PogoTricks.com is a new website I created over the past couple days. The aim of the site is to help people learn which pogo sticks to buy and how to do incredible pogo stick tricks. I’ve been learning a lot about SEO (search engine optimization) lately, so this site is really just an SEO experiment. I want to see how quickly I can get the website to rank on the first page of Google; how quickly I can increase the website’s traffic; and if at all possible, actually make a little money from this new niche website. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens…

I spent the last day or so working to totally redesign the website here at DarrenAlff.com. The redesign not only looks better, but it will allow me to share larger, wider images and to post more frequently about less important items.

The biggest addition to the new website is a new section I am calling my “Journal” where I plan to share photos, stories, and events from my daily life. This new section will be about the smaller things I am doing in my life. They may not be big things, but neat little things I want to record.

I wanted to add this journal section to the website so I could use my site here as a sort of online diary. I often times write in a physical journal, but an online journal allows me to share photos and video as well, so I think it will be a neat way to record my life. If I can continually journal online, I think it will be neat to look back at this website after a couple years and see everything that I’ve accomplishment. My physical journals are not nearly as fun to look back on.

After nearly a year’s worth of work, I have sold my website at SocialMediaSchools.com. I started the website while I was in Austria last year, spent several months researching the use of social media and Internet technologies in schools around the world, and created a course designed to help school administrators get set up with social media and start using tools such as Facebook and Twitter in their schools. I think I did a pretty good job on this website and I’m kind of sad to see it go.

This is the first website I have ever sold and despite the amount of work I did on it (and the potential I know it has), I let the site go for an extremely low price. My main motivation for selling the site at this point in time is that I simply have not had the time or the energy to put into the site in order to make it something really special. I hope that by selling the site and getting rid of all the work it entails, I can concentrate more on my business at BicycleTouringPro.com and really turn that site into a venture that will pay for my current and future lifestyle.

For now, however, it is time to say goodbye to Social Media Schools. I look forward to seeing what happens with the site in the future… and I wish the new owner all the best!

For the past several months I’ve been working to make today happen.

After teaming up with bicycle travelers Tom Kevill-Davies, Alastair Humphries and Kate Harris, the Bicycle Travel Network was born.

The Bicycle Travel Network (or BTN as we often times call it) is an organization we created to provide advice, backing and encouragement for a New Generation of Global Cycling Adventurers.

As part of our work at the BTN, we decided to create a scholarship fund that would help to actually pay for the travels of several young people. We created the Bicycle Travel Network scholarship because as four individuals who started traveling by bike at a very young age, we know how difficult it can be at times for young people to fund their travels and how rewarding it can be to individuals lucky enough to make it happen. We hope that by giving out these small micro-grants to the right people, we will be able to help these people make their dreams come true in some small way. And as someone who has conducted several long-distance bike tours on just a few hundred dollars, I know what a big difference a small amount of money can make.

Today we announced the BTN’s first round of scholarship recipients! You can check out the list of individuals selected for the micro-grants by clicking this link.

We launched the Bicycle Travel Network on March 22, 2010 and in just one month’s time we were able to raise approximately $800 USD to give away during this first round of micro-scholarships.

In total, 47 people applied for this first round of BTN scholarships and it was a difficult process to narrow down that list to just a few individuals. Every person that applied had a great story to tell and it was really hard to narrow our selection. We wish we had more money to give away, but we are extremely grateful for the results we were able to achieve in such a short amount of time.

Over the next several months we plan to follow up with today’s BTN scholarship recipients and feature them on the website at www.bicycletravelnetwork.com. We will be learning more about each of their trips, interviewing them about the lessons they’ve learned from life on the road, and sharing some of their stories from their travels.

Click here to see who was selected as the first seventeen BTN scholarship recipients.

Today, myself and three other individuals (Alastair Humphreys, Tom Kevill-Davies and Kate Harris) launched a new website called the “Bicycle Travel Network.”

Tom, Al, Kate and myself all have a lot in common. We each run a website about bicycle touring and world travel… and each of us started traveling with our bikes at a very young age. Because of this, we decided to get together and collaborate on a project that would help other young people get their start in the world of bicycle travel.

The Bicycle Travel Network is the organization we created to help young adventurers get out and explore the world by bike. Our goal is to inspire, educate, fund, promote and consult with individuals and organizations who are interested in changing the way people travel by bike.

