With the release of WordPress 2.5 and the heavy duty modifications made to the admin section, I wanted to write a few pieces about the nature of the user experience after the changes. This being my first entry, I am going to talk a bit about the new welcome screen of the admin section. An initial glance shows a complete overhaul of the UI, which might scare some WP veterans, but to new folks would appear very stylish and “web 2.0″. I am a big fan of the “Right Now” bulletin posted up top. It provides quick metrics about your site and is a solid reporting tool. Scrolling down the screen shows different RSS feeds and information sections. The nice part about this is that each box can be edited to display whatever information you would like. This gives the user more control of their admin section. However, one thing I don’t like is the amount of scrolling involved with this all. Granted the important metrics are posted on top, but a lot of visible information is left off the initial screen, which leaves the user to scroll hefty amounts to see everything contained on the page. I also think the “Right now” box could and should be built into a reporting supertool providing key metrics and information about much of the site. A tabbed menu could provide access to recent comments, incoming links, site visitor statistics and more. I think wp-stats should be included in the core build also. Visitor statistics are of prime importance and WP should come fully equipped to report on such vital information. It could report on a variety of things such as the most popular posts and content to provide users with key information regarding their site.

The navigation menus are scaled down greatly from previous versions of WP. The information is all still there, but much more cut and dry. With that, I am going to end my first review and invite you to comeback during the week to catch the second entry, which revolves around the new navigation structure of wp-admin

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Consumer confidence in the US fell in March to 69.5 in March, the lowest since February 1992. In February 2008, US employers released more than 63,000 employees, the most in five years. And currently, the US dollar is struggling against the yen, the pound and the euro.

Yet, President Bush has declared that we are not in a recession. We are in a “slow down.”

It would be easy to point fingers and say that the President is out of touch - and trust me, there are plenty of folks ready to do so. But what if he’s right? The definition of recession changes depending upon which economist is judging - and many believe that you can’t tell unless and until you are well into a recession.

So are we or aren’t we? The Business Channel took on the “r” word - with some surprising results!

Miranda offers the answer to the perplexing question “What IS a recession, anyway?” at Yielding Wealth.

At Leadership Turn, Miki wonders how real the recession is considering that the numbers don’t support the supposed expansion preceding it.

Mary Emma at Home Biz Notes notes that whether we’re truly entering a recession or not, due to the higher price of oil, home business owners must become creative to help customers and make sales.

At Project Management 411, Bob similarly ponders whether we’re in A Long, Ugly, Deep Recession? He also questions whether this talk of recession is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Darlene at Interview Chatter blogs that recession is a real possibility if not a reality for us. If you are not working and you need a job, consider getting a government job. There is definitely some job security if you can get your foot in the door.

It’s not just careers that are affected in tough economic times. As a college student, Jim at BossHatch tackles the idea of Paying for College.

Jennifer at My Organized Biz helps you stay on top of your finances during difficult times by having a kitchen table financial summit.

Freelancers worry, too. Rico at Contract Worker examines How the US Recession Affects All Freelancers.

Jennifer notes how the recession is affecting the restaurant industry over at one of our newest additions to the channel, Daily Blender. Jean reacts to Jennifer’s story at Small Business Boomers.

It’s just not for profit corporations that wonder about the effect of a slowing economy. Tom at the 501(c)Files shares how The Nonprofit Sector Girds for the R-Word.

What will it take to turn the economy around? Thursday at One Vote Matters ponders politics and the future of economic policy.

At Successful Blog, Liz promotes the power of positive thinking during tough times, advising How to Think Like a Millionaire and Be What You Want to Be.

Just because you think like a millionaire doesn’t mean that you have to spend like one. Ren at Accounting Solver questions whether you save or spend money now. Ren also notes that the recession isn’t just hitting the US markets - read his series to find out how the what’s happening to overseas Filipino workers, their remittances and the question of trade dependence.

At Doing Biz Abroad, Chris also questions what the US recession would mean globally. He determines that The Dollar Has Had Its Day.

And Bridget over at Biz Chicks Rule notes that other countries are taking this opportunity to encourage new businesses: Moms in the UK Are Given Cash Incentives to Start Their Own Businesses.

At Digital Money World, Benson notes that there are some positive outcomes to a weakening market. Some commodities are more valuable now than before - like gold.

And it’s not all bad news in the housing market either (really?!). Dan at Property Crossroads shares a bit of good housing news. Blain at Talk Stock Trading reports that stocks reacted favorably to interest cuts - that’s something, right?

Taxgirl defines the “r” word a little differently - not recession but rebates, rebates and more rebates. Find out when to expect your rebate check, who doesn’t qualify for the rebate check and how much the economic stimulus package is really costing Americans.

