Ramblings from the Marginalized

Nintendo celebrates the release of The Legend of Zelda®: Phantom Hourglass™ with an action-packed launch party at the Nintendo World® store in Rockefeller Plaza. Video game lovers of all ages will line up for an early look at the latest Zelda® game and a chance to win exciting prizes. Fans will have their picture taken with the game’s hero, Link; dress as their favorite Zelda characters for a costume contest; show off their Zelda knowledge in trivia quizzes; and be among the first to play Phantom Hourglass in a live multi-player tournament. From 2 - 4 p.m., attendees will have a chance to purchase the highly anticipated title the day before its official release.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS™ makes its formal debut on October 1, breaking the mold for first-person adventure games with a revolutionary stylus-only control scheme and a wireless two-player mode. Phantom Hourglass features eye-popping 3-D graphics and fun challenges for casual gamers and Zelda fans alike. Since 1987, the Legend of Zelda franchise has sold more than 52 million units worldwide, making it one of the most popular game series in the industry.

The big party will be held at the Nintendo World Store at 10 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. On Sunday, Sept. 30 between the hours of 1:00PM and 4:00PM. The game will be available for purchase after 2:00PM and the costume contest runs from 3:00PM to 4:00PM.

If you are going to be in the New York area on Sunday why not check it out?

• New Zelda: Phantom Hourglass launches today with a bonus!
• Metroid Prime 3 Launch photos from the Nintendo World Store in NYC
• Wii VC Review: The Legend of Zelda
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• X Marks the Spot

Are you looking for an alternative to Text-Link-Ads? I know I am.

I was recently contacted by a company that is breaking into the text link marketplace. They offer a service that I feel may just be superior to that which is offered by Text-Link-Ads. If you click on the flash banner above you will be taken directly to their site. Yes it is an affiliate link and I will get into why that is good later on in this article.

Selling your own text links

It can be hard for a webmaster to sell advertising space on their blog when no one knows they exist. You can put up an advertising page and hope someone sees it but you are far better off being in some sort of marketplace where advertisers can find you.

Unlike previous entries in the text link market TNX has put a new spin on the act of purchasing text links. Instead of digging through a directory of sites and looking over each one TNX offers you the ability to just buy links en masse from sites that you never even need to see based on their Page Rank and content.

Think about that for a minute. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is all about getting back links from sites that are in the same niche as yours. There are thousands of PR 0 sites out there in your niche. To manually go through and find all of these sites would take forever and provide negligible results compared to the effort needed to buy the links.

By using TNX's system you can simply tell them you want 1K PR 0 links in the technology niche and they will do all the work for you.

Let's take my new Tech News site TechVat dot com as an example. I want to create a text link ad for this site but I only want it to appear on sites in my niche and language. Can TNX do this?

Creating a campaign

The first step in creating a campaign involves naming the campaign and setting the initial parameters:

Parameters
• Google Page Rank: 0 to 5
• Yahoo Backlinks: 0 to 250K+ in 5 levels (0-500, 500-5K, 5K-50K, 50K-250K and 250K+)
• Site Category: 17 categories listed and you can choose up to 7
• Geo-targeting: English only, German, Ukraine and Russian sites.

The Page Rank and Yahoo backlink sections are self-explanatory. The higher you go the more it will cost you to get the link. The site category box tells you to select between 4 and 7 categories but I could not get the listbox to work correctly. When I tried to select multiple categories it selected everything in between instead of just the ones I wanted. As for Geo-targeting, they do tell you that they have a small inventory of English-only sites. This is to be expected as they are only now breaking into the English speaking market.

The second step is to load your ads.

Here are the basic rules for adding ads:
• Upload at least 10 different ads (max. 2000 for each campaign).
• Your ads should contain links, that will lead to different! pages of your website. Your campaign will not be declined, if all of your ads lead to the main page, but for best results in search engines we recommend that at least 70% of links lead to relevant internal pages of your site.
• Text inside your links should be different. Keywords in links should present on pages advertised for best results.
• Plain text should be placed before and after the link (anchor). Make it so those who interested may be able to click on your link. Your ads should not look like senseless bunch of keywords.

