In less than 1 month, over 20,000 websites have been
created by the over 18,500 Blinkweb users. It’s been so
much fun seeing how creative the BW users are. Some very
cool sites have been created.

There have been an absolute TON of additions to Blinkweb
in its first month of existence. Way too many to list
all of them here, but here’s a brief summary of what we’ve
done and how it will benefit YOU in a big way, so pay close
attention…

1. New affiliate program where you can promote Blinkweb
and make recurring commission every single month!

2. Created a video course teaching Blink users how to use
their newly created Blinkweb sites to make 2,000 bucks per
month, or more, using their Blink websites.

3. Completely re-worked the website creation process so
it’s no where near as confusing as it was on the first day
Blink launched.

4. You can now download your websites in a .zip file so
you can use your current webhost and still use the BW
page builder to create your websites, or you can get a
free domain name, or free subdomain name, or host
with Blinkweb. You get the option of all 3!

5. 20 new website templates added and more being created
as I write this email

6. And a heck of a lot more. Too much to list here.

These guys really know their stuff, you have to give them that much. This is a great way for them to generate a ton of business from both new and existing customers. I expect a lot more products and services to be available for us to promote through the new Blinkweb Affiliate Program soon. Check it out and if you’re not already signed up, what are you waiting for?

Two beaches were closed due to the unconfirmed reports of a large shark sighting, which is suprisingly similar to the movie where they had to close the beach during the fourth of july holiday at Amity Island. The sighting missed the holiday weekend, but how bizarre is that? I can hear Roy Scheider now, “Get out of the water!”

If you are planning in trip to Martha’s Vineyard this weekend, be sure to bring your shark repellant and your sunscreen.

Since my last post, the Callen brothers have posted on their blog that Blinkweb com has had over 20,000 websites created on their platform. I was curious what people were doing, so I typed in some of the big keyword terms for sub-domains (ie. makemoneyonline.blinkweb.com) and I saw a lot of empty sites. It’s like a big parking lot over there. Most of the domains I typed in at Blinkweb were not sites at all, just placeholders. Some of the ones that did have something up were just a blank template. One or two that I found had actual a site setup.

That doesn’t mean that no actual sites were created with Blinkweb for legitimate use, but knowing what I know about how the internet marketer mind works, it is pretty obvious that people just went to town registering as many Blinkweb sub-domains as they could as fast as possible. They want to lock down the “money” subdomains at Blinkweb for possible future use.

Blinkweb also has the ability to create a site and download it as a zip file so maybe that is what everyone is doing with their sites. I poked around with the Blinkweb software myself but did not spend too much time with it to do a real Blinkweb Review. I prefer to use Wordpress for my own websites almost across the board. I can see the appeal for making sales letters though, I just don’t use them at this point in time. Maybe some day when I decide to sell out and make an ebook or have something to sell.  For now I’ll stick with Adsense and affiliate programs.

I wish there was some Blinkweb affiliate program to review that would allow us to make some money off the Blinkweb program, but for now nothing seems to be in the works. They have enough of a client base and reach to stay away from that, at least for now. Why give away affiliate sales when you can launch alone first and keep all the initial sales. Blinkweb does sell domains and hosting so there is some opportunity to earn income from the service. Hopefully they have a plan for a Blinkweb affilaite program so I can do a new Blinkweb Review.

I have been researching three different topics for niche blogs and so far each of the sites I have visited have had the same obvious, phony knowledge, pretend guru, bought an ebook, threw up a free blog, followed the step-by-step guide they just bought, newbie, pre-written sample sales letter website to go with their lack of knowledge on the topic they are posting about. Now, with that said, I can honestly say that I am not a good writer, nor am I an expert at, well at anything really. The difference is that I don’t pretend to be what I am not. I don’t claim to be an expert at anything. I don’t pretend to write well, though I do write better than a lot of people out here. I just am who I am.

Where was I? Oh yes…I learn something new every day. Sometimes it doesn’t come to you right away. You may have to be patient. I skim through so much information that I don’t even realize that I learned something. A day or two later, I recall what I saw days earlier. So, pay attention to the things that go on around you and when you least expect it, you might realize that you learned something.

