Welcome back folks,
It’s a LINK LOVE SUNDAY!

This week was chaotic to say the least, a lot of stuff happened in my own world, in the stock market and in the blogging world. Really, it would take multiple posts to fully explain all that went down, but let’s do our best to recap here so you can get a grip on what went down. Before we get into all of that though, let’s run through some of the best posts from the week ending September, 27 2008.

• Affiliate Confession – Myspace Ads Review and Tutorial
• ProBlogger – Launching Your Next Venture Using Social Media
• Suite J – Why Website Flipping Is Too Easy
• Blogging Tips – Do You Write Positive Paid Reviews on Your Blog?
• The University Kid – Step-by-Step Guide to Promote Your Own Product

With the launch of MySpace Ads, we have an extensive “trial run” conducted by Affiliate Confession. Check this one out to get a look at the new system in use. ProBlogger had an awesome write-up on using social media to propel a new venture. Suite J gave us some reasoning behind website flipping. Blogging Tips ran through the basics on writing positive reviews and the ethics behind it. Finally, The Uni Kid wrote up a dynamic guide on how to promote and sell your own product online.

Stock Market Update
Things were volatile again this week, as much of the news focused on the United States’ government bailout plan for poorly-financed and illiquid assets, hoping to help move these items off the books of major financial firms in America. After Congress appeared ready and willing to stand behind the plan proposed by the U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Tuesday yielded an intense Q&A round by the hostile Senate Banking Committee that made the two look downright unprepared. Now, we stand in the mix… deciding whether to compose a large-scale $700 billion plan as originally proposed, tone it down a notch, make things a bit bigger or eliminate the plan completely.

News that somehow went mostly uncovered was the failure of Washington Mutual (or “WaMu”), as they were sold off to J.P. Morgan. This is by far the largest bank failure in U.S. History, as federal regulators came in to take control… striking a deal that would sell WaMu to J.P. Morgan. What happened was very interesting. Essentially, consumers withdrew a massive $16.7 BILLION in deposits since just September 15th. When you have no money in the reserve, you break all sorts of lending laws and restrictions that I’m not even going to get into right now with all the volatility.

Let’s wait for the dust to clear and talk more about this financial crisis. What you want to take out of this week is that federal officials are still wary of this proposed bailout plan, and news is coming out literally by the hour as we face to form a deal. Other than that plan formation, we have the massive failure of yet another financial institution, WaMu, in what has been a wild ride over the past month.

Blogosphere Update
Where to start, where to start… I suppose the news that would effect most of you is that Google is now updating their PageRank metric. I know a lot of you newer bloggers are hungry for some PageRank, hungry for an upgrade to your existing ranking… or hoping not to completely fall off. It appears that Google is slapping me in the face despite record growth and handing me a PR3 for Jimvesting.com. It’s okay, I can survive. Besides, it would also seem true that Bullish Bankers is getting a PR3… so that’s good news. Stay tuned over the next few days to get a complete picture.

EntreCard is for sale!? You betcha! Everybody and their mothers were talking about this news story, as EntreCard, one of the biggest blogging destinations for traffic-exchange went up for sale this week with a minimum bid of $100,000… looking for $1 million. Not Anymore! Breaking news is that Graham (owner) came out yesterday and posted on his blog that he was indeed taking his proposal back off of the offering table. This was basically because he was bombarded with offers from people interested in buying the company… which made him second-guess his logic.

“The 48 hours that transpired since listing my site on Sitepoint have been incredible. In fact, no less than 20 people have reached out to me and gave me a phone call. Over the past two days, I’ve talked to business leaders, CEOs, advertising execs, Tony the CEO of BlogCatalog, VCs, biz dev people, a gaming company in Israel, companies in the UK, and more. I’ve been on the phone so long I’m probably developing a tumor.” – Graham, Owner of Entrecard

That’s a pretty interesting news item, and a lot of people were ready to jump on board. You can read Graham’s post here. My personal belief is that he should indeed sell it. Normally, when people get the inclination to sell something, it is because they are no longer interested the project. The same holds true for Graham, but the bump from the morale-boosting community telling him how great the thing is will change his mind in the short term. Give it a month, and he’ll be trying to ditch the site again.

The Week In Focus
We started out a look at keyword research and Google search engine rankings last week. This week, I am hoping to get into the heart of this process and teach you guys from square one how I would go about ranking higher for any keyword phrase. It’s a process that does take a bit of time, so be prepared to do your work and have to wait a bit to see the fruits of your labor. Once PageRank comes in, I can hopefully offer up a post to analyze the changes that went through and what I think of the update. I really want to post a video about the stock market, but the rate at which new news comes in is a bit unbelievable, so it is going to be a question of finding a lull in the market so I can make that post more effective.

Stay Bullish on the Net!
-Jimvesting