Oct 23rd, 2007 by SalMaggio | 2 Comments
Well Hello, and i am so glad to be back !
This was definitely the worst week in my internet experience. I had problems with my VPS server and it had gone on for a little while. Well Spry.com, my host, offered to give me another VPS. Sounded great, thought is was good customer service as well. When the server went down i was to be emailed when the new one was ready. I figured 2 hours maybe. Anyway, 8 hours went by and i decided to email them. I finally got an email the next day indicating it was ready 20 minutes after they started. I literally waited up all night, and it turned out, for nothing. So the new VPS is ready. I have spent the last 6 days not being able to access any accounts. Emails going back and forth and back and forth, fixing one thing or another. Talk about frustration. But still got no where. I still could not access accounts and pull up any domains. I cleared my cache, thinking it was an issue on my end. Rebooting 1 computer after another here, and still it said “server not found” . SPRY’s CUSTOMER SERVICE WAS HORRIBLE. A plan of action and things to follow up with before changing over would have been nice. We all forget one step or another here sometimes.
Also, i’ve paid 1 year in advance, pretty much for the discount i received, and am still waiting to hear from the billing department for my refund. I am not quite 1/2 way thru with my plan. Lets see how long it takes to get my money back.
I had a problem with my backup of my sites and asked for there most recent backup prior to the change-over. That took a whole week to get any answers, and come to find out the only thing that was ever really backed up was site structures. Now, i originally had 1100 domains/accounts listed on the server. Over 70 were running sites with 1 1/2 years time spent building and buying sites. All lost… Man i came so close to crying and ripping every piece of hair out of my head. I decided to write some of the people i bought sites from to see if they happen to have backed up copies. I have been a little fortunate and got info back for about 15 sites. I guess better than nothing. Well this site was the first one i got back up and running, Thanks to LEONID SHALIMOV who started the “Bulge Theme of websites” for having a copy of this site. It is so appreciated. This site has had really great traffic and i was really afraid of loosing readers.
I did lose the past couple of posts that i’ve done and any comments, and still have to update several links on the site. But am so happy to have CashBulge back online.
All i can say, is make sure all your stuff is backed up, and maybe even on 2 computers, because would not with this on anyone. It almost feels like i am starting all over, and in a sense i am.
I also have to thank Istiak Shams, big time ! This guy stepped in and offered his server to at least get started again, and has helped me with so much time of his, just to help me grab my head and help me get reorganized. I met him thru a forum and we kicked off a really good friendship. I was fortunate he has a dedicated server and helped me just to get things rolling again. I will plug him here, and he deserves way more than that for all the help he offered. He has a small Hosting site ” HostBix.com” , but let me tell you, he gave me soooo much more support than than the Horrible service i got from Spry. Its amazing an holds true, the little guy always has better service. I am a customer of his, not some email that goes back and forth, taking 8 hours for responses. SPRY, I HATE YOU ! Never again. Everything was great till i had a problem.
Thanks again, LEONID SHALIMOV and ISTIAK SHAMS for your help, enabling me to get this site back up.
Also let me mention, the Forum for this site is up and running again, BulgeLounge.com .
And thank you Istiak for that also. You are well appreciated !
Ok, we’ll be back shortly, i need to get some fresh content and information on CashBulge.com again . So stay posted !
Regards,
SAL Maggio
Oct 22nd, 2007 by SalMaggio | Comment
Yes, We are Finally Back On !
No Thanks to SPRY.COM . The Worst Headache of MY LIFE !
I will follow tomorrow with the horrible experience with my VPS
But for now, we are back up !
The FORUM is at BulgeLounge.com , both of these sites had to be re-installed and are not updated from the last 2 weeks.
Links will be put back accordingly over night. Right now, just happy to be online.
So thank you for your patience. Also, if you signed on for RSS feed over the last 2 weeks, you may have to again if your not getting feed.
