Scanning through the blogosphere this morning, I saw a reference to  ”Social Media Will”. My immediate thought was “Social Media Will What? Then I realised that the word “will” was being used as a noun.

It seems that the department of the US government that deals with estate planning is now advising people to make arrangements for handling their social media accounts when their estate is being finalised after they are no longer around. It leads to all sorts of considerations. Is a Facebook account an asset or a liability? I suppose it depends who you are, the article suggested appointing an executor to close the accounts and make the necessary announcements while doing so. It is something every one should think about, not just baby boomers.

How do you tell all your late spouse / friend / colleague / or just legal client’s Facebook friends that there will be no more witty updates, funny pictures or strange videos? A simple ” This Timeline ended on ……..(date here)” statement? Or something incrementally more revealing for the different levels of privacy accorded subscribers, friends and family.   Something like the brief one for subscribers, then this for friends “This Timeline unfortunately came to a premature end when ……(insert name here) was taken before his/ her time by……. (insert details here).

For family, the executor (that term always gives me a shudder because it is only 3 letters removed from executioner, the person whose actions could bring about the need for an executor) who might well be the spouse, family member or close friend, could repeat whatever had been used as a more traditional death notice in a newspaper.

Alternatively, in the social media custom of baring one’s soul and displaying unneccesarily intimate details of one’s life (or death in this context), the executor could provide a detailed update, perhaps with photos so that it could be easily pinned to Pinterest. Include all the appropriate sharing buttons and a death could be pinged, stumbled, digg’d and generally syndicated as effectively as a talking cat video.

Sad as it may be to consider, handled well, a death could get more likes, shares and retweets than a life.

What irony for someone who had desperately cultivated social media guru status in life to be upstaged by their own death being more news worthy when handled by a dry legal, executor.

I know that I am letting my imagination run on a loose rein here, I can see all sorts of ramifications and unintended consequences arising from spouses, partners and heirs digging around in some deceased’s social media accounts. It’s not the public stuff that could be the problem, it ‘s the messages and in some cases certain previously unknown friends that could get speculation bubbling.

On a more serious note though, what happens when social media accounts are assets with a value. Perhaps business pages associated with personal Facebook pages could be a saleable asset if and when the business itself is sold after the owners death. Twitter accounts have a value calculated by a number of on-line tools.One of them, TweetValue puts my @zimpeterw at $4956, a long way behind Lady Gaga at $153585!

Successful blogs can have a huge commercial value, Huffington Post sold for many millions. There is no reason why a blog cannot continue under a new publisher, it may already have content provided by other authors or guest bloggers. A blog’s commercial value should be carefully assessed before just deciding to close it down, the domain name itself might be of value to a buyer in the same market niche.

There are three things to consider here:

• Arrangements for closing all the accounts – or just leaving them to become dormant.
• Advising friends, followers, fans and subscribers of the account holder’s death.
•  Sale or disposal of accounts that have a commercial or artistic value.

A special Social Media Will might be a step too far for most people, but careful consideration should be given by anyone who is more than a casual social media user. If a blog with a decent following is involved, then it’s treatment might need to be spelled out in a will. Remember it’s not just the financial considerations, but the emotional ones that are important too. Anyone with a few dark secrets lurking in their Facebook archives might want to preserve that secrecy by letting a professional handle the closing of the accounts.

Wishing you success in all your endeavours (and hoping you won’t need the services of a social media executor any time soon)

p.s. My daily balance from promoting Penny Auctions on Zeek Rewards is ticking upwards steadily. I only spend 5 minutes a day on it, check it out, it could be your pension plan.

Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The media today is full of the news that Rebekah Brooks, former head of  Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper empire is to be charged with perverting the course of justice. Social media is full of opinion, mostly assuming that she is guilty and getting what she deserves. I am not so sure. 

A lengthy and costly investigation  has been going on for over a year and is estimated to have cost $65 million already, there have been plenty of allegations but few court appearances.

