Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 39

Thread: Who are your heroes and role models ?

  1. #1
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Posts
    774

    Who are your heroes and role models ?

    Who are your heroes and role models ?

  2. #2
    I see mildly ill people. AmbulanceBlues's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Houston
    Posts
    119
    The Incredible Hulk
    Batman
    Scrooge McDuck
    --> --> --> --> --> -->

  3. #3
    Website Developer
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Posts
    1,607
    Used to have a few, not so much any more.

    Probably Ludwig von Mises and John Wayne.
    Make more money - Read my Web Publishing Blog

  4. #4
    mastermind michael_gersitz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Buffalo
    Posts
    749
    Dumpzilla, Eli from bluehatseo, Jon From AO and WF

    Fallen Heros, Chris, Incka

  5. #5
    Administrator Chris's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    East Lansing, MI USA
    Posts
    7,055
    Are you calling me a "fallen" hero or is "Fallen Heroes" like a band I don't know about?
    Chris Beasley - My Guide to Building a Successful Website[size=1]
    Content Sites: ABCDFGHIJKLMNOP|Forums: ABCD EF|Ecommerce: Swords Knives

  6. #6
    Registered Farmer77's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Posts
    68
    Roger Maris and very average people with average abilities who overcame big obstacles to get to where they wanted to be.

  7. #7
    mastermind michael_gersitz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Buffalo
    Posts
    749
    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Are you calling me a "fallen" hero or is "Fallen Heroes" like a band I don't know about?

    Fallen hero as you are not my hero anymore. I used to really look up to you and read everything you posted everywhere.... Ever since you left sitepoint you have not really did anything.

    You do not tell any of your new projects or give any real nice tips in your articles anymore. Its like you don't care anymore. A forum that you do not try to hard to get bigger. Gets spammed a lot. Why not try to get this forum bigger. Why not appoint a moderator to help you out? Why not hold a contest or something? I have been here for 3-4 years and the only thing that has changed is the design.... once. There is not much really encentive for us to post here.

    Just my opinion, interested in seeing your response.

  8. #8
    Administrator Chris's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    East Lansing, MI USA
    Posts
    7,055
    What do you mean I don't write anything helpful anymore?

    Since I left SP I started the blog, averaging just over 1 post a week. It isn't heavy posting, but I try not to just post little short posts.

    This summer I published the longest article to date on this site, additionally the new article rate on this site hasn't gone down, it was never very high.


    I also wrote this article, which I'd not seen anyone write about before, and which is an easy way to pump a site's earnings by $10 a day.


    As for not mentioning my new projects. I have never in the past shared project ideas before I was done with them. I'd love to be done with them and share them and talk about them, but unfortunately I've been hit with a plague of slow developers and cannot do so. Once they are done, I'll talk about them.

    I don't promote this site much, it is true, I would rather focus on creating content. I do plan to do some promotion when my rewrite is done.

    As for spam, forum spam globally has increased drastically the past 6 months, the only time spam gets by is when I'm sleeping, and then it is removed when I wake up. I will probably add a a new vbulletin hack to combat it somewhat soon.

    I will never run a contest on this site. Contests attract poor unsuccessful people. The goal with this site has always been to cater to a higher value demographic of serious, successful, full time website publishers.

    Compared to SitePoint, I can say atleast this forum loads at a reasonable speed.

    Compared to WickedFire, well there you have the contest problem. The quality of posts there is just so much lower. Then if you want to compare to to Mook Jon, the fact is, while he is a nice guy, it is all smoke and mirrors. He doesn't share any specifics about his sites or his business, probably because so much of it is built on spam. He repeatedly posts big plans on his blog, only to have them invariably be changed or cancelled a few months later. If you don't think I'm forthcoming you must consider him the Berlin Wall.

    The point being, every single one of my live sites is known, my business is pretty transparent. My in-progress sites aren't shared, but considering no other "guru" comes even close to my level of transparecny I don't see that as a big deal. I've also paid the price for being so forthcoming with numerous copycats ripping off my ideas.

    My writing still is, and has always been, practical and anti-fluff. I don't like writing empty posts or empty articles, things with no real information. I could come out every day and write a post about anonymous big plans, how happy I am to be in this industry, or a motivational call to arms about working hard, but that isn't me. I like to write about problems and the solutions to them.

    I also do not force myself to write if I do not have anything to write about. I'd rather write less about more meaningful things, then just go for sheer volume.