Over the next several months we will be posting new, unique and inspiring content to this new site… and (most exciting of all) we are going to be giving out several micro-scholarships to young people heading off on their first bicycle touring adventures. You can apply for the scholarships here.

Please head on over to www.bicycletravelnetwork.com and check out the new site. Let me know what you think… and please consider getting involved in any way you can.

On October 27th, 2007 I sat down at my computer and wrote what would become the first article in a series of hundreds (and potentially thousands) of articles, videos, and interviews on the topics of bicycle touring, world travel, and lifestyle design.

That night, I started a website called www.BicycleTouringPro.com, which has since turned into my largest and most successful Internet project to date. Now, exactly two years later, there are more than 320 unique articles, videos, and interviews on the site – each of which is read by more than 15,000 people each month from locations around the world.

This past year my travels by bike took me to Europe, where I spent nine months slowly making my way through 16 amazing countries. While in Europe, I was able to continue working and published an astounding 180 additional articles for BicycleTouringPro.com.

As of today, Bicycle Touring Pro has approximately:

• 15,500 Monthly Readers
• 2,073 Email Subscribers
• 1,109 Twitter Followers
• 299 Facebook Fans

While I’m happy with the progress being made at BicycleTouringPro.com, I still have a lot I want to do. I have some big plans for the site in 2010 and I hope that by this time next year my statistics have more than doubled.

I’ve just recently launched my latest online venture, a new website called 21Bikes.com.

The idea behind the site is extremely simple. People from around the world can upload a photo of themselves and their bicycle(s). If it’s a good picture, I’ll post it to the site within one of the 21 bike-specific categories. Then, once the picture goes live, it gets voted on and shared by users from around the world.

Those who participate in the site can submit a photo no matter what type of bike they ride, how old they are, where they live in the world, or what they look like. The only requirement is that the photo they submit include both THEM and THEIR BICYCLE. The better the picture, the better their chances of it being posted to the site.

The site is still very new and because it depends on a constant stream of user-submitted photos, I assume it will take some time to really get moving. I’ll keep you posted on the site’s progress as time goes by. But for now, I’m excited to see what happens.

A few years ago I started a company called Silver Mountain Marketing, which has quickly become my largest source of income, despite the fact that I have done little to no promotion of my services. Nevertheless, I have been receiving a lot of work lately for my web design and Internet marketing services.

But because most of my business comes through referrals there hasn’t been much of a need for an official website. However, now that I’ve built up a somewhat impressive resume, I’ve decided to share some of my online work through the business’ official website. The new site, which I just last week completely redesigned, is basically a portfolio of businesses, websites, and projects I have worked on over the past few years.

In addition to the site’s portfolio features, I plan to post to the site every once and a while with tips, techniques and strategies that small business owners and other Internet entrepreneurs can use to increase their profits and drive more sales.

To check out the new website, just head on over to www.SilverMountainMarketing.com and be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed if you are interested in learning more about Internet marketing, social networking, and how to make money online.

For the past 6 months I’ve been putting incredible effort into building a program for schools around the world that wish to use social media as a means of communication, marketing and promotion for their institutions.

Today, I’m happy to announce that The Social Media Schools Master Course is finally live!

It’s only the first day of the launch, but I’ve already received a number of sign-ups and I’m excited to start working with the schools who have registered for the course.

The course starts today, but schools wishing to receive this information in the future can sign up at any time after today’s date. They just sign up for the course and then work through the material at their own speed. And if they need any assistance, I’m here to answer their questions and support them in their quest for social media success.

To learn more about the Social Media Schools Master Course, please click here.

For the past few months I’ve been building a strong following at SocialMediaSchools.com. I built the site a few months ago after consulting with a school in Southern California and quickly thereafter realized that the work I was doing was something that schools around the world could benefit from.

In an attempt to get more schools to jump on the social media bandwagon, I’ve produced a digital report I am now calling “The Social Media Schools Education & Technology Manifesto”… and I’m giving it away for FREE!

The report walks you through the biggest questions and concerns many schools have in regards to social media use and gives you some of my ideas on the future of technology in the education field. The information contained inside the report is based on my past two years of social media use/research and is designed to give schools around the world a sense of the incredible power social media can have in the future as a means of communicating with, educating and inspiring the people in their local community.

You can get your very own complimentary copy of The Social Media Schools Education & Technology Manifesto emailed to you right now by visiting this page and simply entering your name and email address in the form you find there. Enjoy!