Personal Blog of Carl Pei

No matter what you do, creating a new website, starting a new course in school or preparing for a job interview; always ask yourself the question; are you serious?

This is a very simple principle. If you’re serious about it, show yourself and show the world. I often see people making big mistakes when trying to start an online business. For instance, there was a guy who wanted to start selling MP3 players, but was too cheap to buy a domain and a web host. So he used a free host and address. It was something like “freewebs.com/mp3_store823″. Personally, I have a hard time trusting that someone who won’t even pay for a proper domain and some hosting can handle a proper MP3 player transaction. Most people probably feel the same way, and as you might have guessed his business wasn’t really a success.

The same thing is found in people starting to monetize their websites. Even here you have to be serious about it. Most people online know that running a website isn’t free and will understand that there has to be ads. It is hard to find a balance between a good amount of ads and an excess, and some have big problems with this. Think about how serious you are about it, and if you aren’t, you could probably remove the ads all together. Rather that than sticking a tiny piece of ad at the bottom right of your page and praying that someone will click it. If you have decided to pursue something, do not be ashamed or hesitant of it.

This phenomenon can also be witnessed in forum owners. After you reach a certain point, you have to go paid for continued growth. Free forum software will never be as good as those that cost, think about a company where workers can come and go when they want and do what they want versus a traditional company. What works better? Of course the traditional one. It is in the human nature to be incentive seeking. Currently, out of the paid forum options vBulletin is the one I recommend offering the best functionality, performance and price. Sure, you have to shell out a handsome $160 USD ($188 incl. VAT) for it and sure, it can seem a lot to some at first. But are you serious? If you are, it will be worth your investment. By purchasing vBulletin for your forum, you are reinforcing yourself that you are serious about it, and thinking about the money you just spent will fuel you to work harder, faster and better to earn it back. Using quality software is also a statement to your visitors that you are serious about your site and care about their experience too.

Being so interested in web development at the moment, all my examples have been about it. In reality, this “are you serious?” principle can be applied to anything. If you want to achieve anything in this world, there will always be sacrifices and investments to be made. Do you want to sacrifice a bit of your social life to excel in school, do you want to sacrifice a bit of dignity to be the funny guy in class or could you invest your life savings into something you believe will work? When not ready to make those choices, one should ask oneself - am I serious?

I don’t have much time today, so this will only be a small post updating you on the latest situation. It has not been going the greatest with my proxy. It has been down for a few days but is finally up again. I have made a few bandwidth saving tweaks and added a “Bookmark Me” feature, so let’s see how that goes. Total earnings as of now on the proxy is $8.71. I’ll update you on that and go into specifics later.

In other “news”, after reading John Chow’s post about him registering ToGetRichIsGlorious.com, I got inspired to do something similar. “Socialism is not poverty, to get rich is glorious.” is a famous quote by China’s late leader Deng Xiaoping who was the main force behind the market reforms leading to the China we see today. He said that in Chinese, so naturally there are different ways to translate it. A translation I like better is “Socialism is not poverty, to be rich is glorious.” So I registered it. From now on, you can access this blog from ToBeRichIsGlorious.com.

Some days ago I first posted about earning money with AGLOCO. If you don’t know what AGLOCO is, here is a quick recap.

Briefly, AGLOCO is a network where you get paid to surf. You get paid for five hours each month if you have the AGLOCO Viewbar software running to show you ads during these five hours. The hours you get can be exchanged for dollars (1:1, hour:dollar) or AGLOCO stocks.

The big money is in referrals. You get 20% of your referrals time. The best way to illustrate this is using the image above. If you refer 10 members, and they each refer 2, and all of you surf at least 5 hours a month, your monthly earning will be 392.5 hours. Hours can be cashed in dollars (again, 1:1 ratio) or used to buy AGLOCO stocks. AGLOCO is aiming to be come 100% user-owned. Hence the motto “Own the Internet”.

As of now, I have 3 direct referrals and 4 total in my extended network. Thanks to those who joined through my referral link! It means a lot.

Still haven’t joined AGLOCO? Do it as soon as possible to maximize revenue!

The past several days have been great for Meizu Me. Three news posts have been linked by big authoritative gadget news sites and blogs. Traffic shot up 200% the first time and 300% the second. My only problem is that some (like VR-Zone.com) do not link back or give any source. Fuckers.

• Engadget - Meizu M8 / miniOne closer to production, litigation
• Engadget - Meizu upgrades Music Card, spills deets on miniOne
• DAPreview - 8GB Meizu M6 Coming Soon
• Gizmodo - Meizu M8 Pricing Revealed: Most Affordable iPhone Clone Yet (Indirect)
• Electronista - Meizu iPhone clone’s UI, pricing revealed
• Apple 2.0 - iPhone Clone Starts at $195
• iLounge - Chinese iPhone knock-off on the way

Anyone who uses the internet for more than 5 hours a week should not miss this.

Did you know that everything you do on the internet earns money for someone else? It’s not only when you purchase goods or services. Every time you check your email, read news, chat, download something or search you are making money for somebody else. Someone is making a sale, fee or commission on your activities.

Is it not funny that the most important part of the internet (the audience) is getting nothing in return for creating all the value? It is, indeed. A few guys known as AGLOCO has taken the idea further. Their concept is for the surfers to own the internet, and they have created a software known as the Viewbar that sits on the bottom of your desktop for this to be possible. Once you install Viewbar, AGLOCO will help you sell your desktop as an ad-space to companies and only earn 10% commission (Note: That’s how much stars like Brad Pitt pay their agents).

It is a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. You just conduct your regular day-to-day online surfing activities as usual, and earn free money without having to input extra effort whatsoever. Can you afford to lose out? I can’t, which is why I have signed up. You can also sign up today for your piece of the pie by clicking here.

Everyone wins. You win as you earn money for essentially nothing, AGLOCO wins by their 10% commission and companies win by advertising their products.