Thursday, January 6, 2011

personal finance

Best Mobile Personal Finance Tool: Mint

Earlier last week we asked you to share your favorite mobile personal finance tool. We rounded up the nominations and put the top five before you for a vote. Now we're back with your favorite.

Leading the pack by a brutal landslide; Mint's mobile finance application took home 76% of the vote. Following behind Mint, Pageonce pulled in 14%. Rounding out the bottom of the Hive were Pocket Money (3%), EasyMoney (2%), and ProOnGo (1%).

Click on the chart below to see the results in graph form.

Have an idea for the next Hive Five? Shoot us an email at tips@lifehacker.com with "Hive Five" in the subject line and we'll do our best to get your idea the attention it deserves.

Send an email to Jason Fitzpatrick, the author of this post, at jason@lifehacker.com.

J.D. Roth, over at Get Rich Slowly, suggests that many of us have spending habits that aren't really in line with our goals. To find out if that's the case for you, Roth suggests the following steps:

Quickly—without thinking too much—write down all the things that are important to you and that you want in life.

Analyze your spending records over the past year by category. (You can do this easily in Mint, QuickBooks, or pretty much any financial software you may be using. You can also just take a look at what you own if you're not tracking your finances.)

Compare the two lists.

If the two lists line up, you're probably spending the way you ought to. If they don't, you may want to consider ways to spend your money in other categories that will help you meet your goals. Every time you consider buying something, just ask yourself if it's in line with what really matters to you. That can make the decision much easier.

Does Your Spending Match Your Values? | Get Rich Slowly

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News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

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News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

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News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters surface encounters

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

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surface encounters michigan

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters macomb
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News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters
surface encounters

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters macomb
surface encounters michigan

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters
surface encounters rock tops

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters macomb mi
surface encounters michigan
surface encounters macomb

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters macomb mi
surface encounters macomb

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters
surface encounters macomb

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters michigan
surface encounters michigan

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters macomb mi
surface encounters noblesville

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters noblesville

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters
surface encounters noblesville

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters noblesville
surface encounters noblesville

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters rock tops
surface encounters michigan

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters macomb
surface encounters macomb mi

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters rock tops
surface encounters michigan

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters noblesville
surface encounters michigan

News - Khloe Kardashian Becomes a Redhead! - Style & Beauty ...

"I'm so tired of [my sisters] copying everything I do with my hair, so I wanted to go red," she says.

Helen Thomas Joins Falls Church News-Press | ARLnow.com

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has come out of a seven-month retirement to write a column for the Falls Church News-Press. Thomas was a.

Small Business News: Recommitting To Social Media in 2011

How important will social media be to small business in 2011? Likely even more important than it was in 2010. Let's face it. Social media gives small business.

surface encounters rock tops

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Making Money Software

[CES 2011] It’s been exactly one year since NVIDIA announced and showed Tegra 2 to the world, and NVIDIA did not win a whole lot of contract (“design-wins”) with handset and tablet makers – until recently. If you follow this site regularly, you have probably noticed that Tegra 2 devices have been a common occurrence in the past couple of months, and you can expect this to continue going forward.

Why?

First of all, NVIDIA used to focus their software (drivers) efforts on Windows CE. It turns out that it was a mistake, although one that might be explained by the fact that an alliance with Microsoft and its early DirectX made NVIDIA successful in the past (RIVA 128 days).

NVIDIA has since turned its efforts towards Android, the Operating System (OS) that OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) really want. This new direction, combined with the realization by wireless carriers that multimedia and gaming capabilities do generate money, have propelled NVIDIA from being a marginal player to being a real threat for arch-rivals like Qualcomm, Ti, Freescale, Marvell and others players in that space.

Multimedia and Gaming Matter

Two years ago, people were reasonably happy with their smartphones if they could browse the web decently, and even that is still a challenge for some platforms… Today, games are the type of content that brings the most money in the eco-system (app stores), so all the sudden, carriers want to have a great gaming phones. And guess who has been powering gaming graphics for a couple of decades?

