» May 11, 2008 in
The second most popular page over the past year at 45n5 has been the mashup script that takes youtube, ebay, and amazon and mashes them up on a single page. Many of you are interested in mashups.
One of the most frequently asked questions here is about product api's, programming, and mashups.
Something I've wanted to do here for a long time is create a "pro" version or paid area of this site where we can all help each other.
Take all that, mix it together, and out comes my newest project in the making: MashupMoney.com
What's old is the idea, taking bunches of product data and making a unique page with it.
What's new is I'm going to let 100 other people use the mashup tool and create a private forum for us all to chat in private and help each other.
The mashup tool will start simple with a few api's and more will be added over time. You won't need to know how to program or even have hosting to use the hosted script, it will be a push button solution.
The subscription will be $49 per month. Hopefully the value of the private forum alone will be worth the amount however the goal will be for every member to at least make $49 per month with the tool :)
I hope that price is enough to be affordable yet keep away the time wasters.
I'm purposely not doing an affiliate program for the site because I don't want to jack up the price for the members just to pay out to affiliates. Hopefully you see the value.
100 Members Only
There will only be 100 members total at any given time allowed to be a part of MashupMoney.com.
This isn't some marketing technique, rather we don't want to compete with each other so many more members and the keyword choices would get real scarce. In other words, if one member creates a mashup page on "Canon Powershot" then no other member can do the same.
Plus 100 is a nice manageable group. So seriously, 100 only, ever. If someone leaves you can get in later, either way you'll want to be on the list.
Mashup Money
If you are interested in working with a group of like minded individuals on creating some mashup affiliate sites that hopefully make you some money MashupMoney.com and subscribe to the newsletter.
Most of the details will be released through the newsletter, including future openings, so you should sign up.
I'm looking forward to this project and working with some of you. There will be an earnings roll call at the beginning of each month which I will probably do programmatically (ie, you can't do anything till you enter your sites earnings) so there should be no guesswork in how much the community is making or whether it's worth it to be a member after a few months ;)
Obviously I want you to succeed and will try my best to get you to ;)
Sign up for more details coming soon:
MashupMoney.com
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Make money online says on May 11, 2008
Very curious. That would be awesome to have a site up and running.
Built a mini niche site using using 19 pages and it's very cool. I will add more stuff to that but it was piece of cake. Thanks very much Mark. http://www.Makemoneyonlineexpo.com
iantrepreneur says on May 11, 2008
interesting - how will the affiliate site be joined? drag and drop? how will it be formatted? is there more information maybe an example? I want to know also I am assuming I can customize my own "portal" I assume with other ads? maybe incorporate SYAH?
do you have an example? or is it similar to camcorder.fm?
45n5 says on May 11, 2008
@iantrepreneur - not drag and drop but done with "blocks" or "modules"
so, you start with a blank site, give it a list of keywords, then simply choose the mashup blocks to add, eg, throw amazon on there, or ebay on there, or cj.com on there, or an adsense block on there, or youtube on there, or all of them etc.
there will probably be little customization to the tool unless maybe the community decides it is best and then it would be made, not sure yet.
it will also be hosted like typepad or wordpress.com is. The code is on the mashupmoney server and you just mask your domain to it, no programming, no css, nothing ;)
no examples or trials at the moment and I'm still programming it.
If I don't get 100 members at the start I might do a trial or something but I'm waiting to see how people respond to it and I'm pretty optimistic.
I'm also pretty confident we can get most members making at least $1.63 per day with the tool which is the cost and then onto profit if we all work together ;)
sportygears says on May 11, 2008
This is how the site looks like
www.Sportygears.com
works well in IE and sometimes in firefox.
Mark says on May 11, 2008
It is an interesting idea and even though I code my own stuff, I like the sound of this.
I know a lot would depend on the niche chosen and promotion, but do you have any ballpark figures showing how well sites perform using your system? It would be great to have some idea of what might be needed in order to break even (number of sites etc). I am assuming that you have seen some results with your own sites?
I have subscribed to the newsletter and look forward to more details on this :)
45n5 says on May 12, 2008
@sportygears - thanks for the example, however that's for starters, the finished site will depend on what services each member chooses to mashup
@Mark - I hate to say how much a site can make total but will work hard so that all members regroup their membership fee every month for starters given a reasonable amount of time.
The way it will work (tentatively) is each member will be allowed to create mashup pages on 500 keywords.
you can do 5 sites with 100 keyword pages each or 10 sites with 50 keywords each etc.
you will be given basic stats for each keyword page and you can keep the winners and drop the losers.
Also there will be stats to compare you to others in the community, both traffic wise and financially.
If I would set basic expectations for each member it might be the lowest level is to make the monthly fee back and the highest level members are paying their mortgage monthly.
It's not a ticket to riches but hopefully well worth the $49 fee each month ;) Just keeping it real.
fred says on May 12, 2008
mark, this shows just how bad at aff you are! If you were making money at this you would not try getting 100 people to give you money. I hope you have a way of showing people they will make money or you are dead in 2 months and your rep witch is already bad gets worse!
Andrew says on May 12, 2008
Hi
If I loose a payment or do not want to subscribe no more, will my sites be deleted or will you store it for an unlimited period of time?
