Squirrelinabox Network (http://www.squirrelinabox.com)

With the new year comes a few changes. One of those is the discontinuation of my monthly earnings reports… for now. I do plan on adding a similar feature in the future though I’m still working out exactly how I want to present it. I’ve found the way I was posting the information previously to be a bit confusing for some of the numbers and descriptions were ambiguous.

I won’t deprive you of all information though as I will say that, like most sites, my earnings did slip quite a bit after the holiday season (nearly 30 percent!). I fully expect my January earnings to be the lowest my earnings will get this year. With a few fairly big projects planned for the upcoming months, I’m hoping my earnings will be well above my December earnings by mid-year. Wishful thinking? Of course. That doesn’t mean it won’t come true though right?

Alright ladies and gentlemen; it’s time for me to made my wildly speculative predictions for what I think I’ll be able to accomplish in 2008. Okay, so my predictions last year were actually pretty accurate, but trying to set out a roadmap for all my projects for an entire year is guesswork at best. Anyway, on to the list!

Company Name and Website
It made my list last year and since I didn’t do it, it against makes the list. I need to come up with a company name for my online presence and a website to go along with it. I’m building up a list of possibilities and hopefully I’ll actually pick one and go with it some time this year.

1 Large New Website
I’ve already started work on a brand new website that’s a fairly big project. It deals with a genre/niche that I’ve yet to tackle though the functionality of the site will loosely resemble a few different sites I’ve already created. I’m hoping to have it ready for public beta some time in February or March.

1 Web Game
I have a few ideas for some simple web games that should be pretty fun to make (and hopefully fun to play). I’m hoping to get one done this year. If it goes well, I may push towards creating an entire site dedicated to future web games.

Office Humor Blog Redesign
Office Humor Blog is my oldest site and yet, I haven’t done a redesign for it. It desperately needs one, so giving it a nice makeover is definitely on my 2008 to-do list.

More Directories
I plan on launching some more web directories using the software I built for Poker Sensei. These directories should hopefully help fuel some link love for other sites in the network as well as potentially being some small money-makers themselves.

1 Undecided New Website
I figure I should be able to pull off at least one more fairly large new web project this year though I have yet to decide on which one. As I’ve said many times before, I have quite a large list of potential projects so I just have to see what I feel like working on when I get to that point.

0 New Blogs
I’ve come to realize blogs just take up too much time for me right now. With a full time job, the need to update existing blogs, and the time I spend creating new websites, I really just have no extra time to dedicate to updating any new blogs I may come up with. This may change if I find myself with a standout idea for a new blog, but I wouldn’t count on it.

As you can see, I have a lot on my plate for 2008 (hey, that rhymed). On top of all that, there’s all the updates, fixes, and new features I have planned for all my existing sites. I have some fairly large additions planned for one of my sites, but I’ll be keeping that under wraps for now. Also, the above list is merely my gameplan as of right now. Obviously, everything could change 5 minutes from now though I’ve been pretty good at sticking to my plans in the past.

Here’s hoping for another great year!

Ok, so I’m a little slow with my 2007 wrap-up post… but better late than never right? Anyway, at the end of 2006, I posted about my plans for 2007 - let’s see how I did:

• Finish Wii Play
  While I was able to complete the project, I didn’t spend the time necessary with marketing the site to get users signed up. The site does get quite a few visitors each day, but very few sign ups.
• Add products and categories to SIAB GEAR
  I added the gaming category as well as new products throughout the 2007. I haven’t worked on the site recently, so I should get off my butt and get back into it.
• Rehaul Almost True News
  This is one that I’ve pretty much ignored most of last year. I’m still debating one whether or not I want to rework it a little, completely redo it, or just let it die.
• Register Company / New Name
  Ok, I’m constantly telling myself that I need a new company name, but I just can’t settle on anything. Once I do, I’ll launch a new site that’s more of a corporate site rather than a blog (though I’ll still keep this site for frequent updates).
• 1 New Blog
  I did launch a few blogs in 2007, with the only one that’s really still alive being Home Game Guide (though I haven’t updated it in awhile).
• 2 Brand New Projects
  Unfortunately the only new non-blog project I launched in 2007 was the Poker Sensei web directory. I actually shifted my priorities and decided to do the rewrites of Watermark Tool and Home Poker System. I spending my time overhauling those two sites was the right decision as both have seen fairly large growth spikes since the changes.

I’ll be posting up my 2008 gameplan during the next few days.

The holidays are over and with them, the shopping season. As expected, December proved to be the highest earning month in 2007 for me. I’m guessing the totals will dip a little in January and February as spending dies down.

1. Google Adsense - Like November, Adense accounted for 41% of my earnings last month.
2. Text Link Ads - Text Link Ads dipped a bit to 23% of my earnings which is down 4%, though it’s more that other programs did better than normal than Text Link Ads doing worse.
3. Direct Ad Sales - stayed firmly in 3rd with 16% of my earnings - proving it was a wise decision to start incorporating direct ad sales into some of my sites.
   
4. SIAB GEAR - SIAB GEAR moved up a spot bringing in more than double it’s November earnings with 9.5%.
5. CJ and Amazon - Commission Junction and Amazon slipped a bit to 6% of my earnings, which will likely continue to slide as online spending slows.
6. Chitika - Chitika continues to sit at the bottom, pulling in 3% of my earnings last month.

Overall I’m pretty happy with my earnings growth in 2007. My December 2007 revenue was nearly double that of 2006 which is good, but perhaps not quite as good as I would have hoped. A job change during the last half of 2007 slowed my progress with my network here, though it was still a productive year for me. I still have a seemingly endless list of projects for the network, so hopefully I can knock a few out in 2008… but I’ll leave those plans for another post.

So it’s been some time since I’ve given an update on the latest new developments with the network. Back in September I posted about a few projects I had planned, and really not much has changed since then. I did get the big update of Wii Play done a couple months back and I’m currently working on the redesign of Watermark Tool as I had planned. Of course, I did throw in a Poker Directory that I hadn’t mentioned at all, so I’ve definitely been busy.

I hope to have the Watermark Tool redesign done by January, with me then having to decide on what project to tackle next. I’m debating between redesigning the Office Humor Blog (it definitely could use it!) and starting up a new site using the Wii Play architecture. Of course, knowing me, I’ll end up doing something completely different - but at least I set goals right?