Master the basics first

Being a “fast gaming machine” is not good enough. First, Tegra 2 has to prove that it is good at the basic things: battery life, web browsing. According to NVIDIA, Tegra-equipped phones browse the web a whole lot faster than established (but also older) competitors out there. The graph above shows its relative performance in an array of web benchmarks. This is basically a demonstration of the multi-core nature of Tegra 2, as web browsing is something that can be made to be multi-core friendly. Other multi-core architecture should exhibit similar improvements.

Tegra 2 also uses a known principle: “perform the task quickly, and get back to sleep”. The idea is to allow the chip to enter a very “fast” mode (which consumes more power), so that it comes back to a “rest” state more rapidly. NVIDIA says that Tegra’s rest state is lower-power than many competitors. Although this might help battery life, the primary goal is to increase performance significantly – without making the battery situation worse. It might be counter intuitive, but using multiple cores at a lower frequency can lead to a significant power consumption reduction for a given task.

Then go to the next level

Flash

With basic stuff out of the way, the Tegra 2 team has identified two areas where they can make a big difference: Flash and 3D gaming. As you have seen, Flash might be available in select phones, but it doesn’t mean that it is usable at all. In fact, Flash (in the browser) is mostly unusable at this point.

Adobe Flash performance is typically slow and it is a CPU (and power) “hog”. On PC, Adobe, Intel, and many companies like AMD or NVIDIA have contributed to the Flash player code (or low-level portions) to make it what it is today. In the mobile world, this has not really happened yet – until now. If a company isn’t capable of optimizing Flash itself, it’s just not going to happen – that’s the bottom-line. With Tegra, NVIDIA has managed to accelerate the whole Flash pipeline in hardware. Years of working with Adobe Flash on the “PC” side is paying dividends here.

3D Gaming

Most people expect NVIDIA to do well here, so it’s not really a surprise, but is it still a technological feat. OpenGL ES 2.0 found on mobile phones is equivalent to DirectX 9, so that’s hardly new for a company like NVIDIA. However, there are a few details that are particularly interesting, like the use of an “Early-Z” (a technique to quickly discard unseen pixels), programmable blending, or cache memory that reduces memory traffic (and therefore power). Some of these techniques are used to simply increase performance in discrete PC graphics, but here, there’s also a huge focus on power preservation.

startups, Software, crm

Nutshell Building New CRM Software From Scratch, With A Big Focus On Mobile

Erin Kutz 12/20/10

For Guy Suter, starting from scratch is a good thing. At least when it comes to user interfaces, he says. His Ann Arbor-based startup Nutshell is building a customer relationship management software system from the ground up that he says offers a better user experience than what’s long been out on the market.

Suter first saw the problems with existing CRM software options while CEO of BitLeap, an offsite data backup and disaster recovery company that was acquired by Barracuda Networks in 2008. He found products like Salesforce.com and SugarCRM to be “cumbersome” and not particularly user friendly, he says.

Many of the biggest names in CRM got their start before the big modern features of the Web existed, says Suter, Nutshell’s CEO. Pretty important features, like Ajax, the Web development system used to create more interactive application on sites. Some of these long-time CRM brands have added layers to and tweaked their software to keep up with new Internet standards, but Suter says piling new features onto an existing, outdated platform still makes for a clunky user experience.

“That kind of leaves things lacking, it doesn’t feel as seamless as something you could start with a blank slate,” says Suter, who also works as a director at Barracuda Networks.

His 12-person team at Nutshell is putting a big focus on making the software systems for salespeople easier to navigate. Some features include: automatically refreshing the page when users update information, breaking up information so that it doesn’t read as one giant log that takes minutes to scroll through, and allowing users to grab data and move it to the appropriate place. The software also enables users to customize different steps and milestones of their sales process, offering different data entry variables and options for each step, Suter says.

Nutshell, was launched in 2009 by Suter and is internally funded—with no immediate plans to raise outside money. The company also has two staffers completely dedicated to developing the product for the mobile phone. “We want to build the best mobile CRMs in world; that’s where the world is going,” Suter says.

Right now, the iPhone version of Nutshell enables users to sift through their customer data and research leads, but in the future the company is adding geo-location features. One of the big problems for salespeople who travel is entering a lead’s or client’s information into the software system from a computer, and finding the Internet access to do it. With upcoming versions of the mobile edition of Nutshell, users will be able to enter information into the system “between the door of the client they just met with and the door of their car,” Suter says. The GPS features in the phone will enable the system to readily pick up a client location and enter it into the system.

