click4africa - a brewing idea.

The more time I spend in the click exchanges, the more I am understanding what I'd like to do with what I've learned.

I would like to create a traffic exchange that caters specifically to people who are interested in using their time online to promote causes in Africa that they care about. I would be a place where African organizations in need of votes to win competitions could go to promote their latest online campaigns.

It would be a place where Ceris from Wales could spend 1/2 hour per day viewing other campaigns to help Africa and actions he could take to help, while at the same time viewing campaigns that other like-minded people care about and promoting the Kampala Junior League's proposal for a Life in Africa grant that he's been helping his KJT friends in uganda to put together.

It's not the income earning models in the traffic exchange market that offer the biggest insight into useful ways forward for the social sector, but the ability to create communities of like-minded people who agree to consider what others in the community are promoting.

I would so love to build an exchange where people like our old friends from Onet, our friends from ned.com and our friends from Razoo and Facebook - some of whom know each other and are actively involved in promoting wonderful grassroots projects in and for Africa - could come to find a receptive group of people who are willing to take time out of their day to click in support of their actions and initiatives.

After 3 months in the clickexchanges, I think that's my biggest takeaway. I'm pretty sure of the direction I'd like to eventually take with the knowledge I've gained.

By the way, I have owned the domain click4africa.com since late 2001 or early 2002. I just got a reminder from WHOIS that I still own it, so it's an old concept that's been freshly brought out from the back of the shelves of my mind, and I'm looking at it again for the first time in quite a while. We'll see where it goes from here.

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The Bad Ethics of One Time Offers in Internet Marketing

The more I explore the Traffic Exchange marketplace, the more convinced I am that there's potential for the social sector to tap into the traffic and financial resources there.

At the same time I am becoming more and more disgusted with some of the predatory tactics that I'm seeing some people employ. I recently came upon an interesting example.

Internet Marketing Success Formula is advertised as a free ebook. The ebook is indeed free, and not only explains but also illustrates the trickery in using One Time Offers to make money on the free sign up process.

The author, Soren Jordansen is the owner of a couple of successful membeship sites. He's a known name in the marketplace and obviously his tactics work. He's probably even a fun guy. Quite frankly, however, it frightens me in the current economy that people would choose to prey on each other like Mr. Jordansen himself does and proposes that others should too.

The one time offer at IM Success Formula came after I'd signed up but before I actually had access to the ebook. In the OTO I was told I could rebrand the book and get my very own cash cranking One Time Offer page, including a bonus package of more rebrandable, resellable ebooks than anyone can possibly read in a year. All this promise of knowledge and a commission only job selling affiliate signups to the mystery programs listed inside could be mine for just $127, unless I would order right now and get it half off. Sixy something bucks.

From free to $60+ seemed an extraordinary leap for me, and I really didn't want all those ebooks. So I passed on the OTO and..... got a second chance offer! Forget the gazillion ebooks and the One Time Offer page this time - now I would just get to be an affiliate and rebrand the book. All this could be mine now but but never again at the low low price of $37.

Of course, I still hadn't seen the book and had no idea what links are in the book that I would want to re-brand. I'm not interested in doing the work to market Mr. Jordansen's book with my links if it means signing up for 2 dozen new sites that are going to distract me from other things. I wanted to actually see the book before shelling out $37 in a commitment to selling this product.

So I left that page open and went to check my email. There was the link to log into the IMSF site. Wanting to keep that 2nd chance offer open just in case, I logged into the site in another browser to check on the inside price for rebranding the book.

Lo and behold, the price for members who did not take the One Time Offer of $60+ or the Second Chance Offer of $37 can be an affiliate and rebrand the ebook for only $27.

So the whole one time offer and second chance offer thing at IMSF is a LIE. The offer does not represent a discount at all, but a higher price than if you just sign up for free ebook and upgrade later. What's more, I have very little doubt that were I to remain on Mr. Jordansen's mailing list and read his messages, I would eventually receive a special offer to upgrade (today only!) for a price even lower than $27.

Not only is it terribly sad that Mr. Jordansen's book is teaching people to lie and prey on human fear to be successful online, but think about it - anyone who suggests you should make an uninformed and rash decision about investments in your business is absolutely NOT thinking about YOUR success.

