Google Adsense Referrals is Retiring

Google is retiring the Adsense Referrals program with effect from the last week of August 2008.

Google said their Google Affiliate Network will permit publishers to apply for advertiser programs but get paid based on advertiser-defined actions, instead of clicks or impressions.

For those who are currently displaying Adsense Referrals program, the publisher is to replace them with Adsense for Content ads instead before end of August 2008.

If you are currently running a campaign, you may want to save all referrals reports on your desktop soonest possible before they are removed from their system.

Google said they want to focus on improving Adsense and drive better monetization results for their publishers in the long term, so they are retiring the Adsense Referrals program.

Tags: adsense referral ads, Google Adsense, Google Referral Program retiring

How Do You Analyze Sites with Google Trends

Google Trends is not the latest of Google’s new gadgets but it has been around for some time. I use Google Trends charts to analyze future and upcoming trends for websites, blog or events. Of course, there are various way to analyze these trends from the charts.

Basically, all you need is to type in a keyword or phrase you want, in the Search box. I have typed in keywords ‘wordpress’ to compare trends with ‘bloggers’ below.

Wordpress’s trend is indicated in Blue and Bloggers’s trend is indicated in Red.

Wordpress’s trend has been moving upwards since 2004. That means Wordpress has been growing in popularity and has widespread use as a blogging platform.

These trends are broken down further into Regions, Cities and Languages.

Interestingly, I see Indonesia being the top region to adopt Wordpress platform, follow by Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. All from Asian countries. Similar trends are found for Cities.

What is surprising is the Indonesian language tops the list in Languages, followed by Russian and English as third.

How do you interpret these trends when you use Google Trends?

Tags: analyis, analyse trends, google trends

Malay Mail Published May Ong’s Blog Post

Malaysian newspaper, the Malay Mail came across my blog post at MalaysiaParenting blog and published the blog post titled Can A Man Survive On RM3000 Salary in Malaysia. Sheila Rahman of Malay Mail was generous and kind enough to let me in on the interview on the subject that I shared deeply with Malaysians. Everybody is feeling the pinch in higher costs of living. This came to effect since the price of raw oil keep on increasing from USD40.00 to USD130.00 per barrel and its affecting the whole world. More so on developing countries. I sympathize with families who are relying on only the male as the sole bread earner of his family. More so for large families with growing children. How are you managing?

Tags: malay mail, malaysia, may ong, oil price hike, salary man, survive

2CheckOut Withdrawal with a Prepaid MasterCard

I have being using 2CheckOut service for about a year now, as another alternative to PayPal. The reason who I chose to use 2CheckOut sometimes is because I can make withdrawals via Check to be sent back to Malaysia, to be chased out at the local bank.

In fact, 2Checkout.com, Inc. (2CO) is the authorized reseller for over 1.6 million tangible or digital products and services. They were established back in 1999 and headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. 2CheckOut provides turnkey e-commerce solutions to thousands of business customers around the world. Their technology supports back-office functions including financial reporting, tracking, fraud prevention, affiliate tracking, customer service and sales tracking.

One of the few reasons why I use 2CheckOut is due to its low costs (can’t compare to PayPal, of course). There is only a $49 one time signup fee. Their commission take is $0.45 per Sale and another 5.5% of the Sale Amount. They also have a 30 Day money back guarantee. There are no application fees, monthly fees or statement fees at all. No leases involved. No SSL certificate to purchase and no fees for ACH deposits to U.S. or participating Canadian bank accounts.

For Check payment or low cost Wire to Non U.S. Bank Accounts, with options of FREE shopping cart, FREE code for your web site and FREE on-line tech support for newbies.

There are a number of Payment Options available for your account:

* Air Mail Check - sent to you to cash out in your local bank
* International Wire available now in various currencies, like S$
* 2CheckOut Prepaid Debit MasterCard, powered by Payoneer - NEW!

2Checkout.com has introduced a new way for their vendors all over the world to receive their weekly payment. As of July 11, 2007, you will be able to register for your own Payoneer MasterCard, and receive your 2Checkout payments directly on the card.

I have recently chosen to be paid by the 2Checkout Payoneer MasterCard after applying for it. It will reduce the time that it takes for my payment to be delivered while cutting the costs associated with other methods of payment, via local bank.

