katelynriwv

Friday, January 7, 2011

Making Easy Money

I've been working in the IT/Internet field since the pre-Google era, so it's been a number of years now. It's been a rough ride of ups and downs, but a great one. Being constantly on the internet, I've always wanted to do something extra, apart from my full time job.

I've tried a million different things and had truckloads of ideas on how to make money online. Forums this, blog that, advert here and advert there, but they all failed. I've read gazillions of documentations, watched hours and hours of presentations about how to make money online — how easy it is to work from home and make over $10,000 a month. Really? Well you want my opinion? Screw all that and do it your own way because YOU LIKE WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

Look at the history of most companies, giant corporations of today, especially the online ones such as Google, Twitter, Facebook and many others. They all started as a hobby, as a project, and never specifically to make money out of the idea. All the founders of the above mentioned companies, believed so much in their idea, that they dedicated their life to building it. It is not a matter of luck that they are who they are today, but it is sheer determination and good ideas. Money is a secondary thing; it's the result of what you've done. I never used to believe this but now I do believe it, been there, done that.

As I specified above, I've tried a million types of online ideas and website, but they all failed because I specifically wanted to make extra money. Thought there was only one thing that I really liked and loved, and never gave it a shot, music! It was always my dream to have the time to discover new bands, to have all their original CDs and albums, and if possible get in touch with them.

Matt Schneider wrote “As intelligently noted at Hot Air, defaulting on one’s debts is not exactly “fiscally conservative,” not to mention the wisdom of following this advice is doubtful given that a Republican-induced economic collapse…”

A few questions for Matt: can you please elaborate on how not extending the debt ceiling is “defaulting on one’s debts?” More specifically, on what partifular debts will be be unable to *avoid default* if the debt ceiling is not raised? For example, if we commence bringing the troops home right now and close a bunch of overseas bases, will that save enough money such that we don’t need to increase the debt ceiling in April (I believe that is when it is expected to be reached). How about if we abolish the Departments of Education, Energy, HUD, etc.? If we make drastic cuts to such government entities, are we STILL going to default on anything? Or is the threat of default simply a concept to hide behind for those who want to continue unsustainable spending?

Take a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget

Using 2010 as a baseline, we brought in 200 billion more in revenue than what is described here as “mandatory” spending. That suggests after mandatory spending, we could use the remaining 200 billion to operate the Federal Government. Further, I bet a bunch of what is listed as Mandatory Spending in the Wikipedia link is not really that. There’s about 600 billion of unspecified “other mandatory spending” in there, much of which is probably hooey. And commencing the restructuring of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid would similarly provide more headroom. So, the Dept of Education disappears? So what? The Dept of Ed we have totday didn’t exist before 1979. Did the country collapse without it? No. (In fact, Education was both better and cheaper.) Same with the Dept of Energy. Will the country collapse without the Dept of Energy? No. They don’t produce any energy. Same goes for 90% of our bloated government. We need courts. We need defense. (Though we’d be fine with a fraction of what we spend on defense now.)

Hard cuts are just that. HARD. Does not mean they don’t need to be made.

If the approach to a “debt ceiling” is to raise it every time it is reached, it’s not a debt ceiling at all. It’s a fat guy who gets fatter every day, with a legal commitment in writing to start a diet tomorrow. Always tomorrow.

What is more evil? Making hard cuts while we (perhaps) still can? Or kicking the can down the road to GUARANTEED PAINFUL, GUARANTEED COLLAPSE?

When two laws conflict, how are they reconciled? If we have a law that obligates us to spend, and a law that says we can’t spend any more, why is your default resolution that the “don’t spend any more” law is the one that must yield?

Curious to hear what you think.

Regards,

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Atlanta Hawks Off Day News and Notes - Peachtree Hoops

Opinions and Reactions to the Atlanta Hawks 110-87 victory over the Utah Jazz.

Small Business News: Small Biz Funding Fundamentals

Will raising capital your small business be easier in 2011 than it was in 2010? Well, some sources say that funding may be loosening up but be assured that.

'Breaking Dawn' News: Producer Explains How They Plan to Tackle ...

