Shane did a post yesterday that caught my attention – he asked, what happened to Morgan Linton? In the post he says “Every other day he was introducing some new site…” In 2010 I announced on my blog, at conferences, and on live video that I knew it was time to change my business model. I did just that and this year I’ve been focusing on building real businesses and releasing a few times a year rather than a few times a week.
Just so you all know Shane and I are good buddies so don’t take any of this as a negative towards Shane. It was confusing to me though since I’ve been keeping all of you informed of everything I’ve been doing and most of the comments and emails I get from people are asking how the heck I have the time to do it all!
Well I wrote a big long response to Shane’s posts filling him on what I’ve been doing this year, if you read my blog all the time this will be mostly review for you but if not here it is – what I’ve been up to in 2011!
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Anyone whose been reading my blog for a long time should see the incredible INCREASE in time I’m giving it this year. Rather than writing short posts with things that are on my mind I am planning my posts more and trying to ask questions to get people engaged. I am paying careful attention to which posts get the most reads and interactivity to make sure that I’m writing content that people enjoy reading about. The blog is taking more time every day than last year but I think it’s worth it since I can really put more time and energy into each and every post.As for my business, my revenue grew 8x 2010 over 2009 and 2011 I’m on-track to have my first six-figure year. As I’ve been sharing on my blog the way to make this leap was to pull away from mini-sites and launching a new site every week and focusing on building brands.
Building brands means not just putting-together a little five page site and announcing it on my blog like it’s a big deal – it’s not and that method of real monetization is dead.
Two weeks ago I announced that the Xelot algorithm is now patent pending. I’ve been talking about Xelot on my blog and all the time and energy that’s gone into this. With this project Daina and I are working together 12+ hours every single weekend and just about every free minute we have after work on the weekdays. Writing an algorithm that is ten of thousands of lines of code is a LOT of work. It is much different than what I did before building small websites and getting them ranked well in search, this is actually creating a revolutionary system that we think people will love.
To that end Daina and I have been reading a ton of books and article about product launches, setting-up beta teams, PR, etc. in preparation for the launch of our first major brand. Beta testing begins this week with 30 people!
Also last week on my blog I discussed my new book which I’ve been working on since last year – it’s been a lot of work and I keep extending the release date, but the time has come. I have put more work into this book than any piece of writing I have ever produced, I am very proud of what I put-together and think it will be a great asset to the community.
Kayaking.org is quickly becoming the #1 site Kayakers use to find kayaking tour and adventure companies. We have close to 1,000 locations in our database and are ranking for over 30 kayaking-related terms we’ve been targeting.
HotelCritic.org has been taken to the next level with a brand new design, new logo, and dedicated staff member adding videos and photos to the site.
Along with MorganLinton.com I have put ccTLDInvestors.com back in action and am starting to post on it more frequently. I also run a travel blog that I started last year http://www.CivilizedTravel.net and Daina and I write a wine blog at BlogAboutWine.com and just started a wine TV show at http://www.WineLovers.tv
I just finished my first Travel book and it is available for free from CivilizedTravel.net!
I’ve gone to five conferences so far this year and covered all of them on my blog including extensive video coverage from Domain RoundTable in the Bahamas.
I filmed 10 interviews at DOMAINfest 2011 for DomainInvesting.tv and we are getting closer every day to release the first episode. This has been a wildly expensive project and I’m not making anything here, it’s just a lot of fun and I think the results will be spectacular!
In January our company had it’s first partnership! We partnered with Domain Advisors, a PPX company. You can read more about this on DNJournal.
As for MorganLinton.tv – as you can tell by everything that’s going on this year there just hasn’t been the time. Launching a full scale business like Xelot, growing a brand like Kayaking.org, writing two books, writing four blogs, attending five conferences – these things take time! Remember I do have a full-time job that takes-up about ten hours a day – so yes, there is little time for sleep!!
I appreciate all the support for MorganLinton.tv – it IS coming back this year and in a major way. However…it’s not going to happen until Xelot, the book, and DomainInvesting.tv are out – it’s all about quality this year, not quantity. It’s about building businesses, engaging people and creating what is hopefully a truly enchanting company.
I am getting less sleep than last year, working longer hours, and working entire weekends from Saturday morning until Sunday night to do it all. It’s worth it 100% – surprising though that my buddy Shane didn’t notice! I love Shane, he’s the man and I really hope nobody takes this as some weird feud. I read Shane’s blog daily and think he is one of the best people in our community, period. He not only understands Domaining but really understands how to build a business. I wanted to make sure that none of his readers thought I had vanished into oblivious when in reality, as all of you know, I am working harder than I ever have in my entire life.
Have a great Sunday everyone and if you’ve made it this far – thanks for reading!
