This is relaively new to the net, but Im assuming this will go mega viral very quickly, Why? Well it has all the elements of a great viral campaign for youngsters:

1) It has multiple endings, so can be reused or new ones discovered. Thus there will be a prelonged interest in it (Old Spice also did this with their multiple reply campaigns)

2) It allows the user into the experience (the user takes control of the destiny of the video) – akin to Old Spice allowing users to submit qquestions, users feel apart of it.

3) It is dirty. Without giving too much away, you can choose dirty ending, one of which I cannot imagine will go down well. (some of which I list below the video link, including the risky one). Great for bored minds to play around and pass along.

Here is the link to the Youtube video:

Click here for the Tipp-Ex Experience Video: A hunter shoots a bear

After watching the video yo may want to try some of these endings (warning the ‘piss’ request seems to suggest showing parts of the mans anatomy, not quite family friendly)

Other requests to try on ‘The Tipp-Ex Experience, A hunter shoots a bear’

fuck / kiss / records / skate / breakdances / farts on / boxes / eats / hugs / shot / omg / cuts / becomes / sleeps with / blowjobs /tipp-ex / does nothing with / plays with / dirnks with… / high five / joke / watches tv with / buys / phones / films / is shot by /feeds / smokes with / moonwalk / washes / strikes with / jumps on / tickles / ass / draw / seduces / rides / rolls /fishes with / r /

(copied from Youtube comments – user sos137)

My first website of my $1million challenge is live! (I give the link below)

It is quite exciting but also a little bit of an anti climax for me. The aim of my first website is to feed a target audience to another site that I am in the process of developing. One look at the site will easily tell you which market I am exploring for one of my ventures.

My previous experience in this industry has given me a clear head-start in the second site in this series which will be announced shortly.

I try to always create popular low cost/free sites as an alternative marketing tool for my main money making sites. The concept here is simple, enabling gamers to be effective with their time and get up to date information in one place.

Althougt the concept may seem very simple, it is a real problem I have. Having been heavily within the industry previously (working directly with major players on their console launches) I somehow lost touch with a lot of things as it is not always easy to keep on top of all developments without scouring multiple sites and spending large amounts of time. Thus this site was made with the sole purpose of solving my problem.

The site is in beta launch meaning there will still be some changes before phase 1 is complete. However, this site is working and will update itself, meaning it will function without too much input from my side. I’m also very happy that one of my projects have finally completed the loop from concept to launch.

It is not perfect but it is good enough to release and I will improve upon it over time. I have a good marketing plan which I will be putting into action and will let the subscribers to my newsletter know the results sometime soon.

Take a look and feel free to provide feedback:

http://www.passionforgaming.com

Overview key figures:

Earned so far: €14k

Hits to blog: 13.5k

Websites launched thus far: 0 besides blog

Websites to be launched this month: 3

Like with most ventures, the first few months were a little slower then expected, and momentum has been picking up each month.

From the very beginning I had a basic plan. I wanted a multi channel strategy for raising my profile with multiple websites and multiple income streams before releasing my main website towards Christmas which will form the backbone of my challenge.

The traffic to this blog has been steadily increasing, but by far August was the biggest month for both progress for my websites and for hits to this blog.

After barely six weeks of introducing my subscribers to my RSS feed, I have over 500 subscribers which shows that some of my writing is finding an audience, something which helps motivate me greatly.

Followers of my blog will know that most of this increase happened because I made the front page of Digg and received a sharp increase in traffic. (I will release a free Ebook about how I achieved this shortly)

A week after being ‘Dugg’ the first time, I was surprising on the front page again, for yet another article, which I was not expecting. The result was a server overload from all the instant traffic and some 8 hours downtime before I realised what had happened.

What was worse was that the bandwidth limit was self imposed as I did not see a need to allocate so much bandwidth to this blog, a mistake I have since corrected.

The Skinny:

Progress:

So far I have had over 13,000 visitors to my website. (A large proportion came initially from Digg, however a large number are continuing to find my site via Facebook as people are sharing my articles)

So far this year I have earned:  €14,000  (mostly via consulting)

All my consulting clients have been new customers who have not heard about me before (in line with my challenge requirements): thus the decision to stay in Munich where I am unknown.