Regards,
SAL
Sep 20th, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | 1 Comment
As many of you have probably noticed, the posting rate has gone down dramatically and I want to apologize for this. With the new version two launch of GameBulge and VidBulge as well as school crammed in, me and Dave have had almost no time to write new posts.
Spending two-three hours a day working and improving GameBulge and VidBulge really leaves little to no time to write new content. However in other news, we’ve had great success in the opening of the new versions of GameBulge and VidBulge. Over 60,000 visitors total for both sites in the span of 4 days.
More news to come soon.
Sep 17th, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | 2 Comments
This post was guest blogged by Tay of SuperBloggingTips.com. She
regularly writes about blogging resources, search engine optimization, how
to make money blogging, and
more.
Unless you’re writing for just yourself, you’re probably going to want
more traffic coming to your blog. More traffic = more money and higher
rankings! But generating traffic isn’t always easy. If you want to up your
visitor counts (and turn those visitors into readers), please read on for
ten valuable and unique tips that anyone can put to use.
1. Make a lens on Squidoo. On
Squidoo, you can sign up for free and make your own lens, or page, on any topic you want. Create a lens on a topic that is related to your blog and link to yourself. To get traffic from
Squidoo, promote your lens and get it out there so people find out about
your site. And did I mention you can money from your Squidoo lens?
2. Use Yahoo! Answers and other such communities. On
Yahoo! Answers you can ask and answer fellow people’s questions, which
cover almost any topic or idea. Find questions that relate to your niche
and begin answering. Yahoo! Answers lets you provide a source, so be sure
to link back to your blog and let everyone know where the knowledge comes
from.
3. Submit to blog carnivals. I honestly can’t stress this
one enough. The more carnivals you submit to, the more links, exposure,
and traffic you will receive. And best of all, it’s almost always targeted
traffic! To find out more about blog carnivals and what they are, please
read here.
4. Write a controversial post. Standing out in the
blogging world and separating yourself from the millions of others isn’t
always easy. But if you want to be noticed (and you do!) then you should
write a controversial post on your blog. If your opinion is different or
out of the norm, then let it be known. Not only will people respect you
for it, but they might also link to you and send visitors your way for
being so interesting.
5. Have a sense of humor. It’s good to be serious
sometimes, but no one likes reading a blog when you sound absolutely
robotic. Don’t forget that everyone wants to have some fun now and then,
so don’t be afraid to crack a joke or use your sense of humor. You do have
one, right?
6. Join and participate in forums. When you join and post
in a new forum, you’re reaching out to a lot of new, potential readers.
Add your blog’s link to your signature in the forum and link to one of
your articles whenever relevant (if allowed). Share your knowledge and do
your best to make new friends. Forums are a great way to get noticed!
7. Make a Myspace or Facebook profile. Another great way
to connect with new people is to create a profile dedicated to your site
on a social networking website. Not only can you add and keep in touch
with your current readers, but you can also meet new people and drive
traffic to your blog.
8. Give away free advertising. Either give it away for
free, or hold a competition to find a lucky winner. Whether you’re giving
away free links, banners, reviews, or something else, people appreciate
getting something of value for free. And when it’s advertising on your
site, you don’t have to pay to give it away either!
9. Write pillar posts. Pillar posts are authoritative and
instructional. Often times, they are list posts as well. They usually very
long and could take even hours to write, but are always worth it. Pillar
posts usually get many links and are noticed more than other types of
posts. If you write a really good one, you could drive a lot of traffic to
your blog.
10. Don’t pretend - be you! Don’t write posts about
something you don’t believe in. Your blog is yours, so stand out and make
it so! It’s easy to be anonymous on the internet, but no one will ever
feel a connection with you if you do. If you want more traffic and
readers, make sure they know who you are.
Sep 11th, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | 4 Comments
We did it! Launched the second version of VidBulge and GameBulge over the past two days and we’ve had great success so far. The only problem we’re having is Internet Explorer issues (lower than 7) with some of the images, but other then that, we’re golden. We’ve also released a kick-ass new laid back forum over at TalkBulge which should be getting some attention soon seeing as how it’s linked through the other sites.
