All of a sudden, it’s the first day of a new year and something has prompted me to remember that I haven’t posted on rog-blog for several weeks. My Bad !

In the past, I would have beaten myself up for such a lapse. But I remember something that I heard from Rob Canyon, one of the people that has influenced me most in 2009. He said that sometimes, your blog just has to take a back seat whilst you devote your time and energy to other ideas. And that’s definitely what I have been doing over the last few weeks. But regular readers will know how much I like and enjoy writing this rog-blog.

So that will continue in 2010. I have some big plans for the year ahead, and I’ll keep all the blog’s readers up to date, right here.

Meantime, I want to wish all my readers a happy, prosperous and peaceful time in 2010.

Why ?

Because, Rob is increasingly becoming the “Go-to Guy” for some of the BIG names when they want something done. I could tell you that about the launches he’s been involved in, massive multi-hundred-thousand-dollar launches. I could tell you about how he has re-written sales copy for one of the top dogs in internet marketing, who then went on to give Rob a fantastic testimonial. I could tell you about his stunning joint-ventures with blue chip names. And more …

But I am not going to do that – I just want to make sure that you get the idea that this guy is one that more and more Big Players want on their team when they roll out a big project. He is very busy with work for others.

Luckily for us, Rob sees it as part of his role in life to share his ideas about success with others. That’s why I highly recommend that you watch one of Rob’s two free webinars tonight. (There are two sessions to cater for those in different time zones).

I have been one of Rob’s students so I can speak with some authority on this. Rob’s approach is NOT the usual kind of stuff that you will see in so many other places. In fact at times, he comes from so far out in left field that you wonder what the heck he is on about !

But I can honestly say that after working with Rob, my ideas about how I do business on the web have changed. I am now working to implement the new ideas that he has introduced me to (which is one of the reasons that I haven’t posted much lately ! Sorry guys.)

Tonight, Rob will be discussing the top five roadblocks to success and how to overcome these. Believe me, this is a guy you should listen to: be open minded about it, listen to him and make your own mind up. After all, it won’t cost you a bean.

Find out more here.

In this age of controversy surrounding potential earnings figures associated with products like these, I must emphasise what I say in the video: I have no way of confirming the truth of the strapline used on the header or of whether the kind of numbers talked about are really possible. However I will say this …

I have been a customer of the author, Paul Evans, for several years. Although he is not one of the very high profile internet marketing “gurus”, he has a good track record. One of his first sites, Nicheology, was one, if not the very first PLR site around.

Back to “Simple 6″: I think that the asking price for this course is very reasonable. I really don’t have any idea whether the price will go up, but I would not be surprised if it does some time soon because I think that it represents outstanding value for money.

I’d be really interested to know what you make of this.

UPDATE: Turns out that Yaro is closing the doors on his programme at midnight tonight, that’s Friday 30th October ! (Judging from the countdown clock on the sign-up page, I think that’s midnight Eastern Time, 4am Saturday morning in the UK.)

So if you’re at all interested in what he calls “… By Far — The Best Business Model Ever Conceived Online !”, then I strongly suggest that you get over to Yaro’s web site NOW !

When I started blogging, I started to look around at how the top bloggers did it. One or two names kept recurring in my research. The one I saw most often was that of Yaro Starak.

Both of Yaro’s blogging courses run on a membership basis. It was on the back of his experiences in running these, and the questions that he got about how he did it, that he realised that there was a huge demand for good solid information about how to set up and run profitable membership programmes.

But can you believe that this guy ran not one but two highly profitable membership programs in a year whilst travelling around the world ? This video tells you more  …

How has this happened ? I mean, here I am, a self-professed “blogaholic” and yet I am ashamed to note that I haven’t posted here for more than two weeks. (Blush !)

Well, I guess I shouldn’t beat myself up too much. Some people are very effective blogging just once a month, so I guess that this just proves that there is no right or wrong. And besides, I have had some catching up to do recently and I do have several “irons in the fire” at the moment.

But it’s important to “step away from the mouse” every now and again and that’s what I did yesterday. I had a lunch time appointment and because it was a beautiful autumn day, I walked. As I did so, I had an experience that I am sure most people are familiar with. (I’m actually searching for its name: not deja vu, but it must be something like it. Let me know if you have any ideas on this !)

You know what it’s like to turn a corner, look at a building that you are familiar with only to suddenly find that a new shop or office has replaced what you are used to seeing. I kept having that feeling yesterday ! (”Jamais vu” ?)

At least six times in the space of half an hour, I heard myself muttering, “Well, that’s new … how long has that been there ?”

