While we may not like advertising, it exists for a reason: to keep the web (for the most part) free of charge for users, and give webmasters a source of income. The banner ads you see every day generate, in some cases, thousands of dollars for the website owners that are serving them up.

Of course, when money is being spent, advertisers want to get the most worthwhile bang for their buck. From misleading claims designed to improve sales to flashy and annoying graphics designed to get your eyes looking in their direction, there are no tricks that advertisers won’t try to get a few extra clicks for their dollars.

Let’s examine five of the most well-known banner ads of the last decade and look at what made them so effective, what made them so memorable, and what made them so annoying for web users.

• The ‘Flat Belly’ Diet Ads

Arguably the most well known diet ad on the Internet, the ‘flat belly’ ads appeared in 2008 and haven’t disappeared since. Promoted on virtually high-traffic website you can think of, these ubiquitous diet ads are incredible hard to ignore.

Let’s look at the key factors that make these ads so effective. First, there’s the simple layout that immediately contrasts the color scheme of the website on which the ads are displayed. Then there’s the shrinking bikini animation – a massive eye-catcher that makes it tough to ignore the ad.

Finally, there’s the message – who doesn’t want to lose a few extra pounds? These ads tapped into people’s insecurities in a shameless manner, resulting in massive sales of otherwise questionable products.

• Evony Online’s ‘Sex Sells’ Banner Ads

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Evony Online, it’s a free-to-play online web game that’s, well, not particularly modern. Dated graphics, poor design, clunky game mechanics – if you can name a problem, this game probably has it.

What it doesn’t have, however, is a bad advertising campaign. Evony’s banner ads are shamelessly sexy, designed from the ground up to capture the attention of web gamers using… well, tits and ass.

The game itself has minimal sexual content, which makes the advertising campaign something of a bait and switch strategy. Nonetheless, the ads were remarkably good for Evony’s bottom line and dominated the web from 2007 onwards.

• The ‘Are You Smarter Than This B-List Celebrity?’ Ads

Online IQ tests have been around for almost a decade, and they’ve all operated using the same business model. A user clicks a giant, obnoxious banner ad, answers a few questions, and then types in their phone number to receive free IQ information.

It’s all a farce, of course: the IQ information isn’t even remotely accurate, and your phone is quickly signed up for hundreds of different services that you weren’t at all interested in receiving.

While the service may suck, the ads that are used to promote these IQ tests can only be described as ‘just short of genius.’ The celebrity ads, as pictured above, play on a desire amongst teenage girls to check if they’re smarter than their dream boy.

What makes the IQ ads so effective is the way they’re perfectly tailored to suit their target audience. Sports sites have athletes as the example, music sites have musical artists (think: Kanye West) that are known for their bizarre behavior. The entire ad effectively says: ‘we think you’re no smarter than Justin Bieber. Prove us wrong!’

Note: for some real irony, check the spelling and grammar mistakes in the lower bar of the ad. Looks like the designer isn’t smart enough for their own IQ test.

• Those Annoying ‘Reduce Your Mortgage’ Ads

If you’ve ever visited a website that has anything to do with home repairs, mortgage refinancing, or anything even remotely related to property, you’ve no doubt seen the annoying ‘$990,000 mortgage for under $1 a month’ ads like the one pictured above.

Promising incredible discounts on mortgage payments, these ads include fake drop-down menus designed to make you think you’re customizing your mortgage options. Instead, you’re clicking through to a mortgage portal designed to get you to sign up for an incredibly expensive adjustable-rate mortgage for several decades.

These ads use several great psychological tricks. First, they play on everyone’s ‘good deal weakness.’ After all, who doesn’t want a lower mortgage payment? Second, they use ultra-simple graphics and bold text to grab your attention and convince you to click. In the world of online advertising, ugly often works better than beautiful.

• The ‘You’re Our Millionth Visitor! Collect Your Prize!’ Ads

These annoying banners have, quite thankfully, disappeared from the Internet. One of the staples of early-2000s online advertising, these ‘flashing prize winner’ banner ads typically promised massive rewards for the millionth visitor to a website.

Of course, it was all nonsense: the banners were displayed on every unique website page view, and were designed solely to build an email database. While spammy and undoubtedly annoying, they demonstrate an important element of good advertising: make your users feel special and they’re much more likely to respond to you.