None of this money will count towards my challenge as none of it has been earned on an official challenge related website (all of my million must be made online)

I have almost finished 3 new websites, targeting totally different markets. These sites will all be launched in September and announced here.

One of my websites is being introduced into soft launch this week with a select group of testers and will be ready for full launch within one week.

The second website will be finalised this coming weekend and be released next week. It is a totally free product that will hopefully be invaluable to people. The concept with this site to help brand my name and build trust for my major sites which will launch in December.

I am using these site to both make money and build a following to help create a big push for my main products (The main products should bring in the bulk of the 1 million for this challenge)

The third website for this month is something I wanted to release in month 1 but due to problems with my programmer, have dragged on for 6 months. It has been frustrating but led to me firmly believing in a multi website approach to my income generation, as relying on one strategy can put me in trouble as soon as a problem arises. The actual problem I faced led to me creating a new product which is actually the second site I wish to release this month.

By the end of this month I want to have raised $14,000 online (I use dollars as it is still perhaps the most commonly used currency within internet marketing).

But my strategy has not stopped there. I have attended many networking events and found a number of experts in their fields. I am working with two I find particularly interesting and developing two unique products to be sold online.

I am the marketing brains behind the products, and the partners are the content brains. This opens up two whole new markets for me which I would not have had access to before. The people I am working with are relatively known in their fields so there is already an audience for the work we will promote (but they have never sold online).

Working with successful partners helps lower risk, not spend time creating products (as they are the experts) and allows me to concentrate on promotion (which is not so difficult as they are relatively well known within their fields already).

My own branded websites offer a lot more risk as I am relatively unknown and trying new things. Thus I have picked a balanced strategy as it is well known that not all new things will take off. I have to keep chipping away until I find the one that does, and I hope to do that very soon.

Lastly, as I mentioned earlier, I have been networking heavily. I go to many networking events in my area and have travelled to England a number of times already to attend events. Actually, this challenge started after attending another networking event, namely ‘The Marketing Cruise’. This is where a lot of the money I have currently made has been spent and has allowed me to introduce myself and my products to potentially interested parties.

I believe in giving before recieving in business to build trust, and perhaps it is therefore natural that I am the one who has started a ‘Warrior Forum Germany Mastermind conference call’ every Tuesday.

Some people have already guessed that I have plenty of experience in this game and I have had good feedback from the calls. There is no plan with these calls except to build a small group of marketers who trust each other without having to worry about giving away secrets.

I have already connected two of the German marketers, who have since been helping each other. As an internet marketer it is impossible to know everything so it is great to have some trusted advice whenever I have a question about the German marketing environment.

Looking forward:

This is going to be a busy and successful month for me I’m sure. During the last 7 months there has been an exponential rise in activity and I’m sure within the next few months I will reach the tipping point and my income will rocket. For this to happen I must first have some finished income loops (in this case, websites ready to take money) and start promoting them, which is the focus of this month.

5 months to go, I will make it, as my plan is coming together.

It’s been an eventful week in regards to traffic to my blog. Some of my articles hit the Digg homepage and resulted in thousands of visitors hitting my home page. (Digg is a user voted site with over 20k website submissions a day all hoping to hit the main page and receive massive attention)

But for me there is a downside to hitting the front page of Digg, besides the fact that the flood of visitors crashed my site (yep it did and I’m a little gutted about the thought of all the people who could not reach my site whilst it was down). The downside is the realisation that I seem to be addicted to Website visitor statistic on my site.

It almost like I feel the vistors will only come to my site if I physically see the counter moving. The statistics screen will say 3,500 new vistors today, then 20 seconds later I will manually refresh and it will say 3,503 visitors. WOW, a massive increase of 3 visitors, I better wait 20 seconds and hit refresh again to see how many more people come to my site!

