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Kickstart Today
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Friday November 8rd 2008: Issue #978
Kickstart Today is published three times each week for opted-in
subscribers only. Publisher: Martin Avis. Your comments are
always welcome – to respond to anything you read here, please
click ‘Reply’
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Greetings!
One of my friends in the Rotary Club has been working on
developing a new product in the language-learning arena. A few
years ago he hit on an idea that can really help to build
vocabulary when learning a new language.
His idea has gradually taken shape – and it has been a
fascinating process to see it develop from a concept to a
finished product.
After a lot of hard work on David’s part, and a lot of support
from his family, his ‘Stixionaries’ site is now launched and
live. The product itself is called ‘Vocabulabels’.
Vocabulabels are sheets of sticky-backed labels that you can
attach to just about anything. Each label contains the name of
the item in the language you want to learn. It’s that simple -
but highly effective. The labels are even color-coded for gender!
The idea is that as you place the labels on items in your home
and by the process of constant reminder, the foreign-language
name is drilled into you – almost without your noticing!
The packs of labels each cover a different room in your house and
are very attractively priced to make expanding your vocabulary as
painless as possible.
Currently, Vocabulabels come in English-French, French-English,
English-German, German-English, English-Spanish and
Spanish-English, so whether you are learning English as a foreign
language, or you are an English speaker who needs to improve your
French, German or Spanish vocabulary, Stixionaries has a
Vocabulabel pack that will help you.
You can view David’s new website at http://www.stixionaries.com
The reason that I’m mentioning this here in Kickstart, apart from
the fact that David is my friend, is that his story is
inspirational.
David won’t mind my mentioning that he is a retired man who might
easily have been expected to pass up on his good idea simply
because it would take a lot of effort to get running. He might
have been forgiven for taking the attitude that the process of
creating a product from scratch, with all the work that entailed
(just sourcing the right glue for the labels to prevent them from
doing dAMAge took him ages), including building a
fully-functioning e-commerce web site, was more suited to a
younger person.
Goodness knows I get enough emails from Kickstart readers who use
their age as an excuse for their inaction!
But he didn’t. He did the parts of the process that he could do
and outsourced the parts that he couldn’t. He called on advice
and suggestions from family and friends. Most of all, he had a
dream and he didn’t give up on it – even when I’m sure he was
sorely tempted!
I wish David every success with Vocabulabels. They are a great
idea that he has turned into a great product. At a trade
exhibition last week, he tells me that a lot of interest was
shown by some big players. And the packs are very deservedly
starting to sell.
But sales or not, success is already in the bag for David
because, due to his own continuing effort, he has seen his dream
come true.
What’s your dream? And what are you doing to make it a reality?
http://www.stixionaries.com might help you learn a language, or
it might just inspire you to make your own dream come true.
#~#~#
I don’t plan to bang on about Info Product Killer much today -
you’ve probably had enough of reading my enthusiastic outpourings
by now – but I just wanted to note that my original site,
http://www.babybornmagicpotty.info has risen from position #154 in
Google last Monday to position #14 this morning. Not a bad start
considering that it has no backlinks other than the mention in
the Kickstart archive.
I’m hopeful that it will rise a little further now that I’ve
uploaded the directory ‘hub’ site at
http://www.christmashottoys.co.uk
Another question came in – ‘Are you buying your .info domains for
one year or two?’
All the SEO advice that I’ve ever read says that Google penalize
domains that are registered for one year, and that nay new domain
should be bought for a minimum of two years.
However, as we all know, much of the supposedly cast-iron SEO
advice is rehashed rubbish that someone made up years ago and
nobody ever challenged. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ‘rumor’
was started by a domain registrar somewhere!
Whether the advice is good or not, I’ve repeated it myself and
have always bought my domains for two years minimum.
Superstitious? Me?
Anyway, the IPK strategy fro Christmas is about making sites for
products that are hot now, THIS Christmas. So I figured that
buying the domains for two years would be wasteful. So all my
.info domains are bought for just one year. This also keeps the
cost way down as a .info domain is $0.99 for the first year, but
$10 thereafter!
A #14 position (and rising) in less than a week, for a brand new
.info site that is registered for just one year seems to me to
answer the question – at least as far as this IPK strategy is
concerned.
That’s all on Info Product Killer for today. You can learn a lot
more about it at http://www.urlnex.us/ipk or see the Kickstart
Archive at http://www.kickstartarchive.com for my earlier
enthusiastic review.
#~#~#
Well, Barack is in – or will be in January – and America seems to
be split between the ecstatic and the exasperated.
It isn’t my place to comment on the result from a political
viewpoint, but I can say that the world is set to be a slightly
different place.
One thing seems certain … I don’t see the possibility that
anyone will come out with a comic book of Barackisms.
#~#~#
Our daughter Lauren is coming home for the weekend from
University later today and staying until Monday morning. We have
a packed schedule of things to do – and favorite foods to eat -
so I don’t see myself creating too many new websites this
weekend! maybe just a couple to keep the momentum going.
We are going to be letting off some fireworks in the garden this
evening and then going to a big formal display at Leeds Castle
tomorrow. For those not in the UK, November 5th is Guy Fawkes
Night here – a commemoration (not a celebration) of the time Guy
Fawkes was foiled in his plot to blow up the King and his
Parliament. Most public displays of fireworks are held either the
weekend before or the one after.
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The Quote of the Day
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Mildred McAfee said:
“If you have a great ambition, take as big a step as possible in
the direction of fulfilling it but if the step is only a tiny
one, don’t worry if it is the largest one now possible.”
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Today’s Power Thought
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Paul Simon wrote a song with a line that so many people would
empathize with:
‘When something goes right,
it’s apt to confuse me.
It’s such an unusual sight.’
Sound familiar?
We are back to the familiar theme of life living up to
expectations.
We have been conditioned to expect things to go wrong. Doom,
gloom and disaster have become our ‘normal’. And,as the song
goes, when things go right we are taken completely by surprise.
You don’t need to share the same world view as most everyone
else! Rightness should be your birthright. It should be your
basic expectation.
You should wake up each and every morning with the certain
knowledge that today is going to be a great day. That things are
going to go wonderfully.
Given the choice, would you rather live your life according to
Paul Simon’s lyrics or those of Gordon MacRae:
“Oh! what a beautiful morning
Oh! what a beautiful day
I’ve got a beautiful feeling
Everything’s going my way!”
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The Foolproof, No-Nonsense,
Kickstart Guide to Making Money Online
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*** Catch up with parts 1-28 of the Foolproof, No-Nonsense,
Kickstart Guide to Making Money Online at http://imkickstart.com
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Fascinating Facts
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Q. Can you name the ten body part that have three letters?
A. Arm, ear, eye, gum, hip, jaw, leg, lip, rib, toe.