If you are going to be creating a large amount of ads they offer you the ability to save them as a text file and upload them directly. If not there is a collection of textboxes you can use for creating your links.

The third and final step is where you choose how many links you wish to purchase.

During this final step you will be able to select:
• How many links to purchase
• What category gets how many links
• Maximum number of links for any one site to get

TNX also has some rules for advertisers that will insure only quality links get in the system:

Campaigns that will not be approved:
• Contain spelling and grammatical errors, lead to pages that don't exist.
• Contain words written in all CAPS with the exception of acronyms and trademarks.
• Lead to websites that do not contain any information related to the keyword given in the link.
• Have nothing to do with the chosen subject or contradict it. Also, we will not approve campaigns that advertise pharmaceutical products and gambling.
• Are unethical and offend public morals.
• Can lead to claims from third parties and TNX webmasters. For example: TNX will not approve ads such as "download windows vista" or "make extra $1000/month"

After you complete your campaign it will be reviewed by a staff member prior to going live. You will be paying for any and all approved and placed links with what is known as TNX-Points. This is the currency of TNX and will be explained in greater detail later on.

That covers the advertiser side of things but I know that most of my readers are interested in the publisher side of things. Can you make money with this? Is it worth running? Well, I covered the advertiser portion first because the first thing you want to know is the kind of ads that you will see on your site if you choose to sign up with TNX.

Publisher website Requirements
• No Free-hosted sites with just rare exceptions.
• No Doorways - pages created only for search bots.
• No New websites without backlinks - before using our system you need to at least register the site in catalogues.
• No Involved in illegal activities.
• No Selling confiscates and others that require advance payment.
• No Political sites and slogans.
• No Websites promoting violence, pornography, extremism etc.

As long as your site does not fall under the above list of exceptions you should have no problem signing up with TNX. You can sign up by clicking on this link to the TNX site. Yes, it is an affiliate link.
When adding a website you fill in much of the same information as when creating a campaign. You list the language (Geo-targeting), category of your content, short description of your site, how many pages on your site and your estimate of your daily readership. The last two items are for TNX moderator usage.

Your site will then go into a moderation queue for approval by TNX staff. This can take a few days depending on the nature of your site and the backlog at TNX. Remember, this site is just breaking into the English-speaking market so do not be surprised if it takes a day or two for your approval (or denial) to go through.

Adding websites to your profile is a no-brainer.

TNX-Points

As I mentioned before the site runs on something called TNX-Points. These points can be purchased directly from TNX or from a TNX member. You can also sell back TNX-Points to TNX itself for about 50% (or more) of the cost of buying them (the price for the buyer depends on how many links he orders, I will cover this later on in the article). This may seem bad at first but it makes the secondary market for TNX-Points into a great way to make money. If TNX is selling 1K points for $1 you can likely sell yours for $0.90 per 1K to another member rather than just selling them back to TNX for $0.50 per 1K TNX-Points.

TNX does have a minimum payout of $5 on re-purchased points but that should not be a major issue for most publishers.

What does it cost an advertiser to buy links? If purchasing strictly based on Page Rank and not Yahoo backlinks it breaks down as follows:

20,000 TNX-Points gets you:
• 20,000 different PR0 pages from different websites
• 400 different PR1 pages from different websites
• 200 different PR2 pages from different websites
• 100 different PR3 pages from different websites
• 40 different PR4 pages from different websites
• 20 different PR5 pages from different websites

Let me clue you in on a little secret here. Most sites that have a high Google Page Rank will also have a high number of Yahoo backlinks, so the seller may get much more, depending on the parameters of his site. You can likely not even bother with Yahoo backlinks when creating a campaign. There are some exceptions to this rule so your mileage may vary. I also do not know if setting the Yahoo backlinks at the lowest setting will prevent sites with more Yahoo backlinks from getting your ad if they have the proper PR and niche.

OK, so now we know what a publisher pays, what does the webmaster get? According to TNX their commission is just 12.5% from each party involved in the transaction. Since I have yet to sell any links I can not give you any more information than that. Instead I will go out on a limb and say that if an advertiser spent 10K TNX-Points buying links from you 1,250 of those points would go to TNX and 8,750 would go to you. It will then be up to you to sell those points to TNX or another member to get your money.

