whydowork.com

Perhaps Jeff Bezos would have had more responses to his job posting way back in 1994 had he used that as the posting title. The point of bringing up a job posting from 10 years ago is not without motive; I’ve always wondered if I am making the most out of every opportunity (as I’m sure everyone does) and try and make sure I don’t let great opportunities pass me by.

Would You Have Responded to the Call?

By all means the job posting in the link above might be something easy to overlook. It’s very brief, doesn’t say a whole lot about the company, and the resumes are going back to the lister: a sure sign that it’s a one or two man show. Do you know what became of the work described in this posting? It’s now Amazon, a $33,000,000,000 (that’s billion) company. If you had responded to this job posting and got the gig, there’s no doubt you would be a multi-millionaire today.

Opportunity is There: Reach Out and Grab It

A closer look at the job posting does reveal some signals:

“help pioneer commerce on the Internet.”

“you should be able to do so in about one-third the time
that most competent people think possible”

and the most impressive in my opinion, the signature at the end:

“It’s easier to invent the future than to predict it.” — Alan Kay

Stop and Smell the Roses

I’m posting this for no other reason than showing that there’s opportunity out there for all of us, often times right under our noses. Don’t dismiss everything that comes your way as within the ordinary; taking a closer look might reveal the extraordinary.

In other not entirely related news, we recently acquired the site BloggingMix.com. It will make a great addition to the WhyDoWork brand and we’re really excited about the acquisition. Stay tuned for more exciting details.

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The answer is probably no. Traditional school of thought has been that your IQ is at it’s maximum potential when you’re relatively young, which is why IQ tests are usually given in the 3rd or 4th grade. New research out of the University of Michigan has suggested that with simple daily brain exercise, you can actually increase your intelligence capacity.

According to the study, “Fluid Intelligence” (called Gf) is the ability to reason, solve new problems and think in the abstract. It correlates with professional and educational success and it appears to be largely genetic.

Past research has suggested you’re stuck with whatever Gf you were born with, but new research suggests the gains from training your mind daily can actually increase your mental capacity across all activities.

The task the study participants were given involved tracking small squares on a screen, and pressing when a square was in a duplicate location; kind of like the sweet game Simon from the ’80s. Participants played the game for about 20 minutes a day for a max of 20 days.

The sample size on the study is somewhat questionable with only about 70 adults in total, but it does give hope to all of us that hope to keep our feeble minds sharp as we age.

If anything the study reinforces how important it is to train your mind on a daily basis. Dig out your old Simon game from the basement and keep up the Sidoku puzzles - you still have a chance to be the next Einstein!

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The question whether to buy or start a blog is one of the frequently asked questions in webmaster forums today. I have also received quite a number of emails from my readers asking for my advice regarding this matter. In today’s post, I wish to address this question and share my opinion on the topic. test

To Buy Or Not To Buy

Considering that the cyberspace has millions of blogs already and that thousands are created everyday, the most obvious benefit of buying a blog is being able to bypass competition. It simply means, you have an edge over your competitors in terms of traffic, subscribers and rankings. This will spare you long hours of link building, search engine optimization and networking.

Buying an establish blog also allows the new owner to monetize it immediately considering that the blog is receiving sufficient traffic. With an established blog, you don’t need to hazzle your way up in improving your blog’s vital rankings like Technorati and Alexa (rankings vital in blog monetization) in order to get accepted to advertising networks or review sites.

Naturally, since you are buying a blog, you need to have enough funds. Prices of blogs vary depending on its traffic, revenue, subscribers and rankings. The ones with good traffic, high rankings and high income are normally more expensive. And, if you want to buy a quality site, you will need to invest some money.

Another problem with buying a blog is the risk of lossing your subscribers, which has happened in several cases. This usually takes place when the new owner fails to keep up with the standards established by the original blog owner. Another reason could also be the change in tone and personality of the blog, which is a direct result of the different personality and perspective of the new owner. It also possible that the new owner may have new goals and objectives, which changes the direction of where the blog is going. If the readers don’t like it, it’s always easy for them to unsubscribe.

