So it’s official! I’m no longer a resident of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and I am finally moved into my new home in Edmonton, Alberta. It feels good to start a new life in a new province and hey it makes it all better when the city is home to your second favorite hockey team…

Let’s just put it this way though, moving SUCKS and I’m so glad to be done with it.

I didn’t get a chance to be as active as I usually am this past week but still there was plenty of news and trends happening in the traffic exchange industry. Here’s what I noticed during the past week or so…

- Sweeva hit 20,000 members! Boy oh boy was I pumped when I saw it click over. I’ve been a part of a lot of programs during my decade plus in this business but nothing has excited me more than seeing the growth of Sweeva and the massive potential it has. Special thanks to EVERYONE who has made this such an amazing experience…We are just getting started!

- We hit 20% of our goal at Traffic Exchanges Care. Over $1000 has been raised so far to fight water shortage around the world but we still need your help. Special thanks to Winter Perkins for creating that amazing new splash page. Please feel free to use it or download the image and use it wherever you can! We need your help, so please donate if you can spare a dollar or two =)

- T.E. Profits got a major overhaul and was relaunched this week. I’m upset that I didn’t get to give this the attention it deserved with my moving obligations. And Scott Douglas, in my opinion, is the perfect example of someone who ‘gets it’ when it comes to making money WITH traffic exchanges. He doesn’t own one but still manages to be one of the most popular and effective traffic exchange advertisers in history. T.E. Profits is a must join for any serious traffic exchange marketer.

- I was pretty upset this weekend too for getting a Pay Pal dispute filed against me from a FELLOW traffic exchange owner. This pretty much left me ranting away in NMF and caused me to potentially lose some business but to be honest, when someone files a false dispute against you, doesn’t attempt at all to call you and work the issue out and it’s from another traffic exchange owner…Well…Good riddance. Filing unwarranted Pay Pal disputes is BAD for our entire industry!

- And finally, I’m thrilled to see all the changes taking place at IM Faceplate. The guys at Logiscape are really trying to build something special here and slowly this is becoming a wonderful place to grow your network. Remember, all this internet marketing stuff is useless without a solid network of contacts. Get out there and meet your fellow surfers!

That’s it for this week. We’re also back every day at T.E. Live, so do stop by for some water cooler chit chat and maybe a Tim Linden ‘blend or two’…

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A quick review of Hit Exchange News will show you that I’m not a fan of cash for surfing. I still believe to this day that when this became the ‘norm’ in this industry, results were lowered. A huge shift happened in the way people surf the traffic exchanges…And it was not for the best.

However, I’m not just going to have an opinion without explaining it more and offering a solution.

Cash for surfing comes in a lot of different forms. Now a program like Easy Hits 4 U was built on the cash for surfing model. This I don’t have issues with because it never tried to be anything else. I like Easy Hits 4 U, heck I’ve got a downline of over 27,000 in it but when I promote there I know the majority of people are surfing for their 30 cents. No problem, I’ll use it for branding purposes and I do get results there but I know it’s going to take a lot of credits to see some action.

Again, this is just my opinion and experience, some people get massive results from the program and that’s cool. I just know what I’m signing up for, it’s the same thing I expect when I advertise in the PTC’s.

Where I have issues with cash surfing is not only the enormous amount of garbage emails that these traffic exchanges are sending of late (I mean seriously, how many times a week do I have to hear about $1.50 or $2.50 cash links becoming active….) but from the mind set it creates with surfers.

When traffic exchanges started it was as simple as this…Surf and look at sites…In return, you get people looking at your site.
So simple and one of the reasons I think traffic exchanges are so effective. But now we have another reason people surf and that’s to earn their 25 cents for surfing two thousand pages…

So while these people may be taking an odd glance or two at your site, what they are really looking at is how many more clicks is it going to take them to earn their cash reward. Now some people will argue, there is nothing wrong with rewarding people with a cash prize or two for surfing all day but I disagree. Simply because the mind set of the surfer changes the moment you focus on the end reward of cash gifting which I’m sorry to say, isn’t getting traffic to their site, branding their name or heaven forbid…Building their list.

But Jon…You have Bracket Surfing at I Love Hits and you are giving away prizes like iPod’s and Flip HD cameras. Yes I am, but I have made a major change in Bracket Surfing to bring the focus back to USING the system for the right reasons. You can read more about that here.

But Jon…You dislike cash for surfing but what are you doing to change it….

Sweeva’s Widget Hunt

With our new feature at Sweeva, we are trying to not only get users and advertisers to work together and get rewarded together, we are trying to keep eye balls where we should have them…On the web sites. This new feature makes sure people are LOOKING at your site and poking around to find the Widgets. Yeah they may have an end goal of clicking the Widget for a potential prize but the main thing is this…To get that prize, they have to search and LOOK at your site.

A perfect solution? Naw, nothing is ever perfect but we’re working on making Sweeva THE most effective advertising exchange on the net. And I truly believe, the more we focus on the sites in rotation and less on the surf bar telling us we won a dime, we will see focus come back to the real reason traffic exchanges exist…

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