Here are a number of the benefits of choosing the Payoneer MasterCard option:

* Cards are shipped to virtually everywhere worldwide, including Malaysia, Indonesia and Timbuktu
* Cards can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted – online and in stores
* Withdraw cash in local currency at ATMs around the world - RM$ in Malaysia
* 2Checkout payments will be loaded directly onto the card - I can withdraw it anytime I want to
* Online access to view your account, payments, balance and transaction history - 24 hours, anytime, anywhere
* If the card is lost or stolen, a new card with the remaining balance will be issued - I can sleep better knowing this

Payoneer has stringent regulations for customer privacy and uses top of the line security technology. If you ever have any questions about your card, Payoneer offers customer support by phone, email and live chat.

If you choose to be paid using the Payoneer option, you will be taken to a 2Checkout/Payoneer site to register for your new card. After receiving your card, you can use it at any merchant that accepts MasterCard and ATMs worldwide.

The process of applying for the Payoneer card is 3 very simple Steps! Just follow the instructions given, fill in all the required information and click Enter. I only have to wait for half a day to get it approved. As I know, its already on the mail to be sent to me at this minute now.

Go and register for a 2CheckOut account now and solve all your fund withdrawal problems in Malaysia.

Tags: 2checkout, mastercard, payment withdrawal

Withdraw Your PayPal Funds in Malaysia

Dear Malaysians, here is the Good News we have all been waiting for. You can now Withdraw your funds from your PayPal account in Malaysia, or from anywhere in the world, vis your own credit card.

I was going through my PayPal account and decided to check out if PayPal has changed their Withdrawal Policies towards withdrawal of funds in Malaysia or not. I went to search for Malaysia, in the search box, and this was what I saw, in small Print.

“You can view your withdrawal options by going to the Withdraw tab on your Account Overview page.”

Note:

* You will receive an automatic email confirmation every time you request to withdraw funds

* Members in Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Cyprus, Estonia, Gibraltar, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Philippines, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Uruguay, can withdraw funds to credit cards that are withdraw eligible.

You should allow 5-7 business days for your funds to post to your card, but may take more time, depending on your bank’s policies.



* Only members registered from the U.S., Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Ecuador, India, Jamaica, and Uruguay can request a check. You should allow 4-6 business days for your check to be processed and mailed.

* When you withdraw to your local non-U.S. bank account, your money should become available within 5-7 business days, but may take more time, depending on your bank’s policies.

* All members can withdraw funds from their PayPal account by requesting an electronic funds transfer to a U.S. bank account. When you withdraw to your U.S. bank account, your money should become available within 3-4 business days, but may take more time, depending on your bank’s policies.

So what are you waiting for now. Click here to get your Free PayPal Account Immediately!

Tags: malaysia, payment withdrawal, paypal, transfer funds

Play Games for a Living

Can you play games for a living? Pay to play at Tournament.com and turn your frags into money.

By Tom Chick

“This is a news I stumbled upon on Yahoo today. I find this sort of news interesting. Why? I am not much of a gaming person but I play online games now and then. It is because my seven year old boy cannot live without playing games either on my personal computer, laptop or on my mobile phone, whenever he can get his hands on any of these devices. The beauty is, my child is able to use my mobile phone to go and search for new game downloads. When our PS2 player wasn’t malfunction then, I used to play on it also. Is this a good thing to play for money?”

Are you ready to put your money where your mouse is? UK-based Tournament.com plans to launch a service this month that will let gamers pony up an entrance fee, play a first person shooter match, and then divide the money among the winners. After the house gets its cut, of course.

“Playing games for a living. This is truly the age for the game developers as well as online game players. When I enter into any cybercafes, I find all these young adults, teenagers and even some younger children, engrossed into their online games, so much so that they were not even aware of what’s going on around them. I also know for a fact that some of the online gamers even sell their ranking position for a price, for the next person to enter that game level to continue the game. My teenage daughter tells me that.”

At launch, you’ll only be able to play Counter-Strike and Half-Life 2 death matches. Tournament.com founder Marcus Pearcey wouldn’t comment about any publishers who might have declined to participate, much less any upcoming deals. “We look forward to signing new companies in the very new future,” he said, stressing that this isn’t gambling and therefore shouldn’t be objectionable to any of the larger publishers. “Gambling rewards a player based purely on luck, while Tournament.com is a service that rewards players based on their skill. They’re two very different models.”

“I have not played the above games before but I am sure what Tournament.com offers begs to be different. Well! It remains to be seen, played and experienced. Perhaps I would give it a try.”

Nevertheless, 14 states in the US ban this sort of gaming for money, so people from those states won’t be able to participate. Also, Tournament.com requires players to fax or email proof-of-age ID, which will then be verified to ensure that no one under 18 participates. Otherwise, it’s easy to sign up and use your credit card or PayPal to set up an account. You install a fairly simple and sleek 10MB front end, and from there, you’ll be able to jump into games with variable entry fees. With enough skill, you can take your place among top winners with names like Ars- and l33tboy.

