2011 Is the Year Twitter Dies?

Anytime a company requires a new round of investment money, you know things are not going good.

I mean, Twitter has been around for 4 1/2 years now.

And it still doesn't have a strategy to monetize its tweets?

Twitter is an example of what I've talked about on this blog a couple of times before. It's a cool idea in search of a business plan. But if you want to make money, you have to start with the business plan first...

Selling Local Advertising Is Tough

As an Internet marketer, I've never encountered anything more difficult than making a decent income from selling page views to local advertisers.

I mentioned earlier this month that I had made another push towards making my local blog profitable. I hired a sales person to sell ad space on my local website, "Menifee 24/7". It's been tough, but I'm sensing that we're close to turning a corner.

Thus far, we're getting positive feedback from local businesses here in Menifee about buying advertising space, but we haven't received any money in hand. We've gotten commitments, and we've had advertisers tell us what they want from us before pulling the trigger, which we've complied with. But again, still no money in hand...

Not All Content Is King

"Content is king" is the old saying, but it's not as simple as that.

Content is indeed king when it comes to building a large and loyal following of readers, but you also need good content, compelling content.

Another common opinion is that content can't be king if no one is reading your content. And that makes sense. However, if no one is reading your content, it's likely that you have nothing worth reading.  ✓

Leather Cases for Samsung Galaxy Tab Ain't Cheap

I discovered that cases and sleeves for the eBook readers are about 30-40% cheaper than the cases and sleeves for the tablet computers.

I bought a leather case for my Samsung Galaxy Tab. The case was actually designed for the Amazon Kindle. But because the Galaxy Tab and the Amazon Kindle are the same dimensions, the case works just fine.

What I bought is the "Zierra Leather Portfolio" from Targus at a price of $29.99 at Best Buy. Meanwhile, Best Buy also had a leather case designed specifically for the Galaxy Tab, I can't remember the brand name, but costs $49.99.

Targus Zierra Leather Portfolio for Amazon Kindle fits Samsung Galaxy Tab

Yet the Zierra I bought is clearly better quality, feels more solid, has pockets for business cards, receipts, and a pen holder. While the case for the Samsung Galaxy Tab was smaller, didn't come with any features, and had a flimsy feel.

And that was the cheaper case. Best Buy had other cases designed for the Galaxy Tab that went as high as $75.00.

So why is that cases for eBook readers are cheaper than cases for tablet computers?  ✓

Back to Local Blogging, Again

I'm making a renewed focus towards my local blog, "Menifee 24/7", a blog about the town I live in. I started that blog in 2004, and by late 2009 I had boosted traffic to as many as 15,000 visitors per month, which is a lot in this town 67,000 people.

But I found out fairly quickly that monetizing such traffic via Google AdSense and affiliate programs just doesn't work at the local level. The only way to monetize local traffic with a significant amount of earnings is to sell ads directly to local businesses. And I learned that I'm no good at selling ads to local businesses.

Hence, I ended up writing the blog mostly as a community service, by attending city council meetings and school board meetings and reporting on what took place. But eventually, I got burned out and stopped writing it. I still had a few local residents volunteering to write material for me, and they kept it going.

But a month ago, one such volunteer offered to help find local advertisers for me in exchange for a cut of the sales. I agreed.

So now, I've followed through by taking up writing again for Menifee 24/7. I've also updated the look of the site by incorporating a new template, and removing all references to the word "blog", in hopes of making it look more like a news organization.

I've also submitted the site to Google News for possible inclusion. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

And now comes word that the city's local newspaper went out of business a couple of months ago. Well, it wasn't really a newspaper. It didn't publish any hard news, just stuff like "student of the month", tips on how to grow bigger begonias, and stuff like that. Nonetheless, now that it's gone, perhaps it'll be easier for me to sell ads to local businesses.

We'll see.  ✓