'Vampires doing kicks.' 'Soft porn.' 'A crime against our audience.' 'Newlywed tension.' Fear not, Twi-hards, your beloved movie franchise will not.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Making Money Marketing

No one at Trion Worlds has promised that the company’s first fantasy role-playing online game, Rift: Planes of Telara, will be a World of WarCraft killer. Indeed, many makers of massively multiplayer online games have tried to knock out Blizzard Entertainment’s online subscription game, but WoW has ruled for six years and it just got a major upgrade with World of WarCraft: Cataclysm, which sold 3.3 million units in a day. But that doesn’t intimidate the folks at Trion Worlds, which has raised more than $100 million and has more than 200 people working on a variety of MMOs. Of course, beating WoW is the ultimate prize, since WoW has more than 12 million paying subscribers and it generates more than $1 billion in revenue per year for Activision Blizzard.

Rift is in the midst of closed beta testing, and I’ve had a look at the beta version up close. The graphics are beautiful and the unscripted dynamic events, where the world can change in an instant, are working as advertised. We had a chance to catch up with David Reid, head of marketing at Trion Worlds in Redwood City, Calif. (and former marketing chief for Microsoft’s Xbox 360) about the upcoming game, and here’s what he had to say:

VB: You’ve been working for a long time on this game — more than five years. What are you doing with the beta testing now?

DR: The beta process is about testing scalability. How many players can we support? It’s about getting some feedback from a number of real users so that we can tune some of these last knobs. But in a lot of ways, beta will be almost like a launch for us. We know that a number of MMO companies have made the mistake of going out with the beta with a product that really should not have been characterized as a beta. They paid for it. We are not doing that kind of a beta. [Laughs]

VB: You’re getting close to release?

DR: We feel like we are very close to release-level quality. We are tuning. We are polishing. We are scaling.

VB: So after five years, you’re not making money on this game yet.

DR: Not yet, but really darn soon. What day of the month is it?

VB: How will the launch proceed?

DR: Here’s probably how it works. The best game companies launch their newest titles with a presale program. That is the point where the consumer can put money down for the game. Technically, when that happens, the game won’t be formally live. It will still be in testing. But we are going to treat it as if it were the real launch. We will have 24/7 support in all languages. We will treat these players as if they are paying customers. We’re very close to that right now. We’ll open it up to the public for a large beta test soon.

VB: At that point, you will have tens of thousands of people playing?

DR: Absolutely. I can’t disclose specific numbers of the beta, but we are in the midst of some very large beta test events now and we just keep scaling it up. The first beta event was just the data center in Dallas, and so Europeans were in the beta, but they were playing on Dallas servers. We are opening a data center in Amsterdam for the European users. Operationally, that’s very important for us. We’ll bring up the different languages over time.

VB: The whole idea of a “Rift” is that you can open up a portal into the world and flood it with monsters. Then the players all go to that area and fight off the invasion. How many people can you concentrate in one place in the world?

DR: That’s a question with many potential answers. Because there’s the geographic point of it and then there is the hardware server part of it. The servers have multiple sections, or shards. Right now, we are figuring out how many people on a shard is too many. But what is unique about our game is that you can have a very large number of players all in one place and you can interact with all of them. You don’t have to worry that you can’t find your friends because they are in a different region or a different server. When a Rift opens, it is a dynamic event. The Rifts can happen in any geographic location and you can have lots of them at once. We have shown in our beta testing that all of that is working properly. We will ramp this up to an industrial scale.

VB: Is the game designed to be split into shards at all?

DR: It is a game with shards. But we are being very careful about not locking people to particular servers and things like that. MMOs have always had that kind of problem. MMO’s, by their nature, are incredibly social experiments, right? And people in Europe want to play with people in North America, and people in North America want to play with people in Australia, and that’s just how these communities have been built online as opposed to a pick-up basketball game in your neighborhood.

So if you lock those servers and you’re not letting those people play with friends, then you are, by definition, fracturing those communities. We have to do this well because we are going into a territory where there are well-established brands that already have communities rallied around them. We want to win with the people who play these games regularly. If they have a guy in their group who is in New Zealand, you have to bring them all into the game together. This is something we’ve been really focused on.

VB: So you can manage this game by throwing in more servers when you have peak usage?