The Nutshell software first hit the market a month ago, offering customers a free 30-day trial of the product, which normally costs $25 per individual user per month. Those first trials were just ending last week when I chatted with Suter, so now “it’s getting to decision time” for those first several hundred customers on whether they’ll stick with the product. The company attracted a mix of customers, but those in the Web development and design space were big, Suter says.

The first crop of customers will also determine the features and focus of Nutshell in the future, which could include mass marketing and enterprise resource planning, Suter says. “Ultimately Nutshell will be an entire business suite of software,” he says.

Erin Kutz is an Assistant Editor for Xconomy. You can reach her by e-mail at ekutz@xconomy.com or by phone at (617) 252-0700, or follow her on Twitter at @erkutz.

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Profs Tell Fox News: Stop Making Viewers Dumber | Education ...

Need any more proof that Fox News is actually making its viewers dumber? Look no further than the latest study out of the University of Maryland. Fox's fake news program has actually managed to con... Read more of this post, Profs Tell ...

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Victoria Kolakowski: 5 Facts About America's First Transgender ...

Sworn in on Tuesday, Victoria Kolakowski became the country's first transgender trial judge. Surge Desk takes a look at her career and life accomplishments.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Free Making Money

(Yes, I really want to start using the word ‘pivot’ in more headlines in 2011 – it’s one of my New Year resolutions).

ZapTunes.com is a gigantic scam. They used to trick people into believing they could sign up for the service – handing over their credit card details in the process – and instantly gain access to an online music catalog of more than 8 million DRM-free songs they could legally download. For $25 a month.

Of course, the ‘startup’ was quickly and diligently called out for being a devious fraud, by TorrentFreak for one. Of course, it wasn’t so hard to identify ZapTunes as a huge scam – they were stupid enough to claim they’d signed a licensing deal that enabled it to offer music from The Beatles (this was way before Apple got to that point).

Anyway, they announced their shutdown just months after launching, to no one’s surprise but undoubtedly not after taking some gullible people’s money.

In their own press release, they stated that “from the very first day of its launch, ZapTunes had been struggling against numerous DMCA complaints and lawsuits that were brought against it by a handful of label companies”.

This morning, however, the fraudulent company announced its return, this time billing itself as a social music discovery network. They will stop offering free music downloads, and all existing subscriptions are to be canceled as soon as the new website is launched.

Although ZapTunes mentions how it has struggled to “get to a point of profit” to date, the company says it has attracted 25,000 subscribers to its free music download service, which, again, sets those users back $25 per month.

I sincerely hope that, too, is a lie, and far fewer people got tricked by these fraudsters.

The reason for this post is simple: I want as many people as possible to land on this blog post or the ones I linked to above when doing a search for ZapTunes, in the hopes of making them realize they should stay far, far away from it.

It’s being reported by BGR that some Best Buys may be unable to activate new T-Mobile lines at their stores. Normally, you may think “What’s the big deal?” but it’s causing issue for those hoping to buy the new Nexus S superphone. With Best Buy unable to activate a new service line through T-Mobile, some BGR readers are reportedly having to pay the full retail contract-free price of the Nexus S ($530) in order to assure that nobody else nabs their phone. Brutal!

According to the reader, he couldn’t activate the new line in store, and after heading home, he called back and after repeated calls, they said that if he wanted to get a Nexus S, he would have to pay full retail for the phone. Now, this seems to be an isolated incident, and who knows if the guy was black listed by T-Mobile or something.

BGR reached out to Best Buy’s press relations people, who apparently didn’t respond to their questions. Have any of our readers had this issue? We’d love to find out. Tell us about it in the comments section.

To briefly recap the specs of the Nexus S, it’s not a bad phone, though it’s basically a Galaxy S with Google branding and a curved display:

4-inch OLED contour display
1GHZ processor
512MB RAM
16GB storage
Android 2.3
5MP Camera w/ LED flash

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Now Tucker Carlson Says Michael Vick Should Not Be Executed - AOL News

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Weirdest Finding of 2010? Balmain Hair Extensions – Fashionista ...

