It’s Matt here again from Contest Beat with another Weekly Contest Roundup. Being the holiday season not too many people seem to be online and so there aren’t all that many new contests being run. However, there are quite a few that go through until January and February next year, and even beyond, so make sure you check those out on Contest Beat. That said, I have just three new contests to update you guys with this week:

$300 Mystery Prize

This is an interesting contest for two reasons – firstly the prize (worth $300+ retail) is not disclosed, and secondly because in order to enter you have to head over here and then guess what is making the sounds! Once you’ve figured it out just email them your answer using the contact form supplied and you’re in.

Cash and Much More

DotSauce are trying to get their domain forums up and running with lots of activity and are running a New Years contest in order to try and achieve this. To enter you first need to register on the forums yourself, and then for each friend you refer you get another entry in the comp. Up for grabs are everything from Entrecard credits, to cash, t-shirts, advertising, subscriptions and more.

Hosting and a Domain

This is a weekly contest being run by AdesDesign up until February 13. Each week someone will win a free domain registration for 2 years along with 2 years of hosting. To enter you just need to subscribe to their RSS feed and then leave a comment on the contest post.

Thats right Blogging is one of the new favorite tools of many of the top domainers!

I decided to take Matthews previous post on Domaining being the new pastime for blogging by completely throwing things into reverse!

I started out in online business buying and selling domains, which I guess would make me a “domainer”. Luckily I started out when I was very young which also meant the internet was fairly young. And this meant there was plenty of awesome domains still available to register. But it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I really started to get into blogging!

But why the hell would I want to get into blogging? Well quite simply, I saw huge income potential in developing and then selling blogs. And im happy to report that I have been selling many predeveloped blogs for around the past 6 months.

But the question still remains, why would a domainer want to get into blogs? See domainers make money from either selling domains or putting up parking pages where you earn on type in traffic. Just take a look at WeddingShoes.com (owned by a prominent domainer) which is a great example of a parking page. A page like this makes a lot each month (im talking thousands) so why on earth would a domainer put a blog on such a great domain?

But what about those not so great domains like doshpro.com or bloglover.info. These domains aren’t anything special and wouldn’t sell for anything much above the registration price and will receive no type in traffic. Therefore, these domain would make perfect candidates for a blog. And with just a couple of hours work these domain could sell for hundreds!

And this is the exact technique many domainers are using to monetize the myriad of worthless domains in ones portfolio.

So if you have any domains just sitting around gathering dust, chuck a blog up, post some content and in a couple of months you will have a fairly valuable asset.

You can find me and my blog at Marketvice.com a blog all about marketing, blogging and of course domaining. I hope to see you there.

I originally posted my list at YoPress, but I thought it was kind of funny so I decided to share it here. Hope you enjoy, let me know if I missed anything.

10. Won’t be difficult to wake up with the kids in the morning

9. No unfriendly hangover to wake up to

8. Do you technically get any older if you sleep through it?

7. No need to wear those cheap hats and play the annoying whistles

6. Don’t have to worry about crowded places

5. You won’t freeze to death! It’s 30 degrees in San Diego!

4. You have a big day of drinking ahead of you!

3. No need for any new years resolutions

2. No annoying countdowns, like Tila Tequila on MTV

1. You don’t have to get stuck kissing the ugly girl at midnight again

Can you think of any other reasons to sleep through New Years and just skip it?

We all should know what time of year it is by now. The final days of decorations and Christmas lights. The final days of unnecessary holiday cheer and courtesy and kindness towards family members that we can only tolerate for a limited time. Excuse me if I come across as a Grinch but, whatever.

I personally can’t wait till its over. I can’t wait to get this huge obstructive Christmas Tree out of my living room. I can’t wait to take down these ultra bright shiny Christmas lights that keep me up every night because someone had the brilliant idea to put them right outside the bedroom window. I can’t wait to get on to the real festivities, NEW YEARS EVE!

New Years eve can all but make up for a crappy Christmas holiday and give a little redemptive quality to the overuse of the term, “Season’s Greetings!” New Years even can pick up and turn a bad year around 180 degrees or at the least erase from your memory those things about the preceding year you would rather forget. This year, however, I’m taking a different approach. I plan to make it through the New Year absolutely and positively sober. *Gasp

You may wonder what this is all about well allow me to tell you. I stumbled across a very informative blog post in my usual web travels and it changed my perspective on all things blog (especially all things intoxicating). No, it wasn’t a preachy expose talking about the ills of drinking and warm testimonials from “Those who have been there” but it was about the thing a lot of us do almost every day. I can clearly trace the masses of confused faces in my mind after that last statement so let me continue.

The single dot I stumbled upon in the net matrix is a quaint (simply meaning clean) little blog know as Copyblogger.com. At first I thought it was yet another one of those, “This is the way you blog” sites (Unlike the greatest of them all right here – Blog About Your Blog) but upon digging a little deeper beneath its digital surface I found an article that literally made me stand up out of my seat (Ok, it wasn’t that dramatic but you get my point.) The article talked about, not the ills of becoming physically intoxicated, but the ills and pitfalls of becoming INTOXICATED ON OUR OWN WORDS. Now this can either be taken at face value or you can look just a little deeper.

He talks about how writers have a special gift to make all who read their words become intoxicated and ready to buy whatever they want or even go as far as wearing a blue Santa hat on their head in June (Think the movie Perfume – If you haven’t seen get it at your local video store – lol – seriously). Writers who do this well will get their point across and retain the reader throughout the entire post. Writers who do this not so well will have their readers taking a detour after the first period. Its a delicate balance and the blog author Jonathan Morrow breaks it down exquisitely.

