Controversy as Advertising

Even Bad Publicity is Good Publicity?

Not sure I really subscribe to that theory, but it appears a lot of people do.

One thing I have learned to do (Because Fibro and CEBV and CMFPS are not a whole lot of fun to deal with) is have a sense of humour. About myself and others.

So it is kind of a little bit funny that on my poorly read blog, the most comments have been made to my post stating that I should probably retire my interest in the Twitter Rocket.

Which I was obviously wrong about. Not so much because the product is showing much gain, but because of how interesting it is see how emotionally people react to the topic.

I can say a few things- It doesn't take a rocket scientist to have easily researched my real name, or for kind of angry sorts of people to try to dig at me by using it on my own blog. You'll notice I haven't removed any of those posts, if only because they are ill-intentioned but not threatening in any personal way.

Also- I only post here- and almost anywhere else, as me- glorybug. I don't have alter-egos, and I am certainly not someone named Mary. Although I am now very curious what "the South will rise again' means in context to the topic. As a Californian, I must just not get the meaning of that.

"Peter"- I agree with you absolutely. I have no problem with people trying to earn a 'living' for their family (I have one..I know)- what I have a problem with is people chasing money for money's sake. Obscene amounts of money that could help so many other people. Or animals. Or whatever charity you believe in- if you have a charity. And it is true that $15k could support a lot of families. It just won't buy them all a brand new flashy car.

"Toby Anselm"- I have not received an email from you, as you and several others claim. I will go back over and post the names of the people I HAVE received emails from (and replied to), if it would make you happy. I find it a little low to claim you've sent email to people and they've ignored you, when that just isn't true. I have received a few emails from people using nicknames, all of whom I've replied to. Perhaps that might have been you.

It is interesting, psychologically, that it bothers people that someone would like to make enough money to care for their family, but have no interest in being obscenely wealthy. I really don't know how to respond to that. It's my values, and this is my blog. Anything written on this blog will reflect those values. If or when I find what appears to be a solid way for people to make 'Just enough to support your family', I'll probably push the heck out of it.

Being 'rich' does not make you prettier, or hunkier, more intelligent, more kind or considerate, more generous, or have a more likeable personality. It just allows you to buy more things, and if you make enough, to be able to buy shallow people (until you lose your money). Who wants that? Obviously some people do, and they aren't happy that I don't.

I really have posted nothing inflamatory about this product, so it's kind of amusing that people have responded so vociferously to my mere questioning of its practicality and marketability longterm.

Go figure.

I have other things to do right now, such as pick up the boys from school, do homework, cook dinner- normal stuff. Maybe after I'm in bed I'll have time to research all of the names of the people who have commented here and/or emailed me, and see if I can even find a Twitter account for them. I have a feeling it will be difficult. Since they claim to be using Twitter Rocket to grow their followers, it should be easy, but (wink wink) I think it will be hard.

Retiring the Twitter Rocket

Time to Stop Beating a Dead Horse

Now that's a strange thing for a vegetarian to say!
Over the last week I've been working on topics I'd like to post on here and on my other sites. I can't do much about it here until I get my new laptop, since I can't work very long in front of the big computer.

But of those topics, I've realized that the whole Twitter Rocket thing has become tedious. There's never any news or developments to report. It isn't really news to say 'The same 10 people posted the exact same non-news twitter linking back to the Upstart Blogger (with their affiliate commission link, no doubt). And although there was the 'human' side to it at first, it's become clear that most of that is very negative. Which is kind of against my whole perspective in life. I usually try to avoid negative things.

Plus, to be honest, it annoys me to no end that one of it's promoters advocates that teens drop out of high school to engage in internet fads, especially when (by their own admission) they now can't get into a decent college because of their bad grades. I'd rather die poor and educated than rich and stupid. Which is a good thing, because I probably will. Which is ok with me and VvonV, because we're both musicians, and I'm and artist and writer, so we really shouldn't expect much more.

