The Amazing King Midas

As you know, each year Forbes releases a list of The World’s Billionaires for two years the top 3 was dominated by the same 3 titans, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Carlos Slim Helú, until now. It seems that a few days ago the Mexican billionaire, best known as “King Midas” reached the second position removing Buffett of his place of honor. Forbes hasn’t updated the list, but they announced it in this article.The most incredible thing is not the fact that he’s worth $53.1 billion, but the way he achieve it in very few time. It took him less than two months to add the amazing amount of $4 billion to his personal fortune. Some experts say that if Slim continues with this tendency he will remove Gates from the first place very soon, and he will become the World’s richest man.

He’s only $2.9 billion bellow Bill Gates. But remember that he’s currently making $2.2 million per hour!. Some of his many talents are that he is an excellent economist and that he has the ability to rise broken companies. He’s really an example of success and vision. But what can we learn from the titan? obviously a lot of things like for example:

– Never guide yourself for other’s opinions.

– Never accept “Impossible” for an answer.

– See further than others.

– Have the ability to see the potential success where others only see failure.

The Lounge is Back!

There was a small problem with our server in California, maybe you were receiving an error or a blank page while trying to access to The Lounge, It seems that our hosting provider is making some changes, that’s why our blog was offline for some hours, I apologize for the inconvenience and thanks you for your patience, but now everything seems to be just fine, we’re back!. I’m going to leave the previous post until tomorrow to give you time to read it, tomorrow I’ll publish a new one.

If for any reason you continue experiencing problems, please be patience, I can assure you that I’m doing everything to solve this issue. I’m even planning to change to another hosting company.

10 Famous Quotes About … Blogging

So far I’ve published only two posts on “10 famous quotes about…”; success, and dreams. Now I think it is time to try something a little bit different, I’ve also noticed that there are not famous quotes about this medium, I mean, maybe there are two ore three out there, but we need something more let’s say…. relevant, more inspiring, that’s why I decided to write this post, I want to invite all of you to participate in this small contest, there’s no prize this time, but you can make a big difference, it’ll only take you less than two minutes and you can even achieve immortality in the blogging world if you come up with a very creative and inspiring phrase ;-).

Try and show us why you think you are a rising star, let us know that you dare to be outstanding, give it a try and show us all that you can, that you really have what it takes and that you really have a creative side and that you can come up with a good quote about this amazing industry. Your contribution can be positive, neutral or negative, the best 10 quotes will be featured in this site, and credit will be granted to each author, so at least you’ll receive a nice backlink from The Lounge.

Send me your quote by email or just post it in a comment, after that spread the word! Let everyone know that your quote can become famous. Contribute and share. Who starts?

Best Of The Best 2

It is time for another edition of Best of The Best, the result of our Blog Relations campaign, where you can get a backlink from this blog for each post you write in your site that makes reference to one of our articles. These are very interesting posts from our neighbor blogs, I hope you like them, really interesting and useful information. Ok, so here they are, hope you like them and most important learn from them.

The Write to Right Blog is one of those great sites where you can find resources and blogs that offer link exchange programs. The Lounge was included in this site, but it also has interesting articles about business and sales, check it out.

Court has an excellent article called 102 ways to make your site a backlink superstar , I enjoy reading this kind of posts because first, I like lists, and second because they are very inspiring. Good work Court.

Sean owns a great blog which I really like, I discovered just two days ago.One of the things I like from Sean’s blog is his logo, please check it. it’s really amazing, simple but creative and direct. it forms a $ symbol. good work Sean.

Another blog I really enjoy is GarryConn.com He gave me a very good idea when I was reading one of his posts, The Blog Money Tree basically Garry’s idea is to gather 15 blogs that are making money and put them in this tree, simple, but it is a good way to gain backlinks and exposure.

Ok, that’s all for now. Many interesting posts will be published soon, so stay around as always. If you want to be part of our next Best of The Best edition just read this post and follow the very very simple instructions!

We Have a Winner!

Comment.Zation V1 is over, the first edition of our top commentators contest is officially closed and we have a winner of a logo design! Congratulations to Santosh he wrote 12 valuable comments. I must say that I’m satisfied with the results of this contest, I was expecting more comments and more participation but it’s ok, I think that 65 in one week is excellent number, I hope to receive more from you for the next edition.

As I said, and as you know the prize was a complete logo design for a blog or website, this is because we are discussing the importance of branding and the importance of a good brand. That’s why Santosh is going to receive a great logo design and branding for his blog. Thanks a lot to all of you for posting your comments in our articles, and please dare to comment more, get prepared because all comments from now on are going to be counted for the next Comment.Zation V2 count starts at zero again, so participate!. As soon as the new logo is finished I’ll present it to you Santosh, now come and claim your prize!

Six Signs Of a Weak Brand

We still are in our Blog Branding Week, in this post I’m going to explain you how to define if a brand is weak, since we still are in the Blog Branding Week, just transfer my words to the blogging medium, but these signs make evident the weakness of any brand.

