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Table of Contents for this issue.....

1.    Authors Comments

2.    Q & A, Suggestions and Comments

3.    Cookie Cutter Websites

4.    Making and Posting Videos

5.    SnipURL.com

6.    Microsoft Adcenter  

Author's Comments

This will be a short issue since the week has been compressed, and we are leaving at noon today to baby sit Allison, our grand daughter, in San Antonio tonight.  If all the technical components function correctly, I will finish and publish this remotely from Justin’s computer.  Justin, our son, and Mary will host us for Easter.

Just look at the title – Issue 52.  That means that this is the last issue of the first year for Boomer eZine.  As we said previously, we are going to make some changes to the eZine, but they might have to wait a while.  Things are moving so fast with my company that I do not have much after work time.

In fact, I will be in Florida for the first three days of next week.  Then on Friday Linda and I fly to Dallas .  I have some business there and then we are staying with Travis, our son, and Linda Lee to celebrate her birthday.  If I haven’t told you, Linda Lee, Travis’ wife, is expecting our second grandchild.  By this time next week, we may know if we are expecting a boy or girl.

Happy Easter to all of you who are Christians.  If you are not, we wish you the best of the springtime season.  It is a wonderful time to be alive.

For those of you in the southern hemisphere, fall is a wonderful time of year too.

Q & A, Suggestions and Comments

We received several emails recently, but I am going to save them for future issues.  However, one of them did trigger the article “Cookie Cutter Websites”.  Read on.

If you have anything for this section or you have a suggestion for a topic for an article, please go to http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Suggestion_Form1.htm and give us your input.  With your input, we can improve the Boomer Video eZine.  

Cookie Cutter Websites  

One of the best services that I could do for mankind on the Internet is to shout from the mountain top, “Do not buy ready made, “cookie cutter” websites”.  These usually only make the seller any money.  

A “cookie cutter” site is one that the builder creates so the title of the site can be easily changed to your domain name and the sites can be stamped out like using a “cookie cutter”.  The site is sold under the pretense that all you have to do to make LOTS of money is buy the site and pay to have it hosted on the Internet.  The site has ready made links to products and services from which you are told will make a commission each time a person clicks a link.  Usually the products and services are sold by the company that developed the website so they make most of the money if you do get a sale.  They keep telling you, “Just think how much money you will make by having a site like this on the Internet”.  

For those of you who have “cookie cutter” sites, it’s time for true confessions.  When I first started on the Internet I did not know the magic word “traffic”.  I was naïve and thought that all you did was set up a website and the world beat a path to it to click on your offerings. I read an ad that said, “My little website made me $11,000 in a week”.  I thought, “Wow, if that site made him that much money, just a small percentage of that will be fine with me”.  Little did I know that the marketer who sold this “cookie cutter” site had a list of over 40,000 to which to promote the web site.  

There were several testimonials in his sales letter about how people who had bought the site were raking in the money.  When I later researched the testimonials, I found that these were from other Internet marketers who had large lists and could drive traffic to their “cookie cutter” sites.  Beware of the fraternity of Internet marketers.  They scratch each other’s backs.  

I bought the site and guess what.  The only benefit I received from it was from some really good bonuses that were attached to the deal.  It was a “live and learn” experience.  I have justified it to myself that the bonuses were worth the amount I paid, but they really weren’t.  

Since then I have seen many of these sites on the Net, and I really think it is a shame that people do this to other people.  

The time and money spent trying to promote someone else’s “cookie cutter” site could be better spent creating your own site with your own personality.  

So much of what is sold on the Internet should require the seller to tell “the rest of the story” to quote Paul Harvey.  The untold part of the truth is really a lie.  

CREATE YOUR OWN SITE

DON'T USE A COOKIE CUTTER THAT MAKES SOMEONE ELSE RICH  

I keep coming back to Site Build It for creating your own site.  It is the method that comes closest to being the answer for someone who wants an Internet business and is not an Internet expert.  

It does have some basic templates to use for the look of your site that could be criticized as “cookie cutter”, but that is where the likeness stops.  And you are not limited to the basic templates.  You can create your own if you want to.  Retirement Jobs Oline.com is a Site Build It site using an SBI template for the look and feel.  

The content on the site is all created by YOU and the site becomes YOU.  The content of the site is what is IMPORTANT.  

I have posted a video player on the Boomer eZine website for you to view a video about SBI.  

You owe it to yourself to take a look at this video so you can see how Site Build It works and how it can make a difference in your life.  The video is broken down into six different segments.  

“Tour It”, the video that takes you through the SBI process so you will really understand how SBI works is 30 minutes long.  