So I set myself a $1,000 limit, went browsing and settled on something called the “Design @tweet bundle”. So with this bundle you get to send out your message on 12 design related different Twitter accounts with the amount of followers receiving your message being around 1,590,000 people. We went ahead and bought the bundle, removing 2 of the accounts which I thought were overpriced and adding a Twitter account with an iOS theme. In the end it cost $1,248 and the estimated amount of people who would see it was 1.8m. This puts the CPM at around $0.69 which I thought was reasonable.

Now for the results:

Design Twitter Account #1 – Twitter Followers: 473,205 – Clicks: 575 – Cost: $199.00 – CPC: $0.34

Design Twitter Account #2 – Twitter Followers: 55,283 – Clicks: 203 – Cost: $100.00 – CPC: $0.49

Design Twitter Account #3 – Twitter Followers: 50,879 – Clicks: 240 – Cost: $75.00 – CPC: $0.31

Design Twitter Account #4 – Twitter Followers: 86,674 – Clicks: 371 – Cost: $90.00 – CPC: $0.24

Design Twitter Account #5 – Twitter Followers: 61,386 – Clicks: 124 – Cost: $30.00 – CPC: $0.24

Design Twitter Account #6 – Twitter Followers: 28,983- Clicks: 118 – Cost: $20.00 – CPC: $0.16

Design Twitter Account #7 – Twitter Followers: 42,702- Clicks: 169 – Cost: $60.00 – CPC: $0.35

Design Twitter Account #8 – Twitter Followers: 38,826 – Clicks: 152 – Cost: $100.00 – CPC: $0.65

Design Twitter Account #9 – Twitter Followers: 657,021- Clicks: 593 – Cost: $300.00 – CPC: $0.50

Design Twitter Account #10 – Twitter Followers: 24,592- Clicks: 180 – Cost: $25.00 – CPC: $0.13

iOS Twitter Account #11 – Twitter Followers: 297,436- Clicks: 1,066 – Cost: $249.00 – CPC: $0.23

Total Twitter Followers: 1,816,987

Total Clicks: 3,791

Total Cost: $1,248

Average CPC: $0.33

So what do the results show me? They showed me that people don’t RT advertisements (understandably). Apparently you have to disclose when a tweet was paid for and the most popular way of doing this is through the hash tag #ad. If I was to do this again I’d think about taking the shady option and try and hide the hash tag by doing something like: “this is an example tweet #example #tweet #ad” with the hope that people don’t see the #ad tag. Could work!

Also, I think we may have chosen the wrong niche to target. The reasoning behind choosing the design niche was simple: both Callum and I have worked in the industry and thought that the community would be interested in a photography related app. We also assumed they would appreciate the custom type logo and the background photographs which were all professionally taken exclusive for Cappture. Maybe we should have targeted iOS followers. Something to think about!

While this did initially set us back and have the companies fate in limbo, we’re now moving forward faster than ever with a lot of the applications design completed and a landing page already up (see: www.capptureapp.com). When I originally invested in the company my role was fairly simple and could be compared to as a silent partner: I would provide capital and advice if needed. Since the departure though, I’ve taken on a bigger role and while it does eat up a lot of time, I couldn’t be happier with the way things are going. Granted we’re without the original developer & a designer, it’s not something that will stop the progress of the app.

The co-founder I’m working with is an extremely talented UI designer and we plan on taking this as far as we possibly can, and then we have a crucial decision to make: do we invite a developer in for a share in equity or do we hire a developer? Obviously this will be a hard decision so we’ll leave it for the time being and see how things work out. One thing is for sure: Apple, Google & Facebook won’t be interfering anymore!

A few months ago I decided to invest in an idea; an application that has yet to be built. I was lucky enough to secure 20% equity in the company which overtime will hopefully pay off. While I won’t go into detail about what the app does or how much I invested, I can say it’s in the photography related area and I can see it being big. Over time I’ll be writing more about the app and its progress and documenting the app’s success or failure – hopefully the former. I’m confident in the team who will remain nameless for the moment which includes 2 talented designers and a top notch developer.

And like any startup you’re bound to run into a few setbacks in the beginning and this venture was no different. In a bittersweet twist, one of the designers was offered a position at Apple while the other was headhunted from both Google and Facebook. This was a pretty big concern for me, 2/3 of the core team were offered positions at some of the biggest and most innovative companies in the world. Both have pledged their allegiance to this startup however I will keep you updated with any negotiations or activity.

