Archive for July, 2009
Investors no longer have to accept great risk to both their principle and returns to achieve exceptional gains. Because the key factor affecting the return on life settlements is time (rather than economic conditions), excellent returns are possible without significant risk to investment capital. Investors can expect to see returns as soon as 60 days of a project completing, a rapid pace for an investment offering such high projected returns. Furthermore, investments in the energy sector are among the safest out there – DDWI (Direct Deeded Working Interest) is a tangible asset that is not prone to the vulnerabilities of the market.
Stock market data, including US and International equity symbols, stock quotes, share prices, earnings ratios, and other fundamental data is provided by data partners. Stock market quotes delayed at least 15 minutes for NASDAQ, 20 mins for NYSE and AMEX. Stock market pros know that money have to be invested in companies that are stable and have had a substantial market share for more than 25 years. These companies will never go out of business and will survive many recessions to come.
Prices on existing homes wont fall a great deal. Prices may stay flat for several years but homeowners, unlike the bust of the early 1990s, will be able to sell their properties. Price deflation or hyperinflation are also common elements of a depression. Prices may stay flat for several years but homeowners, unlike during the bust of the early 1990s, will be able to sell their properties.
Gold price is still falling, lowest since late January, so we will grow and we will not falter. Leisure and travel has been hit hard for the last few months. Gold and silver can be purchased and sold at traditional brick-and-mortar collectible establishments, trade shows, or on websites like eBay.com. Scams, underpricing and counterfeiting plague the precious metals market, so be sure to check the reputation of the people with whom you’re doing business.
Bank stocks have been hammered in consequence so why buy? The opportunity stems from the fact that good bank stocks have been dragged down with the bad so this is an opportunity to buy low. Banks and loan companies will carefully examine the document and check your personal credit history to see if they can trust investing money with you. They will also want to see you have the assets to cover a portion of the loan.
Trend Hunter has officially reached 100 million views… Yee Ha! Thanks to all of you for making it happen. In particular, thanks to all of the Trend Hunters who have fueled our community into what it has become today!
As we reach this milestone, I can’t help but be nostalgic, which is partially why I am so happy to be writing this article at 4am EST.
It seems like only a year ago that I was working full time at Capital One and working on this little website during the wee hours of the morning… But actually, it was a year and a half ago. 
We’ve been lucky to grow so quickly and I suppose that’s a testament to the fact that we’ve been so passionate about Trend Hunter. Also, Sarah Palin helped.
For each of us who write, program, or contribute, Trend Hunter is our baby, and it is exciting to see her growing.
For me, Trend Hunter is not a job, it is a hobby. I feel like I’m retired and working on what I love… Thanks for making that all possible.
Here are some of my favorite memories:
- The first day we had a million views in one day.
- Getting on the front page of Yahoo.com three times.
- Pee and poo dolls.
- Hot Vice Presidents (1,100,000 views, etc)
- Ranking #7 for “Britney Spears pictures” when she shaved her head.
- Watching the site go offline because apparently a lot of people look for Britney Spears pictures.
- Meeting Bianca and letting her convince me to hire her before I quit my own job.
- Spending a whole dinner trying to convince Jacob to join, only to learn that he was already going to accept… He just liked getting sold again.
- Having access to Marissa on speakerphone speed dial.
- Ayman. For all of his ideas and passion for the site.
- Sixty. For being awesome.
- Cowbag. For being relentlessly shocking and creative.
- Getting our first office.
- The day we switched from legal disclaimers that I made up to stuff written by a lawyer.
- Getting an ad agency.
- Terror fashion.
- Getting Trend Hunter in the news.
- Being interviewed by WIRED.
- Getting into the ECONOMIST.
- When TheEnd 102.7 asked if we were related to MilfHunter (the answer is that we aren’t).
- Our second episode of THTV (Shockvertising).
- Getting banned in China.
- Guy Kawasaki’s interview.
- When MTV said, “Find out what’s cool before it’s cool, at TrendHunter.com.”
- When someone at a conference came up and sincerely thanked me for providing Trend Hunter and told me that his ad agency uses us very day.
