Author Archives: Andrew Wee

About Andrew Wee

My name is Andrew Wee. I'm 32 years old, live in Singapore and am happily married with a 2 month old daughter. I've gone through a list of various occupations including: * journalist (for a business newspaper) * Internet content developer (for one of Asia's largest media group's Singapore Press Holdings) * trainer in entrepreneurship, business building, life skills * photographer/photojournalist * real estate agent * consultant * entrepreneur (I think that's enough for now...more later!) This is a personal space to express my goals, dreams and aspirations.

My WordPress 2.x Wishlist

Since it’s been almost a year since I set up my last blog, it’s been a somewhat nostalgic experience looking at how the platform has changed since I started using it in 2006 with it’s 1.x incarnation.

Having played with a WP 2.7.1 install, it seems to chug along slower compared to it’s 2.5.1 predecessor, and hopefully this doesn’t signal a path down the bloatware route, even if it comes with lots of shiny bells and whistles, compared to before.

WordPress has become much easier to use now for the most part, with several functions accessible behind the browse-based point-and-click interface. In the past you had to FTP files down, edit them with a text editor and upload them, or use the clunky “theme editor” function and edit the text from there.

I started out in 1997 writing HTML on a text editor and created tables writing raw table, tr,td,/td,/tr, /table tags. I later progressed on to using WYSIWYG text editors and software like XSite Pro. These days I do almost everything exclusively with WordPress only or in tandem with other software like vBulletin forum software, Aweber email autoresponder software, Joomla or some of the new CMSes I’ve been working with recently.

HTML editors have gone to the scrapheap for me. That’s not to say that WordPress is the final word in creating new niche affiliate sites though.

Here is my wishlist:

wishlist

Here are a couple of things that WordPress has done well:

  • Spam control: Akismet works hard to keep trackback spam, comment spam out of the woodwork. I use a couple more for good measure so very little spam is sitting in the moderation basket each day.
  • Tagging: Keywords and tags help readers find relevant content, especially with the millions of blogs floating in the blogosphere. They’re one step further towards relevant and have made older plugins like Tag Warrior float into lesser prominence.
  • Native embedding of video and other embed code: While you had to jump through hoops to place a YouTube video in a blog post, the process is a pretty seamless copy-and-paste job now.

Here are a couple of things that would help WordPress become Continue reading

Friday Podcast: Strategies For Scaling Your Affiliate Business With Miles Baker

miles bakerVeteran marketer Miles Baker gave an insider look at how he’s grown his affiliate business through the process of automation and outsourcing elements of his affiliate marketing business.

Having been on the Friday Podcast series before, you can check out his first podcast interview.

With his experience as an affiliate and affiliate manager, Miles has insights into the affiliate industry which has helped him develop a set of strategies to “work less and earn more”.

In this Friday Podcast, Miles spoke about:

  • How to grow your business
  • How to focus on what’s important and high value within your organization
  • Budgeting how much to spend on scaling your business
  • How to train your employees and outsourcers efficiently
  • What criteria and considerations to factor in as you’re scaling your business

Check out the podcast below:

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Links:

Thesis WordPress Template Product Review

Chris Pearson is a smart designer/developer who’s latched on to the emerging trend in publishing – the move away from elaborate, bandwidth-heavy, ornate websites to the more subtle, clean design that’s seeing its way on more progressive blogs.

Is this an influence of the minimalist style micro-blogging platforms like Twitter? It’s hard to say, but having a simple, yet intuitive design will give blog visitors easier access to your content and reduce the distraction that a cluttered blog template can create.

Chris’ Thesis WordPress template has been around since last year, so it’s not exactly a new kid on the block. In that time, it’s made its way on a number of blogs, especially based on its strengths.

I’d been looking for a clean and SEO-optimized template for use on a number of new content sites I’m in the process of developing and after reading a Thesis review by Rae Hoffman AKA SugarRae, it sealed the deal for me.

Here’s what the default installation looks like:

thesis

As you can see, it consists of a text area on the left and a prominent Continue reading

Taking Twitter To The Next Level With TweetDeck

I typically for the simplest approach when it comes to using web services. If a browser interface is available, I prefer to use that over download and installing an external program – I already have enough “stuff” on my computer.

If you are a Twitter user, you might want to take a close look at TweetDeck, especially with their recent feature upgrade.

Having gone through a couple of other Twitter clients (they essentially bring Twitter updates to your desktop via the API and provide additional functions) like Twhirl, I will be using TweetDeck for a long time.

For starters, with the recent v0.21.5b upgrade, the client includes the option of a 4th column, you’re also able to perform a search within TweetDeck and setup groups and follow friends more easily.

tweetdeck

Unless you’re a strict stickler to talking to 1 person at a time, the multi-threaded approach to managing conversations makes Twitter more managable, especially once Continue reading

Friday Podcast: Personal Producitivty And Business Growth Strategies With Lisa Riolo

I’d been talking briefly with industry veteran Lisa Riolo at some of the affiliate events over the past year and inviting her on the Friday Podcast was the first opportunity I’d been able to speak with her at some length.

lisa rioloLisa’s one of the best resources in the affiliate industry, having a blend of brick-and-mortar business operations experience, together with her stints in the online world. Lisa previous experience includes a senior vice president of business development role at Commission Junction and managerial roles at Peet’s Coffee & Tea and Bank of America.

During our call, we discussed:

  • How she got involved in the world of affiliate marketing
  • The growth of CJ’s account development team from a headcount of 4 initially to its exponential growth phase involving hundreds of people
  • Her focus on accountability and being able to quantitatively measure results in order to grow a business rapidly
  • Her milestone projects in internet marketing, including stints with Eben Pagan
  • Her system for getting things done and enhancing your personal productivity
  • How to balance growing your business with a healthy work-life balance
  • Defining value as growth factor for your business and how to deliver it to customers

Business owners and successful affiliates will get several actionable takeaways from this session.

Check out the podcast below:

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And the resources:

The “Is Blogging Dead” Meme and Other Navel-Gazing Nonsense

It seems like it’s becoming an annual tradition for a blogger or reporter on a slow news day to observe that a trend of “a-lister” bloggers are retiring from the blogging scene and one of the informal golden rules in reporting is:

  • If it happens once, it’s an accident.
  • If it happens twice, it’s a coincidence.
  • If it happens three times, you have a “trend” story on your hands.

So 3 prominent bloggers quitting the scene within a period of 1-2 years = trend?

The one thing about the “golden rule” was that it generally applied to the brick-and-mortar context, not as much when you’re talking about 3 or more bloggers out of the hundreds of millions of blogs out there.

Statistically, even 100 top bloggers out of a universe of 100 million blogs would be 1 / 1,000,000. In decimal points that would be 0.000001% of the blogging population.

is blogging dead

So wondering if “blogging is dead” is akin to wondering if fixed-line telephones are dead or if the fax machine is dead. Nice linkbait, but I don’t think there’s much substance or value to that argument.

Jason Lee Miller notes in his WebProNews piece that fame (or the price of it) might be the cause of Continue reading