Among the millions of things I love about VvonV is that he has a curious mind. He is like me in that way, though he keeps his interests to physics and music, whereas mine often strays into politics and business. But, he is curious and open-minded, and he listens when I talk. More importantly, is probably that when he talks, I am genuinely interested in what he has to say. Those are all positive things.

The thing about the Twitter Rocket and it's incessant promotion by it's 15 followers is its emphasis on being rich. Its' promoters criticise me as being jealous of their 'richness', among other things more petty. Or they imply that I don't think a 'person like them' should be rich. That's kind of psychologically telling, since I personally have no opinions of whether anyone deserves to be rich or not, so they must think they aren't.

But the funny thing is that I have been "rich". Not all my life. My early childhood years were probably harsher than most, but after that I grew up in a pretty exclusive area- I chose for most of my adult life to be working middle class. For ten years, I was RICH. Richer than rich. Over $15,000 a month rich. Rich meaning I could buy anything I wanted. Anytime. I was pushed to buy expensive things, and I was given outrageously expensive things. Literally, nothing was too expensive. After a certain point when you live like that, nothing has any real value. Nothing has meaning- you just buy things.

I have now been what would probably be called 'poor' for over 3 years now, and I can say with experience that those expensive things were garbage. They didn't last any longer than cheap things. I realize now that my unhappiness was not just the person I was with, but the lifestyle we led. He NEEDS to buy things to fill some empty void in his personna, but I don't. I don't have that hole. I have found a wonderful person to spend my time with, but he has not. I hope for his sake that someday he meets as shallow of a person that will appreciate being rich as he deserves. I can now go to movies and use a coupon to get a discount, which would have been a cardinal sin before. I can actually have a 'budget'. The things my fiancee does now actually mean something to me, because HE did it, and not some person who was paid to. My ex still has a housekeeper and a nanny (because he can't actually care for our children while they are with him), and a gardener, pool person, and a laundry service among all the people he pays to do everyday life things. We don't. We don't need to. We actually wash our own dishes, and we really don't ever have dreams that someday we'll be rich enough to pay someone else to. So the little jabs about jealousy are pretty stupid. And in my opinion, anyone who wants to be rich enough to pay people to wash their dishes are stupid and shallow.

Any Google search will tell you that the majority of millionaires became so not out of spending, or earning, but from saving. That has always been my mindset, and it was very uncomfortable the years I spent being 'rich'. Because no matter how rich you are, there is nothing saved at the end of the month. Because VvonV and I are frugal, we will probably end up being millionaires just from saving- but it's not a goal. Our goal is to be happy with our lives and my kids.

So, I have a problem with any product (and it could have been any I'd stumbled across- the Twitter Rocket just caught my eye) that promises 'riches'. I have been there and done that, and it does not fix the emotional holes in your life. It doesn't fix your grades and allow you to go to college, and it does not help you find the love of your life.

I think I'm going to dump the Twitter Rocket and try to find some marketing idea to follow that only promises that you can make a living and support your family. Something where the 'followers' are positive and helpful. People who don't spam the same twitters all day long. I have a feeling those people will be more successful in the long run.

In a year, we'll see who's been more successful overall. Me, or the core Twitter Rocket promoters.

It's pretty sad when one of your few admitted users actually writes about their success with your product and you dog them. Ego problems? Just asking.

I can't end this without commenting that I find it interesting that there is now a 'new' take on the Twitter Rocket that's 'only available to a few people' thing. I think I've said repeatedly that I think they'll have to push a new product right away.

So, for anyone who wants to report their success with the Twitter Rocket- I will still post or link to your progress- but I think I'm going to stop writing anything about it. I'm going to try to focus on more positive ventures.

WTF Twittter Rocket people?

Enough with the vindictive crap.
Bad enough that you felt the need to put my RL name on the internet, when I did not do that to you, and I have young children.

But to post in my own comments, using my name, and using other people's real names is low.

