I just got this bulk mailing from Yellow Pages via snail mail. It has one of my companies name, address, and telephone number (which is completely wrong) and says: Check one — O List as shown O List with changes or additions. Then you sign your name and stick it back in the mailbox.

Oh, whats this in the fine print?

“This offer is for a featured advertising listing in BPLLC’s online yellow pages directory, brightpages.com. Reach thousands of potential new customers with priority placement, enhanced search engine visibility, and the ability to list additional information such as a map to your location, a link to your website, your fax number, your toll-free number, or your email address. The listing fee for this service is $77 per month-billed quarterly.”

Might as well spend that $924 a year at Ask.com.

This story is a little off topic, but just too bizarre and funny to pass up, so I am going to make it and then add an educational twist to the end.

I’ve made posts before about the over-hyped and over-reported Second Life. Aaron Wall wrote a post recently that applies perfectly to what Second Life has done “Leveraging Statistics to Dupe the Mainstream Media for Public Relations.”

From ZDNet:

“The issue has surfaced after the avatar Anshe Chung (real name Ailin Graef) was attacked by animated flying penises during a virtual interview with CNET news, conducted in their Second Life bureau last month. A video of the attack surfaced on YouTube, and was then taken town after Anshe Chung Studios filed a DMCA complaint.”

Cheap & free publicity is a critical key to entrepreneurial success, online and off. I suggest every time you see an attention-grabbing story you pay close attention to the factors that got it there. In this case an odd event combined with a controversial DMCA complaint snagged two audiences — despite making one angry it managed to build backlinks and mindshare for a virtual business owner.

2007 is shaping up to be a very interesting year. My first full-time employee, 3 big projects, and unbelievable revenues are all here. I am taking the skills which I have accumulated over the past 3 years and putting them to the test. The time is to make big moves is now. Those of us who have slaved away for pennies in the past and plowed on despite failures will be rewarded.

A combination of high visibility buyouts (Myspace & Youtube) and a contracting real estate market are resulting in money being poured in to this industry at a 90s boom level. The difference this time is start up costs are very low. The founders of profitable ventures can remain majority owners. Those who can efficiently perform rapid and technical executions of their business plans will continue to take home windfall profits. The guys that choose to make this a hobby will be lucky to bring in six figures.

December 2nd I made a post — Begin preparing for 2007 today, not January 1st — did you follow through? I did. I roared in to New Years Day breaking all of my previous revenue and traffic records.

Despite all the venture capital and outside investment I am only interested in immediately profitable projects. There are just too many of these to be bothered working on something that will require sinking big VC funds in to keep the boat afloat. By taking the systems, skills, and resources that were developed in 2006 I can rapidly launch relatively complex sites.

If you feel that you are going to miss out on 2007, don’t stop. The internet is here to stay. Online advertising and e-commerce will continue to grow at an unbelievable pace, economic hiccups or not. You are in the right place. Now just do the work.

Shawn Collins has announced on the Affiliate Summit e-mail newsletter that 2007’s Affiliate Summit West is on track to completely sell out by tommorow. As of writing there were 35 slots remaining.

I am scheduled to be on the panel — “Ask the Experts: Super Affiliates” Monday January 22nd with Jeremy Shoemaker and Jon from WickedFire.com. If you are on the fence about coming, this is your last chance! If you have never been to a conference before this is the one you need to attend. If your broke, put it on your credit card and worry about it later.

UPDATE: Affiliate Summit is now sold out

Here is a little “leak” thanks to Jon at WickedFire affiliate marketing forums — AdBrite for Video, with *gasp* a video of the owner explaining this upcoming service.

So whats so special? A lot.

As an Adbrite advertiser your ads are embedded in the video. Details are a little lacking on this side, but if the prices are right it could be a cash cow for marketers because…

As an Adbrite video publisher you: 1) Get your own logo watermark embedded on the videos and 2) Recieve ad revenue even when someone else publishes the video on their own site (YouTube-style video sharing.)

If that doesn’t make you excited.. well, have a nice day!

I’ve been following video closely since YouTube exploaded and after talking to Brendon Sinclair about his experiences with increasing affiliate marketing conversions through video. Stay tuned for more “leaks.”

This is definately one you don’t want to miss — Quadzilla who runs the SEOBlackhat.com blog and private forum will be on Shoemoney’s Webmasterradio.fm “Net Income” show today at 6pm eastern. You can listen live from their home page.

Contrary to the name “blackhat”, Quadzilla understands and practices a whole lot more than search engine spamming. As an active member of his forum and someone whose participated in past projects I can tell you this is one smart guy who really “gets it.” I suggest every one listens to this episode and take notes — and if you miss it, check it out when it becomes available in the Webmaster Radio archive (usually by the following day, Wednesday.)

Search engine optimization is in a perpetual state of hyper-evolution. This means those that stick ahead of the pack recieve a disproportionately large piece of the pie. Pay close attention to, and read between the lines, of the experts and you can end up in front.

Formal education trains many of us to do something very counter-productive: over think, over plan, and over act.

I have seen highly motivated publishers waste much time, effort, and money attempting to create eye-pleasing, professional web site designs before even exploring the fundamentals of their niche. All of this is done before creating any content or considering what kind of hooks will draw in backlinks or turn a paid promotion campaign profitable.

Here is my #1 secret tip for 2007. If you have an idea for a web site, find a way to make that site live within hours — not days — not weeks — and most certainly, not months.

If you have an idea for a web site that absolutely requires custom programming — get a site up with content today. Figure out what key phrases are important for potential organic search engine traffic, and write a few pages up for it. Send a few links to the domain and only then start looking for a programmer.

Instead of spending weeks laying out your design and tweaking a logos colors and placement, get an ugly site up today.

This leads to secret tip #2 — no one cares how your design looks if you deliver exactly what they want. There is not even an argument here. XHTML this, WC3 that, forget it!

A pretty site with un-attracting (links, pageviews, return visitors, conversions, and so on) content is like an old beat up car with a Rolls Royce Spirit of Ecstacy superglued on the hood. Do you want to drive it or own it? Hell no!