At this point you should be doing some math in your head and thinking, "wait a minute. If I pay $1 for 1K TNX-points and the publisher only sees 875 of those points once I spend them and he can only cash them in for $0.44 didn't TNX make more than 12.5% off of the transaction? It looks like they made 66% off of the deal!" But price of TNX-Points for advertisers may vary: SEO companies that buy $250 worth of links are buying them for exactly the same price TNX publishers sell them to TNX. Wholesale discounts are activated for payments of $50 and above. So the maximum price Price-Per-Point is mostly for those people trying the service for the first time and depositing less than $50. Don't forget, about half of all TNX comission go towards refferal fees.

Affiliate system

TNX also offers an affiliate system and unlike other programs from other link sellers their program does not pay a flat fee nor only allow you to accumulate money for a short expanse of time. Oh no, as long as you remain active in the system you will earn 10% of the TNX-Points of members who sign up under you.

My personal opinion

Now that I have provided enough information to explain to you what TNX is I'm going to take a minute and give you my personal opinion of the service.

Overall I like the service. Getting your money out of the system is not as clear cut as in other systems but you also do not have to give away 50% of the money you earn to the middle man. You also have direct control over what links appear on your site via the publisher control panel.

For advertisers this service is extremely good. All you have to do is follow a few simple steps and TNX will do the rest to send your text link to thousands of sites. Because rates are determined solely on PR, Yahoo backlinks and niche of the website, you do not need to worry about being charged different rates by different publishers.

Another point that many people may miss out on is that if you are both a buyer and seller of links you can use your incoming TNX-Points to pay for your own linking campaigns. This allows you to avoid taxation on income earned through this program simply because you never convert your points into cash.

Good
• Simple interface
• Uniform pricing
• Solid advertiser and publisher moderating
• Never-ending affiliate income
• Uses PHP or Perl
• You can cache ads localy to improve performance

Bad
• Lack of English language sites
• You have to work the TNX-Point reselling system to maximize your income
• Moderation of ad campaigns by a live person slows down approval process
• Does not use a standard WordPress plugin but instead has you add a large chunk of code somewhere on your site.

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A few days ago I made mention of the fact that I would soon be launching a new site. That day is almost here.

I present to you my new Tech news site: TechVat.

Some of the content from HMTK will be moved over to give the site a little bit of content before I officially go live with it next week.

The site is going to focus on Tech news and host my opinions and the opinions of some guest writers. What does this mean for HMTK? It means HMTK will be moving back to being more of a rambling personal blog. Much of the video game and tech content will be gone soon (but not all). Some of the content will be rewritten to look more "newsy" and less "rambly".

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I had to jump on...

If I find a better picture I will update.

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No your eyes are not deceiving you that is indeed a NASCAR car with the Wii logo on it.

NASCAR Nextel Cup Series driver Greg Biffle and his No. 16 Wii Ford Fusion race in the Sept. 23, 2007, Dodge Dealers 400 at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. Biffle finished second in the race, just a fraction of a second behind winner Carl Edwards.

NASCAR Nextel Cup Series driver Greg Biffle and his No. 16 Wii Ford Fusion speed across the finish line a fraction of a second behind winner Carl Edwards. Biffle finished second in the Sept. 23, 2007, Dodge Dealers 400 at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del.

Nintendo sweepstakes winner Julie Vineyard, 39, of Arnoldsburg, W.Va., left, plays Wii Sports against NASCAR Nextel Cup Series driver Greg Biffle prior to the Sept. 23, 2007, Dodge Dealers 400 at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. Vineyard is a huge fan of Nintendo, NASCAR and Biffle, who finished second in the race.

Who says girls don't play video games? Obviously Julie Vinyard plays video games and likes NASCAR.

I'm going to guess that they are playing Wii Sports: Tennis.

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It was a very long summer for me. All work and nothing worth watching on television. I even resorted to adding all sorts of strange videos to my NetFlix cue just to have something to watch.

The long drought is now over and I can finally get back into my TV viewing pattern. Heroes may not be the first show of a new season that I am watching but it is one of the most looked forward to on my list.

