Looking back, at that time I had no idea what the next four years would bring. I could go on forever about the importance of blogging and how amazing it’s been for myself and business, but instead I selected a handful of memorable moments and take aways from the years past.

• Meeting Amazing People from Everywhere

Without a doubt, one of the most amazing aspects of having your own blog, is that it really helps you get your name out there and it conjures up so many new contacts and feedback it’s hard to imagine. Once you are at the level where you have thousands of people reading your blog on a daily basis, blogging becomes quite a responsibility. Every day I receive emails from people all over the world asking for advice, sharing their own online stories and many just to say that they enjoy reading the blog. No matter the email or comment left, it’s always great to hear from your readers.

• Getting on ABC News

In 2010 I was fortunate enough to be asked to appear on ABC News, which was an amazing opportunity. Once again, this was mainly due to the success of the blog. Sure, I’ve been very success with online marketing for 15 years, but I was asked to talk about “making money with blogging“, which is another topic I’m very passionate about. Getting exposure on one of the most well known brands in the world… that’s simply priceless.

• A New Business & Revenue Source

Sure, blogging has produced an amazing amount of new readers, contacts and friendships, but it’s also become a whole business of it’s own. Month after month the blog seems to have a never ending supply of advertisers that want to get their name and brand out their. This is great to see and very healthy for the affiliate marketing. Not only does it show there is plenty of money to go around in this industry, but it also proves you can build a quality and long standing business without having to sell product or sacrifice the value of your audience. The readers of this blog have also generated a ton of money for themselves and the advertisers they work with.

• Speaking Around the World

Once again, I’ve been making money online for over a decade now… but finally made the decision to go live with my own blog just four years ago. In that time a lot of people have visit the blog, but also have seen me speak at various conferences. Last year I made the trip to Sydney, Australia and was the keynote speaker at the Affil@ Syndey. I’ve also spoke at many other conferences such as Affiliate Summit, BlogWorld, SES NY and more. Many of these conferences and speaking opportunities were a result of someone reading the blog, recommending me to a conference, then reaching out to schedule my attendance.

With all of that said, a blog is nothing without it’s readers. I will tell you right now, consistently blogging is not an easy task. When I first started the blog it seemed like I could write forever. However continually coming up with great content, while also managing the other day to day operation is quite a job…. but I love it!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day and I thank you once again for contributing to the success of ZacJohnson.com and looking forward to writing with you for many more years to come!

The attendance at the event was really great this year, a lot of close friends and even more people I haven’t met with before, which is totally awesome. It’s always great to meet up and network with people that are monetizing the internet and making money in a completely different direction than where you are focusing. It really opens up our minds on how others are marketing and what can actually be accomplished.

There were plenty of well known names at the event, along with massive mega millions you probably have never heard of . Successful affiliate bloggers like Jonathan Volk, Ian Fernando and John Chow were also at the event. Very fun and cool to hang out with these guys for a few days and just talk.

All three of these guys have already done ThinkTank reviews on their sites, so be sure to check them out as well.

- DK ThinkTank Secrets Exposed
- DK ThinkTank = Networking Fun in the Sun
- Dot Com Surfing At ThinkTank 2010
- Dot Com Pho – ThinkTank 2010 Edition
- ThinkTank 2010 – Day 1 Video

ThinkTank is a very exclusive event which costs $3,000 to attend and maxes out around 50-60 attendees. All I kept hearing from everyone there, was this is how a conference should be, and that they made more meaningful business and personal contact at ThinkTank than anywhere else… and I feel the same way. After all, what other event can you think of where you can network with people only in your league, learn to surf, have a BBQ every night, train with a six time jujitsu world champion and sit on the beach all day!

Not to put a value on different attendees at these events, but it’s true that it’s much harder to get time to speak with well respected keynote speakers and well known marketers. At the same time, these individuals come at a higher value (time or cost), simply because they can change your business with their promotion, or have the contacts to do so. With all of that said, it’s often the after parties at conferences where all of the networking happens. So and so will introduce you to whomever, and it goes from there.

So what’s the best solution? My good friend DK came up with the solution. Bring together some of the biggest names in the industry, while providing a fun and social experience. A very small conference event (only 50 attendees, a fraction the size of a conference!), where top names in the industry come together and simply network and have fun over the course of three days. I was at the first ThinkTank in Del Mar, California two years ago, and will be there in a few weeks for this year’s event. DK sets up these crazy surprises like MMA training, surfing, trips to Facebook, huge BBQs on the beach, and much more… you really never know what DK has in store until you get there.