- Our first 60 trend day.
- Celebrating when GoingLikeSixty hit 1000 trends… Also, creating his avatar.
- Making Eva Mendes day, to blatantly get more traffic.
- Meeting Pearl, Elsa and Vincent in real life.
- When Tom Kelley of IDEO said people should get the Trend Hunter newsletter to open their minds and become more creative.
- When Kanye West sourced us in his blog.
- When Ashton Kutcher tweeted that he loved us.
- When HotForWords sent us a video intro (not released yet).
- When Auto Tune the News sent us a video intro.
- Auto Tune The News in general (unrelated to this list, but man I love that stuff).
- Playing the drums on Entertainment Tonight.
- Getting invited by Ford to fly private planes, race trucks down the public highway with police escorts, and watch a Nascar race from the pit.
- Jacob’s expression when we had to replace our dev server with a $400 laptop.
- Launching the Trend Report with Bianca in NYC.
- Tomorrow, and whatever fun it will bring.
Feel free to add your own memories!
References: trendhunter
Capital Finance is pleased to announce that Stephen D. Morrison has joined our firm as an expert witness consultant specializing in mortgage related matters. Morrison brings a unique wealth and depth of experience in mortgage issues that further enhances Capital Finance’s abilities on matters of extreme importance in today’s economic climate. Both an attorney and a certified mortgage banker, Morrison has served for more than twenty five years in various top level positions in the mortgage industry including five years as Chairman of the Board of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS). He has held several top positions with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, including thirteen years as its General Counsel and helped with the due diligence and acquisition of over $100 Billion in mortgage companies/assets. Morrison is admitted to practice law before the Supreme Court of the United States and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals as well as in Iowa and Minnesota.“We are extremely pleased to have someone with Stephen’s rare combination of skills and experience associated with us,” said Steven I. Fried, Principal of Capital Finance. “Especially during this period of turmoil between mortgage lenders and borrowers, Stephen’s expertise will be invaluable in assisting our clients” Fried added. Capital Finance is a licensed and bonded litigation support and testifying expert witness firm specializing in complex banking and finance matters. Established in 1987, interested parties can obtain representative client, biographical and other information at http://www.BankingExpertWitness.com or by calling Steven I. Fried at (760) 776-5749.
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About Capital Finance: Capital Finance is a licensed and bonded litigation support and testifying expert witness firm specializing in complex banking and finance matters. Established in 1987, interested parties can obtain representative client, biographical and other information at http://www.BankingExpertWitness.com or by calling Steven I. Fried at (760) 776-5749.
There is no doubt that we all love free stuff Free is good right, well most of the time free is great! but sometimes its either to difficult to get or someone is trying to scam you out of pocket.
The realistion is that if you want free stuff you have to put in a little work to get it, which basically means you give to get given there is no real free lunch as such.
There are lots of free things available on the Net, but the trick is knowing which ones are worth while and how to get them. My job is to make it easy and fun for you to get freebies.
Like anything else, you need to know a little about what you are doing to be successful in obtaining freebies. You need to know where to look, how to make your request, and what kinds of things to avoid so you don’t get scammed.
The Internet is a wonderful place, filled will all kinds of great information and lots of stuff you can get for free. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of of bad things about the Internet. Where ever there are a lot of people you will find the evil few who try to take advantage of the masses. The same hold true for the Internet. You will want to learn to steer clear of the scams on your way to finding the good stuff.
Free Stuff Scams
The lure of free stuff is a powerful marketing tool and is used to good effect by many savvy marketers. Unfortunately, not every free stuff offer is what it appears to be. There are lots of great free stuff offers out there, but you need to use some healthy skepticism and resist the temptation to fall for free stuff scams.
Evaluating free stuff offers is pretty easy if you use a little common sense mixed with some knowledge and a bit of experience. Below are some tips to help you avoid the free stuff boondoggles:
- Too good to be true – Offers that appear too good to be true are. Examine the motivation for the free offer. A free trial size shampoo makes sense because they are trying to sell shampoo. A free vacation is unlikely, unless there are large hidden charges or other commitments attached.
