Comments on: The Katana: Advertising For A Cause

By: admin

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:14:04 +0000

Hi Darren! Thanks for stopping by. You can do linkshare.com and cj.com for affiliate advertising where you can choose what you’d like to promote. Also, if you gain more traffic outside advertisers will approach you as well. There’s a fine line as well. I don’t think Adsense is bad per say, it’s just not my cup of tea.

Once you focus on making money for your blog, I think the quality and spirit go downhill b/c the money is so little.

Yes, it was started in the summer of 2009!

Hope to see you around more often!

Best, Sam

By: Darren

Darren — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:56:11 +0000

That’s very admirable of you to donate your blogging income to charity. Much props for that! I also struggled with whether or not to put adsense on my site when I try to monetize it, because of irrelevant ads or ads I don’t feel comfortable promoting. Do you know of any other avenues to provide more relevant ads?

Also, did you really just start up your blog in the summer of ’09? If so, you’ve created a pretty well-established in a short time. Congrats on that!
Darren´s last blog ..How I’ve Managed To Stay Out of Debt

By: Creating Powerful Friends: Samurai's Yakezie Alexa Ranking Challenge | Financial Samurai

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:12:52 +0000

[...] recently had an “a-ha” moment which I will share with you this weekend. Update: All advertising proceeds after operating costs will be donated to charity.* Other big sites who never bother responding to you, suddenly take notice and give you the time of [...]

By: The Katana: A Week Long Celebration of Love | Financial Samurai

The Katana: A Week Long Celebration of Love | Financial Samurai — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:19:22 +0000

[...] Losers Of The Obama Tax Plan” over at Darwin’s. I feel bad for the losers, especially charities.* “Untemplater Interview With Career Coach Alexandra” by Jun talks about career advice [...]

By: admin

admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:16:16 +0000

Yo E-dog – Uh oh, you be track me. I get a solid 4-5 hours of sleep every night! Especially after 2 hours of tennis and squash like last night. :)

I have a funny story, but it will have to wait until another post. Signing off!

By: Evan

Evan — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:33:47 +0000

Alright Sam, I have to ask…Do you sleep? I know you are the west coast and its 630am there, and I have seen you comment way into the night….What’s up? Is there a no sleep eastern medicine secret you aren’t sharing.
Evan´s last blog ..Is there Anything More Important than Money when it comes to a Job?

By: admin

admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:30:06 +0000

@Mike Piper Sounds like a good balance Mike. It's also kind of a zero sum game. If I put Adsense up, it takes space away from something else. Worth playing around with though. @Monevator This goes back to one of my old questions to you.... how come the English aren't as relevant or as innovative as Americans, besides HTML and Skype of course? Are the Brits really at a disadvantage when it comes to making money online? I've received several offers from English-based SEO companies asking to do something, so I'm testing the legitimcy of one out for a month (see UK Sponsors). If it's good, fine. If not, I'll introduce them to you! :) I have several charities in mind. Most are local. It'll be a next topic sometime soon. I like that other guy's idea. People can drop in links as much as they want here. I have no problems with it at all (wrote so in one of the Katana's). Cheers, Sam

By: Monevator

Monevator — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:52:14 +0000

Adsense is a real love/hate/hate/hate decision for me. I have set up filters so regular readers don’t see it until an article is a couple of weeks old (apart from one spot and one link list) but I still don’t like it.

I have two problems: Firstly, I set myself a traffic goal to get to before I devoted time to monetizing the site in a way that felt more congruent, and it’s taking forever to get there.

Secondly, as a UK based blog my pool who might want to buy an affiliate product is much smaller (population 1/5th) and a third of my readers are American either. I’ll probably end up targeting UK readers with affiliate deals, but I’ll still have to pipe Adsense at the rest of the world I think.

Unfortunately, I’m not rich enough to give away all the income. If you don’t mind me adding a link to Monevator, I wrote a piece on how what seems like a relatively small amount of regular income is actually worth a lot if you consider the capital it would take to generate it:

http://monevator.com/2009/02/13/small-passive-income-streams/

Best of luck to you with your charity idea. Have you considered doing something more focused so you can see the results more concretely – The School that the Samurai Blog built or similar?

