Archive for September, 2009
Increased Pell Grants and Lower Higher Education Borrowing Costs
Sep 17th
I am happy to see the US House of Representatives passed a bill that will increase Pell Grant funding and lower stafford loan borrowing costs for those of us that are continuing our education at the college level.
The bill will eliminate government subsidies to banks issuing Stafford Loans and will now make those loans funded directly by the government. While I don’t ordinarily like the government getting involved in private enterprise, I feel this move is needed. These banks have tremendous leverage and power over students by making Billions in profits on loans that are guaranteed to be repaid, and are even protected from bankruptcy discharge. These are the same banks that have received Billions in government bailout money because even with their massive student loan profits, they lost money on highly leveraged, risky investments. Companies like Citibank and Sallie Mae.
The cost of higher education is quickly reaching a point where many people are questioning whether the accumulation of debt is even worth the increased earning power a college degree may provide. I am in too deep to look back now and will have to finish my program in order to have something to show for my massive student loan debts.
I look forward to receiving a higher Pell Award next year and even greater savings on my Stafford Loans. I would love to see the government offer more incentives for student loan consolidation which I will be looking to take advantage of in a couple of years to make repayment easier and more cost effective.
Laziness and Internet Success
Sep 16th
So I’ve decided that it is pure laziness that causes my lack of success online. While it works in college, the way I don’t study and yet still maintain my place on the Dean’s List, in the world of online income, laziness kills. I have achieved moderate success with my proxy server Unblock YouTube and credit card comparison website, but I have yet to take my efforts in Affiliate Marketing seriously.
I read story after story of people generating five to six figure incomes per month sending traffic to affiliate landing pages and getting them to convert. The concept seems simple enough, but the execution is much more difficult to get a handle on. I’m beginning to think jumping in head first is the way to go and trial and error the secret to success.
"Careful What You Wish For" – Eminem
Sep 11th
Another bonus track from Eminem’s latest record, Relapse, is “Careful What You Wish For.” This song is an ode to overnight success and a common theme through many celebrity’s lives as they wished for success but once they have it, no longer want it.
“Careful What You Wish For” – Eminem
So this is it…
This is what I wished for
Just isn’t how I envisioned it
Fame to the point of imprisonment
I just thought the shit’d be different
But something changed
The minute that I got a whiff of it
I started to inhale it
Smell it
Started sniffin’ it
And it became my cocaine
I just couldn’t quit
I just wanted a little bit
Then it turned me (in)to a monster
I became a hypocrite
Concert after concert
I was raking in the dough
Rolling in green
Had the game hemmed up
Like a sewing machine
But I was losing my freedom
There was no where for me
To not go and be seen
And just go and be me
And there was no in-between
You either loved it or hate it
Every CD critics gave it a 3, then 3
Years later, they’d go back and re-rate it
And call the Slim Shady LP the greatest
The Marshall Mathers was a classic
The Eminem Show was fantastic
But Encore just didn’t have the caliber to match it
I guess enough time just ain’t passed, yet
A couple more years, that shit’ll be ill-matic
And eight years later, I’m still at it
Divorce, re-married
A felon
A father
Sleeping pill addict
And this is real talk
I feel like the Incredible Hulk
My back has been broke, and I can still walk
[Chorus]
So be careful what you wish for
‘Cause you just might get it
And if you get it then you just might not know
What to do wit’ it, ’cause it might just
Come back on you ten-fold
I said
Be careful what you wish for
‘Cause you just might get it
And if you get it then you just might not know
What to do wit’ it, ’cause it might just
Come back on you ten-fold
[Verse 2]
I got a letter from a fan, that said
He’s been praying for me
Every day and for some reason
It’s been weighing on my mind heavy
‘Cause I don’t read every
Letter I get, but something told me to go ahead and open it, but
Why would someone pray for you when they don’t know you?
You didn’t pray for me when I was local
And as I lay these vocals
I think of all the shit I had to go through
Just to get to where I’m at
I’ve already told you at least
A thousand times in these rhymes
I appreciate the prayer, but I’ve already got
God on my side
And it’s been one hell of a ride, hasn’t it?
