Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Speech Project No. 6 : Vocal Variety Speech : "Goodbye Google!"

This is my sixth speech project. It took me two months to continue my speech projects. Why? Because for the past speeches I've been receiving not so nice feedbacks and it even pushed me to give up but I thought this is normal and what they tell me about my speeches are true and I need to improve from it. In this speech evaluation, please see below. Also, please see the actual speech entitled "Goodbye Google!". I came up with this speech because I want to voice out what happened to my online business specifically in Google Adsense. If you might have noticed, I have this blog entitled "Google Adsense: How true is it?". Well, something happened while I was on my way to proving it as true or not. This speech tells the story on how I get involved with online advertising and how I got turned down by Google and was actually pushed to say goodbye not to Toastmasters to Google.

Speech Evaluations:
- It took me 9 minutes to finish the speech. What actually happened is that I only had one day to write and practice for the speech. I was able to memorize the intro and conclusion but have missed the body. Also, in the intro of the speech, I was forced to do adlibs and make my speech clearly understood by inserting new parts that will first let the audience to relate on what I am saying.
- The evaluator said that I need to improve on vocal variety specially on expressing emotions and drama by facial expression and raising of voice volume and pitch! They also said that I need to practice! But overall they were entertained about my topic.

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Silver and White Toastmasters Club

Speech Project# 6 – Vocal Variety

Goodbye Google!

By Edwin D. Viñas

I started to be online in the Internet since year 2000. But it was only last March 2005 when I finally have a working website being hosted right at my home using a Unix web server with DSL connection and with a fully qualified domain name. My interest in the Internet is only about sharing information because I really loved writing articles and publishing them to the web. Contents ranging from my pictures to diaries, from technology researches to future technology ideas, I have them all published in the web. I am so happy whenever there is a foreigner who would send me an email inquiring about a software I have made or just giving complement on what I have written in the website.

But this simple interest in Internet publishing changed when there came GoogleAdsense – an online advertising system which gives publishers like me a chance to earn 100$ a month from their contents by allowing Google to put ads in their web pages so that whenever a user clicks on the advertisement, a portion of the earning will be given to the publisher. As soon as I have seen this opportunity, I excitedly registered an account. “I am really so excited to earn an extra 100$ a month!!! On my second day of sign-up, I already have 1 dollar in my account! It’s amazing! I only have few web pages with ads but it’s already earning. What more if I have many web pages with many advertisements? And so, I created several blog sites with contents ranging from personal diaries to technical articles, from sharing ideas to sharing my self-developed open source software. Every day for about two weeks, I spent my time thinking and writing about interesting contents and updating my websites. I even told my workmates to visit my websites. I even made my website address as an instant messenger status message. And I even put my website address in my email signatures. I felt like I was a full-blown online advertising company right at the comfort of my home. On the second week, I already have 14 blog sites with various contents and a total of almost a hundred pages of them have GoogleAdsense published here and there. Then, I’ve got 5 dollars in my account! But, I realize it’s too far from getting my first 100$. I said to myself, if I really want to make money out of GoogleAds, I’ve got to write more contents and attract more visitors who would click ads in my website. But then, it’s becoming so tiresome to sleep late at night publishing and updating my websites. On the third week I only got an additional 1 dollar! What? Only 1 dollar after all that whole sleepless week I spent making websites? I was thinking on how I can really quickly earn my first 100 dollars! Then a devil’s thought popped in my mind "What if I click on my own ads? Maybe, Google will not find out about it. I will just click from different locations so they will not notice it." So that’s my plan! There I am, while outside work, I visited my sites every day! I became a fan of my own self. I have browsed my own pictures with ads, diaries with ads, articles with ads, documentations with ads, blogs with ads and anything in my website where I can insert ads. I have inserted ads everywhere and I clicked on them illegally. With almost one week of clicking my own ads, I was so glad to have gained now 97 dollars! I need only three dollars to reach my 100$ limit. As days pass by, all I’m thinking is about money... money... money.... I no longer care about the contents I am putting online… including porns for mobile phones!!! Yes, I have compiled and put them online! As I continued on clicking and earning money, all I’m thinking is about my easy 100$ which would come in just a week! I am so excited to receive the email but at the same time I felt nervous because I know I've done illegal clicks on my website. There is a big possibility that my account would be frozen when they found out that all the clicks in my website are invalid clicks. But, still I continued on pouring my sweat and sleepless nights as I get so eager to claim my first 100$ which is an easy way to earn 5000 pesos every month and that’s not a bad way to earn money. On the second week after I reached the 100$ limit, I was shocked as I read the email from Google which says "We're sorry to inform you that you will not be able to claim your 100$. We have frozen your account and we will return the money to the advertisers affected. You are no longer allowed to register again! Your account is now disabled!" As I read the email, I felt like killing Google!!! "I felt like I've lost the whole world. I felt like I was thrown by God into hell". What have I done? I just want to earn? I just want to help myself earn more money! This is so disappointing and self-humiliating! I'm going stop now this madness! I will no longer share anything in the Internet. I will now hate Google and will now drop my Gmail account and will now stop using the Google search engine. “Goodbye Google!”

Because of this incident, there are many lessons I’ve learned. As you will realize, any intention which involves money and the desire doesn’t come from your heart, there is a big possibility that you will never succeed. God gave us everything without asking anything in return. In the same way, if we will publish contents on the Internet, let's not expect anything in return. Because of my sad and humiliating experience with Google, I am now sharing for free my personal websites, my diaries, my blogs, my ideas, and even my toastmaster speeches on the Internet. So, if you have time check out my website! Don’t worry; there are no more annoying Google Ads!

Good evening!