icemanbaldy

The Perfect Camera for Entrepreneurs: Canon SX10 IS

First things first: I love this camera. A step up from your run-of-the-mill point and shoot camera but not quite as complicated as a DSLR, the Canon PowerShot SX10 IS is the perfect blend of ease and sophistication for creative entrepreneurs. With this 10 megapixel, superzoom camera, you have a wide variety of shooting opportunities at your command in addition to the ability to use the camera as an outstanding video camcorder.

I bought this camera last week and I've been amazed by its picture quality and versatility. I've taken shots ranging from extreme close-up shots where I've had to be careful not to bump the lens against the subject to amazingly clear and detailed telephoto shots of an artist performing on a stage where I was several rows back and couldn't possibly have captured facial expressions otherwise. You can record video while taking pictures with the quick push of a button and use the zoom lens while capturing video with stereo sound.

For entrepreneurs, the marketing opportunities with this camera are amazing. If you haven't been using video on your websites or via posting sites like YouTube, this camera makes it easy as the video you shoot is readily available from your memory card. Battery life isn't a problem since you can use either high capacity, rechargeable nickel-metal hydride batteries (NiMH) or regular AA batteries if your rechargeables wear out and you need something in a pinch. Your product, facility, or people photos will look crisp and clear on your websites and promotional materials.

it's not a pocketable camera but also not quite as bulky as what the pros carry. It doesn't scream tourist and you can be certain that it conveys a message of someone who is serious about thier pictures. Fully automatic for novices and beginners alike but chock full of enough manual options that you can become a serious photographer at your own pace, the SX10 IS is a great value for under $400.

Personal Productivity: Should You Get an iPhone 3GS or a Palm Pre?

The reviews of both of these outstanding phones are starting to hit the internet. I've been a fan of the iPhone and before that Palm Treos and Centros. The Palm Pre changes Palms approach to the smartphone game entirely and promises to be a multi-tasking, web application miniature beast of a device while the iPhone 3GS is faster and more feature-rich than it's world class predecessor. I have mobile contracts with both AT&T (iPhone) and Sprint (Pre). So what should I do?

For now, nothing. It's still early but time really isn't the issue for me. Cost is the issue. The Pre may be the better monthly value with it's $99 simply everything plan which really includes everything--unlimited voice, data and texting. The best I can get with the iPhone is a $99 unlimited national plan in addition to another $30 for data and $20 for unlimited text--$50 more per month. It won't be cheap to get either phone as it means new service agreements and associated fees.

What are your thoughts? Will loyal iPhone users be tempted to give up style, functionality and promises of even faster network speeds to come for the solid compact looks, dedicated sliding keyboard and multi-tasking capabilities of the Pre? Things are getting really interesting on the mobile scene and once pricing is adjusted even further after all the hype dies down, it may be a good time to make a new decision.

Iceman's Sites to Watch: Useful Tools

This is a great site for those of you who want to know about the coolest tips and techniques to get the most out of your web browsing and social networking experience. The About Us section says it all: "Useful Tools is a web magazine for people who love web tools and apps. There are new and exciting applications being developed all the time. We sift through the abundance of technologies available to you, and help you find the most useful tools."

They deliver on their promise and it didn't take me but a few seconds to find all kinds of tips that I have already started putting to use with immediate productivity payback. ChrisG has done an outstanding review of the site if you'd like a great objective opinion from an excellent authority on blogging.

The New Coolness: Dolce&Gabanna Metal Aviators

Part of personal development and individual awareness is knowing what it takes to look your best. I needed a new pair of sunglasses to replace my aging Ray-Bans so I got a pair of these hip D&G's that are slightly over-sized with a cool, classic look. Watch out now.

Making Money Using a Mobile Phone for Human Powered Search

Ever thought about becoming a digital concierge? Well that's the thought behind services like Mahalo, ChaCha, 4INFO and many others who respond to text or voice message questions with SMS responses that filter through all the junk and give you human-based answers to your inquiries. How do these services make money? Well most plan to provide advertisements along with their answers to your questions but most will make deals with mobile phone carriers or other larger businesses in an effort to become that organization's information provider of choice. You can do the same thing on a smaller scale by getting a 1-800 number and offering your services to local hotels or other convention centers who understand the convenience you can provide for their events and clientele.

