I get the privilege of traveling around the world teaching people how to make money on eBay and the Internet. I have met some amazing people from all walks of life that have achieved incredible success - many of whom had never sold anything online before we had met.

In the economic climate we live in, it’s more important than ever to take control of your own financial future - and there’s no better way to do this than by having an online business.

Does everyone make millions? No.  Is it easy? No. Do people blame others for their failures? Yes. One of my favorite quotes is:

“It’s never the bus, it’s the bus driver”.

Whether someone learns from me or some other “guru” online - and there’s plenty of them these days - all we can do is provide you with the insights, strategies, techniques, tools and systems for success.  But if you want to make money on eBay - or you want to make online…or you simply want to make money, you must put in the effort.

And, effort is only one part of the equation. You must have the right attitude, you can’t give up and you have to take responsibility for your own actions.

Listen up and pay attention - NOT everyone is going to be successful because not everyone is willing to do what it takes. Period. There isn’t anyone that can’t make a change in their life if they are provided with the right direction AND they have the desire and will power to move forward even when it’s not going their way.

Heck, I get my share of emails that say “I tried your program and it hasn’t worked for me yet”. And, I can understand the frustration that occurs when starting a new venture - particularly for someone who is learning something for the very first time. Even though the process might be simple - the effort it requires to sometimes make it happen isn’t always easy.

On the flip side, it’s incredibly rewarding when I hear from students that are truly getting what they want in their life - and what they deserve - as a result of an experience we’ve had together.  Recently I was in Sydney Australia where I was approached by Richard - a student who attended one of my 3 day workshops about three years ago.

At that time, Richard had 15 eBay feedback and was struggling financially. Today, Richard has more than 1500 feedback and is selling $100,000+ a month on eBay.

Aha, I’m sure the skeptics are saying!$100,000+ a month is sales - I wonder how much profit he’s making? Let’s say this - Richard is doing very, very, very well financially.

Note to self - why is it that it’s those skeptics that are not successful and always blame others for their failures…

Here’s a comment I just received on my facebook profile - you can read it yourself here: http://facebook.com/adamginsberg

Thanks Adam!

Adam… I read your book. Started ebay two months ago and I have 66 positive feedbacks and 100%. I am working on getting a steady supply of inventory which is tough. Selling and buying on ebay is easy (hard work - YES) but you have all the tools you need… THANKS again for a great book… it’s helped me. I have attained my first goal … Next is to become a Power Seller!

Matt Threlfall

And here’s a great email I recently received:

Hi Adam, Just wanted to let you know that We have over 3,500 POSITIVE FEED BACK, in 26 months from first attending your EBAY CLASS!

Thanks,

Gary Swaney

Sometimes students will ask me why I do what I do.  Well, there are many reasons, but one reason is that it’s incredibly rewarding to see people change their lives in such positive ways.

If you have your own success story, I’d love to hear it - just post it on this page!

I have had a chance to use Bing.com to search the web and I’m very impressed.  In reality, it beats Google in important areas. It will help Microsoft gain share in the search business. It’s surprisingly competitive with Google. It’s simple, easy, intuitive and fun to use.

Bing has only been available to the public for a short time and is already gaining market share.  Beginning June 3rd Bing became Microsoft’s new default search. Here’s a couple of facts, insights and thoughts about Bling search.

In search presentation, Bing wins. It uses technology to display refined versions of your query down the left side of the page. For example, I searched for the game “iPhone 3Gs” on Google and Bing. While Google gave me good results, Bing gave me a menu of “related searches,” that included Walkthrough, News, and so on.

Bing also shows a useful “Related Searches” box.

Bing has pop ups that show an excerpt of the text on a search result if you hover over it. This saves a lot of time if you’re not quite sure if you want to follow a result.

In the content of search results, Bing is not consistently superior to Google. In many searches I did (not the sample searches Microsoft sent me), the Google results were more relevant and useful. Not by miles, mind you, but in many cases Google delivered the goods just enough better than Bing to make me question the wisdom of adopting Bing as a replacement search engine. Just one example: Searching for “Best house paint for humid climates” gave me better advice links at the top of the search results with Google than with Bing.