It seems to my untrained and cynical eye that the authorities are desperate to find a high-profile sacrificial lamb to justify the time and cost of the investigation. Will they also charge  the Murdochs? Those two might be tougher nuts to crack than the well spoken red-head.

Interesting that her husband, a race horse trainer has also been charged. Quite a stretch from training horses to perverting the course of justice in a newspaper scandal.

I am not trying to minimise the seriousness of the alleged phone tapping carried out by News of the World employees or contracted private investigators, if Rebekah Brooks was directly involved in that then that’s what she should be charged with. It was a despicable tactic to spy on the private conversations of people.

But it looks remarkably like the British authorities are reading from the same play book that the Chicago prosecutors used to eventually convict Conrad Black. Most of the original charges did not stand up in court so they got him on the comparatively minor charge of obstructing justice. Charges which far better minds than mine have publicly stated would not have stood a chance of conviction in a Canadian court.

There have long been suggestions that different standards of justice apply to the rich or famous. It seems that there is some truth in those suggestions, but not in the way it was previously thought.

Now it seems that if you are a successful person who falls out of favour, you are more likely to be subject to intense scrutiny and eventual prosecution on charges that would not be used against the average person. Your value as a prosecutors trophy increases in line with your success, fame or social standing. If there is something controversial, elegant or physically attractive about you, so much the better. Rebekah Brooks seems to have joined the same club as Martha Stewart, Conrad Black and others.

Which goes to show that a high-profile is great when things are going well, but downright dangerous when the wheels come off or when someone in authority sees you as an easy or convenient target.

Many people see these vindictive attacks on high-profile figures as a form of poetic justice. In some cases that might be correct. I see it as a far more worrying reminder of the spread of big government and the “nanny state” mentality.

If people with the financial and other resources of those mentioned above cannot protect themselves when a gung-ho prosecutor or investigator gets them in his sights, what hope is there for those of us with far more limited resources?

Makes you think twice about getting in the spotlight as a successful business person. It’s enough of a threat I would think to put most sensible people off the idea of ever running for a political appointment too.

Perhaps Rebekah Brooks is guilty of serious crimes, in which case let the courts charge her for those crimes and let justice take it’s course, but it is concerning when this seems to be one more example of  punishing someone because he or she was successful and has now become an easy, high-profile target for ambitious prosecutors and a vindictive system.

With this type of vindictive prosecution becoming more common, is it any wonder that successful people move their wealth off shore, put it into trusts, create firewalls and use every legal means possible to protect it from voracious prosecutors and opportunistic litigation.

Even if the target, like Rebekah Brooks may well find, is found innocent of all charges, the damage to both reputations and bank balances will be considerable. Should they in turn sue for compensation, it will be the taxpayers that foot the bill.

It also should make us think about how much power we are putting in the hands of potential future inquisitors every time we trumpet how successful we are on Facebook or any other social media.

What do you think? Is Rebekah Brooks getting her just reward or is she being thrown to the wolves?

Wishing you success (and freedom) in all your endeavours.

For ideas on how to create and protect wealth, check out this video from the Elevation Group.

Graphic from Wikipedia 

I read an article in Early to Rise this morning by Clay Collins – The Battle for our Minds, I am not going to steal Clay’s thunder by commenting in detail on his article, but it is worth reading.

He proposes a theory “The paradox of Intelligence” arguing that the more intelligent you are, the less of your mind power you have control over, because you will be more engaged mentally in your work and probably work longer hours than people in manual jobs.

This theory stuck in my mind all day, I am fortunate in that I still have a 2 hour a day involvement in farming in Spring and early summer which takes me away from the computer, social media and busy work and into the fresh air and bright sunlight. There is something relaxing and calming about spending a couple of hours watching young plants grow that is a real tonic for the brain. The time outdoors looking at the crops,  riding my horses and cutting wood are where I do most of my thinking.

I think he is correct, the more mentally demanding our careers or jobs are, the less time we have for “free wheeling” mental activity, letting our thoughts go where they want instead of continually focusing on our business or jobs.