I just re-read this post and learned that not every thought deserves to be a blog post. And that I have no direction for this website right now. That should be easy to remedy. I reall just wanted to start getting some activity going here so the big G would find me. I’ve owned this domain for years and never did anything with it. I learned that that is a shame and if I knew years ago what I know now, this site would be a PR4 site by now. Instead I am just starting out. It will be there soon though.

It’s too bad their racist, anti-American father says things like he “hates the white man” and that he is “not even an American” because those types of comments show how he raised his daughters. They must have some of those feeling deeply rooted in their belief systems too. What does that have to do with Tennis? I have no idea. I think the sisters are excellent tennis players and they obviously deserve all their wins. There is just something about their father that disappoints and annoys me so I thought I’d mention it.

The Williams sisters faced off in the Wimbledon Final today and Venus Williams has beaten her sister Serena Williams to take the women’s Wimbledon final today. It was their first Grand Slam championship in five years. Venus and Serena Williams faced each other in the Wimbledon final for the third time in their careers. It was the seventh time the Williams sisters have battled in a Grand Slam final with the younger Serena holding a 5-1 record over her older sister Venus Williams.

Congratulations to Venus and Serena Williams, especially Venus for her win. The Williams Sisters will be around for a long time to come.

Matt Callen’s email conveys their excitement about Blinkweb well:

…essentially we’ve developed an all-encompassing website creation
service specifically for internet marketers. The tool is free and
I can guarantee it’s the easiest to use, most feature packed system
available anywhere online.

Let’s face it, it should NOT be complicated to create a website. I
mean… C’mon. It’s the year 2008. By now, we shouldn’t be
forced to use bulky html editing software like Dreamweaver or pay
some “techie” thousands of dollars to create a site for us.

For the past 8 months, we’ve been working extremely hard to provide
a solution to this MAJOR problem that ALL OF US face. Well, now
it’s ready for you.

It is not without its limitations and I will be making a more thorough Blinkweb Review post in a day or two, but I can tell you right now, that this website creation too has no equal. It is intuitive and very easy to use. It is all drag-and-drop for the most part with everything a click away. The design and speed is really a site to see. I will be making a Blinkweb Training Site using the Blinkweb software over the next few days (as time permits) so I can show you just how easy it is to make a website or blog using Blinkweb.

There are a lot of Blinkweb Templates included in the free software and they all look great. Some of the Blinkweb Page Templates have a template look to them, but only if you are familiar with the Templates sites on the internet. There are Blinkweb Sales Letter Templates, Blinkweb Page Templates and Blinkweb Blog Templates. At this time there does not appear to be an option to create your own custom Blinkweb templates, but that would be a great feature for developers and designers.

Considering that Blinkweb is a free tool, there is really nothing to complain about. I read in the terms that they may place ads in sites that are developed using Blinkweb, but I haven’t gotten that far along to see what they plan to put on my site once it is published.

As I mentioned, I will be doing a full Blinkweb Review and video within the next few days so look for that right here. Have you created a site using Blinkweb? What do you like and dislike about it? What improvements would you like to see? Post your own Blinkweb Review below.

I’ll be looking into whether or not users can create their own Blinkweb Template. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about how the Blinkweb Templates will work. It is possible that they will have certain templates available with the free service and others available for a fee, or users may be given Blinkweb Template Design specs so they can make their own.

I almost get the impression that Brand and Matt Callen are trying to make a Wordpress-like scenario where people will be making templates for Blinkweb and sharing them around, just like Wordpress templates are.

The Blinkweb software can be used to create sales lettes or mini-sites, full websites and blogs. So sharing how to create and import a Blinkweb Template with users might be a good idea.

What would you like to see Blinkweb do for their templates?

This post originally from http://noovy.com, please stop by and visit us.

Sadly, I was not one of those 1,200 people. I stepped out to get the mail and by the time I got back to my desk, the Blinkweb Tester doors were closed. I shot a quick email to Matt Callen, like many other people did, and they explained:

Thanks for checking it out. I’m sorry about that, but the demand for
Blinkweb is very large. Over 20,000 people were told about Blinkweb the
instant it went live.