When searching for product reviews, Google’s search result pages were just slightly better than Bing’s — although, again, not by a lot. However, Bing also collates user and expert reviews on many products, and this gives you a great overview. This feature doesn’t always show up, though; and I wouldn’t even have known about it had it not been for the Wired review of Bing.

When you want to shop for an item, both services have very strong “shopping” tabs that organize results well. Google gives you seller ratings, which Bing doesn’t. But Bing offers a cashback program, which is hard to beat.

And in some searches, Bing won on results outright. When searching for “Facebook sandberg” on Google, the top link was a story from 2008. On Bing, the top item was “News about facebook sandberg” with three sublinks to very recent articles. When searching for “Obama Supreme Court,” Google did show news results, but the top link was a day-old story. Bing’s was from 32 minutes ago.

To be fair to Google, you can also click through to Google News on any result and sort results by date. But that’s extra clicks. Bing is more aggressive about including news.

All search engines have their strengths, and many of Bing’s lie in areas where Microsoft has its own content companies. For example, Microsoft owns the airfare prediction service Farecast, and it includes Farecast buying advice whenever you search for airplane travel. Bing also displays some medical data inside the search engine itself.

Bing also does very well in at least one area where Google should do better. The video search result page for “Thomas Jefferson” in Google gives you a vertical list of videos. On Bing, you get a big grid that’s easier to scan, and a list of related videos on the left for “George Washington,” “James Madison,” and so on. The search results are about equivalent, but Bing’s presentation is far superior.

You should use Bing

As I said, it’s fun, intuitive AND different.  After using Google for so many years it’s nice to have a different search experience.  The new game in search is parsing information and displaying it in the engine itself (see Wolfram Alpha for the extreme example of this). Both Google and Bing, and other search products, have areas where they will collate and format information for you, instead of just linking you to external pages where the data reside. Bing does an extremely good job at this in several popular areas — like product reviews, movie listings, weather, travel, and stock prices.

While the service doesn’t reveal all its riches at once, it rewards exploration and yields pleasant surprises to users who poke around.

Google keeps improving in the area of in-search collation and display as well, but Bing makes Google look complacent, and that’s not good for Google. For the moment, Bing’s on top in this game. Try this search engine. I do not think you will regret it.

Check it out at http://bing.com

We know that Google is the #1 search engine in the world - but where are people going for real time, up to date information on every day updates?  Twitter.  Just take a look at twitter and you’ll see - on the right side of the page - what people are talking about “Right Now”.

A few weeks ago I learned that Danny Gans had died because “Danny Gans” was one of the most talked about keywords on Twitter. Then, we had an earthquake in Los Angeles and immediately (literally within moments) there were updates on Twitter…Whether it’s a sporting event or a news update, you can get the most current, up to date news on Twitter with real people reporting real results.

CNN is now reporting that people in Iran are posting updates on Twitter with crucial information - and this is particularly important since Iranian authorities have banned Western journalists from covering political rallies. Even though websites and newspapers have been closed by Iranian officials, people are still able to spread the word of what’s going on via Twitter.

Although officials would not say whether they were communicating with Iranians directly, one noted that the United States is learning about certain people being picked up for questioning by authorities through posts on Twitter.

“It is a very good example of where technology is helping,” the official said.

Senior officials say the State Department is working with Twitter and other social networking sites to ensure Iranians are able to continue to communicate to each other and the outside world.

At a briefing with reporters Tuesday, spokesman Ian Kelly said the United States was monitoring the situation in Iran through a number of media, including social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, but deflected questions about the State Department talks with Twitter.

“We’ve highlighted to them the importance of these social media,” Kelly said of the conversations with Twitter executives. “This is about the Iranian people. This is about the giving their voices a chance to be heard. One of the ways that their voices are heard are through new media.”

For example, senior officials say the State Department asked Twitter to refrain for going down for periodic scheduled maintenance at this crucial time to ensure that the site continues to operate.

“They announced they were going to shut down their system for maintenance, and we asked them not to,” one official said, adding that the discussions were meant to “highlight to [Twitter] that this was an important means of communication, not with us but horizontally in Iran.”

