JimWorld Gazette Issue #54 06/05/1998

Gazette - Issue #54 - June 5, 1998

Too cool! When you get to the end of the Gazette this week you will note that the Gazette now has its own ISSN number. Just like Time magazine.

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This has been an interesting week. It is still too early to write about it, but LOOK OUT! THE GOVERNMENT IS COMING.

The U.S. Government has decided that the Web is too much of a Wild West Show and that only they can save us from ourselves. Let's face it. They just hate to see something start to work well. It could mean that we would figure out that the only thing in over supply in this world is politicians.

And rushing to their assistance is the mainstream media. They have dusted off enough old Internet Exposes to fill in all of those big holes in their news programs stuffed in between Clinton Breaking Sorta-News. They just love this one because they can avoid even pretending to be unbiased because 'it's for the children' and nobody would expect them to actually expose real examples of online abuse by web sites. After all, we must protect the identities of the innocent.

So start getting ready to see things get a whole bunch harder. Email, privacy, taxes. They are all going to fall under the ax of 'We only want to help you.' Free content will vanish almost overnight. Want to get something in your email box? Then pay for it. That is the only way a publisher can absolutely prove that you ordered it.

So enjoy for a while. Soon the politicians and the bureaucrats will have turned this into 'Prime Time Internet' about as meaningful as what is on television. Too bad they couldn't give it a chance to mature into something better. It's not like we don't know there are problems. And it's not like no one is doing anything about it. Could it be that we are actually making progress and the politicians see this is the last chance to grab all they can get before they are frozen out by success?

This Weeks' Scumbag - A Real Doozy!
The Newest JimTool - A Spell Checker For You Browser
Pyramids R Us
Tips From The Hitman - Part XXXIII
Online Publishing - Books Or Bytes - Part III
There Are Gems In Your Log Files
Snippets
Win A Bunch Of Free Advertising

Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g54

THIS WEEK'S SCUMBAG - A REAL DOOZY

This week I invested a great deal of time, that I really couldn't spare, dealing with a webmaster that got nailed for infringing on a big corporation's copyrights and trademarks. When this first came to my attention, I had no doubt that this particular Scumbag had not even given a single thought to what he was doing and just did it without a single rational thought. The worst kind of Scumbag.

Now, of course, he spends all of his time whining about how he really hadn't done it to get traffic from the use of their name. He says it was just meant to be a cute navigation tool on his site. Didn't mean any harm. Sure. I can't tell you how tired I am of listening to his pathetic rationalizations. What a Wuss!

And the letter sent by the Big Corporation's attorneys was the most polite I have ever seen in this type of situation. They couldn't have been more understanding. Yet the whiner hadn't even noticed that he had used not only their name, but an image to go with it that they have spent millions of dollars to make recognizable at first glance. This alone should have made the Scum's conscience run amuck.

As you can tell, I have absolutely no compassion for this low-down piece of Cyber-Scum. Why? Because this particular Cyber-Scum is....... me.

Several months ago when I realized that there would never be time to do a full treatment on everything I wanted to make available on JimWorld, I came up with the great idea of doing a page with just random thoughts on it. Kind of like a gathering together of all of the little yellow Post-It Notes all over my studio, which is where they all were at that time. What a great name... Post-It Notes. So I drew up a little yellow thingy that looked recognizable for what it was meant to be and called it Post-It Notes... Random Thoughts On Web Site Promotion.

Now I didn't mean to step on 3M's property rights. I just thought it was cute, if I thought at all. Looking back now, I couldn't be more embarrassed.

The theme will be taken down as soon as everyone has a chance to see my great embarrassment on the home page of JimWorld. I will try to come up with an original idea this time. Might take a while, but I'll try.

Or I'll just slip it in as a text link and hope that everyone forgets about this soon.

My sincerest apologies to 3M. Their handling of this shows them to be a class act all the way. I'll try to buy more Post-It Notes in the future, but I think I'll avoid the yellow ones. Too many memories.

THE NEWEST JimTool - SPELL CHECKER FOR YOUR BROWSER

Spell Checker For Edit Boxes
http://clever.net/quinion/mqa/spell.htm

As my family and associates know all too well, speeling is not my strong point. So, thanks God for spell checkers.

