Google recently added a new feature in their SERPs where they featured a public Google profile in the search results for a name search.  I immediately created my own Google profile and within 2 days it was added to the bottom of the search page for ‘Ari Sternberg’ (and, no Google, I didn’t mean “Ari Steinberg”):

So, that got the evil part of my brain to thinking.  If I can create a profile for “Ari Sternberg” and show up right away on page 1 results, couldn’t I do the same if my name was “Mesothelioma Lawyer”?

In the interest of science, I felt it was my duty to test this.  I created a new Gmail user account called “Messielawyer” and set up the profile with the first name being “Mesothelioma” and the last name being “Lawyer”.  I built a nice profile for it packed with great information.  I did enough that the message appeared at the top of my profile that it was now eligible to be featured in Google search results!

Now, there are plenty of awful things you could do with a first page ranking for one of the most expensive terms on the entire web.  There is plenty of money that could be made.  To reiterate, I was only doing this for testing purposes only.

Alas, Google is a smart beast.  Despite my name being Mesothelioma Lawyer, they somehow knew not to trigger the profile in the results page.  I wonder if they don’t show them in any page that has paid results.  Nope, they still show it for “Bob Smith”. 

Maybe for my next test I’ll use something a little less high-dollar.  

Drat, Google is smart.

Friday funny: http://tweetvalue.com/

This site says that my own Twitter profile is worth…. drumroll please… 3 whole dollars.

That’s great, now if I just create 333,333,334 more free profiles I can sell them all and retire.  To who?  Uh, well I guess I’ll have to believe the tweetvalue folks that there’s some sort of market out there for $3 Twitter profiles.  Of course, things are only valuable if there is a demand.  I have a little bit of a hard time believing that there is any demand for my profile with all 13 followers.  I have a lot more friends on Facebook and LinkedIn, are those worth hundreds?  

Come on now, social networking is great… but social networking profiles themselves have absolutely no inherent value.  The only value are the pages that get more traffic as a result of them.  And, if you actually did manage to sell one of these Twitter profiles that would never transfer.  So, congrats to the folks at tweetvalue for a clever domain name and a shot at the gold.  But, this time I think you’ve missed the mark.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am full of ideas (some would probably say that I’m full of something else).  I can’t help it.  I have new business ideas nearly every day.  It is a trait I inherited from my father, a blessing as well as a curse.

So, after literally years of squatting on many of these ideas I’ve decided to take a different approach.  Since I’m clearly never going to build any of these, you can have at them.  Build it, promote it, make a bunch of money from it.  All I ask is that you find me someday and say ‘thanks for making me rich’.  And, if you want to buy me Jaguar I guess that would be okay, too.

Business Idea #1

The Ad Detective.  I actually went so far as registering a URL for this one, at one point years ago.  The idea is simple: a website that finds your ads at all the major sites by querying them based on your representative keywords and showing them to you in an iFrame window.  So simple.  The only hard thing is working out the relationships with the search engines to allow you to run multiple queries and frame the results.  But, I’ve always believed they would go for it because it promotes ad spending.  Addresses the #1 problem for SEM companies. answering the question “where can I see my ad?”.  Gives a tool (you can charge either SEM companies or advertisers, your choice) that promotes transparency in internet advertising (a good thing).  

Business Idea #2

The “Supportal”.  This idea has to be nearly 10 years old.  The idea is a portal that is nothing but support documentation.  Ever look for an article on how to fix your 10 year-old Maytag dishwasher?  It’s hard to find one.  Include user-generated content for tips and tricks specific to your project and there you go… good traffic because you would rank for every long-tail product model number under the sun.

Business Idea #3

The Game.  It gives me aches in my belly to post this on the web, but anyone who knows me also knows I am never going to actually get the time or energy to build this.  So, here you go.  For this, I expect someone is going to eventually owe me a Jaguar.  The game is a series of single web pages.  Each web page is a puzzle.  It can be any kind of puzzle, but must be solveable.  Gamers will design and build the puzzles for egoboo and because they will get name credit.  The solution for each puzzle will be a unique string of letters and numbers.  Search that string on Google, and voila… the next puzzle (indexed because it will be the page title and H1 of the next puzzle.  So, here’s what you’ve got— a game that actively involves the gamer community, a tempting prize at the end (depends on your budget out the door, but I’m thinking something nondescript like the rabbit from Masquerade), and all the free press that you’ll get by being the very first one to build a hugely popular game that uses Google as its sole navigation (can you say cover of Wired, anyone?). 

Before I hit ‘publish’, I just need to write one more thing.  If you are interseted in actually pursuing any of these ideas, I will consider working with you.  These ideas are fairly well baked after years of thinking about every little detail.  Just turns out I am running out of time and energy to do it all myself… so, here’s your chance.  Go wild.  Make millions.  Buy me a car (or, if you really hit the cover of Wired, a house would be nice).

I have heard that people made their entire income from direct linking arbitrage to Amazon using the Associates (affiliate) program.  I will probably always regret not tossing the dice and just trying it.  For those of you who don’t know what this is (was), here is a brief example (from something I myself did in real life):

1) Find a search term that leads to a good assortment of products on Amazon.  The timelier the better, so there won’t be any competition.  The last time I did this (yes, its been a while) was when the movie Borat came out.  It was a huge hit.  I saw it coming because I was a longtime fan of Da Ali G show on HBO.  Hmmmm… that got me to thinking.  A quick search confirmed that Amazon had all of his shows available on DVD.

2) Search Google and see if there is an ad pointing to Amazon.com.  You don’t have to give up if there is, but it might make the clicks more expensive (Google will only show one ad from each root domain, so you’ll be bidding against other direct affiliate marketers doing the same thing to be on top).

3) Setup an Adwords account.  OK, if you are reading this blog and don’t already have your own Adwords account, that’s a little weird.  Its easy, just do it.  Write a spectacular ad (in the little space you have to do so) that will attract attention from lower position banking on the strength of the Amazon brand name that you get to use as your display URL.  Choose appropriate keywords for the products on the landing page you picked (Ali G season 3, etc).

4) Watch what comes in versus what goes out and adjust your bids to maximize profit.  As long as you picked a good product, and wrote a good ad, the traffic will convert at a predictable rate.  

Voila!  That’s it.  Or, at least it was until Amazon pulled the plug.  Now, you’ll have to find a different way to position yourself as a useless middleman for a few cents profit here and there.  

Good thing is there are ways.  There will always be ways.

Here are two issues I’m having:

1) I made my wife move across the country so that I could accept a new job in California, giving up a job she liked in the process

2) The recession has turned the house I own into a liability instead of an investment, my tax bill is through the roof, and we generally have less disposable income than we would prefer (not to mention to save or invest for our child’s education)

So, as an internet marketing guy, there was really only one thing to do:

Build another website.

Unlike so many websites before, however, this one serves a number of purposes at once. Primarily, it gives my wonderful wife an intelligent and meaningful activity that doesn’t involve our daughter (yes, I really do understand how hard spending 100% of your time with a baby must be). Second, it potentially gives us another source of income (albeit small) that can in a small way offset some of our losses from this bad economy and real estate prices. Finally, the topic of this website and the articles my wife will be writing actually has the opportunity to help other people who are struggling by showing them how to spend less on food without causing them to have to forgo gourmet necessities (I’m a foodie, afterall).

So, I’m proud to introduce Recession-Garden.com.  It is a work in progress, both in terms of build and content.  But, if you want to, you can help by linking to it.  Your link will be appreciated by my wife, me, and the rest of America that is struggling to make it through this horrendous economy.