John Dilbeck Musings
Whatever strange and wonderful ideas tickle this big brain of mine

John Dilbeck Musings


2
October

New: zReturn Lost and Found Services

posted October 2nd, 2007 posted posted by John Dilbeck

Use It Before You Lose It

Protect your valuables (and your identity) with Worldwide Lost & Found Return Stickers.

Give lost gadgets a greater chance of returning to you–without losing your privacy!

Register each stick-on tag’s unique ID number with the online database and affix the small tags to your cell phone, laptop, MP3 player, digital camera, car keys, and other easily-carried items. That’s all you have to do.

When someone finds your lost item, they can use the ID number to send you a message that they found it (forwarded to your email via the database) without ever knowing your personal information. The exchange is swift, secure and completely anonymous.

Several kits are available. The family kit includes 6 self-adhesive labels, 1 key tag and a free lifetime membership in the worldwide return system database.

Product Features

  • Simple stick-on tags help keep your high-tech tools (and the data they contain) from being lost forever
  • Make it easy for finders to do the right thing–without ever knowing your personal information
  • Secure website keeps losers and finders anonymous; complete privacy is maintained
  • Ideal protection for laptops, suitcases, cameras, cell phones, PDAs–any items that can get lost during travel

zReturn provides a low-cost way for someone to do the right thing and return your valuable items if they find them somewhere.

While nobody can guarantee that your lost item will be returned, your zReturn sticker will greatly improve the odds.

Learn more about zReturn.

Act on your dream!

JD

13
September

Site Build It! Brainstorm It! V2 Launches

posted September 13th, 2007 posted posted by John Dilbeck

Brainstorm It! is a powerful niche brainstorming and keyword analyzer module that is only one of the tools included in your Site Build It! annual subscription.

Here is some information from a recent announcement from Ken Evoy (Who is Ken Evoy?):

“Yes. Brainstorm It! *V2* is now live!

Both vertical and lateral brainstorming have been greatly improved. Important new concepts like VALUE Demand and Real Supply provide stronger guidance for content development. “Pink messaging” helps get niche selection “just right.”

And there are a whole bunch of other improvements. It all adds up to the best keyword brainstorming and research tool in the world…

We did a ton of research before launching V2. It’s fair to say that it’s the best keyword tool in the world. And it’s included in the $299 price of SBI!, which, of course, delivers many more tools than Brainstorm It!…”

Site Build It! is a powerful system of integrated tools that help you find a niche, identify key concepts and keywords for writing about your chosen niche, build your website and promote it to the world, and interact efficiently with your visitors and customers.

Brainstorm It! is one of the tools that is used extensively in the step by step process for building your online business when you first start using Site Build It!. Later when you have established your online business, you can continue to use Brainstorm It! to help you find subjects you can write about to extend the valuable content you offer on your site.

I’ve used the new version over the last few days and have found lots of new ideas for topics to write about on my SBI site.

The fact that you can pay much more than the cost of an annual Site Build It! subscription just for a keyword analysis and brainstorming tool that doesn’t work as well is just one more reason for using Site Build It! to build your online business.

I am a happy and very satisfied SBI customer and I welcome these improvements to the tools I use to continue to build my business.

Act on your dream!

JD

13
September

New Site Build It! Results Page Is Online

posted September 13th, 2007 posted posted by John Dilbeck

Sitesell, Inc. recently updated the results page for websites built by their customers using Site Build It!

From a recent announcement by Ken Evoy:

“Results.sitesell.com is becoming a mini-directory of some of the most well-done, informative sites in the world. But it sure is getting harder and harder to to update it.

Picking the top SBI! sites for results.sitesell.com can be a real challenge…

It’s become so much work that we seem to have subconsciously put off an update for over a year! SBIers keep doing better and better. More and more of them are entering the Top 1% of all sites in the world.

So this year(!), we shook it up (requiring higher traffic numbers to “make the cut.”) There are a lot of new faces, but some old ones still in the lineup, too!…

We eliminate sites that don’t have the “real” traffic to justify their Alexa scores. We chop sites that are in categories that are overcrowded. We regretfully drop sites that have been in results.sitesell.com “long enough” (and bring in new ones). And we cut so many others for a variety of reasons. So what you see is just the tip of the top.

One way or another, all selected sites must be in the top 1% of all sites on the Internet. And you can imagine that’s a very nice place to be…

Each time we do this, the new sites stagger me. There is no limit to the niches you can conquer.

