Antone is the creator of White Hat Crew, and the owner of Gecko Tribe, LLC. He's an internet marketer, blogger, and programmer.
Unlike some people who know what they want to do by the time they’re out of diapers, my path to internet marketing has taken a few twists and turns.
I don’t recall what I might have wanted to do early on, but by the time I graduated from high school, my interests were mostly in writing and music. I entered college as an English major.
After a year of college, I took two years off, which I spent in Japan. By the time I returned to school, I was thinking more practically (which may or may not be a good thing!), and registered as a math major.
Math is one of my strengths, but it didn’t take long to realize that math majors spend 99% of their time studying mathematical abstractions rather than the interesting real-world math I’d studied up till that point (hey, it was interesting to me!) And they take very few classes that deal with history, philosophy, the arts, etc.
Next, I considered majoring in business. I soon decided that marketing was the only area of business that wouldn’t bore me to tears. But before I could switch majors, I switched schools and ended up as a Japanese major instead.
I considered double majoring in Japanese and marketing, but eventually decided it would be better to graduate in whatever major I could complete most quickly. Japanese beat out marketing by one semester.
After graduation, I worked for a few years in the Japanese department of Claris, a subsidiary of Apple Computer, first as a software test engineer, and then as a programmer.
The 3 1/2 years I spent there were good, but then in 1998, it was time for a change. Aside from a few short stints as a contractor, I’ve been working independently ever since.
Today, I’d describe myself professionally as a programmer, internet marketer, and blogger.
Personally, I’m a husband, married since 2002, and father of three.
A while back, I needed a FireWire port to hook a camera up to my computer. I knew I had one in a box somewhere, so I spent...oh, I don't know how much time searching through boxes.
I didn't find it in any of the boxes I thought it was in, so I checked a...
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When you're starting out at blogging and your audience is small, it can be tempting to save your best content to publish when you've got more readers to impress.
It's been a long time since I started, so don't remember whether I ever held any content back. But I certainly remember times when I published...
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How do you pick the right price for a product?
Some of the advice is conflicting: do you price it low enough that buying is a no brainer, or price it high so that customers will value it more?
I've read plenty of examples of people raising prices and seeing sales increase, because they'd shed...
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You've heard the phrase "Think globally, act locally." In other words, think about what's good for the world, and do something about it where you live. In blogging, I can think of several reasons to turn the formula on its head: think locally, and blog globally.
A blog's reach is global.
Your blog is accessible...
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We all love buying online to save on sales tax. But with state governments struggling to balance budgets and services getting slashed, more and more states are finding ways to get a piece of the pie.
Several states have enacted the so-called "Amazon tax", requiring companies over a certain size with affiliates in the state...
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You know the formula: step 1: create something valuable; step 2: give it away as an incentive to join your mailing list; step 3: ...; step 4: make money.
But what should you create in step 1?
You might think that a 100-page eBook, packed with everything you know, would be the killer freebie, and...
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Internet marketing has an uphill battle to fight if it's ever going to shed the negative side of its wild west culture.
We've all seen sales letters packed with fake "proof of income" screenshots, false claims, false scarcity, fake testimonials...you get the idea.
It seems like half the products in the internet marketing market (if...
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Every once in a while, I see a list of "power words" -- words you can use to add more punch to your headlines and sales copy. These lists are useful for finding better alternatives for the sorts of boring words we often use in our day-to-day writing, or even just to get you in...
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When people talk about niche selection, the conversation often starts with advice like "look for a flush, hungry crowd." In other words, you're looking for a) lots of people, b) who really want something badly, and c) have money to spend on it. Add to that that you need to be able to reach them,...
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Do you have a strong "USP" ("Unique Selling Proposition")? You've had the importance of establishing your USP hammered into you again and again, but if you're like most people, you still only have a vague idea of what it might be.
I've hammered on the idea myself:
How to Make Your Marketing Story Compelling:
A...
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Split Test Content, Exit Intent Popups, Hover Stripes, Seasonal Ad Rotation, and much more.
TriggerNote is an Interaction Engine for your website. Use pre-configured "Recipes" to create exit hover ads, exit interstitial ads, etc. Or mix and match your own combinations of over 20 Triggers and Actions to make your website respond to visitor actions, grabbing attention, and customizing on the fly to speak to each unique visitor.
Hi.
I'm Antone Roundy.
I'm a strong believer in ethics, and have always tried to practice and promote ethical behavior in an industry where many slip over to the dark side.
At White Hat Crew, I'll share insights into internet marketing, with extra emphasis on ethical issues.
Read my Internet Marketing Ethics Manifesto
Join a Blogging Team
Blog & Tweet Easier
Guest Post
New to this blog? Start Here
Riffs on a Purple Cow is a Kindle eBook containing collection of articles I wrote, inspired by Seth Godin. Download your copy from Amazon.com.
It's also a demonstration of the blogging and business method outlined in my eBook, "How to Build and Operate an SEO Content Factory", which you can download for free in either of these formats:
PDF | Mobipocket (Kindle, etc.)
