IceComet

Those days are slowly changing.

With the popularity of MMORPG’s such as Runescape and World of Warcraft, even games such as Neopets, it’s becoming easier and easier for Teens to make money under the nose of their parents without having to deal drugs, or get a real job. Great news, right?

Not so much.

When I began dealing in virtual currencies at the age of 14 (yes, fourteen) I was making more money than I could possibly have made mowing lawns, doing chores, or helping out around the house. When I started asking my parents to buy stuff with my earnings (primarily a new computer desk, and computer (building my own was quite fun!)), they surprisingly encouraged me, not understanding that what I was doing was technically illegal and I could have got into major trouble. What most parents of our modern generation might not understand is the problems and potential benefits of this new form of teen entrepreneurialism at its finest, and while it may seem like they are getting out of having to pay an allowance, what is the cost of the behavior?

Firstly; the greatest problem with this behavior is probably obvious — it will likely lead to wreck-less financial management down the road. If you give a 14 year old money he never thought he would have, just because he was able to play a game successfully, the value of money is quickly diminished. It seems easy enough to earn a nice amount of income with the few expenses you have at such a young age. As a result of this “epiphany” of sorts, the most noticeable change that anyone will see is a greatly lessened interest in School. It is nearly the same theory about taking a break after high school before pursuing a post-secondary education. Once you get the taste of money, it will never leave your mouth and you will always want more. For most modern-day merchants, this is exactly what happens. For me — it meant nearly dropping out of high school in the 9th grade, and it doesn’t stop there.

Aside from the poor management thing for a minute, the greatest part is that an entire generation is learning the ins and outs of copyright infringement and intellectual property…

While I really hate (such a strong word, yes - but it fits) the RIAA, MPAA, and all the copyright fiend lawyers who exist in the world, it does kind of set a bad precedent to see the rewards of such behavior, and with time it will only exacerbate the problem, especially when at the exact same time efforts are stepping up all over the world to be able to enforce intellectual property, copyrights, and the like.

Now that we have bad fiscal management, and law breaking — we now move on to the fun part. Evasion!

While it may seem like a joke, companies apparently do not like having their games undermined to such an extreme and (in some cases) they enjoy sending out Cease and Desist letters. If you wish to survive in the business you quickly learn it’s ‘adapt or die’ time. What does this mean? Simple - offshore hosting, fake domain name registrations, and addresses. Selling virtual currencies really is easy with a little bit of know how, and the money it earns is easily re-invested in all the previous stated methodologies.

Hell! I was the only kid in my class who knew what PayPal was, how to use it, how to use my parents bank cards (Oops, sorry mom!) and stuff to purchase hosting, buy currency, sell it, and such — no real good can come from this knowledge at such a young age, completely ignoring the fact that you’re supposed to be 18 to use PayPal - I had money, what else did I have to care about?

While I’m all for the entrepreneurial spirit, selling Virtual Currencies online may be a bit of an extreme form of enablement, and I would caution parents if they have a teenager who suddenly comes into a large sum of money not to just question if they’re dealing drugs, but if they’re dealing the drug of the 21st century: Virtual Currencies.

It is important to note that some games do not make any objections to virtual currency selling or exchanging and some of the legal risks to not exist in that case, but it’s also important to remember your teenager is engaging in financial transactions online and there are some risks which they may not be prepared for, such as losing money, exposing personal information, and the like. It’s best to keep the situation under control if you do permit your child to engage in this so called “internet black market” as things can go very sour, very quickly. I was never served with legal papers, but I knew people who were. It was all about trying to stay one step ahead of these corporations trying to enforce their copyrights and intellectual property; it was fun, crazy, and incredibly stressful, but I loved being an adrenaline junky. But now, knowing the risks — I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I do credit my modern day success to the foundation I established learning what no one else would teach me - How to do business and how to be successful.

…and it didn’t even involve a scale.

With the growing popularity of Blogs around the web, people have come up with creative ways of using their framework to support entire websites and provide ease of use for not only administrators but also users.

After browsing countless forums and PHP tutorials trying to find a decent idea for a CMS framework I finally succumbed to the idea that you really can use WordPress as a CMS, but the potential of it never really is fully explored by most webmasters. I am here to change that.