Right now, we’ve got wireframes in development, an icon almost completed, a landing page almost up and a name sorted out. I can see this being a great experience – this is the first time I’ve ever invested in an iPhone app so it will be interesting to see what challenges occur and how the team tackles them.

In the comments, feel free to talk about any experiences you’ve had with developing an iPhone app as well as if any member of your team have been poached and how you’ve dealt with it. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

But despite the appeal of this bubble, whether it’s true or not, dangerous or exaggerated, is a fact that most of today’s top reporters are ignoring – there’s a much bigger bubble going on, and it’s a far bigger one than the technology industry is experiencing.

The bubble, in my eyes, is not a financial one, nor is it a bubble caused by over-investment and a lack of analysis. It’s a bubble in perception, and it’s projected the world of higher education, post-school education in particular, to a semi-divine position where it’s neither questioned nor looked at with the right amount of critical thought.

This year, more students than ever will graduate from college, university, or other higher learning institutions. They’ll walk away with advanced degrees, armed with the knowledge that they won’t ever have issues finding engaging, high-paying jobs. They’ll walk away with knowledge of how the world operates, how they can help their employers, and how to be a well-rounded person.

They’ll also walk into a world where almost eighty-five percent of their peers are moving back into their parents’ homes, saddled with record levels of debt and few job opportunities. They’ll graduate in a world where their jobs are quickly being moved into other countries, fueled by the lower wages that can be paid for workers almost – or often equally – as skilled as they are.

Most of the time, this type of commentary results in some sort of call to political action – something that denounces profit-driven colleges and is sympathetic to the financial plights of students. It’s very understandable – many colleges, particularly private colleges in the United States, are profit-driven, and a great deal of students are blissfully unaware of their financial reality until after they graduate.

But it’s not exclusively a problem of colleges and ignorance – it’s a mindset problem. For years, the value of a college education has rarely, if ever, been questioned, not just by incoming students, but by their parents – the same people that graduated from college, university, or a trade school many years ago.

Just twenty years ago, a college education guaranteed a stable job. If you graduated in English, you could walk into a writing or journalistic position with few issues. There was a print media industry, one which rewarded graduates for their investment in higher education. If you studied computer science, you’d leave to become a programmer, walking into a well-paid position relatively quickly.

Today, both of those jobs are being outsourced at rapid speeds. The journalistic positions are now the domain of bloggers, many of whom work for free. Computer programmers are becoming rare, particularly in high-income countries, as their work is rapidly outsourced internationally to people that match their skill levels but demand a fraction of their salaries.

All in all, many of the professions that were once enabled by a college education are becoming less lucrative than they once were, and some are being destroyed altogether. An investment in education, or at least formal education, used to be an asset for people searching for these jobs – now it’s turned into a costly, stressful, and potentially dangerous liability.

When a small business owner looks at how well their company is performing, the first thing they look at is their balance sheet. How much is their business spending each month to acquire clients, customers, or press? How much is that investment earning them? How much growth potential do their ideas have, and how far can their current business model reach into the future?

If you analyze a college education, particularly for people aiming to graduate in the liberal arts or the technology fields, both of which are being outsourced rapidly, the balance sheet is pretty poor. The expenses are gigantic – significantly more than they were for previous generations – and the benefits are, well, not quite what they used to be.

I know this first hand. I spent a year studying in Australia studying to become an accountant – a profession that I thought would have carry-over skills for running my own business. But it didn’t. It was an expensive course in the value of self education. All I learned was that the information offered is easily available elsewhere, and without a hefty price tag attached to it.

Today, there’s more potential than ever for people to learn without the need for four years at a costly university, and more potential than ever for them to use their new skills to earn money. While there is a massive shortage of jobs for graduates, smart people that educate themselves – not just on their favorite subjects but on how to be valuable to employers – are getting hired left and right.

Finally, there’s the opportunity that’s always present in recessions, yet rarely looked at – foregoing a traditional higher education to start your own business. It doesn’t need to be big – it can be tiny, as a matter of fact – but it’s often the better option. When you work for yourself, you have freedom that’s far beyond what any job could ever offer you.

Many of the professions we once went to college for are no longer locked away from those who’ve never graduated. Many of the smartest people, the ones hiring college students, never stepped foot in a university themselves. Many of the best opportunities, the ones that offer higher salaries and a great deal more personal freedom, are open just as much to non-graduates as they are to graduates.

