I want YOU! And I got some links too …

Hey there folks,

it’s been a while. I have been working pretty hard lately so there wasn’t that much time for writing. But I am currently on to building new things and I could certainly require some help with it. Are you a developer? Are you a designer? Are you a genius? If you can answer at least one by yes, please, go to: http://www.hipscreen.com and find the brief details. Let me hear about your skills and we might get into some business soon…

Moreover, I’ve been working with a new client from L.A. lately: FerrazziGreenlight Inc. If you haven’t heard of their CEO, Keith Ferrazzi before, then you’ve most certainly spent the last decade indoors (and miles away from Amazon). Make sure you grab the latest copy of the most incredible book I’ve had in my hands so far: Never Eat Alone. You can find detailed infos (and sample chapters, yes good stuff!) at: http://www.keithferrazzi.com/
The book is about building relationships (in a business sense) and how such can ultimately lead to your personal success. The website says it like this:

Do you want to get ahead in life? Climb the ladder to personal success?

The secret, master networker Keith Ferrazzi claims, is in reaching out to other people. As Ferrazzi discovered early in life, what distinguishes highly successful people from everyone else is the way they use the power of relationships—so that everyone wins.

In Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps—and inner mindset—he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his Rolodex, people he has helped and who have helped him.

The son of a small-town steelworker and a cleaning lady, Ferrazzi first used his remarkable ability to connect with others to pave the way to a scholarship at Yale, a Harvard MBA, and several top executive posts. Not yet out of his thirties, he developed a network of relationships that stretched from Washington’s corridors of power to Hollywood’s A-list, leading to him being named one of Crain’s 40 Under 40 and one of Davos’ Global Leader for Tomorrow.

It’s an awesome read, you should check it out. I find it particularly interesting as I do now understand why some people get their latest Web 2.0 product into quality news coverage in the FT, BusinessWeek or maybe on TV – and others lurk around low rated blogs, trying to pitch it to a group of 20 people. That’s not gonna work. Networking is THE magic.

Lastly, I’ve some more good news: There is an online tool that you can check out (it’s free! totally free!) called “Life Coach”. Well, that’s a promising name, right. But it helps you quite nicely to identify your personal, most destructive behaviors and gives pretty good hints on how you can tackle that behavior. Are you good friends with procrastination? Do you “really” listen to what other people say about you?

Check out the free step-by-step tool at: http://www.keithferrazzi.com/lifecoachtool

Summing up: I like the trend of all that. We (read: IT geeks, bloggers, developers, …) should take on more opportunities to talk to successful managers and leaders out there to show them a what the world behind the screens (i.e. the internet world) looks like and how they can utilize the power (and magic) of it. Not talking mass commerce here, but I’d spent a little fortune to IM with Jack Welch or John Sculley. But most likely they don’t really know much of this side of the force, yet. That needs to be changed. There’s soooo much besides Google. And we could need some VC money, right?

Let me hear your thoughts, comments always welcome here!

Roman

WhatIsThatFile.com – FOR SALE !

UPDATE: BID is currently standing at $500 (BIN PRICE REACHED!)
http://www.namepros.com/developed-sites-for-sale/172361-whatisthatfile-com-all-about-your-files.html#post1116508

BRING IN YOUR BIDS – SIMPLY SEND AN E-MAIL TO software@mittermayr.com
OR PLACE A COMMENT ON THIS BLOG!

BIDDING CLOSES WITH CONFIRMATION OF THE $500 BIDDER. IF YOU WANT TO HAVE THE SITE – LAST CHANCE! – BIDDING IS CLOSING AT LATEST BY TOMORROW (SATURDAY) AFTERNOON (or as soon as I got the confirmation of the $500 bid – so might only be a couple of hours).

HERE IS THE GENERAL INFORMATION

Alright, the site has been online for a couple of days and had more than 24.300 UNIQUE (I can prove it) visitors since 11th of February. Heck, we just finished Feb. and it took me some 15 days to get that many visitors. Quite good. Haven’t done ANY promotion lately, so daily uniques dropped to 200. Easy to double if you do some minor PR.