SEO

For SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to be most effective, most people believe that you need to have a constant front page, which you use for primary ranking purposes, tweaking text and other factors. Most people think of “blogs” as being a page with sometimes up to 50 posts all in one go, half the time each post being about a different subject. The best way that I’ve found to combat this is to use WordPress’ built in “Static Front Page” feature (available in the “Options” tab). This allows you the flexibility and control of having a home page which is always the same, with the ability to add content literally with the click of a few mouse and keystrokes.

Layouts

By far, the best thing about WordPress however is that there is an entire community of people who spent the time creating layouts for people to use. You can literally upload a few files to your server and have an entirely new layout and look in a matter of minutes, with minimal changes required. Unlike with a custom system, layouts that do not cover a static framework tend to be coded vastly different and can require sometimes hours of butchering and manipulating to get everything to line up properly. For efficiency, a CMS should be easily customizable not only on the coding level, but also on the visual level. WordPress gives you the chance of changing things quickly, without having to modify countless articles and blogs to make them stay compatible.

Security

The greatest problem that I have come across with writing a custom CMS (Which I have done before) is worrying about security and if your data is safe from people who may wish to do harm. In contrast, WordPress has not only an entire community of people constantly reporting, fixing, and scouting out bugs and security flaws, but there is also an incredibly fast turn around time in security. As long as you keep up to date with the security releases published by WordPress, there is less of a chance that something catastrophic will happen to your website, and if it does…

Backups!

I tell nearly everyone who is starting out in the web industry to make sure they have everything properly backed up in multiple places. After all, we are dealing almost entirely with technology here, and unfounded accidents tend to happen on a frequent basis. WordPress offers an entire backup of all of your post, pages, comment, and user data with the click of a mouse, and you can download it to your computer, burn it to a CD — or if you’re feeling particularly snarky, you can bury the newly burned data in your backyard!

Ad Integration

I would be kidding myself if I expected that everyone online created websites and blogs for the sheer sake of helping people and providing information. The real fact of the matter is that people want to make money. WordPress’ template system makes implimenting and integrating ads into your entire website entirely easy. I would just caution overly invasive ad techniques (IE: Putting 2 giant blocks in the middle of a post) as it mayput-off visitors to your site, but never-the-less - making a bit of money off your hard work and time really isn’t difficult with WordPress.

Conclusion

In conclusion; not only does wordpress provide the functionality, interactivity, and ease of use that is necessary for any website to be successful, it also provides it at no cost. Having once been a doubter of the “out-of-the-box” systems that people kept talking about, I am now an avid encourager and promoter of these methods for the stated reasons.

What are you waiting for? Download WordPress today and get started!

http://wordpress.org/

Rarely does a day go by now days when I don’t come up with 5-10 website ideas that I think are really decent, in fact — it’s almost overwhelming. Having your mind racing this much makes it harder and harder to stay focused. Making money online really is adrenaline of sorts, you’re not risking huge amounts of money, but you do have quite a lot of time invested into a project, and it’s always an ego kill to see one of them not work out as intended.

The first thing that I force myself to do is write down the idea. Even if I ‘nix’ it now, in a month, or a year (it happens) I could go back through the binders that I keep related to web development and see something that seems possible now, or more realistic. You never want to really just throw an idea away, lots of people spend a lot of time trying to figure out a great idea for a website, you should never take them for granted! However, to stay focused you must get them out of your mind and finish the project at hand.

Once you have the ideas laying on the table, it becomes easy to separate yourself from them and get a clear perspective allowing you to do the necessary time and research at a later date. If you have 10 ideas, it will become obvious that there are one or two that will likely stick out to you, that you can simply visualize. Sketch it, make more notes — do whatever you have to do. The best thing that happens is when you find a way to take the other 8 ideas that are on the table, and find ways to integrate them into the 2 ideas, or other websites that you already have. Remember, you can easily recycle functionality from website to website — that isn’t a sin.

The biggest mistake that I made when I was just starting out is being far to eager, not doing the proper research, and estimating the “worth” of a site, instead rushing over to my favorite Domain Registrar (Dynadot) and purchasing a few domains. When you’re just starting out this can take a major hit on the bottom line. Domains that you don’t use are simply excess cost than you really need. Unless you are absolutely sure that the idea is a “go” or that the domain has some monetary value attached to itself, there really is no harm in waiting until you’re closer to being ready to start the project. Time really is money, and while it may be just a few cents per day but on a long term scale, it can be quite costly.