Here are a few articles that provide more background on the subject:
What is the Future of Human-Powered Search?
Wall Street Journal: How Does Cha Cha Make Money?
TradeVibes Mahalo Overview and other human-powered search competitors

Many of these services have secured tens of million dollars in investment funding; whether a large, scalable human-search model can make serious money remains to be seen but the outlook remains promising. I'm convinced that the real money for niche mobile entrepreneurs is in providing targeted search services for your local market. You can also make some money in your spare time by becoming a consultant for many of the new services who are looking to grow the depth and breadth of their responder talent.

What to Do When You Run out of Things to Blog or Tweet About

Keep blogging and tweeting long enough and at some point, you'll feel like you've run out of interesting things to post for your readers. When you get to that point, here are a few tips to help you break through a temporary bit of writer's block.

1. Review aggregated posts. If you use a tool like Google Reader to keep all your favorite websites and their updates organized and consolidated in one place, it's much easier to keep up with what others are posting and you might come across something that you want to share with your readers or expand upon in a post of your own.
2. Rewrite PLR content. If you're a reader of this site, chances are you're also an internet marketer who has some number of Private Label Rights files sitting your your hard drive taking up space because you haven't done a thing with them aside from a first reading. You bought this stuff with the right to republish it as your own. Take a few minutes to open a file in your favorite text editor and rewrite each paragraph in your own words and style. You'll have a fantastic new post to add to your featured content in no time.
3. Highlight some of your best posts. This tip helps to build link depth in your site. If you have a blog that's been around for a while, there's no doubt that you have a number of fantastic posts that are buried in your archives with no good way for your more recent readers to benefit from prior outstanding content. You should link back to older posts via new posts that either provide updated information or simply point out the value of these posts based on a current day topic that makes them all the more relevant. It's also a good idea to provide Featured Content sidebar links to these kinds of posts by grouping similar posts into themed links that can be accessed from a special page on your site.
4. Ask your audience for their thoughts and feature them in a post. You'll be surprised at how many people are more than happy to comment on a question or topic just because you thought enough of them to ask. Most will be honored to provide you with substantial input and others will even be willing to do a guest post. I've seen some bloggers or tweeters use this technique and often the responses are far better than the original post. Comments enhance content and you benefit from increased traffic in either case.
5. Take a break. Nobody said that you absolutely have to post something every day, every week or however often you believe that you have to make a post. In fact, most people find that when they begin to post less often, their readership grows because the posts are typically better and readers don't feel overwhelmed with trying to keep up with your stuff and all the other stuff that they're following.

If these tips don't help, you're sure to get one good post to tide you over until inspiration strike again if you write a post about what to do when you get writer's block. That's exactly what led to this post. Now start writing!

Wanna Be a Rockstar Internet Marketer?

I've revamped my Rockstar Internet Marketing page to feature separate page links to content that I previously featured on a separate Wordpress blog (RockstarInternetMarketing.com) that I've decided to integrate within this blog as featured content. The prior featured content page was a list of all these articles on one page which made for easy and convenient printing but wasn't the best way to optimize search engine depth or linkable traffic from my other websites. By using separate pages for each subject, I can also better tailor additional resources for visitors specific to each topic of interest. Please let me know if you find the articles helpful and if you find the new format appealing.
Best,
Ice

Using Plug-in Toolbars to Enhance Your Productivity and Content

Ever visit a site or multi-click from place to place and find yourself reading some truly outstanding content that you wish you could quickly post to your weblog or social networks? We've all had this experience at one time or another and sometimes you bookmark the site in your RSS reader or copy and paste the address into a text program thinking that you'll share it with your readers later but later never comes. Eventually, some amount of time passes before you remember you had a great thought for a truly wonderful post but it's now untimely or others have already beat you to the punch.

Well, if you were making better use of some phenomenal online tools that reside unobtrusively within your browser and are available anytime you need to use them, you could surf and post without guilt while providing your readers with the expert content and updates that have made you a hero in their eyes.

Here are a few of my favorites. If you're not using the Firefox web browser as your primary internet tool of choice, then get with the program and download it immediately. It is free, ultra-stable and one of the absolute best browsers available. All of these add-ons make it my first choice in professional and personal internet use.


ScribeFire allows you to post to multiple weblogs and integrates the link of whatever page you're currently browsing within the text of your post(s). You can also add videos, pictures, quoted text and use a variety of formatting features to make your post truly stand out. The editor can be triggered and hidden as necessary so that you can pull information into a post from various sites without cluttering your screen with the interface. It's truly amazing among my most favorite tools for blog updates.