Just watchin’ it from an opposite standpoint
Man, boy’s got to look
Nuts
And that’s the only word I can think of right now
On how
To describe the shit
This is like a vibe you get
Go ahead and bob to it
Just watch what you wish for, ’cause I got the shit
[Chorus]
So be careful what you wish for
‘Cause you just might get it
And if you get it then you just might not know
What to do wit’ it, ’cause it might just
Come back on you ten-fold
I said
Be careful what you wish for
‘Cause you just might get it
And if you get it then you just might not know
What to do wit’ it, ’cause it might just
Come back on you ten-fold
Rapper Ludacris Gives Away 20 Cars
Sep 7th
In a purely selfless gesture, the rapper Ludacris has given away brand new cars to 20 people who wrote essays to his foundation explaining how having a car would help them in getting to work and keeping their jobs. Luda received thousands of essays and chose the 20 most touching examples of Americans dealing with unique hardship and pushing through their struggles to make a better life for themselves and their family.
Some of the cars given away include a Nissan Maxima and Saturn Ion. Hopefully the new wheels help those 20 people keep their jobs and make their lives a little easier. Thanks go out to Ludacris for giving back on Labor Day in a time of difficulty for most of the nation’s labor force.
Happy Labor Day!
Sep 7th
To those of you that hail from the USA, today marks the 115th annual Labor Day holiday. The holiday is a celebration of the worker, who was key to this country’s industrial revolution and rise to a world power.
The first Labor Day was held in New York City by the Central Labor Union and caught on across the nation after that.
To me, Labor Day culminates into two extra days off from school and maybe a family barbeque. Some good Labor Day sales in the stores can sometimes be found but I haven’t seen much evidence of that this year.
Cheers!
My Addiction to FarmVille
Sep 6th
So I have to admit I have an addiction… to the Facebook game FarmVille. Now, of course, I am always curious about the business and money side of things and the money generated by the creators of Facebook applications is no exception. The most popular apps bring in millions of page impressions and create a potential for tremendous revenue for the creators.
FarmVille is interesting for the fact that I don’t recall seeing any display advertising and upon double checking, sure enough there is none. The game appears to derive revenue solely from selling Farm Coins and Cash used for upgrading your virtual farm. While I have never paid money to add things to a Facebook app, I’m sure many people have and in turn create a nice revenue stream for the creator, Zynga.
Zynga was recently featured in The Wall Street Journal because of FarmVille’s success. The article mentions that after only two months, FarmVille enjoys having 11 Million active users and that money is earned through online advertising and in-game purchases. I’m still confused as to where the in-game advertising is though.
Adam Nash published a blog post about the economics of FarmVille which is a very interesting analysis of the inside mechanics of the game and will surely help out not only hardcore players, but newbies as well. Another more detailed economic analysis of FarmVille’s Trees was calculated by Pablo Paniagua.
The picture at the top of this post is my farm, that I have since modified and will be changing again after saving up to upgrade the size. The game is entirely pointless, however it is a great relaxation tool and a way to kill time.
Technorati Tags: zynga, farmville, wall street journal, virtual farm, facebook
UnblockYouTube.com – Back To School
Sep 6th
With the kids heading back to school comes the return of Proxy Season. I ventured into operating web proxies a couple of years ago and have had moderate success. Due to the arrangements I’ve made the operation is quite passive, requiring very little time on my part, the advertising revenue just gets deposited into the bank each month.
I am only actively utilizing one proxy, Unblock YouTube, which ranks #1 in Google for the term and generates thousands of unique homepage views each and everyday and tens of thousands of surfing page impressions. I have had to limit the geographic location of users that can access the site because of its popularity. Currently only users from the US, Canada, and Europe can access the site. I have considered setting up a database to change the advertising displayed based on the location of the user but I just don’t want to do the work when I can just profit from the tier one countries. Why chase after peanuts when the real advertising money comes from the above mentioned countries.
Web proxies are used to bypass filtering services utilized by schools, businesses and parents in order to access the entire web. This site is geared toward streaming YouTube videos which are usually blocked at work or school. The bandwidth required for such use is high and that’s why very few proxies allow video streaming, but I do. I am able to run the entire thing using a proxy host and being locked into a low cost $25/month plan that blows away the competition.
The revenue generated from Unblock YouTube is now exclusively through Google Adsense, although I did used to bring in money from popups, popunders and interstitials, however that income source had been declining steadily and it disrupted the user experience so I eliminated it completely about a month ago.
My other web proxy, MySpace Unblock It, is a work in progress. I would like to get it ranked #1 for the term “Unblock MySpace”, but have not been very successful as it is a highly competitive keyword and the script programming required to allow proxy surfing through MySpace is intense.
