Living in Las Vegas, snow is a rare commodity. It gets cold, and snow up on Mt. Charleston, but generally it’s once in a blue moon for it to snow in the Valley and stick. However, as I type we are getting flurries. Who knows, we might be making snowmen in a little bit (they did on the other side of the valley day before yesterday).

And… in my continuing odd post for the day, I read something interesting in the Las Vegas Review Journal. A commentary written by Gail Collins, a columnist for The New York Times.

I’m not going to replicate the entire article, but the section that caught my eye about dogs:

“Folks at the University of Vienna conducted a test in which dogs were asked to shake hands over and over and over again. If you have any experience with dogs, you will not be surprised to hear that they were absolutely delighted. And they didn’t care about being paid! The opportunity to perform the same trick endlessly with a stranger in a white coat was reward enough.

Then the researchers brought in new dogs that were given a piece of bread as a reward for every handshake. The uncompensated dogs watched, lost their innate love of mindless repetition and grew sullen.

“They get so mad that they look at you and just don’t give you the paw anymore,” said Friederike Range, one of the scientists.

So OK. Dogs are secretly obsessed with fairness. (And bread. Who knew?)”

Strangely enough, as I read that portion it reminds me of so many individuals I’ve “met” online. They work their little buns off for nothing, yet some “bigger dog” comes along, steals all the thunder, and gets all the bread.

This might sound familiar to anyone who’s joined an affiliate program, promoted it with real heart, and gotten squat (or peanuts) for their efforts. While the “big dog” made tons of money from your efforts.

But there is hope… and a way around this… Start your own thing!

However, you must be picky! By that we mean, so specifically “niche” picky that you’ve taken a big old umbrella of a website (or blog) down to its finest points.

“Health” is not a niche, it is an umbrella. However, “colon cleansing” is a specific niche under the umbrella of Health.

“Home business” is not a niche. However, joining a specific home business (or starting your own service or product oriented website narrowed to a single product or service) IS a niche.

This particular blog you are reading right now is NOT a niche. It is an umbrella, encompassing all sorts of niche-like features to internet marketing and social media – from monetizing blogs, to social bookmarking, to freelance writing… and so much more (hang out a while and read the archives there’s tons of help and direction in this here blog!).

Get the idea?

Another valuable thing to keep in mind is choosing something you are passionate about. If you sign up for something that just sounds like a money maker, with no real understanding of what it is or how to run it, what’s the point? You’ll merely be out the money it took to join (and maybe maintain) because you lack passion.

So snow, dogs, umbrellas, niche markets, passion… and that wraps up today’s post

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… little blue birds would be singing, cleaning my kitchen, making our beds, and in general making my day even grander

(Even if you voted for “the other guy” you’re going to want to read this post, I promise.)
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Today I stumbled across a website that is really very cool and very useful:

Digg Friend Finder SEO Tool

(Suggestion: Using the Firefox browser loads the page much faster, IE can hang up sometimes.)

The search results (where they show up) had me confused at first – (okay it’s Sunday and Easter so maybe that’s my excuse) – but once I understood where to look, well – it’s amazing! The results show right on their webpage (or the entire thing requires no download to do your searches).

Just enter a phrase – I tried “marketing” and “blogcatalog” (without the quotes) and search for either Profiles or Submissions posted in Digg that match your term.

Then DOWN BELOW the couple paragraphs of explanation, after you click on the “Show Friends” button, you’ll get a list out to everyone who’s either put the term in their profile or made a post using the term.

Now I put in terms related to what I’m interested in, but if you have a website about “dogs” or “knitting” or whatever, this will also work for you!

Enjoy and Happy Easter to All!

Well it seems that last week Yahoo stocks dropped to a record low for the first time in four years. Since the takeover of Overture, they have been continually deteriorating in share price. Microsoft Chief Executive, Steve Ballmer, has made an offer to take over Yahoo to the tune of 44.6 billion dollars. Yahoo directors are looking into the offer now as it looks otherwise to be a sinking ship. Microsoft has promised shareholders $31 per share which is a 62% increase from the share price this past Thursday. Since Yahoo uses Microsofts technology to run their engines the shift should be quite painless.

Since Google controls around 60% of the US search market, it only makes sense for Yahoo to merge with Microsoft – this way they would be able to narrow the playing field and provide larger advertising service to compete with the big dog Google. In the last year Microsoft has reported a 79% jump in profits with their advertising, while Yahoo has been struggling to maintained a profit. Microsoft projects that they will be able to boost the ad revenue through this takeover, while at the same time cutting out the overlapping of positions within Yahoo.

The key benefit of the purchase per Microsoft is that it would be the best way to maximize value to the share holders and in turn create a more competitive front that would provide the value and service to their customers.

Well that is it for the techno news for today. Chow for now until next time.

(This is a recap of a breaking news story on February 1, 2008)