The advances in technology are aggravating the problem. Before smart phones, laptops and social media, we used to leave most of our work at work. Now the boundaries are blurred, especially for the increasing numbers of us working from home. We no longer have a physical distance between home and the office. No commute to switch off from work.

Social Media plays a huge part in this too. I have written before that engagement in social media is never-ending, we can stay busy 24 hours a day if we want, tweeting, chatting, pinning or updating, it can be relaxing, some of it can be productive, but it is guaranteed to seduce us away from serious thinking. Although I schedule time for the social media platforms that I am active on and control that time with both a cheap kitchen timer and a programme called Rescue Time  (which is a wonderful productivity tool but will shock you when you first use it and realise how unproductive you are) I still leave Skype permanently on-line because it is the only communication channel I have with our sons in Zimbabwe.

A few of the projects I am involved with use Skype chat groups extensively, I am finding that the continual beep of another incoming Skype chat is very disruptive. So much so that while writing this post I have had to take Skype off -line. Yet another example of technology creating even less thinking time.

My prediction is that more and more people are going to realise that technological advances are not leading to an improvement in quality of life, that social media burnout will become more frequent and that we have to strive for a better balance in our lives.

It is going to be interesting to see how this all develops over the next few years.

What do you think? Will social media become more important in most people’s lives or will it reach a peak and decline in importance?

Wishing you success in all your endeavours.

Photograph :

This work has been released into the public domain by its author, AndrewHorne at the wikipedia project

We are inspired by stories of people who overcome huge adversity and survive, more so when they go on to great achievements. These examples help us to motivate ourselves and forget our own troubles.

I wrote about an outstanding example of survival and achievement, Lucinda Yates, in a post on Monday.

Part of it is about never giving up no matter how bad the situation and how hopeless the future looks. Part of it is about seeing light at the end of the tunnel and staying open to the possibility that opportunities spring from the most unusual sources.

Never giving up sometimes has to be tempered with recognising the inevitability that a change is required. The old saying “No good flogging a dead horse”  comes to mind.

We should never give up on life itself, never give up on the knowledge that we have the power to change our situation, and achieve great things even without any obvious resources or apparent opportunities.

The photo on the left was taken a couple of weeks ago just after Spring arrived. Last year in late fall I was cutting down dead trees in our wood lot to provide wood for our very hungry furnace. I found a big willow tree that had been blown down by the wind on the edge of a swamp in the bush. Willow is not the best wood for providing heat, but I was not going to let that much wood close to home go to waste.

Fortunately the lack of snow last year made it fairly easy for me to haul the tree out of the bush and up to the yard. I sawed up some of the smaller branches and left the bigger branches and trunk to work on this year. The wood was still too wet to burn and I did not need it last winter.

When I was  clearing up the assorted bits of wood and logs ready to start more sawing and splitting, I noticed that with the warmer Spring weather, some of the short sections of  willow branches that I had cut months ago were starting to sprout new shoots. That is an example in the photo of a piece about 12″ long with 2 green shoots.

That piece was not lying on the ground, it was on a pile of cut pieces. It had absolutely no chance of absorbing moisture or nutrients from the ground. It had no possibility of long-term survival, but it had not given up hope. It had recognised the warmer weather and increased day length as an opportunity to survive and grow, so it did.

I am not an expert on willow trees, I don’t know if that sprouting log would develop into a tree if I put it in wet soil. Back in Africa, there were certain trees that if cut for fence poles and put in the ground when it was wet at the right time of year would grow. Mulberry trees were one of the easiest to grow from cuttings. I know many shrubs grow from cuttings here in North America, why not willow trees?

What lessons can we take from that willow log?

It just shows that on the important stuff like life itself, believing that we can change our situation, that there is a brighter future for us, that there will be opportunities that will reveal themselves in as yet unknown ways, we should never ever give up as long as we have breath in our bodies.

But we should also not blindly pursue an unworkable plan, the fastest car in the world will not get us to our destination if we are on the wrong road.