I think the most important point, though, is that most of these people are non-techs, just “ordinary” people who have been empowered to do EXTRAordinary things online.

They get the kind of numbers that any professional webmaster would drool over. And the more congested the Web gets, the STRONGER SBIers become. “Regular people” are leaving professional non-SBI! Webmasters and SEOers in their dust.

That’s the power of the Site Build It! process… ANYone can find real, verifiable, online success.

For YOU, our partner-in-sales, this is BIG NEWS!

Why!

Because this is all the proof you need to convince your visitors that SBI! is for real. Real traffic! Real success!”

A while back Ken Evoy gave us a challenge to find any other webhosting company (and SBI is much more than that) that can provide better results for their customers. I spent some time searching and never found a site that even came marginally close.

See for yourself, these are the results SBI webmasters are getting by building their online businesses using Site Build It!

Why waste your time and money using anything else?

Act on your dream!

JD

11
September

Ken Evoy and Sitesell announce the release of Content 2.0

posted September 11th, 2007 posted posted by John Dilbeck

Ken Evoy and Sitesell recently announced the release of Content 2.0, an optional add-on module for Site Build It!

Here is a copy of their press release:

Montreal, Quebec, Canada (PRWEB) August 30 2007 — Sitesell.com, the originator of Site Build It! and champion of using quality content to drive small business sites, today takes Web 2.0 to new heights. For the first time, small businesses can make it easy for their visitors to craft original Web pages including photos and captions. Other visitors comment upon and rate those Web pages. The process is optimized for search engine results driving long tail keyword traffic and viral spread.

“Up until now,” says Ken Evoy, president of SiteSell.com, “Web 2.0 has been the playground of large companies which basically aggregate individuals and small businesses. Today, small business owners have the simple, powerful ability to increase content through others and use it to grow traffic and ‘buzz’ tremendously.”

Web 2.0 is a catchall term for user-generated content and interaction with viral spread. It has created legendary business success stories such as MySpace, flickr, and YouTube. But they are all ‘big company’ stories.

“Small business has been shut out of Web 2.0,” states Evoy. “They are limited to blogging and using YouTube and MySpace to increase traffic and revenues in small ways. Now they become ‘aggregators’ instead of ‘aggregatees.’ Blogging pales because the site owner still has to create all that content. With C2, visitors create original, high-value content, a tremendous leveraging of time and results.”

The depth and breadth of user-created content yields surprising results. At Wikipedia, contributors do the work, building new pages of keyword-rich material. Wikipedia gets the benefits of content and inbound links. Millions of Page 1 rankings at Google have pushed it to the 9th most visited site in the world (according to Alexa.com).

Evoy contends that what he calls “the rest of us” do not have the resources to create Web 2.0 platforms. Over one year in the making, Content 2.0 is that platform. SiteSell clients are already using it to create their own mini-MySpaces or to turn sites into super-blogs, inviting recipe submissions, beer reviews, etc. A ghost story site has even created BooTube, which invites video submissions. In SiteSell’s forums, users are already showing traffic stats that have doubled.

Web 2.0 and so-called “user-generated” content has its detractors. They cite everything from the unreliability of Wikipedia and uncontrolled “splogging” (spam blogs) to widely publicized issues on MySpace. Evoy says that all those problems stem from the lack of reasonable forms of control. “We studied all the major Web 2.0 companies, took the best, eliminated the worst, and then made it all simple to use.”

“You need an authority to maintain quality. Users of Content 2.0 cannot continuously overwrite each other like at Wikipedia. They don’t create ‘Profiles’ and gossip like at MySpace. And they do much more than just upload photos. They build real value, content which an owner can easily control and monetize. That control is key.”

Just like the large Web 2.0 successes, visitors who participate are notified when theirs page have been published and when comments are posted about their pages. They comment back and forth on the site and are encouraged to spread the word through e-mail. Repeat visits, community and viral spread are the hallmarks of Web 2.0.

“Content 2.0 is automated, regulated, high-quality Web 2.0,” continues the passionate Evoy. “Like our flagship, Site Build It!, the complexity under the hood is intense. And ‘under the hood’ is where it belongs. Our small business customers never have to look there. They just focus on doing business.”

Evoy sums up “Small businesses have been the aggegatees for years. The money is in being the aggregator. Now they can do it, in their niches, with quality and ease.”

