Michael Haislip: Professional Millionaire

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Professional millionaire! Trademark pending, you thieving bastards.
Truly, I have reached the pinnacle of success.

“I Am a Professional Millionaire” T-shirts coming soon.

This is the only good thing about Florida State football. Also, this picture has nothing to do with domaining.

So after I scalped a few Music City Bowl tickets on eBay for a tidy profit, I got the urge to do a whois search for Music City Bowl-related domain names. Of course, the .com was taken by the bowl game itself, along with the .org. But not the .net domain.

Five minutes later, I was the proud owner of MusicCityBowl.net.

While Florida State plays Kentucky on December 31, I’ll be scheming ways to make money from this.

At first I considered just cash parking it, but then I realized that would only work if it was the .com, and then I called myself bad names and made myself cry. Professional millionaires are hard on themselves.

Flipping a .net for a second-tier bowl game was probably out of the question (though I might try it).

So, I’ve decided that, barring any amazing cash offers for the domain (or legal action against me), I hope to have MusicCityBowl.net developed in time for next year’s ticket rush.

Oh, yeah, my pick for the game: Kentucky 31, Florida State 20

Ha, ha. You see what I did here? I used the advice of meta-bloggers and made a list. Oh, the irony. Double ha-ha: everything I say here has very likely been said a hundred times over by everyone else. I don’t care. I’m a professional millionaire, and I can mindlessly regurgitate what I want!

1. The genre has become fully top-down

If you weren’t in the game in 2006, it’s probably too late. All of the big-boys have claimed the meta-blogging space, leaving little crumbs for everyone else. That’s not to say you can’t make some decent money, but I doubt there will ever be another ProBlogger or his ilk.

2. Meta-bloggers have run out of original content

There are only so many ways to give the same advice over and over before you turn into John Chow. That’s when you just say screw it and turn into a digital pimp for whatever pays you money.

3. “Blog” is a worthless term

Hey, remember when the word blog meant “weblog?” Yes, a daily log of people’s mundane lives. Truly, the Internet had reached its full potential. Those were the good ol’ days. Now, anything that has comments and is updated by a human being is called a blog. By that definition, every major site is now a blog. The term is meaningless now.

4. Blog-only revenue sources will be in for a rude awakening

Anyone who thinks that the current infrastructure of the Web will be around in 5 years is deluded. Anyone who thinks that the terribly inexact Google algorithm is the end-all of search engine technology is insane. There’s just something about using incoming links that strikes me as an ad hoc way of creating a better search engine. Eventually, someone smarter than Larry and Sergei will come along and change the entire concept of search. Companies such as PayPerPost and TextLinkAds will be forced to completely change their rate structures or die. I’d bet on sooner rather than later.

5. Too much supply, not enough demand

Is it just me, or are there 1.5 meta-bloggers to every 1 regular blogger? Is that even possible? Normally, in a free market, some of these business would collapse, liquidate their assets, and free up resources for other businesses. But that doesn’t work for bloggers. Their assets are their posts and ideas, and they are preserved indefinitely unless someone deletes them. Eventually, a Google search for even the most obscure meta-blogging topic will turn up 100,000 results of Digg-optimized meta-blog posts.

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Sometimes, quality content attracts readers. Sometimes, personal insults are the best way to go.

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John Chow sucks. There. I said it. Someone wake me up when he actually publishes some content.
“Now, Michael,” you may be asking, “what is this point of this exercise in ad hominem?”

The point is, as of December 3, 2007, there is only one page of Google search results for the specific phrase “john chow sucks.” That means that I’ll eventually be number one for that phrase if I keep pounding on it.

What’s the point? Who knows? I’m a professional millionaire. I can do whatever I please.

In the second X-Files movie, Mulder and Scully will search for decent shopping cart software. Really.

I’ve been working on the latest project for my online empire. In fact, I’ve been working for 8 hours today, coding PHP for a website while swearing at my computer monitor.

You see, when I decided to get back into selling musical equipment online, I was naive. I figured that a good shopping cart program would be out there, somewhere, much like the aliens on The X-Files. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Now I’ve spent precious hours being a nerd, when I could have been test-racing my Ferrari in the desert or practicing my ninja skills. When the time comes for me to save the world from terrorists by using my Ferrari-racing and ninja skills, you guys will be sorry.

Here’s some of the programs that I’ve inspected and rejected:

1. OScommerce — I tried this program first because it came free with my web hosting package. I remember seeing OScommerce several years ago. It hasn’t changed … at all. Unlike WordPress, there are no themes to install. Any change means some code hacking.
2. ZenCart — Feels too similar to OScommerce for my taste. Also, the cutesy, new-age name makes me wish it were a man, so I could kick it in the junk and make fun of its name.
3. CubeCart — Hey, what do you know? This feels like the previous two, except they charge $130.00.

After stumbling across several other programs, ranging from open-source crap to $500 crap, I gave up. Thank you, developers, for driving me to spend my days writing code. Just for that, I will soon release MichaelCart to the public, and I’m going to destroy you all while charging a hefty fee. MichaelCart — ask for it by name.