I evaluate most software based on my number one criteria: is there a spell checker and is it good enough to figure out my efforts? Most developers of sure software have realized that they can not get away with the lack of a spell checker, and some have even caught on to the fact that it is important enough to be worth putting some effort into.

So, I can now spell check most of my written communication and keep the spelling errors out, more or less. Word processors, HTML editors, text editors, email program. All with very good checkers. Makes me appear to be at least semi -literate.

However, I post a lot of information into chat rooms and forums. It is a favorite pastime and traffic generator. But the only way I have so far been able to spell check a post is to copy it into Wordpad and check the spelling there and transfer it back to the browser text box before submitting it. It works, but what a pain!

I could post twice as much information to forums if I didn't have to cut-and -paste to spell check, or carefully read every word of the post before submitting it and moving on.

With the amount of time I spend in the Forums, I know that this is a common need. I see posts with great information, but the spelling mistakes and fat-finger typos take away from the credibility of the message. And many times the post has to be edited by the poster, taking away from the amount of information he or she can contribute in the time they have allocated to participation.

So, I started searching for, and testing programs that would spell check my typing when filling out text boxes in my browser. Found lots of them. Some even worked. But only one worked well and all of the time.

Spell Checker For Edit Boxes is that one tool that has saved me literally hours every day since I first started using it.

It runs only under Windows, and the author says there are some 32 bit Windows problems, but I have yet to find any. I've used it to spell check my forum posts just by hitting a hot-key combination when I am through typing. It seems to catch everything.

It will also check spelling in just about any Windows application. Spell checking for data base input. What a concept.

The program is a bit touchy to install and configure, but if you follow the directions you'll be fine. Spell Checker was written by a college student in England and is free for individuals and inexpensive for business use. My suggestion, having been a starving student once upon a time, send him ten bucks for the cause if you find it useful. Maybe he'll keep going with the development and smooth out some of the configuration bugs.

BTW - if you have an application that you want to add spell checking to in Windows, there is a free developer's kit you can download. Just be sure to work out distribution rights with the author.

Principal features:

Checks the spelling of any edit control in almost any application.
Will even work within applications with totally non-standard edit boxes (like Microsoft Access).
Runs in the background, with hot-key support.
Custom dictionary support (can be language-tagged).
Custom dictionaries are fully editable and searchable.
Option to show sample text around the flagged word.
Standard text, Rich Text and HTML clipboard formats supported.
Commands to undo and ignore all.
A very fast auto suggest feature.
Detects and offers to delete repeated words.
Extensively customizable.
Can exclude commented email text with initial line tags.
Can handle standard 7-bit ASCII tagging for accented characters.
Can be added to other applications (developer kit available).
Requires Windows 3.10+ but can check many Windows 95 applications.
System requirements are modest: should run on any computer.
Free for private use, inexpensive for business.
Dictionaries in several languages.
1. British English
2. US English
3. French
4. French-Canadian
5. German
6. Italian
7. Dutch
8. Norwegian
9. Danish dictionary

PYRAMIDS R US?

It seems so easy. Just create a few files full of information about this or that. Even make some of it accurate. Put the whole thing in a zip file, set up a self-replicating page to hook other people into selling it, set them up their page and they resell what they bought from you. Everybody makes money and you get rich. Right?

Yes. Until they knock on your door and take you and all your pretty computers away. If you think nobody gets punished for this type of scam, you need new batteries.

While on the surface it appears that no one gets hurt, and even if they don't sell anything they are only out a few bucks, that is not the reality. The types of people that are hooked into this kind of scam are the ones that can least afford it. They want desperately to get in on the 'big money being made on the Internet' and could be doing something productive with their on-line time instead of trying to scam others. Obviously, they don't think it is a scam or they wouldn't have bought it in the first place.

When you try to chisel a few bucks out of the easily victimized by participating in this type of scam, you immediately go to the Scumbag Zone, never to return.

If that has no impact on you, then let's talk about your own self interest. These things are illegal. They can get you sent to jail or at least send you to court for a long time.