Technorati Tags: youtube, myspace, web proxy, surfing, filter, unblock, proxy
Entrecard Changes
Sep 5th
Entrecard is that 125×125 ad widget you see on the right sidebar of this site. Created by Graham Langdon as a way for bloggers to find each other and efficiently advertise their brand across a network of like minded individuals. Entrecard has taken the traditional banner exchange of yesterday to a new dimension.
Some troubling changes have been made lately and it is leaving me to wonder whether I want to continue running the widget on my blog. Historically when people clicked the “drop” tab at the bottom of the widget they and the blog owner would receive one credit each to use for advertising on other blogs. This “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” mentality worked great and everyone benefited. I got credit for another user clicking on my widget so I get something for keeping the widget installed and the user doing the clicking gets credit for their effort. Recently, Entrecard has removed the one credit earned by the blog owner and is now only awarding a credit to the person clicking “dropping” the widget.
This change in the payout ratio was enacted to curb “credit inflation” which has apparently gotten out of control. I think this disincentivizes publishers from dedicating space on their blog to Entrecard and the change should have instead been applied to the way ads are purchased on other blogs. Currently, everytime a new advertiser buys a one-day advertising slot on a blog the price to place that same ad doubles for the next person. So, the more advertisers a publisher has in queue, the higher each subsequent advertiser pays. As you can imagine, this can get expensive very quickly and become a problem.
I wish the Entrecard team would have looked at a more dynamic advertising inventory system to better charge users for advertising on blogs. If there was a better equation for setting ad rates, then credits would be utilized more and thus keep inflation to a minimum. A better sytem for selling credits needs to be looked at as well. Currently Entrecard will buy EC credits back at the rate of $1 per thousand. This needs to become a market based price that fluctuates based on the supply of credits in the network and the desire for users to sell those credits.
Even though the system is now geared more toward users who click widgets all day, it is still a useful tool for me to find other interesting blogs to read and get some more readers to my own. But, time will tell whether these changes will significantly impact the user experience.
Technorati Tags: entrecard, exchange, graham langdon, traffic exchange, banner exchange
Market Bounce To Be Short Lived
Sep 5th
The recent upswing in the stock market averages will likely be short lived as all the economic data is digested and analyzed and everyone realizes that the recovery is anything but certain. Unemployment is still at a 26 year high and will likely keep increasing. Holiday sales will most assuredly disappoint later in the year. The stratospheric rally of the last six months is so overblown that I am recommending shorting financials and technology now and eventually expanding that to include other sectors. The only stocks that should be held in any portfolio right now are those of strong brands paying substantial and steady dividends such as Kraft (KFT), Phillip Morris (PM), Altria (MO), AT&T (ATT), Verizon (VZ), Heinz (HNZ), Con Ed (ED).
The short strategy I am employing is leveraged by trading the following ETFs: Financial Bear 3x (FAZ), UltraShort Financial ProShares (SKF), UltraShort Technology ProShares (REW). These ETFs use leverage to increase returns within the fund’s objectives, however that leverage works both ways and could result in greater than normal losses as well. The benefit to short and leveraged short ETFs is that you can short the market or a particular sector without having the potential for unlimited losses, quite similar to purchasing put options rather than naked shorting.
I am confident the recovery is not imminent as housing will continue to deteriorate as interest rates rise. The massive amount of debt being issued by the US government will increase treasury yields as investors demand greater returns to absorb the incredibly large volumes of new debt. Jobs will continue to be scarce and the auto industry will suffer an even bigger meltdown now that Cash For Clunkers has ended and car sales will plummet to historic lows as anyone who was going to buy a new car in the next 6-12 months has now done so.
Technorati Tags: investing, stocks, financials, technology, treasury yeild, dividends, cash for clunkers, stock market, dow jones, nasdaq, portfolio
My Take – AP Photo of Fatally Wounded Marine
Sep 4th
I am not surprised by the hypocritical position of Defense Secretary Robert Gates forcefully asking that the AP not publish a photo of a fatally wounded Marine in Afghanistan. Why is it ok for the news media to take pictures of dead, maimed, and disfigured Afghanis and Iraqis and publish those photos without objection, but it’s not acceptable for the same type of picture to be published when the person is American? Who is there to stand up for the foreign victims of war whose friends and family’s bodies are broadcast on the news and in papers across the world?
I think the AP has every right to publish these photos and they should. Why is the Defense Secretary not defending the thousands of innocent bystanders whose dead bodies have been in the news countless times since the start of hostilities in the region. This double standard is bullshit and either all pictures of death should be banned in the media or freedom of the press should continue unaltered, I choose the latter.
Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, marine, war, robert gates, secretary of defense, associated press