Hacking into someone else's blog is something only lowlifes would do.

So I am now going to officially say that Twitter Rocket must be a scam, because only scammers would hijack someone's comments.

What a bunch of losers. Don't believe me? Any comment that directly addresses someone else by their RL name is not a comment by me. I don't do shit like that. How long before your loser 15 followers figure out how to make blog posts in my name?

You should figure out who hijacked my comments, because whoever did just lost the Twitter Rocket people the teensiest amount of respect I might have had for them.

Anyone who has read this or any other blog of mine will realize there is no way I made the comments using people's real names. I'm going to copy the comments, so if you also know how to delete them, I will have copies and proof. And since I don't know yet how to delete comments, they'll be here for everyone to see exactly how desperate the Twitter Rocket people are..

Really pathetic and sad.

This And That

The Dearth of Quality Products

I recently bought a Dell Studio 14z from Best Buy, to replace my antiquidated 4100.
Sigh.

I have been pretty happy with Dell products- not so much their products per se, but the fact that over the years I have been able to easily repair any problems they've had. It has been pretty easy to use eBay to buy cheap broken Dell laptops to cannibalize to fix my old ones. I've been able to learn how to pull the entire assebly apart down to the motherboard and swap out parts. It's been a cheap way to provide my children with their own laptops to play games on.

But recently, they've all decided to bite the dirt, and when mine finally ate it, I decided to buy a new one. I can only work at the office desk Dell for about an hour before it's too painful to continue. I really do need a laptop.

I'll write a review later after I get my 2nd Studio 14z- the first one crapped out in 3 weeks. I'd like to say at this point that Best Buy did not initially want to exchange my new laptop for one that works- claiming that their 14 day return policy is because technology changes quickly, and they want to discourage people from trying to abuse the exchange policy by upgrading. My first thought was... technology changes in 14 days?

But, they did eventually agree to give me a new laptop, so I'll withhold my review until I see how this new one works. Hopefully it works.
_______________________

On a different note, I've noticed that once again, the same Twitter Rocket people have posted comments, claiming that I'm blocking people and not allowing them to comment here. (?) They also claim that they have personally emailed me, answered the online questions I posted, and that I have not responded.

If there's one thing I don't like (besides cruelty to animals, children, or people in general, sporthunting, telemarketing spam... hmm, my list is longer than I thought), it's people being untruthful.

I also don't really like people spitefully posting personal information about other people on the internet, which is why I do not do so, even though I do know who the individual people are who are claiming some of this. If they feel the need to spitefully do so to me, when I have previously stated I don't feel that is safe, as I have children- that is their choice. I will not call them out, or even use their internet handles.

I will say, once again, that it is absolutely untruthful that I block anyone's comments. I have made it clear that I do not know how to do that, and that I don't even know how to fix the complaints they have about my comments page being unweildy. And that I have not gotten personal emails answering the questions I asked, other than the 2 I've cited. I do not know the 2 people I linked to, and it is manipulative and disingenious to claim that I do. To be honest, I cannot link to anyone else, because I have not been able to find one comprehensive 'review' about the Twitter Rocket that answers the questions I've asked. Ads and promos are not reviews.

If anyone truly believes they have previously sent me emails answering the specific questions I asked- please send them again- making sure to show proof of when it was originally sent, and to where.

I thought the Twitter Rocket looked like an interesting product- though not one I need- which is why I started following it's progress. I was hoping it would get more interesting, but other than the personalities involved, it hasn't.
_______________________________

Odds and Ends

I received a request to follow on Twitter by someone who had only posted one tweet in a month. It simply said- follow me. That person had over 2000 followers in one month.

Both of the people the Twitter People are complaining about as being negative appear to me to still be using or promoting the product. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm glad that one of them supposedly is vegetarian- I did not know that. One of the comments here was from a Vegan stating he would 'block my follow' (I don't think I was following them) because of my opinions here. It should be no surprise that I have a Vegan/vegetarian following here, because I am honest about the fact that I am Vegan/vegetarian. There really are more of us than you think. And we aren't out to rule the world.

