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Investing for beginners | Money Relations » 2007 » November
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Archive for November, 2007

Spreading link love

Hello, stranger! New here? How about subscribing to my RSS feed? Thanks for visiting!

Money Relations guest postI’m guest blogging at Nancy Zimmerman today. As a frequent commenter, her feedback is always appreciated. This money coach has a social conscience and since I’m trying to find mine, I head over there to see what she has to say :)

I’d also like to give a little shout-out for my blogroll. I’ve been quietly adding to my blogroll recently. I actually read a lot more but space doesn’t permit me to add much in a single sidebar design without scrolling down forever.

Must.get.new.design.

Still, if you’d like to exchange links please let me know. I only require that you have been blogging consistently for 3 months and run a quality show – despite the fact that I don’t :P

I’m always good for dropping a comment here and there.

I’d like to take this opportunity to say hi to Centsprout and Brown Eyed Girl – both Canadian gals who are on the investment journey as well. Go us!

As for the guys, I was introduced to Dax‘ blog through Entrecard. It offers very good commentary on the U.S. economy and how to play the falling greenback in digestible blog-sized pieces.

Likewise, I met Patrick through Dosh Dosh’s marketing network. He runs Piggy Bank Pie which is a dynamic blogging community offering writing services. He has a team of bloggers who showcase their diverse areas of expertise through informative posts. I’d recommend checking them out for writing, seo, social media, networking tips.

And so concludes the first social media day at Money Relations.  Maybe I’ll do it again if I’m not too lazy to post multiple times in a day.

Remember to check out rssHugger and also Neil Duckett’s contest.

The little blog that could – not mine, someone else’s contest

It’s kind of funny who you meet online. I met Neil Duckett through an online forum rant and from there, I got a general idea of his drive and entrepreneurial spirit.

Neil turns out to be a neat guy – he’s an Australian living his dream of working internationally. Right now he’s in Japan, living the gaijin life and blogging about his cultural experiences.

It’s an interesting and fun read so go check it out as the dude is also divesting himself of his “old” camera – a Canon IXY Digital 1000.

Canon IXY 1000

Now, I know squat about cameras but I ebayed this thing and it costs more than $320 (Canadian or US dollars, does it matter?) with a buy it now function. I’m sure we don’t mind Neil’s cast-offs :P

To enter the draw, subscribe to Neil’s blog (1 entry) and also write a post (5 entries). And if you’re so inclined, getting ad space from this up and coming blog will also get you more chances. You have up until December 10th to enter. For more details, read his contest post.

Give me a RSS hug!

Money Relations hugReaders of this blog know that I’m willing to give anything a go. A big reason for the blog’s existence is that it allows me to explore new ideas as well as learn about personal finance.

I first heard of Collin LaHay when he left me a comment, promoting his WordHugger project, an offshoot of the paid wikis.

Instead of using a wiki format, Collin went with his own web application and donated part of his proceeds to Kiva while saving for college.

You have to admire his initiative. However, I was all wiki’ed out, having written content for both the Million Dollar and Million Euro Wiki Stock Picks pages. And frankly, I think the market was feeling the same way and needed something fresh.

So, Collin came up with the rssHugger.

rssHuger

rssHugger is a unique website that aims to bring bloggers and readers together. rssHugger aims to provide blog owners with a unique easy-to-use way to promote their blogs by sending them traffic, building backlinks for search engine optimization, as well as attracting new rss subscribers if the content is interesting to the reader. rssHugger aims to help visitors be able to easily find blogs that write about subjects they are interested in. These subjects include: internet marketing, making money online, charity, sports, gambling, and many more. If the visitors find a blog that they had not previously heard about, they can easily add it to their RSS readers or bookmark it.

Hey, who doesn’t want more promotion for their blog?

rssHugger is a blog directory and after a John Chow ReviewMe, Collin decided to allow for a free blog submission in return for spreading the news about his project. If this catches on, it might even reach Collin’s lofty goal of having 250,000 RSS submissions within the first year of operation.

Heck, I’ll give it a try. The price is right and rssHugger will create, at the very least, another backlink to your blog. On the plus side, you never know what new innovations young entrepreneurs will come up with these days.

Social networking – Hi, my name is Roney (Berliny) Melations

Money RelationsTomorrow is going to be social media day at Money Relations. Instead of posting off-topic posts (like this one) over the course of a few days of various projects, I decided that I’ll do it all in one shot.

For practice, I’m going to start promoting myself.

Social media is something that I’m trying to learn, much like blogging. However, just like real life, it seems I’m always late to the party.

CNNMoney published an article yesterday entitled Web bubble 2.0 for social networks? The competition is fierce for a fickle youth generation and one analyst believes there are just too many social networks and not enough ad dollars.

Still, I’d like to learn what all the fuss is about. I do have profiles on Facebook and Myspace but I never got into it. Plonkee recently joined Facebook and gave a shoutout for others to friend her. Well, I’m going to do the same and restrict it to a few social networks and use my online identity only.

Here are my profiles:

Facebook : Roney Melations
StumbleUpon: Berliny
Digg: Berliny

I think that’s as social I want to get right now. If you want to network or social media is something you’ve always wanted to try out, let me know. In the meantime, I’ll be hanging around with my Facebook friend Microsoft.

My Christmas shopping begins on Boxing Day

Sometimes, I just don’t understand surveys.

It was reported by the National Retail Federation’s 2007 Weekend Survey that the number of shoppers increased by 4.8% from last year for America’s Black Friday. However, the amount of money they spent dropped by 3.5% to an average of $347 per shopper.

Now what exactly does this mean? Were Americans more cautious due to the credit crunch? Or did more shoppers come out in strategic packs to take advantage of the blockbuster deals? Perhaps a bit of both.

Add in Cyber Monday which is expected to surpass last year’s haul of $600 million by another $100 million, you start to wonder if the Americans are once again indulging themselves for another Christmas. For their sake and also an interlinked world economy, I sure hope they budgeted themselves.

For me, I’m looking at spending around $200 on presents this year. I actually don’t exchange gifts with friends and family but more for kids of friends and family. Just something which they might not get otherwise due to cultural differences but I want them to experience unwrapping something. And also something in the kettle for the Salvation Army too.

That’s not to say I won’t treat myself or my family but I’m less picky on the actual celebration day. I choose to do it on Boxing Day and thereafter to take advantage of our Canadian sales. :) I don’t see why one day makes a difference in gift giving.

So would this mean I’d be late in my Christmas shopping or a year early?

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