It’s a strange feeling, akin to winning the lottery (disclaimer: I do not actually know what it feels like to win the lottery, I can only imagine it is rather like the exaggerated feeling I get after every 20 second click on my website visitor statistics page)

It’s like I get sucked into another dimension. Time seems to speed up and after only about 5 clicks and watching maybe what you believe is 5 minutes of updates, you glance up at the clock and the whole day has passed you by. I’m such an outgoing person but put me in front of moving statistic, especially one’s that concern me, and I’m addicted.

It is probably the very same reason I got addicted to that silly statistics based Facebook game Mafia Wars. What a waste of my life that game was, until I was able to acknowledge that I was addicted and then preened myself away. It was tough, there were days when I just wanted to check out who had attacked me or how many points I needed for the next level but I used every bit of distraction to help me move away from the game.

Yep, your right I moved to spending all my time on Farmville instead.

Thankfully, Farmville required too much work and left me bored of it rather quickly and so I was able to give up Facebook gaming quite easily.

It is time for me to admit I am a statistics whore. Yep, I know that’s obscene but it is the truth. For some bizarre reason I’m like any regular, normal person in public but leave me alone and I’m in statistics whore mode.

I’m a statistic whore. There it is I said it. I’m a statistic whore. Wow that feels good! I’m a statistics whore. Great, now everyone knows.

So now I have no excuse to stop being a statistics whore and to claim my valuable time back. Right, I promise I’ll start just after I check how many new visitors I had overnight…

Just a quick apology for the downtime yesterday. It seems one of my articles (well this one) hit the front page of Digg again and ended up with me hitting my self imposed bandwidth limit. So, if you came to the site and saw the broadband limit exceeded message, you know why!

I have taken approriate action to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Although honestly, if it did I would be smiling as it is a nice feeling to know so many targeted visitors hit your site that your site imploded.

I wish you a successful day.

This is a short video I made today about the effects of getting to Digg’s homepage. Digg is a service where users vote for pages they like and the ones that are liked the most rise up towards the front page.

The Front page is supposed to be the golden throne where 1,000′s of visitors can end up at your site within minutes. Remember an average of over 20,000 sites are submitted everyday so it really is an achievement to hit the home page.

But, just how much difference does obtaining the front page Digg position make for my site? Watch this short video and find out:

Walking down the street you will see happy faces and people playing around just enjoying their time. I personally feel this will to be more active and not be sitting around at home. Making full use of my life and my ever serving and still fully functional body. I know one day age will get the better of me and before then I have so many dreams that I want to fulfil.

This ‘Million Dollar Challenge’ is a springboard for the rest of my life. It will allow me the freedom to explore unexplored lands, to attempt totally ridiculous but amazingly fun challenges which I will no doubt set myself and ultimately it will allow me to be where I want to be whenever I want to be there.

But when the sun disappears and the rain clouds decide to make an appearance, all those good emotions seem to recline. It’s as if they are scared of the rain and hide as far as away as they can. The energy the sun gives my body is missing and I long for it so badly. If I were not on this challenge, if I were not saving money to out towards my next venture then surely I would not be here but rather exploring some unknown territory of South America or wondering through the outbacks of Australia.

But I’m here, so on this rainy Sunday afternoon, I guess it back to work. Back to work towards my challenge which is not appoaching an important pivotal point, my first business launch.

So, this is the first post where  I will try more of a personal touch.

This million dollar challenge is naturally presenting its first set of challenges. I am having to live without many of my luxurious, and often I am asking myself why on earth am I putting myself through so much pain.

Some background, I’ve spent the last two weeks in England in order to both attend my cousin’s wedding and also to save money instead of renting a flat (during this time I stayed with my mother in my former home). So on Monday, it was time for me to return to Germany which is my new home and the home place of this million dollar challenge.

Now, normally I would book a direct return flight and be back to Munich within a matter of hours. But, the new money conscious me had to scour the Internet searching for the cheapest in order to save money which I could then use on my  ventures instead. Naturally, the cheaper flights tend to be indirect flights which stop off at some midway station and waste  tons of my time.

