Category: Sponsored

Here is another site I just found tonight. It is for file sharing. No, not that kind of file sharing! We are not talking warez and illegal downloads. This is about sharing a file that is too big to email.

Here is how I have used these types services in the past.

One time I did an interview for my podcast and the person recorded his half on his end. Since the file was too big for him to email to me, I showed him a site like Driveway (though Driveway is new, so it wasn’t them). He uploaded the file to their website and had the site send me an email. Inside the email was a link where I could click and download the file. Therefore we avoided the file size limitation by not actually sending the file through email.

If you have your own server space that you can upload the file to and have the other person download it, that would work too. The nice thing about this is that you don’t have to worry about using up your space if space is limited for you.

There is a 500 MB per file limit, but if you are uploading more than that, you must have a much bigger connection to the web than I do. Though there is the per file limit, there is no limit on the number of files, space or downloads that you can have.

You don’t even have to register. Though if you put in your email address when you upload the file, that will give you access to the file later so that you can delete it from their server once your intended recipient has gotten the file.

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Remember the old single speed bikes? I remember when a 10 speed was something special. Now I have an 18 speed bike that is rusted and not functioning properly, though I still ride it. But only 4 gears work. The derailers have de railed I guess.

Where we live, we see many single speed bikes, very much like the one pictured to the right. They are great for transportation or for when you want to enjoy the experience of the ride. Though, they are not so great for getting anywhere fast.

XYZ Bikes is making beach bikes. They are relatively inexpensive too. Between $95 and $115 (plus FedEx shipping). They are single speed bikes that are designed for enjoying the experience of a leisurely Sunday afternoon ride.

XYZ Bikes is located in California, but sell exclusively over the Internet. Therefore, when you buy your bike, you are not paying overhead for the retail space. That should help them be able to keep their costs down in the future. They look like they are just getting started. There are only a handful of models, but it looks as if they have others ready for production.

Give them a look and see if you might be interested in a beach cruiser bike. I would suspect that no one would fault you for not living near the beach if you bought one of these.

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Today PayPerPost (the company that I am hooked up with to do paid blogging) announced that they acquired $7,000,000 of investment money. That’s a lot of zeros!

One of their questions they asked those of us who work with them is “What should we do with this money?” Well, I hope they already have a plan and are just looking for some extra cool idea to pop up.

My suggestion would be to try and market themselves as not being evil. Since I started looking into paid blogging, I have heard extremes on the subject. You can imagine that there are plenty of people who think that it is dangerous for a blogger to take advertising on their site. That somehow, getting $5 to say something about a company will cause you to not give your honest opinion about the company. For me, you would have to pay me a whole lot more than $5 to sway my opinions.

So, I suggest that they try to somehow educate the blogosphere on what paid posting is and is not. However they seem to do a pretty good job internally of promoting good blog ethics.

Now, I understand that for journalistic integrity, paid posting is a “no no,” but the majority of bloggers are just writing down their thoughts and opinions for the world to read.

Neither of my two readers have complained about me taking money to advertise, so I guess, for me, it is a safe deal.

Here is the press release they put out today concerning the investment boost.

The PayPerPost Revolution Accelerates, Sponsored
Blogging Marketplace Secures $7 Million Series B

Draper Fisher Jurvetson leads round and joins Board of Directors

ORLANDO, FL – (June 12, 2007) – PayPerPost, the leading marketplace for advertisers to reach bloggers and other consumer content creators, today announced it has completed a $7 million second round investment led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, an investor in the company’s Series A and one of the world’s leading high-technology venture capital firms. The financing brings the total amount of capital raised by PayPerPost to over $10 million, giving the company considerable resources for further development as the industry’s leading Consumer Generated Advertising marketplace. Additional participants in the round include existing investors Inflexion Partners and Village Ventures as well as new investor DFJ Gotham. With this investment, DFJ Managing Director Josh Stein also joins PayPerPost’s Board of Directors.

