Domain Names

Earlier this year, Vic over at BloggerUnleashed challenged bloggers to make $25,000 this year and, after much deliberation over what specific niche I should tackle first, I decided to say “fsck it” and tackle the one that bothers me the most. This isn’t to say that I won’t start up another site to look after the other niche (which is insanely undiscussed on the internet), but I just don’t have the time or the resources available to handle both, as well as j2fi.net, and the few other blogs that I guest post for.

So what’s this fabulous niche? Well, Vic suggested going the local route and earning lots of money by becoming the hometown authority on a specific subject. This would have been a great idea while I was still in Vancouver and had a huge local readership to pull from, but it’s a little bit harder here in Japan where the majority of the locals are clearly not proficient with English. Instead, I’m going to focus on the “green” thing and poke holes in much of the horse manure we’re sold by manufacturers of “green products”. Nick had done something similar a few months back with his post on Sharp “Eco” Air Conditioners, but there are far more products out there that people should be made aware of.

What does this mean for j2fi.net? Well … after writing 525 posts, most of which have been politically charged as of late, I think I can step back from a daily post routine and settle with a friendly 5-per-week schedule. Of course, if there’s something that bothers me on a given day, I might just put out a sixth. It really depends on time, though. However, while I was buying some domains over at GoDaddy, I decided to snap up one of the few top-level domains that are available for my full name. I’d really like to get the .com and .net domains … but those have been taken by squatters and I’m not paying their asking price … yet.

What niches are next? I’m glad you asked. The next two that I’m thinking about will help English-speaking foreigners in Japan. I’d love to get a restaurant review site up and running for people who just don’t know what or where to eat in and around this country, as well as a site that helps people understand their Japanese electronics which have frustratingly obscure labels for insanely obvious functions. I already have a few posts for those two sites written, and I might just throw them up on j2fi.net for a little bit until I get the time to move into professional blogging properly.

This would be so much easier if I didn’t have to choose between writing and sleep … but, with help from Vic, Courtney Tuttle and MsDanielle, I’m sure that I’ll learn the ropes with earning an online income without pissing off the readers soon enough. Once a respectable income starts coming in, perhaps I could switch to part time with my current employer and put much more effort towards the various projects that are up and coming.

So, that said, I’m off to set up the new site and write some content. I’ll be sure to keep you updated on its progress and look forward to the challenges that await my first real online venture.