Link to me and grab a free MacBook Air

Precision unibody enclosure, the advantages of a solid-state drive, advanced NVIDIA graphics processing, amazingly thin, flat-out stunning. And now free. Link to this post and grab a free MacBook Air. No hype, no sell, just a simple and easy way to grab one of these beautiful machines. At the end of October 2009 I will pick at random one link and give its author a fully loaded, top of the line MacBook Air. All you need to do is link to this post... Read More

Follow me on Twitter and grab a free MacBook Air

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The early morning interruption that produced a eureka moment

Last week was perfect. My wife, my daughter and I got in the car and drove to the south coast, near to the place where I was born, and spent 4 blissful days by the sea, staying in what can only be described as a hyper minimalist cottage. I’ll come back to the cottage, and in particular its hyper minimalist tendencies, in a future post. But, for today, I’d like to explain what happened on Friday, what shattered our peace and what prevented... Read More

How many Twitter followers do you need to make $1,000 per month with your blog?

$1,000 per month is often considered the break point for a blog. $1,000 not only represents a genuinely credible and useful amount of cash, it’s also a good psychological barrier that needs to be broken before moving up the pro blogging ladder. I’ve often been asked how much blog traffic is required to make $1,000. And here is the answer, taken deep from the Upstart Blogger archives. If you want a rough equation take the amount of unique... Read More

The Twitter Traffic Machine scam exposed

It’s time to expose another Twitter scam. The Twitter Traffic Machine, the brainchild of self titled social networking evangelist and professional monopoly player Bill Crosby, makes it’s ugly presence felt all over the Twittersphere with alarming regularity. The reason for it’s obscene level of penetration is pretty obvious to anyone used to this sort of junk. It’s seen as an easy sell and is picked up by thousands of con artists,... Read More

Is this the beginning of the end for Myspace?

Yesterday Myspace made 30% of it’s employees redundant. And, whilst I sympathize with those employees who are now wandering around employment websites, desperately trying find a job, this day had to come. There is no getting away from the fact that Myspace is over. And it’s been over for a long time. Unfortunately for the sacked employees Myspace management were, and are, too stupid to see the writing on the wall. Take a look at the vacuous... Read More

Virgin blogger required for Twitter experiment

With all the Twitter scams running around the blogosphere it’s very easy to forget that it is absolutely possible to gain power, influence and traffic quickly and legitimately if you know what you are doing. Thankfully, some of the con artists are starting to run away, realizing that people are on to them. Possible the most famous Twitter scam, Brute Force Twitter, is currently being sold by it’s creator as he desperately scrabbles around... Read More

How I persuaded one angry Twitter follower to happily work for me for free as an active traffic machine

A little while ago I noticed a familiar name appear in my screen. The name of a band that I used to work for, one that I had parted company with on bad terms, one that owed me money. But this Twitter follower wasn’t that band. It was someone else who they had decided to fall out with. I’ll cut a very long story short in order to illustrate my point. Adam Derbyshire is a web designer. He is also a very angry man. An angry man with a loaded... Read More

Achieve more credibility on Twitter and grow a high quality community of followers in ten minutes a day

The uneducated chase for massive followers on Twitter, usually facilitated by a scam method like Brute Force Twitter, is becoming increasingly futile. Spam loaded Twitter accounts are generated every second, usually powered by some ridiculous automated system that only enables the dumb spammer to furnish his account with thousands of other spammers. Zombie accounts following other zombie accounts. Sure, the numbers might look impressive but there... Read More

How much traffic can Twitter send to your blog?

A question on many peoples lips, including mine a few weeks ago before jumping into the Twittersphere, is just how much traffic can a Twitter account send to a blog. Don’t worry, I am genuinely aware that Twitter isn’t just about generating traffic, but let’s be honest about what we, and by we I mean me and the vast majority of people who read Upstart Blogger, are trying to achieve as bloggers. We want traffic. High quality, high... Read More