DR: In full transparency, I’m probably not the ideal guy to answer that level of question. But what I can tell you is that we do have with both the Dallas data center and the Amsterdam data center. We have servers operating in a beta process and we can fire more of them up as the population grows. We can add more firepower to the servers if there are more people or if we are going to amp up the events in the game, such as create sharper artificial intelligence, better physics, or more Rifts. One thing we are looking at is how many Rifts should be occurring in a given zone of the game so that a player can feel like they have a lot to choose from. What level of that is fun? One thing we want to communicate to the player is that they will start with all of the features that they expect to have in a AAA quality game. You have your zones, dungeons, quests, character classes, fashions, monsters — and on top of that is this dynamic layer where the Rifts open in the world and change the environment of the game dynamically. The dynamic layer is what causes the social play, because you have to rally with your friends to stop the Rifts. It impacts your decisions as a gamer and the decisions of the groups of gamers as well.

VB: What is your marketing message these days about your game being the “WOW killer”?

DR: Well, to be clear, no one in Trion has ever said that, and I don’t think anybody in Trion ever will. If you look at the lineage of great MMOs, starting with Ultima Online, you see generational improvements. Ultima Online was the first commercial success in the MMO business, but it was two-dimensional and weighted toward players fighting other players. That wasn’t much fun for the new players. EverQuest came along with 3D animation and players fighting against the environment. It was a real commercial success and it was prettier. Still, it had its bugs. World of WarCraft came along in 2004. It was an improvement on what came before and it was very polished. Within that game, you could have some great solo experiences. Other games have tried to emulate it.

We think of Rift as the next step in that evolution of product. We’ve taken a look at what World of WarCraft and others in that generation of MMOs have done and done really well. There were really innovative things that happened in Warhammer Online and in the Age of Conan. But those two products, in particular, didn’t, of course, capture everything that a World of Warcraft player was looking for. The players didn’t migrate from WoW.

In part, Rift is our love letter to the players who played the games that came before us. We love those games and we think this is the next generation, much like players move on to a new console with every generation.

VB: So WoW just went through that big change with Cataclysm. I guess you can do the same kind of upgrade just about every day?

DR: Yes. And that is a bit of what the engine of the Rift game and our End of Nations game is about. For all of the interconnected play that you have in an MMO, those worlds are still remarkably static. There isn’t much to do until a patch or a giant expansion comes out. And what the portal mechanic in Rift does is add a level of real life variability. It’s the first time really that in an MMO, you have the beginnings of emergent game play of things that will happen in this game that the developers aren’t able to predict and that the players are going to have a real hand in deciding. If a Rift opens on a town, you can help save it or you can wait for it to do its work.

VB: Is the audience for these games as large as ever, or are the free games sucking out a lot of the paying players?

DR: It has been fun to watch the industry evolve. We sit right here next door to one of the world’s largest publishers (Electronic Arts). Those kinds of publishers are putting a lot of focus on what I’ll call the shallow end of online gaming: the casual, the mobile, the social. Those are all really fine businesses, but at the end of the day, we still think that it is the gamer who spends the most money especially in tough economic times. These are people who will forego other things and will eat ramen noodles for weeks if that’s what it takes to pay for their Xbox Live subscription or their MMO subscription. That audience is very demanding. For them, you have to build a great, immersive product. In the past couple of years, the MMO businesses have not served this customer well. They have launched games that needed more time or innovation or just better quality.

We are capitalized well enough here that we’re not making that same mistake. As I said, for us, the beta test is really like a launch in a lot of ways. We’re not bringing a half-finished product to market.

VB: You made a reference to All Points Bulletin, which failed miserably after five years of development. You don’t interpret that failure as bad for the whole MMO market?

DR: No, we don’t. I think a lot of people could see those things coming and it wasn’t just APB. Final Fantasy XIV had a very rough start. There are other games over the past few years. It isn’t that the market isn’t there. It just comes down the fact that if you have quality product, gamers are willing to pay for it. But don’t try to convince them your product is high quality and charge them a high price if it’s not. That is the road to death.

VB: Are you tempted to play around with different business models because the industry has changed so much?

DR: Sure. There is a lot to think about there. It is, you know, from a business perspective, a very exciting time. Innovation is important, in both the game, the marketing and the business model. With Rift, we will use the standard approach. We will sell a premium product in digital form as a download or in a retail store. We will charge an appropriate price and have a monthly service fee that you pay after your first 30 days have passed.

VB: You have developed a flexible server infrastructure for your game. How will you make use of that?