The key, I think, for people debating whether or not to spend the tens of thousands, occasionally even hundreds of thousands of dollars for a higher education, is to look at the balance sheet, just like a business owner would. Is your education going to provide a real benefit to you in searching for opportunities and beating out the competition for them?

In some cases, the answer will be yes. But in most, it will be a resounding ‘no.’ The overwhelming majority of opportunities are available to people that can work hard, work smart, and find shortcuts that allow them to bypass the hordes of other job searchers. These people are business owners and forward-thinking workers, not twenty-something year olds with a piece of paper.

Driving this point home even further is the leading opinion in many business circles, particularly in internet business circles, that college can be a hindrance to success. Peter Thiel, the billionaire first investor behind Facebook and founder of PayPal, clearly believes this. He’s even gone so far as to give ambitious college kids a financial incentive to drop out to the tune of $100,000 over two years.

Then there’s the opportunity that’s available to all of us. If you’re reading this blog, you’re obviously aware of the myriad opportunities available to make money online. From affiliate programs to start-ups, the internet has presented thousands of opportunities for would-be college students to skip the monotony of classroom learning and move straight into the positions they’d get after college.

In fact, it’s given them the opportunity to move higher up the ladder than they would with a degree, often right away. There’s a tax that comes with a degree, and it’s not just the immense cost that one can push on you. It’s the applicant tax. Having a college degree signals that you’re competent, but it also signals that you were willing to put off work just to improve your chances of getting jobs.

In some businesses, that’s a killer. It’s certainly a killer if you want to move into management or high-level business right off the bat. Which says more about someone’s drive and ambition – that they went to university and spent three years diligently paddling academic water, or that they’re uninterested in wasting time and are instead ready to get to work right now and right there.

The argument against this, of course, is that by skipping university you enter the job market without the skills that make you a valuable contributor. It’s understandable at face value, but when you look into it, you realize it’s nonsense. The amount of time spent on direct learning in college is minimal, and it’s easily made up outside of your time spent at work with resources like Khan Academy.

It also depends on the assumption that work will take up all your time. Is there any entry-level job that eats up seventy, even eighty hours a week? Of course not. The type of ambitious person that’s willing to bypass college to achieve their goals isn’t a ‘lifer,’ aiming to spend their entire career in a basic position. They’re smart and ambitious, and they know how to create their own time to learn.

When you hear about scary levels of unemployment, graduates unable to find jobs, or huge debts from higher education, don’t blame the employers for a lack of jobs. They’re just responding to an even bigger problem – the lack of suitable employees. Instead, think about the true value of your educational options. Is a degree really going give you a bright, successful, and interesting future?

In my opinion, the answer is ‘no’ more often than it’s ‘yes.’ While there are some professions that are undeniably linked to success at college, not all of them are, and the vast majority aren’t. Just like the bubbles in technology and housing popped much more quickly than they grew, the bubble in higher education is going to burst, leaving even more graduates with more debt than opportunities.

But as economists are fond of saying, when a bubble bursts it isn’t the end of a strong market, but the correction of an overvalued one. Right now, higher education is grossly overvalued, primarily because of the generation gap between employers and employees. That gap is getting smaller every day, and it’s only a matter of time before both sides of the spectrum see education for what it is.

There’s also an opportunity in this for those that would rather skip college and pursue their dreams right after high school. Instead of focusing on the superficial indicators of knowledge and ability – the degrees, the qualifications, the certificates – focus on the measurable ones. Generate revenue for a real company, create a product and market it, or acquire real skills that graduates are never taught.

These are the skills that get you the high-paying management positions, and the experiences that are essential for taking control of your own business, should you choose to go in that direction. They’re rare, and for good reason. They’re lucrative, especially if you’ve got them. And they’re the skills that you should be pursuing, not the ‘textbook intelligence’ that’s taught en masse in college.

So anyway, I’ve got a few really cool ideas about upcoming posts. Majority are case studies on making money online however their is one which takes things offline. I know, this blog was setup as a make money online site, but fuck it, if you can make money offline using the Internet as a hub then do it. The idea arose after I got sick of seeing threads on forums where people are asking for help to make $1.00 a day through AdSense and then seeing this thread on Hacker News. Put two and two together and you can work out what I’ll be doing as a case study for this blog.