Other names who will be attending ThinkTank this year include…

No lie… It’s a cool event and no where else will you truly be able to mingle and have a good time with some of the top names in the industry at the same time. It’s a laid back event, and everyone is there to make new friends, increase business and just have a good time.

* WARNING * – There are only a handful of seats available. It costs $3,000 to attend, and this is not just a price issue. You must also pre-qualify with DK before attending. Only quality and pre-screened attendees are allowed. (more info here)

DK talks about the importance of networking and why traditional conferences are a bad investment in his new video series. Check them out and hopefully I’ll see you at ThinkTank later in the month.

- ThinkTank in Del Mar, California

Sydney, Australia

When you think about Australia, you will most likely think of the outback and kangaroos… so did I, but I was actually on the other side of the country and stayed in Sydney, which is a very large city and nothing like what might pop into your head when you think of Australia. Once arriving, I found out that the airlines left my luggage back in the USA and it would arrive the next day, so this gave me the opportunity to check around the city and pick up some necessities. Being from the US, I’m used to seeing well known department stores like Target, Walmart, fast food chains all over the place and just being familiar with my surroundings. However, you won’t find many (or any) of these in Sydney… and I actually only came across a few McDonald’s and one Starbucks when walking throughout most of the City.

Sydney is of course most well known for the Sydney Opera house. I was staying at the Westin hotel and it was a decent walk to the harbor where you could see the Opera House, visit the market place and other cool attractions in the area. This photo is an awesome view of Sydney from the harbor then into the city. (image source)

During my time in Sydney I realized the people that live within Sydney were extremely nice. After spending a few days in Sydney, Australia, it was time to head over to New Zealand for the first time.

Christchurch, New Zealand

I’ve always wanted to visit New Zealand, especially after the filming and documentaries on Lord of the Rings and all of their NZ filming locations. Flying into the country was simply gorgeous. You could see the mountains, valleys, endless fields of sheep and more. Arriving in Christchurch, it was a different story. I was staying at the Millennium Hotel which is right in the middle of Cathedral Square, which is one of the main focal points of the city. Once you walked a few blocks outside of the square, you were right in the city area with office buildings and stores everywhere… completely different from the atmosphere flying into the country.

As mentioned, Lord of the Rings was one of the best things to happen to New Zealand because of all the attention and new tourism. Since the movie was filmed throughout the whole country, it would be quite the task to visit all of the movie sites, but I did get a chance to visit Edoras where Rohan was filmed in the movie. It took a few hours to get out into the mountains, but it was great to actually get outside of the city.

I also made time to visit the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve. It was only about 20 minutes from the hotel and $50 taxi fare each way to and from the zoo. The Willowbank animal reserve was only $25 per person, but well worth the taxi fare and one of my favorite zoos I’ve been to. I was actually one of the only people there and got to spend plenty of time there and all of the animals were running up to me as I walked around the park, hoping for some food. Right now it’s winter (temps around 50 degrees F) in Australia and New Zealand, so not many people visit the reserve, but it was nice weather for me (being from NJ / NY area). The wallabies (pic to right) were the best, as they were so friendly and would eat right from your hands and let you pet them.

With my remaining time in New Zealand, I visited several other destinations and tried to book a helicopter tour at Mt. Cook. It was a four hour ride to get there, then within a mile of the airport, there was a blizzard and it was canceled.

I only had a few days in each country, but there was so much to see and do, both Australia and New Zealand were amazing. On my next visit I’ll make sure to leave more time to visit outside of the main city areas.

What started out as an ordinary checkup, turned into a nightmare and miracle at the same time. A little over two weeks ago Wolf had a checkup, which included a blood test. The results came back and said she needed immediate attention to check her blood levels. Wolf was rushed to the emergency hospital and ended up staying a few days. Her blood levels were of great concern. Levels that should have been above 150,000, were below 20,000. The hardest part through all of this, was that on the outside Wolf was perfect as ever and seemed like nothing was wrong. Wolf would stay in the hospital for a few days, where we would visit her every night, and even brought up Timber (her best friend and sister) to see her one time. All of Wolf’s levels finally came back (above 50,000) and it was like a christmas miracle, Wolf was coming home! We never would have known about Wolf’s troubles inside her body if we didn’t happen to have that recent checkup and blood test.

