Can Web 2.0 Grow a Web 1.0 site?

My business partner, Dean, and I are trying to develop a web 2.0 marketing campaign that’ll help drive relevant traffic to our foreclosures website.   The site ranks well under some key terms, but we need a campaign to drive additional traffic and new links to further improve the rankings.

The site is made up of simple foreclosure listings gathered from a variety of sources.   It’s free and totally searchable by site visitors.   So, the question is how do you develop a web 2.0 marketing campaign around this very web 1.0 site?

Two thoughts dominate our thinking:

Video with user/viewer feedback
and
Creating compelling content that’ll help us generate new links to our site

Since the site is fundamentally about finding great foreclosed homes either to live in or as investments, we think we could create content around choosing the best property.   Here’s how it would work (roughly):

We’d create a weekly video series where we feature two different foreclosed homes listed on FreeForeclosureDatabase.com.   In the video, we’d run down the stats on the two homes then invite people to vote on which home would be the “better investment”.   They would be directed to vote by going to the foreclosure website.

I’m thinking we’d have a contest for those who vote… Maybe a random drawing or something like that to encourage people to vote and create a way (and rationale) for collecting an opt-in list.

Of course, there are a lot of additional details to all of this, but this is the core of the idea.

Have you seen any other successful web 2.0 marketing campaigns?  If so which ones?

Teen Makes $325,000 Flipping Domains

Serious money can be made buying and selling domain names.  In fact, a recent article in Forbes features a Connecticut teenager who’s made $325,000 in less than a year.

According to the article:

“It started last September, when
he paid $620 for the Internet
domain name qsd.com and, two
weeks later, sold it for $12,000
to a fellow domain trader, or
“domainer.” Since that first
investment, McDonald has grossed
$325,000 from flipping domains.”

Not bad, I think.

I’ve had a lot of success flipping domains as well.  Last month, I flipped more than $200,000 worth of domains.   It’s good to see others are making good money doing this as well.

Most importantly, this article shows that (despite the piss poor and getting worse economy) people can find innovative and fairly simple ways to make a fortune.    To read the full article go here.

High Gas Prices = Mad as Hell!

Ridiculous. Yes, $3.50+ for a gallon of gas is ridiculous. If you ever want it to change you need to be mad. In fact, you need to adopt the mantra of Howard Beale from the 1976 film, The Network. If you haven’t seen that movie, you should. It was far ahead of it’s time.