I am quite passionate about the Internet, and as such I am always coming up with new ideas for websites and online businesses. At the same time I know that focus is vital if you want to achieve success, and I already have a couple of projects going on, so most of the time I just let those ideas site on the back burner.

Thinking about it, though, I figured that it could be interesting to post the ideas on the blog. If nothing else we’ll discuss about business models and making money on the Internet. There is also the chance that someone will like the idea and implement it, or adapt it slightly to launch something similar. If you do and end up making millions I will only be happy!

Anyway today I want to share an idea that I had back in 2008. I even purchased a domain and created a prototype for the business, but it never took off as I didn’t have time to put on the project.

The Idea

As a web publisher, I know how annoying it is to have scrapers copying my content and publishing it all over the web. In fact this practice is not only annoying, but it can be costly too. If people can find your content on other websites they might not visit yours, and excessive amounts of duplicate content might also hurt your search engine rankings, thus reducing the amount of organic traffic you’ll receive.

Unfortunately monitoring who is stealing your content and taking action to solve it would consume far too much time for the average web publisher, and here is where this business would come. It would be a company offering “copyright protection services for web publishers.”

How It Would Work

The service would have three main steps:

1. Content Theft Monitoring: Once the web publisher becomes a client, the company would start monitoring the web to see what websites are stealing the content of the client’s website. Ideally the company would develop a proprietary technology to track the copyright violations effectively.

2. Content Takedown: Upon identifying the content scrapers, the company would take the necessary actions to take it down. On this step you would have a hierarchy of measures. First of all the site owner would be contacted in a friendly way. If that didn’t work, the hosting company would be contacted with a DMCA. If even that didn’t work, the company would study with the client the possibility of taking proper legal action.

3. Reporting: Every month the company would provide the client with a report. It would include all the instances of copyright violation found, and percentage of the violations that were already solved, and so on.

Where is the money?

The business model is pretty simple. In exchange for the services mentioned above the client would pay a monthly fee. The company could have different tiers of service, depending on the size of the client’s website.

For example, a personal blog with fewer than 500 pages could be charged $49 monthly for the service, while a mainstream content portal with over 10,000 pages would need to pay $199 monthly, because tracking all the violations here would consume a lot more resources.

Challenges

The main challenged I foresee with this business is to convince web publishers that they are actually losing money due to content scrapers. If you could build a couple of strong case studies proving that by removing duplicate the revenues of the website actually increased you would be in a good position to sell the service.

Another problem is the content takedown process. You would need to have at least one lawyer aboard to manage this part of the business.

Over To You

What do you guys think about this idea? If any of you want to give it a shot I already have a pretty good domain name (paid $1,000 for it) and a basic website design ready to go.

This is a guest post by Bob Bessette. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

This post may be considered edgy to some but I am here to say that I am not a rebel. Just read any of my posts and you will conclude that I am not a malcontent, a dissident, or a troublemaker. Probably my biggest fault is my brute honesty so I sought out one of the largest blogs in the universe to get my message across. Daniel Scocco has allowed me the honor of guest posting here on DailyBlogTips so I am taking advantage of his vast audience to speak my mind.

I read a lot of blogs and I am growing tired of the mutual admiration society. I think a lot of my fellow bloggers are becoming complacent. We are too concerned with how we will be perceived rather than speaking our minds. We are too concerned that the popular blog owner will be offended if we offer up criticism that comes straight from the heart. We’re afraid of being ostracized from the masses of commenters who have nothing more worthwhile to say than “Great Post!”, “You hit the nail on the head with this post”, or “You are a true inspiration to me and my life!”

I think we need to be more critical of other bloggers no matter how big or popular that their blogs have become. Why? Well, let me tell you…

1. We must be true to ourselves

If we disagree we should be true to our convictions and speak up! When I was just starting out with my blog I criticized a very popular blogger in the comments section of another blog who was reviewing the popular blogger’s book. Before I knew it the popular blogger responded to my comments which I thought was really cool. He didn’t respond with vitriol but with an honest reaction and counter-argument. What a refreshing concept…

2. Constructive criticism helps the Author

If I write a post I want my readers to be honest in the comments. If they don’t agree with either a premise that I made in a post or something I said, I want them to let me know. In fact, it’s the critical comments that I remember most because these are the ones that I tend to think about more than the others. Believe me, I welcome any comments on my blog but when someone takes a different stance or offers more information I find this really helpful. I belong to a few different blog forums and recently I asked other members to critique my blog site. I got a number of responses from members praising my site but it was the constructive criticism that I remember and it helped me to make positive changes to my blog.

