This is a sponsored post of the Gadget Advisor blog, and the post was not in any way influenced by payment… other than the size of my wallet and new love of technology.

As a blogger, I’m obviously tied pretty well to the world of technology. As such, it’s not unusual that I get sidetracked and start to aimlessly browse about the latest gadgets and tech trends… trying to find the next best thing. Heck, even as an investor, understanding the tech market is going to be a big plus if you want to capitalize on undiscovered growth plays in the market place.

There are tons of tech blogs out there (my personal favorite is Wired.com) where you can check in on the new toys that come out, or maybe even the latest advances in the IT world. However, none of these blogs really narrow it down to specific “big ticket” items. In comes Gadget Advisor! This is a fresh blog with about 60 posts from the first month and a half of operation… and is definitely a place to bookmark if you are into tech!

A Word From The Owner:

“Gadget Advisor is a new site, but it is growing and becoming established rapidly. The goal of the site is not to list every bit of news from each day. Instead, the site focuses on the product releases and news items that are the most significant, useful, or particularly cool.”

A Bit About What They Do
This blog operates pretty much just like your standard WordPress blog, but they do a good job making things look professional. All of the posts that I have read in my brief experience with the website have been well-researched and worth my time. One of my particular favorites was the one on the best FireFox extensions. I’d definitely recommend checking that one out!

One thing that I noticed about Gadget Advisor is their template seems a bit plain. While this doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, I feel like if they are going to push money into marketing, they could just as easily use that capital to spend a few hundred dollars on a customized template, eh? So that’s my primary concern to this point.

The Future for Gadget Advisor
One of the bright spots for the Gadget Advisers is their marketing campaign, which has correctly placed emphasis on particular posts like the best Windows software downloads where they can gain a lot of organic traffic from Google. I have tried to emphasize the different methods that can produce growth in the short-term as your blog becomes more and more established. One of my favorites is earning campaigns to target “long tail” keywords that are not heavily invested in by the big boys, so you can rank up high with minimal effort.

One thing that got me laughing is that I thought they misspelled “adviser” as “advisor” in their domain name. Of course, a misspelled domain name can really call for lowered credibility on the host website. You might be able to steal a few cheap hits, but in the long run you can never get a successful business off a misspelled word. Fortunately, they indeed spelled things correctly, as both “adviser” and “advisor” are the same word according to my dictionary (though “adviser” is preferred). Whew! That’s a relief!

Jimvesting Recommendation
These guys down at Gadget Advisor seem bent on growth, and they are clearly willing to market their website around the internet in order to get it. I highly recommend you check out their blog and read an article or two. It’s good stuff, there just isn’t a whole lot of it unfortunately. As they grow, I expect them to eventually get a nice theme to compliment their hard writing efforts. I’ve been loving their content, from a neat USB NES controller to a review for Blaze Media Pro. I can’t recommend against a free resource, can I? Go check it out!

-Jimvesting

Times are tough out there. As the global economy sours, funding is getting harder and harder to come by… and big media conglomerates are starting to feel the pressure just as much as Wall Street. As more and more businesses turn in losses… people are going out of business faster than ever before. And the worst part? You thought you were safe!

Here’s a news flash to those of you that thought, for some reason, that the internet isn’t tied to the globalized economy… it is. The problems that the companies based in technology face can be just as gruesome as what your local McDonalds or Best Buy deal with on a day to day basis. One thing that most people trying to make money online don’t realize is that online advertising companies are pretty much dead in the water at this point in time. Let’s talk about why.

Online Advertising Speculators Create a Bubble

People throw fits when someone says there is an economic “bubble” that is about to pop. So what is a bubble? Essentially,  when everyone rushes into the “next big thing,” it creates an over-hyped market where everyone is doubled-down and nobody realizes that things aren’t as good as they seem. An example of this was the technology boom in 2001 or the crude oil craze earlier this year.

An undiscovered bubble has been made in online advertising, an arena where more than 300 online-ad networks have started up over the past few years alone. The Wall Street Journal itself called online ad brokering “one of the most popular, and crowded, niches on the Internet.” Truth be told, there are WAY too many companies servicing ads right now, and they are going to get hammered because there haven’t been that many new opportunities opened up in the same period of time. In fact, it’s not even close!

The Online Collapse Has Already Begun

So yeah, there are obviously way too many competitors in this business for everyone to be the next Google. Everybody know it, yet people continue to jump in as if nothing is wrong and there is plenty of wealth to spread around. Just this month alone, JellyCloud, an ad network that had raised over $11.5 million in venture capital this year, closed its doors.

