoo and Bing). For instance, if you pick the topic: digital cameras your competition on the internet will be massive, your competitors will be huge companies such as Best Buy, Amazon, eBay, etc. Yet if you pick a topic such as: digital camera tips and tricks you might have a much better chance of ranking higher in the search engines (although I recommend even tighter niches but you get the point). Your niche is the overall topic of your blog, all of the articles within your blog should be relevant to your niche. It’s also important to pick a topic that people are actually interested in and are searching for. There are great tools to find out what information people are searching for but that’s beyond the scope of this article (we will touch on those topics in future posts). For now, just pick a subject or niche that you are interested in and have some knowledge about. If you are a golfer, start a blog about golfing. If you are a bowler, start a blog about bowling! If you like to sew, start a blog about sewing! It’s not that important that your first blog is a huge success, because all you are doing at this point is getting a feel for web publishing.

Creating a blog helps you to learn about publishing, editing, adding pictures, links etc. (most blogging tools have excellent built in tools to help you create and edit your content). Create a story, use your own words don’t steal them from another website, just pick a topic within your niche and start typing! Your stories don’t need to be long, just whip up a few short paragraphs and publish it! Don’t add more than one story per day yet don’t let your blog go too long without adding new content (search engines like to see sites that are being updated regularly). Play with all the tools that the blogging software has to offer, don’t be afraid… you can’t break it.

Once you start your first blog you are officially a web publisher and you will learn a ton about the web business just from fooling around with your free blog. Don’t worry too much about the quality of your content or your websites traffic. At this point you are just getting your feet wet, and heck it’s free… so have fun with it!

Once you become more familiar with web publishing you can move on to better more effective tools and web strategies that we will cover in future articles. Now you have joined the ranks of “web publisher”. In fact, at your next family party you can brag to your uncle that you have your own internet business, uncle Bill doesn’t need to know that your blog doesn’t make money yet. The bottom line is… you need experience on the web, and the fastest way to get that experience is by starting a blog.

Once  you start your blog leave a comment below (with your link) and tell us a bit about your blog. Not only does that encourage us that our words are useful to you but it will also represent a nice backlink to your site with might help your site rank higher with search engines. Welcome to the internet business!

There are a lot of folks out there that have asked me… “what do I need to start a online business?” They ask if they need a certain type of software or a certain type of hardware. The truth is you can start a online business with any PC that has internet access. No fancy hardware, no fancy software, all the tools you need are available online. Many affiliate programs will completely setup up the website for you and all you will do is spend your time promoting it.

However, if you are really serious about quitting you day job and creating a full time internet business I would recommend buying a good PC or Mac and investing in some decent software tools.

By no means do you need to have all the same tools as me but for sake of interest let me list for you the hardware and software that I use on a daily basis.

My arsenal of hardware and software tools are as follows:

Hardware

• iMac – 2 gigRAM, 500gig HD, 24 inch screen.
• MacBookPro 2 gigRAM, 160 gig HD, 13 inch screen
• ASUS EeePC 1000HE Netbook
• iPhone 3G

My main computer is my iMac and I use my MacBook to work from remote locations (such as the park or my backyard). I bought the Netbook because of it’s ultra portability and long battery life, plus is was so cheap I couldn’t resist! The iPhone is a great investment, I can monitor all of my websites from where ever I am, I can easily update all of my Twitter accounts and I can even write full blog posts with my WordPress iPhone app. I would HIGHLY recommend getting an iPhone if you are serious about online marketing. You might be able to find a good deal on a refurbished iPhone.