Maybe just to make it a nicer place for everything that lives on this world.

That said- post negative and untruthful comments, if you must (you'll notice I have not deleted any of them), but if you really feel the need, contact me by email.

Two last things- the number of viewers of this blog have only increased by about a handful because of my postings about the Twitter Rocket. It jumped quite a bit when I posted about my annoyance of all the ads supposedly telling us what Obama wants us to do. I really don't see this topic as increasing in interest. Which is too bad, because I did want to follow it.

And- it does not look good when you search Twitter for "Twitter Rocket", and see ten tweets in a row by different people using the exact same wording, essentially advertising for the product. Ten different detailed reviews of how (with proof) it has helped anyone would be much more powerful. Canned repeat ads only degrade the reputation of a product.

Twitter Rocket Answers

I have recently been sent a personal email answering some of the questions that I've asked. He has posted them on his site.

Another person answered my questions but did not contact me, nor let me know he'd posted them on his site.

Those links can be found here "Twitter Rocket"
and here "Why I'm using Twitter Rocket"

I know that some of the Twitter Rocket people do not like one of these links, But I can personally attest that I do not personally know either of these people in any way. I thought that their answers appeared honest and neither negative or positive. They appeared to be open and willing to see how the product will work for them. I hope they keep me updated on how it progresses for them.

Anyone else can do as they did- either answer questions in an email, or post their answers on their own site. As long as the questions being answered are the questions I posted, I will provide links to them from here- whether I agree with their answers or not.

I understand that people have offered to be interviewed- but they have not volunteered to answer my questions. The only people who have are the two people I cite here.

Some people may wonder why one of my questions was whether TR users were musicians. I simply asked because it appeared an inordinant amount of people who were musicians, and I and my fiancee are also musicians. Is there something about it that appeals to musicians? Some of my questions may not have appealed to people. That's why I asked for suggestions for questions.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this works out for them.

Twitter Rocket Questions Answered

I have recently received an email from someone who claims to have purchased the Twitter Rocket.

While there are a couple of people who have offered to do an interview, none have responded specifically to the questions I posted. This person has, and they come across as very believable. They answered as many questions as they reasonably could considering how long they've had the eBook.

I am not sure yet if I will post their answers here, or if they are going to post them on their site and have me link to them from here. When we work that out, I'll post about it here.

So far, this is the only person who has emailed me with answers to the specific questions I asked- regardless of what some people are claiming in my comments section.

Twitter Example

Today I saw that I have a number of people who have 'followed' me on Twitter. But when I check them out, one is obviously a teenager who babbles about nothing, and a couple are nothing more than spam bots. So I block them. A few are people who are involved with the environment, or are vegetarian or vegan, and quite obviously the kind of people that I would be able to market a product to- so I follow them.

I have recently contracted to develop a website that directly deals with what I know about- organic gardening and ponding. So when my website gets up and running, these people on Twitter will be the perfect people to market to.

That's why I question the whole 'mass-marketing' on Twitter. Because I can't see logically how tweeting to 10,000 non-interested people could be a good service of my time. I guess what I really question about the Twitter Rocket marketing is that you could end up with 10,000 targeted audiences. How? From the little experience I've gotten on Twitter, I've had to hand-pick each follower. I'm just asking.

Twitter Rocket Update

I have been trying to follow the Twitter Rocket marketing plan on the internet and on Twitter, but really haven't gotten anywhere with it.

I can't really see where it has any momentum.

I have offered to do interviews and have posted questions, but honestly, nobody has replied taking me up on the offer.

As far as I can tell, it appears there's the same small core of people involved that were originally promoting the product. If the product worked as well as claimed, I would expect that group to have grown. If the number of sales that core group of people are claiming to have made were tangible, it seems like there would be more buzz just from the extra number of people trying to sell the product.