    I guess the main incentive for posting here is my advice. The advice of someone who tells you what sites he runs, and who tells you exactly how he got successful, and who has been consistently successful for quite a few years now. I've also run the entire gamut of site types. Blogs, ecommerce, article, reference, affiliate, review, forums, etc. And oh ya, I don't charge for that advice.
    Chris Beasley - My Guide to Building a Successful Website[size=1]
    Content Sites: ABCDFGHIJKLMNOP|Forums: ABCD EF|Ecommerce: Swords Knives

  9. #9
    Administrator Chris's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    East Lansing, MI USA
    Posts
    7,055
    I just read that Jon alleges he was offered 16m for wickedfire... the same day I wrote that Snake Oil blog post... how ironic...

    I also noticed something else about Wickedfire, people get banned left and right when they don't drink the kool-aid and believe all the BS that gets posted. I read that ridiculous thread about the "16m offer" (so funny) and almost everyone who rightfully points out how much BS it is ends up banned.

    Is that really you're Hero?
    Chris Beasley - My Guide to Building a Successful Website[size=1]
    Content Sites: ABCDFGHIJKLMNOP|Forums: ABCD EF|Ecommerce: Swords Knives

  10. #10
    mastermind michael_gersitz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Buffalo
    Posts
    749
    He clears it up in a different post. They offered 16million for his whole company. He laughs opon the offer and says that why would he sell his whole company when he will earn that much in less than a year.

    Basically you fell for the linkbait.

    I listed him under my heros because he encourages website publishers to think outside the box. Sure, no doubt he is a spammer and a black hatter but he posts interesting topics and stuff on how to make money. Even in the forum, there will be wonderful ideas posted by members on how to generate more revenue.

  11. #11
    mastermind michael_gersitz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Buffalo
    Posts
    749
    I though you and Jon were on the up and up... Didn't think you were on bad terms...

  12. #12
    I see mildly ill people. AmbulanceBlues's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Houston
    Posts
    119
    I just recently started noticing subtle but knowledgable references in lots of web publishing blogs. Now there's this. Does this mean that all of the big SEO/Web publishing people know each other personally?
    --> --> --> --> --> -->

  13. #13
    Administrator Chris's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    East Lansing, MI USA
    Posts
    7,055
    Quote Originally Posted by michael_gersitz View Post
    He clears it up in a different post. They offered 16million for his whole company. He laughs opon the offer and says that why would he sell his whole company when he will earn that much in less than a year.

    Basically you fell for the linkbait.

    I listed him under my heros because he encourages website publishers to think outside the box. Sure, no doubt he is a spammer and a black hatter but he posts interesting topics and stuff on how to make money. Even in the forum, there will be wonderful ideas posted by members on how to generate more revenue.
    I didn't fall for linkbait, I didn't link to him.

    You're also believing some rather outrageous claims without any shred of proof. I could lie and say someone offered me $10 million and it'd get attention and maybe people would think I'm more successful than I am, but... it wouldn't be true.

    Jon is a nice guy, but I've slowly lost any respect for him through these antics.

    First he posts this thread at SP about his supposed affiliate earnings, and on face value it looks atruistic, then he convinces me to let him be part of my new blog here. So now he has fingers in at SP, here, and who knows where else. Then he launches his own blog, then his own forum. Do you really think he wasn't planning that from the get go? Honestly?

    Then suddenly he posts about being available for consulting at some ridiculous rate like $300 an hour. Again, do you think that wasn't planned?

    Then he talks up a radio show, it doesn't last very long. He mentions how he's going to be making $150k a year off his blog with 1 post per month and 120 feedburner subscribers or whatever it was before he took the count down. Uh huh. Now this whole buying wickedfire thing for $16m.

    Oh ya, somewhere in there was something about launching 2000 sites... and of course now he is "retiring."

    He is definitely a great marketer, but I don't believe a word he says.

    Then there is how he gets riled up when people question him, banning people on his forum, threatening violence even at one point I guess. In the words of Shakespeare "thou doth protest too much."

    Had he originally posted at SitePoint saying how much he made and that he would be soon offering $300/hr consulting services no one would have bought it. Ditto with his subscription level membership at Wickedfire.

    But by simply delaying the cashing in he avoided the prejudice.

    In my opinion, he is just continuing to build up a reputation for himself for when he decides to cash in. He'll be laughing all the way to the bank I'm sure, and he should be applauded for how he has been able to capture attention and convince so many people of these outrageous claims he makes. When he does cash in it'll be for far less than $16m too I think.

