You all know how much I love BUMPzee! Well, I love it even more now that I was chosen as one of the select few to manage my very own community while it’s still in beta. So what community did I make?

Introducing the ‘How To Be Successful Online’ BUMPzee Community

Bookmark this: http://www.bumpzee.com/onlinesuccess/

What is the community all about?

The How To Be Successful Online community is for anyone who is interested in learning how to be successful on the Internet. The blogs and members of this community will focus on and discuss the world of Internet marketing, professional blogging and making money online. Join today for free, or submit your related blog for free as well.

That description you just read is really what JimKukral.com is all about, and many, many others like it that I read every day. Like those blogs, I don’t write about one topic like affiliate marketing only, but rather, I focus on writing about all types of online marketing, with the specific goal of trying to help businesses, brands and individuals be successful online.

Do you fit that mold? Are you someone who’s looking for more information about how to be successful online? Join the community for free!

Do you have a blog that talks about ways to be successful online? Submit your blog to the community for free!

FYI. I’ve preloaded the community with about 14 blogs, listed below (in no particular order & if I missed your blog, I’m sorry, just go add it).

If your blog is on the list below, go sign up and claim your blog, and most importantly, add the bump widget to your entries and sidebar. If your blog isn’t in the list below, what are you waiting for, submit it!

Not sure about BUMPzee yet. Read this.

Super Affiliate Marketing Blog
Earners Blog
Revenews
WaynePorter.com
Shoe Money
CostPerNews
Graywolf’s SEO Blog
Copyblogger
Andy Wibbels
Aaron Wall’s SEO Book.com
The Blog Herald
Ask the Blogger!
901am
ProBlogger Blog Tips
Jim Kukral Online Marketing Ideas

Oh yeah, and make sure to check out the other new beta BUMPzee community managed by CostPerNews’s Sam Harrelson.

Called “Next Gen Marketing”. In a nutshell, this community on BUMPzee will serve as an aggregator of blogs and insights focusing on developing trends and emerging tactics to address the rising tide of social media, attention economies and “web2.0″ platforms. It should be fun to see the discussions which arise there.

There’s also some new interface changes at BUMPzee too, so check it out!

Sometimes I get so fired about about something that I just have to sit down and crank it out into a blog entry. Now is one of those times, and it’s best I do it now so I can relax with a cold, green Harp and relax for the rest of the evening. After all, it is St. Patrick’s day, and I’m Ukranian, heh.

The backstory: Tony says the a-listers refuse to acknowledge the ‘blue-collar bloggers’. Calacanis, an a-lister target, says the a-list doesn’t exist.

Tony, you’re right, and wrong. Blue collar bloggers do exist, but they’re not in the a-list because it really doesn’t exist beyond an idea conceived by those who aren’t in it. Again, the a-list is nothing more than an idea. It exists in people’s minds, yet, it’s not real. It’s like the Matrix.

Jason, you, on the other hand, are ignoring the reality that perception is in fact the true reality. That is, dear sir, is that of course there is no real a-list, just as their is no real Santa Claus either by the way. However, there is a very, very real “perception” of Santa (especially by my 5-year-old), and on the same meme, there is the same very, very real perception of the supposed a-list in the real blogosphere. Sorry, like it or not, that is the reality.

You, Jason, do not get to define the perception as true or false, mostly due to your current status.

It’s the same as a billionaire trying to say that Walmart sucks because it kills the little guy. But guess what? That billionaire doesn’t have to shop there, he doesn’t know exactly how much Walmart means to someone who is forced to shop there to feed his family. His perception is NOT the vast majority. Therefore, it’s the minority, and last time I checked, the majority is usually what drives just about everything in this world (except a US election).

Is it possible to end this a-list, z-list conversation?

No, it’s not, because this is what humans do. We feel comfortable when we class ourselves into levels of status. It’s not going to change anytime soon.

By the way, the Big Brown Box is very real :)

Now, where’s my bottle opener.

Awesome Dave and I have been secretly plotting out our next project, one that we hope will top the Awesome Million. It’s called BigBrownBox.com, and it’s almost ready to go live.

We have one problem. We can’t find a box.

We’re looking for a box about the size of dishwasher. So I went to Sears and asked for a box, but they said they immediately cut the boxes down, so no luck, and I’m not buying a dishwasher just to get the box. Then I went to the UPS store, and they don’t have a box that big. So I started driving behind strip malls on my way home from work looking for boxes.

Any ideas on where to look for a box of that size?

If you’d like to be notified when BigBrownBox.com launches, just sign up for this blog feed or email list on the right.

You know, I always thought I was the only Internet marketing geek here in Cleveland. Not true, over the past year or so I’ve begun to find out that many talented Cleveland people are also pushing the envelope of web technology and creative marketing ideas. Here’s mashup of a few finds just from this week alone.

Cleveland’s own recruiting/HR blogging expert, Joel Cheeseman has just been featured in the Wall Street Journal.

“I can work in my pajamas and set my own hours,” says Joel Cheesman, author of Cheezhead.com, a blog about the recruiting industry. Notes Mr. Layne, who has worked at Wonkette for two years and generally acts as his own editor: “I get to be a national political columnist and comedy writer.”

Sage Lewis of Sagerock.com has been sneakily doing a new video blog called Webmarketingwatch.com, where he films himself talking about web marketing every day and broadcasts it for the world to see. This is amazing stuff Sage, and a great initiative. Here’s a sample video of Sage talking about the Overture keyword search tool. Very informative.

Greg H. has started a new blog called SMOMashup.com. Awesome concept.

I’ve decided to focus my efforts on a specific part of our industry: Social Media Optimization. Though most all of us deal in some way or another with various forms of marketing on the internet, I’ve decided to go where I’m unnaturally called… the land of MySpace, YouTube, Digg and beyond to see where it is the rest of us can fall into place.

Clevelander’s, or shall we say, North East Ohioans to be more general, are on top of the game. I’m going to have to step it up to keep up the pace.

I’m going to be the first to do this! Yes, I’m going to try and linkbait the latest linkbait, which is essentially linkbait about the rules of linkbait.

Did that make sense? No? Look here.

Still confused? It’s ok, so am I. Just pretend you know what’s going on and play along, ok? :)

Sam tagged me to show off my business card. The problem is that I have 3 business cards at the moment (JimKukral.com, ReveNews & Forge/BlogKits), and they’re all pretty boring. So instead of scanning in those cards and showing them here, I figured I’d just design a new card that encapsulated my primary projects and contact information, specifically built for giving out at trade shows.

The idea behind this card design is to A.) Show my face so people remember me, B.) Remind the person who I represent and C.) Give the person a reminder and note area to notate what they need to follow up with me about.

Nothing fancy Nancy. Sorta similar to Shawn’s card, but less busy.

So now I gotta tag three peeps eh? Ok, I tag the following.

Eric Marcoullier of Mybloglog

Wade Tonkin of AffiliateWarrior

Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends

You will burn in heck for starting this Harrelson, by the gods!

Super blog powers unite! Shape of… a big juicy charitable blog meme!

I can feel something starting to happen. A meme you say Jim? Yes, Shawn, a meme! Earlier today I wrote about how bloggers like Jason Calacanis and others could/should be selling ads or sponsorships, or whatever they can, on their blogs for the simple sake of giving the money they don’t need to charity.

I mean, why not? If you can help people with your blog super powers, why not, right?

Well, check it out. It appears we might have something going here. Turns out Jason bought into the idea and is offering space on his blog for a $100k donation to a local school.

Jim says I’m throwing away 100k by not having ads on my personal blog. That’s probably a little high since I only get 5k page views a day/200k a month. At a $25 RPM that would be $5,000 a month/$60,000 a year.

Anyway, the reason I don’t sell the space on my blog is because:

a) I don’t have the time to sell it
b) I like the way the clean design looks
c) I make money building profitable businesses, not selling ads on my business card (and that’s what I consider my blog to be).

That being said, if someone wants to sponsor my blog I will give them three ad units on the page and a huge hug if they donate $100,000 to the Bay Ridge Prep Opportunity scholarship fund (the same one that PodTech and Godaddy sponsor for my podcast–oh yeah, time to do one!).

The scholarship goes to folks who could never afford a private school education, but who the school feels could really benefit from it. So, it’s not an academic scholarship for folks who have amazing grades, its a scholarship for folks who didn’t get dealt the best hand in life.

THE CHALLENGE FOR US ALL

Game on. Our job is to find that buyer for Jason. How do we get started? I want to see this followed through, and those kids get that money. Any advice? Maybe we could get three or more companies to pool the money and share the ads? Let’s work this out!

Then we’ll put the pressure on Seth, Mark, Guy and Scoble too :)

Today over at my BlogKits blog I wrote about how 5 of today’s big top bloggers are leaving close to half a million bucks on the table by not monetizing their blogs. The piece was interesting because I enlisted the feedback from several expert online marketers who provided detailed advice and projections about the topic.

Even Seth Godin himself left a comment on the blog entry, check it out.

If Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis, Mark Cuban, Guy Kawasaki & Seth Godin monetized their blogs and let an online marketing expert professionally optimize them, they could collectively earn half a million dollars a year. Or at least that’s what BlogKits estimates, along with some other top online marketing/blogging experts. View all of that data below.

Oh yeah, I launched the BlogKits BIG Blog $$$ Survey today. If you have a blog, take a minute to add your thoughts?

Have a blog?
Please click to take short survey.

I just wrapped my first radio show of 2007, making this the 4th show so far. You can listen to the latest show here on my Blogtalkradio host page.

Not much to tell about today’s show. No callers yet again, but my stats showed at least 10 live listeners. C’mon people, call in and get your free stuff!

A reminder, the show is on every Tuesday at 1pm est. Please call me! hehe.

If you haven’t seen this yet, this is the best set of 2007 predictions out there.