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Probably the coolest thing that happened to me this weekend at IzeaFest was meeting John Chow (also known as JohnChowdotCom). When I heard that John and Jeremy Shoemaker (also known as Shoemoney) would be speaking at IzeaFest, I knew I had to be there. I’m definitely far from being an A list blogger, or even a B, C, or D list blogger. I’m not the kind of person who would ever be on the radar of John Chow or Jeremy. I’m just over here blogging about my kids and dirty pants from Old Navy and almost getting arrested for horn honking.

(Translation: small potatoes.)

Unless you’re living under a rock on the internet, you’ve heard of John Chow and Jeremy Shoemaker. You don’t need to be an A lister or move in certain circles to know who they are, because chances are you’ve stumbled onto a picture of Jeremy’s huge AdSense checks, or you’ve heard about John’s fall from Google grace.

So back to the neatest part about this weekend…meeting John Chow. And when I say I “met” John Chow, I don’t mean that I worked my way over to him in the conference room, introduced myself, shoved a business card into his face and called it a day. That’s not my style baby! Instead, I drove John and his wife (who is lovely, and I don’t like to keep referring to as the nameless wife, but I don’t know if she’s mentioned on his blog by name and so I will refrain from doing so for now) to Universal Studios (along with Cass and Marisa) and played tour guide for the day to my new (and old) friends.

How many bloggers would give their right arm to spend 8 hours with John Chow? I could have picked his brain about blogging and what makes him tick, and nagged him incessantly about linking to me, but instead I enjoyed a lovely day with my friends, John, and his wife, and showed them the best Universal Studios had to offer. (Much thanks to Trevor and Andrew from Izea for meeting us there as well!) This whole post makes me sound like I’ve got John up on a pedestal, and a shrine to him in my living room, but I really don’t – I’m just impressed with what he’s accomplished, and it was neat to be able to spend time with someone who has done so much with a blog.

You would think the story ends there, but it doesn’t. In my email tonight, I found this:

Hi, ColleenC.

JohnChowDotCom (JohnChowDotCom) is now following your updates on Twitter. Check out JohnChowDotCom’s profile here:

http://twitter.com/JohnChowDotCom

You may follow JohnChowDotCom as well by clicking on the “follow” button.

Best,
Twitter

How cool is THAT? John Chow has 2,073 followers, but he only follows 75 people…and I’m one of them! (John, you can never stop following me…I’d be crushed.)

I guess the moral of this story is that networking is cool, and you never know WHAT will happen at an event like IzeaFest!

I just downloaded and installed a new plugin called Photopress, so bear with me while I figure it out. If this works, you should see a picture of my green eyed middle child and a friend at her Halloween parade. She was Wednesday, from The Addams Family.

[photopress:DSC_0217.JPG,thumb,pp_image]

Looks like it worked! That was nice and easy, just the way I like it. Photopress gets 2 snaps up!

Last week, I wrote about a new website called Cash Columns. I ended up purchasing some advertising there to see how it went, and I’m happy to report that it went very well. I was refunded 200% of what I paid out when someone bumped me down the column, and I’ve reinvested my money back into the system two times now, trying out different columns, and different images. When I started, I paid $8 for each column space. Those same spots are going for $128+ now, so people are seeing a nice return on what they bought, and others who are buying in now are still getting in at a great price.

I’ve received 150+ unique visitors from Cash Columns since I started my advertising campaign with them – well worth the small amount of money I paid into it.

[tags]Cash Columns, blog advertising[/tags]