Justin Germino Ramblings

I have been a SocialSpark user for over two years and when they announced last week that they now have a referral program I was thrilled but also disappointed at the referrals I could have had from recommending the great blogging service to others.

SocialSpark has earned me over $3,000 over the past two and a half years and it does this by offering bloggers money for writing honest reviews about advertisers and their products.  These advertisers want actual reviews pure and simple, they aren’t looking for a backlink steal (all links are nofollow) they also want the truth and if you positive or some criticism they want you to talk about it on your blog.

You will find generally advertisers pay better on the SocialSpark network than almost any other blogging network and I have done opps for as much as $200 for a single paid opp (only 1 or 2 per year I get of this magnitude though).  Most opps are between $15 and $50 dollars depending on how popular your blog is.

I did a review of SocialSpark when they first converted over to the new system back on DragonBlogger.com and I encourage you to join SocialSpark if you want to be paid to do product reviews on your blog.

Tips for using Social Spark

New Social Spark 2

Social Spark Direct Publishing

Some pretty cool products I have reviewed include:

Tony’s Pizza

Hilton Branson Missouri

Wasp Barcode Technologies

Shiny Search

GlideTV Navigator

ClickBooth CPA

Honestly, IZEA is my favorite company that pays bloggers as they have some really great programs like SocialSpark, SponsoredTweets, PayPerPost, WeReward and InPostLinks.  SocialSpark is their flagship in my opinion and offers the highest quality advertisers with the best rates for bloggers.  If you do a search for Dragon Blogger on Alexa you will see that SocialSpark is one of my primary search terms for my technology blog.

-Justin Germino

An article over on BlogEngage last week showed me listed as one of the top male bloggers on the BlogEngage network.

Of course I recognized several other prominent bloggers who also use BlogEngage and was glad that BlogEngage included me in the list.  I do actively use BlogEngage and am signed up for 2 of the RSS Syndication Plans which help automate my submissions and earn me some money from the BlogEngage network with the AffiliateLights program.

BlogEngage is one of the top article submission directories and with around a 9k alexa rating is rapidly going to be more recognized over the next year.

-Justin Germino

While my family went to enjoy some Panda Express last week we were standing in line and witness to a father verbally berating his child while yelling across the restaurant at her.  When he started using profanity and scaring my 4 year old so I interrupted and told him to not swear as I had a 4 year old present. But, I wanted to go further and tell him off and that nobody should be acting like a raging maniac to their family in public.

Seriously, at one point he grabbed his daughter’s hair and pulled it in public she may have been between 12 and 14 years old, I couldn’t tell.  His wife looked terrified and his other kids were just quiet.  This person had the demeanor of someone who clearly dominates his family via force and aggression verbally and probably physically.

I felt like hitting the guy and I secretly hoped he was going to try and be disrespectful to me, but when I told him to quit cursing he just calmed down a little and said okay, fine…fine or something to that effect.  The problem is I would likely have been arrested and charged for assault if I struck him or even if I threatened or attempted to overpower him.  Not that I am a physically dominant guy, I abhor violence and prefer diplomatic solutions where possible.

Maybe thirty five people were in the restaurant just watching this guy unload on his family for a good 5-7 minutes before he finally calmed down.  Nobody said a thing other than my telling the guy to watch his language.  Would I have confronted him if I saw him strike his kids?  I don’t agree with hitting kids, but a spanking on the butt is not something I am inclined to judge or interfere on.  Calling your daughter an “ASS” while yelling, then pulling her hair is something I consider abuse and had it gone any further I might have told him to leave or at least told him to watch his behavior.

The man was probably in his late thirties or early forties about 75-80 pounds overweight and looked a little like a deranged and slightly mutated Andrew Zimmern from the Travel Channel.  I don’t know where all that rage comes from, but public explosions like that are indicators he is far more abusive in the quiet of his home.

Society sucks sometimes, and something should be done about it.

-Justin Germino

Ironically I get frustrated by Tweetdeck as it crashes constantly, but I still can’t give up using the client for Hootsuite 100%.  Part of the reason is I really like clearing columns, this would be the only feature I need Hootsuite to have to make me give up Tweetdeck completely.

Tweetdeck does have a tendency to stop responding while typing tweets and it has to catch up, or even when clicking on links.  The web based application version of Tweetdeck is nowhere near the level of functionality of Hootsuite and is not even on par with the desktop client in my opinion.