I have to admit, I had this strange excitement that this return journey. I have never been to France, and this return flight  happened to stop off in Paris. Woo hoo! Not only was I getting a cheap flight, but I was also going to have my first visit to France, albeit without having stepped out the airport.

So, my sister kindly  dropped me off at the airport (so again I had no transport costs) and I made   my way towards the scanners. So, naturally I had forgotten to take all the change in my pockets and so now had to bear the inconvenience of empty my pockets in public. I was thankful I had thrown my dirty tissues and sweet wrappers away.

The scanners were pretty uneventful except of course the fact that I again somehow managed to set the scanner off and had to be hand searched. For some reason, this always seems to happen to me at Birmingham airport and I’m beginning to believe they do it on purpose because some sadistic checker wants to see me continuously inconvenienced.

So, after finding nothing of concern  upon me  I’m free to retrieve my bag which as luck would have it is nowhere to be found. I ask one of the assistance where my bag might be and he replies  “we need to search your bag”. I’m thinking, how can it be that every time I managed to leave something in my  bag that causes the problems at the airport. I began to think what might be in my bag, and within minutes it became clear that I had left my expensive fragrance within my backpack.

Great-exactly what I need, that is over £40 worth of good smelling fragrance that is going to go down the drain. However, I’m in luck, the man checking my bag is a good old bloke and provides a plastic bag in which he  places my fragrance and scans it so I’m free to take it with me. Woo hoo part 2!

so I’m waiting for my flight and the screen changes to tell me my flight is going to be one hour late. Normally, this is not much of a problem to me, whereas now I have a connecting flight to catch which I’m in real danger of missing. I run around trying to find someone to talk to and there is nobody from the airline. I am told to watch the screens were further updates. Great, I have no idea if I’m going to make my flight and perhaps I’m going to inconvenience my friend on the other side who is picked up the keys to  the new shared apartment where I’m staying.

No less than one hour later, I finally board my flight. I’m told by the  cabin crew that they will be representatives to meet us in Paris who will inform us has two options. I reside myself to the fact that most likely I’m going to miss the connection and will be able to spend the night in Paris. So, finally I get to take France off my list, and that too in the proper way.

Upon arriving in Paris the expected airline attendants are nowhere to be seen and I try and make my way to the nearest information point. On the way I passed the departures board and I see clearly that the gate for my flight has been closed. By now I’m pretty happy that I’m  going to be  spending one night in Paris-no pun intended.

I get the airline information point and there are a couple arguing quite ferociously with the lady behind the counter. I stand and watch for a short while waiting for my turn, and I cannot believe just how irrational arguments in front of  me are becoming. It’s like when people get to an airport they lose their entire set of manners and judgement, and believed by shouting at the person they can get the best result. Naturally, the best result they get is that the attendant refuses to speak to them.

I feel this argument is  carrying on forever so make my way to another information point  an informed the lady that it appears I’ve missed my flight due to the original delayed flight. She taps  away on her keyboard  and with a smile tells me that no, the connecting flight was also delayed and that I can make the flight. There goes my night in Paris which I was beginning to look forward to. Not only would I have spent a night in a hotel compliments of the airline, but they also owned the shuttle service from the airport to downtown Paris so I would have had the chance to see Paris for free!

But it s was not meant to be, and I am told the terminal is just a few minutes walk and that I should go quickly. I decide there is not way I am going to run, if it is that much of a hurry get me a car.

20 minutes later and I’m still walking towards my departure gate, these airport walks should come with a health warning. I fear my slow walk may cause me to miss the plane, and since they may argue they gave me enough time to get to the terminal it could mean no hotel for me so I start to jog a little.

By the time I get to the gate I’m sweating (Im carrying a backpack with my laptop) and kind of feel sorry for the person who is going to be sitting next to me.

As sods law would have it, this flight is still delayed by another hour, so I could have took the most leisurely of strolls and made it (why they never put this information on the departure board is beyond me).

