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Archive for November, 2009


Men’s Online Magazine (Now Hiring)

Posted by: JABacchetta

i7o Media Unveils New Men’s Magazine

We’re finally ready to launch our first major project! A men’s online lifestyle magazine targeting men ages 18-34. Head over to the site and subscribe now. You’ll be the first to know when we officially launch!

The Rugged will feature articles related to health, fitness, finance, relationships, sports, style, tech toys, and everything else men love! You’ll also be able to check out some great recipes, learn how to make drinks, ask questions, join the debates, interact in the forums, and even be entertained by the daily bits.

Eventually, we’ll be ‘competing’ with large sites such as AskMen, MadeMan, Spike, FHM, and others in the men’s lifestyle niche. We don’t plan to stop there. We’re going to take this brand and drive it into other men’s products/services as well. More on that at a later date. For now, check out a teaser shot:

Website

Looking For Partners (Joint Ventures)

Email “partner at therugged.com”  (replace “at” with “@” and remove the spaces) and give us the info!

- Investors

- Advertisers

- Related publishers/sites

- Models

- Guest Authors

- Interviews

- Writers

- Anyone who believes we need to connect

We’re Hiring Writers (Both Men and Women)

We’re looking for writers who are interested in developing a long-term relationship. We want great writers, and we want them to stick around. We feel that our pay structure reflects that. Pay is negotiable, depending on skills, article quality, and the ability to generate buzz and readership.

Base Pay: $3 per 100 words. We plan to gradually increase this figure, upwards of $10 per 100 words as the magazine grows. Articles will typically stay at around 400-600 words. Although there will also be the occasional 200 word news articles, and even 1000 word pillar articles.

Bonus: If your articles are hitting the front page of social media sites, it won’t go unnoticed. You’ll be awarded bonus pay for such achievements – upwards of $100 depending on the success of the article.

Revenue-Sharing: We want our success to be your success. Therefore, writers will share a percentage of monthly revenue.

Additional Opportunities:
As the magazine grows, one of the first priorities will be to increase the pay and opportunities for our writers. As mentioned, we’ll also be looking for senior editors, and even community managers in the future.

Topics

Keep in mind that this is a men’s magazine, not wikipedia. Every article should be engaging, and entertaining. A perfect example of what we’re looking for is the publication; Men’s Health. With that said, we’re looking for writers to take on a variety of topics including:

Health & Fitness

Power & Money

Sex & Relationships – Looking for articles that are a bit more sophisticated than what you might find in say, FHM. This can be a bit tricky, but if you’ve ever read Men’s Health and FHM, you see the difference in the target audience. FHM targets teenage boys. Men’s Health targets men starting careers. Our target audience is more on par with Men’s Health.

Sports – We’re looking for broad topics here. A bad example would be a complete run down of a baseball game. A good example might be something about the Brett Favre controversy, or a hyped up UFC fight. Anything that interests the main stream, and not necessarily specific sports gurus.

Style – Clothes, hygiene, etc.

Tech – Concept cars, smart phones, gadgets, toys, video games, the web, etc. Again, we’re looking for broad articles covering the juicy stuff, not technical pieces.

Controversial Rants – We plan to have a section that is purely controversial. Your job will be to generate debates among our readers, in an educated, witty, humorous, open-minded way. We stress “open-minded” because we do intend on having political debates. If you find it hard to agree with views from more than one news station, then you’re probably not what we’re looking for in this particular section.

Requirements

- Excellent English writing skills (grammar, spelling, sentence structure).

- Be able to format an article for the best possible readability. Know when (and when not) to use bullets, sub-headers, etc.

- Be capable of extensively researching a subject, and portraying authority.

- Engaging writing style (this might include witty, humorous, personal, ability to connect with readers).

- Be able to produce content that generates buzz, and is worthy of being linked to.

- One article per week when necessary.

- Respond to comments.

- Respond to a monthly Q&A (regarding your expertise) sent in from readers

How To Apply

Email partner @ therugged.com (remove spaces) and include the following:

- Name, age, sex, location, and an avatar (photo of you).

- Let us know which topics you’d like to write about.

- 3 sample articles that you’ve written. If they haven’t been used/published yet, you may even be paid for these, if hired.

- Reason(s) you would be perfect for the job. Maybe you’re passionate about a specific topic, maybe you already have experience with online writing, maybe you know how to use WordPress, or maybe you’re good at marketing. Whatever you think we should know!

Amazon On Twitter

Posted by: JABacchetta

Amazon just announced the launch of a new feature called “Share on Twitter.” As you might have already guessed, Amazon associates can now post products (with their affiliate id already included) directly to their twitter updates by clicking a button located on Amazon’s “site stripe.”