And as I turned for home, besides thinking that I should get out more (LOL), I realised that if there’s one thing that you can be certain about in life, it’s that things will change !

With that in mind, be aware that Twitter are making changes as the popularity of their service continues to grow.

First, they are making it easier for users to report spam. If you check out the drop down menu that you see when you click on the Actions icon (the little gear wheel) on your list of followers, you’ll see that you can report a member for alleged spamming. More on this on Twitter’s blog.

Also, there are indications that Twitter are tightening up on people that tweet duplicate content, not just on one account but on multiple accounts. Obviously, this is also spam related. It’s most likely to affect people that use the various services available to schedule automated tweets.

I have had people blast 20+ different tweets at my timeline all at once, seemingly ALL affiliate links … what a turn off ! Besides being anti-social, this kind of practice could also be against Twitter’s Terms of Service.

Personally, I see the next few weeks as being extremely interesting for social media in general and Twitter in particular. I have seen a few articles lately that suggest that it is becoming a truly viable method of driving off-line traffic, so with the holiday season on the horizon, smart retailers will be looking to take advantage of every trick in the book to maximise their income.

But it’s frustrating when something like an illness or an unforeseen emergency sets you back. Personally, I get this feeling of loss because of the time that has passed in which I could have been productive. So I have been working hard to try to catch-up. But that can be counter-productive too.

I was talking to a friend about this and he chided me for my impatience. He reminded me that we all build up momentum in whatever we do and that when we take a break (whether it’s enforced or voluntary), it’s unrealistic to expect that you’re going to be able to go back at full speed straightaway.

He told me that it’s like an athlete returning from injury. OK, they may be the Olympic champion, or the world record holder, but when they get back on the track, they aren’t expected to go breaking records straight away. An athlete’s fitness is built up over many months, sometimes years. After returning, they need to build up their stamina and endurance without going too hard otherwise they can just break down again with the old injury, or maybe something worse.

That may be an extreme example, but he figured that the same thinking applies to regular folks like us in our own walks of life. And I think that he’s right.

Anyway, as I have got back in to the swing of things, I have been working on a couple of interesting ideas that I am hoping to roll out in the near future. So watch this space !

But unfortunately, it was no match for whatever the virus is that I caught and am still fighting against Actually, my symptoms have changed and shifted: my throat and chest are not so sore but I still have a cough … though it’s different to the way it was before. Anyway, on the grounds that generally speaking I am lucky enough to be fit and healthy, I feel as if I ought to be doing better. Truth is though that whatever it is, this bug continues to suck my energy.

So every now and then, I have to take time out and have a breather. Well, more often than not, a little nap. Let’s face it, at the moment, I’d be a gold medal contender at the Sleep Olympics ! BUT … I have to say that whilst I have been suffering like this, I have been able to do some good things.

For example, I have been able to do some research on twitter, something that I have been long overdue in getting to grips with. I am steadily building my following and hope to break through the four digit barrier in the next couple of weeks. I am also looking in to a number of different tools to use with it, although IMHO, this is dangerous territory.

Why ? Because there are so many of them ! In some ways, it’s very possible to get lost down the rabbit hole investigating tools for use with twitter in the same way that it is when you’re actually using twitter manually. However, I have found one or two ideas which I think will prove useful.

I read somewhere recently that twitter has now gone past “The Threshold” where it’s a geeky, nerdy thing and that it’s now “Mainstream” … whatever that means exactly ! Whatever, it passed 50 million unique users this summer and growth continues at a seemingly exponential rate. I guess this puts quite a strain on the IT infrastructure. My own subjective experience is that at busy times, it just drops offline for very short periods. It usually comes back pretty quickly, but it must be something of a nightmare for their IT guys.

We’ve also seen Facebook announcing what look to me like “me too !” features, adopting the @name nomenclature as well. In terms of numbers, I understand that Facebook is still light years ahead of twitter. But, a recent report on brandrepublic.com suggested that it’s actually serving two increasingly distinct audiences. The report quotes Nielsen as saying that only 16% of twitter’s users are under 25.  It goes on to say …

According to one theory, teens are more interested in Facebook than Twitter because their lives tend to revolve around their friends and Facebook is more oriented around friend groups.

Twitter however is better for broadcasting comment, ideas or products to the outside world, to people users have never met.

Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder and chief executive, said: “Many people use [Twitter] for professional purposes — keeping connected with industry contacts and following news.

“Because it’s a one-to-many network and most of the content is public, it works for this better than a social network that’s optimized for friend communication.”

Source: brandrepublic.com, 26 August 2009

Interesting, no ?