TwitterBar allows you to post to Twitter directly from your address bar. You can type text before or after the address of the site you're currently visiting and TwitterBar will let you know how many characters remain in your 140-character limit. Once you've typed your Tweet in the address bar, click the small icon in the address bar and your post is sent to Twitter. Simple and elegant.


StumbleUpon allows you to surf and discover web sites that others have tagged based on your interests. You get to see more of what you like on the web using social filtering by others who have tagged what they like. Websites, photos, and videos can be stumbled (submitted by you as favorites) and stumbled upon randomly (visited by you as suggested favorites from others) using an integrated toolbar. You can review sites and send sites to your community of followers. It's a great traffic generator and you can even pay to have traffic sent your way using StumbleUpon ads which, as of this writing, only cost $0.05 for each guaranteed visit to your site.


Tiseme is a relatively new tool still in the testing and development phase that combines some of the features of others I like into one platform. Like StumbleUpon and TwitterBar, you can post about sites that you're currently visiting. Where TwitterBar only allows posting directly to Twitter, Tiseme also provides for Twitter updates and goes a few steps beyond the community posting and sharing available in StumbleUpon to include sharing of your sites and comments within the Tiseme community in addition to posting those things on Facebook and Twitter.

This is great because the more social platforms that you join, the harder it is to keep your updates current on all the sites. If I'm not actively using StumbleUpon, my profile isn't updated. I use Twitter and Facebook many times a week, so a platform that updates my status in each of those networks while continuing to build opportunities to share expertise, resources, and just fun stuff that I find interesting with a growing community is an attractive proposition and the real draw of sites like Tiseme.

Eventually, online tools will become so integrated that you will post to your weblog or update a website and inform everyone on all the communities where you maintain membership. You may even be able to filter what you send to individual communities based on interests and the target audience. Ping.fm is working toward that reality but some popular networks like Ning aren't yet accessible through the platform.

It's hard to stay current on all the new and changing technologies that can make our online experiences easier to share with others and make the most efffective use of our time. These are just a few tools that seem poised to stand the test of time with a new one that appears promising. Let me know what you use as we all continue the quest for meaningful integration of content-building tools.

Twitter: The Microblogging Platform I Love to Hate

I've been using Twitter for a little while and I have a love-hate relationship with the service. Sometimes I just have to leave it alone for a while to remember what I liked about it. The challenge is to not get so caught up in trying to stay informed about what everybody else is doing that you don't get anything done yourself.

I've updated my Twitter profile and you can reach me there at Twitter.com/IcemanBaldy. Feel free to follow me. What's your experience with Twitter? Let me know how to reach you at Twitter and join my Black Webpreneur Twitter Group.

Don't Let Distractions Become Your Undoing

This is a post that I began writing some time ago and then I got caught up in other things and don't believe it was ever posted to my blog. As you can see, I've been busy and haven't had an update here in a few days. I was busy doing productive and profitable stuff but far busier wasting time on socializing and not striking the right balance between making conversation and making money. When I read this post as a note in my to-do file, I was inspired to complete it and post it here as a reminder to myself and advice for others.

It's so easy to get caught up in developing new business and working on new projects that you may not realize how much you're neglecting your current clients and loyal customers. We've all been guilty of losing track of time and not keeping in contact as much as we should. It seems the busier you get, the easier it is to stay busy but you've got to make the time to keep in touch.

It does take discipline. It also takes an organizational system. Whether a calendar, electronic organizer, contact management system or assistant (real or virtual), you need some help to make sure that you are an effective manager of time and relationships.

Some of the best ways to stay in touch with your customers leverage what you're already doing. Here are a few quick ideas:

• If you have a website that features news or a current events or topical weblog, either syndicate your best items or posts from a specific period of time and send those to your customers in an email summary.
• If your product or service would be even better if your customers only knew of some common shortcuts or tips that would help them analyze, evaluate, install, own or use (A, E, I, O, U) your product, send these tips over a series of notes or messages or offer it as a free and helpful guide. This might also be a way of generating some viral traffic by including a link to your site and products throughout the compiled document.
• Use an email service to offer a course or series of articles that your customers would find helpful. Like the shortcuts and tips idea above, this offering shows for concern for your patrons and builds some reciprocal goodwill that will pay dividends in the future.
• Commit to an editorial calendar and publishing schedule that makes sense for you with all you have going on. Track the frequency of your messages and try not to lose touch with your customers for more than a month. Find complimentary offers and products that you can offer for free so that your messages are received positively and eagerly.
• Respond to comments and messages from others on your social networks at one time during the week during a period dedicated to this activity. It's important that if you join these networks that you also contribute and communicate with friends but you have to manage the time you spend on this or you won't get anything else done.