We need the right strategy and then the tactics to implement that strategy, not let tempting tactical toys take us down the wrong track. Jumping from one bright idea to the next without committing ourselves fully to anything is as bad as giving up.

Where do you stand? Have you given up on anything too early? Do you jump from one opportunity to the next or do you commit yourself for the long haul, dig in and never give up? It’s worth thinking about. Share your thoughts in a comment.

One thing that I am not giving up on is my commitment to the 10K Challenge, it can get tedious to follow the daily action steps, BUT I am finding that the system is working, it is only taking between 30 minutes and an hour a day and I can see the benefit for any one with no knowledge of Internet marketing. This will lead you from total novice to an Internet Marketer who is actually earning an income if you follow the steps. Check it out today 10 K Challenge (affiliate link)

Wishing you success in all your endeavours.

Most of us have days when we feel we were at the end of the line when shares of luck or good fortune were handed out. It’s always easy to see people apparently better off than we are either in the media or in real life. Human nature being what it is, most of  do not find it so easy to think of people who are much worse off than us.

A couple of comments about this:

Appearances are deceptive, some people who appear to have a lot of money to throw around, with big houses and fancy toys are up to their eyeballs in debt, perhaps in miserable relationships or suffering from bad health. Others who show few outward signs of wealth can in fact be very wealthy, just careful in their spending habits. There are both happy and unhappy people all along the wealth spectrum.

Different cultures value different things, what is considered essential in most of our Western societies might not make people in some countries envious at all.

In my travels to many strange and diverse places, I have found people in what we would consider poverty who are quite content with their lives, equally some very wealthy people who were eternally miserable.

Having gone through a couple of feast and famine cycles myself and then finally losing everything except my life in the chaos in Zimbabwe, I know from first hand experience that material things and wealth are neither essential nor necessary for happiness. The worse the trauma that deprives a person of their contentment, the less it takes for a sense of contentment to return. There is something about overcoming adversity that makes it easier to have gratitude and contentment.

Our experience in Zimbabwe was a first hand, living example of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in action. First in reverse as we lost our freedom to operate our farm, then our sense of community as more farmers in our district were forced off their farms and others murdered. That was followed by theft of our equipment and crops, intimidation and death threats, interference with our workers. Then our personal freedom and security was increasingly restricted until eventually we were removed from our farm by the police.

Once we were off the farm, and relatively safe physically but with no idea how we were going to generate an income or even find a permanent place to live, it was as if a huge weight had been lifted from our shoulders. We were not exactly happy, but we were on the road to regaining control of our lives.

After 8 years in Canada, our life is completely different to our old life in Zimbabwe before the illegal land seizures. We do not own our own farm, our lifestyle is very different, we are thousands of miles from family and friends and even after 8 years it is still strange in many ways. But we are grateful for the safety and security we enjoy here. We are content with a lot less than we had before.

What got me started on this train of thought was an article in the Huffington Post today about Lucinda Yates, a formerly homeless woman who got the inspiration to turn her life around and build a successful business. Her inspiration came through a combination of her homeless situation and seeing some scrap material being consigned to the garbage.

This has to be one of the most amazing stories of someone turning their life around that I have ever read. If you for a moment think that you are hard done by in your present circumstances, then read this and you will realise how much worse off some people are.

Lucinda’s website is here Designs by Lucinda but click on the Huffington Post link to read more.

Wishing you success in all your endeavours.

p.s. If you are determined to improve your situation in life but short of ideas on where or how to start, then it’s time you got started with something that has a very low entry cost, only takes a few minutes a day and is simple. Promote Penny Auctions  (affiliate link)

Facebook expects to list it’s shares between $28 and $35 in its IPO next week, giving it a valuation of $70 to $85 billion. That puts them at a similar level to Visa, Anheuser Busch, Verizon and Royal Bank of Canada. Is that valuation realistic? Time will tell. I am not an investment expert but the cautious side of me wonders about the logic of placing so high a value on a non-essential service.

Many would argue that social media is here to stay, if we accept that to be true (and there are arguments for and against that) it does not guarantee that any particular player will continue to stay at the top of the heap. MySpace found that out.