Iam looking for a competitive quote on the search engine at www.WhatIsThatFile.com

The database was built by a community and maintained by the administrator. It’s backed by the latest hype must-have: “Ajax” and has got it’s own API as well. Results appear immediately as you type. There are several options for link exchanges as well in order to keep a steady user interaction. I’ve been running the site for a few weeks now and it was digged a while ago.

If you go to Google or MSN and type: “It’s good to feel safe” you are going to see this site as NUMBER ONE search result.

It comes with full database content, all the necessary scripts + guide to set up the website on your own server and what’s best: A COMPLETE ADMINISTRATION SOFTWARE (running on your own computer). I am happy to send some screenshots of the administration software + statistical graphs.

It has got a CLOUD OF FAME feature, which is really popular. See yourself.

The package includes:
All necessary graphics
All necessary scripts and html files
All database content + backups
The administration software (specific for that project)
Guide on how you can setup this thing (takes 15 minutes max!)
The domain name
All rights including full ownership and copyright.

About future possible income:
The site gains a solid daily AdSense income, run a query and you
will see the ads appear between the results. I found a perfect way
of adding Commission Junction ads on the front page, by simply using
text links (clicked by almost everyone!). The site is unique as it’s the
only search engine for files allowing a instant ajax powered result.

It’s listed in several line ups of Web 2.0 application (see the most famous one on listible) and if you run a query on google typing “WhatIsThatFile” you will receive around 20 result pages(!) full of relevant content, all pointing to the site. From blogs, forums and directories.

Alright, that’s a good summary, let’s hear the offers, but please consider: This is not a baby thing, I expect serious offers only. 

 

News news news

First of all, I finally got two great interviews for you.

I had the opportunity to ask Alex Tew a question about his MillionDollarHomepage and he answered at the Financial Times website (http://www.ft.com/tew)

Here’s what he had to say:

Roman Mittermayr: “How much money did you spend initially to get this thing started? It does take a bit of financial injection to keep the popularity up until it reaches a solid, worldwide coverage – so I guess you had a PR agent working for you?”

Alex Tew: My initial outlay was around 50 euros I think; it really didn’t cost much to register the domain name and set up some basic hosting. I then re-invested the first $1,000 I made from selling pixels to my friends and family into sending out a press release in order to create more attention. In October I was approached by a talented publicist in the US, Imal Wagner, who suggested I write a book about my experience. I declined the book idea (mainly because I was too busy) but I hired her to help manage all the media attention and she also helped me create fresh interest in the states, which was in fact the last major country to cover my story. I actually went on a media tour in November to do a round of interviews there, and this directly led to more orders and the whole thing continued to grow. The underlying process was simple: the more attention I created, the more pixels I sold, and the more pixels I sold, the more interest my site received. It was a true snowball effect. I probably spent around $40-50,000 US on promoting and maintaining the site.

So as you see, Alex really did some good PR decision. It’s not only word of mouth magic, he actually did something to get that started and kept it going through all the life cycle of his project.

PageFlakes

Ole Brandenburg, a co-founder of PageFlakes.com was kind enough to answer me a couple of questions on their latest hit: “PageFlakes”. Some might have heard of it before, if not, “how was the vacation to Mars?” – It’s a pretty solid, online desktop system. Nonono, not another simple aggregator, not a simple feed reader or a task manager. It’s got everything you need, really. I love to see how such a “mushroom” like company got the project set up in virtually no time and started challenging Microsoft and all the other service providers – and definitely – outrule them! Pretty cool. Remember, it only takes you some 15 to 30 seconds until you’re setup to rock. Simply sign up for an account (it’s free – as in beer) and check it out.

Here’s a short intro to the interview:

Roman:
What exactly is Pageflakes?

Ole:
Pageflakes is a personalized start page (Ajax Desktop as some like to call it) that allows you to setup your (customized) content and news. We have already created 30 modules (Address Book, Todo List, Weather Flake, TV Guide, Map, etc.). You can read news feeds and setup the whole page to your liking. Its easy drag & drop functionality allow users of all kind to setup their own page. Signup is free.