Well maybe only a few small players are getting hit? Think again. Look at AdBrite, one of the biggest companies on the net with more than $35 million in capital funding raised to date. AdBrite actually cut a whopping 40% of their workforce just to stay profitable. Time Warner said in September that its AOL unit, which has over $1 billion invested, was “experiencing softening in major ad categories.”

Online Ad Networks Anxiously Seek Suitors

Now that everyone (except for you) understands that the industry is in chaos, people have been scrambling about looking for someone to potentially buy them. People want to jump ship… and that is never a good sign. I mean come on, I support around 6-7 internet marketing networks on this blog alone and more contact me every day! “Ad networks like Burst Media, the 17th-largest by unique visitors, and Collective Media, the 16th largest, say they are both seeking buyers” according to Emily Steel of the Wall Street Journal. What to make of this? Companies would prefer to be bought out then to continue their operations in vain.

No More Funding… Get Ready for the Long Haul

In good economic times, people are more than willing to open up their wallets for advertising and whatnot. Marketing companies are feeling constrained now because nobody is spending, and nobody is funding. It used to be a case of simply asking for money… and you’d have instant venture capital. Now, not so much… and there is a big panic all around an industry where companies made big bets, assuming that things would be recession proof all the way. In reality, lots of ad deals that were in the pipeline are being reduced or pulled completely.

This morning (October 30th), BMO Capital’s Leland Westefield gave us a fresh look at how the online ad industry have really fared through hard times. Westefield noted that for the ad business, this will be “an unparalleled recession in severity and duration in the post-World War II era.” As consumer and commercial spending continues to fall into the red… it’s going to be rough sailing for ad companies that were enjoying consistent growth in the post-tech bubble era.

So What Can You Do? Looking Forward.

Is this all doom and gloom? No, not really. The ad industry is still growing at a solid double-digit tick in many areas of the market. However, you need to realize that a lot of these ad companies are having a hard time staying afloat. Many of you remember how CPA Empire was accused of shaving profits from one of their customers… I honestly believe it completely, because times are tough and people will try to stay profitable.

Barron’s predicts that it won’t be until 2010 that we see ad agencies return to “business as usual.” I totally agree with this assessment, and feel that it won’t be until one year from now when you’ll start to see things rebounding and coming on strong. I believe that we have a long way to go, and the industry is about to consolidate as smaller companies are gobbled up or bankrupted by a vicious investing environment.

As an internet marketer… don’t worry too much. Keep your head on straight, and your profits won’t drop off too much, despite the flailing industry you work under. There will always be affiliate business to be exploited for cash… so stay in the game and hope for a better tomorrow. One thing: maybe you should start buying some sympathy cards for the marketers that are about to dance with unemployment.

-Jimvesting

We had a pretty good turnout for the third Q&A session run here on theNetFool.com. And now it’s time to get all of your questions answered! As promised, everyone who asked a question within the allotted time slot will be on the receiving end of a free link back in the answer replies. In addition, the best three questions (totally my opinion) are going to get access to my $15 premium eBook that can show you how to make money by writing effective material on the internet.

Danny from LinkersBlog.com asked:
“How many copies of ebook-rich have you sold?”

Well Danny, to be quite honest I do not track the total number of books I have sold since half go through my automated system and half go straight to my PayPal account. As far as a rough guess, I have sold about 50 copies of the book to date. Its been especially useful to give away as a prize in the competitions I run here as an added incentive though… so it’s definitely served its purpose.

Ryan from SmarterWealth.net asked:
“What is your number one affiliate marketing program? (IE: Ebay, Amazon, etc.)”

This is, in fact, a question that I do get answered a lot. In reality, I am not much of an affiliate marketer. I am the guy who goes around promoting different networks and trying my hand at some more simple offers… but I don’t even take in $100 a month in internet marketing. Simply put, it’s something that I am interested in, but not an active participant.

Don’t be taken aback, I understand how everything works and how you can get more revenue from your campaigns… all that good stuff. Really, I am (and have been) far too busy as of late to seriously get into campaigning different programs. If I had to answer, I would say that my top aff. marketing platform would be HostGator… since I have done a good job selling out hosting to partners.

Melvin from MelvinBlog.com asked:
“What do you think of your current affiliate marketing challenge?”