Advertising may well prove to be a huge cash cow for Facebook, but only if numbers of users and users time on the platform continue to grow or at least do not decline. Instagram and more recently, Pinterest have shown that new social media platforms with a different appeal can attract huge numbers of users in a very short time. There is a limit to how much time any individual user can spend on social media, the more “hot” social media sites out there, the more thinly members will be spread.

What happens when the next Facebook arrives on the scene? Will millions of Facebook fans abandon it in for something different?

Just as video recorders then DVD’s put pressure on the original TV programming, so might new developments affect Facebook.

What about social media burnout?  I am hearing more and more that for many the “novelty” of social media has worn off, they are spending less time in total on social media, but some are spreading that time over more platforms, twitter, Google +,You Tube, Pinterest, Linked In, tumblr, Foursquare and more. Has Facebook passed the peak of the adoption curve? Will sign ups of new users start to decline, will attrition of jaded early adopters add to a reduction in members?

I know that I spend less time on Facebook than I used to and more on Google +, Linked In and twitter.

What about the increase in mobile users? Will that be good or bad for Facebook? 

The IPO is going to be interesting.

All food for thought.

Wishing you success in all your endeavours.

Why do some people triumph over adversity and others get stopped in their tracks by comparatively minor setbacks. Some survive and overcome  horrific injuries and mutilations, wrongful imprisonment, torture and years of deprivation, never giving up hope and bouncing back when conditions improve. But others fall into the pit of despair, eventually giving up the will to overcome or even survive.

With this on my mind, I though this story by an unknown author particularly appropriate.

It came to me from My Daily Insights a service that emails me an inspiring quotation every morning and a longer story, like this one, on a Friday. The service is free and well worth a subscription.

A parable is told of a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule fell into the farmer’s well. The farmer heard the mule “braying” or whatever mules do when they fall into wells.

After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the mule, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving.

Instead he called his neighbors together and told them what had happened…and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery.

Initially, the old mule was hysterical! But as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back…a thought struck him. It suddenly dawned on him that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back…he should shake it off and step up! This he did blow after blow.

“Shake it off and step up…shake it off and step up…shake it off and step up!” he repeated to encourage himself. No matter how painful the blows, or distressing the situation seemed the old mule fought “panic” and just kept right on shaking it off and stepping up!

It was not long before the old mule, battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the wall of that well. What seemed like would bury him, actually blessed him…all because of the manner in which he handled his adversity.

That’s life! If we face our problems and respond to them positively, and refuse to give in to panic, bitterness or self-pity…the adversities that come along to bury us usually have within them the potential to benefit and bless us!

Remember forgiveness-faith-prayer-praise and hope…. All are excellent ways to “shake it off and step up”, out of the wells in which we find ourselves!

One more thing…”never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the titanic.”

That is the end of the story from My Daily Insights.

I have had my share of adversity too, I firmly believe that:

• It’s not what happens to you in life, but what you do about it that counts.

Wishing you success in all your endeavours.

p.s. Something worth checking out to give you a springboard to handle financial adversity in the future is spending just 10 minutes a day promoting Penny Auctions.

Check it out here Zeek Rewards.

Having been a farmer for a good part of my life and now living in a crop farming area, I get to talk to farmers and watch the never-ending cycle of land preparation, planting, cultivating and reaping.

In North America and most of the developed world, the traditional family farm can no longer support a family. To survive, farmers have been forced to get bigger or seek employment off the farm. For many, the burden of trying to keep up with farm chores while commuting to a job and putting in a full day working for someone else is just too much and the easier (and often more lucrative) route is to lease the land out to a bigger farmer.

This has the advantage of still living in the country without the constant struggle of trying to farm with insufficient capital or equipment and allows more leisure time, something small farmers do not have.

The farmers who survive by expanding are able to invest in the large equipment like the 300 hp tractor and 24 row corn planter in the photo above. They can produce crops on a large-scale with little manpower.

