I am sort of an idea person. I have all sorts of ideas all of the time. To the point that when I looked at my friend Becca this weekend and said, “So, I have this idea…” and then elaborated, she chuckled out loud and said, “I love hearing all of your ideas.”
My long-term goal is to figure out how to make money in some fashion that I can do it from anywhere in the world. Perhaps I will someday become a yoga teacher or learn to teach useful knowledge like computer science, mathematics or even speaking English. But for now, I am trying to figure out how to create a small amount of revenue on the Internet. If you recall, last August I did the 30-day challenge which teaches you how to make $1 on the Internet. I ate all of that information up but still don’t quite know how to go from creating $1 of revenue to a more sustainable income on the Internet.
From everything I read, it is not by blogging. Few people click on ads and you have to make it pretty big to attract the kind of ads that pay to be on your site. So writing this blog is because I love to write and perhaps a bit of therapy as well. I do hope that someday our family will go on a really big adventure that a broader audience of people will be interested in reading about and perhaps we will attract more visitors and ad dollars at that time. We will see, I am certainly not holding my breath.
But in the meantime, I have ideas. And I think some of them are good. And some of them get me really excited regardless if they turn out to be profitable. And some of them make me so happy to think about creating them that I just have to jump on it and make it happen.
Too Cute For Words (http://www.toocuteforwords.org) is one such idea. I am smiling even thinking about it!
It all started probably six months ago with Padmaja. Padmaja is an engineer who works for me, in fact she is the test lead for my team. She works A LOT and is under a lot of stress to deliver A LOT. Any time she was feeling stressed, she would come to this blog to hopefully see a cute picture of Belén that would make her smile and take the stress away.
Flashback to the 1996 movie, Bed of Roses. Do you remember what Christian Slater does as his profession in that movie? I don’t know why this stuck with me, but he is a florist and he says that he quit his high-powered job and became a florist because he theorized there could be no better job than bringing a smile to the face of every person he delivers flowers to. I agree with his logic and have always kept my thinking cap on as to how I could get a job like that.
See the common theme?
So I started thinking…why not create a website where the sole intent is to make people happy? Andy reads failblog.org where the sole intent is to show people doing stupid shit and failing at it. I receive enough negative information in my daily life that if I am going to veg out on the Internet, like Padmaja, I want to see something happy, something that makes me smile, pictures that are TOO CUTE FOR WORDS.
So I did it. I created Too Cute For Words. It is live and even has 81 followers (and growing) on it’s facebook fan page. Like fail blog, users submit photos but unlike fail blog, they are of cute things rather than of people failing. Readers are encouraged to submit photos of babies, children, puppies, cats, old people, families, whatever users deem as cute and makes them happy.
I started promoting the blog on facebook this past weekend and Tamara (bless her heart) has been promoting it on facebook, twitter and her blog as well.
The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive which makes me SO happy I cannot even tell you!
And you want to know the greatest thing? Every time someone sends me a cute photo to post on the site, I get a huge smile on my face and I inevitably say, “Oooh, Andy look how cute!” Which is exactly the response I am hoping to elicit in the readers of the site.
It turns out that it is also a great place for photographers to submit photos and generate traffic to their sites as well…an unexpected plus that I hadn’t originally considered.
At this point, I don’t care if the site ever generates ad money, I am in love with the concept and am so happy to have created Too Cute For Words! Like Christian Slater, I am finally doing something that makes people happy and brightens their day! Hip, hip horray!
So if you please, take a look at Too Cute for Words, become a fan on Facebook, share the site with your friends and if you are so inclined submit some of your own cute photos! And if nothing else…smile!
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{ 4 comments }
Great idea! I own so many “idea” url’s I can’t even keep track. I’m very impressed you took the initiative to see one through. I see it growing huge!
Thanks Linda. I have a whole bunch of “idea” urls as well.
I love your new site – congratulations!
Reading your blog and seeing pictures makes me happy. Thanks for making my day.
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