DR: We can do updates. We will do some handcrafted design and launch it on a regular basis. But we can also change just a bit every single day, every couple of hours, whatever, as players react to and encounter dynamic content. Now, we have big plans on this front because this is part of what’s really new and special about what we’re doing. Those plans are nothing I can talk directly about yet, but I will tell you that it is something that makes you think hard about how the customer encounters your product and experiences it. There are critical moments in a consumer’s mindset of, ‘Am I having enough fun to continue paying for this game?’ and we think very hard about when to uncork more awesomeness in our dynamic layer of things to satisfy a very difficult customer who is used to some very high quality product.

VB: I saw a report that said someone had reached the highest level possibly in Cataclysm on the day it came out.

DR: That kind of gamer is going to be part of our audience. I am not surprised. Again, it only added five new levels. I’m impressed with that player, but I’m not shocked. People take a lot of pride in being the first to race through the content. As a publisher, that terrifies you. It means your work is never done. But it’s also something you admire in the audience.

VB: So, that’s the kind of thing you will be ready for?

DR: It is different for us. We have a very different kind of MMO with dynamic content. When you hit the highest level, you haven’t finished all the content. When you hit our level cap, you don’t have to leave the game. The challenge for the publisher is that once someone hits the highest level, they will still have awesome game play experiences.

VB: If you look back on the five-plus years, how would you say you made good use of that time? Sometimes when a game takes that long to finish, it’s a bad sign because of the cost overruns or because the design becomes outdated.

DR: That’s right. It’s a hard business, right? And you look back and there’s probably any number of small things you look at and say, “Yes, we could have squeezed that a little more efficiently. But a large amount of what you get with the time and the financing that the time gives you is the ability to bring in a great team of people. Then you give them the time to get the chemistry right and build what they want to build. The soul of this product is the ambition behind it and the polishing that has gone into making it right. You can’t do these games without huge investments, awesome talent, and a lot of time. For venture financing, $100 million sounds like a lot. But these are really ambitious projects, and you have to be in this league to be competitive. We have used that money to build not one game but to commission a number of games that are all very groundbreaking.

VB: Did you guys get some benefit from seeing Blizzard’s leaked release schedule?

DR: It got headlines everywhere and we looked at it like everyone else. But I don’t think we would change any of our plans based on internet rumor.

Check out a video recording of one of the unscripted Rift scenes in action below.

Next Story: Where will the location superstars check in this New Year’s? Previous Story: Founder Institute’s Adeo Ressi says you can’t teach entrepreneurship (video)

Thanks God we are done with celebrating and can start working! Here’s one essential checklist for you to start:

1. Acknowledge Your Biggest Fans

Do you have fans that re-tweet your posts, email your articles to friends, and send new business your way? What have you done for them? Have you at least taken the time to thank them?

You should always monitor your brand, your website link and your own name (I use SocialMention). Every time someone says something nice about you, you should thank them. If you can do something else in return, by all means do.

2. Understand the Golden Rule of Blogging

Most blogs don’t appeal to the audience they’re writing for. The writing may be good, but the topics aren’t. Let’s say you sell furniture. Your blog shouldn’t be about your specials, the new employee you hired or about your vacation to Hawaii. Your blog should be about furniture.

Always ask yourself this question: who am I writing for? What kind of content do they want? It doesn’t matter if you don’t offer all the services you write about. For example, I own an Internet marketing agency and my audience is business owners. But, I don’t only write about online marketing; I write about topics that are of interest to business owners, such as lowering costs, motivating employees and off-line marketing.

Find out what your audience wants and give it to them.

3. Use Decoy Offers

Have you ever wondered why some stores sell an item for $100 and in the price tags says “Was $200″? It makes the current price look a lot better. Some people might think $100 is a lot of money for that item, but hey, it was $200, so you’re getting a great deal, right? Well, believe it or not, it works. This is because everything is either a great deal or an awful deal based on what you compare it with.

Psychologists call this “the principle of contrast.” How can you use this to your benefit? My favorite way is to present two or more offers. One will be your current offer and then you’ll add some decoy offers. The decoy offers will be really bad deals, but they’ll make your main offer look great. For example, you can sell one can of your product at $19 and three cans at $25 with free shipping and feature this last offer as the weekly special. Try it; it works like a charm and there’s nothing unethical about it. You’ll keep your main offer and all you’re doing is making it look better by adding some not-so-attractive offers.