For example, a few days ago on our road, 2 men using two large tractors and a sprayer, sprayed, disced  and planted 100 acres of corn, then worked and sprayed another 50 acres. They would have planted that and done more but they stopped for 3 hours because of rain.

When I told my son in Zimbabwe how much 2 people can do in a day with this sort of equipment, he was amazed. Even with the low wages and availability of labour there, the few remaining farmers cannot achieve a fraction of this level of output.  Large equipment is prohibitively expensive, difficult to maintain and susceptible to abuse by unsophisticated operators.

This trend is not new, it has been going on for a couple of generations now. It has many repercussions, rural depopulation, closing of schools , stores, equipment dealers. Lack of diversity in crops – mono culture. Decay and eventual collapse of old barns and farm buildings and an ever-increasing number of children being brought up without the benefit of a carefree childhood closer to nature and learning about animals – and life.

What has this got to do with Internet Marketing? 

A few things.

First, just studying how successful farmers operate gives some lessons for success in any business, planning, commitment, taking action, determination, perseverance and above all belief. Belief that the rain will come, the seeds will germinate, prices a few months ahead after harvest will be high enough to provide a profit. Taking both a short-term view for this growing season and a long-term view years ahead to when the next generation takes over . (Becoming less likely each year).

The more ominous lesson for all businesses is that to survive, farmers have been faced with two stark choices:

• Expand into the size and complexity of an agri business.
• Find an off-farm source of income and rent out the land.

It is not just farming that has gone down this route, think of all the retail sectors that have succumbed to supermarkets and hyper-stores at one level, or franchise outlets at another. Independent stores finding it increasingly more difficult to compete.

Will this happen with e-commerce, on-line businesses and Internet Marketers?

To some degree it already has with some of the pioneers like Amazon, dominating the market, not just in books, but in many other categories.

Large scale manufacturing is under threat not from larger domestic competitors, but cheaper foreign ones. With labour costs being such a small part of an Internet Marketers overhead, and outsourcing just the labour intensive tasks, a realistic possibility, then smaller independent Internet Marketers should survive.

But, perhaps the pendulum is starting to swing back. The number and range of opportunities for entrepreneurs and small business owners to start on-line businesses is huge. This may just be the phenomenon that reverses the tide of mega-conglomerates taking over whole industries or retail sectors. The effects of the recession, higher unemployment and a growing desire for more choices are all adding pressure for the old model to change.

More reason than ever to be prepared, get a toe hold in the on-line business sector now if you have not already. It might just be the one thing that ensures your survival in the turbulent times ahead.

One of the easiest ways to get that start theta I have seen in recent months, is by promoting Penny Auctions. 10 minutes a day is all that it needs and a very small investment.

Here is the link check it out Zeek Rewards. (affiliate link)

Wishing you success in all your endeavours.

I thought I had seen most Internet Marketing business models. I had heard of “Penny Auctions” but never really paid much attention to them as a business that I could get interested in. Perhaps I was wrong, I might have overlooked a useful source of income because I thought it was too frivolous to be a “proper” business.

Donna, an Internet Marketer friend of mine, has been involved in promoting a Penny Auction system for a couple of months and is now starting to bring in a useful income every day by only spending a few minutes each morning to place some advertisements.

When she first told me about it, I thought that it was yet another “get rich quick by doing nothing” Internet Marketing scheme that we see so many of.

She insisted that it was genuine and that it would work.

I didn’t want to dim her enthusiasm so I didn’t ask her about it for a few weeks, then when I saw other people getting involved and giving good reports about it, I thought I should have a more objective look at it.

To cut a long story short, I did look at it, began to understand it a bit and then saw that it could have huge potential for Internet Marketers.

So I joined the Zeek Rewards system and have now joined the ranks of Penny Auction Promoters.

It is a fascinating operation, at first sight, it appears complicated but it is actually quite simple.