Effective communication is an art but the systematic efficiency of your communication is where you need to apply some science. Create a methodology that works for you and as you follow through on keeping in contact, you'll create a networking habit that will become second nature and solidify your bottom line.

Explaining How You Make Money Online

Because there will be doubters.

When you tell people that you're an internet marketer or online entrepreneur, most will assume the worst. If they believe that you do make a decent income through your internet efforts, they will probably think that you engage in spam techniques or that you run some type of adult website or online gambling operation. They might figure that you just sell a lot of stuff on Ebay.

You can educate those who don't know while further developing your business in the process. Spammers are a small percentage of those individuals who make money online and because spamming is largely ineffective, those folks don't stay around long. Explain this fact to those who you believe need to be armed with accurate information.

Use your own email marketing as an example. Explain that each and every person that receives your email messages has signed up and provided their specific approval to be sent your email messages. Your subscription process is a lot like receiving a newspaper or magazine. Once an individual becomes a subscriber, they receive valuable information in addition to some advertising that is targeted to meet their needs and expose them to other opportunities that you recommend.

If you sell eBooks online, you can explain to people that you're a bit like a book publisher, but all of the books you publish are in digital format. You can tell them that instead of paying a lot of extra money for the printing, binding, marketing, and shipping of a physical book, you eliminate those costs by selling all of your books as downloadable products.

If people still don't understand, you could even show them what an eBook is by letting them view one on your computer. If your main business is advertising affiliate products, you can tell people you're in advertising.

Explain to them that you run a website (or websites) and you place advertising on that website. Every time someone clicks an ad and purchases something, you receive a commission. If you make most of your money through AdSense or selling advertising on your sites, you can simply tell people that you place advertisements on your websites, and you charge advertisers for that ad space.

If you want to, you could show them some of your sites or blogs to illustrate the point. Some people feel more comfortable just telling people they design websites. If you're a decent website builder, this will probably really impress people, but be prepared to get requests from people asking if you'll make them a site, too.

If you don't want to deal with all of the questions about spamming and porn, just telling someone you design websites will usually be enough to throw them off your trail. If people are particularly persistent with their questions, you can start to point out some examples of people who have been very successful making money online.

Don't just use examples of famous Internet marketers like John Reese or Yanik Silver! Use some examples with verifiable "proof" in mainstream media. For example, the famous "make money" blogger John Chow has a number of stories out there about him.

There's also teenaged entrepreneur Ashley Squalls who has made mainstream news in a big way by making over $70,000 per month with advertising on her site that gives away MySpace layouts. And of course, the infamous Perez Hilton - a celebrity blogger who cashes in on the ad space his blog has.

You should try to realize that some people will just never understand what you do. Try to explain it the best way you can, and if it doesn't work, accept it. Some people just won't get it. If the in-laws or your spouse are nagging you because your money isn't yet streaming in, and you feel pressured, put together a simple presentation that answers all of their questions and puts their minds at ease.

The more you can include people in your business or provide some ways for them to see and experience what you do, the more your work become legitimate and credible until the money begins to flow. Once you start living the internet lifestyle, you'll be surprised at how fast the questions go away.

Twitter as Art. Check out My Twitter Mosaic

Thanks to twitter.com/tiffani for tipping me off to Twitter Mosaic.

Get your twitter mosaic here.

The Best Kept Secret in Internet Marketing: The Internet Marketing Files

I've been quietly working on a real sweetheart of a website and it's time to take the wraps off and release it to the public. Join now before I close the doors as I prepare for Phase 2. Phase 1 members will have access to all three phases!

This is a copy of my introductory letter:

Tired of scouring the internet for the best resources related to Internet Marketing?

Well, we've spent the last two years doing the work for you and I've compiled a repository of resources of personal resources that will ensure that you become an instant marketer who enjoys success and profits while building your expertise and product porfolio. I've filled my hard drive with stuff that I can't possibly find time to create separate product pages and market and it's easier for me to provide you access to these outstanding finds so that you can use them to grow your business.