John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox News - NYTimes.com

Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.

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Now Tucker Carlson Says Michael Vick Should Not Be Executed - AOL News

Weirdest Finding of 2010? Balmain Hair Extensions – Fashionista ...

John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox News - NYTimes.com

Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.

robert shumake detroit

(Yes, I really want to start using the word ‘pivot’ in more headlines in 2011 – it’s one of my New Year resolutions).

Anyway, they announced their shutdown just months after launching, to no one’s surprise but undoubtedly not after taking some gullible people’s money.

I sincerely hope that, too, is a lie, and far fewer people got tricked by these fraudsters.

To briefly recap the specs of the Nexus S, it’s not a bad phone, though it’s basically a Galaxy S with Google branding and a curved display:

4-inch OLED contour display
1GHZ processor
512MB RAM
16GB storage
Android 2.3
5MP Camera w/ LED flash

robert shumake detroit

robert shumake

Now Tucker Carlson Says Michael Vick Should Not Be Executed - AOL News

Weirdest Finding of 2010? Balmain Hair Extensions – Fashionista ...

John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox News - NYTimes.com

Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.

robert shumake

Now Tucker Carlson Says Michael Vick Should Not Be Executed - AOL News

Weirdest Finding of 2010? Balmain Hair Extensions – Fashionista ...

John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox News - NYTimes.com

Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.

robert shumake

I am one of so many who dare to try their hand at making money online. While I've only been at it for 3 or 4 months now, I thought I would share my experiences on being a member of Zazzle. Zazzle is an online website that gives you access to having your own on-line "gallery." (http://zazzle.com) It is actually tons of fun if you are a photographer, love to draw, or if you can create witty sayings to put on t-shirts, mugs, posters, etc. The concept is brilliant! Whatever you create, you can put it onto one of their products. These products vary from mugs to t-shirts to U.S. postage stamps. You can create your own ties, Keds shoes, greeting cards, and baby onesies. The list goes on. It's quite impressive actually. Did I mention its fun?

Immediately you are the owner of your own gallery. Not only that, you can sell your art for free. Zazzle does not charge for anyone to be a member. You are paid a percentage of what you sell your art for. This percentage is chosen by you and is anywhere from 10 percent up. The more of a percentage you collect, the higher the price of your product is. With this system, Zazzle gives you the opportunity to make money while guaranteeing that they will always make money. It's up to you to decide what you're worth and to factor in what people might be willing to pay for your creations. Personally, I started at 10 percent and worked my way up to 20 percent for most of my items. Some of the items are quite pricey. For instance, the Ked's shoes are approximately 55 to 60 dollars and up! That, to me, is crazy! I think I will go lower my shoes to 10 percent after I write this article. Most other items are quite reasonable. The stamps are my favorite. They are the price of a normal package of stamps plus 10 percent and up. I chose 20 percent. I'm proud of my art, but I want it to be affordable to many.

Am I incredibly successful with my Zazzle gallery? I feel I am successful because I enjoy the creative outlet and the comments I get from other artists in the Zazzle community. However, I will admit I have not earned one dime. There, I said it! I still have hope I might sell something. I might even sell more than one something! I've learned from other members that in order to be even a little successful you have to network. For instance, go through the website and leave comments for others on their art. It's fun and is a good way to become a part of the community. Pick out some favorites and join their fan clubs. This will let them know that you appreciate their art while giving them a link to visit your gallery. Most times, people you favorite or leave comments for do visit and may even favorite you as well. If they like you enough they can choose to link you to their gallery, so you will get more exposure. Also, Zazzle has many ideas on how to make more money. They advise you to put a link to your gallery on your web pages and email signatures. They also have something called an associates account where you can promote other's art and make 10 percent off of it if someone visits them from your link and buys something. Does this sound confusing? I won't lie and say I have it all figured out. If you don't, you can consult their tutorials and their forums. Overall, this site is very easy to understand.

