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Well, here it is, only the 3rd day of the Thirty Day Challenge and I’ve already fallen behind. I’m still on Day 2.

Although I’ve had a little trouble with downloading the videos for Day 2, the real reason I’m behind is because of this.

As soon as I get through Day 2, I’ll post my thoughts and then move on to Day 3. Hopefully, I can get through both of those plus Day 4 on Monday.

I had a moment yesterday to download the Market Samurai tool and it looks awesome and I did watch the Intro video but that’s it. How are you doing so far? I’ve heard on the forums that MS rocks! Can’t wait to dig in.

Hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as I did. Check out that link for details.

Yesterday I told you about some of the tools we’re using in the Thirty Day Challenge this year and as my post got a little long-winded, I decided to break it up into 2 parts. So, here’s Part 2!

So, today we’re going to talk about StumbleUpon, YouTube, Google Subscribe and FriendFeed.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is a tool we used last year as well and if you’re not familiar with it, basically, it’s a social bookmarking sharing site. (That’s a mouthful!) You “stumble” sites you like (or don’t like) and let everyone know what you think. You can share links to just about anywhere and anything. Like most social networks, you can add friends and you have profile page where others can view what you’ve liked/disliked. There’s also a handy toolbar you can install on your browser if you choose. Personally, I find toolbars annoying as hell and only use them sparingly. The one exception, of course, is the 30dc toolbar.

YouTube

If you don’t know what YouTube is by now, I think you’ve been hiding under a rock. My 3 year old even knows what YouTube is. (He likes to watch Thomas the Tank Engine videos.) For the 30dc, YouTube comes in very handy for a variety of reasons, the major one being that this is where Ed Dale shares all of this seasons training and tidbits. Ed teaches you how to search, subscribe and effectively use this handy site.

Google Subscribe

I’m still a little mystified with this one and don’t really quite it fully. I’m sure by season’s end, I’ll have it down pat, but right now, not so much. According to the pre-season training,

“What it means for you as a 30DC participant is that Ed will be able to help you with your searches on Google. Including opinions reviews, and any relevant info depending on what you’re searching for.”

So, I guess it’s usefulness truly remains to be seen at this point.

FriendFeed

This is another awesome tool. FriendFeed allows you to see what your friends are doing all over the web. Yes, of course, it’s another social media networking site but isn’t that what it’s all about? There’s just much about it, I can’t even begin to describe it. If you use Twhirl (which I talked about yesterday), you can follow your FriendFeed as well as your Twitter updates. Very cool.

So there you have it. Those are all of the tools we discussed in pre-season. I’m sure there’s more awesomeness coming down the pike, so stay tuned!

And if you’ve figured out the whole Google Subscribe thing, please feel free to tell me all about it in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.

See you again soon,

~ Annie (lsandrsn on the 30dc forum)

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Day One

Today is the Day One of this years Thirty Day Challenge and I’ve just finished watching all of the videos. I also re-watched a few of the pre-season videos. It’s simply amazing what you can do with Flock, Google Reader and some of the other tools. The changes this year look to be phenomenal and it’s all because of these cool tools. Definitely awesomeness.

iTunes (a small rant)

The only thing I find slightly irritating this year is that there doesn’t seem to be direct feed for downloading each days videos automatically into iTunes. One must first download the video link to their computer and then import into iTunes. A bit cumbersome and time-consuming for someone like me who has multiple interruptions every five-flippin-seconds (read: kids and telephones and stuff like that). I really hope Ed decides to provide a subscribe via iTunes option at some point – preferably very soon.

Today’s Assignment

The getting of ideas. I’ll be spending some time here shortly using Amazon.com as Ed suggests in today’s 3rd video “Get an Idea” to come up with 5-10 niches. I also still need to get on a team (if you’re looking for another team member, let me know). I’ve not been very good during pre-season with keeping up with the forums. Just too much other stuff going on. So that’s going to be a priority over the next few days.

Misc. Thoughts

I think the Challenge is off to a good start and I’m really looking forward to the next lessons. I’ll be gone tomorrow so I might have some catching up to do. Of course, if Ed continues with the schedule he’s used in year’s past, the weekends will be used to catch up on the week’s lessons and Ed will only post lessons and etc during the week. Anybody know if that’s the case this year?

So, what do you think of the first day?