Here's a site where you can see one of the better designed examples of what I am talking about. http://www.hostpages.com/2216/98/ Whoever is running this site has coughed up about $90 and is running helter-skelter all over the web spamming everyone in sight trying to get the 'business' going. Why? Cause that's what he or she was told to do by the Scumbag that baited the hook.

Try to find somewhere on this page where it talks about what people will learn by reading these 'reports', or do some searching on the search engines and try to find even one of these types of pages anywhere on the Internet that actually talks about the value of the reports. You won't find any. They all talk about how rich you will get by suckering others into buying from you to set up their own business suckering other s into doing the same.

This is known as a Pyramid Scheme and is about as illegal as you can get. So why isn't something being done about it? It is, but these Scumbags move around a lot just like the warez and hackerz low-lifes.

When you set up a business model designed solely to recruit new salespeople in a never ending stream, without any legitimate effort to sell the product to end users not recruited to sell, then you have a pyramid scheme. And they damage millions of people each year and are getting renewed attention from law enforcement.

So if that is how you are making your money and you don't mind doing things that would turn a decent person's stomach, then please let us know where you'll be serving your time. We'll send you a digital postcard.

TIPS FROM THE HITMAN - PART XXXIII

The Internet is like the game Frogger.

Last week my kids talked me into buying them the old standard of video games: Frogger. I had not seen or played the game since my old Commodore 64 days. Of course this was the new and improved version for the PC but short of new levels and improved graphics it was the same good old Frogger that had eaten up many an hour on the old 64.

As I tried out the game after installation (only to show the kids how to use it) it had the unforeseen effect of giving me an idea for this weeks article. As I maneuvered the frog across the highway, I was reminded of the Information Superhighway, the Internet. Just as with old Frogger, if you get on the highway and do not keep jumping you will quickly find yourself being run over. I have mentioned in past articles that of all the businesses I have been in or had any contact with, nothing has ever moved at the pace the Internet does.

What is the point I am trying to make? Well, I will give you an example of what I am driving at using my own Internet business as an example. I started on the Internet at the end of 1995 with The Web Hitman, my first venture on the Net. All I did was hand-post web sites to a list of 100 Search Engines and directories. At the time, you could go to Yahoo and there was only one section for Web promotion: Business and Economy/Companies/Internet Services/Web Services/Promotion. You could count the companies listed on your two hands. Needless to say that situation was not long lived. This category has about 300 listings now and it is only one of several places you will find Web promotion type services. I don't know how many there are, thousands I would guess.

I made good money doing hand posting but I saw the writing on the wall in early 1996. Competition was increasing, and my nice decent fee for the service was being undercut by newcomers to a level I would not accept for the amount of work involved. When I first started, it took me 5 hours to hand post to 100 before I learned some tricks. But, the price of $135 (I never changed it up or down) was not bad for this amount of time. I decided two things early in 1996. One, I could never really make money if I had to do everything by hand or by myself, and I was determined I was not going to hire employees. I knew the headaches that can bring. The solution was a change of method or service. I became one of the very first to offer program submitting of Web pages. This too was great at first. I made $149 for my 500-site list then and I had plenty of work with the occasional thousand dollar day.

Sure enough, this was good for about six months also before others developed cheap programs for you to do it yourself and they started to pop up everywhere. Time to move on to something new. During this period of time I found the real solution, or the one that has kept working. I had worked to develop relationships with providers of other services and started selling their service for commission. Some of them returned the favor by doing the same with my services. Nowadays this is called Associate programs, affiliate programs, reseller programs and a few other names.

What it all boils down to is you cannot get comfortable on the Internet. Just like our little green buddy in Frogger, once you get on the highway you had better keep hopping! In the past, finding a good product to sell on commission was not an easy task. It required a lot of hunting and many emails to the Webmasters or owner of a site to strike a deal. Nowadays there are great lists of the associate programs you can browse and select something that you find interesting. You can try several if you want and put up pages for each.

I only want to tell you one thing about the selection process. Do not sign up with anyone who wants you to pay for the privilege of selling their product for a small cut of the profit to you. There are too many good products that ask only that you send them the customer and you get paid. Many have great software in place to do the tracking, some even provide the web page for you. I have no confidence in a business that tells me I must pay to them first for the privilege of selling their product. The day may come when the paid Internet franchise is a reality, but today you can find hundreds of good opportunities you can partner on that want you to do nothing more than extend their exposure and branding of their service and are willing to pay you to do it.

The secret to the Net is to never get comfortable, always look for the next opportunity, the next hot ticket, the great associate program, whatever. I made the decision to do the Net full time based on income I was making doing hand posting work in early 1996. I now do about 4 hand postings a month. I would be road kill if I had not kept the frog hoppin'!

Hayden Mitchell
Web Themes

ONLINE PUBLISHING - BOOK OR BYTES - PART III

In Parts I and II of this series, I have covered the vast potential of using the Internet to market books. In this final segment, I will cover what type of books can be successfully published in an electronic format and the possible formats to use.

Not every book or publication lends itself to be published in an electronic format. Who wants to print out a 400 page novel on 8.5 x 11.5 paper? Who wants to read a 400 page novel on a computer monitor? However, there are certain types of books and information that can be successfully marketed in an electronic format.

Reference books, specific information or data, technical manuals are a few types of information that a niche market will be willing to download and read/print. Let's go back and use one of my books as an example.

COLORADO: A Newcomer's Manual (Everything You Need To Know About Living in Colorado) was written for a well-defined niche market. Using the Internet to market the paper back edition of the book proved very successful. Trading reciprocal links with dozens of other high-traffic Colorado related sites (especially those of Realtors, mortgage brokers and the like) allowed me to reach a large portion of the hundreds of thousands of people moving into Colorado every year. This created sales for the book from all over the world. Although I sold the rights to the book literally days before I launched the electronic version, my market research indicated it would have been very successful.

The paperback edition of the book sold for $14.95 plus $3 S&H. I had planned to sell the electronic version for $10 - available for immediate download. Not only significant savings, but it also addressed the major concern I found among the paperback version customers: "What's the fastest way I can get the book?"

That book was in a 5.5 x 8.5" format at 224 pages. Not really something you would want to print and sit by the fireplace with a glass of wine to read. However, since the book contained a great deal of reference material and could be made easily searchable in an electronic format, the assumption was that most customers would mainly be printing out specific sections that were the most important to them.

Only you can make the decision as to whether or not your project can be marketed in an electronic format. If so, the next decision is exactly what format that will be. There are basically 4 options available, all with their own pros and cons. The options of Text files, Proprietary format, HTML and Adobe Acrobat are briefly covered below.

Text File Pros: No additional software needed by you or the reader (assuming PC) . Text (.txt) files are the universal language of any PC. Any one running DOS or any version of Windows can view and print text files with Notepad, Wordpad, or virtually any word processing software.

Text File Cons: Boring! Text files can be just that - text. No special formatting, no graphics, no nothing except word after word after word. Rule of thumb: never print anything with more than about 60 characters per line. The human eye has difficulty following a line of text any longer than that. That's why magazines, newsletters, etc., all use multiple columns. That's why the Gazette is formatted to stay under 66 characters per line.

Proprietary format Pros: By this I mean things such as Microsoft Word documents, Word Perfect documents, and the like. This would be a step up from text files. Most good word processors support multiple columns, graphics, etc. I typeset the Newcomer's Manual entirely in MS Word 6.0. What's the main advantage to using this format? It's already done. I could have used WinZip to compress the entire Word document and my work would have been complete.

Proprietary format Cons: You limit your potential market. Just because I use Word, doesn't mean everyone uses Word, or Word Perfect, or Page Maker, or whatever. However, Word does have the advantage of having a free, Word Reader available for download from Microsoft. The Reader allows someone to view and print any Word document - but your potential customers would have to download and install.

HTML Pros: When we recently published the Search Engine Bible <http://softwaresolutions.net/sebible>, we chose to do so in HTML because of several distinct advantages HTML offers. By the way, this small "book" was a perfect candidate for electronic publishing. It was dynamic, in the sense of the need to be constantly updated. It was geared specifically for the Internet market. And, it was "I need now!" type of information that most people would prefer to download instantly instead of waiting 2 weeks for a hard copy.

Combine that with the advantage of hyperlinks, graphics, multimedia, Java Script/Applets and all the other bells and whistles that web pages offer and you have a very nice medium for a book. A history book could have a sound file of a famous person's voice, a technical manual could have an animated graphic of the subject matter, or a reference book could contain hyperlinks to hundreds of related sites. In addition, the HTML format is totally cross-platform. Unix, MAC, PC - it doesn't matter. If they have a browser, they can read and print your book. Please note, however, that most web sites have dozens or hundreds of files (html, gif, jpg, wav, etc). To effectively distribute such a product you must "Zip" them into one file. WinZip is great for this, but a MAC has no idea what to do with a .zip or .exe file. Three days after the release of the Search Engine Bible, I was making a mad scramble trying to find someone with MAC experience to take the book files and "Stuff" them into a MAC .sit file.

HTML Cons: Precise formatting may be sacrificed. Sure, you can use tables and style sheets to present very clean, easily readable columns of text with imbedded graphics that look perfect in one browser - but not the others. And, even if you compromise and get the pages to look great under all major browsers, looking great on the monitor and printing great are two entirely different things. Go to about any full size page on the Web and print it with both Netscape and IE - and you'll see how different they look on the same printer. Now send that same page to a different type or brand of printer and you'll get yet another version. How big a downfall this is depends on the content of what you are publishing. The other major downfall of selling and distributing in the HTML format is simple security. Anyone could buy your book with a stolen credit card and 5 minutes later have your entire book posted on a dozen servers for the entire world to read for free. There are ways to somewhat protect yourself against this but I do not wish to share them in a public forum.

Adobe Acrobat file Pros: The Adobe Acrobat <http://www.adobe.com> Portable Document Format (.pdf) is, without a doubt, probably the best format to publish an electronic version of a book that does not contain time-sensitive information. Once published in a .pdf format, your book can be read by virtually any computer because Adobe offers free Readers for almost every Operating System in existence. In fact, almost every fairly new PC probably already has the reader installed. It comes pre-installed on many OEM machines and I haven't seen a program on CD-ROM recently that did not include the reader. Most software companies now include all their user's manuals on the CD-ROM in .pdf format.

This format offers many other advantages. It can be viewed and printed by a reader - but can not be manipulated in any way - your work stays intact. Any page format imaginable can be saved as a .pdf. In fact, most software user's manuals are simple scans of the original hard copy saved into the .pdf. The latest version of Adobe Acrobat (the full blown program required to make .pdfs) offers other features such as hyperlinks and word searching. This format would be my first choice for most projects.

Adobe Acrobat Cons: Only one - you have to buy (about $200) and learn the full blown Adobe Acrobat program. Having to learn a fairly complex new software program has definitely moved down on my list of enjoyable activities. But this is one program for which I would make the exception.

I hope this series of articles has been of some assistance to those of you who expressed an immediate interest in this subject. Hopefully, I have provided enough basic information to at least send you in the right direction for any needed details.
That's all until Jim "volunteers" me for another series,

T.J. Walker

THERE ARE GEMS IN YOUR LOG FILES

spree.com
http://www.spree.com/sip/default.asp?g=ss&x=JimWorld

As a sat going through my server statistics report looking for trends and stuff, I found a gem in the list of Top Referring Sites. Today's top referring site, the one that sent more traffic to JimWorld than any other including the search engines, is spree.com.

Well, you know me. I just had to go see why so many people were coming from that site. So I went to their home page. I discovered a nice on-line shopping site, but no reference to VP. So back I went to the server stats and found that this flow of traffic was coming from some sub page called 'sip'. I've given up trying to guess what letters stand for on the web, but when I got there it was obvious: Spree Independent Partner. Ahah! An affiliate program.

And a nice one. They pay you a commission on everyone that buys from your Spree affiliated 'store' and that is just like every other affiliate program. But to put themselves into a less crowded field, they also pay you for everything that customer you got them ever buys from Spree. That's better than most affiliate programs manage to offer. On-going revenue from your efforts. Just like a real business. Had it stopped right there, I would have bookmarked them for a listing in the next article I write about affiliate programs.

But wait. What's this? They pay you commissions on sales that are created by the people you bring in? So if a customer of yours sends in a friend, you get a commission? This can't be! This is familiar. Sounds like a well thought out Network Marketing Plan (that's multilevel marketing to those of you in Loma Linda) which means it is pretty simple to evaluate. So I did.

I liked what I saw. No wild claims of Get Rich Quick. Send Us Only One Customer A Day And You'll Retire In 90 Days! Just a clearly presented multi-level payout plan with clear enough documentation that you can figure it out. (Spree folks: Do a little work on the 3rd tier explanation please).

I haven't taken the time to talk to their existing Partners, nor have I comparison shopped their product offerings, but I gotta leave some due diligence for you to do, don't I?

I signed up just in case some of you also decide to sign up, so please use my code: JimWorld. Who knows. I might even get a check. Sure would shock Nick.

And right there on their main resource page for their partners, a testimonial about JimWorld. Now I knew they had class!

Now doesn't this make you just want to run off and study the heck out of your server log reports? It should. They are the most valuable promotion tool you have and most people don't even bother. So you bother. A lot. It puts you way out in front.

SNIPPETS

Top Ten Links
http://www.toptenlinks.com/internet/promotion.vote

Another steady source of traffic for JimWorld and the Forums is the Top Ten Links voting site. Of course, JimWorld has dominated the category since it began several months ago, but there is now a new contender trying to get that coveted Top Spot. Some upstart called 'The Get High (Traffic) Forums'. Competing against yourself is tough isn't it?

Have you seen the Top Ten site? No? Then you should get over there now. Before you start browsing around, take a second and vote for JimWorld and Get High, and then go find the category your site should be listed in. Send off a request to have your site added. If you get on, you'll have to post the Vote For This Site button and generate some votes in order to stay on the list. Non vote getters get bumped off quick. If you can stick and rise up into the Top Ten for your category, you'll see a steady flow of traffic. Not huge, but reliable. I'll take reliable over huge-and-gone, any day.

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The Labor of Love
http://www.thelaboroflove.com/websearch/links

If you have a site related to pregnancy or parenting, you should get listed at The Labor Of Love. This nicely laid out site is building a nice traffic flow and should be able to send you reliable traffic. Another example of a Gazeteer leading the way.

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Earrings you will love!
http://www.asjdesigns.com

Hi Jim!

Just want to drop a line and congratulate you on a stellar site. This has got to be "The center for online marketing". Every award you have won is well deserved.

Love your section on women sites. In fact, I love everything about your site.

Can hardly wait to get stuck in and start linking.

Sincerely, Anne Schofield

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Dear Jim;
Just a quick thanks. I used your 10 page tutorial and got some great results (see attached). I started on May 13 and you can see the results. Thanks. I'll be a regular visitor, and when I have something new to say, a contributor.

Bruce Lawrence
http://www.springtent.com
http://www.workinghands.com

---Jim Here ---

Bruce included a gif file from his server log reports to illustrate his case. I'll put it in the archive copy of this issue. Basically it showed a web site needing admission to intensive care... a flat liner as far as traffic is concerned. But starting with his discovery of JimWorld, his traffic rose from an anemic, less than 50 visitors per day, to his current levels of 1,500 to 2,000 unique visitors each day. Just goes to show that doing it the 'right' way with some hard work and no spamming really pays off. Congratulations Bruce. We all know how hard you had to have worked to do that good of a job at promotion.---

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Learn to Write Online!
http://www.writingteachers.com

WritingTeachers.com offers custom-designed writing courses for groups and individuals in business, technical, academic, grant, email and creative writing. They also have writing and editing services for businesses, classes for speakers of English as a second language. Aside from classes, they offer 48-hour single document response. Need some help getting your writing style polished up?

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Manufacturer's Web
http://www.manufacturersweb.com

Got a business site? Then get it listed in this Business Only directory. Looks good to me. I submitted.

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Domain NAmereserve
http://www.d-na.com/resellerteam.htm

Hi Jim,

Our Reseller Team Program completed ahead of schedule and is live starting today Monday 6/1 and we are ready to spread the word. If you have a moment, give a quick review to http://www.d-na.com/resellerteam.htm which gives the details on how to become a Reseller Team Member. The process was designed to be fast, simple and profitable.

