When my mobile rings at the moment there is a roughly 50/50 chance that it is some poor sales guy offering me a 'fantastic' deal on a new mobile phone. This annual ritual of advances and declines that takes place every July can mean only one thing. My mobile phone contract is due for renewal. In recent weeks I've had numerous calls, direct mail and e-mail marketing from various companies trying to win me over as a new contract mobile phone customer. To be honest, I would have been tempted just to roll over my current contract and stick with my mobile network provider had they themselves not shoved a deluge of frankly confusing 'great deals' through my letter box. I read through these and found myself without any clue as to which of the contract mobile deals would suit me best.
Perhaps I am becoming less intelligent by the day or is it just that the mobile network providers are vying for customers so hard that they end up confusing us with an ever increasing array of complicated payment structures? At around that time I decided to do things by the book. Firstly I dumped the direct mail in the bin and deleted messages from peaky sales centres. I then visited the website of Ofcom for advice on how to go about finding the best contract phone deals.
The information from Ofcom was simple and straight forward and gave me a good place to start. I made a list of my usage and lifestyle points to structure the basics of the mobile phone deal that I'd need. I then looked through previous itemised bills to find how much text messaging I was going and looked at other areas such as downloading and came up with a 'package' that suited my usage. The next thing was to go out there and find contract phone deal that matched up closely with my 'package'.
So again I tried the web figuring it to be a little more unbiased than going through the more marketing focused communication channels. There was some good stuff online – lots of information from review sites on customer service of the major networks and reviews of handsets that proved pretty useful. This helped me figure out the handset I wanted and so I progressed to the purchase stage of my search for a new contract phone. In the end I went to an online reseller who deals with the major networks ad phone manufacturers. Their site had a tool which basically allowed you to create your own contract moblie phone deal with the handset and monthly payment structure that suits. I picked the handset that I wanted on the contract that I wanted and ended up with an I-Pod as a free gift into the bargain.
This is really the first time that I've used the web to compare product and services. I plan on doing it again – next up electricity and gas prices!
Evolution of the Joint Effort Revenue Generation Website
Introduction to the JERG website.
As a webmaster facing the challenge of putting forth a new website to generate income, I came across a new concept in the field of blogging: joint effort revenue generation or JERG for short. JERG is a concept I made up after seeing this new phenomenon sweep through several established sites. It started out as being AdSense Revenue Sharing, but I took it one step further and coined it "JERG", because that is what this particular website profit generation endeavor really is. The basic premise is simple: display advertisements a certain number of times from the creator of the article content as well as the owner of the website. Some sites achieve a 50/50 display ratio. http://www.arscompendium.com is a good example of a JERG site with a 50/50 ratio. Other sites offer better, and sometimes worse, ratios to the writers too. It's up to a writer to do their due diligence and pick the site that best fits what they're looking in a profit generating site.
As of this summer of 2006, there aren't many sites devoted to JERG, but the wave of new sites is coming. It'll be up to the savvy webmaster to decide whether it's a surf he wants to catch or one that he wants to miss.
There are some inherent dangers with JERG sites. Most of them run either AdSense or Yahoo Publisher ads and share the ratio for the display between them. What a site owner MUST do to maintain the integrity of the site, is enforce a rule of no clicking for the writers of that blog on ANY ad on the website. It's a little extreme, but that rule will definitely cut out the chance that a writer would click on their own ads. In the eyes of the Google or Yahoo, this is a clear no-no. Click fraud hurts everybody. It would be rather unfortunate to have 1000's of dollars in income generation from legitimate clicks and then have your account banned due to inadvertent self-clicks. Google and Yahoo have both banned publisher accounts for this very reason, with no amount of apologizing being effective in any sort of way.
However, if the JERG concept works, then everybody benefits. The JERG site will grow in rich, unique content and search engines will eat it up with entrust it with better search engine results for visitor searches. Not only will the site grow, but the writers will be in the best possible position: receiving income from passive content they may have written months, if not years ago. What could be better than that?
But you need a group of quality writers, and you need to expose your JERG site to the best possible promotion tactics on the web. And above all, you MUST enforce the no-click ad rule for your writers. Without great, quality content and an enthusiasm to grow the site, all you have is a simple content management site.
This article was authored by this Revenue Sharing website
Internet Merchants: Hassle-free but not Risk-free Shopping
Are you in need of the perfect cocktail dress for an afternoon soiree but don't have the luxury of time to go window shopping? Just the thought of squeezing yourself in a crowd of mallrats and going through the hassles of fitting armloads of clothes are enough to make you decide not to attend the soiree. But why pass up an exquisite occasion just because you don't have enough time to scout for a show-stopping dress? Fret not. Through internet merchants and online payment processors, you can finally say ta-ta to on-site shopping. Since internet merchants and online payment processors can be accessed with only a few mouse clicks, you don't have to devote an afternoon shopping for practically everything, from vacuum cleaner to sexy lingerie.
Internet merchants and online payment processors offer convenient and stress-free shopping. Considering most of us are in dire need of anything that can make like easier and faster, internet shopping is the way to go. Virtual stores and auction sites like eBay, Sotheby's, and Christie's have vast selection of products ranging from practical, everyday needs to highly-specialized artifacts and collectibles. Unlike average shopping malls, most virtual stores have almost a limitless array of products. Net shoppers can easily compare prices by hopping from one merchant site to another without being physically drained. A woman who digs Fendi bags, for example, can take her time browsing online catalogs first before deciding on what to purchase. She can even check out virtual stores in the comfort of her home or in the middle of a lunch break in office. Online shopping is just like on-site shopping, only much better.
Wait, before you get all frantic and visit virtual stores in a snap, take a deep breath and read on. Internet merchants and online payment processors have its own downsides, too. First, you have to be extremely careful in transacting business with these online merchants. Payment in internet shopping is usually done through online payment processors which are not exactly fool-proof. There are possibilities that clever hackers can access your credit card number and other important personal information. The next thing you know, you're already paying for top-of-the-line jewelry and gadgets you didn't remember purchasing at all. Second, expect that products sold online are usually more expensive. If you are on a strict budget, opt for on-site shopping or patiently compare prices in online catalogs. Although internet merchants and online payment processors serve as useful alternatives to on-location shopping, consumers keep in mind the possible risks.
For more valuable information on Internet Merchants and Online Payment Processors, please visit http://www.internetddf.info