Basically, you see something you like on Amazon detail pages, and you push it to your followers. This isn’t a feature I’ll be using, atleast not on any of my current twitter accounts. But it could come in handy for those twitter accounts that are devoted to deals, specific products, etc.

Don’t be surpirsed if you see a lot more of Amazon floating around on your twitter feeds. Oh boy, can’t wait. :-)

Web Hosting (Everything You Need To Know)

Posted by: JABacchetta

A Few Notes

After reading everything you need to know about web hosting, be sure to check out the four web hosting providers we recommend.

This guide will evolve. Some subjects just require too many details, and are therefore better suited as individual posts – which will be linked to from here after we get around to writing about them.

8 Web Hosting Facts

1. Why pay full price? There are almost always web hosting coupons available. You should be able to find them easily with a quick Google search. If you’re looking for a virtual private server, or a dedicated server, it’s a good idea to check out the deals announced on popular web hosting forums.

2. Most web hosting reviews and recommendations are bogus. They’re simply trying to make an affiliate sale. Some might even feel obligated to hype up their own web hosting provider . A lot of sites are sponsored, and receive free web hosting. Make sure you’re reading real reviews from real people. My favorite happens to be HostJury.

3. The term “unlimited” is deceiving. Many shared hosting packages offer unlimited bandwidth. The truth is, you’re never going to see that bandwidth, because providers place caps on the amount of server resources your site can use at any given time.

4. Shared hosting is just that… shared. You have to remember that your site is on a server with many other sites that belong to other people. Therefore, if your site is using up too many resources, you’re going to slow down every other site on that server. Web hosting providers need to protect every client on that server. Host Gator for example, allows you to use up to 25% of server resources for 90 seconds. If you go over this cap, your account will be frozen until you’re able to work things out.

5. Don’t assume that a VPS is better than shared hosting. Just because a VPS costs more, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to see better performance. Again, lets use Host Gator as an example. Their shared packages start at only $4.95 a month. Looking at the server specs on their shared servers, and taking into account what I’ve mentioned above (25% cap), you’ll be able to calculate that you’re allowed to use the following resources (in bursts):

  • 2.0 GHz CPU
  • 2 GB of ram

Now lets say you’re in the market for a VPS, because your site has received a ton of traffic lately. Maybe you just got featured on the front page of Digg, and got the boot from your shared server. Obviously, you’re going to want at least the same amount of resources you had on the shared server (2.0 GHz CPU, 2 GB of ram). A fully managed VPS with those specs will run you around $100 a month. So, if you were to move from your $5 shared server, to a $30 VPS, you’re actually downgrading in many ways.

As you can see, the shared server was allowing your site to expand with bursts of traffic when needed, but once you’re forced to move to your own server, you have to purchase ALL of those resources, regardless of whether or not your site is using them at all times.

6. Don’t assume a dedicated server is better than a VPS. There are plenty of VPS servers that can out-perform lower-end dedicated servers, even though the dedicated might actually cost a lot more. One of the biggest disadvantages of a VPS however, is disk i/o, since it can’t be isolated.

7. All hard drives are not created equal. Typically, SSD > SAS > SCSI > SATA. You’ll also want to check the raid setup.

8. Your database or media files can be served from another location. Amazon for example, offers a variety of CDN and cloud services, and there are even wordpress plugins to help with integration. Depending on your needs, this could be a cost-effective solution.

11 Questions To Ask The Web Hosting Provider

1. Are the servers fully managed?

2. Is there a network uptime guarantee?

3. Is there a hardware replacement SLA (question doesn’t apply to shared hosting)?

4. Is there an initial response guarantee (for support)?

5. What type of access do I have to support? Phone? Email? Live chat online? Available 24/7?

6. How scalable is the server? Easy to upgrade? Do files need to be transferred or is an upgrade automatic? Will my site experience any downtime?

7. Is there a setup fee? Are there any discounts available for paying an initial setup fee?

8. Is there a contract?

9. Is there a money back guarantee?

10. What control panel and/or features does the server have?

11. Does the data center (where my server resides) have the following safety precautions: Fire suppression systems in place? Authorized access in a secure area? Temperature controlled environment? Back-up power supply?

Note: Many of the answers to these questions can be found on the sales page itself.

8 Server Specs To Look For Before Making A Decision On A VPS Or Dedicated Server

1. Processor: Check out this article on server load.

2. Memory

3. Hard drive

4. Operating system: Plan on using Windows or Linux?

5. Control panel

6. Bandwidth

7. Port speed

8. Dedicated IP addresses available