3. A dialog will be fostered

When I criticized that popular blogger back when I started out, I have since been able to foster a relationship with him. I started a dialog that day and it has continued to grow. I think this is the true spirit of blogging. We can foster a dialog with people we have never met but have a common passion.

4. We’ll keep each other honest

I think that some popular blog owners feel that they can do no wrong. They feel that their words are pearls of wisdom and that their readers are blessed to be reading them. Well, I’m here to say that it’s not their fault! It’s our fault. It’s our lack of being critical at the risk of being called jealous, spiteful, or resentful of their success. We must continue to keep each other honest by offering up our true feelings in the comments and we’ll all be better for it.

5. Our blogs will improve!

As this New Year begins I have goals for the coming year that are based around my blog as I’m sure you do as well. All of these goals are pretty much geared toward one thing: improving my blog. We need to hear from our readers what they feel is good about our blog and what they feel needs improvement. Ask your readers and they will respond. If we are all honest with each other and give our opinions in a responsible manner then we can all improve as bloggers.

In the movie Wall Street the lead character Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, had a memorable quote that was “Greed, for lack of a better word, is Good.”

Well, I’m here to say that “Criticality, for lack of a better word, is Good!” Let’s all be critical of each other, no matter what you feel the consequences may be. Any blog owner who can’t take criticism isn’t worth subscribing to. Let’s step it up this year and be true to ourselves, foster the dialog, offer constructive criticism, keep each other honest, and improve our blogs as a result.

Bob Bessette writes a blog called Totally Unique Life. His blog is geared toward practical advice and strategies for life, work, and play.

You probably have already seen a bio like this one on Twitter, LinkedIn or on some other social networking site:

John Doe is a web designer, programmer, SEO consultant, web entrepreneur, author, speaker, business coach, journalist and tech enthusiast.

Not sure about you, but when I come across bios like the one above I immediately conclude two things: 1) the person is not really sure about what she wants to do professionally and 2) she is not going to achieve outstanding results on any of the mentioned fields.

This concept applies to any aspect of our lives, and he is one offline example to illustrate it. I play the saxophone, and I used to study on a local music school. I remember that we had two sax teachers there. One of them had only played the sax his whole life. The other played the sax, but also played violin, guitar, flute, and a bunch of other instruments.

The first teacher was considered a sax master, and as a result he was requested to play around all the time, made a good living from giving private lessons and so on. The other one was seen just as an average player, on all the instruments he played. As a result he struggled to get recognition and financial rewards.

You can find similar stories inside the corporate world, too. There are employees who do a bit of everything. They do some marketing work, move to the finance department, then they spend some months working with the human resources manager and so on. But those usually have a flat career. Employees who are very specialized and deliver outstanding results, on the other hand, usually get promoted and reach leadership positions pretty fast.

If you want to achieve success, therefore, you must specialize in something and be among the best people who do that thing. Sure there are some cases of brilliant people who were the best doing several different things, but that is the exception that confirms the rule.

Great painters only paint.

Great programmers only code.

Great entrepreneurs only build businesses.

Great authors only write.

So on and so forth.

What about you, do you already know what you want to do? If you do, focus all your energies on it and become one of the best people in the world who can do that. If you don’t know yet, well, figure it out instead of trying to do a bit of everything. The least thing you want to become is a jack of all trades. In fact the figure of speech goes like this: “Jack of all trades, master of none.”

This is a guest post by Henri Junttila. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Blogging is hard work. It can easily take up to a year or two before your blog starts taking off, if it ever does. I’m not trying to be pessimistic, just realistic, because there are a lot of people out there that believe they can jump in, start writing and the money will start pouring in.