My advice to you is to give it a try and see if you enjoy being a member. I can almost guarantee that the creatively inclined will enjoy it, money or no money. It is a thrill to have your own art gallery and look at other's galleries. I love having my own products up for sale and expressing myself through those products. If you have a moment, check out my gallery, "Pomeranian Dream Clouds" at http://www.zazzle.com/grrlcpc .

Site Title: http://www.zazzle.com
My Zazzle Guru: http://www.zazzle.com/audrart

robert shumake detroit

Now Tucker Carlson Says Michael Vick Should Not Be Executed - AOL News

Weirdest Finding of 2010? Balmain Hair Extensions – Fashionista ...

John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox News - NYTimes.com

Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.

robert shumake

(Yes, I really want to start using the word ‘pivot’ in more headlines in 2011 – it’s one of my New Year resolutions).

Anyway, they announced their shutdown just months after launching, to no one’s surprise but undoubtedly not after taking some gullible people’s money.

I sincerely hope that, too, is a lie, and far fewer people got tricked by these fraudsters.

To briefly recap the specs of the Nexus S, it’s not a bad phone, though it’s basically a Galaxy S with Google branding and a curved display:

4-inch OLED contour display
1GHZ processor
512MB RAM
16GB storage
Android 2.3
5MP Camera w/ LED flash

robert shumake

Now Tucker Carlson Says Michael Vick Should Not Be Executed - AOL News

Weirdest Finding of 2010? Balmain Hair Extensions – Fashionista ...

John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox News - NYTimes.com

Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.

robert shumake detroit

Thursday, December 30, 2010

foreclosure auctions

As we've been saying, there are two different worlds from the perspective of the economy, and here's a look at the two different worlds from the eyes of the media. - Ilene

Tinsel Tuesday – Market Decorations Make Us Merry

Courtesy of Phil of Phil's Stock World

I figured out how to get bullish!

Just read the Wall Street Journal. On the front page we have "Nuclear Pact Adds Backers" above the fold along with a fluff piece on the weather in Europe. There are 3 other featured articles on the front page of the World’s most widely-read financial paper and one is a fluff piece on the Jimmy Stewart museum, one is on the obscure concept of betting people are going to die (very fun and interesting but "The World’s biggest financial paper"?) and the last is on the SEC looking into Mark Hurd’s exit from HP. On the left is "What’s News" with about 30 summaries of articles in the paper so one would think you could look this over and have a really good idea of what’s going on in the World.

I see that "Spain said its regional governments are on track to meet their budget targets" and Dow component Boeing (who fell off yesterday) announced a "$1 Billion commercial satellite deal with the Mexican Government" and Blackstone is starting a $15Bn fund and TD is buying Chrysler Financial for $6.3Bn and (and this is a real XMas gift to Wall Street) "A Senate deal to fund the federal government until early March doesn’t include money to enact the health-care overhaul or stepped up regulation of Wall Street" and also that North Korea held their fire during a South Korean artillery drill. Wow! All seems right with the World, doesn’t it?

If I just read the WSJ, I find no reason to be bearish at all. Certainly there is no mention of Spanish Bond Yields rising 37% in a month to 5.5% at today’s $4Bn bond auction. There is no mention of China’s Vice Chairman of National Development saying that China "needs to prepare for a long- term fight against inflation" or that oil imports into China are expected to fall off next year as their economy cools down. You would think the fact that BAC, JPM and four other lenders facing a suspension of foreclosure activity under court order in New Jersey would be a news story or perhaps some mention of the 29-year high in sugar prices would be of interest to investors along with the limit-up trading in cotton to record highs for no particular reason other than the fact that it’s a commodity and speculators will buy pretty much anything in the current frenzy.

Gold is up for the third consecutive day, China’s money-market rates jumped to a 2-year high as banks raised their reserve ratios (this one didn’t even make the WSJ’s on-line Asia section, but you can real all about the World’s most expensive noodles!). Pimco said "Untenable Policies Will Lead to Eurozone Break-Up" according to the London Telegraph with Andrew Bosomworth stating: "Greece, Ireland and Portugal cannot get back on their feet without either their own currency or large transfer payments. The euro crisis is not over by a long shot. Market tensions will continue into 2011. The mechanism comes far too late."

