I liked the curtains from the other day so much that I thought I’d do them in blue.

And, no, they’re not really for you in the sense that you can swipe the image and use it. Sorry.

I believe it’s a mistake a lot of us make.

We equate dollars with achievement, and we gravitate to where the money is, or where we think it is.

So, instead of pursuing what we want to do or what we enjoy doing or what we believe in, we chase after the dollars.

And then we end up chasing paychecks instead of fulfilling dreams.

And then, does it show in our work and our attitudes?

Are we then less productive because we’re just counting down the hours until we can do something we enjoy?

Are we whittling away our time doing something for money instead of investing our time toward fulfilling our dreams?

As some of you know, I have a site I’ve been working on and several of you are “pioneers” on the site, helping me with testing and whatnot, for which I am extremely grateful.

In a discussion with some friends on Skype, the question arose of what my site was about and why someone would want to be a member.

That’s a question I’ve been struggling with quite some time. Sometimes, you know you have a good idea on your hands, but you’re not entirely sure how to express it. I think that’s a reason why some really good ideas never go anywhere. How often do you see a crummy product overtake the market place while a truly excellent product ends up in the margins, and sometimes the parent company folds? Sometimes, I think it’s because they weren’t as able to convince people of the value of their product while the junk peddlers were.

But, I did answer the question by way of a bit of a rant, which goes something like what follows…

Content plus discussions is the very basic thing of my site.  But, more like a casual newspaper, where you get the information you need and can comment on it, discuss it with other users and so forth.  Basically, the typical forum.

The main thing is the content and discussion forums, both of which are admittedly light at the moment.  You have to be registered on the site in order to participate in the forums or leave comments on articles.

I like Twitter.  I’ve met great people on Twitter.  But then hack-marketers went loose on it and largely ruined it.  For the most part, DMs are essentially useless because it’s just abused with spammers.  You had people giving advice like “Send a thank you for following and include your sales pitch and link” and so you’d follow someone that seemed interesting and, right away, you’d get a junk DM.

Twitter does a fairly decent job of getting rid of the blatant spammers, but there are so many borderline ones that clutter things up.  People set up fake profiles and whatnot and it’s just a mess.

I remember one blatant spammer that had this pyramid scam for gaining followers.  The only one that really gained followers was himself and his loyal cadre of his initial participants.  But, like everything else MLM, the people at the bottom levels got squat.  Meanwhile, he’s DMing each new follower with some eBook he’s selling–probably on making money on Twitter or something–and making hundreds (or maybe thousands) of dollars.

He still has a Twitter account too.  If I were Twitter, I would have kicked him out.

Similarly with Facebook, that’s just getting crowded with hack-marketers too.  ”Friend me and like my page so I can send you tons of garbage offers on a regular basis in the hopes that you’ll buy my stinking pile of doggy doo.”

And don’t forget about MySpace.  Ugh.

I’m tired of it.  Way back when, way back when Bulletin Board Systems and FreeNets were the norm, if you had users like that, you kicked them to the curb!  Nowadays, there are no mods or administrators.  It’s only the blatant, en masse spammers that get kicked out.

Just look in the Internet Marketing sphere.  There’s a big name so-called “guru” that was fined nearly a quarter of a million dollars for making income claims that weren’t sustainable for most buyers.  Yet, he’s still out there peddling his stuff and has a loyal following of people.

So, I like to think of my site as a bit of a throwback to the old days.  When you had someone come through town selling snake oil, you chased him out.  Or, the sheriff caught him on his way in, and told him he best be peddling his trinkets elsewhere.

The only marketers I really want around are the ones that understand relationship marketing and not the hack-marketers that think they can earn their millions by blasting their link each and every place they can.

There’ll be ads and stuff for sale and the like, but I want to cut out a lot of the noise.  I’ll do my best to cut off the spammers at the pass and readily kick them out if they do sneak in.

So, if you look for content on something you’re interested in, you’re going to find it.  You’re not going to have to sift through a bunch of junk to do so.  You’re not going to have to sort through a bunch of “buy my eBook” sales pitches masquerading as answers to do so.  And, if you can’t find it, you can ask other people for help.  And those people are going to give you direction and not a sales pitch to buy their eBook.

The Internet is sort of like the Big City.  You’ve got lots of stuff there, but you also have scammers and slick salespeople trying to sell you something on every corner and in every alley.

My site would be the Suburbs.  A lot of the benefits of the Big City but with fewer of the drawbacks.

Okay, so I can only upload an image once per month. After that, WordPress won’t let me upload any more.