Once again, I will reiterate that I have not bought the eBook, and am not criticising it's content. It's very possible that it can give you 10,000 Twitter followers. I'm just not getting any responses from people telling me that it's happened for them, or how that's increased their income.

I would like to add that I think it's funny that I have been criticised for critisising the Twitter Rocket- which is funny because the two major promoters of the Twitter Rocket have made very public criticisms of other Twitter 'projects', or 'money-making ventures' if you will.

I find this funny because I have nothing vested in anything to do with Twitter. In fact, I find Twitter to be a bit unweildy as far as building a client base, since I actually have to review each person's links in order to determine if they would be a good match for products I may want to sell. I don't believe in spam. One good thing about Twitter that I have found is that people who have like interests have been able to find me.

I'm still waiting for any Twitter Rocket user to email me with responses to the publicly posted questions, or to provide a more personal view of how it has worked well for them.

Music Project - SparkleJet

VvonV has been working on his band's latest album for about 1 1/2 years now. He's such a perfectionist. All the music has been recorded, but he's still working on the lyrics for a few of the songs. I wish he would hurry, because I like the songs and would like to hear them finished, rather than on the guitar or piano.

When it's finished, work will start on how to package the CDs as environmentally sensitively as possible. What he's going to need help with is marketing, which I am pretty good at. His band hasn't even updated their MySpace page since they started this album. Not good marketing.

With their last albums, they toured, but he doesn't want to do that this time. We haven't spent a night apart since we got together, and I can't go on tour with the boys. So, they're going to need to do something different this time, to drive sales, especially since they got out of their previous big-label contract finally.

So, hopefully soon, I'll be working on a marketing plan for them. It's nice that I have experience with that, with my old band.

You can hear a few songs from SparkleJet here, see album/song listing here, here,and see a video of theirs here and here. My VvonV is the long-hair. I have no idea why they don't have more of their songs uploaded. Or a site where people can buy their previous albums or download songs. Musicians.

eHow Friends and eHow Comments

It seems like every day someone on eHow sends me a friend request. I'm not really sure how other people handle this- do they ignore all requests? Do they approve all the requests?

I check out at least one of every person's articles that asks to be my eHow friend. What has become apparent is that a lot of the requests come from people that are new. It's hard to figure out how they found me, because very few seem to share many interests with me. I then read their article and comments. It becomes clear that most people simply want to be friends so that you will leave nice comments on their articles. The implication being that they will do the same for you.

I have decided that I don't want to have friends like that. I want coments on my articles to be sincere.

One thing I have noticed is that a lot of people who request to be a friend are actually spammers. Their articles are non-articles. That is, that they are direct self-promotion of their own business or website, or have no content but plenty of affiliate links they hope to make money with- violations of eHow's TOS. They also can't spell or write for shit. I don't know how they can sleep at night- I would be too embarrassed to have my name on such crappy articles. I don't want to be friends with people like that. I wonder what they would think if they know that I immediately reject their friend request, and then flag their articles for removal?

On the other hand, there have been some people who have found me in the forums and sent a friend request, who do share things in common with me, and I am happy to read their articles and comment. Not surprisingly, their articles are well-written.

Speaking of comments- who the heck told people to use a couple of words from the article title, and then say -"great article! 5*s and a recommend!". It is so obvious that every person who does this has not even read the article. Like today, I saw that 11 people had left glowing comments thanking the writer for their article on how to find a tour guide in Bejiing. Except that when I read the article, it was not about that. It was an advertisement for one tour guide, complete with name, phone number and website. Clear TOS violations. And, it was so poorly written by someone who had no command of English or spelling, that it was impossible to read. Yet- 5*s! Recommend! As if giving the piece of crap 5 stars would somehow magically make it readable and earn a million bucks?
Instead of begging for friends, their time would be better spent writing quality articles.