The whole time she was at the hospital, she was always top priority and on our minds. It was great to have Wolf back home again, especially in time for the holidays. Yesterday my parents noticed Wolf just wasn’t acting right and brought her back up to the emergency animal hospital. All of the best doctors were in and Wolf got the care she needed. The latest report this morning was that her bone marrow test went well, she was eating and actually howling a bit.

It wasn’t til around noon when my parents called to give me the news that Wolf had passed. Completely unexpected, but always a horrible possibility in my mind. The doctors called my parents and said she was having trouble breathing, not acting normal at all and just wanted to confirm any “non resuscitate”  terms we had. A few minutes later and the doctor called again, this time with the sad news that Wolf had passed. It may have been cancer, the blood levels, all of the medicine, but we did everything would could to give Wolf the best care and treatment possible. In the end, it was all just too much on Wolf, and now she is in peace.

Wolf, you will be missed by everyone!
July 24, 1999 – December 24, 2009

Appreciate EVERYTHING this holiday.

I will leave you with a few pictures of Wolf.

So what else has happened over the past week.

Oh yea… I’m Engaged!
Yes, our trip to Dominican Republic was a special one and will always be remembered. Reena and I first met in high school and have been together ever since. After a nice romantic private dinner on the beach, I finally popped the question and we are now engaged! I finally made the best girl in the world an honest woman and I’ve never been happier!

I Purchased a New Site, Should You?
In my last article on the blog, I wrote an article asking users “Should You Buy an Established Web Site?“. The comments section has a ton of input and opinions on the topic, ranging from how much to pay for a web site and where to find the best sites for sale. Before leaving for my trip, I actually just completed a big site purchase. The site was established and has been online for over 9 years. I paid roughly 23 times monthly earnings. This may seem like a lot, but I feel I can greatly grow the site and it’s a great investment to add to my portfolio of sites. I’ll do another write up in a few weeks on the web site and how it’s performing.

The first night we arrived in Orlando, we met up with Dina Riccobono, Erick Bright and his wife for dinner at Maggiano’s Little Italy restruant. This place was amazing and had excellent food. It was great to meet up with my friends from MarketLeverage again, and without the stress of a conference type of envoirnment, we were able to relax and talk about how all of us got started in the industry. Dina and the ML team were also awesome enough to grab me the two tickets for the Orlando Magic Finals game!

Sunday was the big game day. For any of you that were watching the game, the Orlando Magic showed some strength in the first quarter… then just slacked off and got beat up by the Lakers for the rest of the game. We’ll see what happens next year… Even without the Magic winning the game, the envoirment of the Finals and excitement of the game was amazing. The arena was packed with Lakers fans and throughout the whole game, the cheering and yelling was so loud, you couldn’t even hear the whistle!

After the game, Reena and I headed to downtown Orlando to meet up with Eric Schechter from ClickBooth. The next day Eric drove us both down to Sarasota to ClickBooth headquarters and meet the ClickBooth team. Everyone we met at ClickBooth was awesome. During the course of the day, we went to CB headquarters, had lunch at a nice marina restruant, dinner at an amazing steakhouse, played some basketball and even went over to John Lemp’s house to close out the trip.

Just like MarketLeverage, ClickBooth went out of their way, and covered our airline tickets and the hotel (Hotel Indigo, which is excellent!) we stayed at while in Sarasota. Both companies made us feel really welcomed the whole time, and that’s what really makes the difference in this industry. It’s always great to meet up with individuals and companies you are working with online. This industry is like no other, and is the best there. Not only do we have business parties, conferences and the ability to work from home… but we all love what we do so much!

Here’s to the continuing growth of affiliate marketing!

Normally I wouldn’t post about sports, but my favorite NBA team, the Orlando Magic, are in the playoffs once again! It’s only been 15 years since they last (and first time) made the finals, and that was when they had Shaq. Now they have Superman 2.0 in Dwight Howard vs. the Laker’s “Black Mamba”, Kobe Bryant. The Lakers are heavily favored to win, but the Cavs were also heavily favored to destroy the Magic… and guess what happened!

Though I’m from NJ, I’ve always loved the Magic since I started watching basketball in 92, and went to my first game in Orlando in 95, then met Shaq and the whole team at a pub afterwards. I already got a few tickets to see the Magic play the 76ers in the first round, and I’m looking to make it down to Orlando for at least one of their home games during the finals.

