Super Affiliate Marketing Blog

Well, it seems to be that time of the month again… when I have to update my blog so people stop bugging me about the lack of updates. Instead of giving out advice or anything useful, I’ll just answer some life burning questions that so many of my oh so loyal and faithful readers have been trying to figure out!

I’ll just do a self styled interview and pretend someone is asking me questions based on all of the questions people have been asking me for a while now.

Q: Alright, glad to have you with us. Let’s begin with an easy question. Why don’t you introduce yourself to everyone and tell us a bit about yourself, maybe a brief history?

A: WTF? It’s my blog, shut up. But fine, I’ll humor you. My name is Jon. I’m 26 years old. I’ve been involved in the internet marketing and advertising business for 13 years now. Yes, for all of you math geniuses out there, that would be from the age 13. I started off as an email spammer for an adult company. I guess I knew the right people at the time when people actually wanted to get email, especially the naked kind. They paid me $1500 a week to come into the office after school, do whatever I wanted, just so long as I got the emails sent out. Easiest job ever, and I loved every bit of it. Without making this into a fuckin novel though, I ended up learning a lot, and had something trigger inside me that has never stopped since. Which is like an almost obsessive thing, where I come up with idea after idea to innovate or monetize just about anything thrown at me. Anyway, I quit working there years later, went into business with some local pals to make a porn site, we failed, miserably, but taught me my first lifelong valuable lesson - never go into business with your friends. After that I went and did my own thing, made some porn sites, made some great cash. Did some side spamming on ICQ and still email, made lots of bank. Life was good. Dropped out of college (Columbia Univ) because I knew college just wasn’t my thing. Launched more than 85 more adult sites with some new partners in Canada and California, stopped all spamming too. Made just a ton of cash. Went on ridiculous spending and buying sprees for the hell of it. Again, life was really good. Got bored and fed up with the adult industry, so I sold my majority stake in the company to my partners, and made enough cash so I would never again, have to work… ever. Throughout that whole period I got VERY into BH SEO, which then it was just SEO, but now people have stupid names for it, so hey, if being able to get a brand new site ranked on the first page on just about any search engine, for just about any keyword you want for 2 weeks up to 4 months is something that you think is shady or bad, so be it, I’ll be called a BH SEO for it. But it made a shitload of cash back then, and continues to do so even now, so take your white hats and shove them up your asses.

I’m a workaholic, so I tried taking some time off, traveled a bit, but still needed to do some work. Tried to be an SEO consultant, but it was really boring. Had some clients but let them go because it was too much work for me to have to answer their stupid questions all the time and send out invoices. Bah! I also held a job for approximately ONE week at a very large and influential NYC SEM firm, but quit because I just couldn’t handle sitting in an office working for someone else, making $60k a year when I could do that in a few weeks in my boxers at home. I did feel really bad about quitting though, because I don’t like to let people down. But I saw them at SES NY 2007, and it seemed like it was water under the bridge, so I’m glad.

Wow, I am writing a novel. Are you really reading all of this? I’m just writing it now so that I can link back to this post and never have to explain this shit to anyone ever again.

After the SEO consultant and failed job for a week, I got into mortgage leads. Again, great timing on my part. I didn’t know a damn thing about it, so I taught it to myself, made great contacts, pushed serious volume, had lots of fun giggling to the bank to make check deposits. Again, life was good and fun. Then it all changed. In Jan of 2006 I made the mistake of posting my damn stats on SitePoint’s forum, and that’s pretty much what made me create this blog and from there, WickedFire.

Oh, and for fun I like to take long walks on the beach, love the color royal blue, and I like to debate politics with liberals because they never have anything good to comeback with on their gripes, but amuse the hell out of me with their corporate conspiracy theories. Love and hate those fuckers!

Q: Wow, that’s a lot to consume!

Q: So Jon, try and keep your answers a lot shorter, people need to read this in their feed readers and it’s a pain in the ass to scroll through all of this. Anyway, where have you been lately?

A: Here.

Q: What have you been doing that is so important that causes you not to update your blog daily like every other big boy blogger out there?

A: Well, after spending a whole year of my life dedicating the very large majority of my time to establishing WickedFire from just a cool name into a trusted industry resource, more than just a forum, and not making a dime off of it for myself, I’ve decided, enough is enough, time to get back into money making mode. So that’s what I’ve been doing. Oh yeah, and I was at Affiliate Summit East in Miami networking my ass off. Which by the way, happened to be one of the BEST conferences I’ve been to in a very long time. It was even a lot more productive and fun than AD:TECH NY 2006, which I liked a lot. So Shawn and Missy get a big high five and a nod of respect from me for that. They did a great job on it and deserve some real exposure and street credit for it (this is not link bait or a paid plug).

Q: Why can’t you just take 20 minutes out of your day to update your blog though?

A: Well, there really isn’t all that much to talk about. I try to read other blogs, and to be honest, the amount of NEW information out there is just really lacking. Most of the shit I see is just the same old crap with a unique spin on it, so what the hell would I add to it that hasn’t already been done? Not to mention it’s a pain in the ass to update and come up with new and exciting crap and linkbait campaigns just for fun. I’d much rather spend time on my forum and be entertained and learn there (yes, I don’t know everything in life and I do learn a lot from the people there in spite of what many may think).

Q: I IM’ed you and you were an asshole to me, what did I ever do to you Jon?

A: You IM’ed me, after I’ve made it pretty clear to people to stop because I was no longer giving out free advice to anyone I didn’t know. Sorry, but I’ve been doing it for free without ever asking for anything in return for a year, and when I made that post asking for $350, I really didn’t expect so many people to actually pay me, I thought it would scare people away, heh. Not to mention I definitely fucked up on posting it, because I wanted to try a different route of consulting, not just answering the same stupid questions over and over but for cash. They are annoying, old, and just plain boring, even if there is cash involved, if there’s no challenge I lose interest and just don’t do it. So the 22 people that paid on the first day got their answers and moneys worth, and everyone else who asked about it or sent money got a refund right away and that’s all there is to it.

Q: Geez Jon, you are such an asshole!

A: Thanks, I know. I don’t care either. I don’t have any ebooks to sell you or secret advice to make you a billion dollars tomorrow either, so quit asking for it. I don’t want your cash either, so don’t offer.

Q: Do you help anyone or are you done with it for good?

A: No, I do help some people still. I always help my friends, because they are my friends, and I know when I have a question or need advice, they’ll help me out without pulling a “well what do I get in return” excuse. The only people who I help and charge for it too are the ones who have seriously challenging dilemas or questions. I like those a lot, and I don’t mind being paid for them either. But there are VERY few of those, and it’s not a business model or longterm plan of mine, I just do it as a paid hobby I guess, because even though I have a shit ton of great unique and innovative ideas, I will never get around to doing them on my own. Sucks, I know.

Q: Jon, you are an asshole!

A: Dude, I fucking know! And it doesn’t bother me when people poke fun at me or call me names either, I usually just laugh about it and come back with a witty response or just chuckle about it to myself and walk away. I don’t get why people get so mad that I don’t take offense. Here’s a tip. Do you see the sarcasm and dark humor on WickedFire? Well, I fucking own that forum! So if I were the sensitive “give me a hug and make me feel better” type, then yeah, maybe I’d get offended and give a shit, but I don’t, and I find it funny too.

That’s it for updating. I’ve already wasted enough time here, so go read something else. Stop reading my blog. No good tidbits here anymore because I just don’t care enough and I’d much rather have zero readers so I can just type little notes to myself instead.

PS - It is a pain in the ass to interview yourself, I wouldn’t recommend anyone else trying it for a very long time.