Entrecard's Make Money 220

If you wanted evidence that the "Make Money Online" blog niche is a saturated and flooded area, look no further than Entrecard. 220 make money blogs have virtual business cards now, and I don't expect that to slow down. Maybe 500 by end of the year? Soon we will be seeing a stat at Entrecard, "a new make money online blog is born every 5 seconds".

This speaks volumes about the category though. Here's some simple observations:

- There's many John Chow/Problogger/Shoemoney wannabes. Not all of them will continue blogging or succeed.

- Make money blogs could easily recycle everything read on the other bigger blogs, but that won't set them apart. Presenting new ideas and concepts will, because the internet is constantly evolving.

- Make Money blogs need to put a unique spin on the topic to gain readers. I see a lot of blogs listed that claim they "know the way" or "know the secret" to make money online. No wonder John Chow is doing so well.

- Too many of the "make money" blogs like to discuss how they earned their first $10 on Adsense. It can be exciting, but it might be better to report you're getting monthly payments from Google Adsense. I think by now everyone realizes it is possible to earn money from Adsense and that a lot of people do.

- There's a Serial Monetizer. I'm truly honored, but I'm wondering if he targets Monetizers online. :)


As a longtime NBA fan, I can make the comparison of John Chow to Michael Jordan in this blog category. There will never be another Jordan, but there's now a Lebron James and a Kobe Bryant. The main point is that they haven't copycatted and they've achieved their own unique successes. The same can be done in this category.

With that said, I've noticed money maker blogs that wisely put themselves into the other Entrecard categories, like Internet Marketing or Business. It gives them less competition to worry about, at least on EC. The Monetizer's always been competitive so I'm glad this "Make Money" category is flooded. It's a lot less fun to win when there's just one other competitor. With at least 219 right now (maybe more by the time I hit "publish"), it makes it much more of a rewarding challenge to achieve results!

I'm also close to unveiling my first contest here so stay tuned folks..

Web Hosting at Gossimer

When it comes to hosting your blog or website, there's plenty of choices for online hosting companies. One hosting company you may want to check out is Gossimer.com, which provides several plans based on your website needs. The first thing I noticed was that their plans don't offer quite as much hosting space as other companies. Gossimer offers a basic Starter plan at $5.95 per month which offers 200 megabytes of space, 5 gigs of Bandwith, webmail and more. For $8.95 you can have 500 megabytes of space and 10 gigs of bandwith. There's also luxury and business plans if you need even more space and bandwith flexibility. For the prices you might expect a bit more than just 200mb of space at $5.95 a month.

One thing about web host, GoDaddy.com, is that the site's navigation scheme can be overwhelming at times, especially if you need to get to a particular section of your account. Gossimer's site seems set up in a much more user-friendly and organized manner. According to the site's "About" section, they launched their company in 2002, and have continued to evolve their services since then. They may not offer the types of deals that other hosts do, but they have many testimonials from satisfied customers. Reliable customer service is definitely something you want from your hosting company.

Gossimer doesn't just offer web hosting plans either. You can register, transfer and sell domains. On their site there's also a helpful "SEO Tools" section which offers an Adsense Calculator, Adsense Preview, Alexa Rank Comparison tool and an Advanced Meta Tag Generator, amongst other tools. There's several site builder tools as well, so users with limited web design experience can easily create a site hosted at Gossimer.

They also provide helpful tutorials which show how to use cPanel, Email functions and Fantastico. For those interested in being affiliates, Gossimer offers a Referral and a Rewards program. Overall they seem to have a well organized and clean site which can help provide web hosting for many individuals.

View more about their web services at Gossimer.com.