I decided to throw together a quick contest for all of you NBA and sports fans out there to participate in. Simply post in the comments section, who you think will win the NBA Finals, in how many games, and the final score of the deciding game.

Your comment entry should look something like the following: (which is my official entry!)
Magic in 6 Games (110-76)

The entry with the closest correct answer, will win an authentic NBA player jersey of their choice, or a custom NBA jersey with your own Name and Number (any team). These run for $199.99 a piece at NBA.com. You may only enter once and must live within US or CANADA.

The deadline for entries is GAME 2, which takes place on June 7th.

NBA Finals Schedule is Below:

- Game 1: Thursday, June 4 – Orlando at L.A. – 9PM ET on ABC
- Game 2: Sunday, June 7 – Orlando at L.A. – 8PM ET on ABC
- Game 3: Tuesday, June 9 – L.A. at Orlando – 9PM ET on ABC
- Game 4: Thursday, June 11 – L.A. at Orlando – 9PM ET on ABC
- Game 5*: Sunday, June 14 – L.A. at Orlando – 8PM ET on ABC
- Game 6*: Tuesday, June 16 – Orlando at L.A. – 9PM ET on ABC
- Game 7*: Thursday, June 18 – Orlando at L.A. – 9PM ET on ABC

I was doing some research online to see if I could find anything on how to get out of my existing contract with Verizon, and if it’s even been seen that ATT&T would credit or pay off your existing contract. Looked all over, and never found any good success stories. So I decided to give it a shot and headed over to my local AT&T store and asked if they could do anything. Luckily, their head business accounts manager was in, and he was able to credit my account for all early termination fees I would then have to deal with from Verizon. I would still get hit with the termination fees from Verizon, but AT&T would credit my monthly plans til it made up the difference. He was only able to do this because I was an established business, and said it couldn’t have been done if it was a personal account.

On that note, the iPhone is just great and makes internet life a million times better than with the Voyager I was using over at Verizon. Earlier I was thinking over upgrading to the Blackberry Storm… but always wanted the iPhone and it worked out in the end.

Now that I have the iPhone and not just the iPod Touch, I can take advantage of all applications available through iTunes. I thought I would share a few of my favorite apps, and also get a few of yours as well.

Twitterrific
I was able to access Twitter on my Voyager, but it was slow as anything and a crappy text based version. Twitteriffic loads fast, shows full images, and it’s just like being on a Mac or PC. (I’m now using Tweetie instead of Twitterrific)

E*Trade Mobile Pro
I’ve been trading stocks for over a decade now and I’ve always been using E*Trade, among a few other sites. I know the iPhone is already loaded with a Stock app, but you can actually trade through this app and look over your real portfolio.

Fieldrunners
This is just an awesome game. When I used to play Warcraft 3, I would play the tower defense games through Battle.net. This game is made up of the same concept, but very addictive and fun.

NBA Game Time
I can’t get enough of the NBA, and now I’ll be getting even more with this new application I just picked up today. NBA GameTime has live streaming scores and playoff bracket updates.  With a few clicks, check scores, schedules and full standings.

AzoogleAds
I beleive AzoogleAds was the first network to come out with their own app for the iPhone. Not only is it great to be able to login to your stats and see how much you’ve made… but it should pave the way for more affiliate networks to do the same. Who’s next?

Those were just a few of the apps on my iPhone… what’s on yours?

There is a very big difference between dreamers, and people who put ideas into action. While most people wish of winning the lottery and say things like “If I’m ever a millionaire…“, the truth is, this will really happen to none of us. First off, half the people who say it, don’t even purchase lottery tickets… and the other half have such astronomical odds against them, it’s just unlikely.

On the flip side, you have people and believe in what their dreams are and put action forth. They know the lottery isn’t how they will get rich, and they are willing to set their ideas in motion. The same holds true for making money online, running your own business, or any task you are looking to accomplish.

For anyone that is already following me on Twitter, you may have seen one of my “Dunk Training Day # – Done” messages. My current personal goal is to dunk a basketball. I’m only 5’10″ and I’ve tried to dunk before, but got lazy with my training. Now I’m putting full effort towards that task, and it isn’t a question of “IF”, but “WHEN”!

If someone doesn’t believe in your idea, or what your striving to accomplish, who cares!? Do it for yourself, and it will be that much more rewarding when you prove the doubters wrong.

How much closer will you get to your goals, when you STOP saying “IF” and start saying “WHEN“?