I didn’t jump on the BlogRush train when it left the station a year or so ago. Maybe that was a mistake because it was a great idea. However, today John Reese pulled the plug on this service after experiencing insoluble technical difficulties over many months. A shame really, but the right thing to do in the circumstances.

More about this at John Chow dot Com.

It’s now a week since the AdMastery.biz launch, or at least its text-ad-exchange and word-cloud pieces. Actually, it’s only about three days because I decided to hold fire on any substantial promotion until Monday.

We’re approaching 50 members now, and at the present rate (which actually I expect to increase) we’ll hit the 250 mark well within my target time. At that point I start charging for Pro memberships, and people start earning commissions on their paid referrals.

Meanwhile work continues on the next phase, which was going to be my article marketing programme but I’ve rescheduled things a bit and am now thinking that the safelist (credit-based) will probably come next.

Strategic or chaotic? If the above makes you think the development is in something of a flux, you’re right; that’s how I like to manage things. I used to be a corporate strategy consultant and one lesson I learned many years ago was that, although one has to have a strategic map, too much rigidity in following a pre-planned course is not a good thing.

Fluidity, agility and alacrity are vital keys to success in a rapidly changing world whilst not allowing the ship to be blown around by every passing breeze (shamelessly mixing a number of metaphors).

Anyway, today I’m returning to this blog. As I said in an earlier post it used to be on Blogger, but that’s rather restricting. Almost all of my blogs (and I have several in niches far removed from internet marketing) are now hosted on my own rented servers, not on Blogger or WordPress sites. This gives far greater flexibility. It also gives more work! That’s why I need to spend some time on this one, because about all I’ve done so far is transfer the content.

While I’m on this subject, last night I downloaded an ebook on blogging. I paid a few dollars for it (not many, but the USdollar/UKpound conversion rate at present made it seem more!) and was disappointed. Not that it said anything wrong, but it just didn’t say very much at all.

The gentleman’s bank manager will, I’m sure, be very happy at the large number of small payments arriving in his client’s account and no one person has lost much.  However it’s worth bearing in mind that, although there may be very cheap blogging ebooks which deliver a lot for a very little, I can’t think of one.

My suggestion to anyone starting out on blogging and hoping to make some money along the way is to spend a little more (but it’s still not a fortune) and get Rob Benwell’s Blogging to the Bank 2.0

It’s now time for me to get down to the main work of the day.

Wishing you success,

- David Murray -
www.admastery.biz

Here it is!  Our new advertising service is now live.

The first two modules are available for use, including:

• text ad exchange
• traffic links
• html ads
• solo emails
• banners
• link cloaker
• word cloud
• downline builder

The major component of this first stage is an advertising exchange in which members agree to view each other’s ads, and so is especially useful for people building businesses in the internet marketing niche.  In the very near future we plan to add a credit-based safelist, resources for article advertising, a wide variety of both carefully selected and specially prepared training materials, and even more to follow.

The second component is a “Word Cloud” – which actually you can use even without joining the ad exchange, and allows you to promote words and short phrases in return for clicking on other peoples’ words in the cloud and viewing their advertisments.  At very modest cost you can highlight your words using bold, italic, colour colour and other enhancements.

Join now while you can upgrade to “Pro” without charge. This will apply only to the first 250 members.  Promoting Text.AdMastery and building a downline brings many benefits including the ability to promote your own business to them by email.  There is also a variety of opportunities to earn both points and cash commissions.  Once we’ve reached 250 members you will earn a cash commission for each paid referral, and if your referrals become active users of the service you will earn points for having referred active members.

This is just the start.

Join us today at Text.AdMastery.biz.

Wishing you success,

-David Murray -

OK!!! It’s “Go!”

Apart from a very few minor tweaks the first two modules of AdMastery.biz advertising suite are ready. I’m planning to do that last-minute tidying tomorrow, and launch date is set for 23rd October.

Meanwhile anyone seeing this here before the 23rd is welcome to come over and sign up (for free, plus a free upgrade to “Pro”).

That’s it for now.  I’ll not clutter this with non-essentials.

Don’t miss it.

- David Murray -

After working hard on my new AdMastery.biz advertising suite for several weeks I had expected to be able to release the first two modules today.

A principle that I established for myself from the start of this development was that I would not be pressed into launching it until I felt that it was genuinely ready. All major aspects of the site now work well. They’ve been tested and tested and re-tested! However, there are just a few minor glitches here and there which although they’re not serious could be irritating to users, so I’m holding off for another couple of days.

I currently have FIVE modules in planning. Later this week I plan to release the first two.

So if I’m going to hit that target I’d better get back to work ……

Wishing you success,

- David Murray -

ps. Meanwhile, have you read these important books yet?

“Brave New World” was a mid-20th century novel by Aldous Huxley describing the kind of world in which I certainly would not wish to live, but nevertheless I thought it an appropriate title for this fresh start of the BrunleaBlog.

Certainly for me it marks a major step forward in my online activity.  Having worked online through email and web sites since the early 1990s my previous big transition was just under three years ago when I started selling and advertising, rather than simply providing free information, on some of my web sites.

Then in mid-2007, having learned some of the pitfalls of online marketing I decided to start a site devoted to that subject, and called it the BrunleaWeb.  [Why this name?  That's considered elsewhere.] Now I’m expanding it further. BrunleaWeb.com, jointly with one of my other sites AdMastery.biz, will now not only discuss marketing and refer readers to other sites and services but will itself provide a range of advertising facilities.

The first of the new services is an Ad Exchange providing for text ads, html ads, traffic links and email solos which can be bought for cash or paid for in points earned by viewing other people’s ads.  Also along with it I’m launching another very economical, but deceptively powerful, service – a Word Cloud.

While preparing for the launch of these I was considering putting up a post on the somewhat moribund Brunlea Blog but then thought, “Why not move the blog from its old home on Blogger and re-launch it as a WordPress blog forming a part of the new suite of services?”

So here we are!

In the next couple of days I expect to launch the first tranche of services, to be followed rapidly by …. (I’m not telling yet), and then later another major component in the mix which I think will be highly popular.

As to pricing, of course I need to earn from these but also I want to help others who are struggling to get off the ground with their internet-based businesses and don’t have much by way of cash to spend on the startup.  So these sites will economically be one level up on my other recently started venture “Starting-from-Nothing” and I’ll be adopting a competitive pricing policy including eventually a single modest monthly or annual subscription giving access to the entire suite.

More in a day or two.

- David -