Ok, I'll try my best to breathe some intelligence on this post which is obviously a ploy to attain something major which I'm sure any of you know by now.
First, I believe an introduction is in order.
Quote:
My name is Danny Garcia or "dannybuntu". I am an entrepreneur both online and offline. All my experiences are in my blog, if you care to read them.
I live in the countryside somewhere in the Philippines where people still use firewood to cook their food, they still ride horses, harvest coconuts to sell as a living and almost everybody carries a sword (a jungle bolo) while walking around.
Despite the remoteness of my location there's one thing that I am happy about - and that is that Wimax coverage from Globe Telecoms can reach us. That's really a surprise since the setting here is like a jungle.
At first I just purchased the tattoo broadband stick which was prepaid. But when I found out that there's an unlimited subscription plan I stuck with it so I could spend longer times on the Internet and be more productive.
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My First Foray into Making Money Online
I was lucky because the first time I came online, a friend pointed me towards
freelancer.com. I don't have contact with him anymore, but to this day, I remember his name fondly - Anthony.
I was also lucky because the first time I bid on a job on freelancer.com - I was accepted by a woman named Yulia.
My first ever dollar online:
How to build a business using freelancer by
dannygarcia, on Flickr
Everything came rolling then - until I stopped working on freelancer to concentrate on my own endeavors. The ultimate dream was to build my own startup. To this very day, my quest remains to be completed and there's a lot of work to be done.
My Business Plan is Twofold
1. To have a site as prominent as Mashable.com and focus writing on things people were interested in
2. To build
'the website startup'.
Primary revenue source is from Adsense, since Mashable is one of the top Adsense earners online.
Banner advertisements will surely follow once the website has gained traction. I now know that Adsense shouldn't be the sole revenue earner for any online endeavor because I now have access to larger numbers than before. I'll talk about this again later.
I know my limitations so I know that I wouldn't be able to do the programming on my own. At this moment, I'm at a stage in my life where much of my focus is on my family so my online endeavors are at a temporary standstill.
Honestly, I am hoping against hope and against a thousand other people that I could win the freelancer contest being held by Mr. Matt Barrie. That would change the ball game for me.
Why a Media Company Like Mashable?
Well, I cited Mashable.com because of its nature as a blog - and a business. Despite all the negative things being said about Adsense and that it was actually "addcents", you have to take note of the fact that the only real way that Adsense could work for someone are the following:
Adsense will work only for:
1. Targetted bulk readers with the intention to buy and be entertained at the same time
Now the first question on everyone's minds probably is this - how could this be a business in and of itself?
How can I build a business model centered around the use of freelancers?
Isn't Demand Media already doing this and have come to feel the pain of Google's Panda and Penguin updates?
My simple idea is this - hire freelancers to be genuine.
This is a controversial topic in the world of freelancing, specially with the entry of freelancers from third world nations such as the Philippines, India, Pakistan and the others.
A lot of the scorn being levied on "$2 an article freelancers" or on businesses that hire them is that most of the freelance writers are not really competent enough to know about a particular subject that's being written about and sold.
Put bluntly, everybody's focus is on the intention to sell.
I know, because I used to be one of these $2 an article freelance writers.
I have even experienced writing for .30 cents for a 300 word article. I knew exactly what my benefactors were doing and what their goals are and I believe that they should have improved on it. That's also the reason why I stopped freelance work.
On the other side of the coin, are the many qualified freelancers from North America who from the perspective of the small business owner in the same locale, are a little beyond their budgets.
Let's face the hard truth, the economy is at a downturn and given the choice of the North American small business owner, would he spend $50 an hour on a qualified freelancer or $2 an article?
The article has the same quality with the slight difference that the $2 article is made by someone who just researched about the topic rather than have first hand experiences with it.
It's an ethical dilemma one that has been the subject of debates and flame wars all over.
So my solution is this:
Lower the cost of getting content up without lowering the cost of quality and authenticity.
Mahalo.com has been making great strides in this and is constantly innovating ways on how they can tap this vast pool of talent online. But still, I think it can be improved upon through localization.
The way that Mahalo structures its website is not geographical - it was meant as a general resource in a world that is increasingly becoming technical and specialized. It also structures its topics according to the topic. I think it should always be a combination of both geography and interest.
Another potentially similar take on the same matter are the efforts of IZEA - the owner of PayPerPost.com and SocialSpark.com. Again, a lot of detractors frown upon their endeavors mainly because of the effect of luring bloggers to blog only upon the whims of the advertiser.
Now the quandaries of authenticity are subject to interpretation.
If you think about it - Google has already proven itself as the best business model in harnessing this - but it also has its own pitfalls.
Consider the structure and business plan of Google. Rather than calling people freelance writers - we coined them as "bloggers". So Google acquired Blogger.com and made it a free platform for people to write on with the promise of earnings through the Adsense monetization program.
An "upgrade" if you'd like to call it that, is for the blogger to have the ability to put his blog on his own domain of choosing. Google gets a commission for every domain bought on its blogger service. The happy blogger gets a commission from the Adsense program. Google is happy that the blogger is writing about any topic that he likes because the advertisers pay Google via the Adsense program?!
It's already a complete business cycle.
The difference in what I am planning is this:
Capture the attention of people who already have the intention to buy.
Then utilize freelancers who are genuine and honest about their recommendations to close the sale.
That's the only extent of specificity that I am willing to impart as this is an ongoing project.
You see, the focus of everybody is to make people buy even when they don't want to buy - or to try selling to people who think they want to buy.
Why not sell to those who have already made up their minds?
How to build your business using freelancers