So what was the launch process?
Well, we got impatient and launched in Beta, with some of the links still to be created, however the content was there and so was the layout so we decided to go ahead with it. We re-did GameBulge first and it was painless. It consists of about 13 PHP files and about 25+ images and that’s it! Pretty small numbers if you think about it. We moved v2 over to the main domain and all the URL’s are still the same so we don’t have to worry about re-directing traffic.
Then came VidBulge. That was even easier. Same layout as GameBulge just different content. Consists of about 7 PHP files. One of our first videos hit Reddit.com front page and we got over 3,000 hits! Off to a great start.
Sep 7th, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | 3 Comments
We have been shedding sweat and tears for the past four days straight. I have been sitting at my desk and coding for up to 5-6 hours at a time without taking a break. Why? Because we’re getting ready to launch GameBulge v2 - Beta.
First, some introduction to GameBulge and the first release.
When we first put up GameBulge, we decided that we didn’t want to put too much time into it. We just wanted to test the waters, see how viral the market is and then move on to a better version if we were successful. It took me about 2 full days of coding and database work to get it running smoothly. Then we went ahead, did some small promoting and testing.
Good thing, we were successful. We’ve been averaging about 1,500-2,000 unique visitors per day and a ton of Google traffic (and 3-4 front page Google search results for certain games). That’s when we knew we could make it larger, that’s when the desire, the fire, the urge to make it better came about.
The process of GameBulge v2.
When we were thinking about the re-design, we really didn’t have anything in mind. We just wanted it to be simple, easy and look good. We also came up with another idea. We can have games (flash games) but why can’t we also integrate hand-picked videos from YouTube, Break and CollegeHumor and such?
So we decided to add a video section. So now not only will it be games, it’ll be videos as well (hopefully in the future sometime we can make it user-submitted).
One other big overhaul was that we added a user system. You can now register and have your own profile. Doing this, we can offer special contests, incentive and keep stats on each player/video viewer. (These items are still in progress).
It would be great to hear ideas from the readers! If you have any cool ideas that we could implement, please let us know. We want to improve GameBulge and make it the premier spot for web games and videos, so let us know what you want.
OK, OK, Let me see it now!
Well, here you go, an exclusive link to GameBulge v2.
Sep 4th, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | 6 Comments
So people want to know how much we’ve made so far with the whole Bulge family of websites. I was thinking about not disclosing the amount but then I figured, why not?
I’m curious to see what other blogger’s earn, I might as well get the ball rolling. Since we’ve started CashBulge (3 months ago), GameBulge (1 month ago) and VidBulge (3 1/2 weeks ago) as well as TechSnap (3 month old random blog that died out) we have made a total of $959.72.
Who’s we?
Well ‘we’ would be me (Leonid Shalimov) and my partner David Murphy-Colonna. When I first started TechSnap awhile back, it was just for fun. No real intention on making money, I just wanted to set something up like PandaChute where people could come everyday to see something new and funny.
I then decided to add some advertisements from Google and maybe make a bit of money off of it. And so I did. I hit about 3 Digg and Reddit front pages and netted some great profit. That’s where the thirst for more began (as well as the idea of CashBulge).
How did we make that much money, is it all profit?
It’s not all profit. We invested about $110 into hosting, domain names, minor advertising and a few scripts (not counting the new forum software). But we’ve turned our investment and made it back more than eight fold. Now that we are set up with most of our initial costs, we can worry less about monthly incurred fees.
As far as making all the money, we went through a few ventures. I’ll list them but won’t give away how much each one made, however I will say that the bulk of profit was from direct link sales and google adsense.
1. Google AdSense
2. Direct Link Sales
3. Sponsored Reviews
4. Sponsored Posts
5. Blog Consultation
6. AdBrite
7. Affiliate Marketing
Hope that clears some things up as far as what routes we chose.
The Bulge family and its creation.