Roman:
How did you come up with the whole idea?

Ole:
Content and news are scattered across the web. Information is available but it’s a pain to have it to look up 10 different sites and login 10 times to get all the news and information plus functionlity that you … [more]

[Check out Pageflakes] [You can read the full interview here]

Many many thanks to Ole for answering all these questions. I am going to interview some more high profilers soon, so make sure you check back regularly. You can also join our Naked Business board, which is free of course and located at:

http://ebusiness.vipedio.com/

That’s where I am posting the interviews and other entrepreneurial / web design related articles.

Many many thanks to Ole for answering all these questions. I am going to interview some more high profilers soon, so make sure you check back regularly. You can also join our Naked Business board, which is free of course and located at:- that’s where I am posting the interviews and other entrepreneurial / web design related articles.I also got offered a job at Skype the other day, woooho, what a great opportunity. I am not sure though, if I can get things in place to face that challenge. We’ll see, I am going to keep you posted.

Let’s close it up, but not without the mandatory quote:

“The reason they call it ‘golf’ is that all the other 4 letter words were used up”
Leslie Nielsen

Let’s network!

Hi, good afternoon or morning !

I am back after a short time out here at Naked IT. I was quite busy pushing my latest project (WhatIsThatFile.com) to a certain popularity – and things are rocking again. Remember, you can get a free backlink from that site – just check out the “FAN” section.

But most importantly to say: I have got some grand news for you.

I thought, hey, a blog is fine, and although comments allow sort of a 2 way communication, I wish I could have it more interactive. And that’s what I came up with after a while of work:

http://ebusiness.vipedio.com/

It’s brand new – it’s super hot and it was only made for YOU. Yes, indeed. I had so many great comments by e-mail or directly here and I was really impressed by the quality and quantity or professionals around. I think, we should work together. Right now – you, me and the other 30.000 fellows. I have built that forum to allow you to present your projects, your ideas and ask other professionals on their opinion about advertisement, network channels, technology (ajax, php, whatever!) – just lots of stuff to talk about.

Some of you mentioned some really great projects to me and I had great fun checking them out. But I just can’t post all of them here in my blog as it would most likely turn into a huge link list soon.

That’s why I have created that board. Promote yourself and let others know what you are doing. Keep in mind though that I have an eye on all the posts and will remove those who have a bad ratio for promoting/giving feedback to others.

1…2…3 Network!

The other thing I would like to mention is the golden term: Networking. You might have wondered why some people actually manage to build up a site on Sunday, and have 10.000 visitors by Monday afternoon. It’s not always about getting Digged – and as you might know – being Digged is a rare happening – especially if you try to promote something that’s totally unrelated/uninteresting to those Digg folks. For that reason, I have created a brand new network. You will hear more about that soon, I thought I would make it an invitation only network – but that would be a bit unfair to some new readers here. So, let’s face it, it’s open to join for a couple of days and we are going to close it down after a while to keep the quality up.

Join by sending an e-mail to:

network@mittermayr.com

Please include your name, your profession and – if possible – your latest projects (links).
My incentive is to create a huge network of high potential professionals – including job offers, project of the week, stuff like that. I could write a book about the things we can do and achieve with that.
If you are still unsure why to join – you can ask me in person (or by public comment here) on the benefits or any questions you might have at: software@mittermayr.com

Oh, and keep in mind: I AM NOT GOING TO SELL YOUR ADDRESS, THE LIST WILL NEVER BE GIVEN AWAY TO A 3rd PARTY. YOU WILL NEVER RECEIVE SPAM FROM ME NOR WILL I POST YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS IN THE CC OR TO FIELD. I PROMISE TO HANDLE THIS AS 100% CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. THIS IS NO ADSENSE NETWORK.

More details soon. Awaiting your comments and sign-ups.