4. Write Your Marketing Copy First and Develop Your Product Around It

I’ve found this tactic to be extremely effective. Instead of creating a product and then writing the marketing message, I like writing the copy first because by trying to sell it with words, I get a much better understanding of what the audience really wants and I can give them that product or service.

5. People Buy from People, Not Companies

Your customers might have known your company first, but they bought from you because they liked you or the salesperson they dealt with. This is especially true in B2B. The takeaway here is: do a good job explaining how your company can help your clients but do an even better job connecting with your prospects at a personal level.

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Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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

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Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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.

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

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Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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.

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

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Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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.

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

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Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

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Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

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ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

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Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

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Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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.

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

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Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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.

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

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Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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.

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

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Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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.

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

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Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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.

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

surface encounters michigan
surface encounters noblesville

Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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.

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

surface encounters michigan
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Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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.

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

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surface encounters

Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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.

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

surface encounters
surface encounters macomb

Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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.

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

surface encounters
surface encounters macomb mi

Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects Xbox 360 News - Page 1 ...

Read our Xbox 360 news of Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects.

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.

ABC News: Michele Bachmann Considering Presidential Bid : Roll Call

Tea party darling isn t ruling out 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

web internet marketing

Research can sometimes be a bit of a chore, but when knowledge is wrapped up in charts, cartoons, or even some heart-holding robots, suddenly “information” isn’t such a scary word.

What do Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook’s 500 million users look like? Who’s suing whom in the mobile world? How does FarmVille stack up against actual farms? These questions and more are answered in the infographics below.

Have a look through the list and let us know which graphics you liked best (or learned the most from) in the comments below.

Time-Lapse Twitter Visualization Shows America’s Moods [VIDEO]/> A group of researchers from Northeastern and Harvard universities have gathered enough data from class='blippr-nobr'>Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter to give us all a snapshot of how U.S. residents feel throughout a typical day or week.
Facebook’s 500 Million Members [INFOGRAPHIC]/> The illustration breaks down the demographics of Facebook’s burgeoning population (according to their own data on the service), and explores the international makeup of the site.
The Social Media Impact of “Jersey Shore” [INFOGRAPHIC]/> With the premiere of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” come and gone, we can now analyze the impact of the show on our favorite social media sites.
What Types of People Raise Money for Web Startups? [INFOGRAPHIC]/> Venture capital investment can be crucial for getting a company off the ground. But who are the entrepreneurs that receive funding for their startups?
The Rise of Text Messaging [INFOGRAPHIC]/> Did you know that 14-17 year-old girls in the U.S. send an average of 100 texts each day? Check out this infographic for more interesting SMS stats and facts.
Facebook Privacy: 6 Years of Controversy [INFOGRAPHIC]/> The release of Facebook Places raised serious privacy concerns for users of the social network. Check out this infographic that traces the history of Facebook’s privacy snafus.
“FarmVille” vs. Real Farms [INFOGRAPHIC]/> Have you ever wondered how virtual farming and actual farming stack up? Do humans produce more virtual crops than real ones? We’ve harvested all the interesting data for you here.
Social Good: Charity and Technology in the Online Universe [INFOGRAPHIC]/> How has social media giving changed over the last few years? How does it compare with traditional non-profit campaigns? Check out our infographic for some perspective.
What People Think About America’s Most Pressing Matters [INFOGRAPHIC]/> An infographic created by creative agency JESS3 asks, “What are the nation’s most pressing issues?” and displays the answers from 1,671,267 citizens.
Connected TV: The New Battle for Your Living Room [INFOGRAPHIC]/> Apple TV, the Boxee Box, and Roku are finally bringing web entertainment to the living room. How do these products stack up? Check out this detailed price and feature comparison chart.
The Tangled Web of Lawsuits in Mobile [INFOGRAPHIC]/> Who’s suing whom in the mobile industry? It can be a tough question to answer, even if you’re closely following all the lawsuits that have been thrown around.