I sat down for awhile after letting go of TechSnap (letting go as far as updating it, haven’t done so in months) and decided to get serious and make a new blog and put my sweat and tears into it. I knew I would need a partner as this would be more content heavy rather than just posting videos. I went ahead and extended the idea to Dave and he loved it.
What started out as just a financial/money making blog has now turned into a video uploading site as well as a flash game arcade website. While all three sites are under major construction, the functionality and motive is there.
The introduction of the forums, contests and giveaways.
After awhile we decided to give something back to our faithful readers. After opening up the forums we held some contests and giveaways to stir activity all the meanwhile generating revenue.
Now we have went from a ‘read only’ blog to opening up a community for other like-minded individuals who now have a place to share their thoughts and ideas when it comes to running a website, making money, saving money and other business related topics.
Sep 4th, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | 2 Comments
I’ve used ImageShack and other various image uploaders but was definitely glad to find this gem called FileLime. I’ve now thrown away my ImageShack bookmark and replaced it with FileLime. Why?
It’s simple as hell. Browse for your image, hit upload, get a direct link and use it anywhere you want. No google ad’s, no clutter, no mess. Just simple & easy to use, perfect for the minimalist inside of me. My online gripe is the ‘Show Uploads’ link which shows every single file that has been uploaded. It takes the page forever to load though so I doubt a lot of people browse through it.
Hopefully the owner can make some kind of user system as I would definitely sign up! I’ve been using FileLime for the past two weeks and have absolutely no hiccups or errors.
Finally something that just works. Try it our for yourselves and let me know what you guys think.
Sep 2nd, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | 4 Comments
You heard us right. We’re giving out yet another item for free to our readers. This month we’ll be giving away a Kingston 512MB SD Card that can be used in your phone, laptop, etc. It has never been opened and is still in the package.
How do I win it?
We will be giving away the card to a forum member who will be randomly selected by a random number generator at the end of the month, so you can have as little or as many posts as you want and still win (however we do require that you have at least 5 posts to be eligible.
Why are giving this away for free?
Because we want to generate some activity in the new forums. So go ahead and get registered now.
But this has nothing to do with entrepreneurship.
Sure it does! I have a T-Mobile dash and it ran out of memory within the first month. Solution? I had to buy a memory card. A card like this is great for keeping MP3’s, Videos, Notes, Word Documents, Excel Spreadsheets and other goodies on your phone.
Sep 1st, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | 5 Comments
Finally. It’s up and its running. Again, I apologize to those who had an account on the PhpBB (old version) because you will need to re-make an account. We have upgrade to vBulletin and have heavily modified, skinned and optimized the site. We hope you like it! Go sign up now!
Sep 1st, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | 5 Comments
That’s right. We took the plunge and bought vBulletin for our forums. Please bear with us while we update everything. If you had an account you’re going to have to re-create it because we are going to be launching a fresh forum. 
Let us know if you have any ideas for the new forums in the Suggestions forum. We’d be more than glad to hear from you.
Sep 1st, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | 2 Comments
So almost a month ago we made this post. Well, the contest is over with and we had a great number of comments (30 to be exact) and have finally chosen a winner. Let’s go through how we randomly selected a winner.
I headed over to Random.org which is one of the best free random number generators on the web and went straight to the integer link. Let’s have a look:
Then after I entered the maximum amount of comments, I went ahead and pressed Generate!
There we go! That’s our winner, lucky number 17. Congratulations Adnan from Blogtrepreneur. I’ll be contacting you shortly to get your shipping details :).
Here’s a picture of the comment posted by Adnan.
Congratulations! You are officially our first contest winner.
Aug 30th, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | Comment
VidBulge is back up. Yes. We took your comments into steep consideration and put some more money into the hosting to get 2 Terabytes worth of bandwidth and over 200 Gigabytes of disk space. With that in mind we have rolled over and have made the server upgrade cost back in just under 24 hours times :).
The great thing that makes VidBulge different from all the other upload sites? No waiting, no registering, no bullshit. Cheers to all our readers who said “hey retards, put the site back up or people will quit coming back.” Well, we took your advice and are glad we did.
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