Sorry about being a bit late with the Contest Roundup this week, I just got back from the Full Moon Party held on Koh Phangan in Thailand and didn’t think to schedule this post before I left… oh well.  Taking that into account, here’s a slightly shortened version of what I would normally post – streamlined for contest entering efficiency :). Oh, and don’t forget to check out my site – Contest Beat – for plenty more opportunities to win free stuff!

A Slightly Used Canon Camera

Neil Duckett is holding a draw for his slightly used Canon IXY Digital 1000 camera. You can enter in a number of ways including RSS subscription, posting about the contest, and by purchasing reviews on this site. Read all about it here.

Win an iPod Nano

There isn’t much to the contest page for this contest so I will make my summary equally brief – to be in to win an iPod Nano all you need to do is subscribe to The Tech Brief RSS feed via email, and you can do that right here.

A 2nd Gen Microsoft Zune

The contest above is for an iPod Nano, so how about one for a Microsoft Zune, just to balance things out? Stupid Celebrities are giving away second generation Microsoft Zune to one of their readers and you can enter the draw in a number of ways including commenting, blogging and technorati favoriting. So if you want to see if Microsoft might be able to oust Apple out of their iPod domination then take a look at the details.

A Ring Finger Optical Mouse

Another contest blog, My Blog Contests, are holding a draw for a pretty cool type of mouse that I have never seen before – a “Ring-Type Finger Tip USB Powered Optical Mouse”. The animation they have on the contest post explains it better than I ever could so just head over there to check out the details.

Written by Mark of MeAndMyDrum | Fave MAMD | Subscribe to MAMD

When I browse the Web and find something worth reading, but just don’t have the time to read it right then, I drop the bookmark in a folder in my browser bar called, “Holding”. This method works fine, but not only have I taken up valuable screen real estate in my toolbar, but when I’m done reading the link I now have to manually delete it.

With Read It Later, a Firefox add-on, this whole process is improved.

When you come across something on the Web that you just want to read later, just click on the “read it later” button in the upper-right corner of your Firefox browser or right-click on the link itself and choose the “read it later” option. It will save that page to a list, which you can return to later.

Another cool feature is that you can “stumble” your list, in the sense that you can be shown a page-by-page view of the items you’ve saved by clicking on the reading list button. When through reading, you can either save it to a ton of well-known bookmarking services, or simply mark it as read and the link disappears from the list — no more manual deletions.

With something called TabScope you can roll your mouse over the tabs in your Firefox browser and it will give you a thumbnail of the site. I was impressed with the speed at which it worked; didn’t experience any lag time.

Thumbnail too small? No problem, just click on the enlarge icon and get a boost. Still not enough, then you can configure the add-on with several choices in size.

On my own blog I’ve been talking about the various free stores that bloggers can set up, such as DIY Dating, Amazon aStores, Convergence (over 18’s only) and Zlio and so on.

Lots of people take up these offers, along with joining one of the many affiliate programs, but the majority don’t do any business at all.

The question is always being asked: How do you get traffic to these sort of websites?

Nil traffic, of course = nil commission.

Here’s a quick ‘brainstorm’ list of ideas. I don’t profess that they are original but they may be of interest, especially to newbies.

There are dozens of other ways as well. If you have any please leave a comment and we’ll see if we can extend the list.

1. Join forums and discussion groups and have a link within your signature.
2. Write press releases and submit them to press PR websites.
3. Write and submit articles to the many article directories.
4. Submit your website to any directories with similar niches.
5. Promote them on your blogs – both with banners and small text ads at the end of posts.
6. Get links from other blogs.
7. Write a freebie ebook or report with links to your store/shop.
8. Obtain referrals from similar but non competing sites.
9. Try free traffic exchanges such as Blog Soldiers, Blog Explosion, Traffic Swarm, Blog Mad
10. Leave comments on other blogs with a backlink.
11. Advertise on free advertising sites such as Craigs List.
12. Include your URL on all emails sent out.
13. Exchange links with related sites.
14. Join myLot and leave URL when you write comments and join discussions. You’ll also get a small commission for your participation.
15. Start your own newsletter or eZine to build a database of names and email addresses.
16. Start a new blog relative to your store/shop website and submit this to all of the blog directories – there are 100’s of them.
17. Make sure you submit your store/shop to Google and Yahoo.
18. Join a link or banner exchange program.
19. Use free ads on non Internet publications.
20. Join things such as Squidoo and create pages about your store/shop.
21. Leave your link on every profile page of social network sites.