So, how is this one showing? Well, I uploaded it directly to the website, and not through WordPress, which means it is not in the WordPress gallery database and it’s a bit of a pain to do. More than a bit, actually. Old-school.

Anyway, so enjoy the curtains! LOL.

You can’t earn a living blogging.

But, yes, you can.

Years ago, and even now, people were attracted to blogging because they heard it was a good way to make money online.

And, you can.

But, what most of those people were looking for was an easy way to make money. They wanted to spend two hours a night, writing a blog post and then commenting on other blogs to get people back to their own blog. And they want to make a living doing that so they could quit their day job and just work two hours a day.

But, the thing is that earning a living through blogging is a job of itself. You’re probably not going to replace your day job income with a blog you only spend a couple hours on a day. You could earn some supplemental income, but it’s probably not going to pay off your debts (unless they’re small) or buy you a new house.

I remember a number of “make money online” bloggers that started blogging around the same time I did. Many of them are gone now. I know of one that sold his blog for something like $10k. The others just faded away.

And, you may think, wow! I’d sell my blog for $10k! But, that’s not a regular income, is it? Maybe it’ll pay off some debts, but then you’re back to the grind.

If you work at it, if you treat blogging as a business and put effort into it, you could replace your day job with it. Could. No guarantee that you will, but you could. But, you’d be exchanging 8 hours at the office for 8 hours at home. A fair trade for some, but not for those that were looking for the lure of a “full time” income in their “spare time.”

Sure, some can make it big. Some can earn hundreds of thousands blogging or whatnot. But, in order to get there, you’re going to have to knock someone else out of the big leagues. Doable, but a tough prospect. And one that will require work. You can’t just setup a website, send out a tweet and become an overnight blogging star.

Think of it this way. People have a finite amount of time to spend. Even people that spend all of their waking hours online have a finite amount of time. 16 hours or so. But, let’s say someone spends an hour a day online. (Maybe it’s two or three or whatever–doesn’t matter. The point here is that it is a fixed amount of time.)

How many websites will they visit every day? Maybe ten? Let’s say it’s ten. Okay, so they go to Google, Facebook and YouTube. That leaves seven sites. So, maybe they visit Wikipedia and Twitter and do some shopping on Amazon. That leaves four sites. So, they browse eBay and check out Flickr. That leaves two sites. Let’s say those two are their favorite niche sites. Let’s say one is a fishing forum and the other is a boating forum.

So, they have finite time each day. Now, you know everyone is not interesting in fishing or boating. That’s why you can earn a living in a niche site. You could have a boating site and, while you may not get rich, you may earn a decent living doing it.

The thing is, though, that, to be “BIG”, you need to have a wider appeal. So, which of those sites will you knock out? Is your site going to be compelling enough for people to visit it instead of Facebook? Or YouTube? Which of the biggies will you replace?

Now, you may be saying, but some people can get rich on the boating site. It may be true, but the same problem comes into play. For every highly successful boating site out there, there are many many more that are not. So, in order to become one of those high earners, you’re going to have to replace one of those highly successful boating sites. If one site is the “Facebook” of boating sites–that is, just HUGE in the boating niche–is your site going to be able to replace it?

Are you going to put in the time, effort and money to see that it does? Or do you cross your fingers and hope that, somehow, without any advertising or promotional budget, that you can make it big with your boating site (or whatever your site may be about)?

But, you may be saying, my site is the next Facebook. But, how many wannabes say that? How many search engines have come along trying to replace Google? Do you use Cuil? Do you even remember it? Yeah, that was going to be the next Google. It’s gone now.

So, that’s pretty much where most people stop. When they realize that, in order to make any money blogging, they’re going to have to do something akin to work 8 hours a day. Like a job. Which wasn’t what they wanted. They wanted an Internet ATM machine that would put money automatically–like magic!–into their bank account while they slept.

And, if they were going to have to do work anyway, they perhaps decided that they might be better off keeping their job, where they might be assured of a regular paycheck, rather than trying to earn a living blogging.

Oh, look… I managed to upload an image.

I call this one “Flight of the Flowers.”

Well, we’ll have to see if WordPress will let me upload an image tomorrow too, or if I just got lucky today.

Often, people tend to think of the small details as unimportant.

They’re just little things, after all.

But, sometimes, getting them wrong can really derail you.

I remember a dating site ad or splash screen from years ago.

Of course, they always try to sell you on the attractive people you’re going to meet and all that. And, probably many of the photos you see (at least in the ads or header images and the like) are going to be that of models and not actual singles on the site.

