All this leads to one question, who is stupid enough to build a business that relies almost completely on one vendor.  Would you build a house out of wood if there was only one (fickle) place that sold wood?  Would you buy a Chevy if there was only one place to get tires and that place could at any given moment decide not to sell you tires … and not tell you why?  That is what people were doing, relying almost completely on Google (yes Yahoo and Bing too) for their traffic and their revenue and sitting back with fingers crossed never thinking that this could happen.

Unfortunately I am one of those stupid entrepreneurs but the free traffic tasted so good, so sweet, what was I to do?  Hundreds, if not thousands of websites were “killed” because these savvy internet entrepreneurs could see past the free traffic to the pitfalls associated with those free clicks.

Lessons have been learned, respect for Google as a business partner (even from those who benefited) has diminished and thousands of entrepreneurs are saying never again.  Let’s check back in a year or two and see who has really learned their lesson.

I am making the announcement on my blog mostly because iS3 had no intentions of making the announcement and I wanted it known that I was no longer involved or responsible for PCSecurityShield.  I built PCSecurityShield over 5 years and made the decision that it would be better off in the hands of a larger, more technical company.  That may or may not be the case but only time will tell.

Gripe #1,021

I was just about to post Gripe 1021 and I was adding a “category” as I have setup in WordPress.  I have “Stuff and Things” AND “Uncategorized” … wouldn’t something that had no category actually fall into Stuff and Things thus no longer being Uncategorized?  Sometimes I  don’t think.

Gripe #1,022

Looked into all the laws and rules and regulations … ain’t nothing we can do.  Sue?  Sure, hire a lawyer and by the time anything happens, my stuff will have been delivered.

Ah, my secret weapon, I am an internet entrepreneur.  So while your blog post may languish in obscurity, mine, and those that I put on my websites, rather quickly rise to the top of the search world.  So while I will get my furniture from Jonathon and Irma at All My Sons in Jupiter one day … I will repay them with a rather long and uncomfortable lesson that words can hurt.  So tomorrow when I call and you again tell me that 5-8 days was an estimate and that I should call tomorrow, just know that my review of the situation will shortly and forever follow you.  Enjoy!

StarReviews is one of the larger review website today.  We have over 100 categories, an active blog and the largest collection of as seen on TV video reviews and over the  last year I  have seen a slow, painfully slow, growth in spidered pages, PR and traffic and of course, revenue.  I never had anything to compare this to but when Google ran their  last update and we ended up with a bunch of PR5 and PR6 (page rank) pages throughout the site, an SEO associate of mine reminded me of what we had done when he  congratulated me on the progress.

Wow, StarReviews really is a decent site after all and we have done a great job getting to where we are.   I write this mostly because  I am an ecommerce guy, I like to optimize landing pages in hours … not months but the StarReviews project has given me a better understanding of another side of the internet.

ThePlusShops is the next project and I can  tell you that we  are fully integrating all that was learned from StarReviews into this network of niche  ecommerce  sites.  I  will talk about ThePlusShops later but for now, I guess the message is you really can learn a lesson even if you aren’t doing something you absolutely love doing.

SEO is growing on me.

By  the way, the forums at http://www.webproworld.com have some really smart people posting.   StarReviews may have been my SEO classroom but WPW was definitely my tutor.

I haven’t gone into the new network of websites we are building but I will shortly but for now understand that we are also buying smaller ecommerce websites.  These are mostly older sites, generating a few hundred thousand a year in sales and generally owned by a non-internet experienced owner.  So, deal in place to pay $120K for a website and I send off our contract that has been adjusting by opposing attorneys on numerous occasions so it is relatively fair.  One week later I receive back from the seller a 39 page contract and a 5 page addendum from my original 4 page contract.  No edits to my agreement, but a brand new contract.

I did not review it.  I just didn’t care.  I emailed back and told the guy that his lawyer owes him $120K as I was out.

I buy and sell websites for a living.  This was a simple and small deal.  While $120K is a lot of money, in the overall scheme of business, it really isn’t.

The seller didn’t know better and he let his lawyer run the show.  Now this guy, who had no one else interested in buying his website that he is no longer interested in running, tossed away a deal.

Yea I am pissed and yea I probably could have worked it out but there are too many deals out there.

So the moral of this story … your lawyer works for you and does not know your business.  You tell the lawyer what you want and not the other way around.

I sold pcsecurityshield at the end of dec 2008 and this is the first time I have been motivated since. I am ready to go. pcss took 5 years to get to 8m … don’t expect this one to take that long.

hopefully I can cut down on the mistakes this time

Bring on Brown as he defeats Coakley in what amounts to a total refuting of President Obamas first year in office.  So what next?  Reid and Pelosi are bullies, bullies from small districts that are pushing their crazy agenda that most democrats don’t like and all republicans can’t stand.  With the  Coakley loss the bullies took the  proverbial punch in the chin that always  shuts a bully up.  Now, President Obama has to run this country in a bipartisan  way and bring the republicans back into the political spectrum and into the discussions.  Reid and Pelosi have one more year as leaders only to never be heard from again.

Now, when he was elected, President Obama brought some degree of optimism, even to those of us who did not vote for him.  Like JFK before him (I was not around but I have heard) he was bigger than the party and stepped above partisam politics.  President Obama will now be able to move back to that position without the pressure of tweedle dee and tweedle dumb and move this country in the direction that is best for the country and not democrats or republicans but the whole country.

A Coakley win will ensure the most disasterous bill ever being passed, the economy in a free fall and a certain 1 and done for our president.  A Coakley  loss will put this country and our president back on the road to  greatness and four more years for President Obama.

From what  I can tell, Curt Schilling, ex-Red Sox pitching star, is a true Republican to the bone.  Can  not stand a thing that President Obama stands for or the democratic party and is hoping that the Mass. election goes republican.  That said, last night on Hannity (a Yankee fan), he continually referred to President Obama as President Obama.  Not Obama, not Barack and not a myriad of other  derogatory terms that are available.  Schilling, like  myself, realizes that President  Obama is  his president, even if he didn’t vote for him and we, the US, are better off standing behind our President than throwing him under the bus.

Now maybe Hannity can follow Curt Schillings lead.  You can disagree with someone and still show them, and the office, some respect.

Jets have been hearing that they backed their way into the playoffs and that they don’t belong.  That talk all started after Rex didn’t realize that they weren’t actually eliminated and then they went out and beat the Peyton-less Colts in the much talked about “rest your starters” game.  Jets say they beat the team that they played but the only way for the J E T S JETS JETS JETS to prove to the world and themselves that they belong … is to beat and beat up the Colts with Manning taking all the snaps.  So Sunday is much more than just a Conference Championship game to the Jets, it is a redemption game, their way of saying shut up, we belong to be hear and we are headed to Miami.  I suspect when the playoffs started, the Jets were not high on the list of teams that Peyton and co. wanted to see.

I think the case that I make is certainly worthy of consideration by Peyton and crew that golf next Sunday would be preferable to 3 hours with Gang Green.  Does anyone have Peytons numbers so I can plead my case?