Despite the economic stimulus package, Susan at Brandcurve believes that Retailers Shouldn’t Expect a Bump in Sales from IRS Rebate Checks. Not such great news considering that was the intent of the economic stimulus package to begin with…

So finally, something to make you smile among the grim news - at Biz Levity, Mark delivers a delightfully satiric take on economic indicators.

Whew. That’s quite a list. So what do you think? Recession, slow down or just a bad run?

Over the past two weeks, I developed a custom theme for a new Porsche site authored by Ryan Yokome. Ryan was a great client who knew exactly what he wanted and provided me with the images he wanted built into his template. You can check the final product out at his site The Porsche Pit. We are both really happy with the theme and hope to get the chance to work together again in the future. In the mean time, if anyone is looking for a new coat of paint for their website, check out my services page!

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FYI, I’m in LA right now at Yanik’s Underground Seminar, all I can say is that I’m TOTALLY blown away! I’ll give fill you in on the details when I get back.

Anyhow, here’s a letter I recently received from a reader in China :

“Dear Amit,

I kept reading your blog everyday since you started it last March.Your Blog is great.I learned so much from it.Your are my hero.Thank you for sharing your experiences so generously.

After reading your article:When & When NOT to Quit Your Job…,I thought a lot.I am in the same situation,and need your advice.

I am a graduate student in South China Normal University now and would get the Master ’s Degree in June. To find a job or not ,that is a question to me.

This is my situation:

1. Income for Clickbank by GG Adwords method:$8000-10000/month
2. but the keywords group is small,only include 20 keywords.Only promote one products.So it seems like the income is not stable.Anyway,it last for 5 months till now,and survived after two GG slaps.
3. My family expense is about $400/month.I had a boy nearly 2 years old.And my wife is a fulltime mother.
4. If I get a job(as a tearcher),the salary is about $500-600/month.Working 5 days/week,8 hours/day.
5. If I go to work, it’s hard to get my affiliate income to a new level.If I take affiliate as my full job,maybe I could do better.My next goal is $30000/month if I go full time in affiliate marketing.It is big money in China,as you know.In addition, I have learned so much about affiliate marketing and don’t want to give it up.

But the market is always chanceful, No one can promise the affiliate income would last forever.In the contrast,the job can give me a stable income in the long run.

So,what should I do now? Could you give me some advices? Sorry for my poor English.

Thank you in advance.”

I wrote back to him and told him that he should go full time, considering his affiliate income is OVER 20 times his living expenses. Congrats to your success!

Think about it, this fellow is in China, his English is not the greatest, and he’s a student - yet he managed to launch a successful ppc affiliate campaign that blows away what the average American makes.

And yet I continue to hear the same excuses from affiliates :

1. I don’t have the time
2. I don’t have the money
3. My English isn’t very good

If you how rigorous the Chinese education system is you know he doesn’t have a ton of free time on his hands. Students in China go to college to actually learn, not binge drink and go to frat parties.
Do you think my reader from China “had the money”? Most newbie affiliates spend $25- $50 testing out a campaign for profitability.

Do you know how much money $25-$50 is in China?!?

His goal is to make $30,000/month.  I have no doubt that he will.

Ever wonder why the Chinese economy is growing so fast?

Get off your butt, stop making excuses, and make it happen already!

With the release of WordPress 2.5 today, I immediately upgraded thecoreystory.com.  The upgrade went seamlessly and the site is now proudly powered by WordPress 2.5!  The admin portion is dramatically different as discussed and takes a little bit of getting used to.  After an initial glance, the UI looks nicer, but I am not sure it is user-friendly.  There are some nice features such as permalink display above the post you are writing.  I think the idea of permalinks is confusing to new users - this functionality should help get point across much better :)  The “Write Post” section also caters more towards additional media such as audio and video, which is a great thing!  After I get a longer look at the admin UI, I will give further insight into the usability of the section!

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I recently had a friend and a student go full time in affiliate marketing.

Good stuff, huh?

Well, not quite, my friend is making ZERO income as an affiliate and the student only has one small profitable campaign (he quit a strong 6 figure job).

I talk a lot about taking a leap of faith, and having the entrepreneurial spirit. But there’s a fine line between entrepreneurial spirit and being foolhardy.

Quiting your job before you have a SOLID affiliate income (at least 2X your job income) is about the STUPIDEST thing you can do, especially if you’re doing PPC.

Now if my friend and my student had asked me BEFORE they had quit their job whether it was a good idea, I would have told them exactly what I thought.

The best thing about having a steady job while building a ppc affiliate business, is that you can cover your living expenses with your job income, and thus allowing you to reinvest all your affiliate profits into more ppc adspend.