Of course that’s nothing compared to Meredith Whitney’s dire warning of a financial meltdown driven by the collapse of US municipal bond auctions – a topic we discussed last Wednesday. And Meredith is just full of holiday cheer compared to David Rosenberg, who puts a fair value on the S&P at no more than 1,120 and makes many excellent points that the market is now 10% overvalued and gives "10 Signs that the Holiday Retail Season is Going Worse Than People Realize" or John Hussman, who has certainly channeled his inner Phil with "Things I Believe" too!

We are, then, getting to the root of my problem – I read too much! I wake up early every morning and read my various papers and web sites and, from that, I formulate a short-term and long-term investing premise. Perhaps I have forgotten what the Great Emancipator once said:

""A total of 78,955 U.S. properties received default notices (NOD, LIS) in November, a 21 percent decrease from the previous month and a 31 percent decrease from November 2009 — the 10th straight annual decrease in default notices. November’s default notices total was the lowest since July 2007. ""

DEFAULT NOTICES, administrative 3 months mandatory paper trail, properly 'served' to meet stage one Legal Requirements...

November 2010 lowest since July 2007 thats 3 years and 5 months = 41 months

so finally exhausted the continued monthly supply of about 80,000 defaulting type house buyers, 3.28 million defaulters

SINCE THE TAIL END CHARLIES finally 'evicted' is/has been at 95,000 / month...(why MORE..hum) ANYWAY, FOR SURE ALL 100% OF THE DEFAULTERS SEEM TO BE CONTINUING TO NOT PAY..remaining rent free during the judicial cycle from default to final eviction...

How Long on average ? 12-24 months per house rent-free? pure guess.. another guess is therrefore HOW MUCH 'TAKE HOME ADDITIONAL SPENDING MONEY IS IT @ 24 months and say $1500/month (very modest estimate, low end). and 3.28 million 'beneficiaries' over the 41 months thus far...

Well, a NICE SOLID $36,100 per household ....11.75 x 10 (6+4) => 11.75 tens of billions..=>.$117.50 BILLION boost to the USA economy, spread over 41 months, very very good...

Another pure guess is IF the US IRS will make an Administrative Final Decision regards the tax status of the UNPAIDFORGIVEN DEBTS on those mortgages...

You see, of course, that for every Bank Tax deduction for 'written off mortgage-debt', that same EQUAL amount of "DEBT FORGIVEN MUST BE TAXED", against the 'beneficiary...shall it be 'short term' or 'long term' windfall income?,

and under what special payment terms shall the IRS allow the money-due to be paid...probably the short term mode = 35% average for blue collar workers, spread over 2 years of the estimated $36,100 / household finally evicted, about $12,600 'back taxes due'

and for non-citizens, non-payment could result in deportation/refusals to renew VISAs and all THAT...right?

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Small Business News: Small Biz Tech Primer
Technology is vastly changing the scope and reach of small business not only in the world of marketing but in all aspects of operating your venture. From tech.
Stubborn Joblessness Among Vets Darkens US Economy - AOL News
The newly reported drop in jobless claims belies continued rough going for America's Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, who are experiencing 10 percent unemployment.
Keith Olbermann: 'Fox News Is 100% Bullshit'
Keith Olbermann is anything but hesitant when it comes to a battle with Fox News, and the MSNBC anchor took to Twitter Wednesday to share his views on the TV network he probably wouldn't even call a rival. "Fox News is 100% bullshit," ...

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Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Making Money on Internet

Ok Go Explains There Are Lots Of Ways To Make Money If You Can Get Fans

from the everything's-possible dept

Over the last few years, we've covered many of the moves by the band Ok Go -- to build up a fanbase often with the help of amazingly viral videos, ditch their major record label (EMI), and explore new business model opportunities. In the last few days, two different members of Ok Go explained a bit more of the band's thinking in two separate places, and both are worth reading. First up, we have Tim Nordwind, who did an interview with Hypebot, where he explained the band's general view on file sharing:

Obviously we'd love for anyone who has our music to buy a copy. But again, we're realistic enough to know that most music can be found online for free. And trying to block people's access to it isn't good for bands or music. If music is going to be free, then musicians will simply have to find alternative methods to make a living in the music business. People are spending money on music, but it's on the technology to play it. They spend hundreds of dollars on Ipods, but then fill it with 80 gigs of free music. That's ok, but it's just a different world now, and bands must learn to adjust.

