It’s official.

I’ve acquired TheUniversityKid.com – a blog about young entrepreneurship and internet marketing. The amount was somewhere in the $x,xxx range (I’m sure you would be able to find the exact amount by doing a bit of research online) and felt it was one of the best ones I’ve made.

The previous owner, Jason Pereira (who I met up with back in January in Hong Kong), has done an awesome job with this blog and it’s just a shame he wasn’t able to continue with it due to his hectic schedule in University. When he offered it to me, the price was simply too good to turn it down. Being a young entrepreneur myself, it made perfect sense to take over a young entrepreneur blog.

But like I said before, I’m currently in the middle of revision for exams, courseworks and all that stuff, so I’ve asked my friend Josh (and a few others) to help me out and he’ll be doing a lot of the blogging in the intial weeks. Hopefully that will ease my burden.

I have big plans for TUK. Watch out

Yesterday, internet super affiliate Ewen Chia launched his latest print book, How I Made My First Million on the Internet and How You Can Too!: The Complete Insider’s Guide to Making Millions with Your Internet Business.

He kindly sent me a review copy and I took a quick look. And honestly, I was blown away. It’s literally an step-by-step blueprint of his affiliate marketing system that almost anybody can follow. Although it might not be as “insider” as you may think, it’s definitely worth the $13 from Amazon.

With this amount of incredible content in his book on top of Ewen’s incredible marketing skills, it was no surprise to see the book become an instant best-seller and hit #1 on the Overall Best-Seller’s List on Amazon in as little as 12 hours!

But what does it got to do with me? Well, here’s the interesting thing:

See that section where it says “Frequently Bought Together”? That little blue cover right there is my book – eMillions: Behind-The-Scenes Stories of 14 Successful Internet Millionaires! It got actually recommended by Amazon themselves! Now just imagined the thousands of people who went to that page on the day (it takes hundreds of sales to hit and maintain the #1 spot)… I’m pretty sure quite a few are going to take on that offer from Amazon (in fact, it says 6% of the people visiting that page end up buying my book)

Within just 24 hours, my book ranking has soared from 400,000 to 743 (hitting the #1 spot in the Home-Based Business Category)… all with ZERO effort and promotion on my part! (A typical campaign like this would cost anywhere from $1,000 up to $10,000! – unless of course you’re using word-of-mouth marketing)

This is the power of piggyback marketing

Remember to get a copy of my book, eMillions, over at Amazon (and get tons of cool bonuses):

http://www.emillionsbook.com

It is – at least according to Google Trends. Here’s the latest screenshot I took just minutes ago:

From the graph, you can clearly see there’s been a gradual decrease in interest over the past 12 months, with volume declined by almost 40%. TechCrunch takes a closer look at those graphs.

Personally, I’ve always thought “web 2.0″ was just a marketing phrase coined and places like the media and consulting firms just hyped it up (for the Youtube and Facebook acquisition news) in order to generate buzz and… make money. Really, it means nothing more than the evolution of the internet into a two-way communication medium that connects people together.

So is web 2.0 dying? Or is it just the term “web 2.0″ that have died?

Leave your views in the comments section

I was once asked, “How do you recover from setbacks? I’m sure you faced many obstacles when you were first starting out.” In fact, that was also the same question I asked to the internet millionaires in my book, eMillions: Behind-The-Scenes Stories of 14 Successful Internet Millionaires.

I’m definitely not one of the best person in the world at dealing with setbacks, but I do have a couple of advice based on my past experience.

There were many many many times during my internet marketing career where I just felt like giving up. I had doubts creeping into my mind, thinking this was all pointless and wasting my time. I simply couldn’t cope with the level of stress…

What do you do at this point?

I usually will just take a break and go to a quiet room or place and just chill. Relax. And reboot my brain. Think and get your mindset back on track.

You got to push yourself and persevere. You just have to come to understand that if you started this project then you got to finish it right to the end. You can’t just quit half way. Quitters are losers. You never ever quit.

If you’ve tried your best, but couldn’t succeed, then it’s okay. But if you didn’t try your best and failed as a result, then there’s a problem. It just shows you’re somebody who is not determined and persistent at things. It’s all about the mindset

Remember, do what you love because when you love what you do, you will never give up.

Few weeks ago, I approached Jason Pereira of TheUniversityKid.com. He’s one of the most successful young bloggers out there, so since we are both teenage entrepreneurs, there is no reason not to get to know him. Plus, he was in Hong Kong so we got to hang out

Little did I know that an internet marketer from Dubai turns out to be friends with several of my mates in the same year from my school (I’ve been following his blog for 8 months now and only found out a few days ago) Who knows? There are probably dozens more people out there who I know indirectly and then turns out to be my cousin’s best friend

What a small world we live in. It feels like everybody is connected in a giant spider web – the six degrees of separation. That’s the beauty of the internet.

