I know this has been debated before and I am sure it will be debated again. I have decided to switch from Blogger to Wordpress and I immediately thought of everything I had read from practically every single blogger:

Wordpress will smoke Blogger.

I agree. I love the features of Wordpress, I love the how easily it can be customized and I love how you can switch themes at the drop of a hat.

But it got me thinking, is Blogger completely pointless? I don’t really think that that is the case.

I think Blogger was a good tool to help me figure out if blogging is something I wanted to do. There was no domain involved, there was no hosting, heck, there wasn’t even any database work. They had some simple, yet effective promotional tools that helped generate some (although not a lot) of traffic to my blog.

So while I am happy as a clam to have moved to Wordpress, I would like thank Blogger for showing me the way!

I spent the better part of the last month evaluating my finances and future goals of my ‘cyber‘ business. I ran some simple tests with this blog over the past two months, to see if a blog could actually create revenue. Just by posting ‘relevant’ content to current events I was able to generate a small, not substantial, amount of income. I did no promotion, no advertising, and didn’t really work on trying to make money. I just put up some Google AdSense ads and that was that.

Since this is my ‘flagship’ blog I am making changes to the layout on content for the new year.

The plan is simple. This blog will be here as my reporting / ad generating facet of my internet business as well as business industry related posts. There will be theories, metrics, and all sorts of good information on what worked and what didn’t work on my blogs and on my websites. I will also be posting daily about other blogs and the ways they are generating money, and doing sponsored reviews of other website. I hope to keep it entertaining as well without diluting the site too much with a ridiculous amount of ads.

Basically, you are going to have a front row seat on how to start and maintain a content based blog and business. The posts here as well will be focused on monetizing, and generating ad revenue. I am a novice, so you will see many failed attempts at generating revenue. Hopefully, you will be able to steer clear of my mistakes.

I will continue to post my personal musings on a soon to be announced blog, but I just feel the domain ManVsBlog.com is too good to give up on the money making side of things. So get ready for the massive changes.

2008 will be a good year for ManVsBlog! Hope you all stick around.

Devin Hester, will you go to prom with me?

It is amazing that this humble, soft-spoken, and polite athlete has the world at his disposal.

This man single handedly saved the Bears season, my appetite, and probably saved some poor kid from a burning building. All while running backwards. I think. I wasn’t entirely sure. I was busy jumping up and down and high-fiving the air.

Motivation?

We can all thank Todd Sauerbrun, the idiot kicker. It’s always the idiot kicker.

Earlier this week, Idiot Kicker proclaimed that the Broncos were going to stop Hester.

‘We aren’t going to play chicken-(poop) football. We have guys who are paid a lot of money to make tackles’ said I.K.

Right.

Lets give this kid more motivation. With 12 touchdowns in only 30 games, he is one off the NFL record. Already. In TWO measly seasons. He has recorded a touchdowns in almost every way imaginable.

Reception? Check!

Missed field goal? Done!

Punt return? Oh yeah. 7.

Kick returns? Well, why not. And lets just go ahead and do it in the Super Bowl.

In the immortal words of Bears play-by-play announcer Jeff Joniak, ‘Devin Hester, you are ridiculous!’

Goodbye John Drury:

Chicago lost a legend this weekend. Anchorman John Drury passed away at the age of 80. He was an icon while I was growing up, and he will be missed.

He would never hurt anyone.

These are the words spoken by a true mother.

The whole Stacy Peterson disappearance hits pretty close to home for me. It happened in my beloved town. She is not much younger than me, so I have friends who know her or know of her. In addition, one of my close personal friends uncle is the ‘close friend’ to Drew Peterson that has been on all the news reports. Sometimes I want to believe that Drew Peterson didn’t do anything wrong.

But to think that Drew Peterson had nothing to do with her disappearance seems far-fetched, even for a mother to think.

People don’t just disappear.

They die.

People don’t just leave their kids and contact no one.

They end up rolled-up in carpet somewhere.

Innocent men don’t have countless women jumping at the chance to say they were beaten, assaulted, threatened, and emotionally abused by them.