Content 2.0 is available at SiteSell.com for the annual subscription price of $99 as an add-on module to Site Build It! (SBI!), SiteSell’s flagship business-building product.

(End of the press release)

Not every website that is built using SBI will need or be able to use Content 2.0 effectively, but many sites are already using it with success.

If you would like more information on Sitesell and SBI!, please visit Sitesell.com.

Act on your dream!

JD

10
August

New business social networking site - APSense

posted August 10th, 2007 posted posted by John Dilbeck

For the last few months, I’ve been looking at quite a few social networking sites. Some are friendly to business and others are not. Each has its place.

I really don’t have a lot of time for just socializing, but when I do, I tend to go to MySpace.

I like to combine my socializing with work, so I’m continuing to look for business social networking sites that offer a variety of features for meeting new people, talking to friends, advertising my products and services, blogging, and joining groups of like-minded people.

There are a couple I’m almost ready to recommend, but not quite yet. I want to spend more time on them before I make up my mind.

I’m not going to recommend something to you that I’m not going to use myself.

Today, I ran across a business social networking site I’d never seen, and I found it while surfing one of my favorite traffic exchanges.

Take a look at APSense.com and see what you think.

You can join for free and have almost full access to all the features of the site.

Here’s part of how they present their service:

Apsense in a Nutshell…

Apsense is a social network where people come together to share their business. We enable users to share their business through networking, discovering and creating quality business content. The development of new networks and constant exchange of information is happening everyday at Apsense. We are changing the way people build their businesses online.

Meet other business individuals…

In its purest nature Apsense is a web 2.0 enabled social network. We promote the exchange of business networks by providing tools for users to easily communicate, create interest groups and even build their own private social network. Ultimately our goal is to make it simple for you to connect with other business individuals.

Find valuable business contents…

All contents on Apsense, from business blogs to business discussions to product and service listings are collectively rated by the users (that would be you). Top rated contents are pushed to the top of our content listings so you can find the most popular and trusted business information quickly. So if you are looking for valuable business information online to help you build your business, don’t waste time searching for it anywhere else!

Create your own business contents…

While all types of contents on Apsense are being viewed and rated by the users, these same type of contents can also be created by you. Why create your own contents? Everyday millions of people are searching for contents related to your business by using search engines and web 2.0 enabled websites like Apsense. So by creating your contents on Apsense, you are enabling millions of people to find contents about your business. For us, content is your business interests, your products & services, your business experiences, and anything else you would like to share about you and your business.

I’ve only had a couple of hours to look over the site, and I’m impressed with it.

I’ve joined a couple of groups, started one of my own, started building my business website on Apsense, and will be creating a new blog there in the next day or so.

Of course, my group is about Site Build It and I urge you to come join APSense.com, add me as your contact, and we can help each other present our businesses and offers.

Now, if you’re a relative beginner to this sort of thing, I want to ask you, please, do not spam everyone with your advertising. There are places where advertising is appropriate, and places where it isn’t.

Get to know people. Participate in the discussions. Learn something new. Teach someone something you’ve learned.

Don’t just start posting ads everywhere! That’s not what social networking (business or not) is all about.

Have some class, don’t be crass!

Come on over and join APSense.com. It’s free, and you can take your time to decide if you like it or not.

There are a couple of upgrade options, but frankly, I haven’t even looked at them or the affiliate program, yet.

I’m too interested in the system they’ve set up, and too involved in learning how to use it, to even think of any of the ways to spend or earn money there.

If you do join and add me as a contact, please don’t spam me. I want you as a friend, and not someone I would rather hide from, or block.

Let me know what you think about Apsense and other social networking sites. Are they effective and a good way to spend your time? Or, do you think they are a big time and energy drain?

Act on your dream!

JD

1
July

The best collection of analytics tools I’ve seen in one place

posted July 1st, 2007 posted posted by John Dilbeck

Adam Ostrow writes, in his article Analytics Toolbox: 50+ Ways to Track Website Traffic:

From analyzing your RSS feed to counting page views to visual representations of where your visitors are clicking, there is no shortage of companies looking to help you better understand your web site’s traffic. In our latest “toolbox” installment, we analyze (pun intended) the wide variety of applications and tools available for keeping tabs on how your sites, feeds, blogs, emails, or even your intranet is performing.

Not only does he list a great variety of tools and techniques, his readers are leaving useful comments, too.

I thought I was well versed on this topic, but Adam lists companies and tools that have never crossed my traffic analysis radar.