Things haven’t panned out the way they have for my Affiliate Marketing contest, and I am honestly very shocked that the turnout has been so poor. My basic thinking behind this is that everyone is already signed up to alternative referrers already. Market Leverage does a heck of a job promoting their company around the internet, and it is very hard to pick up any “super affiliate” that will earn you $1000s by waving a Nintendo Wii in their face.

Harry from TranHarry.com asked:
“What effect does the current economic crisis have on advertisers and the publishers ability to remain profitably sustainable in online marketing?”

Nobody on the online universe seems to know or care about the economic crisis, and this will be their downfall. The credit crunch is now internationally spread, and it will be effecting all industries for the considerable future. Google has already seen their earnings crunch effect the amount of advertisers who are putting money into the system, and there are honestly WAY too many affiliate marketing companies to stay profitable.

We are going to see online advertising companies cut their work force, and the entire industry is going to get more competitive. People will be less than willing to pass profits on to you, so all publishers will be feeling less profit margins on their internet marketing campaigns as we continue along. Again, this is a prediction and not necessarily truth. But I feel it is inevitable.

Nicole from GreatPricesHere.com asked:
“What is your take on Warren Buffet’s suggestion that we buy American stocks now?”

People put way too much trust into what Warren Buffett does. He might be a great investor, but as of now he is getting incredible deals on preferred shares of stock (not common stock like everyone else buys)… so his risk is a lot less than the individual investor trying to make some money in the markets. At any rate, I trust Buffet’s call to invest in American equities in 2008. Companies like General Electric and Goldman Sachs have fallen off the map, and don’t deserve to be so cheap. If you invest now you will make money in the long run… it just might be a bit too risky to jump in right now.

Yan from ThouShallBlog.com asked:
“Who is your biggest inspiration in blogging? and why do you usually share all your secrets?”

My biggest inspiration in blogging is probably John Chow. Let’s be honest, the man is good at what he does. If I could get my blog to the level that John Chow has his… I’d be quite satisfied, haha. On the subject of secret-sharing… I typically give everything away just because, well, I don’t care enough. People that horde everything for themselves are all concerned about keeping their profit margins high. I am only a marketer on the side, so my focus isn’t there. Because of this, I can share everything I learn without regret!

Ganesh from BlogSmartly.com asked:
“What should I do to increase my RSS count?”

Increasing your RSS count is one of the harder things to do when you are first starting out as a blogger. I would recommend going all out during your first few months of operating. This might be a pain, but by going around and commenting on other blogs every day, posting comments in related forums and making sure that your presence is felt you will eventually get your solid footing in the niche. My best advice is to never give up, because you WILL have a breakthrough sooner or later.

MomsCashBlog.com asked:
“Which is more important money or Page-rank?”

Money.

Sherry from NameSherry.com asked:
“How do I avoid spam comment when commenting?”

When you are commenting, you might get labeled as spam by Akismet (the most common spam filter) if one of the following applies to you: 1. You have been filtered as a spam comment before; 2. You have included a link somewhere in your comment; 3. You wrote a very long (75+ words) or a very short (>5 words) comment. That’s pretty much all the advice I can get you on that. You can actually email Akismet at their website and ask to be “white listed” if it is continuing to happen.

Emma from GettinPersonal.net asked:
“With the way the economy is going and the USA and the way it is effecting neighboring countries, what do you think will happen to blogging?”

“Blogging” itself is a pretty recession-proof industry. The one thing I would be concerned about is the possibility of lower ad revenues if you happen to maintain a for-profit blog. People spend less, you get less… that’s the bottom line. As far as blogging goes, you’ll be fine.

Shawn from theBrokenBox.net asked:
“How will each candidate affect the online income I make?”

Minimally. The effect you are going to see is in the taxes. Under the Obama campaign, you are going to see higher capital gains taxes on a good bit of your income. I’m actually not quite sure how this will play into online earnings… since a lot of what you make online is under the table and the IRS can’t really get a hand on the records very easily. John McCain will probably be keeping the taxation on your earnings more or less where they are now.

Simon from Otooo.com asked:
“How do you block an IP address from commenting?”

I have had some pretty annoying commentators here at theNetFool.com, people that post trash all day and it is clearly the same person time and time again. WordPress actually has blocking built right into the system. Log in to your Dashboard and head to “Settings” –> “Discussion” –> “Comment Blacklist” and enter the IP addresses you would like off your website!

Najat from MiniSiteSpot.com asked:
“Who are your favorite online money making gurus?”

