In honor of Memorial Day I am honoring our soldiers, by putting up a poem I wrote over at my “That Says It All” blog. I ask that you check it out.

Seeing Matt being 21 and happy made me think back to my 21st. I can’t recall the details so it must have been a good night out too.

Mulling over an idea for a blog post, (because if he is out partying he can’t be blogging, right!) I was thinking how lucky he is to be starting a commercial blogger’s life so early on, at least early compared to my first recent footsteps. There is a lot of fun to be had these days, digitizing ideas quicker than ever before, and it is viewed as work! Perfect.

The most appealing aspect of the blogosphere for me is that it is still a bit like the wild west, growing rapidly (120,000 new blogs a day) and expanding into many different avenues. There is loads of lawlessness and experimentation going on, boundaries being formed, opportunities to create your own niche abound… And there is a lot of money involved already, and it can only get more lucrative for players with a foothold online. But is straightforward day-to-day blogging lucrative, or are there other areas to look for long term returns?

I am not going to be one of those bloggers with 3 ideas pulled off the internet and then call myself a money making expert, and I am not a magician either, but I have a good memory and can give some examples of big real world returns that have come from some very strange areas. Maybe the examples can spur some thinking about where to make money on the internet of the future!

There is money in muck.

I know of half a dozen mega rich guys now who got rich by simply picking up other people’s cast offs and selling them on for a profit. There is the obvious antique / bric a brac, buy-today-sell-tomorrow model.

Then there was a guy who bought Aga cast iron ovens in the 70’s when they became “obsolete” to gas cookers. He literally stored them in a field for 20 years under a tarp and then a few years ago when traditional ranges came back in vogue, he sand-blasted them and sold them on for fortunes.

Many other scrap dealers, and car / stamp and even tupperware collectors have all cashed in by buying and holding until the fashion returns.

Online muck

These entrepreneurs took a bet, but a fairly educated bet at that. Everything comes back in fashion, even horrible 70’s color schemes. Look past trying to create the next eBay to sell real world goods or junk, think digital stuff!

Perhaps there is something now that people are casting off, apparently worthless, but you can see would be in demand when the fashion comes back. Domain names is an obvious starting point, but how about whole websites full of content that are lying un-updated? Save them from the scraper sites by taking them off-line and reinvent them later?

Or you can double guess what will be popular in years to come! Try make some predictions and date them and wait till they come true, pronouncing yourself as a prophet!

Keep some of your best posts back and sell them on later in a different format? Like an ebook of content you haven’t ever published.

Get rich now

And if you don’t want to wait, but want to get involved with the on-line content that is in the highest demand now and the shortest supply, possibly forever, get into video production. Something like 1 person is providing content for every 10000 consuming it. If I had money, I would be compiling videoclips. Just an idea.

What do you think is worthless now but will come back in vogue and be in demand? Should we get Matt to send us signed copies of his birthday photos before he is famous?

You can have my autograph when I am famous, but first you will have to read The Pisstakers every day for a couple of years.

Hello! I am Jennifer from The Life of a School Bus Driver. I am a guest contributor appearing here today and maybe some more in the future.

Today, I want to talk with you about gaining blog traffic by commenting on other blogs using available HTML to make your comments stand out among the other comments. When your comments stand out, viewers are drawn to them and tend to click through to your site over the other guys. So, using HTML in comments gives you an advantage in the more popular, highly commented on, sites.

As an example of NOT using any extra code in a comment, take a look at the post It’s Comment Friday with Lee!. As of this writing, that post has 33 comments, including one of mine, without any HTML in it. Go and see if you would pick my site to click on. I bet that you wouldn’t have paid any special attention to mine until now that I have made you look.

Now, go look at this other comment from me. It is comment 11 on 5 Must-read Blogs for Creative Writers. I just used a non-breaking comment like the other one. But this time, I put a link in it and I made two sections bold and another italic. I think you will agree that this comment stands out much more than the others and is likely to get more attention and therefore bring more traffic to my site.

Now, if you know HTML code, you can stop reading here and skip down to the bullet points before you go skipping off, testing your commenting skills, out there in the blogosphere.

For the rest of us, without further ado:

The code for bold is simply n. The code for italics is simply i. The code for underline is, you guessed it, simply u. Each of these codes is used in exactly the same way: <code> before the text you want to alter, and </code> after the text you want to alter.

So, for example if, I want to make my name bold, like this, Jennifer, I simply type “< b>Jennifer < /b>” without those extra spaces, and my name will appear in bold in that spot of the comment.

You would do the same for the italics with < i> or underline with < u>. There are not any blank spaces between the < and the >! I have to type it with those extra spaces here so you can SEE the code, otherwise it would disappear. If you really use spaces in between those pointy brackets then you will end up actually seeing the code instead of the desired effect of the code.

Now, last but not least. If you want to make the name of your site a hyperlink, or any other text, for that matter, click-able this is all you need to do! Type in:

< a href=”http://www.blogaboutyourblog.com/”>Terrific Site< /a>

where URL equals the complete URL you are hyperlinking to; make sure to keep those quote marks. And where Terrific Site is what you want to make click-able. Oh, and make sure to get rid of that extra space before the < > that I had to stick in so the code wouldn’t become invisible to you in this post.

Note: This effect is less likely to be accepted by the blog host than the other techniques and having links in a comment is also more likely to get it into the spam file.