Survey Shows the Internet Would Have Passed Prop 19/> Prop 19, California’s controversial bid to legalize marijuana, lost at the polls on Tuesday, but if that vote had been up to the wider web of Internetusers, Prop 19 would have passed.
Social Media’s Impact on the Midterm Elections [INFOGRAPHICS]/> Social media, especially Facebook, had a huge impact on how the U.S. midterm elections were perceived and decided. Here’s a breakdown by the numbers.
The State of B2B Social Media Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC]/> The vast majority (86%) of B2B businesses use social media for marketing. See how they’re using it, which tools they’re utilizing and what the future holds.
The Biggest Brands on Facebook [INFOGRAPHIC]/> In the past few years, big brands have started taking social media seriously, and Facebook marketing is a big part of the plan for many companies.
What Is the Web Thankful For? [INFOGRAPHIC]/> Thankfulfor.com has put together a (surprisingly long) report that details what things people say they are grateful for having in their lives.
How the World Is Using Cellphones [INFOGRAPHIC]/> The infographic illustrates the number of cellphones per capita in various countries, the rate of cellphone adoption in the U.S. over the past decade and the acceptability of certain behaviors regarding cellphone use.
Who Will Win the Mashable Awards? [INFOGRAPHIC]/> We’ve broken down a complete list of the finalists by category in one handy (and unicorn filled!) infographic. Make sure you get voting before it’s too late!
How Connected Devices and Consoles Compare [INFOGRAPHIC]/> As 2010 draws to a close, we’re finally starting to see new and improved connected devices for bringing streaming content to the living room hit the market.

For more Social Media coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Social Mediaclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Social Media channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for Android, iPhone and iPad

Unity Stoakes is the co-founder and president of OrganizedWisdom, an expert-driven digital media company focused on health and wellness. OrganizedWisdom is building the world’s first digital mapping of online health experts to help people easily discover and connect with credible health resources.

Is your doctor easily accessible online, or does he or she believe that the class='blippr-nobr'>Internetclass="blippr-nobr">Internet isn’t a resource for accessing health information?

If it’s the latter, it may be time to find another doctor. With nearly 90% of online Americans searching the Internet for health resources, it’s likely you and your friends and family already use the Internet to research health issues. It’s true that the web has a jumble of health information, and engaging online takes time, which most health experts don’t have. The good news, however, is that the increasing number of health professionals now embracing the Internet as an important and useful tool for health and wellness is beginning to change your options as a consumer.

Read on for some ways that social media can help doctors, health experts and everyday users.

Social Wellness Trends/>

An exciting new social media trend is emerging that disrupts the standard view of health care delivery and will have a profound impact on us all. Thousands of doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, and health advocates are publicly engaging with people online. In fact, nearly 40% of Americans turn to social media for health information.

Patients (and a few early adopter health pros) moved online years ago to share health guidance, give support and find answers. But until recently, many health professionals have avoided using the Internet and social media as a way to help patients. This reluctance is changing, as savvy physicians, nurses, dentists and other health pros are realizing that if their patients are online, then perhaps they should be too. Health practitioners who were once too busy, inexperienced or afraid to share their expertise online, now actively share links on Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter and Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook, blog, write for online medical journals, engage on Q&A sites, or contribute to online health sites and forums.

For too long, health and wellness has been a do-it-yourself proposition for patients online, and people have been left on their own to determine how to effectively utilize empty search boxes. People have great access to lots of information, but they must sort through the billions of articles to determine the credible from redundant health encyclopedias, marketing web sites or sites with potentially unknown sources. Then, the task of deciding the credibility of the sources and articles has fallen on the patient alone.

While the number of health experts interacting with patients online is relatively small, there is a clear trend taking shape. A recent Manhattan Research survey of U.S. physicians shows an increase of Internet usage for professional purposes up from 2.5 hours per week in 2002 to 8 hours per week in 2010. More strikingly, while more than 100,000 doctors are using closed social health networks like Sermo.com and publishing in peer-reviewed journals online, thousands of health professionals are now blogging, using Twitter, and connecting with patients on Facebook in very public ways. So much so that this November, for the first time, the American Medical Association released a set of guidelines to direct physicians communicating and engaging with patients via social media. And earlier this year, the CDC also published its own best practices toolkit for how health professionals should be using social media.

Given that so many people now go to the Internet before, during and after their visit to the doctor’s office, the lack of guidance from credible and trusted health experts online is a growing problem. In fact, Manhattan Research shows that 61% of people now use the Internet instead of visiting a doctor. Thankfully, the tide is turning as thousands of health practitioners move online to do much more than interact with friends, family and colleagues and are instead using the social web to dispense their particular health expertise.