It is also possible that you can’t find a blog for sale that covers the topic that you want to blog about. I have told you in several of my posts that when you start to blog, blog about the things that are of interest to you. Otherwise, you might just end up abandoning your blog from the lack of motivation to carry on.

To Start Or Not To Start

Starting a blog on the other hand is not an easy job. In fact, starting a blog is the most difficult and the most crucial phase of blogging. Starting a blog requires alot of jobs to be done like setting up your blog, making your first few posts, promoting it, building its rankings etc. If you don’t have the patience and dedication to start something from scratch and gradually build it, then starting a blog is not advisable for you.

Since your blog is new, monetizing it will have to be done later when you have established traffic and rankings. These are important elements to be able to start making money from your blog. And these can be achieved through hard work, which usually takes a longer time. If you want to start monetizing your blog right away, then starting your own blog is not suitable for you.

Perhaps another problem with starting a blog is the fact that you need to compete with a great number of new comers. The competition is usually tough as most of the new bloggers are highly motivated to build their blog. If you don’t have what it takes to beat the competition, then starting a blog is not the right move for you.

Although starting a new blog is challenging, there are still some good reasons why you should opt for it. For one, starting your own blog and achieving some good results is more fulfilling than buying one and you know that the credits are not yours.

With you starting your own blog, you will be able to minimize the risk of losing disgruntled subscribers. Starting your blog also gives you the freedom to use your own tone, voice and style.

Lastly, although starting a new blog is so much time consuming, it is still alot cheaper than when you buy an established blog.

That’s my take of the issue. What about you? What would you prefer, to buy an established blog or start your own from scratch? What do you think is more rewarding?

I would love to know your opinion. Do share it in the comment.

Thank you for your time.

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I’m probably one of the few people who wasn’t impressed with Wordpress 2.5. I personally believe that Wordpress 2.3.3 was alot user friendly. At first I thought I’d appreciate Wordpress 2.5 when I get used to it. But then, three weeks of using it gave way for more problems (messy Wordpress theme, errors with plugins, troubles with widgets etc.).

After using Wordpress 2.5 for about three weeks, I decided to revert back to Wordpress 2.3.3. From switching to Wordpress 2.5 and back to 2.3.3, I noticed a potential problem with using Wordpres 2.5. (Note: This is just an observation.)

photo credit: MatthewCo

Right after updating my blog from Wordpres 2.3.3 to Wordpress 2.5, I noticed a sudden increase in the number of spams in my comment and trackback. Before the update, I usually receive about 20-50 spam (comments and trackbacks). Also, before I updated my blog to Wordpress 2.5, the total spam caught by Akismet was nealy 4,500, which was accumulated since I started using Wordpress in November 2007.

Since I started using Wordpress 2.5, on its first day, I received more than 600 comment and trackback spams. I didn’t mind it at first as Akismet is doing a great job in catching spams. On average, I receive about about 150 spams everyday, which is a 200% increase than when I was using Wordpress 2.3.3. Today, the total spam caught by Akismet is over 12,500 (comments + trackbacks).

I experienced receiving tremendous amount of spam after I updated to Wordpress 2.5 so it was my primary suspect. All my plugins, including Akismet, were all updated and yet I still receive lots of spam. It should have not been a big problem if Akismet was able to catch the spam comments and trackbacks but on the third week, spams started to show up in my comments and trackbacks that I needed to manually delete them.

To satisfy my curiousity, I reverted back to Wordpress 2.3.3. Guess what happened? After 24 hours, I just received 24 spams (14 comments + 10 trackbacks).

Was it Wordpress 2.5? Was it Akismet? Or it’s just some circumstances?

I would really appreciate if you share your experiences after you updated your blog to Wordpress 2.5. Did you have the same observation?

Thank you for your time.

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