Online Marketing Proformas - successful or not?

I have been watching online marketers for many years now. You know, the ones that work with a one page proforma where they make you an offer, tease you with a free product, in the hopes of securing your email address or even better, you buying into the product. Then they bombard you with testimonials about how great their product is, kind of like the midday and middle of the night commercials you see on television. My question is, do these really work?

For me, I look, see that they are the same old standard approach and immediately they have lost me. Is this how others feel?

As someone who is involved in packaging and marketing, I'd really appreciate the feedback of my online friends as I am going to be advising my clients in relation to these processes. What are the outcomes for this type of marketing? Is anyone doing it and having huge success?

I know this probably sounds just a little cynical, but I've seen a lot of people selling business and marketing systems and having a bit of success with selling the systems, but how many who buy these systems are also experiencing success? There is lots of talk of growing rich online, but I'd like to see the evidence of it. Anyone who has an opinion is welcome to post a response. I am truly interested in what you think.

It just makes you wonder about Twitter Grader.com

I have been studying Twitter Grader for some time now, as I can see that people put a lot of value on being ranked highly there.

In my study, I have noticed how easy it is to influence the rankings merely by conversing with others, by retweeting their tweets and by increasing the number of followers you have and the quality of those that are following you and your ability to engage them interactively.

Then I thought to myself last night, how would I be ranked if I were in America instead of Australia? So I decided to do a little test. To change my location settings in Twitter.com to New York, USA. The outcome was astounding. I was ranked in the 600's when my location was Perth, Western Australia. Then suddenly I ranked in the top 200's when I changed my location to New York. This raises a lot of questions about the validity of the rankings system. My rating of 99.98 went up to 100 as well and the only change was a change of location!

This tells me that the whole Twitter Grader.com site is biased towards people living in America.

I have decided that I will no longer support this site in protest of it's rating system.

What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

"I" Live

Just love Kurt's gorgeous voice. Goes straight through you.

If you like this, you'll probably love the Shrek Hallelujah version he does, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2NEU6Xf7lM&feature=related

Do you have WISDOM to share?

The 1 pound miracle baby

Saw this video and it made me cry. What a miracle of life and determination on the part of one so small. Also, you could almost tangibly feel the love of the parents pouring into this child.