Power Maxx Blog

Alright guys, this is a two for one post today!! First, I am announcing Februaries contest - the format will again be a posting contest, just like the first one was. I found much greater reader participation, which is what I really want to have on this blog.

Prize structure will vary a bit from previous contests, and there is more up for grabs!!!

First prize: $100 cash
Second prize: $50 cash
Third prize: $25 cash
Fourth prize: PNY 4gb USB Drive
Fifth prize: Blog review
Sixth prize: Blog review

Contest will end Feb 27th at 11:59 PM Eastern time, at which point I will be taking a screenshot of the top commentators, and any comments thereafter will not be included in this months contest.

Rules are simple, only relevant comments will count, any irrelevant comments will be deleted!
Click here to read more…

Hey everyone! As you might know, I recently launched the next evolution in social networking, OnePoke.com.  We are currently in the public beta phase, and are working on the project daily to add more new features and sites to the lineup before the full public launch at the end of February.

We are currently in the process of completing the Myspace, Hi5, Orkut and Linked In feeds to add to the social networking section of the site.  We will also be including a centralized status updates system for the public launch date.

So far we’ve got over 40 users signed up and testing the site which is great, but the more the better, so if you haven’t already, sign up and help us make the site better through your comments and critiques!

Our first official writeup outside of this blog goes up tomorrow on the Linkers Blog, and we’re very excited that the blog owner, Donny, gave us the opportunity for some extra publicity off of his site.  We won’t forget this by any means.  I will post a link to the article itself tomorrow as well!!

We’ve got a lot more exciting additions coming, so stay tuned for more great things from OnePoke.com.

The moment has finally arrived!! OnePoke.com Beta is finally up and running!! You can access the site at either www.OnePoke.com or www.OnePoke.com/beta.

We decided to make it a public beta just to get a bigger input in terms of likes, don’t likes and glitches. If you would like to report anything that you do/don’t like, feel free to either post here, or access the help section in the OnePoke.com header.

There you can either use the contact form to email us, or access the OnePoke.com forum to make a thread about it.

I’m eagerly awaiting your comments, criticisms and ideas! So get on there and let me know what you think!

So for months, I’ve been reading about twitter, toying with the idea of joining, reading how great it is, and whatever.

One day, I forget who wrote it, but they said that it is a great marketing tool - so I did some more research. Someone else on my blog mentioned that I should register the OnePoke twitter account before someone else did. This made sense, so with those two factors in mind, I came to the conclusion that I needed to join twitter.

With that said, you can follow me at http://twitter.com/OnePoke. I will certainly follow back each and every person that follows me, as it seems to be the popular thing to do!!

I will be using the twitter account to post various updates regarding OnePoke.com and what not.

I would also like to add, that tonight will make the official public beta launch of OnePoke.com. I will be posting an official article tomorrow with the details of how you can access the site in the beta stage.

Yesterday was supposed to be the launch date, but we didn’t quite finish the email portion, as it was giving us some trouble. On top of the other features that I have previously mentioned, there are a couple of surprise additions that I managed to include yesterday, that I think anyone in the blogosphere will really appreciate!

I will also reveal those bonus items tomorrow!! ‘Till then, follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/OnePoke so that I can follow you back!! I’m still getting the hang of the whole system - but I promise, I will follow you back!! Feel free to msg me if I haven’t done so!

So the time has come again for my weekly update on OnePoke.com!!  I’ve got some great news, we’re on the brink of opening it up for a public beta!! The only thing left to do before we open it up for public testing is to setup the email account access in the database, which should be done later today.

Other than that, we’ve got all of the loading effects etc done, all the parts of the site are done, including account setup pages - but we do still need to finish the remainder of the 4 social networking sites that we’re going to launch with.

Those will be finished and added during the beta testing stage though.  We’re beta launching with only facebook support in terms of social networking sites.  There are still a couple of glitches we need to iron out, but that’s the point of the beta right??

I hope to be able to open it up officially for public beta either today or tomorrow, so I’ll keep you guys posted as to that! 

Hey everyone - it’s time for my weekly OnePoke.com update!!

Good news and bad news.  Bad news, is that it’s still not done.  Good news is that it’s ALMOST done!!

Since I’ve managed to learn the processes behind building the functionality of the site, I have been able to put in a good amount of time in terms of coding support for the various sites.

Definitely not easy, but clearly worthwhile in the end.  The dating support is almost fully complete, with Plenty of Fish, Lava Life, OK Cupid, and Casual Kiss being done.  One more after that will likely be either eHarmony, or Match.com.

My partner has been working to streamline the behind the scenes code in terms of logging in, databasing, user accounts etc.  Our target is tentatively to be done sometime between next Sunday and the end of January to start taking beta testers.

I’ll tell you right now, that I no longer use the social networking sites themselves to access my account.  I simply use OnePoke, despite the fact that it is still in an alpha stage of development.  Once email support is fully integrated, being online will be so much simpler!!

