I have a blog that I created for American Idol. It’s called American Idol Stars. I share the profits with a 16 year old girl named Kylee Foley. She is the daughter of a friend of mine from my old job. She is an excellent writer and has been a great business partner. I think with her determination and skills she’ll be very successful in the future.

I’m proud to say that in a little over a year we’ve had 100,000 unique visitors. This is very exciting. I’m hoping we can continue American Idol Stars for years to come.

Matter of fact, as much as I hate to admit it, before I started American Idol Stars I didn’t care at all about the show…now I’m an American Idol nerd.

Todd Fugere is the Director of Community Development and has been with Blogging Systems since August, 2006. Todd has been working in Information Technology for over twenty years. Working in such areas as Network Administration, Web Design and has recently become a full time Blogger. Before joining Blogging Systems, Todd created his own Blog Network, employing several writers and covering a variety of topics. Todd is a Certified Adwords Professional.

I decided to become a Blogger when I realized how much potential blogs have, both on a commercial and a personal level. I have been living and breathing blogs and affiliate advertising for the past three years. It’s very exciting to see where blogs are heading and how they are turning the Internet upside down.

I am a husband as well as a father and love animals and the great outdoors. In my free time, I enjoy playing music, art, fishing, camping, snowmobiling and skiing. Technology and the Web have always been a major part of my life. “Once a geek…always a geek.”

These are some sites I recently designed for BSG. I’m proud of some of these:

• Camelback Voice
• Vail Buzz
• The Philadelphia Mainline Blog
• Scottsdale Scoop
• St. Pete’s Voice
• Ridgefield Redding View
• Ashburn Blog
• Aces Home Guide
• Downtown Phoenix Journal

Check them out, some really great blogs!

I used to do a ton of side jobs and work on my blog network as well as a few other misc. items. Now that I’m working from home, I find that I don’t have any time to do these other things.

My new job has been keeping me very busy. Plus the other thing is, I now work here. Side stuff seems like such a chore now. I plan on keeping up my blog network and possibly starting a few new ventures very soon.

But I will no longer be doing any consulting or side work.

Well it’s been almost a month at my new job, and I love it. I love the fact that I’m working from home. I also love the fact that they are very good about giving you praise. Making you feel appreciated.
It started out a bit slow, but now I have 9 clients that I’m setting up blogs for. So, it’s very busy. The days go by extremely fast.

I’ve learned a lot. I’m still working my way thru the process. But each day that goes by, I feel more and more comfortable.

I still keep in touch with a few people from my old company. I feel sorry for people left behind there. I know that I made the right decision and would never work in that disgusting, greedy sinking-ship, backstabbing environment again.

Now that I passed the Google Adwords Certified Professional Exam, I’m ready to start raking it in with Adwords. In order to get fully certified I need to manage an account of $1,000 a month. That’s how I get my little logo, that will soon be proudly displayed on this site.

In the meantime, I need to find someone who’ll spend the $1,000 a month on Adwords. Easier said than done. It’d be easier to come up with some crooked black hat money laundering scheme. All just for that little ego, I mean logo.

Well all of my friends laugh at me now. They all say “I can’t believe you turned blogging into a full time position.” They’re just jealous. They wish they had done what I told them over a year ago.

Now I wake up, work from home, and get paid a decent salary. I can work in my underwear. I can walk the dog. I can do almost anything I want. Something to be said about not having to deal with the rat race…and it’s only my first day.

My last day of “real work” was on Friday. Very stressful quitting a job of 14 years. But I know I made the right decision.

Well after 14 years at my current company, I have resigned as Network Administrator. It’s a bitter sweet thing. I’m glad to be out of the “negative” environment, but there are a few people I will miss.

I am looking forward to an exciting change. I will be working from home. I will be blogging full time now. I’m a little concerned about the future because I left my 14 year safety net. But things should be ok. I’m a lot more employable than I was two years ago.

The longer I work online, the more I realize how many opportunities there are for bloggers like me. There’s always finding conulting gigs on elance, scriptlance, rent a coder, craigslist, etc.

You can always use the multi-user version of WordPress and build a blog network. Also, you can make quite a bit of money blogging and using Adsense.

The other great things about blogs, is everyone has heard of them, but are not really sure what they are. Corporations are suddenly seeing how valuable they can be. Only like 2% of corporations are using blogs.

That leaves guys like me a ton of prospects. I think I’ll stick with blogs until the bubble bursts. Who knows how long that will be, but I know I’ll clean up in the meantime.

The last year or so has been an incredible learning experience. I’ve been living and breathing blogging and internet martketing. My wife thinks I’m a dork cuz I’m constantly listening to podcasts on internet marketing and strategies.

I also have a ton of blogs on the subject being fed into my Thunderbird via RSS. I read a ton every day. Not to mention I belong to the forums where all of the major players hang out and I read those every day. Nothing’s getting past me. I even have Google and Yahoo news being spoon fed to me.

I also have started attending conferences in the industry. I just got back from Ad Tech in Chicago and am hoping to go to Webmaster World Pub Con in Vegas at the end of the year. That’s the thing that blows my mind, is how much information you can get from people by just networking. Forums are great, etc. but belly up to the bar with someone and you’d be surprised what secrets they tell you.

So I’m hoping the next year to be as lucrative as the last. And I hope to learn as much as I have in the last year, hopefully my head won’t explode.