My favorite online money making gurus are Derek from ClickConsultants.com, and Jonathan Volk from JonathanVolk.com. These guys both have pretty loyal blog readerships, and have a good amount of influence around the internet because of their talent.

Jackie from GetAngryWithMe.com asked:
“I’ve been reading a lot of posts lately that say micro-blogging sites like twitter are about to kill traditional blogs. What’s your take on that? And do you twitter yourself?”

Eh, I believe that micro-blogging has its place. It’s more of a medium for communication than anything else… and I doubt that they will ever replace the obvious function of blogs. Bloggers write to educate others around them and make the world a more opinionated place. Websites like Twitter simply help us bounce ideas off each other faster. And yes, I do Twitter!

Brad from BradBlogging.com asked:
“When internet marketing, do you suggest starting out small with smaller websites (via advertising) or going big with larger websites (via advertising)?”

When you go about internet marketing, you HAVE to start small. Too many people start out with big ideas and can’t contain themselves. I’ve wasted literally weeks of my life trying to do everything myself. The fact remains, you have to start with a set niche goal in order to dominate and profit in this business. Especially with internet marketing, you want to target a small niche… and over time expand outwards to a more profitable area.

We’re all done with the third Q&A session and I hope that you were all satisfied with the replies I gave. As I have said before, I can’t devote an entire post to every one of your questions. However, if you shoot me an email with anything extra… I wil lbe more than happy to give you a more personalized response to get you making money in a flash.

The winners (best three questions) of my eBook are:

• Jackie from GetAngryWithMe.com
• Harry Tran from TranHarry.com
• Yan from ThouShallBlog.com

Shoot me an email to claim your prize! And to the rest of you… thanks so much for participating. I hope that you all have a great week… and stay BULLISH on the net!

-Jimvesting

Hey guys,

It’s been a busy few days for me as Penn State knocked off #9 Ohio State on Saturday Night NCAA College Football. We’re in good position to win out the season, going undefeated and earning a spot in the BCS National Championship game assuming that either the #1 Texas or #2 Alabama teams fall. So over here at Penn State… it’s pretty much football madness. Saturday night was one of the most memorable nights I have had, so I’d love to share a video with you guys of the street riots that broke out after the game. College kids do crazy stuff when they are excited, haha.

Youtube User-Submitted Riot Videos
Penn State Collegian Riot Videos

So as we get past my weekend, let’s hop into this weeks link love, eh? I mean, that’s what you came for after all! I found some cool new blogs that I have subscribed to this week, and one of them here is a first-timer in the Net Fool run-down. Here they are, the top five articles from the week ending October 25th, 2008:

• John Cow – How to Crack Into Google’s Servers and Find Gold
• 45n5.com – Google Adsense and Analytics Get Married
• Affiliate Confession – Checking Stats: Like Watching Concrete Dry
• Ian Fernando – Twitter: Find Quick Fast Niches for Quick Fast Cash
• Cash Tactics – Free PR6 Backlink from Apple.com

Some pretty cool tips and tricks were posted this week. One of the more interesting (to me) was John Cow’s Google SEO information on how to find profitable niches using their own tools. 45n5.com had a nice press release on how Adsense and Analytics are now paired together. Affiliate Confession wrote a funny editorial on how watching your stats is a waste of time. My buddy Ian wrote a neat trick that uses Twitter to find hot niches in the marketplace. Finally, Cash Tactics had a brilliant trick to get a free Pagerank 6 link back from Apple… a must read. Great stuff this week!

Stock Market Update
Things continued their downward spiral last week in the face of more bad news amid earnings season. A lot of companies are reporting earnings in the span of about 3 weeks, so this is going to continue this week. One thing is for sure, fundamentals no longer matter. The entire market is being driven based on feeling, not on actual “worth” as would have previously held true.

This weekend, a lot of countries around the world expressed interest in bailing out their financial systems. One of the bigger names here was Kuwait’s banking troubles, as cross-Gulf regions move to rescue their own financial institutions… no longer able to rely on oil-rich land. Credit is on lock-down and nobody can get a loan, so getting any kind of free cash flow is becoming increasingly difficult.

As of today, the U.S. Fed Reserve has begun what is effectively “phase one” of the bailout plan. Dozens of American companies signed up just last week to be able to sell their short-term commercial paper ot the Fed, who has effectively pledged to buy it up at a cheap cheap cheap interest rate. You can think of commercial paper as an “IOU” of sorts, it doesn’t need to be more confusing than that. The key here is that we will get some more liquidity as the government takes some risky debt off of many company’s books.