Alas, I just need to get out of Tweetdeck and use the Hootsuite application on my desktop which I created with Google Chrome.

-Justin Germino

I am pretty proficient with using Camtasia Studio and doing screencasts and video demonstrations to upload on YouTube and include in blogs, but my JVC Everio camcorder from years ago lacks the resolution and quality to really do video blogging or vlogging the way I wanted.  With vlogging becoming so much more popular these days every blogger should consider using it as a tool to reach and connect with an audience at a level where the reader can put a name to a face and get to know “the blogger” behind the website.

After researching for hours on price, features and functionality I believe the best bang for the buck 1080p webcam for video bloggers to be the Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910 with 1080p Video by a long shot.   Here is some information for your consideration and if you are looking at starting a vlogging venture or adding vlogging to your own online venture then this is one video cam that will give you your money’s worth.

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This has got to be the best 1080p webcam you can get for under $75 and is a must for vloggers everywhere and after comparing features and prices of various 1080p webcams, this one reigns supreme.

-Justin Germino

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of HBOseries. All opinions are 100% mine.

Living in Arizona over the past sixteen years I couldn’t help but dive into old western history and learned quite a bit when I visited Tombstone several years back.  To this date one of my favorite movies of all time is Tombstone where Kurt Russell does a fantastic job portraying Wyatt Earp and Val Kilmer gives what is arguably his best performance as Doc Holliday.

There was something raw about being able to settle disputes by duel’s and fortune was carved by your own hands in the barely tamed lands of the deserts and mountains.

The HBO Series Deadwood has a real and gritty feel unblemished by traditional television.  Deadwood is engaging, violent and in many ways captures the way you would think the old west was lived.  My favorite actor in Deadwood by far was Ian McShane as Al Swearengen the owner of the Gem Saloon.  His voice and personality seems like it was tempered by the harsh times.

Now you can get all three seasons of Deadwood for a fantastic deal, this is your chance to grab the whole series and just have a marathon on a weekend or spread out over a few weeks and enjoy the series again or for the first time if you haven’t seen it before.

If you are a fan of Westerns then I highly recommend you pick up the Goldbox Deadwood series special today and add it to your DVD collection.  The Deadwood Goldbox Special is only available on February 3rd 2011 and you have to hurry up and pick up your copy if you want it at this deal.

-Justin Germino

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I have been watching the NBC Series The Cape since it first aired on January 9th and think the show has been getting better with each episode.  In the latest episode of The Cape titled Dice the show introduces a girl played by Mena Suvari who is gifted with the ability to see probabilities and outcomes giving her an ability to predict the future with incredible accuracy.  As a young girl she tells Peter Fleming that he will kill her father and that she will kill him as well.

Fast forward 10 years later and sure enough, Dice has returned with the intention to kill Peter Fleming the head of Ark corporation and also who is Chess the arch villain for our hero Vince Faraday (who is The Cape).

The episode is engaging as Dice and Chess have a cat and mouse game baiting each other while Dice is apparently unable to predict the outcome of Vince interrupting her plans as he saves Peter’s life twice in this episode and hates himself for it.

I like the dilemma the show has put on Vince the past few episodes as he has become more confident but still lacks experience with mastering the cape and all of its abilities.  Also it would seem that killing Peter wouldn’t bring him justice and allow him to get his name cleared until he can prove and publicly show that Peter is Chess.

Next week we see what appears to be an assassin hired to learn about The Cape and dispose of him, the previews look interesting as someone finally discovers who The Cape is besides Vince’s close network of carnival misfits and Orwell who is his eyes and ears around Palm City.

-Justin Germino

So imagine my surprise when I see a single day AdSense earning spike up to $24 for a single day which is around 10x my normal daily AdSense earnings.

This causes me to do some serious investigation because I want to know how it happened and how I can someone leverage or repeat such a wonderful event.

This is where creating custom channels on AdSense for each of your ad blocks are imperative, so that you can find which blocks perform and which blocks don’t.  I was able to track on DragonBlogger.com that my bottom of post 350×200 banner had 2 clicks at a $10.00 per click rate.  So I am not sure what post those clicks were on, or what the keyword or ad target was because this isn’t shown in AdSense but the extremely high CPC rate was the reason for this earning anomaly.

Regardless of my one day anomaly, my AdSense earnings have been steadily increasing since October 2010 and for the first time I was able to bring in more than $100 from AdSense in a single month with most of the earnings coming from my technology blog.

-Justin Germino