It is possible. You just have to post consistently and use the right tags. I'm not famous and I can get 10K followers just by posting one every few weeks, sometimes I post more regularly. More followers are gained when I post more often. In short, work.
That's the number I came up with after doing some calculations too.
1% VISA
2% Bank charges
Whenever possible, I try to avoid using the cards.
All those promotion gimmicks they give to people to sign up for the cards, and all the spend-this-get-this-gift are all cheaper than the fees. Go figure.
I live in Singapore and the free shipping to my country is USD $125.
Sometimes I really wonder how they make money when the items they ship are so heavy.
In my country, the shipping cost would easily be 2 to 3 times what Amazon would charge for their paid standard shipping. E.g. The box that I received recently would have cost USD $30-50 to ship from my country to USA. They either have a fantastic shipping deal or they really have deep wallets, the latter is probably true.
If you limit reviews to only Amazon customers, you limited the number of people who can write reviews. I buy a lot of things from other places as well, not just Amazon.
When I subscribe to a page, I expect to get updates on new postings.
Because Facebook is using their EdgeRank to filter out those postings, I'm no longer get updates on all the postings. As such I've to go to the subscribed page manually.
No wonder I'm getting so few updates lately. Because Facebook is filtering out everything. How backwards is that?
The latest offering of Kindle Fire might actually give the iPad a serious competition.
I'm currently an iPad user.
If I don't have the iPad now, I would be torn between buying the two.
The Kindle Fire is cheaper. Amazon's customer service is great.
But the most compelling reason is they have Amazon Prime. Being able to access all the Amazon Prime free movies and TV shows is a huge draw, at least to me.
There will be those who will buy it to install their own Android versions also. Small group though.
If I were to recommend either tablets to friends, I'm not sure which one I will recommend. Prior to this release of Kindle Fires, I would have recommended the iPad without much thought.
Marketing comes into play. If not, items for sale would be using cost-based pricing.
A Mac and a PC would both can accomplish the same task. But one is more expensive than another. Being cheaper doesn't necessarily mean it won't last as long.
Tipping is one area that I don't understand about cultures that have them. Generally, I would expect the tip to be included in the price of the food. Why waste my time and have me figure out what amount to tip? Personally, I don't see the perceived value of tipping.
In some way, how much you pay is also determined by how you see yourself, or in some cases want others to see you.
I hope this applies to international shipping as well.
I buy stuff regularly from Amazon and their prices are even cheaper than what my country's local stores are offering after shipping included. E.g. A book from Amazon cost ~30% cheaper than the shops here in Singapore.
1. Use the Who, What, When, Where and How.
Who are you. What do you want. When is it happening. These are the three most important points to get across.
2. Press releases are usually technical jargon that makes no sense to readers. Explain what your product and service to help the readers. E.g. iPod can hold 1000 songs, not 10gb of songs.
3. Think of the readers and pitch it such that your story will be exciting to the readers.
What I'm trying to say is: Don't compete directly.
Apple didn't compete directly with the music/tv/movie industries but yet they too manage to have a huge leverage over them. And they managed that legally.
There will be a certain metric that matters in competition. We just need to know what that metric is.
It may not be necessary to compete as directly as that.
Filesharing sites compete against Hollywood in a different way (even though it's illegal) and they manage to grab their attention. What we need is something to give us the same amount of leverage.
The main point is not to kill Hollywood but to force them to compete and evolve.
Hollywood sell entertainment services that demand the time of people.
The ultimate goal of winning would be to compete and win the time of people. E.g. Newspaper industry is dying because the Internet won the time of people.
At the other end of the spectrum, CEO's salary aren't that much a secret, which I read somewhere that is precisely the reason why their salaries are inflated. If CEOs know that other CEOs are paid that much, they are likely to request the same amount of remuneration, or even more.
They are successful because their content is helpful. Helpful to the point where people will link them on other sites to help other people. That's where the multiplier effect kicks in.
And they also publish their articles very frequently as well, which is why they can grow so fast.