Innocent men don’t have ’suspicious’ death clouds hanging over their head.

I know, in America, you are innocent until proven guilty.

And Barry Bonds didn’t take steroids.

I just hope it will all end soon and the family’s of everyone can go back to some sense of normalcy. Until then, the circus will continue.

And remember, suicide is not an option.

I am embarrassed to be a Chicago sports fan right now.

Hate all you want, but these teams should be much better than they currently are. I still love Rex Grossman no matter how everyone else in the city has turned on him. And I think the Bears still have plenty of talent.

Same with the Bulls. I love Ben Gordon. I’d love Kobe more, but you get the idea.

They should not be polluting our airways with such horrible displays of defense, offense and god know what other facets of their respective games.

I propose a Chicago sports detox program. Who is with me? I pledge to not watch another game by EITHER team until they can win two in a row. That should be doable? Right?

139 days until Cubs opening day. Huzzah!

STATUS REPORT: Last week, the first official week, with only one ad and a limited layout, I made $9.18 cents. That is not bad in my opinion. I didn’t promote the blog but still managed to pull over 400 page views. This confirms my opinion that with proper promotion, a well thought out and entertaining blog will be profitable. Even if there are already 10 million other people doing the same thing.

I have spent the last few days contemplating this exact same question. Is it worth the time and effort to promote your blog in an effort to make money. I have seen this question posed many times, and I thought I would put my two cents in.

I want to be a writer. That is what I want to do.

I also want to pay my bills being a writer. I am pretty sick of working at a help desk.

I spent 10 years in bands attempting to do the same thing. But people didn’t put the evil to the ethics like they do when talking about putting a simple ad on a blog. We would go around the country, handing out free Cd’s, begging people to take a listen hoping someday we will see nice royalty checks from doing something we love. And likes 99 percent of musicians, I never saw a cent. But bands don’t really have the chance to put click-through ads at their merch tables.

So I made the decision that I am going to take as much time and effort to market my talents. Using this blog as an attempt to earn a living is one of those.

I think the key is, if you are a good writer, you deserve to make money while you provide your readership with content they enjoy. It takes a while to come up with something to write about, articulate it so people understand and enjoy it, and then refine and edit. It’s not like writers just show up, start typing away and in 20 minutes they are finished with their daily activities. My blogs (I have several) take about 4-6 hours to complete. That is a lot of work for free, obviously.

Ethically, if you are profiting off your opinion I think that is acceptable.

I recently ran across a website that I think is outstanding. It is called bloggingexperiment.com. Here is a gifted writer using his talents to make money. He is not short-changing his readership, and he is working his tail off to have a well thought out website and concept. And while I do not have the expertise yet, I intend on following a similar path to build this website, over time, in to a similar money making venture.

Cheers!

Random Thoughts While Living Another Day in Anonymity:

Do you think we could expand the ‘no talking on the cell phone while driving’ law to include a clause that states ‘no talking on the cell phone while doing anything’? As I was driving home, I observed an Illinois state construction employee talking on his cell phone while operating a 140 pound jackhammer. Does this seem to be wise? Is this what our state taxes are paying for? I’m just saying..

The Clock is Ticking:

According to news reports, the creator of the hit TV show ‘24′ doesn’t believe Hilary Clinton will make a good president. Joel Surnow asked reporters over the weekend, according to a published Washington Post article, if they are ‘nuts thinking that Hilary Clinton could be president of this country.’

He said this while balancing upside down on a wire, defusing a bomb, and shooting terrorists with his left hand. All of which is completely believable and definitely not nuts.

Global Warming is a Myth:

Today the temperature hit a balmy 62 degrees in the city of Chicago. I am sure glad that global warming thing has gone away!

Match Made In Heaven:

In another case of ‘what?’, a new Hollywood power couple appears to be emerging. Ashely Olsen (of Full House fame) and Lance Armstrong. Lets compare their contributions to society:

Ashley starred on “Full House,” performed in 12 straight to video movies with her sister Mary Kate, had a roles in several feature files, and took control of the production company Dualstar with her sister when they both turned 18. Since turning 18 she has does absolutely nothing productive with her time. She has also been linked to a drug scandal and was criticized for dating Scott Sartiano because of the 9-year age difference.

