Sunday is here…
Time to spread around some link love!
As is tradition here at theNetFool.com, it’s time for that all important weekly run-down of updates and some of the best articles that I’ve seen out there in the blogging world for the week ending August 2nd, 2008. August really crept up on me, and I really think that my summer has flown by. Now that we are solidly over 550 RSS subscribers, the growth rate here is staggering. After earning over $2,200 in the month of July… the sky is the limit! Miss my earnings call? Catch the re-cap.
First things first, let’s share around what I felt were five of the best articles inside the “make money online” niche this week.
- 45n5.com – Tips for Buying and Selling Websites
- Click Consultants – Split Testing Offers and Networks
- Everybody Go To – Idea Building: Developing Your Ideas
- Courtney Tuttle – 11 Killer Research Strings to Find Stuff On Google
- One Man’s Goal – Make Money Blogging: Examining Current Trends
I decided to go with some more abstract articles this week, as I feel it’s important to take a step back every now and then and not be bogged down with ideas all the time. With that in mind, the Idea Building article was definitely interesting… and it got me some great new creative thoughts. I thought I’d give Marc from OneMansGoal.com a shout out as well because he was really unfairly hit with a PR0 and writes some great stuff. Check out these articles for some awesome tips! 
Stock Market Update
Wall Street ended the week down on Friday when the first major reports of the third quarter were released, casting a small shadow over the investing world. A combination of a rise in the unemployment rate, a flat reading on manufacturing activity and a massive loss posted at General Motors did us in for a slight dip to close things out. The reports actually came in better than expected, but bad news is bad news so that market was held back from staging any sort of rally.
The past few sessions of trading have been jumpy as heck, and sometimes it would be best to just turn off the newswire as investors are seeing rallies
one day, plunges the next, in a seemingly endless cycle of confusion as people try to discern whether we have yet to see a bottom.
Some interesting events happened this week that many see as signals that we may have actually seen the worse. Investment banking firm Merrill Lynch announced a surprise biggest ever stock offering of several billions of dollars. What a stock offering essentially does is dilutes everyone’s holdings by putting more shares on the table… so everything you hold is worth less. Makes sense that the stock would go DOWN after this, right? Well MER traded UP on that day… which is entirely counter-intuitive. 
Small event-triggers like those mentioned have the markets in a virtual stand still, as bulls and bears fight for positioning. For those of you who are interested in investing, I continue to recommend that you at least wait until late-October before jumping in to the market; however, I’d like to see all of you give some patience until the first quarter of 2009 unless you are investing with caution & for purposes of value rather than growth.
What’s Happening in the Blogosphere?
If you have the time, I’d suggest checking out some earnings reports that most major bloggers are posting throughout the first week of August. I feel that checking in on how some of the major players in this industry are running their blogs is the best way to optimize your own blogging experience to get the most out of your time.
Other than the earnings announcements, that popular “Blogging Idol” competition came to a close this weekend as Stock Market India took first prize. I wasn’t surprised to see this guy win because of his insane 
marketing scheme, but there were a lot of great showings and I believe I placed somewhere in the top five of the contest results.
It’s going to be interesting to see what the next big contest of the month of August will be, though I have already seen what I feel as one terrible contest in the so called “largest blogging contest ever” hosted by BigMarketingOnline.com. I’ve talked about it before, but give me a break. I don’t see how you can honestly justify $30,000 in prizes when $19,100 of it is “blog consultations”… something that is really worth only a few bucks, despite the fact that they are calling an hour of talking on the phone a $1,000+ value in multiple cases. 
This Week In Focus
As you can see… August is clearly building up to be one heck of a month. With the stock market teetering in the balance and the blogging world on the brink of all out contest warfare… I’m excited to see how things will turn out. As for Jimvesting dot com, I’ve got some cool interviews lined up, including an appearance on a radio talk show. For the website, I am going to get to the results of my July contest as soon as I get home and am able to tally up the final count (post on Monday!).
I’ve mentioned this before, but I am going to be starting up a marketing giveaway contest this month, so if you are willing to donate a 125×125 (or other) advertisement on 
your popular blog, please let me know! You’ll get some great publicity and much needed backlink power to juice up your Google Pagerank if you are feeling the burn after their second-quarter update.
As far as posts being planned for this week, I am going to be giving away some prizes here just for your readers that check often, so pay attention and keep reading for clues! I need to celebrate the 500-subscriber benchmark in some way, so I’ll figure out a fun inner-blog competition so that you can all try to win some cool free stuff! We’re talking ad spots, apparel and other merchandise… so stay tuned for more updates from theNetFool.com and I’ll get you the goods. 
-Jimvesting
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Looks like this month is going to be pretty fun!
Rajaie AlKoranis last blog post..Suggestions For My First Free Theme
Financial firms are set to report more losses. In fact, Citigroup is set to announce even greater write-downs than Merrill Lynch. The stock market will remain volatile. I think you are right to caution about any heavy investments right now.
Jeflin
jeflins last blog post..Learn From The Tulip Bulb Mania
YEs the stock market is in a very volatile condition right now.
Syed Balkhis last blog post..Pimp My Blog Winner for July 2008 is announced..
i can sponsor a 125 x 125 ad if you want
Da Bloggers last blog post..Make $100/Day With CPA – Free Custom eBook
Twitter: @melvinblog
August 3, 2008 at 8:19 am #
wow seems to be a nice one jim… certainly will be waiting for that…
Melvins last blog post..What Affiliate Network To Join
private consultations should not always be knocked as well, some people have alot more knowledge then the people who may win. Heck I’ll throw in a consultation for your contest…worth $1million!
Speaking of that site though check out his RSS count on home page and then here http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/BigMarketingBlog
I would call that a BIG difference on a BIG marketing blog
Donaces last blog post..The Phantom Update Post!
Congratulations for the 500+ mark subscribers and for your position in top 5 Jim.
If there was more time, you would have been there in the top.
m.dineshs last blog post..July Earnings
Congrats Jim on 500+ subscribers. I hit that too last month. I liked the simple post on 45n5 was a nice read.
I believe I sent you an email for the ad spot. Didn’t get a reply from ya.
Syed Balkhis last blog post..Pimp My Blog Winner for July 2008 is announced..
Another great week. I still can’t believe those earnings. I want to make just half that in the summer, lol.
Ralphs last blog post..The Sunday Funnies – Vol. 5
Thanks for the great resources, I really enjoyed reading Everybody To Go, it was an innovative and important post.
Thanks,
JR
Can’t wait for the contests, I love those!
Keyword Anchor Text and a Do-Follow Blogs last blog post..Keyword Anchor Text and a Reminder To My Readers – Do-Follow Blog
Good stuff Jim and great to see the site continue to grow. I’ll be looking for the clues and trying to get me some of them goodies….
And what is the definition of a “popular blog”
Normal Joes last blog post..Normal Joe blows the horn on more bloggers
Ouch. I’m not popular so I can’t sponsor
Hussein | Random Blogs last blog post..Sunday Link Love #2
Glad you hit 500+ subscribers mark, and I look forward to this week and month on the net fool!
Thanks for the 45n5 link. That was a great article!
bloggingwords.coms last blog post..Jimvesting Blog Content Review