- Ignore unsolicited offers – Just take it as a given that spammers have nothing of value to offer. Variations of the advance fee scam like the email from Nigeria saying they want to use your bank account to get money out of the country are on the rise. Just delete these without giving them a second thought.
- Don’t pay for prizes – If you get email or postal mail proclaiming you the winner of a great prize and all you have to do is pay a fee or provide sensitive information to claim it, don’t. It’s a scam and the only winners are the scammers.
- Free with shipping and handling – These offers are generally OK as long as the shipping and handling fees are reasonable and you get something of value. $4.95 for a CD-ROM you are interested in is fine, but $4.95 for a cell phone antenna booster (which does not work no matter what they tell you) is a waste of money.
- Beware email collection scams – Most of the sites that consist of nothing but a form offering free stuff are there to collect email addresses for spammers. These sometimes have long lists of offers or “newsletters” you can subscribe to. If you are tempted to sign up for these, be sure to use a disposable email address.
Just put these tips together with your own common sense and you can enjoy the legitimate offers and avoid the free stuff scams.
How To Avoid Junk Email and Still Enjoy Freebies
Here’s How:
- Only provide your email address to sites that have an appropriate privacy policy.
- Use a free (and disposable) email address when you suspect you may get on email lists that don’t interest you.
- Most online forms provide a checkbox to select whether you want to receive email from them. Check or uncheck as appropriate
- Many online forms have a checkbox which asks permission to share your information with third parties. Check or uncheck as appropriate.
- Avoid entering your email address in online guest books or other places where it will be displayed on the Web. Spammers use programs called bots to harvest these.
- Never reply to unsolicited email even to request removal. It just verifies that your address is valid.
- Use a bulk email blocking service like the one described in the related features below.
Tips:
- Some junk email is inevitable. Learn to recognize it by the subject or other headers and delete it without bothering to open it.
So you want to get some free samples and other free stuff?
Obtaining free samples and other free stuff can be a hit or miss proposition. You can, however, improve your odds of getting a free offer if you make sure it is from one of the big brand name companies. Sometimes the smaller companies will make an offer that sounds very attractive, but they usually become overwhelmed very quickly and seldom are able to follow through on the free stuff offer.
Brand Name Freebies
Companies like Procter & Gamble or Walmart are a great source of free samples and offers. These companies and many others gladly give away samples in hopes that you like their products and make future purchases. It’s a win – win situation all around. You get to try new products without buying them and the companies gain new customers and sell more products.
Free Software
Free software is probably the most plentiful type of freebie you will find on the Internet. Everything from games to heavy duty business applications can be had for free. The biggest problem is determining what free software is useful and avoiding software containing adware and spyware.
Brand Name Freebies
Charmin Free Offers:
Charmin is making it easy for you to find their free offers by collecting them on one page. The Charmin offers tend to run for a long time, but any offer may end at any time.
Costco Free Offers:
Costco’s free sample offers are not listed on a single page, but can be turned up with a simple search of their site. At this writing they have two free sample offers. They may have more or less at any particular time.
Dove Free Offers:
Dove now has a special offers page where they list all of the current offers including a number of free sample offers.
Kraft Foods Free Offers:
Kraft Foods puts a lot of effort into keeping their brands foremost in the minds of consumers. One of the ways they do that is to provide free offers and free services related to food and healthy living.
Kroger Offers:
Kroger has continued in the the competition with Walmart and has added an offers page. The page is hosted on StartSampling and I expect it will be kept up ot date and that offers will change frequently.
Nestle Free Offers:
Nestle usually has several nice free offers including those from Very Best Baking and Very Best Baby.
Neutrogena Free Offers:
Neutrogena uses their “what’s new” page to list their current offers and promotions. Promotions may include rebates, free samples, coupons, or sweepstakes.
Olay Beauty Free Offers:
Olay Beauty almost always has one or more free offers and a couple discount offers on their site. I’ve listed both the US and Canadian free offer pages.
Pathmark Samples and Coupons:
Pathmark lists brand name samples and coupons. Some of the offers are similar to the Kroger listings, but there usually are some unique offers to be found.
