Money Making Idea
Mar. 19th, 2008 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebThere's nothing like visiting Aunt M and Uncle D to get into the money-making mindset. They love thinking up ways to make money, just like I love thinking up ways to be frugal. And extra money can always come in handy, even for people like me. See, there actually are very expensive things I'd like to be able to have:
* a place in one of those retirement communities where you start out in the active part and then, if you need it, can move to an assisted-living part and finally total nursing care
* a good ballroom dance hall
* a good set of ultimate frisbee fields
* a castle/mansion with plenty of guest rooms, especially if I adopt some lifestyle where I want to host traveling ultimate players, ballroom dancers, SCAdians, or whatever.
Not to mention extreme early retirement.
Not that I think I'm going to be getting any of this, but my point is that having even a rather huge pile of money lying around would not be a problem for me.
Now, one of the things on my list of 100 things to do this year is to brainstorm about ways to make extra money without sinking to the level of accepting part-time work for unreasonably low wages (don't want to encourage those employers). And now, after hanging with M and D and brainstorming on the plane on the way back I have an idea I like. Not because it fulfills any kind of known need or economic empty hole or anything like that; just because it sounds fun and might be of interest to some people.
I am going to make a web site about interesting stuff I learn in the areas of ordinary school subjects and their applications. The main part of it will be a blog where I will regularly add entries on random topics--whatever interests me at the time. I will also list some interesting books, movies, and websites.
In order to do this the way I want to, I'm going to have to learn a lot more stuff.
Here's what I do know:
* ideas for topics
* working title: School Subject Tours (and I'll be known as the tour guide)--this should be something with good key words for searching, and "tour" is a bad key word, but overall this is better than any of the other garbage I've thought of! I could put something about fun learning in the tagline to help with this.
* HTML and CSS (except clickable maps)
* good examples of similar ideas (such as Questionable Content, The Simple Dollar)
* a few hints about where to start looking for an audience (home schoolers, teachers)
* how to find education-related carnivals to contribute to and blogs to comment on in order to gain traffic
* a few clues about relevant issues (posting, commenting, backtracks, spam blocking, feeds)
* ideas for income generation that don't disgust me (ads--probably Google adsense, merchandising, affinity links--probably Amazon)
* a guy who makes drawings I like
Here are some things I still need to figure out:
* how to get a domain name (this should be easy to learn)
* whether I will use blog software--probably WordPress--or a content management system--probably Moodle (I don't have the skills to code everything I want myself; I'll need to figure out what's possible in each, compared to what I want to do, and, if both would work, which is easiest to use, is the best maintained, has the best plug-ins, has the best documentation--both its own and from others, and that sort of thing)
* who will host it (I only know I don't want it to be me; preferably someone cheap, reliable, and with a smooth upgrade path; Robin has some ideas; both WordPress and Moodle have some suggestions)
* how to use the video-taking function of my camera (this should be easy to learn)
* how to turn my videos into something that can be played online (having a Mac as I do should be handy)
* how to make and upload podcasts
* maybe some sort of method for dynamic HTML--probably Javascript (but maybe that's not compatible with WordPress or Moodle--I really don't get any of this right now). I just think it would be cool for people to be able to use their cursors to move things across the screen and stuff.
The set-up will be the worst thing for me. But if I do it right the first time, it will be done and then I can just do the fun stuff.
Any recommendations or advice?
* a place in one of those retirement communities where you start out in the active part and then, if you need it, can move to an assisted-living part and finally total nursing care
* a good ballroom dance hall
* a good set of ultimate frisbee fields
* a castle/mansion with plenty of guest rooms, especially if I adopt some lifestyle where I want to host traveling ultimate players, ballroom dancers, SCAdians, or whatever.
Not to mention extreme early retirement.
Not that I think I'm going to be getting any of this, but my point is that having even a rather huge pile of money lying around would not be a problem for me.
Now, one of the things on my list of 100 things to do this year is to brainstorm about ways to make extra money without sinking to the level of accepting part-time work for unreasonably low wages (don't want to encourage those employers). And now, after hanging with M and D and brainstorming on the plane on the way back I have an idea I like. Not because it fulfills any kind of known need or economic empty hole or anything like that; just because it sounds fun and might be of interest to some people.
I am going to make a web site about interesting stuff I learn in the areas of ordinary school subjects and their applications. The main part of it will be a blog where I will regularly add entries on random topics--whatever interests me at the time. I will also list some interesting books, movies, and websites.
In order to do this the way I want to, I'm going to have to learn a lot more stuff.
Here's what I do know:
* ideas for topics
* working title: School Subject Tours (and I'll be known as the tour guide)--this should be something with good key words for searching, and "tour" is a bad key word, but overall this is better than any of the other garbage I've thought of! I could put something about fun learning in the tagline to help with this.
* HTML and CSS (except clickable maps)
* good examples of similar ideas (such as Questionable Content, The Simple Dollar)
* a few hints about where to start looking for an audience (home schoolers, teachers)
* how to find education-related carnivals to contribute to and blogs to comment on in order to gain traffic
* a few clues about relevant issues (posting, commenting, backtracks, spam blocking, feeds)
* ideas for income generation that don't disgust me (ads--probably Google adsense, merchandising, affinity links--probably Amazon)
* a guy who makes drawings I like
Here are some things I still need to figure out:
* how to get a domain name (this should be easy to learn)
* whether I will use blog software--probably WordPress--or a content management system--probably Moodle (I don't have the skills to code everything I want myself; I'll need to figure out what's possible in each, compared to what I want to do, and, if both would work, which is easiest to use, is the best maintained, has the best plug-ins, has the best documentation--both its own and from others, and that sort of thing)
* who will host it (I only know I don't want it to be me; preferably someone cheap, reliable, and with a smooth upgrade path; Robin has some ideas; both WordPress and Moodle have some suggestions)
* how to use the video-taking function of my camera (this should be easy to learn)
* how to turn my videos into something that can be played online (having a Mac as I do should be handy)
* how to make and upload podcasts
* maybe some sort of method for dynamic HTML--probably Javascript (but maybe that's not compatible with WordPress or Moodle--I really don't get any of this right now). I just think it would be cool for people to be able to use their cursors to move things across the screen and stuff.
The set-up will be the worst thing for me. But if I do it right the first time, it will be done and then I can just do the fun stuff.
Any recommendations or advice?