It’s not easy to convince people to invest their valuable time, attention and of course money in your brand, at least not as it used to be, and it’s not easy either to convince business owners and entrepreneurs to invest time and money in their brands. Why? there are many reasons to explain this situation, some of them are:

• Because the don’t know about the importance and power of a good brand.
• Because they simply don’t want to invest in something they think is worthless (Wrong)
• Because they don’t believe in intangibles
• Because they prefer to focus on other aspects of a business.

But there are hundreds of reasons. The truth is that nowadays with an increasing amount of competitors in all fields and industries it’s more important to focus on the soul and image of a business. Maybe there are thousands of people that offer the same product as you do, and with the same quality, then you’ll need something more, a powerful and relevant brand. Ok, now let’s say you have a brand, a good one, at least that’0s what you think, how can you determine if you have a good brand? is it powerful? or, is it weak? well, here are some thing you might want to think about to see if you have a weak brand.

– No one can remember your logo and image.

– The value of your company is the sum of your tangible assets.

– You can’t define in one sentence your brand.

– You can’t define what differentiates you from your direct competitors.

– Your brand has no vision, mission or values at all.

– If someone knows your business, they know about it because of you and not because of the brand.

Those are strong signs telling you that you have a weak brand, if you have at least one of them, you must be doing something wrong. Try to define what the problem is, and focus in solving it, remember that you have to take care of your business image and above all of your brand.

WordPress Theme. Capri 1.0!

Ok, It’s been almost a week since I released my third WordPress theme, Tarento 1.0. Now it is time for a new one, the brand new Capri 1.0! a two column , widget ready theme very easy to use with a very stylish and clean design, main colors are beige and blue, with some details in orange. Capri gives an fresh look to any blog, and it is great for all kind of topics, the image in the top is very easy to replace and colors are very easy to match.

This new theme is ready for you to download. Since I released my first theme for public use my two previous themes have been downloaded more than 1,000 times, let’s see how this new creation works.

Click here to visit the Download and Preview site

Comment.Zation V1. 4 Days Left

Only four days left of our first Comment.Zation edition, you can still be the lucky winner of a logo design for your blog or website, just leave a comment in any of the posts of this blog, but remember that only relevant comments will be approved. Our current top commentator has 11 comments so you still have enough time to climb to the top and become the lucky winner of this simple contest, posting a comment only takes you less than a minute , this means that if you spend only 5 minutes you can reach the first position and win a logo design. So what are you waiting for, just take a look to our archives and choose an interesting post (all our posts are very interesting) and start commenting! Don’t let this great opportunity pass you by.

Open Bar At The Lounge! You Decide!

As part of the Blog Branding Series and in relation to the previous post about the importance of readers and subscribers I decided to publish this small post. In the previous article I wrote about how important are readers for a blog, and I told you that one thing all blog owners should do is take care of their readers, because they are the ones that drive our success, well, that’s why I decided to publish an “Open Bar” post, the main purpose of this entry is to let you know that you can decide what kind of things you want to see here in The Lounge, you can suggest whatever you want.

I really want to take care of my readers and subscribers, I want to make you feel comfortable within this walls. Remember that The Lounge has No cover! So This is a great opportunity to show us what you’ve got! You you decide! Remember that post I wrote about 5 things you should know about Blogger Lounge? Well, now it is the right moment to speak , if you want to know about an specific topic or if have an interesting idea, tip or suggestion that you want to share with The Lounge, just do it! Contact me or leave your suggestion in a comment. And spread the word!

PS. Credit will be granted.

Branding Assets. Readers Are the Ones That Drive Your Success

There are many elements and things that can help increase your chances of success with your blog, some of them, as I said before are those that give your blog a unique touch, like the logo, the layout and the style of your posts, but what are these without readers?, what’s your blog without your readers or subscribers? simple, it is nothing. It is just another nice looking site in the immense blogosphere, just that. But, on the other hand, a blog that has a wide readership base with a powerful traffic stream has more chances of achieving success. Combine this with the unique look and touch, and there’ll be no limits.

Focus on increasing your readership base, and then add the special elements of branding and you’ll have the perfect formula for success. Tangible assets are limited ; money, technology, backlinks, number of posts, but those intangible elements are the ones that can make you go higher, those are unlimited assets, like your brand identity and the power and relevancy of your name.

Focus on your readers, and always take care of them if they go away, try to bring them back, if you can’t, then try to charm new ones, gain their loyalty, keep trying. There is a very good quote I read somewhere out there, I really don’t remember where, that says “Failure is more instructive than success” and it is, So that’s my best advice about branding assets, but not only in the Web, but also in life, readers = customers.

Remember that your readers will keep coming back if:

– You give them what they want. Simple.

– You provide them something unique and different.

– You are always creating and implementing new ideas, in few words if you give them a dynamic experience.

– You let them be part of your success.

– You make them feel like home.

Oh!, one more thing, never think that because you have enough readers you can sit down and relax completely without implementing new things, no! If you do so, you’ll lose your readers in less than a month.

« Previous Page — Next Page »

Advertisement