“I think placement of a minimum age limit is good as I would not want any of my own children to be able to get access to this easily. Some sort of control has to be in place. In Asia, no such ban has been in effect yet as far as I know.”

A ranking system is supposed to match you against players of a similar skill level. An anti-cheating system will presumably keep things honest. But it’s a bit disconcerting to log on and see the home page proclaiming the number of cheaters banned as if it were an accomplishment (currently at 338). “We’re confident that [our anti-cheating software] is some of the best out there and we use a combination of different anti-cheating software developed by third parties in conjunction with our internally developed Tournament Anti-Cheat, also known as TAC,” said Pearcey. “To supplement our security, we also have admins who continuously monitor in-game play, making sure that everyone is playing fair.”

“Fair enough. If I play games for a living, there is always a tendency to try out all kinds of strategy to make more money.”

Based on the beta of the program, the entrance fees range from free-to-play (i.e. practice games with no rewards) to $10. “There’s no real concrete amount that’s consistent across all of the tournaments. Winnings are also dictated by a number of factors, including whether or not the tournament has a set reward amount or instead rewards based on the number of players participating.” It’s worth noting that in beta testing, many players complained about being unable to accumulate winnings in excess of $25, which was the requirement to withdraw money during the beta. So even if you’ve got seriously 733t gaming skillz, don’t quit your day job just yet.

“So even if I try hard enough to play these games, I may not be able to make money as a living or go into it full time.”

Pearcey is aware that other companies have tried this model and failed. But he remains optimistic. “Other services, in our opinion, failed to consider the big picture about a service such as this. While it’s mainly about winning money and playing well, it’s also about fostering an environment that’s open to all players, regardless of whether they’ve been playing games for 20 years or just two days. Gaming is still about having fun and Tournament.com is completely dedicated to that idea.”

“I went onto the site. My first impression was it sounded good, exciting, new and interesting. I may find time to go and try some of the games there to see if I have the ability to make some money by playing games for a living or at least for a day or not. So hear from me soon for some updates, ok?”

Tags: make a living, online game, play games, tournament

Great Successful Marketing: No Thinking Required

Great Successful Marketing: No Thinking Required! by Josef Katz

An extract from that article that says:

Let’s face it. People are lazy.

If given the choice between thinking through a problem and watching TV, most people would opt for the TV. There is nothing wrong with some down time and this is not a judgment about you or your customers. We are all lazy by nature. Add to this how busy people are these days and you have a tough challenge if you want people to listen and act upon your marketing.

To create successful marketing, you need to think about your target customer and their mental state. What is going to make them take action? All good marketing has a call to action. What do you want your customers to do? Don’t make them guess. Your customers are not mind readers. Tell them what they should do. If you don’t, they will likely do nothing at all or move on to the next task at hand. But if you tell them what you want them to do and make it easy for them to do so, a percentage of them will follow your directions.

Here are a couple of tips for you to think about when putting together your marketing messages:

* Use active words
Internet marketing terms means Good Copywriting

* Repeat your directions/call to action
Internet marketing terms means using Email Marketing and tools like autoresponder

* Make sure it is easy to follow the directions
Internet marketing term means give your subscribers easy to follow step by step instructions on what action you want them to take

* Create a sense of urgency
Internet marketing term means give your subscribers some special offers now and then and give them a time limit to act like now

Tags: copywriting, Email Marketing, Internet Marketing, successful marketing, target customer

A Picture Worth $14 Million

Need I say more …. A Picture Is Worth $14 Million …

Tags: george bush, picture

Google came out with a Men’s Eau De Toilette Cologne

Google is diversifying their business into the Perfumery industry. They came out with a Google Men’s Cologne.

Google’s Eau De Toilette for Men

Tags: cologne, eau de toilette, google for men

Soapbox on MSN Video

I was just logging in to my MSN account that found a link to this Soapbox on MSN Video. I thought this was cool! So I checked it out to find out more.

You need to login to your MSN account via your MSN Email Address and password. Then you can upload your videos up or photo.

If you want to Embed the video on to your won weblog, just click on the button “Embed Video”, copy the code to embed the video player directly into a webpage or blog.

I would have thought that it would be hard to embed it but its just a breeze. Go there the try them out. I think in the next few weeks, I will be uploading my own stuff there myself.

Happy uploading and Embedding videos from Soapbox Beta on MSN video!

Tags: embed video, msn video, soapbox