As well as that, I know a lot of you who visit this site haven’t subscribed or even read my eBook. Check it out by entering your email in our sidebar and you’ll be emailed a copy. If you have read it, let me know what you think. For those who haven’t, it’s essentially a short story of how I was able to get 150,000+ visitors to a new website in under 4 days. While it’s not a step-by-step guide, you should be able to get a few ideas from it. I like to say it’s a must read for people who are thinking about launching a website and have no idea how to get traffic.

With that said, I just wanted to let you know what we’re up to and what’s coming up soon. If you have anything that you want covered here, send us through an email or hit me up on Twitter. Oh, and we’ll be adding a “next page” button to the bottom of the site soon – oops. We’ve also added some social media buttons to the bottom of posts. You should definitely like us on Facebook and send out some tweets using the Twitter button.

I want you to do a quick Google search right now for “Bidvertiser”. What I see on my local Google is 4 results saying the service is a scam. Not wanting to rely on a few individuals’ results I signed up and took a look around. What I like to do, and what others might, is look for new traffic sources. While Bidvertiser has been around for a while I hadn’t heard of many people making bank off of it – probably a good reason why. The only thing that drew me in and the reason why I didn’t go straight to Adwords was the ability to fund your account through PayPal. I had a few dollars in my account and figured what the hell.

The account was funded, I added my site information and keywords and decided on a text link ad (I didn’t want to make a banner ad, it’d take too long, I was in a rush etc.) Afterwards you could specify if you wanted to target a specific country. Not wanting to receive visitors from a country which couldn’t read English I chose the UK, USA and Australia. By now the ad was setup, impressions were increasing and I was seeing visitors.

A few days before running ads on Bidvertiser I installed LiveZilla onto my website. LiveZilla is basically free live support software. Installing it allows you to see visitors on your website, accept live chats along with a lot of other sweet features. A feature I found handy for this test was to see which country your visitor was browsing from and who referred them to the site. If Bidvertiser was doing their job right I should only see visitors from them from the UK, USA or Australia. Instead what I saw pissed me off. I started to see visitors coming from Bidvertiser from Vietnam, China and many other parts all over Asia.

As well as providing low quality traffic, they have the nerve to have cost per clicks in excess of $1 for niches which go well under that in other platforms such as Adwords. I actually had 1 individual who came to the site from Bidvertiser who hailed from Argentina. He ended up wasting my time on live chat, didn’t wish to purchase anything and thought it was funny to tell me to “go eat road tar” in broken English. So yeah, I essentially paid for that experience.

Just as I’m writing this I see that another visitor came online from Taiwan who was referred by Bidvertiser. I have $3.12 left in my Bidvertiser account and not wanting to withdraw such a low number I’m letting it ride – who knows, maybe they’ll end up doing what I’m paying them to do and provide me with some decent visits.

What’s worse is that I think they’re screwing not just advertisers, but publishers as well. A friend of mine named Vishal blogs over at DumbLittleBlogger.com and wrote a post about a year ago scrutinising Bidvertiser. To save you the read, he basically says that Bidvertiser didn’t count proper clicks and thus he lost some moolah in revenue. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the case – the business as a whole seems pretty dodgy.

A few forums I visit regularly have threads dedicated to Bidvertiser and their scammy ways.  It looks as if they’ve gotten it right with bloggers with the $10.00 withdrawal threshold and the ability to fund your account with PayPal – if any other platforms replicated this but provided a quality service can you imagine the popularity? One common feature in the forums is that everyone agrees on the low quality traffic and the targeting problems. Amongst all of this, a few (and I mean, 1 or 2, perhaps paid Bidvertiser promoters? You never know) have had successes with it.

So you’ve just read ~700 words bagging a service – first instinct is to try it? I really hope you don’t. It truly is a waste of time and money. If you’re looking for an effective CPC platform, stick with Adwords.