Software

• Mac Browsers (FireFox, Safari)
• PC Browsers (FireFox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome)
• Transmit (Mac FTP software)
• Adobe Illustrator (great for creating logos and illustrations)
• Adobe Photoshop (invaluable for creating graphics and prepping files for online use)
• Adobe GoLive (great for creating and editing web pages)
• Adobe Fireworks (another great graphics app)
• iWork (Mac’s version of MS Office)
• iLife (This comes standard with most Mac computers)
• twhirl (update multiple Twitter accounts without logging in and out)
• tweetdeck (update multiple Twitter accounts without logging in and out)
• mail (Mac’s built in e-mail application)

There are dozens of other applications I use on occasion but the items listed above are the ones I use on a daily basis. Many of these applications are free such as: mail, TweetDeck, Twhirl. Others are very inexpensive such as: iWork, iLife, Transmit. And of course all of the Adobe products are expensive, and if you cannot afford programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator you might want to search out less expensive alternatives.

As you can see I use three different computers. Do you need three computers? No! One will do just fine but I have so many things going on simultaneously that I have grown to where I need three (it’s a good problem to have).

Yes you can make money online!

When deciding what strategy to take to make money online we must start at the very beginning. We must first ask ourselves… is it really possible to make money online or is this just a gimmick to get me to spend money finding out how to do it? Which is a fair question. The short answer is “yes”, you really can make make money online. Trust me, I make a decent living with the money I make from my stable of websites. No, I am no millionaire and no, getting to where I am now wasn’t easy but it’s certainly possible.

When I started my first real effort into making money online I can remember doing back flips in my living room when I made my first $0.48, my wife that I had lost my mind. It wasn’t the amount I was exited about, instead it was the realization that it was indeed possible to make money online, all I needed to do was replicate and build on my work

There are several ways to make money online:

• Sell a product that you make or have access to resell
• Sell another companies products for them on your own website (affiliate marketing)
• Sell advertising space on your website (such as Google adsense)
• Sell a service to other websites (creating graphics, making web pages, or helping with SEO, social networking, etc.)

All of these methods can be effective revenue generators, but for sake of focus on this website I will primarily be discussing tools related to affiliate marketing, advertising, and services such as social networking tools.

What types of skills might be helpful for new folks that wish to enter the internet business marketplace?

All or some of the following skills will come in handy for internet entrepreneurs:

• Computer skills (email, text editing, graphics editing, etc.)
• Understanding the internet and internet browsers
• Basic html knowledge
• Basic understanding of different file formats (jpeg, gif, png, etc.)
• Basic understanding of uploading files to the internet (i.e. ftp software)

It is beyond the scope of this website to explain the above concepts therefore we will be proceeding in the discussion in this post and future posts with the assumption that the readers have these basic skills or is willing to look into these items elsewhere (the information is voluminous on the internet).

In summary…

Yes, you might actually be able to quit your day job or at very least pickup some awesome side income – it really is possible! Making money online is a legitimate goal for anyone who has basic computer skills. And there are literally hundreds of thousands of options and strategies that one might take to attain their goal of having a online business, and that’s why it’s so important to follow a website such as this, avoid the common pitfalls, adopt successful strategies, learn from folks who have been there and done that.

Final thoughts…

There is no free money. Making money online isn’t easy and it takes a ton of work and patience. Yet if done right online businesses can be very rewarding because once you get a successful website going it takes much less effort to maintain and that gives you time start the next project. With each established website your income is compounded. I like to think of my websites as if they were little robots that work all day and night for me regardless of what I am doing. I occasionally tune-up the robot and add to his daily chores but for the most part these little robots work tirelessly with little direction from me. That’s why it’s so important to set your robot (errrr… website) off in the right direction from the start. InternetPoop.com is dedicated to helping you create websites and online strategies that will work for you.

This of course is just the beginning, I will be reviewing tools and outlining possible strategies in future posts. Let the fun begin!

Easy to read info about internet tools. That's internet poop.

InternetPoop.com is my personal project to catalog, review, and generally dissect, internet tools such as: affiliate marketing tools, social networking tools, SEO strategies, and other internet tools that one might use to make money online or create some type of compelling internet presence.

The idea here is that I am not going to go on and on babbling and creating lengthy posts that will likely never be read. Instead I will be creating short, to-the-point entries that should aid you in getting the information you need and a clear opinion that you can trust.

In other words… I am going to tell you all you need to know. No fluff, no spam, just the straight facts… the internet poop!