knofun

Finally back in my chair after last week’s Elite Retreat. I wish I could describe to you the vibe at that conference but man.. I can’t remember the last time I actually sat through a whole panel at a conference, but there I was on Wednesday, glued to my chair for 8-9 hours. Never happened at a conf.. never. Not only was every speaker completely qualified and had something really interesting and useful to share, but so did every attendee.

By limiting the attendance and raising the price Shoemoney has also raised the bar on who could attend. I honestly felt like I could learn something valuable from every single person in the room.

Then there was Gary Vaynerchuk. I had heard of Gary, both on a internet marketing level because of his acquisition of cork’d and on a wine level from Wine Library TV. But I had never heard him speak, watched one of his videos, nothin. Silly me. This dude is the real fucking deal. I can’t even imagine where Gary Vee is going to be in 5 years. He is just too smart, too motivated, and too tireless to ever quit. Hey Gary, when you own the Jets can I get tickets when the Chargers come to town?

Honestly, best internet conference I have ever been to. Hands down. I met so many cool geeky people I know I am going to be working with, it was just amazing. I would name all of you by name and links but I am selfish and want to keep that info to myself :). Big thanks to Kris Jones and Pepperjam Network for hooking it up, love u guys!

geek stuff, web marketing conference, elite retreat, shoemoney

Yo, I had a really great time at affiliate summit this year. Shoemoney was there doing his thing, PepperJam had an awesome presence. I spoke on a panel with Kris Jones, CEO of PepperJam, on where affiliate marketing is headed in 2009. Some really good insights on the industry, plus I got to sit next to Brad from BradsDeals.com. He is a smart dude, wish I had gotten more time to talk to him.

Which brings me to my next point, I didn’t have much time after the panel because it went 12-1 on Sunday, and the Chargers v. Steelers game started at 1:45. I ducked out of there quick sorry folks did not mean to be rude but come on for San Diego sports the Chargers are all we have and I think that says volumes. So yeah the way that game ended sucked. I was supposed to do a webmasterradio show with all the other panelists after and I kinda bailed. Sorry.

Anywho, that night I went to an awesome dinner hosted by the nice folks at Market Leverage curtesy of my boy DK. I somehow got seated next to the CEO Michael, who turned out to be a fascinating guy with tons of knowledge about all kinds of fun topics. The three of us talked and talked through an amazing five hour dinner at the new Encore tower. Wow. Big thank you to DK and Michael.

The next night was kind of a blur, I remember tons of suite parties and seeing E40 rock a sick show at Rain. Ran into him later at the blackjack tables. Good times.

web marketing affiliate, asw09, pepperjam, shoemoney

If you are serious about making a living from internet marketing, you need to attend shoemoney’s Elite Retreat. It’s only five grand, which may sound like a lot but when you look at the setup of the conference you are getting face time with the absolute top experts in the field. Like I said, IF you are serious.

Don’t have five stacks but you are still really serious? Doubtful, but where there’s a will there’s a way. Fortunately for you Pepperjam is hosting a contest to give you a free pass to Elite Retreat. You still have to get yourself to San Fran, but you are serious about this internet marketing thing right?

other elite retreat, pepperjam, shoemoney

Harrison Gervitz is a 16 year old kid who sounds like a 10 year vet of the industry. He recently posted a guest post on shoemoney entitled “Running an Ad Network (The Mechanics of Arbitrage) which is the best short piece on internet marketing I have ever read. If you are thinking of getting into making money on the internet this is a MUST READ.

other arbitrage, gervitz, harrison, marketing, shoemoney

SEO is a huge part of what I do. I don’t really consider myself an SEO, but at the same time my business relies pretty heavily (some might say too heavily) on the 50k or so people I see every day from organic search. So I pay attention to SEO trends, stay WAY on the ‘whitehat’ side of things (even though I am an active member at blackhat world). I also read ShoeMoney a lot, because he is a smart guy (even if he has bad grammar). Shoe is giving away a trip to SEO Thinktank 2008 to the person who writes the best post on how they could contribute to ThinkTank 2008.

Shoe is giving away the $2499 entry cost plus room and board for the event and surrounding days, for a total of $4100. So why do I want to win? Yes, I could easily afford the entry, and since I never win anything on Shoe’s blog (*cough* daily t-shirt contest *cough*) I will probably end up paying. But why should I win? What do I bring to the table? Funny you should ask:

• I have been making real money online since 1998
• The first ‘real’ job I had was working for a company called Microsoft doing web development for this new product they had called ‘msn’
• My last ‘real’ job was for a company called MP3.com and we released this product called My.MP3.com that got us sued for $300 million
• My last ‘real job’ was in 2002, since then I have survived - nay, flourished - on my web marketing, development, and SEO skills
• I have worked closely with search guys at Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com, and Search.com
• I was invited to the eBay Affiliate roundtable in Chicago in June of this year - only the top 15 or so affiliates were invited.
• Working out of my house and mostly for myself breeds a closed mind. To make sure I am still interacting with other like minded people who can help me grow in my quest for internet dominance I regularly go to places like CoWorkingSanDiego, and lunch a few times a month with guys like Shawn and Ryan who challenge me with their superior intellect. This proves I am willing to share my mojo with others - maybe you!
• Bonus: I live in San Diego, in Pacific Beach to be exact. So the cost of awarding me this prize would only be the cost of admission to the conference, which I am hoping Shoe has covered
• Extra Bonus: I will challenge shoe (I will pay for the shots up front) to a drinking contest of some sort and win!

So yeah it felt good to write all that stuff (especially about not having a real job for 4 years :-), thanks for the opp Shoe hope to see you in SD.

other seo, shoemoney

Wow so after I got all excited copying Shoemoney’s Below a Buck idea, it looks like he is making so little from that site he doesn’t even care if it’s up anymore. A quick visit to the site shows an error:


Warning: connect() [function.connect]: Can’t connect to 127.0.0.1:11211, Unknown error (0) in /home/websites/belowabuck/html/config.inc on line 15
Could not connect


Looks like their memcached server is down or something… oh well. We are doing well with CarsForaGrand!!

Update: It’s back up. Maybe they are making money after all?

web marketing below a buck, ebay, shoemoney