Is it easy to transfer the websites to my own webhost? Will this be doable?
Andre says on May 12, 2008
@Fred
If you have not noticed yet, the biggest passion in Mark's life is to build a MMO community. He talkes about it all the time.
This is what he is doing with 45n5.com, and this is what he will be doing in the money mashup program.
Moneymashup.com will be a great resource for make money onliners and I suppose the members will support eachother on other projects and websites as well.
@fred
You can not talk down to Mark and say he does not make money as an affiliate because he seeks other sources of income.
You probably think that Google is not making any money from search since they needed to buy youtube.
People who make money online often need to think in small numbers and see small numbers add up from different projects.
I spent the last month working hard on a new page with hopes that it would only generate an extra 10 dollars a day. This is how I buy candy, this is how I pay my house mortage.
49 a month times 12 months times 100 members is $ 58.800. If Mark can make this comunity profitable for all 100 members he has an extra income equal to a full time job. You have to respect that.
Jason says on May 12, 2008
@Andre I don't know anybody who thinks that Google was hard up for money when they bought YouTube...
45n5 says on May 12, 2008
@Andrew - there are no plans at the moment for exporting your sites to your own servers.
@andre @jason - thanks for the support ;)
digitalnomad says on May 12, 2008
I'm in...been waiting for you to do something like this.
Jonathan (Trust) says on May 12, 2008
Don't know about this one Mark.
Affiliate marketing is really not a community type of business.
Little too control freakish for my taste, but others might like having their business in somebody elses hands.
$49 every single month? And if this doesn't work, you decide you don't want to do it anymore, something happens to you, etc. Then everybody's sites just go poof and all the work, poof as well? All gone?
And I have no idea how these mash up sites have worked for you. Are you making money with these? I can't imagine them getting good SEO rankings, it takes a little more nowadays then just mashing some stuff together. But I don't know, it's why I'm curious how you were doing with them.
My biggest issue is the control you have and that at any moment, if you decide it, it can all be lost. If I'm reading it correctly.
45n5 () says on May 12, 2008:
@trust - of course it's not for everyone's taste, nothing is.I have just as much control as a merchant who cancels an affiliate program or a blog host that can go down, or an image host that can lose your images.
There is nothing unique or additionally risky here vs. any of the thousands of other third party tools people use.
I'll do my best is all I can offer.
@digitalnomad - thanks ;) Can't wait to get going.
Jonathan (Trust) says on May 12, 2008
"I have just as much control as a merchant who cancels an affiliate program or a blog host that can go down, or an image host that can lose your images."
? I don't lose my whole site because a merchant cancels their program. I use probably 1000+ merchants. Merchants come and go all the time, not a big deal.
"There is nothing unique or additionally risky here vs. any of the thousands of other third party tools people use."
Of course there is a risk. People can lose their sites, all the work they put in. I use some third party tools on my site and if they go out of business, I don't. I can find some other third party tool to use. If you go out of business or cancel this for some reason, it's all gone. So not very comparable.
45n5 () says on May 12, 2008:
@trust - what I meant by the merchant copy is that if you rely on 1 merchant for your income and they close you lose your income. For instance if I'm sending paid traffic there they could pull the plug tomorrow. Nobody should rely on one thing, same with MashupMoney.com
Also, third party tools like an image host (flickr) or video host (youtube) or THOUSANDS of others, when they close shop you lose everything they hosted.
Certainly I can point out third party tools that let you output your data or ways to minimize the risk but that isn't the point of this thread.
Plenty of people are interested in this service and $49/month is extremely affordable in my opinion (even if just for the private forum!).
if you aren't interested in the offering simply move along then, nothing to see here ;) thanks.
SleekPage Admin says on May 12, 2008
Mark, thanks to your mashup script page, I've develop my very own mashup site at http://www.sleekpage.com
My question: Would I be able to incorporate anything beneficial on my site simply by joining your private forum? Or does it only benefit those using your mashup tool?
45n5 says on May 12, 2008
@sleekpage - you would have to convert your site to a mashup money site if you already have a site.
I think the forum will be valuable by itself but I highly recommend you use the tool also. Having it central will save you headaches every time an api updates plus there will be more offered than what you have now.
Ron says on May 12, 2008
Hey Mark,
Cool concept on community and mashups! Seems kind of pricey each month, but I'm looking forward to trying it out. 2 quick questions:
1.) Once the mashups are created, do you typically promote the sites, or do the mashups naturally climb up the serps because the generated content?
2.) Are there advantages of using api over rss?
45n5 says on May 12, 2008
@Ron - some basic promotion will probably help. having a forum should help us all with that though especially with bookmarking sites and link exchanges
api's and rss work the same way basically on the consumer end. many places don't offer rss though, like amazon offers more functionality via the api
price - this is one membership that will hopefully pay for itself or the goal is to work towards making pay for itself and then some ;)
wine says on May 13, 2008
How about giving 6mths free trial period?
or post the stats so we know how it is going?
Googlelady says on May 14, 2008
I think this is a great idea. But let me ask you something are the mashupmoney script creates SEO friendly? May be content? I register to the newsletter and get more information about it. It seems an interesting way to make "easy" sites but will be great if they are SEO Friendly.
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