What doesn’t help the selling point is if one of the supposed singles in the photos is wearing a wedding ring.

Mind you, under a heading of “X percentage of our members get married” or something like that, a wedding ring is not a bad thing.

Under a heading of “meet available singles” then it’s not a good thing.

Of course, some sites are like that, where married people go for “casual” encounters or whatnot, but this was not one of those sites.

The bottom line is that that should never have gotten past whoever it was that designed and approved the ad copy. This site was big enough that I bet it was more than just one guy slapping things together and putting them up. This was a professional site. Someone should have caught that.

But, evidently, no one did.

And, that’s why it’s important to pay attention to small details. Overlooking them might give people the wrong impression. It may lose you potential customers… or attract the wrong ones!

So, for my forum site, I have been trying to define the audience so that I can then go out and find them.

I did so a couple weeks ago. Defined the audience, that is. But, I failed to actually write it down, because it seemed so obvious so how would I forget it?

Thus, I forgot it.

So, yesterday, I tried again. I’m trying to develop a list of the top ten characteristics of people who will be interested in my site. The idea is not that they have to have all ten characteristics, but that they match one or more things. The more, the more they’ll enjoy the site probably, but, even with just one, they may still like the site.

I have nine items so far, and have been trying to figure out the elusive tenth item. In no particular order, here is what I have so far…

1. Interested in retro/nostalgia. Longing for the good ol’ days. Days long past but not forgotten. Interested in old stuff, or new stuff that looks like old stuff. Or new stuff inspired by older designs. All that sort of jazz. An appreciation for old books, old film posters, art, design, etc.

2. Interested in saving money. Spending less money on things. Keeping things lasting longer. Repairing rather than replacing, or knowing when to replace rather than repair. Fixing stuff. Stretching stuff. Repurposing stuff.

3. Family-oriented. Caring for and raising kids. Educating kids. Caring for older parents, grandparents. Spending time with family.

4. An interest in nature and the outdoors. Spending time outdoors. Bringing the outdoors in, or extending the indoors out.

5. Interested in business topics. Entrepreneurship. Increasing sales. Earning an extra income. Sidelines. Marketing and promotion.

6. Optimistic about the future. Inspiring. Or in need of optimism or inspiration. Belief in a golden future, and in the possibilities the future has to offer. Hope for a better life, and learning/sharing/wanting-to-know how to reach it.

7. Food and cooking. Cooking at home on the grill, in the oven, on the stove or in the microwave. Appreciating new and different foods. Trying new things. Experimenting. Fine dining at home.

8. Friends. Connecting with existing friends and making and meeting new ones.

9. Gardening. Growing vegetables. Ornamental plants and flowers. Lawn care. Landscaping. Getting your hands dirty in the earth. Trimming. Composting.

I’m thinking now maybe 10. should be a sense of humor. Enjoying life. Laughing off troubles. Finding the funny.

Those are what I’ve got so far. If you find yourself interested in these things, you might want to join my site. Send me an eMail (askdcr AT dcrblogs DOT com) or leave a comment if interested in an invite.

Or, give me your thoughts on this list. On the one hand, some could be combined, which would mean I need to come up with more ideas, but then maybe not. Friends & Family could be one item, but then they are also separate. I mean, you don’t typically make new family members, well, you do, but using an entirely different method than making friends. Usually. Keep your mind out of the gutter for just ten seconds, please! Likewise, Gardening & Nature could be one, but then they are also separate. Not everyone that enjoys nature wants to garden; some would prefer a hike in the woods to digging in the dirt.

So, that’s where I am at the moment with my list.

A skip and a hop and a jump.

They all fell over a big hump.

On each of their heads, a lump.

Now, they’re careful of ev’ry bump.

When they take their trash to the dump,

They first fill their tires with a pump.

They’re careful with their water sump.

They will never be anyone’s chump!

Never one of them will even be a grump.

So say the skip, the hop and the jump.

…someone calls this post “excellent writing.”

And, how sad is it when someone posts spam comments on the Declaration of Independence? Oh, wait… It was a British spammer! (Not kidding.)

…they leave GPS spam on a “Ground Round” humor/link post… two years after it was initially posted.

You know what’s crazy? I did a blog post on “Website Appraisals” which explained how inaccurate these things are because they don’t really know the inner workings of your website and cannot take into account how much money your site may or may not be making. As such, any valuation is largely meaningless. And then you get comment spam for website appraisal services… That’s what happens when these spam-bots search by keywords without regard to context.