Shoot! Missed a Day…

I missed a post yesterday. Well, guess I need to make up for it so here goes with a few updates and meanderings…

RSS Feed Goes UP

So it looks like my RSS Feed has reached ONE HUNDRED readers. Usually readership goes down on the weekend, yet I managed to increase from 84 on Friday to 100 today. Hmm… Something must be up! Well, it appears that something anomalous did happen over the weekend.

Apparently Google did some soul searching and it appears that they have decided to let Feedburner count readers using their Google Reader Product. Before, Google didn’t release any statistics to Feedburner, so they couldn’t track the number of users using the Google Reader. Now that Google has decided to play nice, everyone using the Feedburner plugin will see a nice swell in readership. Feedburner is obviously very happy about this.Though it’s not as nice as when I picked up over 500 subscribers during a DIGG, I’ll take my 100 solid subscribers anyday. Thanks Everyone!

I’ve Got a ReviewMe Assignment

After Dot Com Pho today, I got an email from ReviewMe telling me that they’ve got an assignment for me.

I haven’t gotten an assignment since I reviewed ReviewMe last year. I guess my little plug about their Half Off Reviews Sale got me noticed. Actually, I did get a ReviewMe request while I was in Las Vegas for CES, but I wasn’t able to respond. ReviewMe only gives you 48 hours to get the job done.

If you need a review, you better get in there. The offer will be expiring at the end of February and reviews on my blog are a damn good deal right now. I hope to have my ReviewMe post up and posted tomorrow.

The Latest Casualty – Moddin.net

When Futurelooks started up, I never thought that I’d be able to run it as a full time business. However, after over seven years, give or take a few months, the site has proven itself to be quite sticky. It seems that over the years, for every site that is able to rise above the rest, a balance needs to be maintained. Thus, a handful of sites need to go dark to balance out that success. The latest victim is Moddin.net.

I received their news release entitled “The end is nigh!” Here is a snip from it:

It’s a sorry day for me to be writing this news post but sadly it is an inevitable one. As of 31st January 2007, Moddin’.net as we know it will be closing its doors for good. Despite some major plans to overhaul the site and turn it into a community driven modding experience (read: Web 2.0), as that is what the scene needs, at the early part of last year the team has struggled to find the (spare) time to carry out the work involved despite all being willing.

You can find the full email posted right here.

Apparently, Moddin.net has been online for over 5.5 years. After a quick look at some of their content, there shouldn’t be any reason why they couldn’t stay online for another 5.5 years. However, to the trained Web Entrepreneur, it is pretty clear why they couldn’t make it.

First off, Moddin.net doesn’t make any money. I can see that from the usual suspects. Their Google integration isn’t optimized and they don’t have any direct ad sales. You would be amazed how quickly things get done when the funds are available. The design is also extremely dated. My first impression is that the site hasn’t been updated in ages, while in reality, they have had some recent articles posted in the last year.

So the content is decent on Moddin.net, aside from the dated look, why can’t they sell an ad to support themselves? If we look at reality, no one is ever known for being the “Best Writing Author”. The ones that write well don’t sell books. That’s why they starve. The “Best Selling Authors” may not be the best writers, but they market themselves well and sell a lot of books. As a result, even though their first book may not be the greatest, they get a chance to keep trying.

It seems that Moddin.net is missing someone on their team that is good at marketing and sales. You can be as passionate as you want about something, but if you are not able to sell that passion to others, then who cares. The telling detail comes from this quote from their farewell release:

Because of our plans to relaunch the site suppliers held off with advertising campaigns which meant hosting costs were coming directly from my pocket and unfortunately it is not economical enough to carry on this path.

Why would you stop selling? Why would you shoot yourselves in the foot by letting your suppliers know that you’re relaunching? Furthermore, why would you stop “Business as Usual”? Companies always want the bigger better deal. If you tell them in advance that something better is coming along and stop producing OF COURSE they will wait. In the meantime, you starve. Without consistent cash flow you go out of business, and that’s just what has happened. Even brick and mortar businesses continue to operate throughout renovations so that they can fund the renovations to offer a better experience for their customers.

Although I feel sorry for them and I’m sad to see another one of our own go down the tubes, what happened is really a self fulfilling prophecy. They did everything right to seal their doom, despite their passion for the content. So the lesson today is learn to sell and market yourself. Without those skills, you could be a rocket scientist and no one would give a crap. Oh, and never tell people a better deal is coming. The best possible deal is always right in front of you, right now.

AGLOCO Who?

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve heard from AGLOCO. The last time we heard from them was over a month ago back in December where they finally set a deadline for the launch of the AGLOCO viewbar for 7 – 10 weeks. I pretty much forgot all about them until I received their latest email.

In their latest email communication sent yesterday, and hidden within the rest of the propaganda, they said that the viewbar was still a few weeks away. Well, it’s been 4 weeks since the last communication, so based on that, it looks like the viewbar should hit about 3 – 6 weeks from now. Again, if they don’t deliver, they might as well just forget it.

Instead of elaborating on the all important status of the viewbar, they had fluffy bits of info:

Over 30,000 of you have already recruited a least one new Member to AGLOCO (and some of you have recruited referral networks of more than 10,000).

This recruiting effort has been going on around the globe. Google results for “AGLOCO” now include many different languages (75,000 pages in Chinese – even 150 pages in Lithuanian).

That’s just dandy folks, but really, we’re more interested in the viewbar. However, impressive these numbers are, relatively speaking, they don’t really show true growth. What are the numbers relative to? Is the monthly sign up trend going up or down as a whole? But alas, people are drawn by big numbers so I’m sure the marketability of this information has served its purpose.

I find it amusing that amidst my skeptical take on the whole AGLOCO situation, they still have me in the top 2.92% of the top referrers. I guess I have some go getters signed up that just want to take a chance and just run with it. Others are probably sitting on the fence till the viewbar launches while some just don’t give a rats ass.

Three to six weeks left AGLOCO. Let’s see if you’re bluffing!