We've done all the work for you and collected the best products together in one place!

PDF's, MP3 Audio, Video, tools, templates, graphics, scripts--it's all here!

This is one of the only place on the internet where you are provided access to hundreds of resources that I’ve culled through months of intense internet marketing research. Some are original content by myself or other proficient marketers that are exclusive to this site, others are selectly distributed private label rights content that you are free to modify and use under your own name as you wish. Still other resources here are hard-to-find complete product packages that you can upload to your server and begin selling immediately with sales letters, email messages, graphics, and everything else you need to become an instant internet marketer.

We have gigabytes of actionable files and information for immediate profit.

Bookmark this site and Be Warned: You can spend days going through the information contained in the Internet Marketing Files. The key is to use a few resources to assist you in taking action, gaining traction, and producing profit. Return to your files as necessary and use more of the information there to take your growth to the next level. Get a preview of what's Inside our Files.

Most marketers don't pay for online content and spend their nights trying to produce products that pale in comparison to what is available in the Internet Marketing Files. Fewer still take the time to maximize the value they can get out of products that they purchase with rights to rebrand, repackage, reproduce, reconfigure, or resell their purchased product as email courses, seminars, MP3's, PDF, email autorespnder messages or any other number of ways to multiply the value of these products.

This is it--content you can use for years and no worthless junk.

This site will provide you with core content that you can use for years. I love to learn and research the latest and greatest information on internet marketing--I mean the real substantive material, not worthless junk--and I will upload all of what I develop, purchase, and repurpose here with appropriate rights for your use (Resell Rights, Master Resell Rights, Private Label Rights, etc.).

Feel free to let us know how you like our Files. We’re happy to add new categories or other resources that you don’t see here to our continuously growing repository of hundreds of files. Take advantage of an excellent opportunity to expand your internet marketing education by using our files for your own benefit and then sell your own version of this branded knowledge to others. We provide you all the licenses and tools that you need to start immediately! It's the ideal personal investment that provides long-term returns.

Phenomenal success is within your reach, grab it.

All the best,

Iceman Baldy, The Internet Marketing Files

Why Do I Publish IMTips on Twitter?

Twitter is a great platform for connecting with others and engaging in quick conversations or sharing useful information. Many celebrities and businesspeople use Twitter to provide fans and followers with updates about appearances or new products and ventures. Using simple text messages, Twitter has become the networking nervous system for millions of of 140 character messages sent around the planet every day all day.

Many people weren't sure what if any benefit Twitter could provide for productive use. Sure, there are lots of people who provide "tweets" that are nothing more than global greetings or updates about what they just ate or where they happen to be the moment. Some of these tweets are interesting, and many are not but most of the time these tweets provide some background personality that helps the sender connect with others who are using Twitter and considering becoming followers.

Value in Twitter occurs when important and helpful information is provided in a tweet. I've received value when someone has posted a link that I've found helpful or when someone has shared an opinion or review that was particularly pertinent.

IMTips (use #IMTip in a Twitter search) is my way of sharing value through sharing brief but substantive internet marketing tips with the Twitter community. By sharing these tips, I establish myself an an expert that others follow. Once they follow me and visit my profile, they get a sense of my others sites and I receive increased traffic and exposure as a result.

Hopefully you've seen my IMTips and find them helpful. If you would like a copy of all the tips, please subscribe to my feed as discussed later on this lens at http://feeds.tweetlater.com/17/icemanbaldy/.

iTouch Internet Marketing

This isn't a long post as it's really a test of the Typepad iTouch application that I just downloaded from the iTunes Application Store. My earlier attempts to blog remotely with a smartphone were never too successful so I'm hopeful that things have improved.

The iTouch is a perfect companion to a smartphone and laptop computer. I was and still am a fan of converged devices, but only to the extent that technology and mobile provider contracts make convergence practical. If my converged device means I'm stuck with the same hardware for two years with limited memory and battery life, then I'd rather have a separate, large-memory, long-battery life iPod for multimedia and a powerful phone for high-speed Internet access and texting. Nothing beats having all your music and videos/movies with you all the time. Wifi on your media device is an added bonus and it seems that the iPod is becoming an outstanding gaming platform in it's own right.

If this post appears in the same fashion as those I post from my desktop, you can expect that I'll be making several more whenever the mood strikes me.