I want to

PDFescape

Link: PDFescape. Edit pdf files using just your browser and their software.

Text Link Ads - Smart Link Marketing

Text Link Ads - Smart Link Marketing This is a resource that you can use to either make money yourself from hosting advertising on your website, or as an advertiser you can buy text link adverts to place on other sites. The links are served as static links which can help your rankings with search engines, and importantly the cost is at a flat rate per advert for a 30 day run. Consequently advertisers know upfront exactly how much money it's going to cost them for a campaign, unlike the rather more open ended approach from Google.

As a webmaster you can obviously sell advertising space on your own site. Once your site has been submitted to the Text Link Ads system you get code to place onto your page(s) and adverts are sent to your site and are listed as 'Sponsored links'. You can choose to approve or deny particular links, so you get to show only good quality adverts, and could also block out your competitors as well. Payment is via dollar cheque (on a minimum income of $25, which compares favourably with Google's minimum of $100) or by PayPal. Webmasters receive 50% of the sale price of each link sold off your website. What's also interesting is that you can display these sponsored links on pages that also use Google Adsense as well, since this system isn't a pay per click or contextually served system.

TLA have been around for quite some time now, and they're based in the US, attending many conferences, so you can actually go and talk to them. The system looks simple, quick and easy to use and is worth trying out, irrespective of which side of the fence you're on.

This is a sponsored review of the Text Link Ads system via the ReviewMe website.

Snippy

Link: Snippy. This is a brilliant free tool for taking a screen capture. Download and install, it sits in your tray and just click it when you want a screen capture. It loads it to memory, then open your graphics package and paste. Absolutely brilliant and works like a charm.

ReviewMe | Write reviews for cash!

Link: ReviewMe | Write reviews for cash!. This is an interesting concept. Not being paid to blog per se - we've seen that in a number of different guises for a long time. At one end of the spectrum you get the 'black hat bloggers' who will write about products either for cash or for a copy of the item or whatever, but without disclosing this. It's not a sensible move to make for the blogger, because if it ever gets discovered that they've done this it's going to ruin their reputation, and you'll always wonder what else they've said that they've been paid for.

At the other end of the spectrum there are the adverts that are placed into individual blog entries, and these - while they have the transparency angle drive me nuts because they look unslightly and get in the way of reading the weblog post. I've dropped otherwise really interesting weblogs in the past because I just can't cope with the adverts.

In between we have the reviews, and this is where 'ReviewMe' comes into play. The concept is simple. You register your weblog with the service, and the folks at ReviewMe work out how influential your weblog is based on it's importance within services such as Technorati. You then get told that reviews in your weblog are worth between $20 and $200 each, I guess depending on how widely read the blog is, and how much the advertiser is willing to pay. The blogger gets 50% of the review, with ReviewMe taking the other 50%. One key element however is that the blogger has to declare that they're doing the review in return for a financial incentive. Consequently, I'm happy to say that in this instance, I'm reviewing ReviewMe for a financial incentive directly from them.

A second key element is that bloggers are free to write what they want to about the product/software/resource/website/whatever. That seems to make perfect sense to me - a review, if it's to have any value at all, needs to be honest and unbiased, because if it's anything other than that it becomes meaningless.

Do I have any concerns about this whole process? None at all. I review products/resources/utilities and so on for this weblog all the time, and include them on the website. If something is good I'm happy to say that it's good. If I don't like it, I'm going to say that as well. Moreover, I'm not about to review anything that I don't think is suitable for this site, so I guess this product would come under the heading 'I want to make money from my weblog'. I don't know if it's something that I'll do a lot of, to be honest - it depends what I get offered for review, and how well it sits with the rest of the weblog content. However, it will obviously be clear, as it is in this case, that the review is in return for that financial incentive.

Having said all of that, Reviewme is simple to set up - just go in, register, answer the questions about the weblog, decide how you want to get paid, and yes, PayPal is an option, and the system is then set up. The first review is for the resource itself, which makes sense to me, and has to be completed within 48 hours. It's an interesting concept as I've already said, and one that I really do think could work. I'll keep you informed!

Old money to new

Link: Old money to new. Find out how much yesterday's money (1270 - 1970) is worth today. (UK Currency)

I want to - a page of utilities that help you do stuff you want to Web 2.0 applications

Link: I want to - a page of utilities that help you do stuff you want to Web 2.0 applications. The site now lists over 350 different utilities that you can use.

Agatra - Forget your passwords

Link: Agatra - Forget your passwords... - Secure online password storage that logs you in to most sites.. Keeps your passwords safe and secure on their site, so you can get access to them from any machine.

Create a book

Link: Blurb Home. Create your own book with their free software.

Make your own ringtones

Link: Wired News: Stop Paying for Ring Tones. Make your own instead! Simple and easy to follow guide. I've used the software mentioned in the past to make my own, and it works very well.

Automatically back up your hard drive - Lifehacker

Link: Geek to Live: Automatically back up your hard drive - Lifehacker. Excellent set of descriptions on how to back up your hard drive automatically.