Lance won the Tour de France seven consecutive times, battled brain, lung and testicular cancer, and founded one of the most storied philanthropic organizations, the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which is famous for its Livestrong bracelets. The foundation has raised more than $60 million for cancer research.

A match made in heaven.

Don’t Tase Me Bro!:

Headline: ‘Wisconsin Cop Shocked by Own Taser‘

The police officer was reprimanded for - shocking himself.

Happy Birthday: Whoopi Goldberg

After spending the last two decades being extremely opinionated and argumentive, I decided to start a newspaper-style column. I will be posting new columns every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Thank you for taking time to check out Man Vs Blog!

Random Thoughts While Living Another Day in Anonymity:

Apparently, The city of Chicago has decided it will not have a winter this year. That is by far the best news I have heard in a long time. Although now I fear I am probably overreacting to this wonderfully pleasant November weather instead of preparing for the inevitable mid-November snowstorm. And if you ask The Farmers Almanac, this will be an above average precipitation winter. Start spreading the news!

I just cannot wait to drive on the Eisenhower again through the teeth of a snowstorm. It is my favorite thing to do in the world!

Britney vs The Eagles: And Suicide is Not an Option

The music industry as a whole may be suffering, but apparently old washed-up rockers and mothers who cannot sing still sell Cd’s in mass quantity. The problem is I haven’t decided which bothers me more; The Eagles selling 700k records of recycled music or Britney selling 300k discs that make me physically ill. Suffice to say, maybe it would have been more int resting if Britney sang recycled Eagles music. That I would pay to hear.

And On the 7th Day…
The NFL football season has surpassed the midway point and I must be the only person who does not care. I am a lifelong Bears fan but for some reason, world events have kept me from getting overly excited about a sports game. I am sypathetic to those who use sports as a respite from their daily life, but with so much heartache in the world, it is hard to get excited about which team wins and which team loses..

..WAIT! Rex Grossman has just thrown a 59 yard strike to Bernard Berrian! The Bears have won!

As I was saying before, there is nothing quite as exciting as Sunday in America when football is being played. The savage ballet goes on.

The Full Court Press

As the disappearance of Stacy Peterson has thrust my little hometown of Bolingbrook, Illinois into the spotlight, I sit and ponder the relevance of today’s media and what they are truly accomplishing. Stacy Peterson’s family could argue that the press is helping keep the search in the forefront and, in turn, is keeping pressure on the police to follow every possible lead. Which I agree with. Drew Peterson, on the other hand, has not been charged with a single crime in this missing person case. His life, the lives of his family, and the lives of his friends and neighbors have been turned upside down. From statements he has made, he would like the press to back off and let them lead private lives. Which I think I agree with as well. Where is the line drawn?

And Finally..

Headline: “Tornado strikes Amish community, hundreds without power.”

Happy Birthday to: Sammy Sosa, Neil Young, Ryan Gosling, Anne Hathaway

I have decided to start a blog. The motive is two fold:

First off, I love writing and I have since I can remember. Even as a child, I would attempt to write my own columns. Sometimes for others amusement, sometimes for my own.

Now days, you can easily post a column on-line. It doesn’t make it interesting, that takes talent. But at least the tools are there. Last week I decided I would much rather write for a living than sit behind a desk picking up phones calls. So I came up with this concept based off of my favorite television show, Man vs Wild.

I will be posting columns 4 times a week. Hopefully they will entertain you. In addition to that content, I will be posting basically anything I feel like. Maybe a news story will tickle my fancy. Maybe a review of the newest Ipod. Maybe a rant about how awful I think the Chicago Bulls are this year.

Secondly, I am going to try to use this avenue to generate revenue to pay my bills! But instead of recycling content from other blogs, I intend on using my wit, writing ability, and business sense to turn this blog into a nice little business. So if you enjoy any of the content please visit a sponsor link. They help keep the blogosphere running.

Cheers!