2006 Year In Review

What an amazing year! I started 2006 with a several goals. Some I achieved, some I didn’t. One of them was to make this blog into something worth reading.

JohnChow.com is just my miscellaneous ramblings about whatever is on my mind. However, I would hope that my ramblings are worth reading. My stats show that over 100 people read this blog everyday. If reading my blog does something good for you, no matter how small, then updating this blog is worth my time.

The blog experienced tremendous growth in 2006. Thanks to some great articles that made the front page of Digg and other social media sites, John Chow dot Com got transformed from a small personal blog to the 1,379th biggest blog on the Net, according to Technorati. The blog went from making zero to more than $2,000 per month in less than three months.

New Daughter Sally Chow

Sally Chow

The highlight of 2006 happened on September 9th at 12:58AM. That’s the exact time Sally Chow came into this world. Having Sally has really helped to refocus my energies to achieving my goals. Not only did I get a new daughter in 2006 but so did my brother. I’m sure the two cousins will grow up to be best of friends.

1999 All Over Again

The Internet continues to grow at a crazy rate in 2006. We’re seeing crazy valuation placed on unprofitable companies with unproven business models. The buying frenzy that started in 2005 continued. The biggest buyout of the year; Google paying $1.65 billion for video sharing site YouTube.

Yes, 2006 was a great year to be online. Google is no longer the only advertising game in town. If you ran a blog or content site, you saw more and more ad revenue sources become available. Companies like Text Link Ads (aff), PayPerPost and ReviewMe entered the market and open up entirely new advertising mediums.

In a final sign that It’s like 1999 all over again, 2006 saw AllAdvantage come back to life as AGLOCO. The new company is barely a month old and has already signed up over 100,000 members, with a goal of 10 million members by July 1st, 2007.

Goals For 2007

The end of the year is when everyone makes resolution for the New Year. I don’t believe in resolution because they’re too easy to break. I believe in making clearly defined goals and with that in mind, and in no particular order, these are my goals for 2007.

Revamp TTZ Media Network

TTZ Media Network will get a complete makeover in 2007. My coder is going to rewrite the engine that powers the shopping ads you see on this blog and other TTZ properties. The revamp engine will allow TTZ Media to accept lower traffic sites, and even blogs, into the network. Right now, the engine code is set up in such a way that I really can’t afford to deal with sites with less than 250,000 page views per month.

Build The AGLOCO Network

I signed up over 10,000 people and made $25,000 from AllAdvantage before the Internet crashed. This time around, AGLOCO has a much better business model. I signed up for AGLOCO on November 22nd and have signed up 2,455 people so far. My goal is to have 5,500 to 7,000 referrals by Viewbar release and 30,000 referrals by end of 2007. You can help me achieve this goal by joining my AGLOCO network.

Help More People Achieve Their Internet Goals

Seeing other people succeed at their goals is in itself a reward and I will continue to do that in 2007 and beyond. It is my hope that the information I post on this blog will help you achieve some of your Internet goals. When you succeed, I succeed because you’ll tell all your friends about me. Nothing beats word of mouth advertising!

Give More To Charities

While it’s better to give a hand up than a hand out, sometimes you have to give a hand out before you can give a hand up. In addition to our normal charitable giving, the income from this blog is divided between local charities and Sally’s trust fund. The blog gave $2,000 to church and charities in 2006. I plan to drastically increase that number in 2007.

Strengthen The Family

Family is the foundation of growth. Without family, you don’t have a past or a future. I have a new daughter and I want give her every advantage possible. Sarah’s parents are here from Shanghai on a Visitor’s Visa. I plan to sponsor them to be Canadian Permanent Residents. Spending time with family is one of the most important things in the world. One of the nice thing about being a Dot Com Mogul is I have a lot of time to spend on the truly important things in life.

Make This Blog Into Something Big

Last year, my goal was to make this blog into something worth reading. I believe I have achieved that. Now, I want to make it into something big. I want to break into the top 100 Technorati blogs. That will require a lot of work, but it’s something I’m looking forward to doing.

Thank You

I want to thank every reader of my blog. You are the reason I keep writing. Your emails and comments drives me to keep outdoing myself. Thank you for an amazing 2006 and I look forward to serving you in 2007.