WhatIsThatFile.com – A first review

Sorry for being late again with my follow up post to my recent article. I was quite busy lately with developing and growing WhatIsThatFile.com – as mentioned in the previous post. Believe it or not, it hit Diggs front page again – it was 2-3 days in del.icio.us popular section and for that – I had about 25.000 visits in the last days. It calmed down of course, I have a regular amount of about 1.500 uniques a day right now. It’s still great, considering that I am totally away from Digg and other snowballers. But once again, I learned a great deal about online marketing – or how to get to turbo-boost your project. Still, it’s a clear fact that those “boost-injections” are not of a long lasting nature at all – but applied at a regular interval – they will increase your user base massively. It’s quite interesting to see the stats, showing those peaks at days when the story hit the front pages – and the nicely shaped (“terribly shaped – in a business man’s point of view) reduction of unique visitors shortly after. But, after a few of those peeks, you will clearly notice the actual level of “standard” visitors is leveling off at a noticeable higher number than before the peek. Now, please excuse my terrible MsPaint work:

 

I think you get the idea. I have seen a more beautiful illustration recently somewhere on a blog, can’t remember though. Let me know if it was your blog.

So, as I am always eager to provide you with a personal benefit with reading this blog, here’s what I am able to offer for this week:

Try to learn the mechanism behind those aggregated Web 2.0 services. Only those can help you to turbo boost your projects – but take into consideration what I experienced recently and wanted to share with you:

1. People at Digg get upset easily. Promoting your own projects will most likely earn you a vast amount of unqualified flame comments. I had that with WhatIsThatFile.com. Someone started to flame about it and people simply joined in until they had enough “This is spam” clicks to get it removed. I know, this might sound as I had really “spammed” Digg – but I actually received -once again- an amazing count of Diggs (so a loooot people liked it) and even more: Look it up at del.icio.us – Right now: 508 people bookmarked it. That’s massive (for a projects that’s been online for about 4 days now). So try to have some people pick up your project and submit it to Digg – so you actually don’t spam the site. Listen closely, I mean: People need to like your site so much that they decide to write a post about at Digg. Ok, I think you got it.
2. How do you get people to Digg you? Look at: WhatIsThatFile.com – I provided two buttons which have turned out to be quite successful lately. One allows visitors to add the site to their del.icio.us booksmarks by simply clicking on the button – while the other button allows to post a story to Digg. You can’t make it any easier for your visitors to help you. Let them know that this counts more than any donation and they will help you.
3. The flow of hypes (crucial must-know fact):
   Usually, your story gets either digged or submitted to some other very popular directory. This should at least direct around 10.000 visitors a day (!) to your site (if it’s worth viewing it,  no AdSense niche stuff here, I am afraid). After that, if you are lucky (and did well with your idea), people start to bookmark your site at del.icio.us. Especially if you have emphasized the importance of bookmarking your site there. So, the second boost of magic is happening sometime around the days you get removed from the major news directory – if things worked out - people have bookmarked you like crazy – and tada! (fanfare here) – you are in del.icio.us popular. That’s impossible you say? It’s not – I did it twice – and I am no guru on that. The magic: I only tried it twice – so there’s definitely a mechanism behind it. It won’t work for quick “let’s make hell of a money with AdSense niche sites” ideas. You are banned from Digg faster than you said hello there. That’s the crucial difference with Web 2.0 – people are able to control and decide about your success – it’s solely about your quality – and not financial background. That’s at least a great thing. But keep in mind that this particular traffic won’t be worth a cent at all if people don’t decide to return soon. And even though there are ways to direct people’s minds to a small extend, you can’t make them love a stupid webpage. Simple as this. So first, get some quality feedback from chats, forums, friends, whatever. Let ideas flow in and decide yourself what’s best to add real value to your website. This is most crucial for everything.
4. Take my recent success as an example of what’s possible with very small financial and personal investment. Literally, I only paid those $8 for the domain name and about 25.000 different(!) people have at least seen my name and project for a short moment. That’s fully worth the investment. Even though I have provided all the content on my site for free (with very little advertisement) – I fully had my return on investment – and in other words: break-even within 4 days. Wohoo.
   If you are keen to know why I benefit to a great amount while providing a totally free web service – have a look at my business blog at: http://blog.mittermayr.com – where I will post a follow up article soon, especially on how to benefit from giving away things for free. Sounds crispy? Check it out. Soon at Naked Business.

