Recently I had a chance to interview Dean from Mr Cheap Stuff about blog marketing, personal finance as discussed on his site and blogging tips. His answers are below.

1. How long have you had Mr Cheap Stuff up?

“I started Mr. Cheap Stuff in September 2004. The site was created as a place where family and friends could find the best deals, freebies and coupons. Since everyone always used to ask me where is the best deals were online instead of telling everyone I just created a web site to make it easier for everyone. Next thing I knew the site got picked up by the spiders and people started linking to it. Traffic has steadily increased since then.”

2. What is the site about?

“Mr. Cheap Stuff first started out mainly as a coupon or deals type site. I didn’t want to be like all the other coupon sites so I added my own personality by including some of my passions and interests like time savings tips, productivity hacks and some interesting stuff about Hawaii (I live in Honolulu, HI).

I think more and more it is very import to separate yourself or your blog from everybody else. Being the black sheep can really be a good thing.”

3. How much do you think you have saved with your tips?

“Well, one of my most popular post was “5 Massive Benefits of Throwing Out Your TV”. I did the unthinkable about a year ago and threw out my television, that alone probably saves me at least $500/year. Although, I really didn’t do that to save money, I must say it was hard at first but the benefits have been tremendous and do not miss owning a TV at all. I recommend anyone to just try it out for a couple of weeks and see the changes in your lifestyle.”

4. Do you have more than one site? What other things do you cover?

“Yes, I have other websites and websites in development. They cover a variety of niches, I currently have 4 part time workers which really helps me leverage my time. I recommend bloggers out there to “do what you do best and outsource the rest”.

5. What tips do you have for other bloggers?

“For the bloggers out there that feel like there is not enough time I recommend you take a look at what you do on a daily basis and see what you can outsource. How much time do you spend checking your stats, email, responding to comments, troubleshooting and responding to reader emails. Many bloggers or Internet Marketers say they work 60-80 hours a week but I bet most of them really only spend about 10-20 hours actually doing productive revenue generating work.

Many bloggers could really benefit and increase their traffic if they took the “Long Tail” approach. Many bloggers like to go after highly competitive keywords or niches. Try this, next time you are going to write a title for one of your posts simple do a use a Keyword tool to see how many searches the main keyword gets. Try to choose a keyword that gets descent traffic. Then a google that search term, to see if it is competitive. If it look hard to rank on the first page try another keyword. Soon enough you will master the art of writing for humans and the search engines.

One more quickie, I highly recommend the book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen, if you haven’t heard about it, just Google it and you will see a huge cult-like following to high approach on productivity and time management.”

6. Where can someone get a hold of you with questions?

“If you have questions you can submit them on the contact form on my site http://www.mrcheapstuff.com. Or you can send me an email directly to info (at) mrcheapstuff (dot) com. And yes, I actually do respond. I’m also open to partnerships and marketing ideas so send me a note if your interested.”

Technorati Tags: blogging, blog marketing, personal finance, bloggers, online marketing, coupons, free stuff

3 Steps to checking for true PR ranking:

“Buying a highly ranked (PR5 or above) site or domain for a reasonable price can be a tempting proposition. Site with that ranking can be used to help build valuable links for your blogs, drive traffic to your lesser ranked blogs/sites, or engage in link sales to other bloggers and site owners. At one time or another you may have come upon a site”

Technorati Tags: google, pagerank, blog, blogging, online marketing

Should a business blog be personal?:
I posed the question, “ How personal should a business blog be ?” in January 2007, in my travel blog. I’m not sure that there is a definitive answer to this question, as ever it is a matter for personal judgment and balancing priorities. My…

blinkx, the world’s largest video search engine, today unveiled AdHoc, the first contextually relevant video advertising platform. Just as Google’s AdSense transformed advertising on the Text Web, blinkx’s AdHoc platform will revolutionize video advertising by matching compelling, customized, TV-style ads to your audience on the Video Web.

blinkx’s AdHoc platform offers content partners and advertisers a unique value proposition — video advertising which combines the emotive power of TV promotion, with the relevance and utility of contextual search advertising. This is an exciting prospect, not only in terms of enhancing viewer experience, but also in increasing the effectiveness of campaigns.

“As video choice continues to explode, consumers desperately need tools that help them easily find what they’re interested in,” said Tim Hanlon, Senior Vice President at Denuo, the media futures unit of ad giant Publicis Groupe, S.A. “At the same time, marketers clamor to reach interested, though ever-fragmenting audiences with judicious and relevant ad messaging. AdHoc’s contextual video approach deftly bridges those two forces, allowing information and advertising to flourish in a mutually beneficial way.”