Meanwhile, back in the real world (whatever that is !), my researches have caused the seed of an idea to germinate. It combines the use of twitter with some of the ideas taught by my internet marketing mentor, Alex Jeffreys. As best I can at the moment, I am looking in to setting up a little trial and when I do, I’ll let you know about it.

Final word today: I will be dosing myself with all the necessary to allow me to stay up and listen to my co-student Rob Canyon give a totally unique talk to a strictly limited number of people. The title of the talk is How I Made $3,758 In 21 Days Online With My Double Click Blueprint Strategy. I know that Rob is a great marketer some I am signed up already.

The thing is that for tonight only, he will explain this strategy for free ! After that, he’ll be charging several hundred dollars for people to discover his secrets. Time is tight now and there’s a limit of 200 people for tonight’s webinar, so I can offer no guarantees as to whether you’ll get in. But if you have a chance, click on that link and follow Rob’s instructions. Hope to see you there.

And sometimes, you know that it’s not actually going to change things, and you recognise that it may make you look a bit stupid … but you just have to go ahead and do it anyway.

You might well ask, “What’s bought this on ?” … I’ll tell you.

Since the weekend, I have been struggling with a feeling that I was on the slippery slope … You know, a slight tickle in the back of the throat … a slight puffiness  around the eyes … a little bit of sniffling … And sure enough, over the last couple of days, each of those symptoms has developed in to that most common of medical conditions, a cold.

Well, I say a cold. I suppose it might still mutate in to a fully fledged dose of swine flu. But I seriously doubt it. But what’s most annoying about it is that this is the first cold that I’ve had for more than 18 months. I suppose I was due to catch one sooner or later !

And yes, I know that I will get better, I know that it will pass and I know that there are a lot of people in the world with a lot worse conditions that makes a common cold look like a walk in the park.

I know these things because I was forcibly reminded of this by a good buddy of mine that I talked to earlier today.

Basically, he kicked my backside … he told me to put my attention elsewhere to help take my mind off things.

“Listen,” he said, “What do you like to do ?”

“Well, you know me,” I said, ” I like to do a lot of things !”

“Yeah, I know, but what absorbs you, what takes up your attention so much that you aren’t aware of the passage of time ?”

I sat and thought about that. After a while, he interrupted my train of thought.

“I know what you’re thinking – you’re thinking that there are several of those things. So let me make this easy for you … of all those things that you like to do, that make time fly, which of those have you not done a lot of recently”.

That was it … the penny dropped.

“Blogging.”

He had to check that he’d heard me correctly.

“Blogging !” I repeated. “OK, I did write a blog entry yesterday, but it was the first for a whole week and I don’t nomally go that long without blogging. And when I finished, I realised that I had missed doing it !”

This time, the silence was on the other end of the line … eventually I heard my friend say “Whatever ! Anyway, I hope you’re feeling better soon.”

“I’m already feeling better !” I said.

I hung up, and turned to my PC. I pulled the keyboard toward me and typed …

Blog yourself better

Good question.

Well, if you spend any time around the various forums that are devoted to ClickBank affairs, you probably know the name already. If not, let me tell you that he is one of the leading vendors on ClickBank. So much so that he’s one of the people that ClickBank themselves listen to very closely.

You can find out more about him on the new page that I have put on rog-blog.com. But more importantly, you should sign-up for his free ebook, The Ultimate Supertip.

I won’t spoil the “twist” that lies inside it, but I really do commend it to you because he has put together a quite unique way of “going viral”. It’s one that I know that other marketers have used as well and it’s something that I want to incorporate in to my own marketing in due course as well.

Take a look, here.

“Giveaways” are a phenomenon that have been around for a while. Contributors sign up to the giveaway site and offer some kind of digital product, hopefully of high quality. Subscribers to the site are able to download these for free in exchange for joining the contributor’s mailing list.

Not only is it a good way of picking up some excellent products at zero cost, if you’re a contributor, it’s also a great way of building a mailing list.

I like to keep an eye on what’s coming up for both of those reasons, but I have been busy with things like my video (see my last post), so I nearly missed what I think is going to be one of the best giveaways for some time. I think it’s particularly interesting for two reasons …

First, it will only run for a total of 5 days. I think this is a smart move because provided enough people get to know about it, there will be limited time for people to “get the goods” !

Secondly, it very cleverly utilises social media to spread the word about it. I know of only one other event like this in the recent past, but I believe that it was just resticted to twitter. This one uses twitter (of course), but also uses practically every other social media platform you can think of !

Anyway, what I wanted to flag was that the sign-up period for contributors is ending today ! I only just picked this up, so I’m relieved to be in. And they have a great upgrade for contributors which makes it very attractive.

Take a peek at The 5 Day JV Giveaway and see what you think.