Blogosphere Update
Big scandal came into view this week with CPA Empire. Apparently, these guys were “shaving leads” from one of their affiliate clients. This is basically when the manager (CPA Empire) is withholding profit from the customer in an attempt to juice their own numbers… effectively stealing money from their client. This was posted on WickedFire.com and was then deleted from the forum once debate got to a climax. Following this, a proof video was posted to YouTube.com. Note: The video was just removed as well

If CPA Empire was really screwing one of their clients out of his/her hard earned money, this is a huge problem that could severely hurt the internet marketing business. I do NOT have an account with CPA Empire and have never recommended them here. I cannot say fully one way or the other if this is true, but at any rate it will damage their reputation.

I had a string of guest posts go out this week, and might even get another one or two out. Luckily for me, I actually hit with an article on JohnChow.com, which was better than I could have ever asked from random “would you like a guest post?” emails that i sent out with outsourced 500 word articles. Basically, I picked up a bunch of lasting backlinks for about $3 a pop… nice. I’ll get you guys a bigger report back on this in the near future.

The Week In Focus
This week is going to be rough as I have an exam and a lot of meetings set up to take place. However, I do have a lot of posts and case studys that are in the mix. Essentially, at this point I am building up draft posts to go out. Of course, I’ll be doing the response post to my Q&A session that was held last week… and announcing the winners to that.

Jimvesting’s October Spectacular is still in full force and anyone can enter! Get a free Nintendo Wii and more just by checking out the original contest thread. It’s one of the easiest contests run so far, so it is definitely within your power to win this thing!

That’s it for this week, stay bullish on the net!
-Jimvesting

Time to break out the Q&A session… that’s the big numero tres!

I haven’t done this in a while, and with the amount of questions that I get about blogging, making money and even stocks and bonds, I feel like making a separate post to address these common questions is the way to go. Want to know what I know? Ask a question and find out your answer here.

Every Question Gets A Free Backlink!
One of the biggest pluses to the question and answer sessions that I run over here at theNetFool.com is that I take the questions and answer them in a separate post. In these posts, I’ll list your website or blog and give you a free link back. This means you are scoring a completely free PageRank 3 link back to your website and some potential traffic flow, that’s probably the easiest link back you’ll ever get!

Naturally, if you’d like to remain anonymous, that’s not a problem either. If you don’t specify your website in the comment area… I promise not to link back and potentially give you some unwanted views.

Question Suggestions and Ideas
Since I’ve run two Q&A sessions in the past, I generate a lot of buzz and have been getting more and more questions to answer each time I do this. Because of the high demand, I am going to have to ask that you limit yourself to one question. If you ask two, I’ll simply pick the one I feel would be more beneficial to the rest of the readers to answer. Again, you can always email me directly anything specific.

I am in the business of blogging, making money online, affiliate marketing and equity investing. As such, you could really ask anything from “what are your favorite names in the tech business?” to “which affiliate network is your favorite, and why?” I’m not saying I’m obligated to answer you on everything (haha), but I usually share all my secrets unlike 100% of other bloggers that selfishly give you half-tips to keep their competitive border. I like to shake things up, so feel free to ask whatever is on your mind.

Since we are so near to the U.S. Presidential election, I will allow you to ask questions form this domain as well as I know a good deal about each candidate. Just know that if you ask a question in this testy area, you are going to get a very bi-partisan answer because I’m not trying to twist your mind one way or the other as the media tends to do (e.g. “Sarah Palin buys $100k of clothing” or “Barack Obama removes American flag from private jet”).

Here’s a list of categories to get you thinking:

• Blogging
• Making Money Online
• Internet Marketing
• Affiliate Programs
• Investing Research
• Monetization
• What I’ve Learned
• Economic Theory

Three Lucky Winners Get A Copy of My eBook!
I like a good question, so if I feel that yours is one of the top three asked you’ll get a free copy of my popular eBook “Work Smart, Get Rich!”… which is available through Ebook-Rich.com. No, this isn’t a random selection because the world is not a “fair” place, haha. It’s going to be totally based on what I feel constitutes a more effective question… but shouldn’t discount anyone else’s comment either. My eBook retails at $15, so this should be a fun little incentive (as well as the free backlink automatically included) to spur some conversation.

Comment Below With Your Question
Ends Saturday at 2:00pm EST