Free Public Domain Photos- 'Passive Income"

After trying out some so-called 'free' public domain photo sites, I've come to the conclusion that it's a waste of time. I spend too much time searching, only to get the 'switch and bait' of a photo that is royalty 'free' after you pay from $1.50 to $50 and up.

So, I think I'll just stick with my frugal way of taking all my pictures myself. Because I only write about what I know, I don't really need other people's photos. I'm guessing some spammy writers rely on them heavily, since they write about what they don't know.

Hopefully my photographic skills will improve as well!

Here's my latest pics- http://www.ehow.com/how_5176689_lose-weight-easy-vegetable-juice.html

Yes, that IS my vegetable juice!

eHow Earnings Update - "Passive Income"

I started writing for eHow on June 1, 2009. The first month I wrote 5 articles and made about $2.50 that month. So far in July I have written 5 articles, and made about $2.50.

I'm no mathematician, but it seems to me that means I'll probably make double what I made in June in July. A lot of new writers seem to think this means they can expect to double their earnings every month. How I see it is that I would have to double the numbers of articles accumulated as a total in order to do that- like this... June 5 articles, July 10 articles, August 30 articles, September 90 articles, October 270 articles. That doesn't seem very realistic to me, so I'll stick with the turtle method of trying to be consistent in the number of articles I write, and in the quality of those articles.

It's also apparent that quite a bit of work will need to go into this before anything starts becoming 'passive income'.

Unrealistic Writers - "Passive Income"

I get annoyed at writers (or rather, non-writers) trying to "get rich quick" by pumping out loads of garbage.

For example, one writer recently asked for help on how to turn articles that had made no money for over 40 days into articles that made at least $4 a month. What they really wanted was some trick to magically make them earn money. Curious, I took a look at their catalog of articles. The first thing that jumped out was that there had been over 25 'articles' written in just 3 days, and it appeared they'd been doing that since January.

When I checked out the individual articles, no surprise, they were crap. They were poorly written, had typos and grammatical and spelling mistakes, and provided essentially no useful information. For example, one of them was about how to pass a lie detector test. The information was- only lie if you can convince yourself you aren't lying, tell the truth, avoid a test if you'll lie, and bite your tongue when telling the truth to skew the test. Not only non-useful information, but incorrect information, as biting your tongue or pinching yourself has no effect on the tests.

Another of the 'articles' was how to 'Hold your Breath Before going Underwater'. Er, what? Open yuor mouth and take a breathful of air before you submerge? What drivel. This is a perfect example of an unrealistic, lazy writer. What ads could possibly appear on this page that anyone would click on? Hoping that people will click on random ads that are unrelated to your article is just not smart- especially if they don't even stay on your page more than 2 seconds.

Don't be a lazy writer. Don't clog up the internets with virtual litter. Take some pride in your work.

Passive Income - Getting Organized

Well, I never did learn how to do computer spreadsheets, so I guess it's about time.

Other people seem to be able to keep track of their online writing and marketing strategies, but not me so much. maybe it's the Fibro-fog. Anyway, I decided I need a spreadsheet that lists all of the articles I've written, where I wrote them, the website address, a hyperlink, how many links were in the article, and to what, and any other sites that I connected back to the article.

All in an easy to read spreadsheet so that I can look it over and make sure I'm maximizing everything I write. As I'm sure I'll repeat over and over (if only to encourage myself) I have no intention of writing a bunch of sloppy crap and littering up the internet. I want all my articles well thought out, written well, and linked up effectively. That's not asking too much, is it?

I have a question- why can't people write well? I've never used a word editor. When I don't know how to spell something, I look it up. Spellcheck doesn't catch incorrect usage of words, or garbled, meaningless text or poor punctuation. Why not just re-read your own work and check to see if it makes any sense. I say this because again today I ran across numerous articles that appeared to be written by third-graders. Ugh. Internet littering.

We'll see how my spreadsheet project goes, and if I get something workable I'll share it here.