When last season ended we were left with a few big questions.

Season ender questions
• Why is Hiro back in Feudal Japan and what will happen to him?
• Sylar, I thought he was dead?
• Peter and Nathan, dead or alive?

Yeah I know there were a host of other questions but these are the main ones I was left with after last season ended.

Now that the first show has aired a few of these questions have been answered but not all.

We still do not know what happened to Sylar but we do know both Peter and Nathan survived Peter going nuclear. I think Nathan became a drunk because he feels guilty over Peter's death but... didn't he win an election? Shouldn't he be in D.C. now?

You might have missed it but in one scene Nathan looked at himself in a mirror and saw himself covered in radiation burns. I know Nathan can fly but how did he survive all that radiation with no after effects?

Claire is now going to school somewhere else but the school is just like all other high schools. She has a run in with some cheerleaders and a strange boy that is trying to get her to admit to being special. A boy that can fly! Is this another one of Nathan's kids?

As for Claire's dad. Both my wife and i silently cheered when he grabbed his annoying boss's finger and proceeded to lay the smack down on him! Woot for the office store workers!

Does anyone know why the symbol of the Kensai is so important in the story?

What about Hiro? It was a bit of a crushing blow when he found out his great Japanese hero was actually a man from England with no desire to be a hero. will Hiro persuade this man to become great or will Hiro don the armor and become the great Kensai himself? Will Hiro become his own grandfather so to speak?

What's up with Peter? He just appears inside an empty cargo container handcuffed to the wall? It looks like he has amnesia. I guess being blown to bits and frying up in a nuclear blast can have that sort of effect on people, it just does not explain why the superman of the show is so easily bound inside a cargo container.

What of those two coming up from South America? I have a feeling they have some sort of joint mutation where she becomes a killing machine when removed from the calming presence of her brother. We'll learn more about them as the series moves on.

Now we also know how the super secret hero society funds itself, they have a man who can turn anything into gold! Which begs one question, why the heck would they send him out on missions? Isn't he far to valuable to the cause to risk him getting killed somewhere?

What I did not like

It was a long summer and I was eagerly awaiting the return of Heroes. I am similarly awaiting the return of Lost but that will not be back until next year. So, after all this time and waiting what did I not like about the episode?

Content wise I think it was all good. By saying, "four months later" the writers were able to skim over what happened in the intervening time and possibly cover it again later. That is all well and good.

So what is my complaint? I watched it on TV and the product placement/sponsorship was over the top. Claire's father just happens to give her the same car being advertised during all of the commercial breaks? Not only that but they played the same commercial during all of the commercial breaks!

I started getting vertigo watching that commercial and had to take my glasses off while it was airing.

I understand TV producers looking for new ways to make money and fight the ad blockers and time shifters who fast forward through commercials but couldn't you be a bit more subtle?

Looking for an extra fix of Heroes? check out these Heroes Links.

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Nintendo has now officialy unveiled their Wii Zapper and yes, it is not much more than glorified Wii-remote and nunchuk holder. Lucky for us they will also be including a game with this plastic contraption; Link's Crossbow Training!

Link's Crossbow Training Format: Wii Launch Date: 11/19/07 ESRB: T (Teen): Fantasy Violence Game Type: Shooting Accessories: Wii Zapper included (requires Wii Remote and Nunchuk) Players: 1-4 (turn-based) Developer: EAD

According to Nintendo the included game is going to be something along the lines of Duck Hunt with Link shooting at things. There are even more games planned for future release that will use the Wii-Zapper. All of this makes me wonder if this accessory is really even needed.

Future Games that will use the Wii Zapper
• Medal of Honor Heroes 2
• Ghost Squad
• Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles

One alarming bit in the Nintendo press release is where they say players can share the Wii-Zapper for multi-player fun. Share? If sharing is involved that means it is not multi-player in the sense so many of us love but multi-player the way it used to be.

Remember when you were a kid playing Super Mario Brothers in "multi-player" mode? After a while of waiting for your brother to die so you could get a turn you would start being obnoxious and do anything in your power to help them "accidently" die? Yeah, I'm getting the same feeling here.