But when you mix passion with blogging savvy, the results can be amazing. Before I started my blog, I decided to join a blogging course. I have always been big on finding a mentor, someone who has done what I want to do and then learning everything I can from them.

If you are passionate about what you’re doing and have the determination to work hard, the internet is full of excellent blogging courses that will help take your blog from zero to hero. With all that said, let’s look at how you can find your passion:

1. The Elimination Method

The elimination method is extremely simple. You start by writing down every topic you’re interested in, you then compare each topic to each other one by one and eliminate anything that you do not like.

Say you like cats, dogs and parrots, just to keep it simple. Let’s start with cats. Compare cats to dogs, do you think you’re more passionate about dogs? If yes, then you discard cats and compare dogs to the rest. We only have dogs and parrots left, so whichever one you’re more passionate about, wins.

2. The Money Question

What would you do if money didn’t exist? Would you write about dogs? If you never had to worry about food, clothing and a place to live, you would have no choice but to do things you enjoy, because there would be no reason to do anything else.

This is a simple, yet powerful question. Really think about what you would want to do if money didn’t exist on the planet. There are no 9-5 jobs. Everyone is doing what they love. What would you be doing in this scenario?

3. Your Feelings

Most of us have been taught to ignore our feelings from a very early age, but the truth is that feelings act as signposts for if you’re heading in the right direction. If you’re working a 9-5 job that you hate, you will feel bad and it will only get worse with time.

Whenever you’re doing something you love, you’ll feel happy, content and at peace. Time just seems to fly by. This is how feelings were meant to be used. It takes some practice. It is easy to misinterpret your feelings, which is why many people think they are passionate about making money, which is basically a feeling rooted in fear.

4. Taking Action

If you’re not quite sure what you’re passion is, the best way to find out is to just start somewhere. You can sit there and analyze what it might be, but you will never get anywhere. It’s okay if you start a blog and find out that it isn’t what you like.

Mistakes are there to teach you. If you want things to be perfect before you start, you will never start. Believe me, I’ve been there and when I started feeling okay about making mistakes, my life became so much easier.

5. Feedback

Once you’ve been blogging for a few months, you’ll start to find your voice and start getting some traffic (if you chose a good niche). You will have a bunch of data that will tell you if you’re heading in the right direction.

Comments, e-mails, bounce rates and the average time people spend on your website. All of these factors vary from blog to blog, which is why it can get difficult and why a mentor can be so helpful. The main point I want to get across in this article is that without your passion, you will not have the fuel to keep going for the months or even years when nothing seems to be happening.

Henri Junttila writes about following your passion and being successful at life on his blog WakeUpCloud.com, he also shows you how you can discover your passion in 5 days.

Hustle (verb): to proceed or work rapidly or energetically; to be aggressive, especially in business or other financial dealings.

I consider myself to be a hard worker, but I don’t think I am a hustler. Not yet, at least.

I will be trying to change that this year.

Now the difference between “working hard” and “hustling” might be a subtle one, but it is also an important one. In my opinion working hard is about being able to work long hours, to persist for months on projects that are not going well, to remain focused and so on. Hustling, on the other hand, is about making sure that the hours you’ll spend working will yield something. It is about making things happen, getting results, accomplishing goals, no matter what.

As you can see, you need both. You need to work hard and you need to hustle.

Practically speaking, I want to start hustling because I believe I fell into a comfort zone over the last year. The results I have been getting with my blogs, websites and with my online business as a whole were good, but they could have been better.

As a result I have set several goals for this year, and I will try to achieve no matter what.

One of them I wanted to share with you guys, because I might motivate you to do the same. That is, the goal of reaching 50,000 subscribers within the next six months (so by July 21). That is about 2,000 new subscribers per month, which is twice the historical rate of this blog (Daily Blog Tips is 39 months old and has 39,000 subscribers). It sure will require a lot of hustling to achieve that, but I believe it is possible.

As for the tactics and strategies I will be using to reach that goal, well, I will talk about them on future posts.

The message I wanted to send remains: hustling is essential. If you are not, get on with it!