I don’t know about you, but I’m all over this promotion from Woot.com to buy a bag o’ crap. This kind of stuff just totally makes my day. It’s like my own site I made called: http://www.completeripoff.com/. Fun.

Bag O’ Crap XXI

Wait, wait, why are you clicking that button? Don’t click! You don’t want this junk. Seriously, clicking that I WANT ONE button is a one-way ticket to disappointment and shame. You’ll cram a few useless clumps of consumer flotsam into your life, be out like eight bucks, and for what? For what? What is the sound of one hand crapping?

If you must proceed, CHECK THIS OUT. Somebody misunderstands this concept every time, so please READ THE BIG PRINT:

1. WHEN YOU ORDER THIS ITEM, YOU’RE ORDERING ONE (1) BAG WITH up to THREE (3) PIECES OF CRAP IN IT.

2. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR SELECTING THE QUANTITY: THREE WHEN YOU ORDER.

3. YOU WILL WASTE FREIGHT IF YOU ORDER FEWER THAN THREE. And you’ll get less crap. Wait, why is that bad again? Do you people really need more crap?

You’re only getting one bag, no matter what. The order quantity you select is the number of crappy items we’ll put in your bag. Select THREE. Later, you’ll enjoy the satisfaction of taunting the surprisingly large number of less observant Wooters who ordered less than THREE.

As usual, we promise nothing about the quality or the desirability of these bags or their contents, except to promise that their quality will be low and their desirability will be non-existent. The best quantity you could possibly order would be ZERO.

THE HOLY CRAP COMMANDMENTS v2.0:

I. Thou shalt expect nothing beyond one bag of some kind and your chosen quantity of crappy items (which should be THREE).

II. Thou shalt not whine and complain when some people’s crap turns out to be nicer than yours.

III. Thou shalt take a moment to consider whether you might be better off just not buying this crap.

IV. Thou shalt not order just one crap and blame it on anything but your own inattention.

V. To paraphrase Stephen Stills, shalt thou not get the crap you want, want the crap you get.

* The crap will be shipped via SmartPost, the crappiest shipping method available to us.

Good question. You would think that they work because of titles, descriptions and tags. But take a look at this graphic below. You’ll see that if you watch this video, at the end, you’ll see that they don’t match.

Repeat: The related videos in the sidebar are NOT the same as at the end of the video. In fact, the video that shows up as the related video in the player is a questionable video of a woman “shaking her thing”.

What does that have to do with a video entitled “How To Install A Shower Water Filter”?

Anyone?

Here’s the shower filter video embedded.

No offense to my friends who run major online advertising channels like Text Link Ads, and Auction Ads and all that stuff…

But I wonder how they continue to operate because the majority of bloggers out there don’t make hardly any money from them. They just don’t. I’ve been researching this for years and years, and I’ve written about it constantly. And I’ve read many other comments and blog posts from all over the Internets, and everyone tells me that they don’t make any money with these programs.

Disclaimer: Low-traffic bloggers don’t make money. Bigger sites that are the minority in the grand scheme of things drive, in my opinion, all the revenue for these companies.

When I read stuff like this from Zac Johnson, a personal friend of mine who I KNOW makes money hand over fist online, it really seems to validate my thoughts and my Scratchback.com launch coming soon.

I mean, if you look in those comments on that page, you will see what I’m saying. Most people are saying they don’t, or have ever, made any significant money from those systems. Even guys like Zac, who are pushing a TON of impressions are seeing those true profits they should be getting fade into dust.

I’ve been saying it for years. Low-traffic bloggers have a really, really hard push to make money from their blogs. My former company BlogKits is making a run at this as we speak and I wish them well.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I truly, truly believe that Scratchback can be the answer we’ve all been looking for. I cannot wait to show it to you, believe me. But I have to be patient and finish it first.

Again, I’m not trying to diss anyone else’s solution. They do work, just not for everyone. I’m simply being passionate about my own idea. Maybe it’ll suck and you can all laugh at me later, you never know.

I’ve been blogging since 2001. I’ve written thousands of blog entries across tons of blogs. Lately I’m wondering if it’s time to stop? I’ve got Twitter and Facebook and my private email lists with my close friends.

Blogging for me was always about self-expression. It was/is my outlet. Lately, however, I’m questioning if I need that outlet anymore because I have so many other outlets?

Or maybe it’s just time to shut the written word down and go to a video blog format. A huge commitment, yes, but hmmm…

Didn’t you ever just feel like it was time to switch gears and dive in head first and push yourself? Everything I’m doing lately revolves around video. Seems like a natural progression.

Does Google even “use” them anymore? I’m way far out of the seo details loop to know that. What I do know, is that for years I’ve heard nothing but bad from DMOZ and their “editors”.

Now we have extortion? It’s time for Google to step up and simply drop DMOZ from having any relevance. Simply stop indexing it or using it as a base, or whatever.

Will Google listen? What do you think?

There is a big DMOZ (Open Directory) kerfuffle going on at Jeremy Schoemaker’s ShoeMoney blog over an alleged extortion attempt by a DMOZ editor.

A while back I got a email from a guy claiming to be a DMOZ editor saying that I had to pay him $5,000.00 or he would have my site: shoemoney.com removed from the dmoz.

I thought nothing of it…. then today I got a email from him saying it was removed and I might want to rethink not paying him. I thought I would check just for grins.

It was removed… WOW

Here’s the Shoemoney story.

Another smart video marketing idea. Remember we talked about Willitblend.com? Well here’s a little fun site and marketing campaign from Sprint.

http://waitless.org/ - They have short time saving videos that help you “turn life tedious moments into time savers”. Pretty smart.

You can learn how to quickly remove sand from your body, or how to chill sodas in 2 minutes or how to quickly peel an egg.

The point? It’s fun, it’s engaging. It’s creative thinking and marketing utilizing online video. I like it.

Thanks to B.L. for the story.

15 million views later… Wow. Lions, crocs and buffalo fighting it out for lunch.

Further proof that “real” is what we want and crave. You can only fake or “shoot” so much produced material. Frankly, this video alone is evidence of why YouTube and online video is so huge.

Found this at Rohit’s blog.

I’m not sure if “being famous” is really measured on if you get on the Tonight Show (which is one of his goals), but leaving that flaw aside, this guy has the right idea.

It’s all about attention and he’s doing a good job at getting it. Using videos and a creative website and pushing his agenda. The press loves this stuff.

Brought to my attention from Problogger.

Over the last few days I’ve been following the quest of John Gerard who is video blogging his journey across the US at his site Famous in 31 Days.

As the name suggests, John’s goals are simple - to become famous…. in 31 days.

He’s traveling across America and aims to end his journey by being featured on Jay Leno’s show. Only problem is that Jay’s never heard of him and neither had too many others before he started his journey.

Having said that - John managed to get himself some media attention in the days leading up to the start of his journey and at least in his home town got a little of the fame he’s after - but now he’s in New York and the real challenge starts.

Just got a notification that Chitika now has a Facebook application, and… they’re promoting it using an affiliate program. Pretty neat way of getting attention. It pays $1.00 per application added into Facebook.

Here’s my code, if you wish to give me a dollar that is.