Recently I created a template for an eBay store for a client who also happens to be a friend. The eBay store is called Hitch and Tow and they sell hitch products and accessories on eBay. This project was a learning experience because of all the complexity involved with hooking into eBay and that user interface.

The part of the eBay selling template I created can be found by clicking on a live auction item and then scrolling down to the actual description area of the page (You will see the Hitch and Tow header in green). We also reused the template header and modified it a bit for the store header.

It was pretty challenging because you have to code for an environment that you control very little of the elements except for the template iteself, so to test it you have to actually make an auction live to see what will happen.

It also had to work within the eBay bulk program Turbo Lister, which was an additional hurdle, but it can be done. You also have to train the end user on how to work within the HTML of the template. I'm glad it finally worked out so well for my client that he currently uses it for over 200 listings and that total is growing.

For the past six months or so I have been going to a number of Meetup.com group meetings.

I have attended different groups like meetups for eBay, Joomla, WordPress, Adobe and other general groups that were geared towards internet marketing and affiliate marketing. I even joined a different Meetup.com networking group that met to share networking leads.

At the beginning I was real enthusiastic about a number of the groups, especially the internet marketing groups. They were good outlets for networking in my field of web design. I have met a good number of other designers through them.

At some point you have to begin to weed out those that are not meeting your needs because they do take time to go to and there is usually some expense to attending a meeting, even if it is only paying for your meal.

I think I was attending 8 meetups at my peak. Now I have pared that down to 4 meetups I attend on a regular basis. I dropped the group about Joomla because I was not learning as much as I thought I would at the meetings and I use WordPress for my blogs anyways.

I also dropped the networking group because I was spending $20-$24 a month for the meals and never got a single lead. The members were all interested in much larger types of businesses and I never felt it was a worthwhile deal to go to during my business day.

The WordPress group, which I have only attended 1 time, met only to socialize and had no structure, plus it met on Saturday in the middle of the day, which was not a great time for me. I like to spend my weekends with my wife and family. I think I will give them another try though.

The best meetups I have attended are the eBay and the Adobe groups. They both have real structure, learning occurs and the organizers always attend and are real involved in the groups. The internet marketing groups are hit or miss. One month the discussion will be targeted and lively, the next time they will be aimless and have sparse attendance.

I did make a real good association at one of the internet marketing meetups with a nice man named Dan Mason. We have been listing one of his products on my eBay account and they have done fairly well. He imports custom-made products from China that he sells in his business.

Try Meetup.com for yourself. You can search for subjects of interest to you and there are thousands of groups nationwide with tons in every local area.

If you have tried Meetup.com, what groups had you had success with?

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This is my first post about my web design freelance experience.

I have seen over the last week an increase in potential. I kept getting these little feelers that a number of little jobs were about to start and today I find myself somewhat employed again.

Last week a referral from my sister Myra Moskowitz landed me a small job for the Dallas Jewish Community Foundation working on their web site fixing code and some design issues. I put in an afternoon there on Thursday with the promise of more later in the month after the busy/crazy period is over for them.

Last week there was another referral from my mom working for a friend on 3 small sites. I have done bit of preliminary work on that, but am waiting for the client to get me more material.

Last week I did a short software lesson with a guy I met at the Dallas eBaybes & eMales Meetup.com group I belong to. It was on a Mac shareware program called Garage Sale that I use for listing auctions on eBay. If you have a Mac and do eBay, check out the program as it has a number of excellent features. He gave my business card to a friend and tomorrow I am meeting with the friend to start a small site for an antiques business in Jefferson, TX.

And today my many emails to postings on Craigslist finally paid off. I am starting with a company in Euless, TX called TowerOS tomorrow for a 20-30 hour a week gig designing and coding ecommerce stores. The stores are ProStores, which is an eBay company.

I am also awaiting more work from a client, Joie De Deux, that I have been working for since I was still a student a few years back.

See, when it rains, it pours.

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