We started thinking of names back in September 2010 and we didn’t really get off to a good start. I actually have the chat history of the exact day we started thinking of names and landing on Sofa Moolah. To avoid quoting the chat, I’m going to post the full, raw, unedited version of the chat below. This could be embarrassing but you’ll get the idea:

Dan: name ideas

Mat: i wonder if money.com is available +*

Dan: try it

Mat: +*+*+*+*++*+*+

Dan: awww it’s taken

Mat: who knew

Dan: CNN

Mat: its available

Dan: lies, what about avoiding the generic MAKE MONEY LOLZ

Mat: i hate fidning names

Dan: like “milking the net” etc, obv that sucks but you get the idea

Mat: yaa, searching now. rolling in it .com is taken

Dan: lol. dollar chasers

Mat: do we want something that tells people what the site is about

Dan: penny wise pound smart. Idk. Lol. the money tree

Mat: themoneytree isn’t available

Dan: money from trees. Hmm. the word online would be good. living online etc. armchair millionaire. sofa king rich. lol

Mat: haha. Hmm. if we cant find a name, we could always go with something like matanddan, danandmat .com

Dan: true

Mat: i reckon names would be better

Dan: really?. kind of eliminates resale. lol

Mat: true. i found 1 that’s available, dunno what it means though www.moneyoath.com

Dan: oath means idiot. Lol. no, that’s oaf

Mat: oh

Dan: but still

Mat: presidentofmoney.com. lolcakes

Dan: lol

Mat: anything else?

Dan: hmmm. I like the idea of armchair _ or sofa _

Mat: if we could change that to something you’d sit on while on the computer so that we can say shit like, we’ll teach you how to make money online while you’re sitting on your ___i guess sofa could work…

Dan: sofa ….millionaire, entrepreneur, earner, marketer, cash, money from the sofa

Mat: sofamoolah.com

Dan: I like it

And just like that Sofa Moolah was born. Since last year when this conversation took place I’ve adopted my own little set of 3 rules when choosing a domain name for a website. Check them out below and feel free to let us know your own rules in the comments section below:

Avoid Potential Spelling Mistakes

A classic example of a bad domain spelling related mistake was when Flickr was born. Launched in 2004, then owners Ludicorp decided on spelling Flickr without the e. It may not seem like that big of a deal, but that little omission cost the site shit loads of traffic, potential revenue, new users etc with many people visiting Flicker.com instead of Flickr.com. Flicker ended up publishing statistics back in the day with traffic numbers which were 3,600,000 unique visitors a year. Yep, 3.6 million people misspelt the sites URL. Yahoo (who purchased Flickr) ended up offering the owner $600,000 for the domain which he refused. Yahoo eventually took him to court and they settled outside. Tsk tsk.

For The Love of God, Don’t Use Hyphens

Unless it’s absolutely critical, avoid hyphens at all costs. I’ve lost count of the amount of people I know who have lost traffic and gained confused users from telling them at conferences, public events etc. that they own Website-Name.com and users end up visiting WebsiteName.com. If your business name does include a hyphen, try and register both the hyphenated and unhyphenated names and do a simple 301 redirect on one of those URL’s.

When Possible, Acquire The .com and The ccTLD

I first noticed this issue when I was running ZOR. I had told a few people at school about the website and many were going to zor.com instead of my zor.com.au domain. Like everything above, you could be missing out on lost visitors and potential revenue. I would of purchased the domain, however I’m sure the guy would ask for 5-6 figures as it’s a pronounceable 3 letter domain.

So you’ve read the above guidelines and are ready to start doing some research. You land on the perfect name only to find that the domain is taken. Keyboard smashing ensues. This isn’t the be all and end all. Let’s assume the domain is registered for years to come and we’ll take a look at a few things you can do in the meantime:

 Offer The Owner Some Moolah

They say everyone has a price. Get in touch with the owner and see if they’re willing to sell. Use your superior haggling skills to bring the price down to a reasonable amount. If the price is reasonable, get out your cheque book. Remember though, do your due diligence before you write down a figure.

Got A Trademark? Lawyer Up!

If you’ve got a legally registered trademark on the business name or product, you may be able to take the domain by force. Just because someone owns a domain name doesn’t mean they have a right to it. Simply speak to a lawyer if you think you’ve got a case.

If All Else Fails, Get Creative

When web-based file hosting service Dropbox launched in September 2008 they didn’t own the Dropbox.com domain. Instead they registered GetDropbox.com as the alternative to purchasing the domain from the squatter. Granted they did lose a fair bit of traffic from people visiting the Dropbox.com domain but they didn’t need to make any changes to their name. Eventually in ’09 Dropbox acquired the Dropbox.com domain. Next time you get stuck with your name being taken, use Dropbox as an inspiration and get creative.