    I really do not care if Jon is your hero, I don't care if I am your hero. I think the word "Hero" should be reserved for people who save lives, either actually physically or by providing spiritual inspiration. However, I do get offended by being referred to as "fallen" just because I'm not getting caught up in a dishonest rat-race against others who have entered this niche, and because I try to be as honest as possible and refuse to artificially inflate my reputation.

    Big money was never the reason behind making this site. I was writing articles, for free, for SitePoint, because I liked to. I also found myself writing article-length forum posts, because I liked to. I thought that if I liked to write I might as well make money off of it, so I made this site. That I think is the major difference, you may think Jon didn't make Wickedfire for money (yes yes... he wanted a webmaster forum he could swear at, uh huh), but I think there is an obvious pattern of behavior that shows he's had a cash out plan all along.
    Chris Beasley - My Guide to Building a Successful Website[size=1]
    Content Sites: ABCDFGHIJKLMNOP|Forums: ABCD EF|Ecommerce: Swords Knives

  14. #14
    Website Developer
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Posts
    1,607
    Wow, didn't think this thread would turn controversial! Since I am an admin at WickedFire, I'll respond to a few things. This isn't directed at Chris, but at everyone, because I think these are open issues that have remain unadressed.

    I've seen some of Jon's sites, are they spam? Not really. Unique and short term? Perhaps. He has made public his Iraq war videos site before, and that is certainly "legit" although some may find it controversial. As for projects that don't materialize, about half my domain names are empty, and I have countless folders on my hard drive of projects that never went live. The other day I was cleaning out old documents and going through stacks of papers and research I had spent a year on for 2 businesses that never saw a penny of income or a single potential customer.

    $16m offer? If you have the contacts, especially in NYC, thats nothing. With the big Myspace and Youtube buyouts the boom is back and the money is flowing. Is it dumb money or smart money? I think its a mix of both. Jon knows just about "everyone" so I find it plenty believable. If you are still valuing your internet properties in monthly earnings I suggest you make attending some conferences a top priority for 2007 -- Adtech, Affiliate Summit, TRAFFIC (the domain conferences) and so on.

    As for WickedFire being low quality and having tons of noise, yeah, its pretty bad. Are there lots of people on there making no money? Most likely, but at least they "get" it, unlike Sitepoint where everyone is obsessed with w3c compliance and table-less design. As for people getting banned left and right, all I know of is this chrislingle guy who was re-instated hours later. I've seen plenty of attacks on Jon where nothing happened.

    The bigger your forum is, the more trolls and low quality posts its going to attract. SEOBlackhat is about as dead as barn at midnight, but 99% of the posts are top quality. Websitepublisher is really the only forum where the posts are high quality, but things are still active. I think there is a very good reason why Chris has kept it as he has.

    If you are sitting around waiting for someone to drop a magical secret where you will suddenly be making thousands of dollars a day, your in the wrong place. The fact is once you've got the basics down, and failed, succeeded, and failed a few more times, you'll start to figure out what works and what doesn't. When you reach that point, you'll be be able to read between the lines rather than reading the same lines over and over again. Thats the sweet spot where everything starts to come together.

    I subscribe to this magazine called "Millionaire Blueprints" and the editor, who is pretty old, writes about how he spent much of his life going to all these money making seminars and his dreams just never materialized. There is no god of internet publishing or marketing. Hell, rock stars and pop stars are all pretty normal people, and they all sucked at what they did when they started. But, at the end of the day, it was them and them alone who made things happen.

    Let me put it this way, you make things happen for you and no one else. Everyone has different styles, approaches, and goals be it Chris, Jon, Shoemoney, Aaron Wall, and so on. But, what they all have in common is they were willing to do *all* of the work to get in the place they are now. At the end of the day, that is the only thing that matters.
    Make more money - Read my Web Publishing Blog

  15. #15
    mastermind michael_gersitz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Buffalo
    Posts
    749
    Chris, I sure hope your not getting heated over this topic beacause that is not what I meant by posting it. I sure didnt mean anything personal by it. Sure you were definitely my hero back in the day in the years I was starting off. Back at sitepoint I would read all your stuff and eventually merged over to here. When I was just devoloping sites, trying to get link exchanges... working on seo... etc.

    Now, I am looking at many different ways in order to generate more income for my sties and me in general. However, I come here and I am ussually bored browsing your blog or the forums. Most of the time I do not learn anything new. While I'll be on other blogs/forums I'll be learning new things in each post.

    I'll be using my knowledge that I gained from this site though to further all my future endevors for sure.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •