Are you a Royal Enfield air blower? You might be

Last week I was lucky enough to learn from Royal Enfield's new chief executive officer that the company is working on a powerful parallel twin motorcycle and on a multi-fuel adventure touring bike. He also told me that a kick start lever is coming for Royal Enfield C5 motorcycles imported to the United States.

Royal Enfield CEO Dr. Venki Padmanabhan spoke to me by phone from the New York International Motorcycle Show.

News of the parallel twin and the multi-fuel Himalaya adventure bike quickly spread across the Internet. A few sites linked to the story I wrote, but most didn't, and none I saw even mentioned Dr. Padmanabhan, the source of my information.

That's rude, but here's the funny part:

At least one report I saw was itself ripped off, apparently by automated software of some sort.

"Royal Enfield is definitely on a roll," the original writer enthused. "Latest of all the innovations is an announcement that could lead to massive fan following for this cult bike maker."

The automated software changed this to: "Royal Enfield is really upon a roll. Latest of all innovations is a proclamation which could lead to larger air blower following for this cult bike."

Air blower?

"It's called 'Spinning,'" my wife, a professor of multi-media journalism, told me. The automated software takes a legitimate article, changes some words to synonyms, and re-posts it on the Internet.

The idea is to generate content that Internet search engines will mistake for entirely original material. And the software does this with no effort or expense to the spinner, who thus draws people searching for the term "Royal Enfield" to his site.

It is one thing to be ripped off by careless or inconsiderate fellow writers. It's another thing to be hijacked by software that turns "fan following" into "air blower following."

Royal Enfield motorcycles made in India,but you won't need a Hindi phrase book

Royal Enfield motorcycles are built today in India, so it naturally follows that Hindi speaking residents of the United States would be interested in reading about Royal Enfield motorcycles on this blog.

Right? Well, I hope so, anyway. And the U.S. Census Bureau apparently hopes so as well.

An advertisement offering a Hindi Assistance Guide to filling out the U.S. Census forms this year appeared briefly here on my blog. My wife Bonnie was quick enough to make a screen shot of it for proof.

The robots that place Google ads are pretty smart. But not brilliant.

I noted recently that many of the followers of this blog are residents of India. That is wonderful, but it is of no interest to the U.S. Census Bureau. It presumably only cares about Hindi speakers who reside in the United States. I doubt that this applies to many of my readers, although it may apply to some.

But, then, there's this: anyone already reading this blog would have no trouble reading and understanding English, regardless of where they live.

The ad probably got few or no clicks. Still, I am delighted to have had the ad from the Census Bureau appear on my blog.

If nothing else, it is a welcome relief from all the Toyota ads and ads for Google's phone.

Royal Enfields: Follow this blog!

If you read http://www.royalenfields/ please do me a favor and click "Follow This Blog" above the collection of little faces in the sidebar column to the right. By doing so, you'll be updated every time I post a new item here.

You'll be able to choose to follow this blog anonymously, if you prefer. But, if you're a blogger yourself, this is your chance to let me and my readers know what you have to offer. You can stop following this blog at any time with a simple click.

Even if you're not a blogger, there are only a few quick steps to take to activate this feature. You'll be walked through it automatically.

The Follow This Blog widget is a relatively new feature created by Google. It is expected to catch on fast and become the new way that users follow blogs and web pages. I think you'll like it. Click now.

How to make BIG money as a blogger

Take the money and run! Yes, YOU can get rich as a blogger. Apparently it's just me who can't seem to manage it. At least not so far. I'm not going to give up because I still want to make BIG MONEY BLOGGING.

I do love blogging about Royal Enfield motorcycles, although it would be even better if I could do it and GET RICH BLOGGING.

I also love motorcycles in general, especially vintage machines like the sidecar outfit shown above. The illustration is the cover of Private Detective magazine from January, 1945. The artwork is by Richard Lillis and was in the collection of Robert Lesser. I encountered it in the calendar from his August, 2003 display at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Technically, the illustration has nothing to do with How to Get Rich Writing a Blog. Getting rich writing a blog is nothing at all like escaping in a sidecar with a beautiful redhead and bundles of cash. What can I say? I was misled.

The idea for this blog came from my wife, a beautiful redhead who teaches a class at the university on How to Make Money Blogging on the Internet. Actually, that is not exactly the title of her course, but, hearing her describe her lectures, I discovered The Secret to Making Money Writing a Blog.

The secret was to write about something I loved, like Royal Enfield motorcycles. Only after I confidently began this blog did my wife the professor explain to me that "that will never work!" It's too much of a niche, says the professor who tells her students that no niche is too small for the mighty Internet.

"But, look," I protested to her, "I have readers. My blog is drawing eyeballs. I have page views." It's then that she told me the Real Secret to Making Money Blogging:

"They don't pay you for page views," she said. "They only pay you when people click on the ads."

Still, I love what I'm doing. I did complain to my friend, the screenwriter and wit Douglas Kalajian, that I was endlessly pushing a rock up a hill.

He replied: "Just to keep you focused: you're pushing the rock downhill."

I deeply appreciate the support of you readers who follow this blog regularly in hopes of watching How I Get Rich Writing a Blog. I hope to have some advice for you on that just as soon as I in fact do Become Rich Blogging!

In the meantime, I hope to be able to share the fun information and pictures I dig up about Royal Enfield motorcycles. If you have something to offer or suggest, especially something that will help EARN MONEY BLOGGING, be sure to leave a comment here. It also wouldn't hurt if you clicked on some of the little ads you see scattered about by Google.

But only click if you're really, really interested. Because Google and its clever little robots dodging about looking for Tips on How to Get Rich Blogging are a blogger's best friend!