Have you got any tips or interesting stories relating to website or domain names? Tell us in the comments!

I’m taking you back to my first business, ZOR. If you haven’t read about ZOR in the past, check out these two links. I mention in those articles that I was invited into the Sydney CBD for a photo shoot and video interview for one of the most popular news websites in Australia, News.com.au. What I didn’t mention was that it almost didn’t happen. If there is one thing I hate it’s talking on the telephone. To gain some insight, they (the reporters) wanted to have an hour long chat on the phone talking about myself and my business – something I did not want to do. It may not seem difficult, but ask around and you’ll see that not many people enjoy talking on the phone; especially to reporters you’ve never met. This is where I needed to come out of my comfort zone and do something as simple as take a business related phone call.

Let me expand upon a phone call. A different issue which was making me contemplate going to this interview was the idea of having a camera put on me and then expected to act natural and talk about my business. Then there’s the photo shoot: random individuals putting make up on you and then being told to pose for the camera. Ugh… I didn’t think this was for me.

If I had declined to do this experience, I know I would have regretted it. In the end, the phone call went great and the interview and networking I did proved to be worthwhile. Getting out of my comfort zone at the time was what made me a better business person and it helped out my business for a brief period of time. After the day was over I was invited to do a Sky Business interview the day after. Sky Business is live television – a major step up from being recorded and having the benefit of starting over again if you mess up. I ended up saying no which I see now was a mistake. I didn’t back myself to not mess up and even now I still regret not doing it, if not to better my career then to further me as a person. We have to remember that from failure we gain the most important lessons in our life. Luckily for me I had a chance to redeem myself earlier this year for live TV.

I had the opportunity to go on an early morning talk show with Freelancer.com CEO Matt Barrie earlier this year. I had committed myself to getting out of what was once my comfort zone and embarking on a lifetime of zero limitations. While I was somewhat nervous as this was live television, it ended up going well and again I had made some great contacts. If my mentality was how it used to be, I would never of experienced this amazing opportunity.

So how do you get yourself out of your comfort zone? I have a few tips and tricks that I’ve used in the past that have helped me. The first is to be prepared and have a plan. Let’s use my past as an example and you’re invited onto television to promote your business. Your plan would include things such as a quick 20-30 second pitch of your product or service that you can memorize off the top of your head. You would also ask in advance for a list of questions that the reporter would be asking – this will give you time to pre-plan your answer.

Another tip is (if possible) partner up. If you’re going to a networking event, take a partner who you can bounce topics and conversation starters off of. You’ll feel better knowing you have a familiar face around and you won’t feel too much out of your comfort zone.

I launched the website at around midnight Sydney time on the 5^th of this month which was a Friday night. I think it was a bad mistake to launch on the weekend, if you spend a lot of time on the web it seems as though weekends are dead online. Have you ever been on Twitter on Sunday? It’s like a Blockbuster parking lot. It should have gone live first thing Monday morning, ready for when people got into work. We ended up sending out an email to our subscribers that night as well and Dan granted me permission to put a bit about the new site at the end of the email.

52 of you came to the website through the email. Of course I would have liked all of our subscribers who opened the email to visit, but never-the-less it was a decent percentage. Aside from an email, a few tweets from my own account and a small advertisement on the Sitepoint Market, we’ve done literally zero paid advertising. With that said, our traffic is obviously pretty low. For the past 7 days we’ve had 308 visitors which resulted in 726 pageviews. I’m actually quite happy with that number. From those 308 visitors, 53% came directly to the site, 44% through referring sites and 2% through the search engines. What’s surprising is that my $39.00 paid advertisement on Sitepoint Market only resulted in 19 visitors which equal a cost per click of $2.05 which is pretty high considering majority of the keywords I’ll be targeting in an Adwords campaign hover around the $0.70-$1.10 mark.

I think most of you will be looking forward to the sales numbers the most. Alright, so in the first 7 days we’ve done $765.00 in revenue. I’m not going to divulge net profit – sorry! I had pretty high expectations for first week sales figure and unfortunately it didn’t hit them. What I am proud of is the fact that we only spent $39.00 in advertising – although it didn’t really work. What did work are forums. Our top referrers include: 6 webmaster forums, Facebook, Twitter, Sitepoint Market and a few classified sites. Plan on launching something similar? Head to forums!