Technorati Tags: vlog, video blog, videoblog, marketing, advertising, blinkx, online marketing

Can WordPress Compete Against Moveable Type? ((from One by One Media):

Tags: Media, Blog tools, Services, The Site, Blogging News, Corporate Blogs, Partnerships, Social media, Professional blogging, Blog Platforms, Blog Consulting, Bloggers and Blogs, Blog Revenue

Leafletter is a web based application which enables users to create miniature web sites (”Leaflets”) and embed them into social networks, blogs, and other web sites with ease.

A Leaflet is a miniature Flash® based web site that can be displayed anywhere HTML is welcome. For instance, a Leaflet could be distributed to the About Me section of a MySpace Profile, the body of a Blog Entry, and in the Portfolio section of a photographer’s Personal Website, all simultaneously.

Leafletter is geared toward professional content creators - creative artists, media professionals, online sellers - users who seek broader exposure for their content, who probably already have a web site and/or online portfolio, and who want to begin showing their content, in a specific way, on social networks and blogs.

Leafletter is unique in that it gives the user complete control over how his media is laid out, embellished and displayed. It is created using an intuitive browser based (WYSIWYG) design tool, and features such helpful tools as Real Time Layout Changing, whereby a completed page can be viewed in 36 different configurations, Build By Blocks, whereby a user need only fill in Blocks to create a page within a Leaflet, and smooth Flickr integration for users wishing to share photos and maintain control of their presentation.

Once a Leaflet has been created it can be distributed using the familiar process of Copying and Pasting an Embed Code or URL to any location where HTML is accepted.

We have now begun a public beta for which free accounts are available. It only takes 10 seconds to sign up for an account and an optional 5 Minute Tutorial will walk you through the many unique features the product has to offer. Please take a moment to view the Leafletter Beta and consider sending me some of your thoughts.

Technorati Tags: beta, blogging, leafletter, social media, socialmedia

From Michael at Blog Talk Radio:

“Just thought you and all your readers would be interested in a new live medium called BlogTalkRadio.

While radio has been preoccupied with satellite radio, which requires expensive equipment, pod casting, which is not live, and Internet radio, which requires downloading, services such as BlogTalkRadio pose almost no barrier to participation. Literally, anyone with something to say now has a platform, including the 50 million bloggers, who can speak live to engage their niche communities. Social radio is inherently viral, social and participatory. It may be radio for the MySpace generation.

Go to www.blogtalkradio.com and check it out. It is actually really cool.”

Technorati Tags: blogging, internetradio, podcast, podcasting, radio

Tim O’Reilly has posted a proposed Blogger Code of Conduct on his site which has a lot of people talking. Most of these guidelines are probably things that one already practices but don’t or haven’t yet verbalized/written.

However, I would think item #4 is going to catch a lot of grief:

“When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.

When someone who is publishing comments or blog postings that are offensive, we’ll tell them so (privately, if possible–see above) and ask them to publicly make amends.
If those published comments could be construed as a threat, and the perpetrator doesn’t withdraw them and apologize, we will cooperate with law enforcement to protect the target of the threat.”

This all ties in with the badge one is required, oops, I mean requested to post on their site designating themselves Deputy Dog/Blogger Posse member.

When I see things like this, a codified version of “What I learned in Kindergarten”, I laugh because we should already know these things. It probably could simplified into

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

Wow, maybe I can trademark this?

If you are visiting this page and consider yourself to still be learning about blogging as I am, feel free (or not) to take this advice. I’ll separate it out for emphasis:

1. Your blog is your site. Do whatever you like with it.

2. If someone posts offensive material on your site, remove it. There are no higher laws to blogging or expectations that because one uses a certain web publishing platform they have attained a higher plane of spiritualness. It reminds me of one George Carlin’s new rules

New Rule:

Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn’t make you spiritual. It’s right above the crack of your ass. And it translates to “beef with broccoli.” The last time you did anything spiritual, you were praying to God you weren’t pregnant. You’re not spiritual. You’re just high.

3. If you feel truly threatened, contact someone. I don’t know who at this point but I’m sure someone/organization is available out there to help you.

4. Have fun. Why put yourself through misery if you’re not having fun with your blog.

There are more people talking about this.

Code of Conduct or Not? - Scobleizer
My Thoughts On O’Reilly’s Code of Conduct - Crunchnotes
Why Are We Still Confusing Blogging Code of Conduct With Having A Comments Policy - Deep Jive Interests

Technorati Tags: blog, blogging, civility, commonsense, goldenrule

Make Money Parking Domains, Parketeer says:
November 10, 2006 - (TopHosts News Brief) - Parketeer.com - created by two leading SEO companies as a way to revolutionize the Domain Parking marketplace - reports that it’s possible to attach real monetary value to every single domain. Their selling

Blog ads replacing TV, e-mail marketing:
LONDON: Blogs are becoming a force to be reckoned with as a means of advertising products, according to a survey. An Ipsos MORI poll found that the Internet journals are a more trusted source of information than TV advertising or e-mail marketing. But