People from both the blog community, as well as people that I’ve told in the real world are asking me when this is going to be done!! I am very happy about the amount of excitement that the concept is generating.  We’re almost in the home stretch, and I assure you all it will be worth the wait!

So as most of you know, I’m currently in the development process of a site called OnePoke.com.

Progress is plugging along nicely - although I did say in my last update that I would be giving you guys a lot more info in this post, I’m going to keep things under wraps this week.

Instead, I’m going to once again ask for those of you that are interested in becoming beta testers to please contact me. Beta testing will begin one week from now, on January 5th, 2008. Provided everything goes well, the official launch is still scheduled for January 12th.

This is your opportunity to have an influence on the site from the get go. Also, anyone that is interested in advertising opportunities with OnePoke, please contact me in advance for specifics regarding this, as it’s better off to get in early before the site gets too big.

See you guys next week at the beta launch!!

####################PS I would also like to add the following paragraph####################

In the end, we will be supporting the top 50 social networking sites, top 50 dating sites, top 50 web based emails as well as pop3 and IMAP servers, as well as full blog support.

Supported sites will be as follows:
Social Networking:
Facebook/Myspace/Orkut/Hi5/Yahoo
Dating:Plenty of Fish/Match.com/Lavalife/Eharmony/Yahoo Personals
Emails:Hotmail/Gmail/3 more we havent come up with yet

DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT MY $175 COMMENTATING CONTEST AND HOW YOU CAN WIN AT THE FOLLOWING LINK!! CLICK HERE!!!!

Hey all!! A quick post to update you on the progress of that new venture I was telling you about. The website is called OnePoke.com, and as you might be able to tell from our “Coming Soon” image, it involves one of the things that has slowly become a mainstay in many of our lives: Social Networking.

The site, OnePoke.com, is not another social networking site. Let’s get that straight from the get go. The purpose of the site will be to act as a central hub FOR social networking. It will integrate your social networking sites, dating sites, email accounts, blogs, and eventually media such as youtube or flickr, to seamlessly display all of your information in one place.

This will effectively act to increase the efficiency of your social networking experience by a SIGNFICANT margin. Imagine a website that will tell you whats new, who’s trying to get in touch with you, and what you need to do on each of your social networks, with no more than a few clicks of your mouse.

OnePoke.com will be able to do much more than just this, and I will give you guys more information in my next update. We are looking for beta testers, so if you want to be one of the first to use and experience one poke, check out the website at www.onepoke.com, and check back here for updates as to the progress of the site. Our goal is to have it up and running by January 12th, 2009. If you are interested in becoming a beta tester for OnePoke.com, please reply to this post stating that you would like to beta test, and I will get back to you with further details.

For the rest of you, sign up to our mailing list at www.onepoke.com, to receive updates via email as to the progress and new exciting things to come from OnePoke.

DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT MY $175 COMMENTATING CONTEST AND HOW YOU CAN WIN AT THE FOLLOWING LINK!! CLICK HERE!!!!

No, I’m not writing an article about a newly discovered ghost or something crazy. The Zeitgeist is Googles Yearly list of the most popular search terms for the year. Check out this link to view the list in it’s entirety. I originally learned about this list from Jeremy Schoemakers blog, and I felt the need to post it here for those that haven’t seen it.

So what does Google say are the top search terms for ‘08?? Among the front runners are Sarah Palin, Beijing 2008, and Facebook Login (shows how big facebook is). Yahoo shows a sharp contrast with Britney Spears, WWF, and Barrack Obama in the top 3. The difference can be attributed to the fact that Google’s list is based on the fastest rising search queries, while Yahoo’s was basically a repeat of it’s 2007 list.
Click here to read more…

As the global recession deepens, and online sales are hitting new lows with every passing week, ebay is among the hardest hit in the online world. With a myriad of policy changes that only push both buyers and sellers away from the site, and the general desire to save as much as possible, many sellers are throwing in the towel. They simply can’t afford to pay ebay’s outlandish fees, while their items sit unsold on their virtual shelves as though they were never listed for sale in the first place.

I myself am not immune to the global meltdown, and have seen a 30% drop in sales EVERY MONTH starting from June of 2008. I am still able to turn a profit, but just barely, and the belt tightening has got to the point where I am on my last notch. Any tighter, and I just plain won’t be able to breathe! I guess that’s one of the hazards of being a small business owner. When things are good, they’re GOOD, but when things go bad, you have no other choice but to hang on for the ride and hope that when it things return to normal, you’re still there to reap the rewards with the rest of them.

You do still see a rare few sellers that mention they are actually seeing an increase in business, and it makes you wish that the ebay fairy would pay you a visit too, but again, all you can do is hope. In all likelihood, I will be able to survive the recession, but not buy much.

So how about you guys?? Do you sell on ebay?? What do you sell?? How are your sales?? Let’s hear what you’ve got to say!!

DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT MY $175 COMMENTATING CONTEST AND HOW YOU CAN WIN AT THE FOLLOWING LINK!! CLICK HERE!!!!