Last week I had the privileged of being Interviewed by Gobala Krishnan. If you don’t know him, he is one of the most successful Internet marketers in Malaysia who have been making a killing online.

Instead of repeating what he writes in his blog, I suggest you hop over there if you want to learn more about his interesting journey into the world of Internet marketing where he lists down his experiences in some sort of timeline.

Initially, Gobala suggested we did an audio Interview, but I don’t have Skype installed and was unable to schedule a phone interview so I thought email interview would be fine as an alternative. So we did that instead.

My answers are rather simple because I just wrote down what came to mind when I answered those questions. I would had given longer answers if required but I hope he finds them satisfactory.

To read the interview in full, head over to his blog at Internet Millionaires.

I ripped open the packet wondering what it was and lo and behold it was a gift from MaxBounty. I’ve been receiving Christmas gifts from MaxBounty all these years, and how nice of them to continue the practice.

Unlike some other super affiliates who are pulling tens of thousands from MaxBounty annually, on average I am only making around US5000 per year with them. The gift contains a T-shirt, fresh breath mints, a notepad, a pen and a yo-yo. Nothing fancy but I guess it’s the thought that counts. I think some other networks like CJ.com have only sent me a gift once even though I am making more than the amount I made from MaxBounty.

Some MaxBounty affiliates from the US who are making the same amount as me got a gift basket containing an assortment of delicious chocolates. I guess due to the distant, it’s not practical to send such a gift as the chocolates would have melted once the packet arrived at my tropical address.

The more you make the nicer your gift would be as in the case of this super affiliates who received a Championship Foosball Table. I wonder if they would be willing to deliver such a big package to Malaysia.

You can learn more about MaxBounty here.

Most of this income comes from Google AdSense.

So far she has made more than $1 million from her site at Whateverlife.com. Her first AdSense paycheck was $2,790 and she had rejected $1.5 million buyout offer.

Whateverlife attracts more than 7 million unique visitors and 60 million page views a month. That’s a larger audience than the circulations of Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and CosmoGirl! magazines combined.

In contrast, TechCrunch.com gets 4 million page views per month, 15 times less pageviews.

Quantcast, a popular source among advertisers, ranked Whateverlife.com a staggering No. 349 in mid-July out of more than 20 million sites. Among the sites in its rearview mirror: Britannica.com, AmericanIdol.com, FDA .gov, and CBS.com.

What’s interesting is that, she started the business without the support of financial backing from anyone or professional mentors to guide her along the way.

But Ashley had no connections. No business professionals in the family. No rich aunt or uncle. In the working-class community of downriver Detroit, south of downtown and the sprawling Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, she bounced back and forth between her divorced parents, neither of whom attended college. Her father is a machinist, her mother, until recently, a retail data collector for ACNielsen. “My mom still doesn’t understand how I do it,” Ashley says. To be fair, she did go to her mother for the initial investment: $8 to register the domain name. Ashley still hasn’t spent a dime on advertising.

It all started as a hobby. She began dabbling in Web-site design eight years ago, when she was 9, hogging the family’s Gateway computer in the kitchen all day. When she wasn’t playing games, she was teaching herself the basics of Web design. To which her mother, Linda LaBrecque, responded, “Get off that computer. Now!” For Ashley’s 12th birthday, her mother splurged on an above-ground swimming pool–”just so she’d go outside,” LaBrecque says.

One thing that struck me when I first visited her site was the unconventional navigation scheme. I suppose it’s well suited for the demographic its targeting.

The design has an added advantage in that the ads look as though they are part of the content, which I am sure improves the page click through rates tremendously.

She has dropped out of high school to concentrate on her online business. If you were in her position would you consider dropping out of school (and perhaps forget about going to college/university alltogether) to concentrate on your business?

Read the full story: Girl Power

I know how much you make is your own business so many bloggers prefer not to reveal their earnings.

They prefer to keep quiet about it for several reasons including the fear of being copied by others, or they don’t want to be perceived as bragging, or they don’t want to attract competitors which will affect their own income in the future.

Sometimes being discreet can be more intriguing as people are drawn to you, waiting for you to spill the beans.

On the other hand, sharing the details of your blog’s income offers a powerful way to generate interest and help to get the buzz going about your blog. With such transparency, you’ll attract repeat visitors who come back to your blog to see how much you are making. They’ll look forward to read what ingenious money making methods you can come up with.