You say to yourself, “I don’t have time to watch it”.  I say to you, “You don’t have time NOT TO WATCH it”.  This is the only way for you to see what I have been preaching about ever since I discovered SBI.  

If you do not have time right now, reserve time to view this video.  It will make a difference in your Internet life.  

If you are reading the email version of Boomer eZine, click the following link to go to the Boomer eZine website to watch the video:  

SBI Video

	Wait until The 3 Minute Shortcut has finished, or pause it, before touring these visual links... Tube It! Tour It! Join It! Tortoise It! Doubt It? Try It! Videos From The Heart How SBI! Makes You Succeed SBI! Family Bulletin Board SBI! Business Philosophy Ask Anything To An SBI! Owner Risk-Free Test Drive (The middle four links above open a new browser window.)

 If you have any questions about SBI, I will be happy to answer them. 

Making and Posting Videos  

A couple of weeks ago, I told you about posting a video on YouTube.  Since then, I have posted the video on Google Video and Yahoo Video.  

Video is the really “hot” medium on the Internet now.  YouTube has led the way and the others are scrambling to catch up.  

You can view the videos at the following locations:  

YouTube - http://snipurl.com/1fek4  

Yahoo - http://snipurl.com/1fek2  

Google - http://snipurl.com/1fejl  

Making videos is fairly easy.  I recommend that you start learning how to make a video and post it on the major sites.  Even if your first video does not get a lot of clicks, the experience will be invaluable.  Just keep it up.  

If you have a camcorder, you can record and publish a video using Microsoft Windows Movie Maker which comes with MS Windows XP.  I expect that MS Vista contains it also.  Look for it on your computer, open it up, and see what it will do for you.  

If you want to make videos of your screen as you explain an event on your computer, we recommend Camtasia Studio.  That is what we use and it is truly remarkable what you can do with it.  All the videos that we have posted on the Boomer eZine are made with Camtasia.  And there will be many more to come.  

SnipURL.com  

You probably noticed that the links to the videos in the previous article are redirects using SnipURL.  This is a new redirect site that I read about on Jim Cockrum ’s new site www.silent-team.com.  

SnipURL does the same job that TinyURL does and much more.  (See article about TinyURL in  

 http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I43_020207.htm).  

TinyURL will convert a long URL into a short one and redirect for you. SnipURL also shortens the URL and redirects.  In addition, it gives you a user area on its website where you can keep track of your snipped URL’s, edit them, and give them names for remembering what they are.  The best feature – it counts the times that the link is clicked.  Now how cool is that???  

You don’t know the number of times that I have asked myself, “I wonder how many times this link is followed”.  Well, enter SnipURL to give the answer.  

It is easy to set up and use.  The key feature is the click count for the link.  Check it out at http://www.snipurl.com/.  

Microsoft Adcenter  

I told you in my mid-week follow up that I was checking out an offer from an unidentified expert concerning MS Adcenter.  I have investigated the offer, and it is legitimate.  

The offer is from Jeremy Palmer, the author of “Quit Your Day Job”.  Jeremy is an expert in pay per click (PPC) advertising.  He has made this exceptional offer.  

He will give you the download to a video about how to use MS Adcenter for a free and you can get a $50 free credit to use to learn how Adcenter works.   This seems too good to be true.  And it is almost too good to be true.  

Let me qualify the offer:  

• The offer is only valid for customers in the United States.
• The $50 credit only extends to new Microsoft AdCenter accounts.
• While the offer is only good for new US-based customers, everybody will benefit from the free training presented in the video.
• Creating a new Adcenter account costs you $5.00 so get the credit card out. This is a good trade for $50 credit on Adcenter.
• Jeremy will request for your email address and first name.

Bottom line.  This is a good deal.  You pay $5.00 for $50 credit toward Adcenter advertising.  (Pretty equitable in my opinion).  You get great instruction in the video (I viewed it and it is well done).  You can use the $50 credit to apply the knowledge that you get from the video in a live advertising campaign.  

When you go to Adcenter to sign up, note the promotion code for the $50 credit is AFF07.  Make certain that you enter this in the promotion code box on the sign up form.

Click the following link to go to Jeremy’s site.  He will ask for your first name and email address.  From there follow the instructions to download the instructional video and to open a new account on Adcenter with a $50 credit to start.  

If you already have an Adcenter account, you must open a new one to take advantage of this offer since it only applies to new accounts.  

Click this link to accept the offer - http://snipurl.com/Adcenter50dol  

This is an excellent opportunity to learn about PPC advertising by spending $5.00 to join Adcenter.  My recommendation is that you get the video and sign up for Adcenter so you can learn how PPC works.  You just might make some money in the process of getting an education.  

Good Luck.  

That wraps up our issue for this week.  Until next week, stay tuned.  

John and Linda Howe

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