One of my favorite bloggers, Diorex, is back online. He has put up his old posts with no promises of making any new postings, but he is returning to my RSS subscriptions anyways. I’m sure if he has something he really wants to say it will be posted. Check them out at http://www.diorex.com/.

If you never read his blog before, check it out. Between his posts and talking to him in person at Ad-tech last year made me critically re-think my business for the better. I suspect he also had quite an influence on Paul over at UberAffiliate too.

Sometimes a picture is worth 1,000 words. Via Adwords:

Meanwhile Yahoo is busy building more niche portals so that is can sell you some ridiculously overpriced CPM inventory.

I am a picky reader. I prefer to take topics one at a time and study them very closely. Recently I decided to start going through all of Warren Buffet’s Letters to Berkshire Shareholders.

The past few years Warren Buffet has made reference to his partner’s book (Charlie Munger), Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger. The book went on my “to read” list. However, after seeing an excellent post on Marc Andreessen’s blog — The Psychology of Entrepreneurial Misjudgment, part 1: Biases 1-6, I immediately ordered two copies of the book.

Charlie Munger preaches the use of multiple mental models when approaching business and investing. I thought that I had a similar approach. That is, until I read Charlie has about 100 (I’ve been using maybe 4 or 5.)

The book gives a run down of Charlie’s life along with a collection of 10 talks he has given. There is a fair bit of repetition in the book’s 500 or so pages, but not so much in a bad way. Other than that, I have nothing bad to say. Do not expect a point-by-point list of what you should exactly do. This is a book about how to think so you can solve problems.

A blog review can’t do this justice. If you want a preview, check out Marc Andreessen’s post I linked to. Like it, you’ll like the book. You can grab a used copy off of Amazon, or get a new copy direct from the publisher.

In my previous post I said that Google is a data company, Yahoo is a content company. How so? They are both search engines, right?

Both Google and Yahoo provide lots of web services. Yahoo always was a portal & search engine, but over the years Google has continued to add more “portal” services — Google Maps, gmail, Google finance, and so on.

Take a closer look at the companies. Compare Google Finance to Yahoo Finance. One of these companies needs an engineer with a cup of coffee, the other needs an engineer, editor, and staff.

Yahoo is focusing on their own on-site content because of the display advertising revenue, there is no doubt about it. There is a problem with this approach. Short term, its not helping them keep up to pace. Long term, this model risks killing their company.

Yahoo is demonstrating a strong interest and desire to pursue an old model — a centralized content distribution structure (walled garden has been a popular phrase lately.)

Consider the two models. Yahoo pushes traffic to their own properties, presumably of good quality content. Google pushes traffic to outside properties, of the most popular content. Google doesn’t have to struggle or focusing on providing fresh content of the best caliber day after day. And, to make things even better, every hit to something the audience like is yet another point for Google’s brand value.

Take a look at YouTube and compare their traffic data to the monster video sites that existed years prior (such as eBaumsworld.) The owners of eBaumsworld certainly weren’t generating their own content. Like Yahoo, they were re-ordering and collecting outside content, presumably by hand. No matter how good the human element got at it, at some point, Youtube’s exponential growth rapidly dwarfed these older video sites within mere months.

Why? Because automated systems can sort and aggregate data far faster and far better than human editors.

Weigh these two things: As Google’s engineers work on rolling out next generation systems Yahoo’s editors have been building sub-portals aimed at a specific age demographic of women.

10 to 15 years out, where will Google be? Where will Yahoo be?

I’ve spent a lot of time weighing content verse data myself. Data won, I changed my business model. More on this topic in the near future.

Tech bloggers everywhere have been talking and throwing out predictions over the failed Yahoo Microsoft merger.

I’ll keep it simple. Google is a data company. Yahoo is a content company. That difference is night and day when it comes to focus and performance.

Content is a fine business model. Long term, a “be everything” model it is destined for failure. Niche publishers and aggregated feeds will grind away at their audience and profit margins.

Short term, the mis-focus has caused Yahoo to fail miserably by screwing up Panama. Also, for far to long they allowed garbage traffic access to the same PPC feed as high quality publishers and domainers. And thats just the beginning of the list. These are mistakes data companies don’t make. Google sure didn’t.

I was recently reminded by on of my first websites from a blog post by Brendon Sinclair over at Tailored Consulting (soon to be Tailored Web Services.) The post was, “How to make $500+ an hour & other tips.”