One of my favourite entrepreneurial bloggers does this in South Africa:

http://therockstarfoundation.org/

Just an idea, but I could imagine you responding to that sort of vision.
Monevator´s last blog ..How to make money developing iPad apps

By: blog

blog — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:19:35 +0000

well i think adsense is good program till now this program had helped me to earn some bucks but when we talk about quality of ads then it cannot be said that adsense is wrong why because when you pick a newspaper we can find various illegal ads which a intelligent person will never opt for.

Penny stocks ha ha ha really i have also seen those ads doubling your money in 2 years or 1 year or so well they looks good but not good enough
blog´s last blog ..Free Fund Manager Desktop Software (Nse /Bse)

By: Mike Piper

Mike Piper — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:52:37 +0000

Like you, I’ve refrained from Adsense on my investing blog. I tried it out, but couldn’t bring myself to promote the things I ended up promoting.

That said, I use it on my tax site and am much more comfortable with the majority of the ads. It mostly just ends up being tax software.
Mike Piper´s last blog ..Lending Club Risks and Costs

By: admin

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:05:03 +0000

@Evan
Nope, you are the second to disagree. It’s cool if you do, and I expect it. I guess I’m lucky, but it’s funny when people use the word luck. Yes, I’m lucky to have the initiative to start this site, as you are to yours. And I’m lucky to have fingers to type on and a brain to think with. Somehow, it really does seem like “the harder one works, the luckier one gets.”

My family is being taken care of for now, knock on wood. If I ever lose my job one day, or come on hard times, I most definitely will use the proceeds of this site to support myself. Maybe in 10 years, when I’m retired, and have only a little bit of income, I can rely on this site. But for now, I don’t want the money.

It’s an important mindset to have.. to NOT write for money. Think about how many hours you spend on your site, compared to your income as a lawyer. What a waste of time, if it’s for the money! I want this site to be about community and personal enrichment. If it can provide some income to others, even better and more motivating to keep on going.

Sam-urai

By: Evan

Evan — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:55:11 +0000

I was thinking about this on my way to work today (kind of ashamed to admit that – it took a while before I could actually type it), and I may be the first person to say I disagree with your decision.

You are lucky to have a hobby that may produce an income, regardless of whether it was $1,000 or $10,000/month that income may provide for a down payment for a child’s house (if you have them), that income could be used to fund education pursuits of your child, it may be used in some way to better your family.

Do you have to use 100% of it for your family? No, but I think to give it all away is a disservice to your family. Think about it, saving just one year’s income (at $1,000/month) for the benefit of a son or daughter, neice or nephew, could help them pay for education or for a down payment on a home.

Maybe its because i am more selfish than you, maybe it is because I don’t make as much as you in the 9 to 5 arena, maybe its because yeou have 15 or so comments commending you and telling you how amazing you are LOL

Or maybe just have to be different.
Evan´s last blog ..The Basics of Personal Finance are Not Hard It Doesn’t Matter if you Make $46,000 or $460,000

By: admin

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:41:57 +0000

@Bytta @151 Days Off
Only 10 minutes away, sweet! You should watch Rafa vs. Murray in a couple hours then. That’s a huge match but i’ll be sleeping by then.

I don’t have a minimum inome req to make this site a capital pursuit. But, if I lose my job, I could use all the help I can get. I figure if I can just give the money away while I work, I’ll use the income fromt he site when I retire in 9-10 years.

By: thriftygal

thriftygal — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:39:09 +0000

I started blogging to get things off my chest and as a way to interact and learn from the PF blogging experts out there, and can definitely say that I have learned a lot from big guys like you who set the bar. One day if I do monetize and have questions I’ll know whom to ask :)

btw, this is not to plug my post, but there are much better rates than 1.51% at local banks, which I coincidentally talked about today. I do realize that you probably cannot access ads from smaller institutions.

By: Bytta @151 Days Off

Bytta @151 Days Off — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:12:33 +0000

Ah yes, plenty of interesting ‘comebacks’. I developed an appreciation to tennis a couple of years ago. I only follow the semi final and final matches. The Australian Open courts are only 10 minutes from my office. Pretty soon, I’ll hear the F1 noises; the grand prix circuit is only a jump and a hop away from my office. Funny how I’ve never attended it.

So, do you have any minimum income requirement to change your mind and make this blog a capitalism pursuit?
Bytta @151 Days Off´s last blog ..Day 11: Designing Your Life with Savings Snowball