Elsewhere in the interview, he talks about the importance of making fans happy and how the band realizes that there are lots of different ways to make money, rather than just selling music directly:

Our videos have opened up many more opportunities for us to make the things we want to make, and to chase our best and wildest ideas. Yes, we need to figure out how to make a living in a world where people don't buy music anymore. But really, we've been doing that for the last ten years. Things like licensing, touring, merch, and also now making videos through corporate sponsorship have all allowed us to keep the lights on and continue making music.

Separately, last Friday, Damian Kulash wrote a nice writeup in the Wall Street Journal all about how bands can, should and will make money going forward. In many ways the piece reminds me a bit of my future of music business models post from earlier this year -- and Kulash even uses many of the same examples in his article (Corey Smith, Amanda Palmer, Josh Freese, etc.). It's a really worthwhile read as well. He starts by pointing out that for a little over half a century, the record labels had the world convinced that the "music" industry really was just the "recorded music" industry:

For a decade, analysts have been hyperventilating about the demise of the music industry. But music isn't going away. We're just moving out of the brief period--a flash in history's pan--when an artist could expect to make a living selling records alone. Music is as old as humanity itself, and just as difficult to define. It's an ephemeral, temporal and subjective experience.

For several decades, though, from about World War II until sometime in the last 10 years, the recording industry managed to successfully and profitably pin it down to a stable, if circular, definition: Music was recordings of music. Records not only made it possible for musicians to connect with listeners anywhere, at any time, but offered a discrete package for commoditization. It was the perfect bottling of lightning: A powerful experience could be packaged in plastic and then bought and sold like any other commercial product.

But, he notes, that time is now gone, thanks in large part to the internet. But that doesn't mean the music business is in trouble. Just the business of selling recorded music. But there's lots of things musicians can sell. He highlights Corey Smith and Smith's ability to make millions by giving away his music for free, and then touring. But he also points out that touring isn't for everyone. He covers how corporate licensing has become a bigger and bigger opportunity for bands that are getting popular. While he doesn't highlight the specific economics of it, what he's really talking about is that if your band is big, you can sell your fan's attention -- which is something Ok Go has done successfully by getting corporate sponsorship of their videos. As he notes, the sponsors provide more money than the record labels with many fewer strings:

These days, money coming from a record label often comes with more embedded creative restrictions than the marketing dollars of other industries. A record label typically measures success in number of records sold. Outside sponsors, by contrast, tend to take a broader view of success. The measuring stick could be mentions in the press, traffic to a website, email addresses collected or views of online videos. Artists have meaningful, direct, and emotional access to our fans, and at a time when capturing the public's attention is increasingly difficult for the army of competing marketers, that access is a big asset.

...

Now when we need funding for a large project, we look for a sponsor. A couple weeks ago, my band held an eight-mile musical street parade through Los Angeles, courtesy of Range Rover. They brought no cars, signage or branding; they just asked that we credit them in the documentation of it. A few weeks earlier, we released a music video made in partnership with Samsung, and in February, one was underwritten by State Farm.

We had complete creative control in the productions. At the end of each clip we thanked the company involved, and genuinely, because we truly are thankful. We got the money we needed to make what we want, our fans enjoyed our videos for free, and our corporate Medicis got what their marketing departments were after: millions of eyes and goodwill from our fans. While most bands struggle to wrestle modest video budgets from labels that see videos as loss leaders, ours wind up making us a profit.

Of course, that only works if you have a big enough fanbase, but that doesn't mean there aren't things that less well known bands can use to make money as well. He talks about an up-and-coming band in LA that doesn't even have a manager that was able make money:

The unsigned and unmanaged Los Angeles band Killola toured last summer and offered deluxe USB packages that included full albums, live recordings and access to two future private online concerts for $40 per piece. Killola grossed $18,000 and wound up in the black for their tour. Mr. Donnelly says, "I can't imagine they'll be ordering their yacht anytime soon, but traditionally bands at that point in their careers aren't even breaking even on tour."