If you quit your job too early you’re drastically going to slow the growth of your business, since you won’t be able reinvest your profits back in your business - you’ll be LIVING on them or at least TRYING TO.

I didn’t quit my job until :

1. I had paid off ALL of my consumer debt
2. I was making 3X my job income

Now some of you may think I was being TOO conservative, but you know what, my profits took a big hit soon after I handed in my resignation letter. Luckily I was in a strong financial position so I was able to recover.

Had I quit several months earlier I would put myself and my wife (she’s a student) at the brink of bankruptcy.

Another thing to keep in mind…

Just because you have a profitable campaign or have replaced your job income does not guarantee that your affiliate income will continue to grow.

If your business was anything like mine it’s likely you’ll have LOTs of ups and downs in the beginning until you learn how to deal with :

1. Google SLAPS
2. Market Changes
3. Seasonal Changes
4. Changes on the Merchant Side

There’s a difference between making a large affiliate income and making a large & consistent long term affiliate income.

When you understand THAT difference you’re ready to quit you job.

As you know, I am a pretty big fan of Mixx, and I have been using Mixx for a while now, ever since day one. Anyhow, Mixx is not really the focus here; although Mixx is the main reason behind my discovering the fact that you can essentially “black out” virtually your entire listing in the Google search results.

Here is a screen shot of a fellow Mixx user blacking out one line in his Google search result:

I took a look at the Google cache of this page, and it just so happens that this user had decided to put some code in his Mixx profile page that looked really great on his Mixx profile. But, probably by mistake, this Mixx user’s Google search result actually has a line blacked out in the search results.

If you’re wondering what the Google cache looks like, here is a screen shot of it:

This search result certainly brings up some questions about Google’s search results. What would happen if you were to use those characters as a meta description tag on an html page and get that page indexed? Certainly it might draw more attention to that page’s Google search result, causing more people to click on it?

Or, in fact, would the reverse happen? Would the users think that Google–on purpose–is blacking out part of the listing? What do you think?

I took a look at the listing on Yahoo! Search to see how Yahoo! handles the characters in their search result:

Turns out that Yahoo! knows how to deal with the characters, so there is not any blackout on a Yahoo! search result.

Let’s take a look at how MSN deals with it. Same thing as Yahoo!. No blackouts:

This will be my last post on Paris. There are WAY too many things to share about Paris, so I’m just going to give you some key highlights.

A big highlight was The Louvre Museum of Antiquities, which is-without a question-the TOP Museum in the world. Shilpi and I literally ran through the ENTIRE Louvre in ONE day.

If you don’t know how big the Louvre is, it’s something like 5 miles if you go through every room.

No Joke.

Here’s some highlights from the Louvre :

Here’s some highlights from Notre Dam & Sacre Couer, the epitome of European Cathedrals (along with Westminster Abby!):

Also check out this shot of the Eiffel Tower :

Also, on our final day in Paris Shilpi and I had a chance to do some shopping.

I’m telling you, there’s stuff you can get in Paris you simply can’t find in US.

Between the 2 of us we dropped over 3000 Euros!

I bought my first REAL suit, a Ermenegildo Zegna suit. There just something magical about wearing a designer suit, the look, the feel is like NOTHING ELSE!

I wouldn’t bludgeon you with what the suit costs. To give you an idea, it cost 50% more than the Armanis they were selling and the tie alone was over a 100 Euros!

I had a chance to wear my suit that night when we went to a nice family run French restaurant :

This French restaurant was not a gourmet restaurant with Foie gras or caviar, it was more like something you would get if you had dinner with a French family.

And the food was REALLY good!

Yum!

I miss French food already!

A few months ago my girlfriend was interested in a modeling show on VH1.  The show aired Sunday nights at 9 P.M., however, she was confused as she turned on VH1 at noon on Sunday one week and was watching the brand new episode that was supposed to air that night.  Today as I was flipping through the channels, I caught an episode of Rock of Love with Bret Michaels airing at noon.  This apparently was the new episode that is airing tonight.  Is there a reason VH1 airs its brand new Sunday night episodes midday on Sundays?  Also, if anyone out there watches any of these shows, tune it at noon to see that weeks new episode!

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With the stock market as risky as ever, I saw an interesting piece on CNN today. They showed ROI for 10K for the past decade. They showed the statistic in two different views: one was the value of 10K if you didn’t touch your money while the other was the value of 10K if you missed the 20 best days over the past 10 years. The difference? If you didn’t touch your money, you would have made $7000. If you shifted funds during down times and missed the 20 best days, you would have lost $3000 dollars. The moral of the story was to stay ship and not toy with your investments when the market isn’t performing well. Oftentimes people get discouraged and change around their portfolio, which usually causes you to miss out on the upswing of the market.

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