I’m sure a lot of you know John Chow by now. Maybe from his four front page Digg’s in 2 days, or from his many ways to make money online, or even more recently for his 13,000 AGLOCO signups, but do you know the real John Chow? I met John Chow around 2 years ago. After attending Million Man Lan and meeting John “Gruntman” Krump, the owner of Gruntville.com he told me about a tech site owner’s forum. On this forum users talked about advertising, products they were getting to review, and just shared their stories about running a tech site. After using the forum for a few month one user really stood out “Moto”, which was of course John. He was always answering questions and helping people out. He also made very funny posts and often showed off the new things he bought.
There was a thread on the forums to post your screen name so I got John’s screen name and decided to message him. Sometimes when you talk to people who are accomplished (which he was at the time running TheTechZone) they really don’t feel like helping you and see you as a “peon” so I really was not expecting much. After messaging him and telling him who I was he was very easy to talk to and answered all of my questions and even gave me some tips. What I was asking him about was Google Adsense. Back in 2005 I really did not know anything about online advertising. Up until that point ThinkComputers was just a hobby to me, after talking with John I realized it could make me some money. I was in college at the time so any extra money was good.
After helping me signup for Adsense and helping me place ads I realized what ThinkComputers could become. With the help of John I really went full steam with ThinkComputers and ended up going to the 2006 CES in Las Vegas. I had never been to a trade show before let alone met any of my sponsors. I met John at the first press event. You can pick him out of the crowd anywhere, a 6 foot tall Asian guy! John invited me to his party at the MGM skylofts. This was a lot of fun being able to kick back with other tech site owners like Stephen Fung, Sal Cangeloso, and of course John. The party was great and John made sure he said hi to everyone and made sure you were having a good time. The entire time at CES all John was doing was having a good time, enjoying the free food and drinks of all of the parties he crashed!
After CES 2006 John further helped me by introducing me to other ad networks. The one in particular was Shopping.com. John runs his own Shopping.com network, TTZ media. These are the ads that you see in every review on ThinkComputers. TTZ Media ended up becoming my biggest money maker.
Over 2006 John helped me out with various things like advertising, sponsors, and even legal problems! He always seemed to want to help no matter what. Now he has become one of the most popular bloggers out there. Has it changed him? NOT AT ALL! I still talk to him on a daily basis and anytime I need help with something or advice he is the first person I turn to and he is always there to help. That’s what I always liked about John his willingness to help. He is not a person to hide his secrets he openly talks about how he makes money online and tells you how to do it! I am really glad I met John and who knows I might not be where I am without his advice.
In January at the 2007 CES John, Stephen, and I held a “Night before CES Party”. It was a lot of fun and just like the year before John made sure everyone was having a good time. It would be nice if so many other accomplished people would be like John and be willing to help out. That is very hard to find these days.