I have so much to share with you about all those things that I’ve learned in the last days – I am really happy to have a blog now and being able to share this experiences.

If you are an experienced web-designer, internet entrepreneur with recent success stories to share – let me know about and I will get in contact with you to share experiences – and to post your project here on this blog (if I like it).

That’s exactly what Ole from the Pageflakes crew did. You don’t know Pageflakes ? Shame on you my friend, brush up your recent Web 2.0 bookmarks: http://www.pageflakes.com – This one rocks. You may have heard of Microsoft’s approach, trying to gain market share in the -currently quite hot- Ajax Desktops field by rolling out Microsoft LIVE (www.live.com). Well right, they got a cool name – but frankly, I even like the term Pageflakes better. And furthermore: Pageflakes just rocks in comparison to Microsoft’s poor implementation (guys, is this an alpha alpha ?) - Right, some of you geeks out there might just roll their eyes saying “oh god, not another Ajax desktop” - trust me, if you ever decide – ok I’ll give them another try (after Google didn’t impress you) – then, go for Pageflakes. You won’t be disappointed. You can even win an XBox360 there if you hand in a great frontpage - or so. See yourself. 

Are you curious on what’s going on at WhatIsThatFile.com ? – I did another highly important thing: I created (another!) blog – only for the site. It’s thought to keep users posted about what’s going on at the site and to thank them for all their efforts. It’s a great way to receive qualified feedback - which is ALWAYS worth gold.

There you go: http://blog.whatisthatfile.com

Just to remind you: This could have been your project. About week ago (or two?) I explained the details here at my blog and offered everyone the chance to go for it. I simply followed my own instructions and tada – that’s the golden result. So, stay tuned for more ideas.

Right, my next podcast might arrive a bit delayed this week as I am quite busy travelling around IT fairs. I got to get myself updated on hard-facts. Wooho. Go for it.

Let me know what you think, about this article and in general – the comments section is open for all your ideas.

Yours, Roman 

Episode 1 – Tiptoeing into Podcastwater

Right, I finally found time to record a very short podcast. In fact, it’s nothing I am totally proud of yet. I lack of expressing myself properly and mostly you will notice that there is not really much content inside the podcast. Anyway, you may listen to it to give some good quality feedback. My next one is going to be MUCH better as I am currently arranging a couple of interviews with other entrepreneurs to talk about their success, plans and hints on how to pop out those great websites and services. If you want to be “on the show” in my podcast, let me know and I will contact you for details. Quite easy!

Here it is: Episode 1 MP3 (~3mb)

I will add the appropriate RSS handling and stuff later then. I am just too busy right now.

The other two things I would like to point your attention two, are two babies I just released to the internet for some first real-(virtual)-life-testing. No, not literally “babies”, software developers would call them BETAs. I wonder what they call their babies then (v2.0?). Anyway you may like them, but what’s more important: FEEDBACK. Let me know what you think that I am missing there. I put them up in order to analyze the actual triggers why something rocks or socks (=sucks). And the more feedback you can give, the more WE can learn from it. I will keep you posted about it.
Here they are:

This is a simple, yet powerful typical 2.0Culture project (far from perfect!):
http://www.whatisthatfile.com/

And this one was made to create a community platform for FREE (as in beer) video tutorials:
http://www.vipedio.com/

If you are keen to know how I am planning to benefit from those two -non commercial- projects, you need to check out my other blog (Naked Business) at: http://blog.mittermayr.com/ – I will explain this in detail there soon.

I got some more things coming up, stay tuned and GET INVOLVED. I am happy to have a lot of good ideas around. So let’s create a blasting ideaplant here. Oh hell, I am freaking out. Anyone contacted the New York Times yet about my “2.0Culture” term plans ?

Keep it up guys (and ladies),
Yours, Roman