After looking at the picture I can safely say that this is not really a good item. Yes there is a trigger coming down that pushes the "B" button for you but I can play just as well in the normal two-fisted mode that I have been using up until now. By locking the controller in place like this I see Wii-Zapper games falling into a cookie-cutter mold.

Let's face it, when word came out that the (banned) game Man Hunt was going to allow you to use the Wii-Remote and Nunchuk as a garotte to kill people with it just sounded cool! If the controllers are stuck in this holder you will be limiting the ability to use the controllers. Just look at the Zelda game on the Wii. In that game you can shake the Wii-Remote to attack with your sword AND you can shake the Nunchuk to do the spin attack. I see no such inovation with the Wii-Zapper.

If I have not made it obvious yet I don't see myself buying this accessory. Well, unless the Link game is so good and I can't buy it used so let's take a look at the included game.

Link's Crossbow Training

Link's Crossbow Training contains three basic game styles: target shooting, defender and ranger. There are 27 stages in total, and these categories represent only generally how each individual stage operates. Each stage's goal is to earn the highest score possible within the time limit. All rounds can be played with multiple players: Players pass the Wii Zapper around and then play one at a time and compete for the high score.

Target Shooting: In target-shooting rounds, players shoot bull's-eyes as they pop up on the screen. In early stages, targets are stationary. As the game difficulty increases in later levels, the targets move. Hitting the center of the bull's-eye nets more points, and hitting targets in succession without missing earns combo multipliers. Link can aim anywhere on the screen.

Defender: In defender rounds, players remain stationary but can look and aim in all directions - sometimes even in a full 360 degrees - by aiming off screen. Hordes of enemies assault Link, and he must fight them off. These battles have a great deal of variety, from fighting off skeletons in a desert to defending a wagon from boar-riding Bokoblins.

Ranger: In ranger rounds, players can move throughout the level using the control stick and aim anywhere they want by aiming the Wii Zapper wherever they want to look. In these missions, Link storms enemy encampments, fights his way through a forest and seeks out his foes while exploring the environments.

Yeah... OK... Is this going to be another Wii Play? I don't know because the Wii-Zapper is not a Wii-Remote (the sole reason for buying Wii Play early on was the scarcity of Wii-Remotes).

I have not heard anything about a price point for this item but it best be in the $19.99 or less range for me to even consider it. Even at that low price I will likely just skip this one.

Hey Nintendo, publish some games!!! Push the release date of Super smash Brothers Brawl or Mario Galaxy up a bit!!!

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My long time readers remember when I posted several months ago on how you can sell a blog for far more than it is worth. Well, it looks like someone was reading my article and decided to get out early.

The blog I am talking about this time is called SiteFever dot com and was just another blog in the crowded "make money online" niche. This particular blogs only real claim to fame was being linked to from the money maker himself John Chow.

The other claim to fame this blog had was misreporting its page views on its advertising page. This one caught my eye right away because he was claiming under 300 visitors a day but over 8K page views daily!!!

Let's do a little bit of simple math. 8K divided by 300 equals about 27 page views per visitor. I don't think even Yahoo gets a per user page view that high.

According to the site The blog was sold for $1,250 to someone from a non-English speaking country. I have to feel bad for this new owner because this site was never that good and is not going to be very good judging by the new posts I have seen there.

The original owner says he is leaving the country and that is why he sold the site but I don't know if I believe him. There is no "great" content on the site as it stands now. In fact most of the content is just a cheap rehashing of content you will find on any other make money online blog out there today.

With him selling the site I have to wonder something, what about his contest? Yes, he was running a contest for a 1TB external hard drive. Will he honor the contest now that he is gone?

From the dealings I have had with him I tend to doubt it. I think he was just looking to make a quick buck like so many in that niche.

Remember the blog I talked about months ago that was sold for a huge profit? I was looking on Alexa the other day and acording to their stats it peaked right about the time it was sold and has since fallen off a cliff.

When buying a website it is always buyer beware. Don't buy based on two or three months worth of traffic. Like my investment agent always tells me, "past performance should not be used as an indicator of future gains."

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