It seems I may have counted Myspace out too soon. I figured I should give up on it, considering the amount of spam going around there. But they may be cleaning things up now…

It’s a big maybe, but lately I have been seeing a lot of deleted profiles, meaning they are actually catching spammers. “Too little, too late” you may be saying, but I’m going to hold out a little bit of hope.

Especially because they just took a step in the right direction by banning an upcoming book called “Myspace Marketing Tips.” It was basically Myspace flexing it’s big legal team muscle (and shutting down a small entrepreneur,) but at least this could cut down on spam.

Let me start at the beginning…

Last Friday I was reading an email from Allan Gardyne of associateprograms.com. Normally I love his ezine, but this one seemed a bit fishy. It started off by trying to create a little suspense and urgency, with the premise that Myspace is going to shut down the sales the this new ebook that teaches how to legitimately market on Myspace. Myspace didn’t want anyone profiting off of their name, so they claimed a trademark violation.

The ebook’s author, Debbie Cohen, doesn’t have the ability to fight the legal powerhouse, so she had to give in and agree to take the site down. However, they gave her a week to take the page down since the person who does her website is “out of town.”

Hmm… do I smell a publicity stunt?

Hey! I wrote this ebook that’s so good that Myspace is shutting me down! The website will only be up for another week, so get your copy today before it’s too late!

I’m not falling for this one.

She could legitimately sell the book under a different name that does not use the actual word “Myspace” and they couldn’t do anything. For example, just use “new social networking sites” instead. Problem solved. However, that would not make a good “David vs Goliath” type story for the publicity stunt…

(By the way, there is only one “legitimate” way to market on Myspace. You scroll down to the bottom of myspace.com and click on the “Advertise” link. It’s that simple. There are a number of other crafty ways to market on Myspace, but they violate the Terms of Service so you run the risk of getting banned.)

As for this promotion, Allan says he wants to help the underdog. Also, Debbie has a hard life, and doesn’t need this setback. This may be, but many people have it harder. Saying you should buy her ebook because she deserves to be successful is a crock. What about the people that don’t have a school system to teach them to read and write, and therefore aren’t offering an ebook? (Don’t get me started on this issue…)

Plus, if Allan really wanted to help, why is he taking a commission using his affiliate link? Why not send people straight to www.socialsitesmarketing.com?

And on top of that, the sales page is not exactly professional. I’m not sure if it would keep anyone reading long enough to close a sale. So why would a super affiliate promote something like that? It’s a mystery to me.

So let’s take a quick look at the sales letter and what this ebook can do for you…

The cover mentions such topics as How To Set Up Your Profile, Find Groups Allowing Ads, Effective Bulletin Tips, and Ads to Maximize Clicks. I learned all that stuff in no time just by being a member of Myspace…

One thing that stood out to me, is that the book reveals “43 groups that don’t ban ads.” Whoopitty doo, sounds about as effective as autosurf traffic. The people in those groups are only there to post ads, not read them. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Conversion rates on myspace are pathetic at best, even with a very good offer that looks nothing like an ad. And contrary to what the sales letter says, Myspace is already filled with spammers - it’s not some untapped market.

If you think you’ll get rich by promoting your “how to make money off the internet” ebook on myspace, think again. Save yourself the trouble and try something else.

As Allan said at the start of his newsletter, “This stinks.”

I would say that it stinks because I don’t want to see any more spam on Myspace, and for Allan I bet it stinks that he won’t get as many commissions since the book is only on sale for a few days!

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I just wanted to mention a neat tool for creating blocks of images to place beside your Adsense or YPN ads.

The tool is totally free and does banners for square ad blocks and leaderboards.

You can find it at: http://dev.shoemoney.com/public-tools/imagegen/

It’s great and easy to use. Automatically resizes the images and everything. Just take a look and you can probably figure it out.

It sucks though because I used to spend too much time making images just right and then lining them up, and this does it better in a fraction of the time!

P.S. Don’t forget to separate your images from the ads with a visible border, or you might get kicked out of Adsense!

Update: Images next to ads is now against Adsense terms of service.

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Actually, waiting on the thong is more like it…

It seems the whole thing is still creating so much buzz (ie. people complaining that it is a scam) that all Dan can do is wade through a bunch of worthless comments. He mentions the “official” end to the contest will be Friday, at which point there will be a thong-a-thon! Nothing like this has ever been done in product launch (or close) history, I can’t wait!

But really, it’s all about the humor. Everyone thinks it’s some scam… still!

It’s hilarious. Their opinions are too cynical, even for me!

The dude (Dan) is giving away all the scripts, but yet these people say, “Aha! I knew it was a gimmick, you’re actually just trying to sell us these scripts!”