Brendon mentioned a particularly unimpressive web site, with particularly unimpressive earnings, making $1 or 2 a day from Adsense. What was special about it was it took just a few hours of work many years ago.

As beginners, everyone wants to jump in and have a six figure income by Friday. What is missed is starting small is just fine. And most importantly, if you build web assets, they will continue to make money for years to come.

For the real beginners — those who struggle with the bare basics of the web and business, starting small is critical. Building your own web site is both a classroom and boot camp in one.

Let me present you with a choice:

1) Pay $1000 for a “guru” kit on how to make lots of money online. Probably pay $50, $100, and more on additional information products.

2) Pay $0, build a website using free software and tutorials, be paid $1000, $2,000, $5,000 or more for years to come.

I really like choice number 2. Its like going to college, but instead of paying off a student loan for the next 30 years, the school pays you for your attendance.

Now to my own experience. Years ago I sat down and wrote about one of my hobbies. It took me hours of work, but by day 2 the website was up and fine. A few years later I added a forum and updated the design a bit, but that was all. The site continues to make $15-$25 a day. The Adsense income goes through direct deposit, I can forget the site even exists. It means little to me now, but years ago that passive income was what allowed me to create and grow bigger, far better projects.

I beat Brendon on his $500+ a hour, this project was more like $1000+. Best of all, I had almost no clue about making money online when I did it.

The catch? The site has to be good, the content legitimate. Write about something you know a lot about. Hack jobs aren’t going to be worth your time or effort 4 years out. Then there were the sites that I built, thinking that hack jobs would be ok, and they didn’t work out. One I slaved away for a month at and it made about $1 a day (and still does.) Ouch.

There are countless paths to get yourself launched in internet business. If you can write, this may be your best shot.

I hate being a quitter, but sometimes quitting is the right thing to do.

When I dropped out of my first class ever, as a senior in high school it was the right thing to do. When I dropped out of college halfway through my junior year, it was the right thing to do. When I decided to stop writing Web Publishing Blog, it was the right thing to do.

The past 3 months of 2008 and been spent expanding and automating my primary internet business. Part of that has involved aborting the projects that distracted me from my goals.

Since “shutting down” Web Publishing Blog my gross and net income have grown. Last month all revenue records were broken. No numbers will be given, but its fair to say that my quarterly taxes are supporting numerous families on welfare.

Look at your goals. Fill your time with things either you absolutely love doing or that drive you further toward achieving your goals. Everything else — get rid of it. If there is any message I want readers to take away from Web Publishing Blog, that is it. You may not get everything you want, but you certainly should have an enjoyable time along the way.

Don’t use rules other people made up in order to organize your time. Life is far too short to piss away.

SEOBook author Aaron Wall, has switched his SEOBook product over to a subscription community. I just had a chance to sign up today (link here.) At $100 a month, its not cheap, but you get access to his training program plus exclusive SEO Forum.

I have been a member of several exclusive, paid forums as well as free private communities. The biggest downside is often a loss of momentum due to members cutting their subscriptions. Given how prolific Aaron Wall is with his blog and promoting I am willing to bet this will be a hit.

Microsoft has submitted a $44.6 billion bid to buy Yahoo.

This is the only scenario I can see as someone becoming a serious threat to Google. Yahoo attempted to become a content company rather than a data company, as Google is. They made a lot of mistakes, going entirely in the wrong direction, in my opinion.

This business is all about sending traffic to the most valuable source. Google understands that. Yahoo didn’t, or doesn’t. The question now, will Microsoft?

2007 was big. 2008 is shaping up to be even bigger. I have decided to significantly scale back my posting on Web Publishing Blog. This already happened in 2007, to a degree, but now I just want to make it official. Do not expect any regular posts here on out.

Between business and personal time, things are very tight. I am not alone, other top tier bloggers have done the same, or closed up shop completely.

Here are the facts. Launching the blog was the best business move I have ever made. I can not put a value on the personal contacts I gained as a result. The networking effect continues to compound on itself every single day.

Time goes on, and the law of diminishing returns begins to catch up. Right now I need to walk away for a while, and place my focus on my businesses as we scale them up and out.

Here is a New Years resolution for you. If you have not blogged, then try it out. Forget the organic search traffic, use the platform to aggressively network with others. Likewise, if you blog a lot (or post on forums) then scale it back.

I hate mixed messages, but some times it is what needs to be said.