~ Annie (lsandrsn on the 30dc forum)

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It’s almost time for the Thirty Day Challenge again – it begins August 1st. This is the 2nd year I’ve participated during the actual challenge month, although I’ve been doing the challenge for 3 years now. The first year, I began at the very end of August and went through everything on my own. It’s much more fun to do it during the “live” challenge. If you haven’t checked out it yet, I encourage you to do so.

But, you might be wondering just what the challenge is, huh?

Well, it’s put on by 2 internet marketing guys – Ed Dale and Dan Raine – who have been very successful with their own online businesses and they do this every August – for FREE. They teach you how to make your first $10 online with subjects such as:

• Niches
• Keywords
• WordPress and other platforms
• Social Media

And lots, lots more

And they use free tools to teach it so if you don’t have a lot of extra money to throw at a new online biz, this is for you. Or even if you do, this is for you. Lessons are generally posted weekly and there’s a video, sometimes a podcast and sometimes PDF downloads and such. The official website has a forum where everyone can share and learn together as well. There are even prizes to win! I have no idea what’s in store for this year, but Ed and Dan promise it’s going to be awesome!

The tagline this year – “There’s no charge for awesomeness.”

Since June, Ed’s been hosting “pre-season” – this is where he helps you get set up with some of the tools that’ll be used for this years Challenge. For 2008, they include the social web browser, Flock, YouTube, Twitter and Twhirl (a Twitter desktop client), FriendFeed, Google Reader, StumbleUpon and more.

Oh, and you know – half the fun are Ed and Dan themselves. Ed is a crazy Australian dude and Dan is witty guy from the UK.

There’s still time to get in! And yes, you can do it alongside your other activities and commitments. It’s meant to be a fun learning experience, no pressure. You won’t be graded or kicked out if you get behind.

I’ll see you there!

PS – I’m lsandrsn over on the 30dc forum.

PPS – Almost forgot! I have a 30dc blog that I blog the challenge from, too. Come along for the ride!

Make $10k in a weekend – “Too good to be true.” That’s the first thing I said when
I heard of http://tinyurl.com/5lq2g4. You can’t REALLY make $10K in a weekend. But I quickly bit my tongue once I saw the content. . .

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business – just as if it were her own.

The Thirty Day Challenge 2008 has a new tagline – “There’s no charge for awesomeness.” It’s not bad as far as tag lines go, but personally, I think “there’s” should be dropped. I think in this case, “there’s” is already implied in “no charge for awesomeness.”

“The Thirty Day Challenge – No charge for awesomeness” sounds way cool.

But that’s just my perspective.

Anyway, I can hardly believe it’s already just a matter of days before 30dc 2008 begins – *this* Friday! Wow! Although I’ve kept up with the pre-season stuff, I’m really not ready for it to begin. I mean, we’ve barely just begun having summer around here and August means it’s almost over. That bums me out, quite frankly. Summer with the kids home, the warm weather, fun activities and gardening is just a season I hate seeing come to an end.

If the emails Ed Dale and Dan Raine have been sending out for this years challenge are any indication, 30dc 2008 is going to knock the socks off any previous year, IMHO.

So, other than following pre-season, is there anything you’ve done to get ready for this year?

I decluttered and reorganized my office. Ok . . . well, that’s not entirely true. I *did* truly declutter and reorganize, but not really for the challenge. The fact that I’ll have a nice, clutter-free office this year is just a bonus. I simply got everything in shape because it was driving me nuts! Because my old desk had no drawers, everything was piled on TOP of my desk and it made working difficult at best.

Get ready to fire! (Use <— that link to sign up if you haven’t already.)

~ Annie

Well, it’s officially Pre-Season for Thirty Day Challenge 2008 with Ed Dale and Dan Raine. And I’m very excited.

Ed has already shared a couple of things on such as the social web browser, Flock and hinted at other tools we’ll be using this year like Google Reader.

I must admit so far, though, that Flock is cool, even if it is a bit annoying. For example, downloads are slower on Flock than I on my preferred browser, Firefox (which I’ve been using for years) and it has crashed on me over the past 3-4 days more times than Firefox beta 3 has since I began using it a few months ago.

That said, I do like the tools within Flock.

Anyway, Thirty Day Challenge officially launches August 1st and pre-season started June 1st. I encourage you to check it out if you haven’t already done so. You will learn a lot!

Make it a great day!

~ Annie