Must have missed the part about him giving the scripts away…

Aside from that, there is more useful info than ever in the $15k blog, so check it out. Dan practically gives you a step-by-step guide of everything he did. I enjoyed reading it and may have to copy it myself… (the thong part, not the website… )

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And the verdict is…

Adsense Is Alive!

From the jury of Joel Comm comes a new report titled “Adsense Is Alive.” Man, this subject just isn’t going away…

I was weary of downloading this free report, mainly because I am sick of hearing about this stuff! But I did it anyway so I could report back to you, and I’m glad I did.

First, I’ll remind you that Joel Comm was pushing the Instant Adsense Templates product and that is probably why he wrote this ebook. But, if you get past that, this is a great book!

Not only does Joel do a good job of sticking with the truth, the book is hilarious! Honestly, I highly recommend checking it out. You’ll be glad you did.

I enjoyed it enough to give you the link, too: Adsense Is Alive

(Just watch out for the upsell once you request the free report…)

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By now you should have heard the term “Click Flipping.” The concept is nothing new, it’s just a clever new name. It’s a good name, too.

But it is also the grand scheme behind the whole Death of Adsense spiel.

See, Click Flipping isn’t all that easy. It’s a great idea, but requires some work. And lots of people want help when it comes to hard stuff like work.

But no worries, Scott Boulch is here to help. For a mere $1000 sign-up fee and $300 per month, you can join his click flipping group and get all the help you need. After giving away two free ebooks and building a mailing list, he’s hoping that people will get sucked in and spend the cash.

I’ll admit, it was a very well-executed strategy. But damn, that is a lot of money! And it raises an important question…

If Boulch was making so much money from Click Flipping, why does he need to do this?

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Adsense, that is. Adsense is most definitely still alive, and Scott Boulch even admits to that in his Life After Adsense report. I’d go as far as to say that Adsense is alive and well, although my thoughts are in line with Boulch’s books.

But how can that be if Adsense is dead?

Well here’s the deal with that. A book titled You Might Not Make As Much Money With Adsense Anymore just would not have the appeal or create the buzz that The Death of Adsense did. Simple marketing principles.

Adsense is past its prime, though. When it first came out it was pretty simple to add it to your website and make quite a bit of money. That was before Google, and their Adwords advertisers, lowered payouts to publishers like us. Adsense can still make you money, but there are many other methods that can make you much more with just a bit more work!

If you haven’t read Life After Adsense, you should do that as soon as you finish reading this post. And I’ll tell you why you should…

1. It’s free.

2. It doesn’t take all that long to read.

3. Boulch is totally right about the earnings drop, whether you have junk sites of nice, white-hat sites.

4. Like me, Boulch calls himself a “disgruntled webmaster.”

5. Boulch has real business experience. Read about that on page 32 of the report.

6. The methods taught in this book have always been known to be more lucrative than Adsense.

That’s right, the stuff he talks about isn’t really new. But it has been pushed aside in favor of Adsense, which promises earnings with very little effort on your part.

7. The people telling you that this report is a lie are the same people that are selling products to help you make money with Adsense.

And one minor complaint…

1. The ebook seems to conveniently leave out the fact that some of these techniques are pretty hard and require quite a bit of work.

There you have it. Head on over to lifeafteradsense.com and get your free report.

And don’t forget to check back here, as I have some more thoughts on what Scott Boulch is doing…

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“Do you still think it’s possible to make living on Adsense?”

“It sure is!” says Jay Young, who put together a package of adsense background images, aptly named Adsense Backgrounds. They are claimed to be a “click thru booster,” and they quite possibly could be.

Yeah, they could be, but why is this such a big deal? I’ve seen this technique used before, and it is pretty sweet, but it’s not a miracle. I’ll go as far as to say I like the idea. But I don’t care for the idea of selling a huge package of these images like you see at adsensebackgrounds.com.

Why not?

Because once people have them, they will become extremely annoying. You will start seeing the same images on all sorts of sites. So for any publishers who have been doing this for a while, they will get screwed. All so this Jay Young guy can make some money.

The concept is great, but not this execution. People will soon become immune to these images just like they became immune to banner ads.

Remember, give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. (In other words, don’t give out the background images, just share the concept behind them.)

Now I’m not necessarily saying not to buy them, I’m just saying it’s not the greatest way to spend $67. You’re probably better off doing what I plan to do…

And that is, just wait for these to get real popular, then make my own ad backgrounds that are different than the ones out there (from this package) used by hundreds of sites.

P.S. Did anyone catch the poor grammar in that first line I quoted?

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