As I have become a newly addicted StumbleUpon user (don’t ask why it took me so long), I have decided to post, hopefully daily, recaps of cool sites that I come across. I will try to keep the labels to business, web and personal development - but no complaints if I find that I need others:
Today kicked off the start of the Thirty Day Challenge. I’m sure you are wondering what challenge would take thirty days and why I would be interested in joining it. Basically, the goal of the 30DC is to earn $10.00 online within thirty days without investing any money in the process. At first, I had the same reaction - $10? Are you kidding me? However, the goal is not to become rich in thirty days but rather to realize that it is possible to make money online even if you know little to nothing about the internet. Well, hopefully I am a bit above the little to nothing category, but I thought this would be a great way to hear of some additional traffic building techniques as well as potential monetization tactics that could help improve my own online ventures. It is also important to note that $10 is a very reasonable amount someone could expect to earn after thirty days. If they picked something like $500, then people would assume they were kidding and never even attempt to follow the challenge process. The 30DC is all about motivating those who have tried and failed or never tried out of fear of failure.
Another cool component to the 30DC is the focus on teams and team collaboration. The idea is still to work independently by working on your own product that will earn you $10 in the thirty days. However, they encourage you to form a team that you can collaborate and communicate with regarding your questions, concerns, successes, resources, etc.
For those interested in joining the challenge, entry is still open (although today, August 1st, was officially kickoff). Sign up for the forums and you can start participating as a member right away. After you setup your account, be sure to check out their pre-season recap post to get up-to-date on all their 30DC tips.
A few friends of mine and I have all formed a 30DC team and will be using Google Groups to organize our communications. This was actually and surprisingly the first time I have every used Google Groups and must say that I am impressed. The idea is to create a public or private web space where you can do the following:
Create forum-like discussion topics
Create individual pages
Communicate via private messages and email with your group
Share up to 100mb of files between your group
I set up our group in 20 minutes and had no problems getting used to the navigation of the site. My only criticism is the way forum topics are organized. As soon as you create a new title for your thread, it creates an entirely separate topic, which gets messy. I was hoping to create 5-7 general topics (SEO, monetization, etc) that we could all post questions/comments in. Looks like I will just have to get used to it, but at least all posts are search-friendly via the Google search engine - so finding past threads shouldn’t be difficult.
What would you do if you were emperor of the internet? Well slam-poet Rives might make Napster, Jobster and Friendster all one site where you could listen to music, pretend to search for a job all while you were really talking to your friends. Check out this amazing video from TED of Rives as he performs a four minute slam on what things would be like if he controlled the internet.
One of my most effective productivity hacks, aside from using Daily Action Maps, has been the use of RSS Feeds to stay up-to-date with all of my favorite websites. At first, I managed my feeds via netvibes, which is still a great option if you only subscribed to a small handful of sites, however, my list is closing in around three figures now, so I needed to upgrade my feed reader.
This post is for those new to RSS, those who have not fully witnessed the glory of RSS and those who are a little frustrated with RSS. I’ve broken it down into three steps (each with a little video demonstration):
Step One:What is RSS? Step Two:Great, but which Feed Manager Should I Use? Step Three:Information Overload! How do I Handle All of these Feeds?
What is RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, but off the bat does not seem all that simple. Rather than writing paragraphs on the technical wizardry behind this fantastic little gizmo, here is a great video tutorial explaining what RSS is and how you can use it:
Great, but which Feed Manager Should I Use?
There is an extensive array of RSS feed managers to choose from and frankly, I would rather not list them all. If you want an overview of all the available feed managers out there, read Mashable’s Productivity God article. Personally, I think the answer is indisputable: Google Reader. Here are just a few reasons why it kicks so much ass:
Integrates with your Gmail account
Allows you to star and share items
Very easy keyboard shortcuts
Google Gears allows you to download ALL of your feeds!
To make life even easier, here are some great keyboard shortcuts for Google Reader courtesy of Mashable:
j/k - selects the next/previous item in the list
space/shift-space - moves the page down/up
n/p - in list view, selects the next item without opening it
o - in list view, expands or collapses the selected item
enter - in list view, expands or collapses the selected item
s - stars the selected item
shift-s - shares the selected item
m - switches the read state of the selected item
t - opens the tagging field for the selected item
v - opens the original source for this article in a new window
shift-a - marks all items in the current view as read
1 - displays the subscription as expanded items
2 - displays the subscription as a list of headlines
r - refreshes the unread counts in the navigation
shift-n/p - selects the next/previous subscription or folder in the navigation
shift-x - expand or collapse a folder selected in the navigation
shift-o - opens the item currently selected in the navigation
gh - goes to the Google Reader homepage
ga - goes to the “All items†view
gs - goes to the “Starred items†view
gt - allows you to navigate to a tag by entering the tag name
gu - allows you to navigate to a subscription by entering the subscription name
u - hides and shows the list of subscriptions
? - displays a quick guide to all of Reader’s shortcuts
Information Overload! How do I Handle All of these Feeds?
Subscribing to RSS feeds quickly becomes addictive. I started with around 20 and found myself over reading over 80 different websites within only a few weeks. Although RSS makes information management ridiculously easy, it can put a huge damper on your productivity if you spend all day reading your latest feeds. Here is a video interview conducted by Tim Ferriss with Robert Scoble on how Scoble manages to read 622 RSS feeds each morning:
To add my own little productivity tip on managing RSS feeds, only allow yourself to read them during your 30-60 minute lunch break and DO NOT open Google Reader for the rest of the day. This is very much like only checking your email twice a day, but if you have enough will power, you’ll find that you can still get all of the important news read (even when you have over 100+ feeds).
Well, now you know How to Master RSS in Three Easy Steps! Just remember, reading your Feeds can get very addictive. You have been warned.
I only wish they had something like this when I was a kid. Umpqua Bank is running a campaign, titled Lemonaire, to help young (very young) entrepreneurs get started. Elementary school kids who are chosen for the program are given a lemon aid stand startup kit that provides them with everything (except the lemons) they need to start their business - even $10 in capital. First, this is a great program to help teach aspiring entrepreneurs the basics of running their own business. Second, this is a great example of viral marketing for Umpqua Bank, whose video will get plenty of buzz. Read this press release for more information.