This is the follow up post to why being a young entrepreneur rocks. This time, I’ll go over 5 reasons why being a young entrepreneur sucks:

1. You are faced with legal issues & age restrictions. You can’t get a bank account, you can’t get a Paypal account, you need to pay tax etc – many of those issues teenagers haven’t faced in their lives. You must ask your parents for permission for so many of those things which can become an obstacle.
2. You can’t network with other entrepreneurs. It’s difficult flying half way across the world by yourself and attend events with a bunch of adults. Most of the networking usually happen at a bar and you must be over 21 (in United States) to enter.
3. You have less credibility. Your customers, prospects and partners will not pay you with the same amount of respect simply because you are a teenager. You come across as less trust worthy and can potentially loose a lot of business as a result.
4. You sacrifice your social life. Honestly, teenagers should do what teenagers do – play. By running your own business, you are sacrificing your life as a teenager and missing out on a lot of the stuff. You have to balance your life with your business (which is why I’ve been doing so little with my business recently. The only thing I’m doing nowadays is blogging and twittering; I’ve pretty much stopped working on affiliate marketing, list building, information marketing, joint ventures etc side of things so that I can actually focus on school and enjoy life)
5. You have less experience. Not only in business but also in life. You are more likely to make mistakes and poor decisions. You are less mature in the way you do things and may get involved in immature arguments. The lack of experience can potentially lead to the entire downfall of your business (which is why you need to get a mentor. Don’t think you know everything cause you dont’)

In this post, I’ll go through why being a young entrepreneur rules -

1. You have nothing to loose. There really isn’t any risk. You don’t have a family, you don’t have to pay any rent, you don’t have to worry about putting food on the table… so what if you fail? Now is the time to make all the mistakes and prepare yourself for the real world.
2. You get attention from the press. It’s just so easy to get attention and create buzz. That’s how got me on the frontpage of newspapers such as AppleDaily. Which headline grabs your attention more – “4-Year-Old Blogger” or “30-Year-Old Blogger” (okay, obviously this was an extreme example, but you get what I mean) Use your age to your advantage to get people talking about you!
3. You have enthusiasm. Young people have the energy to keep things going. You’ve got the passion which drives you forward and feel like it’s just another hobby of yours rather than hard work.
4. You get extra pocket money. That’s the beauty of running your own business. Your friends have to work hard part-time to earn their pocket money, while you just simply have money rolling into your bank account while you’re sleeping!
5. You can always fall back on your parents. In the end, if everything fails, you’ve always got your parents behind your back. You’ve got nothing to loose so get started!

Follow up post: 5 Reasons Why Being A Young Entrepreneur Sucks

5 days ago, my Twitter followers count crossed the 5,000 milestone. In fact, as of now, my Twitter shows 5,425 followers. At the same time, according to both Twitterholic and TwitterCounter, I am now officially part of the exclusive Top 500 on Twitter

It’s just amazing to see how fast my follower count has been growing… considering just 28 days ago I was at 1,425. It took me 10 months to hit that mark, but I was able to add an additional 4,000 followers in just a tenth of the time – that’s nearly 400% growth in 28 days!

So how did I do it? Here’s the 3 step formula:

1. Follow

Follow Others – Follow as many people as you can, who share the same interest/passion. For example, if you are in the golf market, you want to follow golfers, golf trainers, golf enthusiasts etc. That’s the idea. So how do you find people who are in the same niche as you? There are 3 ways:

1. Friends. Obviously, first follow the people that you personally know. They are probably going to follow you back
2. Find thought-leaders or big-guns in your industry and follow the people who they follow (or the people who follow them). If the people you’re interested are interested in these people, chances are you will be interested in them too.
3. Follower Suggestion Tools. There are plently of websites/scripts out there that will analyze the list of people you follow or following you and give you suggestions on who you should follow. A great one out there is called Who Should I Follow? There are also Twubble & Twitter Grader.

UPDATE (16th Jan 2009) - Twitter has now launched a new suggestion tool that helps you find people to follow – http://twitter.com/invitations/suggestions

I tend to look for people who have a balanced following/followers ratio. These are usually the ones who will follow you back. People who have lots of followers but don’t follow many people usually suggests that they are not into building relationships and making new connections (people use Twitter for different reasons – but in this post I’m talking from a marketer’s perspective). These people are unlikely to follow you back, and probably aren’t worth following (unless they are a thought-leader, guru etc).

