Category: Weblog

For several years now, I thought the internet money party had died or was at a minimum, pining for the fjords. I have been mistaken. The money party is rolling but the people at the party are trying to keep it quiet this time.
I’ve known for a while that this site gets visited by a significant number of people besides my mother and some people from work. For the last several months I’ve been bumping up against the 15 GB data transfer limit of my web host in the last week of the month.
Somehow my site even has a Google Page Rank of 7. Now this simply must be a mistake, because there are much better sites that rank lower. Again, this points to the fact that my site gets a goodly amount of traffic.
I had read that people could make some money by putting Google ads on their pages. You see them all over the place now on weblogs and other personal sites. But I simply assumed that you needed huge amounts of traffic to make anything more than pennies.
It seems I was wrong. You can make money and the party is rolling full tilt.
At the beginning of August I put Adsense ads on my site in a few places and was shocked to find myself making several dollars a day via the Adsense ads. This wasn’t making sense to me and did a little research to find out what was going on.
<Research>
It seems that internet advertising is mainly based on the click-through, or when someone actually clicks on a advertisement on a site and is taken to a new site. Seems straightforward, no?
Actually, Google put a twist on advertising by placing ads related to the pages content in as the ad. I don’t know how they do it, but if you go to a page about travel, you will see Adsense ads about travel. Visit a page about computers and you’ll see ads for computer parts. Advertisers want this. They want people that are interesting their product to be the ones that see their ads. Targetted advertising is what it’s all about.
Google, being smart cookies, are letting the market set the price for ads. If you want your ad showing up on a page about online gambling, you bid a price you are willing to pay if someone clicks on the ad. Due to the competition to appear on the front page of a Google search, the price can get quite high. Making the front page can cost $4-5 per click. Supposedly the term mesothelioma (a kind of lung cancer that involves asbestos) can cost up to $100 per click.
So you can see that a single click on the right term, can bring in several dollars. Quite an amazing scheme if you ask me…
</Research>
Now Google doesn’t want people posting tons of statistics about their Adsense program, so I’ll be general about the results. In one month I made over $100 from Adsense placement on some of my pages. Over more than 30,000 views of the ads, people were clicking only a couple percent of the time. Most people reach my site via Google and are not repeat visitors.
I know people that are making thounsands of dollars a month on ads, so my revenue is not that remarkable to people in general. But for me personally, an extra $100 a month for just having my web site up is fantastic. It’s all funny money until the check arrives, but when it does, I’ll be ecstatic.
I now understand why guys like Nick Denton and Jason Calcanis are into making niche websites and filling them with ads. They can make a ton of money!
Who know what the future brings, but the right now the internet money machine is cranking away and it has nothing to do with IPOs of start-ups.

Yesterday I received an email from Brody had built his own electric smoker based on the page I made.

No question.
Just thought I’d let you know I built the smoker, per your page.

I did cut a large hole where the elec. heater goes in, and I cover it during use with tinfoil, which I hold on with magnets.
I also had the opportunity to smoke something that wouldn’t fit in the smoker with the top on. Made a temp top from tin foil, and it worked fine.
thanks again,
Brody

Good work Brody, your smoker looks great.
Now that’s what I’m talking about people! Soon the backyards of America will be filled with homemade smokers and the smell of burning hickory wood.
I like his modification with the tinfoil and using magnets to keep it in place. He should be able to add wood chips to the smoker without having to move the meat like I had to do.

Played poker with Brad, Tim, Brian and Rich last night. Here are a few more lessons I learned.
While your full boat is nice, the other guys four kings are nicer.
Ratcheting up the betting when a pair appears on the table even though you don’t need it because you made your straight on the last card can be effective in misdirection.
Burning Castro’s crops is fun and enjoyable.

Here are my answers to the latest LABlogs.com Insight:
1. When you do fire up the grill, what do you put on it?
Briskets, tri-tip, turkey breasts, chicken
2. Where do you buy your goods (any secret meat markets)?
Bristol Farms for special things like 4-5 pound briskets, Ralphs for generic meats.
3. Besides your house, where do you/would you BBQ around your area?
I used to BBQ at Martin’s house, but he moved to Kansas. What do they know about BBQ in Kansas?
4. Gas or charcoal?
Wood! I smoke meats slowly for maximum tenderness and flavor. I do have a gas grill for the quick grill when needed.
5. What is your favorite drink to accompany the grill?
Sipper Jigger of Jack Daniels and Coke.
6. When you bring a side dish, what is it?
Michele will make a quiche or some asian dumplings.
7. If the host burrns the main dish, where do you go out to eat instead?
Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles
8. Post BBQ games: dominoes, croquet, bocci or badminton?
Drinking liquor, eating sweets, herding children.

Yoshi lent me a comic book. I was flipping through the pages and saw this.

Catching snippets of the GOP convention brings to mind a quote from Apocalypse now:
“Oh man, the shit piled up so fast in [the GOP] you needed wings to stay above it.”
Rationalizing hatred and greed has been translated into “family values” and “freedom”.
Thomas Jefferson is rolling in his grave.

Last week I was in Orlando for some company meetings. Hot, muggy weather, long meetings, backstage tours of Disneyworld, lots of drinking at business dinners. I think it wore me out a bit.

Why overpriming is bad.

Today I took the kids to the Page Museum bka The La Brea Tar Pits.
To those not from Los Angeles, the Tar Pits are an area where oil and asphalt have risen to the surface in the middle of the city for the last 40,000 years at least. Water would collect on top of the asphalt and thousands of animals got caught in the tar trap, their bones preserved for centuries.

The tar is still there, waiting for it’s next victim.

Zoe & Mira in front of a horse skeleton.

Yesterday was the party for LA Bloggers and we had a good time.
Jim bought his whole family and the four girls (his 2 and my 2) were awfully busy playing the whole time. Being the daughters of geek bloggers, the girls spent time outdoors in a tent watching a portable DVD player, emerging to get more food and more My Little Pony dolls.
Grant and Jill showed up. Mack from LAVoice came along with his son Cooper as well. Britta stopped by with here dad. I know her more from #joiito than blogging. Cousin James stopped by as well.
There weren’t enough people for the planned Mac vs. PC tug-of-war, but it was fun for all. I made them all drink shots, as usual at a Pusateri party and they were good sports to try.

L-R: Mack & Jim

L-R: Britta, James, Grant, Jill

Here I am bringing the smoked turkey & brisket into the house to be cut.