Making uninformed and rash decisions based on fear is NOT the way to build a successful business - not in the online world and not in the offline world - ever. Anyone who suggests you should is not looking out for your best interest, but for their own.

If you're active in the Traffic Exchanges and you're reading this, please join me in fighting against this ugly practice.

Say no to One Time Offers at sign up.

You WILL receive more offers of discounts. There is no such thing as a one time offer, so decide right now that from today forward they will have no effect on you.

ALWAYS give yourself a chance to evaluate the free version of any product or service before you spend money upgrading. Once you're on the mailing list as a free member of any site, you will almost always continue to receive special offers to upgrade for a discounted price. If you decide to make an investment at that point, it will be based on a more informed and better thought-through decision about what you are actually paying for and why you want or need it.

If enough people stop responding to OTO's, then maybe they'll stop trashing up the Traffic Exchanges landscape so much. Sincerely speaking folks, there are ways to earn in the TE Marketplace that do not involve lying to your customers to get them to pay you more money. Money is too hard to come by these days for us to allow this kind of predatory tactic to be an acceptable norm. I know this model has been proven to work, but it simply can't be the only model that works... it's time for some kinder and gentler ways.

If you're at all active in the Traffic Exchanges, you should definitely read the Internet Marketing Success Formula. It's 41 pages and a real eye opener to the kinds of aggressive psycho-marketing techniques that I hate with a passion - and that you should learn about so that you can avoid falling prey to them.

It's certainly educational, and if you can possibly resist the One Time Offer(!) it's also FREE.

http://imsuccessformula.com/?rid=19621

I would LOVE to hear your views.

ourwwworld revisited

For nearly a year now, the ourwwworld space has been my experimental scratchpad as I've explored ways to earn income for my cause through blogging. While I will continue to blog about blogging, the focus of this space will be changing again now, to reflect my newest ventures into using the Internet to promote social change.

I've started a new business in the Traffic Exchanges that I'm kind of excited about. The Traffic Exchanges are an interesting marketplace that I've always thought could really use a blast of meaningful content and purpose beyond all the hype about money. A recent trend in that market is personalized branding, so I'm taking that to another level by binding my personal brand to change.

I know I've still got some tweaking to do, and I would surely love any feedback that readers here might have to offer. I've tried to design these pages specifically with the Traffic Exchanges and how they work in mind.

I really love how the splash pages turned out
http://internet4change.com/splash/1.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/2.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/3.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/4.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/5.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/6.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/7.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/8.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/9.htm
http://internet4change.com/splash/10.htm

And if you follow the links on those, you end up here
http://internet4change.com/shop/clicks/
which I'm pretty happy with

or here, which I think still needs some serious tweaking (actually, it probably suffers from over-tweaking at the moment)
http://internet4change.com/christina/giveaway.htm

You can also read a bit about my plans for the site for the rest of this year at
http://internet4change.com/plans.htm

There are some things that are typical in the click exchange market that I deliberately haven't done in this campaign (like hide information from people unless they provide an email address). I'd like to break out of the mold in a couple of ways that I hope - at the very least - will get some people in that market thinking about combining their business goals with more social good.

One of the things I really hate about the TE market is that so much of the real information you need be successful is exchanged behind closed doors. There are not many bloggers offering honest, publicly accessible reviews about the various market opportunities there - everyone seems to focused on selling. So that's something I plan to do a little differently.

From today forward in this space I'll be inviting questions from my Internet4Change shop customers about the products and services listed there, and posting reviews that can help them in developing their business plans. As the giveaway to causes develops, I'll also be posting updates about that here.

There will still be continued posts about earning online income for change through blogging, but that is no longer the sole focus of this blog. In addition to Traffic Exchanges and blogging, this space is likely to become a mish-mash of all kinds of ways that home-based online income generating activities can be combined with social content to increase awareness and foster group action for change. (BTW - If you decide to unsubscribe from this blog because the focus has changed, I promise I won't be offended.)

The name of this blog has changed slightly to reflect this broader perspective. Instead of ourwwworld: sustainable blogging, I'm now calling it ourwwworld: Adventures in clicking for impact.

Let me know your thoughts on the i4c shop campaign.

All the best,

C