What This Means for Health Information Seekers/>

We are standing at the precipice of a new online revolution in health care. As more and more health experts embrace the Internet and increase their social media activity, health information seekers will undoubtedly benefit in profound ways. Based on conversations and surveys conducted with experts and health information seekers, here are some of the benefits associated with a robust online community of active health experts:

Interaction With Experts: In the real world, people seeking answers to important health, financial or legal matters look for guidance from the best experts. With a growing community of health experts participating in online discussions, people have access to more expertise than ever before at their fingertips.

Credibility and Trust: With doctors and other health professionals contributing information online in increasing numbers, it is important for a trust filter to separate credible information and sources from information that is not credible. The community of health professionals that is forming online will act as a system of checks and balances to separate good information and sources from the bad.

Transparency: It’s been a watershed year for increased transparency as government, big business, the financial services industry and other sectors have been shining a light into their operations like never before. Healthcare is taking a major step forward in this regard at the grassroots level, with an expert community being formed online by doctors, nurses and other health professionals across the country. As more doctors view social media as an extension of their professional reputation, you can be sure that they will treat their online interactions with the same care as they do in the offline world.

While the increase in the online activity of health experts is a welcome development, searching for crucial health information online remains an overwhelming and intimidating process for many. In the offline world, people searching for health information seek out the best experts — and now with more health professionals moving online, people will finally be able to connect with credible experts they can trust.

More Social Media Resources from Mashable:

- 4 Effective Tools for Monitoring Your Child’s Online Safety/> - Social Media Parenting: Raising the Digital Generation/> - 5 Fun and Safe Social Networks for Children/> - HOW TO: Help Your Child Set Up a Blog/> - The Case For Social Media in Schools

Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, dcdr

For more Social Media coverage:

ohio online reputation management

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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

bank foreclosure

""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?

Ash was in the middle of working out a loan modification when this happened. “This is in essence a burglary,” Ash remarked. The bank took her late husband’s ashes.

But it doesn't look like there's going to be any concerted effort to fix any of these problems -- if the Fed has its way anyway:

Top policymakers at the Federal Reserve are fighting efforts to rein in widely reported bank abuses, sparking an inter-agency feud with the FDIC and the Treasury Department. The Fed, along with the more bank-friendly Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, is resisting moves to craft rules cracking down on banks that charge illegal fees and carry out improper foreclosures. The FDIC supports such rules, according to an FDIC official involved in the dispute.
The new regulations would rein in debt collection, loan modification and foreclosure proceedings at bank divisions called "mortgage servicers." Servicers have committed widespread fraud in the foreclosure process. While the recent robo-signing of fraudulent documents has received the most attention, consumer advocates have complained about improper fees and servicer mistakes that lead to foreclosure for years.

"Given that we've seen a massive failure in servicing practices and a massive failure to address servicing in an honest way, I think this is important," says Joshua Rosner, a managing director at Graham Fisher & Co., and longtime critic of the U.S. mortgage system.

Last week, the National Consumer Law Center and the National Association of Consumer Advocates published a survey of 96 foreclosure attorneys from around the country, attesting that servicers have pushed 2,500 of their clients into the foreclosure process, even as the borrowers were negotiating loan modifications with the same servicers.

The Fed is run by bankers, after all ...

I think this story tells itself. But if you haven't been following the details I highly recommend dday's coverage on this over the past few months if you want to catch up. It's an astonishing story.

Meanwhile, the wonks at Naked Capitalism have put together a petition to ask the regulators to do their jobs.

As readers may know, the banking industry is trying to prevent the FDIC from moving forward with its proposed reforms on securitizations and is also attacking related SEC reforms, namely amendments to Rule A/B.

To further the effort to curb servicer abuses, please visit the website, StopServicerScams, and sign the petition. As we have written, and as experts and foreclosure defense lawyers have reported in Congressional testimony, and as pending lawsuits by attorneys general in Arizona and Nevada allege, servicer abuses are a significant cause of foreclosures. These include including delaying and misapplying payments, using false hopes of pending mods to extract more payments from consumers, and applying compounding junk fees.

We will submit the signed petition in early January. Thanks for your support in this important effort.

.

Annual Holiday Fundraiser going on right now. If you can help support the blog, I appreciate it. Cheers!

digby 12/22/2010 10:30:00 AM

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robert shumake detroit

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