It’s going to take a while to build up your network and accumlate your followers. Just keep in mind not to follow 1,000 people in 3 hours otherwise they’ll think you’re a spammer. And NEVER ever use scripts or bots or names that look fishy (e.g. BobSmith4231) as you will simply get banned.

Once you are able to branch out and expand your circle, that’s when you begin to find the TRUE VALUE of Twitter.

Follow People Back – I believe that Twitter is about building MUTUAL relationships. Always follow people back (make sure to check their profile page out first to make sure they are not a spammer trying to get your follow). I mean, if you walked up to somebody in a party and said, “Hi” and that person just turned his back towards you, how would you feel? It’s the same thing with Twitter.

You are seeing more and more gurus (like Loren Feldman, John Reese, Mike Filsaime, Guy Kawasaki, Jason Calacanis) doing just that. Somebody like Kevin Rose would be a bad example. Don’t let your ego get in the way. Remember, it’s about SOCIAL media, not SOLO media.

You might be asking, “What if I can’t keep up with 5,000 people that I’m following?” Well, just go get yourself a second Twitter account (like me) and use that just to specifically follow the people you want to hear more about. Guess how much a Twitter account cost? Alternatively, TweetDeck has this cool feature called “Groups” which literally help organize your followers into groups (although I personally don’t really like this and find it a lot easier to get a second account)

2. Tweet!

Tweet Often – After following people, you need to start tweeting – and OFTEN. You need to invest time into social media. People want to know what you’re up to and what you’re all about. Keep in mind of your noise level though as you don’t want to spam people’s Twitter homepage out with your Tweets. I personally post around 10-20 tweets per day.

Provide Value – Make sure your tweets are TWEET-WORTHY. Tweet stuff that are interesting or useful and people will follow you. If all you do is tweet “at work” or “at home” or “at school”, you probably won’t get too many followers. You need to CONTRIBUTE to the community and add VALUE. Produce and share content that your audience will love. That way people will begin to notice you and start re-tweeting your stuff, thus bringing you new followers.

Engage In Conversations – Be part of conversations on Twitter; start asking and answering questions; bring something to the table. If you reply to other people’s Tweets with interesting stuff, people will find you. For example, let’s say you reply to me, I may reply to you by saying:

@JohnSmith I agree with you. The new movie rocked!

Now all of a sudden, 5,430 of my followers will see John Smith and can follow hm with just one-click! Imagine engaging in dozens of those conversations every day – not only do you get new followers but also build new relationships.

Have Personality – Don’t be another “me-too”. Inject your personality into your Tweets if you want to stand out. These people are all your friends, you don’t want to be boring, you want to be FUN.

3. Promote

Twitter Counter - You’ve probably seen those FeedBurner chicklets that display the current count of your RSS subscribers. Well, do the same thing for Twitter to show the count of your Twitter followers on your blog! Like this:

You can easily create it using TwitterCounter. It’s all about social proof. People are more likely to follow you if they see that everybody else is following you as well. Obviously, I wouldn’t recommend you to display it until you hit at least 1,000 followers.

Signatures - Put your Twitter link in your signatures for your emails, forums etc. If you got a mailing list, blast it out to your subscribers and ask them to follow you. If your subscribers don’t know what Twitter is, you might want to take some time to explain what Twitter is, what to do etc.

In fact, Mike Filsaime recently sent out an email doing exactly that and added over 2,000 followers in just 12 hours! It doesn’t just apply to email subscribers, also to your blog readership. Sometimes, taking the time to EDUCATE your subscribers will help boost your Twitter count.

To sum up, it’s really that simple – Follow, Tweet, Promote.

And I’ll like to end it by saying, Twitter is like a cocktail party. You’re there to make new relationships, not hard selling. I think this quote sums it up:

“Facebook is about people you used to know; Twitter is about people you’d like to know better” – Ivor Tossel

And remember to follow me on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/stanleytang

Remember the so-called “Google Killer” Cuil.com that launched back in July 2008? The search engine that was suppose to rival Google?

With the end of year approaching, TechCrunch took a look at their current status:

Just like I said back in September, Cuil was just a complete joke and the Google era is far from over

Here’s an interesting video I stumbled across where the CEO of Twitter, Evan Williams, reveals what Twitter’s future would be like:

It’s interesting to see that the future of Twitter’s use is MARKETING. He also hints on the possibility of introducing Groups which will help organize the people you’re following as well as your followers into chunks (something which I need badly). I know TweetDeck offers a similar feature but it’s nowhere near as powerful as the sort of thing Evan talked about introducing.