The Nautical Condo Update - Stage 5

Just received the letter from my lawyer that they have disbursed another 5% to the developer for the completion of Stage 5. There is a rumor that the TOP for Nautical Condo is around June and July 2015. Keeping our fingers crossed!

OIBR - Sell or Hold

I have been trading OIBR for a couple of years and made some profits along the way. But last year, I was not quick enough to sell when I have a little profits and now I'm stuck with this stock. The worst part is that it has undergone consolidation to avoid a delisting from the NYSE.

I bought at around $1.60 and then it went up but I didn't catch it to sell at that moment. After a while, it dropped to below $1 and then towards $0.4. After consolidation (10:1), the stock went up to $3. Now it is trading at about $2.09. I'm thinking of selling it but since I have already lost 90% of the value, I might as well hold it till the end. So what is the end? Maybe another consolidation (split 10:1) or more shares dilution from issuance of new shares to investors. I don't know but recently, the Brazilian phone company Oi SA is going to price its shares as part of an offer to merge with Portugal Telecom. The company may authorized the issuance of up to a maximum of 7.8 billion in new shares. This may happen in April and then there may be price fluctuation and hopefully, the economy improves and the balance sheets of Oibr may look better.

Still holding on for now till May 2015. If the price improves and I can get back 50%, I will consider to sell.

See my update on this.

Google Adsense Alternative - RevenueHits

Another alternative to Google Adsense is RevenueHits. If you have been rejected by Google Adsense or your Adsense account disabled due to invalid activities, do not despair. There are other ad networks alternatives which you can sign up to generate revenues from your website or blogs. RevenueHits use Contextual & Geo targeted Ad Serving technology. Its Performance Base (CPA) Ad Network helps publishers to monetize online assets.

I have signed up with RevenueHits a couple of months ago. Well, it has zero revenue until recently it shows $0.04 in my account. I looked into the report and realised that the normal ad did not generate any revenue. It is the extra tag that is generating the revenue. As you can see in the below table, there is no revenue even when there is click on the banner or button. The real revenue is generated from the extra tag which is the pop-under or bounce. I see the FAQ from the RevenueHits site and it seems that the extra tag was created automatically till you discover it.

RevenueHits report for Placement

I have RevenueHits, Chitika, Infolinks and Bidvertiser in my blogs. So far, I would rate them as:

1. Infolinks
2. Chitika
3. RevenueHits
4. Bidvertiser

I have zero revenue from Bidvertiser and I'm trying to figure out how to blend in all the above four ad networks. Also, I'm quite annoyed by the pop-up ads and I hope my readers will not be annoyed by this. Drop me your view and comment if you are annoyed by the ads. Thanks.

RevenueHits Daily Stats Report

Google AdSense makes no sense

As soon as you are approved for Google AdSense, Google disabled the account. I started blogging since Feb 2012 and had applied to for AdSense. However, it was not approved in the beginning as one of the requirements to be approved for AdSense is that your blog needs to be at least 6 months old. I had applied for a few times but was rejected. This year at around Sep, Google had approved my AdSense application and I was very excited. However, in Nov, Google disabled my AdSense account due to invalid activities. Of course, they did not provide any reason for that. I appealed but was again rejected. I guessed there is no other way but to accept this. So, now I'm exploring other means of ads networks for generating side incomes. Note that this cannot be your main income unless you are successful in driving 100K per day of page views. Even with this amount of traffic, if the cost per click is low, you may be getting only US$100 per month.

But I must admit that AdSense has the most Page RPM. The below AdSense report showed a US$1041.13 Page RPM and the cost per click was US$2.08. It was very good I must say.

AdSense report

I managed to have around US$31.03 when Google disabled my account. All the money was gone. So there is a lot of uncertainties when you work as a publisher for Google AdSense. Google does not allow you to make any mistake, even if it is not made by you.

Just before I received the Google AdSense Personal Identification Number (PIN), my account was disabled.

PIN mail to verify address

Google AdSense Alternative - Infolinks.com

If your account has been disabled, it is very difficult and nearly impossible to get back your AdSense account. Most of the time, it is very difficult to earn a living by having AdSense in your blog, unless you are getting 100K pageviews per day and if 1000 or 10K unique people click on the ads. Even if this happens, Google will think that there are invalid clicks and disable your account. So, even if you follow the rules, there are cases or most likely that you will be click bombed by envy friends or enemies.

I will say that you must not rely on AdSense or any forms of ads networks to get rich or worse as your main income stream. I would say that these ads networks serve as another source of income. It supplements your main income and gives you extra pocket money to spend. If you google for AdSense alternatives, you will find many alternatives that you can try. However, my advice is to stay with the ads networks for a few weeks to see the earning that you will get. This is because some ads networks are very slow to update the reports and you may not get real-time updates. I think I will monitor the ads networks for say 2 months to see the effectiveness and quality of the clicks.

The first ads network that I'm reviewing is www.infolinks.com. This is the easiest to apply and put onto your blog. It drives new revenue for publishers with intent-based ads in non-traditional blog places. The ad units are elegant and innovative and fully customized the appearance to add to your blog in 1-minute integration plugins.

My infolinks account

There are four Infolinks ad units. They are Inframe, Infold, Intag and Intext. Inframe capitalizes on browser margins with attractive display ads. Infold engages users with an overlay ad unit most relevant to the user's intent. Intag displays a tag cloud of keywords relevant to your content. Intext monetizes inside the lines by highlighting your best keywords. I have activated all four Infolinks ad units. I'm now into my second week and the earning is quite bad. However, I think the main reason is that my traffic is low and even if there are ad views, the ad eCPM is low and earnings are affected. I got only 0.11 for the last 9 days. I think if I can drive more traffic to my blog, the earnings should increase. I will update again at the end of December 2014.


9 Days Report

Let me know if you can help me to increase traffic to my blog. My plan is to have this as one of my income when I retire 10 years later. In order to do this, I need to work on my blog traffic and hopefully write good contents that bring more traffic to my blog.

Mitsubishi Lancer Recall Campaign

Received a letter from Cycle & Carriage that my Lancer needs to go for inspection, replacement of turn signal lamp and lighting switch.

The Nautical Condo Update - Stage 4

Today, I receive the letter from my lawyer that my Nautical Condo unit has completed Stage 4 and now proceeded to Stage 5 (in progress).

There are 8 stages in the Architect's Certificate of Stage Completion. They are:

1. Stage 1: Foundation work (inclusive of pile caps) of the unit.
2. Stage 2: Reinforced concrete framework of the unit.
3. Stage 3: Partition walls of the unit.
4. Stage 4: Roofing/ceiling (inclusive of false ceiling) of the unit.
5. Stage 5: Door sub-frames/door frames and window frames are in position, and the electrical wiring (without fittings), the internal plastering and the plumbing of the unit have been completed.
6. Stage 6: Carpark, roads & drains serving the housing estate have been completed.
7. Stage 7: Building and all roads and drainage and sewerage works in the housing estate have been completed, and that water and electricity supplies, and gas supplies (if any) have been completed to the building and TOP obtained.
8. Stage 8: CSC.

I will update again once I have received the notice of Stage 5 completion.

By the way, what is CSC? Any idea?