As a part of this simplification process, I’ve also begun reviewing the advertising programs that I use on my suite of websites (this one included). The truth is that the only advertising program that I currently use that has ever generated sustained income over a number of years is Google Adsense. However, like any good webmaster I’ve tried to increase earnings by utilizing other program such as Amazon.com Associates, LinkShare, and Text-Link-Ads. Which brings me to this entry on the blog…

I’ve decided to cancel my LinkShare account. The truth is that this program doesn’t really generate any income for those websites that aren’t bringing in a massive amount of hits. I don’t want to talk inside baseball, but if JerseySmarts.com brings in 250 – 500 hits, then that’s a good day. LinkShare really isn’t made for a website like this one. Heck, even combining a bunch of different websites into my account didn’t help. My suite of websites brings in a few thousand hits per day – tens of thousands of hits per month – and the program still didn’t generate a dime.

So, instead of clogging up my websites with advertisements that don’t really generate any income for me, I’ve decided to cancel my LinkShare account and do some de-cluttering for your viewing pleasure! Actually, the LinkShare advertisements came off of this particular account about a month ago; they came off of my other websites a few weeks ago.

The next on my list to take a look at is this Amazon.com Associates program. Yes, I’ve had some people purchase items by using the Amazon.com Associates links that I embed in my entries and that I advertise around these and my other sites. However, I still haven’t seen a check from this program so I’m not sure if I want to continue using it. Anyway, I’d say that Amazon.com Associates has at least another 6 to 12 months for me to make any decision.

In the mean time, check out New Jersey Carpet Cleaning for the best carpet cleaning in the Garden State!

Second, I absolutely hate the way that MySpace pages can be overly manipulated. I was friends with some people who chose to completely screw up their MySpace pages to the point where you’d need a 50″ screen on an ultra high resolution just to see the entire page at once. Completely ridiculous. That’s one of the features that I like about Facebook – it doesn’t allow you to break their basic format (and I hope they never move in that direction).

As for the cancellation process on MySpace, I found it to be overly cumbersome. You have to choose to “cancel” your account two or three times and then when you get the e-mail confirmation, you have to click on a link and confirm the cancellation again. I’m sure the News Corp lawyers that run the legal end of MySpace have some reason for that process, but it’s a bit ridiculous. Just let people cancel and move on already.

So now that I’m off of MySpace and LinkedIn, I think that I’m only on Facebook. I have to go and check whether or not I have any outstanding online profiles at Yahoo, but I should be good at this point. I’m considering whether or not to get rid of the Google photo album, too. There is only a limited amount of space available and it’s a little annoying to upload pictures to both Facebook and Google. I guess I’ll rest on that one a little bit longer, too.

In the last year I’ve merged both of my blogs into the one that you’re reading now and deleted unnecessary profiles at MySpace, LinkedIn, and Plaxo. Frankly, after a while it just gets to be too much. I think that this is the fate that Twitter has ahead of it. By the way, has anyone noticed how Twitter is essentially the new AIM for a younger generation? Just an observation.

No more MySpace!

I’ve begun to think about whether or not my LinkedIn profile is even worth it. LinkedIn is supposed to be for people who are trying to reconnect, but generally in a business sense. However, Facebook pretty much offers the same service. So I’m not sure if it’s worth it to keep a LinkedIn page up and running. Sure, I have some nice recommendations of my work on the LinkedIn page, but I can always get that somewhere on Facebook.

Well, this post is being written on the heels of deleting my account at LinkedIn. Overall, I just didn’t see the need to try to maintain an additional networking “profile” at LinkedIn. Yes, I had a lot of “connections,” but I didn’t see much of a value in the LinkedIn membership. Everyone who I was connected to was either someone that I was already connected to on Facebook or someone from my fraternity that I never met because he went to a school out in the Midwest or the West Coast. Sure, it’s cool that we were in the same organization, but if you’re connecting with me on LinkedIn and you’re either out of work or engaged in a career that doesn’t cross mine at all, then it’s really a useless connection.

Side note – I had so many connections that I couldn’t automatically delete my account! Apparently, if you have more than 100 connections (I think I had 105), an actual human being has to okay the deletion of your account. For some reason I find that interesting.

That’s another social networking site down…which one could be next?