Time is Money - Wow Insider

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

I've taken a look at the Wow Insider column Time is Money and I have some advice for the writer(s).

For one, I really like to see people getting the word out about good gold making strategies for free. The writing style is easy to read, even if the content is a little vague.

Readers of JMTC know that I cite my ideas and quote the responsible parties with follow up links and descriptions. If I come up with ideas on my own I usually show in game videos or describe the thinking behind my strategies. What I do not like about this Time is Money column is that it does not cite ANYONE for the ideas within these posts. I'm going to give Time is Money the benefit of the doubt and assume that this column is being 'shot from the hip' with no research behind the information.

I hope that this assumption is correct, because if most of the information contained within Time is Money comes from the various gold making blogs out there then Time is Money is doing a great disservice to the wow community by not citing their sources. That's all I have to say about that, as I am extremely greatful for the columns, The Daily Quest and The Queue, which have covered my blog multiple times. In fact, I want to take time to say thank you to you guys from the The Daily Quest and The Queue for the thousands of new readers you've introduced to my blog and I love how you scour the web looking for blogs to show your readers.

Time is Money has several flaws which I want to point out in the hope of improving it. Look at my blog and ask why is it successful? Players want specific ways to make gold and they want estimates on how much gold they will make for their time. They also want out of the box thinking combined with intelligent analysis of gold strategies. More specifics, more examples, and more numbers are what makes them come back.

I totally understand where Time is Money is coming from, they want to teach you how to make your own gold strategy instead of handing you one or two examples. Which is exactly how I started my gold guide. It was just a list of the game mechanics and professions you should make use of when finding gold niches on your server. However, players react better to examples of gold making strategies and actually bulid better upon already established gold making ideas. That's why at the end of my guide I added over 60 ways to make gold using professions because just saying do this and look for this value is not enough. People like it when you connect the dots for them, and it reinforces the process for when they go off on their own and find their own gold making strategies. I also took auctioneer and explained in detail how it works, how to make money with it, and how to compete against those doing the same thing as you.

In other words I am always looking at the next idea, taking old ideas and adapting to new situations, as well as explaining my thinking process so that others can follow along easily or even build upon it.

Here, as an example, I'll take each post and add to them with more information that would allow people to immediately start making gold after reading.

Disenchanting Tips
You can disenchant Stone Guard Bands which cost 2 eternal earths and make good profits selling the infinite dusts and greater cosmic essences. Shadowmight Bands are a great option as well.

The information on disenchanting blues is misleading, most blue items cost much more than 15-20 gold which is the value of dreamshards currently.

The tip on using the auction house to find weapons/armor for disenchanting is great, but making your own items is even better! How about going one step further and showing people where they can get the materials? Such as eternal earth or elementals in wintersgrasp.

Addons to Beat the Vendors
I like this post except that you need to follow up with posts for each addon, especially auctioneer. Going into the specifics of how they work and how you can use them would really be helpful. For instance my 22 steps to using auctioneer is a great starter guide that shows step by step how to use auctioneer to make money right away. There is a lot more to auctioneer than just using it's search features, as you have to populate its values with scans first and many new players have no idea how this system works.

I know this from the dozens of emails I've received asking me why a search returns no results (becuase no scans have been done before the search).

Selling Your Quest Rewards
This post is useful for new players and does a good job of explaining the value of soul bound items when deciding which to take for the sole purpose of vendoring. However, instead of guessing at the value of these items you could simply use auctioneer to mouse over the items and see their values.

Farming in StormPeaks
This is my favorite post, it sited exactly what to do and where to go; though there was not much information on what to do with the items farmed.

For instance, the saronite mined in this area can be made into bars and sold individually for 300% more than in stacks of 20. A mining map or herbing map would of been great instead of writing 'herbs are all over the place'. Eternal Fires should be broken up into crystallized fire for the best profits too.

As far as I know Just My Two Copper was the first website to discuss the value of the Nascent Val'kyr who drop the best gray item for farming in the game. Something I didn't see mentioned was the fact that these mobs also drop a trinket worth thousands of gold (though it will become less valuable as ulduar gear becomes more readily available along with naxx trinkets). Also, the relics of ulduar sell best on the weekend when players with the least time on their hands are on and just want to get their rep up as quickly as possible.

In conclusion, Time is Money has great potential, a huge audience, and dedicated writers. A little more thoroughness will go a long way as well as smaller, more concise articles. In order to achieve this, I've learned that you have to shoot for only one or two ideas in each article, as there is just too much information to write about if you expand further. I think Time is Money could avoid some of the vagueness by limiting the number of ideas within each article.

Talk about hypocrisy, look at the length of this post and tell me to be more concise... hehe

As a side note I do not mean to compare Time is Money with JMTC, it's not exactly a fair comparison with 4 posts vs 130+. I just don't want Time is Money to make the same mistakes that I made when I first started out three months ago.

Visit their posts in the links above and leave some comments to help Time is Money grow and become a better column. The writers will appreciate your support, thanks.

If you're starting your own blog (as I know many of you are) then you will probably benefit from this message of "simplicity with detail" as well.