Jan
11
It’s been a long, jet-lag-filled post-holiday week here in the House of Kev, so my post this week will be devoid of the usual top-flight content-creation advice and Algonquin-Roundtable-worthy bon mots. Instead I’m going to point you to a potential moneymaking resource that I could see myself using someday. Mostly I’m curious to see what you all think of it.
It’s called WordHugger, and as I mentioned in my title, it’s not dissimilar to Squidoo, in that it allows users to create pages centered around specific topics. It bears one fairly major difference, however — it’s a paid service.
Collin LaHay, WordHugger’s developer, markets the site as a method of investing via microlending — he even offers a money-back guarantee. A page costs $60 for ten years; each page revolves around a single word, like Wikipedia or dating, and uses can do whatever they like with them — add clickthroughs or affiliate links, or fill them with random and seemingly useless information.
Overall LaHay seems pretty knowledgeable when it comes to SEO and online revenue streams; his blog is full of useful information, and one of his most recent posts, titled “Top Ten Reasons This Post Will Be Popular on Digg,” recently took the top spot on, well, Digg. So clearly this is a guy who’s got his head in the right place when it comes to monetizing and marketing.
What I’m having trouble figuring out is why anyone would choose WordHugger over Squidoo; the best reason I can come up with is altruism, since half of the profits from WordHugger go to Kiva, a nonprofit organization that offers microloans to entrepreneurs in developing countries (LaHay claims the other half goes to pay off his student loans). I think that’s a great idea, but will it take off among an audience of Web-based entrepreneurs? My own dim view of human nature makes me wonder.
LaHay also recently introduced a new site called rssHugger, which is similar in scope. We’ll talk about that next week.
Popularity: 13% [?]
As a concept, it seems to be fairly similar to the million dollar wiki, will be interesting to see how this one performs
Alan Johnson
Hi Kevin
Did you realize that Squidoo gives hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to charities around the world? We donate 5% off the top, plus half of the revenue from each page if the person building that page keeps the settings at the default. And it’s free.
That sounds like a conscience to me!
Both websites and any companies who offer a helping hand to people who are in need, for that matter, deserve to be praised, that is definitely not an issue
Alan Johnson