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You are an influencer.

When you blog, people listen. When you don’t like a product, share prices drop. You might speak at conferences and write books. You reach people. You are your own brand.

You have spent years building your reputation but reputation alone does not pay the rent. Now, you are looking for a way to monetize your blog or web site that enhances rather than tarnishes that reputation.

The last thing you want to do is fill your site with ads that annoy your loyal visitors and cheapen your image. And who has time to spend finding advertisers and negotiating rates?

You need a solution that just runs itself so you can concentrate on what you do best: writing, speaking, creating…

Welcome to Pistach.io: an exclusive ad network for people just like you.

Pistach.io has topical packs of web sites and blogs belonging to the top influencers in our industry so you will be in very good company. Each pack accepts a limited number of highly vetted advertisers and each site displays just one ad, by itself. The ads themselves are elegant and understated.

Pistach.io ads don’t shout their message; they whisper it.

Pistach.io is about to enter Beta with the Flash Pack, a group of top influencers from the Flash Platform.

To be alerted when Pistach.io launches, sign up at http://pistach.io.

If you feel that you belong in the Flash Pack, are interested in advertising on the Flash Pack, or have an idea for a new pack, email aral@pistach.io.

Over the past few days I’ve soft-launched Joard. It’s aim is to help website owners make money using job boards. I’m very excited about this product, and so-far there’s been good feedback.

I’ll be blogging Joard related topics over on the Joard blog, so if your interested you can follow progress over there (I’m sure I’ll still mention it time to time here mind you!)

We launched a job board for OSFlash, so if your looking for Flash jobs, or Flex jobs, pay them a visit! If your looking to monetize your website, get in contact - sales@joard.com.

Wow, I just don’t get it!

Me: I’d like a merchant account to make me money, and you the bank will take a percentage.
Bank: No, try one of our competitors, besides, whats wrong with Paypal?

Seriously, that was HSBC’s advice to me - use PayPal - I then explained to them how selling online works, who the different parties are etc., I explained to them! - it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that something is wrong. Oh, and, this was after having to ring them and go to my local branch every day for 4 days in a row.

Halifax bank of Scotland (HBOS) I heard were good but they want a full business plan, then it needs to be authorized, checked, and… at this point I was bored and didn’t care. I will be making you money, what else do you need to know!? Mind you, HBOS didn’t say “PayPal”, and they were nice people to speak to.

Anyway, long story short, if your looking for a merchant account in the UK, Barclaycard. Within 4 hours or asking them I was told “yes, and it’ll be running 14 days after we get the signed papers back from you” (I’m waiting for the papers to arrive now). Seriously, after HSBC and HBOS I want to hug someone at Barclaycard.

For those that recommended me to Barclaycard, thank you.

After the successful launch of Amigo, the next Webapp I’m working on is dexmo with Denis (even if half way through he moved to the States), but, hopefully, we’ll be going live next month. If your interested in whats going on head over to dexmo.com and sign up - we’ll tell you when it launches!

That, as well as a number of my own ideas at the moment - one I’ll let you think about is kapoddo.

Wow, what a busy week this will be:

• Tuesday: Usability Professionals Association: Accessibility & assistive technologies for the visually impaired at The Greene Room, Brighton
• Wednesday: Brighton Farm: a weekly meet up in Brighton for freelancers & small businesses at The Cresent, Brighton
• Thursday: Brighton Cluster: another “loose collective of small business owners & freelancers” at The Robin Hoob, Brighton

Brighton seems to be the place to be this week!