We plan to accept 10 - 20 new resellers each week until we reach our initial goal of 200.

We would like to give the Gazette community first crack at this program before we release it to the other ezine communities. We specialize in Domain Name Registration, Web site Forwarding, Email Forwarding and DNS Services"

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WEbest Finance Award
http://www.abc.com.hk/WEbest/

This award is primarily for finance related sites.The sites that are doing business in the field of investment banking, insurance, stock brokers, futures brokers, retail brokers or involved in finance businesses such as providing stock news and analysis are all eligible.

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Search Engine Talk
http://www.searchenginetalk.com

Jim,

In one of the weekly or bi-weekly search engine/marketing "zines" I get, I saw someone introduce a site about search engines. I could not help but go and take a peek. What I saw was mainly marketing other's products, but he has a forums section.

I have been so impressed with the Ultimate Bulletin Board software, that I can barely stand to view or participate in other forums. Sure enough this forum was the old "tree" thread type, but something caught my eye on one of the posts.

There was a post by both Janet and Paul Glor that was verbatim, exact copies of posts they had written at the Forums! I emailed Paul, and he had seen it also. This guy's forums had no posts from late March, until these "Cut-and -paste" posts that he pirated from our community.

They say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but this is getting a bit desperate don't you think?

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Promotion World
http://www.promotionworld.com/directory/

There is a new directory out there just for promotion and advertising resources on the internet. It's still new, so there isn't much in it of interest right now, but if you have a promotion related site, you should get listed.

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Oya's Directory of Recruiters
http://www.fence-post.com/drecruiters_toc_type.htm

I have been working on Oya's Directory of Recruiters since August 1997 and only now do I feel like I'm ready to start promoting it slowly.

Do you think it would be appropriate to add Oya's Directory of Recruiters to your large list of "500 places to list your site"? My directory only lists recruiters, so I imagine that could be thought of as a highly specialized thing.

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JaZzY Sites to Surf
http://Jzy.com

The Cool Doctor has been at it again. Now he presents this easy to use Net directory of sites and when you submit your site it is added right away. Cool Doctor then reviews the sites later to see if they are worthy of keeping in the directory. And submitted sites all are evaluated for the Doc's award.

I was sorry to see that the submission page had required fields for snail mail addresses. I didn't submit any of my sites because I don't give out personal information when registering sites. If I could identify a valid reason why they need information like my snail mail address, then I would give it. If you are concerned about privacy then you might want to stay away. Hopefully Cool Doctor will fix this oversight and we can all go register. But do visit his site. It is one of those that I just assume everyone goes to because it has been there doing a great job for so long.

WIN A BUNCH OF FREE ADVERTISING

Evelyn Lee Barney mailto:elb@home-work.net
News2You Copy Writing Services
http://www.home-work.net

I have been asked to be producer/editor of an e-zine to be published by The Omni Marketing Group and the WORLD WIDE EXPO. We have stories, though we could use more, we have a mailing list of over four thousand, what we AIN'T got is a name!

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

Come up with a name for a business oriented e-zine that is short, clever, memorable, and has not been used yet!

WHAT I WILL DO FOR YOU:

The person who sends me the name we choose for the NO NAME ZINE before June 11, noon eastern time will receive a sponsorship ad in the second issue which will be published in July, (top of page, four to six lines). They will also receive coverage of their business, thank you for the name, and contact information (including URL and email) published in the premier issue.

SOME DETAILS:

The E-Zine Will Include:

Marketing tips.
Advice on business development.
Profiles of internet inventors and entrepreneurs.
Internet business news.
Monthly contests with various prizes.
Special "deals" for our readers.
An interactive 'readers corner' where our subscribers can pose questions for us and each other.
And more.
Our audience is receptive to both Consumer and Business To Business Internet commerce.

The No Name Zine goes to press on the 15th of June. Since coming up with a good name has been a challenge, we decided our first contest would be "NAME THAT ZINE!"

Who ever submits the name we choose will receive a significant amount of free publicity. (free sponsor ad & story) We will also have an 'honorable mention' list published in the first issue.

Please contact me if you would like to know more. The deadline for submissions is noon, on June 11.