Procter & Gamble Free Offers:
Procter & Gamble is one of the biggest and most reliable sources of free sample offers. They conveniently offer a single page which lists many of current offers and promotions.
Reynolds Free Offers:
Reynolds is one of those household brands that works hard to get consumers to understand that they have more to offer than their original product line. As a result, you can usually find at least one free offer on their site. Whenever they come out with a new product or are having a marketing push on an existing product, you can usually expect they will post a new free sample offer.
Walmart Free Samples:
Walmart has the ultimate brand name free sample site. They usually have from four to ten active offers and offers change rapidly, sometimes daily.
Wind Energy Device – Would you like to save over 80% of your electrical bills and do something good for the environment?
Basically, the wind energy device uses kinetic energy from the wind to be converted into usable electricity. In fact, generating electricity from wind is an age old technique and you can use this proven technique for your home to save a whole lot of money on electricity.
When you’ve decided to go with a wind energy device, you can approach some specialized companies on building home wind turbines, however, the costs can be quite high so you’ll have to be financially prepared. Alternatively, you can actually build one on your own. It isn’t really a difficult task to build a wind energy device with an instructional guide. I suggest you take a look at http://www.greenearth4energy.com for some highly rated guides on DIY home wind turbines. Not just all, you can also find some interesting guides on DIY solar panels and DIY solar water heaters as well.
Back to wind energy device, with existing wiring, you can install these home wind turbines and utilize the wind power. During off seasons, you may not be able to get power because of the absence of strong winds. However, you can use wind for at least nine months a year to supply power to your home. The wind is a renewable resource that is available all the time and hence, government is encouraging the use of such environmentally friendly generators.
Here are some reasons why you should consider getting a wind energy device:
1. Cut over 80% of electrical bill costs
2. Self sufficiency
3. Off grid free power
4. Healthy Planet
5. Allows for fossil fuels to be conserved and used for its best purposes
If you are interested to learn more on wind energy device, make your way to:
http://www.greenearth4energy.com
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Andy O Silliven is an engineer and author in the fields of electrical engineering. He enjoys writing about the topic and keeping up with current events and research in the area of renewable energy sources. Recommends: http://www.greenearth4energy.com
New research indicates that 20% customers view brands via their blog, 100 million of your potential customers log onto Facebook each day and widgets are becoming the new monetization tools for the ad industry.
Knexus Digital, which provides innovative online tools with market leading insights to maximise marketing performance and deliver digital marketing success has launched a ‘Social Media’ programme of content to help marketers understand how blogging, online communities, social media tools like widgets and peer-to-peer networks like Twitter and Facebook can be monetized for revenue generation opportunities!
This content will deliver the latest insights and market intelligence on social media in conjunction with leading industry experts – Mark Rogers (Market Sentinel), Linda Zimmer( Marcom Interactive), Mary Ellen Gordon( Market Truths) and Chris Quigley( Rubber Republic) . The content will also be available On Demand via video, PDFs and downloadable podcasts.
Marketers looking for insights on Social Media can view Knexus Digital’s compelling market insights here: www.knexusgroup.com/modules/social_web. Email brook.minto@knexusgroup.com to find out more!
Alternatively, if you’d like to know how Knexus Digital helps companies to maximise marketing team performance for a digital marketing success, you can request an online demo (www.knexusgroup.com/request_demo) or contact t. +44 (0) 845 838 5316.
About Knexus Digital
Knexus Digital provides innovative online tools and market leading insights to maximise marketing teams’ execution capabilities for digital marketing success.
In essence, Knexus Digital helps marketing teams acquire new skills and insights to adapt to a fast-changing marketplace. In the face of global competition and shrinking marketing budgets, we provide digital marketing solutions in quick, easy and cost-effective ways.
Knexus Media Inquiries
Sherlyn Lee
Marketing Manager, Knexus Ltd
t. +44 (0) 845 838 5316
e. sherlyn.lee@knexusgroup.com
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Knexus is the rapid learning company, specialising in digital marketing. Its philosophy combines the best elements of professional training companies with the latest digital marketing intelligence and peer group networking opportunities.