“PayPerPost created this exciting new advertising space and has established itself as the industry leader,” said Ted Murphy, chief executive officer of PayPerPost. “Although we’ve only used a portion of our first round capital, this added support from investors unlocks significant growth potential. Our content creator and advertiser ROI metrics clearly demonstrate the upside for PayPerPost’s model. We intend to use this capital to build the infrastructure, visibility and professional expertise necessary to reach and retain a greater network of advertisers and content creators than ever before.”

Since its founding in June of 2006, PayPerPost has signed more than 6,500 advertisers to its groundbreaking service, which has enabled Consumer Content Creators to be compensated for their efforts discussing specific companies, products or services via blogs, videos or other media. The content creators are required to disclose relationships with advertisers on their blog, providing transparency for the end reader. Over 125,000 Internet postings, most in the form of blogs, have already earned money for their creators through PayPerPost’s innovative marketplace. PayPerPost recently released PayPerPost Direct, a disruptive new service that allows advertisers to contract and negotiate directly with individual bloggers they identify through a safe, managed system.

“PayPerPost has laid a strong foundation for the future,” noted Tim Draper, founder and managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. “It continues to attract a critical mass of participants from both the advertising and blogging communities. Analogous to Overture’s sponsored search model, we believe PayPerPost’s business model holds disruptive potential and will enable the company to thrive in the evolving paid-content arena.”

To mark the $7 million dollar funding, PayPerPost has launched a new website detailing the company’s service offering at http://www.payperpost.com. Bloggers and advertisers can easily sign up at the site and begin leveraging the self service marketplace.

I would not consider myself a great code-breaker, but I do enjoy codes and trying my brain at figuring them out. I guess that is why I like puzzles and why the Rubik’s cube that a friend gave me a month ago is getting well used.

There is a website that will help you write a secret code. I have not taken the time to try and figure out how the code/decode works at it, but you can check it out.

I was given a code to plug into the site there. This is what it says: SHX OGUONPR ZI RWP MAEJ ZUSBO-VCJSFPX OPKJCBLUSBP SGDURMPR (decoded: SPY SWEEPER IS THE MOST AWARD-WINNING ANTISPYWARE SOFTWARE).

When you decode the message you will find out that there are other people who like codes and spying. Some do it for nefarious purposes while others do it to stop them. The bad guys are trying to break into your computer and take over. Sometimes they want information from your machine. Often they want to turn your box into a zombie for their use.

While the good guys like Webroot have programs they produce to help you avoid the bad guys. Their program Spy Sweeper is an award-winning anti-spyware package. It will download new spyware definitions automatically so that you don’t have to worry about the latest threat you hear in the news.

If you are running Windows, then look into having an anti-spyware solution. Their program is Vista Ready.

Have you ever had a good fruit basket? We have traveled for many years in our ministry and have had some scrumptious ones. And, we have had others that are not so great. The best ones were the professionally packaged ones. Occasionally you would get a good personally packed one, but those usually contained a lot of candy filler.

The Fruit Company has some wonderful looking baskets. The combination of fruits, sausages and cheeses (along with many other products) looks scrumptious. They have baskets starting at $35 and going up to over $300. Whatever your budget, they have a basket you can afford.

There are many opportunities to give a fruit basket. While you may not think of them as a day-to-day type gift, they do have their perfect moments.

When speaking in conferences I have often been given a fruit basket. It is a perfect gift, in that many of the contents can be consumed in the week of the conference. Even without the hosts knowing much about me and my family, they can take a safe guess that Fresh Fruit will be appreciated. And if I am not able to take the basket with me because of lack of space, my host or hostess always appreciates the basket as a gift back to them.

What about the “hard to buy for” person. I have a friend who, well into her 80s, would often talk about the fruit baskets that were given to her when she returned from a trip. She was one of these eccentric people who had everything she would ever want or need. Yet, she raved about the fruit basket gifts she received.

While this is not the type of gift you may give in every situation, you may want to consider a fruit basket from The Fruit Company the next time you need a special gift for an occasion. I know the recipient will be pleased.

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