He gives tips on how to know if you’re drunk on your own words and how to redirect your time and energy if you realize that you are going to veer off that cliff. He breaks down all of the things that we bloggers do but points out some fine points that we may have never thought of. The blog post is called 7 Warning Signs That You’re Drunk on Your Own Words and tells exactly what the title suggests. I thought that it would be a perfect segue into the new year as all of us prepare for the night of festivities and reminiscing.

I’m gonna be sitting around sipping on a cool glass of ice and sprite laughing my head off at the others who did “a little bit too much”. In order for me to be this years designated driver I plan on bringing along printed out pages of my favorite BAYB posts and other blogs I frequent to fill in all of the dry spots. I plan on making it into the new year a calm and collected blogger (without exposing too much) and I plan on seeing you all here right after.

Be sure to give Mr. Morrow and his Copy Blogger Web site for more useful tips and articles (I promise that you won’t be disappointed). In closing, I hope everyone enjoys the rest of 2007 and transition gracefully into 2008 and remember…

BLOG RESPONSIBLY

Sorry about the lack of posts around here, we are just recovering from Christmas. We are also having some family issues, so we have been spending some time with everyone. I guess I had to use a few blogging sick days. However, BAYB is doing great still and we are close to cashing out on Adsense once again. Hoping to beat the end of the month deadline to get our check faster.

If this is your first Comment Friday we give one lucky person a free weekly blogroll spot as our “blog of the week“. Along with that we are also giving that winner 50 entrecard points.

Our entrecard points Christmas gifts were also given to A Cowboys Wife and JaseemUmer.com. They each received 50 entrecard points. For those wondering, I closed the comments on that post. I closed them after the day ended, so only comments for that day were eligible.

Back to Comment Friday. Leave any comment you want. We’d love to hear about your Christmas and how that was. Maybe the best gift you received. I’d also like to know what posts you’d like to read around here. Happy Holidays and get commenting!

We didn’t get a chance to post yesterday, with it being Christmas and all.

The morning started with opening tons of presents for my son. After that, of course we had to play with them all! Christmas breakfast then on the road to visit family. The best part about that was, I found my calling.

Yes that’s right I may quit blogging to become a full time Guitar Hero rocker. Yesterday was the first time I played and I felt the crowd behind me. I’m not sure I can balance both in my busy life! Choices… choices.

Sometime after the 1st of the year we hope to announce another BAYB contest, but we have yet to find a contest sponsor. However, today we will be giving away 100 entrecard points. 2 people who leave comments here will each win 50.

Merry Christmas

For some blogging has become more and more about making money and turning a profit. For the most part, bloggers have been able to turn a profit from their blogs. Domains are cheap and hosting can be found at bargains.

Since bloggers have been able to turn a profit on one blog, they use that formula to double that with another. Now seemingly bloggers are collecting domains like baseball cards. Domaining has reached the blogosphere.

Buying and Selling Domains

Domaining is an interesting concept that has a lot to do with skill, but even more so luck. You need to have the skill to find these names and have an eye for something good, and lucky to register it before someone else.

There is a lot more to domaining than just buying and selling domains. There are a lot more factors that a newbie to domaining wouldn’t think of. Is the pagerank of the domain fake? Yes PR can be faked. Does this domain have traffic? Where can you find expired domains? Recently I got a copy of The Domaining Manifesto E-book that can better tell you then me.

Domaining Manifesto

I have to admit, at first I thought this was a program to help you find domains, but as I mentioned it is an ebook.

The ebook covers information ranging from how to register a domain, to selling and trading domains. It’s definitely a good read for someone interested in breaking into the domaining game. As the ebook says it’s not a get rich quick scheme, but there is money to be made. I would of preferred however that they list some examples of domains that they registered and then sold. The best advice comes from examples, and proof of it being done before.

A good tip that often goes overlooked is using coupon codes when registering domains. Buying a domain from godaddy costs about 10$. By entering the coupon code gdm1211d (expires DEC 31) you only pay 7$ for the domain. The digital point forum has tons of threads with coupons.

The Domaining Manifesto gives you information you need that will equip you with how to become an active domainer. The book touches really on everything about domains. Every ebook has a “secret” and this one comes in the form of expired domain websites. They give you the “secret source of domains the pro’s don’t want you to know about.”

A big part of domaining for some are getting expired domains. The Domaining Manifesto does give you a few tools to use. The writer of the ebook, John Motson, goes one step further however and provides his own daily list of expired domains.

The difference between his list and others is that the domains are hand picked. They aren’t like x23123stupidxqz.com. Each domain has it’s own potential that could really make money. Here is a taste of the list given today:

placeofgifts.com
authenticreview.com
scrabblebeta.com
myhotoffer.com

It’s amazing to see some of the domains that have no way to brand or relate to the actual title of the blog or website. To subscribe to the expired domain list sign up an DNXpert.com

Domaining Manifesto Wrap-up

The Domaining Manifesto ebook is definitely a good investment for those looking to enter domaining and learn more about it. Paying 57$ for the information and tools provided, should be made back with the knowledge you gain from the ebook. However, I was hoping for more tools (remember I thought it was a program), but there are enough to get you started. Along with his custom expired domains list it gives you a head start.

Remember to use the discount code dnxpert to get a $10 discount on the sales price. This brings the total to just under 50$ at 47$!