I think revealing your income is the right thing to do if you feel secure about your position and that it’s not possible for others to compete with you overnight

Perhaps you have other revenue streams besides blogging that you want to keep quiet about so it’s OK to reveal only your blog income.

I’ve came across several bloggers who are making good money from blogging. Besides the well know Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net, there are a few others such as:

Everton of ConnectedInternet.co.uk.

Everton has reported his earnings for July 2007. Figures for last month are in brackets and some numbers are estimated

• Google Adsense: $4,280 ($4,234)
• Text-Link-Ads: $1,386 ($1,010)
• Intellitxt: $1,034 ($1,210)
• Tribal Fusion: $715 ($810)
• Direct Ad Sales: $235 ($825)
• Linkworth: $168 ($0)
• Feedburner FAN: $159 ($337)
• ReviewMe: $130 ($560)
• Chitika: $14 ($55)
• Blogads: $6 ($6)

Grand Total: $8,126 ($9,048)

Not bad at all. Notice that he is making over four grand from AdSense alone.

John Chow Dot Com

This guy needs no introduction. John has published his income for July 2007. Figures for last month are in brackets

• Affiliate Sales: $4,344.82 ($3,213.02)
• ReviewMe: $2,600.00 ($3,800.00)
• Text Link Ads: $2,056.63 ($1,506.71)
• Private Ad Sales: $1,130.00 ($1,440.00)
• Kontera: $1,000 ($1,000.00)
• Google AdSense: $661.73 ($778.90)
• TTZ Media: $349.44 ($339.85)
• Buy Me a Beer: $114.33 ($219.39)
• FeedBurner: $79.81 ($201.74)
• Subscription: $70.00 ($70.00)

Grand Total: $12,406.76 ($12,569.61)

With over 5000 visitors per day, I was surprised he is only making $661.73 from AdSense. In contrast, Sabahan.com which gets round 600 to 800 unique visitors per day makes 30% of that amount per month from AdSense.

At first, I find it odd to see John is consistently making exactly $1000 from Kontera month after month. In the comments, someone explains Kontera guarantees John $1K per month in return for promoting Kontera in his blog, and if his actual Kontera ads make more than that, he gets the greater of the two.

I am sure there are many others who have disclosed their blogs’ income but this time I am only mentioning those two.

I know some of you have been wondering how much I am making from the Internet. My total blog income made up just a small portion of my total income but I see it’s increasing month after month.

Still I am not quite comfortable revealing my exact total income but I tell you this, it’s over RM10,000 per month. My goal is to reach USD10,000 by the end of this year. My blogs revenue is the slowest growing income stream while affiliate programs are the fastest.

Here are some of my income sources for the month of July, 2007. They were generated from several blogs and websites and not from Sabahan.com alone. The amounts are in USD unless stated otherwise.

• Google AdSense: $618.46
• ValueClick.com: $349.35
• Commission Junction: $990.45
• Text-Link-Ads: $291.73
• MaxBounty: $366.25
• Other Affiliate Programs: Est. $1000

Grand Total: $3616.24

I used to make a couple of thousands from AdSense per month in the past but that’s no longer the case when one of my best AdSense websites had stopped ranking in Google after their algorithm updates.

What I didn’t include in there is the amount I made selling my own products. While I usually make more than all my affiliate programs income combined, my other affiliate program income is gradually increasing.

Now have you read anyone sharing their blogs or online income? Do you reveal your own income in your blog? Please leave your comment.

As you can see above, Sabahan.com is all about computers the Internet, blogging, marketing and interesting stuff. You can also find lots of posts about AdSense, AdWords, making money tips, blogging and WordPress.

I am Gaman, that’s my pseudonym by the way, not my real name. I am from Sabah, used to be known as North Borneo, one of the states in Malaysia . Check out my About Me page if you want to know more about me.

Here are some of the popular articles I’ve written to help you get started while exploring Sabahan.com

• 10 Reasons Why Your Blog Isn’t Making Money from Text-Link-Ads.com
• 10 Tips to Help You Make Money With Google Referral 2.0
• Seven Critical Mistakes New Advertisers Make When Setting Up Their AdWords Campaigns
• What does it takes to make USD 3000 monthly from Adsense

And many more… You can also find the most popular posts on the sidebar when you visit a category.