However, in just a couple more days we’ll have it PERMANENTLY open. Sign up
for the relaunch notification located on the bottom right hand side of the
homepage and you will be notified when Blinkweb is open permanently. It
should only be a couple days.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but in order to ensure that Blinkweb is
fully capable of handling the amount of users we expect, we needed to cap
the initial launch to 1,000 users.

I was able to check out some of the site however and it looks great, especially the Blinkweb Templates which have a very professional look to them, which is something I was concerned about. I look forward to the Blinkweb Re-Launch after their load testing is complete. That is a very important step and I’m glad the Callen’s decided to start off with a limited number of Blinkweb users.

Since the beginning of March, the FBI has arrested over 400 people in a sting dubbed “Operation Malicious Mortgage.” On just one day, yesterday, sixty people, including real estate players in Chicago, Miami and Houston. Hundreds of people were swept up in these mortgage fraud arrests. Matthew Tannin and Ralph Cioffi were arrested and charged with conspiracy, mortgage fraud and wire fraud and possibly other charges.

Since March 1, a total of 406 people have been arrested in Operation Malicious Mortgage that saw 144 cases across the country. FBI Director Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip have announced the national crackdown which has been dubbed Operation Malicious Mortgage, this afternoon in Washington.

The charges against Matthew Tannin and Ralph Cioffi that the FBI have officially stated is lying to their shareholders when the managers knew that their hedge fund was in the toilet. This is fraud plain and simple. This hedge fund was known to make all or most of their big bets on sub prime mortgage related securities. PErsonally, I hope they get locked up for a long, long time. I am feeling their actions in my daily life as are many other people. The credit crisis will continue to get worse and I’m glad to see the FBI and the Justice Department getting so involved with Operation Malicious Mortgage and take such aggressive action.

Tim Russert was also the recipient of 48 honorary doctorates. He took over at “Meet the Press” in December 1991. “Meet the Press” is now in its 60th year and is the longest-running program in the history of television.

Further details on Tim Russert’s death are not available at this time. Russert had an incredibly successful career and did what he loved to do right up until the very end. All the news anchors covering this story are practically tearing up as they tell their stories about Tim Russert. Tom Brokaw in particular.

Tim’s wife, Maureen Orth, is a writer for Vanity Fair. He also has a son, Luke who he was very close with. Tim was a bog believer in transparency and was not afraid to let people see how he did his job. He always pulled out his white board to show his audience what he was talking about.

Tim Russert received numerous honors and recognitions in his career. Here are some from MSNBC:

In 2008, Time Magazine named Tim Russert one of the 100 most influential people in the world. That is an impressive title to hold.

In 2005, Tim Russert was awarded an Emmy for his role in the coverage of the funeral of President Ronald Reagan. His “Meet the Press” interviews with George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000 won the Radio and Television Correspondents’ highest honor, the Joan S. Barone Award, and the Annenberg Center’s Walter Cronkite Award.

Russert wrote two books — “Big Russ and Me” in 2004 and “Wisdom of Our Fathers” in 2006 — both of which were New York Times best-sellers.

Russert’s March 2000 interview of Sen. John McCain shared the 2001 Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence in Television Journalism. He was also the recipient of the John Peter Zenger Award, the American Legion Journalism Award, the Veterans of Foreign Wars News Media Award, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society Journalism Award, the Allen H. Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism, the David Brinkley Award for Excellence in Communication and the Catholic Academy for Communication’s Gabriel Award. He was a member of the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame.

Russert was a trustee of the Freedom Forum’s Newseum and a member of the board of directors of the Greater Washington Boys and Girls Club, and America’s Promise — Alliance for Youth.

In 1995, the National Father’s Day Committee named him “Father of the Year,” Parents magazine honored him as “Dream Dad” in 1998, and in 2001 the National Fatherhood Initiative also recognized him as Father of the Year.

Irish America magazine named him one of the top 100 Irish Americans in the country, and he was selected as a Fellow of the Commission of European Communities.

Tim Russert will be missed by many, many people. More to come on this somber news.