The point, Kulash, notes, is that there's a lot of things a band can sell, focusing on "selling themselves." And, the thing he doesn't mention is that, when you're focusing on selling the overall experience that is "you" as a musician or a band, it's something that can't be freely copied. People can copy the music all they want, but they can't copy you. "You" are a scarce good that can't be "pirated." That's exactly what more and more musicians are figuring out these days, and it's helping to make many more artists profitable. And, no, it doesn't mean that any artist can make money. But it certainly looks like any artist that understands this can do a hell of a lot better than they would have otherwise, if they just relied on the old way of making money in the music business.

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John Fund is very, very upset over the FCC's weaksauce Net Neutrality declarations and he's aiming at 'wealthy left-wing' organizations as the culprits. This makes me happy. When a winger can only squirm over something so weak and toothless as to be useless, it's a good day. But look at who he aims at! Paranoid, much?

Free Press and allied groups such as MoveOn.org quickly got funding. Of the eight major foundations that provided the vast bulk of money for campaign-finance reform, six became major funders of the media-reform movement. (They are the Pew Charitable Trusts, Bill Moyers's Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, the Joyce Foundation, George Soros's Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.) Free Press today has 40 staffers and an annual budget of $4 million.

These wealthy funders pay for more than publicity and conferences. In 2009, Free Press commissioned a poll, released by the Harmony Institute, on net neutrality. Harmony reported that "more than 50% of the public argued that, as a private resource, the Internet should not be regulated by the federal government." The poll went on to say that since "currently the public likes the way the Internet works . . . messaging should target supporters by asking them to act vigilantly" to prevent a "centrally controlled Internet."

To that end, Free Press and other groups helped manufacture "research" on net neutrality. In 2009, for example, the FCC commissioned Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society to conduct an "independent review of existing information" for the agency in order to "lay the foundation for enlightened, data-driven decision making."

Considering how openly activist the Berkman Center has been on these issues, it was an odd decision for the FCC to delegate its broadband research to this outfit. Unless, of course, the FCC already knew the answer it wanted to get.

Wow. Openly activist? The Berkman Center? Here's the Berkman Center's Berkman@10 page, with some of their research projects and discussions posted online. Such terribly activist things. Open innovation, The Dilemma of Games, The Musician and the Scientist, and yes, Network Neutrality (not Internet Neutrality, by the way), as well as one called The Battle for the Web. Hardly activist.

Current projects include a Law Library wiki, a discussion of money in politics, and a paper about online political organizing. Again, not activist. Wonky. Educational. But not activist. I confess to zooming in on Fund's remarks about Berkman because I am a huge fan and avid reader of Doc Searls, who has been a Berkman Fellow for the past 4 years.

Berkman aside, the issue of Net Neutrality has always been about a democratic internet, one where everyone has equal access to content and pipes. The organizations Fund villifies in his post are organizations dedicated to the preservation of freedom of speech and free flows of information, so I'm struggling to reconcile the conservative maxim of constitutional freedoms above all with his abuse of organizations who strive to protect it.

I didn't have to struggle too long. A closer reading of his rant reveals a corporate agenda which trumps any speech rights.

The net neutrality vision for government regulation of the Internet began with the work of Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois communications professor who founded the liberal lobby Free Press in 2002. Mr. McChesney's agenda? "At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies," he told the website SocialistProject in 2009. "But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control."

A year earlier, Mr. McChesney wrote in the Marxist journal Monthly Review that "any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself." Mr. McChesney told me in an interview that some of his comments have been "taken out of context." He acknowledged that he is a socialist and said he was "hesitant to say I'm not a Marxist."

I am neither a socialist nor a Marxist, but I believe that the Internet should be preserved as something everyone can access equally, and am frustrated on a near-daily basis by the stranglehold providers have on that access. Fund's suggestion that net neutrality and regulatory authority over access somehow stifles innovation is to believe that the sole innovators are cable and telephone companies. In fact, the opposite is true. The true innovation has come from many different sources, including inhabitants of the Internet itself.

Facebook, Twitter, Google and blogs were not the invention of AT&T, after all.

The real threat to innovation is handing the keys to all of the Internet gates to the likes of Comcast, AT&T and Verizon. And yet, that is exactly what the FCC did with their weird ruling yesterday.

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