Now, before you get all excited commenting yourself to the top using HTML, there are a few things to keep in mind:

• You shouldn’t make your comments too long.
• You shouldn’t even hint away from the topic of the conversation.
• You shouldn’t just spam the site leaving something like “Great Post”.
• You should think about your comments.

Almost all sites including WordPress & Blogger will allow the code that makes for bold, italics, & underline. These are simple codes to include in your comments and they will get you results. (By the way, since so little code is actually allowed in comments, even people with only these simple codes under their belts are on an equal footing with those people who know a lot of HTML.)

Okay, that’s it for today: a small technique, bound to give you big results. Try it! I want to hear about what you think and the results that you get using HTML in your comments. Let me know how it goes!

Jennifer from The Life of a School Bus Driver, signing off for the first time, wishing you all the best in your commenting journeys.

BUZmob is a free mobile feed publishing service — for free — that caters to user, media and corporate content publishers. You’re in control because you don’t have to change a bit of your blog’s content.

Submitting your blog to the network is easy:

1. Submit the URL of your blog
2. Enter or select your blog’s feed
3. Post a button provided by BUZmob on your blog

This latter item is not required, but greatly improves the mobile reader’s ability to make a bookmark of your site via their cell phone.

A few other features include: mobilizing content, images, and forms; simple integration with your blog; uses the RSS feed your blog already has. Additionally, by submitting your content, your blog will be included in their directory. Who minds having a backlink, honestly?

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We didn’t get too many pictures of my birthday, it was busy busy! However, it was pretty fun. Of course the waiter didn’t even card me! How messed up is that. He did buy me a drink though. Let me share a few pictures of my day.

Me and my girlfriend emma, with the baby trying to run away. He didn’t stay long!

Who does she think she is drinking one of my drinks?!

The happy couple!

My drink menu was a little long, I’ll share what I drank that night.

A Long island ice tea
Walk the plank
2 jagerbombs
2 shooters, gum chew and cherry bomb
2 32oz beers (not sure how big they were)
1 1/2 margaritas

Thank you for all the donations, it will pay for the review by Kumiko that I hope to get in the next week. After that review our RSS Feed Subscription Contest will be closed. I will be giving out some nice link love for those who donated funds, Polliwog is already on this blogroll now for her generous 10$ donation. Thank you to Ryan for the money as well, I will be giving you guys posts on other blogs!

Remember all donations are going to Blog about your Blog for blog reviews. If you do donate please remember to include your name. This is the last paypal button I will have out for a while. Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, and to Ed at the Pisstakers for blogging about it, and always including BAYB in his posts!

Hey everyone it’s Friday again and you all know what that means! No? Don’t be silly it’s comment Friday!!! I’m going to have to keep this short and sweet as I’m a little pressed for time and you guys know what this is all about!!! If you don’t Comment Friday is all about you, it’s a fun thing we do at the end of the working week where everyone drops in and leaves a comment – generally about whatever they want!!

So why not join in and leave a comment saying hi or ranting about what you thought about the last episode of 24 season 6 (I don’t have the time to go into THAT right at this minute!).

Oh and because I’ve been so busy this week with uni and a new contract I haven’t picked out a winner from last week but will announce that this weekend!

After you leave us a comment, head on over to Love All Books Comment Friday.

Cheers

Lee

For parents who are worried their hands-off approach to supervising their child’s online activities lacks the energy they once had, I thought offering this 4-step plan would be just the jumpstart they’d need. So let’s get right to it!

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Step 1 – Give your child free reign on the Internet

Yep, the sky’s the limit! There are a gazillion web pages out there ready to teach your kids for you. They won’t come out and say they’re running a surrogate parenting business, but they’re out there and are eager to help. So act now, by…well, not acting.

Worried how you’re going to handle the “birds and bees” talk? Well, worry no more! There’s porn-a-plenty out there that can help. And it’s sooo easy to find, too. Let your kid exchange ideas and photos with “12-year-old Pat” (who is really a 50-year-old man — shhhh!) and soon they could even teach you a thing or two. Just think of the time you’ll save!

Step 2 – Keep your superpower a secret

Everyone has some sort of special talent. Some can turn away a second helping of pie, while others can program a VCR. But how many are out there that can render a computer to a smoking pile of ashes just by standing next to it?

Don is one such man. He struggles with his superpower everyday knowing that if he ever got into his kid’s computer — POOF! — instant meltdown. But he won’t be telling anyone his secret lest he be captured and studied for science.

Step 3 – Let your kid have their own unsupervised blog

I don’t have to tell you that blogs are showing no sign of slowing down and kids love’em! Because they’re such expressive creatures it gives them a way to tell all their visitors how old they are, what their cell number is, their likes and dislikes, maybe even where they’ll be next weekend so they can meet the “nice” people they’ve met online.

And for the child who is not very articulate, a digital camera or web cam will enable them to do just as well as a budding writer. I mean, honestly: words cannot compare to a provocative pose, am I right? Judges are standing by to help them along with their creativity.

Step 4 – Never cross over into their privacy

Much to their dismay, scientists have yet to discover the exact moment when a kid’s privacy becomes impenetrable. With eyewitness reports saying it’s a gradual process, and others reporting it happens overnight, one wonders why science hasn’t stopped such fruitless research altogether.

Traditional thinking once held that preserving a kid’s safety was more important than their privacy. But the “don’t ask, don’t have to worry” method of parenting seems to be gaining favor among parents who just don’t have the time.

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Okay, switching back to reality now. If a parent loves their kid enough to protect them from strangers on the street, then they must love them enough to protect them from the strangers they’d meet online.

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