In a nutshell, members promote the Penny Auction system by copying and pasting one advert to an on-line advertising site each day. The ads attract customers to the Penny Auction site. The Penny Auction site and other on-line e-commerce sites generate income and profits are shared out to members. Bids are given to new customers as an incentive to start bidding on the auctions.

New members can join for free, but earnings will be limited, it only costs $10 to upgrade, a further payment of $35 is required to get promotions started and that is the only payment required to get moving. There are two higher levels, but it is not necessary to upgrade further in the beginning.

Members of Zeek Rewards do not need to get involved in the Penny Auction side of the business to earn an income.

I have been involved for 5 days, have already earned a few dollars (I don’t think I am supposed to say how much) and even this baby boomer finds it simple and easy to do.

It looks as if I will have to apologise to my friend Donna, but I don’t mind being proven wrong when something works and brings in some cash.

If you have a few minutes spare each day and could use an extra income, then check it out here. Zeek Rewards.

Having told you that I am a member, you should realise that I will earn a commission if you join through the link in this post.

This really is an easy and no-risk way to get started in Internet Marketing.

Wishing you success in all your endeavours.

I recently wrote about two Internet Marketing systems, Empower Network on 23 March and The 10K Challenge on 13 April.

In response to questions from readers and other people struggling to get started as Internet Marketers, I decided to up date my recommendations on both systems.

First, Empower Network.

Here are the 3 main reasons I believed that Empower Network offered good value:

• Everything is set up, just write the first post to get started.
• Excellent and easy to follow training resources.
• Cost of membership is lower than similar systems.

I still believe that Empower Network has its uses for people who want to get a start in Internet Marketing by getting their own blog up and running quickly and without high upfront costs. It is literally a case of sign up (less than $50) start typing and have a blog post published in less than an hour.

The system also provides detailed, easy to follow training with videos, a Facebook page, Skype group and frequent webinars or calls.

But after almost a month of trying the system, I cancelled my membership. I did this for two reasons:

Firstly, the “Digital Sharecropping” issue. Ownership of any and all content an individual member publishes on a syndicated blog belongs to the owners / publisher, not the individual member. It is the same reason that most serious bloggers host their blogs on their own domains and do not use a blogger or WordPress.com shared platform. The same reason why content published on Facebook or any other social media site is lost as soon as that account is closed.

While it may not seem a major problem at first, and most members probably do not join with the intention of cancelling their membership, it is still a potential problem. Imagine a year or two down the track, having sweated out 500 word posts 4 or 5 times a week, the system closing down for whatever reason, or the owners deciding to terminate your account. That would be a huge amount of creative work down the drain. Sure you can print out all your posts, copy them to some other form of electronic storage, but that is not the same as having them out on the web working for you.

Secondly, although initially it costs less than $50 to join and then as a subscription each month, that level of membership does not qualify a member for commissions on sales of the higher membership levels. What this means is that should someone join through your affiliate link and upgrade to a higher level before you do, you will lose out on that commission, it will by-pass you and benefit the person above you in the system.

The higher level memberships do include additional training and access to other resources. They may or may not be worth the higher fee, I did not feel like investing more to find out.

The bottom line.

The system can be good for two types of subscribers:

• Totally inexperienced Internet Marketers or bloggers who want to get started quickly and are not looking to generate a huge income from promoting the system itself.
• Those that are prepared to invest in a higher cost membership, are prepared to risk losing ownership of their content and are comfortable selling the upgrades.

I am no longer a member of the system, I like to retain control of my content and I like to know about all the costs and qualifications for earning commissions upfront.

It is still early days with the 10K Challenge. I am following the daily steps exactly so that I can give the programme a fair assessment.

The daily instructions are clear and explicit, very easy to follow. After 2 weeks, I am finding that it takes between 60 and 90 minutes to complete the actions steps for the day which is more than the 35 minutes the programme stated originally.

I am still confident that this programme can help totally inexperienced people get an Internet Marketing business started. I also like the way it is structured with no payment for the first month. That gives new members the chance to learn the basics of on-line business and get started before investing money in the system.

If you are struggling to get started then check out this system today by clicking here. 10K Challenge