The situation in Iran is a real-world example of the State Department’s efforts to increase use of technology in diplomacy, including social networking sites, Web video and text messages to reach large numbers of people who would otherwise be difficult to reach.

It’s uncertain what the long term prognosis of Twitter will be, but one thing we know for certain is that the “word of mouth” impact of people and the ability for their message to be spread instantly to people around the world via the Internet, is here to stay.  And by the looks of it, Twitter - in one form or another - might be the leading catalyst.

For more information on how to best use Twitter in your online activities, visit http://adamginsbergblog.com/category/twitter

The week of June 15th eBay is updating it’s next series of changes. See below both eBay’s changes and my opinions and thoughts on these changes - which could impact how you make money on eBay.

It’s good to know that there are no eBay fee changes in this release.

This set of eBay changes will do three main things as follows:

eBay is making it easier for buyers to ship as well as give buyer incentives which should result in an increase in more sales. Here’s how they plan doing this:

—New item page rolling out. New photo zoom coming later this year. Get your listings ready now.

My thoughts? I really like the new item page layout. It’s simple and easy to see. For TemplateOptimizer.com users - (Template Optimizer is the #1 eBay template software) - please note that we have upgraded Template Optimizer to work seamlessly with eBay’s new item page layout. The templates look better than every!

* New eBay product pages surfacing to more buyers. To make sure your items show up on these pages, use product details (formerly called pre-filled item information).

My thoughts? Anytime you can increase your exposure on eBay, you should do it.  I like this but I hate when eBay changes the name of what they call something.

* New way to list in Fixed Price lets you offer all variations of one product e.g. color and size in a single low-cost listing.

My thoughts? This is a huge benefit to sellers who have items like this.  Finally eBay is allowing something that should have been allowed years ago.

* Buyer incentives and loyalty programs expanded to drive more traffic.

My thoughts? I’m not a fan of anything that drives more traffic to eBay after the initial sale.  I’d rather send the customer to my non-eBay internet business after I have made that initial sale for a variety reasons.

2. Key information to set buyer expectations and help reduce your costs

My thoughts? I have been teaching sellers to do this for years so I really don’t think it’s a big deal.  See my comments below:

* New Smart FAQ answers buyers top 20 questions before they contact you.

My thoughts? Big deal.  You can today, and always could, add your own frequently asked questions section directly into the description area of your eBay listing.

* Package tracking information available in My eBay print labels on eBay and tracking shows up automatically, or you can upload the information.

My thoughts? This is good news for everyone except those of us who ship with fedex.

* Return policy and handling time required for new listings and re-listings beginning June 15. Deadline for updating your Good Til Cancelled listings extended to mid-September.

My Thoughts? Again, no big deal. eBay is requiring what I have been teaching to students for years..include your return policy and handling time in your listings.  Congratulations eBay!

* Use Item Specifics. Now in some categories, you can customize when the available choices don’t apply to your item.
* Category and Item Specifics changes now consolidated with the rest of updates find out if your listings are impacted.

My thoughts? Item specifics help you get more exposure and sell more, so use them whenever you can.

3. Other updates to make selling on eBay more efficient

* New, more efficient process for handling disputes.

My thoughts: Anything that makes it easier to handle a dispute is a good thing - let’s see how this rolls out.

* Selling Manager FREE for all sellers with powerful new Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro applications.

My thoughts: I think it’s good for sellers to use eBay Selling Manager but would not use a paid version of the system.  Template Optimizer will include a simple, easy to use version of Selling Manager that will be available at no additional charge to all Template Optimizer users.

* Easier, faster way to pay shipping, print labels, and update buyersright from eBay.

My thoughts: Same as before - what about fedex users?

So eBay is rolling out changes starting the week of June 16th.  They are simple and basic - most of which will not have any impact on AdamGinsberg.com students who already understand this valuable information that eBay is finally making a requirement to sell on the site. I do like the new item listing form - I think it will end up with better exposure and more bids…at least I hope so!

Read more at AdamGinsbergBlog.com