carolinerhg: Making Money From the Internet

The Federal Trade Commission has gone to war against all the fake news sites. If you’ve visited almost any real news site recently, you’ve most likely seen these advertisements that advertise a “special report” from some news station you never heard of, has discovered the cure to belly fat or a special new secret to working from home. First these fake news sites completely ticked-off the public, who filed complaints against the owners with everyone from the FBI to the FTC. The FTC took the complaints seriously and earlier this year filed several lawsuits against those involved in these practices.

However, while this is progress, the FTC has completely ignored the actions of the large companies that allow these types of advertisements.

The issue here is simple: while the advertisers, and affiliate networks are being targeted by the FTC for compliance actions for creating these deceptive websites, the large advertising networks, including Pulse360 and AOL’s own network continues to run these ads, knowing that they are deceptive and causing harm to consumers. Worse, the companies that run these ads are major news organizations, where the ads seem like real news stories embedded in the content.

When I was talking to the writer for this AdAge article, I pointed out that the VP of Sales at MSNBC, Kyoo Kim has recognized this as a problem and said almost 18 months ago that they would no longer allow these advertisements. As the reporter of the AdAge story pointed out, the original story, also run by MSNBC was still actually flanked by these advertisements. They knew that these ads were a problem, admitted it, but then went back on their promise and continued to make money from it.

Continued on the next page

Dallas Cowboys’ wide receiver Roy Williams has settled a dispute with ex-girlfriend and former Miss Texas USA Brooke Daniels over a $76,000 engagement ring.

According to court documents, Williams mailed Daniels an overnight package that included the ring and a taped marriage proposal. Daniels refused the marriage request, and Williams filed a civil suit against Daniels on June 30 in order to regain possession of the ring.

Since Williams’ relationship with Daniels was not far enough along for her to feel comfortable accepting his marriage proposal, the price of the engagement ring ended up far exceeding its actual value. In order to protect readers from making the same type of financial mistakes as Williams, I present a list of ten things nobody should ever pay for.

10. DVDs: Most DVDs cost $20. A RedBox rental is $1 per night. You’d have to watch a movie 20 times to justify buying it instead of renting it. With Netflix’s instantly streaming movie service, it’s even harder to justify buying a DVD, especially because so many movies that come out aren’t even very good.

9. CDs: I’m not even going to get into the whole “Are you stealing from the artists by pirating music, or helping them by weakening the record companies?” debate; I’m just going to point out that rarely is every single song on a CD likable, so it makes more sense to use a downloading service to only pay for the songs you actually like.

8. Dressing at restaurants: Seriously? If I order wings and the restaurant charges me for blue cheese dressing to dip my wings in, that is the last time I eat at the restaurant. Dressing is supposed to go with the food. Charging for dressing at a wings place is like charging extra money to put cheese on a pizza.

7. Dogs: They’re expensive enough to provide food and vaccinations for, so why add to their cost by actually paying to obtain them too? This is the 21st century. Go to Craigslist, and respond to one of the 42 bazillion postings from people giving away newborn puppies for free.

6. Cell phones: Between free upgrades every two years and warranties that cover your phone if it breaks before then, you can find a phone that has all the capabilities you want for free. There are plenty of free phones with email and Internet, the money shelled out for iPhones is simply spent to indulge the inner child and play with all the apps.

5. Books: As if libraries already didn’t render buying books an inefficient use of money, Amazon now refunds you fully if you return a Kindle book within a week of buying it. If you know you’ll have time to finish the book in a week, you can treat your Kindle like a library.

4. Anything at a gas station other than gas: Whatever it is you’re considering buying inside a gas station, chances are it’s stale and overpriced. And those hot dogs are probably older than the person ringing up your purchase.

3. Movie theater candy: Those boxes of candy you pay $4 or more for at the movie theater are usually a dollar apiece at a local store. And they fit perfectly in the pocket of your jeans. It’s a no-brainer, really.

2. Sex: If your skills are so weak you have pay to get some action, you deserve whatever oddly-colored sores or warts you wake up with the next morning. By the way, what do Elliot Spitzer and Auburn have in common? They both “pay for play.”

And the number one thing that no one should ever pay for…

Roy Williams: He’s missed 15 starts the past three years, turns 30 this year and has amassed 1,000 receiving yards only one season in his career, but he’s due $9.5 million next season and is likely to be released whenever the lockout ends. With plenty of younger receivers available, teams should avoid the underachieving Williams like a sumo wrestler avoids carrots.

reputation management process

carolinerhg

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Making Money From the Internet

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