So I make my plane and get to Munich. I’ve decided I hate cheap connecting flights which leave me stranded and running around airports sweating. Unless of course next time, they leave me stranded and put me up in a hotel in a place I have never visited. Now that is an idea, only take transfers through places I would not mind staying should the same occur again. Noted, but still not taking the direct flight which is just a bit more expensive sucks, big time. But I’m committed to this Million Dollar Challenge and Mondays adventures are nothing compared to what I faced Tuesday.

After some eventful days, I have decided there will be a new approach to my writing here on the blog. There will be a number of different tones or styles of writing I will use in various situation.

I love the business analysis writing very much, it’s what I seem to have a good eye for and I like connecting thing back to each other to learn lessons and then share these lessons with my readers. And as my RSS readership shows, a lot of people are liking this style too.

However, that was never really what this blog was all about. It was supposed ot be more about my Venture to the top, my ups and downs on my journey to success. For that to happen there has to be a more honest me, one that shares my feelings, can turn problems into entertaining writing so I’m not at all covering up what I am feling but allowing my readers to sense in some why how I feel so that you perhaps also can perhaps associate with my feelings.

For this reason by blog will now have two distinct writing styles (I may even create different author tags so people of one particular style can follow more easily)

1. The honest me style. Taking on ‘the world craziest challenge’ was not an easy task and of course it has not been easy. I will write in a much more personal way about how the life around me is changing, hopefully for the better.
2. The business thoughts style. This is more typical of my current blog style. I like to find business lessons and share them with my readers. And as I have seen this style is connecting well too, so why stop a winning formula?

One of my recent projects on my ‘Venture To The Top’ involves a video series which I will sell as an information product. The learning curve for making these videos can often be a little steep, however I was helped by some experience I have had in the TV industry.

Here are some top tips to improve your website Video Production:

1) Aim for 10 takes for each video.

That’s right, aim for 10 takes to get each website video right. Too many people think they have to get it right first time, but here is something for you, professional presenters practice numerous times off air before going in front of the camera, and even then they have many takes to get it right.

So aim for 10 takes, expect the first 2 or 3 to be very rough, so do not think to much and just get them done. Look back at them and improve on one thing for each take.

I do not even wear the right clothes for the first 2 takes, I just ensure my lines and presentation are good enough for take 3 in-front of a real camera.

2) Use a teleprompter

Yep, all professional presenters use them. By having your wording pre prepared and scrolling in front of you, there is one less thing to worry about. I use software for my MAC which converts it to a teleprompter and place my camera right next to it, so it is hard to tell I am using the teleprompter.

The easier you make the process of making videos, the faster you will progress. You can get free versions for both Mac and PC by searching here (The lite version is Free and good enough for my needs). This is a very useful tool to help with your website video production.

3) Have a friend help you film

Initially I used a friend as I have a Flip Ultra HD that I film with and it is not possible to see the filming area when you are filming yourself. (I advise therefore filming with a reversible screen if trying this solo). There was however a great benefit from having someone there whilst producing your website videos.

They can notice very quickly some simple things such as mannerisms and problems with wording, therefore allowing you to sort them out in your next take and not having to re-shoot the website video at a later date.

I also found that it helped me to feel like I was talking to my friend, and therefore made the website videos seem very natural and watchable.

4) Have an Intro animation

A simple Intro animation gives you a very credible and professional image to your website videos. It only needs to be 5 to 10 seconds long but can double or even triple your response rate as people perceive you as being more professional.

I had my Intro made for $5 at the website Fiverr, so there is really no reason not to add such a useful tool to your videos also.

5) Mix it up

People will get bored of seeing your face all the time, so mix it up to make it fun. Sometimes I will do a video where I present for 5 minutes standing in front of the camera and in others I use PowerPoint slides and a voice-over. Sometimes I also add guest videos to spice it up.

The viewers know they will get great information but the way it is presented changes often between my three presentation methods so they do not get bored (but not so many different ways of filming that they get confused or the brand gets diluted).

Website video production does not have to be done in one particular way, you can use a variety of methods and perhaps you should to ensure your viewers have multiple ways of digesting content.

If you have expert tips, feel free to add them.