I am going to write another post later to share my experience paying $400 to John Chow to have Sabahan.com reviewed. This blog is currently experiencing what some bloggers called the John Chow effect.

How does the review affect my traffic, rss subscriber count and blog income? Is it worth it?

That will be the topic in my next post, so if you’d like to know that – please subscribe to my feed. Thanks!

It looks like Paula has addressed this point by mentioning that the list also includes webmasters, affiliate marketers, content scrappers, domainers and any other title you can think of.

While the list is by no means definitive, I am sure it took Paula quite an effort to compile it. Whether it’s intentional or not, the list has become an effective link baiting article that has directly catapulted Paula’s blog into the Top 2000 of Technorati ranking.

How I wish I’ve came up with such list first. LOL.

Here are the Malaysian bloggers that have been included. They are

Now let me know if I’ve missed any Malaysian bloggers that’s in the list.

As you can see, Paula tends to under-estimated or over-estimated a blogger’s income. I doubt John Chow is making more money than ShoeMoney if you consider Shoe’s other revenue sources. But that’s not her fault considering that most bloggers prefer not to post their online income nor discuss it at all.

Talking about discussing your online income, Yaro Starak once wrote

All I can say about this is that it pays to talk about how much money you make online if you want exposure.

I agree, such topic tends to draw people’s attention and encourages other bloggers to link to you. When Markus Frind of Plenty of Fish ‘announced’ that he’s making USD10,000 per day from AdSense, many were sceptical about his achievements. Whether he was telling the truth or not, I believe the publicity he received from it has helped him get where he is today.

I recalled a post where ShoeMoney said Marcus was faking it until he made it. Now ShoeMoney is interviewing Markus to share his story.

I won’t be suprise to see if some of those who choose to reveal their income – not necessarily the Malaysian bloggers – actually reported a higher income level than what they are actually earning. One reason for this is that it’s always a good publicity to do so. So did I over estimated my income on purpose? Well, it’s up to you what you want to believe. But I’ll only consider myself really successful when I’m consistently making over USD10,000 per month and I am not quite there yet.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Paula’s figures are likely to be gross income not net income. I am personally spending over RM25,000 annually on AdWords alone so my real net income will be lower. In addition I’ve to put aside expenses for my server, the salary for my assistant, contract programmers etc.

OK, head over to Paula’s blog to see the full list.

It’s not even the guy who many credited as the inventor of the Internet. No it’s not Al Gore.

You have probably never heard of him largely because of his nature to maintain a low profile. He owns the web by controlling the some hundreds of thousands of domain names. His is currently making an estimated $70 million a year and he is working mostly as a solo operator.

Read the full article: The Man Who Owns The Internet

When the news broke out, many were skeptical about the validity of his claim and some questioned his motive for revealing his achievement.

Here’s a guy who runs a multi-million dollars operation without the support of massive infrastructure and man power other than himself. It’s hard to believe how this is possible.

He posted on his blog a picture of a check from Google AdSense for nearly $1 million for a two month period. Google later confirmed the $1 million check was for real (the currency was in Canadian Dollar).

Today his site is now ranked fifth as most popular US dating site by Hitwise. Markus now reports PlentyofFish.com is bringing in between $5 to $10 million per year. That’s over $800,000 per month, or $26,000 per day!

He was recently featured on The Wall Street Journal where the reporter visits his home and writes about his seemingly impossible achievement. This should keep those skeptics quiet. This is an amazing achievement.

[via Web Publishing Blog]

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5 ways people become internet millionaires
Here are 5 proven ways people make a lot of money online. All are hard, some have produced fewer millionaires than others.

I got this idea after the successful transfer of my accounts to a new dedicated server at Hostgator.com

I’ve been thinking how this can be done properly without burning a hole in my pocket and still ensure the prizes remain attractive.

Offering free domains is easy but offering free web hosting (for life?) is a little tricky.

In terms of performance and redundancy, my new server should be able to cope with the addition of several new accounts without any problem but I can’t say that for sure in the future.

So looking forward, I am going to set some ground rules to ensure that things won’t go haywire in the future.

More details in my next post. Stay tune