Oops! I guess that's what happens when even a tech giant like Google is forced to rush a product out the door early - testing goes south.

As soon as it was available for download I grabbed a copy of Google's Chrome browser. It's not really as earthshattering as I'd expected, but it seems a solid offering. However, you'd think they'd at least test it on their own product range first! I pulled up my iGoogle page with it's embedded desktop.google.com gadgets, and 'lo "Desktop gadgets on the web currently supported for Firefox 1.5+ and Internet Explorer 6+.".

Ah well, at least their "only the crashed tab dies" bit works a treat. I was a bit surprised however that they didn't include any Flock-esque features - tie-ins to social networking etc. Maybe when it's out of beta (pronounced "alpha").

Well it's been almost three months now since I decided to jump into making, upgrading and marketing sites for profit. So, how have I done so far?

My verdict? Not bad, but could be better. Ignoring for a moment initial costs, August has seen the sites I've set up become profitable. 

The income before expenses of sites in my little site flipping experiment are...

May: $4.34 ad earnings

Jun: $8.55 ad earnings

Jul: $17.23 ad earnings + a $35.90 sales commission I won't get to collect for a while

Aug: $24.75 ad earnings (to the 11th).

That's the good news. However that revenue didn't happen in a vacuum. Including site, code, domain, hosting and advertising costs, I've outlayed around $400 so far, with ongoing hosting costs of $10/month. All figures are in USD, as most costs/revenue are billed in USD. Then there's the fact that the income sources usually involve snail mailing a paper cheque out to you the month after you finally build up a significant balance. And that some of the sources of income take a hefty chunk of the income for sending you a cheque (hello, Amazon).

So, is it worth it? Depends on you, I guess. I'm a code monkey, so it's no hassle. Then there's the fact that I'm moving towards low maintenance sites that become passive income streams without needing to sell products or services, or blogging constantly. The down side of these types of income is that they are typically much lower value than that successful fraction of bloggers enjoy.

I don't think the types of sites I'm currently running are a viable way to earn a full time living, however they highlight the potential there for a new class of job - site portfolio manager. That is, if I were to build my site portfolio such that I could earn a living off of it, it would inevitably take so much of my time to manage, that it would become a full time job. Unless... I could pay someone a commission to manage them for me. Kind of a specialised VA.

This is not a thought provoking post about the pros, cons, and insides of site flipping. Why not? Because I'm just starting down that path, so I'm not really qualified yet to comment. I'm just putting it "on record" that I'm giving it a go. I've set up one site only so far, and after giving it what quick tweaking and SEO I could in a couple of hours, I've thrown it to the wolves.

With a bit of backup, of course. I've set up a little AdWords campaign to get it started until it escapes the Google Sandbox. I suppose I could also add a Google Sitemap to help it become Google's buddy, however it would either 1. be all of 1-2 pages, or 2. need to be dynamically updated/appended to every day to add popular search terms to the "pages" on the site. Hmm, actually that's not a bad idea - and it will help it appear fresh in Google's eyes.

EDIT: Also consider adding RSS feed of search terms, on results page...

Haven't posted in a while - cos I don't have much to write home about :P

Life continues much as it has this last while, and as always there are ups and downs.

I am slowly getting motivated enough to try my hand a certain online money making ventures, however.

To start with one of the trickier but less sleazy avenues - site flipping. I'm also in the process of automating syncing the prices and inventory levels of the Wigglebum site with our mobile pet supplies store systems.

I just finished reading CopyBlogger's 5 part series of articles on keyword research. That's right, all of it. In one sitting. While watching comedy on TV.

ZOMG, does that make me, like, a brainiac?! T'aint hordly likely, dorlin.

I found the read quick and easy, despite Brian's warning label on the front. Which started me wondering - what the heck is wrong with people nowadays, if they consider 8000 words an epic? Is it a general degeneration? Are we all so much busier than ever before?

Or is it that we crave more leisure time than ever before, and with the addiction of the quick and shallow satisfaction of the 'net we don't think we can spare the time to read 8000 words?