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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I am a rabid Eminem fan and have always gone out to buy his albums the day they drop. But now that I have an iPod Touch I have begun using iTunes and discovered some special tracks on the latest Relapse album that are only available for download. I love both “My Darling” and “Careful What You Wish For.” I think Marshall has found his voice once again and is staging a great comeback, I can’t wait for the second album of his to be released later this year. His creative genius really shines through after going through turbulence in his life. After writing about his childhood and upward struggle his raps ran out of steam with the album Encore, but now he’s back with a vengence rapping about his recent drug addiction, divorce, the death of his best friend Proof (DeShaun Holton) and personal struggle. Keep it coming Em!
“My Darling” – Eminem
If I were to rap about the crap that’s out
That’s the route you probably want me to take
Cos your just dying to know what I think
And my take on some other rappers
If I was to say somethin’ bout’ Paul Wall
You’d probably crap in your pants cos I’m white and he’s white
So he’s like, my competition I mean, right
nope, Paul Wall is dope and so’s bubba
But, but, but….
But I don’t compete with nobody
I just go hard do the rope a dope Ali shuffle
And dance around my opponents do donuts
Sometimes I play possum like I’m asleep it’s awesome!
I’m like a sleeping giant and when I awake I’m like Dre
I just jump from outta no where and bite prey
And sink my teeth in and fill em’ fulla poison
And make a noise like a snake before I kill em’
And let em’ know I just don’t feel em’
And smack em’ with the backward E the Eminem em-belem
I was taught if your gonna murder somebody you should face em’
Tell em’ why look em’ dead in the eye then waste em’
And the dark shall emerge from the fiery depths of hell
And swallow the shallow the hallow who dwell
In the shadows of all who are willing to sell there souls
For this rap game and it ga ga goes…….
123 check, check 123, check 123
That ain’t the hook now follow me
There’s nothing else for me to say
My public adores me!
Everybody bores me they just so corny
So at night before I sleep I look in the mirror
The mirror glows lips and it whispers come nearer
( Hook )
My darling, I don’t ever want you to leave me my darling
You and me were meant to be together my darling
And if I can not have you then no one can your my darling
Cuz I posses your soul, your mind, your heart and your body
And I don’t want you too ever leave me my darling
You and me were meant to be together my darling
And if I can not have you then no one can your my darling
Cuz I possess your soul, your mind, your heart and your body
( Verse )
Shady I know your in there some where come here
Talk too me sit here pull up a chair, why don’t you cut your hair? Hahaha
Dye it back come on try it
Ahhhh no, I told you leave me the fuck alone will you!
But I’m here to re-build you
But I already killed you!
But shady we were meant for each other!
Think about your mother!
Yeah so what of her?
Think about what she did to you and your little brother!
All them foster homes!
Fuck you mother fucker! I had you beat!
No I was playin’ possum remember I let you watch your little girls blossom
I gave you enough time your souls mine I’m taking it back!
You fucking bitch! why ?
Because I love you look a little closer… Isn’t that us on that poster? Hahaha
( Hook )
My darling, I don’t ever want you to leave me my darling
You and me were meant to be together my darling
And if I can not have you then no one can your my darling
Cuz I posses your soul, your mind, your heart and your body
And I don’t want you too ever leave me my darling
You and me were meant to be together my darling
And if I can not have you then no one can your my darling
Cuz I possess your soul, your mind, your heart and your body.
( Verse )
Shady, listen (SHADY) you hear that ?
They screaming for you I can bring you career back!
But i don’t want it back, Yes you!, No I don’t!
Yes you do your gonna regret it later, No I wont!
I’m a get Dre on the phone I’ll just call the doctor
Go ahead I already talk to… Dre yesterday
Well I got him on the phone right now (Slim?)
You’re lying (Yo Slim?) how? Why now?
What up Dre?
Check this out slim I gotta talk to you
I dunno it just seems like ever since you got off your
Drugs you became a lot softer!
But Dre! all shady is, is a bottle of hair bleach and vodka!
Well just think about slim I’m here!
Just hit me back and let me know what’s up?
Fuck this mirror! Ahhhh!
I’m not in the mirror I’m inside you let me guide you!
Fuck you! Die you son-of-a-bitch!
Put the gun down! Bye bye!
(*gunshots* )
Okay I’m still alive! So am i too! you cant kill a spirit even if you tried too, haha
You sold your soul to me need i remind you?
You remember that night you
Prayed to god you’d give anything to get a record deal well Dre signed you!
This is what you wanted your whole life Marshall right boo?
Look at this house! look at these cars! I’m so nice ooooh!
Oh, but you didn’t know that fame has a price too ?
That your just now seeing the downside too!
Lose your best friend from high school your wife too!
Ain’t even sure if your kids like you!
Come off tour cant even sleep at night without ny-quill
Think of the valium addicts start a rehab cycle
But together we can break the cycle
Marshall? WHAT!
No ones gonna love you like I do!
(Hook )
My darling, I don’t ever want you to leave me my darling
You and me were meant to be together my darling
And if I can not have you then no one can your my darling
Cuz I posses your soul, your mind, your heart and your body
And I don’t want you too ever leave me my darling
You and me were meant to be together my darling
And if I can not have you then no one can your my darling
Cuz I possess your soul, your mind, your heart and your body.
You can now follow me on Twitter! I had tried the service a while back and decided I would give it a spin once again.
My Twitter page is still rather bare and I will be updating it more frequently as time goes by with links to interesting stories, subjects and the like.
Another school year is upon me and I am almost done moving into my on-campus apartment. I have successfully applied for a transfer to Grand Valley State University for the Winter semester and am eagerly awaiting that. The business program at GVSU has a proven reputation and since graduating high school in 2003, the school has become quite a bit more competitive for admission.
A change in major may also be on the horizon as I become more and more attracted to the field of economic theory and analysis. This should be a smooth semester as I’m only taking 13 credits and four classes – Creative Writing Fiction Workshop, World Politics, Psychology, and Latin.
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.
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.
So I have to admit I have an addiction… to the Facebook game 
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).