The main point to stress is that traffic doesn’t just arrive because we have taken the trouble to set up a free store or joined an affiliate program. There has to be action.

I’m sure that some of the 21 above may not be very effective but we have to try different things if we want to make money.

Don’t forget: If you have any more suggestions or ideas leave a comment and we’ll increase the list – this way we may all benefit.

Good luck,
Mike.
Mike’s Money Making Mission
Celebrity Insider – Photos & News

This review of Young Mom in the Big World was won in the last contest. If you didn’t happen to win, be patient, word is there is another contest coming soon, until then, come with me and discover another treasure of the blogosphere you may not have known about.

Pastor’s Wife 

Slow down. Think about it. Mid twenties, two kids, pastor’s wife. These important factors are by no means all there is to the author who calls herself Bebemiqui but are so integral to the person they must be mentioned.

Old School 

Bebemiqui is no Suzy-come-lately to blogging. She has been at it since 2005 and that makes her an old pro in this business. She has kept “Young Mom in the Big World” on Blogger and, to be quite honest, it seems perfectly at home there.

Bebmiqui practices blogging in its purest form; a personal outlet of communication. She doesn’t live in the world of blog promotion, RSS and StumbleUpon tutorials. In fact, you have to search diligently for the old Atom feed link but it’s well worth the effort.

Don’t, however, get the impression this is your typical SAHM’s blog about “What the kids got into today.” Sure, there’s some of that but it’s sprinkled in among posts about thought provoking life issues, wonderful TV updates and, of course, contest entries. (One look at her sidebar and you know, this woman is a contest addict.)

Summary 

The balance of stressed mom, spiritual pastor’s wife and modern human found in the posts of Young Mom in the Big World may not be to your liking but you may find, as I did, it is a comforting break from the Make Money Online noise.

There’s only one way to know, see for yourself.

Written by Mark of MeAndMyDrum | Fave MAMD | Subscribe to MAMD

Jooce is a step up from the cool desktops you’ve seen on the Web. And as far as cool desktops go, this one is pretty cool.

Jooce is currently in invitation-only mode. If you’d like an invitation, please read on.

In purpose, Jooce is different than other online desktops, so you can expect to store your files, music, and videos, but also expect a capability to chat. You can even share files with other jooce friends in a way I haven’t seen before. If those friends have a desktop they’ve made open to you, you can simply drag and drop a file(s) to it. It’s all private and secure, too.

Like other cool desktops, the number of folders you can create and limitless. You can also include nested folders if you like.

The service comes with a default contact named Neville, the black sheep mascot. He’ll help get you started by showing you his joocetop where he’s left you some goodies. When you find something you like, just drop it onto your own joocetop icon.

So if all this sounds cool to you and you’d like to give it a go, I have some special promotional URLs to giveaway that will allow you to create your own jooce account. If you want one, just leave me a comment asking for one on this post and I’ll email one to you.

No need to make your email address publicly displayed — I’ll see it in my control panel. And don’t worry, I hate spam, too! 🙂

Written by Mark of MeAndMyDrum | Fave MAMD | Subscribe to MAMD

rssHugger is the latest way for bloggers to promote their blogs. It gives bloggers the exposure they’re looking for while offering readers a way to find new blogs to read. The intent, of course, is that bloggers will see an increase in their RSS feed subscriptions.

The subscription fee is EXTREMELY reasonable. Two options are available:

1. For $20, you can have your own page for 10 years.
2. You can cut that fee in half ($10) by posting about rssHugger on your blog.

They have a Top 100 list that ranks the most viewed blogs. But the best part is that the list is reset every month so every blog has an equal chance of getting ranked differently from month to month.

Instead of trying to come up with a post, I’m going to take a personal approach today.

My computer has been terrible the past few weeks, so I took the plunge and wiped everything off of it. Of course, now, the internet won’t work. Wireless kicks my butt, I don’t know as much about it. I hope to be back up and running soon so I can get some more great posts for you all.

Now would be a great time to get some other authors blogging for us, if you are interested please contact me so I can get you set-up. Don’t forget our top 2 authors this month get 15$ each, so it’s worth a shot to get an article up.

Our Top 20 Contest Blogs list has been great, I want to thank everyone for posting about it already. The list is catching fire so please help us move it along. The post is on sphinn, but still hasn’t gone hot yet. We only need a few more votes.

The email subscribers contest is also doing well. We started off with only 14 subscribers one week ago, now that number is up to 66! I’d love to see that go to around 100, there is still about another week left. After this contest is over it looks like we have another sponsor for a 300$ contest! Just in time for Christmas.